Another new chapter in all of four days, isn't that amazing? ^_^ Well, I'm just about finished with this story, all though you guys have a ways to go. I'm thinking probably twenty-five chapters in all. Nice round number, hee hee. Anyway, this chapter's pretty long so I hope you guys are happy. Enjoy.
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Chapter 20
Reunion
It's strange, how my mind worked back then, at age sixteen. The vision, the dreams that terrified me so much- they slipped so easily from my mind, as if they'd never occured. No, I saw no connection between my choice of red eyes and the crimson-eyed apparition who appeared in the vision and dream. Nor did I think it odd that the name 'Sheik' simply popped into my mind. It was appropriate enough, just a shorter version of 'Sheikah'.
In the meantime, I had my identities. Sheik. Male. Sheikah race. Zelda. Female. Hylian race. Two completely different people.
And what does it mean, when one person possesses two identities?
Which is the true identity?
* * *
I loved my disguise. In fact, I never took it off. It was wonderful, how easy it was to move in the form-fitting clothes. I ghosted from place to place, silent and unnoticed. In the castle town, lingering in the shadows of dark alleys, flying atop the roofs of buildings, balancing on ledges. Seeing everything, unknown.
When I did venture into the midst of other people, I feared being recognized no more. People spoke to me as a male; they whispered about me, thinking that I was Sheikah. Of course, there weren't many people in the castle town anymore. It was all but completely deserted- in another few months, Rauru predicted, the town would be empty.
Monsters made up for the lost population- mainly the rotted skeletons. They were no threat to me. I had simply to sneak around them and avoid their gazes. I wondered, though. Their victims were people, and often I thought it probable that they could smell living flesh. Yet they never noticed me. I could practically walk through a crowd of them, without fear of their paralyzing gazes.
Still, it didn't trouble me for long. I was suddenly invincible among even the worst of monsters. What had I to worry about?
During this time, this month or two, I experienced what I had always strived to be. I finally learned the meaning of fearless.
Then a messenger came from Kakariko Village, and in the time that followed, I relearned the meaning of fear.
* * *
Rauru threw open the doors of the temple and came stomping in, dragging a yelping boy by his ear. Perched on one of the rafter beams criss-crossing high above the floor, I stared down at them, astounded. Six years and several months I had spent in this temple, and never, not even once, had we received a visitor.
I leapt from the rafter and landed with perfect balance on my feet, in the middle of the aisle before Rauru and the stranger. The boy stared at me, his doe-brown eyes bulging, mouth agape in shock. He was obviously a peasant, a goatherd or such, dressed as he was in tattered clothes, his tan skin heavily freckled, hay tangled in a mop of blond hair.
"Who is this?" I demanded of Rauru.
"I was just about to ask the boy that very question," Rauru replied calmly, but the boy interrupted.
"Did you see that! He fell from the ceilin', he did! An' you didn't even get hurt! How'd you do it?"
Rauru swatted the boy's ear. "This is no time for chattering, master," he growled. "Who are you, where are you from, and what are you doing skulking around the temple? And Farore have mercy if you lie, scoundrel."
The lad gulped. "Th-they told me to fetch the lady Zelda an' bring 'er to the village. Didn't tell me why, only that it was real important, like."
"Which village?" Rauru demanded. "Kakariko?"
The boy nodded eagerly. "Somethin's been amiss in the village, sir. Nobody tells me nothin', but somebody's come and everyone's real excited 'bout it. I heard 'em say that she wanted to see the princess-"
"Who?" Rauru asked sharply. "Who wants to see the princess?"
"I dunno. Nobody tells me nothin'," the lad repeated peevishly.
"Are you working for Ganondorf?" I demanded.
His wide eyes darted to me. "Din strike me if I was ever workin' for him!" he cried. "I spit at that name! Only I won't now, 'cause it's a temple an' all," he added quickly.
"He's telling the truth," Rauru sighed. "There's no dark aura around him."
"How do you know?" I demanded.
Rauru smiled half-heartedly. "Sage, remember?"
The boy's eyes bulged. "Yer a- yer a sage? Nayru defend me! I was scared when they told me I was to be fetchin' a princess but no one ever said nothin' about a sage-"
"Her Highness is unavailable at this moment," Rauru said loudly, cutting the boy off. "Sheik, here-" He gestured to me "-will go in her place."
The boy stared at me doubtfully. "You sure? They told me to bring the princess an' no one else."
"I don't care what they said," Rauru replied peevishly. "We have to consider the princess's safety. Take him, or no one at all."
"All right, but if they get mad I'm sayin' it's your fault," said the boy frankly. I followed as he turned and headed out of the temple.
Rauru caught my arm as I passed him. "Be careful," he whispered urgently. "If anything seems wrong -anything at all- you come running home, you hear me?"
I swallowed hard, trembling slightly with a sudden chill, but my voice was level when I replied. "I'll be fine, Rauru, don't worry about me."
"I hope so," Rauru said bluntly, letting me go. I shook my head at his pessimism and followed the messenger-lad out into the sunshine.
* * *
The journey to Kakariko Village from the castle town is brief- a skirt of the outer wall, over the moat, up the stairs carved into the mountain. In minutes I found myself in Kakariko for the first time in six years.
