Shadow and Light
Desperate Hour

Zant's rapid teleporting was too much for Link to keep up with. Midna watched from Link's shadow, her heart in her throat as he struggled to keep track of where the usurper would next appear. Up until now he'd easily bested the greedy Twili but now, armed with twin blades and blinking in and out before Link could even spot him, the Ordonian Hero was struggling just to defend himself from the manic attacks.

Finally Link got in a hit, then two, but his luck ran out at that point. Zant appeared behind and to the left, striking just as Link turned at the sound of his appearance. The dark blade bit into the Hylian's shoulder, the dark magic multiplying the pain of the fresh wound.

Midna's heart seized at Link's cry of pain.

The violent flinch of her body woke her from her doze, and she straightened in her seat, her heart pounding at the adrenaline still coursing through her.

The sound of his cry had sent ice spilling through her veins. Wide amber eyes turned up, taking in her surroundings in a frantic effort to calm herself. It had only been a dream-a glimpse of a past far behind her. Nothing more.

To her surprise however, she slowly realized that the other Twili seated around the table in the great hall had fallen silent from their boring official talks, their startled and confused glances around the room hinting to her that the sound may not have existed merely in her head.

"What was that? That scream?" one of the council voiced, though it didn't seem he expected anyone to know. Still, it confirmed her theory of what had happened while she'd been dozing.

It didn't make any sense, though. Their worlds were separated, so there was really no way that the scream she had heard could have been his.

At least, that was what she kept trying to tell herself in reassurance. For some reason though, that bit of logic did little to ease the dread growing in her chest.

"Vallen," she called, getting to her feet. One of the seated Twili also stood, her form distinctly feminine like Midna's, with cropped red hair and the look of a warrior about her eyes. "Please come with me. I'd like to see just what all of that was about."

Her weight was heavy on his back. Weak, strained gasps echoed in his ears. He had to get her to help.

People screamed as he rushed through town, but he ignored them, barely conscious of the fact that he could be seen when he'd always been hidden, before. All that mattered now was getting Midna to Zelda.

Following the advice of Telma's white, long haired cat, he plunged into the secret passageway to the castle, his lungs pulling harsh, ragged breaths as he raced against time. Her painful sounding breaths tore at his heart, but at the same time he desperately feared she would go silent before he could reach the tower.

Finally they were there, but the room appeared empty. Link's heart sank, his head turning as he felt Midna finally slip from his back. He nosed her bleached, pale form anxiously, a low whine sounding from his throat, begging mentally for her to hang on.

A delicate, gloved hand touched the imp's face. He looked up, slightly startled, and found Zelda was suddenly there, kneeling before them, her soft blue eyes watching Midna with deep concern.

"Please...please tell me..." Midna gasped, weakly reaching a hand towards Zelda. The princess caught it in her own, her gloved fingers curling gently around the imp's, holding the weight of her arm for her. "How do we break...the curse on this one? He is the one...the one you need to save your world...

"That is why...Princess...Please. You must help Link..."

A gasp he could not control filled his lungs with air, bringing with it a searing, burning pain. It felt as though he'd swallowed a mouthful of glass, and every intake of breath sliced his throat and lungs further.

Was this what she had felt, that night?

A hand cupped his cheek. He flinched, even that small touch bringing needles of pain, like cloth brushing against a terrible sunburn. A voice, soft and insistent, called out to him, though it sounded muffled and far away. Still, he fought to open his eyes, even as he drew in another agonizing breath of air. Zelda's familiar face swam into focus after three or four sluggish blinks, though the vision was still blurred heavily at the edges, and the brightness of the gray sky sent a throbbing ache deep into his skull.

"P...Prince..."

"Shhh," she shushed him, a finger pressing to his lips. "Save your strength."

Renado was on his other side, looking Link over with growing dread. He had never seen anything like it. The boy's skin had gone so white it almost seemed tinged with blue, and his eyes...it still looked as though they were orange, but his pupils were so large behind heavy eyelids it was difficult to tell.

But by far the greatest concern was the sound of Link's ragged breathing. His entire body was tensing with the effort it took just to keep drawing in air, and Renado feared that each strained gasp would be the last.

For all of his experience healing, he found he didn't know what to do.

Zelda watched the shaman, her hopes diminishing with each passing moment. She knew what she had done for Midna would not work, this time; passing her light onto Midna had saved her from the damage of being exposed to Lanayru's light, and had granted her immunity to this world. The shadow and light within her was balanced at that point, allowing her to exist in either world with no consequence.

