This is it. This is the end.

This was supposed to be only 7 chapters or so, tops. How this happened I have no clue. But it was fun to write, I hope it was fun for you guys too, and all that jazz.

See you at the end!

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Other Perspectives - Part 8 of 8

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I woke on a saddle, supported against a warm body, every step the animal took making me wince with pain. I was riding side-saddle, practically cradled against a chest that smelt like home and bread and blood.

Blood? "Tha-" I coughed, and groaned. Everything hurt. "Thar-?"

He shushed me, stopping the horse. My free hand not trapped between him and me roamed over the chestnut's fur and I felt a scar, where a tektite had nicked her two years ago. Epona. Thank Din.

"Lin," he whispered, "Calm down. You're safe."

"You were hurt, you, your arm, and," I remembered that much, out of the exhausted haze of blackness I'd seen him be cut, and there it was, the bandages that wrapped his bicep to his elbow, holding the reins. "You-"

"I'm fine. Can you drink some potion?"

I hesitated, but nodded. He twisted round, calling for someone in Sheikah, and another horse clopped beside us. Riding Puppy was Renado. I guessed this made some sense as he passed us a jar of red potion and Tharlaigh fed it to me, though most of it slid down my chin.

Coughing I pulled away, choking on the bitter medicine. "What happened? I don't… I,"

"You travelled us out, and fainted. That's all," he hushed, putting the potion away. "You're safe. Everyone's safe. Now relax."

The aches eased. I grew sleepy again, collapsing in his arms, and I saw the sky, much darker than before. "You came for me."

He tensed. "You thought I wouldn't?"

"Mm," was I agreeing, or disagreeing? I heard heavy footsteps and my eyes wandered past Tharlaigh's body, behind Epona, and a Goron was walking with us, trailed by her sleepy-looking son. Our eyes met, and he waved at me.

I tried waving back, but I was far, far too tired.

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Tharlaigh's signal warbled through the trees and the sentries eased their guard. They were surprised to see that he was joined by another of their own and two Gorons, of all things, but they looked like they would do no harm, so were allowed in their camp. The thieves had been taken away, legs splinted and drugged to avoid any attempts at escape or resistance. Fi wasn't sure what would happen to them, except that it would be everything they deserved.

It had been hours since the skies in the distance had filled with black lightning, tearing through the skies like a Kargorok's roar. It was now practically sunset, the sky purple and orange flecked with the quartz clouds and to see her brother return was a relief beyond compare.

Until she saw who was riding with him.

She looked awful. She was pale, bruised over both eyes, there was blood drying over the torso of her tunic and the bandages on her wrist, she was only wearing one boot and the bared foot was swollen from a sprain, or even a broken bone.

Lin was slumped against Tharlaigh, practically dead. Fi clapped her hands over her mouth, horrified.

"Brother? Is, is she,"

"She needs potion," Tharlaigh replied, guiding Epona further into the camp, "Pink fairies aren't healing her."

Pink fairies not healing? That was like saying water didn't quench, that fire didn't burn. "Why?"

"If I knew I'd be fixing it already," he snarled, making her jump. He inhaled, deeply, trembling. "I'm sorry. Just, help her down."

Before she could the Hylian slid down herself, practically collapsing on top of Fi, eyes alive and wild.

Gasping, the Hylian glared at the younger girl, gritting her teeth against pain. "Fi."

The young girl winced, biting her lip as Lin's fingers dug into her shoulders, the Hylian barely keeping herself standing. "Yes?"

"You're here," she whispered, gripping Fi tighter and probably leaving marks, blue eyes framed in black bruises searching her face as if she might not truly exist. "Were you hurt?"

"No," Fi whimpered, heart breaking at this battered and beaten woman asking her if she was hurt, "No, I'm fine, I'm so sorry, I."

"Good." Lin smiled, and pressed Fi's face into her shoulder, holding her ever so tenderly. "Thank Gods."

Fi didn't know what to do as Lin started quaking with sobs, babbling that she was glad, so very glad that she was safe, and Fi hated herself for ever thinking that Lin could ever be a danger to them, to her brother, and her eyes burned as she hugged Lin desperately back. Fi consoled the sobbing woman until she quieted.

Then she had to brace herself, because Lin was really totally collapsing on top of her. "Brother-"

"I got this," he sighed, tilting Lin back and sweeping her up in his arms, the Hylian looking dead again even as fresh tears slipped down her face. "Come on. Find me some red potion, please. And food, she has got to eat."

"I'll be right back," she promised, rushing to do as told.

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Tharlaigh was still holding me when I woke up next, leaning on Epona as he sat by the fire, like I usually did when I was travelling on my own. It was a chilly night, but I barely felt it, so inexplicably warm against him. I lifted my left hand, blearily touching his face, the smooth unscarred cheek soft under my fingers.

