Kema took a deep breath as he walked to the large doors, his expression hesitant as he knocked on them thrice.
"Your Highness?"
Kema sighed.
"I know you're in mourning and you have every right to be, but…Dalia's just arrived at your bequest."
Kema stopped, expecting any response, getting frustrated when there was none.
"Okay, Link, that's enough," Kema said, "we're all worried about you. Just open the door."
The Sheikah waited expectantly for a few seconds before shaking his head and muttering,
"Forget it."
"I'll be back later!" he said louder before he started to leave.
Yet, the sound of a turning doorknob stopped him before he could.
The door opened, Link emerging with dull, blue eyes, a contrast to the Kingly armor he wore.
Link simply blinked at Kema, as if that was his way of showing his existence, of proving to Kema that he didn't need to worry.
The King didn't say a word as he stepped out of his chambers, passing Kema without so much as a glance.
"They're all gathered in throne room," Kema started as he tried to catch up with Link, "we figured we would try again to get you there."
"The Princess?" Link asked coldly.
"She has her attendant, she's fine…safe," Kema replied.
"A Sheikah attendant," Link mumbled, with a tone that sounded a touch too spiteful.
Kema furrowed his eyebrows as he looked to the King's profile, the Sheikah's eyes looking as if he didn't know the man next to him.
"Link, if you're not up for this, we can—"
Kema was stopped by a glare from Link, making them carry on walking in silence.
The throne room was silent as well as they entered, some of them seeing Link for the first time that he was a King without a Queen.
Although only Dalia, Kema, and Hawa were really needed for the conversation about to take place, Auru, Shad, and Telma were there as well.
All of them were truly concerned for the man who slowly took a seat on his throne.
His expression seemed to slip back to the apathy of his younger years when he was saving Hyrule, when the trauma forced it upon him.
And their concern deepened when they saw it.
Link leaned his forehead on his hand as he looked out at them, blankly.
"Y-your Highness," Dalia started nervously, "I'm so sorry. I had guards posted around the clock, but they must have been circumvented. We caught them, though, just a couple thieves…it was completely accidental, Your Highness. It won't happen again, I made sure of it."
"No, it won't happen again, Dalia," Link replied as he took his head off his hand, "if Kema listened to me it most certainly will not happen again."
"A-about that," Kema said as he stepped forward, "I thought maybe you'd—"
"What," the King interrupted, "reconsider? You think I'm without my faculties? That I'm acting irrationally? For, goodness sake, Kema, when your King gives you an order you follow through with it! Do I make myself clear?!"
Link breathed heavily in response to his expressed rage, everyone looking at him wide eyes.
"DO I?!" he asked as he stood up, waiting for a response.
He had never raised his voice like that to anyone in the past.
A pair of small, green eyes slowly peeked around Dalia's leg, Link taking notice of a small Gerudo boy.
Link sighed as he closed his eyes.
Fear.
Not just in the small, innocent green eyes, but in the eyes of the adults he trusted, who trusted him.
"I'm sorry, Dalia," he said as he opened his eyes, "I didn't know he was here. And even then…I shouldn't have shouted."
"Kema, please," Link said calmly, "please continue."
"Your Highness, I'm just afraid what such a burial will do to the Sheikah race. Some may see it as a personal attack, an insult that their technology and culture is being hidden from the public. It means so much that it is useful."
"Kema, your technology has become an apparent threat. I cannot allow its' use any longer. They will understand. Perhaps if Ganon were prophesied to return I would reconsider its' use, but…well, there's no way we can know now."
Kema took a deep breath in and out.
He knew he was practically digging his own grave with what he was about to do.
And that his argument had no chance if he told the truth.
"Link," he said quietly, "there's something I've kept from you."
Link furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at Kema, who stepped forward.
Kema took the parchment out from his pocket and handed it to the King.
"Jasminn had this in her hand," Kema added, "I think you know what it means."
Link looked up from the parchment, within his eyes a new determination.
"I'm sorry Kema," the King said, "but it must be done."
"What about the Sheikah?" Hawa asked, "What will be done with us?"
Link assumed a downward gaze, thinking of his Queen, what she would say.
"Let them live in peace, not force them to survive," he whispered.
"The Kingdom of Hyrule," he said as he lifted his head, "will allot the resources for you to establish a village of your own."
"But…" Kema started.
"That's the best I can do, Kema," the King said, "I suggest you take it. I must admit my trust in your race has been shaken and I doubt that I am the only one. We must treat the situation delicately. You will still be a part of Hyrule, but your technology and your research must be suppressed. I want the labs shut down, the towers, the guardian pillars, the divine beasts, buried, and I want everything else destroyed. The Queen may have valued inclusion, but I must prioritize safety. I hope you understand."
Kema stormed out of the throne room without a word.
"I'll go talk to him," Hawa said as she started to follow him out.
"You don't…blame the Sheikah for what happened…do you?" Dalia asked the King as her eyes narrowed.
"It was a Sheikah who told her to go to Jasminn's chambers," Link replied, "and a Sheikah who created the weapon that killed her."
"Link," Shad started, "they were Hylians. Greedy, selfish Hylians, they set it off."
"And it was careless Gerudo guards who let them slip through," Dalia added, "you can't be serious."
"And later along the line, when their technology is used against us?" Link asked rhetorically, "What then? I have no proof that the entire ordeal wasn't a successful assassination attempt."
"You have no idea how bad Kema feels about her passing," Dalia argued, "all the Sheikah are so sorry."
"I assure you Dalia, I know those feelings and so much more," he said in a serious tone, his words sharp.
"I don't think you do," Dalia asserted.
"Excuse me?" Link asked in disbelief.