Link's case was completely different; he already had light within him, but the shadow magic was beating it back, spilling through the mirror that was now complete inside of him like water through a broken dam, and every inch it gained made him more susceptible to the light of this world. Unlike Midna, he had no experience with magic to draw from; he couldn't protect himself by turning into a shadow, and therefor he was completely helpless, his body succumbing to the light of his own world as if it were a deadly poison.

She had feared this would happen. Using the power of the light spirits to weaken and subdue him had been a last resort; it had robbed them of the time they would have had otherwise to try and find some kind of solution.

"Z...zelda...please..." The rasping plea brought her from her dismal thoughts, and she looked down at him with sympathy, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulders. He was looking at her through half-lidded eyes, each breath as painful as the last.

"The...the mirror...I h-ha...have to..."

She squeezed his hand, her eyes welling with tears despite her best efforts to keep them at bay. Around them, the resistance looked on in helpless worry, not understanding what, exactly, was happening to their friend, but recognizing how bad the situation looked.

"Please," Link whispered, straining to get the words out. "...please, I need...to see her...please.

"Help me."

Her hands gave a slight tremble as she tore her gaze away from him and looked out over the battle-torn field, blinking snowflakes from her lashes. Would he even make it?

"We need to get him to the desert," she announced, fighting to keep her voice steady against the ache of emotion in her chest.

Renado gaped up at her. "Princess, I..." he hesitated, not even wanting to voice his own doubts that Link would survive that long. "I don't think-"

"That is our only hope of saving him," she interrupted softly. "I am sorry," she added, looking at all of them as she got to her feet. "I know none of you truly know what is happening here. I will explain it, but not now. There is no time. We must get him to the desert. Quickly."

Not daring to waste a second more than necessary, they hurried to move. Rusl and Auru quickly built a gurney out of a couple of poles and a stretched bit of cloth so they could move Link as painlessly as possible. Moving him to it, though... both men winced in sympathy as they crouched on either end of Link. The boy's eyes had closed against the light, but he was still clinging to life, his ragged breathing sign enough of that.

"Hang on, Link," Rusl murmured, not even sure if his friend heard him. Auru, positioned at Link's feet, gave a brief nod as Rusl looked to him, and, after counting to three, they both lifted and moved the boy the few inches over to the makeshift stretcher. Aside from a weak groan, Link didn't react, and Rusl wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.

The procession to the desert was long, grim and silent. Renado walked alongside the stretcher, keeping an eye on Link's condition as Rusl and Auru stoically carried him along. While he doubted there was anything he could actually do if something changed, it brought the others a little comfort.

Zelda led them on, her jaw tight, trying to ignore the sound of Link's hesitant, pained breaths. Though the snow did not follow them into the warmer, dryer desert climate, the cloud cover remained for a ways, shielding the suffering hero from the harsh sun for a while longer. Behind them the Bulbin's followed, escorting them through the harsh desert as if in silent apology over their invasion.

Finally they came to a halt in the mirror chamber as the sky was fading into the purple hue of dusk. "Set him down here," Zelda instructed softly, gesturing to a place on the sandstone floor in front of an empty, round brass frame. Aura and Rusl gently lowered the stretcher, trying to cause Link as little pain as possible at the movement as they let him down onto the ground.

Zelda knelt beside him, her expression rigid. She had to stay strong. Actually using the mirror would likely tip him over the edge into oblivion, but after everything that happened, she simply didn't have the heart to deny him this request. "Link," she called, gently touching his pale brow. His eyelids trembled slightly before opening, and he looked up at her, finding it slightly easier to focus on her in the twilight. "We made it. We are in the chamber," she told him softly. "You have to try to expel the shards and place them in the frame."

He looked over slightly, tired eyes settling on the room that was burned into his memory. A flawless stone wall surrounded this place, broken by perfectly spaced windows which revealed a violet sky mottled with orange clouds. Beyond the wall, seven stone pillars towered over them to a dizzying height, statues of the great bird that adorned the Hylian Crest at the very top of each one.

"How...?" he rasped, a desperate determination fueling his next, painful gasp for air. The violet hue given off by the sky gave his shockingly pale skin an otherworldly glow.

"You can feel it inside of you, can you not?" Zelda asked him. "Focus on that. Imagine the Mirror of Twilight whole, at home in its frame. Will it to become reality."

It all sounded so crazy, but he would try anything. He needed to see her...even if it was for the last time. With every frantic beat of his heart, he felt the life draining from him.

