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 68 - You're Mean

Okay, Sheik thought, that was thoroughly unpleasant.

His feet were on solid ground, but there was a distinct feeling of the ground itself moving, swaying from side to like the deck of a ship on a roiling sea, nearly ruining his already fragile balance. He nearly jumped as Link's hand clamped around his elbow, holding him firmly in place, shoring him up. An unpleasant meeting with the ground would have ensued if not for him.

Bloody hell, and this was after Sheik had improved the formulas and scripts. He definitely owed Link an apology for the utter misery getting teleported would induce before he upgraded them. Adding vertigo and nausea on top of this feeling of utter disorientation was the recipe for madness. No wonder Link preferred travelling by foot or horse.

"Y-You okay?" Link asked, his face coming into view as it was reassembled—and wasn't that a disconcerting sight when not filtered through the slate's lens?—already looking Sheik up and down for possible injuries.

"I should be asking you that," Sheik said, taking a moment to study both their bodies. This was the first time he'd tried teleporting two people at the same time, and he'd been a little...worried. No, not worried. He'd been confident it'd work, but just as he'd run the script his treacherous mind had decided to remind him of just how badly things tended to go when he fucked up, and...well, by then it'd been too late to stop.

Teleporting random objects was one thing—they were all made of distinct molecules and atoms, and had a specific shape, something Sheik could see, even as they were disassembled. People were...well, they too had distinct shapes and matter, but broadly speaking they were all the same. Sheik was confident in his ability to keep the teleportation function from accidentally merging, say, the Master Sword and the paraglider into one mass, but himself and Link?

Well, he would definitely make a note of the fact that this particular script actually worked with two similar individuals, biologically speaking.

"I'm g-good," Link said, giving himself a slight patdown, seemingly aware of what Sheik meant with his terse reply. "N-Nothing unusual. You?"

"What, apart from all of me?" Sheik replied, grinning weakly under his Sheikah mask. The world had stopped swaying now, but he was still feeling a little off-kilter, like the world was moving around without taking him with it. He ran a quick and basic diagnostic script, finding nothing out of the ordinary other than a system clock that was off by about half a second, which he quickly corrected.

Why it was, he did not know. Did the teleportation process somehow suspend time for the objects it transported? If so, that meant the whole thing had about half a second's delay, as opposed to being instant. That was useful information for the future, not to mention a fuel for nightmares about what would happen if something were to interrupt or delay the process further, especially if the object was only reassembled halfway at the other end.

And if there was indeed half a second's delay in the process, did that mean he and Link had, technically, travelled through time as well as space—or, rather, that time moved on around them, leaving them half a second behind everything else? If so, then the ancient Sheikah were not only just as brilliant as they seemed, but also absolutely insane.

Damn quantum physics, they were about as bad as magic on a good day; the last thing Sheik wanted was to add temporal fuckery on top of it all.

Time travel...hah, if only the bastards who'd put him in the slate could see him now. They'd be salivating for the data, and Sheik would have taken great pleasure in denying them access...or even just deleting it all, one bit at a time. They had gladly sacrificed everything for the knowledge Sheik now possessed, and treading on their dreams had would have...well, it wouldn't have fixed anything or improved Sheik's situation, but he was petty enough to not care, enjoying the act of ruining their legacy like he would a fine wine.

Except wine was disgusting.

How was it that everyone enjoyed it so much when it tasted like...like...what?

"H-hey," Link said, suddenly standing in front of him. "Y-You're getting l-lost in y-your head again."

"That's...my line," Sheik said weakly, clearing his throat. That was embarrassing. He'd developed something of a habit of getting lost in his thoughts whenever he focused on something intently. He wasn't sure why. Possibly something about having an actual headspace did something to him on a psychological level...

...and there I go again.

He shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "Lot on my mind."

Just like you, he thought. Except in a very different way.

Link got lost in his own head a lot too, but usually it was all negative, spiralling thoughts that conspired to keep him paralysed and unable to act. All the more amazing, then, that he was able to do the things he did. Truly a Hero, despite his denial.

"M-Mine too," Link said, looking around them. "Wh-Where are we?"

Sheik didn't reply, choosing instead to wait until he saw the light of recognition in Link's eyes.

They were standing in a grassy field, surrounded by white flowers. Ahead, the field dropped into a cliff, below which they could see the wide-open plains of Hyrule stretching out ahead of them. In the distance, Death Mountain belched smoke into the atmosphere, a perpetual column of ash marring the sky. To the west of it, stood Hyrule Castle. Even from here they could see the malevolent shadow of Ganon surrounding the keep.

