Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Zelda Franchise... I wish I did.
Chapter 5 - In Small Ways
Watching the gloom meadow in contemplative silence, Sheik is resting in front of the ominous Forest Temple. Taking a spot where he could see every corner of the ground below but also staying hidden away from any peering glance, he is sitting with his legs crossed on top of the crooked and flattened branch of the dried tree.
Carefully working at the strings of his precious harp, he lets a few subtle sounds of melody in the tranquility of the secret grove.
'The shadows are getting shorter…' His ruby eyes glanced at the silhouette of the tree in the ground, the once large shadow that almost covered all the grass below is now shrinking to half its previous size. 'They say heroes are guided by their own pace… Maybe ours likes to run late even more than others.'
A quiet giggle escaped him, musing about the irony that the Hero of Time always seems to be late in his ventures.
Carried by the soft breeze in the air, a few sounds of frantic footsteps came from the darkness inside the Temple's entrance.
Taken in a bit of a surprise, he watched with a puzzled expression as a brown-haired man of medium stature came running out from within the Temple. Eyes as big as they can get, face pale with what seems to be shock or a deep sense of terror.
"Hah…. Hahh…." Gasping heavily with sweat dropping from his fringes, the man took a few glances in between his hastened paces, this stranger came to the edge of the entrance, where the stairs have been broken for a long, long time.
Crouching next to a broken pillar at the left side, he pulled a battered rope tied to said support and then threw it down to make his mean of getting to the ground below.
Not bothered by the skin burning heat of sliding down so quickly, or maybe too afraid to think about it, the brunet resumed his desperate run as if Ganondorf himself was after him. Only when he was far out of view, already deep inside the green maze, that Sheik appeared from above the tree, his gaze changing from where the stranger bolted to the 'peaceful' entrance of the broken Temple.
Taking a graceful leap to the firm ground below, the Sheikah landed next to the still wobbling rope.
"Why would a normal civilian be inside a cursed place like this?" He mused in a lower voice, his ruby eyes following the brown line upwards to the broken stairs. "Maybe that wasn't a civilian at all. That still leaves the question of why anyone but monsters would inhabit such a horrid fortress."
A prickling sense of curiosity almost took over his judgment. That stranger's presence here brings along various implications to the Temple's Trials.
What if Ganondorf is trying to tamper with them in any way?
Or maybe the dark tyrant has decided to camp a legion of his mercenaries in each one of the ancient grounds to try and prevent the hero from ever completing his quest?
Took all the self-control and hard-learned lessons from his master Impa, to make Sheik disregard the racing thoughts in his mind.
'I cannot interfere…' He said to convince himself. 'My duty is to guide the Hero in his Journey… to enter the Temples is to tamper with the trials in itself. I would be doing no different from what that monster would do.'
Putting away his harp, Sheik steeled his nerves to try and keep himself from even glancing back towards the Temple. He knows that if any more thoughts are given about that, he will toss aside all that he represents just to ensure the survival of their only hope.
So, with an aching heart, the blond ninja stood firm and silent on top of the ancient pedestal in front of the Temple.
Clenching his fists tight, he kept his crimson eyes focused on the small pathway leading to the inner sanctum of the meadow. In the dutiful form that is expected of a Sheikah warrior, Sheik kept himself waiting and hoping that soon the Hero would show up from below that hazy fog and then he would naively boast about how easy his trial will be.
Sheik kept waiting despite how seconds turned into minutes, and minutes soon turned into a full long hour.
A deep frown took over his hidden facial features. 'Late… he is so late…' He snarled internally, berating the blue-eyed buffoon for thinking that the world would wait for him forever.
Sheik tried to cling to his frustration and even anger towards the hero, believing profoundly that he is late or worse, that he will not come here today. He forces himself to think like this, because to think otherwise would be to acknowledge the prickling feeling in his chest, saying that the hero is already inside.
The now burning sensation in his chest, telling him that the look of terror on that stranger's face is somehow connected to the Hero's wellbeing. That all this is a warning for a terrible omen of things to come, a warning for Sheik to dive inside and check for himself.
Biting his lower lip with enough strength to pale the skin, Sheik cursed himself for not making the choice earlier. 'Sorry, aunt Impa…' He turned away from the empty passageway, his gaze and attention instantly snapping to the gap up above. 'I cannot wait out here any longer. Taboo or not, I can't risk losing that flicker of hope now.'
