Parts of a Whole

From the first moment, Sheik knew something was wrong. Just a look at his blue eyes, saw him empty, and wary. Running back to the land he loved, but that didn't remember him.

He had told Zelda, had begged for an opportunity to talk to him. But she refused. Link must never know him, never know that the consciousness and personality of Sheik that Princess Zelda had hid herself in had been transformed into a true person.

But it was already too late for them. Too late for secrets, too late for forgiveness, too late for help.

The princess' scream echoed throughout the white marble hallways of the castle, and in that instant, Sheik knew Link was gone.

And now he knelt in front of the princess, who didn't even looked at him. Instead, gazed out her window, at the land she ruled.

"I knew it too" she said, and the whispered confession seemed to shout by itself. Sheik kept silent. "But I didn't care." She clutched the curtains with too much force, as if wanting to rip them apart "I thought he would get over it, would pick himself up like so many times before…Sheik…"

The sheika looked at the floor. He wanted to give her the forgiveness she wanted. But it was too late, and he could not give such a thing. There was nothing he could do, and he hated himself for that.

"But…how?" she said suddenly, turning to face him with steely blue eyes. "How did you knew? When you never met him?"

"I saw his eyes, your Highness. They were different from…what I remembered"

"Of course" she said, entwining her hands, going back to her royal act. The one she lost herself a little more everytime. "But now it doesn't matter what we could have done. I have talked to the sages, none of us could find what is wrong with him. Why did he suddenly collapse. His breathing's fine, his heartbeat too; we can only think it is a problem of his spirit. Maybe some kind of magic that affect him from his travels. But he didn't had time to even tell me where he'd been." Sat down on a chair and motioned to Sheik to get up. As he stood up, for a moment he saw her eyes drift to the wall, as if seeing something beyond this world, but when he looked straight at her, she was back .

"I need you to find what happened to him. Retrace his steps, go to all the places he went and ask for something, anything that might have affected him… It's the least we can do for him now…"

"I'll get to it immediately, you Highness."

"I want you to part tomorrow morning. Today… you should go through his things, check all that he brought with him, and then look in his forest house. He always sent things from his travels there. Saria, the sage of the forest will allow you entrance and guide you there. I trust in your inquisitive mind Sheik. I might have created you, but you have matured into an astounding man. There is no one who I'd trust more for this task."

Sheik bowed and thanked her, then retired.

He walked through the hallway in a daze. He would have expected anything but that. To find out what had left Link in that state. He looked outside on one of the tall windows. A soft mist covered Hyrule, making him shiver. What had the hero found, out there?

He wanted to take a horse and leave in that moment. He would search the whole world, if that meant he wouldn't have to do what Zelda ordered him to do right now.

Look among Link's things. It felt like a sin.

He walked towards the second floor. An unearthly silence filled the castle, heavy and unforgiving, as if telling everyone "This is your hero, and you let him fade away." Sheik clutched his fists. Had he defied Zelda, had he stepped up and asked Link what had happened to him, maybe he wouldn't… But no, this couldn't have been prevented.

The emptiness in his eyes was already too deep.

On the second floor, far more guards stood, merely some steps apart, one after the other, with equal expressions of confusion at the whole thing. None of them knew, none of them remembered who had saved them. All they knew was that a guest of the princess had fallen unconscious, and all hell broke loose.

It might as well happen at any moment now. Without Link, the very core of Hyrule had crumbled. He held the country safe, because even though nobody but the highest ranks of the court knew about him, the Darkness could feel his presence.

And now he was gone.

People who passed by the room where the priests kept chanting prayers looked at Sheik with worried eyes. They thought he was the hero.

The thought made him smile. Him? A hero? He had fought, had helped Link in everything he could. But he had not fought the monsters of the temples, had not seen his friends die so they could help save the world. The image of Link looking at the small tree stump on the forest temple made him shake. One after the other, all the things he loved were gone.

And yet, he wanted to be angry at him. Because he hadn't been there, those seven years of horror, of hunger and darkness. He had left them alone, when they most needed him.

