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Chapter 11: The Slumbering Mountain

Fuu had trouble sleeping that night. Part of the problem was that he'd taken a nap immediately after he'd left Impa and Sheik at the castle, and when he'd woken up the sun had already set and he'd missed dinner. That wasn't all of it, however, because he couldn't help but think about what had happened at the Water Temple. No matter how many times he thought about it, it seemed like poor coincidence that he and Vaati were the only ones who could enter specific dungeons without setting off traps, and that only he and Vaati could open the doors with the eye carvings. Why would a Sheikah student like him have any kind of connection with the infamous wind mage?

He stared up at the ceiling as he lay in his bed, waiting for some kind of epiphany that never came. As much as he'd looked forward to lying around in bed doing absolutely nothing before the morning's mess had started, he found no sort of relief now. He decided to continue staring at the ceiling with an annoyed frown until his body decided to get up. Eventually.

There was a rustle and a thud that came from somewhere to his left. Fuu slowly turned his head towards the source of the noise, and came face to face with a familiar shadow.

Shadow Link waved from the floor, where he'd spread some blankets and a pillow. "Hiya."

"How," Fuu asked slowly, "did you get in here." He began to wish he could go back to sleep.

"There's a crack under the door," Shadow Link replied.

"And what in Subrosia are you doing here," Fuu asked flatly.

Shadow Link shrugged, and he fluffed up his pillow. "No one gave me a place to stay after they kicked me out of the castle."

"Just ask-" Fuu started, but then he cut himself short. He'd been about to say "Ask Sheik," but he thought about the other Sheikah tilting his head slightly in a taunting way and saying with that unflinching expression, "You said that he's your responsibility." No, no, Fuu wasn't going to go through that. "Go sleep outside."

"Oh come on! I barely take up any space. I'll stay in this corner," Shadow Link objected, lying on the blankets anyway and pulling the covers over his face.

With a loud, exasperated sigh and a snap of his fingers, Fuu sent Shadow Link's covers flying off to the other side of the room. "I like my privacy. Get out."

"Pleeaaase I'll sleep in the closet if I have to Master Vaati, just don't make me sleep outside in the sun."

"I'm not your master!" Fuu snapped, wide awake now.

Shadow Link scratched his head. "Oh yeah."

Fuu muttered under his breath as he flopped over onto his stomach to stare at the wall instead. He tried his best to ignore Shadow Link as the doppelganger shuffled off to grab his bedcovers again. In the darkness, Fuu could barely hear him as he moved around the room. It was actually impressive how well Shadow Link could see in the dark, since even the faint moonlight from outside was mostly blocked off with the window shades. He thought about what Shadow Link had said. "The sun bothers you?" he asked, curiously now. He glanced over to the barely visible outline of Shadow Link on the floor. He saw the other teen's hat bobble up and down in a nod. After a few seconds of consideration, Fuu relented. "Ok. You can sleep in the closet."

There was a disappointed pause, before Shadow Link asked, "Uhhh, can I sleep not-in-the-closet and sleep out here, instead?"

"Nope, you suggested it. Closet."

Fuu could practically hear Shadow Link rolling his eyes in the dark. Vaati's former servant stood up with a grumble, and began to drag his blankets towards the closet on the other side of the room. "You're like, the cooler Master Vaati who's slightly less cool than the cool Master Vaati," he grumbled.

"Deal with it."

Shadow Link disappeared into the closet, and there was a bit of grunting and some banging accompanied by an "ow" from some objects falling in the closet. After a while, there was an exclamation from the doppelganger. "Hey, this closet is actually pretty roomy."

"They repurposed the barracks into a single quarter. That used to be where they kept spare armor and weapons," Fuu explained.

