Sheik had allowed himself to doze off, and his quiet, rocking, peaceful little naptime was very rudely interrupted by a voice and a sharp jab in the ribs that sent him choking on no small amount of lake water in his surprise.
"You dead?"
There was a short pause as whoever spoke waited for Sheik to wake up and remember where the air was.
"I guess not."
Still coughing, Sheik aimed a bedraggled glare toward the voice. It would have had more effect if his hair hadn't draped over his eyes like a soggy curtain. Lifting one hand to pull his bangs out of the way, he saw the male zora that was treading water a few feet away, looking half concerned, half amused.
Sheik didn't really know what to say. Getting a zora too angry while in the water with it isn't generally a prudent thing to do. He blinked and snuffled in indignation for a second, trying to clear the water out of his windpipe.
"Why did you need to jab me so hard?" Not the most relevant of questions, but there it was.
The zora shrugged. "I thought you might be dead. You wasn't movin'."
Biting back a sharp retort and a lecture on the virtues of checking to see if someone is breathing before assuming that they are a corpse, Sheik instead huffed and began swimming toward the small island standing in the middle of the decimated lake. To his great irritation, the zora swam alongside him, moving on his side in what could only be described as a leisurely amble.
"Saw you fallin'."
"Good for you." Sheik wasn't in the best of moods for company. He'd just endured the belly-flop of death, and had nearly drowned himself because of some simpleton poking him in the ribs. And the zora didn't seem too quick on taking hints.
"You a sheikah?"
[Go away. Shoo! I'm willing you away with my mind powers...] "Yes." He only wished that he had the guts to be rude and simply ignore his companion. [Curse my polite upbringing! If only I'd been raised by wolves...in a barn...with the door always left open, no less...] The zora was quiet for a while, and as Sheik reached the island and hauled himself up onto dry land he dared to hope that the pest would lose interest and go away.
Unfortunately, the zora followed, jumping up out of the water to land rather heavily on the ground. In a gesture of passive resistance, Sheik flopped down on his stomach in the sun and feigned sleep. A minute or two passed. [Is he gone? I don't hear-]
"I always thought they was taller."
[Drat!] Sheik made a small, questioning grunt.
"Sheikahs, I mean. Taller. You's a bit shrimpy."
Cracking one presently baleful eye, Sheik cast a dour look at the zora, who was sitting gerudo-style against the stunted tree that sat on the island, his cephalocaudal flicking from side to side lazily. "Yes, that is odd. And I always thought zoras were quieter."
For a moment or two, the zora was quiet, then: "You here to see to the lake?"
Sheik raised one eyebrow. "What are you babbling on about?"
Tipping his head to on side, the zora explained. "Well, my mum always used to tell us stories when we was fry, and all the sheikahs in 'em had big, important things to do, quests and missions and all that. Is that what you's doin'?
From his place on the ground, Sheik sighed and shook his head, which was a little tricky while lying on his stomach. "No. I just misjudged a teleportation and fell into the lake. Sorry to disappoint you," he added, seeing how crestfallen the zora became.
"So..." the zora said softly, "the domain's not gonna thaw?"
Sheik closed his eyes again, hoping that the zora would take it as a hint to leave. "I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. You'll just have to wait and see, like everyone else." He heard the scrape of scales as the zora shifted position.
"Can't the sheikah come and help?" The question was asked timidly, as though the zora was worried about causing offence. Sheik wondered for a moment how old the creature was; not very, for the zora didn't exercise much restraint on his tongue. He wasn't all that tactful, either.
"You wouldn't want us to. Besides, there's not a lot we'd be able to do, about the lake or anything else, besides make more trouble." [And it would certainly ruin the mystique for you, to find out that we're just like everybody else.]
"Oh," said the zora. There was a pause. "Name's Ito by the way. Yours?"
Sheik sighed again. [Maybe if I give in and talk for a while he'll go away...] "Sheik."
"...Is that a nickname? Sheik what?"
Hoisting himself up to a sitting position, Sheik gave the zora a weary glance. "No, it's my name. Whole thing."
The zora looked thoughtful. "Mind if I ask why?"
Rolling his eyes, Sheik replied, "Might as well, since you're here." He shrugged. "I wasn't born into a kym*, a...what's it called, a family; I was raised by a village temple, so I don't have a surname, and they didn't go to a whole lot of trouble with my first name. I was named after someone from some folk tale, or something." Then, since he'd been forced into a bit of self-disclosure, Sheik turned the question around. "And you? How'd you end up with 'Ito'?"
The zora beamed. "It was a random collection of letters that made a pleasing sound. That's what mum said, anyway."
[Of course.] After several minutes more of such conversation, Sheik concluded that the zora was not going to leave him alone anytime soon. Ito had a surprisingly long attention span, and wanted very much to learn all he could about his favorite 'exotic' race. Sheik didn't know he was exotic, but he did know that he'd had all the entertainment he could stand for one day.
