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 69 - Put Who in the What?

Honestly, it had seemed like a good idea when it had struck him, but as he watched Link's face do increasingly impressive feats of acrobatics in reaction to his story, Sheik was starting to think that, perhaps, he should have kept Stabby's continued existence to himself.

Or waited until a more opportune time, perhaps. Maybe not revealed it right after revealing that the Shrine of Resurrection was actually a nightmare factory of potentially world-ending proportions. It'd be a lot to take in for anyone, but Link already had a lot on his mind.

He hadn't meant to discover the truth about the Shrine, damn it! He'd just wanted somewhere private to reintroduce Stabby and Link where no one could accidentally see or overhear them.

Sheik tried to keep the story short, as Link had requested. He really did. Unfortunately, keeping things brief had never been his forte. His talent lay more in the act of elongating and extending stories to torturous lengths, usually for the purpose of annoying whoever was listening enough for them to leave him alone. He had never been one to gloss over details either, so every now and then he realised he'd gone into more technical detail than necessary.

The whole time he spoke, Stabby simply looked at them both impassively, appearing bored, though the data traffic between him and Sheik was positively being overloaded. Sheik firmly ignored his pings and messages begging him to end this meeting, that there was nothing to gain from it for any of them.

Sorry, he sent back to Stabby. We're in too deep now.

"...and," he finished with a sigh, "here we are."

Link's gaze flitted back and forth between them, and Sheik felt his muscles tensing in anticipation of what the Hero would say.

Or do.

There really was no telling what Link would do when he reached his limit. A person could only be wound up so tightly before they snapped, and Sheik suspected Link was getting close to his breaking point, even before revealing the truth about Stabby.

Preferably, Sheik would see the warning signs and hide all the sharp blades and cutlery before it happened.

Link was moving. Sheik tensed up even more, but was relieved to see the Hero simply pacing back and forth for a bit, fists clenching and unclenching as he processed it all. His vitals were...well, not bad, but not exactly good either. Erratic would be the best description. His pulse, in particular, was reporting its displeasure with the whole thing.

THIS IS NOT GOOD

I know, Sheik replied inwardly, giving Stabby a sideways glance.

HE'S ANGRY

Undoubtedly.

YOU DID NOT THINK THIS THROUGH

I did! I just...discovered some other horrible things in the meantime. I thought maybe it'd soften the blow of this, but...it seems I was wrong.

"Okay."

Link's voice brought them out of their silent conversation, their attention returning to the Hero, who was standing with his back to them. His shoulders were rising and lowering with his breaths, though a great deal calmer than before. His fists were no longer clenched or shaking at his sides, but open, his fingers relaxed. He took another deep breath, holding it in for a few beats before releasing it, his shoulders lowering as he turned around to face them.

Sheik had no idea how to interpret the expression on Link's face. It wasn't angry. It wasn't happy. It wasn't...anything. It was perfectly neutral, completely at ease. The complete lack of expression a sculptor would put on a statue for the sake of accuracy. Sheik was used to seeing a variety of expressions on Link's face—even when mostly relaxed the Hylian had a vague look of general consternation, a slight wrinkle in the skin between his eyebrows that proved he was, as usual, overthinking something most people would consider trivial.

Frankly, this blank face was far more terrifying than Link's anger could ever be.

"O-Okay?" Sheik repeated, briefly wondering if now was the time to start running. Problem was, Link was standing between him and the cave entrance.

"Okay," Link said again, and it seemed like he was saying it more to himself than anyone else. "Okay."

WE BROKE HIM, Stabby said over their connection. MAYBE WE SHOULD—

His words were cut off as Link stepped up to Stabby's holographic projection, staring down at the child-sized image. There was a long moment of silence, and then Link kneeled down so they were both at eye-level.

Sheik had to fight down the urge to point out that, as an image, Stabby's eyes weren't actually there, but he was honestly too afraid to even open his mouth at this point.

And wasn't that a first?