As his knees prepared to take the weight of the impulse of a high leap, his eyes caught the glint of movements. Sliding his right foot to the side in a way to get his balance back, Sheik waited with frozen breath to see the owner of the blurred silhouette pushing away the darkness.
Then he saw the brazen color of golden blond locks, cascading below a green silly hat.
"Hero…" An innocent but unintended smile crept onto the Sheikah's lips.
What little spring of happiness he had felt at recognizing the blond young man, disappeared when the hero just tumbled forward headfirst against the gap at the edge of the stairs.
"HERO!" Sheik leaped awkwardly onto Link's falling form, his arms reaching for the body before it could reach the ground.
Despite the difference in their size and a bit more difference in their weight, Sheik managed to embrace Link close to him and cushion the fall, taking the brunt of it with his left shoulder.
Feeling the warm and wet sensation in his hands, Sheik pulled back to look at the man next to him. His eyes widening at the sight of so much blood staining everything, from the Hero's clothes to his handsome face.
"Oi, Hero!" He cried out, gently pushing against the other young man's chest. "All this blood… Where are you hurt? What happened?" Sheik's panic began to grow as Link's only response to his stimulation was a soft incoherent whisper.
A blinding glint caught Sheik's attention from the corner of his eyes. Trailing down to the shining spot, he saw a golden triangle sparkling on the Hero's right gloved hand. If Sheik had any doubt about this young man's worth to Hyrule, the sight of a Triforce shining so brightly shattered it all away.
"Hero… stay with me…" Sheik swiftly began to pull out at the green tunic, searching for any wounds on the Hero's body. "Please, we can't lose you here… please, Link."
'You are a failure…' Words of pure malice echoed inside Link's mind. 'It is your destiny to die by my hands… You will fail… You will die…'
Again, and again Ganondorf's continue berating bombarded the hero's mind in a spiraling nightmare, making him groan and stir in his slumber.
Then a tiny bright spot in this maelstrom of darkness called out to him. 'This way… Hero…' In motionless steps, Link followed after this new and familiar voice, reaching with ghostly hands toward this spot of tranquility.
At the first touch of his finger on that light, Link found himself surrounded by the real world again. His eyes scanning and quickly recognizing this place as that plain bar in Kakariko.
"Link…" A calming, beautiful voice, called out from behind making Link turn in a hurry.
He saw the smiling face of the young man he met just a day ago, those comforting brown eyes giving him so much relief. But then all turned into a painful color of red, as a piercing chill stabbed him in the side.
Blue eyes shocked beyond belief followed down the line going to his abdomen just to find a bloody dagger at the hand of the petite brunet he came so close to calling friend.
"You are no hero, Link… Just a boy playing with a big sword." With a twisted smirk on his lips, Swift pushed the dagger deeper making the blond scream in pain.
Screaming himself awake, Link shot his back up from the ground where he was sleeping. With rapid and frantic gasps for air, he arched forward with the pain still flaring at his side.
"Shh… You shouldn't be moving like that." A friendly voice sounded from the left, startling Link completely out of the daze of sleep.
Giving a wary look to the person sitting on the damp ground next to the rocky wall, Link tried to reach for his sword only to find out that it is missing, together with his tunic and shirt. Firm rows of bandages instead are covering the area below his chest, holding tightly against his recently open wound.
Sensing the other blonde's distress, Sheik raised one hand and pointed to the hero's belongings resting at the other corner of this small dark-looking cave. "Fear not hero. I only took your upper garments to treat your wounds. Nothing inappropriate happened to you as you slept."
Now recognizing not only the voice but also the mysterious look of the Sheikah, Link resumed breathing normally again. "W-Where… where are we?" He gave a glance around the dank and gloomy place, finding nothing of interest save from his things and the barely lit campfire at the entrance that is covered with a large lump of leaves to hide its existence.
"Inside a small alcove next to the Sacred Meadow," Sheik replied simply. "You stepped out of the Temple looking like a walking corpse drenched in blood…" The Sheikah looked at Link with his watchful gaze, one that never fails to intimidate 'weak-minded' people as he calls them, but this time only managed to make the hero retreat in a shy posture. "Hero, what happened in there? Why were you stained in blood from head to boots?"
