Bring me to Light

A.N: OK, after a somewhat longer period of time than I had hoped, here it is, the first chapter.

I apologise for any grammatical/ spelling mistakes. Enjoy!
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Sheik, Survivor of the Sheikah

Blackness. The prime feature of the landscape. Clouds, thick, heavy, impenetrable gathered overhead, blotting out the sun as rain fell to the earth, turning hard packed soil to mud.

The air was muggy, oppressive, like that of a graveyard. Torches flickered in their mounted brackets, hissing as the rain hit them, casting wavering light over the iron bound drawbridge they flanked.

There were no birds singing, no dogs barking, no children squealing in delight nor musicians playing…no sound escaped from the high, white walls. Only the hiss and spit of rain and fire.

There!

A sharp clack of iron on stone. Long pointed ears twitched, locking onto the sound as it was repeated.

A squeal of metal hinges, a groan of sodden wood, heavy metallic clicks and grating as the drawbridge lowered, ploughing into its stone niche.

Sharp clacks became louder, closer, until they were almost upon him and as lightning flashed, the white horse appeared, galloping from the town, the blonde girl clinging to its mane as the white haired woman steadied her.

The girl stared at him as they raced past, then turned, flung something small, blue and precious towards him. It sailed past his head, landing in the moat with a loud ‘gloop’ that seemed misplaced in the dire circumstances.

She was almost gone by the time he looked back at her, a coloured speck on a blurred white fleck evanescing into fog.

He stared after her, sighing, believing himself to be alone, save for the small blue fairy that flitted around his head.

He wasn’t though.

Because HE was there. Atop that massive black stallion with the blood-red mane and eyes, in all his malevolent glory.

“You there, kid!” deep, booming tones thundered from his throat. “That white horse, which way did it go?”

Silence.

“Answer me!”

Drawing his own sword, the boy stood, the small blade in his left hand, shield hooked onto his right arm. He had a feeling that they wouldn’t be much use here, though.

Growling, rumbled laughter was directed at him.

“You want a piece of me? You’ve got guts kid.” A giant, tanned hand lifted from the reins, a pinprick of light sparking into life at his palm, swelling, drawing warmth and light from the surrounding air.

“Move, Link!” The voice was high, ethereal and somehow hysterical, the blue aura of the fairy spiking in alarm.

“Link, eh?”

The man closed his hand around the pulsating ball of yellow light, able to actually handle the orb as if light were a physical manifestation.

“The boy destined to be the Hero of Time…I should have known. How many peasant kids actually manage to gain an audience with a princess?”

His gaze slowly turned to the fairy floating above the boy’s head in a way that reminded him of a vulture scrutinizing a dying animal.

“However, I have no use for that…thing, although you, my boy, are going to be useful…”

The ball of light was abruptly hurled at the fairy and with a clash of colours resembling a sun being shattered, the tiny creature fell from the air, her light dimming instantly.

“Navi!” the cry tore from his throat before he could even think to stop it, but he didn’t move, too terrified and in shock to risk it.

The large man dismounted and with a flick of his wrist, the fallen fairy was summoned to his hand, gliding smoothly from the floor. Two large fingers grasped gossamer wings, holding the body aloft dispassionately.

“She’s still alive,” the man noted, sadistic amusement evident in his voice as a faint glow emitted from the fairy. “Drop your weapons, boy, come over here and I’ll spare her life.”

Naïve, he complied, dropping sword and shield to stand before the man, not understanding the concept that this man may break his word.

A heavy hand fell onto his shoulder, its grip inescapable, but he stared intently at the hanging fairy regardless, barely aware of the new physical presence. The man had not released her, her wings still pinched between two fingers as the other digits curled around her body, cocooning her, releasing delicate wings.

Bending down to his height, the man showed him the fairy clasped in his hand, and with a sickening crunch, tightened his loose fist.

The fairy didn’t so much as shriek.

“N…navi,” he mumbled, wide eyed, shocked and sickened, unable to believe that someone had just ended the life of a Kokiri fairy.

“Come now…you didn’t really think I’d let that annoying pest live?” the man chided in a mockingly gentle voice.

Silence again.

“Ah well, it’s for the best.” And he threw the crushed figure to the muddy ground.

The now free hand, stained with silver blood that the boy couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from, grabbed him unceremoniously under his arm and he was lifted into the air.

“You’ll be very useful to me, Link.”

--

He awoke with a start, blinking against blinding sunlight that beamed through a slitted window, illuminating his dank cell.

