The Legend of Zelda, its characters and locations are all property of Nintendo. Any and all OCs and original locations belong to me unless specifically stated to belong to someone else.

The Voice
Chapter 59 - Like a Pirate

Link sat on the edge of the bed in his guest chambers in Riju's palace, fiddling anxiously with his hands as he kept his eyes glued to the door. Every time he heard footsteps outside, he would perk up, his skin practically thrumming with excitement, only to deflate when the footsteps simply passed by his door, leaving him to his anxious waiting.

The return to Gerudo Town had passed by him in a blur. He was vaguely aware that he and the others were teleported out of Vah Naboris by Urbosa, and there had been some sort of trek back to the city, but he could not for the life of him remember how they'd all managed to ride back to Town with the limited number of sand seals between them. Teba had to have been involved somehow, but he had no idea exactly who had hitched a ride with him.

No, Link's mind had decided to focus on something else entirely. Or someone, rather.

Sheik.

Sheik had survived. He was alive. He had a body!

He still had trouble believing it was real; not even the time he'd spent more or less wrapping himself around the Sheikah in question had alleviated his fear that he was going to disappear the moment Link took his eyes off him.

Which was rather the cause of his current anxiety. The moment they'd arrived back at the palace, Riju had whisked Sheik away with the excuse of getting him something to wear other than Yiga rags—which was a good idea, seeing as the bodysuit Sheik's impostor had been wearing was about to fall apart from the wear and tear imposed on it.

Link had expected Sheik to return within minutes, but that was not to be. He'd been waiting for an hour, at the very least, but it felt like eons were passing by outside thanks to his anticipation.

Nothing was stopping him from leaving the room and walking around the palace to pass the time—Riju had been very clear on that, that Link and her other guests were free to go wherever they wished by special order of the Chief—but he worried that he'd be gone when Sheik returned here and...and...

...well, Sheik probably wouldn't be worried. Not much, at least. He'd wait patiently.

And so would Link.

More footsteps, and these ones actually stopped outside his door. He gripped his knees, and waited. They knocked on the door. Link deflated once more.

Sheik wouldn't knock. He'd barge in like he owned the place.

"Link?" Teba's voice asked. "Are you in there?"

"O-Oh," Link said, clearing his throat. "Um. Y-Yes."

"May I come in?"

"S-Sure."

Guilt opened up a pit in his stomach when the Rito stepped inside. Teba looked haggard. His feathers were dusty and matted with blood (most of which was Link's), several of them now missing, while others had been broken and streaked with what looked like oil of some sort. His usually intense look was replaced by one of extreme fatigue, a slight furrow above them indicating he was still in pain from the injures he'd gotten during their battle on Vah Medoh. At least his foot was still bandaged properly, though said bandages would need changing soon.

"What are you doing?" Teba asked.

"W-Waiting for Sh-Sheik," Link replied instantly, not even pretending to have been doing anything useful. He deserved a break, didn't he? If he wanted to spend his free time waiting for Sheik, he would damn well do so.

Teba chuckled at that. "I had a feeling," he said, giving Link a critical once over, frowning a little. "Which is why I came here. Come on." He beckoned Link towards the door. "Let's go."

"Wh-What?"

"It's been two days since you left the palace, Link," Teba said. "The meantime has been spent in a scorching hot desert, climbing around inside metal construct, fighting and bleeding—and nearly dying, I might add—a monster constructed of malice. Then we came straight back here, and all you've been doing is sit here and wait."

That was a fairly accurate description of his activities over the past forty-eight hours, Link had to agree. He still didn't quite see Teba's point, however.

"And?" he asked, to which the Rito rolled his eyes.

"Fine, I'll be blunt," Teba said. "You look like hell, you stink, and you need a bath."

Rather uncalled for, in Link's opinion. He could agree with the looking like hell part. His Sheikah uniform was practically ripped to shreds thanks to his battle against the Blight and Sheik's impostor, his hair doing its best impression of a bird's nest (take that, Teba!), but stink? That was just...just...

He raised his arm and gave a cursory sniff.

Oh.

"B-But wh-what if he c-comes back—"he tried, but Teba wouldn't have it, clearing his throat.

"Sheik is busy with Lady Riju," he said. "And will be for a while yet. There is more than enough time to get you cleaned up and actually looking like a Hylian again instead of a bokoblin."

Now that was just downright rude, Link thought, glaring at the Rito but standing up anyway. "F-Fine," he said begrudgingly.

