In which Sheik monologues a lot and we trudge through the setup.

Enjoy!

The further I get from you

The Sage of Spirit has finally awakened. Zelda's voice rings with pride as the sun sets, ten days after Sheik leaves Link in front of the Spirit Temple.

He sucks in a breath, lungs expanding as if to make room for the hope and resolve that blossoms within her. He feels it too for a brief, sparkling moment, and it feels so good the way it wipes away the grime of weariness and paranoia that has built up over the past seven years. He's felt her soul swelling bit by bit as they get closer and closer to the end, leaving Sheik feeling uncomfortably full and lightheaded at times, as if his ribcage just isn't large enough to contain her and her paramount purpose. Is that how it will happen, when she's released back into the physical world? Will her soul, her essence, grow so large that Sheik's body is physically unable to contain her? Will his joints pop and his bones crack as she bursts through them, the weakest points in any structure, or will she pour forth from his eyes and mouth?

It will be an honor. He ruthlessly suppresses the twinge of regret that sparks as he watches the sinking sun pour gold over the landscape and remembers how it had softened Link's face.

o0o

He should be relieved to know that Link has completed the last temple. Instead, his mind comes up with new concerns. He wipes the brown, sticky redead blood off his knives as he cleans up Castle Town and frowns. What if he's done but injured? In the past, Sheik has waited for him, hidden, to determine whether the figure that stumbled out of the temple was merely exhausted or in need of help. This time, he thought it best to focus on diverting attention, clearing Link's path around the castle, and gathering intelligence. He also felt it was best to maintain as much distance as possible between the two of them, given the uncertainty of the future. Saying farewell will be hard enough at it is.

o0o

There's something wrong with you, Zelda finally says on the twelfth day. Sheik stands on the walls surrounding Lon Lon Ranch, checking the wards he left to see what monsters have been in the area. Not as many as usual in the past few weeks, which confirms Sheik's suspicions that Ganondorf is changing his tactics, gathering his troops closer to home. There was certainly no shortage of monsters in Castle Town, including some that shouldn't have been found anywhere but near Lake Hylia or Death Mountain.

Sheik clucks his tongue in annoyance. The Evil King won't be caught by surprise, it appears.

Are you ill?

He pauses. He's exhausted, certainly, his limbs so heavy it takes actual effort to command them to move. His body is usually a seasoned battalion preempting his next move, instead of this reluctant militia that he has to wheedle into barely meeting expectations. The scattered catnaps he's able to grab whenever he finds a good hiding place have been able to sustain him despite the sleepless night, and he hopes that will be enough to carry him to the end. But ill? He rolls the word back and forth on his tongue, his unfocused eyes aimed at the western horizon, though he can't seem to muster the energy to realign them. Are they not all ill, breathing air that has been fouled and eating crops that come from a scorched and trampled earth? Have not countless from Kakariko and Castle Town fallen to the miasma rolling down Death Mountain? Sheik's body may have resisted, but with all that he's seen and all that he's taken part of, can he make the same claim for his mind?

That's not what I mean, Zelda insists, You're doing it right now.

He almost laughs. Maybe she's right – in that brief burst of her hope, when it had flooded him with a feeling lighter than air, he had been shocked at the contrast between it and his current state of mind. But what illness could describe the heaviness of his thoughts and the way they inevitably veer back to the macabre? It's natural isn't it, the longer they live in this putrefied land and the closer they get to the end?

Link is done with the last temple, the final of the Six Sages is awake. Soon, Sheik will meet Link at the Temple of Time and Zelda will be released back into her own body. Sheik's work will be officially done, and Sheik has long since made peace with the possibility that his body may not survive the split. What matters is that Ganondorf is defeated. What matters is Link and Zelda, alive, not lying in a crumpled pile at the foot of the castle, bodies bloated while vultures and rats pick out bits of flesh from around their noses and flaccid lips, bile dripping from –

Stop! Zelda snaps, and the stinging pitch slices through his mind, making him flinch. You're shaking, she adds, in a much quieter tone. Sheik looks at his hands and the way his fingers flutter discordantly. Interesting.

Sheik closes his eyes and swallows. His throat hurts as if he'd swallowed a fishbone, digging into the walls of his throat a little further down every time he tries to clear it. He shouldn't be this affected.

Just go to him, Zelda sighs. It's alright to want to see him. Why deny yourself?

Sheik frowns and reopens his eyes, though his eyelids protest, inching back down. Discipline is a pretty good reason, he wants to say. But that aside…

Do you insist out of guilt? he finally says. The sizzle of surprise that sparks in his mind, not quite covering the sudden musty smell of shame, is his answer. It's a low blow but it has the desired effect. She does not speak up the rest of the day and he tries not to feel guilty himself.

o0o

But it's true that the thought has been writhing in his head, framed by what ifs that alternate between the glowing red of hot flames and the deep red of pooled blood.

