Chapter 1
Link perched on the edge of the stage, guitar balanced on his knees as he tuned it by ear. His back ached from a long day of work in his carpentry shop, and the residual pain from old wounds that had never properly healed. His fighting days were in the past, but his body still bore the scars of broken bones and burnt skin, ligaments torn and improperly repaired, and joints too many times dislocated.
"Playing anything new tonight?" Mr. Barten, owner of Clock Town's most popular (and only) entertainment venue, asked from behind the milk bar, where he was washing glass mugs.
"Guess you'll find out, won't you?" Link winked at the man and plucked two of the strings together, grimacing when the tones clashed. He carefully shifted the pegs until the offending string was in tune. A few more adjustments and the strings all resonated together in harmony. Link strummed a few chords, working his fingers over the frets with ease. On the last chord one of the pegs slipped, and the sound fell flat. Link grunted in annoyance.
"I hope you play better than you tune your instrument, brother." A stocky Goron with a pack on his back stood before him. Link set aside his guitar and hopped off the stage.
"Finally coming to watch us play?" He asked, grinning ear to ear at his friend. The Goron shrugged—as much as a Goron can shrug, which isn't much.
"I was in town and thought I'd drop by." He turned slowly, glancing around the empty bar. "Does that pretty Zora still come around?"
Link laughed merrily, tossing his head back and clapping the Goron on the shoulder.
"You rogue."
Goro smiled broadly, showing a mouth full of crooked teeth. In the days of the Skull Kid's reign, when Link had to reset time over and over, Goro unwittingly slept outside of the Stock Pot Inn on the nights when Link stole his room. The Goron's slow and lumbering nature made him the only guest who hadn't checked in at the start of the timeline. Link slept elsewhere as much as possible, but the promise of a real bed after battling through a temple filled with monsters was the only thing that kept him moving forward sometimes. Goro didn't remember those days, but it didn't stop Link from trying to make it up to him. Since saving Termina Link had made it his goal to build real friendships with the people he had grown to know, and Goro had been one of the first.
In the early days after returning the moon to the sky, Link realized that many of the people of Termina kept to a regular, predictable schedule. At first he worried he would grow bored, but the monotony and simplicity of the daily activities in Clock Town had given him much needed solace after years of fighting. At night he still dreamt of maze-like temples and dungeons, strange monsters around every corner, and the vengeful dead thirsty for life. Sometimes even when he was awake he would become suddenly lost in his thoughts, caught up in memories of his old life—swords clashing, fire burning through his clothes and skin, water so deep he could never reach the surface, enemies that tore him apart again and again. It was difficult having nobody to talk to about these memories, but he had friends, he had a place to stay, and he had his job as a carpenter. That solidity gave him enough peace to get through each day.
Goro settled in at the bar to order a glass of milk—the drink of choice in Termina—and Link went back to tuning his guitar. He was always the first member of the band to arrive. Since he lived next door in the hotel, it was a quick walk down to the bar. The other members of the Indigo-Gos were Zoras, who had to travel all the way from the Great Bay. Link enjoyed this leisurely time, watching people trickle slowly in, buying drinks and sitting down at tables to wait for the music to start.
A flash of auburn caught his eye. Across the room a young woman was pushing open the door, struggling under the weight of a crate filled with bottles of milk from Lon Lon Ranch. Link jumped down from the stage once more and rushed to her aid.
"Oh thank you, Link!" Romani smiled warmly as he took the crate from her, carrying it effortlessly to the bar. She looked around, clearly out of her element. Her place was at the ranch, not in town.
"How are you? How's your sister?" Link asked, returning from the bar. He grabbed her hand and led her over to the stage before she could answer, and gestured for her to sit beside him.
As she told him about the state of the farm and the new calves that had been born last month, Link found himself once again marveling over how similar she was to a girl he had known long ago in Hyrule. The dark red hair, the sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks, even the way she clasped her hands together nervously as she spoke. She was the closest thing he had to home.
At 5 o'clock the other members of the band came in, carrying their equipment and instruments. They greeted Romani politely, and she slipped off the stage to take a seat at one of the tables. Link was happy to see that she was staying for the music—she almost always left after dropping off her delivery.
By the time they had set up everything, the room was filled with people. Romani looked uncomfortable until the owners of the Stock Pot Inn, Anju and her husband Kafei, sat down with her and struck up a conversation. Link was grateful to them, and smiled at Anju when he caught her eye. She winked back at him, and he guessed that she knew exactly how out of place Romani must feel, surrounded by townspeople who she barely knew. After all, Anju herself had been painfully shy at one time.
