The Legend of Zelda, its characters and locations are all property of Nintendo. Any and all OCs and original locations belong to me unless specifically stated to belong to someone else.

Conjecture
Chapter 5

Being under house arrest was nothing new to Sheik.

This was hardly the first time he'd annoyed his mother to the point where she saw fit to shield him from the village (or the village from him, depending on what he'd done to earn the house arrest).

Usually he managed to find something with which to occupy his time and energy, if only because the house arrests only lasted for a few days at the most, ostensibly to give him to think about what he'd done.

This one, however, had already lasted for a week, and he was about to walk on the walls in an attempt to alleviate his boredom. The mornings and afternoons weren't bad, as Impa took it upon herself to continue his lessons and physical training, but the evenings stretched on for an eternity.

Worse still, he kept thinking about Link. He'd told himself on the first day of his house arrest that he would put the Hylian out of his mind. That he would trust his mother and her, admittedly, keen sense for people. At the very least he hoped that his own suspicions had given her cause to maybe keep a closer eye on the Hylian.

It had worked for about five minutes before Link invaded his mind once more...but something was different about these thoughts.

For one thing, they revolved a lot around the fact that Sheik felt oddly triumphant about confirming Link's strength. The muscles and scars he'd seen under his yukata that night, and then what he'd seen in the hot spring, had clearly not been for show, and the fight between them had demonstrated he wasn't inexperienced in a grapple, either.

His chest had been so firm...like steel...

He shook his head. Anyway, so the bastard was a warrior, without a doubt.

But what could possibly have made him so...sad? Actually, it wasn't just sadness he'd seen on Link's face the night Sheik had hidden under the rose bush. There'd been grief, there. A longing for someone, a sense of immense loss.

That's the impression Sheik had gotten, anyway, and analysing it in hindsight only made that clearer. That look had been on the chibi's face too, though he'd done a better job of covering it up, presumably in the interest of cheering his older brother up.

What had they lost? Who had they lost?

Friends? Family? Both?

They'd mentioned a 'her' in all this. Someone who'd sent them away.

Sheik sighed, lying back on top of his futon, staring at the ceiling and its patterned wood texture. He'd gotten very familiar with those patterns by now.

Was it really just a matter of shelter? Had Impa agreed to house the two of them to protect them?

From what, then?

Sheik frowned, closing his eyes.

Darkness helped him think.

Had he interpreted this the wrong way entirely? Instead of Link trying to pull a coup...maybe someone had tried to take his throne, wherever it was? An ally had sent them away for their protection, presumably giving their life for them in the process.

Link had kept saying he'd failed them. Been too weak to...do something. Protect them, maybe?

He drew a deep breath, his heart stinging a little.

Could it be true?

Surely not.

Because if it were, then that meant Sheik had been...

He groaned, covering his face and grinding his thumbs into his eyelids, causing the darkness to explode with stars and suns.

If that were true, then Link's overtures of friendship had been genuine, rather than attempts to get Sheik to drop his guard. Which meant that Sheik had not only rebuked him twice quite rudely, but more or less answered his friendly hellos with murder accusations.

Yeah, that was not good, no matter what way one looked at it. Well, one could say Sheik had his reasons, but...

No, there was no way for him to look good coming out of this situation if that were the case.

He stopped rubbing his eyelids, letting the internal fireworks display slowly come to an end until he was shrouded in darkness once more.

Dark like a fucking labyrinth in the middle of the deep woods during a heavy rainstorm.

He sighed. He wouldn't be able to settle this on his own. He needed advice. Clarity. He'd ask his mother, but she wouldn't let him get a word in edgewise and simply tell him he was wrong. Paya would likely be the same, having expressed her own disappointment in the way he'd handled being beaten in the sparring ring.

And that was the number of people he could currently ask to listen to him.

He rose from his futon to pad around his room, bare feet shuffling against the tatami. He reached his window and leaned his elbows on the sill, staring out into the twilight. He let his eyes follow the small river that ran through the village, to the red bridge and...

...and to the shrine of Din set up beside the stairs to the main temple.

Well, if there was ever a situation where a Goddess would have helpful insight, surely this would be it?

Nodding to himself, Sheik went to back to his futon to lay down and wait until night had fallen.

Sneaking out of the house was surprisingly easy. Clearly Impa expected Sheik to obey her without question and had neglected to put extra guards in place to make sure he didn't sneak out at night.

