Twilit Imperium

@twilitimperium​

Not many people glowed in the dark, but this one certainly did. It was a woman, far taller than herself and many of the passersby, with peculiar markings on parts of her body. Didn’t she know this made her a perfect target to follow in the darkness? Haze had done so at a fair distance, ever since she’d seen the woman drop some coins by accident.

But it was harder to follow someone in the more densely populated area where the Whisperwood’s housings were. Haze had to get closer to catch up. A mistake, as the woman clearly must’ve noticed her presence.

“Meow?” was Haze’s first reaction. But rather than apologising for any questionable behaviour, she merely pointed at the woman’s glowing markings. “You’re like a laser pointer. How do mew do that? The hat says it must be an Art, but I’m not so sure.”

For some few moments, Midna considered just... letting Haze follow her after she noticed the feline shadow, just to see what she’d do! Was she planning on attacking? Was she simply bored? Or was she going to pop out to tell Midna just how beautiful she was and that she couldn’t help but follow the source of such untold beauty around for a while?

But then she decided that if her plan was to attack, best not to let her follow her all the way home and find out where she lived. So she turned to call Haze out, but before she could get her words out, Haze was confusing her.

❄️ Midna was indeed quite like a shadow in several ways, but currently the comparison most keenly felt was that she was difficult to be far from. Thankfully, she wasn’t trying too hard to be far from her; that would have made current circumstances far more miserable. 

“There is nothing wrong with my hearing but I can’t tell what you’re pointing-”

“Why? And don’t say honey. Are you going to look after bees? I don’t believe they do well in the cold.”

“Honey.” She wasn’t even thinking about it for the honey, but she was told not to say it, so she had to. “I can look after the bees. I’ve looked after things more annoying than bees.”

They run around her in continual circles. “Bow! Bow! Bow!” They demand, despite her hesitance, but fortunately for her, they don’t expect her to follow their commands.

Yet.

They run until, before long, they dizzily flop onto the ground, laughing to themselves. Wooden mask turned to the sky– and then shifting ever so slightly to look at Midna again as the laughter finally dies down.

“You would be the first of your kind to deny me,” they reply, matter-of-factly, all amusement suddenly gone from their voice.

What manner of lost child is this? Seemed like they were on some sort of weird sugar rush, Midna thought as she loomed over Majora after they fell to the ground. Her curiosity was really piqued when they mentioned her kind though; what do they know of the Twili?

“The first of my kind?” she repeated.

@twilitimperium​​

“Excuse me, about that object you’re holding…” 

He approaches the stranger and cuts right to the chase, eyes and smile pointed toward the object in question–Midna’s cellphone. 

“I have one just like it!” Sure enough, Fai retrieves his own phone from his pocket, violently shaking it as if it could only be seen through movement. The bright blue lifeline loop spun circles in the air as he did so, occasionally slapping against the phone’s screen. Very annoying. 

“Though to be honest, I have no clue what it even is. You look just a little bit more familiar with it than I do.. ” if only because she’s been tapping away at it, whereas Fai has made no prior attempt beyond boring a hole into the funky looking tablet, immediately tucking it away once he discovered the lifeline’s uncomfortable effects. 

But still, it was with him now, and his magic wasn’t, and he figures he should at least discover the purpose behind this.. “Think you could teach me a trick or two?”

Midna never thought that she would be the one people went to for explanations of technology. But only because she herself used to be in the exact same boat—the technology of Hyrule was much less advanced than most places in this city. The only reason she knew how to use an operate a cellphone so relatively well was due to her time in the previous realm she was kidnapped into.

That won’t stop her from enjoying the attention and exaggerating her qualifications, though.

“Oh, I’m practically an expert,” she said, “in the art of the ‘cellphone.’“

“Which is exactly what this thing is!” She held hers up to Fai, screen facing him to show the app she was using—some totally-not-Bejeweled game. “It lets you play games on this tiny screen, or talk to people through their cellphones with their own tiny screens.”

They’ve been following this woman for a while now. Hiding behind corners quite obviously whenever she looks, until finally they give in, and with a childish giggle, they swiftly move from their latest hiding spot to dart towards her, arms spread as though their cloak is a pair of wings gliding behind them. “Bow to your god!” They say, their tone good natured and innocent as a child playing pretend would be…

( But they aren’t playing pretend, @twilitimperium​. )

Midna was not an easily startled woman, and was certainly no stranger to things suddenly appearing from the shadows. More often than not, she was that thing! So while it might be disappointing for Majora, it should not be surprising that Midna was largely unreactive—more just amused, really.

