Chapter Fourteen: Zora's Domain
He only lost consciousness briefly, and he felt his body being lifted up and out of the water. He was set down gently on dry land, and then he could feel little hands patting at his face.
"What's with you? Come on, get it together." He was slow to respond, so her usual snarky tone in the Twilight faded and she actually sounded concerned. "Link? Are you okay?"
He coughed up water, slowly rolling to lay on his belly with his front legs splayed out in front of him. There was still water up his nose so he sneezed a few times, still feeling a bit strange about how different his wolf sneeze sounded from his human one. Then again different nose, different lungs, different voice. He used that voice then, giving a short groan. "...Mih-naah."
The little black and gray creature patted the top of his head in a motion reminiscent of how she patted his hair when he was human. "You blacked out for a minute there. I'm glad you're in one piece." She sighed and leaned against his wet flank, sliding down to sit next to him while looking at the bridge far above. Black smoke rose from the middle of the bridge. "They knew we were coming. There's only one Light Spirit left, so they knew we'd come sooner or later."
"Ress." he said quietly, feeling tired from his run and the impact with the water. Link followed her gaze up to look at the massive supports for the Great Bridge of Hylia. They extended well over a hundred feet out of the water to the bridge above, a massive fall that the two of them somehow had survived. The gray stone of the thick supports was stained with algae and silt from the lake, marking where the water level of Lake Hylia normally was. Upon looking at that, he realized the water level had dropped quite a bit. This likely was related to the water shortage in Castle Town, although he wasn't sure how.
"I know we need to hurry, but you should rest for a minute. You'll have some fighting to do in the future, and you haven't exactly eaten or slept well." She looked down at herself. "I'd say we could dry off, but the Twilight is cold. I think we're going to be damp and chilly for a while." Midna sighed and leaned back into his wet fur. "You're soggy, but at least you're still warm."
If she was cold from the Twilight, he couldn't complain when she wanted to warm up. She had been a jerk in Castle Town, but now that they had barely survived jumping off the bridge she seemed to be her normal self again. He shouldn't get used to it; Midna's behavior in the Twilight was fickle. For now she wrapped her arms around herself and huddled against him, and he felt a bit sorry for her. She was naked, save the helmet part of the Fused Shadows that she wore, and that certainly didn't offer any warmth. He adjusted himself until he could wrap his body around her, and put his thick-furred tail on top of her legs.
She turned her head to look at him with her single eye and gave a small smile. "Thanks. I know you aren't big on letting me cuddle you as a wolf."
He gave a shrug, unable to articulate a proper response, and then looked around. They were on a flat piece of shale that had dried water plants stuck to its surface, one of many drop-offs that were between the sloped shore of the lake and the deeper part where water still lay. It was difficult to see where the shore was supposed to be from where he was, and the dark stretch of brown sand disappeared into the violet gloom beyond the bridge. As in the other Twilight, minuscule black flakes of crystal sifted down from above, disappearing in little black squares before they got too close to the ground.
"As nice and warm as you are, please don't ever cuddle me like this when you're human." Midna said after a moment. That made him laugh, the only sound he made that even remotely sounded like he did while human. After a minute she sighed. "I'm sorry if I was a jerk in Castle Town. I know you were both happy and upset to see Ilia, and I wasn't exactly kind about it."
"Hmm." was all he said, unable to respond properly. He had an inkling as to why she was that way before, but wasn't at the moment. It had something to do with the crystals that vanished before they reached where they currently were. They did something to him, he knew that. The knight's shade had told him that some dark magic in the Twilight was affecting him slowly over time. It seemed like they did something to Midna as well. It didn't account for when she was a jerk outside of the Twilight, though. Did the dark magic linger in their bodies?
"I know you can't say much. We can talk about this later, okay?" She gently patted his green-furred tail.
"Mih-naah?" He pressed his snout up against the side of her face, wolfish mouth curled up in a smile. Sometimes his expressions came out quite human. "Frienn..."
The imp gave a little laugh and patted his face. "I'm glad you're still friends with me even though I treated you that way. Thanks, Link."
"Up? Go?" He felt that he had rested enough by now.
"Oh, yeah." Midna lifted the tail off her lap and stood up. "Maybe I should get a dog when this is all said and done. It won't be a green talking dog with pretty blue eyes, but at least it'll be something to cuddle." He gave a snort to that, and she smiled and rose into the air. Her expression changed when she saw something in the distance. "Oh, I didn't notice that before. There's a town over there."
He stood and turned, his coat still dripping water. There was a town on the shore right behind them, its lights glowing fitfully in the brown gloom of the Twilight. There was no way of telling what time it was, but both the street lamps and lights in people's homes were lit, so it couldn't have been too late. Green-tinged spirits walked along the one main road of the town, going about their nightly business, oblivious to the Twilight. Down the sloping lake bed stood a group of spirits by the water's edge. They appeared to be a bit closer than the ones in the town. Somebody was looking at the level of the water.
To the left of the town and tucked beneath the southern edge of the Great Bridge of Hylia was a natural cavern flanked with carved stone statues of snakes. There was a stone walkway in front of the dark cave mouth, winding around the cavern and then running parallel with the beach before ending at a series of steps going uphill towards the town. From here it seemed like it was impossible to reach either the Spirit's Spring or the town. There were simply too many drop-offs in the rocks of the lake bottom, which now that the lake was dry were nothing more than short cliffs.
Link was thirsty from the run, so despite it being lake water and not proper well water, he walked to the edge of the lake and stuck his face in to drink. He could hear Midna giggle behind him, although this time he realized she wasn't laughing at the fact that he needed a drink.
"You have no idea how to drink with your tongue, do you?" She laughed behind him. "Doggy body, man brain."
He raised his face out of the water and sneezed some from his black lupine nostrils. "No." Link shook himself off, spraying some of the left over water and oil from his coat, and then took a few steps towards Midna. "Go?"
"Yeah. Go." The little creature floated up to land on his back. "Why don't we see what that group at the water's edge is doing? They're probably the closest, and we can't get up to the spring from here anyway."
Link ran again, moving a bit slower than before, and hopped from ledge to ledge of the flat black shale that made up much of the dried lake bed. As he neared the group standing at the water's edge he could see that they were not humans, but tall Zoras. The four of them were warriors, wearing close-fitting armor on their shoulders and chests that left the gills that ran up their sides exposed, and each wearing a snug metal helmet shaped like a fish's head. The helmets made it appear as if the long finned tails that trailed down from the back of the Zora's heads had faces, making it look as if their heads were fish. One of them carried a silvery spear, and the other three had swords of the same bright metal belted at their thin waists. They were arguing when Link approached, and he could hear them over the gently lapping waves of the lake nearby.
