Authors Note
The plot really get's rolling in this chapter, even though the first part doesn't really seem like it. Keep on reading and I'm pretty sure you won't be disappointed.
By the way Astraeus will be a main supporting character, personally he's fun to write. It'd be nice if you guys dropped a review to tell me how much you like Astraeus' character overall.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Legend of Zelda, Nuff said.
Link snapped open his eyes and looked blearily out side the window. It was still dark outside, Link yawned and looked over at Darunia, the bed he was sleeping on had caved in but regardless the Goron kept on napping.
Link smirked just a little before standing up and sliding on a dark green shirt and his trademark green hat along with a pair of pants. The clothes coming out of the pack that he carried, a gift from Navi from the beginning of their journey. Link sighed and rubbed the old thing lightly. Before he would have carried all of his tools and weapons in there. Now it was used for carrying day to day itiems.
Link sighed again and started to walk down stairs. A light was on, he noticed as he walked down the stairs. He peered around the corner and stiffened slightly. Zelda was there and clad in light sleep wear that made her look like any other person in the morning except for the thick tome that glimmered in the light of what seemed to be a floating ball of fire and a noticeable drop in modesty for the princess of Hyrule. " What are you wearing Zel?" he sputtered as he stepped around the corner, the tips of his ears red.
Zelda snapped her head to the left " Link" she greeted, motioning for him to sit on the chair to her left as she closed the massive tome with a thud. " I didn't know that you would be here." she said lightly, cocking her head to one side ignoring the question.
" Why wouldn't I be here? After all it is a inn isn't it? And again why are you wearing that?" Link said, taking out a stick from his pouch and igniting it with the magical fire that Zelda was reading by before placing it under neath a pot that he promptly filled with water from a bottle in his pack.
" No, it's a library." she said faintly amused " I sleep here most of the time."
Link looked over at the princess " Wait... Then the room we've been sleeping in is..."
"Mine." Zelda said before covering up a yawn with her hand.
" Farore Zelda! I'm so sorry." Link stammered as he now realized why the bed sheets were pink and the unusual abundance of books on the shelf. He dreaded to think what he would of found if he had bothered combing through the drawers.
" No worries Link." Zelda laughed " It's the least I can do for the man who saved my kingdom."
Link looked around " Sheik isn't here is she?" He said nervously while turning around. She better not be right behind... He promptly met the ruby gaze of a not so happy sheikah me. The green clad hero sighed.
" You know how uncomfortable it is to sleep on wooden desks?" she snapped annoyed.
Zelda yawned " Never mind that Sheik, now that Links up I suppose we can call everyone together now."
" Fine." she sighed as she ghosted past Link and went to the fountain in the middl e of Castle Town to wake up Ruto.
" Your getting Nabooru Link." Zelda said sweetly her blue eyes glimmering.
Link sweat dropped " I hate you." he muttered, resigning himself to the inevitable punishment for interupting Nabooru's "beauty sleep".
Nabooru! His younger version sighed nudging her with the hilt of his sword. "Wake up." Nabooru kept on snoring. "Wake up damn you!" he snapped losing his nerve. Nabooru snapped open her eyes " Hey kid." "What?" "I'm giving you a five second head start."
"What?"
Link sighed and walked outside to the bar that Nabooru and her bodyguards were staying in, the old memories trickling in like a river. Link eyed the place cautiously like Sheik on caffeine. " This is not going to be pretty is it?" he muttered as he took a bomb out of his pack that he had purchased last night.
Link chucked the bomb into the bar and made a break for it.
1 ….Do I regret this? Nope.
2 ….Will I regret this? Probably.
BOOM!
" I'm going to kill you Link." Nabooru's screamed as she shot out like a bolt of lightning, her hair down and clad in red pajama's both were severely blackened and charred. Link sighed and stood in the middle of the road hoping that for once Nabooru would be nice. She wasn't.
Sheik looked at Link smugly as he hobbled back into the library. " No comment." she said, smirking behind her cowl as she looked at the array of purple splotches that dotted his body along with the limping leg.
Zelda looked him over critically " Well your not too badly hurt, your legs are badly bruised and your ribs look cracked but otherwise not too bad." she said as a ball of blue magic appeared in her hands. "Give me a moment."
Link stiffened immediately, his skin re knitting itself and his bones making an audible cracking as they started to mend. It also hurt like Hell. " Thanks Zel." he said calling her his pet name for her. He missed the light blush that tinged her cheeks when he turned away to rub his shoulder.
Zelda yawned and stretched as a moody Sheik returned with Impa, Darunia, and Ruto in tow along with a certain darkly clad sheikah.
Link stood up annoyed " What's he doing here?" he snapped jabbing a finger at Astreaus.
Astreaus shrugged " I'm not going to answer that." he yawned through the cowl that he wore.
Impa looked over at the now boiling pot of water " Good you've got some water for Kafay." she said approvingly as she took out a small cloth wrapped bundle of what appeared to be brown dust.