He felt a little guilty at that. His mother still trusted him to some extent, and he was betraying it once more.

But, he reminded himself, it was for a good cause!

He made his way along the streets, dodging the odd patrol, and quickly found himself beside the small shrine to Din near the temple. It had been built a few feet off the road, which afforded him the protection of shadows cast by the trees. He kneeled in front of the shrine and put his hands together in the quietest clap he could manage, bowing.

"Mighty Din," he muttered under his breath. "I humbly request your help. Your insight. Your clarity."

He paused, considering his words.

"I do not know what to do. The Hylian, Link, is someone I cannot wrap my head around. One moment I am suspicious, the next I feel...sympathetic. His circumstances are most definitely shrouded in mystery, but my mother vouches for him. I have..." he paused again. "Tried to discover for myself what his purpose here is, but all I have found is a mystery that I am unable to solve."

His words failed him then, for a brief moment. From somewhere in the woods, there was the snap of a branch. Sheik tensed up, but remained where he was, his hand ready to reach for the knife he'd stuffed into his belt.

When nothing more happened, he relaxed. Probably just some animal who was more afraid of him than he'd be of it.

He focused on the shrine, assuming the prayer position once more.

"I realise I may have acted rashly. Instead of listening to what Link had to say, I brushed his attempts at friendship aside and called him a spy, and...now that I have had some time to think about it, I believe I was very wrong to do so."

He released a shaky breath. "Maybe I let the old stories blind me. I saw Hylian and immediately assumed Hyrule was here to finish the job it started, back when the clan left. I didn't stop to think or even ask Link where he was from. Hyrule's hardly the only place you'll find Hylians, after all."

He chuckled.

"Geography was never my strongest subject. My mother...I was wrong to doubt her. Maybe I...imagined myself as the only voice of reason...when I should have realised that she would never have allowed them into the village if she had not made certain they were no threat to begin with. I only realised that recently."

He snorted with derision, mostly aimed at himself.

"After she outright told me."

He shook his head.

"So...I went about it wrong. I have realised that. I will not...spy on him any longer. Should not even go near him, even. I am not even allowed to, in fact."

Now for the confusing part he didn't understand. He took another deep breath.

"But there is something else. I can't stop thinking about him. I want to know more about him. I...I need to know what has hurt him so much. Why he is so sad? What it would take to...to make him happy. I..." He cleared his throat, finally saying what he'd been afraid to admit for the past few hours. "I want to see him smile. I don't understand why. At first this was just suspicion, but now it's something else, and I can't identify what it is. It's more than just idle curiosity, but other than that I don't understand what it is."

He sighed, bowing his head. "Please, I humbly beg for your wisdom. Help me understand."

Now, Sheik was a proud worshipper of Din. Of the Three Sisters, the fiery Goddess of Power was the one he felt represented the things he believed in the most. At one point he had even strongly considered studying under the priests and priestesses of Din to achieve greater understanding of what she stood for.

And to train as a warrior priest of Din, of course.

That said, Sheik did not believe in divine intervention. He had come Din's shrine to ask for her help, but he did not expect an answer. Prayer was meant to be a way for a worshipper to reflect and think, and hopefully arrive at a conclusion or achieve some sort of personal revelation.

That's why it came as a great shock to him when Din answered.

Her answer did not arrive in the shape of a mighty warrior goddess appearing before him in a blaze of glory, a deep voice thundering across the village and telling him exactly what he needed to hear, or indeed just explain the whole confusing mess in a way only a god could.

No, Din's answer was a mere whisper on the wind. Mere fragments of words, barely audible even to him.

"...a destined meeting...two souls from different paths...though opposites, a bond is formed...unbreakable...to last a lifetime..."

Sheik felt his entire body breaking out in goose bumps, a shiver running through him. The voice of a Goddess...what else could it be? Cryptic and vague, never appearing in the form one expected...this was exactly the way the texts described it.

The realisation struck him in the wake of her words. Of course. He and Link...there was definitely an element of them being opposites here, and...well, opposites attract, as they say. Link's insistence on them being friends must have meant he felt the exact same pull as well, only he hadn't had suspicion and hostility covering it up.

Fuck, he'd been so blind!

He needed to talk to Link. To set things straight. Get to the bottom of it.

But...how?

He bowed his head to the shrine once more. "Th-Thank you, Great Din," he said, stuttering a little, because was this the appropriate way to thank a god who'd personally taken a moment to settle his mental unease?