And now he was gone again, left them alone, and the days would get darker, and quieter, and darkness would come back. Just like that time.

Sheik shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts. He had orders to fulfill.

He entered the room and found himself in front of an altar. Around it, priests chanted prayers that he could remember even if he had never heard them. A soft smell hung in the air, making him think of days spent at the temple of time, deciphering dreams.

Remnants of Zelda's memories mixed with his own, they came when he never expected them.

On top of the altar laid Link's body. Far from him as he was, he still could feel his spirit gone from him. He gritted his teeth with every step he too towards him, feeling the emptiness of his body pull at him, calling for him to fall. He breathed deeply, and told himself that it was just a body, but the thought made him feel even colder, made the darkness inside his very core shift.

He frowned at the thought that the princess had lied to him. Three days investigating, when his spirit was clearly the problem. What was the meaning of that? What was she trying to hide from him?

He motioned for the priests to leave, and they did. Only the five guards remained in the room, explicit orders of the princess made them stay.

He felt like a thief as he stood next to Link and looked down at him. He wore the same tattered green tunic from the day he had arrived. Sheik took a deep breath and searched in Link's pockets. The guards shifted around him and he felt himself blushing.

He took all he found and exited the room as fast as he could. On the privacy of the library, he dropped all the items. Link carried a lot on him, even if it didn't looked like it. Sheik found a small bottle filled with a red potion, a pouch with money, a map of Hyrule, three maps of places he didn't recognize, deku nuts, odd seeds, a compass, an ocarina, a pencil, and a bunch of crumpled papers with handwritten poems. Sheik sat down and stiffened the papers. The sentences strung together like a song. Had Link been composing a song while traveling?

"Softly

In the expanses of the sky, in my memories floating by
the two of us even now smile as we dance
In these arms that tell the end of the long night I want to hold you as you sleep"

Sheik had never hear a song like that, and when he looked at the last papers, he knew Link wasn't writing it, but desciphering.

There were pieces of music written there, with notes saying "sounds like it" or "closer", while other pieces were crossed out in what seemed like rage. The paper was ripped on one of the wrong pieces.

He sighed and left down the papers.

A knock on the door startled him, and for a moment he felt like a thief looking at stolen things. He cringed a little and said "Come in"

A guard entered, behind him, two guards waited at the door. Zelda had increased the security almost immediately since Link fell unconscious.

'Since he faded away' whispered a hissing voice in his mind, and he entwined his fingers, thankful for the mask over his face which hid his dread.

"Sir? The princess sent this to you" he lifted an old and dirty bag. "It was from her guest"

"Is"

"What?"

"He's…not dead yet."

The guard gave Sheik an odd look, but bowed and left without a word.

The bag was untouched, closed with an odd and hurried knot made with dirty hands. Sheik put it on the table and tapped the knot, then breathed deeply. It couldn't be more difficult than searching in Link's pockets. He untied the knot.

Arrows, potions, boomerangs, hooks, books, daggers and a simple, small sword. When all was out, Sheik wasn't sure it would fit back in.

He huffed and pushed the things around on the table, searching for something that would give some clue of something, a diary, a letter, anything. But after searching two, three times, all he had were a bunch of maps, and pieces of a song.

"Link, why?" he whispered, remembering the memories of him, still painted so brightly, even thought he had seen them through the eyes of the princess.

Another knock on the door, this time he opened it himself. A guard told him that the Princess requested his presence on the throne room. Sheik frowned and looked out of the window in the library, the sun had set without him realizing it. The spheres of light had turned on long ago, while he was busy trying to make sense of the simple things that Link carried with him always.

As he walked to the throne room with the maps and the crumpled papers on his hands, he frowned. The whole subject of Link was usually treated with a lot of secrecy, hiding what the council talked even from the hero himself, so why had the princess asked to see him on the throne room? There was nothing to talk with him other than his mission to help Link, so…

He stopped at the entrance while the guards opened the doors for him.