Feeling a little less sore, and lulled into a semi-contented haze by the warm sun, Sheik felt around in the void thing for a deku nut. [Hmm... Must have used them all...] "Oh well." The zora looked puzzled. Sheik made a point of speaking before his companion had a chance to. "Well, Ito, it's been...something, but I think I should be going." [Tired...crabby...] Picturing his little bedroom in Kakariko, Sheik oozed off into the void, leaving Ito gasping like, at the risk of sounding snide, a fish out of water.
Appearing in his current favorite place in the world, Sheik flopped down on his bed, staring lazily up at the ceiling for a few minutes before dozing off. Aiding maidens in distress and falling from stupefyingly great heights certainly was tiring.
The following day the part of Sheik's brain that was concerned with such things as filial/fraternal loyalty and assorted family issues decided that a visit to Zelda was in order. After looking through the pitifully bare cupboards in the klivingchen, the part of Sheik's brain that was concerned with such things as the stomach agreed, and off Sheik went.
Widow Spinkly, despite being blind, was the first to notice Sheik's presence.
"Zoe," she called, "your cousin's here!" She went back to measuring powders for a potion.
Our hero was impressed. With raised eyebrows, he asked, "How did you know it was me?" [It's not like I used the door...]
The old woman didn't look up from her work (not that it would have made a difference). "I can tell by the smell."
Sheik was even more impressed. [So that's what that huge nose is for.] "Like, you can recognize everyone's unique scent, right?"
"No, you just stink." At her time of life, Widow Spinkly didn't see that she could afford to mince words.
"Oh." Most people who didn't know Widow Spinkly would have been offended, but most of Kakariko was aware that the potions-mistress was nearing one hundred, and was a crabby, caustic old bat. She was rude and scathing to everyone in the world except Zelda, the late gravedigger, and the crazy homeless organ-grinder who lived in the windmill. 'The rest of you ninnies,' she would often say, 'can sod off.' There was something about her that could leave a person feeling very stupid and inadequate. Sheik, however, was used to feeling stupid and inadequate, so he got by all right.
Zelda appeared from the back room, took a split second to aim and make the proper trajectory calculations, and launched herself at Sheik, catching him in a tight hug. That was over very quickly, because she jumped back, pinched her nose shut daintily with two fingers, and exclaimed, "Sheik, you stink!" Only, with her nose plugged, it sounded more like: "Sheeg, du stig!"
The olfactory-offensive sheikah pouted. "Well, if I'm so upsetting, maybe I should just leave."
Zelda rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm sorry," (she had released her nose by now), "but you do stink. What happened to you?"
Widow spinkly turned on an alcohol burner. "Yes, do tell us what you rolled in today, boy."
[How to explain this safely?] Sheik scratched the back of his head. "I went swimming in the lake."
"Water's low in that lake," said Spinkly, holding a dish of something-or-other over the flame of the burner with a pair of tongs. "Low as it's ever been. The old coot living down by the shore told me all about it just last Wednesday. Not more than fifteen feet in the middle, at the outside."
"Oh, well no wonder," said Zelda, "that water must be filthy. Now that you mention it, I think I can place that smell." She leaned a bit closer to Sheik (who in turn leaned a bit farther away), and crinkled her nose. "Stagnant water and fish. Why did you want to swim in that? Normally you can't even stand to have any dirt under your fingernails."
"A wild desire took me." Sheik shrugged. He could explain later, perhaps.
Zelda nodded, letting the matter drop. "So, what brings you here?"
Sheik glared. "Why do I need a reason? Can't I miss my cousin? Why do you think I have some sort of ulterior motive?"
Zelda laughed, politely. "Methinks you protest too loudly."
"Just feed him. It's always food with that boy. Give him something so he can leave and I can concentrate on this potion before I blow the whole building and all of us to the Goddesses."
"All right, ma'am." Zelda laughed again and led Sheik into the back room. Sheik glared sourly at Widow Spinkly.
Without looking up, Spinkly added a pinch of something pink to her potion and said, "Wipe that look off your face. Don't put on airs with me, feller-me-lad; I was old while you were still a twinkle in your mother's eye."
Sheik did wipe that look off his face. It was replaced by an incredulous gape. [How does she do that?!]
More or less out of earshot in the back room, Sheik tried not to inhale his food too quickly while he talked with Zelda.
"So," Zelda began primly, "what really happened today that she didn't need to hear?"
Looking up from his bowl a little guiltily, Sheik slurped up an errant noodle. Taking care to swallow his food before he answered (he didn't need another lecture on THAT), he said, "Well, I really did swim in the lake." He then recounted the events of the day, bending the truth here and there when he came to an embarrassing bit. Unfortunately, he couldn't help remembering his and Ruto's fall into Lake Hylia, and Zelda picked up on it.
{Aha! So that's how you 'went swimming.' I wondered about that.} Zelda fought to turn raucous guffaws into ladylike giggling, and the result was very odd.
Sheik glowered down at his meal. "Oh, shut it; there's a first time for everything, you know."
If anything, this only amused Zelda further. "Only," she gasped out, before finally regaining enough control to continue, "Only, this isn't the first time. Remember, when Impa was teaching you how to teleport, and-"
"Not this again," Sheik interrupted, rolling his eyes.
