Some notes before the story:
One thing that's really wonderful about writing fiction is that when your work is read, your readers will see things you never considered in your own stories. It's like thinking you're looking at a piece of flat glass, and then someone comes along and reveals more facets. It borders on serendipity.
Also, I made the terrible and rude mistake of underestimating you guys – I was worried about how you'd react to the different moral values in this story, but you've adjusted quite well (from what I can tell of my reviewers, anyway) so I'm very sorry for that, and thank you all.
On nudity: It was mentioned in the reviews for last chapter that Sheik wasn't very perverted in the baths. He was at least partly raised in an environment where nudity, while not smiled on in public, still isn't that big of a deal compared to the city. It didn't even occur to him that a very naked, very wet Link would be something to perv over. (Fans everywhere cried at the missed opportunity.) As for me, I am ashamed. Apparently Link must be naked in a bed before Sheik will get the memo.
Final note: I've always been fond of the idea that when a vampire gets hungry or shows their bestial nature, their eyes change. Not the color, per say, like blue to red or anything, because that implies a disguise, but a natural and subtle but definitely-there change in their own appearance.
When the world bleeds away from rational thought to instinct, like in situations with heightened emotions for humans… you can see it in their eyes. I wanted to include that.
Review replies
Trolly's Bara-chan:I suppose I'm doing a good job then, if you have to keep reading X3 And I'm really good at not answering important questions, but its in the name of plot. Probably. I swear.
Sunnepho: This Sheik is so serious most of the time, its hard to make him a pervert. *sigh* I'm very happy you enjoyed the bite scene.
To some other people: not that I have ANY room to talk, but I SEE YOU. With your favorites and story alerts! If you like the story enough to click those, please leave a review. Just a sentence or even a word, it would make me very happy. I have like, the self-esteem of turnip and need reassurance that I'm doing something beyond scribbling pretty words. So… Please?
Guide to Cambion, Darkness and other Anomalies of night. Companion volume to Atlas of Ghouls
Authored and illustrated by Hell's Firefly
Coauthored by the Bright Red Light, because he wouldn't stop scribbling on my pages. Bastard.
Chapter 9: What you want… isn't always the best (Knowing that, will you still chase it?)
With those words, he had taken her opinions and decisions and immortalized them in stone.
"Alright then." Midna clapped her hands, giving him a winning smile. "I think I'm just going to consider this whole thing a fault of fate! Why, now that the Lady Zelda is becoming Queen, I'll just snatch her right on up… And with her, Hyrule itself!" She let out a –hushed- cackle, rubbing her hands together with glee while Sheik rolled his eyes.
"Are you joking? I can't tell…" She'd better be; he would hang her organs all over the realm if she seduced Zelda. There wouldn't be a clean blade of grass in Hyrule once he was contented.
Of course, I'll likely end up doing that anyway to some fool or another, if the court is disapproving of Zelda's wishes…
Midna chuckled, leaning back to look at the moon. "I guess you'll just have to wait and see, eh? Not that I would have any real use for this place. I can only come out in darkness… Mm. How do you deal with it, brother?" The Twili wondered, tilting her head back to regard the moon. Hair that should be orange spilled over her back and shoulders, black and shining softly.
"Sheikah are different. We are made to follow light – you are made to hide from it." For whatever reason, Midna found that amusing enough to chuckle.
"Following lights, huh?" Quoth she, before letting out another laugh. This one sounded more subdued than what he was used to, as little as he was used to Midna, at least, and he wondered what she was thinking.
"… who was that Hylian?"
He retracted his wish. Midna could just keep her mouth shut until the end of time if she was going to ask things like that.
Midna narrowed her eyes at the moon. Where it was in the black-velvet sky spoke volumes to her, and the most important one said she would have to leave soon.
Sheik, who had leant back on the ledge and closed his eyes to half-dream and half-plan, didn't reopen them before acknowledging her inquiry.
"There were a little over one thousand – you'll have to be more specific than that."
"The one who was walking with you and the Lady." Midna replied, unbothered by his selective knowledge. "He trudged off to the graveyard before you and I came out here to chat, you know the one."
Oh, well, he tried. Sheik grunted. "A puppy." He began wryly, "That I brought home as a boy." Just as he said so, the grass by the graveyard entrance rustled. Sheik cracked open his eyes and together he and Midna looked over to find Link emerging from the darkness.
He was brushing something off his hair with a disgusted expression.
Blessed distractions. "Catch another redead, hero?" Sheik drawled as he slithered off the roof top with an atypically despicable smirk.
"Shut up." Link grumbled back, narrowing his eyes.
Sheik sauntered into his space with the air of someone who not only was used to being there, but had likely stuck a flag in somewhere to proclaim it as his own. (Not that Midna had any way to know about that.) He was very much glad of the distraction, and he hadn't picked on Link in a while (A while being, perhaps, twenty-four hours).
"So what happened, then?" He purred while quirking one eyebrow at Link, who grumbled something under his breath and looked away.
A soft wind rung against them, it's feeling dark and effervescent. Midna had taken leave of their company.
Challenge lit up his eyes and even as he spoke his voice grew thick with mischief. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that." Sheik murmured too-sweetly, staring head-on at Link
"I said I fell down another hole." Link shot back, looking up to bump their foreheads together - rather painfully. Sheik ignored the burning ache to laugh.
"We should just call you Alice."
Link collapsed on the blanket the moment it hit the floor. Sheik quirked an eyebrow at him, tossing another blanket on top of the hero. He also nudged him in the ribs with his foot, but Link was ignoring that.
"… The world is still messed up, Sheik." He muttered, curving his body into the fetal position and closing his eyes.
"Did you really expect to change it all?" Sheik's tone wasn't dry for once, but very serious and touched with the slightest concern. Under the blanket, Link smiled.
