fleets: it's past midnight, and i don't know what to say so uhhh, here's a chapter!

The chapter title describes my feeling as I type this past a reasonable waking hour.

Chapter 15: Regret

Fuu wasn't sure where to look for the princess, and it was a daunting task. There were plenty of places to hide around castle town, and it would be difficult to find someone who didn't want to be found. He decided to make his way back towards the fountain, and then towards the castle where Sheik and Impa had gone. Maybe he could find them there, too, and they could all split up and search.

That is, if Sheik was feeling okay. The last time he saw him, the Sheikah had been agitated and on the verge of a mental breakdown.

He jumped over the metal gates that had fallen, mangled from being run over by something powerful. There were more bodies in the courtyard; castle guards who had fought bravely, but had been no match against the attack. From the looks of some Stalfos armor on the ground next to them, it appeared that a few of the guards had managed to take down some of their assailants with them.

He stopped just in front of the main doors to the castle, trying to decide if he wanted to check the main castle first or make a search outside it. The answer came to him easily when he noticed someone sitting way up high on the tallest tower of the castle. He would have missed them if it weren't for the sun that had finally cast its light over the castle, casting a small shadow of a person against the castle rooftop.

That must be Sheik!

Fuu spent a few seconds coming up with a path that could take him to where Sheik was, and then made a series of three teleports to appear high above on the castle roof. Careful not to slip on the shingles, he made his way over to the person sitting on the roof, observing the destruction below. "Hey Sheik," he started, and then fell quiet when he realized that the person was not the Sheikah as he'd assumed.

It was the young princess of Hyrule, her face messy with stained tears and dirt. She was hugging her knees, her dress bunched up around her like she wanted to disappear. Zelda looked up at him in surprise, and for a moment Fuu thought that he'd seen the reserved glow of buried wisdom in her eyes before.

They stared at each other, speechless for a while, until Fuu finally remembered what it was that he'd been doing. "Princess!" he ran over to Zelda and crouched next to her, concerned. "I'm so relieved. Everyone thought that you were…" he stopped when Zelda turned her head towards the center of castle town below them. From where they were, they could see the town square with the crucifix in the middle. Even though they were high above it, the scene wasn't any less gruesome than it had been up close. Neither of them wanted to be reminded of it. Fuu absentmindedly brushed his bangs away from his face, "Let's get you down from here," he said instead. He reached for Zelda's hand, but she shook her head with a pained expression.

"No it's fine. I would like to stay here a while," she said quietly, her eyes still on castle town.

Fuu wasn't sure about what to do, and his brows furrowed, conflicted. The rooftop was hardly a safe place for a princess. Maybe he could go find someone the princess trusted more. "I'll go find Impa and Sheik. They'll want to know that you're okay."

"Fuu."

Fuu stopped. Maybe his heart had stopped, too, because of the uncanny familiarity of the way Zelda had said his name. He wondered if he'd imagined it, then, the feeling that they knew each other from somewhere. And how did the princess know his name?

"Please stay with me. Just for a while."

Fuu shoved the strange feeling aside. He had a habit of picking up on things that didn't seem to make sense, but now was not the time. He sat down on the roof, and they watched the sun shine over the broken buildings. He bit his lip, and gave a quick glance at the princess before he went back to watching the scene below.

Strange. It was strange. They weren't sitting here like two strangers who'd just met. It was like they'd done this before, sitting on the roof in the early morning and running away from things they didn't want to think about. He almost wanted to ask if they'd spoken before, but he kept his mouth shut because it was a stupid question at a time like this. "We found survivors," he said instead. "Many of them managed to escape into the tunnels. We didn't lose everyone," he kicked himself mentally as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Saying that "not everyone died" did not diminish the fact that many had died. It was a weak consolation.

He sighed, looking at the landscape of unrecognizable streets, filled with debris and dead bodies. At the same time, there wasn't much else he could say to make the situation sound better than it really was.

Fuu flinched a little when he heard the princess murmur something. "What was that?"

"Her name was Agnes," Zelda repeated heavily, the name weighing on her. Her chin rested against her knees, as she stared out at the crucifix. The guays had begun to fly around the town to scavenge from the aftermath of the attack, and some were already gathered around the cross like death's messengers. "She was my decoy. The one down there, on the cross."

Ah, that's who I must have seen at the Gerudo camp, Fuu thought, remembering now that there was something that was different from the princess in front of him to the one he'd seen before. He couldn't place a finger on what it was, but now that Zelda mentioned it, he could tell there was a difference between the two.

