LOZ:Twilight Princess:Ch.29 Rev

----Chapter 29: A Shard of Yeta


As if the snow had finally served its purpose, Link felt frozen to the mountaintop.  Mouth agape and eyes fixed straight ahead, his surprise moved him to a loss of ability.  It stood nearly three lengths more than Link's size, and its wide body was covered in thick layers of white fur.  Its darkened face resembled that of a man; though, the features were more squished in appearance and partly covered in a huge beard.  In its left hand, it held a flopping reekfish at almost the same measurements as Link.

"Uh, I heard ruckus!" the beast-man said, voice booming across the vast range of the white peaks.  Link only stopped backing up when he added, "But, uh, only human.  I see humans not often.  Why human come to the snows?  You, uh … on spiritual journey?"

His sudden conversationalist attitude took Link aback for a moment.  The frightful beast of Snowpeak had turned out to be as nonthreatening as the fish it held.  After a moment wherein Link's shock had receded, he confirmed the snow man's assumption.

"Hmm.  You make good climb!" he approved, as if proud that a small human could have expended such energy.  "You hungry, I think, then?  Come eat at Yeto's house!" he said, waving the fish, apparently without realizing that Link had been able to see it just the same as it had dangled from his fist.

"But it is far away, so we slide there, uh?" the beast-man continued.  "Come, come. Do like me."

Link followed the mountain dweller to what he surmised passed as a tree on the somewhat flattened summit of the mountain.  It had sprouted forth from the edge of the mountain, where the terrain beyond it sloped and wound back down around the mountain.  The tree was comprised of merely bark, except for the few clusters of leaves that had fused together over the course of the plant's life.  However, when Yeto slammed his giant fist into the trunk, several of them were dislodged.  Link guessed that they were nearly as long as half his size, but also--as he learned when Yeto placed his foot onto one--as large as the beast-man's foot.

Yeto kicked off with his other foot and began his descent.  Link moved quickly so that the beast would not escape his vision.  Instincts kicked in, and as if all in the same moment he whipped the shield from his back to land face down in the snow, tucked his toe under he grip, and kicked off with his other foot.

His speed grew swifter as he moved down the mountain, shifting his weight constantly to follow the curves and dips in its surface.  He kept his body pulled in tight as close to his shield as he could crouch while remaining capable of moving his hips and knees as the mountain directed.  Though Yeto's weight carried him faster, he stayed within Link's line of sight.  Coming to an open gap between this mountain and another, Link jumped the distance, his board shield barely losing any momentum when it again struck ground.  A screech vibrated through the metal into Link's bones.  He had landed on ice ... and he was nearing the edge of a cliff.

Link utilized the iron patches on his free boot to slow his skid and plunged a dagger into the ice to correct his course.  Narrowly escaping the plummet over the cliff, he continued in this manner for some time, gliding down the snowy mountains with a natural ease.  As he settled into sledding, he found himself smiling despite the harsh winds that pelted against him and bit at his flesh.  His memories flashed to the southern hills of Ordon and mud-sledding with Fado when he was twelve years old.  He remembered how boisterously Bo had laughed when Fado had crashed into one of the goats, sending it into a rage and chasing after the lad.  

Link often thought ... if his days ended over the next horizon, he had lived a rather full life.  There was no denying how much happiness had been crammed into his short life.  Clinging to those memories, remembering that happiness was a tangible thing ... it helped him go on.

The exciting descent ended quite soon.  Link wound around one of the last turns and saw that there was a lone ice tower that rose out of the gorge between two mountains.  A narrow stone bridge had been constructed from the pillar, attaching it to the surface of the mountain that Yeto and Link slid down.  Link reached the bridge after coiling around one last bend in the snow.  He continued to skid across the stone, stopping only when his shield made contact with the base of the long staircase that stretched upward to the mouth of a rather grand mansion.

Link kicked off the shield and stomped his other foot free of ice particles.  As he returned his shield to his back, Link took a better look at the house of the mountain dweller.  He had not had the luxury to stare at its wonder on his descent for fear of straying from his course and tumbling into the depths of the canyon--one deeper than that of Kakariko.

Its façade reminded him slightly of what Hyrule Castle might look like in a few hundred years.  The building was broken and cracked in many places; though, the stones held themselves together better than what those of the Arbiter's Grounds had managed.  Simple columns held up a rather plain pediment.  Within the squared structure, Link spotted a tower that rose above the walls.

