It was like a thousand dying souls beckoning all at once for final resting peace.

"Okay, what the FUCK is a FUCKING ReDead doing in this FUCKING cellar!" I roared as my body refused to move. The scream the ReDead emitted pierced sharply into my mind and locked up my muscles as though it were a sonic paralyzer. I couldn't even breathe, which terrified me even more.

"I have no idea, but I can't move!" Midna yelled. I could feel her muscles become stiff as a board on top of me.

"Shitshitshitshitshit..." I was panicking. My lungs hurt from lack of oxygen and my vision was getting blurry because of it. The ReDead, its ghastly teeth salivating, reached for me and bit into my neck. Its jaws clamped tightly as I tried to scream, but it wouldn't let me. I felt it lap up my blood as it flowed freely from the wound, and before long, I began to grow weak.

My vision was almost completely dark when the ReDead was suddenly shoved away by a giant, glowing hand. Midna had recovered from her paralysis, it seems, and was now in the process of sprinkling spring water on my neck. "Damn, there's not enough to heal it fully. I can stop the bleeding, though."

The ReDead crashed into the wall and then flopped to the ground, its head facing backwards away from us. It seemed to be dead, but how dead can a zombie be? Short answer: Not very much. I could see better now that my wound was healed somewhat, so I could clearly see the ReDead's head suddenly swivel as it lurched to its feet.

I finally had the strength to scream as the ReDead reached for me again. Its thin, spindly hands were gnarled and claw-like, as though they belonged on a bird more than a zombie, but Midna quickly gained control of the situation in a cool and levelheaded manner: She grabbed the ReDead by the head with her hair and smashed it into the wall. The damn thing went down but immediately started to get back up, its grotesque black skin rippling with decayed muscles beneath.

"That's a ReDead," I said in a tight mental voice. "A zombie... Quick, hack it to pieces!"

"Forget that!" She kicked into my sides and yelled, "Let's get the hell out of here!"

Too terrified to argue, and since I was thinking the exact same thing, I ran as fast as I could down the hall, only to get dive-bombed by the Shadow Insect I had completely forgotten about. "AGH! Get off me!" I wish I could tell you that I managed to shake the thing off and squeezed it to death. I wish I could, but this ain't a romance.

The Shadow Insect, in all its disgusting insect glory, stabbed me with its stinger.

In my eye.

In my good eye.

'Pain' is when you stub your toe on the damn coffee table trying to sneak around the house at night while looking for snacks. This was... well, it was me getting stabbed in the eye by a bio-taser. You do the math.

Anyway, the next few minutes were a metaphorical blur. All I know is that Midna killed the bug and carried me up a shaft that led outside. Once I was on the ground, I became aware of the blood oozing down the side of my face.

"Oh gods, I can't see..." I collapsed to the ground and shivered in fear. "I-I'm blind, I'm actually blind..." My paw found its way over my snout to try to stop the bleeding, which didn't feel as profuse as I expected.

A cool hand gently grasped my arm. "Let me see," Midna said. I whimpered when my arm brushed against the damaged organ but she moved it aside anyway. After a few very tense and dark moments, she sighed. "From what I can tell, your eye was punctured between the iris and cornea. I can fly off and get spring water, but there's no guarantees that it will be quick and painless. I'd also have to leave you here, and that's not a good idea."

"Why... why not?"

"Just... take my word for it."

"I don't want to be blind, Midna," I said quietly, fearfully. "Please go and get spring water. Please?"

Midna scratched behind my ears and sighed again. "Alright, I'll be as fast as possible." I could hear and feel the air moving around her as she flew away.

I was alone and blind now, and I couldn't help but offer a contempt chuckle. Lasted almost fifteen years without injuring this eye. Even got it boosted by Din herself. And I lose it to a damn bug. … Maybe Midna can help. The spring water came in handy time and again, after all. … But what if this is the one time it fails? … Eh, doubtful. Sure would be inconvenient though. … Am I talking to myself? … No. … It's really dark in here. … Well, that's kind of a given. I mean, my eye was just stabbed by a giant glowing insect. … I'm surprisingly calm about this. … Is the audience tired of me yet? … I wonder what the next Zelda game will be about. … Hm, I wonder if Midna would be in it. That'd make an awkward conversation. … And all this hard work will have been wasted. Ah well. Ugh, my butt itches. … Pretty sure no one needed to know that. … You'd think that, after losing one eye to a fucking brother, I'd be more shaken up by this development. Maybe I'm just going into shock. I dunno. … Heh, 'shock'. Morbid humor. … I think I used that joke already.

