The Destiny Of Shadows
By Luckycharms88
Chapter Two
The Gift That Was Made To Suit Him Alone
"Sheik! You're going to be late getting to your lessons if you don't leave soon!" Sheila bristled at her son, furious.
"I know Mama!" he yelled back, equally furious with his mother.
He angrily threw cloths into his bag, then placing all his numerous instruments with his music in with the utmost care. Even his fury towards him mama couldn't make him be angry at his music. His music was his savior.
He placed his bundle of fruit and bread that was to last him the day on top of all of his other belongings. He suddenly remembered what he was forgetting, and ducked under his bed pulling out his shirt from its safekeeping.
"I don't see why you keep that rag you found, I can make you a better shirt with embroidery just as good" Sheila said to her son grumpily.
"It's special to me and I wont find anything that can compare to it." He said, with a tone of finality to his voice. He slipped on his shoes and dark blue hat. "I'm leaving!" he said dashing out the door pack over his shoulder.
"Good bye!" he faintly heard his mother call. He ran down the steps, hoping to make up time by running. He almost didn't see the new building being built where baa-Chan's house used to be. "They sure started building fast, as though it as a blessing that she…" he muttered to himself.
No one could explain what happened. Some had heard bumps in the night, some had even peaked out there doors to see what the matter was, but no one would believe his story.
He had woken up the following morning in front of the well, dirty and confused. He had thought at first it was something the masochistic side of his mind had created, but alas it was real. Most of the blood and ash had been washed away from the rain, but burnt debris were still present and on the side of town with the guardsman, there were still identifiable parts of his body there.
"A slaughter!" or "truly terrible!" they had said, but not a soul rose to investigate the reason as to why, or how. And when he offered his story, the claimed that he must have been driven crazy by the loss of his tutor. They called him delusional!
After that he hadn't talked very much to anyone, if they didn't want to know then he wouldn't tell them. The entire village thought that he was going crazy. His silence had isolated him from the rest of the village.
Of course his mother wasn't very happy with her son being the talk of the town in that respect, so was upset with him. He didn't care whether or not his mother was pleased with him anymore, it didn't matter to him.
But he was escaping this madness for a few weeks. He was going to stay with his sensei for three weeks to hone his technique on all of his instruments. Now that ba-… now that he wasn't taking Sheikah lessons he had more time for music lessons.
His sensei, Gabriele, was a relative of his father. Gabriele was about thirty years old. He shared the dark golden locks with his cousin, but that's where the resemblances stopped. He was not very tall, lanky almost and very bookish looking. He had a rather bleak attitude most of the time, rather stoic even. Only music could make him show emotion it seemed. He took music very seriously, which was very hard to handle as a child, but now the feeling was mutual.
Gabriele had never married so he had no family in his discreetly large house; only an old cook and young man who tended the stables lived in his house with him. He treated his 'help' like equals, and he didn't treat sheik any differently. Sheik thought that this was amazing for a man of his social standing.
Sheik had just made it out to Hyrule field, passing over the bridge. He still had another hour of walking to do. It was going to be a long walk.
"Dwell on the notes! Your rushing through them like everyone doesn't matter! They are all important!" Gabriele shouted at Sheik.
Sheik sighed. He had been staying at his uncles for a week now, and he was already ready to leave. Even though his playing was improving, it made him ashamed that after all his practice he still wasn't getting everything right.
"Enough! I can't take it anymore!" sensei threw his hands up in disappointment. "It's time for dinner anyways. Go wash up." Gabriele lifted himself from his chair and gracefully left out of the room.
"I'll never get this serenade" sheik said to his music sitting on the stand. His only friend yet stills an enemy.
He dragged himself out of the room, spent and more than ready for a meal.
Gabriele had started teaching sheik on his father's insistence when sheik turned five. As it was family tradition and Tobias wanted the best for his son, illegitimate or no, he agrees to tutor him. He had asked Tobias repeatedly for months about whom he had this child with. It was obvious that the boy was of Sheikah decent. But he didn't know where Tobias would have met a girl like that.
It wasn't until one day when he visited Tobias' mansion, when he was to see Tobias about the payment for his son's lessons that he found out.
Tobias' wife Gwendolyn was having a fit, over what he would never be sure. Her screams about not buying his daughters nice dresses turned to something much more painful. "If it was something for that son of yours you would pay anything, wouldn't you? You would give that freak of a runt h world before you thought of your family!" she was in hysterics.
Tobias couldn't hold it in anymore, "yes I would! Because none of you are my family! Sheila and sheik are my family and I love them more than I will ever love you!" he saw Gwendolyn with tears in her eyes. "And don't you say that you love me! You know that this is only a marriage of convenience, and that you turned a blind eye to Sheila and me for years before you could not deny it any longer."
