The Bleeding Effect

Chapter III

Link awakens.

Blue eyes track an unfamiliar ceiling before falling to the bedside, where a stranger lays asleep in a chair. Link shifts a little to get a closer look. The person is a young lady—Hylian, like him, he can tell by the exaggerated points of her ears—and has short, oddly stylized hair. He has never seen her before in his life.

Link frowns. He was just in the Temple of Time, the Water Medallion still shiny and slightly damp in his item pouch, when odd flashes the likes of which he had never experienced before kept replacing his traveling companions with a worried little imp. Then his mind had hazed over, and now he is in an unfamiliar room with someone he has no memory of.

"Navi?" He whispers, so the girl won't stir. He sits up on the bed, drawing his knees close to his chest, blankets piling at his feet. His body feels too big for him. He thought he had gotten over this sensation already, but apparently not. "Navi, where are you? It's safe for now, she's asleep. You can come out."

He waits, but he never hears the slight jingling noise she makes when she flies, nor the loud squeak of her high-pitched voice.

It is only now that he begins to truly panic, his breaths shallowing in his chest. Sheik is gone, Navi is gone. She's always been by his side, ever since they started out on their journey. She can't leave him yet, she can't, it's not fair, they haven't stopped Ganondorf yet, she can't leave—

"Link?" The girl rubs her eyes, her drowsy gaze upon him. Link freezes on the bed. "Are you alright? What happened? We found you unconscious by the fountain this morning."

"Get away from me." She might actually be a friend, an ally, but he cannot trust her. He cannot. "Where are Sheik and Navi?" Link demands. "Where have you taken them?"

The girl tries to edge closer to the bed, to him. Link scrambles backwards off of it, legs tangled in the blankets, ignoring her cry of surprise and the surge of pain it brings his body as he hits the hardwood floor. Link doesn't hesitate, and once he's completely on the ground and has kicked away the covers he retreats further from her, eyes flickering from the right to the girl to the left and back again, searching for a weapon, a way out, until he backs into the wall. It's no good. The girl is between him and the only door, and there's nothing here he can utilize as a weapon. Stripped of his weapons and his friends, he's naked and helpless before the stranger. He starts to tremble, his chest heaving.

His ears twitch, and he hears a distant set of feet thundering up stairs. A man soon bursts into the room, sending the wooden door quivering on its hinges. Link cringes at the noise, and his eyes are draw to the simple blade held in the man's grip.

"What's going on, Ilia? Link?" The swordsman looks back and forth between the two, sandy eyebrows drawn down.

The girl—Ilia, the second stranger had said—turns towards the man. "I don't know what's wrong with him! He woke up and then freaked out when I got close to him. He mentioned two people, Sheik and Navi, but I've never heard of them before…"

"You're lying!" Link shouts. The two of them look towards him and Link's heart rate spikes, but they do not draw any closer. He feels brave enough to continue. "You've done something to them, I'm sure of it! Tell me where they are!"

The man sighs heavily, neatly sheathing his sword. Link's eyes are riveted on the blade, mind whirring with thoughts of how to grab it. He can probably subdue the girl, despite how clunky and out of sorts his body feels, but by the time he makes it across the room, the man will have drawn the blade again, and Link will be stuck. Can he inch towards them slowly, so the man doesn't notice until it's too late to react? What if it backfires? What will they do to him?

"I was afraid this might happen to him someday." The man speaks as if Link is not in the room with them. "His journey is not something to be undertaken lightly. I've seen similar actions and behavioral patterns from many soldiers before. They would see or do something terrible out on the field, and then relive it later. Many also become quite violent."

Ilia glances at Link, eyes swimming with worry. He hisses and shrinks further back. "Is there anything that we can do for him, Rusl?"

"I'm afraid not," Rusl replies grimly. He opens the door and steps out, and then beckons her towards it. "The only thing that can help him now is solitude and the passage of time. We'll return on the morrow to see if he has snapped out of it yet. Hopefully it is but a short spell. Otherwise, I do not know what we shall do."

Ilia starts to slowly back up, her hands raised in a nonthreatening manner. Link is still not fully convinced.