"Would've been nice."
He tensed, just a little, at Link's innocent notion. Rustling issued from the bed in the corner of the loft – soft footsteps carried over to them, barely there at all.
Red eyes flickered through the darkness to Zelda's so-faint face. Her eyes shined where the little light touched on them, blue and the only color in the world… Sheik reached out and touched her wrist gently. "… I wish you two didn't go outside at night." She murmured, taking his hand and clasping it a moment before letting go. "I was worried… what if… if you two weren't still here? I…" She shook her head, letting out a noise that was neither a keen nor a cry.
Sheik's eyes flashed in sympathy. "You know we'll still be here in the morning, don't you? Please sleep." His whisper broke the dark. Zelda sighed, but settled on the floor beside his legs. He cocked his head while watching her doze. Link had been asleep for over a minute already.
The room was almost black. Faint streaks of moonlight fell in from the roof, really from cracks or a window, he didn't know.
But even with the little streaks of shattered light, the darkness was ruler, crawling across each surface, possessive and protective and silent. Outside the silver-blue sheen of moonlight, he wasn't permitted to see anything.
The world outside wasn't silent – cicadas whistled softly, owls cooed and cried. Another night bird shrieked, and he heard the sharp bark of a fox. No hylian noises reached him, because hylians needed sunlight and safety to thrive, but he could imagine years ago when Kakariko was full of sheikah again, buzzing with life in the late hours. Hylians needed their sun and their safekeeping. Sheikah could dance through life on danger and night with only the barest illumination of the moon to guide their paths. Recognizing that, and staring at the silent and hopefully-sweet-dreaming hylians at his feet, Sheik wondered how shadows and lights could possibly be so different.
He sighed, closing his eyes. It… hadn't really been so long ago… if seventeen years wasn't a lifetime…
The darkness kept trying to swallow him, but the imaginings that played of a world of shifting shadows kept him awake. Just like in the hallway that… day…
His eyes cracked open. All they saw… were curtains and… a shadow by the door…
Blue light drifted inside, and shattered the darkness. Sheik looked upward.
"Navi."
Link woke again to soft warmth settled in his hair, a rarer feeling as of late than waking up without. Navi cooed something to him, and her warmth pressed against his temple like a kiss, or maybe like she was saying goodbye. Then she settled back in his hair and hummed until the sound sent him back to dreaming.
The moon slowly melted into view, a disgustingly-wide-grinning moon. A timer appeared at the corner of his mind. Five hours… four hours fifty-nine minutes…
Fifty-eight…
Seven…
Six…
Endgame.
He watched the moon come crashing towards him.
I'm going to die here.
And then he… felt the weight of the luna bearing down on him, crushing him and smearing him across the careless earthen rock. And his life slipped from under his fingers, helpless and too slow to grab it back from the weight of the darkness. Then he woke up and did it again.
For three days, three days, three days…
Always- three…
The moon grinned at him, fire trailing it in the torn-asunder sky, and it's too-bright eyes were swallowed by the looming threat of it's too-blunt teeth.
He heard every bit of his body cry out in pain. Between tears and silent prayers he sung the notes and the voice called softly to him from the flashing-fading world, reduced to the moon's teeth and the tower's stone.
Do you want to start the three days over?
He sobbed and sighed and reality shattered, and he opened his eyes on day one.
Feet pounded over stone. He shot along the dark hall, the dull clunk clunk of his toes against temple-tile his only auditory memory. The hounds of hell upon his heels were soundless and screaming, but the rush of wind and the currents sucking his back told him they were there. The scent of poison lingered. Some gale finally outpaced him, and he felt the sickening rush of air before a rotting odor filled his nose and fingers he couldn't see wrapped around his little body and began to squeeze…
The air wouldn't come back to his lungs, he was dying, dear Farore he was dying, but how was it he still found the breath to scream? Little flashes of light that distorted his vision made him cry louder, too breathless and weak and the hands he couldn't see kept pulling his body, brushing his face and hair before ripping into him, gouging out lines of flesh while he howled and, over the buzz of Tatl for just a second he knew he was loose and he took his sword and hacked it apart.
The illusion faded. The room stayed dark.
"Oh… hello, Sheik." The fae sounded tired, but he had more to worry about than her rest. Careful not to wake the hero a few feet from him or the Lady quite nearly underfoot, he spoke.
"Where were you?" His eyes shot to Link, who was very silent and alone, and safely asleep on Impa's floor.
Impa herself, he knew, was somewhere outside and swallowed by night. She wouldn't come back until morning and so he knew that he had plenty of time to get every answer, but at once he wondered if that was really enough…
"… oh, you know, around…" She flickered once, twice in the otherwise abysmal dark.
His eyes narrowed at her, and he supposed her light flashed and reflected in them since she zipped back from his face.
"Why haven't you been staying with Link?" He rumbled, crossing his arms. He felt his shoulders go up and knew that he was baring his teeth, not that they'd do a fairy much harm. Navi drifted a little closer again, light pulling and pushing her aura like a pulse. Her wingbeats were soft sighs of wind in the shadows.
"… I didn't want to tell him."
Groaning issued from a lump of limbs and blankets on the floor, so Sheik glanced towards it. A bleary-eyed Link had emerged and was looking himself over, groaning and shaking his head. He seemed perplexed. "… moon blood…" He muttered, and looked up. "Goo'mornin'" He bit off around a yawn. Sheik didn't even have an urge to do the same, which was quite worrying to the part of his mind not concerned with everything else in their world…
He quirked an eyebrow. "What was the part before that?" He asked, carefully focusing just on their conversation, and not on a still-sleepy hero or those lonely words that were exchanged while he was still in slumber.