It was then that Gwendolyn burst out of the room, crashing into him and continuing her stampede down the hall as soon as she gained footing.
"So that's his mother's name," Gabriele muttered "you didn't tell me so it wouldn't get out." He stated, not bothering with questions.
Tobias, usually strong and full of courageous, was defeated. "Please don't tell any-"
"Have you ever known me to be so shallow?" he cut him off, helping himself to a chair in Tobias' study, which was easily the size of his own dining room.
"Thank you for your silence. But I warn you, the boy doesn't know, and won't for a while."
"I didn't expect he would, he is only five." Gabriele said wistfully 'I wonder if the poor boy will ever know…'
"You don't have to be so tough on him, he's only eleven" Peter said, leaning on the bit of table that was left next to Gabriele, breaking his train of thoughts
"Passion won't grow in soil fertilized with needless compliments," he said with an omniscient air. "He may be my beloved nephew but he still needs a firm hand to help him learn"
"He's not the only one who needs a firm hand," he ran a calloused hand through sensei's thick straw-colored locks to massage the nape of his neck. He started to untie sensei's elbow length hair, when sensei's firm grip stopped him.
"However hw doesn't need to be so firmly handled that he is mentally scarred yet. After all, he's only eleven." He said, pushing peter away, ending any chance of before dinner passion. Peter sat, resigned, at the other side of the table.
'Well there's always after dinner, he's never resisted then…'
Sheik rushed to dinner, refreshed from washing his face and resting his hands in the water basin. They ached more than ever before. He slowed down as he came to the dining room. It was a rather spacious room with a long table that could seat a dozen people. He was awed by the spaciousness of every room in the house, even after seeing it semi-regularly for six years. He didn't know that his father had such rich connections.
Sheik slid into his chair on the side of the table, sitting up straight like his mama always told him to do at his uncle's house. He sat silently and waited until everyone was seated at the table, even the cook. Throughout the meal everyone made small chatter, with the least comments made by Gabriele and the most made by the outgoing stable-hand, peter.
This was sheik's favorite part of the day; for once he could be calm.
"I'm going to the market, don't worry I'll be back by dinner." Sheik informed peter as he left. It was his day off from lessons and practice, so he intended to make the most of it.
"I won't worry as long as I don't have any reason to. You'd better not get into any trouble down in the market, hear me?" He joked to sheik
Sheik ignored his mocking and made his way down the hill to the market. But instead of venturing into the market, he turned left to go to the temple of time courtyard.
No one ever went to the temple of time unless it was a day of worship, which was rare. So he had the courtyard all to himself for practice. Yes more practice but not in music. He made his way to the 'gossip stones.'
Gossip stones were placed all throughout Hyrule as a guarding system for the royal family. They were rarely used now, because of the sheikah shortage, but they were still useful I many ways. When touching a gossip stone, a Shiekah can see both what the stone has seen and use it as reference for flash travel.
Flash travel was easy with gossip stones, which was why it was the only kind he had used so far. When using gossip stone travel he had to touch the top of the gossip stone he was coming from and he would end u at the closest gossip stone to where he was trying to go. He had not learned stone-les travel yet, but he planned to go see send a letter to Impa so he could ask for her help. After all she was Baa-Chan's daughter, maybe she could teach him.
Sheik stopped his train of thought to concentrate on practice; he needed to get this form of flash travel down so that he could finally move on to something harder.
He had been traveling between the stones that were in the temple of time courtyard for an hour when he touched a stone to see if he could feel something farther away. He 'felt' a stone that was about an hours walk away. He concentrated on the new stone while raising his arm. He let his arm drop and hit the top of the stone, and pushed.
He was suddenly on a grassy ledge, overlooking the castle gate, still in the crouching position he had been in on the other rock. He rose slowly from the position, worried about alerting the guards.
He heard a stampeding horse coming down the road. Suddenly, it came to a halt at the gate. He crept over to the edge to peek down at the guards watching the gate.
A white horse had been stopped from leaving the palace. Sheik didn't recognize the younger girl on the horse but he did recognize the older woman on the white mare as Impa, Baa-Chan's daughter. She was just as tall and strong as he was told. Her silver hair was tied back in a tight knob at the nape of her neck, and her traditional Sheikah bodyguard armor was immaculate. But her usually calm features, that were so much like baa-Chan, were contorted with anger and frustration.
"Please open the gate, the princess needs to leave the grounds" impa said with persistence.
"I'm sorry she can't leave without a note from the king, please go get one." The guard said mechanically
"We can't get one now, we must leave!" Impa shouted with frustration. She glanced up the road warily, like she was looking for someone.
