He woke choking on wet, hot ash smoking and smoldering in his throat. Rather unpleasant, but considering everything his body had gone through in the past….well, however long it had been since he had fallen unconscious…it could have been worse. It hadn't been too long ago—he could still taste blood on his tongue, beneath the ash and smoke.
They'd burned him. Maybe not intentionally. Maybe Ganondorf's tower had exploded or caught on fire when it was falling. But considering where he'd been, the last moments he'd been awake…
His arm finally responded to his commands, and snapped up, forcing its way through more ash, more debris. With that his entire body seemed to break free of an unfathomable weight, and he jerked upright so hard he toppled face-first right back into the ash.
"Fuck." He muttered. Or tried to. His throat was still splotchy and burnt and still full of ash, and all he succeeded in doing was moving a thick wedge of it slightly higher up his throat.
It took a moment to get himself to sit upright, lower half still buried, and a few more to find something sharp—a half-melted chunk of metal glued to the side of his leg, all that remained of his throwing needles.
It took some work to pry it off, and when it came free it nearly ripped his bone from his leg—the metal had, while melting, eaten away at his flesh and molded itself to the shattered fragments while they'd reformed.
Instead there was a rather large chunk of flesh attached to it. He pulled what he could off of it, turning the chunk until he found a particularly sharp edge, and then pushed it into his throat. It took some work to push it up, tearing through the muscle and tissue in a straight, if ragged, line.
It still took some work to force the ash out of it, and out of his mouth, though. Once he'd cleared as much of it out as he could he was able to work the rest of it out easily, though it was a struggle to keep his throat from sealing itself back up.
He waited, after he was finished, until it had before daring to do anything else. He didn't have much strength left, and though the work didn't really hurt, it was still taxing.
He pressed a hand to his head, and let out a string of very violent, wheezing curses when he met nothing but melted, burnt flesh.
It had taken him ages to get his hair that long, and dammit—
He killed himself twice more before managing to clear the wreckage of the tower, but it was worth it. All of his limbs were attached and everything was where it was supposed to. Much better than when he'd left the Water Temple, stomach opened end to end. Zora hatchlings had swarmed him. One of them had still been inside when the wound had healed up, though he'd cut it out before anything too horrible had happened. And that had taken ages to heal.
He found a spear lying discarded on the path to Castle Town, and he used that as a crutch as he struggled down the path.
She was waiting for him, expression frank and critical as she sat in her pool, legs crossed beneath her and arms braced behind her.
"Two weeks, you burned. Even the Dark King's corpse burnt only a few days."
"They burned me." His voice was raspy and whispery—his throat had not yet healed completely—but audible, if barely.
"Yes. A rather great funeral pyre for such a sick little creature." She said dryly, raising an eyebrow.
"…But you've paid a great debt with your actions, you vain thing." She added, waving a hand.
His scalp itched, a sharper pain than he was familiar with, and he lost his balance and crashed to the ground. But by the time he'd managed to recover from the shock of it, he was already completely blinded by hair.
He sat up slowly, and hesitantly reached up—but…it was real.
"You have an unhealthy attachment to that."
"I could kiss you right now." He spoke quickly, words escaping him in a rush as his shoulder slumped. He pulled his hair back carefully—whether or not she'd regrown it, that didn't mean his head had healed completely yet—and tied it to keep it out of his face.
"Dead things are not of any interest to me." She replied, and he grinned.
"So he's dead?"
"He has polluted the Triforce with his rage, his hatred. Stained it in a way none of you will ever be able to cleanse. In doing so he has fulfilled a very old curse." He hummed at that. It was of no concern of his. He'd done his duty.
"Will you sleep, now?" He asked, tilting his head back as he looked up at her. There was a pop as he did so, and he winced as his body jerked, something snapping back into place.
She gave him a look that said she thought he'd done it on purpose.
"No. The Forest will flee, now. I will wait until they have gone before following." Her gaze bored into his, unflinching, unblinking.
