LOZ:Twilight Princess:Ch.4 FINAL

----Chapter 4: A Reluctant Partnership


Link cautiously peered into the dark stairwell from behind the large door.  His ears heard no sounds.  He looked back at Zelda.  All life in her eyes had seemed to vanish, and he wanted so desperately to be able to reach out and comfort her, or to at least utter a word or phrase of reassurance, but he could not manage either in this wretched body.  Midna pulled him from his thoughts as she yanked on a tuft of his fur, urging him forward.  He obeyed, but with a growl in his throat.

Once beyond the princess’s prison, Midna used her odd magic to reform the shards of wood scattering the floor into the solid plank it had once been, which she then replaced upon the door. Link understood that she did this so as to not reveal their entrance.  As his thoughts roamed over the knowledge of Hyrule’s true condition, his paws propelled him onward.  It was all just a horrible nightmare.

Just then Midna yanked on his ears and he shook his head with a growl, stopping to threaten her with a snap of his jaws.  “Shh!” she hissed, hunkering down on his head.  “The guard’s coming!”

True enough, a light illuminated the walls before them, and it bobbed closer with every second.

“Quick, out the way we came!” urged Midna.

Link did not argue.

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Once outside again Midna hopped off his back and hovered above a rooftop a short distance ahead.  Link gazed about the castle with new comprehension of the darkness that encircled him, yet he still did not quite understand how he had come to be a beast within its void.

“I take it you understand where you are now,” called Midna from her invisible perch.  “Well then, I guess a promise is a promise, so I’ll let you go back to where you first tumbled into the twilight.”  Link’s pointed ears perked at this notion and he sat underneath her, obedient yet weary.  “But are you really sure you should be going back?  Are you sure you aren’t … forgetting anything important?”

Her raucous chortle made Link’s ears stiffen and his bones flare with rage, for in that instant she whipped about and transformed into a screaming Colin.  Within the same moment, she took on the form of Ilia, crying for help.  Link sunk down to his haunches, his ears falling back onto his head.  He could feel the roar within him build, yet he left his anger unvoiced.  Midna seemed pleased enough with herself to see the fury sparking within his blue eyes.

“Don’t you want to save them?” continued Midna in the cloned body of Ilia.  Link settled the budding vibration inside him a fraction.  “Well, in that case, little Midna would be happy to help you!  But …” she toyed with her stolen dirty blond hair, “you’d have to be my servant, and like a servant, you’d have to do exactly as I say!”

She dematerialized from the tall figure of Ilia back into the wild and callous image of a black and white imp.  With hands on her hips, her one eye stared at his image as he calmed his nerves.  Link knew this little creature could prove to be a great ally, and although he did not want to admit it … he did need her.  After he found his friends ... then he could leave her company.  He nearly smiled just picturing her retreating form.

Due to his long pause, Midna snapped into action.  “Why don’t you go back, take a little time, and give it some thought?”  And in that moment, as he tried calling out to her, his body twisted with a strange, cold sting.  He watched as his black fur became mere blobs of darkness, and he was pulled away from the world in a whirl of dim colors.

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From out of the clear blue sky, the darkness deposited him safely onto the sand of the spirit spring.  He looked about, relieved that he had been returned to territory that he knew.  However, when he gazed into the sparkling water at his feet, the mirror image of the strangely marked beast bore into his eyes.  Frightened, he jumped at seeing his face still misshapen.

“Oh that’s right; I forgot to mention one thing,” came that all too familiar voice of the imp.  Her voice had come from behind, but when Link jumped around to look … no one was there.  Her voice continued nonetheless, “Though you may have left the darkened realm, you haven’t transformed back into your former self … and you won’t anytime soon!  Now why could that be?”

What…?  Would he remain a beast for the rest of his life?

Her cold laugh echoed.  “See you later!”

Link looked around to find her, the one who had promised her aid, but her form greeted him from no corner of the spring.  His heart whimpered in his chest and he felt the bitter sting of his new reality stab through him.  Without her help would he ever truly understand this ailment of the twilight?  His steps slow, he hung his head as he stepped toward the exit of the spring.  What would he do now?  As a beast?  How could he help anyone in such a state?

“So, um … what next?” the rock face beside him called.  Deep in thought, he leapt when he heard the crackle of Midna’s voice again so soon.

All of a sudden, his shadow moved and he leapt back, but--as shadows often do--it followed him.  He had not noticed in his misery that it was darker than a shadow even should be, for he could not even make out the contours of the grass under his paws.  

Midna peeled herself from his shadow then and hovered before him as a mere shade, only her one eye producing any sign of color.  Link blinked, uncomprehending.  

“Did you think I’d disappeared?” she giggled.  “Listen, there’s another thing I forgot to tell you.  Don’t think you can just run off and save your friends because you can’t!  Just beyond that bridge” --she pointed-- “the land is covered in twilight.  Last time, the shadow beast pulled you through the curtain of twilight, but if you want to go that way this time, you’ll need the cooperation of someone from the twilight … like me!  So,” she paused, her hair twirling behind her, “you really have no choice but to do what I say.”

Midna took a breath and looked curiously into his eyes. “Saving your friends and all that…. Well, that will depend on your actions because you never can trust words, you know.”  She straightened, and leaned her body against the craggy rocks like true pompous nobility.  “Now, I want a sword and a shield that’ll suit me.  You’ll be using them ... if you can become your old self again, that is. You understand?”  She threw a teasing smile his way.  

Link thought it over.  Everything was happening so fast.

Midna, however, was not patient.  “So … what do you plan to do?  While you’re here dawdling, the twilight continues to expand.  Come on.  Hurry up!”

