He could taste Zelda's fear, even before he awoke. She was petrified of something-someone. Even the Hero couldn't shake that terror from her, with his pleasure and delight and comfort.
He'd once asked Link, idly, perhaps cruelly, if it angered the Hero that he was privy to every second they lay together, each thought that inflamed Zelda's emotions, each treasured memory they believed theirs.
In a very Link-like fashion, the man had ignored the question and continued walking, although Sheik had watched in perverse amusement as the Hero's body language tensed.
He hoped to the Goddesses Zelda felt the terrifying pressure of his confusion and fear and anger and helplessness and need as it threatened to drown him in chaos. Not because he wanted someone to mirror every shallow breath he took as his body burned with fever, but because he wanted her to pay for denying him the sweet pleasure of solitude.
He hated her for being so full of emotion-so he'd made a point to ignore and suppress his. This unbridled mess of his own emotions could have been what terrified Zelda so, he mused.
He could feel ancient magic binding his very bones together, refusing his eyelids the right to open, his fingers the strength to twitch. All of his worldly strength was focused on keeping the weight on his chest from cutting off his breathing.
There was a faint pressure on his hips, his chest, as if someone were lying there. He knew it had nothing to do with the spell-a warmth coursed through his blood, heated his flesh, made his heart ache as he knew someone familiar and comforting and safe was there. He was vaguely aware of something warm, wet, salty, falling on his lips. Then it was gone, and he lay alone again, the agony of the old magic growing stronger as his bones screamed their protest.
He was sensitive to magic, Impa had once told him, much more sensitive than any other being she had ever encountered. He was going to rip the Shadow Sage's tongue out for her understatement when this was over.
And even as Zelda's emotions grew overwhelming, as he strained against the bindings and struggled to thrash around, relieve the screams that threatened to tear his throat to shreds, it seemed to only grow tighter.
He felt the familiar presence of Impa, tried to beg her to make it stop, then dissolved into a long and endless scream as she tightened the bonds until blood clogged his throat.
Like a toy that had been fixed too many times, he was beginning to fall apart for good. He had been a marionette, and his strings had finally snapped with wear and tear.
He was a slave growing ever closer to realizing what freedom was.
He was quickly growing too dangerous to let roam with any degree of freedom, but he was already too powerful for the Sages to hold him.
Two months the seven of them had spent keeping him bound as the remains of the Banishment surged through his blood. Too exhausted to even begin tearing his mind apart again, they'd had no choice but to imprison him-holding him for sixty days had drained every ounce of power they possessed.
With no other alternative, they had thrown him to the Lost Woods and its own Guardian.
The first time they had made a pact with evil, they had saved Hyrule. She prayed this second pact did the same.