"…You know I will stay."
"The time of great magics is over. We may not be kin but you are of ours, Sheik. They will hunt you as they will hunt us." It was sweet of her, to try and warn him. A humorless smile flitted across his lips, and he forced himself to stand.
"Do I look as much like a ReDead as I feel?"
"Your ribs are showing." His eyes widened and he looked down—and, it was true. The flesh on his sides had scabbed, but every single one of his ribs shone wetly in the light of her fountain.
They weren't broken, though, which was a good thing. A quick survey showed that the entirety of the outside of his thigh was still missing, as well as chunks of his arms. His body was otherwise alright, still scabbing and slowly healing.
He hated dying. It took so long to heal afterwards…
"How many times did he kill you?"
"…Um, I don't know. Ganondorf just did it the once, when he saw I wasn't her. After that…a lot? And a couple of times before I got out of that ash. Why'd you let them burn me?!" He added, ire returning to his voice.
"She didn't want the Hero to see your body."
He went still at that.
When he looked up at her, she was gone.
XxXxoOoxXxoOoxXxoOoxXx
His lungs decided to try to function properly shortly after he'd made it into Castle Town. The place was still infested with the dead, and not a single living soul passed by him. He'd made it into the market plaza before it hit him, and he lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, retching so violently he half feared his lungs would come out of his mouth.
Globs of bloody ash came out, most of it wet and lumpy but some pieces already hardened, and those bits ripped and tore at him before he could get them out.
The pain didn't bother him much, not anymore, but he was furious. Whether or not Zelda had thought she was protecting the Hero, she knew—
The soft skip of metal on stone made him look up. Or, try to, because another coughing fit hit him and he could do little else but hack up more ash.
And blood. That was making things come up easier, though, so.
"…Sheik?" He really wished his hearing hadn't come as easily to him, when his body had begun repairing itself.
He'd have to hurry this along, he realized.
He held out a hand, though he had no idea whether he was facing the Hero or not, palm up, to keep him at bay.
He managed to choke out a handful of phrases in Sheikah and with a very sharp pain, like his entire chest had been punched clean off of his body, the rest of the ash came erupting out of his mouth, along with a good deal of soft tissue, a tooth, most of his left cheek, and more blood than he thought he'd even had in his body.
He drew in the first real breath he'd had since before he had been burnt alive, and let himself roll onto his back.
He'd died so many times, yet still fate found new ways to unsettle whatever parts of his stomach he still had during the healing afterwards.
Something slid beneath his hips, and he forced his eyes to open—thank the Three he hadn't been awake when those had regenerated, that always sucked—as he flapped the back of a hand uselessly at whatever it was. He was too late. Even as he tried to wave them off, he was lifted up, and the pale grey sky above him—all he could clearly see—spun in a dizzying array of patterns.
Even though it was completely featureless and all the exact same shade of grey.
"Go away." He didn't really say it. The words came out garbled, hissing and choking on ripped-up organs and flapping through a broken face, barely audible let alone understandable.
"We…burned you. You…"
Zelda should have kept him away. She'd….she'd sworn she'd keep him away.
The shrill scream of a ReDead shot through the air like an arrow, splitting right into his brain with a white-hot intensity and agony so sharp it very neatly severed the thin strand of willpower that had been the only thing keeping him conscious for the past two hours.
The last thing he was aware of was the sudden tilt to his vision, and the brief flash of the Hero's jaw. Outlined in red.
XxXxoOoxXxoOoxXxoOoxXx
He woke with the bone-deep aching that told him he'd died sometime while he was unconscious and had since healed fully. He was sore everywhere, exhausted, but the sort of exhaustion that was so overwhelming that the thought of sleeping or lying in bed any longer made nausea burn in the back of his throat.
His hands skittered their way out from beneath dry, scratchy cloth and rose to his throat, to cover his mouth instinctively, when he realized that he was wearing no clothes.
That was right. She'd burned him.