"Good," Teba said with a smile as he led Link into the hallway. "Can't have the Hero of Hyrule looking like he just came back from rolling in the mud during the celebration, can we?"

"C-Celebration?"

"You though the Gerudo wouldn't celebrate the freeing of Naboris?"

"W-Well..."

Teba gave him a look. "You've just been thinking about Sheik this whole time, haven't you?"

He didn't deign to answer that.

"Sit still!"

"I am sitting still!"

"No, you are not!"

"Look, you—"

Sheik's protest was cut off as his head was dunked underwater, his angry words absorbed by the warm, soapy confines of the huge tub (pool, more like) that served as Riju's personal bath. As he screamed, he felt deft fingers vigorously rubbing at his scalp and threading through his hair, trying to do something about the tangled mess.

Stabby had done well in keeping the body functioning for the brief time he'd been in control, but hygiene had definitely not been on the top of his list of priorities. Presumably, no one had mentioned it out of politeness, but the first thing that had happened once they'd arrived at the palace was Riju bodily dragging him to her personal quarters and, more or less, dumping him into the waiting bath.

Or, rather, have Buliara dump him into the bath while Riju herself collapsed from laughter.

"You're like a cat getting wet!" she shrieked as Sheik had hissed and spat, trying to claw his way out of the water while Buliara stubbornly kept him in it.

"Tiny, I will drown you—"Sheik managed to spit out as he emerged from the soapy depths, only to gasp when even hotter water was poured over him. Buliara's strong arms on his shoulders kept him still while Riju poured another gallon of various soaps and oils over him, claiming he still smelled like a swamp.

"When this is done," Buliara said, "it's only your attitude that will."

"Slagathor, I am warning you—"

"Missed a spot," Buliara said, dunking him under once more.

And these people are supposed to be my allies, Sheik thought, wondering where he'd gone so wrong as to deserve this. Sure, he'd probably smelled a bit ripe, but was that a good reason to more or less assault him with hygienic products of an unquestionably feminine nature? He was a man, damn it!

He was allowed to resurface once more, and while Buliara made sure he stayed put, the drowning attempts had seized for now.

"Not that I'm complaining," he drawled, "but is this how Gerudo flirt? Because, I won't lie, I kind of like the aggression of it."

"That would be Risa's approach to things," Ayla said from somewhere behind him. Why she had chosen to attend this ritual Sheikah dunking, he didn't know. Entertainment, most likely. "Quick and violent, that's her way."

Ah, Risa. If it weren't for Link and Sharky, Sheik could easily imagine himself pursuing her. She'd actually appreciate the way he'd compliment her ability to cut a man's head off with a single swing of her sword. Link could do the same, but he just found it to be an unfortunate necessity of his job, as opposed to a beautiful skill.

Sheik chalked it up to cultural differences.

"Why are you even here?" he asked the captain, hearing the rustle of paper.

"Writing up a report," Ayla replied innocently. "Because even though she was there herself to witness it personally, the Commander still demanded that I do so."

Buliara huffed. "We must have a written record of these events—they are to pass into legend, after all."

"Is this going into the report?" Sheik asked cheekily, looking up at her. "How you forcibly stripped a Sheikah guest and decided to drown him in the Chief's personal bath? A bit risqué, don't you th—hargblh!"

"Hm."

It was interesting, how the real skin of his body's left shoulder and upper arm so smoothly transitioned into the synthetic kind that covered the rest of the arm and hand. At a glance, there was no visible border save for a very distinct line of where the flesh didn't go all bumpy in response to the cold air that wafted over it. Running the fingers of his right hand over the area revealed two very different textures, so it was quite obvious when tactile feedback was involved.

Of course, the closer it got to the hand, the more obviously fake it looked. The "skin" turned translucent, revealing the wires and metallic endoskeleton beneath, and the strangely shaped digits and fingernails. He hadn't tested it personally, but the status readouts and specifications in Stabby's documentation told him that this arm was much stronger than his right one.

Organic versus synthetic—he could do experiments on that thanks to the differences between the left and right halves of his body.

Sheik turned his attention away from his arm, leaning closer to the mirror in the dressing room. The Gerudo had left him to his privacy while Riju had gone to find him clothes, and he appreciated the opportunity to take a better look at himself in the mirror.

