Before starting, I'd like to thank everyone on this site for being so damn cool. I've checked my stats and Hylian Kings just received the 1999th hit. Heh. It sure feels good, so thanks. I know some people have probably gotten more hits than that, but when I first created my account, I never expected to have quite so many reviews and notes from readers. It warms my heart like on the first day, every time.

Now, to focus on this story, let's just say it's my take on Dark Link, so... because of that...

Warning: Obvious sexual innuendoes. But this is not a lemon. For that, you ought to check elsewhere.

To be quite honest, the sexual tones are more to put the dialogue in the spotlight. It turned out pretty nicely and darkly poetic, so I'm glad. It's actually the feel I was trying to get.

Without further ado,

Shades of Deception
By CM

Darkness spread across Hyrule insidiously. He'd taken to noticing the way it crept, slowly, dimming the senses, so slowly that none noticed until it was fully there. And then, it seemed to pale a bit, hypocritically telling the people that it was not there to stay. But, the young man knew, it came back every night, relentlessly, forever, as though it only allowed day to come in order to hide its true intentions.

He felt a smile tugging at the corner of his lip, and he did not hold back. His face stretched into a mirthless, ironic smirk.

Pulling his black hood over his forehead, he kept his deep red eyes averted and watched as the last of Hyrule's townsfolk hurried to put their wares away.

He sat on a crate, long black cloak helping to blend him into the darker corners of the city, in the deep pools of shadow caused by the rapidly setting sun. He was not in a hurry. Night would last long enough, and for a shadow, time passed ever so slowly.

With a suddenly angry stare, he glanced up at the tall, gleaming white towers of Hyrule Castle that overlooked the vast city. The sunset had lit them up with a deep orange glow, like a destructive fire right before the utter darkness.

A child ran by him. He watched him with careless disinterest. Then, the young boy stopped, and turned to squint at the dark patch of shade where the man sat. Without a word, without a single step forward or backward, the boy stared at the shadow dweller.

With a suddenly feral smile, the man looked up, and the boy saw the silvery wisps of hair and the blood red eyes, and took fright. His lip trembled, and he ran away, not daring to look back.

There was, the shadow observed, a certain satisfaction in giving fear to the innocent.

And, he thought as he glanced back up at the castle, whose glow had faded to a pale yellowish grey, in terrorizing those who had no other purpose but to live for others' happiness.

As the cloak of night appeared behind the white towers, he judged his time had come.

With his black cloak trailing behind him, the man moved off the crate and into the street. As he'd judged, they were satisfyingly deserted. The pavement was fading to a soft grey colour. His favourite moment of nightfall—the instant where all colour faded to darkness, where the sight was dulled to only a reflection of what it could truly be—an obscured image of truth.

His cloak opened, and almost revealed the hilt of his sword. With a single tug, he covered it again. Even if the sword itself carried an obsidian hilt, and was a stained, deep black metal, one that no one could see in the midnight, he preferred not to leave it exposed, confident that the cold steel weapon had been his only faithful and worthy companion.

He kept it close.

The castle gate bore the crest of the royal family and the sacred symbol, the triangle thing, he thought, incapable of remembering its name. Never had he bothered to care for religious insignias, and he knew he never would, despite what she thought of them.

He snapped his fingers, and passed by the guards, unnoticed. He paused as he was passing behind one of them, then took out a dagger and planted it in the man's neck, tearing a sudden and pained cry that instantly filled with the gurgle of warm blood flooding his victim's mouth. The other guard did not take notice. With a satisfied sigh, the shadow dweller stepped away and up the path, flatly marvelling at the wondrous power of obscurity.

If only she saw it his way.

The guards were closing up the castle for the night. He walked in with them, and none of them noticed him. They were discussing the upcoming festivities in town.

"About time too, aye?" One of them was saying.

"Aye," another responded. "Good thing they finally chose to be wed."

The men laughed good-naturedly. "Methinks," another one said, "that Link and the princess really will be good rulers."

Without a word, fury rising, the shadow dweller murdered them. Their blood spilled into a gutter by the kitchens, mingling with the dead viscera of animals. He smiled, before recalling the reason for his visit.