Zelda ignored him, "And you got yourself stuck halfway through a tree? And she had to fetch you out herself before you suffocated? She called you her little dryad for a whole month!" She laughed again, hugging her sides.
"It wasn't that funny," Sheik retorted snappishly, "I could have been... Besides, I was only ten! You wouldn't have done any better."
"And then four years ago, you accidentally teleported yourself onto one of the windmill blades, and you were so panicked you couldn't get down, and Impa had to ask the miller to stop the blades long enough for you to climb down." Tears streamed down Zelda's cheeks as she remembered her terror-stricken friend clinging to the wooden frame of the blade, and the crowd that came to watch as Impa tried to maneuver said blade closer to the ground.
To be honest, in retrospect, that particular mishap was sort of...funny, in a way. Finding some ammunition for himself, Sheik grinned. "I also seem to remember a certain hylian casting a spell on a soup spoon-"
"Oh, that was ages ago!" Zelda protested.
"You broke every window in the house, and the neighbors never did figure out what they'd seen flying through the streets, but everyone was afraid to go outside for days and days." Sheik fought to speak around fits of chuckles. Zelda flushed crimson, then laughed softly herself, both of them recalling the village almost completely shutting down for a week because of a spoon.
"We never did find that spoon," Zelda mused.
Sheik shrugged. "I'd say it's still going. It could be halfway to Holodrum by now."
About half an hour later, as Sheik was leaving, Zelda coughed to get his attention.
{I saw Link early this morning, by the way. I'm sure it was him; it's not often that fairies travel with hylians, and I'd recognize that hat anywhere.} Sheik had the presence of mind not to look as though he'd heard anything. {If he's still in town, could you see if you can find him? He should know that the guard here isn't too enthusiastic about people carrying weapons.}
Giving a very slight nod to show that he'd heard (making sure he did it when Widow Spinkly had her head turned away: you never could tell exactly how blind she was) Sheik closed the door behind him, blinking a few times to adjust to the bright sunlight. [Well, he certainly didn't waste any time.]
Look as he might, Sheik couldn't find the green-clad hylian anywhere. After a couple of hours, he'd satisfied himself that Link was nowhere in the town, and wandered off to do something else. Seeing two of Dominic's goons slouching by the front door of the house, he wandered quickly in the other direction.
Eventually, he came to what was, more or less, the town square. It was a patch of land between the entrance and the well that contained exactly one tree, one large rock, several weeds, and the twins. The twins were two of the many refugees from Castletown, and hadn't quite made the adjustment from life in a busy metropolis to life in...well...Kakariko. For one thing, they were a little irritated that their new home contained only one tavern. They weren't real heavyweights when it came to sense, either, but Sheik got along with them well enough, and he craved a normal conversation with comparatively normal people after the day he'd had, not to mention all the days before it.
"Well, well, well, dear brother, look who it is!" said Marcus, the younger twin, on seeing Sheik emerge from the cluster of buildings that made up the western portion of the town. "If it isn't the masked minstrel, the sly sheikah, the haughty harper who has no time for us anymore, he's so busy giving the captain pains. What have you been up to, friend? My brother and I were hypothesizing that perhaps you'd taken to coming and going by night."
"What I've been up to is my business, Marcus, you bag of hot air," Sheik replied, not without humor. Marcus laughed; his brother, Taran, only smiled.
"Won't tell, eh?" said Marcus with a wink, smoothing his goatee with his fingers. "Suspicious. Very shady. Perhaps he's up to something the guard wouldn't approve of, brother. Slandering the king, preaching to the downtrodden, inciting riots among the malcontented masses?"
Sheik rolled his eyes. Taran spoke. "He doesn't seem the rabble-rousing sort, brother."
Marcus didn't miss a beat. It was a wonder that either Sheik or Taran slipped a word in edgewise in any of their conversations. "Ah, of course, of course. Yes..." He paced, stroking his chin, then stopped to cast a conspiratorial glance at his brother. "Perhaps we've got it all wrong. Perhaps this sheikah we've presumed to be our ally has been working as a spy. Selling his devious services for a fee, snooping, stalking, watching his targets every night, and dragging himself home at dawn to sleep all day. Of course. I only hope that your prying eyes are turned away from me, friend."
Sheik smiled behind his mask. Marcus had set himself up. "Oh, I shouldn't think so, Marcus. You've done nothing to upset our rulers, I'm certain. In fact, you've done nothing whatsoever. If idle hands are the devil's workplace, yours don't make a very efficient one."
Sheik flopped down against the trunk of the tree, and the brothers soon followed suit, being so tired out from...whatever they HAD been doing all day. Marcus sighed and stretched his arms.
"You're one to talk, aren't you, harper? Isn't he one to talk, brother?" Marcus waited until Taran nodded assent before continuing. "Why, when's the last time I saw you at work anywhere in town, eh? Answer me that. There's no work to be had, or else you're as idle as you claim us to be, Mr. I'm-So-Clever."