Link drew a quick breath and turned around, staring at the gaping maw of a cave behind them.

"Th-This is...the Sh-Shrine," he said.

"Indeed," Sheik said. "I...that is, we have unfinished business here."

It had occurred to him just before he'd activated the teleport, a stray thought that had him change their destination just before activating the script. He probably should have consulted with Link first, but...well, impulse control wasn't Sheik's strong suit.

"W-We do?" Link asked, frowning. "Wh-What is it?"

"Technically, I guess it's just me, but...eugh, it's hard to explain." He took Link's arm and pulled him forward, the Hero stumbling a bit before he regained his bearing and fell into step beside Sheik. "Just bear with me, okay? We'll be back at the Domain before you know it."

"Is s-something wrong?" Link asked, his hand straying near the hilt of the Master Sword.

A simple enough lie, Sheik supposed. He could have told Link that he was afraid of someone interfering with the Shrine of Resurrection, which was technically true if you squinted enough, but he had a feeling starting this whole thing off with a lie would just come back and bite him in the ass, and he's had quite enough of that for a lifetime. Several even, at that.

"Possibly," he settled on saying vaguely.

There was no sign of life in the short passage that led into the antechamber of the Shrine of Resurrection. Something about the place seemed to drive away the wildlife, stopping wolves and the like from making it a den. Not even the wandering bokoblins seemed go near.

As such, the antechamber itself was empty and untouched as well. The pieces of broken crates lay strewn about the stone floor, smashed apart in Link's attempt to find clothes to warm up his freezing body. The crates lay open, their insides covered in a fine fuzz of green moss that had begun to grow in the dampness of the cave.

Sheik found himself pausing in front of the large door that lead to the inner chamber. Lights flickered in the darkness within, the sound of dripping water reverberating against the walls. The air smelled wet and dank, and Sheik could almost feel the lingering malice of Ganon, the proof that the monster had been tampering with the place.

Next to him, Link had paused as well, his eyes wide and staring into the darkness of the inner chamber.

Shit.

He hadn't taken Link into account in all this, too caught up in his own worries.

"You can wait outside, if you want," he told the Hero, whose eyes flicked to him. It wasn't optimal, splitting themselves up, and not conducive to Link's secondary objective in coming here, but the last thing he wanted to do was add to Link's already heavy emotional burden by forcing him to see the place where his life had taken a turn for the worse...for the second fucking time.

"N-No," Link said, his face tightening into a grimace that was probably supposed to be a brave face. He almost succeeded. "We f-face it t-together."

Sheik smiled under his mask. So brave, his Hero, even when his vital signs were betraying his nervousness. "Okay, then," he said, taking the first step inside.

The pedestal was there, a smooth stone pillar looking quite innocent despite having once housed Sheik's prison, the rectangular depression in the stone all that remained. He ignored it firmly, walking instead to the middle of the room, closing his eyes. He tugged off his eyepatch and opened them again.

Sure, the chamber looked far from dead to those with normal eyes, what with the shining lights on every surface and the sound of thrumming machinery beneath their feet, but what Sheik saw through his synthetic eye, and what he felt where he stood—the sheer amount of data and information that was flowing through the air—made it seem like a miniature city, teeming with life and activity. He'd been vaguely aware of it, even back when he'd first woken up in the slate, but he'd been far too occupied with figuring out where hell he'd ended up and what the fuck a Link was to bother.

The Shrine was alive, but he was the only one who could see it. It felt...lonely, in a way, but also empowering. He alone could see the true power of this place, and he alone could...could...

Ah, there it is.

He stared at the wall next to the slate's pedestal and, after connecting to the network, made a simple request. The system took a moment to respond, confused about his access code and the mismatching identification numbers, but soon yielded to the override. Next to him, Link jumped as there was a loud hiss, and part of the wall slid out, revealing a console connected to a mainframe quite similar to the ones found on the Towers and the Divine Beasts.

"Th-That was h-here the wh-whole t-time?" Link asked.

"Have to operate the Shrine somehow," Sheik said with a shrug, walking over to it. Without a slate to fit into the control surface, he was forced to rely on the wireless connection instead. He gave Link an apologetic look. "I'll have to disappear into my head for a while. Will you be okay?"