"I'm back," Midna said, startling me out of my thoughts. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't," I said quickly.

She snorted and patted my cheek. "Hold still. This... I honestly don't know how this will feel." With that, she rinsed some spring water into my eye, and it hurt. Not nearly as much as the damaging blow itself, but I still have the occasional flashback now and then. A few minutes passed before the water ran dry, and thankfully she had gathered enough to treat my neck wound as well. "Okay, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that your eye will be just fine. Bad news is you won't be able to see out of it for a while."

I could hardly breathe. I was going to be blind for the next few hours? "What... what's a while?"

"When you become... uh... hey, what are you, anyway?"

The question was so out of left field that I actually laughed. "Wha... I'm a human, Midna."

"A what?"

"A human, Homo Sapien."

As she dabbed at my eye with a damp towel, she said, "Wise is not a word I would use to describe you."

"I didn't say 'Wise', I said 'Homo Sapien'."

"You just said 'Wise Man', Zach. Are you okay?"

"No, I said... Ohhh, auto-translation..."

"Hm?"

I lapped at some droplets of water and said, "Before I left, Nayru gave me the gift of speaking and understanding all languages I come across. That's how I can understand you and Zelda and how you can understand me."

"Wait, you actually met Nayru herself?"

"Yep, and Din and Farore too. Ironically, Din helped my eye see better. Farore gave me that satchel I've been using."

"... So the Three Golden Goddesses of Hyrule go to some Earth guy and give him magnificent gifts to help on his adventure, but they couldn't be bothered to provide my people with a healthy water supply?" She squeezed tightly on the back of my neck. "Is that what you're telling me? They chose a chubby, one-eyed boy to save the day but didn't feel up to saving my best friend from having her throat cut?"

Her voice was very quiet, almost like the wind, and I could hear her soft breathing like waves crashing against the shore. "I'm sorry about your friend, Midna, but I didn't choose this."

"... I see. Well, you're here now and I don't want to waste time, so get moving."

"Um, Midna, I can't see." I hoped I sounded less annoyed than I felt. That was when I noticed the world coming into view once again, but it was different. Colors were more saturated and seemed to be slightly off their usual hue. Reds looked more violet, blues were slightly greener, and yellows seemed orange. It was a beautiful sight, though roughly half was pitch black. "Whoa..." The view changed against my will, and I saw the top of some animal's head... my head. "Wait, what?"

Midna's hand moved into view and waved at the figurative camera. "Now you can see. This is how the world looks through my eyes." True to form, she looked down and showed me how I looked.

I was a mess. Dried blood formed clumps along the right side of my wolfish face, and while my right eye was closed, I could feel the lids twitching from pain and mild shocks. My left eye was no better, only it's been like that for years. "Wow. Um, okay, what now?"

Midna washed some of the blood from my face with a towel. It stung when bits of fur came with the clumps, but at least I was getting cleaned up. "We seem to be in the middle of the street," she said a little too casually. "I can sense three Shadow Insects in this town and the rest are scattered across the mountain."

It felt strange, seeing my own body through the eyes of someone else. "Everything looks so pretty," I said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"At times, yes." She looked down and brushed some dirt from her thighs, and to distract myself, I turned my thoughts to what has been going on so far.

Unfortunately, all I could think about was the general store lady and her fate. "Hey, Midna? Do you... Do you really think that the lady was one of those─"

"I try very hard not to think about that," she said quickly. "What's done is done and there's no sense dwelling over whether the monster I just killed was possibly a close friend or even a family member."

I needlessly turned my head to look at her and asked, "You don't believe that, do you?"

"Let's get moving. I can see a Shadow Insect over there by that alley."

