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by an awesome blossom

Sometimes the difference between real and imaginary is just perception.



I finally took a break from Twilight Princess to write this thing. The dungeon layout has been changed to suit my purposes, but hopefully you'll find a few spots familiar.



V.



It felt like his heart was well within his ears, its beating so loud that Link was fearful that someone else could hear. ...Something else.



He was pressed with the Sheikah in a small alcove that was an offshoot of another room with dangerous scythes spinning around like a fan to cool the dead. Link was alert, ready to bolt and spring into action at any moment, but at the moment extreme stealth was needed and he didn't know how long he'd last in such tension. Fear and Sheik's warnings were the only things preventing him from rushing into the next room and taking on the invisible monster that made the air groan and crack like an old house.



Gently Sheik's wrapped fingers pressed against his, and the unexpected touch nearly made him jump. It was meant to be a gesture of comfort, but Link couldn't see how there could be anything that could comfort the young hero while he hid - hid - from the very evil he was meant to destroy.



At one point the crackling in the air grew almost unbearable but eventually it receded into the shadows themselves.



"Good, he's passed," Sheik murmured as he moved from the stone wall and stretched his back.



Link took a deep breath and rubbed his face as he walked around simply to get his feet moving. "If Bongo Bongo can't see anything that doesn't move, shouldn't he have a heat sensor or something and be able to detect us anyway?"



Sheik shrugged and admitted, "Maybe, but I don't know for sure. All I know is that he can't see anything that's not moving, which is why we had to keep so still and quiet back there." Catching sight of a frustrated expression that crossed the other's face, he added, "And Bongo Bongo's too strong to take him on now. If he's able to make it this far up from the depths of the temple, then Impa must not be in very deep."



"That or she's in trouble," Link murmured.



"I trust Impa and her abilities," Sheik reassured as he made his way out of the alcove and into the adjacent room. "And besides, if anything did happen to her, I think I'd know."



Link followed, his stomach churning as he thought about the scythes he couldn't see spinning around in the center of the room. "How's that?" he asked.



Sheik didn't answer at first as he jumped over a post but then he said finally once they were in an unfamiliar hall, "...It's a Sheikah thing."



"A sort of collective empathy?"



"You could say that," he murmured as they approached another locked, metal door - uncomfortably reminiscent of the one from the gallery... "Do you still have that key we found?"



Link nodded and dug through a small pouch he kept latched to his belt. "Yeah...but how do you know this is the right door to go through? I mean, what about the one over there?" As he passed the tarnished key to his companion, he gestured to his right.



"What one over there?"



"The door," Link explained slowly as he regarded Sheik strangely and pointed to his door for further clarification, "right here."



Sheik raised an eyebrow. "The only door I see this one."



"You don't see this?" Link asked incredulously as he moved suddenly to make a grand gesture to the location of the door he saw. "C'mon, Sheik! It's not exactly small!"



Parting his lips to perhaps say something snide, Sheik thought better of it as he realized what Link must have been talking about. "Well, if you can see it, and I can't, then it must be a trap. You'd do well to remember that this temple houses many illusions, Hero."



Link considered the faux-door with an irritated expression as the Sheikah unlocked and opened the real door. At the noise, he unsheathed his sword and stepped ahead into the new darkness. "I hate this," he murmured as Sheik closed the door behind them, killing the dim light that spilled from the room before and illuminated a narrow, stone hallway. "What's the possibility of there being some sort of evil thing in here? Or a big, long pit?"



"Well, it's not improbable," Sheik said uncomfortably, and he moved in closer to the hero as he reached out to touch his shield.



"It's so dark that if there was a monster or pit in this hallway, we'd never know. A monster would kill us before we even knew what was happening, and we'd fall to our deaths with only the vague acknowledgement that we fell into a pit to begin with."



Sheik let out a disgusted sigh. "This from the man who is supposed to save us all! Don't you have any optimism?"



"This is optimism."



"Whatever."



At once Link wondered if he was really the supposed Hero, if everyone had got it all wrong and really the Hero was meant to be some other hapless kid. "Maybe it's really that guy," he thought aloud as they made their way through the darkness, each step lonely and unsure. He felt a sudden pressure from his shield, but he had to remind his quickening heartbeat that it was only his Sheikah companion.



"What guy?"



Link meant to cover his words with something lame but instead he blurted out, "My shadow."



There was an odd moment of silence before Sheik responded with an almost teasing air, "Maybe. I wonder if he'd be more optimistic and not so afraid of the dark."



"Hardly. And I'm not afraid of the dark," Link murmured defensively, slightly embarrassed that they were even talking about that guy...as if the mere mention of him would suddenly make him appear. It was difficult for him to repress a shudder.



"No," Sheik conceded, "you're right. I don't think you are. You're simply afraid of the unknown."



Link rolled his eyes though he knew the other couldn't see the action nor the tightening of his mouth as he consciously knew how accurate Sheik was with that seemingly innocuous statement. How right, right, right he was. Sheik was so right that it made Link want to hurl, want to -- Link stopped abruptly when the tip of his boot hit something solid, and his hands flew out in front of him to confirm that it was in fact a wall he had nearly run into. Sheik, though... He knew it was a common written sound effect in stories like the fairytales Saria used to read to him on occasion, but Link had never heard anyone actually say "oof" like Sheik had.



