Note for chapter 3: I took some liberties with bottom of the well. There is an oc in here, and if anyone reads this and just closes the window now, I'm okay with that. I get it - but please have a little faith in me. They aren't going be important, but I had to introduce them early - there is a good reason for them, and if they seem marysueish then I overdid it, so please tell me, but there is a good reason for them in here (I know I just typed that). And also there is a reason the sugar-sweet idealistic crap they spew, not rooted in wishfufillment. Personally, I like cynical and crazy characters, so... Yeah. Ye of faith, read on, re who have tired of my rmabling nonsnese, begone with ye. (I think they're already gone though)

Review responses:

Sorry everyone! I wasn't trying to ignore you guys, it's just that my email is full and and- crap! Also I'm a coward! So!

Yeah. Chapter 2 reviews and up – if I don't mention a response in here, I didn't think there was a question, or I'm stupid and missed it. Fail. See below note for excuses.

Trolly's Bara-chan: YES. BECAUSE I SUCK. -now I gotta put my troll face on-

Vivian's shadow: There was a promise? -shot- If I, at least, know a story contains vampires, I often won't read it. Just a personal quirk developed from too many bad romances. But, yeah, if they're done right (a sincere hope I'm managing on that front) they add a nice amount of darkness to an otherwise run of the mill /period/ fantasy. He DOES. With all the hiding and not letting you touch him and disappearing in weird ways.

Now try picturing Link as a vampire. -shot again-

Ps: I know, I think the only thing worse was dead hand. I am so glad you say that, though, because I wanted an 'oh god' moment. I HATED THOSE THINGS. So creepy when you aren't expecting them (all the time). So... I really don't like them either.

I'm gonna go have shadow temple based nightmares now. Sorry for the late reply (and everything else I've done wrong or forgotten about. So, like, everything bad in the world ever or something, I don't know)

AUehara: Yeah, I did, because the original was basically a giant free writing exercise and I tried just polishing what I had written at first but then... um. A plot was formed, characters made, designed and agonized over just for the story, I ended up doing stupid amounts of research and just...

well, this story took over my head for quite a while.

I have, like, 7 or so chaps done but I always forget to update -fail- and I'm very shy about them... Mm, I don't have a beta, so I keep em awhile, but I'll put one up now.

To all my other reviewers, fro the old and new story, please forgive my sporadic updates! Right now I'm kind of stuck on taking out or leaving in a scene and character development, and I like to have the next chapter done before I post, and some other stuff that doesn't make sense. Lets just say I can't remember anything ever.

EXCUSE TIME. Um, its 2:29 am, I just ended a con weekend; I'm sick and quite tired. So if I managed to leave a big chunk of something insane in this chapter, please message me and let me know, okay? –smile- because if I read it now, I won't catch it. Hahahaha… crap I wanna sleep. Mm… night, loves.

And to everyone, it really makes me happy if you can read this story and enjoy it. I'm trying my best, and while Sheik at least fights me the whole way, I want to drag it out and finish with a bang. Even when hes yelling at me about 'kudzu plots' and 'simplicity' and 'I am not going to do that to his ear, you filthy pervert'.

And also something about taking liberties with the bottom of the well. And the shadow temple. And physics. He's totally lying, though, what the hell does he know about physics?

Hope you enjoy.


Chapter 3 Bridges go up in smoke (just to show you the light)

Dripdripdrip.

Impa wouldn't be pleased if she knew what he was doing.

Actually, he wasn't too pleased with himself, either. But he had to. "If this is the bottom of the well, why is it so… dry?"

Because I drained it.

Dripdripdrip

"Almost dry," Navi amended, flitting around. He asked her to be still - he was using her light.

As for how he got down here… it was better not to think about it.

I hate graves I hate soil I hate canals oh god I hate hate hate

The sweet little fae settled well as she could. Something Sheik had said had bothered him… well, actually, many things Sheik said bothered him - but this one stood out.

"This is where all the bad feelings fester."

"What did you mean?" He muttered, ducking into another room.

"I didn't say anything, Link." Voice love-filled and patient, he smiled for the half-light.

"Not you, Navi."

"What are you looking for here?" She asked instead, flying a neat S curve before him.

"Courage." He smiled and looked around.

Various devices littered the room, sinister and creaking.

A torture chamber.

"If I'm afraid of something, the best way to handle it is to immerse myself, right?"

Navi pulsed in alarm. "Erm, Link-?"

A serene, twitchy smile melded over his face. He slipped into the main room and waited, so-patient, for the wail of wind and the dropping shade. He leapt back and shredded it.

Ignoring the scattered rupees, not quite for a greater purpose (he didn't like to think about where they came from. He didn't like to think about being grabbed and dropping things in the panic. He hated being grabbed.), he moved through the evil room. When he came to stand before the devices, he ran what he knew through his head.

"There was a man who they say could see the truth… His house was where that well is now…"

Betrayal. He was put down as a dog for it, by hylians. People like him- like Link. He was tortured before he was killed, in a room made just for him. His body was likely rotting inside of this place - perhaps even one of the skeletons he saw as a child. The one that pointed him to the lens of truth…

And even if he wasn't tortured, others were. Tortured - as in, made to suffer in atrocious ways, at the hands of their own kind. Hylians like him, like Zelda - probably ordered by the Royals themselves - had taken others down here, strapped them in, ripped their lives and their peace from their soon-to-be cold fingers.

He could have become this.

His back hit the wall and he slid down, staring at the ceiling. If things were different, I could have been this.

A monster like this.

Footsteps echoed in the gloom. Link looked up into the face of a man he didn't know.

He jolted.

"Now, how'd you get down here…?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. His eyes were faded red.

"Fell down."
"I've only ever heard of children falling down rabbit holes." Was his smart retort as he walked around the chamber.

Strange was the best word for his attire - a mane of glossy dark feathers ensconced his shoulders and neck while the rest of his clothes were black cloth.

Pale fingers tinged gray trailed over the relics of hell. "You're a hylian." He noted, "Why are you down here?"

"I needed to see it." Link looked up to the man. "What are you, if not a hylian? … could you be a sheikah…?"

He chuckled, tucking his chin into the swath of feathers. "Not quite. You could say I'm a rook." In a disturbing display of apathy, he sat down on one dark apparatus. "If you needed to see this, then by all means look. But you do know what you are seeing, yes?"

Link glanced at him. "I'm looking at hell." He guessed.

The man nodded. "Very good."

For a long time he sat slumped against the wall and regarded, with glazed eyes, the darkness swathing the room.

All the bad feelings…

"They did something rather cruel here." The self-styled rook's voice muted his thoughts.

He looked up in interest - really, they were sitting in a torture chamber. If there was something even crueler he missed, well… morbid curiosity, he'd call it.

The man nodded to him. "The sheikah traitor this place was first made for, and the ones after. When death overtakes a sheikah, there is a tradition of giving alms to the birds. They didn't honor it."

Why would birds need money?

He asked as much, rolling his head to the side so his hair brushed his shoulder.

Smiling a secret, the man extended his hands to either side, gesturing to the emblems and statues. "To give alms to the birds is to leave a corpse, or parts of it, on the mountainside for the crows and vultures. It is a way to give back what was taken in life."

Link pursed his lips. "… but, when you bury someone, doesn't their body also rejoin the world, being eaten by plants?"

Sharp teeth gleamed when the smile went wider. A shrug rolled from his shoulders.

"Each has their own way. Recall that the sheikah also hold crows sacred - perhaps they felt this was a sacrifice to their god. In any case, you should ask a sheikah for those answers."