"She always covered for me, whenever I had to be away or if I was travelling to somewhere dangerous. She even did little things, like taking my spot for meetings I didn't feel like going to. She could have had a happier life if it weren't for me." Zelda gritted her teeth, and then picked up a broken shingle next to her and chucked it as far as she could. Then, she buried her face into her hands, helplessly clutching at her hair that fell around her face as though she could wake up from the nightmare. "This is all my fault. If I hadn't been away from the castle, then this wouldn't have happened."

Fuu frowned. "If you had been here, it would have been you who was nailed to the cross."

Zelda averted her gaze in shame. Fuu had meant well, but she knew that what he said could not be true. Dethl hadn't wanted to kill her. They had no reason to kill Agnes like that if they knew that Sheik was the real princess. No, Dethl would not have attacked Hyrule castle if all of the Sheikah hadn't been away. She hugged her knees again, hiding her face against her arms. She couldn't explain to Fuu why she couldn't believe him, so she resigned herself to dealing with the pain of her mistake on her own.

"Princess Zelda, Agnes took her job so that she could serve you in times like this. As do all of us. I would risk my life to save you, too."

Fuu couldn't understand why the princess suddenly looked up at him, her face beautifully tragic with her heart breaking with every word he said. He couldn't have known, then, the guilt that she carried for what she had done to him. He couldn't have known that every word he had said was not his own, but something he'd been tricked into believing.

The guays flew upwards into a startled cloud of black feathers when some people cautiously emerged from hiding in the town below. They greeted the morning sun with joy that they had survived the night, but their happiness was short lived when they saw the death and destruction around them. The sunlight could not drown out the wails of the ones left behind. "Why… why isn't this nightmare ending?" Zelda asked, holding her hands out to the sun, "Aren't nightmares supposed to end when dawn breaks?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Fuu didn't really remember what happened in the next two days. There had been a lot of helping with street cleaning, identifying bodies and helping find family members to give the grim news. Thankfully, help poured in from villages that hadn't been hit by the attack, as Dethl had only targeted the main castle town, and Hyrule's two neighboring kingdoms, Labrynna and Holodrum, had pledged to send relief and help shelter those who had lost homes. The Zoras also agreed to provide shelter to anyone who could make the trip to their domain up the river. Even the Gerudos sent some of their warriors to fend off any straggling monsters in the area that might attack Hyrule again in its moment of weakness. However, there was a noticeable lack of help from the Gorons.

The death toll was high, but the number of survivors had also been more than what Fuu had expected. If it hadn't been for Link and his secret tunnels, there undoubtedly would have been more bodies to remove from the streets. This kind of attack had been unprecedented; never had Hyrule been so brutally attacked. While Hyrule was no stranger to enduring attacks from the likes of Vaati, the wind mage had rarely made sieges that destroyed the main infrastructure or killed civilians on such a large scale. In addition, the purposely horrific displays of violence like the skewered heads had been a new experience for Hyrule. Dethl's goals were clearly different than Vaati's.

Fuu closed the door to his quarters, another busy day gone by. He leaned against the door that he'd closed behind him and gave a long sigh. He hadn't seen Sheik at all since the blond had run off two days ago in front of the crucifix. He'd asked Impa about him, but she only insisted that he was doing okay and wouldn't tell him where he'd gone.

Fuu shook his silvery hair, which was still a little damp after he'd washed himself in the river. The bathhouses had all but been obliterated in the attack, and so they had to resort to the cold river water. Thankfully the season was a warm summer. He squeezed some of the remaining water from his long hair, frowned, and then summoned a small wind with his fingers to dry the moisture.

"Man, we can't get a break, can we?" Shadow Link popped up from the floor, a worn out frown on his face. The shadow dragged his feet over to Fuu's bed and then flopped over across the bedsheets. "I'm getting tired of crawling into houses to find survivors. If they are alive, which they usually aren't, they either think I'm the hero-Link or they scream at me for being the not-hero." He waved his hand lazily towards Fuu. "Can't you just use your little flying eye things to search?"

"People will scream more if they think Vaati returned. Trust me," Fuu said flatly.

"Ugh, I hate this," Shadow grumbled. He chewed thoughtfully at the tip of his hat. "Hey," he asked, "When do you think we'll leave to get the last Dusk Shard?"