"Nice," Shadow said approvingly, and there was a few more banging and moving about as he made some space to lie down. Soon enough, however, there was silence again, and Fuu was left to his own thoughts. It wasn't a good place to go back to, since his thoughts were only filled with doubt and confusion. He couldn't help but feel that Sheik wasn't telling him everything, especially regarding Vaati. The sorcerer… interested him. After all, he had been some kind of super powerful being, almost like a god from what his memories vaguely informed him. Where had he come from, and what had driven him to such destruction? Was it some hatred for Hyrule, or something else? Fuu had tried asking Sheik more about the wind mage, but he'd always evaded his questions.

"Shadow," Fuu spoke to the darkness. He heard a rustle from the closet as Shadow Link shifted positions. "Tell me what Vaati was like."

It was quiet for several seconds, and Fuu wondered if Shadow Link had already gone to sleep. Just as he was about to pull the covers over his head to try and get to sleep himself, he heard the other boy's voice drift pensively through the closet doors.

"I respected him," Shadow Link said. "I didn't like him, and he wasn't always someone you wanted to be around, but he commanded respect. I think a lot of the more powerful monsters envied him for that, actually."

"You said that I was like him." In the dark, Fuu reached up to the ceiling, looking at his hands.

He heard Shadow Link chuckle lightly. "You do. Kind of, but not really. Both of you have this… thing."

"Thing?"

"Yeah, something that makes people follow you. You have a presence – people listen to you."

At this, Fuu laughed, skeptical of Shadow's claims. "Ha! Tell that to Sheik."

"But you stopped him today," he said, stopping Fuu's bitter laugh. The Sheikah was staring at the closet, surprised by Shadow's words. "He was going to kill me, and it had been non-negotiable," Shadow Link was oddly quiet now, not like how Fuu had seen him when they'd first met. "You stopped him, though. Vaati had that presence, too. He could make people listen even before he lifted a finger to hurt them. Vaati never bluffed. I don't think you do, either. You believe what you say, even if what you say is sometimes stupid."

"Thanks… I guess?" Fuu said, not really sure if that was a compliment or not. "Why do you keep calling me the cooler Vaati, though?"

At this, Shadow Link laughed bitterly. "Vaati wasn't feared for nothing, you know. What does it take to get the most powerful monsters in the world to fear you?" Then, he added ominously, "Like I said before, Vaati never bluffed. Take that as you will."

It sounded as though Shadow Link was becoming increasingly uncomfortable about answering this particular line of inquiry, so Fuu left him alone to think about this new knowledge for a bit. Vaati sounded awful, but to be honest he was intriguing. He thought he could understand what Shadow Link meant when he said that, though Shadow didn't particularly like the sorcerer of winds, he had a certain respect for him. Vaati sounded like someone who not only had the power rivaling a god's, but the presence of one as well. Someone who went beyond the normal frailties of mortal man; he was so unlike Fuu. Vaati was certain and grounded in who he was, while Fuu was muddled and confused. Vaati was certain of himself and his words, while Fuu was filled with insecurities about not being strong or important enough. Vaati was despicable, but in a sense, he had everything Fuu wanted. Fuu cracked a grin, and he turned towards the closet. "So basically I'm the cooler Vaati because I'm his shittier double?"

There was a snort, and then a howl as Shadow Link cracked up in laughter. "Nailed it," he cried, and it sounded like he was choking in the closet.

It took some time for the two of them to catch their breaths again. Eventually, with a few hiccups here and there, Fuu went back to staring at the ceiling soberly. "I've had this thought for some time now, and I was wondering what you thought of it," he started slowly, after they had calmed down again. He took Shadow Link's silence as a sign that he was listening, and continued, "I actually had this thought when I first opened the hidden door in the Water Temple. When I touched the carving of the eye, I had a weird… vision of sorts."

"Weird," Shadow's voice floated from the closet again. "I've taken a look there before myself, and I never had any kind of vision."

"It helped me remember a certain spell, and that spell was used to open the door. Vaati and I are the only ones who can enter the dungeons. I think," Fuu's eyes narrowed in the darkness, "I have the same kind of magic as Vaati does."

There was a pause from Shadow Link, as though he were wondering about what to say. He eventually decided to be honest. "Yeah. You're right."

