"Have you ever killed someone?"
Link turned away from his ale. "Why do you ask?"
The woman shrugged. "Curious, I guess. There ain't much else to do here."
"Aren't you afraid of what I might say?"
"No," she said with a laugh. "I've heard enough to curl a sailor's beard a thousand times over. I'm no delicate flower."
"I can tell," Link said, taking another drink. "Yes."
The woman's eyebrows raised in surprise. "Really?"
He nodded, somewhat surprised himself. He could have just said no and left it at that, but for whatever reason he hadn't. Must be the alcohol, he thought, not believing his thoughts as he did.
"Huh," the woman said articulately. "Why?"
"You've a rather macabre sense of conversation."
"Goes with the territory. So why?"
He pushed away from the bar, dropping a rupee as he did. "Nice talking to you," he said, a half-smile turning up the corner of his mouth.
"You didn't answer my question," she said, her full lips pursing in a pout. He had no doubt that was how she gained most of her business.
"Maybe some other time," he said. Leaving her behind, he escaped to the cool night, the drop in temperature causing him to inhale sharply.
"So why didn't you tell her?"
He let out a soft laugh. "She wouldn't have understood. No one does. Except for you, I guess."
The dark shadow at his side grinned, white teeth flashing in the torchlight. "None will."
They walked through the narrow streets in comparative silence, the sallow streetlights dotting their way with pools of sulfur, the keening wind skittering trash about their feet. He noticed how their footsteps echoed and how lonely it made him feel. Funny, how someone could be standing right beside you and you still felt all alone.
"Why are you here?" he finally asked, his voice breaking the silence like a hammer smashing glass.
The shadow smiled again. "Can't I come to visit? You're like family to me."
"Depends on your definition of family."
"That hurts. Really, right here," the shadow said, holding a hand over his heart, or what would have been his heart if he had one.
"Spare me the dramatics. That's the least you can do."
"True. You want the truth? I want to know your answer to the lady's question."
He stopped walking and turned to the shadow. "You what?"
"I want to know why. Why you do what you do, why you allow yourself to be a tool for others to use and abandon." He leaned close to Link's face and said, "I want to know what makes you you, and why we're so different even though we're the same."
Unsure of how to react to the sudden outpouring by his darker half, Link said, "I didn't realize you had such a poetic side to you."
"We can still surprise each other."
"I...I like what I do. I like helping people. I have the ability to save them and I can't stand the thought of sitting back and letting them suffer. It doesn't matter to me if I seem like a tool to you, or to others. Not everyone sees me like that, and that's what matters."
The shadow stared at him, his red eyes rich as blood in the darkling evening. "I hope you realize how stupid you sounded just then."
"Yeah, I do."
"And that I know that's not the whole truth."
"I expected you would. Maybe you can tell me."
The shadow laughed. "You want to die."
"That's it?" Link asked. "That's the great revelation I was expecting? Come on, you can do better."
"I'm serious. You've got a death wish, why else would you race around fighting monsters and warlords with no expectation of reward, no hope of it ever ending?"
"You've got a point there." Link shrugged his shoulders. "Oh well, does it really matter in the end?"
"No. But enquiring minds wanted to know."
"So, let me turn the tables on you. Why do you do it?"
Another flash of white in the darkness. "Why wouldn't I do what I do? There's no fun in your line of work, and besides, you've already got the seat filled."
"So we're stuck forever playing our roles."
Waving his hand dismissively, the shadow said, "I doubt that. We can always reverse roles one day. Wouldn't that be fun?"
An answering smile flirted about Link's face before disappearing. "Maybe. One day. Until then, I guess we're stuck."
"Until that day," the shadow said with a knowing grin. He brushed his hand over his lighter side's face, saying, "Won't it be fun?"
A knowing spark of light flared in Link's eyes but he didn't act on the sudden emotion. They turned away from each other, each going their separate ways, each slowly melting into the silken darkness of the moonless night.