He stood in the inner courtyard, and there was darkness surrounding him like a cloak—cold, protective. Overhead, the castle towers rose into the vast open night, far distant glows of windows seeming blurred out by the obscurity.

How fickle, he contemplated.

Before he could continue the thought, he sensed a ripple in the dark, and turned, calmly, to gaze at his mirror reflection.

In the night, the Hero of Time looked exactly as his shadow did—pale, sickly, and his hair turned to a colourless, dim grey. The shadow dweller considered his origin with a fading smirk.

"It seems the only difference between us… are those eyes of yours," he observed with light detachment.

Link only stared at his shadow with evident hatred. "I thought I told you never to return within the castle walls, wretch."

Not even wincing at the acid tone of his origin, the shadow man sighed calmly and forced a mocking grin. "Now, Hero of Time—do they still call you that?—where has all of Hyrule's hospitality gone?"

"If you wish for an audience," Link said with obvious mockery and contempt, "you come during day. After nightfall, you are an intruder."

"I am nightfall," Dark said with wise patience, adjusting his deep black cloak with a flourish of his arm and the fabric billowed. "Alas, all my wishes for a warm and pleasurable greeting were thwarted by your intelligence." And, to spite his reflection, the shadow looked up at the single lit window, high above them with a suggestive smirk.

Link followed his gaze, then turned back to glare at his image. "She would not greet you." He said this with great animosity. "I would prevent this from happening—with my life."

The shadow did not seem impressed or frightened. Instead, he examined his nails, and, in the deep of the night, Link could not see whether his image carried a sword or not.

"Such large words, and such small hands. In the grand scheme of things, what are you? If not, if I may say so myself, a mere shadow on the wall of history?"

"Leave this place."

The shadow fell silent and considered his origin emotionlessly. Then, he said, carefully, "So I shall…"

"You shan't see her this night!" Link said, louder, in warning, vaguely alarmed as his reflection started evaporating into the thick obscurity.

"Your hands may be stronger from being tangible," the shadow said with growing amusement, "however my words and promises are far more seductive and easy to fall for. Let us see, Hero of Time, which side of the coin is luckier."

With that, the shadow dweller vanished. He saw his origin looking around anxiously before running to the bottom of the tower, engulfing himself into the long winding staircase. With a single leap, the shadow had reached the top, beating his reflection without difficulty.

Sitting himself on the windowsill of the future queen's room with infinite satisfaction, he watched the woman inside unravel the band that had held her hair together that day. It tumbled down her back in golden, luxurious curls. His fingers itched to caress the locks, but he waited just an instant more.

She unclasped her dress slip, and it pooled at her feet. He watched, feeling his darker nature coming to his consciousness and revelling in it. Already more than interested, he stepped inside the chamber. The lights and candles faded instantly to such a diffuse glow that the nude woman froze, hardly breathing.

With a single finger, he caressed her nape, running two fingers into her hair, combing it with three others, and then placed a single kiss there. It was so faint; she did not shiver or shudder. She had yet to decide if she was truly alone or not.

Then, his breath came out into her ear, and the cold air made her shiver, finally. He whispered words, some soothing and some seductive. Most importantly, the lights in the room faded and died. The moonlight itself was dying, covered by clouds.

He pushed her towards the bed, and the blonde beauty was entranced already. How amusing. She fell faster every time.

Discarding his cloak, the shadow sent it flying towards the shut door. It wrapped itself, as though it had a mind of its own, around the knob. At that moment, the shadow heard Link's breathless cries on the other side. The Hero was banging on the door, begging for the woman to open for him. The shadow dweller smirked and, as though to spite the blind witness, airily kissed the woman's bare collarbone. Under his half-vaporous hand, she was moaning.

She did not hear her Hero's prayers.

Unexpectedly, her vague and empty eyes sharpened for the briefest instant and he thought her heard her whisper the Hero's name, but it was hardly a breath and she quickly faded back to oblivious sound making.

"Allow me," the shadow said, and rid himself of his clothing, blatantly ignoring the repetitive hits the bedroom door was suffering.