Link nodded and gave Sheik the fakest smile he'd seen yet...which was to be expected, really. Sheik had caught the nervous glances the Hero had given the sarcophagus—for what else could it really be called?—that had housed him for the last century, healing his wounds. His vitals showed that he was still on alert mode, though thankfully not near panic levels, but Sheik was powerless to help him with this. He wasn't even sure what Link was thinking, and asking was just an exercise in futility.

"I'll b-be fine," Link said, Sheik's thoughts apparently not as well-hidden as he thought. "D-Do the thing."

"Won't take long," Sheik promised, closing his eyes again, immersing himself in the sea of data.

Link watched Sheik's eyes close, his lover's posture going ramrod straight as he...did whatever it was he did whenever he connected to these things and the network. He had tried to explain it to Link on more than a few occasions during their stay in Gerudo Town, but it always flew over Link's head, mostly because Sheik sucked at explaining it all, but also because Link couldn't even begin to imagine how Sheik really saw the world...or worlds, as it were.

Link still wasn't sure why they were here, though he suspected it had something to do with the body Sheik now inhabited...and the monster he'd forced out of it. Stabby, he'd called it. An apt name. Link touched the spot where the monster's sword had run him through. Even through his tunic he could feel the slight dip in the flesh there—a mere speck in the patchwork of scars and marks that was his body. He could still feel, the sensation of the steel sliding into and through him, catching on and scratching against the bones, severing veins and muscles, leaving him bleeding out on the ground, only vaguely aware of the faces of Riju, Ayla, Buliara, and Teba above him.

He'd died then. He knew that. There was no denying it. He'd felt it. His heart had stopped beating, his lungs had stopped breathing, his thoughts and consciousness had slipped away into nothing. It hadn't lasted long, but he'd died.

He knew it. Had felt it before.

He looked at the sarcophagus again. The machine responsible for healing his broken body, to prepare him for yet another attempt. Shakily, he ascended the few to the platform steps and sat on the rim of the lower half.

It was surprisingly clean. Honestly, it looked like an empty bathtub at this point. He wasn't sure what he'd expected—gore and viscera, spare parts, like Sheik's new body had been carved and moulded from metal and flesh like a piece of clay.

Goddess, how long had it been since he woke up here? It felt like years, but it couldn't have been more than...what, a few months? No more than six. A lot had happened since then—most of it good. Some of it bad. He'd improved a lot, in his opinion, compared to how confused and afraid he'd been upon waking up naked and alone in this place.

Well, mostly alone.

Not anymore, though.

And he was still confused and afraid, but less so, and more in control.

How long, he wondered, until I'm back to what I was before...before...

He stood up, glaring at the machine. Healing...hah. It doesn't take a hundred years to heal wounds, no matter how severe. The body they'd brought here from the battlefield hadn't been wounded and on the verge of death.

No, he'd been long gone already.

Bringing him here had been a last-ditch effort, a shot in the dark by Purah and Robbie, putting all their hope in this machine, which they did not truly understand, and their desperate hope that it could do the impossible.

That it could bring Link back from the dead.

And the gamble had paid off. They probably didn't anticipate it would take this long, though.

This wasn't news to Link. It was in the name, Shrine of Resurrection, but everyone kept saying he had been healed, not resurrected. Like they didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he had been killed.

Like they didn't want to admit they lost.

Maybe that was the only thing that kept them going, all these years. If not for the vague hope offered by the shrine and their refusal to admit complete defeat, perhaps Impa and the others wouldn't even be there today to guide and help him...

He sighed, sliding down from the rim until he was sitting on the floor, back leaning against the sarcophagus. He wasn't sure what exactly he'd expected from seeing this place again, but he thought there'd be...more.

More anxiety, more guilt, more shame, more panic...

But seeing it just filled him with a whole lot of...nothing. At least for his own sake. As for Ganon's interference, that was a lot more worrying. Presumably, that was why Sheik had brought them here—to put in safeguards or something like that. The last thing they needed was for Ganon to be able to produce murderous copies of Sheik on a whim.

As lovely as Sheik was, one was more than enough.

Hyrule could never survive two, he thought, let alone an army.

He smiled a little at the image that came unbidden to his mind at that thought. Just rank upon rank of Sheiks with glowing eyes and evil grins, each more foul-mouthed than the next. Probably the only case where an army could verbally bring their opponents to their knees.

