Twisted Destiny:

Hope

I'm gonna start here by saying that if you haven't read Twisted Destiny by Gamesplayers, you probably won't understand the gravity of this situation. This is a fanfiction of that fanfiction. The story and characters affected me so strongly that I just had to make a tribute of some sort, and I found it easiest to do in an Alternate Universe fanfiction of my own.

If you haven't read Twisted Destiny, you probably should, and, while you're at it, read what's posted of Twisted Legacy and join the ranks of us who are waiting diligently for the next chapter.

So, in this AU, Link, after being choked by Isca... well, you'll see. This short one-off deals with the implications of the situation and how Sheik copes with it. And how they decide that they're going to save Hyrule.

I just want to say that this took about a month for me to write and so if you enjoyed it, could you possibly leave me a review? You don't know how much it means to me- it's literally my incentive to writing anything. To know that people read what I make and enjoy it is such a fulfilling and satisfying prospect.

Also. I spelled Sheik as Shiek in this story for some reason. When I noticed that I did it wrong, it was too late, lol.

Anyways, enjoy!

"And you make me proud," Shiek finished, his voice bitter, dry, yet wet and full of emotion. As he stared at his friend, at his brother, at the Hero of Time, he knew that the only person he could blame was himself.

Because of his inadequacies. Because he hadn't been there. Because he was too slow. Because he was always too damn slow. Sitting on a wooden, weak chair beside his brother's bed, balling his calloused and dry fists, he said it again to himself- Link was always hurt, always injured, and Shiek was never there to protect him. His head throbbed and it stung him but he couldn't hide from the fact that he had failed the young hero.

And was he young. Too young. For such a young boy, he carried the weight of the gods, the weight of the damn world and kingdom on his small, frail, weak shoulders. The boy carried it all and then was forced without concern to carry more. He had lost his innocence, his sharp eyes, his cheerful smile. He wasn't the same boy who Shiek had loved in the beginning- and though Shiek loved him all the same, it still hurt. Hyrule and the Gods had taken him and used him, abused him, again, and again, and again. He knew that his brother had nothing left. He knew that the Hero would die. And he swore to the weak boy laying in front of him- he swore, intertwining his hands with the boys pale, frail ones, that he would find Isca. And he would bathe in the bastard's blood.

And then the subtle shift of the Hero's chest ceased. His pale, white lips fell limp like the rest of his face and being. Shiek slowly pressed two fingers to his brother's neck and stood like that, for a few moments. And then he sat back down and heard the coarse creak of the chair as his weight fell upon it again. He looked down, wiping his eyes, not stunned at the thick streams of blood he had come in contact with. He looked up to the ceiling, his heart beginning to beat quicker, his breath becoming shallow, and him beginning to shake. There was a pounding in his head, louder, louder, louder!

He screamed at the top of his lungs.

He wailed, lamenting his deceased brother. The Fallen Hero. He yelled about everything along the journey, every monster and guardian that brought the Hero close to death, each one that he wasn't quick enough to kill before the damage had been done. He yelled about Hyrule, the way that they'd abused him, about Ganon and the temples, Tatl, and Isca, the Shiekahs. He screamed about everything, about how if the Hero had listened to him for one fucking second, about how if he had left his god damn hands off of Tatl, he'd still be alive. If he wasn't Link, he concluded angrily- for the first time thinking of his brother and the Hero's name-, he would have been alive.

"Shiek!? Shiek!" he hard voices yelling followed by frantic footsteps before the door was kicked open by a worried Olwen who rushed in followed by Tatl, Erk, Nami, and then, finally, Zelda.

"Stay away!" Shiek turned to them, angrily, whilst weilding his needles with hostility imprinted on his formerly delicate feature. "Stay the fuck away," he warned stepping closer to his brother's limp form, his voice violent.

"Is Link okay?" Tatl gasped, almost ignoring him and running towards the Hero's dead body, tears streaming down her face. She knew, he concluded, she knew that he was dead. As the Shiekah stared at her, everything seeming to move in slow motion for him, he considered her. It was all her fault. If she had kept her charm away from Link, he wouldn't have been dead now behind him.

"You especially!" The Shiekah hissed, venom on his tongue. "Stay the hell away, you whore!" He held his needles up defensively before him, the throbbing in his head growing even more.