He grumbled, half asleep. He sounded adorable and so very safe.

"Thank you," I mumbled, dropping my hand, sighing deeply, "It's nice being rescued for a change."

He snorted, his body shifting against mine, his left arm cradling my back. "You thought I wouldn't come."

"I thought Sheik wouldn't come." I admitted, "But Tharlaigh did."

I felt his jaw move over my head, looking at me. I did not meet his gaze. "There's a difference?"

"I still don't know you very well, Tharlaigh," I explained, finally able to articulate what had been bugging me for the few quiet days with the clan. "Sometimes all I have to go on is how Sheik has acted around me, and he was always so far away. It's not that I didn't trust you, I just, don't know you. I didn't know where Sheik stopped and Tharlaigh started, how the distance between you and I shifted with relation to him and you."

"...And?"

"Sheik's not here anymore. You are." I snaked my left arm up over his neck and held him, trying hard not to cry. "Please don't ever leave. Please don't let me leave, either."

He held me tight and it was the best feeling in the world. "Never."

"I-I'm sorry if I made you worry,"

"If?" he barked, sounding both angry and amused, "Do you even realize how many times I had to deal with you being presumed dead these last few days?"

"I just, I thought-" I was sobbing again, smearing his shirt with tears, "I didn't want you to hate me for letting Fi out of my sight, and I, I couldn't, I couldn't lose her again, I couldn't lose anyone here ever again, I never, never again,"

"I could never hate you, you absurd hero," he hissed, holding me tight, gasping in my hair, and we were sobbing together and that too was one of the best feelings in the world. "And next time you decide to do something so catastrophically risky wait for me. Just please, for hell's sake wait for me."

I nodded and kept nodding.

And we wept, and we held each other, and before I could fall asleep again he made me drink red potion and eat a bowl of broth. I ate still curled up against him like a child, and he was warm, and I was safe, and I slept again with his arms around me.

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"She lost her mother here."

Fi started as her brother sat beside her, gently combing Lin's hair from her face. The young woman had requested to spend the rest of the night out in the open, saying she didn't feel safe in tents. Her back was flush against her horse, blade firmly in hand, two blankets warming her against the night as she faced the fire. Fi had found that she couldn't sleep, so she had decided to keep the sleeping girl and horse company, but found that she was to be joined by another Sheikah man and two Gorons, of all things, though they too were asleep.

"I should have seen it when she insisted on coming," he muttered, handing her a mug of tea, "She even told me that she'd died at a swamp, or close enough."

"Lin's mother? She said… she said that her mother was a fairy." she hadn't known whether to believe her at the time, still scared of her, only speaking to her because Tharlaigh insisted on it. Lin being an orphan wasn't hard to believe, but a fairy…? Fi had half expected her to be a touch deluded.

"Yeah, Navi. She was… something."

"I thought you'd never met her before."

"I was wrong," he shrugged, sipping from his own mug as he faced the fire, their backs to Lin.

It still didn't clear up whether her mother was a fairy, but… "What was she like?"

"She was… loud. Protective. I think you remind her of her. I mean, Lin, of Navi."

Fi frowned dubiously. She was fairly certain she wasn't loud.

Tharlaigh smiled, understanding her confusion. "Your hair, Fi. Navi was a blue fairy."

"...Oh."

"It would also explain," he sighed, eyeing their unexpected guests, "Why she went completely berserk trying to save you all, Darr Renado."

Fi hadn't realised the man was awake, though he had been sitting up. The dark-haired priest raised his head, and he smiled a tad sheepishly. "I do apologise for the worry she no doubt caused you on our behalf."

"I knew she was insane but this? What she did was on a whole new level. Facing a bloody Dinolfos unarmed. Without magic."

Fi felt the blood drain from her face. "Why?"

"Never again, she said," Tharlaigh muttered, kneading his scar, "She was orphaned here. She wasn't about to let a child lose a parent if she could, nevermind let a child watch his mother be killed in front of him. But Goddesses' mercies, a Dinolfos. Unarmed."

"She was very impressive," Renado supplied, as if that would calm him, "She managed to incapacitate its jaw right from the very start."

"...I don't want to know how, and yet here I am, asking. How."

Renado linked his hands together and swung them like a mallet. Tharlaigh swore weakly.

"Won't you tell us the whole story?" Fi supplied, for the first time wanting to understand her, wanting to know how this woman thought.

"Well. If your brother can handle such strain…"

"Knowing that I show up before things really turn ugly helps," he grumbled, palming his face and waving at the priest, "Go on."

Renado settled himself and waved his hands as if he were back in his sanctuary, telling a parable. "Ahem. Well, now… She claimed her name was Link Hasheik as she pierced the pen keeper with her deathly gaze. The man that brought her claimed she was a boy of your age, perhaps a little older, though I know not why. She realised that her magic was gone, bound by the trickster that placed her there, only when she was firmly locked in the cage with the rest of us."

