SHOOT ME, JUST KILL ME NOW SO I DON'T HAVE TO PUT YOU THROUGH THIS TORTURE AGAIN!~

...I'm sorry that I died for however long. -w-' This chapter was really short because I just wanted to post it. I hope the gap between this one and the next one won't be so long next time. *sigh* I'll keep writing!

-Nessa

Responses to reviews:

xPerfectMistake: Glad you like it! I feel kind of bad for him too xD I'll try and make him happier or something.

Aningwel: Haha, I'm glad you enjoyed it! It's fun to write them, especially when Link is all clueless in the middle x'D I'm trying to make Zelda a bit bipolar, if you will; sweet and nice with Link but jerkish and argumentative with Sheik.

Confused? Not really. Shocked? A little. Terrified? Yes.

Sheik, much better at reacting quickly to new situations, gave me a shove and said urgently, "Help me break the ice!" which my brain processed reluctantly and forced me to regain my nerve (what nerve?). He put a knife in my hand and I automatically turned to the covering of red ice which he'd been trying to break previously, but he immediately began to yell at me.

"Zelda!" he shouted, agitated, then pointed at the ice below the rock ledge, which was normally the pool that the waterfall drained into, where the Zoras swam. "That ice!"

I stood stone-still for another split-second, wondering what on earth that would do, when I realized that Sheik was probably a genius. (It pains me to admit it.) I would never have thought to do that! Even if we only made a few cracks in that ice, the weight of the incoming water would eventually cause it to cave in on itself, buying us a bit more time. Why not help it along?

Now, I did see two flaws in Sheik's plan: first, even if we did crack the ice, it probably wouldn't help the process all that much; and second...I have no aim. I cannot hit a bulls-eye to save my life. He clearly expected me to throw the knife into the ice, certainly not onto it...and there was no way I could do something like that.

The Sheikah, on the other hand, were excellent with that sort of thing, and I always got the notion that they didn't really understand their own brilliance, so naturally Sheik didn't understand my hesitancy.

"What are you doing?" he hissed. "What—SHIT!"

He jumped back with incredible reflexes as a stalactite (yes, I do know the difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite) fell directly in front of us. I fell down, the knife I was holding lost in the flood of water. Oh...

Sheik was standing immediately. "Did you lose it?" he shouted over the roar of the waterfall.

I bit my lip and started to get up too. "Sheik, I'm sorry—"

He turned away. "We don't have time for sorry!" He was right; the water level was rising at an alarming rate. "I've only got one knife left, and it's either the blue ice or the red!"

I glanced at the red ice: another stalactite had fallen on it and taken a good chunk out of the stuff. It wouldn't take us long to get through it now, even without a knife, and with all the tremors going on and rocks falling from the roof of the cavern, the red ice could break on its own. I looked back at Sheik. "Blue," I said firmly. "Buy me some more time, I'll see what else I can do!"

He nodded once, turned around, and set a stance to throw his dagger. Being a "now or never" sort of person, he didn't hesitate (unlike what I would've done in that situation). He threw it right away. His aim was good. His timing was not.

The ice shifted.

It was another tremor, dropping more stalactites and cracking the rock below our feet. What would've been a beautiful shot was suddenly an immense failure, his last knife sliding across the ice and knocking into chunks of stone, making a sound like metal against rock—which it was, though the knives were sharp steel, not blunt iron.

Blunt iron against rock...blunt iron against...ice?

Bingo.

I raced around the corner and back to the red ice, where I'd dropped the knapsack we'd brought, and immediately began rummaging through it. How had I not thought of that before? Oh, Goddesses, I didn't forget to bring those, too, did I—? "YES!"

I pulled the Iron Boots out of the bag triumphantly—they weighed a ton—and ran up to the red ice. I smashed the blunt iron tips of the boots against the ice and it shattered like glass. "SHEIK!" I yelled.

I had no idea what he had been doing, but he immediately turned around. "What?" he mouthed.

The waterfall was too loud. A thin layer of water was covering the outcropping of rock we were standing on. I was just in time. I stepped away from the red ice and pointed to the gap I'd made in it with the Iron Boots.

His eyes lit up. I shoved the Boots back into the knapsack and slung it over my back, then jumped through the opening in the red ice, not waiting to see if he was following. I raced up the stairs into the chamber of King Zora XVI and sprinted up to the gate he usually sat at. The tremors were growing worse, the ground literally falling from underneath my feet, but I kept running anyway. Rocks were falling from the roof of the cave and my ears were ringing from the sound of rushing water. The water was up to my calves, now. A loud splash behind me told me that Sheik was following. We kept running.

