((Guess who finally had time to finish this! Sorry for the long delay, but I had finals and projects this last week, and the week before that, I was travelling and finally got to see my family again for the first time in several months. But here it is, finally: Chapter 8. Hopefully the next won't take so long in the making!))

Just as with Ilia, Sheik kept conversation with Link to a minimum. Fortunately, though, he seemed not to mind too much. The atmosphere was hot and humid for most of their first day's travel, and it simply took too much energy to keep up a conversation when they were so set on riding.

Once the coolness of night replaced the day, though, and the sun dipped behind the mountains far off in the distance, Link seemed to grow restless. It wasn't until the light disappeared from the sky, though, that he spoke up.

"Shouldn't we give the horses a break?" he asked, riding up closer to her so he didn't have to raise his voice. "They've been riding hard since sunrise."

"If we want to make it Ecchar in three days, we have to keep going," Sheik said. Her own horse was used to hard riding by now, she knew, though she felt a brief pang of guilt as she realized how much she asked of it.

Link's expression shifted from restless to puzzled, and he slowed down beside her, prompting Sheik's own horse to slow. "What happens in three days?"

Sheik glanced at him, puzzled herself. "Nothing. It's just not safe to stay on Hyrule Field for longer than we have to. If you hurry, you can make it to Ecchar in three days without stopping at any towns along the way."

"So we don't need to be anywhere in three days," Link said, slowing his horse to a stop.

Sheik's own horse stopped as well, ignoring her urging to continue. "I don't want to be in Hyrule Field any longer than we have to," she said. "Criminals pass by here at all hours, these days—I don't want anyone to steal from us while we sleep."

"If the horses collapse, we'll be in Hyrule Field even longer." Not intimidated by Sheik's glare, Link dismounted. He gently patted Epona's neck and stroked her smooth black mane, smiling when the horse let out a soft whinny at the attention. "Let's just set up camp here. It's as good as anything else around here, plus there's an apple tree for the horses. They've gotta be starving by now, and we can pluck a couple of apples for the road, too."

Seeing that Link wasn't going to remount Epona any time soon, Sheik forced her irritation deeper inside. It would do no good arguing with him.

So she dismounted and started taking the saddle off of her stallion. If there was no convincing him, then she might as well take care of her horse, the strong, tired thing that it was.

Once she'd fed it a few apples, it ran off to graze on the grass, and Sheik let it, focusing instead on setting up her things for the night.

It was a pain, making a tent out here—and she might as well have put up a sign giving their location. But she couldn't risk turning over in her sleep and waking from a nightmare with blue eyes. What else could she do?

But this was Hyrule Field, she reminded herself—not the skirts of Lanayru or Eldin or Ordon. This was bandit country, and dangerous, and if they had to leave in a run, she wouldn't have enough time to disassemble things.

As much as Sheik wanted to protect her identity, tonight wasn't the night to focus on it. It would be incredibly unwise to take such a risk—and, when it came down to it, she still valued her life over her identity.

So she took a deep breath and forced herself to accept the situation she was in. If there was nothing to do about it, then there was no use worrying over it.

Knowing that she still needed time to heal and to rest before another day of hard riding, Sheik simply pulled out a sleeping mat and faced away from Link.

Red eyes slipped shut, and she prayed they would stay their proper color overnight.

When Sheik woke, her first instinct was to check her glamour, as always—and though she was put at ease once she felt the magic, her relief quickly faded when she realized why she'd woken.

The beat of hooves—about five hundred feet back—and the loud voices of the horses' riders cut through the darkness of the night.

Sheik was up in an instant, throwing the saddle over her horse, just in case they needed to make a break for it. Link hadn't woken, though—not at the quickly approaching horses or Sheik's own scrambling.

"Wake up," she snapped, crouching down and shaking the boy's shoulder. "Wake up—someone's coming."

Link blinked his eyes open slowly, clearly having trouble adjusting to the early morning. But at the panic in Sheik's tone, he was spurred into action (albeit with bleary eyes) and stood, rolling his mat and tucking it into a saddle-bag. But the horses were too quick on them, and there wasn't enough time for them to tie their things down or even mount their horses.

Sheik prayed that the approaching gang would merely ride by.

But no such luck.

The horses circled around Link and Sheik's campsite, trapping them with their numbers, and Sheik instinctively checked for her knives and the katana on her back.