"I also started "remembering" all of these new spells after I had my memories mucked up by Vaati. From what little I can remember, I don't seem to have known how to use magic at all until I woke up at the Gerudo camp. This all points to one conclusion," Fuu said, determination in his voice now.

Shadow Link didn't say anything. In the confines of his closet space, he bit his cheek, wondering if his indoctrinated master had finally figured out what had happened to him. For his own reasons, he didn't really want Vaati to learn about his past, and he began to fear that he'd been too careless about obliging Fuu's questions.

"When Vaati messed up my memory, he… he must have affected me somehow," Fuu concluded.

What the dodongo dung? Shadow Link blinked. He'd braced himself for the worst, but Fuu had taken the conversation into a completely unexpected direction. From the other side of the closet doors, he heard Fuu's voice wonder aloud nervously.

"What if… what if Vaati wasn't actually dead? He might have infected me, and is waiting for the right time to take over my mind. You know, like a parasite or something."

"Ahahahahahaha!" Shadow Link wheezed, clutching his sides. So close to the truth and yet oh so very far!

"What? I'm being serious!" Fuu snapped irritably at the laughing shadow.

"I'm dying," Shadow Link wiped the tears from his eyes, "buddy, that's why I like you so much better than Master Vaati." He snickered some more before he finally caught his breath, aware that making Fuu annoyed might result in him losing his sleeping space once again. "It's nothing. Nothing at all. You're right, I don't know why that was so funny." he said between snorts.

Fuu ignored the snickering coming from the closet. He mumbled unhappily, a little miffed by Shadow Link laughing at something he was seriously concerned about. "I thought you'd know something about it since you were so close to Vaati. I think Sheik might be hiding something about it, but I want to trust him."

Shadow Link stopped laughing, and there was quiet from the closet again. He readjusted himself a little, pushing away a jacket that was hanging too close from his face. When he spoke next, it was almost solemn. "Heh. Don't trust that blondie. In fact, I'm going to give you a little advice because I like you, and I think you're cool," Fuu heard him say. "Don't trust anyone. Not Sheik, and not me. You can only trust yourself."

Fuu frowned. "Why do you say that?" he wondered. It gave him pause to wonder, and he had a feeling that Sheik was, indeed, hiding something from him, but he wanted to believe that he could trust him. He brought a hand to his face and looked at it wonderingly before he slowly curled it into a fist. It means I choose to trust you. His frown deepened. How could he not trust Sheik?

In the dark of the closet, Fuu couldn't see Shadow Link's expression. It was a knowing grin, one that invited caution. Shadow Link winked in the darkness. "Because people will only betray you."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was back to training again for the next three days. Impa was conspicuously absent, which meant that Sheik was now the one to head Fuu's training. It was mostly endurance training, as well as precision training. They'd abandoned bows for Fuu since he was pretty pathetic with them, but they'd discovered that he was pretty good at dagger throwing, especially when he used wind magic for pin-point precision aiming. Fuu had hoped that Sheik would be a little more understanding about waking up at the crack of dawn, but unfortunately the blond Sheikah stuck with routine. It didn't help that Shadow Link often kept him awake at night, asking inane questions and being irritatingly chatty in general.

Fuu was fairly sleep deprived by the third day. Shadow Link, on the other hand, was completely unaffected since he never trained with them, saying it was tedious and boring.

Day four rolled around. Fuu woke up when he felt the sun slowly burning his eyelids. Still half asleep, he cursed whoever forgot to shut the window curtains last night to block out the morning sun. His eyes fluttered open, annoyed at first, and then panicked. The sun was already up above the rooftops, which meant that he'd somehow overslept. He looked around wildly for an arrow of some kind, which usually forced him awake if he'd overslept. No such arrow was to be found.

Is there no training today? Fuu wondered, still trying to shake away the morning grogginess. He stretched his arms, sat hunched over on the bed for a few minutes as he wondered if he should even bother getting up, and then plopped back onto the bed when he figured he didn't feel like getting up yet.

