AU Where Shadow's death is not a final death- he's something between dead and alive, and trapped in the darkness. He needs Vio's help to get out, before a fate worse than death catches up to him...

Primarily going to be Vio x Shadow-centric; if you don't like it, don't read it! (Might eventually contain hints of Blue and Red, if you look closely ;D )

"Something like that, yeah," Shadow nodded. "It took me ages to track him down, cuz I'm not as familiar with non-human signatures, but I eventually found someone who seemed to know enough about magic that he could be able to help me."

-.-.

"How'd you get him to agree to help you?" Vio raised an eyebrow.

Shadow cast his gaze away. "It wasn't easy. Obviously everyone wants to get the hell outta there, and no one there is exactly the generous, benevolent type. Everyone who could get out already had- but this guy knew how to. He hadn't gotten out because he's literally stuck there."

"He's fused to the inside of this gigantic-ass pit, which was a pain in the butt to find. He's got some reach, because he can sort of grow and stretch limbs as he pleases, but he's anchored there and can't get out."

"At one point he was some guy who tried to harness magic beyond his control, and he got in way over his head. Either the Goddesses or some other hero knocked his ego down a few notches when he was defeated and all his power taken from him, and now he just babbles to himself down in that pit."

"It seems like he's totally batty, but he actually is sane enough when you try to get him to talk... And when you can actually talk, as opposed to him screaming at you and trying to fight you off with a thousand slimy tentacles." He cringed. "Took me probably a week to get him to speak."

"How do you measure time in a place like that?" Vio inquired.

"Temperature changes. It gets bearably chilly during the 'daytime,' and at 'night' it's fucking freezing. Not quite enough to kill you, cuz you're already sort of dead, but very uncomfortable if you sit still." Shadow shrugged. "Going back to the other point, though."

"I found that crazy old guy- he sure as hell wasn't Hylian, or a Gerudo, or Zora or anything we've got here. He looked kinda... all stretched out and deformed. His eyes were sort of blank orange, and he had a couple weird markings on his face." Shadow lifted his hands, drawing a tiny line with his fingertip going from the underside of his eye to the middle of his cheek on each side of his face.

"Either way, he eventually seemed to realize I was coming there for a purpose, and calmed down enough so I could get to him and explain what I wanted. He laughed at me the first time and threw me up and out of the pit, but I kept coming back every day for another week until he started to take me seriously."

"He was loathe to actually do anything that would help out somebody else." Shadow rolled his eyes. "But I told him the deal. I still had magic I could use, and he had the know-how to use my magic so I could get out. He had a bunch of terms I had to agree to, though."

"One, I myself could not perform the spell the first time; he had to do it to make sure it worked. That would entail me setting things up and then transferring whatever amount of magic into him for him to start the spell. And I'd have to trust him to actually use it for my good, and not something else."

"Two, I had to gather all sorts of things for the spell to actually work. Unbeknownst to me, this place was more than just a flat expanse of death. There were things like valleys and canyons, and weird plants and rocks were everywhere. The more I looked, the more I found. Eventually I even stumbled across some sort of weird plants with leaves that glowed, but I figured it was more of a hazard than a help. You could spot someone carrying a light a mile away, and it really only painted a huge target on my back."

"Three, I had to make it worth his while. There isn't really a lot of stuff in that place of common enough value to use to barter with, so eventually it was decided I would stick with him for a couple months and do whatever he needed me to, since he couldn't do a lot while fused to the wall."

Shadow made a face there. "A 'couple' months ended up being closer to six, because I was gone a lot searching for the things he would need to make the spell work correctly. Stupid things like different crystals which were supposed to be common but ended up being a pain in the ass to find; some creature's blood, which I had to figure out how to attack and trap before I could even consider killing it; all that hocus pocus."

"What did he have you do when you weren't running around for him?" Vio questioned.

"Basically get whatever it was he needed," Shadow shrugged blandly. "Since we're all 'dead' in a way, none of us really need nourishment like we do when alive, but we need other stuff. I had to fetch these other weird plants and liquids that he used to make a potion supposedly to give him strength. I also had to do stupid things like pull rat bones out of his limbs, cuz they got stuck in the weird shadowy bits and died, I guess." Shadow made a face. "That was gross. I just kinda had to tend to his needs and shit until I was able to gather everything we needed for the spell to work; in theory."

"In theory?" Vio frowned. "Complications?"