Stabby had no idea what to do. His data link had gone silent, but Sheik's process monitors told him that Stabby's thoughts were racing, desperately trying to find a way to solve the problem in front of him. Or at the very least, a way to placate a pissed-off Champion.

"Is it t-true?" Link asked.

Stabby hesitated. "Is...is what true?"

His voice echoed in the chamber, child-like in all aspects save for the slight distortion.

"Th-That," Link said, pointing to Sheik. "Everything h-he j-just said. Th-The s-story."

Sheik had made sure to emphasise Stabby's lack of free will during the events in the desert, his immense regret for what he'd done under Ganon's influence, and his willingness (or desperation, rather) to leave the body in Sheik's control, refusing to ever use it to do harm again. He could only hope it was enough to convince Link that none of it was Stabby's fault.

Then again, it's rather hard to take all that into consideration when confronted with one's killer. Sure, he'd been healed by the spirit of Princess Mipha, but that didn't mean Link was prepared to just let it go.

"D-Did you attack m-me b-because G-Ganon forced y-you to?" Link asked. "D-Did you d-destroy th-the slate b-because you weren't g-given a ch-choice?"

"Y-Yes," Stabby said. "I...I never wanted to do it. Any of it. I was...it screamed at me, hurt me, forced me. It made me kill...kill people. They were in pain, and it was laughing in my head. I didn't want to, but if I didn't it would...it would..."

"Enough," Link said firmly. "Wh-What you d-did was w-wrong. You kn-know th-that, right?"

No hesitation this time. Stabby nodded firmly. "Yes."

"W-Would you d-do it again, g-given the ch-chance?"

"No!" Stabby practically shouted, the speakers in the ceiling screeching with feedback. Link winced, but he kept his eyes on the projection. "I never wanted to hurt anyone! I never want to do it again!"

Link looked up at Sheik's face, presumably trying to find a hint of a lie anywhere. "He's y-you?" he asked.

"He is...based off an incomplete scan of my personality and thought patterns," he said. "It's not enough for a functioning intelligence, so he has been growing afterwards, and he is far from fully developed, but yes, at the very bottom of it all...he's me. Or a version of me. A young, undeveloped version of me."

"S-So...l-like a ch-child," Link said, his gaze softening considerably as he brought it back to Stabby, whose image stood petrified in front of him. His mask finally breaking, the Hero gave Stabby a tiny smile. "I f-forgive you," he said.

Even if Sheik hadn't seen Stabby's eyes visibly widening with shock in his projection, his process monitors told him that there was a complete pause in Stabby's...well, everything, for several cycles as his entire system ground to a halt in the face of Link's sudden forgiveness.

Inwardly, Sheik breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that he hadn't overestimated Link's capacity for compassion. In many situations, forgiving one's enemies could lead to utter disaster or later betrayals, but Sheik trusted Stabby.

After all, Stabby was him.

A tiny, annoying version of him, but him nonetheless.

And Sheik was no traitor.

"Wh-What?"

Stabby's voice was incredulous once his processes started up again.

"I f-forgive you," Link repeated, smiling. Had he been corporeal, Sheik suspected Link would have pulled Stabby into a hug. The Hero's twitching fingers were only further proof of that.

"But...I killed you," Stabby said weakly, looking to Sheik uncertainly, the data link suddenly flooding with queries and requests for clarification, unable to understand how on earth someone could so easily forgive their own murderer. Not for the first time, and he suspected neither would it be the last, Sheik found himself mentally cursing Ganon for what it had done to the little AI.

"I g-got b-better," Link said with a shrug. "N-Not the f-first time I've d-died."

And wasn't that a horrifying thing to say out loud? Yet, the Hero seemed perfectly at ease with saying it. Sheik really, really needed to perform a sanity check on Link later—preferably with Sharky's help.

...that is, if Sharky would even believe that—no, no, no, not the time to pull at that thread, lest Sheik's sanity be called into question!

"That...That doesn't make it okay!" Stabby exclaimed. "I hurt you! I hurt so many people, and, and—"

"And y-you did it b-because y-you were afraid," Link said gently. "B-Because G-Ganon would hurt y-you if y-you d-didn't. Y-You're j-just a k-kid..."