"He's got a nice place--for a beast-man," said Midna, also seemingly impressed by the still magnificent nature of the grand ruins of the Snowpeak province.

Link ascended the slick steps and entered the door that had been left open to him.  The foyer was a massive work of amazing design.  Lining the entryway were armored figures, three to each side, all either carrying a spear or an iron ball and chain.  Moving into the foyer, Link found it in a ruined state.  Two staircases rose to the second floor above the first level doorway that he presumed led into the rest of the house.  However, both staircases were inaccessible due to the damage that had been dealt to them by the sections of the ceiling that had fallen in.  Paintings covered parts of the walls; however, most of them had been severely torn up by weather damage, making their subjects now impossible to decipher.  Chandeliers were suspended above him, but distrusting the rest of the ceiling, Link moved fast underneath them to escape their shadows.

"Well, at least it's cozier than being outside," remarked Midna, as Link tightened his cloak around him.

Link nodded and proceeded toward the door.  In the next room, Link found an odd comfort.  It was a large, partly red-carpeted room in which more paintings adorned the walls.  Most dangled at crooked angles, but their subjects could still be clearly seen.  At the middle of the opposing wall, a fireplace crackled with orange flames.  There were only a few small windows that allowed natural moonlight to immerse portions of the room.  

Another beast creature sat on a couch next to the fire.  It turned to face Link, the sudden draft from the foyer blowing in momentarily until Link had once again sealed the door behind him.  "Oh?  Who?"

"I followed Yeto here…." said Link, unsure how to properly address the second beast of Snowpeak.

"Ah.  I Yeta.  Husband said we had visitor, but he like to joke a lot."  Link had only been able to distinguish its feminine gender by its voice and its claim as a wife.  She did not seem as tall as Yeto, but clearly she was also of a beastly kind.  "He in next room.  He fix soup.  You have some, too?"

Link shrugged.  There was an awkward pause in which he could not find anything to say to her in return, and after a few moments, he retreated into the other room.  "I'm going to talk with Yeto."

"Uh, would help husband, but I have sickness," she replied, as if trying to excuse the laziness she must have thought Link had suspected of her.

Again at a loss for words, Link simply nodded and offered a sympathetic smile.  He opened the door off to the right quickly to escape the uncomfortable atmosphere with Yeta, but once he entered into the kitchen with Yeto, he realized that being in the company of either of the beasts of Snowpeak made him feel unsettled.  Perhaps it was simply that he did not know what to say to them or how to react to their words, their strange manner.

"Ah, puny human!" Yeto seemed to scream from behind his boiling pot of stew.  The container within which the beast-man cooked his soup was nearly as tall as his white body.  Positioned above a mound of burning wood that rested within a small indentation in the floor, the pot sent wicked bursts of steam into the air, and the soup itself smelled as if the cook had simply thrown in an array of different tastes without actually having an idea as to what food could mix with another.  To Link, the soup did not smell appetizing.

"Come, come!" called Yeto.  "You see wife?" he asked.  Then he shook his monstrous head.  "Not feel good."  But after a moment of staring into his concoction--from which the head of the reekfish stared outward still whole--he looked toward Link again.  "You help cook soup for wife?"

"Link," Midna murmured impatiently within his shadow, "we don't have time to nurse them!  We need to get going to find that Mirror piece."

But there was something about this place, something that called out to him.  Perhaps it was simply coincidence, but … Yeta appearing sick and tired….

A dangerous power resides in those fragments….  The words of the sages rang out at Link so powerfully that his realization had to have been audible--the way the obvious truth had just clicked into place.

It was here.  The Mirror shard lay within these ruins.

Therefore--instead of wandering off uninvited further into the beasts' home--Link offered his help with the soup.  Perhaps if he gained their absolute trust and prodded any information out of them, he would simply be allowed to explore the house further.  They did not seem like complicated individuals, and Link was sure that obtaining information from them would be in no way difficult.  Yeto had already offered him--a stranger--to enter his home and to allow him accessibility to his sick wife.

Yeto was by no standards an impossible, distrusting individual.

"Good, good!" clapped the beast-man, perhaps a little cheery at the fact that he had a guest to keep him company.  "Now.  Soup need flavor….  Uh, what flavor?"  His eyes sparked.  "Ah, pumpkin!  See if can find pumpkin.  They somewhere."