He drew in a deep breath, a wave of faintness slamming into him as oxygen poured into his lungs, and spent longer than he would have liked adjusting to breathing again, and working out all the strange little kinks that had formed when he'd healed without breathing.
By the time his body had fixed its mistakes, he was on his side, retching discarded matter, bile and blood over the edge of the bed he was lying in, shaking so hard he could barely keep himself from slipping out of the bed and into the mess.
Blearily he realized that he'd slipped so low that his head was hanging past the edge of the bed, eyes peering directly at what lay beneath it.
A Gibdo stared back at him, lying perfectly still, hands folded neatly on its chest. Its fingers were locked around the hilt of its sword as if it lay in a coffin, save that its head was turned to look at him.
The sickness passed as suddenly as it had hit him, and he pushed himself back up onto the bed slowly, gasping for air in relief.
He was in a small bedroom, most likely in Castle Town. No windows. A smashed door lay discarded on the ground in front of a closet, shelves broken and bent. Tattered linens lay atop of him, a second pile around the same size as those acting as blankets resting on the decaying remains of a dresser. A closed door lay to his right, frame splintered and doorknob missing.
He was alone.
He opened the door, surprised at how silent it was—the hinges were rusted through, the wood damaged and old—and stepped into the room outside silently.
It had been a front room at some point. All the debris had been pushed against the walls, leaving the center of the room clear for a smoldering fire and a very meager bedroll.
Laying atop it was the Hero, sapphire eyes meeting his readily.
Sheik sighed, and leaned against the doorframe. The Hero made no move to speak, so he took the time to look at himself.
He looked like normal. Hairless save for his scalp, skin pale and free of scars, all of his bones completely hidden by flesh and skin and other things bones were supposed to be hidden by. Though his ribs were visible. But that was just because he was thin.
His muscles had regenerated, as had his callouses. It would still take some training, to get himself back in shape, but it was a huge help. Usually he had to concentrate on them, to get them back.
"Where's Zelda?"
"Kakariko." The Hero's voice was soft, hushed. He didn't move from where he lay, curled like a child and staring up at him with round, wide eyes. His expression was serious though, solemn and drawn.
"And why did you come here?"
"…The smoke went away."
That surprised him.
"How big of a pyre did you build?"
"The tower."
They'd…lit up the entire tower? For him?
Well. Zelda had done it, he'd give her that. Even if she'd burned him. Given him a chance to slip away. No one could have survived a fire that large.
Except him, of course, but…
"You were dead."
"You weren't supposed to come back."
And the Hero surged up, so suddenly and so angrily that it sent his nerves sparking, instinct demanding he find something to defend himself with.
"You lied." He hissed, spitting the words out through clenched teeth, hands fisted at his sides and his face a breath away from Sheik's.
Sheik caught the Hero's chin in his hand, forced the boy's head up, expression completely blank.
"No. I left. Asked her to make sure it stayed like that. And she couldn't even accomplish that, could she?"
Cold tears met his fingertips, slid down his knuckles and dripped off his wrist. Sheik swallowed, hard, but he didn't let himself look away from the Hero's orbs.
"Why?"
There was a loud crash outside, and his head snapped up, hand falling from the Hero's face as he looked out one of the broken windows. A portion of the roof of the building across the street collapsed, tiles sliding and shattering on the broken cobblestone beneath it while the rest slid into the home, tossing bits of debris out an empty doorway and windows.
He'd stepped outside before the ReDead lunged out of the building, and sensing his presence, it zeroed in on him and threw itself into his side.
He hushed it softly, wrapping an arm around it as he pressed his hand to its skull, putting only the smallest amount of pressure in the contact. They stayed like that for a very long moment, until the soft crackling and pinging of tiles faded and stillness once again fell over the city.
He heard the Hero shift behind him, heard the soft wheezing of the Gibdo questioning its kin, but refused to turn around. The ReDead responded to the Gibdo, once it had calmed, and at the soft scrape of teeth against his chest Sheik let his arms drop, careful to position himself so that it couldn't see the Hero.
