#I love the lakebed temple cutscene SO MUCH
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Febuwhump Day 4: Obedience (Link/Midna)
Ao3
CW for blood and injury, torture, and mild body horror
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Midna is no stranger to the sound of screams.
Her people had cried out when Zant had taken the throne and transformed her beautiful kingdom into something dark and twisted. Their cries of agony and anguish had echoed in her ears as she fled, a hideous imp, humiliated and furious. And they have remained with her all this time, spurring her onward toward salvation and victory.
But the noise that fills the air now is terrible in its own right. It pierces her skull and sets her heart racing erratically in her chest. And it feels as though it has been going on for eternity.
In reality, however, it has probably only been a few minutes. It doesn’t matter though. Midna has never derived joy from seeing Link suffer. This time is no different.
“Midna,” Zant’s leering voice reaches her ears once more, cascading smoothly over the waning sound of the hero’s hoarse screams. “Be an obedient dear and lend me your power. Do so and your precious, little human need not suffer further.”
Midna’s gaze travels down to where Link kneels mere feet away from her. His body is rigid, held in place by invisible bindings. His cap has fallen a short distance from him; his tunic and pants are splotched with mud, sweat, and blood. Tears stream down his ashen cheeks and well in his eyes, turning their gray the color of a stormy sky. But there is fire in them.
“Don’t,” he gasps, voice painfully ragged. “Please, Midna.”
Zant flicks a hand and the hero tenses further, an agonized whine breaking free.
“Quiet, dog,” he growls. “Count yourself lucky that I have allowed you the dignity of this form rather than letting the twilight have its way with you.”
“Lucky?” Midna shrieks, unable and unwilling to restrain herself. The nerve of this man! Calling himself her king, banishing her from her kingdom, demanding her aid…and now, hurting the hero. Her hero. “Being a human in a twilight realm is excruciating and you know that full well!”
“Come now, Midna,” Zant purrs, rounding her once more. His attempts at sweetness are as sour as his breath. “Calm yourself. This…human is pathetic in comparison to us. He has enjoyed the fruits of his people’s cruelty for far too long. It is time he felt some small portion of what we have endured.”
Midna is seething now. If only she were in her true form. If only she had that shadow crystal. She would rip this monster’s limbs off and cast him into the light-filled world he so detests.
“What we’ve endured?” She spits. “What about the things my people have suffered by your hand? You call yourself their king while you turn them into disgusting beasts!”
She kicks out, struggling against her bonds. But they hold fast, as suffocating and restrictive as this world.
“I have made the kingdom what it long should have been,” Zant replies, tone darkening. “You would have had it fall into obscurity and disrepair. You would have had our people forget all that they have endured because of the light dwellers.
“But you evade the question, my fallen princess. Will you help me or not?”
Link’s eyes find hers. He is breathing hard, shuddering beneath the weight of his own form. And yet, he smiles. It is only the slightest upturn of the lips, like a thread of twilight stretching bravely into the world of light. But Midna sees it all the same.
“Never.”
The word when she speaks it, shatters the momentary silence. She doesn’t have to see him to know Zant’s expression has turned murderous.
(Though, if she’s being honest, does it ever not look murderous? The man is vile.)
Her eyes, however, are only for Link. He is looking at her with pride in his gaze, pride and…maybe the beginnings of something else? She can’t be certain.
Whatever it is, she doesn’t deserve it.
“No?” Zant laughs and it seems to echo in the cavernous space. “Well then. You truly have fallen far Midna, to conspire with light dwellers in such a way. It nauseates me!”
Power surges through the air, a projectile of pure darkness slicing its way toward the hero. The energy it emanates is so dark, so sinister the air reverberates with it.
Midna gasps as she realizes what is about to happen. With an enraged screech, she struggles even harder than before. But she is helpless to stop it.
Darkness, fierce and sharp, collides with Link’s chest. It keeps going, shoving aside flesh and muscle and bone to burrow deep into his heart. His eyes go wide, blood bubbling from his lips as he chokes on a cry.