"I said 'I thought I was covered in the moon's blood." Link replied, twitching his nose and frowning. His hat had fallen loose in the night, which Sheik knew to be almost-impossible – the damn hat stayed on through everything. Everything. (One day, they might discover if it could stay on during more carnal activities… such musings he was always quick to banish.) Something else he noticed was that Link's hair was reaching impressive lengths.
"You are the moon." He shot back instead of making a quip about that laughable green cap, although he really did want to, and Link didn't reply to things like that at oh-dear-goddesses-why hours of the morning, so they stopped talking a while.
Link plucked his ill-thought-of hat off the floor, and Sheik saw a flash of blue from the inside – Navi was settled in comfortably, he supposed. A moment later, Link's hair was tucked inside it and the ridiculous thing was back on his head. Link was very likely the only person in existence who could even hope to pull off that… monstrosity.
Considering removal… "How do you keep that thing on, anyway?" Sheik asked.
Link lifted one side of his bangs to reveal a wooden hair comb entangled carefully with blond roots, and stitched to the inside of his cap.
"… ah."
Zelda had woken about an hour ago and was readying herself for their return to the castle. Sheik gave a melancholy sigh.
When all this blows over… I will see about bringing her back here a day. She would love the view from the mountain… He sat up, rifling through a crate he'd brought from downstairs. When he found what he was looking for, and subsequently tossed it onto the floor, Link was done with his morning rituals of staring blankly at things and changing clothes. He'd come over to observe what Sheik was doing. He was giving him a curious look, and his eyes flickered back towards the bed in the corner once, the one Zelda had occupied last night.
"I woke up quite some time ago." Sheik admitted quietly, fetching a scarf to cover his face. He tucked his hair under another one, and under the cloth he smiled. "We'll be leaving in a few minutes, if you're ready. Do you know where Epona is?"
"She would've gone back to the ranch by now." Link murmured. Malon will want to keep her awhile.
"I see." He didn't say anything beyond that, just picked up what he'd tossed on the floor and made his way down the stairs. "Zelda and Impa are waiting at the stables."
Link grunted, gathering up his few things, and followed. Sheik locked the door behind them.
There was a stable at the bottom of the stairwell, now. It wasn't quite big enough anymore, since several guards and farmers had moved to Kakariko and brought animals with them. So the carpenters were hard at work expanding it when they came into sight. Two horses sat outside the gates, a black mare and a white stallion. Both were hot-blooded steeds, bred for their speed and Link supposed strength. He recognized the stallion as Zelda's favorite.
"Iyatiku!" Sheik called, in what could be almost construed as a happy voice. Imagine! Link shook his head, trying to hide his smirk by tucking it into his chest. His sheikah friend, meanwhile, moved quickly to the black mare's side and began cooing to her while petting her nose and neck.
"I don't understand why you insist on calling her that." Impa muttered from where she was standing by the white horse. Zelda's dress made mounting difficult, but she managed without either of her guardians' aid.
"It's a good name." Sheik shot back, still rubbing the horse's sable coat. He sounded just the slightest bit defensive.
Zelda settled in on her steed's back, sitting side-saddle and fiddling with something on her skirt, before she… Link had known there was something strange about that dress! The front slit open! (to reveal a pair of pants. Of course.) "Masauwu, you're such a good boy." Zelda praised her stallion, (he whinnied back) while she swung her lead leg over to his other flank, and Impa shot Sheik another look.
"You've even got her doing it," She accused, and mounted the horse behind the soon-to-be queen.
Link gave an uneasy look to the mare still being fussed over.
"You're going to have to ride with Sheik, I'm afraid, if you don't have your horse." Impa called to him, confirming Link's suspicions, because he obviously didn't have Epona. It wasn't as though he could fit her in his pocket and carry her around with him.
"I'm sorry, Link." Zelda added very sincerely from where she held the reins.
Navi settled into his hair and gave a sleepy buzz. That made him think of this morning; the comb did most of the work certainly, but Navi helped keep his hat on. With a little bit of magic as adhesive, (because she liked to sleep inside), but he didn't feel the need to tell Sheik that. He could go on thinking it was just the comb.
Sheik mounted his steed just then, offering a hand to Link. Link took it - just because - and settled behind him in the saddle.
"You may want to hold on." Sheik told him, sounding quite amused for reasons Link couldn't figure.
"Be gentle with him, Sheik." Zelda called warningly. Sheik sent a very sharp smirk in her direction before replying.
"He'll be fine."
"Why wouldn't I be fine?" Link directed his inquiry at Impa, hands hovering just beside Sheik's sides because Link wasn't quite ready to grab him.
With a few gentle kicks, the horses began to trot.
"Because Sheik is a terrible rider." Zelda answered in her elder guardian's place.
"You always make me sound so horrible. I have never crashed a horse." Sheik protested, whipping the reigns so the trot became a canter.
"Not for lack of trying." Both women shot back immediately, dry as the gerudo desert, and Sheik took one hand from the reigns to flutter to his chest with dramatic flair. (Link was a little concerned about the lack of control on the horse then, but since they were going so slowly…)
"You wound me." That said, he leant forward, took back up the reigns, and whipped the night mare into a full gallop.
Link grabbed onto his waist without the time to think.
From behind them some he heard Zelda give a startled shout, and then scant seconds passed before she was off to their side, heading full-tilt at the… bridge… Link looked around Sheik's shoulder to their front.
"Oh, fu-!"
Sheik, meanwhile, was grinning as he decided to forgo little things like pathways and bridges, and chose instead to have his horse jump the brook itself. The brook Epona refused to jump. Link held on tighter and bit back his scream.
Iblis, please save me from your insane child. He prayed. The amulet thrummed, bounce-bounce-bouncing against his chest with every slam of hooves on the ground, and he could swear amusement was rolling off it.
With very good incentive, he found himself clinging even tighter. They were approaching the drawbridge full-tilt.