"Alright, Link, alright. I'll just…leave you alone for a little while, okay? I'll let you settle down. If you need anything, or…or you want to talk, I'll be right downstairs, waiting. I promise."

When the girl still hesitates in the threshold of the doorway, Rusl barks out another "Ilia!" and she finally follows him outside the room. The door closes, and Link can hear the snick of a lock, the soft cadence of her and his footsteps descending back down the stairs, and then it's just Link's heavy breathing that disturbs the silence.

"Good riddance. I thought the girly would never leave."

Link yelps at the altogether new voice. He casts about for its origin, but he cannot find it.

"Who are you? Where are you? Show yourself!"

"You're wondering where Navi is, aren't you?"

"Yes, yes! Where is she?"

"What is Navi to you?"

Link's first thought is that he should remain silent. He cannot trust anyone but Sheik and Navi. But the voice…he doesn't understand why, but for some reason, it reminds him of his fairy. He feels as if he can place his faith in this voice.

"She's…she's my friend. She helps me on my journey. She…I need her. If you have her, please, tell me, where have you taken her?"

"…What land do you hail from?"

"Hyrule, of course!" He says desperately. "Now please, do you have her? Do you have Sheik?"

"What year is it?"

Link blinks in confusion at the weird question, and shifts a bit on the floor. "1510, in the year of our Goddesses."

There is a pregnant pause, and Link wonders if the voice left him, too. Just as he reaches the edge of panic again, the voice speaks.

"You are the Hero of Time, correct?"

"Yes." He answers dubiously, unsure of where this is going.

"…I'm afraid your schedule has been a little upset. You're not on your way to fight Ganondorf anymore. There's another task you've been assigned."

"But Princess Zelda and Sheik told me I needed to—"

"The princess and Sheik informed me to tell you of the change of plans."

"What about Navi?"

"Navi…cannot be with you at the moment, Link."

"What? Why?"

"She has a different job at the moment."

"You're lying!" Link yells, voice loud in the small room. Tears sting his eyes. "She just got lost or something! I just need to find her! I don't believe you!"

"I'm not saying that you'll never see her again," The voice is quick to console. "There are just a few things that you need to do first. Then you will be reunited with her."

He sniffles. "Really? You promise?"

"Yes, I promise. In the meantime, I shall act in Navi's place. I will be your guide, your conscience."

"Who are you?"

There is a short lull, and then he starts as the owner of the voice emerges from his shadow. It is the little gray-black imp he saw before.

"I am Midna."

This situation is hardly believable, and quite unprecedented, but Midna cannot deny the facts set in front of her, or the conclusion that they lead her to.

When she and Link attempted to go to the past to reclaim the mirror shard, the Hero of Time must have simultaneously entered the temple in his own time. Their minds bled into each other's, and now her wolf is trapped in the past while she is stuck with this child trapped in an adult's body.

Either that, or her doggie is a loon.

Regardless, she needs him in order to obtain the last two fragments of the Mirror of Twilight, sane or not. So she soothes the boy with lies, (forcing back her usual snark turns out to be quite the chore) and the further she continues the charade the more she begins to feel that this Link truly is the Hero of Time. He's nothing at all like her Hylian—where her Link is (mostly) calm and mature, this person is easily confused, frustrated, and satisfied, just like a child. A spark of hope flares to life in her chest—if the two minds truly did swap, then all she has to do is undo it. She will lead him back to the Sacred Grove, and everything will work out.

It has to.

"Midna…" Link repeats the name slowly, rolling the syllables around in his mouth. He folds his arms around his chest petulantly. "Navi sounds prettier."

"Well excuse me, Link! We can't all be perfect little Navi. And it's not as if I chose the name myself—my parents are the one to blame, not me."

Link straightens, one word in particular snagging his attention. "You met your parents? What were they like?"

Midna blinks. "Most everyone has met their parents at least once or twice, yeah. What happened to yours?" The Twilight Princess winces at her snappish retort. Her Link is immune to her caustic remarks, her scathing sarcasm. In some of their conversations, he even gives back as good as he gets. But this boy is still so wet behind the ears, so obviously, painfully sensitive. She's trying to hold back, truly, she's trying. But the boy makes it so easy…

Link drops his gaze from Midna. He scoots his butt over on the ground so he's not sitting on the wood anymore, but a throw rug. His fingers tangle and untangle in the rug's fibers.