Whether or not these were bandits, sometimes the best course of action was to threaten hostilities.

Link seemed to have a similar idea, because he drew his sword and stood next to her, facing opposite against the other side of their encirclement.

"What do we have here?" one of the riders said, his deep voice twanging with an accent Sheik recognized from the deep southern provinces. Ecchar, perhaps—Ordon sounded less crass. "A Sheikah so far from the castle? And who's this? A little princeling you're protecting?"

"I will not hesitate to hurt you," Sheik said, narrowing her eyes and letting her knives flash in the light. "Let us go."

"Nah," one of the men said, ignoring Sheik and instead talking to the one in his company who'd spoken first. "If he was a princeling, then we'd know. None of the Royal Family have been seen outside the castle in months. And he's too old to be one of the sons, anyways."

"Well none of the Sheikah were supposed to have escaped, either, and there's one right there! Maybe he's a noble brat…"

"If he's a regular noble then there's no reason for a Sheikah to be traveling with him, you numbskull!"

The first glowered at the second, ignoring Sheik and Link for now—though Sheik knew moving would be too risky even when they were distracted. They were still trapped inside the circle of horses, after all.

As much as Sheik wanted to make a break for it now, though, the people trapping them were giving her a lot of much-needed information. The Royal Family hadn't even been seen in months—and why? Because there was a plot against the Royal Family?

Girls only started going missing a month ago or so—and yet, from the sound of it, the Royal Family shut themselves away before girls started going missing. Meaning that the threat against the Royal Family definitely came first.

It seemed to make sense. The girls only started going missing once it was obvious that no one within the Royal Family possessed the Triforce of Wisdom, leaving no other choice but to seek elsewhere—hence all the kidnappings.

But that begged the question—why hadn't they found the Triforce of Wisdom with the Royal Family? And if it wasn't with them, where was it?

Legends about the Triforce had always been sparse. Even in the olden days, people scarcely seemed to know about the Triforces. Sometimes it seemed that they were shared within the family, which certainly seemed to make sense with its reoccurring presence in Princess Zelda, but not every Zelda had had it. When Impa had taught Sheik about the legends of old, it was revealed that with the first human incarnation of Hylia—the first Zelda—and the first reincarnation of the Chosen Hero, it was the Hero who'd possessed the Triforce of Wisdom—along with the Triforce of Courage, and the Triforce of Power. He'd had the entire Triforce at one point, and Zelda hadn't had a single part.

And yet, as time went on, Zelda came to possess the Triforce of Wisdom several times, and Link came to own the Triforce of Courage more often than the entire Triforce. And sometimes, neither of them had any Triforce pieces at all.

There had only been a handful of times where the princess and hero had each had one piece (respectively, the Triforce of Wisdom and the Triforce of Courage), and one of those Sheik still believed was a fairytale. It was, of course, once her favorite tale, because this was the story where Zelda had transformed from a princess into a Sheikah warrior—and had taken on the name that Sheik took for herself.

But in that fairytale, an evil man named Ganondorf had broken into the Sacred Realm and attempted to steal the Triforce for himself. But his heart had been unbalanced, and so he was only left with Power, while the Triforces of Courage and Wisdom went out into the world, finding homes in new hosts. They'd gone, respectively, to the young Princess Zelda, and to a boy supposedly from the Kokiri Village deep, deep within the Lost Woods.

But that story had, by all accounts, never happened. The Zelda who had supposedly done it was unremarkable in the history books at best, and most known for having the premonition to stop an assassination attempt on the King before it occurred. The assassin, a Gerudo supposedly named Ganondorf, was locked away, and history soon lost track of him, though the Twilight Invasion was partially led by a creature of the same name.

But there were no records of a boy from the Kokiri, no mention of the Triforce, and if that Zelda had had the Triforce of Wisdom, no one ever mentioned it, though her later descendant seemed to have possessed it.

While it was true that Sheik's birthname was Zelda, she'd given up that identity. Thus, any association with the Triforce ought to have followed. Not to mention, if she had it, she certainly wasn't aware of it.

There was no distinctive birthmark, no triangle with a golden glow anywhere on her body, let alone her left hand. Not to mention the only wisdom she possessed was being wise enough to keep her cover and not get herself caught. She wasn't stupid by any means, but if anyone was looking for a pinnacle of wisdom beyond her years, they could keep right on looking.

