"Link! You're okay!"

Those happened to be the first words he heard upon arrival in Kakariko. Then, out of nowhere, someone ran up and hugged him.

"Uhh… mom?" Link said, totally confused.

"Thank goodness you're okay!" Link's mother said, letting go of her son.

"Um, yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"As soon as I realized you had headed for the Shadow Temple, well…" she let out a sigh "It's just good to see you're alright. Darkness and our family don't tend to get along"

"Really?" Link asked "I mean, we did fight a pretty big battle, but Sheik was the one who got hurt, not me."

Link's mother turned to look at Sheik, who made a face.

"I don't know, Link" he said "what if the creature only wanted me out of the way so it could kill you without hurting me?"

"Well, like it matters," Link said "we both came out alive."

"Yes you did," Link's mother told them "now how about we got get some ice cream? My treat, I'm in a good mood today."

"I don't know…" Sheik said quietly "I've got a few things I need to be doing."

"Aw! Don't be such a party pooper, Sheik!" Link's mother laughed.

Sheik smiled. "Alright"


"I'm assuming you wanted to talk to me" Sheik said later. He looked at Link's mother, who was staring at something off in the distance. Link had gone off to do something.

Link's mother turned to look at Sheik. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

That wasn't the question he had been expecting. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Link said you got hurt"

"Well yeah, I hit my head, was probably unconscious for a while"

"You sure you're alright?"

Sheik nodded. Link's mother sighed, and a weary look returned to her eyes. She turned back to look at whatever she had been looking at before.

"Are you alright?" Sheik asked her.

She nodded. "Did Link ever act strange when you were in the temple?" she asked suddenly. Sheik paused to think about the question.

"He was a bit… reckless, and extremely excited about everything," he said. "Do you think that the Hero in him is finally awakening?"

"It's entirely possible, but… being his father's son, probably not. We just better hope he doesn't become too much like his father." She rubbed her head. "Or I could be entirely wrong and the hero in him is awakening, which would be really bad. I hate to ask you, but do you think you could keep an eye on him?"

"Yeah, sure" Sheik said. He glanced at the sun, which was getting close to setting. "I should probably get going; I still have to tell Zelda how things went."

"Might want to do that before it gets too late" Link's mother said, laughing a bit.

Sheik stood up and headed off, but paused after a few steps. "Thanks for the ice cream, by the way" he said.

"Don't tell Link that I stole the money from his stash" she replied.

Sheik laughed and then made his way to the Castle.


By the time Sheik found Zelda, the sun had already set halfway. She had been nowhere in the Castle, or the immediate surrounding areas. Zelda was on a hill a ways away from the castle.

"Should you be out here?" Sheik asked

"Probably not" Zelda replied, and laughed.

Sheik laughed too, and ran over to greet her.

"Pull up a patch of grass" she said. Sheik looked at her, and slightly reluctant, sat down next to the princess.

"How did things go?" Zelda asked

"Got the boomerang, Link's been getting more comfortable with odd situations, and I kind of got hurt."

"Oh my gosh! Are you alright?"

Sheik rolled his eyes and groaned. "Why does everyone ask? I'm perfectly fine, I only hit my head and…" he paused, and wondered briefly why he had started to mention the snake bite.

"And?" Zelda urged

"Got bitten by a snake" he finished

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Positive"

"But you got bitten by a snake"

"Well, maybe not…"

Zelda glared at him; she definitely wasn't convinced. "What was it then?"

"I don't know" Sheik admitted, "it felt like a snake bite, but then it was just gone, like nothing had happened. I probably was just hallucinating or something. I did hit my head pretty hard."

Zelda sighed. She wasn't going to get any farther in this conversation. "What do you mean Link's getting more comfortable with odd situations?"

"I've already talked to his mother about it."

"And his mother's trusting my mother to trust me too help him on his quest. Are you sure he's fine? If we triggered any memories we are so dead."

"He's fine" Sheik assured her.

"Are you fine?"

"Of course I am!" Sheik said angrily. "Stop asking me that!"

Zelda only laughed. This caused Sheik to grow angrier and embarrassed. He clenched his fists and turned away so Zelda couldn't see that his cheeks were flushing red hot.