With a sigh, I lifted myself up and took a few tentative steps forward while Midna seated herself on my back. It was very awkward seeing the top of my own head while I was moving. It was like... like games with the camera behind the character, like Zelda itself of all things. Even as I moved over to the designated alley, I couldn't help but think of my eye and its loss. Would I really be able to see in a few hours? Midna had to have some issues with letting me piggyback inside her head, and the action had to be tiring for her.

Spotting the Shadow Insect flitting about in the air, I dashed up a derelict wagon and tried to bite the bug out of the air, but I misjudged where I was going. I was still accustomed to seeing through my own eyes, so I had jumped to get the bug from Midna's perspective without realizing it. Thankfully, she swatted the insect with her hair-hand without getting shocked.

Two more insects in Kakariko, then up Death Mountain. "Sorry about that," I said.

She shook her head, causing me to get slightly dizzy. "Don't worry about it. You're blind right now, I'll let it pass."

"... Thanks. Could you look around, please? I want to see where we are." We had emerged in the second corridor of Kakariko Village, which looked more industrial than the first. There were no factories from what I could tell, but this area seemed to be focused on markets and shopping than homes and inns. A well stood on the far end of the corridor, and past that was a windmill as big as the one from Ocarina of Time surrounded by several buildings clustered around the cul-de-sac. "Well, this looks familiar. Sort of."

"Great, 'sort of' is exactly the kind of description I like," Midna said, her eyes closed and blocking my view. "Let me guess, this was in the game as well?"

I sighed and waited patiently for her to open her eyes again as I spoke. "Actually, no. This was in the game that took place a couple hundred or so years before Twilight Princess."

Midna hummed in thought and said, "You know, it's funny that I've never heard of these other stories. Sixteen of them, you said, and I'm even in one, but I don't know anything about them." She looked over to the right, showing a building for archery practice to the right of the well. "Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it? Oh, and the last two bugs are in that building and the bottom of the well."

"About what?" I asked as I headed for the archery range first. "Maybe the tales just haven't reached the Twilight Realm yet, and you should probably think about giving that place a new name. 'Twilight Realm' is a little tedious."

"Yeah, and what would you suggest? Twirule?"

I snorted and walked up the stairs to the archery building. "Well, that's a little on the nose, so no. And besides, you might have heard the stories under a different name or something." There was an open window high above. With Midna's help, I jumped up and landed on a stack of boxes against the back wall of the range. "Let's see... Let's start with the beginning, The Legend of Zelda, where a young boy named Link must gather the eight pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom to defeat Ganon and rescue the princess. Ring any bells?"

The range was full of more green flames, evidently another portion of the village's population, all huddled together behind the counter to the right of the actual range, which had a Shadow Insect buzzing about near the far-off targets. "Mmm... Nope, but rescuing a princess isn't exactly an original plot," Midna said.

I shrugged and hopped from box to box until I was on the floor. "Fair enough. How about The Adventure of Link, which is the sequel to the first one and features Link adventuring around to restore crystals to temples around Hyrule to break a sleeping spell on the princess."

"Hey, that does sound familiar," she said as she looked at the weapon rack nearby. "Ooh, arrows. We could use them, and there's even a quiver. Yep, I'm taking that." A bundle of arrows and the chosen quiver vanished into Twilit particles, causing some of the spirit orbs in the corner to recoil. "Anyway, Adventure of Link sounds like that fairy tale about the sleeping princess who pricks her finger on a spindle."

"Sleeping Beauty? That's a pretty old story, before Adventure of Link was produced in my world."

"Yeah yeah, next."

I hopped onto the counter and tilted my head in thought. "Hey, why not use those arrows to snipe that bug from here?"

Midna hummed and scratched at her cheek. She eventually nodded and summoned the bow we found in Kokiri Marsh. "Good idea."

While she readied the bow and an arrow, I said, "Cool. Anyway, how about A Link to the Past? Link has to journey between the Light World and the Dark World to free Princess Zelda and seven maidens from a sorcerer and Ganon."

"That's a lot like what we're doing, isn't it?" she asked. She nocked the arrow and looked downwind at the Shadow Insect, taking careful aim and fixing her grip. "I mean, we're journeying between Hyrule and areas of Twilight to free Queen Zelda and several ancient relics from a psychopathic man-child."

"Ehh, I guess. You should probably take off your Fused Shadow, it'll help your depth perception."

