A note from the Hime no Argh herself-

Hello, dears. Welcome to another chapter of ATOSY…BWA HA HA HA! Ahem. Anyway, yes, it's a new chapter, yes, I'm almost done with the story, and yes, I should be uploading the next chapter fairly soon. You guys are stuck reading Chapter 19, but I'm already on Chapter 22, HAH! Well, I'll have more for you very soon. I already wrote the climactic chapter so I'm pretty much past the hard part and it's smooth sailing (I hope) from here on in. So enjoy this while you can, because it'll soon be over…but now I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's Chapter 19, have fun!

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Chapter 19

Eyes

"Zelda?"

A quiet, worried voice entered my troubled sleep. I opened my eyes and saw Rauru's face. He was pale and sweating, leaning over me to look into my eyes.

"There you are." His voice was as calm as always, but when he helped me sit up it was with hands that trembled.

I looked around, dazed, wondering for a moment what had happened and where I was. I saw the familiar walls of the temple around me and the reassuring sight of Link beside me before memory struck. Bringing my knees to my chest, I buried my face in them and struggled not to cry. I could smell blood on my clothes.

"Zelda?" Rauru said again, resting a hand on my shoulder.

I shrugged it off. "Don't touch me," I mumbled. "I'm a murderer." Remembering my dream briefly, I wondered. I looked at my palms. There was no trace of wounds there.

Rauru gripped my shoulders before I could hide my face again and turned me so that I was forced to look into his eyes. "Tell me what happened," he said firmly.

"I killed a man," I whispered, wanting sleep again. Why couldn't he find someone else to interrogate?

"I can see that. Your clothes are stained. Now, why would you kill a man?" Rauru watched me very closely, his expression never betraying his emotions.

"He tried to rape me," I said dully.

"I see." Rauru stood and tugged on my hands until I stood as well, reluctantly. Without a word he led me out into the temple's main hall, where piles of food and water-skins lay on the red carpet in the aisle.

Rauru gave me a water-skin. "Drink up," he ordered.

I obeyed, rinsing my parched mouth and throat. Rauru handed me an apple. I stared at it dumbly, trying to remember what to do with it.

"Eat," Rauru reminded me gently.

I shook my head and gave it back. There was no food that could get past the lump in my throat. Rauru took the apple without argument, placed it on top of the pile of food, and gently pushed on my shoulders until I sat on the temple's floor again. He sat cross-legged before me and peered directly into my eyes for several long moments.

"Do you know what the difference is between self-defense and murder?" he said at last.

I didn't answer, only stared at him.

"Murder is the killing of another creature for no good reason. Self-defense, on the other hand, is something one does to protect oneself," Rauru explained. "And that is a very good reason. You protected your virginity from the man who tried to rape you. This does not make you a murderer. He tried to hurt you and probably would not have stopped unless you killed him. Your only chance of protecting yourself was to kill him. Therefore, your action is justified. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"Remember, you were the victim of his actions. His actions forced you to kill him. Would you have hurt him if he didn't attempt to rape you?"

"No," I mumbled.

"Then you were forced," Rauru said, nodding. "As he would have forced you to engage in intercourse with him had you done nothing. This isn't your fault. The victim is never at fault. Understand?"

I nodded.

Rauru sighed. "I don't believe you, but given time to think, you'll see the sense in my words. Just trust me when I say you aren't at fault. Now-" Rauru handed me the apple again, "-try eating a bit of this."

I obediently took the apple and managed to swallow a few bites.

* * *

Rauru had me change my clothes, then sent me back to sleep for the rest of the night. He woke me in the morning and made me lie in the sun all day outside the temple. Under the blue sky I did indeed begin to see the sense in Rauru's perspective. I was sorry for killing the man in the castle town, but in my heart I knew that I would be much sorrier had I let him rape me.

Around noontime Rauru came to see how I was doing under the pretense of bringing me food. As I stuffed cheese in my mouth he asked, "Feeling better?"

"Yes," I said, my mouth full. I swallowed the cheese and added fiercely, "I wish I could do something about Ganondorf. His evil is tainting everyone and everything."

Rauru sighed. "Unfortunately, princess, evil like the kind you encountered last night has always existed. It doesn't take a tyrant king to bring out that evil in everyday people." He shook his head. "I never understood why the Hylians don't train their daughters to protect themselves. Others do. All Gerudo women, whether they become warriors or not, are trained in the glaive to protect their vitue. The Zora teach girls to use the sharp ends of their fins in self-defense."

"How do you know this?" I asked, startled.

