Upon returning to the Gerudo Valley, the first thing they did was rent a room at an inn. Ruto had gone to arrange a bath, leaving Kopii alone in the room they had rented. He sat down heavily on one of the cots, and fished Shadow-Joy's mask out of the bag he'd been carrying it in. Now that it was no longer in a pitch-black environment, it did not seem quite so ominous as it had when Kopii had first laid eyes on it.
It didn't look like the kind of mask one would normally wear. There were no holes for the eyes, nostrils or mouth, and it the contours were smoother than one would expect of a mask made to be worn on the face. The design was utterly simple; Solid black, except for solid yellow slashes that represented two manic eyes and a grinning smile. In the light that filtered through the opaque, animal-skin windows, they eyes did not seem to glow as they had in the impenetrable shadows of the temple.
"Kopii?"
Kopii jerked his head up to find Ruto standing over him.
"I came to tell you that they've almost finished drawing the bath," Ruto said, and sat down beside him.
"So this is the mask we came all this way to find." It was a statement, not a question, and the tone in which Ruto said it made Kopii shift uneasily.
"With it I'll be able to fight the Fierce Deity," Kopii said, and began to put it back in its sack.
"Well, if you say so," Ruto sniffed haughtily. "Personally, I don't see why it has to be you running off to fight this Fierce Deity."
Kopii sighed. "The Fierce Deity cannot be allowed to go unchallenged-" he began, but Ruto cut him off.
"But why do you have to be the one to stop it? Where is it written that you have to be the one who fights the Fierce Deity?"
"Excuse me?" Ruto and Kopii turned to see who had spoken. A young gerudo girl was at the door, looking slightly uncomfortable. "Your bath is ready now, I was sent to get you," she explained, feeling abashed at having interrupted the two in the middle of an argument.
Ruto gave Kopii a parting Look, and stalked off in the direction the young gerudo had indicated. Kopii sighed deeply after they left, and looked miserably at the sack where he had stashed the mask. Where was it written? It seemed that there was no escape from the coming battle. He had been made to fight Link, and now even after the death of Ganondorf, fate conspired to pit him against his pale-skinned nemesis in a battle from which neither could walk away from again.
He flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Why did it have to be him? Why had the mask singled him out? It was too poetic to be mere coincidence. Link, and Dark-Link. The Fierce Deity, and Shadow-Joy. Two identical opposites. Or was there more to it than that? Kopii had never really thought about where he had come from, what he had been before he saw that boy and green suddenly found himself capable of awareness. Were they connected somehow, his self and Shadow-Joy? He wasn't at all sure, now that he had worn the mask, whether he was comfortable with the thought that they might be alike. There was something about Shadow-Joy, something unsettling that made Kopii wonder about it's true intentions. Sure, it wanted to defeat Oni-Link, but what then? What was to stop it from controlling Kopii the way the Fierce Deity was even now controlling Link? It was with these thoughts in his mind that the heat and exhaustion caused Kopii to doze off into a fitful slumber.
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The water was tepid by the time Ruto reached the bath, but she didn't mind. The water she usually swam in was much colder anyway, and she sank gratefully into the large wooden tub. She tried to relax, but her mind was in too much turmoil to let her be even for a moment.
It was happening all over again. Just like her first love Link, Kopii was being taken away from her by the call of destiny. Why were the Goddesses doing this to her? They had already taken away Link, her people, and now they sought to steal Kopii from her as well? It was too much.
Ruto slipped her head beneath the water, and drew it deeply into her gills as she brooded.
She had thought her heart would break when she'd discovered that she couldn't have Link. She hadn't thought she could ever feel for anybody the way she had for him. Then one day she had found Kopii washed up on the shores of Lake Hylia, and it seemed like she was being given another chance. She hadn't said anything to Kopii, but she had genuinely come to care about him in the time that she had known him. Not just because he reminded her of Link, though that was why she had originally taken him in. No, there was more to it than that. Link had never really been there. He had always had somewhere more important to be, something he needed to do that was more important than other people. Kopii was different. From the time she had brought him in, he had always had time to listen when she felt like talking, and never complained or even seemed to mind when she interrupted him while he was doing something else. He was so sweet, and patient, and for a while Ruto had thought that she might finally have found somebody she could settle down with. Now all of a sudden destiny had reared it's ugly head, and it seemed that events were conspiring to take Kopii away from her.
"Not this time!" she said standing up. "This time I fight too! If destiny won't let him stay with me, then I'll go with him, and destiny be damned!" She jumped out of the tub, not bothering to towel off the way a Hylian woman would, and marched out dripping toward the room she had rented. She found Kopii lying asleep on the bed and without thinking about what she was doing, she jumped on top of him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and kissed him fiercely on the mouth. Kopii woke up and in his confusion tried to say something, but Ruto interrupted him by sliding her tongue between his parted lips. Kopii was too shocked to react at first, but then began to kiss her back. After what seemed like an eternity Ruto broke the kiss, and drew herself up haughtily before saying, "I'm staying with you, no matter what you do or where you go, and nothing anybody can do will stop me!"
Kopii was too confused to say anything other than "Okay," before Ruto kissed him again, and all other thoughts left both their minds.