It was the same village I remembered, and it was not. New buildings had sprung up amidst those already nestled in the small town. The windmill clacked overhead. Villagers tiptoed quietly about, as though afraid of disturbing the small peace Kakariko enjoyed. I stood in the middle of the town and trembled, unshed tears burning in my eyes. It had been so long. So terribly, terribly long.
Kalen, the headman's wife, came to meet us. I recognized her from the fiery determination still possesed within those cornflower-blue eyes, but her cropped brown hair was streaked with gray, her face worn from fear and suffering. She did not know me.
"Who is this?" she demanded sharply of the young messenger, staring at me with distaste. "We told you to fetch the princess!"
The boy shrugged. "I went to the temple, like you said, but the lady Zelda warn't there. They sent him in her place."
I met Kalen's hostile glare levelly. "I'm a close friend of Her Highness," I said calmly. "For her own safety she cannot leave the temple, but she trusted me to come in her place."
"Why're you masked, if you're such a good lad?" Kalen demanded.
I bowed my head and replied truthfully, "For my own protection."
"Hn." Kalen gazed at me speculatively for a moment, then turned on her heel and marched off. "Come on."
I followed her through the town to her own house, my nerves humming and my heart pounding. I don't know what I expected to see, but when Kalen ushered me into her house and into the plain kitchen with its rough wooden table and chairs, it was as though I had known all along who was waiting for me, seated at the table.
I froze and I stared. "Impa?"
The Sheikah turned her fierce red eyes to me. She was thinner than I remembered, and her lustrous silver hair was streaked with white, but when she stood she was still the towering, beautiful goddess of my memories. She stared at me, and for just a moment her eyes betrayed her bewilderment.
"Brother?" she said wonderingly. Then the truth dawned on her face, and her eyes widened.
"Zelda!"
"Impa," I said, trembling. She looked like she had barely aged a day, let alone six years. There was weariness in her eyes, even fear, but the ferocity of a Sheikah warrior still dominated her features. She looked enraged, and I was dazzled.
"What in Din's name are you doing in that get-up?" she cried.
In a faraway voice I replied, "It's my disguise, Impa. Don't you like it?"
"Like it...!" Impa grabbed my shoulders and pushed me into a seat, then sat down across from me, looking very flustered. She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. I stared at her as though enchanted, waiting.
Finally she opened her eyes and looked at me. "Zelda," she said, very gravely, "this is dangerous."
"What's dangerous?"
"That." Impa waved a hand at me. "Your disguise."
"It's for my protection," I said, adding childishly, "Rauru made me do it." I hid trembling hands in my lap.
Impa shook her head. "I'm glad you're trying to protect yourself, Zelda, but that...that is no protection at all. You're already vulnerable as it is-"
"Vulnerable to what, exactly?"
"To shadow."
When she spoke these words, I knew they were true. I had always known them to be true.
"Why?" I said, frightened.
"Zelda..." Impa hesitated. "Goddesses, Zelda, don't you know anything about your mother?"
"Onine?" I asked, confused, wondering what my mother had to do with it. "Rauru told me a bit about her. He said people didn't like her."
I saw Impa swallow. "Zelda, I would never speak wrongly of your mother, for more reasons that one. But her heritage..."
I looked at her and I knew. Immediately I felt the blood drain from my face.
"She's a Sheikah," I whispered.
* * *
After all was said and done, I somehow made it back to the temple. I felt numb inside, devoid of emotion. Impa's words replayed again and again in my mind, chilling me to the marrow.
"I always knew, Zelda. I knew from the time you were a little girl that shadow wanted you. That's why I insisted on being your nursemaid, until your father finally gave in. No one trusted me. They didn't realize that all I wanted to do was protect you. But, Zelda, we have been apart too long. I have no power over you now. I fear it is too late."
It wasn't true. It couldn't be. I would go and seek out the evidence I needed, to prove once and for all to Impa -no, to myself- that I was not the daughter of a Sheikah.
I went to the temple. It was empty and bitterly cold. I never hesitated, but went straight to the small library beneath the Temple of Time and searched until I found what I wanted. I carried it up to the main hall and set it on the red carpet before the altar.
It was the shadow book. The Historie of Sheikah.
Immediately I turned to the clan tree in the middle of the book, the section that listed every Sheikah clan, its location, and those who had been born to it. Impa had told me that my mother came from the Marek Highlands to the west, born of the only Sheikah clan to inhabit the great mountain land, brought to Hyrule in her fifteenth year of age. I found the list of the Marek clan. I skimmed through the names, and found my mother's.
Onine. She was there, one of the last names listed. So it was true. My mother was a child of shadow.
Still I did not want to believe, but in my heart, I knew it was true. I was about to close the book when something else caught my eye.
It was the list of the Hyrulean Sheikah. The clan with the fewest names in the book. I knew because I had memorized this list and the names on it, curious about the shadow people who has once resided in Hyrule. Before, there had been only six names. Now there were seven.
How was it possible that another Sheikah was born to Hyrule?
I looked closely at the name, and my blood froze in my veins.
It was Sheik.
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Continued in Chapter 21.