"There are no sheikah left." Link pointed out.

"Ah-ah." The man tutted. "There are two." He stood, brushing himself off. "You know, many atrocities were committed, right where we sit. Men, women, even children… slaughtered in paranoid hatred. One would do well to take a good look here before deciding what makes a monster."

He ran his fingers the length of the wall and pressed his side against the stone of the doorway, tossing a final look over his shoulder. "The world is not just gray, little one. It can be black or white, or exploding with every hue. It is simply the angle you're looking from." He disappeared into the dark of the tunnels.

Tilting his head, Link watched tendrils of smoke drift by the ceiling. Then he returned to contemplating the torture devices.


Navi spoke again when they left the well. "So, did you find what you wanted?"

Link glanced back at her, perturbed. "Er… yeah. Don't you remember?"

Navi fluttered around his face.

"Remember what? We went through the tunnels, looking at those weird machines, and then I lost you for a little while… could you have found it while we were apart?"

Link stared.

"Uh… yeah." He ducked his head and pretended it was just a nod, frowning. "Yeah."

What lit the chamber…? And how did she manage to leave it without me?

"… you know, Navi, its scary. Maybe… maybe those people we walk by in the town, maybe they're like that? Scared and dark and… what if they could do things like that?"

The little blue fae paused a beat, glittering in the late noon. "You mustn't think that way, Link. Not everyone is the way those people were."

"But what if they could be?" He pressed. "What if, inside everyone, there is that potential? To become so scared and so hateful that they could…"

"Who's to say they don't?" A woman intoned from behind him. "Really, anything is possible."

"You mustn't think like that." Navi rejected, flying around Link's head in dizzying circles.

"Good afternoon, Impa." He bows as he says it. Looking up, he found she'd crossed her arms.

"Been somewhere you shouldn't have been, boy?" Her tone is sharp, reprimanding - as it should be.

"Yes," The admittance is quiet. It is the tone of one who knows they have down wrong and knows what is coming.

Her dagger-gaze continues until he feels like he will pop. "… in the well." Sighing with admittance he stars the earth between his toes.

Despite the dark looks and possible lecture in his future, the danger in going down there… he was still unsure whether he'd found what he needed, or something to fear even more. Perhaps there had been no peak, no point to it… oh, but, there was a point, wasn't it? That strange man in the tunnels…

"Impa… have you ever heard of someone living down in there?"

The stern expression on her grew darker, and Link found himself second-guessing his decisions again. Perhaps he should've just shut his mouth…

"Link. There is no one living in the well."

He blinks at her.

"… alright, but then who was I talking to?"

but I was also told there was no one in the shadow temple, since it was…

"Very likely, a phantom." Red eyes glinted in the afternoon sun. "Many horrible things have happened below this place. Doubtless, it keeps its share of lingering souls."

A phantom? I guess he could've been… but I've never seen one like him before.

He paused and opened his mouth

If I ask she'd know.

- teeth clacked together as he shut it again.

"I'm sorry Impa." He laughed, rubbing the back of his head.

She blinked and stared while he bid her farewell and made his way.

And I'm sorry again…

The temple groaned and cried under his feet. Wails drug up from between stones, not-there fingers rippled and clawed at him. Invisible hands caressed his face, arms, everything. He bit his lip and ducked away from the light cackles. Fox fire drifted in and out in the gloom.

Damn it, Sheik.

He shook away the grasping fingers, hissing through his teeth. The not-theres keep cackling. He felt their gleeful gazes etching a curse into his back.

Fingers drug over the wailing walls. He slumped and panted at the corner, then grit his jaw and continued on.

I will find you, even if you don't want to be found. He let himself feel a little smug. I always do.

The temple disagreed with him. It gave another ungodly moan, like an awakening redead, and shook.

He felt the weathered stone give way beneath him.

Rocks battered him on his way down, sharp pebbles tore at his body, his knees cracked hard against the dirt.

He slumped over and cried out, huffing and wheezing.

Another high laugh echoed around him.

Then the room glowed red.

….

What are you doing in here, you idiot?

The voice that woke him up was bliss to his ears, the words from the gods that only hylians could hear.

He mumbled something embarrassing and unintelligible, pressing his nose into what held him up.

The voice grumbled something back, something very rude and quite mean, maybe a little lewd if he really tried to hear it.

A satisfied sigh drifted from his lips.

His body was being moved. Wrapped in something soft and tucked into solid heat, he really couldn't summon a care. It did not matter how often he was jostled - and he was very often jostled, not out of malice but still never accidental - he couldn't find it in him to wipe the lingering bliss, or any desire to.

He almost felt like he could sleep forever…

"… nnmph…" He gargled out when he was dropped, in a way most unceremonious, onto a soft mat.

The voice said something about him maybe wanting to kill himself.

He sometimes agreed, but right then he just wished for the warm back.

The voice told him to stop trying to wake up.

Very gently, he eased the tension from his limbs and obeyed, after one last grasp in the direction of heat quick-fading…

In the world around him, shadows loomed. They held up hands and whispered malicious things with crescent moon eyes and Cheshire's smiles. The silver shining moon hung from a noose of clouds, full and beautiful.

A skullkid settled on the cloud beside it and began painting it red.

A bright vermillion eye bloomed over the silver, and it began to cry, washing away the laughing shadows and drowning everything around him.

He watched the crystalline wine rush past, and a hand faded into the space before him.

Looking up he found Sheik.

A soft smile that was at once a sharp smirk with glinting fangs welcomed him to the dark world. One hand was held out in expectation. He took it and was helped onto the glass stair where Sheik balanced, then led up the trail to the moon.

At the end of the glass was a balcony with a crystal balustrade, multitudes of faces cut into it and all glittering as if they owned their own light instead of just borrowing.

It dazzled him, and Sheik leant over the rail to brush his fingers against the crying Luna.

He wiped the dripping tear away.

"Its alright now." He soothed, and Link stared down at the little lights that sprung from the draining water, like fireflies.

He looked back to Sheik and found that his hands were dyed the same dreadful red as the eye on the moon.

Earnest eyes looked for acceptance, murmuring, Its alright.


Coming-to against at wall was never his favorite feeling.

A disoriented Navi concurred, flying a confused circle from her little 'room' in his cap.

"Where are we?" She asked in a dazed tone, her flight path staggered.

One look around brought him to the conclusion of 'shadow temple'.

The little fae let out a hearty yawn. "Nnn. Close to the entrance, I hope…" and floated back under the brim of his cap.

Thanks were murmured when he realized her prayer was answered - they were two meters from the door.

The sunrise over Kakariko was blinding when he stepped out. His eyes had to be covered against the furious light.

A blob took up the space in front of him, a blob that gradually faded to become the silhouette of one he knew well.

One who very clearly knew him too well.

Impa's stern look from yesterday - because it was yesterday, wasn't it? - couldn't compare to the back-lit ire he was receiving then.

"You know, Link." She rumbled, "When I say, as both the guardian of this town and as the sage of this temple, that something is unsafe, I expect people will listen. I especially expect you, who knows well what danger is, will listen. Now, imagine how I react when I learn that you do not, and have disobeyed my word for a fool's errand."

He flinched.

She continued staring at him, almost-baleful.

"It wasn't a fool's errand." Defiance was tiny sprout, well-within danger of being crushed with one false move.

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? And what did you accomplish? Did you find what you went in there for?"

The false move came. He faltered. "Well… I… no." A sigh drifted free.