The first song was one of the Indigo-Go's regular tunes, a ballad written by the original owner of Link's guitar. It was a sentimental homage to the Zora, Mikau. More than any other song they played, Link felt most connected to Mikau when he played this song. If he closed his eyes, he could remember what it was like to walk in the Zora's skin, gliding quickly though the depths of the ocean. Of all the masks he wore during his mission to save Termina, it was Mikau's he missed the most.
They played a few more songs, including a bawdy sailor's song that made Romani hide her face in embarrassment, and then segued into their new pieces.
Halfway through the first one, Link noticed someone new in the audience. He wasn't sure when he had slipped into the bar, but he'd recognize those intense red eyes anywhere.
Sheik.
He was no longer clad in the form fitting blue and white uniform, and the red eye of the Sheikah was missing from his chest. But even in a loose tunic the color of saffron he could still recognize the slender shape and lithe muscle of the man who was once his guide in the loneliest of quests.
The white cowl was the same, though it looked dusty and tattered. As always, his messy blonde hair couldn't be contained by the cloth.
Link felt like he might be sick.
A nudge at his side brought him back to reality. His band mate glared at him, and Link realized he had forgotten his solo. When he focused his attention on the audience again, Sheik was gone.
The band stayed long into the night, taking requests and playing favorites several times over. The room grew loud and raucous as milk flowed freely. He lost count of the rupees that were thrown into the basket at the edge of the stage, but he knew there was a sizable amount. It was a lucrative night for both the band and Mr. Barten.
They finished around 2am. Link helped the band take down the set, and said farewell to the guests before heading over to the hotel. He was exhausted. His muscles ached from working all day at the shop, and playing all night in the bar, but it was good to be busy.
By the time his head hit the pillow, he'd forgotten about Sheik.
"Wake up, Hero."
He bolted upright in bed and grabbed for his sword, but it wasn't there. He'd stopped keeping his sword beneath his pillow years ago, but the reflex to reach for it when he woke in the middle of the night never completely faded. A deep chuckle sounded in the darkness of his room.
Link squinted, letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting. Sheik was sitting at the far end of his bed, one foot on the edge, the other planted on the creaky hard wood floor.
"Where's my sword?" Link said, disoriented, his voice thick with sleep.
Sheik laughed again, and the familiar sound made his chest hurt. This couldn't be real.
"Good to see you still have your priorities straight. I thought you might have gone soft. Not that I minded the music…rock star is a good look on you."
Even with his face covered, Link could tell Sheik was smiling at him.
Except that Sheik wasn't Sheik. He was Zelda in disguise. Link had taken the reveal hard enough 8 years ago, the betrayal ultimately leading him to the decision to leave Hyrule. Seeing Zelda in Sheik's guise once more pulled at the thread of that old wound.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and closed his eyes.
"This is a dream. I'm dreaming. You're not real."
A gentle hand warmed his bare shoulder and Link flinched.
"Fate has not been kind to you, has it?" Sheik's voice was softer this time, the mirth gone.
"Why are you here?" Link said into his knees, unwilling to face those red eyes, brilliant even in the dark.
There was a pause, and he almost raised his head to see if the phantom Sheik had gone, but the hand still remained on his shoulder. It felt real. Link's gut twisted uncomfortably.
"Link, I am not Zelda."
"No, because you're a dream. You're not real. Sheik—Zelda is back in Hyrule, ruling her kingdom." Link's shoulders began to shake. He'd had waking dreams before, hallucinations of old people, old monsters, even Ganondorf on very bad nights. But this felt different, and he'd seen Sheik earlier in the bar, when he was fully awake. There's no way it could be real, and yet…
"She is, and I am here. We are not the same. I am so sorry for misleading you, but it was necessary at the time. I was not supposed to be known, even to you."
Suddenly angry, Link shoved the hand off his shoulder and jumped up from the bed, stumbling around in the darkened room.
"What are you looking for?"
"Sword."
"Why?"
"To make you go away."
That same low laugh filled his head and Link swore angrily, earning an irritated bang on the wall from his neighboring tenant.
Shaking, Link sat down on the floor with his legs crossed and tried to breathe evenly. He was light-headed and his body hurt even worse than before he fell asleep. He would have to take tomorrow off; nights like this were always sleepless. He could feel the panic rising in his chest as he closed his eyes and tried to count to 100, ignoring the presence behind him, still lounging on his bed.
A rustle of cloth and Sheik was kneeling before him now, close enough that Link could feel the warmth of his breath on his face. He smelled faintly of spice and incense.
Link opened his eyes, startled. He'd forgotten that smell.
