Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, with the exception of Shane. I own nada, except for Shane. I don't own Hyrule, only Shane.
First and Foremost
by Cappucinno
CHAPTER SIX: GHOSTS OF THE PAST
December 16, 2016—4 a.m.
The Entrance Chamber, Hyrule Castle
The entrance chamber of the Chateau of Hyrule was indeed a formidable structure. The hallway had been erected with pillars of marble and gold, likely imported hundreds of years ago from the vast reaches of the Gerudo desert. The floors were, in turn, paved with a majestic marble and granite, freshly waxed for the new heir of Hyrule's arrival. The chamber was narrow and spanned the length of about half a city block, scattered pedestals with empty vases upon each one telling that the hallway had been freshly cleared. The walls were lined with bronze sconces, containing red cinnamon-scented candles that had only just been recently lit. The candlelight made the room seem almost ominous, in that the areas that Sheik knew to be white appearing instead as a muted red-orange, not unlike the blood-red skies from oh-so long ago.
The hall also, Sheik noted, had some fantastic acoustics. With each measured step the young man took the hallway echoed in formidable response, despite the fact that his footfalls were normally as silent as a cat's.
"Perhaps," The young man mused aloud. "This would be better suited as a concert hall."
The sudden opening of the two oak doors made an ear-splitting creaking noise, followed soon by a familiar nervous laugh. With a sigh Sheik turned neatly on his heel, hands clasped behind his back, to face the young woman who seemed to have been trying to hunt him down for the past few months. In his typical manner, the blonde raised a brow in a quizzical manner, his lips piquing up into a two-parts amused one-part annoyed smile.
"There you are," Malon breathed in a relieved tone. "I'd hoped to find you here. Goddesses, I've been looking all over the place for you!"
"My apologies," Sheik said in a manner that suggested he was not at all sorry. "I have a poor habit of making myself scarce."
"Yeah," The redhead responded exasperatedly. "I can see that."
Silence settled over the hallway once again, interrupted only by the echoes of Sheik's slow strides. The seemingly ageless man made his way to the opposite end of the hallway, wine-red eyes falling upon the ancient tapestries that had been strung along the walls. Malon's eyes followed the world-weary figure and she cautiously approached him, as if he might disappear if she moved too quickly.
Sheik made no move to acknowledge her presence as he slid a leather-gloved hand tentatively forward to touch one of the tapestries. It didn't so much as ripple under his touch and Malon was vaguely reminded of the ghost stories she'd once heard of as a young child. That, of course, was ridiculous, seeing as Sheik was very much alive.
"These tapestries," He began abruptly. "Hold almost all of Hyrule's history. The tales of the ill-fated Princess and her Hero from beginning to end." The tanned man paused and laughed shortly, as if he were greatly amused by something. "Well, almost." He amended. "Some things were apparently either too gory or too scandalous to include."
Malon was silent for a moment, regarding Sheik's apparent thoughtful expression with a considering look. The red-eyed man made no move to fill in the unbroken silence of the hushed hallway, merely watching the tapestry his fingertips brushed against as if at any moment the words might suddenly shift and rearrange themselves to tell another story.
"There's something else that they don't mention," Malon began, and for once her voice rose nothing above a whisper that was astonishingly small in the room. "Something very important."
Sheik's red eyes fell suddenly upon her, narrowed in warning as he set his jaw in a reproving motion. Malon steadily turned her head to meet his gaze, her own green eyes filled with emotions that the Sheikah both feared and dreaded respectively. Fondness and pity.
"There are some things, Miss Lon," Sheik said, and the very tone of his voice was disapproving and threatening all at once. "That are better off buried and forgotten."
"You, Sheik." Malon said, as if she'd never heard him at all. She waved a hand at the extravagant tapestries just behind them as she spoke, her voice becoming less hushed and more fervent as she went on. "They say nothing of you. And you," The red-eyed young man flinched away from her gaze at the reverence in her voice. "You should never have been forgotten."
The blonde-haired man remained silent, looking distinctly pained as he dropped his gaze to the elegant floor-tiles. He shifted the crimson scarf that obscured the lower portion of his face and then readjusted the dark brown coat he had donned that morning, turning on his heel away from the earnest red-head. Malon stepped along with him one hand landing on his arm to gently tug him back to face her. She seemed unconcerned with the fact that the blonde refused to face her and went on speaking, never letting her hand drop from the Sheikah's arm.
"Things are different now, Sheik. Can't you see it?" Her voice had dropped back into a passionate whisper that made the reclusive blonde uneasy. "You're here for a reason. You, you're capable of changing everything."
"Malon, you should not—" Sheik was cut off by the red-head once again and her hand tightened on his arm.