Nabooru smirked, her spirits in good condition after beating the stuffing out of Link " I'm taking some for my tea." she said, scooping out a mug of boiling water before popping a packet of tea into it.
Zelda looked over at Impa " I don't see how you can stand that stuff." she said before taking out a packet that Link recognized as hot chocolate.
Link sighed and watched the sages take his hot water. Astreaus yawned and took out a packet of what looked like mints before popping one into his mouth and contented himself with slouching against the wall.
Zelda sipped appreciatively at her cup of hot chocolate as Sheik did the same on the opposite side of the table.
Nabooru eyed Sheik curiously as the gerudo sipped her tea " How do you drink with that cowl Sheik?" she asked curiously.
Shiek shrugged and resumed drinking, obviously not willing to divulge her secrets.
Impa blinked and took a chug of her Kafay " Alright so let's get down to the main order of business. What are we going to do?" she said simply.
Zelda shot her former bodyguard a look " How about you tell us what was going on last night and then we can talk about that." she said.
Impa rubbed the bridge of her nose " I thought you gave up on that." she sighed and moodily resumed drinking her Kafay.
Astreaus sighed and opened a single crimson eye at the princess of Hyrule " Look at that massive book you have plopped onto that table." he said bluntly as he slid into the chair next to Sheik. Sheik raised an eyebrow at that but shrugged and resigned her self to stay seated, she had no problem with the other sheikah.
Link raised an eyebrow at Astreaus who met the gaze with a amused glance " Yes?"
Link glared again " Again what are you doing here."
Astraeus blinked " Helping." he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Link glowered somemore and watched Zelda heave open the cover. " Shadows of the ages." he read curiously.
Impa stroked the cover of the book gently " The single book that we the sheikah gifted your ancestors with." she said, tracing the embossed title. " It's a encyclopedia of sorts for forbidden knowledge." she said amused.
Zelda grimaced as she attempted to pry open the cover " Impa, why isn't it opening?" she asked finally after a moment of extertion.
Impa smiled amused " The book requires the blood of 3 different sheikah to open as a way to ensure that the opener of the book had the approval of the sheikah." she said lightly. " If you please, Sheik?"
Sheik sighed and removed the stiletto knife from her bandage wrappings " Alright, let's get this over with." she said and sliced her pinky and allowed several drops of the crimson liquid to fall down onto the cover of the book.
The blood slowly began to glow and crackle.
Impa nodded and took out the throwing needles that were favored by the sheikah and cut her thumb, allowing her blood to join with Sheik's.
Impa tossed the throwing needles or senbon over to Astraeus.
Astraeus raised his eyebrows " I don't recall when I ever volunteered to hand over my blood." he said eying the senbon curiously.
Link snapped, the events of last night flooding through him. " You volunteered the moment you entered this room." he snarled clenching his blade " You give us some blood or we're taking it from you."
Astraeus reached into his back pocket for a deku nut, before he felt his wrists lock into place " I don't think so." Zelda said sweetly with a murderous glare.
Sheik sighed and socked Zelda in the stomach " The participant needs to give it willingly." The female sheikah said annoyed as Zelda crumpled.
Link glared at Shiek " Who's side are you on?" he asked.
Sheik glared back " Yours" she snapped and jabbed her finger at Astraeus " Blood now." she said simply.
Astraeus sighed and cut his finger with the senbon " Fine." he muttered, allowing the blood to drip over his finger and onto the cover of the book.
Nabooru smiled " That wasn't so hard was it?" she asked as she finished of the last of her tea.
Astraeus sighed " That was harder than anything I have done in my whole life." He said irritably as he sat back down next to Sheik "Thanks for getting my wrists free." he said simply as he watched his own blood begin to glow.
Sheik shrugged " Welcome."
Link sighed and looked over at the still unconscious Zelda " Did you have to hit her that hard?" he said to Sheik as he flipped open the now obliging book. "Also what did you mean by forbidden knowledge?"
Impa flipped to page 17 and began to read the sheikah runes while saying bluntly " Forbidden means Evil."
Link payed attention to that " Then what are we doing opening up a book of evil knowledge?" he asked pointedly to Astraeus who was toying idly with the senbon he was holding.
Astraeus blinked " What better way to find out about evil than from evil itself?" he said philosophically.
Sheik smiled at the familiar quote " -Obsidian founder of the sheikah." she said lightly.
Astraeus cracked a smile at that " Men gamble away their life savings but are unwilling to part with their own sins. Such is the fault of men."
Sheik's lips twitched " 17th leader of the sheikah, Yinra." she said easily " The longing of life is to be held in the light, yet we all are tempted by darkness."
Astraeus smirked behind his cowl " Dinreu, 7th king of Hyrule." he replied.
Nabooru and Link along with the rest of the sages blinked as they watched the two sheikah trade increasingly more complex philosophical quotes. " Well it's a good of a way to kill time as any." Darunia rumbled as he took a swig from a flask at his side.