He looked towards Sheik, who was still standing still, deeply immersed in his business, and made himself more comfortable on the stone floor, keeping his sword within reach, watching the entrance.

Might as well be the lookout, he thought.

Sheik opened his eyes, twisting his face into a grimace. He'd found the information he wanted...but also learned a few things he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"F-Finished?" Link asked behind him. Sheik turned and found that the Hero had made himself comfortable on the floor, leaning against the sarcophagus. He looked quite at ease for someone resting against his own coffin.

"More or less," Sheik said, logging out. The mainframe gave a sad ping as it slid back into the wall, the stonework so precise he couldn't even see the seam. He paused, looking at Link. "You're...okay?" he asked.

"M-My butt's a l-little cold," Link said, shifting a little, "but f-fine otherwise. Why?"

Shit, he didn't know, then. "Well...I learned something in there," he said, gesturing vaguely towards the hidden mainframe. "I...looked up the log files. Yours. You...er...that is..." Shit, this was hard. How did you even tell your lover such a horrifying, world-shaking fact? This could either make or break Link, and Sheik wasn't confident he could pick up the pieces if—

"I d-died, right?" Link said simply.

Sheik blinked. "Uh...that is...yeah." He looked closely at the Hero, noting that his vitals were...surprisingly steady. He was still on edge, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation, but it wasn't the blind anxiety of an animal forced into a corner. No, this was just Link, Hylian Champion and the Hero of Hyrule, alert and ready to fight in case of an enemy attack. "Are you okay?" Sheik asked.

"As w-well as I c-could be, given th-the c-circumstances," Link said, standing up and stretching. He barely paid the sarcophagus any attention. "I kn-knew, b-by the w-way. Or...I had a f-feeling. After N-Naboris, I w-was sure."

"Oh," Sheik said, intelligently. "Are...are you okay?"

Because repeating questions always worked, right? Especially in the face of a lover who is entirely too calm about having died twice over, and having it confirmed. If anything, right now, Sheik felt more off-balance than Link should have been.

Link gave him a smile. "I'm okay," he promised softly. "I've...m-made m-my peace w-with it. I'm here n-now; th-that's what's important."

Over and done with, just like that.

Fucking hell, at this rate Sheik was going to be a superfluous and redundant actor, as opposed to Link's partner.

Maybe that was how it was supposed to be. That'd been his goal from the start, wasn't it? The reason he had mountains of data and analyses of Link's behaviour and conditions, all in the interest of future help and development?

Link never ceased to surprise. The bastard.

Sheik nodded. "Okay...you will let me know if you need to...talk?"

"Of c-course," the Hero promised, nodding.

Well, that made things a lot easier on Sheik's end. He'd been worried about how Link would react to this. Well, he knew he'd already died once, so perhaps finding out it was actually twice wouldn't affect him all that much but expecting rational and logical reactions to death is just asking for trouble.

"W-Was th-that wh-why w-we're here?"

"Partly, but not entirely," Sheik said. "I wanted to find out exactly what Ganon got up to in here. How it created Stabby."

"And?" Link asked. "D-Did you?"

Sheik nodded. "Turns out this thing wasn't exactly created for the purposes of healing," he said, gesturing to the room around them.

After finding the schematics for the place, Sheik quickly realised that the mainframe and the sarcophagus were but the end pieces to the gigantic machine built into the mountain around them. Compared side-by-side, the Shrine of Resurrection was bigger than all four of the Divine Beasts combined, easily dwarfing any other artificial creation of the Sheikah, save perhaps for the tallest of the Sheikah Towers. Such a huge machine, constructed entirely for the purpose of cheating death.

Which was...entirely expected of his ancestors, in Sheik's opinion.

Or should I actually call them my contemporaries? he wondered for a split second before quickly abandoning the thought. They didn't deserve to be acknowledged.

The Shrine of Resurrection, in its completed and fully operative state, was indeed meant to live up to its name.

Through various processes, the likes of which could take Sheik years to properly understand and analyse (and frankly, he was pretty sure most of these modules and their functions went against the laws of physics, which meant that, once again, fucking magic was involved), it could conceivably bring anyone back to life, regardless of injuries or, indeed, time of death.

For those gifted with magic, like Princess Mipha, this sort resurrection could not be done without a great cost to the wielder's stamina and, possibly, their own life, requiring a great deal of time to be devoted to recovering from the toll.

