#i'll probably crosspost this to ao3 so you can read it there if you prefer

[imagineaspen]

Below the cut is a short one-shot written for the prompt: Constellation

This is meant to take place about midway through Twilight Princess (i.e. after zelda's sacrifice)

“Why do you spend so much time looking at the sky?”

Link, lying with his back in the sand, turned to her with surprise in his eyes.

“Is that a serious question?”

Midna winced.  Weeks ago, it would not have been; would have been the start of a quip, to berate him for wasting time, or for losing on sleep when he needed to be fully alert to find the Fused Shadows for her.  But now… she did not know if it was only the influence of Princess Zelda on her, but she wanted to try.  She wanted to know him, to understand him.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

Link rolled back to face skyward, letting out a peaceful sigh. 

“Not the sky,” he said.  “The stars.”

She looked up at the twinkling lights shining against the black of the night sky.  She’d never seen stars in the Twilight Realm;  its sky was always the same half-darkness of twilight, too light for stars.  The first time she had seen the stars in the Light World’s sky, she had thought them an ugly distraction, like thousands of tiny eyes following her everywhere she went.

“We’ve come all the way to the Gerudo Desert,” Link continued.  “The farthest I’ve ever been from Ordon Village. But I can see the same stars.”

“How can you know that?” she retorted.  “They all look the same.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, her face warmed in shame.  She was trying to be better, but she kept reaching for this rudeness and hostility.  Link, however, only chuckled.

“Not true,” he said.  “There are shapes in the stars, if you know where to look.”  

She frowned, looking at the sky and seeing nothing.   “Show me,” she ordered.

Link glanced at her again, before gesturing next to him.  She floated next to him, then positioned herself to lie at his side (hovering just a bit above the ground, of course.  She did not want to get sand in her hair).

“Alright,” he said.  He seemed to think for a moment, then pointed at something in the sky.  “See that star, there?  The one that’s sort of blue?”

Midna squinted, trying to look where he pointed.  “Maybe,” she said.

“Alright, so, if you follow up from that star, you can kind of make a line, see? And if you go right, to that small star there, then down, diagonally���”  He continued like this, tracing lines in the sky while Midna tried her hardest to follow, eventually ending at the same blue star they’d started on. 

“Then it kind of looks like a woman wearing a dress,” Link finished.

 “What? No, it doesn’t.”

Link snorted.  “You need to be more open minded,” he said.  “Anyway, it’s meant to be a goddess called Hylia.”

“Like the lake?”

Link shrugged.  “I guess so. I was never very religious.”

Midna continued to look at the stars.  Nothing about what Link had pointed out for her looked like a woman.  It looked more like a pair of triangles.

No, something whispered within her.  Look harder.  (Were they her own thoughts, that she heard sometimes in her mind, or Zelda’s?  She was finding it harder and harder to tell.)

“I see it,” she said finally.  “Sort of.”

“Now start from that star,” Link said, pointing to another one.  “And go left…”

He continued, showing her shape after shape in the sky. 

A giant whale, apparently a Zora god.

Death Mountain, spewing out a cloud of smoke and lava.

A hero of old, bow trained on an ancient entity remembered only as the Demon King.

A majestic ram, the light spirit Ordona.

So many shapes, and so many stories.  Midna had been wrong – the stars were pretty.

“And that one,” said Link, “is a cucco.”

“You just made that up!”

He laughed.  “Maybe,” he said.  “But it could be, couldn’t it?”

Midna smiled despite herself.  “How do you know all this?”

“Rusl taught them to me when I was a child,” he said.  “He used to say that no matter how far you are from someone, as long as you can see the same stars, you aren’t truly apart.  I like to imagine him looking up at these same stars, right now.  Him, or Colin, or Ilia…”  He sighed.  “That’s why I look at the sky.”

Midna was quiet for a moment.  Link’s eyes shuttered, and she realized, with a twisting in her stomach, that he was waiting for her to make fun of him.   She inched closer, then placed a hand on his arm.

“I think… that’s a beautiful thought, Link,” she said.

He turned to her, now grinning.  He looked younger when he smiled, boyish.  Midna hated herself once again for dragging him into what should have been her problem to solve. 

“I still haven’t shown you my favourite one,” he said.  He guided her once again, tracing a new shape in the sky.  “Can you guess what it is?”

