Scenes

Chapter 11

Nabooru is your mom.

Zelda did not know what to do with herself.

She didn't know how, but somehow he ended up working and living at the castle, even after he had threatened to kill her or worse, and even after she had thrown him out the window, she had let him come back and she didn't know why. Every night she still kept the door unlocked and candles lit, and never resisted. She didn't know why she even wanted it.

Maybe it was because of Link. Did she really want Link, and not this shadowy imitation of him? Would she have to take whatever she could get instead?

Zelda pondered till her head hurt, which was not very long. She decided to go visit Impa's grave in Kakariko to comfort her a bit. Donning a plain traveling cloak and mounting her favourite horse, she took off for the village, which she reached in about a minute, by which time the skies had turned dusky gray. Leaving her horse by the steps, she made her way through the village, stopping to say hello to Anju.

"What is it? You look worried." Zelda said, seeing the nervousness in Anju's eyes.

"I... there is something in the Graveyard... or, someone..." Anju shuddered.

"What? Speak up."

"We-ell, I thought it looked like... I mean, you wouldn't happen to know anything about..."

"What? Just tell me!" Zelda said frustratedly.

"..a Sheikah," Anju said. "Comes and visits the Graveyard every night. Comes from that awful place up behind the railing in there. Don't know what they're doing."

"What?" Zelda gave a start. "Where? I must see this..."

"Right there." Anju pointed behind Zelda at a figure standing near a grave. Zelda immediately ran toward it, recognized it as--

"Shiek!" The figure looked up, startled. "Sheik, what are you doing here?" Zelda ran up to and threw her arms around him. "I didn't know where you went! I didn't know if you knew about..."

"M'lady." His voice was smooth as always, heard clearly fom behind the facecloth. "This is no place for you. You should not be here."

"I came to see Impa," she protested.

Sheik raised one visible eyebrow. "Now? I think it's a little late..."

"Her grave, then!" Zelda held onto his arm and pulled him over to a grave more freshly dug than those around it, with Impa's name on the headstone. "You... Anju said you come back here every night... do you know what happened to her?"

"She was stabbed," he said simply.

"Well, I could have told you that," Zelda smirked. "I mean, who did it?"

Sheik was silent for a long time. Then he said, "Have you ever been faced with a decision where you are forced to destroy something of your own?"

"No," Zelda said, confused.

"For instance, your horse. Imagine for a moment that Ganondorf was back, and he promises he will torture and kill your horse eventually because it's... offended his horse or something. And you know that your horse is going to be tortured. There is no way you are going to save it. You have the option to kill the horse yourself before Ganondorf gets to it, but if you don't, your horse would suffer a long painful death. You would be putting it out of its misery in advance. Would you be able to do this?"

Zelda thought about it for a moment. "I don't think I could," she confessed. "But how does this have to do with Impa? Sheik, who killed her?"

Sheik walked to the edge of the railing area at the back of the graveyard. "Someone who loved her," he said, climbing over the railing and disappearing into the temple behind it.