It stared up at him for a moment before letting out a dry, raspy farewell. He nodded and the creature turned, skeletal frame shifting as it hurried to find one of its siblings.
"I want the truth." The Hero said softly, waiting until it had turned a corner and vanished from their view.
"You want an awful lot, Hero of Time."
"Do not call me that."
He sighed again, and turned to face the Hero. He had no weapons on him, no deku nuts, but all it would take was a quick flash of magic, a blow to the side of the head—
"If you leave I swear to the fucking Three that I will hunt you down and drag you back here by your fucking hair." The threat startled him for a moment. And then his eyes narrowed. The Hero was holding what looked like a chunk of glass in his hand, with an emerald orb in the center of it. Farore's mark was etched on the orb, and the entire thing absolutely blazed with holy magic.
"What is that?"
"You can go anywhere, and I'll be able to find you. Bring you back. Without even lifting a finger."
His jaw tightened, heat rising in his blood because oh, he was getting angry—
"She carried your body to the pyre."
So that was it. He was hung up on…everything.
"What? You think I faked my death? No, Hero, I'm sure you saw me in the plaza. I burned."
He expected the Hero to say something, to interrupt him, and he paused, waiting for it. But he said nothing, just…stared. Eyes rimmed in red.
"I was sold out, to Ganondorf. Shortly after you entered the Spirit Temple. I was told she didn't want you to see my body. What was left of it, anyway. I was…well, it takes a while to get over injuries like those, even for me. Burning might have saved me quite a bit of time there, but the discomfort…" Again, he was letting his anger get the better of him. Though it wasn't just about being burnt anymore, it was still hard to keep at bay.
"I was to wake, and leave. Which I was doing, when you so thoughtlessly interrupted me."
"You were there, in the Temple of Time. Before he took Zelda." The Hero said sharply. He was trembling.
He blinked, surprised.
"No, I was not."
"I saw—I spoke to you—she said you weren't—"
Pieces fell into place, and Sheik sighed, tilting his head back to look up at the sky.
"I hide my face, Hero. All she had to do was work a small charm. Ganondorf would not have seen her enter, and she would have been safe…if he hadn't known I was safe and secure in his dungeons. I didn't exactly have the time to inform anyone I was off to the Dark King's tower, before it happened."
He dipped to one side, slipping past a punch that, had it hit, probably would have cracked a rib—the Hero was wearing thick, plated silver gauntlets he recognized as an ancient Gerudo artifact.
"Don't—you were gone! Do you even get that? And then you—and then you were dead!"
He was crying, furious and frustrated and—and afraid, and hurt, and…
Sheik looked away from him, folded his arms over his chest tightly. He couldn't look at him. Couldn't give in to the guilt.
Wouldn't.
"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with."
"Don't give me that shit." The Hero snapped. He turned, rather than continue speaking to him, to leave. He couldn't tell if he was angry or not, upset or not, but…he needed to leave.
"I am not your business, and I owe you nothing."
"Don't go." And the Hero's voice cracked, broke, fell apart.
He closed his eyes.
He tried so damn hard, every fucking time, and still there was nothing—still he couldn't handle it.
He hadn't even asked any real questions.
"…You know the real trouble with Ganondorf polluting the Temples? Things can't stay hidden. Zelda did a good job, with me, but…had to fuck with the dead to hide my escape. With…the well? Did you ever wonder why that spirit left Kakariko so quickly, when it obviously didn't like the living? It wasn't what was bound there. We just…took it from the Temple and put it there, until Ganondorf freed it. We knew he'd sense those binding spells eventually."
"...You were there? Under the well?"
Sheik paused, then, realized he'd rambled a little more than he had meant to. But…
"Dead. It kept me dead, kept me…asleep? I guess that's what you could call it. They can't actually kill me—not even Ganondorf could—but they didn't want me running around either."
