"Our spirits are eternal. We will always be us, but no one can deny that it is our experiences and genetics that make us who we are."

-Nature vs. Nurture

Chapter 3

I wasn't Midna.

For one, I had no clue who that was. Two, she was, as he said, 'sort of locked in a different dimension,' and three: she turned out to be of an entirely different species. And here I thought I sounded crazy.

"I'm so sorry," he said, expression pained and hands out as though to catch the shrapnel of an explosion. "It was the orange hair—but it's short—"

"It was so long before," said Ilia eagerly. "All the way down to her knees, and then she just sheered it all off with a kitchen knife!"

I didn't say anything to that, and all I could think was that, yeah, it had been stupid. It had even hurt.

But the golden haired, sun kissed boy with the sky for eyes still fluttered his hands in dismay. "Please, I'm really sorry for the mistake."

"It's no big deal," I said, a mite confused.

"But you look like you're going to cry," he said.

And so I had. I hadn't even realized the burning to my throat or the tension in my gut. I couldn't help but be disappointed, I suppose. After all, I had almost had a name; a whole life.

Now I was back in the darkness, staring up at this random sun and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with myself.

But I had more important matters to attend to—such as the fact that I did not, or rather, would not cry anymore in front of…of anyone!

So to stop the tears, I glared. "I'm just surprised. If you had amnesia, how'd you feel, eh? Shouting random names at a board like darts, dummy."

And with that, I tuned him out and refused to talk to him anymore, and instead focused my attention on hacking out grass and clumps from Ilia's sad excuse for a garden. It wasn't till her hand on my arm stopped me that I finally heard what she was saying.

"…Link can help you. He helped me find my memories again, he can help you find yours."

Well, she had failed to mention that little tidbit. "You've had amnesia before?"

"Oh yes. Why do you think I've been next to you all this time? I haven't left your side for a moment, because it's scary when everything is unknown."

I sneered. "Oh, your bladder must be killing you." What, did she want me to say something gushy? Like, 'oh gosh, you're so compassionate and thoughtful, thank you so gushy much'?

Her nose wrinkled, much like a teacher did to a disobedient pupil. "You're pulling up a corn stalk."

In my defense it hadn't looked much different from the grass, even if it was taller and thicker…and had those long leaf thingies.

But I at least had some of the workings of a plan. So the blond guy knew how to find lost memories, eh? In that case, I had three choices: I could persuade him to help out of the goodness of his heart; pay him to, via manual labor or…no; and three, threaten him. Since the first one made me wince and the third had no teeth to it, I suppose I'd have to figure out how to work for it. But seeing as I could only dig in the dirt and pull up grass stalks nine out of ten times, maybe three wasn't too far out of the way.

After digging, I retreated to the shade of Ilia's house and tugged my sheered locks of hair towards me. Ilia had tried to follow me, but her boar of a father returned just then to do his own share of staring at the pale ginger she had let into the house. While she explained, I tied a knot in one end of the hair and went to braiding it. He had said this Midna had orange hair…if only I knew what twili looked like. Either I could barter it with him or use it as a noose. Ugh, that sounded like so much work.

"Um, lass, I hope you don't mind me asking, but what's the last thing you remember?"

"Waking up buck naked to your daughter here," I said, mind elsewhere with my braiding fingers.

He sort of chuckled at that and quieted at a look from his daughter. Because you know, I would have been so offended by him giggling at the word 'naked' or whatever the hell he was laughing at. L

"Well, as far as I can tell, you're sure willing to work, so you can stay as long as you need to. Though I feel a bit uncomfortable just calling you 'lass.' Um…"

"We should probably let her remember her name in time," said Ilia. "That's what I did. It eventually came back."

"Gee, you did go through that, didn't you? So what's the first thing that got the cogs working?"

"Well, it was just a key word that triggered a recent memory, and urgent memory. We'll just have to be patient."

I inwardly rolled my eyes. Like hell. For all I knew, I had stuff to be getting to and places to be, though how that all had to do with me waking up in some po-dunk spring in my birthday suit…just made the story more interesting, right?

Ilia, good hearted girl she was, decided to patiently teach me the ins and outs of the chores I couldn't quite do that day. I couldn't complain, as it kept my hands preoccupied, though her chattering often dragged my thoughts back from their brooding to interact, though since I had nothing much in my head to begin with, it wasn't like I had anything to add to the conversation. Her huge father, humming along with the conversation as though it were a song, had the bulk that told stories of strength and daring in his younger days, but now only spoke of peaceful days and warm meals. I tried not to be too irked by him. It was thanks to his and his daughter's generosity that I wasn't bear food.

Though inept at first, I learned at what could be learned in a day: cleaning, boiling water, setting a table, etc. By the time dinner was over I was more worn by the whiplashing back and forth of concentration and lack thereof that I didn't protest when Ilia approached my head with a pair of scissors.

"I just want to shape it a bit," she said. "You have such beautiful hair."

Her fingers tickled along my shoulder blades as they pulled down strands. A long lock of braid had sort of managed to escape and reached my belly button. She grew attached to it, so instead of trimming it to match the others, she braided it.

"It'll frame your face," she murmured. "And those eyes of yours. Such a peculiar shade of brown."

"When you're done looking deeply into my eyes," I said, not at all comfortable with her stare.

"Sorry! Sorry. Just for a moment there I thought they were, like, yellow. But who has yellow eyes! I could have sworn they were hazel today!"

Yellow, hmm? Orange hair and yellow eyes…what an awful combination.

She handed me a hand mirror once she was satisfied with her work. I just stared at it stupidly, unsure of what it was for, so she giggled and lifted it to my face—a stranger's face in that it was far too pale. The small bit of sun I had gotten that day had sufficed to pinken my cheeks and nose, but I could have lived out my life underground. Besides that, my eyes weren't like Ilia's doe-like ones, but elegant, almond shape things that narrowed at me in the mirror. The high cheek bones, the large forehead…who was this person? They didn't look like they belonged in any little village or digging in anyways garden. To me, that could only mean they looked useless. I looked useless. Beautiful, maybe, but beauty didn't help feed the people who saved you…unless you were a prostitute…which-nope. NOPE.

I tried to find yellow in my eyes, but found myself just as confused as Ilia. The light from the fire wasn't sufficient enough to tell whether they were brown, orange, or just as she said: hazel.

And since I wasn't about to be caught staring at myself in a mirror, I handed the mirror back to her within a minute or so.

"Thank you," she deserved that much.

She beamed, delighted with herself. "You're very welcome."