"You were the missing piece; you're the one that can bring us together. Don't you see?" Malon's voice shifted into her normal speaking voice, far too loud for the stellar acoustics of the hallway. "I-I've never met you before this life, but you're as much a part of this all as I am. As she is. As he is. I can feel it Sheik. You must've been with us all before. Maybe at the very beginning, when things were rig—"
"Things have never been right." Sheik cut back in and Malon was startled by the aggression in his voice.
"Sheik?"
"Not in this lifetime. Not even at the very beginning." The blonde glowered at the redhead, his hands falling to grip her shoulders as he leaned forward to speak. His words were hardly more than a hiss from behind the scarf. "And since you're so curious, Miss Lon," He seethed. "I'll tell you just what happened to me when I lived amongst those of your world."
Malon had opened her mouth to speak again but was stopped by the pools of unadulterated hatred just beyond the familiar crimson gaze of her friend. There was a feeling of dread that swept over her as quickly and as silently as a shadow and fear made her blood run cold.
"I died, Malon." Sheik hissed. "I died to ensure that the Princess would live meet the man she would grow to love, but never live happily with. And I loved her as well. Enough to take the blade intended to cut her life down, instead of live. And what did I get for that? That devil's sword cut my soul right out of my body and I had to watch them. I had to protect him long enough for her to love him and for him to fuck up and die instead of save us all. I never asked to be remembered. I never asked to be brought back. All I wanted was to rest, but instead here I am with the chance to be here to do it all over again."
"Sheik," Malon's voice was strained and the red-eyed man pushed her roughly away, yanking the scarf down to reveal a contemptuous sneer. "I-I didn't know."
"Don't dally in things you know nothing of, little girl." Sheik growled, and his voice was not that of the soft-eyed man that Malon had known before. This person standing before her was a stranger, a bitter and horribly hurt stranger. "Don't bother lying to yourself and twisting your feelings to pity a dead man. Better to waste your affection on the Hero. At least he'll live a while longer, right?"
"It doesn't have to be like that," Malon whispered, tears choking up her voice as she moved slowly back to the red-eyed figure she knew to be Sheik. "We are not them." She said earnestly, fisting her hands in the material of Sheik's brown coat. "You don't have to throw your life away. Link won't—he won't mess this up."
She was met with only a warning glare, but she ignored it, choosing instead to pull herself closer to Sheik, bumping her chest against his.
"I, for one, am not her. I don't love Link. She does. The Malon that lived a long, long, long time ago loved him. Me? I don't love him anymore. I did, once, but that was a long time ago." Malon continued on, her tear-moistened green eyes searching the unfathomable depths of Sheik's eyes desperately for a flicker of something. The emotion was so fast and so fleeting that she almost missed it, but there were remnants of what had once been fondness in his claret eyes. "You were always there for us, all of us. You helped me when he broke my heart. And, somehow, over the years, I keep thinking back to you and—"
There was another lapse of silence and the beginnings of a bitter smile tugged at Malon's lips.
"Only ever you." The red-head sighed as she reveled in the warmth of Sheik's chest. He made no move to pull her closer or push her away and for that Malon laughed breathily into his coat, a bitter and remorseful sound. "If only you could see me with a fraction of the regard you have for her. I mean, she's my best friend, and I love her but still… don't the rest of us deserve a shot too?"
Her fingertips gingerly landed upon the Sheikah's face, tilting it down towards her own. She smiled brokenly at the impassive expression on the blonde man's face as she felt her throat close up and a single tear slide down her cheek. She hadn't expected declarations of love or emphatic enthusiasm from the enigma known as Sheik, but to see how completely uncaring and unaffected he was hurt more than his rejection.
"I think," Sheik began evenly, gently detaching Malon's hands from his face and stepping back in a guarded manner. "That you should leave now."
"Sheik, I—"
"Leave." Sheik appeared to have not heard her as she spoke, his eyes distant and his mind a thousand years away from the present. "They are not pleased with your words."
December 17, 2016—7 a.m.
1904 Castle Street
Talking to yourself was never a good sign. This was something that Zelda had to remind herself of almost non-stop as she glared her own reflection down, ignoring the fact that she was dead tired and wanted nothing more than to just go and curl up in her bed.
Her hair had been hastily put up, though a few stray locks fell over her face, and she was wearing only a large shirt—either Link's or Sheik's, but she was fairly sure it was Link's since it was forest green—and a white cotton robe. Her favorite pair of bunny slippers were, surprisingly, still at the old apartment since she'd apparently forgotten about them in her haste to pack up and leave.
Of course, thoughts of her hasty department—nineteen days and twenty-two hours ago, not that she was counting—were far from her mind at the moment. Her chillingly blue eyes stared steadily back at their reflection in the mirror, her hands braced on the gold gilding of the ancient family heirloom.
It was strange, because she remembered that at one point in time her eyes had been a lavender-blue instead of glacial blue. But that probably had something to do with the current situation.