"You're not listening to reason, Link," Dalia continued, the Hylians shooting her looks of warning, "you're so consumed by grief that you can't think clearly. I get suppressing the technology but I don't know how to get it through your head that this was an accident! You can't blame the Sheikah for this!"
"Why not?!"
"Because the Gerudo were blamed for what Ganondorf did!" Dalia yelled in response, silencing the King.
Link sat back down on his throne.
"I won't change my mind," he said quietly, "she fought so hard for Hyrule to be safe. I have to guarantee that."
"We know," Dalia replied, "and we understand. We're just concerned about you."
Link sighed.
"I'm fine," he stated, "and maybe I'm wrong about the Sheikah, but there are a lot worse things I could do that would certainly be unjust. I assure you that all my energy will ensure that history is not being repeated. I am offering them life as an apology to what they are having to sacrifice, not death as a punishment of their deeds. Their deeds don't deserve punishment."
"However," Link continued, "if my instincts are right…we will be that much safer without an arsenal of destructive power pointed our way."
Link looked out at the five of them, their shared hesitant expressions, as if words formulated in their head and carried all the way to the tip of their tongues, sitting and waiting.
He sighed and said calmly,
"You may take your leave,"
"Link…?" Dalia said with concern as she stepped forward.
"You may take your leave!" he repeated rather sharply, his blue eyes like a feral beast.
Dalia nodded quietly in submission, much like Shad and Auru, who started to depart.
Yet, Telma stayed, watching Link as he looked to the throne beside him, his back meeting the back of his.
Dalia, Shad, and Auru paused their pacing and looked behind them once they noticed that Telma hadn't followed, the bartender instead approaching the King.
Telma stood before him, studying him in his Kingly elegance, his head still turned to his left.
"Link," she said, as soothingly as she could, yet there was a casual sense to it as well.
A sense that was sorely needed.
Link looked to Telma at the utterance, his eyes encircled in tears. He shut them tight as a resurgence followed, Telma looking behind her to the rest of them, her glance a soft shock.
This man was so broken, so unbelievably torn apart.
So, they hugged him tight. They didn't know his pain, but they wanted so much to ease it.
But the one he wanted to hug most of all, to hold, to clutch, to, for goodness sake, never let go of.
She was nowhere to be found.
"After all those years of being on edge," Dalia said quietly once they left a few moments after, "of being afraid of loss…he finally let his guard down…and then she got hurt. He's blaming the Sheikah because it's easy, as easy as it was to blame the Gerudo, ages and ages ago. And without her console…he's blind to it."
Link barely felt himself as he stood there.
The soft grass beneath his feet, the subtle smell of salty lake water, the gentle breeze of the night, the white glow of the moon, the warm feeling he got in his chest whenever he came close to one of the light spirits.
He couldn't quite feel those either.
The young hero was scared of the images he was seeing instead, them instilling within him a fear that almost made him cry like he never had before.
But was he allowed to cry, he wondered, to wail into this floating abyss, this vision of war and bloodshed he never knew.
His own war had only ever been his own.
Midna's war as well, he supposed, she must have wanted something out of all this, all she put Link in danger for.
But this war he saw was different, brother killing brother, families torn apart, their eyes white and blind, no mercy, no regret. And it was all for the power of the sacred realm.
They fought not for each other, but for themselves, the unholy power that Link was now collecting created to overpower it.
He had asked himself why many times before, in the spider-infested tunnels of the forest temple, in the scorchingly-hot innards of the Goron mines.
Midna had always convinced him that it was for Hyrule, and he wanted to believe her so much that he didn't care to fight her on it. But really, why did she want these relics, this dark power that had apparently already caused so much destruction in Hyrule in an age long past.
Link wondered if there was more to it, thinking of the pieces he was fighting so hard to collect.
His breathing started to heave as the images continued, seeing himself cause that pain to others, to Ilia, seeing himself darkened, at first with white eyes, blinded, then with red eyes, corrupted.
Link shook his head where he stood floating in the vision, wanting so much to run away from the past, from the present, and for some reason, from the future.
Yet, all he could do was raise his arms to protect himself, dissipating from the vision as he watched the light spirits seal that magic away.
"Oh hero chosen by the goddesses," the light spirit continued, his story nearing its' end, "beware…"
Link only descended further into panic as the images continued, hundreds of Ilias floating upside down, falling endlessly as they laughed.
"…those who do not know the danger of wielding power will, before long, be ruled by it…"
It was like a disturbing nightmare, Link trying so hard to feel his eyelids within his real self, using all his strength to harness those small muscles and pry them apart to force himself awake.
Yet, just before he did, a red eye flashed bright in his minds' eye, a tear red as blood forming from its' bottom before it too, turned upside down completely.
"…never forget that…"
He finally opened his eyes wide with heavy breaths, knowing, yet not knowing, why he was so terrified.
Link dropped to his knees, his legs weak as he tried to calm himself down, his arms hanging purposelessly as the feeling in them returned.
He was haunted by those visions for weeks afterwards, just as the light spirit had intended.
The young hero was careful to distance himself from Midna's elusive magic as much as possible, wanting more than anything to keep Hyrule safe.
After all, it had been showed to him clearly that his race had an uncontrollable greed, and he couldn't afford tempting that demon if he had any chance of saving Hyrule from the twilight, of circumventing the destruction that had already taken place, of seeing his loved ones away from harm.
He was noble at heart, and worried so much about keeping Hyrule safe that over the years, he eventually forgot the light spirits' words.
And that power comes in many different forms.
Author's Note: More fun emotions, oh boy.
Hopefully you got that the last half was a flashback. Only two chapters left after this, so I hope you tolerate me until the end.