"I'm not," Stabby tried. "I'm not even a person, I—"

"Y-You are," Link interrupted. "Y-You are. If y-you're n-not, then n-neither is Sh-Sheik, and I've s-spent th-the last s-six months t-trying t-to convince him otherwise, s-so...y-you are."

"...there's no proof."

"Just give in, Stabby," Sheik said, shaking his head. Heh, arguing with himself, as if he didn't know exactly how stubborn he—both of them—could be. "He'll outlast either of us."

"S-See?" Link told Stabby, pointing at Sheik. "L-Listen t-to y-your big brother."

Now it was Sheik who needed a few cycles. "I...beg your pardon?" he said slowly, scowling as Link simply directed an innocent look in his direction.

"M-Makes sense, d-doesn't it?" the Hero said. "H-He's based on y-you, but isn't y-you, so..."

Sheik opened his mouth to deny it, but the data link had suddenly gone quiet...and then there was a flood of...happiness? Well, as close to what an abstract concept like happiness could ever be emulated in terms of data, but there was no mistaking just what Stabby thought of the idea of having a big brother. A rude, cursing big brother with a short fuse that could only be measured in nanometres, but a big brother even so.

...and Sheik realised he didn't hate the idea.

At this point, Link wondered if he was ever going to have a single week during which nothing of particular note happened. He'd gotten quite close with the days following the liberation of Vah Naboris, but Sheik saw fit to break that streak quite thoroughly with this new revelation.

The truth about the Shrine was one thing. He could, with some effort, file that away under things to worry about in the future, and possibly even manage to ignore it for the most part. But then his short-tempered lover just had to add this on the top of the already teetering pile of clutter that, as Link suspected, would bring about a full mental breakdown one of these days.

But here they were, and he didn't have the luxury of putting it aside for later.

Thankfully, it didn't take him long to make up his mind about this new individual in front of him. There was only so much resistance he could put up in the face of a tiny version of Sheik who, unlike the regular-sized one, didn't swear up a storm and declare war on the world at the drop of a hat. If anything, Stabby was Sheik's opposite in demeanour, careful and hesitant in the way he spoke, especially when addressing Link directly.

Stabby was a kid. An unconventional one, to be sure, but still a kid. A kid that had been under Ganon's thumb and forced to commit several atrocities under the pain of death. Link could still feel the phantom pain of Stabby's blade running him through, and he doubted it would go away anytime soon, but he just couldn't find it in himself to hold it against the young artificial intelligence, especially after Sheik's story. Link wasn't quite able to imagine or visualise how Sheik and Stabby saw their internal world, but Link could all too easily imagine the cruelty Ganon had put Stabby through.

And he'd willingly surrendered control of the body to Sheik the moment Ganon had been unceremoniously thrown out. That alone would have put Stabby on Link's good list, even without everything else. However, that meant...

"C-Can he t-take the b-body b-back?" Link asked, shifting a little. They were sitting on the steps to the sarcophagus now. Even Stabby had made his shimmering projection sit down on the lowest step, looking uncomfortable. Sheik was one step above him, with Link at the top, looking down as if he was presiding over some strange meeting.

A family meeting, even.

Oh Hylia, Sheik would kill him if he voiced that out loud.

...though they were lacking one member in particular.

"Not unless I let him," Sheik said, shaking his head. "But he's already made it perfectly clear that he doesn't want to be in control of this shell ever again. He refuses to, in fact. Hell, up until now he said he just wanted to sleep and never wake again."

Link looked sharply down at Stabby upon hearing that, and the little AI's image curled up on itself a little. "Is th-that t-true?" he asked.

"I don't belong here," Stabby said. "I don't...have a place. I don't want to hurt anyone ever again, and...and the easiest way to do that is to just...sleep."

"See?" Sheik asked. "Clearly, that wasn't acceptable, and I figured the best way to make him stop thinking like this was introducing you."