His hair was real, his analysis had revealed. Real protein made by the tiny follicles in his scalp. Blonde, a shade darker than Link's, a far cry from the nearly white hair of other Sheikah. Quite soft too, according to Riju. It was roughly shoulder-length, though some sections were shorter than others, either cut or burned during Stabby's adventures. He'd have to get someone to even it out for him, at some point.

So far, so good.

The right eye was...well, an eye. A distinct, ruby colour that revealed his blood lineage. He wondered if Sharky would like it. Link certainly had.

The left eye, equipped with the miniaturised Guardian cannon, could never pass for a real one. Six gold wires, which carried the energy necessary to power the damn, emerged from the skin of his face around the socket, feeding into the frame that held the eye in place. The metallic iris that served as its eyelids was weird-looking enough, and the eye itself, with its blue glow, was just too alien and unreal to ever be considered normal. For fuck's sake, anyone who'd actually seen a functioning Guardian would immediately get post-traumatic flashbacks from looking into Sheik's left eye.

No, this thing would never not cause people to freak out, and while Sheik was dying to try out the cannon on something, he knew better than to do so in the middle of a city. He'd have to wait until he and Link were in the middle of the wilderness, or something...

...that is, if Link would even let him travel with him anymore.

It was a stupid thought, but one Sheik couldn't stop from growing in the back of his mind, like a parasitic fungus. Technically, his job as the slate was over. The Divine Beasts were freed, its pilots ready to fight, and while the Sheikah tech could possibly come in handy, Link didn't really need the slate's functions anymore. He had the Master Sword, and an army on his side—that was all he'd need against Ganon.

"Stop it," he murmured to himself. "Stop worrying over stupid things."

Even if he couldn't help Link personally against Ganon, he'd find a way to make himself useful elsewhere. He had a body, and he would fucking use it.

...as soon as he learned to walk confidently instead of carefully padding along as he figured out the balance of things.

He continued studying himself in the mirror, noting that there were more than a few patches of synthetic skin covering his torso, though that skin was luckily not see-through. That would have been unpleasant, as the documentation told Sheik that roughly half of his internal organs were real and quite...well organ-y. The fact that his stomach was real had made him pause for several seconds.

It seemed the Shrine of Resurrection had focused mostly on making the muscles and other connective and fibrous tissues from "real" materials, while the skeleton was mostly artificial, save for a few ribs, a single vertebra (annoyingly enough), and his skull. His circulatory system wasn't nearly as complex as it would be in a natural creation, only feeding his organic parts with oxygen and nutrients, while electrical wires took care of the synthetic ones.

The power supply was a fucking disaster, and one glance at the documentation told Sheik it was going to be a pain in the ass to maintain. Not only did he need regular charging (which he had no idea how to accomplish), but his organic components needed biofuel in the form of real food. The two energies could not be combined or transferred in any way.

Fuck you, Shrine, he thought, shaking his head, a gesture he found himself doing more and more in response to the exasperation he kept experiencing.

His gaze dropped to the towel he'd wrapped around his middle, hiding the part of him that he was almost afraid of looking at. He'd steadfastly refused to do so during the bath, and so had the others.

He didn't know why he was so afraid of what'd find down there. He'd seen...well, Link and Sidon's. Why should his own cause so much consternation?

The answer was simple, he knew, but he tried not to acknowledge it.

Truth was, Stabby's documentation did not contain any information on that part of the body whatsoever. It was a complete blank area. It was understandable, really. An artificial intelligence conceived entirely for the purpose of killing the Hero of Hyrule didn't have time to worry about biological peculiarities like...like, eugh, reproductive organs, but surely he'd have some curiosity about just how thorough the Shrine of Resurrection had been.

Or maybe he was just as worried as Sheik about how the Shrine had sorted its priorities, like which parts of the body should have proper skin and which shouldn't.

"Better get it out of the way," he muttered, undoing the knot holding the towel in place and letting it drop to the floor with a whisper.

It took him a few seconds to process what he was staring at.

"Huh," he said. "That's...something."

"No."

Riju gave him a pleading look. "I'm sorry, but this is all I could find that would fit you."

"Tiny, I am not wearing this." Sheik crossed his arms defiantly, glaring at the pile of clothing the Gerudo Chief had eventually brought him. "I'd rather attend the celebration in a towel."

"Oh, so it's okay for Link to walk around dressed like a vai, but not for you?" Ayla asked, giving Sheik a wicked grin, all pretence of writing a report abandoned now. Why she had felt the need to join them in the comparatively small dressing room was beyond Sheik, but again he assumed it was because she was just that much of an arsehole, enjoying the act of torturing him. "Because you feel, what, manlier than him?"