I think it's ironic that the moment when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel was the moment when something hit the back of my head and I crumpled.

Ouch.

Too bright! I shut my eyes again. Way too bright. Where was I? Oh, right. Zora's Domain. Zora's Domain? I should be dead. But I wasn't dead. We'd made it out in time. Hadn't we?

I sat up straight and forced my eyes open. "Ow—"

Sheik looked at me. "You're awake," he observed blandly. "You weigh a ton, by the way, what do you eat, rocks?"

I sneered at him. "Why, were you looking for some to fill your empty head? I'm taller than you are, numbskull." I put a hand to the back of my head. "What hit me?"

He shrugged. "Stalag—"

"Stalactite," I corrected him immediately.

He glared at me. "You think I care?"

"No," I said. "I like to piss you off."

"I've noticed!" He shook his head and looked away. "Can you stand?"

I nodded and stood to prove my point, then surveyed my surroundings. The cavern we had come from that used to be Zora's Domain had completely caved in on itself. We were at Zora's Fountain, the entrance to the Ice Cavern. What were we doing there? Oh, right, trying to find Nabooru and Ruto—

"Sheik," I said suddenly.

"Yes."

"How long has it been?"

"An hour."

"Shit!" I said. "You should've gone ahead to find them, Sheik!"

He shrugged. "I didn't tag along to help solve your problems, Zelda," he reminded me. "I just wanted an explanation."

I stopped. "And now you've got one."

He nodded. "So I'll be off as soon as you are," he agreed promptly.

As much as I hated this guy's guts, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that he wasn't going to come with me to the Ice Cavern. He was useful to have in tough situations. Apparently it must've showed on my face, because Sheik started laughing.

I glared at him. "What!" I demanded.

He covered his face in his hands—he was actually shaking with how hard he was laughing. "I'm joking, Zelda, are you honestly that dense? Can't you tell that I was just toying with you? Of course I'm coming, when have you ever known me to say no to adventure?"

I blinked. There was a pause. "I should have seen that coming."

He shook his head. "It's not your fault you didn't see it coming, your eyes are still fuzzy from getting hit on the back of the head and making me drag you out of the rubble!" he teased.

I gaped at him. "You make it sound like almost getting killed isn't nearly as bad as having to strain yourself so much as to pick up somebody four inches taller than you are," I said accusingly, with raised eyebrows.

He threw back his head and laughed some more. Why was he doing that? He was making me angry! I turned my back on him. "Maybe you should leave!"

That shut him up fast, and I smirked. "Can we go now?"

"I'm not stopping you!" he muttered, but stood up and gathered our things anyway. "Hey," he said, a bit more loudly, "do you mind if I use that bow? I, ah, don't have any knives left." He gave me a pointed look.

I turned a bit red and shrugged. "If you like. I don't plan on using it myself, I'm terrible with it."

He grabbed the bow and quiver and I picked up the knapsack—why was it so light? "We lost the Iron Boots?"

Sheik looked at me dryly. "Better them than you, right?" he muttered, as though he was regretting his decision.

I scowled. "Yeah. Let's go."

I jumped up the stairs onto the platform where Lord Jabu-Jabu had once sat, then slid down an ice hill (that's a thing now) and nearly fell into the freezing water. I jumped onto the next ice floe and crouched down low, waiting for it to stop shaking. "Sheik!"

"Not drowning!"

"Keep it that way!" I stood up warily and leapt to the next ice floe, trying to land on both my feet at the same time as to not upset it so much, which didn't really work, but hey! give me some credit, I tried. Bronze medal for effort. Not everyone can be a Sheikah.

A few blocks of slippery ice later, something made a flash of metal in the sunlight, seen out of the corner of my eye. I looked over my shoulder but didn't see anything else.

"What?" Sheik demanded. "Keep going!"

"Wait...I think I saw something..."

He began to look around, too, but nothing was there. "You imagined it."

"And how many times has that statement been correct?"

He was exasperated. "There's nothing here, Zelda!"

"Okay, okay, I'm coming! Sheesh."

It was about another ten minutes before we both reached the ledge of rock that was the entrance to the Ice Cavern. It took Sheik alone about six minutes, though. Why, you ask? Well...um...

I may or may not have done a faceplant on an ice floe and fallen into the freezing water.

SHUT UP I'M HUMAN OKAY?

I also may or may not have scraped my arm as I was falling off and made a bigger fuss of it than it should've been.