Yeto's broad wave about the large, open kitchen told Link straightaway that he had not been much of one that kept an organized kitchen. Though, as Link looked about the room, he realized that had he glanced around when he had first entered, he would have seen the disarray that ailed the kitchen.  High shelves were lined against the walls at every conceivable angle, and Link wondered how the wide breadth of the beast-man had ever been able to squeeze through their aisles to reach any of his ingredients within the crates that filled the shelves.  Tables were also pressed up against the walls, their tops crowded with a variety of bloody meats--which made Link wonder how differently the beast would have reacted to meeting him had he been in his lupine form.

Brow uplifted at the seemingly impossibility of the proposed task, Link set to sorting through the many crates of the shelves regardless.  During his search he took up the opportunity to begin his mild interrogation.  "How did you wife become sick?" he called through the congested units.

"Not healthy since mirror," Yeto explained.  "So I make soup for her.  Fish from Zora village most nutritious!  Give you energy!"

Link felt Midna squirm within his shadow; her impatience had suddenly switched from Link's willingness to help to Yeto's sloppy language that seemed to drag along due to his lack of ability to remain solely focused upon one topic.

"Needs more punch," the beast-man said, immediately distracted.  He sniffed at the air.  "Good smell, uh….  Ah!" the beast had finally cornered the scent that had seeped into his nostrils, yanking up a wad of something that Link could not identify.  And he silently begged that Yeto would not offer any of the mixture to him once it had been completed.  He tossed the lump into the blend of other foods and breathed in a deep whiff.  "Mmm!  Cheese perfect ingredient, uh!"

Link thanked the gods that the mound of what had appeared whitish clay had been edible, though, he continued to wonder if the clump had still been fresh enough for consumption.

"You find pumpkin yet, uh?"

Rummaging through another pile of boxes, Link replied negatively.  Yeto began to hum a tune that sounded more like a grumbling animal than music.  Link broke into the beast-man's melody as he turned yet again to another shelf.  "So, this Mirror you mentioned…."

"Uh, yeah.  Found it on mountain one day," he answered in his vague manner.

Just as Link realized that the beast-man had nothing else he intended to say in response to Link's inquiry, he had finally located a bruised looking pumpkin in one of the lower crates.  He pulled it out of its stuffy container, and it felt as heavy as a small boulder.  He carried it over to Yeto within his struggling arms' embrace.  Yeto, however, excited by the appearance of the fruit, yanked the bright orange lump into his giant palm and threw it into the stew.

Yeto sniffed at the steam radiating from the soup.  "Mmm!  Smells good, uh!"  He suddenly whipped out a club utensil and began mashing at the stew within the large pot.  "Wife feel better when she drink this," he assured, smiling as he pounded at the boiling, soupy potion.

Link was not altogether convinced that anyone would wish to drink such a stew, but these beasts had lived on Snowpeak--virtually on an island to themselves--for a period of time that Link could not guess.  But perhaps their kind took pleasure in uncommon and bizarre foods.

Pleased with his work, Yeto enlisted Link's help to then pour the soup into rather large bowls.  Link grew concerned when Yeto grabbed a third bowl, his stomach silently objecting to even the thought of testing the stew on his tongue.  However, Yeto had been kind enough to offer his home to Link, so he refused to openly reject the hospitality of his host.

They carried the three bowls into the sitting room.  The large spoons within each concoction whirled around the edges back and forth as they stepped inside and over to the fireplace.  Yeto handed down a bowl to his wife and sat beside her with his at hand.  Link remained without a chair in which to seat himself, however, and he gave a mental shrug.  He laid his giant bowl on the red carpeting and lowered himself to sit opposite the yeti beasts.

Link clasped the tool within the soup and stirred it around the many chunks within.  Its yellowish tint did nothing to quell his belly's disturbed gurgles.  Just as he was about to politely try a sip, Yeto broke into conversation, halting Link's hand--gratefully--as he looked up to listen.

"So, you said you on spiritual journey, uh?" he said.  "Seems weird place to travel for human."

Link's gaze fell to his stew, but his eyes stared blindly past its still bubbling surface.  His hand slowly fell, the tip of the spoon coming to rest at the bottom of the bowl as his fingers hung upon its handle limply.  Now was as good a time as ever.  He had to tell Yeto the truth of why he had come to the mountains, but only as much as was necessary to gain his further cooperation.