"Idle?" retorted Sheik, indignant, "You're calling me idle?" He would have said something snappish, or attempted to, but he had a better idea. Marcus thrived on repartee; he basked in stinging barbs as a plant (perhaps ragweed) basks in sunshine. Sometimes the best way to annoy him was to end the argument. "Perhaps," he said, mimicking Marcus' way of speaking, leaning back, and closing his eyes, "you don't know me as well as you think, friend Marcus." He could feel Marcus' stare, and smirked. [Chew on that, Mr. I'm-Not-So-Very-Clever.]
Another one of Marcus' known weaknesses was curiosity. Sheik's last comment had piqued it. And Sheik clearly wasn't going to say another word on the subject. What DID the sheikah do all day that he didn't tell anyone? Marcus prodded Sheik in the ribs. "Well then, if I'm so ignorant, why don't you enlighten us? What back-breaking toil fills your days, that gives you so little money to show for it, and that no one see you do?"
Sheik didn't even open his eyes. "Wouldn't you like to know?" It bordered on cruel, but it was fun. Sheik heard a very irritated sort of huff, which meant that Marcus had ceded the battle of wits for now. His own curiosity had him too flustered.
Marcus would have his revenge, however. Turning to his brother, he said, quite loud enough for everyone in the immediate vicinity to hear (which, fortunately, was no one but Sheik and the tree), "You see, brother, it's as I theorized. He refuses even to tell his own dear friends and acquaintances what he does all day, as though he has something to hide from us. Us! His bosom companions! It's all very suspicious, I say. He's clearly an outlaw, or a government agent, or a radical cultist, or a sociopath, or something equally unpleasant. Why, Victor warned us just the other evening to keep well away from this one, and I daresay his advice sounds better and better. He's clearly not the sort we need to associate ourselves with. Why, his type drag down the reputations of anyone who even nods good morning to him on the street."
"What," Sheik asked, opening his eyes and interrupting Marcus' oration, "are you rambling about now?"
"Well, now," crowed Marcus, triumphant, "look who's come down off his high horse to mingle with the unworthy! Want to know what we're talking about? Perhaps I won't tell you." Poking his nose up in the air, Marcus sent Sheik a sidelong glance.
Sheik fidgeted a little. Petty as this all would turn out to be in the broad scheme of things, for the moment Sheik was concerned. He only knew one Victor, which was one too many, and the thought of people talking about him behind his back was galling. [No fair! You're not supposed to do it to me! I have a good reason for not telling you things! Arrgh...]
But even seeing his victim writhing in anguish wasn't enough to keep Marcus entertained for long, so his silence was broken. Maybe he'd get a better reaction from sharing this juicy nugget of gossip. Marcus heaved a theatrical sigh. "Woe is me, who is burdened with a golden conscience, and a heart easily moved to pity at the sight of suffering, however deserving the sufferer may be." He put emphasis on these last words. When he was certain that Sheik was all ears, he went on. "La, my brother and I were enjoying the social atmosphere of the local spirits establishment-"
"Ah, I see, you were out drinking. Yes, go on."
Marcus glared. "We did nothing of the sort, did we, brother? Nothing so base, so vulgar, so juvenile as you suggest, friend. We were merely observing and enjoying the social atmosphere of this establishment; yes, perhaps we had a little something to slake our thirst with, true, but I'd hardly call it drinking. Nayru, no! Anyway, we were at this establishment, and by and by we got to conversing with a fellow sitting near us. Wonderfully entertaining fellow, this one; he went by the name of Victor, said he worked in the potion shop over in the west side. Well, now, by and by (it had been about an hour or two of enjoying the social atmosphere), somehow or another the conversation turned to you. It's startling what a mind deems important news after a few hours of enjoying a social atmosphere, such as the one in that establishment. And this Victor related to us his dealings with you, and we found that awfully interesting, didn't we, brother? Certainly. One doesn't hear about such things often; they're really rather frowned upon." He waited for Taran to grunt affirmation, and paused for breath (and to enjoy the look, and color, Sheik face had). He cleared his throat. "To get back to what I was saying, Victor warned us to stay well away from you and your ilk, as it were, though he put it in rather more colorful vocabulary. To be precise, he claimed you were the spawn of the unholy demons themselves, and that you were bound for the seventeenth circle of the thirty-nine exquisite hells, and that you certainly were not taking him with you."
"Ouch," Taran interjected.
"Yes, exactly," said Marcus, "We decided to be lenient with you, friend, for no one in this world is perfect," he held up a hand to keep Sheik from interrupting (which he very much wanted to do by now). "We will nobly bear with your flaws of character. However," he said, switching tones entirely, "if you're going to keep secrets, perhaps we'd be better off keeping our own company."
Later, Sheik went home feeling very embarrassed. He'd have been even more embarrassed, and more than a little disturbed, had he known that the tree, or rather, someone in the tree, had been quite intrigued by his conversation with the twins.
Up in the aforesaid tree's branches, out of sight, a pair of eyes watched the sheikah's retreating figure. The eyes were, as one would assume and hope, attached to a person. A person in uniform.
##
*(from last chapter) A chephalocaudal is that tail that drapes down from the back of a zora's head. "Ceph" means head, and a caudal fin is a fish's tailfin. There you have it.