Sheik shook his head as I hauled myself up onto the rock ledge. "You are such a pansy!"

I spit water out of my mouth. "I was raised a princess, of course I'm a pansy! I'm not meant for all this 'adventure' stuff!" I checked my arm again. No bleeding, just a long scrape. It hurt, though. I hated pain. I hated getting wet like this, too. (I'm a pansy.)

The Sheikah rolled his eyes and turned around, muttering under his breath something that sounded very suspiciously like "damsel in distress."

"Excuse me?" I demanded, appalled. "Can we say 'sexist'?"

"Okay, now you're just contradicting yourself," he said. "Let's go."

You know, this might surprise you a bit, but the Ice Cavern is really fucking cold.

Especially when you're already sopping wet and freezing to begin with. And a pansy. Just a heads up.

It didn't take us long to get through it at all. Because I had neglected to bring any bottles (just kill me now), we ended up playing an extreme game of cold potato with the blue fire in order to melt some red ice that blocked our path. (In my head, it was an epic session of making dramatic catches from thirty feet away, then throwing the blue fire onto the red ice to then poetically charge through the newly opened passage. In reality, it was more like both of us swearing like sailors and attempting not to drop the freezing flames onto any other vaguely important body parts while we slipped and tried to 'run' towards the red ice.) A few Freezors (annoying) and ice Keese (annoying as hell) and falling ice stalactites (why do I even try) later, we arrived at the very end of the Cavern. Ice sparkled like diamonds everywhere you looked, the chamber dark and the existing light thrown around by the shining ice.

It was empty.

Was I surprised? No.

Was I surprised when a huge burst of light dropped someone right in front of us and causing me to fall backwards and trip Sheik in the process?

Yeah, kinda.

"The fuck?!" Sheik muttered, expressing my own emotions quite accurately.

"Wha?" said a familiar voice. "Goddesses!"

I stood up as quickly as I could without falling over on the slippery ice again. "Link?"

Link had fallen over too. "Crazy old man dropped me out of the sky!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "How did you even get here? What happened?"

"I talked to Rauru for about three seconds," he said, "and then he—he—!"

"Transported you here?" Sheik suggested dryly.

"Exactly!" Link exclaimed, not noticing his sarcasm.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Nothing useful!" he responded. "Some poetry about sevens and eights and—why are you so wet?"

I blinked and looked down at myself. I was wet? Oh, yeah! I was wet. "...I fell."

I think Sheik almost cried.

"Well, anyway," Link continued, shooting Sheik a funny glance, "he just gave me a bunch of nonsense then told me to leave. Kind of him to put me where you guys are, I guess."

"Yes, but what did he say?" I persisted impatiently.

He paused for a second. "He told me about a legend."

"And?"

"Er...something about...ah..."

I frowned. "You didn't actually listen, did you?"

"I did!" Link said immediately. "I did listen! He said something about an eighth sage."

Sheik got up and walked over. "Eighth sage?" he repeated.

"Yeah, a whole lot of nonsense, there's only seven—"

"You have no insight," I interrupted, slightly exasperated. "What did he say about the current seven sages? Darunia being hurt, Saria being sick?"

Link swallowed. "He said...that he had no idea what I was talking about."

Silence.

Sheik was the first to speak. "Was he lying?"

I bit my lip. "I don't think Rauru would lie to us...maybe he really doesn't know."

Link shifted awkwardly and decided to switch directions. "That legend...it said that the leader of the sages would be replaced."

Neither of them looked at me.

"Replaced, as in...?" I began.

"Killed?" Sheik offered.

Link refused to look at either of us. "No, not killed, just replaced."

"By an eighth sage," I said.

"But then there'd only be seven," Sheik pointed out.

"Not if I wasn't killed," I responded.

"I don't think it meant Zelda," Link said suddenly.

We both frowned. "Huh?"

"I think..." He paused. "I think it meant..."

"Yes?" I prompted him.

He was clearly having a hard time voicing his thoughts. "I think it meant...someone else."

There was a really long pause.

"Well, that's anticlimactic," I muttered.

"Who else can be counted as the leader of the sages?" Sheik said. "The true Zelda is dead by now, even if she was destined to be a sage."

I flinched. There it was again, the matter of my not actually being Princess Zelda. There was another long silence.

"Hey, Zellie," Link said after a few moments. "What if it meant the Goddess?"

I just feel the need to add this note at the end...when Link was dropped into the chamber at the end of the Ice Cavern, I was really, really tempted to write, "A wild Hero of Time has appeared!" xD