In the throne room, standing in front of the council, was the sage Rauru. Sheik nearly dropped the papers in shock.

"Step forward" commanded the Princess, and Sheik obeyed. When he arrived next to the sage, he knelt in front of him, then knelt for the council. They didn't seemed happy for it, but it was protocol.

The doors closed behind him with a definite thumping sound. For a moment Sheik felt slightly claustrophobic.

"Have you found anything Sheik?" asked the princess, in a carefully controlled voice. Rauru sighed and entwined his hands under his long sleeves.

"Nothing that could give me any clues to Link's condition, Your Highness. But I did found maps of the places he has traveled to, and the direction he took. With that it will be easy to retrace his steps and find if anything-"

"That could take years" interrupted Rauru "Have you found anything else? That doesn't looks like a map" he signaled at the papers in Sheik's hands.

"It's not. I found Link was trying to write a song. It seems like he was trying to remember it, not compose it, as if he had heard it once. It's the only thing he wrote by his hand." Rauru signaled him to hand over the papers. When Sheik let them go he felt a little empty. There was a very personal thing of Link, and he was just showing it to anybody. Even if it was a sage, it still felt wrong.

Princess' Zelda's eyes softened.

"He always memorized the songs. Why could he not remember this one?"

"This doesn't seems like a magical song. I've never seen it before. It doesn't even looks like it could be played on an ocarina"

"I might recognize it, let me see it"

Rauru gave the papers back to Sheik, who approached the princess with his head low. Again, as Zelda looked at the writing, Sheik felt as if he had done something bad, exposing Link's privacy. Rauru beckoned Sheik to show him the maps while the princess was looking at the song. The other members of the council looked at them in silence, but their eyes made Sheik feel like he was suffocating. There was a tension on the air, as if they all knew something they were hiding from him. Unfortunately, Sheik's instincts had always been right.

Rauru opened map after map, until he found something on the back of one. He turned it around, and peeled a small piece of paper pasted lightly to it. He passed the map to Sheik and looked at the paper.

"What is it?" asked Zelda, losing her patience.

"It's another song, but it's…" a knock on the door startled everyone on the room. One guard entered and knelt in front of the council and the princess.

"Your Highness, the warriors you required have arrived"

"Warriors?" Sheik asked in a whisper to the princess, unable to stop himself.

"Ah, yes, let them in. Sheik, although I trust your capacities, you will need help in this mission"

"I think it would be useless, given how long it would take for them to find any clue" interrupted Rauru "We should focus on the songs, clearly Link was investigating something"

"Or he was merely trying to compose something for me. He has done that before and if the songs end up meaning nothing we would lose even more time."

On the door appeared three soldiers, covered in heavy armors and bearing the crest of the royal family. Sheik only recognized one of them, a young man named Olen, who had risen to head of the royal guard in merely a couple of years. A strong and valuable ally, but overly arrogant. Still, Sheik wouldn't have minded his help, if he could remember. But in his mind, Link and the battle had never existed, the worst of the dark years vanished from their lives. A part of Sheik felt angry, and a deeper one, jealous. How could this people live their lives so peacefully, when the others had paid such a price for that peace? He felt a pang of guilt when the image of Link on the altar crossed his mind. Nobody had stopped to think of him until now, when he had finally given all he had.

"Sheik, this is general Olen and soldiers Veriath and Kideth. I was about to appoint them as members of my personal guard, but they will be of more use to you in your mission."

Sheik kept his face neutral, and bowed to his soon to be companions, all the while trying to hide his disgust at being kept on the shadows of everything the Princess was doing. After all, why should she hide anything from him? Were they not different sides of the same coin? He had been born out of her disguise against the Dark One, when she had struggled to put time back together and seal Ganondorf forever.

"I will do my best to ensure the fulfillment of our mission" said Sheik

"Now, we will go on with the meeting. I want you three to stay here and take note of everything that is said, even if you don't understand it. Don't speak or question anything. Afterwards, Sheik will tell you what you are allowed to know. This is a very secret mission, and" she took a deep breath "any slip of information will be punished with death. Sheik has my permission to execute anybody who tries to know more than is allowed, or speaks of it to anybody not allowed. Do you understand?"