"My squad went everywhere in Hyrule." Rauru's eyes darkened. "Not every soldier was a good boy. Some attempted rape on the foreign women, but they usually learned the error of their ways."

"Maybe when I'm queen, you could teach the girls self-defense," I suggested. I smiled a bit. "The goddesses know that your lessons will stick."

Rauru smiled in response to my gentle teasing. "I'm honored, but I doubt I'll be around when you're queen. Once Link wakes up I'll have served my purpose on this earth."

I stared into his eyes, astonished, and realized that he was being utterly serious. "You don't mean- surely you won't die?"

"I think of it as trancendence," Rauru said loftily. "When I'm done serving Link I'll go to serve the goddesses. They are forever in need of their pets." Seeing that I continued to stare at him stupidly, Rauru added with a small smile, "I'm a sage, princess. Awakened all of two days." He added a little flourish.

I was so astounded that I could do nothing but gape, my mouth opening and closing like a fish, for several minutes. Finally I squeaked, "Sage?"

Rauru nodded.

"You?"

"That's right," he confirmed.

I gaped for a while again, then finally managed to blurt out, "Is everyone I know a sage?"

Rauru grinned. "Couldn't tell you that, princess. I don't know who the other six are. Well, besides Impa, anyway."

"Other six?"

"When sages are awakened, they always number seven. I thought you knew your legends," Rauru teased.

"Your temple?" I asked stupidly.

"The one we live in." Rauru indicated the Temple of Time. "I've done my duty by protecting this temple and the Hero of Time. When Link wakes up, I will be called to the Sacred Realm to carry on serving Link by lending him my power. When Link has defeated Ganondorf, I'll do whatever the goddesses wish of me." Seeing that I was gaping at him again, Rauru smiled. "Being awakened is like having the fog of destiny lifted. Suddenly one knows all that one will do."

"Are you immortal?" I asked.

Rauru laughed. "A rickety old man like me? Who'd want to live forever if they were already half my age?"

"So you will die."

"Eventually, yes."

"Do you have to live in the Sacred Realm until then?"

Rauru shrugged. "I wouldn't say it's matter of having to. It's simply my path. I've no problem following it."

I fidgeted a little, looking at my hands, my cheeks reddening. "Won't you miss me?" I mumbled at last.

"Terribly," Rauru said, his tone completely honest. "I can't imagine how boring these seven years would have been without you around." I looked at him, surprised, and Rauru smiled at me. "I think you'll get on without me, princess. You'll be helping Link, won't you?"

"Of course," I said primly. Helping Link was my path, I was sure. "I'll do what I can...though I'm not sure what that is," I said dolefully.

Rauru patted my knee and climbed to his feet. "I'm sure you'll do just fine," he assured me, then turned go back inside.

I thought of something else. "Rauru."

"Yes?" He turned back.

"What are you the sage of?"

Rauru smiled. "Light."

That explained it. Now I knew why the world seemed just a bit warmer, why everything seemed less harsh, less jaded, when Rauru was there. He was light, and if I ever doubted the existance of sages before that moment, I did no more.

I suppose it was then that I realized just how close I was to the old man- closer to him, perhaps, than to anyone I'd ever known, and that included Impa. Rauru was my guardian, my caretaker, my teacher. He'd taken me in without question, cared for me as I grew up and taught me many marvelous things. And despite clashing with him, and yes, even hating him at times, I knew that I would sorely miss him when he went to the Sacred Realm. Yet it was his path. He had chosen to follow it and was content, and so I was happy for him.

* * *

I thought that Rauru might not have noticed the clothes I'd brought home with me, but when I went back into the temple he was going over them with a critical eye. "Good choice," he said absently as I entered. He glanced up at me, a tiny smile lingering around his mouth. "You know these are male clothes, right?"

I made a face. "Great. I can't even pick out clothes right."

Rauru shook his head. "No, this is good. It's much harder to guess a person's identity when they're dressed as someone of the opposite sex." He rose to his feet with the clothes in his arms, giving me the same careful going-over that he'd given my disguise. "You could play a boy," he said finally. "A pretty one, to be sure, but a boy nonetheless. You'll just have to cut your hair, bind your breasts-"

"Wait a minute," I interrupted. "I never said I was cutting my hair, and excuse me? Bind my breasts?"

"Or you could stay a dainty girl and let Ganondorf kill you. It's your choice." Rauru dumped the clothes unceremoniously on the floor.

I rolled my eyes. "Farore's mercy, stop being difficult!"