"The Sheikah might not even be a real Sheikah," one of the men said, and Sheik was forced out of her thoughts as she realized the weight of his words. "Hasn't there been talk of at least a dozen fake Sheikahs, sneaking around in the dead of night and stealing from people?"

"This one has red eyes, you idiot," another said. "Only real Sheikah have red eyes."

"Then why's he traveling with this lot, eh?"

"Maybe the boy's the princess in disguise," one jested. "Short enough to be."

Sheik's patience was beginning to grow thin, now that they'd stopped giving useful information. But what could she do?

Once upon a time, Impa had given her magic lessons, lessons where she'd learned how to control her appearance along with a few self-defensive spells and elemental spells. For the most part the spells were small, as Sheik had been too young to pick up much. Most of them were good for creating a diversion—but where could they go? The horses were penning them in.

But, Sheik recalled, if she used the spell that flash-blinded anyone around, then… Perhaps she'd be able to spook the horses enough that they started running away—especially if she started a small grass fire to keep them from approaching again. Even if the horses didn't leave, though, the chaos that even one startled horse could cause would be enough for them to have a fighting chance.

And a fighting chance was all they needed.

Link was still beside her, and for that she was grateful. She grabbed his wrist, leaning over to whisper while the men were distracted.

"Close your eyes," she said. Not waiting to see if he was or not, she reached into the pouch on her thigh for the deku nuts the spell required, and tossed them to the ground across from them.

It spooked, just as she'd thought, and most of the men were blinded, too.

Several of the horses startled just as she'd hoped—especially the ones closest to the flash. Many reared up and bucked their riders, and the riders that managed to stay on now had to deal with horses that were startled and confused.

"Grab whatever supplies you can," Sheik told Link amidst the chaos. As she reached for her own supplies, though, Sheik was dismayed to find that her own horse had been spooked along with the rest of them. Epona, though, had been just far enough away that she was only a bit startled—nowhere near the bucking and braying of the others. It seemed they'd have to make their getaway on Epona alone.

As bad as Sheik felt about leaving her own horse, though, she'd never formed a particular attachment, and she merely hoped that it'd be able to run away safely. For now, she and Link would have to make do with only one horse—and perhaps they'd find a way to steal another along the way.

Because there was only one horse they could use, though, Epona could only carry so many supplies. Sheik didn't bother taking along the tent, instead only bringing her sleeping roll and food—fortunately the blankets had already been tucked inside the sleeping roll. Link seemed to be thinking similarly so he didn't have a heavy load either, instead grabbing only the essentials.

There wasn't enough time to grab anything more than that as the chaos was slowly giving way to order. Link hastily mounted Epona, and Sheik was jealous of the supplies easily put onto his back, whereas she'd only had time to gather hers up in her arms.

To her surprise, though, Link took some of the supplies out of her arms then offered her a hand, hoisting her up in an instant.

As soon as she'd seated herself behind him, Link let out a loud "Hiyah!" and they were off.

They made off in a hard gallop for almost an hour before Epona finally reached her limit. Fortunately, they'd lost any possible pursuers half an hour ago, so they could afford a short break.

Though Sheik wished they could keep riding hard forever, it would do no good to ride Epona into the ground. So when Epona slowed and Link didn't push her to keep on, Sheik didn't protest. Instead, she waited for Epona to slow to a stop, then dismounted.

"Let's take her saddle off," she said, waiting for Link to dismount then quickly unburdened the horse. "It ought to cool her down faster so we can get on."

"She should have as much time to rest as she needs," Link said, though there was no real bite to his voice. Instead, he went around to stroke Epona's mane, patting her neck and whispering sweet things into her ear.

Sheik rolled her eyes but didn't press him. If Link wanted to comfort his horse, who was she to stop him?

Once the saddle was off, Sheik set it on the ground and worked on tying all the bags to it, so they wouldn't have to make a scramble for it if they were attacked again. The odds of being stopped now that dawn had passed was slim, but all the same—it didn't hurt to prepare for the worst.

When the work was done, all Sheik wanted to do was lie down in the soft grass. It was already past dawn, but they'd been roused far too early for her liking. Still, as much as she wanted to sleep, she didn't want to leave them vulnerable to another attack. After all, she was the one with magic. She couldn't leave them defenseless just because she wanted, goddesses-forbid-it, rest.