Link seemed to shrink at the Sheikah's question, something that the young ninja didn't fail to notice.
Those blue big eyes glanced at Sheik with a strange glow to them, no not strange at all. It's shame, and this feeling is hindering the hero's response to only a weak sigh.
Giving a sigh of his own, Sheik decided to try to soothe the other boy a bit more, so he would hopefully open up. "Before you came out, I saw someone running out from the Temple. A young brown-haired man, looking pale and scared as if he had seen a ghost." He chuckled internally in the irony that inside that place this person would most likely run up against a haunting spirit.
At the mention of the brunet, Link's shoulders twitched in response. He raised his gaze from the fixated look at the ground to finally glance back to those peering ruby eyes. "He escaped… T-That's… good."
Sheik's eyebrow perked up a little. "Was that a friend of yours?"
Link twitched again, this once making his gaze shift to the side again. "I thought so, at least yesterday I did."
A long sigh escaped the young hero, suddenly his eyes betrayed a deep look of sadness and exhaustion on them. This semblance of dread going against the very image the green-clad warrior had just one day before, this sudden change startling the Sheikah profoundly.
"Hero…" He called out in a calm, reassuring voice. "Something is weighing on your mind, is clear just by looking at you. And I want you to know that you can share it with me." That got a reaction of the blond hero, making his cerulean eyes glint even if a little with the cheerfulness of before. "All of Hyrule depends on you. But even so, I want you to depend on me. On anything."
Shuffling with his gloveless fingers, Link appears to be debating with himself. The short smile tugging at the corner of his lips showing that he is debating whether or not to trust this person, to open himself again.
He did it just yesterday, he sat down, he drunk that horrible alcohol thingy with someone… and a day later that person stabbed him in the back, almost quite literally. "Swift…" The name slipped by him, making the Sheikah lean forward to listen.
"That person I saw running?" Sheik asked.
"Yes…" Link sighed again. "At least he got out alive."
At that, the Sheikah frowned. However, before he could inquire more, Link began explaining a bit more. "Yesterday I went to Kakariko as you told me to. For most of the day, I was inside the graveyard, like very inside the graveyard. I found the old man Dampé I've met years ago there; he gave me that cool looking Hookshot for racing him."
Seeing the glimpse of 'Link' coming back to the Hero in his tale-telling made Sheik smile quietly as he keeps hearing very attentively.
"When I came out of his tomb night had fallen already." Getting a very pensive look to his expression, the hero sighed. "The few people I got the chance to talk to all, told me that Hyrule is not safe for travel anymore. So, I decided to stay in Kakariko for the rest of the night."
This part got a nod of approval from the Sheikah, who feared the hero may have been naïve enough to take the road at night.
"With people sleeping on the streets, I tried to find anyplace to stay… then I found a little building with open doors even at midnight." As Link detailed the location and quirks of said building, Sheik recognized it as the bar that sultry old lady Jina runs. Not a very respectable place to frequent, but still not the worse. "In there… I met this person. Swift."
There is this tone to the hero's voice when he speaks of this Swift person. It is so subtle and secretive that anyone else would fail to notice it, but to someone so extensively trained in watching the little changes in people's expression, it is clear as day.
Sheik wanted to voice a nagging question that is tickling the tip of his tongue, but he decided to keep his silence in favor of letting the hero continue in his tale.
"He just presented himself to me. So forthcoming and easygoing… he was like a strange beacon of normalcy in that depressing picture that was Kakariko to my eyes." Pressing two fingers to his lips, Link sighed. "We drunk this awful thing together, alcohol he called it."
Once again that feeling of longing showing in the hero's tone. Sheik frowned this time around. He can't tell why, but hearing about this person is making him very uncomfortable.
"Swift told me his sister was kidnaped." Link sighed again. "He was so desperate… asking for my help because he was too weak to do something about… His hero." His shoulders deflated; his eyes hidden behind his blond bangs.
"There was no sister, right?" Sheik asked calmly. Even if his voice is neutral and cold as always, his chest is burning with silent rage.
Biting his lips to choke a sobbing sound, Link shook his head without saying a word.