"Shiek, stop!" Zelda protested now, stepping between the angry Shiekah and the stunned Twili, her face angry and dark. "Shiek, you need to compose yourself and tell us what happened!"

Shiek's face contorted into a flurry of emotions, anger, sadness, realization, excitement, and then, again, anger. And it frightened the Princess. "Heal him! Bring him back! Bring him back or I'll kill you!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, and before he knew it, he was sobbing violently. "I'll kill you all like you killed hi-"

Zelda let out a hesitant sigh of releif as the Shiekah fell to the ground in front of her, Olwen standing above him, face solemn, not a word said. The tall man kneeled down and lifted the blonde and exited the room without a word said.

Zelda sighed.

Shiek's eyes opened slowly as he took the time to consider his situation. He was in a bed, he noticed. In a house that he recognized as Impa's inside of Kakariko village. Why was he sleeping?

He slowly sat up in the bed, his aching back leaning on the headboard of the bed. It hurt him, but he didn't bother changing his situation. He was used to pain.

He tried to recall the events that had transpired the last time that he was awake. His eyebrows furrowed as he drew a complete blank. He was beginning to worry. Looking up at the ceiling, his breathing quickened, and he desperately tried to remember what had happened. Until it hit him.

Link.

"Do not fret," Olwen advised suddenly, and Shiek looked over to a small corner in the room to see the man seated in a small wooden chair. It was odd, he concluded, to see such a large man perched in such a small chair, but he supposed that he was most surprised by the prospect of the other Shiekah watching him for the past few minutes. The man was transparent, merging with the darkness that shrouded the room.

"He's not dead?" Shiek asked now, hope in his coarse, weak, quiet voice.

"He is," Olwen replied bitterly. Seemingly not wanting to dwell on the fact, his head turned towards the window of the room and he stared out into the dark blue of the evening sky.

Shiek rested his head in his weak hands before shaking it. "Of course," he replied, his voice taking on the same bitter nature that his companion had adopted. Looking up at said man, he required wisdom. "What happens now?"

"I do not know," Olwen answered, and, for the first time, the large man seemed just as lost as the smaller Shiekah himself felt. "Clean yourself. And eat. You've been asleep for nearly 7 days, now."

"And you stayed and kept me company?"

"No. You kept me," he replied, and though he couldn't see it properly, he could tell that a small smile was playing on the older Shiekah's lips.

Shiek rose from the bed, trying out his legs and arms with a quick stretch and a few deep breaths. He walked awkwardly over to Olwen, after, and put a hand on the man's leg, squeezing it lightly, before leaving the room.

Now in the bathroom that was adjacent to his previous living quarters, he was greeted with a view of himself. His face seemed much older, stress lines apparent, as he pulled off his masks. His piercing, almost powerful red eyes were now dull and clouded over with a look of nostalgia and ennui. He was somehow more pale, and his face donned a 3-day beard. He wet his face with cold water before looking up at his glistening, but still almost dead self. He sighed, and stripped before taking a cold shower.

As he descended the staircase, he spotted Tatl. He sighed and braced himself before stepping into the Dining Room of the home, where they all had sat and laughed at the Hero's antics. He sighed bitterly, before sitting down at the table.

"Shiek? Oh, hello." she said, attempting to smile at the Shiekah, but he could tell that the sadness was taking over and it was taking all of her strength not to break down and begin sobbing right now. "Thank the Goddesses that you're okay. You really had us worried there,"

He nodded with a small smile back at her (though she wouldn't see it through his mask) but noted to himself that he would never thank the Goddesses again.

"I'm sorry," he said, after a few moments of awkwardness had past at the table. He wiped his one viewable eye, the other covered by his hair, and looked up at her.

She nodded, and for a few moments, nothing else was said. Then she looked at him and said, "You were right, though. That was the worst part. I am just a whore, pregnant with a bastard child with no title or rank, no home, nothing to my name. I couldn't choose between the two men of my life and I've lost them both. And now this... this child..." she couldn't stop smiling as she silently began to sob, the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"You're... it's not your fault," Shiek replied now, his voice quiet and careful. "Link was impossible, yeah, but so was Isca. You dealed with the cards you were dealt,". He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.

"And then... I have this fear... that... that Link would have left. That he'd be too scared to marry me, too scared to take care of the child. I... I told him that I loved him and that he could do it, but the way that he looked at me. The way that he looked at my belly..." she trailed off, and she didn't have to finish for Shiek to know exactly where she was going with this. But he couldn't sugarcoat it.