Not that the sunlight was allowed through to make him feel more comfortable. It was merely there because they, the Gerudos, had learnt it annoyed him. The sun rose relatively late in comparison to the Kokiri forest, but it wasn’t nearly as bright as there, and it woke him all the more abruptly and at ungodly hours. No subtle sunrise here, just; no sun at 4:30 and then pop! Oh look, it’s 4:31 and there’s the sun, in all its blinding, irritating, malevolent, happy, singsong-crappiness glory!

Link shook his head. He was raging at the sunrise…again. Not a good sign, the Gerudos had finally broken even his love of the sunlight. It was to be expected, certainly, in this land of the still-too-bright-and-hot-even-when-it’s-setting-sun, but…well, it was the sun!

Closing his eyes against the onslaught of intense rays, he shifted in his shackles, trying to work a kink out of his shoulder. Sleeping upright wasn’t good for one’s posture, nor was it good for a decent night’s sleep or comfort or anything really.

His legs and shoulders ached from the constant upright position, his muscles chipping in with their dull, everyday complaints again. No doubt they’d be singing about it once he’d been put to work for the day.

Absently, the Hylian shifted back, scraping his back on the wall, sloughing off the peeling, red-raw skin that the sun created. He was too pale to cope with this climate.

Link had thought that once his skin had been exposed to the strong sunlight for a while, it would acclimatise and instead of burning and then falling off, leaving him as pale as before, it would start to tan. But did it? No, was the short answer.

The long answer was a very long and convoluted train of thought, marked with obscenities at regular intervals, and this early after waking up from an admittedly fitful slumber; it was too much to deal with. So the short answer would have to suffice.

A metallic clang from outside made him jerk, and he was reminded that in just a few moments, he would be starting his long, hard day of working in the Gerudo Valley…as a second rate citizen. If not a beast of burden.

Craning his head up, the prisoner listened for approaching footsteps, staring at the hole above his head that was the only entrance to his cell, save for the window.

Soon enough, the soft, padding footsteps became audible and after just a few minutes, a rope was cast down through the entrance, a Gerudo sliding down it, holding the keys to his shackles.

Leaning over the dark-skinned woman silently unlocked the cuffs and Link fell to the floor, cursing.

“You think you could let me down gently just once?” he griped, his voice hoarse.

She said nothing, just stared at him before shimmying up the rope to the top, climbing out of the hole. Link sighed, following suit slowly. It was agony to climb up the rope every morning; especially when one’s muscles were already aching, and it didn’t help that his hands were calloused and blistered from hard work and rope burns from yesterday too.

Gritting his teeth, he grasped the rope, using his arms to pull himself up, grunting against the pain as it shot up from fresh sores, reopening them.

“Faster!” a shrill voice commanded, and like a trained dog, he scurried up faster, pulling himself onto hot black stone.

The woman, dressed in purple like all the others, eyed him warily as he coiled up the rope as he was told to do everyday, before he silently handed it to her. She nodded in something that could be called approval, if you meant it in the loosest possible sense, before walking away from him, shrieking in her high pitched voice for a guard to bring him food.

She eyed him suspiciously, a warning not to try anything, before walking down the dark passageway into the labyrinthine complex.

Seconds later, a girl scurried out of the same passageway and over to Link, carrying a few slices of what looked like flat, stale bread, a cup of water and a bowl of something that could only be described as ‘grey slop’.

The girl was younger than most Gerudos that he saw, being in her mid teens, and she hadn’t yet developed that sharp pointed nose that all Gerudos seem to obtain when they hit twenty. Her age meant that she was a little softer towards him than most of the race and she was probably the closest thing he had to a friend here.

Which was a bit pathetic, since he only saw her once a day for 5 or 10 minutes, only ever said ‘morning’, ‘thanks’ and maybe a sarcastic ‘compliments to the chef’ and didn’t even know her name. She was cute though, as far as this race of hardened warrior women went. Unfortunately, to Link, red hair and tanned skin just didn’t go, no matter what the shade…and as for yellow eyes well…that was just weird.

He silently accepted the so-called ‘food’, unable to even bring himself to care enough to say thanks to the girl this morning and ate it grudgingly, still unable to ignore the texture that reminded him of mucus after all these years, still unable to find any taste in it, still unable to bring himself to want to eat it. No matter how hard he tried, he never wanted to. He just did it because he had to. If he didn’t, they’d force feed it to him.

He recalled vaguely a time a few years ago where he had simply gone on food strike and hadn’t eaten for a week. It hadn’t bothered them in the slightest. They still worked him like an animal, despite his weakening state at the time and still accepted his decision not to eat it.

