Interim: AVigil and a Dream

A/N: I have always considered myself a latecomer in pop culture. Most of my favorite music comes from the sixties or seventies. I didn't know anything about Star Wars until 2003, when the final movie was released. Now, here I am, thinking that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is the greatest thing since the GameCube, while my friends say, "Oh, Twilight Princess? We finished that back in 2006. Where you been?" No matter. I'm here now, with all the rest of the Zelda fans, and that's all that matters, no? So it's my first Zelda story here, and I hope it's a good read. This takes place in Kakariko Village, right after Link rescues Colin from that enormous bulblin.

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Link realized that he had been awake almost twenty-four hours now. He had not left Renado's home since nightfall. Renado sent Luda to bed at ten, and after that, Link never left the small alcove where Colin lay on a pile of blankets and straw. Now it was four in the morning, and it had been two hours since he had moved at all.

Dawn was melting through the windows, a surreal mix of light and shadow as equally strange as twilight, but Link still had no intention of leaving. He stayed on the floor, back to the wall, watching his friend.

Renado was suddenly hovering over his shoulder, examining Colin. The shaman briefly laid his hand on the child's forehead and said in a perfectly neutral tone, "His fever hasn't broken."

"He should have been awake by now." Link's voice sounded thin and pale to his own ears.

"Be patient," Renado said. "He isn't as tough or resilient as you seem to be."

"But he's never been this sick. He's gotten colds before, but never anything like this. I wish I knew what that bulblin did to him." Unexpected anger surged through him. He laced his fingers together and pressed until they hurt.

Renado shook his head. "We all wish that, but the only thing we can do is wait it out. He needs water, though." Renado left briefly and came back with a glazed ceramic cup.

Link turned around awkwardly. His limbs hurt from hours without use. "Let me give the water to him."

Renado paused, then assented, handing Link the cup. Link turned back around. His hands were shaking involuntarily, but he gritted his teeth and tried to steady them. He held Colin's small head up and tried to pour the water into his mouth. It spattered on the front of Colin's shirt and soaked his blue wool blanket. Frustrated, Link tried again, and this time, Colin got some of the water.

"Don't choke him," Renado said. "He can't swallow right now."

A minute later, the water was finished. Link set the cup aside and rubbed at his forehead. His headache, which began four hours ago, had only gotten worse with the time; but if he could just weather it for another hour…

"Are you the boy's brother?" Renado finally asked.

"No, I…I'm an orphan. His mother raised me." Link was still holding Colin's head. "I was ten when Colin was born, and that was when his parents adopted me. We've grown up together, you know."

Renado nodded. "Then, in a way, you are his brother."

"I guess so, yeah." Link found himself mumbling the words as his eyes began to slide shut. He jerked his back straight and opened his eyes.

This had not escaped Renado's notice. "You should sleep," he said for the umpteenth time.

Link allowed Colin's head to fall back on the round pillow. After a moment, he reached out again and carefully smoothed down a lock of blond hair that had gone awry. For the umpteenth time, he answered, "I'm not leaving him."

"This time I insist." Renado pulled Link up by the arm. "You can sleep in the room next to Luda's – up the stairs and to the left. And I promise that if anything changes, I will wake you up."

"Okay, but don't let me sleep too long…" Link ended the sentence with a yawn as he forced himself to climb the stairs. He hadn't realized how incredibly tired he was, and it was all he could do not to fall out on the stairs. He looked back at Colin. Next to the impossibly tall Renado, he looked like a baby. Just before he could continue up the stairs, he heard Colin let out a feeble, barely audible cry in his sleep. As the inexplicable anger once more tensed through his limbs, his throat and sinuses began to sting with tears. He hurried up the stairs and into the spare room.

The threat of tears increased as Link shut the door. Drawing a deep breath to stop them, he removed his gear, then his shoes. He reached up to pull his hat off before remembering that he'd already shed it downstairs last night. As he pulled his tunic over his head, a few tears escaped and welled in the curve below his eyes.

He heard a familiar yawn. "Morning already? Why aren't there more hours in the night?" Midna's ethereal voice followed the yawn, and then her figure radiated from his shadow like a sunrise mist. "I never thought I could get used to waking up at a different time in the light world, but it seems to get easier as – " She paused, and glanced around the room. "Link, are we still at Renado's house?" Her tone became even more irritated. "I told you not to wake me up until you decided to go to the mines!"

