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Chapter Text

She would never see them again.

It had been three months since the mirror shattered behind her as her feet, for the first time in nearly a year, met the familiar terrain of her homeworld. For the first time in nearly a year, she was back in her own realm, not as a cursed imp, but as its guardian, savior, and princess. And for the first time in her entire life, it wasn’t where she wanted to be at all. In this place she had nearly died to protect, she was a stranger.

It took her three months to realize why it was that her own kingdom no longer felt like the place she belonged. The knowledge seared her to her core, forced her to feel the things she had been trying to shut the door on since she’d left home and come back to the land of her birth. It cut her open and let the truth bleed into her veins like liquid fire; each heartbeat drove it deeper into every molecule of her being.

Home was the smell of forest and leather and damp chain mail set out to dry by the fire when darkness came. Home was the feel of her nose buried deep in green cotton, the strong lithe arms that relaxed around her when sleep came upon them, yet still held her tightly all the way until morning. Home was the sound of his breathing, whether harsh and tight or slow and deep. Running breaths, sleeping breaths, fighting growls and wounded gasps, she measured time and distances by the sound of his silence, and that was home. Home was the look in his eyes, whether those of a man or a beast, the contrasting integrity and ferocity in his open gaze.

Home was the way she had come to know exactly which maneuvers he would use before he performed them, the way muscle slid under skin and over bone, stroke following stroke as she saw them in her mind’s eye. The way they wove a deadly dance around their enemies, who fell like so many blades of grass at the point of tooth or sword, was home. Home was the way they had grown together from wounded animals to a force to be reckoned with, nigh unstoppable, the two of them like an army in themselves.

Home was the dark tower and its dark-cloaked figure. Home was the bright eyes and the wise hands, all steely strength and nobility and hidden softness. Home was the knowledge, somewhat uncomfortable at first, that Midna could rely on someone else as much as she did herself, the way she had fought against trust but at last given in. Home was the way she had known, the instant she knew she was dying, that there was still a way out in the shape of the girl, the woman, the queen with the solemn gaze.

Home was the way she had smiled as she poured the very essence of her being into Midna’s own, the gentle pressure of her hand becoming less and less as she faded into nothing. Home was the warm feeling of a mind within her mind, guarding her day and night with a silence more pure than speech, keeping her safe, keeping her strong. Home was the resolution that she would give back whatever she could to the person who gave her all they had.

Home was the way they kept going even after they had failed time and time again.

Home was the way they had faced down their last battle together as if it was just another adventure, with the unspoken knowledge that each would die for the other if need be. Home was the way she’d made good on the silent pact, had tried in vain to finish what they had started. And, during the final resolution of the conflict, it was the way they had ended it when she hadn’t been able to.

Home was the way she would spend the rest of her long, long life regretting that the price needed to keep her kingdom safe was the only one she never wanted to give. In the end, she had loved them too well, and she had lost them both.

Deep in the sightless black that was night in her realm, the Twilight Princess finally broke, burying her face in her hands and shedding her first tears after three months of silent endurance. Meanwhile, worlds away and high above the clouds, the first snowflake began to fall.

Chapter Text

Somewhere near the heart of the light world, north of Ordon and south of King Ralis' domain, a quiet phenomenon was beginning its journey from the bottom cloud layer to the surface of the earth, there to descend without warning on the kingdom of Hyrule and its surrounding provinces. The first flurries reached ground level at about two in the morning, settling on the roofs of houses, coating the streets of Castle Town in a mantle of freezing cold. It crowned the heads of fountains and outdoor statues with glistening white and wrapped the land in velvet silence, so that barely a sound could be heard no matter where you stood.

The realm's inhabitants were mostly unaware of this. Most of them were long asleep, it being nearly two hours past midnight in the onset of winter. One in particular was not, and so he was perhaps the only member of the audience at this opening concert of the season's symphony orchestra. Not the best spectator, perhaps, as he paid little heed to the tiny heralds of winter that pressed gentle feather touches to his exposed face and fingers, contact with his body heat transforming each flake to water almost instantly. He seemed to be in a hurry to finish saddling the horse who was stamping her hooves on the frosty ground in an effort to improve circulation to her extremities.

Link growled low in frustration as his numb fingers slipped once again while attempting to buckle Epona's bridle. There had been a time when this process would not even have been necessary, but his warping days were behind him and the Hero of Light was forced to travel step by step, the way regular mortals did. No more zipping from place to place, crossing dimensions, hitting up Snowpeak for soup and a snowboarding race with the yetis, and still making it to Lake Hylia in time for an after-dinner swim with King Ralis of the Zoras. Not that he'd ever had time for social meals and recreational swimming in his save-the-world days, but he had to admit to one or two fantasies about what life would be like after he was through.