Even now, Sheik's way of thinking eluded Link's understanding. He said it like it was a natural conclusion, but how did he arrive there?!

Not for the first time in the past hour, Link felt an urge to hug the AI, but after his first attempt had ended up with him nearly tripping over his own feet after passing through the image, he'd learned his lesson. He didn't really understand what Stabby was—not truly, not the way Sheik did—but he knew the kid was hurting, and Stabby's words were uncomfortably close to what Sheik had asked of him before they'd left for the desert.

What else was eternal sleep other than a nicer way to describe death?

He leaned backwards against the sarcophagus. He paused at the sensation of cold stone and metal, felt even through his tunic.

Hm...

"C-Can we m-make him one?" he asked.

"A what?" Sheik asked.

"A b-body," Link replied, gesturing to the sarcophagus. "Y-You said it y-yourself. Th-The Shrine...it c-can c-create—"

"In theory, yes," Sheik said, nodding slowly and letting his eyes roam the room. "However, the Shrine's stores are out of biological material, meaning that anything that we create with it would consist entirely of tech, with no...living material." He gestured to his own form, the one Stabby had originally inhabited. "This one's approximately fifty-fifty, and whatever plans remain are unusable. We'd have to design it from scratch, and I'm not entirely sure I'm able to. I'm not an engineer."

Link nodded. He supposed that was true. Sheik could figure out and control the Sheikah Network and other machines, but designing and building one himself? That wasn't something that could be done at the snap of a finger. It'd take a special kind of mad genius, Link figured, to pull off something like that—

He snapped a finger.

"P-Purah and Robbie!" he exclaimed. "S-Surely they c-could do it!"

Sheik grimaced. "Please don't bring the garden gnome into this. Purah is...tolerable in small doses, but..." He shook his head. "Even so, they have more important things to do. I suppose you could ask them after this is all over, but—"

"I don't want a body!" Stabby exclaimed, glaring up at them. "I don't!"

"Wh-Why not?" Link asked, giving the AI a serious look. "A b-body would l-let you interact—"

"I don't care," Stabby said, a little quieter. "I...I wouldn't...it feels wrong. Like I've been...forced into a coffin. I'm not...supposed to be there."

"Where?" Sheik said, looking at Stabby like he'd just grown two heads.

"There!" Stabby said, gesturing around them. "Out there. With you. With everyone. I don't belong there. I don't belong anywhere, and if you force me into another body I...I don't want it." He looked up at Link with wide, pleading eyes. "Please don't make me."

"Okay, okay," Link said, nodding. "W-We w-won't."

It pained him to say so, but the last thing he wanted was to traumatise the kid even further. Deep inside, he felt his hatred of Ganon grow just a little hotter. Yet another victim he had to avenge.

A step below, Sheik's eyes met his. "I think I have an idea," he said.

"Don't want a body," Stabby muttered.

"Stop whining," Sheik said. "This doesn't involve getting you one."

"Th-Then what is it?" Link asked.

"Can't believe I didn't think of it before, in fact," Sheik said, his voice taking on an ever so slightly smug note. "I'm a fucking genius, Link."

That was just untrue, Link wanted to say, but he knew that would just prolong the process of Sheik getting around to actually saying what he was thinking about. Instead, he simply nodded, hoping Sheik would get on with it.

"I'll be honest, sharing this body with someone else isn't ideal," Sheik explained. "Even if Stabby spends most of the time sleeping, I know he's still there. His presence takes up resources that could be better spent elsewhere."

Link gaped. What a cruel thing to say!

"Wh-What are y-you—"

Below them, Stabby was nodding along, like it made perfect sense, like he'd already gotten the gist of what Sheik was getting to.

"So," Sheik continued without mercy, "we obviously can't have that. It's not a permanent solution."

"It isn't," Stabby agreed.

"W-We're not k-killing him!" Link exclaimed, glaring at his lover, wondering what the hell had gotten into him.

Sheik and Stabby stared at him.

"Wh-What?!" Link asked. "W-We're not!"