"Get out of my head." Zelda said in the most threatening voice she could possibly muster, half-expecting her reflection to step out of the mirror and start talking to her. When there was no response the blonde returned to glaring balefully at the glass, brows drawn into a tight frown. "Don't ignore me. I said get out."
"You are surely aware that that isn't a polite thing to say to the Princess of Hyrule." Came the response, finally, in a voice that was her own and yet not. It was a voice that sounded infinitely older, wiser, and more fragile. But it was undoubtedly her own.
"I honestly don't really care who you are. I'm the Princess of Hyrule, and as far as I'm concerned, you're the one out of line." Zelda ground out in an exasperated manner, still glaring at her reflection. "Did I invite you into my brain? No. Get out."
"You're not taking this very well are you?" The voice now sounded distinctly amused.
"Out."
"Where is he?"
The voice continued on and somehow Zelda knew exactly who it was referring to. The blonde also knew that she should give herself—no, the voice, just a voice—an answer. And yet, she found that she was dreading doing so.
"Zelda."
Panicking.
"Zelda."
Guilty.
"Zelda." The voice called out once more, calm and controlled in ways that she was not, and Zelda watched in a horrified manner as the blue in her eyes intensified. "Zelda, where is he?"
Finally, Zelda summoned up her courage and stared directly into her own eyes, watching as the ice completely overwhelmed the lavender that she knew to represent herself.
"He's gone." She answered defiantly, once more firmly reminding herself that if she was talking to herself then she was probably going insane.
"Gone?" The voice sounded strangely small and fragile, despite the maddening calm tone. "The Hero. He's… gone?"
"Well, he's not dead," Zelda began to explain in a manner that was more sarcastic than strictly necessary, whilst breaking eye-contact to distract herself from the fact that she was still talking to herself. "He's just… not here."
"Then we should find him." The voice had grown stronger once and more and Zelda recognized the current of hope in that not-so-stranger's voice. She also recognized the complexity of emotion in the simply uttered sentence—it was the same overwhelming trust and hope that Link inspired in her—and her chest physically ached.
"I've missed him. He's been gone for so long... I worried I would never find him again." The voice sighed and the sound of longing immediately snapped Zelda's gaze to her reflection, once more glaring at the mirror. "Let's go see him. I know the way, still."
"No."
"…Pardon me?" The coolness made her flinch, but Zelda pushed that from her mind and steeled her anger.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Head." Zelda hissed, glaring into the pools of seemingly endless blue. Her voice had come out far crueler than intended, but the rising sense of foreboding and panic that had chilled her veins kept her apologizing for her actions.
"…What's the matter?"
Zelda ground her teeth together, staring into her own eyes for a hint of something. Lavender, amethyst, purple, gray, was there anything left that wasn't that overwhelming icy-blue?
"Zelda?"
"Get out of my head." Zelda whispered forcefully. "I won't let you see him. You can't have him. I won't lose him. He's not going to get hurt because of you, that's done now."
Her blood felt as if had all stopped flowing in her veins as she registered the truth in her words. She knew suddenly who she was speaking to, and what exactly it meant. But how could she not know what would happen? Hadn't she known for a long time that she would be the reason he died in the end? How long had she tried to ignore the truth her dreams spun?
"Zelda?" The voice, for all of its calm, sounded strangely wounded and the blonde jerked her head away, defiantly heading away from the mirror even as the voice spoke. "What are you talking about? We are one and the same and we need to see him. We should go, now."
"There is no we." Zelda hissed at the empty room as she all but threw the clean white bathroom door open and opened up a dresser drawer, desperately fumbling around for something, anything really. "I am not going to lose him. You are going to get out of my head and he is going to live, goddesses damn you. And so am I."
"Zelda?"
"You're dead. This is crazy. You're just a palace myth, a stupid story. You're dead and you don't exist. This isn't real and this isn't happening and, even if it is, you're not going to hurt him and I won't let you have him. He's not yours."
"Zelda?"
"This is crazy. Get out. Out. Right now. Out."
"Zelda?"
"I'm not going to let you." She whispered , ignoring the various things that were knocked out of the drawer in her haste. She'd have to pick it all up later, before Sheik got there. "I am a twenty-first century woman and I care a lot less about stupid old traditions and heroes than whoever you've tormented before. I don't believe in you and you can't hurt him."
"Hurt him? I would never hurt him. You have to believe me." The Princess sounded almost panicked and Zelda refused to respond, her hand still desperately searching for something in the drawer.
She had to make this stop. She could feel something in her mind shifting, her feet moving, something invisible forcing her to move and—no! She felt something cold inside her and she stopped searching, ignoring her own rising panic and the fact that if she gave in—even a little—then she would go to him.
And maybe she was just sleep deprived and a little crazy, but something told her that if she gave in then something would shift. Some delicate balance would be tipped and domino into a series of events that none of them could stop.