"I am sorry, Hero." The sorrow in Sheik's words was so intense, so unquestionably genuine. Overwhelmed by the familiar scent and the emotion that lingered in the air, Link's lungs were quickly restricting, his breath coming in short staccato gasps. This isn't real. I'm dreaming. Or I'm awake, and my mind is playing cruel tricks on me. In a few minutes this will go away. I've been here before.
Sheik leaned in, and his body tensed in anticipation; it was becoming increasingly more difficult to draw breath. By the lightness in his head and confusion of his thoughts, he knew he was in danger of passing out—which at this point could be a blessing. But then Sheik raised two fingers and pressed them lightly to the center of Link's forehead.
There was a bright flash that transformed everything into white light. Heat spread through him like sunlight, flooding his veins and stilling his breath and racing heart. His skin tingled with electricity, and there was a taste of honey and something else on his tongue. He felt like he had swallowed summer.
"What was that?" He asked. Words came easier—the tightness in his chest was gone.
"Magic. You are far too wound up for someone living as a carpenter in a small town."
Link turned away and ran calloused hands through his dark blonde hair, which was drenched with sweat.
"You can drop the act, Zelda." He said. The panic was gone, but the buzz was also fading quickly, leaving him tired and weary, the way he always felt after his panic spells. Except that he no longer hurt—the pain was completely gone from his body. If this was an illusion or a dream, it was a very good one.
But even if this was real, he could not accept that Sheik wasn't Zelda. He had relied on blind faith as a child, and while he understood to some extent Zelda's desire to hide her identity, realizing the truth had felt akin to betrayal. Though he left Hyrule on good terms with the princess, he knew he could never trust her again. Or anyone, for that matter. It left too much room for disappointment.
"You do not believe that I am telling the truth," Sheik said softly, his voice sad.
"No, I don't."
"What must I do to convince you?"
Link's gaze flickered to the old cowl that obscured Sheik's face. It had always bothered him because it made his expressions unreadable, but now he found that he hated it, for the lie it represented.
Whether it was his own will influencing the dream, or the real Sheik reading his thoughts, he wasn't certain. Either way with hands well-practiced, Sheik unwrapped the veil from around his face so that it hung loose over his thin shoulder. He left the portion that covered the crown of his head, and his pale blonde hair stuck out messily from below the worn cloth.
Link's mouth fell open. The face before him was not the masked face of a princess in disguise. Beyond the familiar red eyes lined with kohl was a person he had never seen before, all sharp angles and gentle curves, full lips quirked up in an amused smile, an angled jaw and high cheekbones. Link had the sudden impulse to reach out and touch him, to make sure he was real, to understand who this strange person was.
"You're not Zelda."
Sheik's smirk became a grin that made his entire face glow with amusement.
"No, Hero. I am not Zelda. I am Sheik. Ward of Impa, and last of the Sheikah."
"How…" Link stuttered, not sure what he was trying to say. He was still staring at his old friend, stuck on the realization that Sheik was not only a real, autonomous person, but currently sitting in his room.
"How did you find me here? Why did you leave Hyrule?"
The Sheikah's smile faded. To Link's disappointment, he wrapped the cowl back around his face, pulling it just below his red eyes. Link wondered if having his face bare made him feel vulnerable. The thought of Sheik feeling self-conscious in any situation was difficult to comprehend. But then, the realization that his friend was not actually the alter ego of the crown princess was just as equally incomprehensible.
Sheik rocked backward onto his heels and stood gracefully from the floor, and for a moment Link worried he was leaving. Instead he began pacing, his gaze vague and unfocused, brow furrowed. For the first time Link noticed the weary slope of his shoulders, the shadows beneath his eyes. Now that he had overcome denial that this wasn't a hallucination, he could question the reason for Sheik's visit. It was selfish to assume the Sheikah had sought him out in the spirit of friendship.
Unsure whether he should prompt him again, or ask what was wrong, or do anything other than sit dumbly on the floor, Link watched his friend brush a finger along the edge of his wooden bureau and wondered what was going through his mind. After a while Sheik spoke.
"When Zelda returned you to your childhood the Sacred Realm remained closed. Nobody in all the kingdoms knew that they had been saved from a grim fate aside from the sages, the guardians of the forest, and the three of us. We who remembered were grateful for the restoration of peace and celebrated our success, and Lord Ganon retreated to the desert in defeat. With your absence, he had no access to the Ocarina of Time and no way of retrieving the spiritual stones that are the keys to the Door of Time. Foolishly, we believed we had won.