Fuu shrugged. "Not sure. Impa's been too busy to deal with anything else right now, and I haven't seen Sheik at all."

"Where is that guy anyway?"

Just then, there was a soft knock on the door. Two raps, the first one slightly more hesitant the second. Fuu had heard it before, and he perked up when he thought he knew who it was. He smiled at Shadow. "I think I know who decided to finally show up."

He opened the door, expecting Sheik to be standing by the entrance. Instead, he found himself face to face with the princess of Hyrule herself.

Shadow Link's jaw dropped behind him. "Don't tell me you were expecting her?"

"I… Princess Zelda, what…?" Fuu stammered.

The princess's head was covered with a dark cowl, but he could recognize those blue eyes anywhere. She pushed Fuu aside with a small apology, and then quickly shut the door behind them. She glanced at the open window shades, and then shot a strict look towards Shadow, making him sit up straight on the bed. "Close the window."

"Uh, sure," Shadow Link jumped off the bed and hurriedly closed the blinds. The two boys stood around awkwardly, unsure of what to do, while Zelda walked across the room and sat herself down on the edge of the bed. Eventually, Shadow Link coughed. "Shouldn't you be at the castle, princess?" he pointed out. He shrunk back when Fuu shot him a warning glare for being rude.

Zelda pulled the cowl away from her face, letting her blond hair fall around her cheeks. She lifted her head slowly as though heavy thoughts weighed it down, until her blue eyes met Fuu's. "I wanted to talk to you."

While Fuu seemed to be trying to figure out how to respond, a devious glint flashed across Shadow Link's eyes. He glanced at Zelda, and then at Fuu, and then gave the latter a quick wink. "Hey, Fuu?" he called, grinning, "I just remembered that I had to be somewhere tonight."

"Shadow… Really?" Fuu was clearly not amused.

"Yeah! I have places to be, people to meet. I'd been putting off this important date and they'll be mad at me if I keep flaking on them. They're kind of clingy and demanding, you know how it goes."

"Shadow…"

"And like, this date is so important that I actually won't be back for the entire night. Did you get that? I won't be back for the entire ni-"

"Shadow!"

Shadow Link grinned, and before Fuu could say any more, he made for the door, but not before he gave them a cheerful wave goodbye.

Fuu rolled his eyes as the door swung shut, and then shook his head apologetically. "Sorry about that." He leaned against the wall opposite of the princess, who was looking at her hands with a troubled gaze. "Anyways, what brings you here?"

Zelda hung her head again. Since the last time he'd seen her two days ago, she appeared more tired from lack of sleep. Faint dark bags were beginning to appear under her eyes, and the way she carried herself was lethargic. Her admission next surprised him. "I needed someone to talk to," she said quietly.

There was a brief silence while Fuu waited for her to elaborate. After all, he didn't expect her to want to talk to him for the sake of talking to him. It was only after the silence suggested that she really did come to see him just to talk that he lifted his chin in surprise.

Zelda noticed his expression and gave a small, embarrassed laugh. "You must think it strange, no? To have someone you'd hardly spoken to, to suddenly come to your home to talk?"

"I… well…" Fuu said, taken aback. When he regained his composure, he spoke slowly, thinking over his words so as not to offend. "If I'm being honest," he said, "I can't help but think there are others who would be better at listening than I am." Then, he added quickly, "That's not to say that I mind having you here. It's just that I'm also wondering about the consequences if the gossip stones catch wind that the princess had been sneaking into my house at night."

"I don't care about that."

"Sheik might kill me."

For the first time since Fuu had met her, Zelda cracked a real smile. When she chuckled, he was again hit by that sense of familiarity, like he'd seen someone else laugh in that same way; the way she turned away just slightly while lowering her chin as though to hide her smile was something he thought he'd seen before.

"Sheik won't mind, believe me," she assured him, though Fuu didn't look too convinced. "He's told me a lot about you," she said.

Fuu eyes narrowed slightly with suspicion. "He did, did he," he said flatly, his mind immediately racing for all of the possible slander that Sheik could have told the princess.

At this, the princess waved her had with another laugh. "Nothing bad, I assure you!" she insisted. "They're wonderful stories. Sometimes I feel like I know you personally, even though I suppose that's all in my head. I've heard so much about you that I feel like we've known each other for a while, and yet you hardly know anything about me," she looked away, and her brows furrowed as she started playing with her fingers with a complicated expression. "I'm sorry, I know I'm putting you in an uncomfortable situation."