Some old line in a fairytale once told to her had her reaching for the candle on her nightstand, burning brightly.
"Zelda?"
She couldn't let that couldn't happen. It was her job to protect the balance. To protect him. The voice was growing louder and more frantic and she could hardly think around all of the noise. She forced her hand to close firmly around the familiar hand-guard of the candle holder, even as she felt an opposing force trying to pry her fingers off of it.
"Zelda? Zelda, what are you doi—"
"Dark to light, and light to dark, the balance in the world so stark. We, the shadow, the forgotten, do so swear to protect the balance." The words were foreign but familiar and they came quickly, unbidden, jumping from her lips as she tipped the flame of the candle and brought it to her arm.
"Flame to burn away the night, burn strong, burn bright. No ghosts of the past shall rest here tonight."
Pain registered in her arm and then… there was nothing.
Silence echoed inside her head and her limbs slackened. In the silence, some semblance of control began to slowly ebb back into her.
The blonde found herself walking back to the bathroom mirror, bracing her arms against the sink counter as she started to run the cold water. As she did so slowly, cautiously she brought her gaze back up to face her own reflection once more.
Relief stole her breath as she stared back into her own distinctly lavender eyes and she slumped tiredly against the counter.
The light of the candle from the other room cast strange shadows in the bathroom mirror and the pain of the burn began to register. She held her arm under the sink, letting the cold water mask the sting of the burn.
"What was that?" She found herself whispering, frowning, as she recalled the words—the spell?—that she had uttered. "What am I doing? There's no such thing as… as spells, as magic. That's for kids to feel better, not grown women.
Her head slumped down as she turned off the water and dressed her arm.
"Please give me strength, goddesses." Her voice echoed in the silence. "Farore, help me I think I'm losing my mind."
That night no help or answers came, but the nightmares recessed. Only her own thoughts kept her from sleeping.
She wanted desperately to believe that she protected him because he was her best friend and that it was only her own feelings that drove her to care so deeply for him. She wanted to believe that it had nothing to do with the stories her mother had told her as a child, nothing to do with the strange coincidence of their names, nothing to do with fate.
Zelda wanted desperately to believe that what she may or may not have felt for Link had nothing to do with the voice or her dreams—that maybe she really was just losing her mind and her childhood stories weren't suddenly coming to life.
December 17, 2016—1 p.m.
1904 Castle Street
Sheik stepped through the side door silently, discarding his boots in remembrance of what Zelda had requested the day before. The furniture had been moved around, he noted, as he maneuvered through the living room and to the small kitchenette where he heard Zelda bustling about. With the air of someone extremely aged and world-weary he entered the kitchen, seating himself on top the counter even as Zelda waggled a finger at him in disapproval.
The red-eyed young man shrugged in a noncommittal manner, hardly heeding the princess' newfound obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
Said princess was currently elbow deep in dishwater, scrubbing away at a pot that she'd presumably burnt rice in—or something to that effect. As per usual, she looked neatly groomed and well put-together in a white button-down shirt and a slim cut jeans, black heels on her feet. If he looked closely he could still catch a hint of the darkened circles underneath her eyes that she'd attempted to cover up with make-up, but he paid it little heed. She hadn't been sleeping very well ever since she'd moved in, to his knowledge.
"Morning Sheik," She greeted pleasantly, nodding towards the coffee maker as he smiled vaguely in his own form of hello. "Coffee?"
"I'll have to decline, thank you." He responded evenly as the blonde woman merely shrugged and carried on with the dishes. After a beat of silence Sheik spoke again, taking in her appearance once more with a proud air. He'd always had the utmost confidence in Zelda's ability to work through her problems, and he was strangely relieved to see that Link had been no different for the blonde.
"You seem to be well, Princess. You look very… orderly."
Sheik didn't notice the way she tensed up at the simple pet-name. He only noticed that Zelda flashed her head of security a wide grin and that her eyes were unusually lavender and her shadow looked oddly pronounced in the morning light.
He took no note of the burn on her arm or the faint feeling of magic in the air.
A/N: And now we can start really getting into the swing of things. Sorry, Link and Zelda have to put off being reunited for just a while longer. I know, I know, you were all looking forward to that. It just didn't fit into this chapter, as you can probably tell, but don't worry! He'll be back in the next chapter, I promise. And maybe they'll even have their not-so-happy reunion, who knows? And what happened after Malon left? Well, you'll just have to wait for a flashback at some point in the future, won't you?
And yes, this story does end happily, in case any of you were wondering. It'll just be a little while longer.
Your reviews are my inspiration, so please don't be shy. You have no idea how much even a few words mean to me.
And thank you to all of my loyal reviewers who have stayed with me this far! Love and digital brownies for all of you.
-Cappucinno