"We're not going to the mines." Link absentmindedly folded the tunic, which would have to be washed to erase the smell of the bulblin's blood and his own sweat. "I'm taking the kids, and we're going back home, like Renado said."

"What?"

"And that's the end of it." There was no bed in this room, but a pile of blankets and pillows like Colin had. Link tried his best not to just collapse on it, but he could barely hold his eyes open, let alone hold himself up much longer.

Of course, Midna was not about to let the issue rest. "So what about your other friend, the girl? I don't see her anywhere."

"Once the kids are safe in Ordon Village, I'm going to find her. We're just going to have to forget the mines."

Midna floated into the darkest corner of the room. "Forget the mines? Need I remind you that that spirit said we would find the next Fused Shadow in the mines? We can't just forget – "

"We?" Link sat up on his elbows. "No. You're the one who wants the Fused Shadows. I just want my friends safe. You have to understand this – whatever I said in that prison, whatever I've said or done up to this point, I am not your servant. I don't owe you anything, and you have no right to stop me from trying to protect my friends."

"How dare – you don't owe me anything? Then I suppose that if I had left you to rot in that prison, you would have been content? Why don't I just warp you back there now?" Midna raised a tiny fist as her hair took on a poisonous-looking radiance. She tilted her head to one side and lowered her fist, as though she'd heard an odd noise. "It's about that kid, isn't it?"

"Yes, if that's quite all right with you."

"Thought so. After all, you were crying when I woke up." She shook her head with a long-suffering sigh; her hair gradually dimmed, leaving her shadowy again. "You're so naïve. This is why you should never form any alliances or attachments. Eventually, something goes wrong. Somebody abandons you."

Link sat fully up now. "Colin's not abandoning me, he's sick!"

Midna continued her lecture as though he were already asleep. "That's one thing you'll have to learn if you stick with me – the useless nature of being attached to somebody."

"Don't you have a brother or a sister? Don't you have any family at all? You have no idea what Colin means to me." Link dropped his head into his hands and tugged at his hair, trying to craft the right words for what he was feeling. "Do you know how many bedtime stories I've told to him when I was too tired to think straight? Do you know what his favorite kind of muffin is? Do you know how many times I've stuck up for him when the other kids bullied him? Do you know where he hides when he's upset?"

Midna crossed her arms over her chest. "All right, all right, so you're attached to the kid. I get that. But I don't see what it has to do with the Fused Shadows."

"It has everything to do with it." Link threw his arms down and did his best not to jump off the makeshift bed and strangle this inhumane shadow. "Colin may be dying, Midna. The last thing I need at a time like this is for you to keep throwing your stupid 'great quests' at me."

Sarcasm melted away from her tone, replaced by pleading. "Link, please understand, it's not just my problem – there's more at stake, you know there is!"

He lay down and turned his back to Midna. "I am not going to the mines. And rest assured, if one more thing happens to Colin, you can forget about ever seeing me again."

Now her voice seemed to blanch with anger. "You can't do that, Link, not after what we've been through together – "

"I thought you didn't like forming attachments anyway." Link barely found time to be surprised at himself – sarcasm was not his usual MO – but he did not feel guilt. "Go find someone else to do your work for you."

Midna started to protest again, but instead let out a small, horrible growl: "Hero chosen by the goddesses, indeed. Hah!" She flung herself back into Link's shadow, and Link curled himself into a ball, trying to forget that she even existed.

When he was reasonably sure that Midna wasn't listening – how could he know for sure? – he allowed his tears to release themselves. They weren't spent until he fell asleep.

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Some time later…

Link had never been aware that he was dreaming, so the realization came as a shock. He glanced around the dream world, which looked exactly like Ordon Spring. The sunlight filtering through the ceiling of leaves was pale, but warming and wholesome. The spring's mist curled around him, forming alien shapes in the sunlight and tingling against his skin. He didn't know whether to be frightened at this dream's realism or simply to accept it and the temporary peace it offered.

"Why do you hesitate to continue to the mines?"

It was a child's voice. Link noticed, for the first time, the little girl that was near the falls, kicking her heels against the mossy stone she sat upon. She wore Ordonian clothes and had sun-bleached hair, freckles, and green eyes. She gazed calmly back at him, as though he were only one of the many songbirds that frequented the spring. Then she spoke again. "Link, why do you hesitate to continue to the mines?"

