After a night spent curled around one another Link and Sheik parted ways on the temple steps, Link into the colossal building and Sheik back to the oasis, to wait. Despite the amount of time he spent doing it, he wasn't any better at waiting. He paced, unwound and rewound his wrist wraps, and stared at the temple entrance, looping through the activities over and over again. Night, when it came, proved even harder to deal with. He tried to sleep but couldn't. Memories of the night before and a painful awareness that he was alone made it impossible. He watched the sun rise.

Dawn saw him back to the previous day's routine. He wasn't sure how many repeat cycles he'd been through when he found himself mobbed by the fairies. The fluttered around his head, some placing hands on the bags forming under his eyes, others showing him pieces of food they'd wrestled out of his bag. He took the hint and sat down, letting the tiny beings drop their morsels into his hands. Once they'd dropped their cargo they landed on any available perch his body offered.

He started to eat the bits of bread, and dried meat and fruit he'd been given. A fairy trotted down his forearm, pausing at his wrist, looking down at food and then back at him. He offered it a cranberry. It took it, needing both hands to hold it properly. Another one landed on his thumb, and left with a piece of date. Before long he'd distributed all the dried fruit he had to his new friends.

The only reason he noticed the shadow that fell over him was because the fairies scattered the moment it appeared. They abandoned the perches they'd found, disappearing into the safe cover of the trees. Sheik looked up,

`Impa.'

She looked down at him, blank, emotionless, `You've gotten slow Sheik. A proper Sheikah would have heard my approach.'

He looked away, nearly telling her that he hadn't slept, but he knew the reason wouldn't cut it. He had failed, there was no excuse.

`Where is the Hero?'

`In the temple, he entered it yesterday.'

`Good,' Impa cast her eyes toward the temple entrance, `there are things I must discuss with you.'

A new kind of worry began to pool in Sheik's stomach. Impa did not discuss things, not with him.

It didn't bother him that she was so cold to him, but never to Zelda. He was cold to everyone. Except, that wasn't true anymore, he would never be, could never be, cold to Link. Maybe that was the way Sheikah were, cold to the world except for one they loved more than all others. He stood up, bowing slightly to his teacher and surrogate mother. She inclined her head in response. The older Sheik got the more formal they were with each other. Impa cleared her throat,

`It has been made clear to us that soon, the Princess will be in danger. Now, even more so than ever, Ganondorf searches for her. He will catch her, it cannot be prevented. But, as you know, the Princess and the Hero must meet in the Temple of Time before the final battle.' Sheik nodded. When the time came he was to take Link there, reuniting him with Zelda. `The only way to ensure the Princess' freedom, and to make sure the meeting happens, is to allow Ganondorf to capture a fake.'

`I see,' it seemed a reasonable plan to Sheik, `you plan on finding someone to swap identities with Zelda, and then on leading Ganondorf to the false princess.'

`Indeed, allowing the Princess to reveal herself to the Hero and to aid him in the final battle.'

`Who will take Zelda's place?'

He should have known, as soon as she didn't answer right away. He should have known.

`You.' Impa fidgeted, unusually displaying her discomfort. `You will become Zelda and she will become you and you will stay as such until she meets the Hero and resumes her normal form. At which point . . . at which point your disguise will also be undone and . . . and . . .'

`And Ganondorf will kill me.' He'd never seen Impa flinch before, but she did when he spat out the words.

`There is no other way for this to work Sheik. It has to be like this.' She was pleading with him. Impa, the greatest warrior he knew, was pleading with him. `We tried to find another way. We've spent years looking for another solution, but . . . but there just isn't one.'

`Years? I thought you said you'd only just found out.' He was shaking, fists clenched. This was not happening. `How long? How long have you known that you'd send me to my death?'

`Since the moment I first met you. I held you and the Goddesses came to me. They told me what would happen. They said it was your purpose.' She wasn't looking at him; patches of sand at her feet were wet.

`My purpose? You're telling me that I was born to die at the hands of a tyrant?' He was crying, hot, angry tears dribbling down his face and falling onto even hotter sand. `You're the closest thing I have to a mother and you're sending me to die.'

She spoke, whisper quite, to the sand, `I am your mother, and I wish I'd never brought you into this world.'

He knees gave way. He hit the sand and curled in on himself. Ugly sobs wracked his body. Seventeen years' worth of tears forced their way out of him.

`Why?' He screamed into the sand, `why did you lie to me?' His voice cracked with anger and pain, raw and aching and oceans deep.

She stared at the horizon, wet trails shining on her cheeks. `I thought . . . I thought if I raised you as if you weren't mine it would make this easier. I . . . I was wrong. I was so wrong.'

The desert rang with the sound of his heart breaking. He had finally found the only things he'd ever wanted. He had found the one who eased his emptiness, the one who filled him up with feeling, the one who he had promised himself to. He had found his mother, who had been standing in plain sight all his life, and now, now he had to give them up. But Impa was right, there was no other way. The Goddesses had woven the path of his life, and it could not be undone.

He looked up at her, `if I don't do this, everything he's done, and everything he's been through will be for nothing. If I don't do this, I doom us all.'

She nodded.

`Do I get to say goodbye to him?'

She shook her head.

`I'm scared. I don't want to go. Don't make me go. Mama, I'm scared.'

She fell to her knees, beside him in the sand, and wrapped her arms around him.

`I'm sorry, my sweet one, I'm so sorry.'