"I am afraid I was not completely honest," admitted Link.  He glanced back up at the snow beasts.  "I journeyed into Snowpeak because I was looking for an artifact … a shard of a mirror."

"Uh?"  Link wasn't sure whether this guttural noise had been good or bad; he found it difficult to read Yeto's expression.  Soon, however, his face transformed into a readable frown.  "You look for Yeta's mirror?"  He scratched his white chest.  "You want look at mirror, uh?"

"It pretty thing," Yeta added.  Then her face fell into a frown full of a distress deeper than her husband's.  "But ... since I get mirror, I get sick….  So we lock bedroom where it hangs, uh?"

Passing his eyes from to the other, Link tried to judge how precious the item had become to them.  He suspected that however much Yeta had once appreciated the gleaming surface of the mirror piece, her sickness due to its presence had likely opened her mind to the thought of someone carrying it away.  After this long moment, wherein Yeta had again taken to eating her soup, Link interjected into the silence, "I don't suppose … I could have a look at the mirror?  To see if it's the one I've been looking for."

Link prepared himself for the worst.  He did not believe that the beasts would turn upon him in anger, but he had learned to be prepared for any unexpected attack--even from simple-minded mountain dwellers like Yeto and Yeta.

"I take you there after soup," said Yeto finally, and Yeta smiled in agreement.

He nodded his thanks and turned back to his soup.  He knew he had to force himself to eat it, but he was hoping that he would not be expected to empty the bowl entirely into his stomach.  Link scooped out a spoonful of the liquid and brought it cautiously to his lips, mindful of the slurping and smacking sounds that Yeto created.

The soup was not exactly what Link had expected.  Perhaps if he had not watched on as it had been mixed, he would have been more open to the sustenance in the first place.  When he touched the soup to his lips and licked it off to gauge the taste, he found that it was not as repulsive as he had first believed.  The aftertaste, though, was another matter.  After he had gulped down three spoonfuls, he realized that the mixture of the reekfish, pumpkin, and the strange cheese did not exactly suit his taste buds.  Nevertheless, he ate as much as he could under the circumstance.  He needed to remain in the yetis' good graces if he was going to be allowed to venture further into their home to look at the mirror piece … and negotiate to take it if it did turn out to be that for which he had been searching.

A long silence stretched over the trio as they ate the steaming, chunky soup, until finally Link set aside his bowl.  He did not want to completely fill his stomach in case this quiet moment was interrupted by some sinister force.  When he looked up, he saw sunlight beginning to dance on the windows once more.  A few moments later, he heard Yeta set a now empty bowl beside her.  When Link's eyes met with hers, she immediately stood up.  To answer the questioning looks on both Yeto and Link's faces, she looked down at the young Hylian, "Feel much better now.  I take to mirror."

Link looked to Yeto, unsure if he should proceed without the male's consent.  But Yeto simply shrugged, and went back to his soup after promising to join them after he finished.

Link followed Yeta's waddling form out through one of the other doors.  He not only passed into another section of the house, but he had also stepped outside, for the rest of the building was completely open to the chill air.  It was as if a ceiling in these interconnected central areas of the house had never existed.  Perhaps it had been constructed in this manner, for Link could not see any indications in the tops of the walls where a ceiling might have been attached.

Yeta led him across the fields of snow-covered stones to the furthest wall.  At the center, the tower Link had seen from the outside of the house rose into the sky.  Stair steps led them upward to a walkway attached to the side of the wall, and they followed it toward the tower.  They soon reached the tower and followed another walkway that spiraled upward to the top.  At the highest point, a blue stoned door faced them, entangled in several layers of chains, and a lock dangled near the center of the door, acting as a hub for all the steel ropes that bound its entryway shut.

The beast-woman pulled out a key, the handle of which resembled a heart, and inserted its sharp point into the lock.  She shoved it in deep before turning it.  A loud click sounded and was followed by the rattles of dropping chains.  She and Link pulled at the remaining suspended chains and kicked them all away from their path leading inside.

"Please," said Yeta.  "You come inside."

Link did so at once, entering behind her into a massive room.  This bedroom--aside from the evident majesty that the foyer still partly beheld--had been the only room in the entire ruined mansion that had retained any real luster from the ages in which it had been constructed.  The walls reached high above, crowded by two rows of embellished windows.  The tracery that covered the topmost windows reminded Link of Princess Zelda's dungeon-like chamber wherein he had once spied her looking down upon what had become of the people of her kingdom.

