Hello! -waves- This is a little oneshot my co-author and I wrote based on the events of Nightfall (and From Dawn to Dusk, since that comes first). If you haven't read those, you might want to go take a look at them first, as this falls between NF and Daybreak and contains spoilers for chapter 14 (and onward) of NF.

Note: kids aren't usually actually allowed in tattoo parlors, but we fudged that a little.

Trigger warning: suicidal ideation, flashbacks

Your Mark On Me

Realizing just how much you hold another person's life in your hand is a deeply affecting thing.

I'd realized it long before now. The initial, immediate and overwhelming emotional response to that had become familiar. But memorializing that moment (or moments, really) brought it all back.

"What do you think?"

My sister's voice drew me from my musings. Alexa watched my expression expectantly, yet trepidatiously. Even though we'd wanted our first tattoos to be matching star signs on our wrists, she couldn't wait to get this one.

I surveyed the penned-out design on her exposed midriff...and on the narrow scar that bisected it almost perfectly. Obscured by the beginning of the tattoo though it was, ghosts of memory floated up from my subconscious.

A faint whimper pulled me away from those old, dark musings. I blinked and glanced down at the little tuft of dark blue hair curled up in my lap. I'd accidentally tightened my grip on Touma's tiny shoulder—wanting to protect him from my own mind, in a way.

True to his genetics, though, my son remained soundly asleep.

I supposed that, with his guardian aunt around, he (and I) had little or nothing to fear.

Alexa's nervous voice yanked me back from swirling thoughts around the events that were the reason we were even here. "Last chance. It's going to be on me forever, so if you see any mistakes… You're still the bigger Zelda nerd, even if I am basically marrying Link."

The tease—and subsequent jab at Sage's uncanny likeness—got a laugh out of me that faded a little too quickly. I carefully ran my eyes back over the Hylian Shield and Master Sword, almost skipping the latter to avoid the scar again. The shield itself nestled perfectly between the widest portion of the bottom of her ribcage, sword centered behind it with its distinctive hilt visible above the kite shield's upper curves. Overall it covered a solid four inches square over her solar plexus.

I nodded subtly, mostly to myself. "Looks good."

Alexa only gave a breathy 'okay' that matched my own quiet demeanor before laying down in the chair again to let the artist begin. Her hand snaked out toward me as the needles filled with ink; I obligingly took it, my supportive squeeze as much for myself as for her.

This whole process kept bringing my mind back to the most horrifying moments of my life. Every pneumatic hiss of needles piercing her skin nearly had me flinching, recalling a similar sound of steel biting into mystic metal, and unearthly spirits moaning and howling.

The gut-wrenching look of agony on my sister's face as I watched her take a blade meant for my then-pregnant belly.

A few weeks after, the terrifying roar of a creature that shouldn't have existed; had once been human, and wanted my sister dead.

Blood as red as the Hylian phoenix staining her clothes while she lay in her fiancé's arms.

Her telepathic voice barely reached me through the depths of my thoughts. "Part of me still feels like I should just learn to live with the scar."

I reflexively squeezed her hand, my feelings translating into the strength of my grip. "You're allowed to deal with it in your own way. If this is how you come to terms with what happened, then no one should tell you to do otherwise."

I could sense a fast, thick undercurrent of thoughts flashing through her mind—too much, too fast to read coherently—before she settled on another simple acknowledgement. I'd known her too long not to have a hunch of what was on her mind, though. She hated seeing the proof of her near-death as much as I did.

It wasn't difficult to remember why she'd done it, especially when Touma was a constant reminder.

'Not that I'd trade anything for this,' I thought, staring at my son. 'So..I guess I can understand why.'

Which brought me back to my initial thought that it wasn't easy to realize how much you held another person's life in your hands. I could hear the conversation almost as clearly as that day, when I was still reeling from a spirit-induced nightmare and Alexa insisted she was repaying me; repaying all the times I had knowingly (or not) saved her from succumbing to a myriad of Death's minions.

I'd been told before how much I meant to her—how sometimes I was the only reason she could get through her most difficult times—but it hadn't been until she landed on death's doorstep in my (and Touma's) defense that it actually hit me.

I was responsible for the fact she still breathed right now; even more so than Halo's power and Cye's medical expertise.

In all reality, I was the only reason she had even been there to take a sword with my name on it.

There is a difference between knowing something, and truly understanding it in the depth of your soul. Some people rarely have those moments; some people seem like naturals at it. I had had one of them when Alexa lay nearly on her deathbed after the impaling, when she said she simply felt she were repaying me.

Even months after that, however, as I watched the artist constantly wipe excess ink and blood from the golden Triforce of her tattoo, I found those powerful emotions washing over me once more.

She caught the direction of my train of thought, again. "Shield protects sword. I couldn't let him hurt you."