The Shrine of Resurrection did not need to rest or cool down. It could keep going, reviving the fallen on an industrial scale, the rate only hampered by how quickly the dead could be loaded into it. Mechanise that process as well, and you could potentially never run out of cannon fodder.

He explained this to Link as best he could. The Hero nodded slowly, clearly not seeing the problem with being able to bring anyone back from death. He said as much, too, which Sheik had expected.

"That's the thing," he replied. "If it this really was just a resurrection chamber, it wouldn't be nearly as dangerous as it really is."

"D-Dangerous?" Link asked. "How?"

"Well, for one thing, imagine if someone decided to bring back the worst tyrants of history? Those who could bend anyone to their will? Who killed thousands upon thousands before they themselves were put down?" Sheik shook his head. "What if someone brought Ganon back after you defeat it?"

"Th-The Shrine c-can do th-that?" Link asked, eyes wide.

"Potentially," Sheik said. "All you'd need is a fragment of the individual in question, and this machine can bring them back."

"B-But...how?" Link repeated. Sheik had a feeling the question was going to be persistent in this conversation.

Sheik paced back and forth. "To say the least, this machine represents the very pinnacle of what the ancient Sheikah were capable of, the lengths to which they were willing to violate the laws of nature to have their way. I don't even think they had a specific goal with it, they just wanted to see if they could build something like this." He gestured to the sarcophagus. "It sounds like a miracle, doesn't it? Something conjured up by the gods themselves. And, as I said, if all it did was heal and resurrect, we would be golden."

"B-But?"

He was unable to stop pacing, his mind racing with all sorts of scenarios of what someone with dubious morality (like himself) gained control of the Shrine and restored it to its full capacity...and then turned it on the rest of the world.

"Ganon used it to create Stabby," he said, walking up the steps and glaring at the sarcophagus. "The Shrine doesn't just heal and resurrect—it also creates." He paused. "No, actually, that's wrong. It doesn't create, it copies. Give it enough information about an individual, and the Shrine can make a copy using whatever materials it has available.

"Stabby was imperfect. This body is an amalgamation of biological and artificial material, made from whatever the Shrine had left to work with. The details about the original individual..." he scoffed. "That is, the original me, was incomplete, containing just enough information for the Shrine to be able to throw a bunch of squishy parts together and filling in the rest with tech." He touched the skin beneath his artificial eye, feeling the wires running beneath the soft flesh. "And then jamming an incomplete AI into the brain."

Link was staring at him quietly, chewing on his bottom lip, his mind surely racing just as fast as Sheik's, though probably not about the same thing. He'd love to give Link a rupee for his thoughts right now, but he was barely able to keep his own thoughts in order. Adding Link's would just throw it all into disarray. There was a conclusion he needed to come to, but he wasn't...it wouldn't coalesce into a proper image.

"My point," he tried, pausing. "Eugh, this is hard..." he cleared his throat again. "The Shrine isn't complete," he eventually settled on. "The machinery is all there, but the software—that is, the methods—aren't complete. That's why it took so long for the Shrine to bring you back."

In the corner of his eye, Link flinched a little.

"At the moment, the facility is running at maybe ten percent of its total capacity, if we're generous." He looked around. "There are dormant power sources here, probably drawn from the other shrines on the Plateau."

"H-How d-did it make S-Stabby s-so fast?" Link asked.

It was a question Sheik was happy to answer, if only to give himself more time to prepare the rest of what he had to say.

"Comparatively, our bodies are very different," Sheik said, gesturing between them. "Your heart is infinitely more complex than mine, and much more difficult to put together. They serve the same function but constructing a heart like yours takes much longer than mine. Healing your body to its near perfect state took a hundred years, but throwing this—"he tapped his chest"—horrid abomination together was but the work of a moment in comparison, done in a matter of weeks. There was no proper plan, from what I can tell, only mad thoughts communicated by Ganon to a machine that did its best to adapt—"

Link's hand on his shoulder stopped the pacing he'd started around the sarcophagus. It wandered along his shoulder, along his neck, coming to a stop on his cheek.

"N-Not an abomination," Link said firmly, giving him a glare. "C-Calm down."

"Sorry," Sheik said, realising his own vitals were starting to spike. His heart—full-sized aortic pump, according to the specs he'd found in the Shrine's mainframe—was beating much faster than necessary in response to his stress. "The point is, Stabby wasn't a very complex construction—relatively speaking—and therefore didn't take long to assemble." He sighed. "Nor will it in the future."