Personal decoration within the bedroom was sparse; however, that which did populate the room made it appear just as warm and comfortable as the sitting room.  Blanketing the entire diameter of the space was a red, circular carpet embossed with a yellow design like that of an enormous flake of snow.  A giant, canopied bed rested off to the right.  A small chest, in comparison to the yetis, stood next to the head of the bed.  On the other side of the room were large, long pillows placed in front of a fireplace.  Lastly, Link noted that--just as in the foyer--the bedroom owned decorations consisting of several armored statues, holding various weaponries.

Across the room between the chest and the fireplace, dangled the ornament for which Yeta had brought Link to see.  "Here mirror.  You looked at it, uh?"

Link stood alongside her as she looked into its glassy surface--an exact match, down to the last miniscule etching, of the mirror piece that still remained within the Mirror Chamber.

"Uh, so pretty," said Yeta, staring at her reflection as she tilted her face this way and that.  "Pretty.  So pretty."  Her voice seemed to die away as she repeated her flattering comment over and over, and Link supposed that the reason for the murmuring low tone was due to her sadness at the realization that the shard--something so beautiful--had been the cause of her distress.

As Link reached out to touch the surface, though, he heard sudden, sharp breaths emanate from Yeta.  Her body began twitching, growing into violent convulsions.  Everything reflected within the mirror piece became distorted, hazy.  He could hear Yeta trying to say something, which sounded almost as though failed attempts to proclaim her name….  An attempt to try to steal her away from the obvious yet unusual pains she experienced, Link thought.

However, when she finally spoke, one word combined of her name and the chattering, blubbering noises she made broke out in a shattering, ghoulish scream.  "Blizzeta!"  Her neck jerked about, and her eyes bore down into Link's.  He took several steps backward as Yeta peered at him with cruel eyes, the very essence of their dark color reddening, pupils of ghostly white filling the center of the orbs.  Teeth seeped downward from her mouth cavity, elongating into dribbling fangs at the corners.

"NOT TAKE MIRROR!" the screaming voice of the new Yeta declared.

Link stumbled backward still to clear a space between him and the yeti.  Shattering glass then filled the room, the top row of windows breaking under the force of an ice storm manifested by the creature Yeta had morphed into.  Snow and ice quickly infested the room in a whirl of chill, breaking across Link's body in a rough gust that slapped at his face and fingers bitterly.  He held his ground, however, and looked on as the freezing winds bounced about the room, finally ending in circling about Yeta's form.  Soon she was completely shielded by a storm of cold, white clouds.

The haze ebbed slowly from her body as the size of its presence expanded.  Within moments, the entire room was obscured by white, the cloud bursting away to blanket the bedroom in thick patches of ice.  An ice sculpture hung suspended in the air, encasing the figure of Yeta within it.  However, by the maddened glimmer within her eyes, Link knew that this was no longer Yeta; the sinister force controlling her had power over the frigid element that now diseased the room.

Link understood it to be the dangerous power of the mirror shard that the sages has so pointedly warned him about … and it did not wish to be taken by Link.

Too bad.  Link seized the Master Sword from its sheath and twirled it comfortably a few times as he took up a light-footed pose and waited for a sign of movement from the ice mass.  To his surprise, however, several more masses of crystallized water assembled themselves from the field of ice surrounding him.  They joined Yeta above him, encircled about her casing.  At once, they began to spin about Yeta as she floated through the air toward him.  Without pretense the shards began dropped sharply toward Link, and he scrambled on the slippery floor to escape their booming falls, ice erupting from their impacts and splintering into the air.

Link managed to evade the crashing blocks, stabilizing his steps by digging the metal slabs he had previously affixed to his soles into the ground as he ran.  He counted off ten echoing rumbles before the masses picked themselves out of the floor to again rotate about Yeta.

It was at this point--as Link slipped and crashed bodily into the wall--that he spotted Yeto's figure on the opposite side of the doorway, his body distorted by the jagged surface of the ice.  Yeto screamed into the room, but the frozen buffer muffled his voice.  Even so, Yeta would not have been able to hear him.

Link would do all he could not to harm Yeta in purging the darkness from her body.  Yet if it came to that….