“This light dweller pretends to care for you and your world,” Zant sneers. “Perhaps, then, he will enjoy internalizing the shadows you inhabit.”
A skull-shattering scream pierces the air. Link thrashes, fighting desperately to get loose. Streaks of black crawl across his skin now, craters of molten obsidian amongst bloodless white.
“I wonder how much he can take before he breaks,” Zant muses.
He twists sleeve-hidden fingers and abruptly, Link crumples. Shadows dance in the air around him as he transforms. And then a beast lays twitching on the ground before her.
“No, stop!” The shout breaks free before she can restrain it.
But Zant doesn’t seem to even hear her. He is too enraptured by his own sadistic glee at Link’s agony.
The shadows around him grow thicker now, more potent. The obsidian marks spread like jagged lines of ink and blood oozes in their wake. They mar the hero’s lush gray coat, trickle into his once-bright eyes.
Midna inhales a ragged breath. If she doesn’t stop this, if she doesn’t act Link will die. That cannot happen.
She needs him to help her save her kingdom and her people. She needs him to save that little country town of his, and the kids who gaze at him like he is the sun itself, and the family he adores despite how they so violently despised his wolf form. She needs him to save the land Zelda has sacrificed so much for, the land Link looks upon with wonder.
She needs…she needs him.
So, she takes a deep breath and focuses. There is a crack, she realizes with a spark of hope, in the magic Zant is using to restrain her. She isn’t certain how she didn’t see it before. Perhaps, it wasn’t even there before.
It doesn’t matter. All that’s important is the way she can exploit it.
Midna forces her hands inside it, pulls it wider and wider until it is a gaping hole. Then, she shoves herself through, shattering her bonds as she does so. And when she opens her eyes once more, she is free.
She hits the ground with a dull thud and scrambles up. Zant whirls to face her, a screech of indignation ringing out as he unsheathes his swords. But she is too fast for him.
Fiery locks fly free, scooping the still-shuddering hero into their silken folds. Magic surges through her panicked and quick. And with a burst of sharp shadows, they are gone.
She lands them in Hyrule Field, for lack of a better place. It is far from most villages at least, with their mindless terror and ready torches. Gently, she lowers Link into the blades of green grass.
She can only hope that the teleportation wasn’t too much for him. But what other choice had she had?
“Link.”
Midna reaches out, ghostly fingers brushing his cheek. The word hitches in her throat, traitorous emotion struggling to break free. Fiercely, she shoves it back down.
“Come on, you idiot! Wake up!”
As if in response, his breath stutters. Gray-blue eyes flutter open, flitting about in a panic before they land on her. He shifts, brushing his nose against her immaterial form. A low whine echoes in his throat.
Midna lets out a shaky sigh. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. He didn’t touch me. Worry about yourself like you should.”
Link huffs a breath, seeming indignant. But his efforts are weak. His usual snark is gone with his strength, sapped by the madman who had sought to use him.
Shaking her head, Midna turns to gaze at the castle that bravely rises past the horizon.
“You just hold on, Link,” she murmurs. “I’ll get you the help you need.”
And after that? She’ll find the might necessary to hurl Zant into the sun.
#febuwhump2024#febuwhump day 4#torture tw#blood tw#injury tw#mild body horror#angst#whump#trin writes#pre-lu#loz#twilight princess#midlink#I love the lakebed temple cutscene SO MUCH#and on my recent replay thought#‘hey what if link got tortured like midna was?’#had a bunch of dark magic poured into him instead of light#and lo and behold this came out
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@aureateart ok.
My favourite parts of twilight princess (and some other random thoughts about TP sprinkled in there) taken from my monster TP word vomit google doc :
Link lmao
Ok but for real, I like this incarnation of Link :)
I love Ordon (it just seems like such a chill and cozy village)
ALSO love how easy it is to interpret Link as being a sort of older brother figure to the Ordon kiddos. It’s just,, super cute? AND GHHH nice nice good thanks nintendo for giving me characters to care about/characters that I can imagine Link caring about
He didn’t sign up for any of this (tbh, none of the Links really signed up for this jshdjsd). But I mean like, dude was just going to take a trip to castle town, drop a gift off for the royal family, and come back. But haHA oopsies he did get to castle town eventually but definitely not the way he expected hsjdhsd
He’s just a little dude?