He could see that a darkly cloaked man was leaving the castle on a black stallion, making his way down the road slowly, nodding to all the guards. He resembled that man that came to Kakariko about a month ago! What if he was after Impa! Impa said that that girl was the princess, which meant that the princess of Hyrule was in danger! He had to do something!
Before thinking he ran to the gate wall and he saw a ladder leading down into the castle walls. He quickly climbed down and looked around. In the small room there was a switch that he guessed must be to the gate. He pulled with all his weight on the leaver. It wouldn't move for a moment, but then started to move and the gate with it.
He climbed up the ladder as fast as he could and when he got to the ledge he ran as fast as he could to the gossip stone. As he raised his arm to travel back to the temple of time, he caught the gaze of Impa as he saw her wink at him as she and the princess galloped down the road.
Sheik had to hold back his happiness so he could concentrate on getting back to the temple safely.
Sheik walked into Gabriele's house before sundown. He went straight home because he was worried that "that man" might do something. Impa and the princess wouldn't be in the market for at least an hour, the road between the castle and the market was long, because along the road were all the nobles large mansions, with equally ample courtyards. He wouldn't be caught by anyone that might have seen him.
He went up the stairs to his room and washed up for dinner. He hadn't done much real work but the sweat he worked up training was enough for him to need to wash up. After washing his face and hands, he started down the hall with a trudge.
Sheik was worried; he didn't know whether or not he should tell the other members of the house about what happened up at the castle. He thought that they might all be in some kind of danger. He didn't know who that man was or what he was doing to Hyrule but it couldn't be safe for anyone. But what if they don't believe me?
He walked slowly to the dining room, brooding on what to do. 'I should tell them, even if they think I'm lying. It's best that they know what I saw.' He thought, resolving his problem.
Sheik entered the dining room to find a surprise at the head of the table. He had seen mama and papa kiss before and he had heard about boys and girls kissing in the village. Mama had said that kisses from your sweetheart were special. He had never kissed anyone like that before, so he didn't know what it was like. But he did know that this kind of kiss was different from all the other kinds of kisses he knew about.
It was two boys kissing. No, two men kissing. It was different, it was exotic, and it was beautiful. Their hands clasped each other, their eyes locked to each other, their bodies melted into each other, How Peter leaned over Gabriele in an gentle arc, how Gabriele tilted his head just so to face Peter, how their lips met softly yet passionately.
Sheik gasped, surprising the couple. They jumped away from each other, but still knowing it was to late for him not to see. Sheik blushed brightly and stuttered an apology and ran back up the stairs to his room.
Gabriele glared exhaustedly at peter; "I told you not to disturb my nephew!" his shout came halfheartedly.
Sheik stared into the small mirror in his room, a luxury he didn't have at his own house. His normally neatly brushed chin-length locks were tousled from his quick flight. His intense scarlet eyes were wide, and his cheeks were only succeeded in hue by the former. Heavy puffs of air were bursting from his carnation pink lips.
He wanted to be kissed like that, not with the shyness of the teens in his village, not with the bored absent-mindedness of his parents, but with that passion that they had. He wanted to be kissed by a...
He touched his own lips. Is that what he wanted? To kiss a...boy?
His reflection showed his face flushing to match his eyes at the thought.
"He not going to come out for a while the least we could do is continue..." peter said encouragingly. "After all he left so we could have time alone."
Gabriele gave him a look that threatened a fate wore than death, celibacy. He was about to get up to go get sheik when he came down the stairs as though nothing had happened. He walked into the dining room and sat at his place.
The food was already on the table, waiting to be eaten. The cook had already eaten her share and gone to bed, so at the table it was only the three of them. They all began to eat the slightly cooled food.
"Sheik, I... we didn't mean for you to see..." Gabriele had trouble getting the word out. He and peter didn't often tell others about their relationship. Tobias knew, but no one else in his family. Peter had told his family, but after that had never spoken to them again. Gabriele didn't know what to expect from this eleven-year-old boy.
"It's fine" sheik let out before he finished. "I don't mind, it's not like I haven't seen papa kiss mama," sheik reasoned. "I just wasn't expecting it, sorry."
The last thing Gabriele would have expected was the boy to forgive him, let alone apologize. He was about to say that it wasn't sheik's fault when he started to talk to talk again.
"But there is something I saw when I went out today that I think might be a big problem." Sheik said sounding very serious. Sheik told Gabriele and Peter everything that happened up at the castle. He was not ashamed that he broke the rules to save the princess and Impa, so he had so problem telling them.