"We should try to go after it." one of the Zoras said, pointing at the water with a clawed finger. "We have an agreement with the humans of Lakeside to protect this lake. Are you saying we should ignore that agreement?" His scales looked green, although it was hard to tell if they actually were, or if it was the strange green light that surrounded him while he was in spirit form.
"I understand your frustration." said the Zora with a spear. The green light covered him as well, but even so Link could see that his scales were a brilliant crimson color. "The four of us are all tired from fighting all day long, and we should try to avoid fights until we can rest. If that beast is like the normal ones we've seen in the lake, then it will remain in the water and not get anywhere near Lakeside."
The green Zora pressed his lips into a line, not liking what he was being told. "It's not normal. They don't usually get that big. You must admit that it is concerning."
"If we can get reinforcements then I will lead us to slay it, but as it is I do not see any way for soldiers to make their way down the river." said the red Zora, who seemed to be the leader of the small group.
"Captain, do you think there is any way to climb up to the river from here?" asked a third Zora, facing towards the east and looking right over where Link was standing with Midna on his back. "If we can get to the river bed we most likely can walk home. I know that will take days, but it's better than waiting here."
"It's doubtful. The waterfall is too high, as are the cliffs. I would not dare try to climb the rocks here, since they crumble so easily." The captain of the troop shook his head, his long head fins wobbling. "Even then, there are other waterfalls all along the where the rapids would normally be. We could climb up only to find ourselves trapped somewhere upstream." The other Zoras muttered among themselves unhappily. "I understand your frustration. I believe that it is best that we find a way up to Lakeside to assure the people that at least a few of us are here to protect them, and then dive down to sleep near the Temple for the night."
"Perhaps we can hunt, too." said the forth Zora, whose scales were some dark color that was nearly black. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starving." His comment reminded Link of how hungry he was, which was unfortunate because he was doing his best not to think about it. The dark-scaled Zora opened his mouth in surprise as he looked up, staring at a magenta portal that appeared in the sky above them with a dull roar. "Captain Jorvan, more of them!"
"I hate to do this, but we must retreat." Jorvan said, watching as flying black beasts came from the portal. "To the Temple! Dive!"
The four Zoras took a few running steps and then launched themselves gracefully into the air with their powerful legs, disappearing into the lake with barely a ripple. Up above the black bird monsters circled near the portal, but did little else. They had leathery, featherless wings like dragons, but their bodies were covered in sleek black feathers. Something about their heads looked odd, and they didn't seem to have beaks, but Link couldn't quite see from where he stood.
"Something did go wrong with the Zoras after all, if there are problems with the water here too. No wonder that young messenger wanted to speak to Zelda." Midna made an amused little sound. "From what you've said about King Adelbert, he wouldn't have been the right one to ask for help. Going to Zelda was wise. It's a shame that kid got hurt and can't deliver his message."
He watched the bird creatures circling above, trying to figure out if they were aggressive or not. It was difficult to see, but they looked like they were carrying some kind of riders. The portal was much farther up in the sky than the other ones, placed in a way that would put it at about the regular height when the lake level was normal, but he had no idea why. It had just appeared, so wouldn't it be a certain distance above the ground like the others?
"We need to do something about this water if we plan on reaching the Spirit's Spring." She continued. "If we help the Zoras just like we helped the Gorons, they might help us get the last piece of the Fused Shadows."
"Uh-huh." Link said, still keeping his eyes on the birds above, which were slowly circling lower. They had Shadow Bulbins on their backs, and he could hear the shadowy beings call to one another in their language. There was no way to tell if they held weapons or not, but he hoped that these Bulbins in particular did not carry bows. He was an easy target at the moment.
Midna looked up at the circling birds and began waving her arms. "Hey, you cowards! Why are you hanging around up there? Come down and fight me!" Yeah right, like that was going to work.
One of the Shadow Bulbins shouted back at her and then the four birds descended, swooping down at Link. Huh, that worked after all. How was he supposed to fight these things? If he was human he would have used arrows, but he was fairly limited as the wolf. The answer came when Midna hurled a mass of shadow at the rider of the lead bird, knocking it clear off its mount. Link dodged the talons of the bird as it made a half-hearted attempt to attack him, and then he went for the throat of the Shadow Bulbin that had fallen.
"That's what you get." Midna muttered at the Bulbin as Link stood over its body with blood dripping from his mouth. She blurred and shot up onto the back of the riderless bird, and grabbed onto the peak of the saddle. The bird made a hollow, trumpeting sound, which was strange considering it had no mouth on its head. In fact its head looked like the layers of an onion peeled back with a large red eye in the middle. Midna seemed unconcerned by both the bird's appearance and the sounds it made, and she forced it to land on the shale of the lake bed. The flying creature lowered its head submissively, and Midna reached forward to pat its neck. "There now, be a good and I promise I'll let you go later." She giggled when the bird calmed. "I don't have a fancy song to sing like you do, but this guy seems like he likes me a lot better than that Bulbin." Midna leaned forward to pat the beast's neck again. "Good boy! Yes, very good boy!"
This made Link chuckle. As if they could tell whether these mutated birds were male or female. The way that she attempted to make friends with it reminded him of when she first tried to approach him. The bird got a much nicer treatment than he initially did. He looked up at the other birds, which were circling higher up again now that the riders realized that Midna had range. She could probably knock the others down, and he'd take care of the rest.
Instead she made the bird flap its black wings and it rose ponderously into the air before leveling out and gliding. She circled around once and then bird and rider swooped down towards Link, the beast's open feet extended. "Don't move!" she called to him, which seemed like a bad idea considering how sharp those talons looked, but he obeyed. One of the large feet picked him up and closed around his body and he was lifted off the ground. A talon jabbed him in the side a bit, but it did not break the skin.
Midna deposited him on the stone walkway in front of the Spirit's Spring, dropping him about two feet above the ground before letting the bird fly back up again. "Go talk with the Light Spirit!" she called down to him. "I'm going to use my new friend to free his buddies!"
Link shook himself off, not exactly enjoying that short ride, and then went into the open cave that was the shrine of the Light Spirit Lanayru. The familiar cry of pain reached his ears as he approached what was not a simple spring, but a small lake. There were no rounded rocks carved with the swirling patterns, but the large cave itself was covered in them. He stepped up to a raised platform that overlooked the water, and the spirit's voice called to him faintly.
"Blue-eyed beast...the Hero of Hyrule…" the spirit said weakly. "I am Lanayru. I know why you have come. Though I am the strongest of us four Spirits...they have stolen my light. The shadow beings weakened me, harmed the Zoras, and then...attempted to search for the fragment of Fused Shadows hidden nearby. My light is in the river, and in Zora's Domain." Lanayru made a sound of pain, crying out softly, and was unable to speak for a moment. "Please help me as you have helped the others, hero chosen by the gods. Then you may return to your human form and...seek out the final piece of the evil relic your companion carries with her." Its voice fell to little more than a whisper. "Go...and save Hyrule from the Twilight…" The whining cry of agony began again, the spirit unable to speak any more. It had been able to speak far more than the other spirits, so perhaps Lanayru was normally far stronger.
