get off my back, or...whatever

---

It was unlike any place she'd ever seen on Alrest. A meadow lain upon tiled floors of stone, stained glass windows pouring in light from a source unknown, statues with horns and beards and sigils on their stomachs, a sort of mournful sound permeating the walls...

It was like the Praetorium, except it actually felt special, even somewhat comforting, to be in. It inspired caution through reverence, rather than fear. All time seem to be concentrated here, and for good rather than bad.

For an obviously holy place, that was one hell of a difference. And, either that was a trap or it was a very, very good sign, considering the way they'd gotten here.

Nia buried her fingers deep in the fur ringing Dromarch's neck and took a breath of the same magnitude (perhaps a little shallower, even - perhaps not). Time to find out.

"Hello?"

The echo traveled as far as she had expected, at first, and then it just...stopped. So it wasn't the echo, rather, only the vibrations traveling into the wall and then dying straight off.

Nia shuddered. Creepy. A little more like the Praetorium, now.

"My lady, are you sure that's wise?"

The way Dromarch ground out his gravelly caution, it was clear that he'd been reluctant to speak at all. Nia considered that. Her initial thought had been that it'd be better to let whatever was here know that they were here too than to get on its bad side and make it think they'd been sneaking around, but suddenly that didn't seem like such a good idea.

Now it would know exactly where she was - pinpointed with the noise cancellation to boot, probably - and could take her head right off without leaving a trace.

Wonderful. So she wasn't afraid of the place, but rather the things in it, which all came out to the same, in the end. Inextricable, like that.

Oh, how she hadn't missed being afraid.

"Who are you?"

"AH!"

The voice that had said it was fairly high - higher than her own was most of the time, certainly - with a coy, whimsical lilt that made it dip higher and lower all the time anyway, as the end of the question trailed off into a strange sort of hush.

"Sorry," Nia said lamely, just as instinctually as had come the scream.

But she still didn't turn around. She felt just as petrified as everything else of stone in here.

"Dromarch, who's there?"

She went to lick her lips, but the whole of her mouth was dry. Even her hands failed to be clammy enough in her gloves to provide good traction as she rubbed the palms against the sides of her jumpsuit.

"I haven't looked, my lady."

Furball, Nia thought, but made one final inhalation and then a timid about-face, ears half-flattened half-drooped.

Before her were (couldn't say stood, because they weren't) what appeared to be two individuals, or possibly one fused together. The bottom half was a wolf with a metal cuff and a broken link of chain attached to its front-left paw. Or was it the right? Anyway. That much was clear to see.

What confused Nia more was the top half, which was definitely the part that had spoken. Its arms and legs and ears, as well as patches of its chest, were black, or else a very dark green, and everything else was a pale blue - excepting, of course, the bright orange growth coming out of the back of its head. It reminded Nia quite strongly of Newt's disembodied arms, in a way.

Oh, oh! A Blade, maybe? Like Ursula and Beary?

Ah, but no Core Crystal, not on the front of the wolf or anywhere on the imp riding atop. Could be hidden under the helmet, like Jin with his mask, or specifically under the eyeball shape on the helmet, like how she'd expected Zeke to be. It - or rather, she, judging from the chest (modest) and the hips (not so) - certainly had ether lines enough.

Of course she wasn't wearing any clothes.

Nia gulped, and still felt nothing substantial to swallow. "Why don't you tell us, first?"

The imp snickered. "How come? You don't even know where you are!" And then she snickered again.

Damn. She was right.

Might as well try it. "You've never 'eard of a place called Alrest, have you?"

Dromarch pursed his lips, but Nia ignored him. How could that possibly be a dangerous thing to say? If they knew, then it wouldn't be a problem, and if they didn't, same thing. Methinks you worry too much, milord.

"Alrest?" The wolf still hadn't spoken. Eh, that tracked. "No...this is Hyrule," the imp finished, elbows pointed up and hands held behind its neck.

"Hyrule," Nia repeated. Unbeknownst to her, the imp seemed to take a great deal of interest in the way the dipthong rolled off her tongue. "I've never been."

She almost stuck out a hand to shake, but only almost. The odds of this...thing even knowing what a handshake was seemed pretty slim, honestly, and again, if it did...well, she was intrigued, sure, but not that much. Not yet.

"Yeah? Then how'd you get here?"

Good question. Very, very good question.

How was the best way to describe it? Minimal excess detail, just straight to the facts. Don't explain Alvis, or Ontos, or whoever - not like she could, but she could try to go by way of Mythra, maybe maybe maybe - or the World Tree, or the Conduit, the mere idea of which still made her head spin, and her eyes within it flashed cold and white-hot all at once...

"This mysterious guy with silver hair and a really annoyingly" - like, REALLY, she couldn't understand why he had to be so much more flippin' cryptic than Mythra and Malos both - "slow voice appeared with, like, the keys to the universe, and he pulled up all the broken worlds in existence, and I guess we fell into one."

Good enough.

"So like a god, yeah?"

No, actually. Definitionally not so.

To her opponent, however, Nia merely acquiesced, "Sure, I guess. Whatever sounds good."

"Haha! Pretty gutsy. I'm Midna. You?"

Midna. Pretty...pretty. Oh, screw the words. "Nia. And this is Dromarch."