"Yeah," Shadow nodded. "I figured it was gonna be a risk letting this guy use my magic to cast the spell, and it was. As soon as the ritual started getting anywhere, he turned on me."

"By that point in time a tear had shown up, large enough to get through and temporarily held open. However, he stopped trying to focus on the portal and instead started trying to use my magic to swap places with me. He tried to fuse me to the wall so he could get out of the portal and wreak havoc."

He snorted. "Like I'd ever have trusted that idiot; first rule of the shadows is that whatever you do, don't trust people you just met. I never gave him enough magic for the spell in the first place, and halfway through dragging me towards him, he started to falter."

"That gave me just enough time to fight my way free and jump through the tear in the Rift to get to you," Shadow finished with a sigh. "Although in retrospect, not giving him enough magic in the first place is probably what caused me to be like... This." He held up a hand, and then passed it through Vio's shoulder. The sensation was like a cloud of mist is passing through him.

"Well, do you know the spell that got you here?" Vio asked, chewing his bottom lip in thought. "It's possible we may be able to either recreate it, or at least extrapolate the amount of effectiveness it had so we know where to start in finishing the work."

Shadow shrugged hopelessly. "I knew generally what he was saying in Hylian, but he switched to another, more 'magic-infused' language as he started the spell." Shadow sketched air quotation marks with his fingers. "Might've been full of bull, but whatever he did, I don't know the language."

"Magic infused..." Vio muttered quietly, thinking hard. "Do you remember even one of the words?"

"Ah, shit..." Shadow tapped his fingers on his knee uncertainly. "I think... I think 'light' might have been 'zorisik' or something... Does that mean anything to you?"

Vio snapped his fingers as his mind clicked. "Ah! I recognize that!" He swiftly got to his feet, heading back over to a small stack of books on his nightstand. Shadow rose as well, floating over and giving the sunlight a wide berth as he hovered over Vio's bed.

Vio sifted through a couple of the books, finally triumphantly pulling out a copy of a history book detailing the Great War. He sat down on the side of his bed, flipping through the pages quickly until he found what he was looking for. "Here!"

"The Sheikah?" Shadow questioned, looking at the book over Vio's shoulder.

"Yes," Vio nodded. "This might sound a little far-fetched, but I have a theory that I believe makes sense to explain this."

"You're usually right," Shadow acknowledged, alighting next to him on the side of the bed. "Do tell."

"Okay. Well, as you know, long ago there was a war that consumed Hyrule. This war was primarily fought over possession of the Sacred Realm, and inside it the Triforce. Everyone- good and bad- wanted it for themselves."

"A group of beings with magical abilities sought to use their magic to get into the Sacred Realm- I think it was the Sheikah, or they at least made up a considerable portion of the group. The Royal Family found out that their guardian tribe was acting alone, and retaliated with force; I believe this is what prompted the massacre of their people, which they regard as a betrayal by the Royal Family."

"I find the fact that the Sheikah refer to the event as a 'betrayal' an interesting note, however. Perhaps the Sheikah never intended to use the Triforce for themselves; only to seize it for the Royal Family? Who knows."

"Anyway. Women and children were killed in the massacre; the vast majority of the men were the ones that had attempted to seize the Sacred Realm. The ones who attempted were sealed, along with other various offenders, into what we now refer to as the Twilight Realm."

"The Sheikah people are now few and far between in Hyrule, but their influence is more widespread than we think. Magic, as you know, can be used with both verbal spells and nonverbal actions. On average, verbal spells are capable of much more potent and precise effects."

"Spoken in Hylian, magical incantations alone do nothing. Spoken in Hylian by someone with a very strong bloodline of magic, like the Princess, spells will still work easily. However, for almost any other magic user, it takes a considerably greater effort to weave spells in Hylian; it's easier to do so in a language that's closer to Ancient Hylian."

"The Sheikah dialect of the Hylian language is much, much more closely tied to magic than ours is. Most spells were originally created with that language in mind, and so work easily." He paused. "I swear I have a point, Shadow, don't fall asleep on me here."

"No way, Vio, I'm listening," Shadow shook his head, snapping himself out of a bit of a stupor. "Could you get there a little quicker, though?"

"Hn. The Sheikah that were banished to the Twilight Realm were not heard of until approximately 250 years ago, when one of my ancestor heroes encountered a race of people known as the Twili. They were the descendants of that tribe, long ago, that had tried to snatch the Triforce."