"I'm being difficult? Hah!"

I bent to gather my disguise in my arms. "Just tell me what I should do."

In response, Rauru gave me several rolls of linen. I stared at them, then at him, then at the linen again (several times), utterly flabbergasted. "For your chest, princess," Rauru sighed, as though he thought I was being dense. "And your hair. And whatever else you want to do. Be creative." He pointed to the room where Link slept.

I went there for privacy, feeling self-conscious about changing in front of Link. But that was silly, I scolded myself, for it wasn't as though he were awake to see me. I spread the Sheikah clothes out on the floor, chewing my lower lip thoughtfully as I stared at them. Then I shrugged out of my shift and slipped into the long blue garment, pulling the tattered white tunic with its blood-red, weeping eye over my chest. I then went to look at myself in the mirror.

I frowned at my reflection. I was Princess Zelda in a Sheikah costume. Surely this wasn't what Rauru meant when he said to change my identity.

I pulled the white tunic off, then picked up one of the rolls of linen and began wrapping it tightly around my chest. Such abuse was quite painful, and I could only thank the goddesses that my breasts were small. When that was finished I picked up another roll of linen, pinned up my hair and wrapped it with the cloth as though I were bandaging a head wound. I went and looked in the mirror again; with my breasts bound flat and my hair pinned under the linen so that just enough escaped to fall over my left eye, I looked like a boy indeed.

I wrapped linen around my forearms, then, in a stroke of genius, around the tips of my fingers so that I would leave no fingerprints where I went. Finally, a length of cloth went around the lower half of my face, covering my mouth and nose. With the makeshift mask and my hair covering more than half of my face, only a single, solemn eye was visible. I smiled under the mask. Now I was unrecognizable.

I crept out into the main portion of the temple, using the skills Rauru had taught me to move without sound. His back was to me, but he heard me -or rather, sensed my presence- at the last moment. He turned and stared at me.

"It's very good," he said at last.

"But?" I said doubtfully.

Rauru pursed his lips. "Your eyes, is all. I mean, no one would recognize you unless they knew you very well, but still..."

"By the goddesses, they're the eyes I was born with," I said irritably. "What can I do about them?"

"I can use a spell to change them," he remarked.

I stared at him. "You what?"

"I told you my squad did stealth fighting, yes? Sometimes that required disguises." Rauru shrugged. "I learned this spell a very long time ago. It's not difficult to work. It just requires a trick of light and illusion- it's as though you're putting a veil of color in your eyes, so that you don't change the original eyecolor but merely implant another over it-" Seeing that I was staring at him blankly, Rauru stopped and smiled wryly. "Don't worry, you don't need to know how it works. It can be done."

"But how do I get my original color back?" I asked in a rather panicky manner.

"Once the spell is in place, all you have to do is order your eyecolor one way or the other." Rauru stroked his white beard thoughtfully, staring at me. "Now, what color would you like? And don't tell me 'light blue' or something like that, let's have a little variation, hm?"

"Red," I said without hesitation.

Rauru stared. "Red?"

"It's Impa's color," I replied, and as soon as I did I realized it was so. It was funny, though- I hadn't even been thinking of Impa when I chose. I hadn't been thinking of anything.

Rauru nodded thoughtfully. "So it is. All right, then." He rubbed his hands together, shook out his arms, then placed one hand over my eyes. "Close your eyes," he ordered, and I did so, my lashes brushing his palm. "Now, this may hurt a lot."

"It what?" I yelped, but then Rauru took his hand away, grinning wickedly.

"Done," he announced.

I glared at him. "That's very funny, Rauru."

"I thought so," he said loftily. "Go and look at yourself!"

I crept rather hesitantly to the mirror, propped up against the wall in the room where Link slept, and peered into it. A stranger with eyes of the most vivid crimson, like fresh blood, stared back at me.

"Nayru defend me," I whispered, amazed.

"Pretty nice spell, isn't it?" Rauru had come up behind me to gaze into the mirror as well. "I look at you now and even I don't know you. You could fool anyone in that disguise."

"I guess I did a good job then!" I declared.

Rauru grinned. "For once." He clapped me on the shoulder affectionately, then turned and left me alone with my reflection.

I gazed silently at the boy in the mirror. A moment or two passed, and then, slowly and carefully, I stepped to the mirror and reached out a hand. The boy imitated my movements and we touched, fingertips to fingertips, separated by nothing more than an inch or so of glass.

"Hello," I whispered to my reflection, staring into crimson eyes. "My name is Sheik."

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Continued in Chapter 20.