Link grimaced. "Y-You m-mean...?"

"If Ganon were to gain control of this machine again, it could conceivably create an entire army of...well, me. Or Stabbies, rather. It'd take a lot of work—the Shrine's stores of biological material have run dry, for one, and I'd rather not know how to refill them—but the worst-case scenario is very much a real threat. I have done what I can to prevent anyone from breaking into the system ever again, but...well, nothing is a hundred percent secure. Ganon found its way into it once, which means it could possibly do so again. Anyone could, if they're stubborn enough."

He'd started wringing his hands now, like some worrywart...but he was more than willing to admit that this thing really worried him, especially after everything he'd found in the mainframe.

"S-So..." Link began, looking into Sheik's eyes. "Th-This th-thing has p-potential for g-good...b-but also e-evil."

"Infinite potential," Sheik confirmed with a shaky nod. Was he panicking? Was this what panic felt like? His breathing was hastening, his heart beating wildly, his vision tunnelling...

Link pulled him into an embrace, the purpose of which Sheik didn't understand...but it felt grounding. He let himself relax, resting his chin on Link's shoulder.

"It's a w-wonder," Link murmured into Sheik's ear. "T-Truly."

"Y-Yeah," Sheik said.

"It b-brought me b-back," Link said. "It g-gave y-you a b-body."

"It did..."

Link took several deep breaths, making sure Sheik was following his lead. It...helped. His heart was slowing down. The Hero waited until he was about as calm as possible before speaking again.

"W-We have t-to d-destroy it."

The tightness that had been continually building in Link's chest as Sheik spoke immediately released at his statement. He'd known the matter was serious as he'd watched his lover grow increasingly agitated as he explained the Shrine's purpose, but once his thoughts began to imagine the things that could be done with it...

Suddenly, his previous mental images of an army of Sheiks didn't seem so farfetched. And the sheer horror of that had opened a pit in his stomach. He didn't hate the Shrine. It had served its purpose and brought him back to life, ensured that he had a second chance to destroy Ganon. It had given Sheik, previously imprisoned in a slate, a way to move and interact with the world, given him new purpose.

So much good could be accomplished with this machine...but also evil. Such evil that the good did not outweigh it.

Sheik seemed to struggle with the decision—Link didn't. The Shrine had to be destroyed; they simply could not risk it falling into enemy hands. They were lucky that Ganon had only created one Stabby, believing it to be sufficient (or maybe too crazy to follow through on a plan) to take him down.

Had Sheik believed his own security measures to be perfect, Link could have gone along with keeping the Shrine intact, but when he'd said it wouldn't a hundred percent secure...well...

The boy in question drew back, his eyes searching Link's for...reassurance? Lies? Link nearly gasped. He'd looked into them hundreds of times already, but...all he could think was how right Sivan had been.

"Y-Your eyes are b-beautiful," he said.

Sheik narrowed his eyes.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he asked in a flat voice. "I just told you something that could potentially change the world forever, you said we need to destroy it, and now you're flirting?!"

Now who was overcomplicating things?

Link shrugged. "The m-matter is d-decided, no? The Sh-Shrine is t-too d-dangerous. It c-can d-do good, b-but if evil g-gains c-control of it...n-not worth th-the risk." Sheik tried to pull out of his grip, but Link held him fast. "W-We w-were lucky th-that Ganon d-didn't understand wh-what it had. W-We have t-to make s-sure n-nothing like it c-can. It has t-to be d-destroyed."

At once, Sheik's tension seemed to disappear, and he sagged in Link's hold...which was, frankly, a bit of a problem on account of how heavy Sheik was...but right now he needed the support, so Link steeled himself and held firm, ignoring his complaining spine. At least there'd be a soft bed waiting for them in the domain.

"I thought you'd argue," Sheik said, voice muffled against Link's neck, relief clear in his voice, hot breath wafting across Link's skin.

"I'm n-not s-stupid," Link said, chuckling. "N-No one sh-should have th-this sort of p-power, n-no matter th-their intentions."

"Says the one who's been resurrected twice," Sheik muttered.

"I'm n-not aiming f-for a th-third," Link said, outright laughing this time. "It g-gets horribly d-dull."

Sheik's form shook with a slight laugh at that. "You're just trying to comfort me now, you ass."

"It's w-working, r-right?"

"...yeah..."