"Hush, I know how to fire a bow." Swing and a miss. "... My finger slipped." Whatever the case, she removed her helmet, freeing up her left eye and awing me in the process.

"Whoa... I... I forgot what it was like to have two eyes," I said. It was amazing, seeing everything in three dimensions for the first time in fifteen years. The colors amplified the effect greatly, turning the world around me into a beautiful living painting. "Ahem, moving on. Link's Awakening, where Link is washed up on an island and has to gather up eight instruments wake up a flying whale from its nightmare so he can go home at the cost of wiping the island out of existence because it was a manifestation of the whale's dream."

Midna missed again. "Come on, I was so close! Damn thing won't stay still. Link's Awakening sounds like the most depressing story so far, but it doesn't sound familiar."

"Alright, let's get out the big guns. Ocarina of Time, lauded as the greatest video game of all time. … It's about Link leaving his forest home to free five sages and save Hyrule and Princess Zelda from Ganondorf, the human version of Ganon."

"Pfft, that's basically A Link to the Past. What makes it so great?"

"Well, it revolutionized the gaming industry and was one of the first games to usher in 3D games and targeting systems, plus it's pretty fun to play and the graphics have aged well. That's just my opinion, though." I waited patiently as Midna nocked yet another arrow and just barely missed the Shadow Insect. "Ooh, so close! Maybe we should just go up and kill it the old-fashioned way."

"Uh-uh, I can do this. What's the next one?"

She aimed carefully and it seemed she was going to get the bug this time."The next game, produced a year or so after Ocarina of Time, is Majora's Mask."

Midna's headache had been growing ever since she warped the bridge to Kakariko Village. As she said, it was far more difficult to move something of that size compared to the compact frame of Wolf Zach. If it were any larger, she might have accidentally fused Zach to the structure and killed him. Still, her troubles just grew worse and worse with each moment. First the bridge, then the reminder that the Shadow Beasts were her corrupted people, then the terrifying skulker in the cellar of the house, and finally the Shadow Insect blinding her canine companion.

She never wanted to share her own vision with him, but Orochi convinced her to go through with it. While it was a constant albeit minute drain on her magic power, the spirit reminded her that if she had not rushed Zach into that room then perhaps he would not have been blinded. At least she managed to conserve her magic power well enough; if she tried to move the bridge before acquiring the Fused Shadow from Diababa, she would have failed.

As it was, Midna was still aggravated about her headache, made all the worse by constantly missing the Shadow Insect in the archery range. Of course, she thought. I can shoot a sword and get kind of close to my target, but come arrows and I'm practically an imbecile. While she had been making attempts at the Shadow Insect, Orochi offered counsel on both her technique and the stories Zach told them about. So far, not even the Fused Shadow knew what was going on.

"Ooh, so close!" Zach said after another miss. "Maybe we should just go up and kill it the old-fashioned way."

"Uh-uh, I can do this. What's the next one?"

"Steady your arm," Orochi said. "Aim for its destination, not its journey."

Nodding, Midna adjusted her grip and felt very confident that this was the lucky shot. "The next game," Zach said casually, "produced a year or so after Ocarina of Time, is Majora's Mask."

"WHAT?!" the spirit roared. Startled, Midna missed completely and her hand slipped, causing the bow to rebound and smack her in the face. "He knows of Majora?"

Midna groaned and felt fresh blood dribbling from her nose. She dismounted Zach and sighed as she dabbed her face with a cloth. "Majora... that name sounds familiar," she said, hoping to disguise her pain through nonchalance.

"Ask him what happened."

"What happened in Majora's Mask?" If the Twilian did not know any better, she could have sworn Orochi sounded worried. She herself had never heard of Majora, so she was in the dark.

Zach thankfully could not see Midna's nose bleeding, so he continued on as usual. "Majora's Mask is a sequel to Ocarina of Time where Link leaves Hyrule and enters the land of Termina, where he has three days to stop the moon from falling due to a Skull Kid wearing the titular mask. It's personally my favorite story, mostly because of the Fierce Deity's Mask."

Now Midna started paying attention. "Wait, what did you say?" She circled around and held the wolf's head securely in glowing fingers. "You know of the Fierce Deity?"