"That's not what I—"

"Or are you worried about the fit?" the captain added, looking him up and down. "You're kinda bony, but that shouldn't be a problem, I think. You're a bit shorter than him, but—"

"You take that back!"

Her eyes widened slightly at the sudden outburst, but then her smile turned evil. "Oh, struck a nerve, did I?"

Sheik thought back to the conversation he and Link had had once, discussing whether or not Link was short. The conclusion had not been in Link's favour. If Sheik was even shorter...

"You're right," Riju said with a hum. "I can't really tell exactly without you standing next to each other, but you do seem a little shorter than Link."

Sheik gave her a withering look. "Still taller than you, Tiny," he said.

For once, she didn't rise to the bait, though there was still a slight twitch in the corner of her eye.

"I'm still growing," she countered easily. "You're finished."

"I will kill every single person in this room, I swear," he muttered under his breath. "Fine, fine, I'll wear the Yiga suit, then."

"Can't," Ayla said with glee. "We burned it."

"For fuck's sake! Are you trying to piss me off?!"

The captain made a poor attempt at looking innocent. "No?"

"Tiny, you'd better call Slagathor in here, because I'm about to murder one of her subordinates," Sheik warned Riju, who simply shook her head, clicked her tongue, and shoved the clothing into his hands.

"Just put it on," she said. "You can survive one night dressed as a vai—I'll gladly put in an order with the seamstresses tomorrow."

"Din above, fine, fine! Just...get out while I put it on!"

He really didn't have the energy or patience to deal with them right now. An entire city, and they really didn't have any simple clothing to lend him? Not a pair of trousers to be had anywhere?! No, impossible. They just wanted him to suffer. Probably as retaliation for the nicknames.

Hoisted by his own petard, they'd whisper to each other. And Link...gods, what would Link think?

He put the pile of clothing down on the bench behind the divider and dropped his towel once more.

"Fuck me," he muttered as he went about getting dressed.

It took a few minutes, and several rounds of cursing thanks to a stubborn article that refused to let itself be tied up, but eventually he emerged from behind the divider once more.

Taking a look in the mirror, he could only sigh. He wasn't sure what he'd expected.

Design-wise, it was nearly identical to the clothes Link had acquired at the Bazaar, save for the colours. Riju, bless her tiny, diminutive heart, had at least found articles in the Sheikah colours, dark blue, purple, and red that should have clashed horribly, but didn't. Or so he pretended.

The fit was...well, acceptable. The top was clearly meant for someone with a little more, er, filling than Sheik had, but it wouldn't fall off unless he started jumping around. He wasn't overly fond of the poofy legs of the sirwal, and the pointy shoes...hmph. The veil covered the lower half of his face in a way that, he had to admit, left just enough to the imagination to be intriguing.

There were two things Riju had taken into consideration, which Sheik appreciated but would never tell to her face.

The first thing was an ordinary, black leather glove. It looked a bit strange combined with the purple fabric of the sleeve, but it covered up the anomalous-looking left hand.

The other was an eyepatch—a simple one that was little more than a black piece of soft, silk-like fabric attached to a leather thong that wrapped around his head. Hastily put together, but good enough to cover up the artificial eye. It was a bit fiddly to put on, and frankly he thought it made him look like a pirate.

Or a dangerous, seasoned assassin.

Yeah, that was cooler. He'd have to make sure he gave off that sort of aura.

Assassin, not pirate.

All in all, Sheik supposed it could have been worse. It'd be hard, explaining the patches of weird-looking skin, but it was only for one night...or so he hoped. And...well, he didn't look too bad, dressed like this. Nothing like Link, of course, who had looked positively beautiful in his. No, compared to him, Sheik was just...serviceable.

Still, better than the Yiga suit, which had been falling apart anyway.

He left the dressing room and stepped into Riju's chambers, where the Chief and Ayla were apparently arguing over a game of chess while Buliara looked on in exasperation. She was the first to spot him, and Sheik could see her visible struggle with making a comment.

It was nice, knowing that even Slagathor wasn't immune to laughing at the ridiculous.

Riju was the second, giving Sheik careful look up and down before nodding with apparent satisfaction. "You look nice, Sheik."

Ayla was the last, and that evil smile of hers broke out once more before she said, "You look like a pirate."

Damn it!