"He would have left," Shiek concluded sadly. "I'm sorry."

She nodded, the smile still playing on her features. "I know," and then silence ensued again. "I'll be in my room. Good day, Shiek," she bid him, as she stood up slowly, weakly, and left for her room.

He sat down and rested his cheek on a single hand. He wasn't hungry for anything other than revenge. Or other than his brother's company. Now, alone, he was forced to live with himself, to look at himself with scrutiny and feel chagrined. He was ashamed that he had exploded the way that he did. It was unlike what a Shiekah should have done, it didn't follow the norm. But then again, nor did a peasant and criminal becoming a hero, or a princess cheating on her knight in shining armor for that hero, or that hero dying. He sighed as the last thought crossed his mind.

"Shiek. Hello," Zelda called, offering her own version of the weak smile that Tatl had clung to in order to cope. "I cam as soon as I'd heard you were awake." she sat down across from him, and he could see the exhaustion on her face as she sighed. "You were the closest one to Link, and I feel that I have to apologize. We killed him," she admitted, and he could tell that she had said it to herself 100s of times before. And she accepted it.

"You did," he nodded, getting up from the table and leaving him. She wasn't entirely to blame, and he knew it, but he couldn't look at her before knowing that her people, those who she represented were the cause of the death of the one most precious to him. She didn't say anything to him after that.

Shiek once again stared into his reflection, searching for something, anything, and found nothing. Sighing before looking up into his eyes, he removed his bindings and masks. 'Link has died, yes,' he thought bitterly, unwrapping them. 'So have I.' He put his bindings into a container in the bathroom and then into a cupboard.

He had one more stop to make before he left. He opened the door and was surprised to see Olwen. It went to show, he supposed, that maybe he never truly was a real Shiekah.

"I know that you're leaving," Olwen said quietly, his voice dull with no emotion. "Here, I made you these," he added, as he handed Shiek black tights akin to the ones he previously wore, without the Shiekah insignia.

Shiek stared up at him before nodding, and wrapping his hands around the larger man. "Goodbye, Olwen," he said after, leaving as silently as he'd come.

It had taken some searching but he'd finally found Erk and Nami as they sat in a room, Nami sobbing, and Erk trying to calm and soothe her to no avail. As he stared at her, at the one person who understood how much he loved Link, and why he loved him, he was hurt. He would do it, not only for Link, not only for Tatl, not only for himself, but he would do it for her.

He blended with the darkness, and they couldn't see him as he neared the window. "Nami," he began now, his voice powerful with a newfound passion and burning anger. "I'm sorry that things had to happen this way. I miss him too, and I'll miss all of you. But I promise you, with all my heart, that I will do everything I can to kill Isca and claim revenge. Then, I'll kill Ganon. I promise."

She looked up, searching the room for a moment, and saw a faint figure leap out of the window quickly, and she understood and nodded, trying to calm herself.

Shiek ran a hand through his disheveled hair as he stared down at his prey. The deer kneeled down, grazing the grass beneath it, before looking up at the dark, knight sky. Shiek exhaled and leaned back on the tree he stood in before bracing himself and leaping off. He landed on the deer's back and in a second, his needles foud the deer's side and he heard the paniced yelp and then there was nothing.

He got up from the deer's back and once again ran his right hand through his hair. It almost would be time, he concluded, for him to return and kill Isca. And then Ganon. "How many days has it been?" he asked himself quietly, not expecting an answer. He never needed to sleep, nor did he need to consider how much time had passed. Maybe a few days. Maybe more.

Shiek had left Kakariko to go to the forests around the Kokiri Forests in order to train with hopes that he would be strong enough not only to kill Isca, but also Ganon. He needed to heighten his reflexes, his resourcefulness, and ultimately become a better warrior. So he did.

As if to test this new found confidence, he heard a Bear charging towards him just in time for him to jump out of the way. He cracked his neck and braced himself, his eyes focusing now on his opponent. It charged again now, barring it's teeth and slashing a large claw at the Shiekah. He jumped backwards, out of it's reach, before, rolling to the side and performing a roundhouse kick that- because of the Bear's decision to turn his head to see the man -collided with his head, causing it to fall over. He leaped onto it quickly and wrapped his arms around it's neck. His red eyes clouded as he wrapped his arms around the beast, choking it unrelentlessly. It let out a weak, shrill cry as it lost the last bit of air. As soon as it fell limp, he knew; He was ready.

