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His hands are shredded, sore and broken, trying to ignore the way his body craved to flinch as he flexed his fingers to get the feeling back into them. The desert is cold, bitterly so, too far from the fire to have the heat embrace him as he placed yet another shard.
The bitterness of a cold Gerudo night was nothing compared to 7 years.
Was this a fool’s quest? Perhaps, he’d been advised of this by near everyone. The village had been somewhat sympathetic, Ilia the most so, her warm smile and encouraging words of how he ‘was worth waiting for’ and how ‘she must really be something’ keeping him from losing most faith.
Zelda had warned him of past heroes, of how his former self had wandered into the forest, merely a child, never to be seen again. Expressed her worry of what may befall the kingdom if he too disappeared into the ether but Hyrule didn’t need him anymore. Ordon didn’t need him anymore.
She might not want him anymore.
Link falters, swallowing thickly as tired blue eyes look at the mirror he’d rebuilt. What if...what if she didn’t...
A stab of pain in his hand snaps him from his thoughts, a bleeding palm and a red tainted shard. The last shard. The last shard of this cursed mirror and yet still he hesitates, the creeping feeling of doubt curling around his spine so tightly it was almost suffocating.
When had he lost his courage and become such a coward?
“Faron, give me strength.” He mouths in silent prayer, hands shaking as he finally places the shard, waiting for a reaction only to collapse in on himself when nothing happens. No reaction, no fanfare. Just a shattered mirror crudely put back together by a desperate man still haunted by the ghost of a being long gone.
Link doesn’t realise he’s crying at first, assuming the stinging in his eyes was from the cold, looking down at the sound of the impact of tears on leather pouches. His hands are still shaking, still bleeding, throat tight from dehydration and the grief that held him in a choke hold.
He’d wasted his time. He’d wasted 7 long, painful years.
“Please.” His voice cracks, coarse from lack of use. “Please, Hylia please.”
She doesn’t answer, nobody does, and why would they? He’s alone in this desert, in the ruins of the Arbiters Grounds, praying to a higher power that only listened when she wanted to before a shattered mirror.
Did he truly think his dedication and love could reverse this?
He was a fool. A fool who over estimated himself.
The sudden light stings, Link recoiling and shielding his eyes as narrow light begins to map out the shatters, spreading from the middle rapidly as it flooded the mirror and surrounding area in a light so bright, so pure it almost stung.
It was going to break again. He could feel it. Link pushes himself up, eyes burning from the light as he pushed forward, palms attempting to keep the pieces in place as the panic seeped in only for them to find nothing.
No rough surface of the mirror, just the air and darkness as he falls, queasy and confused as to why he’s felt this feeling before. As to why the night sky is stuck in twilight. As to why he can hear the mirror shatter all over again.
It’s cold but not in the same way as Hyrule, seeping into his bones and core as he lay on the floor, confused and still anxious. Where was he? This wasn’t Hyrule.
Sitting up doesn’t help, not at first, the open expanse of perpetual twilight making him blink as his mind connected the dots, filling in the blanks his confusion had left in its wake.
He’d made it.
Commotion behind him gives him cause to turn, a sea of pale faces staring at him as whispers of an unknown tongue filled the air only to disperse at someone’s arrival. He looks and, once more, he swallows.
She’s as beautiful as the day she left.
Red eyes are still half asleep when they land on him, blinking slowly, almost cat like. Was she as torn about moving towards him as he was for her? Were his fears founded?
The bubble in his throat rises, painful as he holds it in, tears threatening to spill again as she approached him, so slowly and cautiously, as if he were some wild animal she didn’t know. “Mi-”
He’s cut off by a mix of hiccough and her. Her hands as cold as always as she rushes forward, kneeling with him in the dirt as she cupped his stubble coated cheeks.
Is she crying too? Link can’t tell, finding comfort in the press of her forehead against his, his form enveloped in her scent, her touch, knowing that if this dream were to end it would be enough. Enough to satisfy him for at least another lifetime.
“Say something, say something so I know you’re real.” Her voice shakes, red eyes meeting blue, exposing her fear, her worry that this was yet another trick her mind had played on her. Link tries to answer, words catching in his throat as Midna sighs, laughing to herself sadly. “Am I so beautiful that you’ve no words left?”
Yes, he thinks, hand coming up to cover hers, head turning to place a kiss against the inside of her wrist before turning back to her, a soft smile as he croaked out the words he’d been practising since he started repairing the mirror.
“I love you.”