They arrived in the castle less than twenty minutes later, thanks to Sheik driving with a sort of lunacy Link hadn't even considered possible, and Zelda moving just as quickly but with less shortcuts over low walls and terrified pedestrians.
How dull, he could just hear his friend thinking.
Fucking lunatic, he thought back. That done and pondered on, Link tried to dismount.
… And found he couldn't, because his arms had locked in place around Sheik's middle. The sheikah was definitely a bad driver, certainly an outright terrifying one. After they'd leapt that hill and barely skirted that cart, Link realized that Ganondorf should've taken lessons. Sheik was terrible but damn was he efficient. All that in mind, he supposed it wasn't really shocking that he had been clinging on quite so tight.
Still Link flushed and fumbled, trying very hard to disentangle his arms, and get off the horse, and maybe collapse on the stable floor to thank the goddesses he was alive for a while. Impa patted his calve sympathetically as she passed by to wait at the stable doors, arms crossed.
Both she and Zelda had ridden with Sheik before – Zelda first, because Impa would have never let them on a horse together even if the world was ending if she'd known how Sheik became. Zelda had come up to her that day and said, wide-eyed, that she was never getting on a horse with Sheik again, even if he wasn't driving. Impa, thinking that Zelda was just being dramatic – she was eleven at the time, after all – went riding with him after. Long story short, Zelda was very much correct.
The soon-to-be-queen gave Link an equally sympathetic look from where she was feeding Masauwu sugar cubes. Sheik – of course - was laughing at him.
"Here, hero." He managed between chuckles, carefully pulling apart Link's fingers so he could release his sadomaniacal friend and get far, far away from his equally evil horse (that wasn't fair. Just because her rider was a diabolical bastard didn't mean the condition extended to her).
Sheik's hands were cold from the wind blasting against them, and calloused from using too many weapons. Hands that could rip out a heart, or gently clean a wound. Hands that were very skilled at making problems disappear, with pain or numbness or pleasure -
And goddesses damn it all but why was he noticing that? It didn't matter to him what Sheik's hands felt like…
Except if… Oooh, hey, he could get down now! That discovered, he got off the mare and the hell out of dodge. He did his best to cover the flush on his face. Sheik watched him go with a smile and raised eyebrows. Zelda chuckled behind her hand. Impa didn't do anything at all, which was possibly the scariest, because he knew she was watching. That woman saw everything.
Another minute or so passed before Zelda was contented with the state of her horse, and she made for the door. "I have to get ready. I do hope you don't mind waiting in the throne room, Link…?" She murmured, flashing him a melancholy smile. Of course he didn't, and who could refuse when she looked at them like that…?
Sheik was told to escort him, because apparently men weren't supposed to be there while the future queen was dressed, even if they'd shared a body for years and the man could pass as female himself. Link didn't look too far into it and was content to just drift along behind Sheik. He moved behind the living shadow with naught but a faded leather book in hand, pulled from his bag as they left the stables.
"I have to take care of some other things, but if anyone bothers you, for the love of the goddesses, Link, use your title." Sheik hissed at him, knocking his forehead against Link's gently before disappearing down the hallway again. Link shook his head, a little baffled at just how the sheikah displayed affection – head-butts bumps and bruises abound – and opened the heavy doors.
Colors, every hue and shade filled up his vision like a whirl of dark and light and broken bottles. Shattered-crystal-sights took some time to grow used to, he found, and once he'd gotten over the gleam and glitter of bejeweled gowns in every imaginable tone (and some probably before unimagined, too) he made his way inside, weaving around the masses of silk and velvet-draped bodies. There was a quiet corner beside one window, just a little in shadow, and he smiled and headed toward it.
Without a thought – and only a slight curiosity for the looks he was given – he dropped on the floor, leaning against the wall as he set his heavy tome upon his lap.
Link cracked it open to the first page.
"… the result of a Sheikah and Hylian coupling. Cambion are noted for their beauty and their ability to manipulate – even stubborn and independent individuals have difficulty resisting a cambion's will. Furthermore, it is noted that cambion have a predisposition to wicked temperament, but it would be erroneous to mark them all off as evil. They are the same as any other being –always having their own interests at heart. Beyond physical qualities and common traits, Cambion are also noted as having particularly powerful magic, likely owing to their mixed blood…"
"Please excuse me, but…" The voice that had cut into his reading was familiar. Link marked his spot carefully with one finger, down to the last word, before looking up. "Oh! I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else…" The Duke stood before him, smiling sheepishly and cocking his head to one side. "You look terribly like a servant girl here…" He almost mumbled but didn't, because nobles didn't mumble; they had to be heard. Still, his voice was almost lost. Link nodded just the smallest bit. Encouraged, the Duke continued, "I believe her name was Schön. I don't suppose you know her…?" He regarded Link thoughtfully, who gave him a faintly amused smile back.
"Ah… yes. She's my… cousin." He settled on, imagining Sheik looming over him with a gerudo's pole-arm in hand. He's going to gut me. The smile stayed on his lips.
"… I see… may I sit?" The man in white asked, looking as though he was well out of his normal area of expertise.
Link considered a few moments. Finally, he said, "I wouldn't mind." Murderous red flashed through his mind again.
Oh good goddesses, he is going to gut me.
Much as Link liked to lecture Zelda on the subject, he was curious. What dark secret could this man possibly hold that Sheik hated him with all his being?
Not, he thought, that it takes any particular amount of trouble to make enemies with Sheik. The sheikah, after all, was known to start bar brawls for fun. Often while still in dresses. (Zelda had confided this in him a few nights ago, when Sheik had come back to them in a very battered gown with a very satisfied expression.) Still… he normally did have reason for being overprotective. Kind of. Did worrying about cuccos because they'd been known to kill hylians (when provoked) count?