He began to tell her the same thing that he had told Midna while he was awake – but the words caught in his throat and flung themselves back down. He couldn't say it, not to this child, not to her beautiful, innocent face.

The little girl tilted her head, as though trying to catch the sound of Link's breathing. "Is it because you want to protect your friends – or is it because you're afraid of losing them? You don't know what you'd do without them, do you?"

"No, I don't. You're right." Link sighed, and without a second thought, walked over and sat next to the child. "I don't want to lose Colin. He's the closest thing to a brother that I've got."

"You have to have courage, Link," the girl said. She thought for a moment and smiled. "Midna was right, you know. She is surprisingly wise."

"So…you agree with her? I shouldn't love anybody, just in case something happens to them?"

"That's not what I was referring to. Wise she may be, but that does not mean that she isn't misguided. There is more at stake than your family or her Fused Shadows. The Realm of Light and the Realm of Shadow are in danger, and you two have been chosen to save it."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You don't have a choice. It's your duty. And sometimes, you have to let things go – let people go – when duty calls you." She glanced up at him and smiled again. "Don't look confused, I'm not contradicting myself. Link, nobody is asking you to let go of your love for your family – I'm asking you to let go of your fear. Trust them. Trust yourself. And trust me. I wouldn't let any harm come to Colin that you wouldn't have a chance to prevent."

Link noticed a green pearl ring on the girl's finger. Thin, concentric circles inside the gem reflected the weak sunlight and gave the ring an appearance of inner luminosity. "Who are you?" he asked.

"Don't you remember? I protected your spirit when the twilight washed over the lands. You carry my mark of courage, and that's why you were changed into a blue-eyed wolf."

"The goddess Farore…" He could barely get the words out, not because of surprise at her identity, but because of his own reaction. Strange though she was, something about Farore resonated in his subconscious mind, as though he had seen her in a long-ago, fevered delirium. He had to bite his tongue to keep from asking, "So it was you all along…?"

Farore stood up on the rock, and reached her small hand down. Link took it and stood up. "Go on to the mines, Link. My sisters and I intend that you will find the forbidden power that Midna seeks."

"But what if Colin doesn't make it?"

Farore held both his hands. "That's what I mean about having courage."

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Late that morning…

"So, what made you change your mind, Mister 'Oh-I-Can't-Leave-The-Poor-Baby-To-Suffer?'"

Link's fists clenched, but he managed to smile down at his shadow. "A dream."

"A dream, huh? Wow. How auspicious for us. So, did the dream tell you where the Fused Shadows are?"

"No. But hey, that's why you've got me, right?"

"Exactly."

Link tugged at the straps on his knapsack, and finding them secure, bent down to pick his hat up. As he stood back up, his eyes wandered over to Colin's alcove. The sun was just rising, and Renado and Luda were still asleep, so the house was perfectly silent except for Colin's breathing. He walked gingerly toward the alcove, stopping when the floor creaked just a little too loudly. When he reached Colin, he knelt and brushed his knuckles against the boy's forehead, checking his temperature. The skin was cool. Before the sun had set yesterday, Colin's fever had broken and he had slept peacefully since. Renado said that if Colin continued to improve, he would be up in a day or two.

"He's okay for now," Link whispered to Midna.

"Well, hurray."

Colin turned awkwardly over onto his stomach and mumbled in his sleep – not feverish nonsense like earlier, but something about frogs. A smile stretched across Link's face, and he felt like a laugh was stuck inside him.

He patted his brother's shoulder. "I'll be back to take you home."

As he stood up, he realized that he had done what Farore asked. His fear tumbled away from him as though his knapsack had fallen off. Whatever came next, he still loved, and that was enough. He put his hat on and walked toward the front door.

"I'm glad that's behind us," Midna said.

Link couldn't find it in himself to be irritated at her even now. "Yeah. Me too."

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SO…did I chop the canon into a zillion mangled, unrecognizable, bite-sized pieces? And how do you like my incredibly original "time-passing" tags? "Some time later." Yeesh.

And if you review, please don't do so to tell me that Renado's home doesn't have partitioned rooms or a second story or whatever – canon is king, but I reserve my right to artistic license! When I write fics for videogames, I tend to imagine settings to be way bigger and more complex than they are represented in-game. In my case, this means that the area of the USA could easily fit into Hyrule, and Link has way, way more than ten or twelve neighbors in Ordon Village. M'kay?