Fuu returned a reassuring smile. "It's okay. I'm just surprised, is all. I've always wanted to speak to you."

The princess tilted her head, curious. "Oh?"

"It seemed like I was the only Sheikah here who hadn't had the chance to talk to you yet."

The princess's smile vanished. "I'm sorry the occasion for meeting with you wasn't on happier terms, then," she said, reminded of why she'd wanted to come speak to Fuu. "I came here to vent because… because I couldn't bother anyone else with it. It's selfish, isn't it?"

"Hey, everyone deserves to be selfish. Even you." He pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on. "Would you like something to drink? We only have water here, though," he offered.

"That would be nice, thank you."

As Fuu disappeared to grab a glass of water, Zelda took a moment to look around her surroundings. In the beginning, she'd had a hard time imagining Fuu as anyone other than the infamous wind mage. Now, it was just the opposite. It was hardly convincing that the former Sorcerer of Winds, the dark lord of the skies, the master of monsters, had taken residence in this simple, refurbished barracks. Fuu wasn't some kind of evil tyrant who would laugh maliciously as he crushed his foes to dust, no. He was just another teenager, just like her, who'd been thrown into a circumstance he never asked for. She found herself watching Fuu with a curious gaze as he came back with a glass of water in hand.

There were few people she could truly be herself around. There was always a part of her that bit her tongue, stopping herself from saying just what she truly meant or wanted out of the fear that she would misrepresent the princess she was supposed to be. With Fuu, though, it was different. Maybe it was because it was the first time she'd actually made an effort to be friends with someone. Oh Zelda, do you truly have to make a job out of friendship for you to actually find it? she thought with a sad smile. And with a former demonic sorcerer no less.

"How are you feeling?" Fuu asked, and he joined to sit with her on the bed, passing her the glass of water.

"I…" Zelda hesitated, taking the glass in her hands. She looked up briefly at Fuu's concerned but patient expression. She'd once feared those red eyes that had burned with such savagery, but now she found that it was precisely because Fuu had once been Vaati that she could say what had been gnawing at her mind the last two days. "Vaati never did anything like this," she said.

You never did anything like this.

"He was terrible in his own way, attacking settlements and such, but he never attacked anything with an intention to destroy. The majority of structures still remain intact, and although many died, they were almost always soldiers. Not civilians." Zelda had to pause for a second to shake away the things she had seen in castle town within the last two days. She took a sip of water, and then placed the glass on the bedside table. "Vaati's goal was conquest. But with Dethl? No. Dethl doesn't care if there is nothing left to conquer."

"We'll stop them, I promise," Fuu said earnestly.

Silence settled between them as they thought about the monster Dethl that they faced. They were quiet for some time, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It was one between two people who were familiar with each other. Their hands were only inches away on the bed, and yet neither of them pulled back. Zelda took a deep breath, feeling slightly better. She'd been nervous at first, when she'd decided to sneak out of the castle to face Fuu as her real self for the first time. Impa would have called it foolish and dangerous, and she would have agreed several days ago. The whole point of her living as Sheik was, after all, to protect herself from Vaati. However, it had been refreshing when she'd been able to talk to Fuu for the first time not as Sheik, but as Zelda two days ago. In a way, it was the closest they'd been to having a truly honest conversation, without deception. "Tell me about yourself. I've heard some things from Sheik, but I want to hear them from you," the princess murmured after a while, changing the topic to something a little less morbid.

"Well, the thing is, I don't really know much about myself," Fuu chuckled. "I woke up one day at the Gerudo Village without a clue of who or what I was. I could remember general things, like my name, and that I was a Sheikah. That's… all of it really."

"Do you ever want to find out about your past?"

At this, Fuu leaned back and fell on the bed so that he was staring up at the ceiling. He then observed the princess carefully, as though trying to make up his mind about something. After a while, he gave a small grin and snapped his fingers. There was a soft red glow from Fuu's eyes as he summoned a sentry eye, and it fluttered about the room before it hovered just in front of Zelda. He smiled when the princess didn't appear phased in the least. "Sure I do," he said with a shrug. He watched Princess Zelda cautiously hold out her hand to the little sentry eye. "I sometimes feel like I've forgotten something important, like I had been on the brink of doing something great. I used to wonder if I had friends who knew what I'd been like, but considering how no one has come to find me yet, I figured I might not have had any. And that makes me wonder if I'll ever run into someone who hates my guts since there's also a possibility that I made plenty of enemies before I forgot everything."