"Malon?" Shiek was baffled at the sight of the Hero's girlfriend and ex-whore. "The hell?" he muttered, scratching the stubble that he had accumulated as he leaned back on a building in Kakariko village. After leaving the Forests, he had returned to the town with hopes of finding the Knight so that he could finally claim revenge for his brother's desk. He was having no luck, however. The guards that were on patrol were merely pages and he never caught sight or even heard of Isca's whereabouts, even after rigorous tailing and pickpocketing of the guards.

The village wasn't much affected by Link's death. They probably didn't even know that the Hero had died. They probably didn't know that they were all doomed to live in hell. It was funny then, he decided, that the Hylians still clung to petty problems when there was something much worse just around the corner. He did admire the tenacity they demonstrated in the way that they fought to have their lives be successful, though, he concluded. He knew that if Link was alive, he'd be happy. They had all switched and changed their lives in order to make it work- even the royals were reduced to the same level as the peasants, performing odd tasks in order to make their way in life.

So, he supposed, it wasn't that bizarre when he noticed that she was holding a chicken above her head, her objectively pretty face pulled down into a firm frown as she sighed with her eyes closed. After she opened them, she held it by her side and stared into the distance, seemingly in thought.

Shiek had never liked Malon. In fact, he disliked her; she was a bad influence on Link, and she was extremely obnoxious. But for some odd reason he felt almost obligated to talk to her, to catch up. Maybe he longed for that old, criminal facet of his life that Hyrule forced him and the Hero to turn their backs on so quickly. He sighed and walked towards her before calling her name.

"Oh, Shiek? How are you?" she seemed, for a second, almost genuine, but he could visibly see her realizing something and then detect her smug smile.

"Fine," he offered cautiously and apathetically.

"I heard about what happened to Link. It hurts when someone leaves you unfairly though. Especially when they cheat on you," she added, and he could almost hear the venom on her tongue as she spoke. "I suppose that Link deserved to be injured the way that he was. I mean, cheating is-"

"Dead, actually," Shiek interupted, his red eyes staring at the grass beneath his feat. Her face turned white.

"W-w-what?" she sputtered, staring at him in disbelief.

His eyes, she noticed, previously staring emptily at the ground were now trained on her, his piercing red eyes more sharp than ever, stabbing her body with the fierceness and intensity as his observing of her made her feel queasy, unassailable, took away her ability to breathe.

"The Knight killed him." he spoke slowly through gritted teeth, articulating exactly what he meant. "I trust that you had no hand in this?"

She looked to the side, to avoid making eye contact, and steadied her breath. He could see tears beginning to stream down her peach cheeks as she looked back at him sadly. "I... I killed him, Shiek. I'm sorry... I told him... but I was just... so mad... and so... hurt..."

Shiek stared at her blankly, unsure of what to say.

Malon had time to remark that he was quite handsome. His hair (its former braid cut) was disheveled and messy, and with his stubble, and stress marks, he looked old and experienced. Hell, his eyes were the one thing still piercing about him. It scared her, and it excited her. And so she did the one thing she could. "Shiek, stay with me. We're both hurt... we're both the only ones who really understand... the gravity of his death. We can make each other happy," she added, hesitantly.

Shiek said nothing, simply staring at her without a single word uttered. What could he say anyway, tell her that he absolutely hated her always, but that this was new, and that he would murder her? He stared at her for a few seconds, formulating in his head exactly what he wanted to say. "Link... left you because you were a bitch and a pathetic whore. He was destined for greater things than being an asshole with a whore girlfriend. He fell in love, he wisened up, and became a Hero, and because of that, you saw fit to have him attacked. Fuck you," Shiek articulated, his ominous stare never leaving her. "...And never with a whore," he added, and in a second he was close to her and his needle was in her neck. He twisted it cruelly, basking in her yelps and screams.

The guards patrolling Kakariko noticed the screams and rushed in their direction, seemingly never noticing his presence prior to the event.

He pulled out and turned around, already climbing up the building to his right. He vaulted himself over the edge, and once up on the building, he turned back to catch sight of the Guards and then, much to his surprise, he saw Isca. He stared the Knight straight in his eyes, surprised to see him back on the force, surprised that he couldn't move and that Isca blankly stared back at him.