The soldiers knelt and said "Yes, Your Highness." Then took place near a window, next to the four members of the council.

"Please, read the song Rauru" ordered the princess.

"Silent fairies...calm all the anger
Silent fairies...pardon the sinners to come
This voice will fly on the wind through the earth and forests
And find a way to grant my prayer"

Sheik approached the sage and looked at the song, the song Rauru had read was written at the top, and underneath were strange symbols written in the same way as the song above. Under those symbols were three dates, consecutive days from a year ago, and then another date circled, from a week after the first three. Writen hurriedly, next to the song were the notes to sing it.

Nothing more.

"Could it be a spell?" asked Sheik

"It doesn't seems like one, but maybe…"

"I'll sing it! I can put into it enough energy to activate whatever spell is in it." said the princess, getting up and walking to them. The other members of the council gasped. Lord Heratl, Army commander, stepped forward.

"Your Highness! We don't know what kind of spell this might be, or what it could unleash! We should try and decode it first, then"

"There is no time already"

Sheik gave her a hard look, and Zelda had to look away as she walked towards Rauru. But Sheik would not give up so easily, and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. His mind fell deeper and deeper; until it bumped against a wall.

It takes nothing but a moment, and yet he knows all.

He clenches his fists as he sees Zelda's hand waver a little when she tries to take the paper from Rauru's hands. She felt the hit against her mind link with Sheik, and know that Sheik has already set up another barrier on himself.

A war has been declared, without a single word.

The princess takes the paper and looks at it with a frown. The notes are clear, but the idea of singing what could easily be a very dangerous spell was too dangerous to approach without a second thought. Still, Zelda straightens herself and stands on the center of the throne room

"Wait" whispers Rauru "Impa will arrive soon. We need to take as much precautions as possible."

The princess gritted her teeth. Her relationship with Impa had become very tense since her father had fallen ill, two years ago, plagued by nightmares of the dark times, when he couldn't take the memories anymore. The dreams of his death that plagued his mind every night, over and over again.

On the corner of the room a black and purple mist formed, twisting and turning, forming itself into a dark entrance. Impa took a step out of it, her eyes full of a cold neutrality, as she bowed lightly in the princess' direction. Sheik had to bite his tongue to stop himself from speaking to Impa. For the first three years of his existence she had been a mother to him, until Zelda had finally snapped at her and she had retreated to the shadow temple. The princess wanted to heal her father, but would rather see him wasting away on a bed at the castle than letting Impa use her shadows to help him. Sheik wanted to disagree with the princess, but the dark times were burned so deep in him, he wouldn't even get near the temple anymore.

Zelda clenched her fist and read the paper once more. Impa stood to her left, next to Sheik, while Rauru stood to her right. After a deept breath, she sang.

As the notes reached Sheik's ears, it seemed to him like it was actually meant to be one of the melodies used on the ball dances of the royal family. A flowing rhythm, the princess' voice sounded like it was praying among the dancers. Images of the balls Zelda had seen on her childhood flooded Sheik's mind. Even if they had decided to close off one to the other, they were still part of the same person, their memories still mixed, making each other think that they had been somewhere they hadn't.

"Silent fairies...pardon the sinners to come
This voice will fly on the wind through the earth and forests"

A dark presence descended on the room, as if an unseen fog had filled the air around them, and a deep voice, coming from every corner sang

" And find a way to grant my prayer"

The sages extended their arms, creating a shield around the princess. Their powers of Light and Shadow floated around Zelda in a complex, shining dance. Their combined energy made the very earth buzz with excitement.

"Who's there?!" shouted the princess. "Show yourself"

"How rude!" said the voice, and Sheik felt a pair of eyes looking at him, from the glass windows, from the polished metals of the golden shields on the walls, the mirrors hanging on the walls, and the jewels in everyone's clothes.

