The dream came again. The first half was always a sort of montage of his adventures with Midna; dispelling the Twilight from Hyrule, piecing together the Mirror to pursue the usurper Zant in the Twilight Realm, journeying into the Cave of Ordeals just one more time to see if the fairy queen's hair would move.
This part was always a bit of a jumble; Link couldn't even distinguish right from left as he got lost. But Midna was always there to help him through. At the time, he didn't think of her in that particular special way, though it seemed sometimes like she had a thing for Link. She was a good friend, but only a friend-- until after the showdown with Ganon. When Midna's curse was broken, she returned to her true form: a tall and shapely young woman with pale gray-blue skin. In the short time Link saw her like this, it was enough to change his entire perception of her. Then Midna did that cruel thing, obliterating the Mirror with nothing but a single tear, forever sealing the link between worlds.
Link snapped back awake. In his own bed, alone. In the days after the victory, Princess Zelda's company was welcome at first, and the reunion of the Ordonian families kept him in reasonably good spirits. But now he felt depleted of energy, such that he found it increasingly difficult to get out of bed in the morning, and he had to take afternoon naps if he was to be any good rounding up the goats in the evening. There was still another hour until sunset. Link got up and took Epona to the ranch.
Once again, he went through the automatic motions of rounding up the goats, while in his head he wondered if Midna could still do her prehensile hair trick, and considered its possible uses inside the bedchamber.
Link had to snap out of his fantasy and focus in order to round up the last few stragglers, and received a sad dismissive nod. Of course Link's behavior was only tolerated because he was a Hero. Not quite ready to go back home, he ventured out to the spring to take a quick dip in its cool and mysteriously refreshing waters. When he got there, he found his old mentor Rusl sitting on a log.
"They say at this time, the borders between our world and their world are the weakest," Rusl said, gesturing up at the gloaming sky.
"I've heard that before," Link grunted. Part of him wanted to weep uncontrollably. Part of him realized that he was at his wit's end and he needed someone to tell. "For most of my adventures, I was accompanied by a Twili girl named Midna. She was cursed with the form of a little imp, though even then she was sort of cute."
"Ah," Rusl said, beginning to understand.
"When I defeated Ganon, Midna was restored. Understand, she was already my friend, and then she's suddenly more beautiful than Princess Zelda," Link said.
"I understand completely. You have to see her again," Rusl said.
"The Mirror is gone. There's no way to her world now, or from there to here. And she said some kind of thing about belonging in one world or another that never really made sense to me," Link said, grinding his teeth.
"Plenty of things that are thought to be forever turn out not to last. No mortal can account for everything. Eventually someone will find a way to do something that nobody before expected. It is almost a law of the universe," Rusl explained.
"That was deep," Link commented. "So how do I get back to the Twilight Realm?"
"Can't say for sure," Rusl started. "I've been reading a lot of the old legends these days."
Tue Jul 03 20:47:30 2007