He turned and left the spring, stepping back out into the brown gloom of the Twilight. Outside were four birds, all perched on the carved snake statues that decorated the exterior of the shrine, their featherless wings folded at their sides. It didn't take Midna long to free them.
"These guys aren't so bad." Midna smirked down from the bird she was seated on. "They didn't seem like they wanted to be controlled by the Bulbins, so they were more than happy to kill them once they got knocked to the ground. Better not to harm innocents, right? Even if they're animals."
Link nodded in agreement. "Mih-naah? Sssorras." There was no way for him to pronounce the "Z" sound.
"We have to help the Zoras? Is that where the light fragments are?"
"Ress. Go?" He hoped that she would get the idea and have the bird pick him up again. It would be much faster to fly directly instead of trying to run there. While it would be nice to ride one of the birds himself, there was no way for him to hold onto a saddle with paws.
"Which way? I don't know where the Zoras live." She shrugged, holding her palms up. "Don't forget, this isn't my home turf. I only know the places that I've been with you."
He tried to visualize the map he had at home in his head, and the area Lake Hylia. Zora's Domain would be slightly northeast from the lake, but Lanayru had mentioned that there were light fragments in the river. That meant that they should head east first, not north. He turned his body to the east, stretched out his body to point with his nose, and lifted one paw like a bloodhound. "Ri..riverr, eash. Sora, north. Go river."
She laughed at his poor pronunciation, or perhaps at the fact that he was pointing like a hunting dog. "I know you're trying your best, Link. You're being absolutely adorable right now, though. I tell you, you're going to have to find ways to adorable as a guy once you're human again. Otherwise I'm going to get bored."
He snorted in response to that. "Heck no."
Midna put her small hand over her mouth and gave one more little titter, and then directed the bird to fly into the air. The other three followed suit to circle above while Midna's bird came at him again with its feet extended. This time it happened to grab him with both feet, and he wiggled a bit in its grasp until he was comfortable. The four black beasts flew beneath the Great Bridge of Hylia, which had ugly black smoke coming up from where the oil still burned. Link realized that Lake Hylia was a massive lake now that he could see the other half of it from the air, and it would be even more impressive whenever its water level rose to normal levels. The birds followed the shoreline of the lake, due east.
Up ahead in the high cliffs surrounding the lake was the start of a river bed, which was an outcrop of shale about halfway up with a bunch of tumbled stones beneath it. The Zoras had mentioned something about climbing a dry waterfall, and he could now see why their leader dismissed the idea. It was far too high to climb safely, and the flaking shale did not provide safe handholds. The four birds flew through the gap in the cliff and began to follow the dry river bed. While there were patches of water trapped here and there, the water was no longer flowing. Spirits of fish swarmed together in the small pools, trapped with no way to escape.
They flew under the bridge that crossed the Zora's River in Central Hyrule, just south of Castle Town's walls, and a number of Shadow Bulbins on the bridge shouted and began to shoot at them. The bird carrying the two of them flew up higher while the remaining three circled back to attack the Bulbins, trumpeting in anger at them. As they rose up higher above the ravine, Link looked back at the Bulbins that were standing on the bridge not far from the shuttered gates of the wall and saw something else.
It had to be considered an army, despite what its troops were. Just south of the bridge on the plains of Central Hyrule were hundreds of Shadow Beasts, milling around groups of tents and other structures that were populated by small green figures. Then it moved out of view as the bird followed the river as it turned more north, but he had seen enough. The transformed people of Hyrule were being brought there to make an army, which was camping at the doorstep of Castle Town, and ultimately Hyrule Castle. But why? The town was already trapped beneath the Twilight. Midna had said that Zant was mad, so perhaps his reasons didn't make any sense.
"Did you see that army?" Midna called down to him.
"Ress!" he shouted back up.
"I don't like the look of that!" she replied loudly over the rushing of the wind. He didn't either, but he had no idea what the two of them could do versus an army. Perhaps what he needed to do as the Hero of Hyrule was raise his own army. That was an intimidating thought. How would he manage to do that?
By now the remaining three birds had caught up, and one carried a screaming Shadow Bulbin in its talons. It dropped the terrified monster to the riverbed far below, and ultimately to its death. The bird raised its strange layered head and let out a triumphant, brassy sound. Whatever species of bird this was before they were transformed appeared to be intelligent. There were some varieties that lived to the west that were supposedly related to dragons, so perhaps that's what they were.
Midna laughed once the Bulbin had dropped. "It's so nice to have friends!"
They flew over a group of Zoras stranded on a long flat stretch of the riverbed, caught between two dry waterfalls. He could hear their cries of alarm as they passed overhead, and he felt sorry for them. It must be terrible to be stuck there and see a group of monsters fly overhead and towards your home. He didn't envy them.
The flight went by swiftly, the birds able to move so much faster than a horse ever could, and if they had been going in a straight line to Zora's Domain it would have gone even faster. A night flight such as this one would be impossible without the Twilight and its dull amber glow. Link looked to the east and tried to see past the end of the Twilight, but from inside of it there appeared to be no end at all. All the landscape was bathed in that same dim brown glow, the moon surrounded by a sooty ring of dark crystals.
The river grew wider as they went, and there were a few pinpoints of light that zipped past them, following the riverbed. Something was killing whatever held the fragments of the Light Spirit, and they passed over a group of Zoras doing just that, attacking what appeared to be giant keese that were clustering around them. Was the light in bats this time, then? He considered telling Midna to drop down, but the last of the glowing bats fell to Zora spears, releasing the light. Just like with the Gorons, he had help freeing the Light Spirit, whether they realized it or not.
Another group of Zora soldiers huddled together in a puddle not too far ahead, the group not moving as they sat in at pool of water that had chunks of ice in it. The temperature abruptly dropped, and Link could see his breath in the air. That made no sense. While it did get colder in Zora's Domain far easier than southern Hyrule, it was the middle of summer. What happened? And why was it that the Twilight could affect the heat of Death Mountain, yet not the cold of whatever this was?
They reached a large open area ringed by trees on one side, with some kind of log building situated not too far from the river, which was completely iced over. The frozen river explained why there was no water heading downstream, but it didn't explain why it was frozen in the first place. Midna decided this was a good place to land, since not too far ahead were the narrow gray canyon that lead into Zora's Domain. The four birds circled down, and as before Link was dropped from a few feet up. He shook himself off in the cold air, grateful for his thick fur, and looked around.