Zelda frowned, but didn't say anything. She didn't really know how to respond to that, so she turned her attention towards the sentry eye that had landed on her hand. She'd once feared these things, too, since it meant that Vaati was watching them. For a moment she had to resist the urge to kill it with holy magic like she had done so many times in the past, but she took a deep breath. The creature was surprisingly light, and it was warm, like it carried a fire.

"Sheik used to give me this really angry glare, and can't help but think that I did something stupid in the past," Fuu continued, laughing. When Zelda looked up at him in alarm, he chuckled, "It's okay, he doesn't anymore. I think he got over it. Still wish he'd tell me what it was that I did, though."

"You're really taking this all in stride," Zelda said, lifting a finger to the little eye sitting on her palm. She pet it on the head, between its two horns.

"So are you," Fuu nodded towards the sentry that was being pet by the princess. "I was expecting you to run out, yelling for the castle guards as soon as you saw me summon that thing."

Zelda frowned. "If you wanted me to leave-" she began, but Fuu shushed her, laughing.

"No, no, it's not that. I just… wanted to see what you would do," he said. "What would you do if someone you trusted turned out to be an enemy all along?" Fuu's grin vanished when he noticed Zelda was looking at him, frozen in shock. When he raised a quizzical eyebrow, she shook her head hurriedly.

"I know you are not. It's just…" she couldn't help but think about what Fuu had just said. "Do you worry about that?" she asked carefully, not sure if she was prepared to know the answer.

"I can't say that it hasn't crossed my mind," he sighed. "I just feel like Sheik is hiding something, and it has to do with my past." He saw Zelda hanging her head again, and he shook his head. "Hey, I don't dwell on it, so neither should you. I respect him, and he probably has a good reason for not telling me about what he knows." He snapped his fingers again, and the sentry eye disappeared from Zelda's hands. "Besides, my personal problems aren't what's important right now. There's bigger things to worry about. You know what that's like, too, don't you?"

In the candlelight, Zelda nodded wordlessly.

It was when Fuu saw Zelda's shoulders shake slightly that he realized he'd said something wrong. He sat up from the bed and leaned over to get a closer look at the princess's face.

Zelda turned her face away, not wanting anyone to see her crying. She tried to steel her expression as she had done countless times in the past, but she couldn't hide her tears. "It's just… I'm sorry," she pushed Fuu away when he started to panic that he'd made her cry. Her hand touched his shoulder, pushing him away. At the same time, he'd grabbed her arm without his earlier reservation about touching her. Their eyes met, and then Zelda broke down from the guilt overcoming her. She reached back and clung to him, sobbing on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Fuu. I'm so sorry for putting you through this."

"It's fine, really," Fuu said quietly, unsure of what to do about the princess crying on his shoulder. She continued to apologize for the crime that she couldn't tell Fuu about. It was then that she'd realized that Darunia had been right, but not for the reasons he'd spoken of. Maybe it could be argued that Vaati deserved whatever punishment he was dealt, but Fuu didn't deserve the life she'd forced upon him. She cried on his shoulder until the exhaustion of the last two days overtook her, and she cried herself to sleep in his arms.

fleets: ok so, half of me totally wants all of the characters to be happy together, and the other half can't wait to smash it all to pieces.

anyone catch that shadow link's 'date' is with Dethl? ;)

i regret writing this at 12 in the morning and i know i'm going to regret posting this when i did. but i'm going to do it anyway, because i'm not thinking straight and i have to stay true to the chapter title and actually do something i'm going to regret. (definitely going to rewrite/cleanup this story some day oy)

ALSO I HAVE A QUESTION FOR EVERYONE: what are people's opinions on pairings? I get the general sense that most people don't really want them in adventure stories like this, but i could be totally wrong. i won't say where i'll go with anything depending on opinions, but it's something i'm genuinely curious about and it's going to affect my writing a bit.

Serpent Tailed Angel: The key distinction to keep in mind is working 'for' or working 'with'? I think there's a big difference depending on which, and hopefully I can demonstrate that in the writing :P And ahh yeah that's what it's looking like, ey? :)

Ai Star: A+ for Bad Life Choices :P

AquilaMage: The struggles continue. Poor Link is not have a Good Time at all in this story. I can't say a single good thing has happened to him so far. That just means I like him, 'cause that's what authors do, yeah? XD