He pushed off gently from the wall so that the movement did not send him flying across the ice.  But just as he reacquainted himself with the field, Yeta's minions were once again upon him.  This time, though, they all fell at once.  Link saw them coming, knew he could not escape the circle of doom that they had molded into … and he braced himself for a hard, cold, sudden death.  He flung his arms over his head.

A whipping wind brushed past his body as the circle of ice blocks rained down upon him, but instead of piling directly atop him, they surrounded him, their collisions sending bits of ice up- and outward.  A shiver ran down Link's spine due to both the chill of the cold dust now covering him and the death he had been fortunate to once again escape.

His relief did not last long, for above him hovered the giant sculpture that housed Yeta.  Link was in motion just as it plummeted toward him.  He clung tightly to one of the ice shards, flattening his back against it.  When the capsule hit the floor there was only just about a foot between Link and the ice mass.  Though, staving off both fear and relief, Link came down quickly upon the central block of ice with the Master Sword, but upon contact, dull clangs sounded.  The blade could not rip through the wicked ice; it had no affect on the mirror's dark manifestation.

Realizing that they had not struck Link, the masses rose from the floor to hover above him once more.  Before their next attempt to smash him, Link tossed his gaze about the room at the statues.

If he could just find one of them that held what he needed….

To his left he discovered an armored statue that had exactly that.  Seeing the lethal ball and chain it grasped, Link ran over to it as steadily as he could.  With his blade he hacked away at the ice shielding it from him.  Chunks of ice fell away within the split moments he had to reach his goal until the ice masses were again upon him.  Once the better part of the torso was exposed, Link quickly sheathed his sword and grabbed the sporadically spiked ball.  He twisted the end of the chain around his wrist and held onto the chain.

He was then on the move once more, the added weight of the metal sphere making his steps slower yet more secure at the same time.  He still had adequate time to outrun their descents, and when he counted off the last impact of their group, he turned on the spot and hurled the ball toward the nearest of them.

It shattered apart, joining the ruined ice floor.

He waited for them to collect above him again, circling about his position, and as soon as they collapsed onto the ground, Link escaped through an opening where the tenth ice shard would have fallen.  He had just cleared their circle as Yeta crashed down onto the floor, missing her target for the second time.

This time, however, Link knew how to fight back.

Link turned on his heel, twirled the ball above his head to catch a momentum, and hurled the deadly chunk toward Yeta's shell.  It crashed full force into the ice mass, dislodging large portions of ice from the whole.  Yeta was not yet exposed from within the mass, and Link was banking on the assumption that if he freed her from her cage the mirror's power would recede and return her to normal.

If he was wrong, however … and her liberation did not stop the dark entity….

Link cast off the distraction.  He would deal with the end result as it came.  For now, he needed to concentrate on the task at hand … without getting crushed.

An angered growl radiated from Yeta's bubble, and she and her minions lifted from the ground once more.  The attacks of the shards came faster now, each landing split seconds after the last, becoming a trail behind Link as he successfully evaded each of them in turn.  Yeta seemed to be learning quickly, for when Link had been able to land a second blow to her encasing, her attacks came swifter and out of her usual pattern.  She called on her minions to assault Link consecutive times, leaving Link at a loss to predict her next move.  But he kept in step regardless of her efforts, always managing to stay a step ahead of the raining attacks.

Link had a fair guess when Yeta was about to join her cohorts in the assault.  Each time she grew flustered with anger, a howl of rage reverberated off the walls, and moments later--though the time period varied--her observational nature would quickly be replaced by a more lethal one.

Yeta hurtled down toward Link after a series of unsuccessful hits from her minions.  This time she managed to graze Link's leg as he sped away.  Though it had not been enough to shed blood, she had achieved in tearing a long, straight rip down the white of his right leg.  A callous, chattering laugh replaced the usual rage-filled bellow of Yeta's dark form.

Offering no attention to this distraction, Link turned on Yeta while her senses remained clouded by the pleasure she took in dealing some damage to him.  Yet, Link's throw landed dully on the floor, for she had reared back toward her skyward domain right as his attack had been cast.  Link quickly reeled in the large ball, taking it again within his arms as Yeta prepared her minions for yet another attack wave.

However, cracks were visible on Yeta's shell at several angles due to Link's triumphant strikes.  One well directed hit would shatter it completely.

