"Have you no words? Thought you would be happy to see me."
there had once been a boy who stood at the edge of the only world he'd ever known and he watched it split cleanly in half : light on one side and twilight on the other. a time when silence was not a means of survival and long before gods and monsters and ancient evils ruined the calm rhythm of his life and filled it with echoes that never truly stopped screaming. link had once believed silence could be a comfort — the steady ease of mornings in ordon , the soft creak of the ranch gate beneath his palms , the distant lowing of goats beneath sunrise mist. silence had been simple then , harmless and welcomed , now it lived inside him like a graveyard that he had to keep tucked away in the marrow of his bones , laid to rest behind his half-slumbering eyes , and somewhere between those impossible seams stood a girl of shadow with molten eyes and a sharp tongue and bitter laughter. waving at him with her fiery hair as a hand toward him as though she had always known he would take it. perhaps that had been the beginning of it. mayhaps link had been doomed from the very first moment he looked at her and realized loneliness could wear a poised sharp grin. and just as time never stopped flowing on its river , ten years had passed since the mirror shattered. ten years since the last splinter of twilight dissolved into glittering ruin beneath a , then , half-dead sky. ten years since her silhouette vanished behind crumbling magic and ancient judgment and destiny's cruel little teeth. hyrule had continued onward afterward ( because kingdoms did not stop breathing simply because one heart had forgotten how ): the rivers still ran silver through faron woods , little children still laughed in castle town streets , the marketplace still smelled of fresh bread and horse sweat and rain-damp stone after summer storms. but link was as a spirit in shrouded in twilight : unaware but deeply affected. nonetheless the seasons turned their great endless wheel without mercy : snow buried all mountains except death in winter , spring returned soft and green to the fields. and link , the hero of twilight endured it the way wounded animals survive arrows lodged too deeply to remove , quietly and with blood swallowed down before anyone could see , pure autopilot survival. there were new monsters after ganondorf fell. there were always new monsters ( except these looked far more hylian , but the tongue was still as silvered ): evil in hyrule did not truly perish ; it merely changed shape and waited for exhaustion to soften the kingdom's throat. so the hero continued as heroes always do. blue eyes fixed ever forward and shoulders squared. but something inside him had calcified after twilight ( something sacred / something unbearably young / something hollowed ): but link had bore witness to the horrors of political evil and he much preferred that of monsters and ganondorf. at least their kind of evil was front-facing and not hidden behind a grin of the kingdom's best interest at heart nor the goodness of all its citizens. eternally , link was thankful in the destiny queen zelda and he shared for nothing truly went over the eye to the one who held the triforce of wisdom.
he still traveled often despite the years anchoring themselves heavier into his bones. sometimes on the request of hyrule's crown , sometimes for ordon , and sometimes for no reason at all beyond the fact that stillness made ghosts louder. he wandered forests dense with fog and memory. crossed plains burnished gold by dying sunlight. slept beneath unfamiliar stars with his sword resting beside him and epona breathing warmly nearby. and every so often — against his own better judgment — he found himself staring westward at dusk , when the shadows stretched out longest ( where the world turned violet at its edges from where she used to exist within its light ): the cruelest part of grief was not the pain itself. this was a fact that link had learned early. pain eventually dulled into something manageable ; a familiar ache tucked carefully beneath the ribs. no , the cruelest part was the hope. it was something thin and poisonous. the kind that slipped quietly into the bloodstream when the world grew too peaceful and still. the sound of eerie laughter in an empty forest. a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. the impossible sensation of being watched by molten goldlike eyes. there had been nights he woke reaching for her ( see : each and every night ): before consciousness fully returned. nights where dreams dragged him backward into twilight-soaked corridors , ancient palaces , the sound and shape of the realms denizens , and her voice — all sharp wit and hidden tenderness wrapped