He stood up, bowing to the shrine and clapping twice, feeling brave enough to clap normally this time.

"I remain your servant, in this life and the next," he said, bowing one final time and stepping away from the shrine.

Back on the road, he turned in the direction of the guest house, intending to head there right away and ask (or beg, possibly) for a moment of Link's time. Until he remembered that he was under house arrest. If anyone spotted him, guards or otherwise, he'd be ratted out and immediately taken back to his room...and this time Impa might make good on her threats to nail his window shut.

"Shit," he muttered. "How the hell do I get to him?"

Trying to sneak in now was too risky. Impa had probably assigned extra guards around the guest house anyway. Just on the offchance that Sheik decided to make another attempt at uncovering Link's nefarious plans.

No.

Tonight was not the night. He needed to go home, and plan.

With any luck, Impa would lift his house arrest the next morning and allow him to make another apology to Link.

Well, that was the optimistic, best case scenario.

Best case scenarios always remained conspicuously absent whenever Sheik made plans.

In which case he'd probably need outside help.

Or...

Maybe...

Inside help.

He needed to talk Paya.

He turned back in the direction of Impa's house and went home.

Morning took ages to arrive. Sheik lay awake for most of the night, fighting the desire to just get up and knock on Paya's door to ask for her help. Luckily. he managed to stop himself from doing that, as he highly doubted his sister would be inclined to be of assistance if he woke her up in the middle of the night.

As a result, however, he was a wreck that morning, his responses to questions slow to come. Even Impa saw fit to comment on it during breakfast, giving him an odd look from across the table.

"You seem tired," she noted. "How much did you sleep?"

"Not much," he muttered. "Not for the lack of trying, though."

"Must have been thinking, right?" Paya suggested. "About what he's done? Perhaps he's learned his lesson, mother. Maybe we can arrange a meeting—"

"Not quite yet, I think," Impa said, interrupting her. "I've been willing to overlook indiscretions from you before, Sheik, because they only affected internal matters. You could have done some serious damage to Link's relationship with this village, and I'd like to give him a little time to recover before I risk re-introducing you. I'm sorry to say, the house arrest remains in effect until I say so."

"Understood," Sheik replied, too tired to argue, punctuated with a large yawn that any other day would've resulted in a tongue lashing about etiquette (and his lack thereof).

Impa maintained a reputation outside the village for being cold and merciless. Within the village, she was known as stern and firm in her beliefs and actions, but good to her people. The Sheikah respected, loved, and feared her in equal measure.

None of them would've believed their eyes or ears, however, if they witnessed what happened next.

"Perhaps, given your lack of sleep on account of thinking on your actions," she said with emphasis on the last part of her sentence, "and because I believe you are about to fall asleep in your miso...I shall be...lenient about your schedule for today."

Sheik looked at her, eyes half-lidded. "Huh?" he asked, intelligently.

"No lessons today," Impa said. "Or training. You're still under house arrest, but I have matters to attend to outside the village that will likely take all day and most of the evening. So, get some rest, and finish your essay in the afternoon."

"What essay?" Sheik asked, confused.

"The one you're going to write on the nature of village leadership and the importance of having faith in those who only want what is best for you," Impa said, finishing her dish and standing up. "Paya, I think—"

"I will follow my regular schedule, mother," Paya said. "I do not want to fall behind on my studies."

"Hm, very well," Impa said, nodding before fixing Sheik with another look. "Finish your breakfast, then go get some sleep. I don't know when I will be back, but it will likely be late. Perhaps not even till tomorrow. Paya, I leave you in charge of the house until then. Please return here immediately after your lessons."

She didn't have to tell Paya, but even Sheik could hear the unspoken 'Keep your brother out of trouble' in that request.

"Yes, mother," Paya said, nodding obediently. For some reason, Sheik saw a gleam of excitement in her eyes. That usually didn't bode well for Sheik, especially not if she was temporarily in charge of the household.

But at the moment he was too tired to really worry about it, his thoughts running through his head at the pace of syrup. Besides, Paya would be out for most of the day, so the torture she was planning likely wouldn't start until she got back.

All the more reason to intercept her before she left, so he could actually ask her for help. Maybe it'd convince her to postpone whatever torment she had in mind for him until a later time.

Impa was the first to leave, her private retinue of bodyguards waiting for her outside with horses. Sheik and Paya saw her off, waving until they lost sight of her among the village houses.