He would not have imagined it like this. It was this particular keen sense of disillusionment which had prompted his midnight ride in the first place, as it had done on previous occasions. Having finally finished preparing Epona, he was now in the midst of galloping across Hyrule Field with no particular end in mind, barely aware of the wind biting through his tunic and whipping snowflakes across his vision. Inside, Link was in another place entirely, and this made him impervious not only to the weather, but to everything else the cold and the night threw across his heedless course.

He didn't see the river rushing up to meet his horse's hooves. He didn't even flinch as the faultlessly obedient mare plunged, on his careless direction, into the swollen tide and both of them were deluged in freezing water. They were climbing up the far bank before the facts of their situation even hit him, bringing with them a dull, belated spike of worry that faded as soon as it came.

He was almost too far gone to care.

Telma was awakened from deep sleep by an intermittent knock at her bar's front door, barely heavy enough to register in her ear; indeed, had it not been followed by another within a few seconds, she might not have woken up at all. Wrapped in a dressing gown and in no little ill humor, she opened the door a minute or two later to the alarming sight of the Hero soaked and staggering on her front doorstep, his lips blue with cold.

"Epona," he coughed without preamble, clutching the doorpost for support.

"Link!" Telma exclaimed, horrified. "Honey, what's happened?"

"Went for a ride," he explained, barely able to speak in complete sentences around his violently chattering teeth. "Fell in the river. Snowing outside. I'm fine. Epona's outside in the courtyard. Can you see to her?"

"Not until you get out of those clothes and into something dry," Telma said firmly, grabbing him by the shoulders and hauling him into the warm indoors. "'Went for a ride.' I'll give you 'went for a ride,' and no mistake. You'll be the death of me, boy, if you don't end up killing yourself through sheer reckless behavior first."

Shoving a set of dry men's clothing at him (one of the spares she kept on hand for the occasional guest who stayed the night) along with a few more well-deserved admonishments, Telma headed outside to see to the ill-used horse standing in her courtyard. By the time she returned, Link was mostly dried off, and insisted on knowing how Epona was faring.

"She's fine, no thanks to you," Telma assured him. "'Went for a ride.' A swim, more like! In the middle of a snowstorm! Anyhow, I put her up with a neighbor who has a few stalls built onto his inn, though I had to pay a far sight more than the travelers who had their mounts there. He didn't like being woken in the middle of a winter's night any more than I did, and when he saw your horse, he wanted to know what on Farore's green earth I'd done to her!"

"Was she - " Link began, but Telma cut him off again.

"He and his stable hands got her dried off and warm, and there didn't seem to be any lasting harm done. No thanks to you," she added once again.

"I'm s - "

"You had better be. Now," she snapped, sitting down across from him with a particularly fearsome scowl. "Explain yourself, and I'll have none of this 'went for a ride' business. Tell me what happened and why, from beginning to end. No evasions or I'll have your hide, and believe me, dark forces will look tame next to what I've got in store for you."

"Um," said Link, but got no further before she was off again.

"Really, what in Din's name were you thinking? This is so unlike you!"

"I know," he mumbled contritely. "I was…I'm sorry."

Head bowed, hunched in a small wooden chair by the fireside, the Hero's aspect was much more bedraggled than Telma was used to; even ragged with the wounds of a hundred different fights, the fate of several worlds resting on his shoulders, he had always seemed somehow invulnerable before now. It was something about his eyes, usually so piercing and intense, and a certain weariness in the set of his shoulders. Haunted at best, at worst defeated. In spite of herself, Telma's heart went out to the miserable figure in front of her who was, after all, barely more than eighteen years old.

"Aw, honey, don't look like that," she begged, putting a reassuring hand on his back. "Surely it's not all that bad."

"I hear her, Telma," Link said abruptly, raising his head to look her directly in the eye. "All the time, calling me. Searching. I can't even go to sleep without hearing her voice in my head. Or sometimes I see myself doing all the things we did, but alone, without her to help me, and I die. Every time. And Ganondorf wins. It's like my mind's way of reminding me that I would - that all of us would be dead or worse if not for her. What if something happens, like he said it would, and I can't stop it on my own?"

"Link, honey, I'm sure - "

"But that's not the worst part," he continued, as if she hadn't even spoken. "Sometimes I dream I'm the one looking, scouring everywhere we went and more places besides, walking the whole world over and I still can't find her. And then I wake up, and it's like I wasn't even dreaming. Because it's true. I'm looking, and I can't find her, and I need her, Telma. Never mind the light world or the twilight, I need her."

He stopped speaking and put his head in his hands. The Triforce mark on the left one looked almost transparent, an illusion created by the firelight. A few long moments slipped by in silence.