Until he had collapsed from exhaustion and starvation. Then they had simply dragged him into a slightly shaded spot a called for a bowl of gruel, and then tried to spoon feed it to him. When he had refused to swallow once the food was in his mouth (no matter how much they massaged his throat in an attempt to get him to ingest the food at least somewhat naturally) they had decided to go the whole way. Without even a second thought they had pinned him to the floor and held him there until the necessary instruments were brought.

He had had no idea what they were going to do at the time, and thinking back to it, he wished he had just eaten the food.

Two of the women had levered his mouth open using the blade of a dagger and then held him in that position as a thick, rubbery tube was forced down his throat into his stomach, catching on the side of his own natural tube and the liquid food was merely deposited in his abdomen.

Even the memory of it made him gag. The rubber smell had made him feel sick, the feeling of it being forced through his internal passages made him gag and shudder, but it was the feeling of violation that had been worst. The idea that he was no longer in control, at all, of what happened to him. If they wanted him to do something, he would do it, one way or another.

They had even repeated the process for a week, just to punish him for the stunt. It had guaranteed that he’d never try it again.

Swallowing thickly, Link brought himself back to the present and grabbed the meagre glass of water that they gave him. The ration was barely enough, and he frequently found himself dehydrated.

He would sweat more in a day than he drank in a week more often than not, and he didn’t even want to think about the ratio of water to waste in the little pee he passed out.

Grunting his thanks, he handed the ‘food’ containers back to the girl and she quickly hurried out the way she had come, disappearing, just like the woman before her, into the cool blackness of the fortress. He’d see her this evening, when she delivered his ‘tea’, maybe even during the day if she was handing out rations of water. Doubtful he’d be pleased to see her at any time.

Standing, he stretched in an attempt to loosen his muscles a fraction, receiving a sharp poke to the small of his back from the guard behind him.

Couldn’t waste time now could he?

The spear head was retracted and slowly, he walked into the black fortress, making his way outside to start the day

--

Link stood upright, stretching his sore, stiff back, groaning inwardly at the notion that it was only midday and that he had a least another 6 hours or so of work left ahead of him.

Behind him, a guard coughed warningly, and he rolled his eyes, lifting the heavy axe above his head and slamming it into the wood on the chopping block and knocking it onto the growing pile of firewood. Firewood that, by the end of the night, would be completely used up.

The prisoner glanced up at the blue sky wistfully as he placed a new log on the chopping block, wishing that he could escape from this place and return to the Kokiri forest, or Hyrule castle, or Lake Hylia or…anywhere, as long as it wasn’t a godforsaken desert.

Link swore he never wanted to see a grain of sand again and much less a woman. Despite the fact that, growing up, he had largely only had female friends, he missed the occasional offer of male company. Whilst it was true that the Gerudo women weren’t what most would call feminine, they still weren’t masculine. The only male company Link had had in the last 7 years was the occasional visit from Ganondorf, which were short and exceedingly unpleasant, not to mention painful, usually.

He absently brushed a strand of long blonde hair that was stuck to his cheek behind his ear, knocking flakes of dead, peeled skin from the tip.

“Alright,” a low voice called gruffly from behind him, and the young man turned to his forewoman. “Take a break before you pass out again. 10 minutes, no more.”

He nodded silently, and wandered over to a sparse patch of shade, collapsing into it with a grateful thump. A dirty rag was hurled at him a second later and he gingerly used it to wipe the sweat off his bare torso, grimacing at the slightly slimy feel that the cloth already had acquired, watching the guard walk back towards the fortress. She’d be back in a few minutes, no doubt, not that it made much difference whether he was being watched by her or not. It wasn’t like he could just stroll out of the desert.

A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye caught Link’s attention and he quickly turned his head in the direction of the motion. A streak of blue and white seemed to flash atop a cliff wall that made up the valley and the Hylian could’ve sworn it was a person.

He blinked and looked again, rubbing his tired, watering eyes, but there was no one when he looked back.

‘Must be suffering from heat stroke again.’

Shaking his head, he leaned back against the wall behind him, letting his eyes drift shut and his mind take him to a more pleasant time and place.

“Up!”

The order came so suddenly that Link jumped…surely he hadn’t been spacing out for 10 minutes already?

Opening his eyes he stared up at his forewoman and grudgingly got to his feet, not wanting to be on the receiving end of the whip she had hanging over her shoulder. The woman was brutal when it came to punishment.