"A dispute in Hateno," Paya explained. "It's been building up for a while, but Aunt Purah finally had to ask mother to settle it once and for all."

Sheik hummed. "She won't be back before tomorrow, then," he said. "Unless she settles the dispute instantly and without hearing the parties out, it'll be too dark to travel back tonight."

And the idea of Impa settling an inter-clan dispute without carefully questioning the parts herself was just unthinkable. She was nothing if not thorough when it came to political matters. She was definitely not coming home that day.

One less obstacle to worry about, at least.

"Which means I hold supreme power until tomorrow," Paya said lightly, that twinkle in her eye returning tenfold. "We're going to have some fun."

Well, one less obstacle, perhaps, but Sheik suddenly saw a molehill in his path growing into a mountain.

Or two molehills, as Kiro would say.

"Right, the regular torture," Sheik said, suppressing a yawn. "Looking forward to it."

"Oh, me too," Paya said happily, leaving him at the doorway and heading for the stairs. "I'll be back around suppertime. I trust you'll be able to cook yourself something for lunch without burning the house down?"

"I'll try," Sheik said, too distracted to really add a joke. "Hey, Paya!"

She paused. "Yeah?"

"I...I need a favour. I have to—"

"Sure thing," she said.

"Really?"

"Yeah, we'll talk about it when I get back, yeah?" She grimaced. "Don't give me that look."

"Sorry," Sheik said. "I just didn't expect you to agree so readily. You don't even know what the favour is."

"Don't need to," she said, running upstairs, taking two steps at a time. "If my beloved little brother needs something, I am there!" She disappeared into her room, returning a few seconds later with her pack crammed with art supplies and her gi for the afternoon training. "See you then!"

She was out the door and gone before Sheik could say anything else, running down the street towards Pikango's house.

Only when Sheik had crawled back up to his room and into his futon in an attempt to get at least a few hours of sleep, did he realise how menacingly happy Paya's tone had been.

Which meant that he was in big, big trouble.

It was a good thing he was exhausted, otherwise he wouldn't have fallen asleep at all.

He slept through the morning and afternoon, waking up only as the sun was beginning to set, colouring his room a bright orange that slowly faded into pink. He opened his eyes blearily to the sound of footsteps downstairs. Several sets, in fact. Paya must have brought someone home. They were oddly quiet, but maybe that was to let Sheik sleep.

He frowned. That was...uncommonly nice of her. Or that delinquent gang she called friends.

He had only managed to drag himself out of his futon by the time he heard the footsteps coming upstairs. He expected hearing them disappear into Paya's room...which would've been a disaster because that'd mean Paya would be busy for the rest of the night and unable to help him.

"So much for that favour," he muttered.

To his surprise, there was a knock at his door.

"Sheik?" Paya's voice asked through the shoji. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah," he replied.

"Can I open the door?"

Sure."

She slid it open a little, only enough to reveal her face. "So, about that favour you were going to ask me for," she said.

"Oh, yeah, I—"

"No need to explain," she said. "You want to apologise to Link, right?"

"Uh...right."

His sister was apparently a mind reader. He'd have to be on guard against that.

"Well, I have an idea on how to make that happen," Paya said, grinning ominously. "Mother's stationed extra guards around the guest house, so we'll have to sneak you in somehow."

"Y-Yeah," Sheik said. "I've been trying to figure it out, but—"

"While sleeping?" she pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Well, you do a lot of your thinking in a state best described as half-aware anyway, so—"

"Hey!"

She grinned. "Just joking, little brother. Anyway, I had a moment of divine inspiration, and I came up with the perfect idea."

Wait, divine...?

"Do you trust me?" she asked, interrupting his train of thought.

"Not really."

"Fine, guess you don't want my help." She made to close the door, but Sheik's cry stopped her.

"Wait! I was just kidding! Yes, of course I trust you. You're my sister!"

"And you'll trust me to do whatever I believe is the best way to get you inside the guest house while mother is away?"

"I...er...yes."

"Excellent," Paya said, sliding the door open all the way, revealing a small army of her friends standing behind her, all carrying various articles of clothing and tiny little boxes that Sheik recognised as their...their...

Realisation struck him, and he felt nothing but horror.

"No, no, absolutely not!" he shouted as they filed into his room, all bearing the same evil grins.

"There is no escape, little brother," Paya said in a cheerful tone that clashed horribly with the look of sadistic joy on her face as she closed the door behind her, advancing on him. "Just let it happen..."

Sheik screamed.