That night he dreams of Link emerging from the Spirit Temple, one hand digging into the wall for balance, the other pressed over a wide gash on his abdomen, glistening intestines on the verge of slipping out between the gaps of his blood-soaked fingers. Sheik wakes with the metallic smell of blood coating his nostrils and settling in the back of his throat, and Link's cracked voice crying out his name is so real that he starts responding before catching himself.

He jerks his cowl off his face despite the fact that he's shivering and leans back against the trunk of the tree he's perched on for the night, pulse thundering through his outstretched throat. Breathe, he thinks to himself. In. Out.

You're alright, Zelda murmurs, over and over again, brushing his bangs carefully out of his face. Or so it feels like. He's a little embarrassed to have her fuss over him so, even after all these years. But she's helped him through his worst (poisoned in a small cave near Death Mountain, sweating and vomiting alternately for a week, lonely and resentful of his fate still) and accompanied him through adolescence, which has resulted in more awkward moments than he sometimes cares to remember.

I'm fine now, he tells her once his pulse stops throbbing through his temples, and he doesn't need to voice his gratitude for her to feel it. His breathing is still much too loud with nothing but the occasional scrabbling of the stalchildren below to mask it. His arm aches and his eyes sting from too little sleep. Rubbing them just stretches the delicate skin and makes it worse. The moonlight doesn't help either, glaring far too brightly even splintered as it is by the leaves above him.

It's a full moon, which means… which means it has been a fortnight since he last saw Link. The creeping insect legs start skittering up his arms again, because Link should have left the desert by now. The wastelands take only a day to cross, and even accounting for a day of rest with the Gerudo, he's overdue. He should be back. He should be. There is a stone in one of his pockets that he has enchanted to vibrate when its twin is triggered by Link's presence – it alerted him of Link's return to the temple as an adult several days ago. But it has remained dormant since, which means Link has not crossed the narrow pass between Gerudo Valley and into Hyrule Field.

All of his nightmares flash through his mind at once and that voice, his own voice, starts up again, repeating in a haunted tone You failed him, you let him die, you failed him…

No. Fate wouldn't be so cruel as to have Link need him the one time Sheik decides not to watch his exit from the temple…

He laughs. A sharp, hysterical bark of laughter that tears his unsuspecting throat a little. Because he has seven years and more of proof that fate would be exactly that cruel.

He rises on shaky legs and leaps down through the branches, stumbling and falling hard on one knee. If he could think about anything other than Link and the content of his nightmares, he might concede that maybe Zelda is right. This blind, panicked fear isn't like him.

Instead, he heads to Gerudo Valley.

o0o

Sheik traverses the valley on the higher slopes, the better to keep out of sight. Usually it's just monsters he has to hide from, because other than a few herdsmen who eke out a rough living in the area or builders that come for specific projects like the bridge repair, the stranglehold of the Gerudo on the area means there hasn't been much traffic for ages. The valley is as desolate as the desert it leads to, despite a permanent water source.

This time, he's surprised and more than a little confused to see a small but steady trickle of travelers making the trek through the valley, women and children included, and none of them Gerudo. He stays well out of sight, suspicious at first, but they've all got the haggard look of survivors and a few are pulling carts with all of their belongings and even a handful of livestock here and there. He'd say they were fleeing, but there's cautious hope in the adults' faces and mirth in the children's, and their pace is relatively unhurried. No, these people are willingly moving.

He retrieves his resonating stone from the mountainside and then continues to follow the valley's path from above until he sees the small settlement of the lazy builders that Link had rescued before. Perfect. He slips down between the ridges of the valley until he reaches the bottom and sneaks into one of the tents after verifying that it's empty. One more thing to puzzle over, why the settlement is empty when it should have builders, quite in contrast with the valley which should be empty but is uncharacteristically trafficked.

The sudden coolness of the shade pulls a sigh from his chest as he wipes his brow and looks around. Among the dusty stacks of wood, loose nails and rusted saws, he finally finds a heap of canvas cloth, which he proceeds to tear off with his knife until he has a large, trailing piece of cloth he can wrap around himself. He has an actual cloak, but that one is for crossing the Haunted Wastelands, and he'd left it two weeks ago hidden beneath a rock past the Gerudo Fortress.

Sitting with a solid support of wood at his back and the refreshing dimness of the inside of the tent, his body sinks as if a lead blanket had been thrown over his shoulders. He sits there with the knife and cloth in his lap and every time he blinks it gets harder and harder to reopen his eyes. He could rest here for a little, couldn't he? To make up for the fortnight of sleepless nights? Immediately, Link's hollow eye sockets flash in his mind and his stomach curdles as if he'd swallowed vinegar. He presses a fist against his lips until the feeling subsides and then finishes cutting the canvas, standing up and ignoring the way his vision tilts for a second at the change in position. He pokes two holes at opposite ends of the canvas with the tip of his knife and cards a piece of rope through them to fasten the cloak around his shoulders, then sheathes his knife and slips back out of the tent.