"Never said we were," Sheik said. "What a cruel person you are, Link."

"B-But you s-said—"

"I said we can't share this body permanently," Sheik said, clearly just fucking with him now, looking back to Stabby. "It's not fair to either of us. Unless Stabby wants the body back, we have to separate ourselves somehow, meaning we have to find somewhere for Stabby to go." He stood up and gestured theatrically to the wall where the Shrine's console had been hidden. "Ta-da!"

Link stared at him for a long, endless moment. "Ta-d-da?" he said drily.

"Ta-da!" Sheik confirmed. "It's genius!"

"Wh-What is?!"

"The Network," Stabby supplied helpfully. "He wants to put me into the Sheikah Network."

Put who in the what?

"It makes perfect sense," Sheik said a little defensively. "The Network is vast and runs on enough powerful hardware to give Stabby more than adequate processing power. It'll let him grow and learn, and he'll be able to keep an eye on every quadrant where there's an active tower. In return, he can supply us with information and tighten up security wherever it's necessary." He paused and turned around to point a stern finger at Stabby. "Though any changes you want to implement will have to approved by me, of course. I trust that you won't do anything malicious on purpose, but that doesn't mean I'll let you run just any program on my servers."

Stabby nodded firmly, like this all did make the perfect sense Sheik claimed.

Link was a little lost.

"Wha...?" he uttered intelligently.

"It'll take the pressure off me, as well," Sheik continued, now pointing at Link. "I won't have to divide my attention between you and the Network, save for when I feel like it. Up until now I've been keeping an eye on both, and it is exhausting. It's how I missed Stabby leaving the Shrine in the first place, in fact. With Stabby at the helm, I can focus on destroying our enemies instead." He paused, looking thoughtful. "Yeah, I see no way in which this can possibly go wrong."

All this time, Stabby had been nodding vigorously, looking more and more excited at the idea. It didn't make sense to Link at all. Why wouldn't Stabby want a body of his own, even if it was completely artificial? Sheik had wanted nothing more than a way to escape the prison that was the Sheikah Slate, and yet this little version was vehemently against the idea.

He supposed that was because Stabby hadn't really experienced imprisonment in the same way Sheik had, and the limited time he'd had with a proper body had been tainted by Ganon's orders. But...was that really reason enough to give up the thought entirely? And wasn't being put into the Sheikah Network just another prison? A big one, supposedly, but even the biggest cages would start to feel cramped after a while...

"Besides, should he ever change his mind, we can look into building him a body later," Sheik added, as if reading Link's thoughts.

"Not going to change my mind," Stabby said stubbornly.

"Tell me that in a hundred years and I'll believe you."

"Ask in a thousand and I still won't!"

"Look, you little shit, I know what it's like to be trapped, and it gets old, believe me—"

"E-Enough," Link interrupted, hoping to stop the argument before it could properly start. "L-Look...I d-don't l-like it," he said. "I d-don't l-like the idea of imp-imprisoning him in th-the N-Network." They both made to argue, but he held up a hand. "B-But! If th-that is wh-what S-Stabby wants...th-then I w-won't argue." He looked at the projection, taking in the features of the child-like image. "Are y-you sure y-you want th-this?"

"I do," Stabby said, nodding excitedly again. "I can help you, like that. I can be a lookout!"

"Obviously, I will put in security measures so he can't do anything...dangerous, accidentally or not," Sheik added. "I'll know immediately if he does."

Link realised he didn't really have any useful arguments against this. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to find any. If it made sense to them, and Stabby himself agreed to and wanted it...then maybe it wasn't his place to stand in the way. Honestly, Sheik and Stabby could have done this by themselves without Link's knowledge at all, but they seemed keen on including him in the decision anyway. It was infuriatingly considerate.

And it's not like Stabby would be isolated, right? Sheik would still be there to talk to him, and...well, maybe let Link check in with him every now and then...or all the time.

"F-Fine," he said, relenting. "B-But if ch-changes his m-mind at any p-point..."

