Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda.

Well, I really like Thomas Hardy's "The Convergence of the Twain", a poem about the sinking of the Titanic. I used his style of tercets rhyming aaa, bbb, etc, but of course, this doesn't compare to his. I built up to an end I wanted to make deliberately fast, but I botched that up wonderfully.

A different take on the Snowpeak Mansion. The only thing cooler would have been if the Twilight Mirror acted like the Dark Mirror and spat out Shadow Links.

I seriously recommend Hardy's poem, by the way. It's brilliant.

Is it fire Hell exalts,
the Hero wonders, as he halts,
or is ice the true glory of that hideous vault?

So he muses as he climbs
frigid parapets, slick with frost and grime,
toiling away without a care for all the wasted time.

He does not know how long
he has wandered through the throngs
of unyielding guardians with flesh of ice and cruel wolf-songs;

All he knows is unfeeling,
a vicious numbness, one gleefully stealing
his strength and life and will, layer by layer peeling;

a jagged parasite
drawing in and sapping the fight,
drinking deeply, leaving naught but frozen bites

that sink too far into the skin
to possibly contain the warmth within,
and let it escape freely, spiteful and sanguine.

Finally, he reaches stable rock,
and, fingers fumbling with key and mammoth lock,
passes once again through a gateway to his destiny, unblocked.

Once inside, he finds
nothing to unease his mind,
which only uneases him more in kind.

He checks the ceiling and the walls,
each little crevice he recalls,
and finds nothing at all.

Disturbed but not dissatisfied,
he takes a weary world-worn sigh
and face-up on the ground he lies:

He slowly takes stock of the room:
circular, with a bed for bride and groom,
diminutive attending furniture bordering the gloom.

The stone wall rises into the sky,
ornate sanctuary mirrors observing from up high;
a gothic cathedral; chilling, unwelcoming, and malign.

The only spot of sun in this dark Place
lies beneath his boots and hidden from his face;
a rich red rug, with goldenrod embroiders, fine as lace.

The green-garbed Hero rests,
until the trembling in his chest
ceases, and he begins again on his quest.

He raises his refreshed girth
and searches, seeking to unearth
a one-fourth fragment four times and more its worth.

For awhile he paces round,
covering and recovering again the same ground,
until as last his eye espies, and finds what he wishes found.

There, with dark eye and edges dim,
sitting stately in an equally obsidian rim,
reposes regally what has sent him, risking life and limb:

The stillest water suspended,
coldly and perfectly clearly reflected,
with an apathetic air of danger and dread,

the Mirror of Twilight stares straight back
at the Hero, whose heart lacks
Shadows, and slowly the depths within acquaint him with bleak and black.

Terrible images appear before its glare
and wrest open the doors of mindless fury and despair,
unleashing an evil that, perhaps, had always silently slept there.

Only when the Twili hears
the groans of her companion dear,
she emerges, face-to-face with her deepest unrealized fear.

She knows just what her precious Mirror can do,
and knows with horror and misery that her Hero's life is through
(at the very least, as his bones break to wolven shape, the only life he knew).

As never before the man wracks with unbearable pain;
never before known felt such agony, never wishes to again;
and neither shall he have to, for his wolf's song reaches its final refrain.

With an agonizing roar,
he succumbs, and knows no more,
and with a resonating thunder, his Destiny shuts the final door.

The beast's sanity slowly recedes
and with him the girl of shadows pleads,
but nothing now can reverse the foul Mirror's deed.

A flash of teeth, a piercing bark,
and the dark wolf lunges at the dark girl in the dark,
and never before have the differences between them seemed so stark.

The shadow stumbles with a cry,
shrieks, and turns to fly.
wondering, how can Destiny's plans have gone so awry?

Dungeon indeed; the darkest room
encases the heroine in the darkest tomb.
Trapped, she faces no choice but to meet her doom.

Vainly still she tries to flee,
soars for the windows and fails to break free;
no longer will her faithful Magics let her leave.

A sudden roar from behind
and the unyielding puncture of canines,
the teeth sinking deeper into her spine,

this she ignores,
escapes, and heads for the door
as down her back the blood pours.

With fading sight, she collapses
on the ground. And as the pain elapses,
the wolf corners, and traps,

And with a savage victory low,
the claws and teeth all rake in formless rows,
and upon her battered body deal the final blow.

For one moonlight blizzard night the beast
hunches over his feast,
and time depletes, and at the next moon lies deceased.

And all the while the Mirror glows,
and all the while the Mirror knows,
And the eternal shard of Mirror forever in the darkness makes darkness grow.

...Eh. It could have gone better, it could have gone worse.

Hope you liked this.

-LBN