AND FUCK. HE REALLY HAD NEVER BEEN OUTSIDE OF ORDON UNTIL ALL OF THAT
everything is new for the player AND Link
Midna
She’s cool :)
she really just
*teleports into your jail cell* hello whore.
I am no master at writing but AYYYY she do got a character arc!!!
She was actually pretty helpful sometimes, I ALWAYS checked in with her before turning to a game guide
Other NPCs
NICE
Love all of the TP character designs (ASHEI’S ARMOUR??? AOWOAOAOOAO)
Saving Zelda and all of Hyrule was important yea but thinking back maybe it was more like, the Ordonians and the kids were what was pushing Link to keep on going
I like the Resistance members :) Very video gamey of them to have one NPC assigned to each dungeon but hey!!! Kinda cool getting to see a little glimpse of each of em
Idk, it’s just fun to imagine Link popping into Telma’s bar after each dungeon and taking a little rest :) (or to celebrate? maybe just chat, idk, give this man some downtime!!)
Honestly it was just kind of nice that Link wasn’t entirely alone. I mean, I know Midna was there the whole time, but I am always for giving Link a big group of friends (see my love for hyrule warriors, age of calamity, and LU LMAO)
Hero’s shade, very very cool, kinda sad he died with regrets but HEY. He got to pass on his knowledge eventually
AND the connection to OoT?? AND assumed to be related by blood too????? GOOD SHIT
Ilia, I REALLY really wanted to like her (er, it’s not like I dislike her, she’s just,,, kinda there for me).
It definitely seems like Nintendo was pushing to make her the romantic interest, but GHHHHH they really threw that out of the window for me by having her lose her memories
I saw a text post a while ago that said it would have been interesting if Ilia was Link’s sister instead and YES!! That would have been cool too :0
Wish we got to know Zelda a little more
I feel like we barely know anything about her
Idk man, like I said earlier, I never really had any sort of drive to save Zelda during my playthroughs
She obviously knows Midna, so maybe if they gave us just a little bit more of that relationship I’d be more interested in her?
TP WORLD BUILDINGGGG
Botw has good world building too, but each race felt kinda,,, isolated? I absolutely love the different architecture and vibe each town has (and all the the weapons too) but ghhh yea everyone felt so separated. As far as I can remember, we don’t see tooo much of the races interacting with each other? Now that I’m typing that out maybe that’s to be expected because of the calamity but KLSJDKJFD ANYWAYS THIS IS ABOUT TP
The world feels nice and alive, love how populated everything is
Castle town I like castle town a lot, it feels dense and busy and I really like how you can’t talk to every NPC you see
Very cool very fun that we got to see the Gorons hanging out in multiple spots
kinda wish we got to see the Zoras a little more (I guess they are a bit limited since they need water but GHHHH the tp zoras are so prebby,,)
BUT HEY, I do remember seeing a zora or two hanging out in the hot springs around death mountain after beating the lakebed temple (I think, might have been a different dungeon)
but aaaa would have been nice to see them in at least a couple of other places. I think it would have really added to the “congrats Link!! You’re restoring peace to Hyrule” feeling you get from seeing the Gorons hanging out in Kakariko and Castle Town
ORDON
Love how chill it is and how it’s kind of separate from Hyrule proper
They really do seem to be doing their own thing apart from the rest of Hyrule
Just kinda adds onto the “he’s just a regular dude minding his own business” kind of vibes I get from TP Link
Also I like Ordona :)
THE LIGHT SPIRITS,,
Love their design
And love how they’re not exactly like a pure white?
