This fanfic's on the road to its end. Whoo, finally.
Nota Bene: I had to cut out the part of the scene where Zelda reveals she's Sheik. For obvious reasons.
I think I'll end at fifteen chapters. That's a good number.
There was no night or day inside this room, so he couldn't tell how long he sat there, Nasuerah's head on his lap and his face red and puffy on top of the black bruising and swelling already there.
It wasn't her death that bothered him, though that was a weight on his conscience. It was Ganondorf's last words that had struck true. He had nothing left. He had nothing left, and all his hopes now rode upon Link.
He didn't have hope. He didn't have emotion, or so much as anger.
Losing his sanity had been much more relieving than he'd expected.
The slave-girls didn't come to collect their dead friend, and they didn't come to clean the room that day, either. His head remained bowed, and he didn't move, not once, not to eat or to make himself comfortable or to do anything a normal human ought to do. He really didn't give a damn anymore.
Footsteps, and then the sound of each of the locks on the heavy door clicking open in rapid succession. Ganon swept into the room, obviously very proud of himself over what he'd done. Come back to gloat, had he?
"You still haven't moved? A pity, I thought you'd hold out longer before breaking."
When Sheik did not speak or so much as lift his head, Ganon did the unthinkable and went down on one knee across from Sheik, on the other side of the body. "Impa's been awoken as a sage, I hear. She's not coming for you. None of them are: I've come to tell you that your love is dead." He put an ugly twist on the word, a tone both mocking and cruel.
At this, however, Sheik did look up. Though there was nothing left in his eyes.
"The Spirit Sage herself killed him off, with a little help from my minions. I know I promised you his head, but there wasn't enough of it left to bring."
Nabooru? She did that? Poor woman. She'd been under a spell for seven years. Maybe she had found some kind of sick justification in it, after a while. Maybe she had turned against Link and what Ganon was saying was true?
Link was… dead?
All of a sudden the words hit him. He'd thought he had no emotion left, but apparently he did.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!" He screamed, filling the chamber with anger and despair. "DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME? GO AHEAD! I …DON'T …CARE …ANYMORE! I'D RATHER DIE!" Yes, to die, that would be best. Just like this slave girl. Just like Link.
If Sheik had had any surprise left, he might have used it at Ganon's next retort.
The Dark King leaned in close.
"Good. Then I'll kill you both off at once."
The silence trickled on. Ganon would never let him go, Sheik realized. And in that cold realization there was a finality to it. He'll never let me go.
This sentence floated around his mind as Ganon shoved forward from his down-on-one-knee position and grabbed the back of his shirt unceremoniously, heaving him to his feet. Sheik didn't notice any kind of signal, but apparently one had been given, because momentarily a group of guards (about seven or so; he wasn't in the state of mind to count) surrounded the King and Sheikah. Two of them took his arms, and he sagged in their grip, unable to keep bodily strength to hold himself up any longer. Nasuerah's body was left behind, the post of her neck beginning to fester and smell as it was exposed to air again after not being moved for nearly an entire day.
Sheik didn't care.
Ganon moved forward, his cloak rustling, and lifted Sheik's face to the light with one hand, giving no sign of emotion at the bruises and various cuts. "Consider this a test, Sheik," he said, and pressed his thumb into the small hollow just beneath Sheik's cheekbone. "You're mine now."
And he didn't protest it. Up until this point, he'd always denied it. But now?
Well, it was true, wasn't it? Link was dead, and he couldn't even manage tears.
Ganon had taken even that from him.
There was a slight humming noise in the air. Sheik turned his head with some effort, and caught sight of Ganon, who had moved directly behind him, and was now holding a kind of golden rope that twisted and shimmered as the dim light caught it. This he wound around both wrists, and it glowed a little brighter. Then he approached Sheik and wrapped it around his neck, like a noose, only much prettier and much more grand.
It sank into Sheik's skin as if it were light itself.
And quite suddenly all the shininess and all the splendour disappeared, and there was no trace of it where it had been around his neck. One of the guards stared, and another gave a low whistle. "Strong magic, m'lord," they offered.
"Deliver him to her cell," Ganon replied coldly. "This room is too easily found. I have business to attend." And then to Sheik: "If you leave the castle with this spell on, your head will be severed from your body. This is my claim on you. Consider it a protection until I deal with other matters." And with that he left.
He seemed distracted, as if he were in some kind of hurry. Something was definitely bothering him, but Sheik was finding that he had less and less on his mind. The guards hauled him off and out of the room, then back down a flight of steps and then two more, and off into a side chamber at last. Now they were in the prisons; At one side of the prison wall was a metal door, entirely sealed, and it was up to this that he was marched.
One of the guards put out his hand and pressed on the edge of the door, then muttered a very long and very complex incantation. The door gave a small lurch and then swung partway on its hinges, allowing the small group to enter, with Sheik being completely dragged in the center. What was this, some new kind of torture? It didn't matter, he decided. Whatever they had in store for him, he hoped it would kill him.
"For Nayru's love! You heartless bastards, what have you done…?" A woman's voice, sobbing and carrying on in a high-pitched voice, very melodious. Almost like his mother. He could stand to listen to that voice, he decided.
"My… my gods, Sheik…" the men dropped him and he crumpled into a heap on the floor. He felt hands on him, pulling him, soothing over his body, setting his head up properly in someone's lap. Very white and very smooth, silky hands were pressing into his shoulder, his hair, ruffling through it anxiously. Some form of wetness fell onto his cheek, and he realized there was a face over him, and that this face was crying.