"Honey, I don't really know what to tell you," Telma said slowly. "You two did a lot together. You saved the whole world, and each other to boot, several times over. Bonds like that aren't meant to be severed in a matter of a few seconds…break something that strong that quickly, and both ends get all twisted up. They get warped on the inside as well as out. I think that's what's been the matter with you lately, and if I know anything, you can bet it's happening to her, too. I don't know Midna very well, but I can at least tell you that she's probably even worse off than you are."

Link was silent, not the worst reaction to her words, but not the one Telma had been hoping for, either.

"You should do something about it," she prompted. "Something big and heroic and dangerous, but" - she was suddenly stern again - "not a midnight gallop through a river in the middle of a snowstorm. Think of what you've put poor Epona through, not to mention me. Now, you're going to bed, and no arguments!"

There were none. Link did meekly as he was instructed and, having been installed on a spare mattress near the warm hearth, seemed within minutes to be asleep. Telma, however, knew he was not, because she could see his hands clutch into fists beneath the blankets, and occasionally his eyes would flicker open to stare up at the rafters on her ceiling.

Soon, however, she herself was back in her own bed and drifting into sleep, in spite of the troubled thoughts which had taken up residence in the particular corner of her mind she set aside for worrying about things she couldn't help. One of the last thoughts that occurred to her before she fell unconscious was an especially sad understanding of Link's situation.

Telma was an optimist, but privately, she had always thought that most heroes seemed more frail in their quiet moments than other folk did. Perhaps this was because, unlike ordinary people, heroes never did get happy endings of their own.

Chapter Text

Dawn came earlier than usual the morning of the council meeting, the Sols generating energy in ever-increasing quantities due to the lengthening daytime period that accompanied the summer season. Midna, as usual, woke with the gathering light, much to her irritation. She had been dreading this meeting for nearly a week. It seemed ludicrous to admit it; she was, after all, the one with the final say on whatever decisions were made in her realm. It was just so infuriatingly difficult to get anything done when it came to the council - a body made up of five to seven elected officials who were among the most gifted in shadow magic, a talent which had so far been almost exclusive to the royal bloodline. In other words, Midna's family.

After what he had put her through, she was loath to sound as if she was excusing any of Zant's actions, but she could almost begin to understand how their behavior had driven him to insanity. There was a reason she'd been adamant about not coming back until she regained her true form, and though that reason was multifaceted as much as any of her motivations, the primary issue was the way the royal line tended to operate.

First, there was the irritating complacency in matters of state; then, in private life, the constant formality that accompanied every occasion, every bath, every breakfast. It was like the ceremonial shadow armor Zant himself had worn every waking minute. An attempt to cement status, to appear invincible, important, distinguished, without being anything more than an appearance. For all it did to protect him in the end, that shadow armor might as well have been an empty suit, its owner's dying screams of rage and madness echoing from within the outer shell of his fruitless ambitions.

The memory of those screams made Midna's insides feel hollow, recalling what she'd done.

He deserved it, she reminded herself grimly. It doesn't matter what Sidhe thinks; the whole world is better off without that slimy, backstabbing coward. And, anyway, it wasn't like I knew for sure what the shadow magic would do.

Still, she was fully aware that she hadn't killed him by accident either. It wasn't as if she'd attacked blindly: in her fury and with the magic of her ancestors making her feel invincible for the first time since he had cursed her to hideous helplessness, she had wanted his life to end. Not the same thing, perhaps, as wanting to be the one to end it, but the shadows didn't work that way. They did not make that distinction. She lashed out, they obeyed, and suddenly the judgement had been made, the sentence carried out. There was no reversing it - and she wouldn't, even if she had that option.

Today, however, she might well pay for it. She had known since the moment itself that killing Zant with her own hands would bear dire consequences, effects she would not even start to feel until she was back dealing with their family once again.

Midna paused outside the entrance to the council meeting hall, one hand hovering over the door handle. The soldiers on either side of the doorway, part of the newly assigned guard (since her return she had been relentlessly doubling security), shifted aside for her with a respectful bow. She disliked making dramatic entrances, but here she was, ten minutes late, and it wasn't like they'd dare start without her. She took in a breath. Held it. Three, two, one.

Flinging both doors open simultaneously, she strode with regal confidence into the hall, spanning its full length in only a few long steps. As she took her seat in the chair of state, at the head of the elaborately carved stone table, her eyes briefly scanned the room and cataloged its occupants.

No Sidhe; that was a given. Zant's sister had resigned from her council position at the first opportunity. Sidhe had been firm: she would continue to recognize Midna as the rightful ruler of the Twilight Realm, and would show her all due respect and deference, but she would not serve as royal adviser to her brother's murderer. Midna didn't really see how calling your princess a murderer amounted to respect and deference, but she wasn't about to argue. Sidhe might be her cousin, but she also was one of the most difficult individuals Midna had ever had the displeasure of dealing with. Ruling in general would be a lot easier without Sidhe's voice on the council.