"For a long time, I always thought I hailed from the Kokiri Tribe, the wood-children given life and form by the magnificent and wise Great Deku Tree." He chuckles once, mirthlessly. "Well, at least that was what I wanted to think. But I grew while none of them ever aged. My ears were pointy whilst theirs were round. And…for a long time, I never had a fairy. When Navi came to me, I was so relieved. I thought that maybe I really was a Kokiri, just a little…different. But when I came back to the forest later, in my older body, the Deku Tree Sprout told me the truth. I was a Hylian all along.

And then…and then he told me about my mother. My real mother. She took me into the Kokiri Forest when she was gravely wounded, even though it is forbidden for anyone but tree spirits to dwell there. She bade the Great Deku Tree take me in, and he did so, but at a price—my mother was transformed into a tree. I always wondered after he told me this. Had I passed by my mother unknowingly when I played with Saria? Had I swung from her limbs? Romped about in her fallen leaves, used her sticks as swords? Is she still awake and aware, and trapped? Does she hate me? Does she…love me? I will never know anything for certain."

He pauses then, for a while. Midna does not reproach him for wasting time dallying over his emotions when he could instead be utilizing this time to save the world like Sheik would, and Link likes her all the more for that. Navi had, naturally, been by his side when the Deku Tree Sprout had divulged this information, but they had never actually discussed it, too focused on reaching the next temple, on locating the next medallion. Link feels as if a weight on his chest he had not realized was there has suddenly disappeared.

As an afterthought, he tacks on, "The Deku Tree Sprout said nothing about my father, so I don't believe I'll ever know who he was, if he is still alive or not."

Midna has been sitting across from him this entire time, listening intently. Now she begins to speak.

"I had quite a different experience growing up than you did. I hail from the Twilight Realm, a world that exists adjacent to yours. Your realm and its denizens flourish in the light; we Twili much prefer dusk, and darkness. We need to visit my realm soon, and you'll understand the difference. You might actually find it more pleasing than here."

"But what would happen to me?" Link asks, with a touch of trepidation. "There's a reason our realms are separate, right? What would happen to me if I went into the Twilight Realm? Would my body change? Would my mind?"

"…We'll address that shortly. But right now, we're getting sidetracked. You wanted to hear about my parents, right?"

Link nods vigorously. He draws his legs up to his chest, rests his chin on his knees. He watches her attentively as she talks, eyes wide.

"My parents were the previous King and Queen of the Twilight Realm. They treated their subjects with kindness and fairness, and acted the same way towards me. My father and I often delighted in pranking the guards. Sometimes he would even sneak me away from under their forever watchful eyes, so I could play with the other children of the kingdom without their stares boring into my back." Midna's smile is fond with nostalgia, and it warms Link's heart. "My mother, on the other hand, was always more practical. It was she who instructed me in the magical arts, though in the royal line it is normally the father that does so. She was always up for a moral debate, and not once did I ever trounce her in a chess match."

"What happened to them? Are they still in the Twilight Realm, or are they here?"

"Why don't you sit back on the bed, where it is more comfortable? You can tell me your story, and I shall tell you mine." She had failed to be honest from the beginning with her Link; she refuses to make the same mistake twice. Link can be trusted, no matter which Link it is. She will tell him everything, save for the fact that he has been thrust into the future. Hopefully, she will be able to safely return him to his proper time without him noticing any advancements or discrepancies. It's for his own good, and time's too—who knows how this switch will affect history as they know it.

So they talk through the rest of the night and well into the next morning, and when Link finally drifts off, Midna does not return to his shadow immediately. Instead she stares at Link, watches the gentle rise and fall of his chest. In his sleep, in the darkness, he looks younger.

"We've gotten ourselves into one hell of a mess, haven't we, kiddo?"

Link snorts and rolls over.

-TBC-

AN: Link's back story is quasi-cannon, Midna's little blurb is not.