Hi. Firstly, thanks for deciding to give my first attempt at fan fiction a try, I hope you enjoy it. I'd also like to point out that I don't own Legend of Zelda, or any of the characters associated with it.

This story does involve a male Sheik who is an entity in his own right, completely separate from Zelda. I know this isn't to everyone's tastes, and if it isn't your cup of tea then maybe this isn't the story for you.

Thanks once again.

He woke up to gentle fingers tending wounds and soft humming. It was a beautiful noise somewhere between contralto and tenor, smooth and sweet. He didn't recognise the tune but he didn't really care. Eyes kept shut he tried to move, nothing big, just moving his arms. Bad idea. Really bad idea. Terrible idea. Everything hurt. Even parts of his body that had no right protesting about arm movements. The humming stopped. That was almost as bad as the pain.

`Go back to sleep. You need to rest more, heal more.' He knew that voice. It was a sensible voice, going back to sleep sounded brilliant. A cool hand on his forehead and the return of the humming lulled him back into unconsciousness.

He woke again. It could have been seconds later or eons, he had no idea. There was no humming. No hands tying bandages or applying poultices. An edge of loneliness set in. This time he opened his eyes before attempting motion. He got an eyeful of pitted rock and stalactites. Cave said his brain. A cave, yes, but natural light? No. It was too soft for sunlight and still air hinted that he was far below ground. Instead his little world was awash with gentle phosphorescence that was beautiful but gave everything a sense of un-realness.

He braced himself, gritting his teeth, ready to make the transition from prone to sitting. It went a lot better than he was expecting. Link cast his eyes over his surroundings, definitely a cave and a pretty empty cave at that. He lay, roughly in the middle of the floor, cocooned in an assortment of travel bedding, some of which was his. Now the question of his whereabouts was semi answered it just left him wondering how he got there.

His last clear memories were full of water and shadows and hurt and blood. He shuddered. Perhaps it was better he didn't remember those things. He sincerely hoped that the answer he needed in the here and now didn't require him to delve into the past too much. He didn't hear the footsteps, didn't hear anything of the person approaching at all. For all the noise it made, it might as well have been a ghost in that skin tight body suit. Thankfully, it wasn't.

`You're awake again Hero.' Sensible voice's sudden appearance sent Link into autopilot. He was up, on his feet and braced for a fist fight. Feet planted firmly, shoulder width apart, fists up guarding his face and neck. His forearms and elbows ready to ward off any attacks to his upper body. Fierce blue eyes met placid red ones and Link did a very convincing impression of a deflating balloon, sound effects and all. The breath he'd been holding left him in one long drawn out raspberry of relief. His legs deemed that their duty had been carried out and gave way, dumping him unceremoniously back into his nest of bedding.

`Sheik?'

`You should stay laying down Hero, lest you reopen your wounds.'

`What?'

Sheik cocked a brow and pointedly looked down at Link's torso. Link followed his gaze. He was a mess of bandages. They wound around his midriff, up over his right shoulder and down the arm to his elbow. The fingers of his left hand were splinted together and ugly, puffy bruises ran all the way from his wrist to his upper arm. All topped off by a liberal scattering of shallow-ish nicks and cuts. His legs didn't seem to have fared much better but it was harder to assess the extent of the damage as, much to his relief, he was still wearing trousers.

`What happened to me? Why does none of this hurt?'

Sheik inhaled slowly. He didn't look at Link. He took his time in answering, crafting a suitable non-answer.

`You know what happened, the answer will come. As for the pain, there's probably enough red potion in you to knock out a Goron at the moment.'

`Oh.' Link fiddled with the blankets beneath him. He had been hoping that Sheik would tell him. Give him a neat summary so he didn't have to think about it. Frequently Link found that he preferred not thinking about the things he was doing. Or the things he had seen. Sometimes bravery came easier with less thinking and more blind faith in his abilities and those of the people around him.

One of the reasons he enjoyed the small moments of time he spent with Sheik was because the other boy never asked him about the details of what he'd done. Other people wanted grand tales of even grander heroics. They chose to ignore the dark parts of the story. However, the questions they asked forced Link look right at those shadows. Shadows. One shadow in particular. His shadow. Link swore stringing together the random collection of curse words he'd picked up during the course of his questing. Once the colourful flow of crudities dried up he closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands.

His fingertips reported further damages. Split lip, cut eye brow and what felt like the back-end of a black eye. Now, to add further weight to his unpleasant realisation, the ache rolled in like a new moon tide. It didn't matter that he was dosed up on enough potion to seeing the Scared Realm. Everything hurt. Everything always hurt. Nothing ever had enough time to heal. He didn't ever have enough time to wait for anything to heal properly. Nor did he have enough time to sleep properly and barely enough to eat properly. He'd been running on fumes when he started trying to navigate the Water Temple. By the time he found that bloody room and its awful shadowy overlord he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

He let out a strangled, frustrated moan. A hand rested on his shoulder.

`Go back to sleep Hero, rest, for once the world can wait.'

Link peered at Sheik through his fingers. A little voice at the back of this mind told him that the world really couldn't wait but he didn't listen to it. He shuffled back down into the pile of bedding and closed his eyes.

`Sheik?'

`Yes Hero.'

`Hum for me. Please?'

There was pause. The pause got longer. The pause was beginning to get long enough that Link though he'd said something wrong. And then,

`As you wish Hero.'

Sheik took a breath and began to hum. It was the same tune as before, gentle, slow and perfect. It didn't take Link long to fall asleep again. Sheik stood up. He really wished he could believe that the world could be kept waiting.