"Hero…" Sheik stood up, walking next to the other blond, crouching right next to him. "You can tell me. Inside the ruins of the temple, what truly happened?"
"F-Four of them were waiting for us…" Link stuttered a little, his meek voice only increasing the Sheikah's anger towards these people. "I stood up against them… I… I am so stupid. A giant chump." Shooting his gaze upwards, Link stared at Sheik with blue eyes glistening with heavy tears. "Swift stabbed me from behind… He said it would make it easier to subdue and sell me later."
That settled it. Sheik is livid beyond belief, and he can't even pinpoint the exact reason as to why but had he known any of this when he saw that man flee the Temple earlier...
"Did you fight them?" He asked gently, seeing the distress in his hero's face. "I ask this because, despite all the blood on you, your only heavy wound is the one at your abdomen."
Link shook his head slowly. "Only one. The burly man, their leader I think…" Then his expression turned grim, remorseful even. "I cleaved his arm right off. He screamed so much, there was so much blood." A loud sob escaped him now. "Sheik, I killed a person." He glanced down at his trembling hands. "That man's blood is in my hands… Ganondorf is right. I… I am no hero."
"That's not true, not true at all!" Sheik protested vehemently. "Hero, listen. Hyrule is not the same anymore. I know, for you the world still has that black and white tint to it. Monsters were bad and people were good. But that is not real anymore." He leaned in closer, taking Link's trembling hands onto his own. "The thing you put down, a slaver… that is no better than a monster who preys on innocents. I understand, taking a man's life is not easy for the first time, not for anyone."
Red and blue met each other, their glances locked so close and caring.
"You are our hero. Never let anyone make you doubt that."
Link smiled brightly at Sheik's words. So mesmerizing, pure, and gentle… Sheik could stare at him for hours and not mind getting lost in this wonderful sight.
As a furious streak of red appeared on his hidden face, the young Sheikah shook his head away from such wrongful feelings and ideas, pulling his hand away from Link's, much for the young hero's slight surprise.
Clearing his throat to get his mind away from those wonderful blue eyes, Sheik folded his arms against his chest. "This Swift character, you said that at least he got away. What happened to the rest of them?" He asked casually, trying very hard to not glance at the hero's bare chest. As stealing glances from the innocent young man would be very unprofessional of him.
"Dead… all of them." A look of exasperation returning to the young hero. "Ganondorf's phantom killed them."
Sheik's jumped in a worried stance. "Ganondorf's…. phantom?! What is that?" His mind failing to register the first time the hero had mention Ganondorf in his story, the young Sheikah was caught in surprise by the Evil Tyrant's name.
"I don't get it either." Link frowned. "It happened just as I… sliced that man's arm away. They all stood ready to engage me, then this phantom came out from one of the paintings on the wall. One by one, this phantom began to kill them in the most horrid ways." Clenching his fists, he glared at the ground as he continued. "Ganondorf's voice came from the ceiling above. He was watching and laughing at all that death and misery. When his phantom tried to kill Swift, I got between them and warned him to run away."
"That's when I saw him running out from the temple with a look of horror on his face." Sheik declared with a nod. "The phantom, what happened?"
Link frowned but leveled his gaze upwards to meet those ruby eyes. "I cut his head off… I don't remember anything else after that, just that I woke up in here."
Despite the tragic tale and the hurt feelings surrounding them, Sheik gave the hero a genuine smile. "I believe this phantom was your first trial. The curse plaguing the Forest Temple, and you destroyed it. Even with a group of despicable people trying to stand in your way, you achieved a great victory today, hero."
A streak of red raced across Link's fair features, a genuinely grateful smile gracing his lips.
"How are you feeling?" Sheik asked gently, walking towards the hero's belongings. "Can you stand and walk?"
"I think so." Link replied, curiously watching as the Sheikah brought his clothes back to him. "Why?"
"There is someone you need to meet." Sheik delivered the white silk shirt and the green tunic to his blond charge, who eyed him with a quirked eyebrow. "A reunion waiting seven years to happen."
"Who's that?" Link asked with a hint of his cheerfulness back to his voice.
The Sheikah giggled and shook his head. "Come on hero, don't be silly. I shouldn't need to explain this one to you."
Looking at the chuckling ninja, Link frowned and folded his arms. "Really, who is waiting for us?"