"Hey, Sheik?"

She looked up, tired eyes predatory and sharp for an instant before she remembered herself. Patient. She had to be patient. It wasn't Link's fault she was irritated, and she couldn't take it out on him. "Yes?"

"It's still pretty early and everything, so… While Epona rests, I think I'm gonna try to get some shut-eye. Not with a sleeping roll or anything, just the grass. Wake me when Epona's ready, though, okay?"

The unfairness of it all sent an uncomfortable twinge in her stomach. But there was no point in protesting, so she nodded, not bothering with verbal affirmation for fear that she'd snap at him. Not wanting to even look at him, she turned away and looked towards the sun, still low on the horizon.

At least it was sunny outside. The blue sky—still tinged with yellow nearest the sun—was beautiful today, and though it was early morning, it was warm enough outside that she didn't feel the bite of the wind.

A few hours passed, and finally Sheik was satisfied that Epona was rested enough to keep on. As she got up to wake Link and saddle Epona, though, she found herself saddling Epona first. Though it would have been easier with Link's help, the sight of him peacefully asleep against the grass made her hesitate.

For the life of her, Sheik didn't know why she was frozen in front of him. Her mind ran through all the possibilities, every single scenario, but she couldn't find anthing to excuse her indecision.

In the end, Sheik decided she was only waiting because she wanted to continue on without him—that she was only hesitant to wake him because part of her wanted to steal his horse and ride off without him.

Yet, even as she decided that was the truth, she knew it was just a fabrication. Sheik had too much of a conscience to steal his horse, especially if it would leave him stranded in the middle of Hyrule Field.

Why he trusted her not to steal his horse, though, was beyond her.

Once Epona was saddled up and ready to go, there was no reason not to wake Link, and Sheik found that she could put it off no longer.

Sheik knelt beside him, gently shaking his shoulder till he stirred.

"We have to keep moving," Sheik said, voice uncharacteristically soft. "Get up."

Link's bleary blue eyes opened, and Sheik hastily looked away, wary of making eye-contact when unknown emotions were stirring in her. But as he started to rise, Sheik offered him a hand. It was strange, considering Sheik's aversion to touch and Link being perfectly capable of rising on his own. But Sheik decided not to think about it, instead convincing herself that she was just impatient about his slowness.

"Are you awake enough to lead?" she asked, quickly glancing away when he started to rub the sleep out of his eyes. "If you're too tired, sit behind me."

"No, no, I'm awake," he said around a yawn. "Or, uh, I will be once we start going."

As Sheik looked him over, though, she wasn't entirely convinced. "You rode earlier this morning. We'll probably have to switch off who leads Epona—I might as well get used to her now."

Though Link looked like he wanted to argue, he still looked half-asleep, so he didn't put up too much of a fight as she headed over to Epona and patted her neck. Though Sheik already missed her own horse, Epona seemed gentler, and more accustomed to having a rider. Hopefully she'd take well to Sheik leading—especially since Sheik wouldn't be able to push Epona too hard.

Once she was sure Epona was relaxed around her, she hopped up in the saddle, Link close behind her.

But the moment they were off, Sheik suddenly felt arms around her waist. Without even thinking, she turned and glared at him, eyes so venomous that Link immediately retracted his hands.

"Look, you have the reins and the stirrups. I have nothing to hold onto," he said, holding his hands up in surrender nevertheless. "I'd rather not fall off, okay? I'm not used to riding in the back."

Though Sheik wanted to argue, she knew she'd at least had the saddle bags tied so that she could hold onto them early that morning. Link didn't seem to have anything at all.

Much as she wanted to rearrange the saddle bags, though, she knew it'd be a waste of time. There were worse things he could do to her.

So with gritted teeth, she turned back and held the reins tighter, trying not to make her annoyance too obvious. "Fine," she said, then let out a loud "Hiyah" to prompt Epona into motion.

Link's arms wrapped around her waist once they were in motion, and Sheik set her mind very strictly on anything but the warmth around her middle.

It was going to be a long, long day.

By mid-afternoon, Link and Sheik had switched leading, and it was Link holding the reins—with Sheik's hands reluctantly gripping his loose tunic. But as they traveled deeper into the southern hills of Hyrule Field, and closer to a small town called Oxon, the smell of smoke permeated the air.

