Down The Road

Down the Road is the thirteenth chapter of My Inner Life. This chapter is the beginning of what is arguably the better half of the story as we are introduced to a larger conflict in the shadowy form of Dark Link.

Summary
Winter arrives early in the Land of Hyrule and Jenna complains that she had to harvest her crops early and store them in a food cellar that popped up out of nowhere and that they had to move all their animals into the barn.

As winter drops its load all over Hyrule, Silverblade House becomes frightfully cold. Surprised by this, Jenna and Link decide to spend the entire winter by the one fireplace in the house, while the Fairies are upstairs in 'little huts' that Jenna built to prevent the cold from making their wings numb, despite Navi having been just fine in canon while traveling through cold environments with Link.

Jenna then states that Link Jr. is four months old and crawling. In real life, babies begin to crawl at 6-10 months old. Jenna also says that she and Link are already teaching their son and uses the example of reading to him. We then witness a scene where Link is reading to Link Jr. from a child's counting picture book. Link adds up the 3 apples on the page in what is an amazing display of his mental capabilities before his own son outshines him by holding up 3 fingers and giggling. Jenna and Link are shocked and amazed; Link claims that their son will be the 'smartest kid in Hyrule'.

After the amazing revelation that they have birthed a superhuman as no child can do math at a mere four months of age, they put their son to bed in the freezing upstairs bedrooms before returning to the warmth of the fire. Link gives Jenna a massage in a way that can only be described as filling the reader with the most intense horror of encountering another sex scene. Instead, Jenna just relaxes so much that she enters the 'void' from The Bonding(4) and she hears Link's voice in her mind. They coo sweet nothings to each other before reawakening from the weakly used plot device and begin rolling around on the sofa before the reader's fears are confirmed; there is another sex scene.

A few days later, their house is covered in a snow storm. Jenna claims that it is the worst snow storm Hyrule has experienced in 20 years and that they spent all day every day by the fire. This upsets Jenna as her and Link's 1st anniversary is approaching and she cannot leave to get him a present. She then complains about the weather again and worries about the Zora and Goron races and how they would fare in it; worrying that Zora's Domain will freeze over and that the Gorons might die of exposure (even though the Gorons live near a volcano, with the Fire Temple being inside of one). Jenna then claims to be especially worried for Princess Ruto as 'being cooped up was not her style', worrying that Ruto will be forced to enjoy the sweet embrace of Hypothermia just because she can't sit still. With this in mind, they decide to 'keep an eye out for her' despite never leaving their house.

Days later, Link, Jenna and Link Jr. are wrapped up in blankets in front of the fire when they hear a knock at the door. They answer it to find Ruto half frozen in front of their house. They usher her inside, apparently surprised by her leaving Zora's Domain despite earlier saying they wouldn't be as it's in her nature, and wrap Ruto up in blankets and put her in front of the fire. After Jenna makes Ruto some hot chocolate (which probably doesn't exist in canon), they ask what she was doing in the storm and Ruto tells them that she was out looking to improve the water flow from Lake Hylia to Zora's Domain when she got caught in a snow storm. Jenna somehow knows she is lying (even though they stated earlier that her doing just that is normal and was one of the reasons why they were worried that she would leave the safety of Zora's Domain) and tells her to fess up. Ruto then tries to stall before just admitting she felt cooped up and went to Lake Hylia for a swim. She goes on to say that when she swam in to the water temple, she saw a shadow that moved. Fearing nothing, she kept on before getting knocked over by a shadowy figure that looked like Link (but was evil!) before booking it out of the temple. The storm, she claims, broke over the lake and she was forced to head to their home in the middle of the Lost Woods despite Lake Hylia having an underground tunnel that leads directly to Zora's Domain.

Jenna doesn't entirely know how to feel about the fact that Ruto saw a shadowy creature resembling her husband so she looks over at Link so that he can tell her. Link, however, is white as a sheet and cries about how he 'thought he was dead' and that he 'killed him [himself].' Jenna is confused, as Link still hasn't told her how to feel, so Link explains to her who Ruto saw. He then recounts fighting Dark Link in the Temple while trying to save Hyrule from Gannondorf. Jenna asks Link if he's kidding but Ruto tells her that since she saw it herself, it must be true. Jenna is bewildered that there is another creature on the planet that looks like her husband and wonders to herself if the creature is good or evil, or if Link just had a twin he didn't know about.

Link is upset that his shadow image is running around the Temple so he decides to go check, stating "If I don't, I will never be able to rest". That doesn't fly with Jenna, so she grabs his arm and refuses to let him go. Link says he must and that it could be 'serious trouble' if he doesn't. Jenna then states that if he goes, she goes. Link is understandably worried and tells her 'no, we have a baby, remember?' And Jenna just pushes the responsibility onto Ruto, saying that she's stuck at their house due to the weather so she and the fairies are good enough to take care of their child. Link disagrees and says that it is too dangerous and that he doesn't want her to die. Jenna says that she doesn't want him to die and that 'who knows what this mirror self might be planning.' Link begrudgingly agrees and the chapter ends with a kiss.