No sooner had he done so, there was a knock on the door. "Fuu? It's Sheik."

Fuu scowled at the door on the far side of the room as he still lay in his bed. He groaned loudly in response and then flopped over, facing his back to the door.

"I just wanted to tell you that you need to get ready to leave in fifteen minutes."

A louder groan this time, along with incomprehensible gibberish. Fuu climbed out of bed and, still in his robes, stormed over to the door, slamming it open. "If you want me to help you hide again," Fuu started, but Sheik shook his head.

"Impa came back from her errand. She's done making preparations to leave. We're going to be gone for two or three days. We'll be leaving soon, so get ready."

"Uhhh, what? Leaving for where?" Shadow Link appeared, rubbing his eyes sleepily and stumbling behind Fuu. He blinked, noticing Sheik, and then gave a tired wave. "Hiya Sheik."

Fuu gave a "don't ask," sigh when Sheik raised a questioning eyebrow towards Shadow Link behind him. "I'm going to hazard a guess that we're either going to the Gerudo village or to the Gorons?" he asked.

"Yes. We're going to Death Mountain. Get changed, and bring your weapons. We've already prepared everything else," Sheik confirmed. "You too, Shadow."

At this, Shadow Link perked up. He rubbed his hands together excitedly. "So you finally need me to help you again, huh?"

"We're leaving for the second Dusk Shard."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The three of them met with Impa by the castle stables, and they left for Death Mountain on horseback. Each saddle was equipped with extra luggage with provisions and water to last them during their absence from Hyrule. As for weapons, Sheik had brought a bow, Fuu brought nothing but his daggers, and Shadow Link brought nothing at all, saying he had more than enough weapons on his person already. Impa had what Fuu thought was the most impressive weapon: a gigantic two-handed greatsword that was almost as tall as her and just as wide. Fuu had never actually seen Impa fight, but he secretly hoped they would run into trouble so he could see how she used such an outrageous blade.

It took them about an additional twenty minutes to saddle up and leave. They ran into brief trouble with Shadow Link when his presence made the horses skittish, but they eventually got them to calm down. Before long, they were making their way through the vast Hyrule field and towards Death Mountain, where the Gorons lived.

"… and he makes me sleep in the closet, how inhumane is that?"

Fuu shook his head, annoyed, while Shadow Link recounted to Sheik all of the horrible things he'd had to endure while sharing the same roof with him over the past few days.

"You don't have anywhere else to stay?" Fuu heard Sheik ask.

"I'm his responsibility now, aren't I?"

Another eye roll, and Fuu distanced himself from what he judged was an idiotic conversation. Instead, he caught up with Impa, who was riding a few feet ahead to lead the way to Death Mountain. The warrior's eyes never left their destination since they'd stepped foot outside of the castle gates. Fuu looked up at the imposing mountain, a veritable wall of rock that appeared to endlessly reach up into the skies. He had to admit that he was a little excited about the prospect of exploring the impressive mountain. His memory vaguely told him that he knew of this place and of its strange mountain inhabitants, but none of those memories were clear. He couldn't remember in what context he had visited here before, so everything was basically new to him.

He wondered if he'd been as awestruck by the mountain the first time as he was now.

"We're almost there," he heard Impa say as their horses began to gallop up the rocky path that led upwards away from the fields.

Those three words would have been innocent enough to most people, but Fuu was particularly good at catching nuances in tone, and he noticed that the way Impa said those words just now had a faint tremor of dread. He looked at her questioningly. "You're expecting trouble?" he asked.

At this, Impa returned a rare smile. "You are perceptive," she looked at him with approval, but the smile didn't last very long. Their horses slowed when the road was blocked by a tall vertical wall of rock. They dismounted, and tied their horses to a convenient pole next to it. "This is the entrance to the Goron village but…" she paused, looking up at the top of the wall for signs of movement, "no one is here."