"Right," Midna sighed, her voice cutting through the oppressive stillness that lay heavy in the atmosphere. "We are now officially in session. Give me a rundown of affairs in...oh, say the time period since the Sols were restored."

Unsurprisingly, Adrek was the first to stand. He cleared his throat, straightening his cloak and hood of state with one hand, while the other grasped his sheet of notes the instant he caused it to materialize from the ether. As Zant and Sidhe's older brother, he and his mother Reci had not followed their kin's example in resigning from the council. In Reci's case, this was probably because she, in true royal fashion, never did anything whatsoever. Well, she did actually manage to complain a fair bit about her job, her food, the weather, certain legislative policies, and the difficulty of obtaining servants who heated the bathwater to the right temperature, but that was about it.

Her son, on the other hand, was a little harder to read. This was mostly because he actually seemed to have some sense; though he, like the rest of the council, seemed to prefer talk to action, his words stayed on topic more often, and his thought patterns were logical enough for her. So far, he had offered no explanation for his continued loyalty, but merely kept on acting as usual and avoiding direct confrontation. When he did speak on the subject of Zant's treachery and consequent demise, it was never for very long, and never in depth. That was fine with Midna: if Adrek didn't feel like bringing up the fact that she, his sovereign, had executed his scheming little brother when his little brother's schemes to permanently overthrow her sovereignty had gone a bit sideways, then she certainly wouldn't force him to. After all, she didn't suffer from a lack of things to brood about. One less was a plus in her book.

"My synopsis is as follows," Adrek announced. "At an unspecified time on what is commonly estimated to have been the fifth day of the month Ithras, in the year - "

"Can you please - could you just summarize?" Midna interrupted, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. Patience. Patience was the key; information was the door; peace in her realm would be the reward. Ancestors, she was sick of this already.

"Certainly," Adrek replied. A slight pause. "Would you like the full synopsis on your desk later?"

"That's fine; thank you, Councilor Adrek." Patience. Information. Peace in the realm.

"It is my honor to serve your Majesty. My synopsis in brief is as follows. At the moment when the Sols were restored, many of the Twili who had been cursed regained their former minds and bodies. Most experienced a period of extreme disorientation, during which time there were several reports of a...er, an individual clad in...strange garments, your Highness, and carrying a shining weapon. He is rumored to have been a light-dweller who was somehow able, through magic or some other means, to exist in physical form while here in our realm.

"These accounts can be chalked up to hallucination or even deliberate falsehood, but I would advise your Majesty to consider the fact that they originated from many different sources who were not in contact with one another during the time when the event allegedly occurred."

"Thank you, Councilor; I will look into it. Continue." Midna had been expecting this, but hadn't exactly prepared an explanation for the council. Now that the time had come, she decided to feign ignorance until the matter was forgotten.

Her working cover story was that she had been held personally by Zant, who had used forbidden black sorcery to obtain the power to sustain his true form in the light world, and she had killed him in order to escape. This part wasn't too far from the truth. She had not, however, told them about Ganondorf or her curse; she had not mentioned Link or Zelda or what they had sacrificed. It was just easier doing it that way, even having to watch out for the potential holes in her story, than to attempt to explain to the council how she and a light-dweller had embarked on an adventure spanning both dimensions to save them all from a problem even bigger than a power-mad member of the family. Zant's betrayal and the loss of the Sols alone had almost been too much for them to wrap their heads around.

"That's it, your Highness, about the light-dweller, anyway," Adrek replied, slightly hesitant. "Should I move on to current affairs as they stand in the realm?"

"That would be nice." Despite her efforts, a slight sarcastic edge crept into her tone.

At this, Midna caught a slight flash of motion further down the table and, glancing in that direction, met with the amused stare of her uncle, Jesdan. She had to swiftly look away in order to avoid grinning. A few moments later, as Adrek continued speaking, she saw him subtly roll his eyes. This movement was obviously directed towards her, as no one in the room besides the two of them possessed a sense of humor or irony.

Jesdan was the only member of her family she could actually manage to tolerate outside council meetings, and as such, was the only one she'd ever had anything close to a real relationship with. Short and skinny with a great unruly mop of hair and a permanent grin plastered across his angular features, he was possessed of an odd goofball charm that was somewhat endearing, if occasionally annoying. All Twili had hair in shades of red, usually varying from orange to auburn. Jesdan, on the other hand, appeared as if his head was on fire. Also unlike most Twili, he had a slight beard which added roughness to the lower half of his face and gave him the appearance of a scruffy rogue rather than the experienced councilman he was expected to be at his age.