Yeta had been reduced to the accompaniment of only six minions, but their attacks came in heavy, almost angry thrusts downward, landing with vibrating force as they continued to miss Link on each attempt.

The shards' consistent inability to strike Link down frustrated Yeta.  A booming shriek rattled the walls.  What Link was glad that Yeta could not understand, however, was that the constant need to quickly evade the ice crystals was placing him near exertion.  He did not know how much more he could withstand trying to keep his balance while evading, while turning quickly, while casting the ball and chain, while reeling it in….  The cycle of this altercation had drained him of his strength faster than any other of the battles against large beasts that he had been forced to wage.  Perhaps it was the elemental nature of the battlefield, one which would have clearly given his enemy the upper hand had she not been so slow in her bulk.

Disallowing the truth of his condition to shine through his visage, Link prepared for Yeta's attack to come.  Sure enough, as indicated by her tell-tale bellow, her glistening cage pounded down toward Link's position, determined to finally strike him down.  She had used her remaining six minions in an attempt to corner him, and Link had managed to weave past each of them as they fell … except the last.

When the sixth ice mass came crunching down directly in front of him he tried to turn out of its path, but he only succeeded in slipping.  Luckily, it did not crush him.  Instead, his body wailed into the side of the mass, and the hit sent his body reeling to the ground.  The ball slid from his hands, and that was when he looked up.  The next moments happened in such quick succession that Link had barely any time to realize just how sharp his reaction time was.  

Yeta thundered down and Link took advantage of the ball spiraling out of his reach.  He used the momentum with which the steel orb soared across the floor to carry him along, and he slid away behind it.  Once clear of Yeta's colossal figure, he yanked his body about and lodged his feet into the ice.  The metal of his soles rooted him to the ground, and only in the split second it took him to be sure of his footing did he jerk on the chain.  Hard.

Pivoting one foot to the side to twist his body and arms back around in a one-hundred-eighty degree arc, he guided the sphere at the great ice mass.

The spiked ball struck the sculpture at a point which caused its numerous cracks to extend, webbing inward to where Yeta rested.  Fissures then began spreading rapidly across the entirety of its surface and depth until, at last, pieces of the mass began to break away and shatter.  The sinister entity infesting Yeta's body screamed at the exposure in an unnatural, wraithlike howl, its high-pitched tone dipping up and down as its evident pain grew stronger.  Pieces of ice broke or melted away, leaving Yeta to at last fall facedown to the floor.  The chill wind rose once more, and with its swirling gusts, it ate away the ice congesting the room and dispersed from the shattered windows just as quickly as it had engulfed the space.

Just as the doorway reopened, Yeto charged into the room, a loud bellow escaping him.  It seemed as though the vanished ice had funneled into Link, for he stood frozen to the floor, staring down at Yeta.  The ball rested on the carpet, and the chain hung loosely against his wrist.  His heart had caught within his ribs, a sharp yet hollow pain residing there.  He had never killed an innocent before.  Was she…?

Yeto crossed to Yeta in five steps, knocking Link to the side as if he were a simple decoration that he could not care less if he broke.  Link landed on his side, the chain pulling tautly at his hand as his body fell atop it and squished it into the floor.  He sat up awkwardly, and tugged the chain from his arm and tossed it aside.  He refocused on the pair of yetis then, wondering the same as Yeto.

To both their relief, Yeta stammered, "Uh… What… What wrong with me?"

A teary smile broke across Yeto's wooly face.  "You just dreaming," he consoled, crouching to help her sit up.

Yeta's countenance had returned to normal, and instead of the red glow within her eyes, they now glistened, a range of emotions apparent within them.  "Mirror you gave…." she muttered both fearfully and sadly.  A lingering coldness seemed to pulse through her veins, for when her gaze turned from Yeto to the mirror and back again, Link could see the stiffness of her movements … and the welling tears within her beautiful orbs.

"Forget mirror, Yeta," the other yeti consoled.

Link pushed himself off the ground and slowly approached the couple, stopping a small distance away to allow them the moment to reassure each other that the horror of the mirror's darkness had not ended in tragedy.

"Look into eyes of Yeto," the beast-man smiled.  "Look in reflection.  There true beauty."  Yeta's face brightened at that, her tears raining despite her new happiness.  "Who need mirror?" he added, and he spread his arms wide toward Yeta.  She fell into his grasp, and they embraced one another tightly as if trying to squeeze out the terror that had just overtaken their bedroom.  Yeta's tears moistened his white chest as Yeto's happy droplets drizzled down his face and onto her head.