"I'm going to have to ask more questions about that trickster later, Darr Renado."

"Brother, don't interrupt. Then?"

"She revealed herself to be Hylian, claiming she was searching for a friend, a girl with blue hair. I had the unfortunate task of revealing that she had been tricked, that there was no other cage for women or girls, that there were no new prisoners that might have been her Blue-Haired Girl. She grew quiet, quiet as a rock, and seemed to be in a pit of despair…"

And Renado told them of the Deku Scrubs, told them of the Goron Song, told them of her plunging into action when they started baiting the mother with the Dinolfos, how she fought, her strange trick of travelling at impossible speeds, summoning her steed, and staying behind to finish the job. Fi and Renado turned to Tharlaigh at the end to find him still kneading his scar, and told the rest with very little finesse. She killed it by shooting it in the eye, got slammed onto the ground as it died on top of her and for some strange reason her magic worked again when he'd been fairly certain they were dead meat, and they escaped.

Fi frowned. "What about the black lightning? Wasn't that Lin, too?"

Tharlaigh went disturbingly still. "I don't think she remembers that, and I would really, really appreciate it if you didn't mention it to her."

"Why? What happened?"

"Fi, it… ends badly. Let's just, please, let's just leave it at that, alright?"

Fi didn't press, determining to ask the men that had left to scout the Meat Market instead. It was a horrid name, and a horrid place, and if Lin had a hand in destroying it, it was worth congratulating her for.

He must have sensed her intentions, and his voice deepened with anger. "If you so desperately want to know, fine, but you won't hear it from me. And don't, don't, mention it to Lin. I've already told this to the scouts. Promise me she won't hear it from you."

"I… I promise."

"Good. Fine." He scooted towards the girl in question, checking she was there, that she was still asleep. Apparently satisfied that she was, he told them that he would be back, to watch her, and make sure she didn't do anything else outlandishly reckless.

He was back with a blanket of his own that he spread beside her and went straight to sleep, holding his own weapon close. Fi sighed, bid Renado good night and returned to her tent.

She slept fitfully.

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Intermittent doses of red potion had healed her bruises and was working on her ankle. The cuts on her wrist and back were puckered and red and bruised and guaranteed to scar, but closed, and Tharlaigh was glaring at her wrists.

"This is… I don't know how to describe it. No wonder pink fairies aren't working."

"That's so uplifting," Lin drawled, and Tharlaigh kneaded his scar. They were sitting across from each other, cross-legged in the grass, and it was a wonder that she couldn't see what he could see, a cloud of deadness and rot that jangled hollowly on her arms.

"You don't understand, this is… this is dark. Not like night magic, or shadow magic, not even like necromancy. Necromancy would be a puppy compared to this."

She shrugged. "Zelda can fix it."

"Goddesses I hope so. How did he put it on you? Tell me what you can."

"He touched me," she shuddered, fingers curling into fists as she slouched onto her knees, "I think that was all it took. It didn't feel any different. I only noticed because Farore's Touch stopped working."

"Farore's Touch?"

"It's like Wind, but for people. I only wanted him to think I was letting him go. But when he did this," she sighed gesturing at her arms, "The spell died. He even bragged about it."

"But you cast Nayru's Love on me, and you travelled us out. If this is still blocking you…"

She pursed her lips and leaned forward, gently pressing her fingertips to the hollow of his throat. She breathed out, and there was a green glow.

She grunted, pulling back. "Any different?"

He checked her wrists again, but the bangles of rotten void were still there. "Well, they're not spreading, at least."

"When I cut my wrist," she added, "There were markings. Since I messed up the markings, I thought…"

Markings? A written spell? He thought on it as Lin explained in her halting way, trying to find the right words. He nodded, encouraging her to continue until she shrugged. She had said her full.

"This is just a guess, but… I think it blocks fairy magic, just in general. When it was cast on you, there was a specific spell, constraints if you will, that specifically stopped you from using any. Now that those constraints have faded, it just stops fairy magic being used on you. Did it block…?" he tapped the back of his left hand, and she shook her head.

"Renado would be dead if it had."

Ah. "I don't know if the constraints dissipated because, like you said, you cut the physical attributes that bound it, or because the caster's inexperience made it collapse… especially since I didn't see any of this I'm just taking some wild guesses, but. The sooner those things are off you, the better."

"I could Gale back to the Castle."

"Don't you bloody dare," he snarled, making her blink, "You practically died twice in almost just as many days, and you expect me to allow you to travel half the country's distance by magic? We're riding to Kakariko, and then maybe, you can Prelude your way to the Temple of Time."

"But you just-"

"No. Bad Hero." he flicked her forehead. "Listen to people that care about you."

She grumbled and mumbled but didn't make any more protests.

"Good. We're riding back to the rest of the clan today, so get ready."