There was a number of painted boats moored to posts not too far from the cabin, their hulls coated in ice as they sat immobile in the frozen river. An agitated spirit paced back and forth, this one of a woman with a head of thick curly hair that sprouted from her head almost like a halo. It reminded him of Coro's hair, except hers was actually combed and maintained. The woman was wrapped in a blanket, swearing to herself as she paced. When the group of birds landed on the trees next to her cabin, she turned to look in awe at the massive black creatures. Midna's bird landed on the roof and the woman started flapping one of her arms at the birds, the other clutching the blanket around her shoulders.
"Shoo! Get! I don't know what the hell you are, but get gone!" She approached the cabin and then stopped short when the four birds turned their strange layered heads towards her, each single eye fixing its red gaze on her. The woman let out a high-pitched yelp that was halfway to a scream and clutched at her blanket as if it was armor to protect her. "What is going on? First the ice, then the spiders, now these weird birds?"
One of the large black mutated birds tilted its odd head to the side and made a short trumpeting sound at the woman, and she let loose a scream and scrambled to run into her cabin, slamming the door shut behind her. A few icicles fell from her house to hit the sign that was erected in front of it. It said "Iza's Incredible Rapids Ride" in large hand-painted runes, and below in smaller text was "See the sights of Zora's River from your very own boat!" Iza? Wasn't that the name of Coro's sister that he was worried about? Iza and Hena. There was no sign of Hena, but at least Iza seemed fine, other than a bit worked up about the birds.
"That woman has issues." Midna said, hopping off the bird and shooting towards Link in a blur of shadow. "All right, bird friends. You're free to go. Thanks for the ride." The bird she had just dismounted opened its flesh-petals to peer at her with its red eye, and then it ignored her and started grooming itself under a wing. Midna shrugged. "I guess they'll do what they want."
Link was considering something else, a thought having occurred to him. The people stuck in the Twilight could see the Shadow Beasts and transformed creatures that were within it, yet they couldn't see either Midna or himself. Why was that? Were the two of them somehow on some magical plane halfway between the light world and the Twilight? But then why did the Twilight creatures see them? There likely was a lengthy magical explanation, but he doubted he could wrap his head around it. His knowledge of magic was fairly basic despite living in a village of magic-users, so the advanced subjects escaped him.
There was another loud shriek coming from inside the cabin and the door opened. A large cat-sized spider was batted out of the front door with a broom, and it moved sluggishly in the cold. Another two spiders shortly joined it, ejected from the cabin with a decent amount of screamed obscenities. Iza slammed the door, leaving the large spiders outside. Link swallowed hard, looking at the large, long-legged and hairy spiders that glowed slightly with the stolen light of Lanayru. They looked like some kind of recluse. He had to agree with Iza and all the expanded parts of her vocabulary.
"Spiders? This time it's spiders?" Midna snorted and rolled her eyes. "Of course. All right, get to it."
Link shook his head, backing a step away from the slowly-moving spiders. If left alone they possibly would freeze to death on their own, and he wouldn't have to touch them. Not that he could get even close to them without freaking out.
"What's wrong with you? They're kind of dopey from the cold. Just jump on them like you did the bugs."
"No. No no no." he said, taking another step back. The bugs in Faron Woods were bad enough. There was no way he could do this. If he was in human form and was wearing shoes, maybe. But not with his paws and teeth. Absolutely not.
Midna hopped off his back to hover in front of his face, and looked at him critically. "Well. I'll be damned. You're afraid of spiders, aren't you?" Her breath steamed in the cold air.
He coughed awkwardly and looked away, avoiding her gaze. "Um. Ress."
"Seriously? Spiders? After you've fought all sorts of things and shown all kinds of skill as a swordsman, you're still afraid of spiders?" The imp leaned to the side to look him in the eye when he didn't answer her. "Link?"
"Mih-naah." He responded, looking at her a bit guiltily.
"Do you need me to kill the spiders?" she asked kindly.
"Ress." Now he did feel guilty about it. She was right about his skill as a swordsman. There was really no reason for him to be afraid of spiders, even large ones like this, but logic and reasoning had nothing to do with it. Just looking at them made him feel itchy and disgusting, as if he had their webs stuck to his skin.
"All right. But I think we need to work on this fear of yours. You're the Hero of Hyrule for crying out loud." She gently patted him when he hung his head, feeling a bit ashamed. It was a stupid fear, but it was a fear he thought that he wouldn't have to deal with much. How wrong he was. At least Midna wasn't making fun of him. "It's okay. I'll handle things for now." she told him.
Link nodded and gave a little sigh. He had no idea how he'd work on his problem, but it was entirely possible that he would never run into giant spiders again. Not unless he ran into a Gohma, and in that case the fact that it was a spider would be the least of his problems. He watched as Midna moved towards the slowly-moving spiders, and she formed the hand at the end of her orange hair. The way she decided to "handle things" was slap the hand down on each spider, crushing it. Three glowing motes of light rose from the crushed black corpses, and zipped on south and out of sight.
The little black and gray imp blurred to appear above his back, and then sat down lightly. "There we go." She kindly patted the back of his neck. "Let's continue on, shall we?"
He trotted down the river bank and across brittle grass that was rimed with frost, it making a faint crunching sound beneath his paws. Walking with a wolf's paws was a strange experience compared to walking while barefoot as a human. His paw pads were thick and he didn't feel much of things when he stepped on them, but he could feel temperature. His feet were already starting to feel cold once he ran out of river bank on the east side of the river, the grass ending at a dark gray wall of smooth stone that was carved with patterns of waves and shells. There likely was a bridge somewhere farther back, but he felt cold, hungry and tired, and wanted nothing more than to eat a quick meal and fall into bed. The less energy he spent backtracking, the better. He decided to move ahead and tentatively placed a paw on the ice of the river, unsure if it was frozen enough to hold his weight.
"It's probably pretty thick ice. Those boats back there weren't moving at all." Midna seemed to be hunkering down into his fur more than usual. He was nice and warm, as she had commented on earlier. "Here, look." She rapped on the ice with the knuckles of the hand at the end of her hair. "It's solid. If it looks like it's going to crack, I'll get you out."
He stepped out onto the ice and found that it could indeed hold his weight. Link wasn't sure how much he weighed as the wolf, but it probably was close to his normal body weight considering his size. He slipped a little bit as he began to walk and then lightly run through the narrow carved stone canyon, it barely wide enough to admit the river and a small stone walkway on the left side. There were no more signs of spiders, but after seeing glowing keese that a group of Zoras were killing, he wasn't sure what he should be looking for.
Midna was far more observant than he was, since he was keeping his eyes on the ice of the gradually widening river. They began to pass through a series of stone archways carved directly out of the gray rock, the swirling patterns and shells stained with green and pink pigments that were dulled by the Twilight. After they went through the second arch, the small creature called his name.
"Link, stop. There's some glowing bats up there."