Link clicked his tongue.
Navi had drifted away about midday, again, and he wondered when she would be back
The duke dropped to the floor in front of him, carefully folding his legs so his clothes didn't tangle and trap him on the stone tile. That would be terribly embarrassing, Link supposed. Hell gave him a reserved smile, which Link returned a polite-but-halfhearted one of his own. That done the man in white glanced about the crowded throne room. "… you know, its strange." He murmured a minute into the silence, gaze coming back to rest on Link. "You and your cousin remind me very much of someone I used to know…" His smile was soft, with sadness lingering on the edges of his face as he turned and gazed out the window, to places far away.
Link watched the light from the outside world glow against the white cloth of Hell's clothes. No light touched Link himself, though, where he was nestled in shade.
The duke continued to speak, "… of course, that person is long gone now… I'm not sure why I am even remembering…" He sighed, the smile falling from his face a moment and then, just for that time, he seemed like he would cry.
The hero only watched - careful in noting the details, and taking in everything as unmoving darkness might. "I'm sorry," He said slowly, the words rolling off his tongue not unlike, perhaps, boulders trapped in tar. He thought.
With those words the smile flashed back and obscured anything human in the noble. The man apologized for his lapse and asked Link to please not mind it.
Link kept it very much in mind.
Time passed and bodies faded in and out of the space around them, while they went on to talk about things that didn't really matter.
Darkness clouded the hallway, and while he really felt it should look like his temple, dusty and cobweb-filled and riddled with long-dead memories, it doesn't. It is clean and quiet and smells of fall breezes, not rotting corpses. He catches another smell though, one that certainly doesn't belong in the tunnel, and that is the smell of something very much living. He creeps further down the shaded path and, beyond a corner which he knows to follow the contours of the throne room; he sees a body watching through an illusioned window, one that looked like a painting on the other side. The hallway was high above the crowd; watching from a sort of balcony hidden from the noble's eyes. There should have been no one in the castle who knew of that hallway, no one but he or Impa or perhaps Zelda, and that was just 'perhaps'. And yet there stood the man in black, the one he kept seeing drifting in and out in the backs of crowds.
He was watching the people below them without much emotion. He seemed… blank. Like a doll or empty slate. As much as he would like to wonder, though, Sheik knew what things could make people become like this and the whole land had tasted seven years worth of them, or perhaps in its concentration they had gotten an eternity's.
This person may well have had his world ripped from his fingers. Sheik, however much he wanted to consider this, had a job to do though, and that was finding out just why this person was here, how they came to find the shadow's hall, and who they really were.
One hand went and kept on his dagger, the one half-bent from the golem in the cavern on Death Mountain, as he broke the silence with his voice. "Who are you? How did you get here?"
The too-bleak stare turned to him in the darkness, considering but unspeaking and emotionless, and he wondered if that could really be called 'alive'.
"… people are so strange." The one he didn't know murmured, casting another look to the crowded room below them. "Wouldn't it be easier if they acted like animals?"
"They are animals." Sheik corrected quietly, because Hylians were animals, just the same as the Sheikah and Zora and everyone else, even though they liked to think it the least. This was just their natural behavior as animals. To flaunt and parade and curry favor with the stronger beasts, the ones in charge.
But he could consider things like that after his questions were answered.
Navi sounded so tired, diming a second like a firefly about to go out. Just the slightest bit begrudging, because he couldn't stand it when his questions were avoided, Sheik held out hand for her to alight upon, and she did with a soft sigh. He couldn't feel anything besides the faintest warmth of her magic. He supposed the physical forms of fairies resided on another plane.
"I'm only going to tell you." Her high voice whispered, "Because all fairies are born in the forest, I didn't realize. We never realized, not any of us. It was fine at first, but…" She flickered. "I need the woods." Sheik blinked and cocked his head. "I need the magic to exist. One day I started getting weak. Going back to rest… worked for awhile. But… soon, I won't be able to leave at all." She fluttered her wings like she wanted to fly away right then, though she remained perched on his fingers. "Its best I tell you anyway. I know you won't let him get hurt. Because, you'll take care of him without me… won't you? He belongs here."
Though she wasn't there, Navi's voice echoed in Link's mind for a second. Watch out! And he felt honestly like someone was watching him. When he looked across the room he didn't see anyone looking though, outside the largely harmless nobility. And with them it was abundantly clear that they were more focused on the sheep astray from their herd than the wolf he'd been sitting with.
Still, Link knew better than to think he was imagining it. So he stretched out his legs, book left open, and pretended to the world at large that he was relaxed. Hell cocked his head to the side, a faint but curious look in his eyes. For just a few more moments the sense of a gaze upon him lingered, before fading like a poe at dawn.
"… it truly is terrible, though." Hell sighed, glancing towards the empty throne. "I can't imagine losing my only parent."
Link stilled, his own gaze swiping over the abandoned chairs of the King and his daughter. The Queen's throne had long remained empty, and now…
Now there would be another reminder of someone lost…
"Like tombstones." He murmured, and Hell started.
"Pardon?" He asked, while almost-white eyebrows rose to his hairline.
"Nothing." Link waved it off, glancing toward the ceiling. The hair pricked up along the back his neck like someone was glaring at him, but he was sure Sheik was still off 'dealing with some things'. Besides that, he couldn't recall inciting anyone else's ire.
The amulet thrummed again. He resisted the urge to touch it with the Duke's eyes still upon him, waiting for words but Iblis, if he was speaking, couldn't make his voice break through. The room was, perhaps, too full of life for the god, and he too couldn't be heard over the clamor… Link shook his head to be rid of such musings, and returned his attention to the man in white, who was looking back over his shoulder into the crowd.