"Do you smell that?" Link finally asked, turning and looking at Sheik, who nodded. "It's getting stronger."

There was a feel of enchantment in the air, and Sheik was reminded all too strongly of her encounter in Ardock. Just as she was debating whether or not to tell Link to start a different route, though, she spotted smoke rising just over the horizon.

"It's coming from that direction," Link said. "Goddesses, it looks like it's a fire big enough to take out a whole town…"

"I don't see anyone on the roads," Sheik said. "I wonder if anyone came this way, or they evacuated further south…"

"If there really are people fleeing, they'd go north. The wind is going south," Link said, frowning. "It's strange that there's no one coming this way…"

"The fire might be old. People have probably already evacuated to the nearest town. I think Emery is just a few miles east." Sheik recalled the desolate state of Ardock, and how people had apparently been absent for over a week before she even stumbled upon it. There was a good chance that the people were already gone.

Link shook his head. "If a fire that big was an old fire, wouldn't it have spread already?"

Sheik bit the inside of her cheek, the magical energy in the air only getting stronger as they approached. "…We really ought to be going on to Ecchar…"

"This town isn't very far out of our way, Sheik," Link said. "If there are people there, then they need help. If there aren't, then we pass on through, it's as simple as that."

"And if we try to help and get trapped inside a burning building?"

"Then I'm sure you have some kind of magical Sheikah power that can get us out of there. C'mon, Sheik. We have to help them. We might be the only ones who can," Link said. Without waiting for her to confirm or deny it, Link pushed Epona faster towards the town on fire.

When they came over the hill, though, Sheik's suspicions were confirmed. This was no ordinary fire.

The town's greeting sign, a simple, 'Welcome to Oxon,' was the only thing about the town that wasn't contained in a perfect ring of fire.

"There isn't an exit," Link said, eyes wide as he slowed Epona to a stop and tied her to a post just outside the city. "Sheik—there might be people trapped inside!"

Sheik nodded grimly. At least in Ardock, there hadn't been barriers, so no one had been prevented from leaving…

"Can you—do you have something that can break us through?" Link asked. "Something like that flash of light last night? You're a Sheikah, you have to have something that can help."

Never in Sheik's life had she wished to be a true Sheikah more—but what could she do? She could change her eye color, and create a flash of light so long as she had Deku Nuts, and she had some defensive spells, sure, but…

"Ice," Sheik suddenly said. "Ice. I'm not very good with elemental spells, but I can do ice." Now, fire she couldn't do to save her life, else she might have used it back in Ardock—but ice was easy to do because it required tight control, whereas fire required raw energy and emotion. "We might be able to break through the ring of fire for long enough to get in and evacuate people. I can't guarantee you anything, though."

"As long as we try," Link said, grim determination in his voice.

It took a few moments for Sheik to rein in any lingering emotions she might have had, but once she did, the ice came easily to her fingertips. With careful hands, she approached the fire, channeling more and more of the element from her fingertips. Even for just a few seconds it was draining, and she could feel sweat on her brow from exertion.

Soon, though, a passage through the flames was visible—just wide enough for the pair of them to go through if they hurried.

"It's working," Link encouraged, passing through the barrier with Sheik quick on his heels. "I'll head on inside and see if I can find some people to evacuate."

"I don't have enough power to hold it that long," Sheik said, releasing her spell as soon as they were inside. "We'll have to just break the curse on this place if we want to save anyone."

Link stopped in his tracks, confusion on his face. "But—But you're a Sheikah. Surely you have the power to—"

"My mentor died before she could teach me everything," Sheik snapped. "If you want to save these people, we have to find what this curse is radiating from and destroy it."

"What curse?"

"Do you honestly think that fire forms a perfect circular wall from nothing?" Sheik shook her head, looking around. "And all the buildings… they're burning, but nothing's collapsed. Even the smoke…"

"It's breathable," Link said, furrowing his brows. "…This fire isn't meant to kill anyone, then."

Sheik bit the inside of her cheek, gently moving her hand over a flame. But, just as she'd feared, it possessed the same ability to hurt as the ice had in Ardock. "It must have been meant to either keep people in, or to keep people out—or both+," she said. "This is complicated magic, Link—something powerful has cast this."