This impression was an accurate one, as Jesdan had only been in active service on the council for two years. Since the commencement of his marriage (rather late in life by their family's standards) to Lytha, a change had seemed to take place in his attitude. Then there was his completely unprecedented insistence on his wife's admission to the council, a matter that had caused no little consternation when it was first proposed.

At the time, the main concern had been that Lytha, despite being a gifted augur, was not among those who had historically served the royal family. An odd fact, in Midna's opinion, since the ability to commune with the guardian spirits was as rare a gift as shadow magic, and nearly as valuable. Though augurs did not rule, they did advise those who did; Midna herself and many of her contemporaries had sought the counsel of her father's topmost diviners during their years training for office and the subsequent election.

Before she became the first ever member of the council with not a drop of royal blood in her veins, Lytha had been a farmer. She and a slightly younger Jesdan had first met in the palace kitchens, where he had taken to conferring with the chefs while he experimented with his own recipes, and she had been delivering her produce for years. It was a long time before he was able to break the shell of aloof reserve which had seemed from the beginning to set her apart from the rest of the world, but his particular cheerful brand of stubbornness had apparently won out in the end. So far, he had been the only one to do so. Midna had known the woman for almost half a decade and still wasn't sure what to make of her.

"...common set of problems found in every region," Adrek was saying. "Along with loss of property all around, there have been a few issues specifically affecting the small farming communities in the southeast. Based on most reports, it is probable that this dearth is a direct result of damages sustained over the past year, when they withered due to lack of tending and light from the Sols, which, as we all know, had been removed from their rightful places, cutting off the flow of energy in the entire realm.

"While our capitol itself has yet to feel the effects of this sudden famine, due to our provisional stores kept by in case of events like this one, the situation in the rest of the land is more urgent."

"We need a way to feed all these people, and fast," Midna summarized with a quick nod of understanding, ignoring the tight knot of panic that kept trying to draw threads of her reason and self-control into its web. This, too, she had anticipated - she just hadn't expected it to be this bad. Either that, or she hadn't even been willing to think about it.

"Your Majesty," Lytha murmured.

All heads in the room turned in the direction of the tall, wraithlike Twili sitting at the far end of the table, who in turn regarded the onlookers impassively with iris-less orange eyes. Such was the pull of her voice alone, which throbbed in quiet cadences below normal speaking volume, yet seemed to carry farther than a shout. Privately, Midna found this - and everything else about her - unsettling.

"Yes, Councilor?" Midna nodded, giving her permission to speak.

"Perhaps we in the palace could share some of our provisions with the common people. I propose a rationing system - "

There was a sound of protest from Reci's general direction. Lytha continued speaking as if she had not heard.

" - where a certain amount of nonperishable goods is allotted for each member of the population until the current situation abates somewhat. I am sure there will be objections to this temporary measure, so I leave it to your Majesty's judgement to decide the best course of action."

"Oh, Lytha, you would be the one to speak up for the common folk. After all, you were one of them, weren't you?" Reci put in. Her breathy little voice carried a hint of false indulgence and bucketloads of very real disdain.

There was a beat of silence in the wake of that remark; all the while, Reci stared down her nose at Lytha, who remained expressionless as ever. Then Lytha spoke, quietly and steadily.

"I still am, Councilor."

Midna raised an eyebrow, impressed. Reci snorted loudly and opened her mouth to deliver a rejoinder.

"Okay, that's enough," Midna cut in, waving aside her aunt's petulant glare. "Councilor Reci, if you're worried about the kind of food you'll be stuck eating, I can assure you that the wellbeing of the people is more important. I agree with Councilor Lytha. We'll start sending both food and relief workers to the provinces. Someone also needs to supervise this project and make sure all the goods reach their respective destinations. Any volunteers?"

"If I may, your Majesty," said Lytha, "I would be happy to undertake this responsibility myself, but I feel that the people would benefit from direct contact with their sovereign, so that she might offer herself to them as a guiding light and reassuring presence during this trying period. Might you consider setting out alongside the supplies and stopping in each village to greet your subjects in person?"

"Hm," Jesdan frowned. "You know, that's a pretty good idea. I'm definitely in favor."

"Your Majesty, I'm not sure - " Adrek began.

"Well of course she's not going!" Reci huffed. "A princess belongs in her palace, ruling. Not gallivanting all over the realm, patting village brats on the head and giving them the food off her plate, the clothes off her back. What a notion!"

That settled it. At the mention of leaving the palace, Midna had felt a stir of hope begin to swirl beneath her breastbone: she had lately begun to find the place oppressive. Since the initial feelings of triumph from her return had ebbed, she'd been feeling not only hollow, but restless. She had given everything for this world; why not go out and see for herself in sharp clarity what it was she'd so readily sacrificed her own happiness to preserve? Now, with Reci so vehemently against it, Midna was fairly sure of the proposal's worth.