Now Fuu was frowning as he looked up at the face of the wall. It never boded well if there was no sign of the people you were expecting. He followed after Impa who began to climb the rope ladder that hung from the rocks to the left. Shadow Link came after them, and Sheik took the rear.

Fuu knew that something was terribly wrong the moment he saw Impa reach for her greatsword as soon as she'd cleared the top of the wall. He hurried to reach her, pulling himself up for two more rungs before he teleported the rest of the way up. He, too, reached for his weapons at the sight before him. What happened here?

Shadow Link popped up in the air next to them, followed by Sheik. The doppelganger let out a long whistle, saying "Well, guess we found the Gorons."

Indeed, they had found them. Dozens of them lay on the ground as far as the eye could see, none of them moving. None of them awake. Some of them had seemingly collapsed on their way somewhere, such as a merchant who had fallen in the middle of the path with his goods still strapped to his back. The rocky creatures, normally holding an expression of pride and big-hearted welcome, now had faces that were tense or contorted into a grimace, as though they had seen a nightmare.

Impa walked over to one of the fallen Gorons cautiously, a lumbering individual who appeared to be one of the entrance guards. She checked for breathing, and then placed a hand on his face. She tapped his face once, and then harder a second time, but the Goron didn't wake. "They're alive, only sleeping," she announced, "but they show no signs of waking."

"Impa, isn't this," Sheik began, but was interrupted by Shadow Link.

"Dethl. It's Dethl," the dark teen laughed nervously. A look of unease came over Shadow Link as he turned from one unconscious Goron to the next. With an apologetic smile, he suddenly vanished within Fuu's shadow.

"Shadow Link!" Fuu exclaimed, but Impa motioned for them to follow.

"Leave him for now. Let's find out what happened here."

Fuu frowned at the dark silhouette under his feet, and as though in confirmation, a Link-shaped Shadow briefly emerged from his own shadow on the ground and gave him a hasty wave before vanishing again.

The three of them, plus one shadow in hiding, pressed onwards carefully, watching their backs as they made their way through the silent village. The scene was the same no matter how far they made their way into the village: dozens of Gorons lay fallen in an unwaking slumber as though interrupted from their daily routines without warning. They eventually reached a narrow path that was shadowed by rocky cliffs on both sides, which then opened up into a clearing. Geysers erupted from the cracks on the ground, and the sparkling water vapor cast rainbows in the air. Beyond the clearing was a cliff face that reached upwards to the summit of Death Mountain, hundreds of feet above them through the clouds.

Along this rock wall was some kind of entrance with proud stone pillars lining the side, but the entrance was blocked off with what looked like a rockslide. Large boulders blocked the way to the cave entrance. In front of it, however, was the first sign of movement that they had seen since they had arrived at the ghostly Goron village.

It was a single Goron child, banging on the rocks blocking the way into the cave. The boy banged on the boulders rhythmically with his tough, rocky fists.

"Hey!" Fuu started running towards the child first, but was stopped abruptly by a firm hand around his wrist. He turned towards Impa questioningly, wondering why she'd stopped him, and then he noticed how tense she appeared as she watched the child like she might a venomous snake.

The commotion caught the child's attention, and he slowly turned around to look at them, although he continued to hit the boulders with his fist. It was then that Fuu noticed that something was horribly wrong; the child was moving as though he were awake, but his eyes were closed and unseeing. "Help me clear the way," the boy said in a strangely level voice, his fists hitting the boulders with a rhythmic thump. "My friends are trapped inside."

"Fuu," Sheik whispered slowly as his fingers twitched towards the bow hanging from his back, "use the Lens of Truth. Hurry."

Fuu understood what he had to do, and he reached inside his bag for the Sheikah artifact that he'd recovered from the Water Temple a few days ago, when they'd run after Shadow Link. He brought the purple framed lens, shaped into the Sheikah symbol of a tear-dripped eye, up towards the eerie child in front of them who was still banging on the wall.

"Please help me open the way."