And, in the deep darkness, the shadow dweller pleasured the Hero's betrothed. Perhaps he did it for himself—as evil truly has no other ambition but to satisfy its own desires—or perhaps he did it to put the Hero in pain. In any case, by the time he'd ended his business with the blonde woman, she looked sated and satisfied.

Her eyes had lost the vagueness he'd created, and she stared at him a bit sharper now. Softly, she whispered into the shadow's ear, disturbing the still air around them, uninterrupted by Link's pleas—he'd stopped in despair and deep sadness and after hearing her shout for pleasure—and brushed the shadow's pale hair out of his blood red eyes, "Such is my fate, then?"

The shadow raised a brow and smirked, uncaring. "You call it fate," he chuckled, "at long last. You have then lost the word destiny, have you not?"

She frowned, but did not look irked. The shadow pressed himself onto her, as though to brand himself into her skin. She shuddered and said, "Destiny is only for the light…" She let out a sharp breath when he bit her ear and pushed himself into her again. "And you are deep and dark and you are my fate."

He laughed in his throat, ignoring her words. She seemed to enjoy speaking after their numerous encounters. At first, she had tried to force goodness unto him, until she finally understood that he mocked her attempts and forced evil and himself unto her instead. It seemed after this she had darkened and grown to expect him, as though their meetings were inevitable.

Interestingly, she continued to entertain his origin without guilt.

"You are mine…" He whispered, and she fell to a gap between trance and reality once more, half calling his name and half calling her love's name. He did not care. The names were the same to him. "Feel how he and I are the same, princess," he softly commanded. "You can not deny—you can only love the whole and not the body or the shadow it creates on their own. In accepting this, you give yourself to me willingly. I am only moving in your favour." With those words, he brought her to satisfaction once again.

It took her a long moment to be able to speak her mind again. With every time he blinded her, it took longer and longer to regain her senses.

When she could, she whispered, "Your words are sweet venom coursing through the bearer's veins like their own blood… Destructive but nourishing a short instant and deadly if lost but deadly if kept. Interweaved evil and lust traced into the deceptive pattern of physical pleasure and care."

He laughed, uncaring. "Do go on."

She caught her breath and whispered again, "Every time you enter my chambers I fall—I can not decide if it is willingly or not anymore."

"Then I've succeeded," he simply stated, getting up. In the pure darkness, she could only see the outline of his familiar body.

From the tangle of sheets, she asked, a bit louder, straining her weak voice, "Are you truly a being of deception, then?" She covered herself, feeling her skin shiver, and questioned still, "Have you ever enjoyed any of our… of our meetings?"

She saw his face turn as his blood red eyes looked down obliquely at her. He was silent for the longest time, his breathing chest completely silent. Then, he said, "Have you?"

She found no words to answer, and she watched him cover his vaporous, half-physical body with his clothes. Then, he stepped towards the window and turned to look back at her.

"Shadows…" he started, "are only images of the truth. They do not lie, but because they trail behind, people do not see them before crossing with their origin. And so, which of the two are the most deceptive? The one who creates the shadow, or the shadow projected by all of mankind's innermost sins?" He stared at her for a quiet moment, even as the returning moonlight outlined her pale forms. "Does love belong only to the creator, and not to the created?"

She did not respond, and so the shadow dweller called his cloak from the door. It billowed around him and he vanished.

The woman was left in the complete silence for an instant that felt like an eternity. Then, her door creaked and she turned to look at her beloved's pained face.

She did not speak before he closed the door behind himself and made his wavering way over to her. He looked down at the all-too-familiar sight of her naked limbs tangled with the sheets. He kneeled down and pressed his forehead to her cool, bare shoulder.

At once, they both whispered a broken, "Forgive me."

Review, if you think it's worthwhile.

If you intend to flame, then go back up to my warning, read it, then come back down here to see if I didn't already cover what you were about to say.

Hm... this piece is on the way to becoming one of my top ten favourites. And no, I didn't post this so that it could create incidents or arguments. I wrote it; if you like it, then I'm glad; if you don't, well too bad.

Gawd, I sound so aggressive today. You'll forgive me, I hope. :)

Love,
CM