A/N-

I don't want this to be the last update, before I leave, but it is. This isn't long but I wanted to give you all at least SOMETHING before heading off to Europe!

I hope you all stick with me!

Thanks a bisquillion for reading!

3

Also, check some art by ryttu3k and myself ( don't forget to take out the spaces! ) -

http: / ryttu3k. deviantart. com/ #/ d2s2bws

http: / atroxbasium. deviantart. com/ gallery/ #/ d2icrih

"I see nothing! What is this devilry?" as was Aneraug, Zelda was nervous. The field had gone from green to lunar; barren, the ground broken by rock and varying mineral deposits. Small flowers grew sparse, where was water. And there was little or no place to not be seen. Or heard.

"But, princess, I am but ten feet from your left!"

Zelda and Link, both, turned.

And saw no one.

"Or, maybe, I meant your right. Oh, dear, my sense of direction is absolutely horrid. Do forgive me."

Again, they turned.

And there, astride a horse, helmeted and horned, a figure stood. Cloaked and cautious, dark against the changing sky, he and his animal stayed far. They paced, the horse's steps were measured well. Waiting, wanting the two escaping riders to wrongly move first.

"My word, it's Keldi!" Zelda brightened. She smiled wide, wider than Link had ever seen, and dismounted. To hold and keep him safe, she gave to Link Aneraug's reigns and, against her better judgements, walked.

I feel nothing familiar, though my eyes say otherwise, Zelda lengthened her stride.

Again, Link asked of Keldi.

The stranger stopped, stiffened, and did same. It met Zelda, as she went.

"An animal that has stayed with him, through the ages; Keldi is Sheik's—"

"My horse!" hood dropped, it was Sheik. Pale, his hair not braided and his eyes unlined, he looked not at but through and over who was his opposition. Keldi, warm, had a froth of saliva collected under his nostrils and lips.

Both breathed heavy.

"Sheik, you've given me such a fright! Yours are a sly people, I understand, but you mustn't always use such trickery. Really," Zelda said, glad "a much simpler entrance would have sufficed!"

Link came closer. And closer, yet.

"Zelda, don't go to him," of what the guardsmen had said, Link thought. The rhymes and verses that had lent such disagreement to Midna and himself had begun to become clear. Nothing of him or either princess, they were meant as a warning.

Sheik held his hands, dropped to his waist, hidden.

And Zelda's heart stilled.

"Zelda, come back," Link said. Not right, he watched Sheik's body. Sheik's face.

All was as he remembered. And not. It was as if someone had dampened the Sheikah, wetted and filtered him until his colour and constitution had dulled. Whip-thin, he moved slow and deliberate and pained. Almost unaware, his focus was narrow.

And, that thing, around his wrist. . .

"Princess, you would do well to listen to your hero," Sheik pulled a dagger.

"Ne tire anke mahua a me, Sula! Calma te," Zelda said "Im vis anke pericol!"

He is mine, Zelda was disbelieving. The spells that bind him to me are near-unalterable. In his magic, were there any disturbances, I would know. He is my friend. My protector. But I feel nothing.

Link rode up, then. "Do you see that, that cuff, on his wrist?"

Causing this, something exterior. I did not know such things could be done, to herself, Zelda admitted. And Link seems to have pinpointed, before me, where these negative influences have centred—a thick metal band.

"I do, yes. Those ruins, they tell of imprisonment. They are similar to those used by Zant. And," Zelda saw the hand, unsteady, that had drawn a weapon, on her "I suppose, Ganondorf."

A/N

Zelda is saying – Don't pull a weapon on me, Sula. Calm down, I see no danger.