Impa's body loosened the littlest bit, and her stare become just the scantest portion softer. "If you want to find a shadow, Link, look for its owner."

huh?

Satisfied for the moment, she threw a deku-nut and leapt away under cover of the blast.

"Are you an idiot?" Someone seethed and grabbed him from behind. Weapons were quickly stolen from reach.

A hand covered his eyes and he almost howled. His arms came up to fight.

The rag that came over his mouth when he again tried to cry out made him fade fast..

He heard, in the approaching dark, another deku nut go off.

When his eyes came uncovered, light shimmered from a hole in the sky, soft and angelic. The sound of water filled his ears and when he sat up he saw its source, a little spring in the ground.

Hands caught him when he almost slumped over again.

"Lay down." A man ordered.

He turned and tilted his head best he could.

"Hi Sheik."

Sheik gnashed his teeth.

Link giggled. "Mmm… I think I have a concussion."

"For Farore's sake, Link, when you decide to do something stupid, could you at least do it intelligently?"

"That's a paradox." Hyrule's hero pointed out with a woozy smile. "… mm, hey. You called me Link."

"Well, I - yes. Yes, I suppose I did. Don't change the subject." The wrath drained from his voice to make way for puzzlement. Just a little pool of irritation remained. "Why on earth were you in there?"

"You." He chuckled and coughed.

Sheik paused, didn't seem to know what to say. "… idiot." He hissed, again. "If it weren't for that spell the ghosts would have swallowed you."

"You saved me?" He asked in a faint voice, eyes half-lidded, that punch-drunk smile on his lips still.

"… No. I don't know what cast it. Impa said…" He trailed off and his eyes softened a little. Under the scarf, he was surely smiling. "… well, it seems not only the goddesses thrice favor you."

"… 'll take your word for it." Link yawned and shook his head a little. "Am I drugged?"

"No. your body is telling you you've over-worked it. Again." He gave a soft tap to the side of his head. "Go back to sleep, Link."

Link forced himself to keep his eyes open and trained on the sheikah.

"… I'll still be here when you wake."

The hero took him at his word.

He drifted off into the oblivion of dreaming.

Again under the white-splattered sky, red water rushed to wash away the earth and its shadows. He watched it crash beyond his pebble in the ocean.

The moon hung, clean and pure, in the sky. Glass steps shimmered into existence. He walked up, watching the waterfalls from the sky further flood the earth, and stepped onto the balcony of the moon.

In the shadowed cradle of a mare, Sheik watched in expectance.

Link reached out to him.


It was said that the sheikah could not lie. Link had never had reason to doubt that with Sheik (ignoring the whole masquerading as Zelda thing - well, things, because there were multiple instances now) and hoped it would stay that way.

When he woke, Sheik was there.

Acting on impulse - all too normal for him - he pulled the startled shadow to his chest and hugged him.

"Thank you." He mumbled into his collarbone.

Whole body tensed, Sheik just managed the obligatory awkward pat on the head.

"… its fine." Half-whispered, he leant up to hear it.

"And…" Link leant back. "I'm… sorry. I was being really stupid… I know better. You're you."

Sheik's tension, if possible, had grown.

Link continued with unusual blitheness. "What you do is what matters. You've never done anything but be kind to me. And I shouldn't treat you like I did over - well, over anything - but especially something that you don't have any control over." Any other time might have had him noticing how much the dear Hero had spoken. Now he was just noticing just how close Link managed to press into his side.

"That's not entirely true-"

"Shut up." Link smiled at him, while he stayed stupefied. "Just… listen, please? I was being an idiot. You're my friend and if you ever disappear like that again I think I'll have to gut you-" Sheik let out a compulsive half-startled laugh "-You're my friend, Sheik."

He kept repeating that.

Sheik wouldn't look away from him.

Half-light was so dim. Wouldn't he look better in the sun?

"… where are we?" Minutes later, he raised this question.

Those minutes had been spent with Sheik patiently, if not uncomfortably enduring his embrace.

"A grotto beneath Kakariko." The man of shadows informed.

"Oh." He shifted and hesitated before letting go.

Sheik scooted back.

Link glanced around and sighed. Looked like the one behind the potions shop… He leant back and watched Sheik, who was running his fingers over the smoothed walls. His back was curved over and made him seem small, easy to overlook. His legs tensed and untensed with each breath. Predatory nature was evident in his entire body, and even without dismissing his training as a killer, Link wondered how he never saw it. Sheik moved more like a cat than a hylian.

(A cat about to rip out a throat. That was neither here nor there.) He pursed his lips and squinted in the gentle light.

And then, found himself wondering… if Sheik had any other attributes…

Sheik caught his gaze and quirked a brow, looking up. "Hero?"

"Can't you go back to calling me Link?" He begged, eyes flickering to meet Sheik's for a heartbeat.

"… Link." He brought up the hand the hero had watched and turned it, purposely slow, in a shaft of light. "Something you wish to see?" Tone almost-pointed, his eyes dared Link to disagree.

"… d'you have anything else? Besides the fangs."

… what?

A faint smile, hidden by the cowl, crinkled up his eyes. "No. Why? Aren't they enough?"

Link grinned.

"… it is best we were leaving." The sheikah observed, minutes into more comfortable silence. "Lest everyone begin to wonder where you've gone off to."

"You're coming with me, right?" Was immediately blurted, Link giving him an unabashed stare.

Sheik blinked. "I… I suppose so."

So Link smiled, and they left the secret space.

In town, people stared. It wasn't new, nor uncomfortable. It was even expected - their Hero walking past, close enough to his ephemeral shadow that their shoulders bumped?

"I spoke to Zelda awhile ago." Link murmured in absent tones, Sheik shifting at his side.

"You wish to visit her?"

"We should."

Sheik quirked a brow. "We? Why would I be going?"

"She asked about you. She's worried. … please, Sheik?" Link turned, put his hands on Sheik's shoulders, and stared. With big, shiny eyes, like a child about to cry, he stared.

… to be fair, Sheik never really had a chance.

Head bobbing in acquiescence, he surrendered his next few days to the whims of a now-ecstatic Link.

Bags packed, weapons stocked, bandages fresh and wrapped - it was time to go.

Sheik sighed, running a hand through his fringe, and stepped into the sunlight at the bottom of the steps.

Whinnying from the riverside made him turn his head; Epona was eating the last remnants of a carrot.

"I was under the impression we were walking, Link."

Which raised the question of why they weren't warping.

Link waved him over. "I was going to see if she'd carry our things. I haven't walked anywhere without a pack in so long… I think I forgot what it feels like."

Sheik rolled his eyes heavenward, an action Link did not miss, and hummed. "Might I ask, hero, why we simply do not warp to the temple of time?"

"Its a short walk, and…" He jolted, cut himself off, then gave a strained smile. "Really, its not that far, Sheik."

"You're not telling me something. Why?"

"Its nothing important." Link denied, bringing up his hands in defense.

The look he got then said everything; It is important, I will find out eventually, and then I will get you.

Sheik could be such a sweetheart.

After loading up Epona, they made off.

Bold blue skies, brushed with shredded clouds, stretched overhead into oblivion. Crisp air laced with the music of drying leaves, a cry to welcome autumn's hold on the land. Grass rustled in a cool breeze and crunched under the soles of their shoes.

Sheik sucked in a breath like it was the only he'd ever get and reached out, grasping, towards the sky.

Without asking why Link watched.

"Autumn will be beautiful this year." What might've been a sigh drifted from his hidden lips.