"You dead?"
There was a short pause as whoever spoke waited for Sheik to wake up and remember where the air was.
"I guess not."
Still coughing, Sheik aimed a bedraggled glare toward the voice. It would have had more effect if his hair hadn't draped over his eyes like a soggy curtain. Lifting one hand to pull his bangs out of the way, he saw the male zora that was treading water a few feet away, looking half concerned, half amused.
Sheik didn't really know what to say. Getting a zora too angry while in the water with it isn't generally a prudent thing to do. He blinked and snuffled in indignation for a second, trying to clear the water out of his windpipe.
"Why did you need to jab me so hard?" Not the most relevant of questions, but there it was.
The zora shrugged. "I thought you might be dead. You wasn't movin'."
Biting back a sharp retort and a lecture on the virtues of checking to see if someone is breathing before assuming that they are a corpse, Sheik instead huffed and began swimming toward the small island standing in the middle of the decimated lake. To his great irritation, the zora swam alongside him, moving on his side in what could only be described as a leisurely amble.
"Saw you fallin'."
"Good for you." Sheik wasn't in the best of moods for company. He'd just endured the belly-flop of death, and had nearly drowned himself because of some simpleton poking him in the ribs. And the zora didn't seem too quick on taking hints.
"You a sheikah?"
[Go away. Shoo! I'm willing you away with my mind powers...] "Yes." He only wished that he had the guts to be rude and simply ignore his companion. [Curse my polite upbringing! If only I'd been raised by wolves...in a barn...with the door always left open, no less...] The zora was quiet for a while, and as Sheik reached the island and hauled himself up onto dry land he dared to hope that the pest would lose interest and go away.
Unfortunately, the zora followed, jumping up out of the water to land rather heavily on the ground. In a gesture of passive resistance, Sheik flopped down on his stomach in the sun and feigned sleep. A minute or two passed. [Is he gone? I don't hear-]
"I always thought they was taller."
[Drat!] Sheik made a small, questioning grunt.
"Sheikahs, I mean. Taller. You's a bit shrimpy."
Cracking one presently baleful eye, Sheik cast a dour look at the zora, who was sitting gerudo-style against the stunted tree that sat on the island, his cephalocaudal flicking from side to side lazily. "Yes, that is odd. And I always thought zoras were quieter."
For a moment or two, the zora was quiet, then: "You here to see to the lake?"
Sheik raised one eyebrow. "What are you babbling on about?"
Tipping his head to on side, the zora explained. "Well, my mum always used to tell us stories when we was fry, and all the sheikahs in 'em had big, important things to do, quests and missions and all that. Is that what you's doin'?
From his place on the ground, Sheik sighed and shook his head, which was a little tricky while lying on his stomach. "No. I just misjudged a teleportation and fell into the lake. Sorry to disappoint you," he added, seeing how crestfallen the zora became.
"So..." the zora said softly, "the domain's not gonna thaw?"
Sheik closed his eyes again, hoping that the zora would take it as a hint to leave. "I wouldn't get my hopes up too high. You'll just have to wait and see, like everyone else." He heard the scrape of scales as the zora shifted position.
"Can't the sheikah come and help?" The question was asked timidly, as though the zora was worried about causing offence. Sheik wondered for a moment how old the creature was; not very, for the zora didn't exercise much restraint on his tongue. He wasn't all that tactful, either.
"You wouldn't want us to. Besides, there's not a lot we'd be able to do, about the lake or anything else, besides make more trouble." [And it would certainly ruin the mystique for you, to find out that we're just like everybody else.]
"Oh," said the zora. There was a pause. "Name's Ito by the way. Yours?"
Sheik sighed again. [Maybe if I give in and talk for a while he'll go away...] "Sheik."
"...Is that a nickname? Sheik what?"
Hoisting himself up to a sitting position, Sheik gave the zora a weary glance. "No, it's my name. Whole thing."
The zora looked thoughtful. "Mind if I ask why?"
Rolling his eyes, Sheik replied, "Might as well, since you're here." He shrugged. "I wasn't born into a kym*, a...what's it called, a family; I was raised by a village temple, so I don't have a surname, and they didn't go to a whole lot of trouble with my first name. I was named after someone from some folk tale, or something." Then, since he'd been forced into a bit of self-disclosure, Sheik turned the question around. "And you? How'd you end up with 'Ito'?"
The zora beamed. "It was a random collection of letters that made a pleasing sound. That's what mum said, anyway."
[Of course.] After several minutes more of such conversation, Sheik concluded that the zora was not going to leave him alone anytime soon. Ito had a surprisingly long attention span, and wanted very much to learn all he could about his favorite 'exotic' race. Sheik didn't know he was exotic, but he did know that he'd had all the entertainment he could stand for one day.
Feeling a little less sore, and lulled into a semi-contented haze by the warm sun, Sheik felt around in the void thing for a deku nut. [Hmm... Must have used them all...] "Oh well." The zora looked puzzled. Sheik made a point of speaking before his companion had a chance to. "Well, Ito, it's been...something, but I think I should be going." [Tired...crabby...] Picturing his little bedroom in Kakariko, Sheik oozed off into the void, leaving Ito gasping like, at the risk of sounding snide, a fish out of water.
