It feels good to write. It's been a long time since the last time I just sat down and typed for a few hours.

Here's the second installment in what I'm considering parlaying into a longer series. I doubt I need to repeat the spoiler warning, but I will note that this is a slightly more blatant Link x Midna fic, so those of you for whom that is not your thing might want to avert your eyes, put on some music, and jam your index fingers deeply into your ears.

This takes place some time after the first episode- say three weeks. I can never seem to maintain a plot so I'm not going to bother providing filler in between.

As always, feedback is muchly appreciated. (Vermilion-0 is my friend!)

Moments: Fisher King

Midna's body curved over the rude pillow she slept on to accommodate the overlarge head that rested on Link's mattress, arched as perfectly as if there were a fishhook imbedded in her navel that pulled her softly towards the ceiling.

She was also snoring. It wasn't particularly ladylike.

Link, propping himself up on one elbow next to her on the mattress, wanted to flick water at her until she woke up so he could get to sleep himself. He was damnably tired; every time he came home to Ordon they expected him to work. Sore, too. That last goat had nearly unseated him. It seemed like they were getting more vicious with every passing season.

He wanted to wake her up. He also wanted to run his open palm over the furred mound of her stomach, the nascent rise of her breasts. He wanted to cradle her as he had cradled her after the first attack on Hyrule Castle, after the mad power of her ancestors had left her and she was Midna again, trembling and injured on the flagstones. Obscurely, he also wanted to go back, to do it over again, to not fall in love with her.

Far better to lose his heart to some girl at the marketplace, who could take him or leave him as she chose; Midna could find the very idea of loving him disgusting, unthinkable. They were from different worlds once, twice, three times over- man and woman, commoner and nobility, and- inescapably- imp and human.

Impossible to tell her and lose her in the doing. Impossible to hold his tongue and lose her that way. Midna was a puzzle subtler than the one the statues before the Temple had foisted on him and infinitely more threatening.

All his adult life Link had been manipulated by forces greater than him. First, Midna, riding him as a wolf, with her endless jokes and unknowable objectives. Then, in succession, Cor Goron; Rutella's shade; Telma; Renado. Zelda. Ultimately, the goddesses themselves had sped him on his way, and from the safety that falls on heroes when their enemies are defeated and nobody much cares about them anymore all Link could do is wonder if there had ever been a choice- a moment in his journey where he could have left the serene and orderly path that had been set before him and hack his way off into the wilderness. A moment when his actions were not guided by the relentless footsteps of Fate, always five minutes behind him and always on the verge of catching up.

Should he confess his love to Midna? Link knew that there was nobody in the world who he could ask who would understand his dilemma. The question would have to be couched in vague, nebulous terms. It would have to be posed in hypothesis. Nobody in all the sunlit world save perhaps for Zelda knew about his imp, and to Zelda Link was not prepared to speak.

What would the goddesses say, had he a way to ask them? Had they noticed? Would they care? Link had seen Midna shy away from the Triforce, remembered what Lanayru's light had done to her. She was outside the realm of light and paid homage to alien gods. But how deep did the machinations of the goddesses go? How far did their influence extend? Were he and Midna meant to be together? Were they meant to be apart?

How in the world could he ever make the decision alone?

He would get up and put on his clothes; he would go fishing down by the waterwheel. The gillfish would be as awake as he was. Perhaps, in the morning, he would roast his catch over the fire. Perhaps he and Midna would eat breakfast together. He wanted to tell her he loved her but couldn't; it was impossible, it couldn't be done. He wanted to go back but he couldn't do that either. He would get up and put on his clothes. He would go fishing by the light of the moon.

When Midna woke up there was an empty space on the mattress beside her, and a smell like ashes in the air.