beneath mockery like silk around steel. then morning would come. and the space beside him remained empty , always empty. eventually even memory began to blur around the edges. that frightened him more than anything. he could remember the shape of battles perfectly. every swordstrike. every wound. every scream. he remembered ganondorf's hatred with crystal clarity — remembered the way hatred itself seemed to rot the very air around the usurper king , zant. but midna , gods. sometimes link would sit awake at campfires trying desperately to remember the exact cadence of her laughter and find only silence waiting for him instead. and that was when the guilt arrived ; this was when the pain turnt into uncomfortable silence. because what kind of devotion allowed itself to forget? what kind of love — and yes. perhaps it had always been love despite his terror of naming it — what kind of love faded at the edges with time? so he buried her instead ( again and again and again ): he buried her beneath his duty to hyrule. beneath ten long years of yearning. beneath the endless rhythm of survival and day by day manmade peace. link buried her in the quiet domesticity of ordon village where children tugged at his sleeves and elders smiled knowingly at the hero whom returned home. he buried her in every repaired fence and sharpened blade and exhausted sleep after failed r.e.m sleep battle. yet grief was far too clever a beast. it learned the shape of his shadow , that she also once did. the grief there remained within small betrayals. he still paused whenever twilight settled strangely over water. during the times this world of light crossed with the world of dusk. still glanced upward when dusk painted the clouds bruised lavender and silver. still carried the fragment of her farewell inside him like a blade lodged too close to the heart : ❝ link… i… see you later. ❞
such simple words that led to such such catastrophic ruin , because she never did. for ten years she never fucking did , until now. and the evening had arrived quietly. ordon's forest breathed as gold beneath the setting sun , cicadas humming endless hymns from the trees while warm wind drifted through the grasslands in slow rolling sighs , the village behind him glowed amber with lantern light beginning to bloom against deepening dusk. somewhere distant , someone laughed near the ranch. and link knew the tune immediately. hell , the smell of woodsmoke curled soft through the air that was painfully peaceful. link stood at the edge of the woods with a bundle of split firewood balanced against one shoulder. and it was nothing that link hadn't done thousands of times before. but it was so much more glorious for him now. for this was the sort of task he had once thought impossible for himself after becoming the hero of twilight. there had been a time he believed destiny would consume every inch of him until nothing mortal remained. when the fact that he had the mark of fafore on his left hand and the eyes of a blue eyed beast would swallow all that he once was and who he could've been if not for the ancient golden goddess. alas , instead he had simply grown older and his hair was a bit longer too. his silhouette was a bit rougher around the edges and aunlight no longer softened his face the way it once had ; years had carved harsher lines beside his mouth and beneath his eyes. scars lingered silver against sun-kissed browned skin. there was strength in him still , terrible and undeniable , but quieter now. worn inward instead of outward ( his lips constantly pressed together to hollow the words his tongue dare not shout ): he had learned how to exist as something other than hyrule's weapon , even if that is all the upper crust desired him to be. a figure head. a steadfast beacon that the people could push their own ideologies onto without link being anything more than a reciprocal to accept it. or rather at least link pretended to be all these things well enough. but in the midst of these thoughts of his , the forest stilled. it happened so suddenly that every instinct sharpened at once beneath his skin. the cicadas ceased , wind faltered , and even the goats slumbering in the ranch shifted uneasily. link's hand moved automatically toward the sword at his back. and then — twilight spilt through the skies ( like an almighty god parting the hylian seas ): not metaphorically nor was it a trick of his memory. but actual real world in its otherworldliness twilight. liquid shadow unfurled between the clouds in slow curling ribbons , violet-black shimmering with impossible gold minted light beneath its surface , causing the air to thicken into a warped distortion. reality itself seemed to tremble as though resisting the shape forcing itself through.