"It's on the reflections!" he shouted, a set of sheika daggers already on his hands.

"L…Link?" asked the princess. Everyone froze. Until then Sheik realized that the voice from the mirrors sounded just like Link's.

"You could say that" answered the voice, and every glass thing on the room shattered. The chill air of the night bursted in the room, with an aggression that made Sheik think that the very wind was the one speaking.

"Why have you stolen my song? Where is Link?"

Sheik looked up, and saw a black and red mist swirling on the ceiling, descending around them.

"I haven't stolen anything! Who are you?!"

Sheik stumbled a little at the voice of the princess, filled with a magic that made him answer with his name in a whisper. When he looked up he met Impa's worried eyes. He nodded, to show that he was alright.

"I am Link"

"No you're not!"

"Ah, Zelda. I almost didn't recognize you. All I had was the image of you as a child, back in the garden with that hideous little hat on you." The voice cackled, and a memory surfaced in Sheik's and Zelda's mind, so strong, they almost dropped the barriers to talk to each other. But Zelda looked away from Sheik, strengthening her energy now that they knew who they were talking to.

It was after Link had emerged from the Water Temple. Sheik waited for him on the center of the lake, and smiled under his mask when Link appeared, drenched and cold.

"Finally" said Sheik, handing him a blanket. But Link took a step away from him, his breathing ragged, eyes unfocussed, looking around at something Sheik couldn't see. "Link?"

The hero dropped to his knees, hugging himself, an laughed; a short, paranoid kind of laughter Sheik heard all the time in the few villages still standing. The voice of pure despair, laughing, because nothing else could convey it.

"He's gone" Link said, with a sharp voice

"Who? Link? Are you alright?"

"I'm a hero Sheik. I'm…now… I'm a hero…"

Link was never the same. The child Sheik had seen emerge from the temple of light had vanished, leaving behind the puppet of a dying kingdom.

Sometimes, when Link was forced to take refuge in one of the villages, Sheik would ask about the temple, about what happened there. And only once, Link answered.

"I found myself…I defeated my darkness. Now Ganondorf can't use me, now he cannot win"

Zelda ordered the sages to let down the shield, while she raised her energy.

"You are Link's darkness, aren't you?"

"Well, it seems like you're not as dumb as I thought, little princess"

"What have you done to Link?" her question was met with an unusual silence "Darkness! Answer me!"

"I'm not darkness, you fool!" the mist above them swirled violently, red flames rose around it, and a pillar of it formed itself in front of the door.

"I'm the shadow" said a man in the pillar of darkness. He took a couple of steps towards them, and flashed them a dangerous smirk.

It was Link, a twisted, dark version of the hero; whose bright red eyes seemed to burn with an unholy fire.

The sages stepped forward, ready to protect the princess. The Shadow merely raised an eyebrow at them.

"In the end, he has brought his own doom on himself, hasn't he?" said the Shadow.

"What do you mean? What has happened to Link?"

The Shadow laughed and waved at the princess "My hero, my hero!" he said in a mocking tone "all you see is a little dog you can use to control the dangers that overpower you. How pathetic."

"How dare you monster?! Link himself vanquished you!"

"Because of you!" shouted the Shadow and pointed at Zelda. The sages casted the shield. Sheik gritted his teeth. The resemblance this dark being had to Link was too much, even their voices were almost identical. How had Link felt? Fighting against himself in the temple?

The Shadow paced from one side of the room to the other, never getting close to the shield

"I have to be a hero! I have to save everyone! That's all I heard on his head, over and over. You and all the people wanted so much of him, and he gave you all he had. Purified himself, not only of the shadows, or the darkness, but of innocence, of desire, of mercy." He closed his eyes "I can feel him, in the castle. There is so very little of him left, not enough to sustain him now."

"Why should I believe you? For all we know, you might as well be trying to destroy him"

The Shadow cackled

"Destroy him?! He couldn't destroy me when we first separated. He merely pushed me away, so far that I couldn't reach him until four years ago, and even then, he fled from me. No, to destroy him would mean my destruction, and to kill me would destroy him completely." He winked at the princess "Are you willing to take that risk? Now that the roads of time are crashing?"