“Get the rest of that lot done, then I’m sure you can help fetch some water or something. The girls need a little help…seems monsters are getting in the way.”

“Great, so I get sent in, unarmed, to act as a decoy.” Link muttered, hefting the axe again, placing another piece of wood on the chopping block and swinging the hatchet. The wood split with an oddly satisfying crack.

A smirk twisted his mouth as he wondered if maybe he could do that to his guard’s head and get away with it.

“Wipe that smirk off, or I’ll do it for you, boy.” She warned, running the whip through her hands threateningly.

Link ran his tongue along the inside of his lips, wiping the expression off them.

“Good boy.”

Angrily, he grabbed another piece of wood, splitting it, putting all of his rage into the swing before repeating the process over and over and over and over…

--

Harsh cries split the frigid air of the desert night and Link fidgeted irritably in his shackles, wishing the crow or vulture or whatever goddamn bird it was would shut the hell up so he could get some sleep.

‘Probably that stupid oversized owl that followed me around when I was a kid…’

He closed his eyes again, relaxing his body and trying to ignore the pull in his shoulder, arms and chest from his position, it would only be a few hours before the sun would rudely wake him up again.

Link opened his eyes blearily, blinking, wondering why he was awake. It was still dark outside, the sky just starting to lighten with the promise of a new day and all was silent. Even the Gerudos who were on guard were unusually quiet, the only sound being the popping and crackling of the fires outside.

Shuddering against the cold air he shifted in his shackles again and tilted his head to the window.

The guards should be making some sort of noise, if it was only their footsteps or coughing…but there was nothing at all, and it made Link uneasy.

A shadow suddenly passed in front of the window of his cell, and the Hylian tensed as it dropped onto the thick ledge of the opening.

“Link?” the shade called quietly, edging inside the cell and dropping down.

“Wha…who…wha?”

“Hush, hero, don’t wake the guards.” The voice admonished from…somewhere. The figure had melded in with the shadows of the cell, making it impossible to distinguish where he…she...it was.

A second later a hand closed around his forearm, just below the shackle on his wrist, another working quietly to release the lock. The clasp unlocked with a click and Link’s arm dropped limply as the figure moved to his other side, brushing against him as he did.

The second shackle released a moment later so that he dropped to the floor, his weary body not expecting to have to support itself at this time.

“Ow.”

The figure said nothing, but Link imagined that they were glaring at him. He rubbed the chaffed skin on his wrists before standing up, peering round for his liberator.

“Come, we must leave here before we are caught.” The figure suddenly sprang up onto the ledge again, creating a silhouette of a leanly muscled body, framed by the window.

“Wait. How do I know…?”

“Do you wish to remain here until you pass on, hero?”

“Well, no but…”

“Then follow me.”

The figure slid down out of sight and hesitantly, Link crawled up onto the window ledge, noticing the rope that hung down the side of the cliff that housed his cell.

Giving the box a final glance, he grabbed the rope and slid down, jumping off when he reached the end of the rope a few feet from the ground, wincing at the bloody burns on his hands.

Link looked around for the mysterious shadow person, when a hand grabbed him by the bicep and dragged him into the shadows so that they were hidden.

“The guards may not be conscious, but don’t linger in the open. You will need to keep this in mind for the future.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I shall explain later. We need to get away from here before the guards awaken.”

A hand roughly grasped his wrist and dragged him through the shadows towards the sound of rushing water.

--

It was perhaps an hour later when the mysterious figure finally stopped dragging the now exhausted Link.

They had reached the outskirts of Hyrule field, where rocky ground started to give way to sparse grassy knolls.

Link had never thought he’d be so glad to see something as mundane as grass and he stared out at the stretching plain as it faded from brown to deep green, starved for this view after his long incarceration.

“I appreciate that it has been a long time since you have seen this, and that you’re tired, but we need to move.”

The Hylian turned his attention to his saviour, staring at him with open fascination.

The figure was male, tall and slender. His small frame rippled with slender muscles, giving him appearance similar to that of a leopard or panther. Sinuous, supple.

But it was his eyes that struck Link the most. The richest shade of red that he had ever seen, framed by long blonde locks. The Hylian was fairly willing to bet that under that mask was a face that could break a thousand womens' hearts simultaneously.

“Just tell me one thing before we move.”

He received a curt nod in response.

“Who are you?”

The man turned to him fully, his ruby eyes locking onto Link’s.

“I am Sheik, survivor of the Sheikah.”

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There you have it, first real chapter. Please review