"Ooh, fancy! Is he like a butler or something?"

If Nia hadn't been a healer, her lip would have bled immediately, given the force with which she bit it. Sure, I guess. Whatever sounds good.

"And what about yours?" Midna hadn't seen her riding on Dromarch's back, but it was a fair enough comparison.

"This? This is Link. He's a human." Almost imperceptibly, Midna had started to roll her eyes, but stopped herself just as quickly.

"Really?" And now Nia began to gain some of her confidence back. "Doesn't look like a human to me - or are they different in your world?" Like the Blades...?

"Well...sure," Midna started, clasping her hands at her waist behind her back, "most of the ones I've seen don't have big pointy ears..."

Link, as he was apparently called, turned his snout up sideways and gave Midna a very, ah, pointed look at that.

"Anyway! I guess I might as well tell you that that's how we snuck up on you. Eheh! Can little old Dromarch sneak into a room without anyone knowing, too?"

What kind of a question was that? Of course he could! Nia discarded the challenge to reply politely with immediacy.

"I doubt your Link can, when it counts. How come you haven't gotten rid of that cuff, hmm? Maybe there's somewhere else you two are meant to be."

It was cruel to tease them about their most obvious afflictions like this, and doubly cruel when Nia had once been just such a prisoner of her own past, but she couldn't resist. They were already the strangers in a strange land. No use in being weak about it, too.

Not that Midna seemed to care about being welcoming. "Yours can't even turn into a human! What good is that, huh?"

Party tricks. Party tricks!

"W-well- yours..." Nia waffled, now nervous with her words and unsure if what she'd thought of next would be a low blow. Incapacity of subverted transhumanism had already been cleared, so...

Alright.

"Well! Yours can't even talk. I don't see what good is he, if he can't do that - and I mean no offense, sir," she added, bending slightly at the waist and nodding to Link.

Link eyed her neutrally.

"My lady..."

"Ugh, bo-ring." As she interrupted, Midna floated upwards, leaning back on hands propped behind her head. "Does he have to do that EVERY time? Maybe it'd be better if he couldn't talk either!"

Nia had already tensed up at the taunting, inflammatory words the imp had said, but now she was giggling about them too? Of all the nerve...!

"Look, I dunno what you want from me, and I haven't the bloody faintest how to get out of here," and far, far away from you, she thought, "so just play nice, okay?"

Whatever magic this weird girl had access to, and her werewolf companion to boot...no way. It didn't bear thinking about.

"Anyway." Midna dropped down directly in front of Nia, but made no attempt to get up into her face. "Isn't it rude of you to assume that Link can't talk? Maybe he's just choosing his moments."

"What, so you don't even know? Pathetic."

Aha. Bingo - or, whatever you might call the prospect of Midna's sudden shocked gape revealing the fang she'd been keeping judiciously hidden for the foregoing portion of the encounter. It wasn't like Nia had been looking for that, or anything. Not like she particularly cared.

"Well?" Nia let her ears flick back and forth as much as they wanted, hands on hips and the toe of one boot raised jauntily off the ground. "Is he gonna do it, then?"

"Do what?" Midna, still taken aback, wasn't quite ready to field Nia's banter at the same rate as she had been, though Link seemed to be marginally more amused by this turn of events.

"I mean, if he can talk, I bet it's not when he's in that form." See? Point for Dromarch.

No way to find out now, though. Midna had nudged Link a little farther forward as she considered her next retort, and at that very moment the tip of his paw touched that strange pattern of triangles on the ground in the center of the room. A dozen knobbled pillars etched in crimson fell from the sky, nailed into the ground as deadly as anything, and then five hairy blobs of red-and-black goo fell after them.

Ah. Great. A magical portal in the sky spilling its guts, even though right on cue. Alvis was right - this really was a broken world.

Without even allowing herself time to think, Nia let the water wash over her and phased into her Blade form. Good to know that much that was still working here, anyway. She was more powerful this way, could aid in the fight alongside Dromarch instead of just with him (or vice-versa, rather), felt more free...so on, so forth. It was the natural choice. Again, without even having to think.

The rest of the battle was truly a wash, though. All she could think about for quite some time after was the wistful way Midna watched her, eyes fully locked on to her mottled Core Crystal even as her mount rushed in every possible direction to corner the Shadow Beasts.

It was clear that she didn't need to call instructions to Link anymore (the turning of the eyeroll suggested deepening bonds too), but half the time he pounced, lunged, etc., she wasn't ready with the energy field produced from her hair (arm? appendage? protuberance? organ?). Nia remembered exactly how much that stung, every time she missed Dromarch's toss of the rings from one side of the battlefield to the other.

She didn't think it had ever quite been because of distracted staring at a girl, though.

Maybe they took the dark guardian creatures out. Maybe they didn't. Maybe Nia chose, evidently foolishly, to strike at one of a final pair that had advanced on her while the other was off a handful of peds lurking mysteriously untouched by Midna (oh, and Link, right), which resulted in the whole pack reviving themselves (by screaming, of all things). Hey, how was she to know?

That helmet she wore looked broken, crumbling of ancient stone. The patterns winding in concentric spirals all over her arms and back definitely meant something. That look in her eye, the singular one that was visible, surely held plaintiveness and longing.

Of course she was hiding something. That much really hadn't ever been a question. But what?