Different spirit representing each aspect of the triforce my beloved
But yes hi I think Ordona is very cool
Who are you, how did you get here, which goddess do you represent? Do you even represent one of the three golden goddesses? Do the Ordonians know about you? Have any of them ever SEEN you??? Do they worship you? Does anybody even know about the existence of the light spirits?? FUCK so many questions but ghhh I like how they broke the status quo a bit by throwing in a fourth spirit :)
I feel like this one is kinda weird but I like that voice sample they used in the light spirit music. It’s spooky and pretty at the same time :)
cutscenes mmmmm
Ok ok, the spooky lanayru cutscene is very good
BUT THE “Link, Chosen Hero! Lend us the last of your power!” CUTSCENE MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM LOVE IT SO MUCH
IT just
Idk man
It just hit different
I like the music
And seeing the light spirits swimming around in the light juice water whatever it is
Summoning the light arrows?
AND HHHHH “Lend us the last of your power!” THIS IS IT. This is the final battle.
Seeing Zelda bow down, and then Link putting his hand out 👌👌👌
Link: ok bud, let’s do this together :)
Connection to OoT (did I already mention this? Maybe., Whatever)
Very cool nintendo :)
I love seeing connections between all the diff zelda games.
Because like, on one hand, they’re all separate from each other because of yknow, individual hero stuff. BUT ALSO, they’re all connected because of the reincarnation stuff
Grrrr walking through the sacred grove and going “The Hero of Time walked around here a long time ago” FUCK THATS SO COOL
Is the Hero’s Shade watching me? What does he think of me? DIsappointed? Proud? The Hero of Time went through HELL so this timeline didn’t have to deal with any of the shit Ganon was gonna pull with the triforce, better not fuck this UP Link!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Midlink is cute
Kinda hurts that she smashed the mirror but that was probably so Nintendo didn’t have to worry about people going “but what about the twili??????” for any of the other games LMAO
BUT ALSO LIKE SKJDKLJFJ There are some pretty massive plot holes in TP anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ whatever it’s fine we’ll just use this for angst because GOD do y’all like angst
So is Shadlink
Honestly don’t know where this ship came from but it’s cute so whatever
THE MUSIC??
Love Midna’s theme and how they referenced the dark world theme from ALttP (I remember trying to learn the dark world theme on the piano and doing the Leonardo DiCaprio point meme at the little jingle I recognized from Midna’s theme)
Hyrule field theme SLAPS.
Apparently references a couple of the other over-world themes from the previous zelda games (I got this from 8-bit Music theory’s video on the over-world zelda themes, he talks about TP at around 11:40 but def recommend watching the whole video if you’re into music analysis stuff)
So there’s this bit of the Hyrule Field theme, I don’t know the official name for it but I remember seeing somewhere it being called the “at an advantage theme” since yeah, you hear it during the boss music whenever you expose their weak points. FUCKINGGG LOVE THAT. Didn’t notice it during my first playthrough, but hearing it during my second was like a little easter egg for my ears every time :)
Midna’s lament is very pretty (and fun to play on the piano)
COURAGE THEME.
I didn’t care for it too much when I started playing the game but hearing it in ZREO’s arrangement of the Hyrule Field theme literally makes me turn into a puddle of emotions. Also hearing it around and of the Ordon kids (I think it plays after Link saves Colin) AAAAAAAAAAAAA
Orchestra piece #1 and #2 HOLY SHIT????????????????
Literally, the first time I listened to those I just,,,, plugged in my headphones, volume 100, layed on the floor/against my desk and silently vibed. I don’t know what the hell it is, but those two just fit so well with TP?? I still avoid listening to them nowadays cause if I DO I definitely will get overwhelmed with the “god I love this game so FUCKING MUCH” kind of feels.
Wolf link sucks at singing
the first time I heard him howling Zelda’s Lullaby I lost my shit because LKSJLDKSGLKJFSKG god that was.,, Bad. Anyways, hearing him howl some of the songs from OoT was cute :)
TP STAFF ROLL???
VERY GOOD. IT’s like 10 minutes long and GOD do I love every single second of it. It doesn’t have the same energy as the skyward sword staff roll or the orchestra pieces but GOD does it hit good??