Link almost pointed out that autumn was always beautiful, but then he recalled lakes of lava and floating citadels…

He sucked in a breath, too. Thank the goddesses for small miracles, like a September without war.

"I'm sorry." Almost disappearing into the breeze, Sheik's words sent him reeling back into ice.

Memories, of shifting water and reflections and shades, of falling down dank and ire-seeped catacombs…

Vampir were monsters. But Sheik was human.

As the Hero of Time, Link had developed a certain -masochistic- fondness for paradoxes. He had to, or condemn himself to insanity (rather than simply risk it).

Sheik was a paradox, maybe even from the moment they met… A shadow who housed light, the heroic betrayer, the nameless darkness.

There where many more, Link was sure - many he may never know.

But this the freshest one was painful and obvious, and festering, and it made his stomach turn in guilt because he was the one between them who was wrong.

What words could you say to someone then?

"You wouldn't have hurt me. I understand… now…" I'm an idiot. he wished he could summon the words to his throat.

"To say that and then say you understand shows how little you really do, H… Link."

"I don't know much of anything." He confessed, putting his hands behind his head, "But its never stopped me before." For better or worse.

Damn it all.

"That is indeed true." Sheik chuckled, glancing at him. "… surely you have questions about that bit of darkness."

At least now he had ground to walk again, "Surely." The murmured echo carried to the heavens while his eyes sought out bright clouds. "But… not now."

Sheik slanted him a glance, and led him to continue, "Its nice here."

"Where is here?"

They paused, looking at each other, one serious and one imploring elaboration.

"Here in the fields, in this part of time… Even in this world. Where is the place you speak so fondly of? In the space around us, or only in your mind?"

"Our minds." The correction rung out and made fickle time stand still, defiant of nature, while fate cocked its head and watched. "Its between us." His voice held power - softness, kindness, a pure soul.

It shouldn't. It had no right. All the sway in the world enveloped him.

Fingertips lingering on the imaginary chain, smaller than cracks in the earth and lighter than the full moon, he breathed. It wrapped around his throat but didn't choke him.

What marvelous influence.

"… you'll have to tell me more about that later," Sheik murmured to him as they breached the gates, fingers still brushing around his throat.

It made Link smile.

It was nice to be the one captivating for a change.

Maybe that was why Sheik did it.

Hushed murmurs of comfort and strokes on her neck barely kept Epona from leaping up and running far, far away. The poor mare did so hate towns.

The sheikah eyed her, stepping away from her master when she gave a sharp toss of her head in his direction.

"How did you tame her?" His pensive question caught Link as a dear in the headlights.

Whistling carried in the air. Epona calmed.

"Epona's song." Link enlightened him, repeating the notes and listening to Sheik follow. "She won't let anyone near her unless they know this song. Malon taught me a long time ago."

"Malon?" Sheik cocked his head, eyes not veering from the gate they approached.

"Ah… Epona's owner, you could say. I just borrow her."

"I see." Sheik raised one hand to the guard, who called for the gate to open.

They continued through the fresh-formed metal (only a few months old…) and down the castle road.

Link glanced at the trail leading off to the fountain of the fairy queen - erm, great fairy.

The trees around the castle were beginning to color with all the hues of fall, preparing for the twilit rapture of a beautiful death.

Leaves floating past on soft wind sent him reeling with nostalgia of the forest he'd lost, his dearly beloved home.

Another conversation with the guards at the entrance flew by, amounting to leaves on the wind.

Only less beautiful.

His thoughts grew stranger as the nights grew longer.

They stopped to watch the sunset before they remembered they couldn't stay there.

"Why aren't we going straight to her?" Link inquired - as soon as they were inside the main walls, Sheik had caught his hand and pulled him away from the light and noise of the main halls.

"For the simple reason that we cannot." Sheik's voice was cold salve.

Link gripped his hand back.

Skulking down hallways was always a problem for him - his gear and his demeanor left little room for stealth.

This was not so for Sheik. Body pressed so close to the wall he could've melted into it, feet making no vibration or sound when they hit the unforgiving stone. His hand guided the amateur one of Link, through the darkness in a dominion of light.

They melted from the shameful dim and slipped into a room which felt more like a chapel.

Tall, beautiful windows stretched over a while, brushing the ceiling and raining them with rays of benevolent golden light.

Link stepped into it and wondered how anyone could stand to be without it.

Sheik echoed his thoughts, almost… "Shadows crave light. They follow it, even to their doom. Shadow can drown light."

"Light can burn away shadow." Zelda's voice floated in from above - they looked up to see her leaning over a balustrade.

"Zelda!" Link called, while Sheik gave a more formal greeting of 'get off of the rail this instant, or I shall kill you before the fall.'

… Sheik could be such a sweetheart.

Airy laughter echoed as she whisked off, and the pitter-patter of her steps made them turn to see her running down the stairs.

"Oh, you found him!" She cried, pressing a kiss to a jolted Link's cheek before throwing her arms around Sheik's shoulders.

"It isn't proper to make such contact, Milady-" A guard, skeptical from their entrance, began to address.

"Hush now! Surely I am allowed to greet my other half, am I not! Leave us, so that we might catch up on lost time!"

The guard, now formally shooed, was forced to leave. (He wasn't made to be overjoyed mind you.)

Link raised an eyebrow. "Other half?" He echoed.

"Yes, yes he is indeed, and thank you so very much for finding him." She then proceed to lay kisses all over Sheik's forehead whilst he struggled for freedom.

Watching the playful motion, Link felt almost-alone again. He wasn't a part of this…

But he stood back and watched the shadow under the light, held close to the Lady, and wondered if this was simply right.

Even not being in the picture, he felt happiness for the people in it.

Other half… if Sheik was shadow and Zelda light, then why did they not rip each other apart?

He backed up where the sunset couldn't touch his face anymore.

The two separated under the burning gold, graceful frames cutting elegant silhouettes from the shine and shade.

Light played in red eyes. Watching it, he felt strange, like his heart had frozen for an eternity or just a beat on a drum. Now it definitely felt like the beating of a drum…

His fingers worked their way over the door and he stepped out, Zelda calling after.

He moved down the halls, not speaking, brushing past curious stares and half-formed questions. Half-formed answers were kept buried deep inside so he wouldn't touch them.

Stepping out found him in a vast and empty hall. Windows slit in the tops sprayed the ground with the moon's silver blood, seeping over the floor and collecting in everything. Shadows licked at the ground beneath his feet and made him shudder.

"Link."

Fingers wrapped around his wrist.

His breath caught in his throat while he watched the light and dark play against each other, testing the water. "… how do you to do it?"

"Do what?" Sheik's frown carried into his voice.

Link scrutinized the boundary, trying to find out just what made it work… "Right beside each other, connected, neither one destroying the other when everything in nature says it should be so. How…"

The words weren't meant for Sheik, but he didn't know, and how could he?

"Balance." Solemness echoed around them in the night-lit hall.

The hero of time turned to the shadow and cocked his head. "… I see…" He looked up at the windows, letting in the moon. "When Zelda called you her other half, what did she mean?"

Sheik opened his mouth to reply, when they heard a door creak open.

A blink later found Link pressed deep into the shadows, between stone and Sheik. Lips pressed into his neck.

Link had the uncomfortable and (under current circumstance) unfortunate realization that he would dream of this moment.

The footsteps halted. "…. oh, my. The Lady's pet-" Derisive, dismissive, "make sure to clean that up when you're done."

What-?

Gasp caught in his throat, he stared at Sheik.