He slid to a halt, splaying his legs out and digging in with his black claws to prevent himself from falling. Now that his paws were starting to feel cold and numb, it was getting harder for him to keep his balance on the slick river ice. He looked up and saw four large keese hanging from the arch, each one glowing from within. Normally the one-eyed bat monsters were not much larger than a crow, but these looked like they were at least the size of eagles. They also looked like they were not moving as the four of them huddled together for warmth.
"Oh, those aren't regular bats. They're keese." Midna said. They had keese where she was from? She hadn't known what some monsters were, but she knew that one. Then again keese were as common as regular bats, and lived pretty much everywhere. "These aren't spiders, so you need to put in some work this time."
He sighed. "I know, Mih-naah."
"I'll knock them down for you. If any of them stay out of your range, I'll try to get to them. I don't think that will happen, you know how keese are; if you hit one, then you have a dozen more trying to bite you." She threw a sparking ball of dark energy right in the middle of the one-eyed monsters, and the group opened their eyes and made small high-pitched shrieks. They let go of the stone that they had clung to, and dropped down to flap their wings and dive-bomb Midna.
"Hey, don't go after me! You're supposed to attack the wolf!" she complained, moving off his back and to the side as she dodged the agitated keese. Link wasn't sure why she thought they'd attack him. She herself had said if you hit one, you'd have more trying to bite you. Sometimes it seemed like Midna wanted to be only along for the ride while he led things.
When one of the keese got too close she batted it to the side with her prehensile hair, and it staggered and dropped down near the ice, flapping frantically. He jumped on it, jaws wide, and soon there were only three keese trying to attack Midna. He managed to time it correctly with the other ones, waiting until they were low enough before leaping in the air and snapping his jaws on them. Keese tasted about as horrible as rats, but as before there was nothing to be done about that. The four glowing fragments of pure white light vanished as they rapidly moved south.
"Ugh, why did they go after me?" Midna grumbled, crossing her thorny arms in aggravation as she hovered only about a foot over the ice nearby. "These things usually are interested in fighting you."
"Not me. Mih-naah hit them." Talking to her in the third person was strange, but he knew he couldn't pronounce the Y sound for "you".
"Yeah, all right. That's fair." She rubbed her arms, shivering a little. "It's so darn cold here."
"Ress. Get on." At least if she sat on his back, she'd feel a bit warmer. He turned his head to watch as she landed on his back and then lay out, digging her arms into his thick fur. That thick fur was probably what prevented him from being jabbed by the thorns on her forearms. "Fine now?" he asked her once she was situated.
"Better, anyway. A big animal like you makes a lot of body heat, so I should stay up here unless I need to move." She sighed, laying her cheek against his shoulders, and then she let out a small girlish giggle. "I get to cuddle you again. I guess I'm making my time with wolf Link count."
He rolled his eyes with a certain amount of theatrics, his expression a lot more like a human's than a wolf's. "Sure, Mih-naah." It was time to continue on.
Not too far past the carved archways the river opened up to a large frozen lake contained in a massive grotto, the top of it open to the sky. The stone carvings were far more elaborate than the ones outside the arches, many of them set in with colored stones and tiles. There were carved balconies and various walkways of stone that ran along the sides of the cavern at multiple levels and stories, and along the left side at ground level was a wide road paved with light-colored stone, emerging from a tunnel and winding along the outer wall before splitting into two tunnels. It was confusing, and he had no idea where to go. There were no signs of the Zoras.
"Was that a waterfall?" Midna asked, pointing with her hair at the large formation of ice that hung from the top level of the Domain. Like everything else it was completely frozen solid, a testament to how cold the place was. If the waterfall was frozen, then would the lake he was standing on be frozen too? He looked down and saw writhing masses of glowing green color moving sluggishly deep below the ice, and then his eyes widened when he realized what he was looking at. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Zoras lay trapped beneath the ice of the lake, barely able to move in the frigid water. Zoras were not warm-blooded like humans or Gorons, that much Link knew. Like fish or reptiles, their bodies moved slower in the cold, although unlike animals they did not hibernate.
"Soras!" Link said, patting the ice with his manacled paw. "See?" He was able to see his own reflection in the shiny white ice, and for the first time he saw himself, or at least all of the underside of himself. To his dismay he could see that he was very clearly a male wolf, and hoped Midna hadn't noticed. She probably had and didn't say anything. She could be rude, but considering her prudish behavior before, she probably didn't want to talk about it. He found himself sorely missing clothing at the moment.
Her reflection leaned over to look at the Zoras. "Oh wow, there's a lot under there. They can't surface to breathe, can they? I know they have gills, but imagine if there were thousands of people trapped in a big room with no way out. The air would get stale and it would be hard to breathe." Her red eye moved in the reflection to look at him, making eye contact that way. "We need to put our heads together, Link. These people can't survive under the ice for long."
He nodded his head in agreement, and then lowered it to take one last look at his reflection, which he knew was only there due to the ice being caused by some kind of magic. Normal ice didn't reflect this way, nature not forming it as perfectly. His own eyes looked back at him, but they were not a wolf's eyes. They were his normal blue eyes, human eyes set into a wolf's face, and it looked strange. That explained how both Midna and Zelda knew that he was human as soon as they looked at him.
"I don't see any more spiders." Midna said, and he raised his head to look around, trying to focus to see anything glowing. He was able to spot two more in one of the tunnels. He actually saw them through the cave wall, and could see where the black spiders were as a double-image, exactly how he had seen Darbus inside the monster he had become. This wasn't just the wolf's ability then, since he had done it as a human. It was something else, something that he had started to do without trying, but could do far better if he concentrated. It had to be a kind of magic, perhaps related to the golden light in his hand, but that was doubtful. He was unable to control that, but this he could to a small degree.
His eyes traced the path from the tunnel back to where it met with the road that split, just past a bridge over a frozen spring that fed the massive lake through the cave wall. There was a small ramp going up to the road from the ice, and he started off towards it, his feet sliding a bit as he ran. The ramp was slippery from being coated in ice, and he had difficulty climbing it, sliding down a few times. He grunted sourly. "Augh. Mih-naah? Up?"
"Oh, you actually want help? I was kind of enjoying this ride you were giving me up and down the ramp." She gave a little snicker and rose off his back. "Boy, you're sure relying on me a lot for this batch of Twilight. Last time you blew up a building all on your own, but this time you can't even squish some spiders or climb a ramp."
He grumbled under his breath at that as she wrapped her hair around his middle and lifted him up, knowing that she was right, but not happy about being picked on about it. When she set him down on the wide road he took off running, determined to at least do one thing himself. He might be frightened of the spiders, but dammit he was going to kill them.
Easier said than done. He came across the first one and stopped short, his body seizing up before he could get to it. The long-legged recluse wasn't even moving, the air too cold for it to do anything more than sit there. It was still alive, since it still held a piece of Lanayru's light within it. He nervously licked his lips with his wolf tongue, staring at the spider. Right. On the count of three…
Counting to three did the trick, and he leaped up into the air to come down hard on the spider with his front paws, just as he had the parasite bugs in Faron. The hairy carapace on the spider cracked and blue-black blood and gore leaked out of it. He hopped backwards, gagging, and watched as the glowing mote of light floated up and away.
