all your hearts now seem so far from me

Title is from The Musical Box by the band Genesis, during its main Peter Gabriel era. If you know me you know that I have a problem.

So much of their quest concerns proximity.

You hear the clinking of Poes' lanterns when they're near to you, ghost rats cling and claw to and at your very skin if latching onto slick dark fur isn't enough (or even if it is), Chus merge by dint of physical reaction, and you have to touch the Twilight to let it overtake you.

Rather, you have to let it touch you.

You have to give in, give up, your vulnerability.

But Midna doesn't like doing that. She never has. In her true form, it's easy enough - rather, it was - to be so awe-inspiring, so breathtakingly beautiful and obviously powerful that not a soul would dare touch her, and imperious she stays. She calls the shots, throws the punches, dictates the flow of light in her beloved land.

If it were up to her, none of this would ever have happened. She would have, she likes to think, weighed the costs and the benefits, and known what would have come of trying to take a peek into the light world.

And...then there's Zant. It's very likely that he didn't cast a single thought to the consequences as concerned anyone but him, but then he didn't really have to. With that helmet on, with those arcane, terrifying robes, he is impregnable. The fool beneath is utterly hidden. What he took from her when he took her beauty was really, all in all, her truth.

Her strength. Something internal, core. Not just that of the Fused Shadows.

Now Zant gets to stand as one, Shadow Beasts only henchmen and not even subjects. Now Midna has to hide and fence, unpresentable to all races just as much as Wolf Link is. Now his steps are quiet, controlled, while she floats weightless, so far - too far - from being just, simply, dainty.

So hide she does. The Fused Shadow is a wonderful mask to be able to don. One eye out makes a blink a wink, and to a Hylian who's never seen nor even heard of what lurks beyond the barrier, that's enough.

She needs to be mysterious, cloaked. She revels in it.

Does Link trust her? No, not quite. Not as a wolf, he doesn't - not when she's donning the masks of his possibly-dead friends like they're skin, like she really is anything other than herself.

Link is a boy - a man? say a boy - who sees what he sees with his own two eyes and doesn't really bother with the rest. So he doesn't really have any reason to expect that Midna's a backstabber. She guides him out of the Faron Twilight, right? And she should want to stay there, in her realm and element, more or less. So there's no reason why she'd be anything but on his side.

Which, of course, obviously, isn't it so plain to see, see look how Midna's such a straightforward in-your-face person, is why she tells him she is at every slightest opportunity.

"If you want to know exactly what Fused Shadows are...well, maybe I'll tell you if you find the other two."

Maybe. Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe. But Link works promissory all the time - he doesn't clock a card, down at the ranch, so close on to these Faron Woods. Why should he object? If he's going to speak on any issue, this one probably isn't going to be it. This one doesn't exactly portend imminent danger, after all. On they go.

He follows her back into the Eldin Twilight all the same - just the same, rather. Sees the ghosts of those very same friends, how absolutely stark-up terrified they are, and doesn't complain a whit. If there were something bothering him, he'd say so. And Midna? No, she wouldn't.

"You know, you've been very helpful so far, so as a reward, I'll tell you an interesting story."

Right? Simple ranch hands like stories. That's a fine payment for a day's work, a grueling slog through the hell-hot Goron Mines. And it's not really more lies. Not...really. Zant's a king of darkness, sure. If...yeah. If darkness is lies. If lies are darkness.

There are more lies, more tells, just then, of course. Not that Zelda is much better, Midna says. A carefree youth and life of lappish luxury...no, that didn't teach duty, that hadn't taught much of anything but complacence. Nothing ever quite does like hardship itself. And that, precisely, is why Midna's ignoring hers. Wouldn't wish harm on her, huh? Still not quite the same as wishing good.

"So...I've done everything I needed to. I'm sorry for dragging you all over this place with me..."

It's still deflection, still defraction, in the basement of the Lakebed Temple. Are you, Midna? Are you really? Not with that imp's face on, you're not. You haven't told the plain truth once. Right now, you're still reveling in it. You won't face up, truly, to your guilt. And that's fine, sure, for as far as the farmboy's concerned, the large-as-life both-ways-to-Sunday puppy-dog, but for Zelda?

But for Zelda, she wouldn't be here.

Zant comes aggravatingly close to Link, in the Light Spirit's Spring. He doesn't attack from afar, and he never has, puppetmaster though he is (or only just thinks he is). He had tried to run away from Ganondorf's power, and it hadn't worked. So now he stands in striking distance. He takes full advantage of mortal proximity.

Lanayru doesn't attack, only rears and roars from afar. She is easily dispatched with.

The Twilight falls; Midna should be at home. But how can she be with hot, sticky, traitorous breath dancing at her ears?

Of a sudden, Link is as in the Twilight, and Midna is as in the light. Both of these are false selves, and when they bring them before Zelda, precious Zelda...

For once, Midna is selfless. For once, she asks after Link first. But Zelda, despite the cloak and all of the boundless intrigue, the mystery of that highest tower keep, knows the truth. She knows that Midna cannot play both sides the way she so desperately wants to - yes, wants to, not only seems to do the same.

No, the light and shadow cannot coexist. Not under the jurisdiction of the dark truth of this time.

Even then, when they are finally freed, both of them at the same goddess-blessed time, Midna accepts it. It seems perfectly natural, like she'd been ready and willing and meaning to do so the whole time...but is it? Was it?

You cannot look upon both sides of the same coin at once.

You'll never be close enough to kiss the smiling lady beaming truth and order on the other side.

Twilight Princess was more or less the first video game that truly stole my heart (we can leave aside Super Mario Galaxy because. come on. obviously), and I'm incredibly glad to have been able to circle back to it now, over a decade after I first played it. My main hyperfixation at the moment is the Xeno series, and specifically the niche of the prequel game for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, so while I'm very used to being aware of every concept that's done in such a small fandom (insofar as is represented on Ao3), I...frankly did not want to go through the entire midzel tag to check for something like this being preexisting. I hope you enjoyed it regardless!