Sheik snorted, "Of course," brushing his fingers over Link's collarbone in a way that was almost-comforting.

The realization reappeared. He tried to melt into the wall.

The steps picked back up.

He leant back and held his breath, tried to remember those terrible words not where he'd heard them from, until the door opened and shut.

The sheikah backed off into the moonbeams. One hand gestured for him to follow.

Quite happy to stay out of sight he obeyed.

"What was that?" He demanded in the soft dim, stepping after Sheik. "He just-"

"Yes, you'll find its not uncommon." A sigh fettered, he slanted a soft look in Link's direction. "They presumed I'd simply… caught a rat, of sorts. As long as they don't have to clean it up…"

"… they don't care." Always sharp, those three words… "They just thought you'd brought back some peasant to…" He trailed off. One problem of his was gone then, at least.

Sheik nodded and gestured for them to walk.

"… you… wouldn't do that, right?" He mumbled, only following Sheik through the wall by a hair of notice.

"… I wouldn't bring back a peasant, no. Normally I go down to the kitchens and…" He trailed off.

The only footsteps halted. Blue eyes stared in blank horror.

Sheik stopped.

"… I drink the blood from the meat cellar, alright?" He admitted with a sigh, staring over one shoulder. "Be quiet about it. I'm not supposed to." Slightly petulant, his tone reminded of a teenager.

The slow nod of understanding was followed by the fading of his pallor.

Sheik didn't bother stopping the next sigh.

Link flinched and took a few quick steps to catch up with him. Worried eyes dogged the sheikah, who kept looking away.

"Where are we going?" Link asked in a faint whisper as he looked around the stone corridor.

Sheik turned to dark painting in the Shadow's passage, decadent and familiar… A road in dead woods up to a black castle…

Sheik stepped up so that his foot went through the frame, and held out a hand to Link.

They moved through the painting and down another winding path to a door.

Link wondered if Sheik intended to answer at all.

Creaaak went the hinges, before it answered for him.

His eyes wandered the room while Sheik lit the torches. "… so you don't sleep in a coffin, then."

Light chuckling lit up the place better than the fire. "No, I don't. Does that disappoint you?"

"A little bit." He baited, twining his hands together behind him.

"Well, I can't have that. Suppose I'll have to go out and get one - only after dark, mind you. Wouldn't want to burn to ash."

Link laughed.

An apple was thrust in his direction.

"You haven't eaten since Kakariko - knowing you, since yesterday." This information was delivered in the tone of someone who did not guess, but knew.

Link thanked him and bit into the juicy gold flesh. Sheik turned away.

Blue eyes again wandered the room.

A low ceiling compared to others in the castle, but still well above them. Rafters stretched out over it in a careful web. There looked to be a loft in the darkest corner, not unlike the one in Impa's home.

"Is this where you live?" Link asked after swallowing.

"I wouldn't use the term 'live'." Sheik's tone was light, like they were speaking of songs. "Perhaps 'rest', never 'live'."

"Then where do you live?" The stone walls were lonely, like temples and graves with epitaphs long-faded… it was little wonder.

"In the world, in my lyre, at Zelda's side… and, of course, when I am beside you."

Link turned about three shades of red, each time more resembling a strawberry's flesh. "H… huh?"

Sheik finally turned to look back at him. "You're going to drop the apple."

So Link re-clutched it, juice slipping over his fingers and making them sticky.

"Yes, when I am beside you I am alive… Does that sound strange?" He cocked his head and sat on a crate, likely filled with something less-than-legal. "For the longest time I simply shadowed you and waited, for each time we could speak… only in those moments could I transcend being a shadow to become something human."

"… oh." He blinked and finished off the apple, then stared at the core. He pretended that he didn't feel a little bit disappointed, that Sheik didn't feel quite so strongly about their bond beyond the music and the words.

But really, then, what more was a friendship?

Caring and closeness and love… That was spoken of it and in the deep woods truth, sometimes false-truth, but what was spoken in the cities and what actually was were different, predestined to be.

Sheik, he reflected, loved Zelda, but few else in the world.

"Toss it here." Sheik kicked an up-turned crate.

Link tossed it in.

"I'll dump it in the rubbish pile tomorrow. The groundskeeper will appreciate it."

Again the stone walls yawned between them. Link chose to break their spell. "… you never got to answer. What did Zelda mean, earlier?"

Sheik sighed. "Just that. We are connected - for many years we shared a skin - one shell, two souls."

Shell, not 'body'… There was a significance he didn't comprehend but still captured, wrapped just in the exchange of two words, one for the other. Language was power, the words of a spell…

"We became close. I don't think one of us would go on for very long without the other."

Would, or could? Sheik is stubborn enough to not go on without her, he realized. And Zelda is just as stubborn.

All three of them were stubborn. And Ganondorf was stubborn.

He wondered if tenacity (or "not knowing when to quit," to quote Navi) was a prerequisite for Triforce bearers.

And… for heroes.

The smile that bloomed caught Sheik off guard. "I get it." He informed him, though he didn't speak of the other-half business (he really did have to work on that. Poor Sheik couldn't read his thoughts, now could he?)

"Don't be ridiculous, Link." Sheik admonished, "In any case, I know you are more stubborn than anyone…"

(… could he?)

Distracted by this very disturbing thought, Link stared.

Sheik's lips kept moving.

"… my offer is up to you."

Link responded in ways most appropriate and telling of his intellect. ("Huh?")

Sheik scolded him for not listening.

… he had been invited to stay the night. In Sheik's dreary quarters. He considered camping in the field, trekking back to Kakariko in the dark, sleeping in the back alleys of Castletown…

Night skies wrapped around his mouth and nose and smothered him.

The loneliness here didn't compare to the kind without someone to share it with him. Saying so in a faint voice, Sheik gave him a sympathetic gaze, and he thought that maybe it wasn't so bad if Sheik didn't love him like he loved music and Zelda and words spoken between two lost souls, but he cared.

He wished for too long for people to care.

"… hey, Sheik? Can I take you up on those questions we talked about earlier…?"

Bemusement reflected with the firelight in red eyes. "We can do whatever you'd like." His host answered in earnest, head cocked, hair falling over his face.

'Whatever you'd like.' Innocent enough in voice, but…

For some reason he didn't care to feel out, those words made him nervous.

He took in a breath.

"The other night, in Zelda's room… What happened?"

Blessed man, so blessed, Sheik did not waffle or wonder over whys or when's but simply knew, sharp and clear. And he spoke in the same, "It screamed." He sighed, running a hand through his fringe. "During Ganondorf's reign, I fed from monsters… killers… the screams of the damned ones… conditioned a response in me. I hadn't drank in a while."

"… okay. Why do you need blood?"

Sheik choked a bitter laugh. "Monsters are spawned from darkness and sustained on dark's power. Do you know why they attack hylians?"

Link replied that he didn't.

"Its because they need their blood. Well… flesh and blood. The darkness feeds on other magic… and hylians are a wonderful source, since they have weak bodies brimming with it. Weak compared, of course, to the hardy Goron and swift Zora." Sheik sighed. "Something akin to it can be said of sheikah. Our magic feeds from your's, but only your's. That is why I must drink from monsters, or…"

Neither bothered to finish it, rather let it hang between them like a corpse.

"Since monsters feed from your magic, we can feed from them… but it takes more than if…" Half-traced designs had begun to wander his thigh while he spoke, fingers tapping and dragging.

"… does it kill them? When you take the magic."

