Starlight Canopy
A mammoth, spun entirely from twilight, drove its tusks into the wall of churning magma.
In one moment it was instead a murder of crows, bombarding the wall with granules of darkness, the next a horde of vicious stags, stained the shade of midnight.
Midna stumbled to one knee, gasping as her magic dispersed with exhaustion. The molten column still stood.
The sun, blotted out by a canopy of leaves. Thickets protruded from what used to be a terrain of gravel. Lava had split the road, had run its course until it stretched dimly into the horizon.
The very Earth, straddling a teetering fence; on the one side searing passion and the other tranquil fortitude.
A thousand swords, at Link's beck and call, manifested and poised themselves towards the center of the greenery. With his urging, they converged, struck, gouged metal into foliage, but to no avail.
Anju burst gleefully from the eye of the storm, tearing towards him with blistering speed, metal shattering harmlessly against her small frame.
He attempted to flee, panic scrawled across his visage, but the wind at his back buoyed him against his will. Vines seized him, slithered among his rumpled clothes, constricted his breath.
Anju giggled, wiggling her fingers and suspending him above the river of orange.
Steel lined Link's limbs, his heart thudding painfully even as he carved his way out from the enclosure, the vines tumbling limply as if they were discarded flesh, consumed alive by the blazing rivulets below.
He stumbled onto what little land remained alongside Midna, and they both looked up.
"We don't stand a chance," Link gulped in what air he could, lungs scorched by exhaustion rather than the heat, his fingers bunching fabric around his knees.
"Well, I dunno what we expected," a hollow, throaty laugh. "They're divinity. We're just…us."
Link swiped a thumb against his lips; it came back bloody.
"No sense going out without kicking and screaming all the while."
A smirk, pale and fanged and littered with stars.
"I'm such a bad influence on you and I love it."
Link closed his eyes and composed his breathing.
"How about it?" he murmured. "We do this the way we're meant to. I am a sword, after all."
And before her, skin became sheen, the planes of muscle thinned to edges. Flesh, smoothed to metal.
Before it could clatter to her feet, Midna grasped the Master Sword's handle. Polished, gleaming silver, the light of it nearly blinding her as she took a few experimental swings.
"Wow. Y'know, you're a lot prettier like this," she grinned.
Watch it. Link's voice rung in her mind.
"This is weird," she muttered. "Isn't this weird? I'm, like, holding you. Tell me I'm not the only one who finds this weird."
No time to marvel. They're coming.
Indeed they were, as she quickly darted back, magma erupting under her feet. Spirals of flame barreled past, nearly searing her head clean off as plants crept from below. They trailed languidly around her ankle, and she whirled her blade in a somersault. Flecks of green floated uselessly away.
She landed, now on the river's other bank.
Okay, yeah. This is weird.
"Right?!"
Marin sang. Her dulcet tones were like bubbles – playing across the surface of the canyon, liquid rainbow shimmering across the film of their membranes, bursting softly – with no soul around to hear it, except one.
Loosely clutched in her right hand was an arm, and from it dangled the princess.
Together they floated over plateaus, over plains of rock, beyond mountains.
The song drifted along the shell of Zelda's ear as she hung limply.
Marin sang, and the pair drifted closer, the sky tinged red and green in the distance.
Author's Note: Hey! Cool, Link did a thing. Or rather, is the thing. Neato. You guys still with me? Gosh I hope no one dies or anyth- oh, wait. Sorry, Ganny-poo.
Stay tuned for next chapter! Review?!