"I'm going," she said, standing up. "What's more, I'm leaving tonight."

"I'm not certain that's wise," Lytha cautioned. "If I may, I advise your Majesty to take at least a week to prepare before departing, or chances are that both you and whoever will rule in your absence will be inadequately prepared."

"Okay, then you do it," said Midna.

"I beg your Majesty's pardon?"

"You rule in my absence," she clarified. "That's okay, right, Jesdan? For someone who isn't a royal to be regent?"

"Don't look at me; you're the boss. I've got no idea how these things go," Jesdan shrugged. "But I think whoever you nominate is fine. And if anyone's up to the job, it's my girl here."

"Jesdan's girl" didn't seem to agree, but she set her mouth firmly and replied, "I will be honored to accept any responsibility your Majesty sees fit to assign."

"Great, then that's settled," Midna nodded. "Now, if no one's got anything else to say - "

Adrek cleared his throat and shuffled his papers; Midna ignored him and plowed on.

" - then I'm going to go back to my apartments and pack. Dismissed."

With that, the Twilight Princess stepped away from the table and left the hall of council as quickly as she'd come.

Chapter Text

The letter ended up arriving sooner than expected. Link had almost forgotten about it by the time it appeared, barely two weeks after he had visited the castle's sole fully restructured wing and spoken with Zelda's secretary. In doing so, he'd been acting at least in part upon Telma's advice: since leaving her inn the morning after she'd rescued him from the storm, he'd mulled over the questions she posed and formulated a plan of action, which, while not necessarily guaranteed to work, might at least give him something else to go on. Having applied as soon as possible for an audience with the princess, he had settled back patiently in anticipation of a long wait, immersing himself in the idyllic revolution that was life in a sleepy little village which had recently woken up.

Lately, Ordon was not so much galloping forward into modern life as it was slowly but steadily loping over ground that most other areas of civilization had already covered. It followed its own pace as much as it always had. Though no formal ceremonies were being held to honor Link's contributions until the rebuilt castle was ready to host one, rumors spread as rumors do and curious townsfolk were all the same. All of this meant Ordon could not remain long isolated from public notice. It wasn't as if any visitor ever stayed long - Ordon really didn't have much to offer in the way of tourism besides a taste of ranch life and the best (in fact, the only) goat cheese in the country - but there was now a constant trickle of newcomers flowing in and out that had never before been present. Most of these were rich townsfolk, come to gawk at the provincial settlement which had ended up producing some of the land's finest heroes. A few were a little more out of the ordinary.

It was one such caller, a knight of the princess's royal guard, who delivered Link's mail in place of the regular Postman (who had come anyway out of curiosity, peering raptly over Link's shoulder with boggled eyes as the latter slit the thick parchment envelope and unfolded the message within). The letter was not only signed by the princess, but written and addressed in Zelda's own hand. She had composed the entire thing herself, written directly to him to say that, as Hyrule's own Hero and savior, he had no need to remain on the general list for the full waiting period, but must come as her personal guest as soon as more urgent matters had been fully resolved.

This had resulted in his application being bumped up the waiting list by almost a month, an advantage which Link felt was slightly unfair. He would have preferred to wait in the same line as the rest of her subjects. Still, he didn't see what else he could do but accept privileged treatment, having been provided with such a cordial invitation from Hyrule's reigning monarch and a specific date and time for his "visit."

And so it was that Link found himself outside Zelda's private apartments the very next day, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot and trying to stay focused on his reason for being there. While he waited to be admitted, he repeatedly ran over the items on his mental list, starting with the general and moving on to more specific sub-categories. Reminding himself once again that he was not there because he already had a plan, but out of his need for one.

After not too lengthy a wait, the guard outside the chamber poked his head inside for a moment, then held the heavy wooden door open with a wordless nod. The man remained there long enough for Link to enter, then bowed his way out, shutting the door behind him.

Princess Zelda of Hyrule sat at her polished mahogany desk, writing busily. Three tall pyramids of books rose like parchment mountains from the floor to her left, the farthest side away from the unlit hearth, and several similar stacks lined the back of the room. Nearly every volume appeared to be heavily damaged. There were some with pages charred around the edges, others with leather covers stained and swollen by water, still others caked in a strange grey dirt that might have been rock dust. Most of the room had been converted into a makeshift study, with piles of unused scrolls lying beside ones already written on; a neatly stacked collection of used pens and empty ink bottles was sitting by the door. The temperature in the room was absolutely freezing, but Zelda did not appear to feel it. As Link approached, her moving hand did not slow; her eyes never left the page.

"Princess." Link gave the standard greeting of a knight to his monarch, sinking to one knee on the icy floor.