Sheik chuckled, eyes flashing and making him jolt. "Oh, no. Losing the magic doesn't kill them."

He beckoned Link closer and drew down his scarf, flashing and snapping his teeth. "Magic isn't what kills them," He repeated. "It kills monsters because they are sustained purely on it - it is what holds them together. In theory I could kill a hylian, but that could be attributed to having drunk all the blood trying to get at all the magic. Most often it is… unnecessary. There is a ritual concerning the feeding from hylians…"

"So what happens when you take the magic?" Link asked, tilting his head and resting it in his hands.

"It is dependant on the supply of magic. Say I went and caught the average peasant. They could sleep for days afterwards, even without fully sating me. On the opposite end, say I caught someone with bountiful amounts, not unlike Ganondorf, or… you."

Link didn't think too hard about that.

Raconteur of the evening rolled his shoulders and continued the Q & A. "I would be full-fed and relatively pleasant, whilst leaving my proposed victim in perfect health, if not feeling as if they ran ten laps around Hyrule field."

… huh. Well, Link knew that feeling. The eye of truth left him like that more than once.

With a half-there smile, he thanked his host. A bedroll was tossed his way and he was given the simple order of 'go to sleep before you collapse, Link.'

Which, again for reasons he chose to not feel out, made him feel happy. And a happy Link must drag Sheik into the happiness, perhaps kicking and screaming. "Not coming after my sweet virgin flesh whilst I slumber?"

Sheik snorted. "Hardly. I believe I would take a shriveled up tektite before you."

"Hey, now…" He mumbled, settling under the woolen blanket all-but hurled at his head, "don't say that before you've tried one… tektites are pretty tasty…"

Another snort.

"Good night, hero."

The lights were snuffed.

"My name is Link."


Sheik disappeared early in the morning, leaving no more proof of his existence than a note.

In the curious position of finding himself waking in someone else's room, deep inside a foreign and hostile land, Link remembered a story from Talon to he and Malon as young ones of handsome young prince charming who took girls into inns with strange and rough patrons, promising love and marriage. He often butchered the next part (Ingo was the one who ended up giving Malon the talk about men. He wasn't happy about it.), but it always ended in them taking something from the women and then disappearing before the morning light. And sitting there, then, in such a hostile territory, Link hoped no girl ever had to suffer that injustice.

Then he read the note and found out Sheik had a stash of books, and a few scrolls he'd transcribed for him on the sheikah. Along with locations and express permission to read what he found.

Yes.

For the remainder of the morning Sheik was forgotten.


Hell and high water, Sheik would go off and be insane when he thought Link wasn't looking.

Fucking lunatic.

They ended up sleeping in the woods, because Sheik couldn't go back to the castle that night and Link just wouldn't.

And damn it all, but he didn't want to think about it. Everything in due time and all that drivel, but he didn't want to remember then. He had better things to focus on, like slinking.

… yeah, because he was just so enthralling.

Sheik took a moment, then, to whisper into his ear that, 'oh, Link? Snickering isn't particularly conducive to our current activity.'

Mayhap because they were sneaking into the castle. Images of a fair-haired woman with a stern face, staring him down with arms akimbo flashed through Link's mind as they slipped around the grounds.

Sheik lived deep inside the castle, right in its heart… to be near the king and his daughter… and the empty halls they passed through earlier were not so empty today.

Insistent on keeping some secrets, Sheik had donned a disguise, shoved Link's head into one, and off they went through the corridors.

Today's learning experience was that Sheik had long hair. It swung behind him, a whip the gold of proud lions, bladed tip marking him a manticore. The other learning experience of the day was that Sheik kept dresses -plural- locked up in his quarters.

Link knew, because he was wearing one of them.

That day would be the day he decided he hated skirts.

So he followed behind Sheik - he walked like a noble, no one asked questions - and prayed that none would decide to call out the servant behind the lady.

He would've have been in finer clothes, but they realized the way Link moved would only get him into trouble.

So Link was a handmaid who under no circumstances would talk.

… that part wasn't hard.

And bless the three above, all was going well.

"Hey, you! Wench!"

… One would think he'd have learned by now. All hail pessimism, prepare for a flood and hope for a shower.

He stopped and faced the man.

Sheik paused and refused to turn, listening instead.

An important-looking soldier in armor came up and began to address Link.

"I am a servant of the Duke of Weiss. I require you to retrieve certain items for me…" He carried on a ways, whist poor Link pondered the best escape. His gaze went blank when he retreated to his thoughts.

The man was not-so oblivious of this. "Girl, do you even understand my words?"

Link nodded and averted his gaze.

"Then why have you not bowed? And address me as Sir when I am speaking to you! Are you so insolent to remain silent?"

His hand went for Link's apron.

Red and gold flashed - Sheik had turned and knocked it away. "Do not touch what is mine."

Uhm, wow, Sheik.

"She is dumb, sir." His voice came out very quiet, almost a whisper to be lost in the din. "And my personal attendant. Certainly there is a valet de chambre to retrieve whatever it is your retainer requires."

The look on the man's face disagreed. "Certainly not. A man simply is unacceptable-"

Sheik raised an eyebrow, pursing his lips. "Oh, is that the case?" His voice suggested he'd gotten it, perfect and instant. He almost sounded pleased - the pleasure of a wolf who'd corned its lamb, mind you.

Link wondered what it felt like to be the one dressed in white wool.

Sadistic and dark and somehow wonderful, Sheik kept on, "Then I suggest instead of harassing the work of the castle like some common felon, you take your master out. Might I suggest a nunnery?"

The man turned red with ire. "And just who are you to speak to me this way? And to speak so obscenely of my Lord?"

Out of sight, Link brushed his hand over Sheik's back in a way he hoped was calming.

Level as ever, Sheik replied, "I am the Duchess of Tot, Asima."

The man froze.

"Take heed of my words, and leave, or hide in fear from the shadows and the darkness. They will not forgive you." Sheik finished his curse in gentle tones.

At the very least, the man had an idea of what he meant. Offense and apprehension fought a war on his face, and settled into hate.

"M-my lord will not stand for-"

"You harassing young girls in the halls? I should hope so." He tossed his head, braid arching so it scantly missed Link (he moved) and snorted. "Run back to your master and cry to him about what I have done this day." With this final bout of haughtiness, he pressed a hand into Link's back.

"Come along, Schön."

Link presumed that was him.

As soon as they rounded a corner Sheik led them into a library. "If you wish to leave, there is a passage to the garden in back."

"If I wish to stay?" Link asked in a soft voice, only just meeting Sheik's gaze.

"Then you will be Schön for the next few hours." Wry grin stretching up his lips, Sheik turned and wandered the walls of books.

Zelda sat at one, deep in the throes of reading scripture.

Sheik sat down in front of her, picked up one, and gestured Link to stand behind him, slightly to the side.

Later Zelda looked up into the face of Sheik, who had stopped pretending to read five minutes ago, in a dress.

She stared a while. "Why has Duchess Asima deigned to make an appearance in Hyrule, I wonder?"

Of course Zelda was in on this. She probably got the dresses for him.

"Oh, dear Lady, you wound me." Sheik put a hand over his heart and rolled his eyes heavenward. "Surely you know of the young Duke in the castle?"

"Surely." She fettered a sigh. "Have you yet seen him? I am told he has the face of a great fairy."

"… I wouldn't use that as a compliment." Link, who had seen the great fairies, couldn't resist pointing out.

Zelda balked.

Sheik smirked.

Shaking, her gaze dragged itself up to the Hero of Time's. "… Link."