"Sheik, you… don't you remember me?"
It was Zelda.
"What did they do to you? Sheik, please, answer me!"
"Princess…?"
"Yes, yes, it's me!" she exclaimed, and burst into tears again. Sheik stretched a hand out slowly and touched her on the cheek. But that was all he could manage at the moment.
"Sheik, can't you talk? What's he been doing to you? Oh, my poor, poor Royal Spy…" she petted him some more like an older sister might, and he tolerated this, because he hadn't seen Zelda in years and where the hell had she been? Zelda was consumed with another wave of sobs.
"Crying… over… me?"
"Well. I thought you were dead," she said, and hiccupped. She was wearing a formal dress, Sheik realized, and the silk of the skirt felt very nice. Nicer than what he was wearing, which was filthy, but he didn't care.
"Your face is… agh, your face is all torn and… your wrist!" she caught sight of Sheik's wrist, swollen hideously and discolored. "You're hurt!"
"…You… (he coughed) …where…? Where were you?" Some realization pierced the fog in his brain like an arrow.
"Impa took me to the forest, a little past the Kokiri settlement. She had me wait there for a while, their magic hid me more than anything else, really. And then she kind of sealed me in this glass chamber, and when I awoke… Oh, Sheik, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm… I'm so sorry! I should have come sooner! It's all right now, Link will be along to save us in a minute, though." She smiled weakly through her tears.
"He's…" Sheik closed his eyes. "He's not… alive."
"Yes, he is; I was speaking to him not twenty minutes ago. Sheik, we have to help him! He's going to fight Ganon…Link was the one who told me you were here! Link's angry, Sheik, you have no idea. I think he's going to win."
What she said after the first sentence was lost to him. "He's… what?"
"Link-- he's outside right now! I think he and the other sages are trying to figure out a way in. Ganon's just left us here as bait, I'll bet you. Come on, Sheik, we'd better try and find a way to escape. We can't just sit here and wait to be rescued!"
Sheik looked past her face, feeling a half-soaring and half-sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Thank the Gods, Link was still alive. If there was nothing else in this world there was still that.
But on the other hand… "Zelda, I can't," he said. His situation seemed so bleak at the moment that all he could do was struggle to a sitting position and put a hand to his forehead. "I think He put some kind of device on me. If I leave…" he let the rest hang ominously.
"That cold, cold bastard," Zelda said acidly."How could he put a spell on you like that?"
This was so funny, considering everything else that Ganon had done to him, that Sheik burst into hysterical laughter.
Zelda looked at him as if he were crazy. Which he very well might have been. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"Nothing," he said, and the bubble of hysteria burst, leaving him feeling colder and emptier than before. "Listen. If I add my power to yours, you can break the lock on the door."
"But I can't leave you here!" she said, aghast.
"Princess, don't pull heroics with me. You don't have enough power to do this on your own."
At this the corners of her mouth turned up, exposing perfect white teeth. "That's where you're wrong. Impa showed me something when I was sealed in that place. I'm the last one of the Royal Line, and that makes me…" she clenched her hands excitedly (leave it to Zelda to be excited when trapped in Ganon's dungeon), "The Sage of Light!"
Sheik gave her a slow look. His mind still wasn't comprehending things fast enough.
"Which means that I can get us out of here, no problems, and—" she looked at Sheik, who touched his neck right above the collarbone, where the golden chain had sunk in. "I… oh, damn." She frowned.
"You still aren't strong enough," he said dismally. "That's a seventeen-lock door. He told me."
"Well, he knew I was the Light Sage, but also.." she rolled up her sleeve and exposed her hand. And there, something he hadn't noticed before: a gently glowing triforce. How odd, what was it? "I'm the weilder of the Triforce of Wisdom! I don't know how, but it's nifty, no?"
Well, she sure seemed confident. As if she really had seen Link. But if it was true that he was alive, then he hated Ganon more than ever before for lying to him. Why? Why? Why, his conscience cried?
"Watch this," she said, and winked. She went over to the door and knelt down next to it, then stared at the knob very intently. A short moment later the door gave a jerk, an annoyed little squeak, and sprang open. "See? It's easy for me now. I've got so much power, Sheik, you have no idea! Now come on, let's get out of here!"
And suddenly she was separated from him. Glass came up and around them both in enormous sharded platelets. Zelda clenched her hands: "Oh, not again!" she said, giving a little terrified yelp as she was encased in a glass diamond. The entire effect was very sudden and very off-putting.
Sheik bounded forward and threw himself on it, but where a crack formed it was quickly mended. Zelda was casting spells furiously inside, but to no avail, and the thing rose up into the air and disappeared. The last glance Sheik got was of Zelda's face, lips open to say something, before she was gone.
He staggered to a wall, bracing his arm against it and looking around. Where? How? Was this some kind of mental torture, or was it the real thing? Suddenly the castle shook violently. Rubble fell from the ceiling (really, it was a very old castle) and Sheik crouched down low, looking up the stairs nearby with a suddenly renewed light.
He felt like his old self again. Almost.
Or maybe it was just adrenaline.
From the jail cells behind him, he heard people crowding to the bars of their cells, giving triumphant wails and cries as they hugged each other and rang the bars with whatever they could find. Most noticeable was the cheer that was quickly being taken up.
"Hail! Ho! The Hero of Time!"