#but he has mannnners

[aeniqmata]

A week.

Turning down Sheik a week ago had meant that he'd earned two days of stress, three days of guilt, and two days of peace.

Two days spent wondering if he'd made the right choice, if he'd been too harsh or if he should have talked to the other about it a little more, maybe asked more questions. He didn't really know what it was that Sheik thought of himself, but given what he'd said when he left, he didn't think of himself as a person first and a servant second, like his entire life was about serving then dying. That was about the furthest thing from the truth, ever fiber in his body would tell him this. No one was brought into the world for a destiny, they were brought into the world because someone wanted to start a family.

Three days spent worrying if his refusal would put the other in a bad place. Zelda might not be a megalomaniac like some other people he'd met, but that didn't mean that she would take his response well. Who knew exactly what it was that the royal family did to people who brought them unwanted news. Would Sheik be jailed, thrown into the well, or even the Shadow Temple? Hyrule's bloody history did tend to revolve around the Sheikah.

Two more days, where he had just accepted it. Much like things he'd done in that alternate timeline and the choices he'd made thus far, there was nothing he could or would do differently. And if he was once again presented with a letter asking him to be a hero that he never wanted to be, he wouldn't have hesitated to tell her no yet again.

His peace ended when a fairy came and alerted him about a bloodied and nearly broken body laying basically on his door step. Just outside the Lost Woods, higher than most of the Kokiri tended to go, which meant it was his to deal with. Normally anyone who got lost in the woods were just left to their fate. They either became one of those that lives in the forest, a Skull Kid or something similar, or they die and return to the earth.

He really shouldn't have been surprised to see Sheik laying battered on the ground outside his home, sighing and picking the slender male up and carrying him back to the nearest fountain for him to recover. For as much as Link wanted to help the warrior, there was not much he'd be able to do for him in his home, with bandages and tinctures. Magic was the only way to fix what was done to him, and he would not doom a single fairy when they could work together to heal him.

Link would return home for something simple to eat, bread and a meat stew he'd made the day before, sitting beside the fountain and waiting for the other to move on his own. And only when he did would he speak up, voice cracking a bit from lack of use.

" This is what I meant. I denied her, she sent you to your death. And what happens when you die? Is it Impa that will take your place? Or another family member. Will you let her push your race further to extinction because of a sense of duty? Or will you think for yourself? " He offered the wounded male a bowl, motioning to the bread and bowl of food sitting right outside the edge of the water. " Eat, before I take you back to your princess and give her a piece of my mind for throwing a friend's life away like table scraps. "

“You exist to me.” He says suddenly, turning back around sharply to look at the other man. “No matter what, no matter how time flows, no matter how the world looks. I will always believe in you, Hero of Time.” Sheik turned back around and stepped outside of the house, shaking his head. “And I am a shadow that must bend to the wills of the Royal Family. I will never force you to play a role you do not wish to play anymore. And I will be the last person to blame you for that.”

The shadow must follow the whims of the light.

Sheik was grateful for the aid of the fairy that showed him from the path he needed to go. To leave the forest and return to Hyrule Field. The message he needed to deliver to the Princess had not gone over well. She was quite upset and frustrated over the lack of aid, which meant the only person left to attend to her fears was Sheik himself. That also meant fighting alone, but the thought never worried him at all. He was used to being alone after all.

The thing she was so desperately worried about was some—sorcerer that was gaining power and wishing to take over Hyrule. Specifically he learned through asking around Castle Town, the rules stated they were after the Master Sword. Something about corrupting the sword of legend, a thing he wasn’t entirely sure was possible. The Master Sword was created from light, but then anything could be corrupted if one tried hard enough perhaps. At the very least, from talking to the Zora who had a run in with him, he did sound rather dangerous.

Apparently he had heeded to head to the desert to deal with this man. They’d been traveling and hunting in random places, growing their strength through different places of power. The desert was where Ganondorf had come from, being the King of Thieves, and also where the Spirit Temple was. There were a few other secrets in the desert, but only those like Sheik could find them. Those with the Eye of Truth.

Sheik headed out into the Desert, guided by the Eye of Truth, to confront the “Sorcerer” with everything he had of a trained Warrior.

Magic was a skill Sheikah had, whatever the man he’d spared off against—was aided by something darker and more difficult. When Sheik was little his mother used to tell him the story of the Hero, the first one that sealed Ganondorf away. Her story always had one specific meaning in it; darkness could not chase out darkness, only the light can do that.

He wouldn’t say he lost the fight, but he certainly hadn’t one either. He’d chased the man away enough to have to recover as he was practically blasted from the desert with whatever strange magic they held. The Gerudo supposedly didn’t want him dying in their town so they dumped him just outside of their mountain settlement in the middle of the night. Sheik was just glad that Hyrule Field wasn’t nearly as dangerous as it used to be.

He didn’t have a song to returning to the Castle, and the nearest fairy fountain one could warp to was in the Lost Woods. Honestly? He didn’t expect the song to work, not given the last time he was there and Saria basically told him to leave. But he plays the Minuet of Forest on the harp anyway and waits.

It doesn’t drop him near the temple.

It doesn’t even drop him near the fairy fountain.

It drops him at the entrance to the lost woods.

Sheik dropped his head back on the ground and laid the harp over his chest. “I don’t know what I did to make you so angry.” He mutters to the Sage, staring up at the dark gathering of trees above him. “Of all the places to make my grave I really didn’t want it to be the Lost Woods.” How many times now had he wandered around in this place lost? He supposed he wouldn’t be wandering it right now, but dooming his soul to do it for eternity didn’t sound great.