"But you managed to break through the barrier—"

"It takes a lot of energy to use countermagic, Link—arguably more than to use magic in the first place." Seeing Link's confusion, Sheik tried to explain in a simpler way. "If you try to break through an already established spell, it's an uphill battle. If I just had to freeze something, it wouldn't be a big deal, but trying to freeze magical fire? It can only be done for a short time before the person casting the counterspell runs out of magical energy."

Link frowned, looking around. "Well," he finally said. "We're already here. And you said that the curse was radiating from something—what's it radiating from, then?"

Sheik recalled the statue in Ardock's City Square, and how it was essentially in the middle of the city. And, considering this was a ring of fire blocking the city off…

"We have to get to the exact center of the city," she decided, starting towards one of the main roads of the city. "If this is a circular barrier, then whatever's casting it is probably at the center."

"Whatever is casting it?" Link asked, hurrying beside her. "You mean a creature is responsible?"

"Maybe even a person. I don't know, Link, it's not like I've seen what it is. Lots of things have magical energy, and for all I know a sorcerer just bewitched an object and left it here in the center of town. I don't know."

As they traveled down the main road to the center of the city, Link's questions finally wound down. However, the closer to the center they got, the hotter it got, and Sheik found herself dizzy from the heat the same way she'd been numb from the cold in Ardock.

Though the smoke wasn't hurting them, it seemed this heat could do some pretty serious damage if they lingered much longer.

"I don't want to think what might have happened to the people if they're still here," Link said grimly, looking into the buildings for any sign of survivors.

This town seemed just as deserted as Ardock, though, and for that, Sheik was grateful. Even though they'd come to evacuate anyone still trapped inside, knowing what they might have found if there was anyone inside… Sheik would rather have come here for nothing than to see the remains of Oxon's citizens.

Soon, though, they approached the center, and it was just as hot as Ardock's center had been cold. This was about the limit of what she and Link could withstand, she was sure—so they'd have to make this fast.

"What's the object at the center here," Link said, wiping sweat from his brow. "Would it be big or small…?"

"Big," Sheik decided, then looked up. A water-tower loomed over them, and Sheik could feel the magic radiating from it—in a way even stronger than the magic that had been coming from the statue in Ardock. The cold had numbed her so thoroughly that she'd scarcely been able to feel anything—but here, she could feel energy being channeled from it.

Link followed her line of vision, then started towards the water-tower. "We have to destroy that thing, then?"

"Careful," Sheik said, running after him all the same. "It might have some kind of guardian."

"Right." Link shook his head, a bitter laugh on his voice. "It couldn't be that easy, right?"

Once they came to the water-tower, though, Sheik's fears were realized. No sooner than they'd approached it and laid a hand on the tower had a figure appeared from the flames of the house beside it—and it was made of flames, itself.

"Well," Link started, standing next to Sheik and drawing a short-sword from the sheath on his back, "It's probably a good thing there are two of us, then."

"Do you want to destroy the water-tower, or fend this thing off?" Sheik pulled her katana from its place on her back, grateful for the wrappings on her hand so she didn't have to feel the heat of the metal.

While Link was deciding, though, the beast of fire lunged at the pair, and they dived separate ways. Sheik ended up closer to the water-tower, so she figured there was only one thing to do.

"Keep it busy, I'll take the tower," she yelled, pleased to find that Link was already locked in combat.

While Link fought it back, Sheik tried to hurry, slashing away at the water-tower then kicking at the weakened legs. Unfortunately, this seemed to take much longer than the statue of ice. If she didn't have Link with her to fight off the monster, Sheik wasn't sure if she ever would have been able to take this out alone.

She'd just managed to finish off one the four legs supporting it when she heard Link cry out. "I don't—suppose—you'll be finishing with that water-tower any time soon?"

"I'm hurrying," Sheik shouted, slashing away even faster. In her peripheral, she could see Link fighting, just as strong as before, but the monster seemed to have increased in size. "Tell me if you need to switch, or—"

"I can handle it," Link snapped. "Just hurry up with the tower. I think breaking the legs makes it bigger."

Sheik didn't say a word, instead just focusing on taking out another leg. She'd have to balance it, else it might tip and she wouldn't be able to reach the side it tipped away from. So she ran to the opposite side and kicked it in. It seemed to go a bit faster than the first—perhaps the beast growing stronger had weakened the protective magic on the water-tower?