Appearing in his current favorite place in the world, Sheik flopped down on his bed, staring lazily up at the ceiling for a few minutes before dozing off. Aiding maidens in distress and falling from stupefyingly great heights certainly was tiring.
The following day the part of Sheik's brain that was concerned with such things as filial/fraternal loyalty and assorted family issues decided that a visit to Zelda was in order. After looking through the pitifully bare cupboards in the klivingchen, the part of Sheik's brain that was concerned with such things as the stomach agreed, and off Sheik went.
Widow Spinkly, despite being blind, was the first to notice Sheik's presence.
"Zoe," she called, "your cousin's here!" She went back to measuring powders for a potion.
Our hero was impressed. With raised eyebrows, he asked, "How did you know it was me?" [It's not like I used the door...]
The old woman didn't look up from her work (not that it would have made a difference). "I can tell by the smell."
Sheik was even more impressed. [So that's what that huge nose is for.] "Like, you can recognize everyone's unique scent, right?"
"No, you just stink." At her time of life, Widow Spinkly didn't see that she could afford to mince words.
"Oh." Most people who didn't know Widow Spinkly would have been offended, but most of Kakariko was aware that the potions-mistress was nearing one hundred, and was a crabby, caustic old bat. She was rude and scathing to everyone in the world except Zelda, the late gravedigger, and the crazy homeless organ-grinder who lived in the windmill. 'The rest of you ninnies,' she would often say, 'can sod off.' There was something about her that could leave a person feeling very stupid and inadequate. Sheik, however, was used to feeling stupid and inadequate, so he got by all right.
Zelda appeared from the back room, took a split second to aim and make the proper trajectory calculations, and launched herself at Sheik, catching him in a tight hug. That was over very quickly, because she jumped back, pinched her nose shut daintily with two fingers, and exclaimed, "Sheik, you stink!" Only, with her nose plugged, it sounded more like: "Sheeg, du stig!"
The olfactory-offensive sheikah pouted. "Well, if I'm so upsetting, maybe I should just leave."
Zelda rolled her eyes. "Well, I'm sorry," (she had released her nose by now), "but you do stink. What happened to you?"
Widow spinkly turned on an alcohol burner. "Yes, do tell us what you rolled in today, boy."
[How to explain this safely?] Sheik scratched the back of his head. "I went swimming in the lake."
"Water's low in that lake," said Spinkly, holding a dish of something-or-other over the flame of the burner with a pair of tongs. "Low as it's ever been. The old coot living down by the shore told me all about it just last Wednesday. Not more than fifteen feet in the middle, at the outside."
"Oh, well no wonder," said Zelda, "that water must be filthy. Now that you mention it, I think I can place that smell." She leaned a bit closer to Sheik (who in turn leaned a bit farther away), and crinkled her nose. "Stagnant water and fish. Why did you want to swim in that? Normally you can't even stand to have any dirt under your fingernails."
"A wild desire took me." Sheik shrugged. He could explain later, perhaps.
Zelda nodded, letting the matter drop. "So, what brings you here?"
Sheik glared. "Why do I need a reason? Can't I miss my cousin? Why do you think I have some sort of ulterior motive?"
Zelda laughed, politely. "Methinks you protest too loudly."
"Just feed him. It's always food with that boy. Give him something so he can leave and I can concentrate on this potion before I blow the whole building and all of us to the Goddesses."
"All right, ma'am." Zelda laughed again and led Sheik into the back room. Sheik glared sourly at Widow Spinkly.
Without looking up, Spinkly added a pinch of something pink to her potion and said, "Wipe that look off your face. Don't put on airs with me, feller-me-lad; I was old while you were still a twinkle in your mother's eye."
Sheik did wipe that look off his face. It was replaced by an incredulous gape. [How does she do that?!]
More or less out of earshot in the back room, Sheik tried not to inhale his food too quickly while he talked with Zelda.
"So," Zelda began primly, "what really happened today that she didn't need to hear?"
Looking up from his bowl a little guiltily, Sheik slurped up an errant noodle. Taking care to swallow his food before he answered (he didn't need another lecture on THAT), he said, "Well, I really did swim in the lake." He then recounted the events of the day, bending the truth here and there when he came to an embarrassing bit. Unfortunately, he couldn't help remembering his and Ruto's fall into Lake Hylia, and Zelda picked up on it.
{Aha! So that's how you 'went swimming.' I wondered about that.} Zelda fought to turn raucous guffaws into ladylike giggling, and the result was very odd.
Sheik glowered down at his meal. "Oh, shut it; there's a first time for everything, you know."
If anything, this only amused Zelda further. "Only," she gasped out, before finally regaining enough control to continue, "Only, this isn't the first time. Remember, when Impa was teaching you how to teleport, and-"
"Not this again," Sheik interrupted, rolling his eyes.