"…Is that why you left? They'll put you back?" The Hero asked, just a little too hurriedly, and Sheik flinched.
He was giving the Hero the wrong idea.
But…
"Go back to Zelda, Hero."
"No! I'm not—you're—" The Hero stepped forward as he spoke, well within range.
It took a sharp burst of magic to the Hero's temple, but the boy crumpled, eyes rolling to the back of his head as his conscious fled him. It was a matter of minutes to tie him up inside the building—and Sheik took a lot of extra care with his gag. He had no doubt that the Hero's threat was genuine, but—but, fuck, he couldn't handle it. Handle him. He'd hole up somewhere safe and work at dispelling the curse there, but first he'd have to rest. His magic was completely drained—regenerating took most of it, and though it came back fairly fast, there was a period in which he'd have absolutely none, especially since he'd drained every scrap he had to knock the Hero out.
It would be enough time. It'd have to be.
XxXxoOoxXxoOoxXxoOoxXx
"You mother fucking—"
"I told you. I'd find you." The Hero was shaking, though he was hiding it well, face pale and fingers knotted, clenched around his green crystal. Sheik snarled, scrambled out of the pile of rotting wood he had landed in.
"What do you not get about go the fuck away?" He took a step forward, and then stumbled back, sucking in a sharp breath as a wall of blue magic flared to life in front of him.
"…I'm going to fucking kill you, Hero."
"You'd have done that by now. If you wanted to."
"Didn't want to until now, you little shit." He hissed, and panic and fury made the bite of his words far worse than he thought they would be.
"How else am I supposed to talk to you?" The Hero asked, voice shaking.
"You're not."
"Bullshit! You—you owe me the truth! You spent—I don't even know what you are! If you're—if you're Sheik or if you're her, or—"
"Go ask her, then, not me—"
"She's the fucking Princess of Hyrule! She can't tell me the truth—can't—she can't tell me anything without risking what I'll—what I'll do to—"
He'd never been good at talking.
"She burned me for you. If you think she won't—"
"It's because of that! She's not—She can't risk Hyrule!" And that declaration silenced him. The panic and anger and grief and sheer bite to the Hero's words...
He'd always been a sweet boy. Gentle. Calloused, bloody hands and a warm smile. Seeing him so agitated, so furious was something in of itself, when the boy had not even hated the Dark Lord.
Not when Sheik had seen him, before his capture, anyway. Now…? He didn't know.
"Why would that—"
"They told me you were…that I had to go back. That you were waiting." The Hero said, words rushed and frantic. His face tight and anxious.
A slow chill worked its way down Sheik's spine.
"Who?"
"I went to the Shadow Temple. And they were waiting. Said they'd known I'd come. But—I thought…that your body had been disturbed, or, I don't know, not this!"
Sheik sat down slowly, and the sudden look of concern the Hero gave him sent panic scrabbling up his stomach, clawing at his throat.
The fact that the assholes had done anything aside…
"…They should've stayed resting."
"I don't—"
"Of course you don't! You're not supposed to! For Din's sake you're a child! You shouldn't have been there in the first place!" Sheik was too angry, to busy shouting to realize the Hero was moving until he'd already stepped forward, shattered the blue barrier that was imprisoning him, grabbed the front of Sheik's vest and slammed his mouth onto his, hard.
The shock of it stilled him, silenced him. He tasted blood, sweat, Link—and then he pulled back.
"I'm—stop looking at me like I'm a kid! I've done—I've done far worse than that, Sheik, and I don't—please. I can't—just, please, stop running away."
And before he could move, jar himself into action or pull himself together, the blue barrier flickered back, completely enclosing the both of them in its folds.
"…I'm not."
"You literally ran away from me."
"It's not your—" Sheik cut himself off, swatting the Hero's hand away and moving as far away as he could—only a step or two. Not far enough.
The Hero was too close.
"I can't lose you too." It spoke volumes of his determination, that his voice didn't shatter. It spoke very little of Sheik's, that he flinched.