"Rise, Hero," replied Zelda. "It is far too cold for kneeling. I sometimes have a fire, but never in here. The books might catch alight."

"Thank you, Your Highness." He stood.

"Please, sit down." She waved the hand which was not writing in a vague southwesterly direction. "There's a chair in the corner; you can pull it up beside me. May I ask your reason for coming?"

Link crossed the room to the corner she indicated, where a battered suit of armor, salvaged from the ruins of the former structure, loomed over the chair he was supposed to be retrieving. He eyed it warily as he scooted the wooden seat towards the center of the room. The problem with Hyrule Castle's standing armor was that each suit looked exactly like most Darknuts he had fought. There was no telling the difference until it moved - and promptly started trying to kill you. Though Link thought it extremely unlikely that any of these monsters still remained after Ganon's defeat, as far as he was concerned, you couldn't be too careful.

"I needed your advice," Link admitted after seating himself a respectful distance away from Zelda's desk. "There's something I've been wondering about, and I thought you might know more than most people."

"I do know more than most people, generally," she answered dryly, the words straightforward and untouched by any form of conceit. "It depends on which subject, though."

And here it was. Moment of truth. Link breathed in and exhaled twice, deeply, before he spoke.

"The Mirror of Twilight."

Zelda's pen froze abruptly in the middle of a word and hovered motionless above the page. Without its scribbling, the room suddenly seemed too quiet.

"Link..." Her voice held a warning in its tone, a note of wariness that hadn't been there before.

"I'm not trying to undo Midna's decision," he said hurriedly. "I'm just trying to find out - I mean, I was wondering if you knew - if that was the only portal."

She took a few moments to reply, staring straight ahead with a pensive expression, as if deciding how best to answer. Finally, she set down her pen and turned to face him fully.

"Hero," she sighed, "You have done both myself and this land a great service. However, I am still bound above all things to protect my kingdom, and the rest of the world the goddesses created, against all threat. You understand that this duty comes before any debt I may owe to my fellow guardians of order."

"I do understand," Link deferred, bowing his head. Disappointment clawed at his insides, his heart seeming to sink below the stones at their feet, but he forced his shoulders to stay straight, reminding himself that he had known this might happen. No matter what burdens held him down, Hyrule was more important.

"So I need to be aware of your reasons for seeking these answers before I tell you anything," the princess finished.

Link lifted his eyes slightly, questioningly, until they met Zelda's. Her deep grey irises were steady and solemn, yet a slight hint of amusement stirred them as he opened his mouth with hopeful hesitance.

"As I said, I'm not trying to reverse what Midna did," he qualified. "It's just been bothering me, ever since she said goodbye to us, how final it was. I guess...we'd been through so much that it seems surreal to have it all end so abruptly. I've tried, but I can't - "

"Accept that we are never going to see the Twilight Princess again," she completed his sentence for him. Had he imagined the tremor in her voice over the last word?

"Yeah," Link murmured, letting his eyes fall again to the floor.

"I understand what you are feeling, Link," the princess addressed him gently. "But you must know that Midna made her own decision when she closed the path between dimensions, and she did it in the interest of both worlds. It was her right as the true ruler of the Twili to destroy the mirror, and it is not for us to decide in hindsight whether her choice was the wisest one under the circumstances. You must understand that in doing what she did, the Twilight Princess prevented anything like the recent war from ever occurring again."

Link shook his head. "Not according to Ganondorf."

"Ganondorf," she murmured, her gaze wandering again. "He may have been lying, and he may not have. We cannot know until the crucial hour comes upon us whether it will truly spell our doom. Peril or peace; the coin is still spinning, and we have no way of knowing until it falls which side it will land on."

"No, we don't," he agreed. "But we can be vigilant. I know what Midna was trying to do, Your Highness. The mirror was...unnatural."

"But you hope to find a more congruous means of egress." The look she fixed him with now was unreadable.

"Perhaps," he agreed cautiously. "You see, I've been doing some research lately into the separate dimensions. Not just the Twilight, but the Sacred Realm as well. Religious texts. Did you know that when Ganon was first sentenced to death, it was for trying to take over the place where the Triforce rested? If the rulers of the kingdom had not been warned in time, he might have succeeded. Then, this time, it's the Twilight...does that parallel seem significant to you?"

"Naturally," the princess nodded, still with that sphinxlike expression.

"Well, some rare versions of the ancient texts say that the hero of legend actually prevented Ganondorf's invasion of the Sacred Realm by being the means through which he entered it in the first place. Apparently, a door of some sort was opened by the hero, and Ganondorf followed him to the other side. The rest is pretty muddled, and none of the stories agree on exactly what happened. It's uncertain, but I think the hero was able to defeat Ganon in an alternate timeline, then return to his own time and warn the current ruler about what would happen if they failed to protect the portal."