The princess' face lost all color.

"Silence!" she ordered, and the Shadow snorted.

"You want to control everything, not knowing that you're being manipulated" he turned his back on her and headed for the door

"Stop! Nobody must see you, that would cause the time roads to crash!"

"A bit late to take precautions, don't you think?" he jumped and sat on air, crossing his legs and looking at his nails. "But fine. I guess now we have the same goal. As much as I hate all of you, what good would it do for me to destroy the world? It's no fun to play with broken toys. But I still have to see Link. Once I've seen him I'll tell you what's the problem, and how to solve it. Turn off all the lights, and make the guards leave, or I'll do it myself." He faded into the shadows, and the dark mist slowly cleared.

"Sheik!" called the princess, but Sheik was already dashing towards the door.

Shadow Link waited in the mirrored pillars of the room where Link's body laid. It seemed like an absolutely pathetic attempt at redemption from the little princess. She couldn't save her weakling of a father and now tried to save Link from things she didn't comprehended.

But Shadow knew.

Four years ago, in desperation, Link's spirit had descended to the Sacred Realm, where he had vanquished him. Unconscious, of course. Link would never accept he needed help. From no one, and much less from his shadow part. And yet, when Shadow escaped, he had looked into Link's memories and saw the parts of himself he had left behind, in his attempts to become the perfect "Hero" everyone wanted him to be. To "Purify" himself

And the fool couldn't see that the very people he was striving to please didn't knew of his existence, barely remembered the dark days he had fought for them.

When the guards left, Shadow descended from the mirrored glass on one of the pillars. Sheik stood by the door.

"Some privacy here?" said Shadow

"Don't think I'll leave you alone with him."

"Heh, I was hoping you'd be as dumb as your female counterpart"

"One more insult to Her Highness, and you'll wish you'd never existed"

Shadow smirked. The sound of his footsteps echoed in the huge room as he approached the altar, once there he sat next to Link, looking at his unmoving face. He looked as if he was dreaming.

"I told you…" said Shadow in a toxic whisper "I told you there wouldn't be anything left if you kept going like this. And look where it has landed you…defeated by your own hand" he bent down and pressed his forehead against the hero's "I know you can hear me. Put your fear on hold for a moment, would ya? What else can you lose now?"

Link's eyes moved under his eyelids, and he gasped for breath. Shadow held his hand and frowned. Link's spirit felt so far, as if Shadow was trying to reach him from across an ocean. Never before had he felt so far from him, even when he had been imprisoned in the Sacred Realm. What could be the cause?. Even accessing his memories was getting very difficult for him. Just a couple of months ago Shadow could see through his memories and emotions on instinct, like seeing the other side of his own heart. But now… It seemed as if Link had shielded himself from the world, barely letting Shadow take a peek inside him. But why? Shadow didn't know.

He lifted and separated weakened the soul link between them.

"What was that?" asked Sheik, stepping forward. His red eyes, showed a deadly determination that reminded the Shadow of himself.

"He has separated himself"

"What?"

"I am a part of him, the first he vanquished. But there were others, too many. He has to get them back."

"Do you mean there are other Links out there? Explain yourself!"

Shadow laughed, wishing he could at least explain it to himself.

"The little princess mustn't know this. But listen, the time line you are living in is merely the first one. Link has rearranged time far more times, without letting anybody know. In three of them, he was separated, first on me, then on a chaos deity, then on four components of himself. By the time he saw he couldn't control what he had done he came back here" he looked back at Link with a frown. "But it was too late. I can lead you to the places where Link left himself." He smirked, his red eyes shining "But you have to trust me"

Sheik shot him a dark look, and sighed.

"Why did he manipulate time?"

Shadow cackled

"And how would you explain to the princess why there are six versions of yourself running around?"

It was going to be a long, long mission, and Sheik wasn't looking forward to it.