Drawing out her vicious grin, she ripped herself from the wall and ducked into Link’s shadow. For a moment he simply looked at it, shaken.  What was this?  Hiding in his black reflection?  He sighed, wondering if he would ever comprehend the whole of what took place.  Yet, despite the nagging questions he was unable to voice, he accepted this fate and took one step after another toward Ordon.

Sword and shield?  He knew exactly where to look….

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The dark of night fell as Link passed by his house on the outskirts of the small village of Ordon.  Peeking into the town from behind a grove of trees, he expected to spy the houses all barred up with no one in sight.  However, many people paced about the dirt roads and many torches were burning.  At this distance Link could only hear the shuffling of feet through the soil and the slow churning of the waterwheel attached to Jaggle and Pergie’s house.

Link shuffled closer but remained out of sight, for he was no longer human and since he could not ask what had happened to the town, he was forced to eavesdrop.  He hunkered down near Sera’s shop and listened to Jaggle and the mayor speak in hushed voices.  “Isn’t there anything more we can do?” snapped Jaggle.  “Those monsters kidnapped our children!”  

“My daughter is gone as well, Jaggle,” the mayor said. “I am worried, too.  I am counting on Rusl to take care of the matter.  He’s scouting the village as we speak.  We wait until he returns with news.”

“He could be gone for hours!” persisted Jaggle.  “We need to go after them before their trail goes cold!”

Just then a crackle from the trees scared the pair to attention, prepared for another attack.  Yet, when the shape of the blacksmith emerged from the wood, the two raced toward him.  It was not that Rusl had any obvious news of the children but that he appeared to have sustained many injuries.  The blacksmith sank to the ground in a heap, breathless.

Bo crouched to him, turning him to his back.  “What did this?  Any word on the children?”

Rusl’s eyes drew closed due to his weakness.  Bo rose and turned to Jaggle, “See to him.  I’ll fetch Uli and continue the search.  I think the sword and shield meant for Link’s journey are still in his house.  I’ll take those.”

The mayor raced off up the incline as Jaggle tried to accommodate the fallen blacksmith.

From Link’s shadow Midna urged with a hiss, “Ah, isn’t that what you were looking for?  Better get them before him, or else I suppose you’ll have to scare them from his hands!”  She stifled her rising giggle as Link vigilantly stepped into town, staying to the shadows of the torchlight as much as possible.

When Link reached Rusl’s house far up the incline, Bo was already talking with the blacksmith’s wife on the porch.  Without the slightest hint of a rustle, Link crept around to the back of the house in hopes of finding a different way inside.  His eyes now attuned to the shadows of night, he easily spotted a loose patch of dirt.  He scraped it from its place quickly and found an open route into the house.  Obviously, the cautious blacksmith had constructed it if ever there was a need for his family to escape their home undetected.  Always be prepared, he had taught Link countless times.

Link crawled through the tiny exit to come to the main room of the dwelling.  He searched throughout the contents scattered across the three rooms in a rushed fashion, knowing that at any moment Uli would open her home and present the items for which he was looking to Bo.

Midna rose from his shadow when he had entered Rusl and Uli’s room.  “There!” she called.  He followed her pointing finger to a high shelf.  He growled when he realized he would have to knock their belongings down into disarray, yet … he needed that sword.

He slammed his body into the unit and backed away as he watched it topple to the side.  Due to his disturbance, he heard a commotion at the entrance as footsteps trampled the mat on the porch and the front door knocked into the wall inside.  Link instinctively snatched the scabbard into his jaws and started to run, but Midna called to him.  “The shield!”

Looking behind him he found a wooden shield resting against the wall; it bore the tell-tale signs of Ordonian craftsmanship with the head of a goat stylishly carved over its surface.  He ran over to it and tilted it with his snout.  In another movement he donned the item upon his head.  He moved back to the threshold of the room, but Midna pulled on his fur.  Without words, he knew to stop immediately and wait for her action.  She concentrated a moment, her head tilting oddly.  In the next, Link heard a clatter in the children’s room and the shuffling of footsteps, and his companion once again disappeared into his shadow.  Link took this as his cue and leapt over the wreckage of the shelves to land back in the main room.  However, Uli and Bo soon discovered the noise to be only a mere distraction and returned to the room in time to see a wolf darting for the open front door.  It used the shield as his helm as Uli assaulted it with whatever she could lay her hands on.  Books and hand-carved toys sailed his way, impaling his hind and back.  Bo reached for Rusl’s old fishing rod in the corner and cast line, rod and all toward the beast.  Link howled as the hook caught his right haunch, the sword dropping from his mouth.  Link realized, however hopeful he may have been, that they could not recognize him.  He whirled about and began barking a song so frightening that he himself nearly cowered.

Uli shielded her face and wailed.  Bo, eyes wide, let loose the pole he was prepped to throw and backed off, remembering what had happened to Rusl and incriminating this monster for those dangerous wounds.  Somewhere he found his bravery, though, and stepped in front of Uli.  “Get out, Beast!”

Still glaring at the pair, Link ripped out the hook, ignoring the searing burning of blood, then grabbed the sword up into his maw of sharp teeth again.  He then turned and scampered out through the door.  He regretted having to leave his Ordon friends in such disarray, but it was the only way.  He was only a monster in their eyes, so he dashed away to submerge himself once more into the Wood.  

Stealing pained him.  But his encounter proved more painful.  He had not wanted to face the reality that if they discovered his new secret, his new identity, none of them would hesitate to strike him down.  If he remained a second longer, things would only become worse.  He could not help them in his current state.

His very existence pained him.  He wondered, as he limped back toward the spring, if he would ever regain his true form and that if he could, would it be even more agonizing?