Luminescence

The Price of a Voice

"I...It was a-at first. But also because I was..." her hand clenched a bit tighter around her throat. "Afraid."

"Afraid? Whatever for?"

She looked down. Curtains of hair dropped into her face. "I...I don't sound human. You're human. I'm a freak."

"Luna, you sound beautiful! Oh Farore, I've never heard anything like it. It's like," he chuckled, "it's like you're some goddess or something. I guess moon spirit qualifies enough, right? That is what you are, isn't it?"

Luna wagged her head sadly. "Not human."

He waited for her to answer, but her hand just clenched around her throat and her wings pressed in on her ever tighter. For once the ragged nightgown was secure on her shoulders and he wondered if Zelda had anything to do with that. Not wanting to push her injured voice further, he brought his knees up and leaned his arms against them to return to star gazing. His stomach gave another grumble, but he ignored it. For some time they sat in quiet, listening to the water hush to itself and the lone cricket creak. The small waterfall besides them tinkled softly. Across the lake he could see the lights of the canon guru glowing orange and strong across the dark water.

He plucked a strand of grass and twisted it between his fingers.

"I should not have said those things back there. I just feel so frustrated, like I should be doing something or I'm trapped, or...or I'm in some dungeon all over again, surrounded by monsters and looking for the treasure at the end, but this time I can't see the monsters and I'm afraid there's no treasure at the end, and no one is willing to explain to me why I'm here."

The blue eyes looked out from between the waves of white, asking 'why'?

"I'm...well...back there, in the spring, I was thinking how I felt used. From the beginning of all this I was used as 'the chosen hero,' like some sort of pawn. Sure I wanted to save Ilia and Collin and the rest of them—and I wasn't going to be so heartless as to leave someone in need. But no one bothered to explain to me what was expected of me—what was my so called destiny. I just kind of got pulled into it by Midna and suddenly I found myself facing down these monsters, these..."

Involuntarily, he shuddered.

"And now it's like they expect me to be okay with that and to move on with life now that it's all over. But I can't just 'move on.' I...I'm not the same. I don't know what happened, but I'm not the same as I was before I left Ordon. I've...Luna, I've killed things and people, I've faced down the dead, the broken, the corrupted, the weak and the sick and cruel. There are ways this world work that I just can't accept—like why does someone like Midna have to be bad? Why are those of twilight considered outcasts? Must they forever be paying for the crimes of their fathers? And why am I the so called chosen of the gods? Why...why did I have to do all that...that..."

He felt his hands shaking against each other and clenched his shins tighter to stop them. Luna just listened, eyes set on him. Oddly enough, he didn't feel nervous.

"I don't know what I am anymore. I don't know what my use is anymore. If I'm not a hero, who am I? I'm not a goat herder. I'm not some guy to be stuffed into a forest forever. But my destiny is over. I dream nightmares that make me want to scream myself hoarse, and for what? I once ran across the ground as wolf—I once explored the ends of the earth with an other-worldly being—I once was something greater."

He stopped. What was he saying? That he was some conceited has-been?

"And everyone expects me...to just...they expect of me to do these things...be a hero..."

"I expect nothing of you."

He looked at her. She shifted, spreading out her legs and leaning against her hands. When he recalled why she was probably there he couldn't help but scowl and had to work to not get frustrated again.

"How can you say that? The sun spirit said you came here because you were fond of me or something like that. How can you...how..." he felt heat crawl up into his face. How was he supposed to even talk about that?

Those blues eyes seemed so expansive then, like the sky itself. In the soft sheen of starlight on her hair and the glimmer of feathers, he couldn't see how she could not be the moon. Even the dirty, ratty nightgown seemed glamoured on her otherworldly form. Carefully, as though afraid to frighten him, she tucked her legs back underneath herself again and put him beneath her intent gaze. Her bangs parted just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the tiny stone on her head glowing a beautiful opal.

"I don't remember being a moon spirit or any sun spirit. I don't even know how I got here and where I'm from." She winced as her musical, heavenly voiced cracked and her fingers flittered once more to her throat. Her gaze, however, did not leave him. "But I do know, more than a-a-anything---" she coughed. "Link, I love you. I came here only to make you happy."