"Uh... well, yeah," he said quietly. Midna could not read his eye, so what he was feeling was a mystery to her. "Well, not really. It's just a late-game item that you get right before you fight Majora's Mask."

The Twilian frowned in confusion. "How would you get it then?"

"Majora gives it to you."

"She had it..." Orochi whispered. "All these centuries... and she had it..."

Midna clenched her eyes shut and gripped her head in pain. "Argh... Ah, what else do you know about Majora and the Fierce Deity?"

"Are you okay? I can't see anything and you sound tense."

"I'm fine, just answer the question." The quicker she managed to get Orochi to calm down, the better for everyone.

Zach shrugged and said, "Majora's Mask was an ancient relic from a shadow tribe. It was used for hexes until the shadow tribe wised up to how dangerous it was, then they sealed it away."

Orochi's presence created painful heat in the center of Midna's mind. "That is not what happened."

"Why would Majora give it to you?" Midna asked, desperate for the pain to fade away.

"I dunno, the mask was crazy," Zach replied. His answer caused another painful burst in the Twilian's head. "Said that it wanted to play."

Midna scratched her head. "Wait, Orochi, didn't you say that the Fierce Deity had to─"

"Yes. The Fierce Deity sealed his daughter's soul away when she was corrupted by... by another Primordial, whose name shall not be uttered here. Majora... She was a special child, so innocent and so pure, you would never think she was capable of destruction until it almost happened."

"Zach..." She quickly wiped her eyes, refusing to let the sadness in Orochi's voice get to her. "What happened after you defeated Majora's Mask?"

The wolf thankfully missed the tone with which Midna spoke. "Well, the moon disintegrated and some guy called the Happy Mask Salesman said that the evil was banished from the mask, rendering it inert."

"Happy Mask Salesman?" Orochi asked. "That name is strange to us... but Majora is dead?"

Midna cleared her throat. "So, Majora was killed by the Fierce Deity?"

"About as killed as a crazy possessed mask could be."

"She was not crazy,"the spirit said as calmly as possible. "She was of ill health in her mind."

Midna had to take a drink of spring water to ease the pain she was feeling. While all this went on, the Shadow Insect flitted about in its ignorance. "Okay, so what happened to the Fierce Deity's Mask?"

Zach stretched his muscles and almost slipped off the counter in doing so. "I have no idea. The game ends with Link leaving Termina forever. Wait, how do you know the Fierce Deity?"

"I... I'm his descendant," Midna said reluctantly. She was not sure if Orochi would appreciate that knowledge going to the wolf, but it was too late now.

"No way! HA, I fucking knew it!" Zach giggled to himself and nodded in triumph. "There had to be a reason your helmet resembles Majora's Mask, and now I know why."

Midna groaned at the loudness of his voice. "Yes, I'm glad you're so approving of my ancestry." She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "So, what about the rest of the series?"

The wolf scratched at his neck with his hind-leg and said, "Well, the next one is Wind Waker, where Link must sail the Great Sea to gather shards of the Triforce of Courage to save his sister and Princess Zelda from Ganondorf."

"Okay, how incompetent must Zelda be to keep getting kidnapped over and over?"

"To be fair, they're not all the same Zelda. The stories take place in different points in time, so some Links and Zeldas are descendants of others."

Midna sighed and clamped her forehead as the migraine grew worse. "Still. And besides, that's basically the first one."

Zach tried to roll his eye and quickly regretted it. "Ow. So what if it has similarities? It's not exactly the same, you know."

"I know, I'm just being grumpy," she said. Figuring she should get the Shadow Insect while she had the chance, she readied the bow again. Her arms were growing sore from holding the weapon and her hands would not stop trembling, making the Twilight Princess all the more aggravated.

"Fair enough. Next is, well, this story. Link has to work with you to save Hyrule and the Twilight Realm from Zant and Ganondorf."

Midna snorted as she missed the Shadow Insect yet again. "Don't suppose you could spare any details, could you? For example, what else do you know about me?"

The wolf yawned and said, "Nothing other than that you're the Twilight Princess. Well, I knew what your personality was going to be. Can't believe I managed to finish the game."