Shiek retreated.

"Dammit!" Shiek roared, kicking a tree trunk on the vast fields of Hyrule. "I saw him and I let him go. Shit," he muttered, before kicking the tree again with more force. He sat down and leaned back on the tree after a few seconds and stared emptily at the dark fields of Hyrule before he noticed him approaching.

"Ah, Shiek. Always with the short temper, I see. I thought you were much more composed than this," the man commented, his voice deep and gruff. Too deep, too gruff.

"Fuck. You." Shiek spat back, his voice ceratin and powerful, portraying just how little fear he contained when dealing with the man. "I'm not afraid of you."

The man smiled, stepping closer to him so quickly that it was surprising that he was such a huge man of such a huge physique , and that he wasn't even a Shiekah. He grabbed Shiek by his neck and wrapped both of his hands around it with a chuckle as he began to choke the smaller man. "You precious Hero is gone. What have you left?"

He was right, Shiek supposed. They had nothing left. He'd try to kill Isca, try to kill Ganon, and fail. And then what? There was no hope without the Hero. Nobody could purge the evil the way that the Hero could. They could never succeed without him. Never.

And so, closing his eyes, he tried to let the oxygen stop coming into him, and let Ganon continue. But with a large yelp, Ganon let him go and fell down onto his knee. He turned around quickly and was greeted with the sight of the Knight himself.

"Let him alone," the man with the midnight blue eyes commanded, his voice tired, resigned.

There was a dead silence for a few moments as nobody had any clue what they could say or do in the situation, before Ganon stood up, chuckling lightly, before it turned into sadistic howling as the Knight helped the Shiekah up. "You cannot hope to defeat me without your Hero. Resistance is futile," he said, leaving the two as he walked away before disappearing into a black void.

After he was gone, the two of them were left alone, and Shiek was unsure of what he could say. Thank you? Fuck you? He was, for once, at a complete loss.

"How is Tatl?" he asked first, his voice hopeful. "...And... Link?" he added, unsure.

"Last time I saw," Shiek started, unsure of how long it had been since he had left Impa's house to train. "depressed... and... dead."

"I see. I... apologize," Isca replied, his voice low and pained. Shiek could hear and visibly see that he was swallowing his pride, and, despite himself, he realized that he wanted and somehow needed to accept the man's apology. He did so with a small nod, followed by an empty gaze at the deep, dark Hyrule field with a look of nostalgia somehow present in his crimson red eyes. "Shiek," Isca started again. "Link gave his life for this damned kingdom. And I know that... that the Hero would have wanted us to save Hyrule. We still can," he added.

Shiek finally looked at the man beside him and considered him for a moment. Maybe it was the emptiness, the depression, the raw resentment of himself - he saw some of Link in the man before him. But then there was an air of righteousness, power, passion, heroism, and courage about him. Staring at Isca, he was sure that if is weren't Link who was the hero of Time, Farore's chosen Hero, it certainly would have been Isca.

And he had hope. Somethint everyone had lost with the death of the Hero. He thought previously that there was no way that they could have won. They thought about this, even before they knew that Link was dead, that there was no way that they would win. And as soon as the Hero had passed, all semblance of hope that they had was gone.

But this man, demented, hated, depressed, still had hope.

He immediately felt silly and weak for the bleak outlook that they had all had because they had had Link. He had brought them so far, and he would have wanted them to finish this, for all the people of Hyrule. For Zelda, for Tatl, for his now-bastard child. For him.

Link simply didn't know the effect that he held over the people. They had grown accustomed to his cheery, crude, hilarious nature. The way that he seemed to not give a shit about anything or anyone, or how he looked. How rash he was, how quick to take action that he was.

How he was Link.

Shiek was reminded of his thoughts as he lamented his dying brother That he'd have survived had it been that he wasn't Link, so outgoing, so courageous, so blind.

But if he wasn't Link, he wouldn't have touched them the way that he did.

Looking back at Isca, he registered the Knight's hand outstretching towards him for a handshake, and, considering the man before him, he had hope.

I hope that you enjoyed this story. If you did, please leave a review, or favorite or whatever. And make sure that you check out Gamesplayers' stories because they're super dope and are amongst my favorite on Fanfiction. I haven't been touched by a story nearly as much as I was there.

Thank you, and goodbye.

~Oh No. It's Happened.