Zelda ignored him, "And you got yourself stuck halfway through a tree? And she had to fetch you out herself before you suffocated? She called you her little dryad for a whole month!" She laughed again, hugging her sides.
"It wasn't that funny," Sheik retorted snappishly, "I could have been... Besides, I was only ten! You wouldn't have done any better."
"And then four years ago, you accidentally teleported yourself onto one of the windmill blades, and you were so panicked you couldn't get down, and Impa had to ask the miller to stop the blades long enough for you to climb down." Tears streamed down Zelda's cheeks as she remembered her terror-stricken friend clinging to the wooden frame of the blade, and the crowd that came to watch as Impa tried to maneuver said blade closer to the ground.
To be honest, in retrospect, that particular mishap was sort of...funny, in a way. Finding some ammunition for himself, Sheik grinned. "I also seem to remember a certain hylian casting a spell on a soup spoon-"
"Oh, that was ages ago!" Zelda protested.
"You broke every window in the house, and the neighbors never did figure out what they'd seen flying through the streets, but everyone was afraid to go outside for days and days." Sheik fought to speak around fits of chuckles. Zelda flushed crimson, then laughed softly herself, both of them recalling the village almost completely shutting down for a week because of a spoon.
"We never did find that spoon," Zelda mused.
Sheik shrugged. "I'd say it's still going. It could be halfway to Holodrum by now."
About half an hour later, as Sheik was leaving, Zelda coughed to get his attention.
{I saw Link early this morning, by the way. I'm sure it was him; it's not often that fairies travel with hylians, and I'd recognize that hat anywhere.} Sheik had the presence of mind not to look as though he'd heard anything. {If he's still in town, could you see if you can find him? He should know that the guard here isn't too enthusiastic about people carrying weapons.}
Giving a very slight nod to show that he'd heard (making sure he did it when Widow Spinkly had her head turned away: you never could tell exactly how blind she was) Sheik closed the door behind him, blinking a few times to adjust to the bright sunlight. [Well, he certainly didn't waste any time.]
Look as he might, Sheik couldn't find the green-clad hylian anywhere. After a couple of hours, he'd satisfied himself that Link was nowhere in the town, and wandered off to do something else. Seeing two of Dominic's goons slouching by the front door of the house, he wandered quickly in the other direction.
Eventually, he came to what was, more or less, the town square. It was a patch of land between the entrance and the well that contained exactly one tree, one large rock, several weeds, and the twins. The twins were two of the many refugees from Castletown, and hadn't quite made the adjustment from life in a busy metropolis to life in...well...Kakariko. For one thing, they were a little irritated that their new home contained only one tavern. They weren't real heavyweights when it came to sense, either, but Sheik got along with them well enough, and he craved a normal conversation with comparatively normal people after the day he'd had, not to mention all the days before it.
"Well, well, well, dear brother, look who it is!" said Marcus, the younger twin, on seeing Sheik emerge from the cluster of buildings that made up the western portion of the town. "If it isn't the masked minstrel, the sly sheikah, the haughty harper who has no time for us anymore, he's so busy giving the captain pains. What have you been up to, friend? My brother and I were hypothesizing that perhaps you'd taken to coming and going by night."
"What I've been up to is my business, Marcus, you bag of hot air," Sheik replied, not without humor. Marcus laughed; his brother, Taran, only smiled.
"Won't tell, eh?" said Marcus with a wink, smoothing his goatee with his fingers. "Suspicious. Very shady. Perhaps he's up to something the guard wouldn't approve of, brother. Slandering the king, preaching to the downtrodden, inciting riots among the malcontented masses?"
Sheik rolled his eyes. Taran spoke. "He doesn't seem the rabble-rousing sort, brother."
Marcus didn't miss a beat. It was a wonder that either Sheik or Taran slipped a word in edgewise in any of their conversations. "Ah, of course, of course. Yes..." He paced, stroking his chin, then stopped to cast a conspiratorial glance at his brother. "Perhaps we've got it all wrong. Perhaps this sheikah we've presumed to be our ally has been working as a spy. Selling his devious services for a fee, snooping, stalking, watching his targets every night, and dragging himself home at dawn to sleep all day. Of course. I only hope that your prying eyes are turned away from me, friend."
Sheik smiled behind his mask. Marcus had set himself up. "Oh, I shouldn't think so, Marcus. You've done nothing to upset our rulers, I'm certain. In fact, you've done nothing whatsoever. If idle hands are the devil's workplace, yours don't make a very efficient one."
Sheik flopped down against the trunk of the tree, and the brothers soon followed suit, being so tired out from...whatever they HAD been doing all day. Marcus sighed and stretched his arms.
"You're one to talk, aren't you, harper? Isn't he one to talk, brother?" Marcus waited until Taran nodded assent before continuing. "Why, when's the last time I saw you at work anywhere in town, eh? Answer me that. There's no work to be had, or else you're as idle as you claim us to be, Mr. I'm-So-Clever."