and link froze. his pulse lurched once , hard enough to hurt. because he knew this and gods help him — because he knew this. the world narrowed violently around the sound of his own heartbeat ( a rhythm that was beating so loud you'd mistake it for a ticking bomb ): and out of the haze one step emerged first : one long delicate and slender leg , then the other. it was surreal how link had fought countless battles , been near death so many times , and defeated a man who's very name would be right next to the definition of war : and this was the act that would send him to the hereafter with the rest of the deceased incarnations that carried the soul of the hero. her bluish-gray skin kissed by the dusklight woven by the twili magicks. then molten gold eyes appeared from the veil of shadow itself. and suddenly the last decade collapsed inward like dying stars. the fog surrounding midna separated as she stepped fully into the world of light as though she had merely wandered out from lurking inside his shadow like all those years ago. but she looked the same as the last time he saw her face , kissed her lips , tangled his fingers in her hair. but unlike ten years ago she wasn't going to push him and leave a distorted ghost of herself with him , no. she was still so beautiful under the moonlight and link noticed that immediately too despite the shock flaying through him raw and merciless. there was something more refined in the sharpness of her features now. something regal in the same way that he saw of zelda in her status as queen of hyrule. but with midna … the way she carried it was different. the twilight curled obediently around her form ( like a second skin or akin to one lover trying to wear the skin of another in closeness ): her hair spilled longer than he remembered , blazing copper-gold beneath the hidden sun cascaded down her frame just so and the ancient power of her people clung to her like expensive perfume. yet she was still unmistakably her. still looked at him as though she could peel apart every layer of his soul with one glance — she could , she did , she was. link forgot how to breathe. the firewood slipped from numb fingers and struck the earth heavily beside his boots. neither of them spoke. the silence stretched ( all fragile like and catastrophic all the same ): his body would not move. every muscle locked somewhere between disbelief and desperate and part of him feared if he blinked too hard she would disappear again. another cruel hallucination conjured by decade long yearning and exhaustion. but standing there beneath the last dimmed-gold bruising of evening skies , staring at the impossible figure before him , link found himself trapped within that silence all over again. because there she stood ( all flesh flesh and real ): not some cruel phantom stitched together by his subconscious , again. his hands shook a tad and his body finally regained some feeling but he felt it beneath his skin all the same — that faint trembling fracture running through muscle and bone alike. his heart struck once against his ribs so violently it bordered on pain — and the hero of twilight still found it near impossible to take in a breath fully.
the forest had gone still around them , unnaturally still. even the wind seemed reluctant to move between the branches now ( as though the world itself feared disturbing this moment too abruptly lest it shatter ): link stared at her , by the gods did he stare. he had spent years trying not to forget the exact shape of her face , the beauty in her eyes , and the wit of her tongue but it was as if he'd just defeated the gerudo king all over again. no memory of his brain could do the living and breathing woman infront of him justice. but , link supposed memory was cruel in that way ; it dulled the wrong things first. there had been nights he could still recall the scent of rain on on her weakened body after the events at lanayru's spring. the way the only thing he could hear during that desperate hour for midna was the sound of his paws hitting ground without rest.but none of that mattered as it was. for now she stood before him close enough to touch once more. those molten eyes settled onto him with familiar sharpness. and suddenly the decade between them collapsed inward all over again : happiness. the word carved straight through him before it was ever spoken aloud. his throat tightened so fiercely he nearly winced from it. because happiness was too fragile a thing for this ( it was something far too soft , far too mortal ): happiness belonged to simpler moments — warm bread after winter hunts , children laughing in castle town , sunlight spilling across epona's mane during quiet rides home. but this , this felt closer to resurrection , a waterless baptism and rebirth. link opened his mouth once but nothing emerged. his voice had abandoned him entirely somewhere between the first sight of her and the sound of her existence tearing his silence apart. he hated that she could still do this to him. hated that after ten years she could still unravel him so effortlessly merely by existing. his gaze drifted over her almost greedily despite himself — but who could blame him? he was taking inventory , searching for a way for the first thing that was spoken between the two of them not to break him. and it was tthis realization that twisted sharply somewhere beneath his ribs. because it meant the years had truly happened — they had not simply paused for her somewhere beyond the mirror while hyrule moved onward alone. she had lived those years too , without him , something about that hurt worse than link expected.