How could anyone guess what any of these are?  She stopped herself from saying it out loud.  You are trying, she thought sternly, to be better than that.

Some kind of animal, she decided as she squinted at the sky.  Four legs, and a line of stars that could have been a sweeping tail.   She gasped.

“It’s a wolf,” she said.

Link chuckled.  “Actually, it’s a horse,” he said, then tilted his head.  “It kind of looks like a wolf, though, doesn’t it?”

“That doesn’t look anything like a horse,” Midna argued. “I say it’s a wolf.”

“Look at that group of stars just above its back,” Link said.  “As a kid, I always thought that looked like someone riding the horse.” 

“I guess so,” she said.

“If it’s a wolf,” Link continued, “that could be you and me.”

She glanced to him, at the content look at his face, and decided that she quite liked the idea.

***

There were no stars in the Twilight Realm.  So Midna made her own.

She drew them with paint on her ceiling.   

When her chambermaid came into the room to clean, she looked to the mess Midna was making and brought a hand to her chest in shock.

“My Queen,” she said, aghast.  “Whatever are you doing?”

“Redecorating,” Midna said, her hands and clothes covered in white and yellow paint.

“Redecorating… by putting random dots all over the ceiling?”

“They aren’t random,” Midna said proudly.  “They make a wolf.  Look, I’ll show you.”

That night, and for many nights after, Midna lay in bed, looking up at her makeshift stars, and wondered.  

She wondered whether somewhere far away, though broken mirrors and across realms, someone else was looking at the same stars and missing her too.    

[nebulousbrainsoup]

→ this blog is strictly 18+; minors do not interact (mdni). if i catch a minor interacting with my work, whether it be sfw or nsfw, they will be promptly blocked and permanently blacklisted. the same goes for anyone supporting minors within adult spaces. don't disrespect my boundaries and the boundaries of others like that.

→ ageless blogs will be soft blocked. while i would love to assume the best and believe my ageless blogs out there are adults, i would rather keep myself safe and out of legal trouble. i give a grace period of 48 hours after following to read my rules & regs and disclaimers.

→ don't be transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic or otherwise racist on my page. there's a lot going on in the world right now and i will post political things from time to time; if you disagree, find the unfollow or block button. my views are my own and you are not likely to shift them.

→ i reserve the right to block anyone leaving backhanded compliments on my works. respectful constructive criticism is welcome (preferably by ask), but if i find any form of "thanks for not doing it this way" or "so much better than x", i will be blocking you. and i'll probably write the other thing out of spite.

→ empty blogs will be soft blocked. tl;dr, the tumblr algorithm can't tell the difference between active empty blogs and bots, and a large bot following can lead to being shadowbanned. i like having even a small amount of reach; i work hard and i won't let something so silly take my safe space away.

→ don't be toxic. respect me and my mutuals and we won't have a problem.

→ reposters and plagiarists will be blocked and blacklisted. i have one other account i may post early versions of works or idea dump on, @notabonestealer, so anything from that account is me. only my critical role works and upcoming collab with cybrsan will be crossposted on ao3. please notify me if you find any of my works elsewhere.

STATUS: [CLOSED]

I WRITE FOR:

→ ateez → seventeen → stray kids → star wars → critical role (campaign 2)

i may write sfw content for xikers in the future, but we'll see. i already have enough trouble writing for the boys who are a few months younger than me; the babies are uncharted territory.

I WILL NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, WRITE:

→ anything with anyone underage. nsfw, sfw, doesn't matter. minors may appear as side characters, but they will be used sparingly. i'm not gonna write about people who aren't allowed on my blog.

→ non-con/dub-con/assault scenarios; yes this includes cnc. no kinkshaming here, but due to personal reasons, it's no longer something i can write or consume. go check out some of my moots tho!

→ incest/step-cest

→ watersports or scat play

→ romanticization of self-destructive behaviors. while i may, on occasion, write something related to these topics, they will always be about the recovery process and finding a support system.

i reserve the right to decline any requests that make me feel uncomfortable or i think are beyond my skill level. i appreciate the ambition from some of y'all, but i can only deal with so much horny twister.

DISCLAIMER — all works found on this blog are purely fiction and should be treated as such. no work created by nebulousbrainsoup is meant to represent any character or idol in any way.

© 2024 nebulousbrainsoup | all rights reserved. do not repost, copy, or translate my works. custom divs by @kwanisms