But…several years after your disappearance Ganon returned. In our complacency we had allowed ourselves to believe that he had given up, but in time it was revealed that during the years of Hyrule's peace, Ganon had traveled to many kingdoms and gathered an army of evil men—enemies of the King. They were small in numbers, but ferocious warriors who wielded dangerous magic.
As Hyrule prepared, Zelda, Impa and I created our own plan. We knew that Hyrule would never survive a war against Ganon and his army. So with their help and protection I infiltrated the enemy camp on the night before the first battle, and murdered Ganon while he slept.
"You killed him?"
"…Yes. I killed him. When dawn—"
"But how?"
The Sheikah stared unblinking at him, body rigid with irritation, veiled head tilted slightly. When Link asked no more questions, he continued his story.
"When dawn broke, Ganon's men found him dead in his tent. Argument over who would take over his command of the army escalated to violence and soon the men turned on each other; many of them were from kingdoms that were already at war, and they had only come together in fear and awe of the man who they believed to be an immortal god. The chaos lasted until well after the sun had reached its midpoint in the sky. When the light of day began to die, the army had destroyed itself.
Once again we thought that Hyrule was safe. But during the night some of the men, mercenaries with no loyalties to any kingdom or crown, stole into Castle Town and Kakariko Village. They slaughtered many innocent people, and stole everything they could carry. The loss was devastating."
"That's…terrible." Link said. "But this was years ago now, wasn't it? Surely Hyrule has had time to mourn its dead and rebuild what was broken." He knew the words were heartless as soon as they tumbled from his clumsy mouth. But they were true, too. Why would Sheik come to him years after a tragedy like this? There was nothing he could do.
"Unfortunately that is not where the trouble ends. The destruction Ganon's men caused was irreparable, but Hyrule is nothing if not a resilient kingdom. The Zoras and Gorons, even the Gerudo women from the desert came to our aid. We began to rebuild, and slowly hope returned.
But then things…changed."
"Changed…?"
Sheik was quiet for a moment, his head bent. But then he turned his gaze back to Link, and there was sorrow in his red eyes.
"Link, when Zelda sent you back in time after defeating Ganon she did not erase the time of his reign—she created a new reality, where you never opened the Door of Time in first place. That other time where you fought to awaken the sages and defeat Ganon still exists. Zelda knew this would happen and chose to take the risk so that she could give you your childhood back. Unfortunately in doing so, a third reality was created—one in which you failed, and Ganon won.
Those realities should have remained separate, each independent from the other. But time is a fickle and complicated thing, difficult to control and even more difficult to predict. When you played the Ocarina here in Termina, time itself became unstable and fractured."
"Why would Hyrule be affected by what happened here in Termina?'
The Sheikah stopped pacing and turned toward him, eyes narrowed, red irises burning through the dark of the room. Link felt very small under that intense stare, like a student who has just asked a very stupid question. But then his gaze softened, and with a sigh he sat down on the foot of Link's bed once more, leaning forward to rest his chin on the heel of his hand. It was amazing how abruptly the man could switch from well-trained warrior to tired youth. For all his confidence, he couldn't be much older than Link, though with time travel, age had begun to feel arbitrary.
"I forget sometimes that you have not studied the history of the realms, but rather lived at the mercy of those laws. Zelda and I were taught well by Impa, who believed it crucial that we have a full understanding of how our worlds overlap and connect."
"Worlds...?" Link asked again.
"Termina and Hyrule are separate, and yet immutably intertwined. Like siblings they function independently from each other. But because they are joined, what happens in one impacts the other.
Link thought about this for a while, worrying his bottom lip and furrowing his brow, trying to understand this new revelation, fitting it like a puzzle piece into his broken understanding of the universe.
"You look so like your young self." Startled, Link looked up, meeting the scarlet gaze of the Sheikah, who must have been staring at him while he processed. He felt his cheeks warm and he was thankful for the darkness of the room.
"So when I used the Ocarina of Time here, it affected Hyrule as well."
"In simple terms. Although you are the Hero who is destined to travel through time, the many thousands of iterations you repeated here in this land created an infinite number of fluctuations, subtle changes in time that disrupted the natural flow of reality."
Sheik fell silent now. Link dragged himself off the floor, using the bedpost to guide him, and sat beside his friend. Recalling Sheik's earlier gesture, Link laid a tentative hand on his knee. He felt an unexpected thrill with the contact, reinforcement that he was real, sitting close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from his body.
Sheik jumped with surprise.
"Why are you here?" Link asked quietly.