"Why'd you stop?" he asked in a tone tinged with mild frustration.



"Dead end."



Feeling a shuffling of pressure behind him and a muted movement of stale air beside him, Link imagined Sheik reaching out, trying to see if they really were in a dead end.



"It's just a turn in the hallway. Here," Sheik instructed as he slid his hand down Link's forearm covered by a gauntlet until he reached his bare fingers and grasped at them to pull Link to their right, "go this way now."



Link didn't respond and simply did what he was told as their previous contact left his fingers tingling. He didn't really want to think about how nice it was.



After a few minutes of uneasy silence, Sheik broke the silence. "I don't understand how you cleansed all those temples and awakened the Sages with such a defeatist attitude."



"Nagging. Navi was pretty good at it."



Sheik sighed but there was a certain amusement to it. "So if I nagged you, you'd get us through this hallway faster?"



"Hey now, I'm trying to make sure we don't go falling through any pits or anything!" he said with a hint of mirth in his voice. "We're alive so I think I've been doing a good job, wouldn't you say?"



Sheik's voice lost its playfulness as he asked, "So, without Navi, how did you stay alive in the Spirit Temple? Did you go along at such a dreadfully slow pace as this?"



"Why aren't there any Sheikah left?" Link countered suddenly.



"That has absolutely nothing to do with what I asked you, Hero."



Link suddenly stopped and at once he felt Sheik prod him in the back to continue. He held his stance, however. "Why do you sound so defensive? It's just a question. Or don't you want to talk about it?"



"It is not just a question and you know it. Stop being childish."



"I guess it's a little hard for me to not be childish since, you know, up until a couple months ago, I was a child. But I just don't want to talk about the Spirit Temple - or any of them, really."



Sheik made a disconcerting hum before he criticized, "You could have just said that, you know."



"Yeah, well, I guess I just wanted to ask you something you didn't want to be reminded of instead. So if it'll make you happy, I'm sorry."



"It doesn't."



"Hard to please, are we?"



Instead of answering, Sheik prodded him more forcefully in the back instead, and this time Link gave way and started walking again.



His spirits were slightly lifted as he thought he could make out a little light in the distance. "You can see that light, too, right? My eyes aren't just playing tricks on me...?"



"No, you're right...we're almost out of this goddess-forsaken hall. And I don't see any traps or anything in the distance so move it, Hero."



Sheik didn't have to tell him twice as it was all Link could do to refrain from breaking out in a full on run to the light. The fact that they were greeted by a broken pathway sprinkled with guillotines did nothing to disperse his newly found good mood.



"Well, I can't say I'd rather see a pathway of guillotines than nothing," Sheik sighed as he joined Link by his side.



"Really?" Link asked as he glanced at his companion with a smile. "Being cooped up in a dark hall like that just gets me nervous and edgy."



"I could tell."



"At least, even with this spectacular view of what we have to go through, we can move around and see. So compared to seeing nothing, seeing these guillotines is a very beautiful experience."



Sheik considered Link before remarking with a smile that unmistakably reached his eyes. "And here I was wondering where my Hero had gone..."



Link allowed himself to repeat the Sheikah's words in his mind, and he gave a pleasured smile in response. When Sheik's steady gaze drifted upwards in thought, he wondered what his neck without the cowl looked like.



"Link!" came Sheik's quick outburst as he gestured up in a sudden panic.



Through a certain intuition that had been hard earned, Link knew what was coming as he thrust his sword up and through a disembodied hand that had dropped down. Once impaled, he threw the monstrosity to the ground and made quick work of it with his sword. When he knew it was dead, he looked back to find Sheik staring uneasily at the creature with his hand over the upper left side of his chest.



Link grinned despite the fact that he noticed that he had gotten a little of the hand's blood on his companion and himself. "You're always so cool and collected... Takes a little hand sneaking up on you to change that, eh?"



"Well I've never looked up to find this thing just... How can you be so calm? That thing nearly killed us!"



Link shook his head. "Nah, the hand? It just throws you somewhere else. I found that out the hard way in my first temple."



Sheik had trouble getting his breath steady as he shook his head to perhaps banish the grotesque creature away. "But...you're just so calm..." He couldn't get that out of his mind.



Putting a hand on his shoulder, the legendary Hero looked rather intently at Sheik. "If you're going to stick with me through this temple, you'll find out that I get ambushed by creatures...a lot. I eventually learned to stop panicking." Noticing that the other's eyes kept drifting towards the slain and bleeding creature, he repositioned himself so that he was the only thing Sheik could see. "Besides, this is my job. It's what I do."



"You're good at it - I'll give you that," Sheik admitted as he regained his composure and gestured to the bloodstains from the creature on Link's tunic, "but you're not good at keeping it clean."



"I'm still your Hero, though, right?" Link asked with a little smile and wink.



Sheik's smirk was evident in his eyes as he gestured to the pathway littered with guillotines. "Get us through that and you will be."