"Schön." They corrected together.

Processing this, she sat back, lacing her fingers in front of her. "… I was wondering who you had with you…" She mumbled.

Link shuffled his feet, a half-echo in the hall of knowledge.

Zelda returned to her scrolls.

After a whispered explanation of why Link could not sit (and an apology), Sheik picked up a map and began marking out points of interest.

Link watched over his shoulder.

… Tot was, apparently, an area in the north-east, Kakariko just within its borders. It was marked out with the color of a bruise, hateful purple. "You know, they say the demon's gate resides in the northeast," Sheik had murmured.

Death Mountain was marked with Venetian red.

The Zora's kingdom didn't consist of one large area but several connected ones, the rivers and lakes and of course their capital, the Domain of Zora. It was marked with rich Prussian blue. This territory, like the Goron's, had no name beyond the one its people gave it.

"Where's the Gerudo fortress?" Link asked in a whisper when Sheik's hand moved past it, to Lake Hylia.

"The desert is considered a wilderness, free of sovereign." Sheik murmured back, red eyes not leaving the map.

The forest was another wilderness.

Hyrule field was under the direct control of the Royal family of Hyrule.

To the southwest, beyond where he'd traveled, was a duchy called Weiss. Marked with pure white, it was a land of mild weather and flowers.

Sheik started moving the chips about and scribbling notes.

Half an hour into this, Navi drifted in.

His fairy had a habit of disappearing and reappearing at random, and when she did, Link wondered how she always found her way back to him.

(The first time she did it he was terrified. Malon spent hours trying to get him to speak, to stop crying. Now it was just… everyday. Sheik's disappearances caused more stress. Loads more, as of late.)

She floated around the table in a languid circle and flew into his hair.

"Link?" She yawned, tugging on a lock.

"Welcome home." He greeted her, eyes flickering towards her light.

Soon after, a servant came to summon Zelda to the throne room.

Lady Asima was to accompany her.

So Link followed at their skirts, feeling like a child (at this realization, any reservations were tossed out the window. Link had never had a mother with skirts to trail after; he'd always wondered how it felt…)

And when they arrived, Link wondered how he didn't notice this man at the ball so many nights ago. The castle was still bustling with activity, foreign guests situated in its quarters. But this one stood out, dressed in a snowy white mantle.

With the aura Sheik gave off, Link figured it out pretty quick.

He didn't want this man anywhere near them.

A few more words revealed it as the before-mentioned duke. He really was beautiful. Cream hair that shone almost-white, blush-dusted skin, soft eyes that spoke volumes of kindness.

He was dressed in white only - soft fabric with the slightest shine, understated elegance to contrast the contemporary style of garish nobility. What looked like a surcoat under a ganache clothed him, the bottoms of white hose poked between embroidered slippers and the surcoat's skirt. Linen sleeves dressed his arms.

The embroidered mantle – the only hint of color, it was edged with gold thread - drifted behind and gave his face a softened look.

Before the King he approached. Link tried not to look too directly at the magistrate.

"Lady Zelda." The soft voice lulled them, gentle as his expression. He pressed a kiss to her hand.

When his eyes caught Sheik's, recognition sparked. "… you… no." He shook his head and smiled. "Could you perhaps be the Duchess Asima?"

Sheik crossed his arms and showed just how unimpressed he was.

The king looked on in disapproval.

Link bit his lip and Zelda closed her eyes, all while Sheik gave hints of perverse pride.

The Hylian in white smiled. "I formally apologize on behalf of my valet. He can be… overzealous."

"Keep a tighter leash on him and consider it forgiven." His tone suggested it would never be forgotten.

He never offered his hand, the man never asked for it.

Link noticed little things like that were common with Sheik. The only resistance he could usually escape unscathed. The other day bad things had gone down, and he figured that much out.

The King spoke with the Duke, while Zelda sat in her chair and listened. Asima became Sheik again and stood behind Zelda's throne in the cast shadow, tucking Link in behind him and giving a look of thunder to anyone who even glanced his way.

Navi, tucked into his bangs and now fully awake, felt the befuddlement overwhelm him like a human might feel the warmth of a fire when they sit before it.

The curious feeling of safety was something he hadn't much experienced.

Curled up beside Saria, listening to her play, many years ago - there he had felt it for the first time. In a warm room in the spare bed, counting stars with a little girl with a smile and a temper on a ranch… again he felt it, safe and at home.

Sometimes, she knew, he had dreams of being curled up in the arms of the mother he'd never had, listening to a lullaby like Zelda's, because he thinks he would've liked a lullaby like that one… just for him.

Little scattered moments like that throughout his existence, disproportionate in their distribution but so fitting of his younger years.

The freshest memory was of waking up choking on pain, coughing, crying… and someone leaning over him, pressing the potion to his lips and rubbing his throat to make him swallow while they hushed him.

Someone who kept the night from swallowing him while he hovered between death and reality.

Walls of creeping darkness loomed between those memories, walls smeared with dark green stains and slime and carved with the suffering of souls. Tombstones poked in and out of the walls with the skulls, held together with mortar as brick would be.

Memories of fear and sadness and suffering. Their color was born from the shadow temple and the bottom of the well and really, Navi often wondered how he managed to be fearless enough to venture back inside of those places for Sheik.

Some part of Link loved him, she reflected. The part that loved all of his friends and let him move for their sakes, because often he couldn't move for himself.

(She wished that would change.)

And now again he felt safe. Having played the hero for so long, the protector instead of the protected, he felt so strange about it.

On top of it all, he didn't know what he was being protected from.

Navi didn't know, either, but she trusted Sheik - because that was Sheik, in the dress. That was Sheik trying to set fire by his ire and gaze alone.

She resolved to catch him and ask about that - all of that - later.

At present time, she'd sit back and watch the Hylian court put on a show.

Diplomacy games were redundant and dull, and for a while Navi dozed in Link's hair while Sheik flashed his fangs at every glance toward Link. Link, in turn, got tired and standing and slumped forward until his forehead touched the space between Sheik's shoulder blades, and Sheik almost leapt a foot in the air.

Zelda was trying her very best not to yawn and follow Navi to the land of half-concious when her father requested she escort the Duke to the dining hall.

Sheik in drag- Lady Asima naturally followed her. In turn Schön followed Lady Asima.

Free of the stare of the King as they meandered down the halls, Zelda and the Duke of Weiss chatted in amiable tones. He enquired about… strange things, really.

Link had heard nobles speak before. He had spoken to his own fair share, though naturally they talked of different things to him then they did with other nobles.

The Duke, who introduced himself as Hell, was asking about the townspeople, the servants… how they were treated.

And when he ascertained that it wasn't uncommon for Zelda to speak to the servants without great condescension, he did the same. When they reached the dining hall, he turned to Link and asked his name.

Of course, Link could not answer - lest he be found out - and so 'Asima' was forced to answer for him.

It was done only after a sharp look over the Duke's shoulder from Zelda.

"… Schön. That is very fitting name." He smiled, leaning down so they were eye level. (For a hylian, Link was rather short. Whenever Sheik brought this up, Link would point out that until recently Sheik had been shorter than him. Sheik would then display his superior maturity and tell him to shut up.) His hand came up and waved a finger.

Link gave it a glance before returning his gaze to the man's face, quirking a brow.

"You do not seem slow to me. Perhaps a malady of the throat?"

Heh.

Link and Sheik coughed in tandem.

"It was lovely to meet you all. I do hope we can maintain good relations." A few more formal farewells had him on his way into the room.