Sheik fixed him with such an intense stare that Link felt trapped. Now that he knew what lay beneath the old cowl was not the hidden face of Zelda, he disliked the cloth even more. Not only because it obscured Sheik's face and made it difficult to understand what he was thinking, but because for the first time he had seen him as something other than a wise and noble guardian, devoid of such lowly things as emotion. Previously Link had always felt out of his depth when he spoke with Sheik. The cryptic rhymes, the shared music, it was exciting, but also intimidating. Because in those days he was still a novice, only recently removed from his childhood in the forest, unpracticed in conversation and human interaction. Sheik's accent, his confidence in body and speech, had left Link acutely aware of just how young and inexperienced he was, and terribly afraid of his role in the grand scheme of the Goddesses' plans.
But now they sat beside each other, on equal footing so to speak. They had both grown and changed, and it was clear in the set of Sheik's shoulders and the weariness in his eyes that he had been through much in the past years since they had last seen each other, when Link was left to believe that Sheik was merely a shadow, an alternate identity, rather than his own self.
Now that he knew that the person he had become friends with so long ago was real, he wanted to rip away that cowl and speak to him as equals. To see what worry looked like on his face, so that Link could understand the gravity of what was happening. This wasn't a meeting between quests, an exchange of magical songs and guidance. Sheik was a messenger still, but when he spoke that air of mysticism was gone and his voice held the coarse timber of someone who had been fighting for far too long, for a goal they might never achieve.
"I need you to leave this place, and return with me to Hyrule. Help us to restore balance to the timeline, and bring peace back to the kingdom."
Link re-focused, his stomach twisting. He should have seen that coming. He did, in a way, but hearing it spoken out loud…
"No." He said firmly. His hands tremored as the ghosts of his past streamed through his mind, battles alone in forests and mountains, scalding fire and the bite of ice. Demons that fell from ceilings, that wrapped themselves around him and eagerly stole his life force until he had no strength to fight.
Sheik's expression was unreadable.
"You must understand…Termina is not safe. Eventually the protection you have given the land will fade, and destruction will follow."
Gentle pressure on the back of his hand reminded him that it was still on Sheik's leg. Link pulled away as if Sheik's touch burned him.
The panic from earlier re-surfaced, and Link stood, rubbing sweaty palms on his pants. He wanted to go, to run somewhere, anywhere. To the mountains, or the ocean, or even the godforsaken canyon. He wanted to be anywhere but here in the darkness of his small rented room, talking to a ghost from his past. He would not go to Hyrule. He couldn't. It would destroy him.
"I need to sleep. Please leave."
"Link…" The sadness in the Sheikah's voice broke his heart. Link clenched his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms, and took measured breaths, trying to control the emotion whirling in his chest.
"Please. Leave." He warned, voice shaking.
"But—"
The dam burst, and Link spun around in a burst of raw energy, fire, and rage.
"LEAVE ME ALONE." He shouted. His neighbor pounded on the wall once more, but he ignored the sound. "I came here to get away from Hyrule, from quests and missions I never wanted to do in the first place. I came here so that I could find peace, and do you know what I found? Another fucking kingdom about to be destroyed. I re-lived the same day hundreds of times, fighting for people who didn't know me. I chose who to save, and who to let die. More times than I can count I watched the moon fall, watched people run in terror from a monster they couldn't escape. And when I finally fixed things, finally dealt with that bratty forest kid, I made a vow to never do this again. I'm done. I'm done saving people. I'm done being the hero, pretending I'm strong when all I feel is weak and tired."
The rage flowed out, leaving him gasping for air. Link began to lose his footing, and just as his legs buckled Sheik was there, holding him up, guiding him back to the bed. He wanted to yell at Sheik, to kick and punch like a child, to tell him to leave, to stop being so kind so that he could feel properly justified in his anger. But Sheik just sat with him, arms around his shoulders as that anger turned to something else.
No pride left in his body, Link sobbed into his friend's chest, all of the old wounds re-opening, all of the pain of the past years surfacing. The pain he had borne alone, unable to confide in the people of Clock Town, who had no idea how much he had done for them, how much he had done for the kingdom of Hyrule. He had been alone for so long, he had forgotten what it was like to have someone who understood that same pain.
But even as Sheik comforted him, speaking gentle words in another language, the question still lingered in the air. Link wanted to hate him for dragging him back into peril again, asking him to stand on shaky legs and fight new uncertainties and unknown demons, but this was Sheik, who had never been anything but a loyal friend.
"I need to think." Link choked out after he was too exhausted to cry anymore. "I can't…not…not right now. I need time."
"We all do, Hero. We always need more time." He guided Link back to his pillow, his fingertips brushing hair from his eyes, and again pressing against the center of his forehead. Link was filled with that same warmth once more, and he sighed with relief.
"I will return tomorrow. Rest, Hero."