I subtly shook my head. "Sword defends shield, too, if we're going to follow that logic. Didn't make it any easier to watch…"

She tried not to swallow simply due to the fact her stomach was in the middle of being inked. "I know."

My hand squeezed hers again; I was about to say more when I felt Touma shift. I looked down to find him carefully pulling himself upright, something he'd been gleefully working on for the past few weeks. He blinked, seeming to wonder what was going on and why he was in a different place from when he fell asleep, then stared at his aunt. After a few moments, he carefully leaned forward and put his tiny hand over ours.

Alexa smiled softly at him, an expression I'd noticed she reserved just for him. "Your sword was occupied, at that moment. Besides. You'd defended me enough."

I sighed, both amused and annoyed at having to concede the argument. She certainly had a way of having the last word, as Sage had said often enough. Instead, I smiled and changed the topic. "I wonder what Touma will think of all of this, when he's older…"

After a few long moments to think, she said quietly, "I don't know…"

My turn to hesitate, then slowly ask, "Would we tell him directly, or let him bring it up…?"

It was just a little uncanny how similar this sounded to my discussions with Rowen on whether to tell the kids about the armors or not.

Her trademark black humor finally showed up. "My anxiety doesn't like either option! But I'd almost… it depends on when he asks."

I nodded subtly, watching as Touma patted Alexa's hand in the wind-up to his playful mood. Hopefully he wouldn't get too bouncy, cute as it was; I didn't think the artist would appreciate the interruption. Of course, that would happen to be just as he started on the Master Sword's color. My sister's face contorted with the increased pain over scar tissue. It was tempting to add more energy through Dawn to buoy Dusk, but there were some limitations we had to place on the armors' use in order to prevent suspicious situations.

Instead I brushed my thumb across the back of her hand supportively, simultaneously bouncing a knee to try to keep Touma occupied. Perhaps continuing the hypothetical would help distract Alexa from the pain. "If he's little, it'd be easy enough just to say someone threatened me and you took the strike. But...you know me. I'd be one to just tell the whole story." An amusing thought—wondering just how curious my son would get as he grew—had me smirking. "And if he's at all like his father…!"

An internal breathy laugh was her response. "You mean his mother?"

I snorted, trying to contain my chuckles so the whole tattoo parlor didn't suddenly look at me like I was crazy. "Both of us, then. Anyway. He's already grown so fast; he's bound to have Rowen's IQ and my curiosity. No doubt he'll find out sooner rather than later. Rowen already thinks we should continue to hide the armors from them just as a matter of principle, but I don't think that'll happen."

Her telepathic voice turned meditative, quieter than before. "I'd rather he not hear somebody hated him so much they wanted him gone as a child. I don't want him to hear anything that implies he's inherently disliked, just for who he is."

My expression morphed into the familiar determination that this little life wouldn't suffer as my sister had. "If he's old enough, he'll have so much love from all of us that I think he'll be okay to hear that. But if he's young, we don't have to go into that."

"But what if he starts to wonder if I regret it? Wondering why I felt the need to hide the scars I got as a result? I don't regret what I did but I don't want to see it every day in white. If we come up with some scenario, that's one thing, but— what if he sees through it? And he probably will. He'll want to know why and when somebody attacked your belly… and we only have one answer for him. I'd rather he just know somebody wanted to protect him with their life. Please… keep it at that, until he's a little older."

The desperation in her voice told me how much she didn't like to think of that. I squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Of course." A familiar retort had me smirk-smiling again. "Out."

Long after her telepathic laughter had dissipated, however, my mind wanted to linger on one thing she'd said. "Somebody wanted to protect him with their life." I looked back on the long years we'd known each other, from even before we found out we were related, and couldn't help feeling that these events had simply become a physical manifestation of our relationship. If I'd had to, even before the armors, I would have protected her with my life.

And, in a way, I had given so much of my life already. And it had saved her.

The thought was still too mind-boggling for me to wholly process. But watching the last of the ink fill the punctures in her skin and come away darker with blood, I finally made a connection in all the events of our crazy life.

If she had committed suicide at any point before I met her—even at any point up to the cult kidnapping her—I never would have met Rowen.

Touma wouldn't have existed for Michael to try to kill.

My face blanched.

I might even be married to Michael.

Possibly living the same Hell our mother had put Alexa and Dusk through early on.

So, even though I'd realized and expressed it before, one thought overwhelmed me so that when my sister finally stood, I pulled her into a tight but gentle hug that was careful of her new markings. An almost annoyed huff that sounded too much like Rowen had me laughing and leaning down to pick up Touma when we parted.

As I touched my nose to his and smiled, bouncing him on my hip, happy warmth replaced the cold memories. One thought remained, embodied in my son's life.

I had never ever been so grateful to have met one person in one chance encounter.

And as long as I could, I would defend her in every way possible.

Fin