"I was only teasing, gosh" Zelda said

Sheik took a deep breath and fought both anger and embarrassment down. After a minute he turned back to look at Zelda. She had turned away also. The sun had nearly finished setting, and bathed the land with an orange glow.

"Also, I've found the next weapon Link's going to get" Zelda said after a minute. "Well, not weapon exactly, it's a fire charm. It's supposed to make your sword catch fire or something."

"That sounds cool" Sheik said "but why do we need it?"

Zelda shrugged.

"There is one problem with it though…" she said slowly. "Its location is in the forest."

"Why the forest? If it's a fire charm shouldn't it be on Death Mountain or something?"

"How should I know. But that's not the problem. It's extremely close to where the Master Sword is."

Sheik frowned. After a minute of thought he said: "I think I'll be able to keep him away from it."

Zelda looked at him. "You sure?"

He nodded.

The sun had set completely by now, and Sheik turned to Zelda.

"You should get back to the Castle before they send a search party looking for you or something" he told her.

"Yeah, that probably would be a good idea" she said.

Sheik stood up and held out a hand to her. Smiling at him, Zelda took it and pulled herself feet.

"Should I come with?" he asked

"If you want" she replied.

He gave a slight nod and the two headed back to the Castle.


Sheik left her at one of the side doors of the Castle, saying that he needed to get somewhere. Zelda didn't mind, it probably would have gone badly if they had shown up together.

"There you are!" one of the Castle guards said. He was one of the oldest around and probably the kindest. Thomas, his name was.

"Sorry, didn't mean to be out so late" she told him. If it had been any other guard that had greeted her, she would have told them that it was none of their business where she was and stormed off to settle things with her mother. Thomas was special though, he kept secrets, except those that he thought the Queen desperately needed to hear. And even then, if you asked him really nicely, he would keep those too.

"You weren't alone were you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, I was with Sheik." Noticing the look on Thomas's face she added quickly: "not like that! We were just talking about how Link's quest is going."

Thomas laughed. "I still you think you're too young to be doing anything this big. You're only thirteen aren't you?"

"Fourteen" she corrected.

"Still too young. Neither your mother nor your aunt ever had to do anything like this. Though, neither of them knew Link at your age!" He let out a hearty laugh, and Zelda laughed too.

"That reminds me," Zelda said, "do you know who my aunt is?"

Thomas's eyes lit up at this question. "Your mother never told you? Shame on her!" he was grinning the entire time he said it. "You're going to get a kick out of who she is."

"Who is she?"

Thomas looked around to make sure no one was listening, and then leaned closer. Zelda leaned in to hear this great secret.

"Alice" he whispered.

Zelda gasped. "But that's-"

"Link's mother"

Thomas grinned again and looked at the young princess. Zelda was processing this information.

"I guess that makes some sense, but… what happened to her? She doesn't seem like she was once a princess at all!"

"That's the thing," Thomas said, "no one knows! She ran off with some guy one day, and we thought she would never come back! That's how your mother got the Kingdom. Alice was the older of the two them, so she should have technically got it."

"You're kidding me" Zelda said

"I'm not!"

"But if she ran off, why did she come back?"

Thomas shook his head. "I promised not to tell."

Zelda smiled at his honesty. That was the thing about Thomas; he could keep secrets and remain completely honest at the same time.

"But I can tell you this" he said, "she's only as sad as she is now because he died a few years ago. Apparently he was the man that you just couldn't kill, and he died in her arms." Thomas gasped quietly. "Oops, said a bit too much!"

Zelda ignored the last comment. "I guess that makes a lot of sense" she said sadly. She looked at the old guard. "You know, you make a great storyteller" she told him.

"Years of practice" Thomas replied, grinning. "Now you should get going to bed, princess."

"Zelda" she corrected.

He only smiled. "Just like her" he muttered, walking off to continue his guard duties.

Zelda couldn't help but smile too. Before, when he had said that, she had assumed he had meant just like her mother. But now she was starting to think otherwise. She was starting to think that he really meant just like her aunt.

Still digesting the massive amount of information that had been thrown her way, Zelda headed off to get some sleep.