"We'll get the garden gnome and centenarian toddler to whip up a schematic or two," Sheik finished, giving Stabby a firm look. "And he will tell me if he does change his mind, right?"

Stabby hesitated, but then nodded. "I will."

"Okay, th-then," Link said. "It's a d-deal."

"Thank you," Stabby said, looking at them with a big smile visible even under the mask.

"Eh, I was getting tired of sharing my brain with you anyway," Sheik said with a dismissive wave, but it was clearly an act. "Monitoring the Network is a huge pain in the ass anyway, and I'm happy to leave it to you."

"I won't disappoint you," Stabby promised. "I promise."

"Good," Sheik said. "Your first job will be making sure no one fucks with Shrine of Resurrection. There's no telling how desperate Ganon will be in its final hours, and while we'll block physical access to the cave, I'll need you to make sure the digital ones remain strong."

If anything, the idea of making Ganon's day a whole lot worse only put a bigger smile on Stabby's face. Yup, he was definitely Sheik's little brother.

"S-So, how d-do we d-do this?" Link asked. "Anything w-we need?"

"Oh, no, we can do it right here, right now," Sheik said, waving a hand with an unnecessarily dramatic flair, causing the Shrine console to slide back out of the wall. "This mainframe happens to be quite powerful in its own right, and a perfect place to upload Stabby. I'll just have to put some safeguards in place before doing so. Whole process shouldn't take long, an hour or so at most."

"Oh..."

"So yeah, hang tight."

And with that, Sheik was gone. His eyes fluttered shut as he began his work, leaving Link alone with Stabby's projection. There was an awkward silence.

"Thank you for this," Stabby suddenly said. "We were arguing about it a lot, and Sheik said it was up to you. I was afraid you'd say no."

"Arguing? Wh-When?"

"Over the data link, while we were talking before."

"Ah."

"So, thank you."

"As l-long as y-you're sure," Link said. "And y-you will l-let us kn-know if you ch-change your m-mind."

"I promise."

"G-Good."

Another silence, less awkward this time.

"D-Don't you w-want a d-different name?"

"No, I like Stabby. It's what Sheik called me when we first met. When he saved me."

Well, that was definitely a good reason. Right?

"Can I ask you a question?"

The look on the projection's face was earnest and curious this time. Link nodded, wondering what it was.

"If Sheik is my brother...what are you?"

"U-Uncle," Link replied, not really thinking. By the time he realised what he'd just said, Stabby was already nodding.

"Information saved. Thank you, Uncle Link."

Link's heart didn't melt at that.

It didn't!

Later that day, the Plateau shook with the force of several powerful explosions near the ruins of the Temple of Time. It was shortly followed by the vibrations of several tons of rock crashing down, shaken loose by the explosions, to fill the empty tunnels of an unnatural cave.

The event triggered several seismic event alarms in the Sheikah Tower Network, though these were quickly silenced as the controller took a look at the data and concluded nothing was out of the ordinary. It then sent an all-clear signal to one of the two heat signatures standing outside the perimeter of the event, one of which had a direct data link to the network.

GOOD WORK. TAKE YOUR TIME GETTING USED TO NAVIGATING THE NETWORK AND USING ITS FUNCTIONS. IT'S A STEEP LEARNING CURVE, BUT YOU'LL GET IT. WE'RE HEADING TO THE DOMAIN NOW, AT THE FOLLOWING COORDINATES.

A series of coordinates showing the exact location of the Zora's Domain on the network's map of Hyrule was transmitted to the controller. Another message was transmitted from the heat signature.

LET ME KNOW IF SOMETHING INTERESTING OR WEIRD HAPPENS. DON'T FUCK THIS UP, LITTLE BROTHER, OR THERE'LL BE HELL TO PAY.

The controller was filled with a sense of mirth and warmth, transmitting back,

I WON'T. BE CAREFUL, BIG BROTHER AND UNCLE.

One of the heat signatures turned to the other, and the second one's temperature rose a few degrees.

And that was how Stabby learned to tell when his uncle was embarrassed.