Link remained at a distance as they cuddled together.  As he watched on, he noticed how his emotions were also brimming with the need to express themselves.  However, he did not wish to convey to Midna how torn he had been when he had thought he had killed Yeta.  Just being attached to her by his shadow was enough to make him force the suppression of his feelings.  Though he had come to trust and value Midna's companionship, he still disliked her presence sometimes.  He was never alone to deal with his feelings; there were only stolen moments wherein he could give in to pain or sadness when her back was turned.  In the back of his mind, a voice had bloomed which had seemed to take on the very characteristics of the imp.  He could hear what her comments would be through his imagination, and he often loathed what he heard.  And now, more than ever, he wanted to be disconnected from her, to have the chance to think over all the things he had done along his journey to save Hyrule--without being judged if any tear should fall.

He woke from his daze when he heard the yetis shuffling to their feet once more, Yeta huddled within her husband's protective arms.  Yeto looked to Link.  His eyes were not cruel and defensive as Link would have thought; rather, they conveyed an offering of warmth.  "You save wife," thanked Yeto.  He then asked, "Mirror what you look for?"

Link's voice crackled with uncertainty when he answered.  "Yes."

"It bad," he said gruffly. "You take mirror away."

The young hero accepted and stepped past them to reach the suspended mirror.  He avoided looking at his reflection as he unhooked it from the stone wall.  Carefully, he took its rimmed edge in hand, trying to not to handle its sharp, broken inside edges.  He could feel the deep well of its power within his grasp, but with the help of the Master Sword's presence, he blocked its lifelike energy from his body and mind.

Link turned back to face the yetis, but they no longer paid him any attention.  They had returned to their cuddle, confident that the strange visitor would take the mirror far from them, never to return.  Link walked past them, aiming straight for the door, wanting so desperately to shut his mind to what he had nearly done.  He tried to convince himself that it had been necessary to fight the possessed Yeta … but nothing he told himself--even that it had been the only way to secure the mirror shard--managed to settle his distraught thoughts.

His footsteps seemed weighted as he approached the open doorway, his gaze downcast.  Why did it seem that, though with each battle he grew closer to destroying the evil infesting Hyrule, everything seemed to always worsen?  Why did each battle take more and more energy from him?  He had nearly died while battling the Stallord, and now … now he had nearly killed an innocent….

And who knew how many of these shards had been broken off the Mirror of Twilight?  Who knew how many more creatures like Stallord or the ice creature he would have to slay in order to restore the magical mirror?  Would he eventually take the plunge into his own death along the way?  By Zant?  By Ganondorf?  Would he know the same nonexistence as the ancient hero before or at quest's end?

No, Link assured, remembering the promise he had made to himself when he had left the Gorons' mountains.  I will sit on that mountain again.  I will watch the sun set below the horizon.  When it's all over ... I'll go there again....

When Link reached the exit, he glanced back at the yetis.  Seeing them locked in their embrace, Link understood that to them they had already said their farewells.  Unlike the people that he had known, the yetis would not trouble themselves in watching their guest leave.  Midna must have also come to this realization, for she appeared at his side, her bold colors catching his attention.

"Well, we have one of the mirror shards now," she said, and Link handed her the piece.  She gazed onto its surface for a fraction of a moment, her reflection seeming to catch her off guard, to offend her in some way.  Link supposed that the knowledge of its control over Yeta had produced the frown on her lips.  Though, it looked more like a grimace.  And her next words seemed not to fully encompass what she was thinking.  "I feel bad about the way we treated that girl," she admitted.  "To think the Mirror of Twilight has the power to change people like that.  This world … no, all worlds … can be so cruel."

Link was at a loss at what to say to comfort her, for the ache in his heart had stolen all words from him.  A deeper part of him was astonished, happy--relieved even--to know that Midna had shown so much compassion in that moment.

But Midna stiffened, waking from her sympathies.  "Let's collect the rest of the pieces, Link," she said, lifting a fierce gaze to him as the mirror dispersed into the dimension of her magicks.  "We have to … before more innocent creatures have to endure suffering like she did…."

Without word or gesture, Link turned away from the embracing couple to exit out into the cold of the North once more.