❝ … mid...na ❞ his voice sounded ruined when it finally surfaced , all rough sounding from disuse and shock , quieter than link had intended. the single word nearly dissolved before reaching her. link swallowed hard and a deeply heavied breath escaped him afterward. it was merely exhaustion dragged into the shape of sound. ❝ ’ure da one dat ‘aid lig n’ shado ‘ouldn’t mix. ❞ saying her name nearly undid him. he had not spoken it aloud in so long. not because he forgot it , never that , but because hearing it made the absence unbearable again. ❝ an jus start speakin’ as though ya jus popped out from hidin' in my shado'. ❞ the words emerged sharper than intended , not anger exactly but even grief simply had teeth sometimes. link took a step toward midna before realizing he had moved at all and then stopped immediately. fear coiled viciously through him , but not the fear of her , never her. but it was the fear that if he touched her she would vanish again. and it was this fear that was some final cruelty sent by the gods before they finally finished hollowing him out completely. link's fingers flexed uselessly at his side. he remembered reaching for her when the mirror shattered. remembered the sound it made — something divine and catastrophic at once. remembered being pushed away while panic clawed bloody through his throat , had remembered her final smile that held such a gentle sorrow. ten years of sorrow and it was with this other realization that something inside his chest twisted violently.
❝ i buried you. ❞ the confession escaped before he could stop it , silence followed instantly , link lowered his gaze toward the grass between them because suddenly looking directly at her hurt too much. it wasn't the type of burial out of hate and good riddence , quite the contrary infact. everything about the situation seemed to blur and after awhile even link wasn't sure how he still managed to keep standing ( thank the gods he was a creation of habit and this is the only time he'd ever thank them ): and it was hollowing , pitiful really. he has craved this moment for exactly : 120 months , 3,650 days , 87,600 hours , 5,256,000 minutes , and 315,360,000 seconds. and yet , it did not escape him how he'd spent triple the amount of time missing the princess of twilight than he'd actually known her. ❝ every season change , call ta hyrule castle , n' every quiet moment 'neath trees when i thought i heard ya snickerin'. ❞ his voice had gone even quieter now , stripped raw around the edges. but his tongue did not waver. every heavily accented word escaped past his lips a bit easier now. ❝ every time dusk settled wrong across da fields , every time shado's moved in da forest , n' every time i thought i seen ya standin' beyond my reach for half a second ‘fore rememberin’ ya wasn't dere. ❞ link's throat burned and he laughed softly beneath his breath . brokenly. ❝ do ya know wha hope becomes afta enough years? ❞ his eyes lifted back to hers ( gods … there she was , where she'd always should've been ): and it was here where his body finally recalled that it was infact capable of movement and his legs begin ever so slowly closing the distance between twilight's princess and its sacrilegious hero. ❝ at first i waited for signs. convinced myself every impossible little thang meant you was trying to come back … had so many moments where da air felt… wrong. ❞ he shook his head faintly. ❝ afta while i jus took it up to it bein' wha i wanted to believe so badly dat i started seein' you everywhere. ❞ another step forward. but much faster now and less hesitation. ❝ eventually i realized the waitin' was gonna kill me fasta than ganondorf could've. so i stopped. or tried ta stop. i couldn't stop. i ain't wanna stop. ❞ the admission tasted bitter ( like healing herbs mixed into medicinal teas ): because even now link knew he had never truly succeeded , there had always been something that remained as a pathetic wounded part of him staring westward at dusk hoping for impossible things. ❝ hyrule rebuilt , zel's now queen , all da kids in ordon grew up , n' people still need me in some ways. ❞ ( even when he wished he wasn't needed , even though he no longer wants to be anybodies destined tool ): and it frankly just wasn't fair. why did the hero have to secure everyone elses happiness but his own?