Fuu squinted into the lens. At first, it seemed as though it revealed nothing more than what they could already see: a Goron child hitting the rockslide, asking for help to clear the path. However, the view through the lens buzzed with interference, and what he could see through the lens was no longer a Goron child, but some kind of murky cloud. He squinted harder, and the cloud began to take shape, slowly, gradually…

"HahAHAhaHaHAhahaHA!"

Fuu flinched backwards, accidentally throwing the Lens of Truth away from him in surprise. Before he'd lost the lens, however, he'd caught a brief glimpse of what the Goron boy in front of him truly was. He'd seen a charcoal black cloud as dark as a hellish abyss draped over the boy. The cloud had appeared alive, as it twitched and pulsed, tendrils flickering in and out of its core.

What had surprised him, however, was that the cloud had looked at him. There had been eyes. Dozens and dozens of blank, pupiless black eyes.

Even as he recovered, he could still hear the demonic chorus of laughter ringing in his ears, and he was disturbed to find that the laughter was coming from the little boy, still banging away on the boulder. Without warning, the boulders blocking the entrance to the cave began to crack, and the ground began to quake as though an army of hundreds were banging back from the other side of the boulders.

Oh no. Ohhh no. Fuu thought, as he stared at the cracks along the boulders becoming larger and larger. An insect-like claw burst through one of the cracks, the rocks crumbling as whatever creature it belonged to tried to punch through.

"Our friends are trapped inside," the Goron child, now speaking in a terrible, demonic voice laughed as the boulders began to break, "They need to be fed."

With that, there was an explosion of rock as whatever it had held inside the cave broke free.

fleets: You guessed right if you guessed Dethl :D (i'm screaming with excitement but I'm pretending to be calm for your sanity).

I also really enjoyed writing Shadow and Fuu in the first section of the chapter. It's a real shame I'm not writing a ship-fic this time around (no official ships will be included in this story, though imagining any is all up to you) because I think I can make a ship work between any main character if I really wanted to. There's just so much good set up I can include everywhere ugh (Sheik/adow? Sheik/Vaati? Vaazel? Zelimpa? Sheikimpa? hmmm, maybe not Shadimpa or Vaatimpa, that would be trickier).

En Eee Way Anyway, I'm having all sorts of fun writing this story, I hope you guys are enjoying reading it :) Thank you so so so much for your support!

Sub Zero Chimera: Post-demonbound Vaati is rolling in his metaphorical grave from being unofficially known as Lord Fluuffy XD

AquilaMage: Hahaha that wasn't something that was planned originally, but ended up getting included when I thought "what would Fuu do if left alone in a dungeon all by himself?" XD
It actually connected nicely with what happened this chapter.
Figuring out what's truth and what's not in what Shadow Link is saying is going to be pretty tricky to figure out. It's hard because I keep having to stop myself from revealing too much about him right now lol. I promise it'll be clear when we get to... the part where everything is made clear :P

icfehr: Hello, and thank you so much for reading! :D :D :D Hmm that's a really interesting take on Vaati's magic, and magic in general! I like it :D I didn't think that far regarding magic for this particular story :O
In this particular story world, Vaati's magic is similar to other monsters', in that it's more innate than learned (like wizzrobes, those eye monsters like Froststare, floating fire enemies like Bubbles, wallmasters). Because of this, he still knows how to cast some spells even though his memories have been compromised by Twinrova.

Lunamew: Exactly XD I wasn't sure if I should build that up (make it more obvious) or not, but I couldn't find a way to include it in dialogue naturally. Writing Fuu and Shadow are super fun right now though, I like writing them more than I thought I would.

Serpent Tailed Angel: What is he thinking indeed? (it's 100 levels of hard right now, trying to keep my mouth shut regarding Shadow haha).
Fuu can be pretty imposing at times. While Twinrova managed to clear his head of key memories, his base personality (or maybe aura? not sure how to put it) that made Vaati, well, Vaati, is still there somewhere. Of course he still acts like a trusting cutie sometimes because he has no memories of experiencing betrayal. Yet.