"I'm leaving Hyrule."
He intended that to be all he would say. An ultimatum, without an option.
Leather and skin touched his arm, the Hero's gauntleted hand curling gently around his wrist.
"…Then I will too."
"Bullshit. You're not leaving." It was hard, to not turn around. To not face him. But he was already too damn close—
"I don't even have a home left here. What would I stay for?"
He sounded so damn grown-up then—
"You're going to die one day, Link."
"And?"
"I can't."
"And?"
"For fuck's sake—" He turned around, fully intended to beat the shit out of the Hero. Before he could even pull his arm back, though, Link moved forward. Sheik instinctively stepped back, only to corner himself against the barrier.
"I cannot handle it. You lying to me, too. Losing you, too." His voice was steady, solemn.
He was, Sheik realized, absolutely lost. And he was the only thing the Hero could cling to. He'd given his life, his innocence, for Zelda—he could never have turned to her for help, not with the resentment Sheik was absolutely sure he felt. And—there wasn't anyone else left to turn to. The Sages were untouchable, now. The title of Hero would be too much for any ordinary citizen of Hyrule to look past. The Kokiri were fleeing, leaving as the Great Fairies were. As Sheik should. As he probably would, one day.
And that just left…him.
He felt his heart break, not for the first time, for the boy.
"…I am not mortal, Hero. I am cursed. And for good reason. You think—"
And Link hugged him, crushed him so tightly to his chest that Sheik could not breathe. Couldn't continue speaking, either.
"Navi's gone."
Fucking Three, his tear ducts were working. He squirmed, jerked hard enough to smash his shoulder into the Hero's nose and send him tumbling back. He stopped himself from panicking any further, though.
"Motherfucker." The Great Fairy had not helped him free of charge.
She was a bitch.
"Sheik—"
She'd known. That he was coming, that everything was leaving. Navi wouldn't have left Link for anything. Forcing her to leave—
Without Navi, Link would die. Whether the Hero knew it or not, that fairy had been his tether to the Lost Woods, to the magic that had drilled its way into his bones and his blood and his heart. He may have been Hylian, but to the Great Deku Tree, he'd been Kokiri. And the Kokiri could not leave the Lost Woods.
So that oversized fucking twig had made the Woods go with the Hero.
Sheik realized that he didn't have a choice. Or maybe he just had an excuse, now.
He pressed his face into his hands, cursing into his palms as he tried to figure out what to do. What to say. Link was crying, to his side. Cradling a broken nose, blood dripping from his fingers. Sheik let out a slow breath, and moved before he could let himself think too deeply about it.
He knelt at Link's side and pulled the boy into an embrace. Even after everything, Link melted against his chest and quieted his crying, looking up with large, watery eyes.
"You want to come with me?"
"Yes."
"I don't plan on coming back."
"I don't care." Link pressed his face closer into Sheik's chest as he spoke, muffling his voice.
"Link, that's not—you will not be able to come back if you leave with me. The ghosts in the Shadow Temple are going to stay there forever, Zelda will have to defend her own damned kingdom—"
"How many times do I have to say that I don't care."
"When I say you can't come back, I mean it literally. Your soul will not be able to return, if Hyrule ever needs you again. You won't be reborn." Sheik growled, and he resisted the urge to shake Link out of frustration.
There was a beat of silence, and then Link nuzzled into Sheik's chest again.
"Good."
Good.
His vision blurred, and Sheik blinked back tears.
"Then let's go."
"Now?"
"Now." He said, the word escaping him in a shivery sort of sigh. And Link relaxed.
"Thank you."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Okay so I have a thing for the undead Sheik thing, okay? Lol. Also him being an aggressive little shit when he doesn't know what to do. It's a ~theme~
Also, loss. OoT has some seriously horrifying implications that I really enjoy digging into. Because ~theme~ lol. I can't imagine either of them staying after all the shit that happened.