20 minutes later...
Zelda sat up with a start as she rubbed her aching temples " Don't hit me so hard next time." she said to no one in particular as she straightened up and looked around the room.
Astonishingly Sheik was smiling, something she only ever did when she was REALLY happy or really interested in whatever was happening.
Even more astonishingly was who she was talking to. From her limited time with both of the sheikah, she knew that they both were people of few words and that they hardly ever got involved with anything, not to mention their typical antisocial tendencies.
Astraeus turned toward Zelda, his usual mask reasserting itself " Joined the world of the living at last Princess?" he said.
Link sat up with a groan " Finally Princess, we've been listening to these two yapping on about philosophical quotes for 20 minutes."
Sheik shrugged " It was interesting though." she said amused as she looked over at Astraeus " We should do that again some time." she said lightly, plopping herself down into the seat next to the male sheikah.
Zelda looked over at her bodyguard with a odd look, Sheik almost never enjoyed doing something with other people. " What world did I wake up in?" she asked curiously.
Astraeus looked over at the female sheikah " Sure." he said, with a little more warmth in his voice before turning back to Zelda " We got the book open." he said in his normal tone. "Impa's been looking at it." Astraeus gestured toward the sheikah in the corner who looked like her nose was glued to the book.
Nabooru sighed and rubbed her stomach contentedly " That was a good 20 minutes of Drinking." she chuckled, the alcohol making her loose control of her senses.
Darunia nodded, " I won our little contest though." he boomed " 30 shots of goron brewed wine."
Nabooru socked the hefty goron in the shoulder " I was only 2 behind." she protested indignantly.
Zelda sighed and nudged the sage of shadow " Found anything good?" she asked curiously.
Impa sighed and rubbed her nose " I think I know what the other link, or should we say, Umbral Link, is." she said as she flicked over to page 32 " Here it talks about reverses and shades. Dark link was a Darker, or a opposite version of you Link, and he could have been only be killed by your hand."
Nabooru looked over at Impa " So then how do we kill it?" she asked.
Impa shrugged " It says here that for a Reverse or a Shade to die, the creator of the Shade must die or you can find a equally powerful shade to kill it, a little bit more different than Dark Link although we can still injure him we can't directly kill him." she said as she looked at the book.
Ruto plucked absent mindfully at the Zora engagement stone " Well that sounds complicated." she muttered annoyed as she ran her fingers over the blue sapphire.
Link frowned " Wait... I remember Umbral saying that the sky was fitting for the first lock on his master."
Zelda frowned " So we can assume that the creator of the shade is the master tht he's talking about."
Impa rubbed her shoulder exasperatedly " So that means that we have to create or find a shade of equal or grerter power to kill it." she said annoyed.
Sheik twirled around the stiletto in her hand, " Well that's not good." she muttered.
Zelda raised her eyebrow at her bodyguard " What's that supposed to mean?"
Astraeus ran his finger over the senbon that Impa had tossed him earlier " Since the the Umbral Link looks exactly like Link, we can presume that he's the Shade or Reverse of Link, either way, since Link posses the Triforce, a shade of equal power would also have to be a Shade of a weilder of the Triforce."
Nabooru gulped nervously " So that means that since Ganon is now sealed away, the only other weilder of the triforce is..."
Astraeus sighed and rubbed his nose " Zelda," he said " Looks like I won't have time for any philosophy." he sighed as he looked over at Link who was clutching his sword so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.
Impa swore " Nayru..." then came some moments of intense cursing and unrepeatable profanities.
Sheik didn't say anything.
Neither did Astraeus.
Nabooru started to look like she was going to pass out.
Ruto did pass out and Darunia sat there looking like he hadn't understood a word of the conversation after Impa said "I."
Zelda poked her former bodyguard " I didn't know you could swear like that." she said curiously before looking over at the other two sheikah " Go scout out side. I don't want anything happening to the sages or Castle town under my watch."
Astraeus sighed and rubbed his shoulder " Whatever." he muttered and dropped a Deku nut before vanishing.
Sheik mirrored his movements except saying " Fine."
Zelda glared at Impa " Now I want to know what happened last night." she snarled dropping her calm air." With no other Sheikah present there's no one to spread the word so what the HELL happened, It's obviously important and since I'm the one who's going to have to make the shade, I think I should be notified of Important stuff."
Impa sighed and raised her hand in defeat. " Edry snikrth." she muttered and a everyone in the room promptly fell asleep " I didn't want to do that." she muttered, the shadow magic that the sheikah practiced was often subtle, only able to be used when the targets were unsuspecting.
"Alright fine I'm telling you, but you really don't like it when people don't tell you things do you?" she muttered as she faced the Crown Princess of Hyrule.
Good? Bad? Maybe? Please tell me. But the Twili will be introduced in the next chapter which I have almost finished writing. I'm good aren't I? I should wait a little longer inbetween updates but... that'd be a little cruel. I'm thinking 4-5 days.
R&R
Astra'shadow