"Idle?" retorted Sheik, indignant, "You're calling me idle?" He would have said something snappish, or attempted to, but he had a better idea. Marcus thrived on repartee; he basked in stinging barbs as a plant (perhaps ragweed) basks in sunshine. Sometimes the best way to annoy him was to end the argument. "Perhaps," he said, mimicking Marcus' way of speaking, leaning back, and closing his eyes, "you don't know me as well as you think, friend Marcus." He could feel Marcus' stare, and smirked. [Chew on that, Mr. I'm-Not-So-Very-Clever.]
Another one of Marcus' known weaknesses was curiosity. Sheik's last comment had piqued it. And Sheik clearly wasn't going to say another word on the subject. What DID the sheikah do all day that he didn't tell anyone? Marcus prodded Sheik in the ribs. "Well then, if I'm so ignorant, why don't you enlighten us? What back-breaking toil fills your days, that gives you so little money to show for it, and that no one see you do?"
Sheik didn't even open his eyes. "Wouldn't you like to know?" It bordered on cruel, but it was fun. Sheik heard a very irritated sort of huff, which meant that Marcus had ceded the battle of wits for now. His own curiosity had him too flustered.
Marcus would have his revenge, however. Turning to his brother, he said, quite loud enough for everyone in the immediate vicinity to hear (which, fortunately, was no one but Sheik and the tree), "You see, brother, it's as I theorized. He refuses even to tell his own dear friends and acquaintances what he does all day, as though he has something to hide from us. Us! His bosom companions! It's all very suspicious, I say. He's clearly an outlaw, or a government agent, or a radical cultist, or a sociopath, or something equally unpleasant. Why, Victor warned us just the other evening to keep well away from this one, and I daresay his advice sounds better and better. He's clearly not the sort we need to associate ourselves with. Why, his type drag down the reputations of anyone who even nods good morning to him on the street."
"What," Sheik asked, opening his eyes and interrupting Marcus' oration, "are you rambling about now?"
"Well, now," crowed Marcus, triumphant, "look who's come down off his high horse to mingle with the unworthy! Want to know what we're talking about? Perhaps I won't tell you." Poking his nose up in the air, Marcus sent Sheik a sidelong glance.
Sheik fidgeted a little. Petty as this all would turn out to be in the broad scheme of things, for the moment Sheik was concerned. He only knew one Victor, which was one too many, and the thought of people talking about him behind his back was galling. [No fair! You're not supposed to do it to me! I have a good reason for not telling you things! Arrgh...]
But even seeing his victim writhing in anguish wasn't enough to keep Marcus entertained for long, so his silence was broken. Maybe he'd get a better reaction from sharing this juicy nugget of gossip. Marcus heaved a theatrical sigh. "Woe is me, who is burdened with a golden conscience, and a heart easily moved to pity at the sight of suffering, however deserving the sufferer may be." He put emphasis on these last words. When he was certain that Sheik was all ears, he went on. "La, my brother and I were enjoying the social atmosphere of the local spirits establishment-"
"Ah, I see, you were out drinking. Yes, go on."
Marcus glared. "We did nothing of the sort, did we, brother? Nothing so base, so vulgar, so juvenile as you suggest, friend. We were merely observing and enjoying the social atmosphere of this establishment; yes, perhaps we had a little something to slake our thirst with, true, but I'd hardly call it drinking. Nayru, no! Anyway, we were at this establishment, and by and by we got to conversing with a fellow sitting near us. Wonderfully entertaining fellow, this one; he went by the name of Victor, said he worked in the potion shop over in the west side. Well, now, by and by (it had been about an hour or two of enjoying the social atmosphere), somehow or another the conversation turned to you. It's startling what a mind deems important news after a few hours of enjoying a social atmosphere, such as the one in that establishment. And this Victor related to us his dealings with you, and we found that awfully interesting, didn't we, brother? Certainly. One doesn't hear about such things often; they're really rather frowned upon." He waited for Taran to grunt affirmation, and paused for breath (and to enjoy the look, and color, Sheik face had). He cleared his throat. "To get back to what I was saying, Victor warned us to stay well away from you and your ilk, as it were, though he put it in rather more colorful vocabulary. To be precise, he claimed you were the spawn of the unholy demons themselves, and that you were bound for the seventeenth circle of the thirty-nine exquisite hells, and that you certainly were not taking him with you."
"Ouch," Taran interjected.
"Yes, exactly," said Marcus, "We decided to be lenient with you, friend, for no one in this world is perfect," he held up a hand to keep Sheik from interrupting (which he very much wanted to do by now). "We will nobly bear with your flaws of character. However," he said, switching tones entirely, "if you're going to keep secrets, perhaps we'd be better off keeping our own company."
Later, Sheik went home feeling very embarrassed. He'd have been even more embarrassed, and more than a little disturbed, had he known that the tree, or rather, someone in the tree, had been quite intrigued by his conversation with the twins.
Up in the aforesaid tree's branches, out of sight, a pair of eyes watched the sheikah's retreating figure. The eyes were, as one would assume and hope, attached to a person. A person in uniform.
##
*(from last chapter) A chephalocaudal is that tail that drapes down from the back of a zora's head. "Ceph" means head, and a caudal fin is a fish's tailfin. There you have it.