"Oh, my dear Schwarz," He murmured, with his brow creasing in a frown while he focused on someone Link couldn't see, "what kind of trouble are you getting yourself into now?" He sighed, and looked back to Link for a moment to smile. "I'm afraid I must go. It was lovely meeting you," He reached out and gently shook arms with Link as he rose up "Please give your cousin pleasant regards as well." With that he stood fully and disappeared into the throng of moving bodies.
A moment passed, Link turned a page.
He let the noise fade out and the eyes on him fall to small flames, and words came together like so many threads, and became ropes to bind him inside a story.
The unknown man blinked as Sheik repeated himself. There was something off about his gaze in the dark, flat and broken and too-black…
"I'm no one. Please forget about me." He said quietly, and went back to looking at the window. Sheik gritted his teeth.
"How. Did you get here?"
"It's unimportant." He sighed, "Though really I'm not sure myself. My feet brought me without any direction from my head." He turned and watched Sheik now rather than the crowd, but there was still no spark to his gaze, and Sheik couldn't shake the sense that he was talking to a corpse. "What about you? Why have you chosen to fade from the darkness?"
After a moment where Sheik simply stared, growing more and more distressed, the man sighed.
"I always wanted to fade into it…" he muttered, and looked back to the window. "Wanting to disappear seems more natural than breathing."
"I can help you with that." Sheik rumbled, eyes narrowed threateningly.
"I told you, I don't know how I came to be here. I just am." The dark-haired man didn't sound too concerned that he had a Sheikah who would soon become murderous within arm's reach. Either he had a death wish, or he simply didn't know who he was dealing with.
Sheik wasn't nice enough to enlighten him.
Just as he was fingering the knife that would leave long lines of red all over this man (he wouldn't kill him, at this second his value was undetermined and therefore the opportunities he afforded couldn't be ended without closer inspection) a final melancholy sigh was breathed – this man had black bile in abundance, and it's vocal manifestations were already past becoming irritating – and he looked straight into the one eye of Sheik's he could see. "You know, I've always hated people… Aren't we supposed to be the same?" He asked tiredly, and gestured to the party out the window. "… I have to go now."
And before the knife in Sheik's fingers could reach the man's throat, the darkness swallowed him and left nothing. Who is supposed to be the same? You and I, or us and them?
Sheik looked out the window while he brooded, and when he saw the smudge of white and green he swore.
"Apart from the light there is a mirror, a shattered reflection of possibilities. Once upon a time ink was spilt over that mirror, though, and the shattered reflections of lights fell to shadow… Some darknesses escaped and made themselves at home beside the people of the light, darknesses who's eyes were sharper and bodies stronger than their hylian brothers. I don't think 'darknesses' is actually a word. Isn't your grave missing you?" ( In this book, they had forgone the margins and scribbled right inside the lines of the story between bits of canonical text.)
"The dark-feathered bird descended then, to a fresh-killed body as his sacrifice and first soul for mourning, and gazing on them he offered shelter from the sun, tucked under his black wings. The dark ones went to the feet of Iblis.
And so the shadow people were born.
With everyday their darkness grew, and every day they stepped closer to their fellows who would not set foot in the dusky plains and harsh mountains of their home.
The hylians, meanwhile, were building cities, worshipping the sun, and basking in day's warm light. They thought, perhaps, that they could purge themselves of darkness in this celestial glow. And in some ways they did, the over-strong light burning apart anything it touched, and making their shadows flee for darkness inside the obsidian shards of a mirror that had become more.
The closer you are to the light, the greater your shadow becomes…
Each night the sheikah would edge out into dark, slipping around lanterns, and protecting the hylians out of some residual fondness, a sense of kinship for the people they had once been a part of, before the darkness from the mirror they'd come to touch. And every morning the hylians would pray to the sun to make the darkness fade away, not recognizing what were once their brothers and sisters. Never realizing that such creatures could or would protect them, the hylians trembled in fear of the nigh-unknown sheikah.
Excepting, perhaps, one, as really it only took a spark to start a fire.
Once, a young girl was born to a poor house in the growing kingdom. Every day she went to the stone-and-earth temple to learn from the clerics, and every night she went to bed with a candle flickering in her window which made the shadows dance. She would watch for hours in fascination as they wriggled and leapt, and her life progressed on this way – learning the light and loving the darkness – until she came to the eve of adulthood, and was allowed to encroach upon the borders of her home for the first time. Few hylians ventured there, as it was the only place the light couldn't breach and purify, and there was a terrible beast called Wolfos said to be lurking inside… With twin lights of yellow for eyes that tricked travelers into coming toward it, evil false-lights. When they came too close, it would rip them apart.
Sounds like your eyes, to me. Get out of my book.
… and thank you.
Her mother fashioned for her a red mantle as a gift, - I think I've heard this story - and sent her along on her way. She walked through the woods, skirting on the edges of shadow and light. One foot in the darkness and one under the hot sun, she was contented. Further inside the woods it was only dark though, little shafts of light touching through the tree tops but never managing to reach the earth. Here the colors of the world melted away until only a tapestry of blues remained. For the first time she could ever recall, the girl became the slightest bit leery, but continued through the dark.
The light began to swirl. Soon, she knew, animal eyes were watching her on every side, and the shadows were dancing like the ones of her flickering candle in her room at night. Greater and stronger darkness was born and breathing in that forest… She stood transfixed and watched the motions of dark lines in the world, until the sun fell and the moon hung itself in the sky.
Curious blinking red eyes began to come out in the darkness and watch the light one, who likewise looked around in the darkness where the dancing shadows had faded together. She called out for them, but none of the sheikah had ever spoken to a hylian, just guarded the ones in sleeping, so they stayed dumb and hidden in dark.
They didn't know what to do about this flickering light, so they sat and guarded her, dancing away if she reached too close to where they had hidden.