Inside, Midna felt great relief that he knew little more than her name and title. She had many pleasant memories with her friends that were considered private, especially to some boy she never met before. She also had more than a few bad memories that he did not deserve to know about. She then frowned when she registered the last sentence. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

"I couldn't stand you," he said casually. "Gah, you were so annoying, with your bossiness and your attitude."

"Hey, that's not fair," she protested just as she finally pierced the Shadow Insect through its hide and stuck it to the center of the target behind it. "YES, BULLSEYE!" As the light orb floated away, she gathered up what arrows she had left and stored them away in a pocket dimension. "Anyway, you can't blame me for being who I am. I'm a princess who just got usurped by a man-child and every moment I spend here, hundreds if not thousands of my people are being slaughtered."

Zach paused for a moment and then growled, "Yeah, no. You don't get a magic license to be a bitch to everyone just because something bad happened to you."

"How hypocritical," Midna said. She donned her Fused Shadow and climbed onto Zach's back, and then they were off. This time, she took the easy route and just opened the front door of the building. "Want to talk─"

"No." He huffed and headed for the well in the center of the cul-de-sac. "No, thanks. Anyway, the next game is Skyward Sword, where Link must work with a talking sword and descend from the clouds to save Zelda from a total joke of a villain and his master."

Midna looked at the well and said, "There's water in there, we'd have to drain it somehow. And talking sword? What's that about?"

"From what I remember in Ocarina of Time, we need to get the windmill spinning very fast to drain the well. Of course, I have no idea how that works, but why not?" He walked up to the staircase leading to the building and winced slightly. "Euch, I smell something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like that ReDead, only staler. As for the sword, that would be Fee, the spirit of the Master Sword. Incidentally, that was the weapon I was trying to get just before we went into the marsh."

"Hm. Must be important, then."

Zach nodded and continued moving. Once Midna opened the door at the top, he entered and looked around. The interior of the windmill looked very mechanical, with gears and pistons all strewn about the room. "Well... okay, this looks complicated... And yeah, the Master Sword is pretty important. It's been a part of the series since A Link to the Past."

"Hey, what about the rest of the games?" she asked. "That was only... one, two, three... nine. What about the other seven?"

As the wolf maneuvered into the building in search of a drainage switch, he said, "Sorry, I forgot. After Majora's Mask was Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. Link has to journey to a new land to save it from Veran, Sorceress of Shadows, and Onox, General of Darkness. Actually, I don't know if he has a title, it's been a while."

"Wait, Veran?" Midna asked. "I know that name. She was in one of my history books; 'One of the most notorious criminals ever to exist in the Twilight Realm since the Dark Interlopers themselves.'"

"Aha, see? Wait, she was a Twilian?"

Midna nodded and pointed to an alcove above. "You can get up there. And yeah, she was. Banished to the Nanimo a few years before I was born."

Once Zach was safely inside the alcove, he looked around for the mechanism to drain the well. Unfortunately, there was none, only a tunnel leading deeper into the structure. "Oh, great. This isn't spooky at all. Anyway, Veran sure does sound very... vasivious."

"That's not even a word."

"What? Oh... Uh, what's the word for it... Ah! Lascivious. She sounds very lascivious."

Midna blinked in confusion. "Uh, how would you know if she was feeling..." Her cheeks grew hot. "Ahem. Feeling those kinds of feelings?"

"Come on, I've seen the outfit she wears."

"Okay, I'm changing the topic before you start irritating me even more." She cleared her throat and rubbed at her poor forehead. "Um... What are the next games in the series?"

Zach sighed. The area they had entered was smelly and very dark, and there was loud carnival music blaring all around the wolf and imp. "Erm... The Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, and two Four Sword games. I honestly don't know much about them, I've never played them."

"Fair enough, I suppose. That's still only two I've heard about plus the one I'm technically in. And the Sleeping Beauty one." The music was most certainly not helping with Midna's migraine. It grated against her nerves while also being tauntingly catchy and addicting. She wished not for the first time to have a nice warm bath to scrub herself off. Traveling a foreign land for a week was murder on her skin. "Argh, will someone turn that music off?!"

When all went silent, Zach needlessly turned his head to face Midna. "Well, you said the magic word. Now let's─"

The floor opened up beneath the wolf, engulfing him in darkness and silence right up until two beady red eyes blinked right beside him.