He's surprised at how well he blends in. The few travelers around him also sport makeshift clothing and sashes, so his sawdust-covered cloak doesn't draw any attention. It's vaguely unnerving to put himself so glaringly out in the open, but at least the hood gives him some semblance of cover.

Behind him is the distant slap of two pair of feet. Sheik glances surreptitiously back, but the men are silent even between each other, with scowling, tired faces that do not invite an attempt at information gathering. Ahead of him is a group of three women, the cadence of their voices marking them as coming from southern Hyrule. Of the three, one is elderly, the other with the straddled gait of one with child, the last occasionally squeezing the shoulder of a young boy pulling a rattling cart with what appears to be meager belongings and supplies. He frowns and worries his lip. He has to wonder what makes such a vulnerable group willing to make this trip.

He trails a few yards behind them, not sure whether to be grateful for their slow pace. His body appreciates it; his mind urges him to move faster. But he has a duty to gather information on anything unusual, and a sudden influx of travelers headed towards the Gerudo qualifies. He strains his ears to overhear the conversation over the spattering of feet and wheels on hardened earth, but no matter how many times he shakes his head or pricks his finger on his knife in an attempt to rouse himself, within the minute his concentration fizzles out and he realizes he can't recall any of what he heard. He's tired, trails of sweat stinging his eyes and slipping under his cowl to pool in the dip of his collarbone. His feet scrape the ground shamefully with each step, defying years of stealth practice. He should be better than this.

The sun starts sinking lower, tinting the walls of the narrow valley pass with a deeper shade of yellow and lengthening the shadows. Soon the valley will fall into shadow, cut off from the sunlight by the mountain peaks. Sheik bites his lip, pulse suddenly racing at the marked passage of time. He takes a deep breath to brace his weary muscles and forces himself to speed up. He's only gathered that they are heading to meet others they know, and that they are uncertain as to the specifics of their destination. It's not enough, but Sheik suddenly fears he has already taken too long. What if Link really is–

I'm sure he's alright, Zelda says quietly. Don't fret so, Sheik, it's not like you.

His scowl deepens. He knows. He knows, and yet… He shivers involuntarily despite the blistering heat.

At his increased pace, he should reach the fortress in three hours' time, some time after nightfall. He passes the women with a brusque nod of acknowledgement when they appear about to greet him and begins to ascend the last ridge that will lead down into the Gerudo Fortress.

o0o

The women become small figurines, the men further away mere specs, the distance heightened by the altitude. This side of the ridge is completely bathed in shadow, blocked from the sun's dying rays, and for a moment the temperature is blessedly neutral, though Sheik knows that will soon change. The desert is a land of extremes, after all – violent winds, scorching heat, and chilling emptiness. He debates whether to slip back up into the mountainsides now that he's given up pretense of traveling like the others on the trail, but he's gotten this far already and the climb up the steep cliffside here is more trouble than it's worth.

Zelda is not the chattering type but she does it now, distracting him from the effort it takes to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She doesn't say it because she knows he'll brush it off, but he can feel her worry for him, catches its cloying scent of overripe fruit here and there. When his throat feels like it'll tear if he draws in one more dry, rasping breath, he stops for a moment, grabbing a gnarled trunk for support and pulls his sweat-soaked cowl off with a grimace. He downs the remainder of the water in his canteen, but rations his dried rabbit meats and flatbread in case he's not able to find any prey tonight. He's in that ironic position of needing to eat but not wanting to go through the lengthy process of hunting and skinning and cooking. It doesn't matter anyway. He just has to last a couple more weeks. Until Zelda's released from his body. Until the final mission is done. He can do that.

He reaches the top of the ridge, blinded by the glare of the setting sun for a brief moment as he catches his breath, leaning against a boulder. He's a little disgusted at how winded the climb made him. Before him, tucked away in shadow within the folds of the mountains, lies Gerudo Fortress. The glow of the setting sun bathes the topmost tips of the valley in deep blood red as well as the wrinkled ripple of mountains stretching out to the south and for a moment, Sheik stares, enthralled.

This is what we're protecting, Zelda says, equally entranced, and both of them fall in love all over again with the country they've sworn to protect. He'll miss this, he thinks with a sharp and sudden pang. Then twists his lips bitterly because he's somehow happy to feel that way about something other than Link and Zelda.

He closes his eyes to feel the first breeze of the evening, and takes a step to begin the descent towards the fortress.

That's when the scream comes, reverberating through the mountain pass.

Okay so things will finally pick up and we'll have more interaction than just between Sheik and Zelda next chapter. And we'll reach Gerudo Fortress, promise. Thanks to the lovely people who are reading this!