"They were definitely beings capable of magic, and although the description you gave me does not exactly match the description for what an average Twili was supposed to look like, I'm going to hazard a guess that it was their traitorous leader that you encountered; Zant."

Vio went on, "And from that word you remembered- which I know for a fact is in Sheikah; their title for the Princess is Zorisik-Kesoso, or Light Princess- I can reasonably connect the dots to say that if you know what the spell said in Hylian, or close to it, we can backtrack it into Sheikah and figure things out from there."

Shadow stared blankly at Vio for a moment. "I swear to the Goddesses, Vio, if I could I would kiss you right now." He finally said, grinning widely. "I can't believe you figured that out! Oh my Goddesses, we might actually stand a chance..!" He seemed so excited at the prospect of having a tangible method of getting back to the real world, he was almost bouncing.

Vio smiled too, catching onto Shadow's excitement; he disregarded the uncharacteristic comment. "There's always a way," He nodded sagely. "You just have to be clever enough to find it."

"And boy, did I pick the right guy to come to." Shadow was grinning ear to ear. "When can we start figuring it out? Do you know Sheikah?"

"I don't know it fluently, no," Vio admitted. "It's extremely uncommon, seeing as there are so few of them left. But," He quickly added as Shadow's face fell, "I know for certain the Royal Family would be able to help." Shadow brightened again.

"Okay, so when are you gonna go talk up the Princess to help you revive your dead best friend in the world?"

"You said so yourself; you're not dead." Vio reminded him. "And I'll talk to her as soon as we're able." He frowned suddenly as a thought struck him. "Will she be able to see you?"

"I dunno," Shadow shrugged. "Probably not."

"Zelda is very in tune with sensing-..." He almost said 'dark magic,' but caught himself before he spoke. ".. Supernatural things. She may sense you without knowing exactly what's going on. What should I say to her, in such an event?"

Shadow shrugged his shoulders again. "I don't know; probably just tell her the truth. She trusts you. I personally don't think she's gonna be able to tell I'm here, but whatever your gut tells you, man."

"We'll see." Vio shrugged. "Either way, we've talked so long I'm hungry now. Do you need to eat?"

"Nonliving body- don't need nutrients anymore." He reminded. "Shame, really; only a year and I already miss eating."

"Well, you won't have to miss it for much longer," Vio assured him confidently. "I'm going downstairs now, then." He stood up as Shadow got to his feet as well. "Try not to pass through any of the others; I feel they'd notice that."

"I'll do my best," Shadow snickered, following Vio out of his bedroom.

"Question," Vio piped up as they were halfway down the stairs. "You said you watched us all a lot; how'd you do that?"

"Not very difficult," Shadow answered. "That's a simple spell. Find any flat pool of liquid and use the spell to see whatever you want to. There's pretty much no real water in the Rift, but there's something like ink that you can find in puddles and rivers all over the place."

"Huh..." Vio commented. "I almost want to see that place sometime."

"I hope you never do." Shadow snapped immediately. "I hope you never screw up badly enough that you get stuck there. It's not some exotic land that yearns to be explored- it's a branch of hell, Vio." He scowled. "Don't you dare wish to be there."

"Sorry," Vio muttered, a little taken aback by the ferocity of Shadow's response to his offhand comment. "I didn't really mean it, I was just sort of.. Talking idly."

"Yeah, the last time you were 'talking idly,' you were actually making plans and scheming..." Shadow muttered. "Trust me, that's a worse idea than plotting to break the Dark Mirror- this one will hurt you."

Vio frowned slightly. "This is different than then, and you know it. I was just curious; I did not think about what I was saying."

"Unusual lapse for you, then, isn't it?" Shadow sighed. "Forget it- just don't ever go there if you're given the choice. I don't want you to get lost there too..."

"Yeah... Well, at least I wouldn't be there alone," He made a halfhearted joke. "I'd have a friend with me."

Shadow gave a dry snort as well. "Anyplace else and I'd be glad; anywhere but there." He fell quiet as they neared the kitchen of the house. "I might keep it down until we're sure of the situation here..." He muttered, falling behind Vio as they entered the kitchen.

And there goes some of my theorizing. Yikes. /cries because I have a whole language written up for this made up Sheikah dialect of Hylian language that came from a story years ago. Story was shit- the language was pretty cool.

But yeah. Yay, I get the chance to throw in a few of the other Links finally! I like writing as Blue; which should be obvious xD

R&R always appreciated! Thank you for taking the time to read my nonsense!

~Artimus-Maora