She scoffed, rubbing her forehead as he stood. "I have nothing to get ready."

"Then explain the situation to your Goron friends."

"I can't speak Goron."

He grinned, crossing his arms. "You speak more than I can, and you rescued them. They're your responsibility."

"Couldn't I just Bolero them to Darunia and-"

He raised an eyebrow, tsking. "What did I just say?"

She grumbled and took his hand to stand, and they faced each other, not letting go.

"What was that spell just now?" he remembered to ask, curiosity colouring his tone. "The green light you just tested."

She looked away. "Farore's Touch."

He nodded, unsurprised. As Farore's agent she was far more proficient at her travel spells than Nayru's protections, or Din's attacks. "So, does that bring me to you, or…?"

She shook her head. "It brings me to you."

"Huh. Can you conjure more than one, or…?"

"Just the one."

He nodded, slowly. He could have asked her if she would dispel it, and she could have offered, but neither spoke, and neither let go of the other's hand. She was blushing a little, and he was smiling a wide, wide smile, and soon she was smiling too though she hardly met his gaze.

"I love you, Lin Knightly."

She kissed his hand, blushing hotly, and his knuckles tingled as she interlocked their fingers and held him tighter. "You're still weird."

"No weirder than you."

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The scouts wouldn't tell her what the situation was in the Meat Market. They deflected her questions, just settled for saying that the place was destroyed, though there were enough papers and books left to prove many wrong-doings. She was happy about that, but the look in their eyes said that there was more to the tale, more than just broken buildings and abandoned markets.

Sighing, Fi approached Lin, clearing her throat to dislodge the ball of nerves accumulated in her gullet.

Lin turned from feeding Epona, and smiled. "Fi."

"Lin. Hello. I, I wanted to return this," said the teenager, proffering the mask that had saved her life, "It was what let me escape the slavers. Ciela said that it was mixed in the laundry, which is why…"

"So that's where it went. Thanks, Fi," she replied, slipping it into one of the saddlebags and patting it firmly in place, "Glad it was useful."

"And I, I wanted to apologise to you."

She blinked, regarding her curiously, and Fi's face burned with shame.

"I, I tried to break you and brother up. I'm so sorry."

Lin's expression grew scarily neutral.

"I regret it now, I regret it so much, I, I let my Sight have power over me, not the other way around. I was, I was afraid that you'd hurt him, and I had no reason to fear that, and I'm so sorry, Lin. If you would give me another chance, I'd, I'd like to get to really know you, because, you make my brother happy and that's the most important thing. It was wrong of me to think that I could, that I thought I knew better. Do you, think, you could forgive me?"

Lin scratched Epona, mulling over her words, and Fi found herself praying even though she really didn't believe in higher powers.

"On the gravestone of an advisor," Lin began abruptly, startling Fi, "There was a message: After one-sixth of my life I spent as a child, I spent one-twelfth of my life as a young man. Then, one-seventh of my life later, I got married. Five years on, I was blessed with a child that sadly passed away after living half as long as I did. I sped to my own death four years after. The Question dear mourner, is how old was my son and I, when we met our end?"

Fi blinked, opened her mouth, but was a little afraid to speak.

Lin dug through her saddlebags, pulling out a piece of paper. "At least I think that was…"

"Um?"

"I heard you like numbers," Lin replied, passing her the paper. "It's an old riddle from Holodrum. It's been a while since I tried solving it last, so, I might not remember it right, but. It's for you."

Fi took the paper with the terrible scrawl of words, still not quite able to speak.

"I, I know it's morbid, but it actually came from a grave of a mathletician, and, um. I thought you might like it."

"Mathematician."

"Oh. Right."

"And thank you." Fi folded the paper carefully and pressed it against her chest. "Thank you so much. Nobody's ever thought of giving me a riddle before."

"I'm, not good with words," Lin admitted, though her expression said Fi had probably figured this out already, "I'm more of a blocks and spheres kind of puzzle person, physical things. But, would you be, interested if I found more like that?"

"Yes. Yes, please."

"Good," she breathed, with palpable relief. "Alright. And you're forgiven, you know. You were just, worried for him. There's nothing wrong with that."

"...Thank you, for risking your life for me."

"It was for me too," she shrugged, mounting her chestnut. "Just, Fi?"

"Yes?"

"Please wait to be rescued next time."

Fi couldn't help but snort, mildly appalled. "Next time? Once was enough!"

Lin grinned. "You would think so."

There will be a stupidly long epilogue after this. But I'm not sure if I'll be adding more chapters after that.

ALTHOUGH. ALTHOUGH. Tempted to write with Ghirahim as the main bad guy. If i can think of a decent plot to work him into.

Why not tell me in the reviews? Should I let this go, or should I keep going with this?

Thank you all for sticking around, and have a good day!

Sincerely,

S.S.