Hours passed and morning came, though, without the young woman leaving, so the sheikah stole away excepting one who lingered and watched the sunlight crest the treetops… The girl went home, after the sun had fully risen, but every eve she would come back and look for dancing shadows, and the poor confused sheikah would watch her try to watch them.
So they felt the way I do, whenever you decide to approach me? Knock it off,you're interrupting the story.
Three nights came to pass – for these things always happened in threes – in which something would change in her routine. On the seventh night of visiting the forest, she had pushed into the darkness ahead of her and, upon a careless stumble, found a comb lying on the forest floor. It was wrapped in blue and softly shining under the moon, a well-loved trinket of some other girl. It was made with care and sighed of magic, so she tucked it away in her satchel for safekeeping.
On the thirteenth night, - how do you know which night it was every time? I asked Belphegor, now let me write! - she had brought a basket of ripe red apples with her and rolled them into the shadow-space beneath the trees where her vision couldn't reach. When morning light came, she could find all but one of those she hid inside the dark. She could still feel the eyes on her as she departed.
And on the thirty-seventh day, something changed entirely.
The girl had come from a poor home, and her parents loved her dearly. They had never managed to bear children besides her, but that only encouraged them to do everything they could to ensure her happiness. She had a pretty face, for a poor girl and was skilled at domestic crafts…
One day, when a noble's young son asked for her as his bride, and would accept the smallest dowry – a cloth woven by her hand, he'd said – her parents knew they had found a way for her to be cared for. Just beyond the doors of their humble house she listened, and gathering up her things stole away from the town when they took his hand and shook it.
She ran into the woods, swift and silent with tears running down her face. Married she would have to leave her parents, and her home, and her work. She didn't know what to do without these things, or how her family could give her away so happily – because she didn't realize that, just as she wanted to care for them, they only wanted the best for her - and deep in the woods, she cried these things to her friends the dancing shadows.
This perturbed the real shadows, the living ones, of course, who paid bride prices instead of dowries. Shouldn't it be ensured her parents would be well? The girl's tears softened their hearts though, until finally one darkness broke from the rest to hover just beyond the sunlight where she could see them if she only looked up. The girl kept crying, and as the night wore on every shadow left, lest her tears draw them too into the open.
With shadows gone the animal eyes appeared on the girl again, and her heart caught in her breast and her breath in her throat when she heard the howl of a monster.
Hot breath brushed over her neck, and she felt the claws about to sink into her when the dark of night leapt apart in a violent shatter.
Metal and shadow pelted across the space, tearing into the side of the grey-furred beast, and the girl trembled as she laid her eyes first upon terrible Wolfos, and then the personified dark who pinned its screaming body to the earth.
The sheikah dispatched the beast with a few rough clouts so it went away crying into the woods, before turning towards the spellbound maiden. … I… I never thought I would ever see you use the word 'maiden'.
"… I will protect you, and all of you family, if you give something to me." The shadow said, thinking of the dowry she had cried about. The young woman trembled, but only asked what it wished.
So it thought back to the nights passed.
On that seventh night, the most curious shadow had ducked away too quickly and lost something dear.
On that thirteenth night, when the juicy red fruit had touched upon the ground in darkness, it had taken it.
And on this final night, the girl had been crying over blood. The noble in the village and the wolfos both had wanted this blood, and so the Sheikah thought it must be the most valuable thing that could exist, since both man and beast desired it.
And so the shadow made its choice; Bring me a comb with an eye carved into its handle, a fruit as bright and red as fire, and three drops of that which you hold most precious.
And then, the trembling girl too had a choice.
From her satchel she pulled the mahogany dark comb, still wrapped in blue, and the shadow took it tenderly. It checked over the content of the cloth and ran its fingers over the wood, before tucking them away in a deerskin bag.
Next an apple that the girl had plucked to eat in her flight was brought forth, and given carefully to the darkness, which sat beside her and ate the fruit greedily. Once the last bite had disappeared – and it was certainly the last bite, the dark one devoured everything from the flesh to the stem to the core how terribly ravenous – the girl went into her possessions one final time, and drew a knife from her bag. This she held to the darkness.
Overmuch curious, the sheikah didn't stop the knife that grazed at their throat. The girl murmured to them that the edge was wickedly sharp, and would shed that which was most precious, before she pressed the blade into the shadow's hands.
The knife sung upon the girl's flesh next, and then skin was against hers where her red spilled over, and the deal was struck.
The first shadow had been bound to a light.
"This story has been passed down since before written history in the Sheikah lines. (For ritual details see page 520 'shadow sewing (ritual)' please note the difference between the ritual and battle technique. For battle techniques see page 750 'shadow sewing')"
(Link blanched and smiled, catching the next few lines…)
"Can I add something?
No.
Please?
No.
… I'm adding it anyway.
Damnit, Sanguine-" The neater text took over the rest of that line, reading "This ritual (trading items for protection) has come to be known as an "exchange of wills."The most common ones ask for a symbol of body, spirit, and mind. The body is usually the last gift. (Of course. I'm certain you all understand why that is, if you can understand the rest of Firefly's gibberish.)
It is the greatest show of trust.
I have been trying to talk my friend into one, actually… Sanguine! But for some reason they keep putting it off—"
Here the book dissolves to a long scribble and nothing, and for some reason Link can see the author in his mind, pouncing on his unwanted commentator and wrestling him to the ground, before snatching up the pen and mostly-calmly resuming his work, (probably with a huff,)
"A related story to the above tells about the creation of Shadow casters. (see page 400 for definition)" The… what?
… That's strange. Link pursed his lips. What do they mean by shadow caster? A mage? The magic section should be much earlier in the book…
So he turned the page to check the chapter summary. "Shadow caster: light beings created from the sheikah. They reside in the dark realm alongside the shadows of Hylians."
