"Anything truly worth it takes great sacrifice and hard work."
-life motto
Chapter 2
Despite my rude behavior, Ilia brought me home in the growing evening and gave me some of the food off her table. I ate only knowing that I needed it to live, not because I had any desire for it. The white sheet sort of frightened me, as it brought out just how pale I was. I would have thought myself completely colorless if it weren't for the knee-length, gold-orange hair that soon became the bane of my existence as it tripped and tangled about my legs. The poor girl cried out when I grabbed a knife from the table and hacked the whole lot of it off.
"Why in the world—it was gorgeous!"
"It was annoying," even I flinched at how cold I sounded.
"Such a crying shame, did you really have to go at it like that! Split ends and—Din, it's almost as short as mine!" Her own hair was a straw like blond that curled at the base of her neck.
And then I saw the pile of beautiful satin orange on the floor and, for the first time in my remembered life, I started to bawl. I suddenly regretted cutting off my hair as if I'd cut off my own hand and couldn't understand why I had done it either.
I guess it became more than apparent afterwards that I was disturbed in the head, because Ilia took it upon herself to get me out of the sheet into some real clothes and tucked away in a makeshift bed for the night. In the moments of darkness after she blew out the candles, another fear seized me: what if I couldn't sleep? What if I had forgotten how? I couldn't even remember dreams or ever waking up, what if I died?
But then the next moment I was waking up, much as I had in the spring, to sunlight casting itself through the window next to me. Sunlight…
The maw moaned something. The coming of light, the leaving of darkness, it all meant something to me, or should have.
Due to the unhinging moment, where I wailed and cried all over her, I had little pride to show when she came downstairs and sat next to the pile of blankets I had curled up in.
"Remember anything yet?" she asked.
"If I had, I would have said so."
She sighed. Pride gone, but not my unexplainable snark. But who wouldn't be annoyed by being asked obvious questions?
"Well I got to tell dad something. He stayed over to help the goats give birth. Probably is going to have to stay tonight too."
As usual, this all meant nothing to me. It didn't evade me that I was essentially a charity case, however. A burden. A stranger.
As every other sensation I had was fear, I clung to the prickling of my pride like a lifeline. The voice inside of me that cried out that I would be no one's dependent was the only sound from the darkness.
I stood up. Ilia stared.
"What can I do in return for the clothes?" I picked at the sleeve of the sort of grey-green tunic she had given me. The ends were frayed, and it looked a bit thorough worn, and possibly for a man as I was larger than she was.
"You don't have to do anything."
"Fine. Tell me something I can do before I go completely mad."
She thought I was serious. Ha ha. Wait…I was serious.
"You could do the dishes."
It only took me ten seconds to realize I had no idea what I was doing, from water to soap to plates. It didn't change with the chore, either, as it became apparent with each task she paraded me through that I had no idea about keeping up a house (or being alive, for that matter).
Thus, we were outside, digging in a garden (because chopping a hole into the earth and yanking out grass was something even cows could do), when he came by.
I knew the instant I saw him that he was my reason. My reason for what, I couldn't say. But up until then I had wandered through darkness, and now here was the sun.
He had raised his hand to greet Ilia, sweat glistening along his bare arms, when he saw me. He stopped in his tracks, looking about as petrified as I felt.
"Midna?"