his chest felt unbearably tight. ❝ and i learnt how ta survive around da emptiness instead. ❞ the words nearly broke apart at the end. because that was the truth of it. link had not done any true healing ( but he also had never wanted to do so either ): everything about his life since ganondorf's defeat had merely been a means of survival. he had simply learned how to carry the wound without bleeding openly in front of others. link rubbed tiredly at his jaw before continuing , his steps having stopped a couple stone throws away from the former transfigured twilight realm denizen. ❝ there were days i almost forgot the sound of your voice. ❞ his expression twisted immediately afterward , grief and guilt and rot all tangling together viciously. ❝ dat terrified me more than anythang. ❞ another quiet breath and another and another. ❝ i could ‘member every battle. n' i kno’ how i got every scar … but you… ❞ his eyes shut briefly. ❝ i started ta hate myself for forgettin' even da smallest pieces of you. ❞ his voice softened dangerously then. ❝ so i started forcing myself not to think about you at all , or tried too cause every memory felt lik' reopenin sumin'' that neva should've closed ta begin wif. ❞
the forest remained deathly still around them. link could still hear his own heartbeat. could hear the faint rustle of twilight shifting around her form. it sounded too much like old memories. ❝ but it neva worked. ❞ and it was he that smiled then — small and awful and exhausted but also filled with genunine happiness. ❝ cause every time i'd see da sky blend wif dawn n' dusk i'd ‘member ya anyways. ❞ his gaze lingered on her face again helplessly , drinking her in as if he was lost with no escape within the arbiter's grounds. just memorizing every change in her expression , afraid to stop incase it didn't last. ❝ ttwilight touches thangs differently afta u've seen it once , nothin' looked da same again. ❞ his fingers curled tighter at his side. ❝ but neither did i. ❞ the words fell softer than the others. almost too quiet to survive the space between them. link stepped closer again. he was so so so close to her now. close enough to feel the cold of the gray fog-twilight brushing faintly against his skin like remembered touch and his pulse stumbled painfully. his mouth dried and his heart … well when had his heart last known any sense of peace? because it definitely was not possible now. ❝ i thought bout ya every day … ‘course ’m 'appy ta see ya , midna. ❞ and there it was : the truth stripped bare at last. now his throat tightened hard enough to ache. and for a moment he simply stood there staring at her. taking in the impossible reality of her existence but that's all he'd been doing since she'd first stepped through the parted sky. link's hand lifted slowly before he could think better of it ( for someone who held boundless courage and its piece of the triforce , he did not feel so in this moment ): but there was no need for hesitating halfway between them , even if fear crashed through him all over again ( but what was the truest form of bravery and courage if not its acknowledgement of fear? ): because if she disappeared now — if this was another dream he did not wish to ever wake again — link would become a praying man instantly , he'd go to ordona's spring every and sing praises at the ancient gods instead of curse them. but genuinely he didn't know whether there would be enough left inside him afterward to survive it a second time. still , slowly and ever so carefully. his fingers brushed against hers. solid warmth met his skin ( again , all flesh flesh and real ): the breath left his lungs sharply. link's eyes closed for half a heartbeat as relief and grief collided so violently inside him it bordered on unrevivable agony.
his thumb shifted faintly against her hand as though reassuring himself she would not dissolve into his shadow beneath the slightest touch. when he finally spoke again his voice sounded unbearably young despite the years weathered into him , as if he was still the seventeen year old boy from ordon who just wanted to save those closest to him. and his courage was returning in bursts. link was completely squeezing her right hand with his while his left arm wrapped around her waist and his wild and feral blue eyes of a beast did not blink for a moment any longer. link was tall for a half-hylian but even with his gerudo blood midna still had a few inches on him , but it did not matter. and he prayed she did not stop him. she was here infront of him after all this time so she had to have wanted this , need this too , right? and thus , he goes to kiss her. it is full of grief and love and hate and yearning and anger and sadness and countless other emotions that didn't matter anymore. because midna was here in his arms , skin touching skin , lips on lips : and the hero of twilight wouldn't let her go again.
˖*°࿐ @shadowbred sent an unprompted letter from the postman *˖ △