"Good job." He felt her gently pat his back. "I think you were more brave doing that than you were rescuing Colin."
It was a strange comparison, but he felt he agreed. There was no fear when he was chasing the Bulbins for hours, and this single spider terrified him far more. Link nodded. "Ress, I can fight these." If he did this one, he could do the next one. It wasn't that much farther up the tunnel, which sloped uphill as it wound around the cavern. He narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath. Okay. One, two…
This time he had a running start, and flew farther before coming down on the spider. The extra force not only crunched the body flat, but also detached a few of the legs. He had killed it, and even though he couldn't really feel it due to his cold paws, it still made him backpedal a bit while shaking his head. "No. No. Nope. No."
Midna's eye followed the piece of the Light Spirit as it disappeared, and then she gave him a grin, but didn't say anything. It seemed like she wanted to comment on his phobia, but was trying to be kind about it. In fact, she had been fairly kind to him since they jumped into Lake Hylia. She must have been making an effort to not let the darkness within the Twilight affect her actions, after making fun of him for being in tears bout Ilia. He decided he'd talk to her about it once he was human again.
After the last piece of light flew off he knew that they had missed some along the way. There hadn't been any others that he spotted on the flight up outside of the keese, but there was something he did remember the Zoras talking about at Lake Hylia. He hoped his hunch was correct, otherwise he had no idea where the last of the stolen light could be.
Link followed the path as it went up, knowing that there must be a portal somewhere in this place. If there was a portal, they couldn't ignore it; Zant and his Shadow Beasts could continue to use it. The portals didn't seem to appear just anywhere, but were at certain places of importance, like towns or the springs. Even the one on Death Mountain was still close enough to Goron City, if slightly down the mountain from it. That portal had been in a far more dangerous location than the others, dropping Shadow Beasts not too far from the summit of an active volcano, an active volcano that had nearly dropped a half-molten rock on him.
He considered that hot rock up on the volcanic slopes of Death Mountain, an idea forming in his head. If there was that portal up on Death Mountain, and there was potentially one here, could Midna bring that big rock here to melt the ice? He had no idea if she could move objects larger than the two of them, and she had only teleported them a couple of times. She had also never teleported into the Twilight, only from it. He hoped that his idea worked, because he wasn't sure what else could be done to melt the ice enough to free the Zoras. Even if only a single hole was melted in the ice, they could still manage to escape. It wouldn't solve the problem of the river running dry, but it would save thousands of lives.
The path eventually led to the top of the waterfall, which was flanked by two stone paths that went into a large chamber farther back. Link's claws clicked on the stone walkway as he entered the circular room, the center of it a mass of ice. Six Shadow Beasts and five Shadow Bulbins with swords waited for them on the ice and beneath a purple portal in the sky. They were standing around idly until they noticed him, and then the group rushed forward, the Bulbins holding their bloodied swords ready. There were splashes of blood on the ice and on the stones surrounding it; the Bulbins had been busy killing Zoras before they came.
"Of course they were waiting for us. Why only eleven?" Her question was almost comical, "only eleven". He remembered that only a few days ago three seemed intimidating. Now he could fight nearly a dozen efficiently and with confidence. "I'll get the guys with swords, you get the big ones." she said, moving away from him to fight.
As always, he was able to bait the Shadow Beasts into a lunge and then rip out their throats, although there were a few times where he felt their hands grabbing at him while he was in the process of killing another. The wolf wasn't terrible at fighting, but he felt that he did it far better as a man. After he had felled four, he looked over to see how Midna was doing. She hadn't called for his help and was holding her own fairly well, one of the Bulbin's swords grasped in the end of her hair. She had killed two, and as he watched she swung her sword wide and disarmed the Shadow Bulbin she was facing. That made the wolf smile in a very human way. She had learned that from watching him fight.
Large hands grabbed him while he was distracted and violently slammed him down into the ice. He cried out with a wolf's whine of pain and scrambled to get away, inwardly cursing himself for letting himself get caught like that. He was tired and hadn't eaten much, and it was affecting his concentration. The Shadow Beast picked him up again by his back legs, and the second one made a futile grab for him, not caring if he was already being held by the first one. The beasts attacked in a dogged, single-minded way.
He had to get away. He realized that Midna couldn't help him after he got a glimpse of her trying to fight sword to sword with one of the Shadow Bulbins. The Shadow Beast lifted him up and the second one grabbed onto his torso. The two beasts tugged on him, trying to pull his body in different directions, and if he didn't think of something soon his back legs would be ripped from their sockets. He had to fight no matter what. He couldn't die here, not when he had so much to do. Not when the world and the people he cared about needed his help.
The triangles on his left paw flared golden and bright, brilliant with a light far brighter than the first time he had been brought into the Twilight. The two Shadow Beasts recoiled and dropped him, just as they had before, and he landed on the hard ice on his side. He grunted and rose to his feet, and his tiredness and pain were suddenly unimportant, and he could barely notice them. A low growl began in his throat and he rushed at the Shadow Beast that had picked him up, latching onto its throat. He ripped out a good chunk of its neck and immediately went for the second one as soon as his feet hit the ground. The second Shadow Beast was dead in seconds, its corpse dissolving into geometric squares, and Link turned his attention to the Shadow Bulbins, who were shielding their eyes from the golden light emanating from him.
Midna watched dumbly as he swiftly killed the three remaining Bulbins in rapid succession, bloodied sword still grasped in her hair. While she had seen the golden mark on his hand light up once, after admitting that she had seen him transformed into a wolf, this was different; the dumbstruck look on her face reflected that. The Shadow Bulbins tried to flee but he was far faster, and only a moment later he stood over the body of the last one he had killed, his muzzle stained with blood.
The light on his paw faded and then his tiredness returned, his body a bit sore from where he had made contact with the ice. Link looked down at his left paw, a bit bemused by what had just happened. How did he do that? He didn't actively use it, but it had happened when he needed it to. The golden mark was the only thing that could have saved him from the two Shadow Beasts that had him helpless in their grasp.
"The first time I only saw what happened to you at a distance." Midna dropped the bloody sword and retracted her hair. "This time, however…" she shook her head. "I don't know if you realize it, but whatever that is, it's really powerful sacred magic. We're talking Light Spirits powerful here, or maybe even stronger." She landed on the cold ice next to him, and bent down to pat at his left paw gently. "But unlike the Light Spirits, this didn't hurt me. This isn't like the power of the sun and the light, this is something else. How did you do that?"
He sat on on the ice, not caring if it was cold, only caring that he was exhausted and needed to rest. "I'm not sure." he said clearly, able to say the sentence fairly well as a wolf. He lifted his paw to look at it, the two links of chain still on his manacle dangling. He ought to ask Midna to remove it, if she could.