"I've heard the stories," Zelda confirmed. "No one alive can verify whether this actually occurred, but I have spoken with the Spirits of Light, and..."

She trailed off, fingering the edge of her paper as she stared into space. "Why are you telling me this? You must think that some kind of portal still exists."

"I don't know," he shrugged. "But I did enter a kind of portal at the temple in the woods...a door through time, at least. I opened it with the Master Sword. That's how I managed to enter the Temple of Time even after it was destroyed."

"Your point being?"

"What if that portal had another function...before it was sealed?" Link spoke quickly now, in a rush to get the words out before she ended the conversation or assumed he was crazy. "What if it was once a gateway to the Sacred Realm? And what if that wasn't the only gateway from this world to another?"

"It wasn't." She was frowning at him, hard. "There was the Mirror, but it was destroyed."

"No, the Mirror didn't exist then. Not until the goddesses gave it to the Sages," he corrected. "Lanayru told me the story. The ancestors of the Twili tried to take over the Sacred Realm - proof that a portal to that realm must have existed back then, too - and were later banished to the Twilight as punishment. So...what if the Mirror was only created out of necessity? Zant definitely seemed to be able to travel back and forth without it. What if there were another entrance to the Twilight, which for some reason wasn't accessible during the time of the Ancient Sages? What if we could somehow locate that entrance now?"

"What indeed?" Zelda countered. "Would you attempt to cross over? And if you succeeded? What then?"

"I don't know," Link conceded. The tiniest measure of the enormous doubt inside him leaked through and colored his voice with desperation. "At this point, I don't even know what I'd do with a portal if I had one right here and now. I just know I have to do something. I've been sitting around for three months, just trying and trying to accept what's happened, and I can't anymore. I just can't."

Once again, Zelda said nothing for a long time. She stared at the parchment scroll before her, as with the tips of her fingers she repeatedly rolled and unrolled the edge. Her lips moved briefly and for a fragment of time, she seemed to stare into something he couldn't see. Her expression was odd, as if she were asking someone a question.

Should I?

If this was her question, or if it was answered, he couldn't say. The clouds passed from her expression in barely a moment, and when she again resumed talking, it was on a seemingly unrelated topic.

"I'm trying to restore all these books," the princess said, gesturing to the multiple stacks surrounding her. "When the castle was destroyed, you see, it took most of the library with it. Some were buried in the rubble. Others burned. Some even fell into the waterways and washed down to the city. Citizens were picking pages out of the sewers and the fountain for weeks, and there were several committees formed whose purpose was to to salvage as many documents as they could. Everything they found is now in this room. This room is all that's left of centuries' worth of priceless knowledge. The rest has been lost forever."

As she spoke, Zelda's sorrow became tangible, in her voice and in her eyes as she gazed on all that was left of her kingdom's printed history.

"So I'm doing what I can," she concluded. "I'm taking what's left and copying it onto scroll after scroll, deciphering the parts that are almost unreadable. It's tedious work, but it's something that almost any scribe could do without too much trouble."

"So why are you doing it yourself?" Link wondered. "You can't have that much time on your hands."

"I don't," she confirmed, smiling slightly. "I'm doing this in my free time, between hearing citizens' concerns and supervising the construction and restoration committees. I'm doing it because I want to, because it matters to me. I guess it's because, now that the war's finally behind us, I find that I still need a special purpose, something beyond my ordinary duties. I'm telling you this because I think you're the same, Hero. You need a quest."

Link stared at her for a second or two, a small smile of his own beginning to tug at the corners of his lips.

"You're right," he said softly. "That's just it. Thank you, Highness."

"Don't thank me," Zelda laughed. "I'm not behind this quest of yours at all. But I suppose I'm not against it either. At any rate, I will tell you this much."

She ripped off a piece from the scroll's lower right corner and scribbled a few lines on it with her pen. Then she folded the scrap in half and handed it to Link, who took her offering gratefully and tucked it into one of the leather pouches on his belt.

"How you use that is up to you," she said. "But do as it tells you, and you should be able to find out something useful."

"Thank you, Princess," Link repeated, falling again to one knee and bowing his head with gratitude.

"You are very welcome, Hero," Zelda answered, inclining her own head graciously. "It is the least I can offer someone who has done so much in Hyrule's service."

As Link made to leave the chamber, he hesitated, turning back to face her with one hand on the door handle.

"Princess?"

"Yes?" she answered, preoccupied once again with her task.

"I have some books at home that you might not have copies of here. Would you like me to bring them by sometime so you can add them to your records?"

Pausing for a moment in her writing, Zelda looked up at him with her largest smile yet.

"Please do," she replied emphatically.