A man in black followed.

Zelda watched with a curious gaze. Sheik ignored it completely.

"Shall we retire to my quarters?" The young Lady offered, turning to Sheik.

Link felt so left out.

"If it pleases you, majesty."

Sometimes he wondered just how much vitriol Sheik could physically fit in a word. (And sometimes he was jealous.)

Cocking his head to the side, Link continued to trail after them. Sheik became irritated at some point with this – he'd probably been irritated for a while, actually – and paused just long enough to snatch Link's arm and haul him close enough to walk beside him. Link swallowed so his abused heart could return to his ribcage where it belonged, and Sheik refused to let go – for the better, since Link would've been gone in a second.

Quarters weren't the word for what Zelda had. She had more of… a well-sized house within castle walls.

Door shut and ladies-in-waiting banished (minus two Asima and Schön) Zelda slumped over at her desk and demanded of Sheik to explain a great mystery of life.

"Why do women wear skirts?"

He did not disappoint. "Sadomasochistic ideals of beauty."

Link concurred.

Zelda sighed and told them to 'sit down before you fall down.' (Sheik was rubbing off on her. Impa had rubbed off on him.) This attained, she announced her intention of changing from her cumbersome layers of air-tight glitter and made off for the next room.

Glancing between the window and the ceiling, Link sighed. "… so. Zelda's in on this."

"Of course."

"Tot is a real place."

"Yes."

"… every once in a while you don a dress and pretend to be its Duchess."

"That is about the essence of it, yes."

"… You live a complicated life, Sheik."

"You have no idea." His half-exasperated voice was melodious, if only to Link's tired ears.

They exchanged wry smiles.

"You know, you make a very pretty girl." Link stated in an absent voice.

A hand fluttered to Sheik's fake chest. "Well. I'm flattered that you think so, Schön."

Ouch.

With a sigh, he relinquished his imaginary pride. "The more I learn about you, the scarier you get."

"The more you've learned about me the more comfortable you've grown." Sheik pointed out, tone a little reserved.

Blue eyes flicked to him. "… I didn't mean… Sorry, Sheik."

The sheikah blinked and twisted his lips.

Relative silence settled over the room, broken only by a bird singing outside the window and someone in the garden briefly shrieking bloody murder about… cabbages, it sounded like. It ceased just before Zelda glided back in. "There is a formal dinner tonight to welcome our guests - of course; you'll recall I invited you, Link?"

Ah-ha… no. No he didn't.

"And, of course, you're here now." Sheik stated with a swirl of his hand for the ceiling.

Hell.

"Weren't you complaining about this last time?" Link protested.

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I was. But now is different. Now I know you will be suffering with me and perhaps - well, look at it this way; you can be my date. Provided our fair Lady doesn't snatch you up."

Wide-eyed and wishing so forlornly to protest, Link stared.

Plaintively against his wishes, the scene kept unfolding.

"He's all your's." Zelda put in with her usual sweetness.

Of all the reviling….

"After all, what's a date or two between friends?"

From then on, Link understood why Sheik hid his face. His smiles were nothing short of demonic.


"I am not comfortable with this."

"Link. Do you see this thing wrapped around my waist? It is called a corset. Do not talk to me about discomfort."

He acquiesced because really, it looked quite painful. Squinting at it, he directed a question to the man styling his hair. "Why do you wear it?"

"To make my waist smaller and more ladylike." Sheik continued pulling back his hair. Link twitched at the fingers brushing over his roots.

"Does it have to be out of my face? I like it there…"

"My deepest apologies." Sheik leant over his shoulder to connect their gazes, lips quirked in sympathy. Both eyes were visible. "But it is required, for formality as well as a preventive measure."

… huh?

"It keeps one's hair from the food and food from one's hair." He elaborated, pressing free clothes into Link's hands. "I will step out. Please avoid messing my effort, lest we repeat this endeavor."

Recalled horror made Link obey.

He gazed at cold stone and dressed, leaving to find Sheik against the wall and, defying all laws of being a woman (as Zelda would later state) ready to depart for the hall.

Zelda would also later lecture Sheik that even the biggest dullard in the kingdom wouldn't believe his drag show if he only took minutes to dress.

One expectant look later (and… maybe Sheik grabbing his arm and making it move the way he wanted it to. Maybe.) and their arms were hooked together. They were off.

Gazing at Sheik at the corner of his eye - dressed up as a young Duchess, with solemn painted features and hair pinned back - he found himself wondering how the Sheikah managed to stay sane.

He could live in the shadows, protect the princess, pretend to be this duchess - all at once? Toss on top the recently neglected fact of his vampiric tendencies. Looking at someone so impressive, Link found he wasn't afraid at all.

Consideration of his earlier words was in order. Shadows were scary - ambiguous and ever-changing, deceitful. Monsters hid away in shadows.

Monsters weren't so scary were you could see them. The dripdripdrip of rain from the roof in the afternoon was far less disconcerting than the dripdripdrip in a gloomy tomb.

Outlined and painted by the sun, shadows became people and places and words.

Of course, only dark things chose to hide in the shadows - one would think this, initially, but…

In the war, where did Zelda go? She blotted herself out with night's cloak…

And of course, his guide almost always arrived fresh and dressed in shadow.

Maybe good things could hide in the dark, too.


AN

Crazy, dramatic drag queen sheik is crazy.

Hell means "bright" in German.

Weiss means "white"

Tot means "dead"

And Elfenlied means "elf song"… wait. What does this have to do with the story?

Apparently they keep monster corpses in the castle's meat cellar. (Mm, tektite.)

Vampirical things are taking a back seat at the moment, I'm afraid. BTW, yes, I know the sunlight kills thing is added to vampire myth in the last few hundred years, but to be fair, back then the myth was still of a hideous putrid corpse (deadhand?) who's smell was terrible you fainted or fled immediately upon its presence, not some super sexy smooth talker. Also, it might strangle you to death before biting (instead of all this weird contemporary I bite you, you become a vampire crap. You would grow weak and often die and MIGHT come back as a vampire. Maybe.)

The sleeping isn't actually because of magic loss, but because of blood loss. Here the blood magic is in terms of, say, mixing sugar into water. Lets suppose its all perfectly even in its distribution. The more sugar (magic) in the water, the less Sheik drinks. The less Sheik drinks, the less time his victim needs to recover lost blood.

For anyone curious about the comment on nunneries Sheik made, it could be taken in one of two ways, both insulting - the man needs to find religion, or more likely in this scenario, he could be speaking of a brothel house. And it is a nod to the Bard of Avon, who's more popular works I tend to dislike.

General story notes:

I wanted to make Sheik's title Duchess of Schwarz, since that means black and would directly oppose the duke's 'white', but regretfully Tot was a better fit.

On corsets - they should never hurt. If they hurt they're on wrong/fitted wrong/or otherwise, but something is WRONG.

Sheik's just not comfortable with certain… restraining qualities.

On the Shadow temple

The day I wrote this I beat Bongo bongo. I ran out of arrows after injuring him once. (I kept missing even with the hover boots.) I had three bottled fairies that I didn't want to waste, a strong desire to not retrace my steps to the boss chamber, and some serious pent up aggression. I set my jaw, equipped my longshot, and killed that mother (bleep)… I sat on the couch for about ten seconds, realizing the relieved rush of happiness. Then I jumped up onto the cushions, double fist-pumped and bellowed for the house (and my disturbed relatives) at large "Muhahahaha! I WIN!"

… stop staring at me, you know you've done this.