"Too bad. That's powerful stuff, like the magic Princess Zelda has. This is the second time I've seen it light up like that. All the other times it's only glowed a bit, like when you were sleeping or when you get pulled into the Twilight." She reached out and held his paw in her small dark hands, and shut her eyes in concentration. "It's still there." Midna opened her red eyes and looked at him. "It's barely active to keep you in your wolf form but it's still there, in your hand. Paw. Whatever."
Link set his paw back down, wishing he could find someplace warm to stretch out and rest. "It's part of me."
"Yeah, I think so. But we can't worry about it when we're here in the Twilight." The little imp looked down at his left paw, and then frowned as she noticed something past it. She lifted herself up and looked around at the ice under her. "Link, can you see them?"
There were small glowing green flames beneath the ice, and he had to focus a bit in order to see the spirits. Hundreds more Zoras were in the deep pool that was the source of the waterfall, huddled together and barely moving in the limited space they had. These Zoras had to have been trapped here for at least a day, if not longer. They had to be freed immediately.
"If I wasn't stuck in this stupid little body, I'd use fire magic and melt all this ice that Zant made." Midna snorted derisively. "Everything being frozen here is his work. I know that one of the kinds of magic Zant has some skill in is ice. It seems like the Twilight he's made magnifies his magic, because he normally wouldn't have been able to cast a spell this big. He's not as strong of a sorcerer as me...I mean, he wasn't when I was still human." She crossed her arms. "I don't know if I have any ideas here."
"Mih-naah? Hot rocks." He hoped she would understand.
"Hot rocks? I mean, they wouldn't stay hot for long in a cold place like this." She didn't get it, and she hugged herself and shivered a bit.
"No, hot rocks from Death Mountain." It was becoming easier to speak as the wolf by the minute. Why was that? "Midna." He could actually say her name properly this time, finally able to pronounce the D sound. "Get the huge hot rock, use the portal." There was an L sound too. His mouth needed to move in completely different ways than his human mouth did in order to make the sounds, but he was capable of doing it. Before he had been trying to make the sounds like a human, with a mouth and tongue that were designed differently. Link still had no idea why he was quickly learning how to speak as the wolf. It was as if everything had suddenly clicked in his mind.
Her one visible eye widened, and then her face broke into a fanged grin. "I appreciate your newly-found linguistic skills, buddy. I wouldn't have figured that out and we would have had another 'bridge' conversation."
"Ugh, no. Do rr...rryyou…" He struggled, but he was able to do it. "Do you understand what I mean?"
"Hey, still improving! Soon you'll be able to sing that horsey song to me." That got a chuckle out of him. "I remember that big half-melted rock that shot out of the volcano and almost landed on us. It's been sitting there for a few days now. Do you think it's still hot?"
"I think so, yeah." His voice was still deeper than his human one, but the way he pronounced the words, the cadence of them was very much how he spoke as a human. "If not, dip it in lava."
"Lava!" She snapped her small fingers. "Right. So did you want to take a trip to Death Mountain to get some melted rocks?"
"No. I'm tired from using magic." He sighed and pawed at his face. "And my mouth tastes like blood."
"I'd say you're still using magic right now, if you can suddenly talk. Maybe since you were using that sacred magic, you're a bit more human now." Midna formed a ball of shadow energy in her hands, and hurled it at the portal in the opening above the large circular room. It turned aqua. "Going back and forth in and out of the Twilight probably would put more magical stress on you. Just hang out here, okay? And find someplace safe to sit. I'd rather not come here with that big rock and burn you."
"Can you teleport out of Twilight and back?" He shook his head. "Wait. How did you teleport out of Hyrule Castle the first time? There wasn't a portal."
"Hyrule Castle is built at a big crossroads of ley lines, so there was enough magical energy in the area for me to use. I don't know how much magical education you got while in Kasuto, but ley lines are kind of like roads for magical energy that tend to meet up at certain places. That's why we keep finding these portals at important spots, like Eldin's Spring, or here at Zora's Domain. There was a ley nexus where the portal appeared near Goron City, so I should be able to go out of the Twilight and come back no problem." She shivered again. "Why don't we have a nice conversation about this when we're not freezing our butts off."
"Agreed. Oh, Midna? Can I ask one last thing?" He lifted his paw. "If you can move a drawbridge, you can unlock a lock. Can you get this thing off me?"
"Oh, sure. I guess I could have done that at the time, but I wasn't thinking about the lock." She reached out and tapped the shackle on his ankle, and it crackled slightly. It didn't feel like electricity when it touched him, in fact it didn't feel like much of anything. The metal shackle clicked and opened, and then fell to the ice. Link sighed happily and rubbed at his ankle with his right paw.
"Oh, man. That's so much better." His black wolf lips peeled back from his teeth in a grin, which probably did not have the same effect on a lupine face. "I'm so happy I could kiss you. Did you want a nice bloody doggy kiss, Midna?"
She laughed. "Gross. I'm glad you still have that sense of humor as a wolf."
"I'm still me, just a lot hairier. And with blood in my mouth again, ugh." He stood, his rear end feeling considerably cold from sitting on the ice. "I'm going to move out of the way. You go get those rocks."
"Right." She nodded once and dissolved into black squares that shot up into the portal. So that's what that looked like. He had only experienced it first-hand so far, and after seeing it he could understand why it was so unpleasant.
Link looked around the room and at the splatters of blood. There were no Zora bodies, but he was able to guess what happened here. The back side of the chamber held a large throne that was carved out of some kind of blue stone, and on either side of it were frozen channels of water that fed the large pool in the middle of the room. There was a spray of blood across the back of the throne, and a frozen puddle of the stuff on the shallow steps in front of it. The Zoras were led by a queen...did that mean that she was killed? Or perhaps that was the blood of the guards that protected her as she escaped somewhere. The messenger to Zelda made a lot more sense now, although he still didn't understand why they would have sent a child.
He left the throne room and wandered back out along the channel that lead to the waterfall. Peering down made him dizzy, and he carefully backed away from the edge, not trusting his cold wolf feet at the precipice of a height like that. He had heard that Zoras were able to swim up waterfalls much like salmon could, and this long waterfall was probably a short cut to the top level where the throne room was. He turned to look back into the throne room and saw the Bulbin bodies still laying there on the ice. He probably should move those before Midna brought the rock.