Nice and calm after that big exciting adventure. Maybe it would have been more fun or emotional to have a higher energy piece but it was really nice getting to sit back and watch the camera fly around Hyrule. Seeing like, the Gorons and the Zoras having a good time, the kids returning to Ordon? GOOD SHIT.
and AAAAA that end, when you hear the main Zelda theme and see Link riding off out of Faron woods on Epona… good shit. It gets you thinking, where the hell is he going? What is he doing? Off ot do more adventuring? Going to help out the resistance or something? Going to help Zelda? Or maybe he’s trying to figure out a way to restore the mirror of twilight? Whoooo knows.
hhHHHHhhh it’s just that final reminder that YES!!! YOU JUST PLAYED A ZELDA GAME. JUST ANOTHER STORY APART OF THE WHOLE EPIC OF THE ZELDA SERIES AS A WHOLE
I also want to acknowledge the instrument/samples they used for all the twili stuff.
They’re all just so unique and contrast SO well with the rest of the TP OST. LIKE FUCK!! Anytime I hear the screech from the Twilit Kargarok? Sends a shiver down my spine. I associate those sounds SO strongly with the twili realm. (Like, the same way you associate the BSHEWW VVWWMMM sounds with light sabers)
I love it so god damn much
literally any time there’s a certain sound or motif associated with something I lose my shit
Sacred grove sacred grove sacred gro-
lovely lovely lovely so much fun playing that on the piano. AND again, I did the Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme when I heard the theme from the lost woods come in GHHHHHHHH
shoutout to TP Faron Woods for helping me study and get through all of my schoolwork
BLEGUUHHH can you tell that I really love music?
and also yea I guess TP is kinda cool too :\
IF YOU READ ALL OF THAT THANKS I GUESS
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About What Makes A Hero, trust me when I say it gets way better once you get passed the Lakebed Temple Chapters and then afterwards (spoilers ahead on 2006 game) when Link saves Midna. Also love that you’re catching on to the rinse and repeat nature of the story, WMaH readers constantly joke about Link having to always see Renado when he’s about to die. But trust me when I say that it does get better and you won’t be disappointed. It’s a long read but it’s a read that does deliver despite doubts
(cont’d) Oh and just cause I’m curious what chapter are you on in WMaH? I’ll let you know what chapters to really look forward to if you’d like.
LMFAO, I have been told this several times by multiple people now, and despite having been optimistic at first, I’m just not convinced anymore. I haven’t made any progress in a while (I’ve been busy trying to write my own fic, and I’ve also slowly been making progress in my text-free cutscenes project), but I left off at the beginning of Chapter 25, right after Link got really hurt (again) and Midna had to shove that arrow through his torso. I feel like I’ve made way too much progress to just give up on reading it, but I also stopped caring enough about it that I went and had someone else spoil me on how it ends, and lemme tell you, I am NOT looking forward to reaching that kind of conclusion whatsoever.
Now, if the journey to reach that conclusion were better, I’d be okay with it, but I’ve just been…bored, mostly, while reading it? Link’s characterization is exceptionally bland, too much dialogue is pulled directly from the game… It feels like I’m wading through hundreds of thousands of words and lines and places I’ve already seen looking for the few bits and pieces that differentiate it from the game I’ve already played, and most of the time that’s Link getting hurt, and that’s also the same song and dance every time, so…I’m really just wondering when the hell this “getting better” thing is supposed to happen.
And anyway, I shouldn’t have to read through over a third of a massive fic just holding out on it to “get better.” It should just…be better, already.
This all might be completely unfair to the story, and heck, I dunno, maybe I’m wrong and it does get better (I sure hope so, for my sake), but I tend to be pretty picky when it comes to books, TV, movies, etc. and fan fiction is not exempt from that kind of critical eye. I’ll bite, though: what chapters do I have to look forward to? I might skip ahead and read a few bits and pieces to gauge whether or not I actually want to sink that much more time into this thing, because as of right now, I feel extremely deflated.
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