A frown crossed his face. His allotted time had already been swallowed, so he would have to pick up on this later…
Shaking his head, he closed the book and blue flashed in his peripheral vision. Turning he saw the noble from the night before – Midna – weaving through the crowd and smiling. That smile she wore… certainly not kind, more like a snake to it's meal… it spoke of ill tidings. She was speaking with another noble. Red and yellow eyes never looked his way, but that too-sharp smirk only grew on her lips as he watched her.
A chill ran up his spine while the trumpets sounded.
Zelda was prepared for her crowning. When he looked back into the throng of bodies, Midna had disappeared.
The crowd had begun to part as he stood, with his book ready to be returned to his bag in one hand. Colorful clothes weaved in and out until he could only see the carpet leading inside, dyed violet and blue with a great gold-threaded triforce at the end. And then Zelda stepped into sight.
He wanted to gasp, but it wasn't as surprising as fate should have it, that she glowed and was beautiful with a mire of terrible sorrow as her cloudy escort. With every hair pulled taut against her scalp and her whole body done up in glittering gems, she looked like a queen. Her gown trailed the ground behind her like a songbird's sweeping tail and was dyed as many colors which all glittered in the light, and her face and lips were painted in the shades of mourning. Decorative armor on her shoulders gleamed from the light spilt in from the hallway, and jewelry adorned her whole body. She looked like a queen, Link thought again, but she didn't look like Zelda. The smile she gave to the nobility was only that much in name, cold and so terribly alone.
Being at the top of the world must be terribly sad and silent.
Her eyes passed over the crowd, and they too were too dark and gleaming - with unshed tears and remembrance of now-broken promises, when she glanced upon the empty thrones.
Another tombstone, another way to remember that that person was gone now. And one day, someone other than her father might sit on that space. One day, someone might take his place as king. Zelda shut her eyes and kept walking.
The glass doors ahead of her moving feet opened onto a balcony, and when her slippers touched the white marble she realized this is real. This is all… happening. And she had to fight back the tears again. People swam together like smudges of paint on a canvas, and then the whole world blurred. She blinked until it was clear again.
Now was the time. Now… she had to speak. She braced her hands on the balustrade.
"A terrible thing has happened." Zelda's voice called out to the now-hushed crowd, strong and not like she was trembling with sadness, "My father has, far too soon, come to pass on to the world beyond us. Please pray for him with me one last time, so that he might look down on us to guide and protect, even from his grave this kingdom he regarded as most precious…" she clasped her hands and – inciting the crowd to follow - chanted a melodious prayer for the dead king, before she went on, "Now, as the Lady of Hyrule, I will become queen…" She paused to catch her breath, "I know that you all are likely wondering who I shall marry, who will become king, so I will tell you." She sighed, and gave a wan smile to her people. "I have thought long and hard about this, and prayed to the goddesses. I… believe that this is truly what is best, so please have faith in your Lady." Clatter and clamor begged for answers, but she waited until she could be heard again before she told them. "I will remain a virgin queen."
Murmuring carried up, too quick and too easy, because it had been generations since Hyrule had had just a queen to preside over it. People scream and shouted and cried out, and above all the other din Zelda could swear she heard 'why?' though perhaps it was only in her mind.
Still, it was the best question and so she addressed it, raising one hand to the crowd. "I believe it is too soon, after my father's death," Here, unbidden, a tear slipped down her cheek, and her voice caught a moment, "… to be clear enough of mind to find a suitable king for you, my people. And I myself will be in grieving for… for quite some time." She brought up a white glove to swipe at her eyes, closing them under the too-bright noon sun. "This is not the first time we have had only a queen. My great aunt ruled for three decades before being succeeded by my grandfather, and the realm of Twili is ruled by the Lady Midna without a king. I will, perhaps, reconsider the matter of marriage after a suitable amount of time has passed us, but until then please…" A shiver ran through her when she was blinking down at the crowd. Another tear fell and hit the balcony. Her eyes were growing red about the edges.
"I will not be alone." She continued quite abruptly, voice strong but shuddering. The crowd below had gone gloriously silent and still, and yet almost vibrated with their barely-contained energy. "I have my father's advisors, my lovely Impa, and all the sages to consult with. I will not be alone, and I only want what is best for all of you and this kingdom. So… please, have faith in me." Her solemnly-begging voice carried over the air.
The nobles behind them were unimpressed, some even frowning at the young Lady who'd lost herself and let her real face show to the riffraff and commoners. But she smiled to the people below all the nobility, down in the castle courtyard, and it was a real smile. And the clamor they made was deafening.
The crowd was crying its support, sympathy and hope floating on the air toward them.
And Link smiled.
Even without the nobles, Zelda could sway the kingdom to her favor. So he didn't worry – everything would be alright in time, he knew that; what made it worth smiling was that that future didn't seem quite so distant to him then.
(chapter 9 end)
Yes I put in a kh reference. I liked the idea of it applying to sheikah
Notes for 9: in the book's fairytale, you may have gone WTF at the comb. Combs are used to symbolize mermaids, sirens, and Aphrodite – symbols of feminine desirability. (thank you, SurLaLune). The comb here is used to show a young woman venturing into adulthood, in my usual skewed and roundabout way.
Sadomaniacal – in this instance, a word coined by my family and friends and I to describe my typical state of manic-sadism. It is also used to refer to particularly crazy and mean-spirited characters. Combination of sadism + maniacal. Sheik completely fits it when he's torturing people.
Nope, Epona's not a pocket cucco, you can't carry her around like that Link~
OMAKE:
"I didn't want to tell him…" Navi murmured in darkness. "… but its true, Sheik… the fact is… I'm PREGNANT!"
"… what?"
"YES! I know its strange, but its true, Sheik! I'm pregnant! I'm having Epona's baby!"
"… What?"