Closing his eyes, he struggled to focus through the pain.

Shad's mouth fell open in wonder as the four mirror shards appeared in a spray of black particles, hovering over Link's broken body. Slowly they moved over to the frame, forming a solid piece with a heavy thud. A faint light then projected from the backside of the mirror onto a large stone slab beyond the platform, forming dazzling white lines that began to swirl hypnotically around a glowing outline of the triforce. The patterns shifted, forming an illusion of depth as though there were suddenly a passage coming through the very stone.

Link's entire body shuddered at the increased strain, but his chest continued to rise and fall. He was hanging on by a thread, his eyes closing as another memory descended over his consciousness.

"Some call our realm a place of shadows, but that makes it sound unpleasant," Midna reflected, her sad, half-lidded eyes gazing upon the portal that had appeared before them. "The twilight there holds a serene beauty; you have seen it for yourself as the sun sets on this world. Bathed in that light, all people were pure and gentle..but all of that changed when that foul power pervaded the world.

In our world, we've long believed that a hero would appear as a divine beast. That's why when I found you, I thought that I could use you, Link. And I only cared about returning our world to normal...I didn't care about what would happen to the world of light, not at all.

"But after witnessing the selfless lengths that Princess Zelda and you have gone to...your sacrifices...I now know, in the bottom of my heart, that I must save this world, too. There is no other way."

"It was the strangest thing," the short, chubby little Twili told the two women, his voice calm and flowing despite his shocking description of what had happened. "There was a beast here. It was very large, and very angry, but it wasn't really here at all."

"What do you mean?" Midna asked, feeling a sort of dread sinking into her again.

"Well, it was like a ghost, almost," the twili supposed. "It faded in, and then faded out again. But that is what made the loud noise, yes."

"Princess," Vallen interrupted, her voice tense. Midna looked to her, before following her escorts outstretched arm towards the distant courtyard.

Her eyes widened in disbelief. The frame that had stood empty was suddenly shimmering and active again.

"But...but that's impossible!" she gasped.

"We must close it somehow-if the light worlders send more evil here..."

Midna nodded, her mind numb as the pair began to run, hoping they made it before another threat to their livelihood could be dumped upon them. She never would have thought Zelda would do something so foolish, not after everything they'd been through, but it was possible that she wasn't even aware of whatever was happening, now.

"Stay here," she instructed Vallen.

"Princess?!"

"I am immune to the light," she told her escort, reaching to grip the woman's shoulder in reassurance. "You are not. Please, stay here. I will try to stop whatever is happening, and I'll make sure the mirror is destroyed, this time."

After a moment's hesitation, Vallen finally gave a small nod, and backed away a step. "Be safe, M'lady."

Midna nodded her thanks, before turning to the mirror and stepping through, her heart pounding in uncertainty at what she would find on the other side.

No one moved for a long few minutes. Tears were running down Zelda's cheeks in earnest now; she could feel the last of Link's strength flowing out of him. He couldn't last much longer, and there was no telling if the Twili even noticed that the portal was active. Even if they did, there was no guarantee that Midna would come.

In fact, the chances were terribly slim.

But then, inky black particles drifted through the mirror, and as they reformed before the great portal into a tall figure, relief sprang more tears to her eyes.

The members of the resistance gasped and backed away a couple of steps in a mix of fear and awe. The woman suddenly standing before them was unlike anything they'd ever seen. She towered over them, her eyes sharp and her expression tense, as if expecting some kind of trouble. Her skin was a striking mix of black of pale grey, with mesmerizing, glowing blue lines that stretched down her forearms and her one exposed thigh. She was clothed in a sort of dark, half skirt that stretched from one hip and flowed down to her opposite ankle, barely brushing over the skin of her bare feet, while a sleeved cloak hung down from her regal shoulders. A pointed headdress covered some of her long, wavy orange hair, the dark fabric extending down the back of her head and ending just over the curve of her collar bones.

She looked over the assembled group, a mix of confusion and anger in her vaguely feline eyes. But then her gaze fell on the princess crouched beside the broken body of their seemingly unconscious friend, and the anger faded into a sort of shock.

"...Link..." she whispered in horror, recognizing him only after staring for several long moments. In two long strides she had reached them and knelt down, her brow furrowed, the rest of the party forgotten as her fingers reached to touch his pained face. At the touch, she felt the magic within her stir, reacting to the shadow magic now inside of him, and her heart gave a frightened throb as she began to comprehend why he was in such terrible shape.

"What have you done?!"

T.B.C.