"A 'man in black' was coming down the road behind them? Isn't that a bit stereotypical, to be scared of a man wearing all black?" Gabriele said thoughtfully. All food at the table was forgotten
"He wasn't any man! He was the one that...I was there! I don't know his face but I know that horse and I know that cloak." Sheik suddenly got very quiet. He didn't want to talk about that night in Kakariko.
"Sheik..." peter said gently, trying not to force sheik. Peter was usually very lively, but now was not the time for laughter and smiles. He knew that the only way to make this better was to talk about it. "Sheik, how do you know that cloak? Where have you seen this man before?"
Sheik, trying to hold back his pain, froze up. "In the village, a month ago..." he said softly, hoping no one would hear, yet wanting everyone to know. He wiped away the tear that threatened to fall down his cheek, trying to make himself unaware of the pain.
"Sheik... what did-" peter tried to coax him, before getting cut off.
"He killed her...she was gone...all gone!" he started to mutter between sobs, with no tears carving streams down his face. "The only thing left...was my tunic...the one she made me... and I... I sang...why did I sing...but then... it rained...like a gift from the goddesses...it washed the pain away..." sheik spoke softly.
Gabriele was startled, "you sang, and the rain washed the pain away?" 'If this is true sheik might...he might be...' Gabriele thought with excitement.
"Yes, I sang and it-rained, I don't know how or why, but-it did!" sheik hiccupped
Gabriele waited until sheik stopped sniffling and his sobs were over before starting on the " sheik do you know what this means?" sheik looked at him as though he was insane. "Sheik, I don't think your father ever told you about our family's heritage." From across the table Gabriele took sheik's hand. "Many years ago, as the kingdom of Hyrule was just being started, there were two brothers that loved music very much. They had traveled to Hyrule from a country called Terminia, were they had been made famous, writing songs for the kingdoms of each race in that country, they decided it was time to move to another country, so they came to Hyrule where they wrote songs for the king of Hyrule.
"The brothers wrote music for the king and eventually decided to stay in Hyrule, for they had both married while they were here. They settled here in Hyrule with their growing families until their dying days. So to this day, their genius musician blood runs in our veins." Gabriele said proudly.
By now sheik had pulled himself together, and was able to ask questions. "So I got my harp from them, right? But why was their music so special? How could they be so popular with so many races in different places?"
"They could set magical powers into songs. Nobody knows how they did it but there are songs that only the royal family knows that to this day have magical powers." At sheik's eyes widening he quickly said, "of course these songs are kept very secret, only royalty and royal messengers know any of the tunes. They are kept top secret, it could be dangerous if they were not."
Sheik looked understanding, but still wanted to know these magical songs. "So are you trying to say that the song of storms, is a magical song? But it never called a storm before that night, so how could it be a magical song?" sheik questioned, "unless, your saying that..."
"You might have caused it to be magical, sheik," Gabriele answered. "It's in your blood, but how it came back to the surface so far along in the bloodline is beyond me." He stopped, wondering, before continuing, "but it will be something that is unique to you alone sheik."
Hearing those words jogged Sheik's memories to remember what Aunt Minna had said to him that day before the attack.
"You have to find that out on your own. All I can tell you is that it will come to you when you most want it and it will be unique to you, it will be made to suit you alone"
"I wanted it so bad... a release... and I got it" sheik said piecing together the reason for his strange episode.
"Sheik?" peter asked hesitantly, "What are you talking about?" he was worried about sheik; this was the second time this evening that he had started to act strange.
"The song, the magic, it's my second gift."
But he couldn't be sure just yet.
Sheik was with Gabriele and Peter in the music room. He was about to play the song of storms on his harp. Gabriele was sitting on his bench in front of his small piano, with Peter behind him, hands on his shoulders.
'If this really works...I'll have found my second gift... like Aunt Minna said, something for me alone.' He had decided to use his golden harp for this occasion, if he was right it would be a milestone in his life. It was the harp of his ancestors, so it might be interlaced with some of their magical powers.
He started to strum the melody on his harp, his skilled fingers plucking at the taut strings, freshly tuned. The soft sound echoed in the room as he started the second round of the simple tune. On the third round he started to sing the sad tune, accompanying himself on the harp, playing thirds and fifths above his own voice.
Gabriele watched his pupil perform for him and his lover, as though they were not there. He could feel a force in the tune that Sheik had never shown with any other music, even his own compositions, he had never shown this passion. Then he felt the power behind the passion hit him.
It was at that moment that Sheik felt a power flow out of him, flying away on the notes that flew out the window, into the market, into they sky.
Then he knew.
Dark clouds gathered over the market as a horse galloped through, without paying them any notice.
As the two figures on the horseback made their escape, rain spilled from the black clouds.
Behind them, a man as dark as the clouds in the sky trailed.
He was more than a bad omen, he was a curse.