They took a moment to enjoy the embrace and the momentary lack of stress-inducing responsibility. Sheik was the first to withdraw, giving Link a slight smile after pulling down his mask.

"I wasn't expecting world-wracking discoveries when we came here," he said, scratching his neck. "I just wanted information about Stabby. Seems I can't stop myself from prying into things, no matter who or what they concern."

"It's wh-what you d-do," Link said, smiling fondly at him. Sure, it was aggravating sometimes, especially when Sheik did it just to annoy the people around him, but he tended to get right to the meat of the matter instead of wading around it. Besides, in this case it had averted a potential disaster. "S-So...wh-what now?"

Sheik looked around the chamber. "Well, we have to figure out a way to destroy the Shrine. Any method we have right now isn't going to work—this place was built by the Sheikah, meaning it was meant to last."

Link's attention was drawn to the light coming from the cave entrance, giving him an idea. "Th-The cave," he said. "We b-block it."

"That'll do for now, I suppose," Sheik said, nodding. "Preventing physical access is important too. The firewalls and access control I've set up in the mainframe should delay anyone trying to log in remotely long enough for me to do something about it."

Well, this was as good as settled, then.

"Sh-Shall we?" Link asked, slinging his pack onto his shoulder and beginning to head for the chamber exit.

Sheik didn't join him, however, and when he looked back, he found the Sheikah staring at the stone hanging from the ceiling—the same magic one they'd used to update the slate, as well as project Sheik's holographic image.

"Sh-Sheik?" he asked.

"There's one more thing," Sheik said, looking a little uncomfortable. "The other thing I brought us here for."

Oh, good grief, Sheik really didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to complaining about people bottling things up, did he? Link was definitely going to bring this up the next time Sheik gave him shit for keeping things to himself.

"M-More world-wracking r-revelations?" Link asked with fake cheer, not sure how much more he could take at this point. He just wanted to go home to the Domain. He wanted to see Sidon, and the others. He wanted to...he wanted to take a swim. He wanted Sidon to see Sheik.

Really, anything other than having to stay here for a second longer than necessary. The air was humid and unpleasant, the hum of machines was driving him up the wall, and watching Sheik's obvious discomfort was wearing him down. It was a look that didn't belong on Sheik's face.

"Not quite as large-scale," Sheik said, grinning humourlessly. He looked up at the stone again, which lit up as Sheikah letters scrolled along its surface, casting a blue glow into the chamber. "Still possibly devastating, though. I'd wait, but I'm not sure how much time we still have, and I...well, you'll have to meet sooner or later."

"Wh-What are y-you t-talking ab—?"

Link's question was cut short as the projector started up, immediately building a three-dimensional image. One that was considerably smaller than either of them. It was shaped like a person, a bit like a child, really. Whatever Sheik was projecting here, it wasn't himself—

Except it was. It was Sheik. A tiny, adorable little version of Sheik, without the artificial parts, but Sheik nonetheless. It even had the deadpan expression reserved for the moments the stupidity around him had reached excessive levels. It was the step one saw before he unleashed the dragon that was his rage. The image's face twisted into a grimace visible even under its mask, its attention shifting towards Sheik—the actual one, that is.

"I told you I didn't want to do this," the image spoke in a high-pitched voice. "Why are you forcing me?"

Was this a recording? Something Sheik had found buried deep in his subconsciousness? Some sort of memory? Weird that it would show him from the outside, but...well, the word 'weird' had pretty much lost its meaning at this point.

He didn't expect Sheik to talk back, though.

"You've had more than enough time to sulk," Sheik said sternly, glaring at the tiny version of himself. "I never promised I wouldn't introduce you, either, so don't you dare try to get me on a technicality!"

"I hate you," the projection said. "You're mean."

"You're me, so technically you're hating yourself," Sheik pointed out.

"I do!"

"Oh for..."

In hindsight, the time it took Link to realise what was going on was embarrassingly long. When the dots did connect, however...

"S-Stabby?!"

The projection's head turned to him; its body language unreadable. It remained silent.

"Go on, Stabby," Sheik said, "answer the nice man." It earned him a glare from the projection. "Eugh, you need to work on that." He gestured between them. "Link, Stabby. Stabby, Link."

Link knew his mouth was opening and closing silently, uselessly. He couldn't find the words. There were too many trying to get out at the same time. So he settled on:

"H-How?!"

"Long story?" Sheik tried hopefully, to which Link responded with a glare.

"M-Make it short," he growled.