As the second leg crumbled, Sheik glanced at the monster again, and found it to be even bigger than before. At this rate, Link would be fighting something as big as a house by the time she finished. But if taking down the water-tower was the only way to defeat the beast, she'd just have to trust that Link could handle it.

"It's going to tip after this one," Sheik said, running to another side and hacking away at the metal. "If we time it right, the fall might break the rest of the tower—"

"Just hurry," Link shouted, breathless and clearly out of patience as he took on the monster. "It's going to melt my sword if we keep on much longer!"

Sheik nodded, and, with a prayer to the Three, finished off the third leg. Just as she'd hoped, the water-tower tipped backwards, away from Link and the water-tower's guardian spirit. Sheik dove out of the way, landing hard on the ground as she heard the explosion behind her.

And then, everything reversed.

Though the water-tower had just exploded, all the fire within and surrounding Oxon suddenly rose up and retreated back into the water-tower, vanishing inside it without a trace of damage to the town.

Sheik wiped the sweat from her brow and stood onto shaky legs, feeling a bit of vertigo as the heat vanished so suddenly. But her vertigo was nowhere near as strong as Link's, it seemed, who was hunched over on the ground, leaning on his sword.

"Link?" Sheik called, hurrying to his side. With the way he needed the support of his sword, Sheik feared the worst. As she inspected him over, her fears were confirmed, finding that his garments had been burned away on his side, leaving a bad burn on his skin underneath. "Oh, goddesses—"

"It's not that bad," Link said, looking up with a forced smile. "Red potion might be nice, though. There was some in the saddle-bags, I think—"

"One of these houses probably has some," Sheik said. Not wanting to see him strain himself any longer, she helped him onto the ground, mindful of the bad burn on his side, and the few other patches on his clothes and skin that had been singed away. "I'll be right back."

To her surprise, Link didn't protest the stealing, instead just nodding and tightly controlling his breathing.

Sheik wasted no time searching the houses nearby, and fortunately the second she came to had a vat of it in their icebox. Considering they had an icebox, she figured they were a rather wealthy house, so she didn't stop herself from raiding the jewelry box in the biggest bedroom, finding a few items of value inside. Though she would hate to hear what Link might say if he found them, Link wasn't there right then, and Sheik had no intention of letting him see.

So she hurried out, swiping a bottle and filling it to the top with red potion. When Sheik rushed out, Link was just where she'd left him, gritting his teeth and shielding his side from the hot summer wind.

"Drink," Sheik said, and held the bottle to his lips. It was warm, so the consistency was thinner than red potions were supposed to be, but it'd do the job.

Once he'd finished, Link made a face, but the potion was already working no matter Link's protests. Though it couldn't heal mortal wounds, it sped up the process of scar tissue formation, and left even the most serious of injuries little more than scabs.

And, sure enough, Link's skin was already closing up again, a reddish-pink tissue forming over it, with the black of a new scab hiding it soon after it had stitched back together.

With Link patched up and the city back to a normal temperature, there was nothing stopping them from continuing onwards. But Sheik could feel the exhaustion creeping in from the lack of sleep last night and the day's work—not to mention the tension already forming in her muscles and the drain of using so much magic.

Though Sheik knew the mission took priority over her tiredness, she also knew that if they got into a pinch, she needed to be able to use magic to protect them. So she grudgingly looked back to the house nearest them, irritated with herself for even needing some rest. "I'd like an hour or so," she started, looking away in her embarrassment, "To get energy back from the magic I used. Rest up in one of the houses while you wait."

Link seemed to have no qualms about it, and so Sheik led him inside one of the houses, letting him rest on one of the couches as he recovered.

Before she left, though, she remembered all too well that she'd have to sit on a horse with him for the rest of the day, and he smelled of sweat and ash. Though she knew she'd be draining her magic energy even more, she cast a brief cleaning spell on him before she left.

For a moment, she feared that she'd overtaxed herself and that her glamour had faded, but to her relief, it was right where it always needed to be. So she found a bath upstairs, ran the water, and prayed that an hour would be enough for her sore muscles to relax and her energy to replenish.

((Again, sorry this one took so long—but on the bright side, it's longer than any other chapter so far, so at least you got a bit more content here than usual. And hey, Link and Sheik are really working together as a team now, so there's that?

As always, thank you so much for your support! I look forward to seeing your reactions to this chapter, so please, if you like this fic, review!))