“Hey. Hey. Hey, wait, stop,” she said, suddenly tugging on Lissandra’s arm with one hand and pointing towards the other end of the farmer’s market. Past the stalls selling fruits and vegetables and past the ones selling handmade crafts were a bunch of apiaries, and their beekeeping owners close by.

Midna was staring from a small distance. At Colette, yes, but more specifically the phone that Colette was tapping away at. More specifically still, she was staring at Colette’s Lifeline loop, and comparing it to her own attached to her own cellphone.

Before long, she decided she wanted an answer, and so she walked right up to Colette and asked for it, with no regard to whether or not she was busy at the moment.

“Why is yours yellow?”

｢🍁｣ “My shadow-?!”  Well, whatever she was trying to do wasn’t working…And only seemed to bring her pain.  He’ll have to ask about that later…But, for now.  “You musn’t overexert yourself…”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, I’m not doing anything…If my shadow can somehow relieve you of any pain…I suppose…You can sit in it?”  And bask…God, this was awkward, even for Kazuha.

“I wasn’t overexerting myself!” she said, still massaging the side of her head to try and stop the aching. “And I don’t need to sit in your shadow, I was trying to exist in it.”

Midna was, and sounded, angry, but it truthfully wasn’t really directed at Kazuha. Based on his reaction, she thought, maybe it wasn’t him doing this to her, but this city itself? Wouldn’t be the first time.

｢🍁｣ “A journey to rekindle something must require something more grand than just wandering land to land.  Yes, that’s it.”  Kazuha can’t help but caution a gentle smile.  “My apologies, that was insensitive for me to rattle off like that.”

“I’m sure there’s some shade nearby if you would like me to accompany you.  I’d hate for you to be uncomfortable and we’ve only just met.”

Midna simply stared, for a few seconds longer than would be polite, and then one more just for good measure. “I have no idea what that’s supposed to do with anything anyway.”

“I don’t need to travel to any shade, though, when you’ve got a perfectly good shadow right there,” she said, before attempting to hide herself in Kazuha’s shadow at his feet. Attempting. Obviously, nothing happened, except a sharp pain in her head, and a palm on her temple to try and soothe it.

｢🍁｣ “How curious that we’ve all been bound together like this.  Suffice to say, this is not where I thought my journey would bring me but…I must say it is rather exciting.  Perhaps this is just what I needed.”  He rattled off to no one in particular, though, if there was an ear to listen, he certainly had quite a bit to say at the moment.

“Just what you needed? How in the world could this be just what you needed?” Here Midna was, perhaps one of the most likely people to barge into a conversation that she was never invited to.

That was an hour ago, though, and now it’s fair game for Kay to be woken up. Midna’s waking method of choice was dropping a whole bunch of bags of legally distinct nacho cheese flavoured chips on top of Kay.

“I mean what I mean, and what I mean is the implication that you’re implying my blows are of a typically low nature. Which is rude, even for you.” 

She gave her head a little upturn, clutched her broom and continued up the leaf steps, but she couldn’t keep  a little smile off the corner of her lips.

“What kind of curse?” She didn’t stop, but she did slow down for a moment. “There’s a great many curses I could inflict, each one more terrible than the last. Like making all your pillows smell like bad feet.”

"If one of your ‘blows’ isn’t low, I feel like it’s probably because you messed up, or stuttered, or perhaps were too flustered to come up with a proper ‘sick burn.’” She was pretty sure that’s what they were called.

“And that one’s terribly uncreative, isn’t it? Come on, you’re hardly the first person I’ve heard boast about their curses!”

Oh she could feel it, and it only made her greyer. A confusing sort of fuzz that kept her silent for a moment, but she still followed. 

Followed until Midna twirled around at least, and then she had to stop so she didn’t walk right into her. Stood there wide eyed at the suddenly cold expression.  Extra confusing yes, because it didn’t feel cold and reconciling the differences between what she saw and what she felt always made her pause. 

But with the dramatic spin and the princess continuing on her way what she felt finally overpowered the façade, and her response was simply to make a little grumble of mostly faux annoyance. 

“What do you mean ‘even for me’? I’ll curse you.” 

That little grumble let Midna knew that she won, even if it was never a competition and there was no prize. Midna felt like she won... something, somehow, and that was the only important part here. She even snickered aloud at her own victory.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? You’ve always been one with a sharp tongue, no? Even now, you’re threatening to curse me.”

She ran her hand along the floral guard rail that outlined the leafy steps, pausing to take one petal from a flower as her hand passed it by. (No one would mind, right?)