His body was strong despite how tired he was, and dragging the corpses up onto the lip of the pool was only marginally difficult due to the slippery ice. This was not what he thought he'd be doing the evening after his birthday. Link had made plans for himself and Ilia, despite his own awkwardness towards sharing his feelings with her. Her father was very much a traditional Ordonian, and now that he was an adult Link thought it would be best to request to be a swordsman for not just Ordon, but the smaller communities in the region as well since he had Epona. That would give him one full-time job that he was suited for, as well as give Rusl time to spend with his family and new baby. He also wanted to speak to Ilia privately about the two of them, and ask her if it would be fine to formally announce his intentions to court her to Bo. The mayor had asked him to do something similar anyway, but Link felt his idea was far better and more fair to all parties involved. It would have been formal, honorable and according to Ordonian tradition.
That didn't happen. His birthday evening when he planned to have dinner with Ilia was spent fleeing the vengeful souls of Kasuto, and tonight he was waiting for Midna to thaw out most of the Zora race with lava from Death Mountain. Ilia was in Castle Town caring for an injured Zora child, and he was unable to talk to her. The past few days were about as far from what he had planned as he could get.
There was a sound behind him that almost sounded like a faint series of notes, although it could have been a jumble of magical sounds and his tired ears were playing tricks on him. He turned to look and saw the glow of lava as it clung to the massive rock, which was hovering in the air not far above the ice. He had managed to pull the bodies from the ice, but now was near the back of the throne room. While the water was all ice right now, he knew what would happen to it when she dropped the hot rock into it.
"Wait!" he cried, beginning to run from the room, but Midna had already let go of the lava-coated rock. It crashed into the middle of the thick ice with a hiss, the weight of it smashing through and sinking it to the bottom of the deep pool. The spirits of the Zoras scattered to avoid the rock, and the room filled with clouds of steam as the water immediately next to the molten boulder bubbled.
Link was surrounded by steam, and was unable to breathe as he stumbled blindly from the throne room and along the stone walkway leading to the waterfall. He coughed a lupine cough, his fur now wet from the steam as he staggered out of the cloud. He had told her that he was getting out of the way, so it was his own fault that he was caught in the steam. He shook off his fur before the water froze in it, and then turned his head when he heard cries and coughs coming from the throne room.
A stream of warm water began to move, cutting through the broken ice of the channel. Following it were dozens of Zoras, stumbling out into what was a moonlit night for them, gasping for air with their lungs. Midna was right about them not having enough water to breathe in, and the aquatic people took in big lungfuls of air while leaning on one another and the walls next to the stone walkways. They supported one another as they walked, some of them weeping, others holding children who clung to their parents weakly.
There was a sudden din as hundreds of people poured out of the throne room and to the waterfall channel and the tunnel next to it, the sounds of sobs, yells, cries and chatter overwhelming Link's wolf ears. He could hear a few of them that stood near him, the water-dwelling creatures responding to what had happened to their home.
"The waterfall is frozen!" a woman with silvery scales wailed, hugging her finned arms around her slender body. "How will we get down?"
"My queen...my queen…" A Zora man sunk down to sit on the stones, weeping and holding his head in his hands. "She's gone. Gone."
"Where is the man in the mask?" demanded a warrior that wore armor and a helmet much like the soldiers Link had seen at Lake Hylia. "Has he escaped?"
Another large rock appeared from the throne room, coated with lava, and the Zoras moved to get out of the way and escape the heat. They could not see the helmeted creature using her shadow magic to levitate the boulder, and there was a chorus of surprised gasps and shouts as the massive lump of lava and stone lumbered through the air, then fell as Midna dropped it from the top of the waterfall. It crashed through the ice with a bubbling hiss, scattering the Zora spirits as they hurried to avoid the rock that was creating an opening the ice so they could escape.
"The gods have saved us!" cried a blue-scaled man that held onto a half-grown child. "Bless Nayru!"
"Nayru preserve us. Help our people." prayed the soldier as he stood at the top of the now-dripping waterfall, looking down. Other voices cried out in similar prayers, the Zoras calling out to the goddess of order and wisdom that they worshiped. They had wrongly thought that the gods were saving them, but in reality it was Link's idea and Midna's magic. In an indirect way, he supposed that the gods did save the Zoras, after making him the hero.
Midna made one last trip while juggling two lava-coated boulders, which she hurled with force into the large lake that made up most of Zora's Domain. They broke two more holes in the ice, from which more weakened and frightened Zoras emerged. She left globs of black-coated lava in her wake, and they sizzled their way into the frozen cataract and the ice at the end of the channel above it. There was a deafening cracking sound as the ice in the waterfall calved, and the Zoras that were standing at the top of it ran back in alarm. After a loud shuddering crash below, a few of the aquatic people returned to the edge of the walkway, watching as water began to cascade over the side.
"Is everyone all right down there?!" called down a red-skinned female Zora that was holding a spear, and she wore a different kind of armor than the soldiers. Her armor was silvery and inlaid with blue gems. She was some sort of formal guard, perhaps a royal guard, Link guessed.
Many voices called back up at her faintly from the bottom assure her that they were fine. It was still freezing in Zora's Domain, but the formal and wise people living there were now safe, even if the Twilight had not been lifted. Link felt Midna land on his back as he stood off to the side, in the mouth of the tunnel that lead up to the top floor of the Domain. While a few Zoras had walked past him and down the tunnel, most of them stood or sat where they were. A few had given confused glances his way just as Pyle and the man in the bar had done, some of the Zoras likely having innate magic. So far, the only one who actually had been able to see him was Luda.
"I think that should do it for now. I know there's still more ice, but the water's beginning to flow a bit. Now that the Zoras are free from the ice, we don't have to worry about them anymore." Midna dusted off her small hands, as if she had been carrying the boulders with them.
"Midna, will the temperature return to normal here once we lift the Twilight? You said this was Zant's magic, and that it was only so strong because he used it in the Twilight." He was shivering a bit, his damp fur no longer keeping him warm. Between that and everything else, he felt miserable.
"Hmm." she mused, tapping a small finger to her cheek. "I think you're right. If we free the Light Spirit, then tomorrow ought to be a nice summer day here and melt the ice. It might take a bit for the water to get down to Lake Hylia, but things should return to normal." Midna gently patted his wet fur. "We're both all wet from that steam, so why don't we find a place just out of sight in this tunnel and teleport? A few of those Zoras looked right at you. Most people can't see us, but I think some with magic still can."
"Yeah, I think so too. You saw the guy with the glasses in the bar, right? And then Luda most definitely saw us." He turned to walk down the tunnel. "I think-" he stopped short, wolf mouth hanging open when he came face-to-face with a Zora. However this Zora was not a spirit that gently glowed green in the Twilight. This spirit hovered in the air, her frilled fins gently moving in a private breeze, a soft white light surrounding her.
The large pink-scaled Zora looked calmly right at him with green-gold eyes that were slit like a cat's. "Wait, brave wolf. I know you to be a Hylian in beast form; a hero sent by the gods to save us all." She held out her delicate clawed hands towards him imploringly, the gems and jewels on them clinking gently despite her spirit form. "Please, help me. My name is Queen Rutela, and I beg of you to find my son."
