Bring me to Light

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What am I?

The sun was at its highest point of the day when Link finally reached the sacred grove where he and Saria used to meet and he glanced around the empty grove, checking behind him quickly for any of the moblins that had attacked him in the maze.

Nothing.

With a relieved sigh he sheathed the Master Sword, grimacing at the black moblin blood that clung to it and pulled out the Ocarina of Time, wandering over to the stump Saria used to sit and play on and he played her song.

The trees around the grove rustled in a sudden breeze, voices whispered on wind. She was there, somewhere.

‘Link…’the voice was faint, drowned out by the murmurs of hundreds of other voices, a broken message slipping through to the blonde: ‘Where…been…haven’t…7years…worried…help…monsters…temple…forest…help.’

As suddenly as it came, the voice of his best friend was gone, lost to the air that quietened and stilled as the power of the song faded, the spirits carrying their messages elsewhere.

Link stared at the blue ocarina in his hands, mulling over how quickly his world had changed with just a few sentences. In just a few moments.

He was no longer of his race, no longer recognised by those he thought to be his kind. He was just a random stranger, wandered in from the outside world, a curiosity to the forest children, just like any other outsider. Just as Sheik was to them.

Things he had thought constant and certain had been torn away, or broken down and reset in a new mould. His best friend had no idea what had happened to him, had not always been there for him, his former friends didn’t know who he was…he didn’t know who he was. What he was. What he was doing. Nothing made sense anymore. The harsh bullying that he had received from Mido…even that was gone, replaced by a quiet remorse that he would’ve given anything to hear 7 years ago. Now he’d do anything just to be tormented by the boy, just so long as it was familiar and safe.

He closed his eyes, lowering his head as he tried to calm his thoughts, focusing on the area, the sounds and smells.

Even those were different now, tainted by evil. Light music whistled on the wind, a sweet minuet that his ears locked onto, savouring the plucked notes of a harp string.

“I’m impressed that you got here before me.”

Link jerked his head up, opening his eyes and looking to his right, looking for the source of the voice.

“Up here, hero.”

Blue eyes darted up, catching the slim figure silhouetted by the sun before it leapt, panther like, from a broken tree arm, landing neatly beside him.

“How did you get here? I thought you didn’t know your way through the forest.”

“I don’t. There are other ways to get here though…songs tend to be useful.” Sheik pulled out a small golden harp from…well, somewhere, its edges embossed with patterns of the Sheikah and the Royal family.

“A song?”

“If you know the right ones and you have the right instrument, yes.”

“Trust you to know that.”

The Sheikah seemed somewhat taken aback by the harsh edge to the words and slowly put his harp on the ground as he thought out his next words.

“I cannot say I understand how you feel, hero. Race is something in which there is no ambiguity for me. I am a Sheikah. As is custom I trained to serve Hyrule and the Royal Family from a young age, taught that there is no point in a Sheikah’s life but to dedicate it to the fight for the greater good. My life has no value, no greater purpose than to serve and protect. I am barely even counted as a person, more an instrument for good and though I have no desire to change…I am not allowed to wish or want…”

Link’s eyes suddenly seemed to soften, the harsh lines that his emotions had drawn his face into falling away.

“It occurs to me that sometimes, realising what you truly are is no bad thing.” Sheik concluded

“I’m sorry.” Link breathed, setting his chin atop interlocked fingers, his sapphire eyes soft and sad as he regarded Sheik.

The other blonde merely shrugged.

“Don’t be. This is how it’s meant to be.”

“It’s not right. Every life has value, Sheik. Every person should mean something to someone.”

Garnet eyes blinked in surprise as if the Hylian had just said something shocking.

“…Come,” Sheik eventually commanded, regaining his sense of purpose “We must break the curse on the temple.”

The Hylian nodded, compliant and willing, climbing to his feet from the stump as he watched Sheik leap up to the doorway.

“Show off.” Link smirked, pulling out the hookshot and targeting the broken tree limb, landing on the ground above the crumbled steps.

With an affirming nod to his companion, he walked into the blackness of the temple

--

It was cramped, and dank and damp and dark and dreary, the once grandeur surroundings spoiled like rotten fruit by the seed of evil.

Limp strings of withered yellow ivy clung to walls and hung from ceilings, their frail forms being brushed aside by the two men.

The main room of the temple hadn’t been in any better a state, its condition overemphasized by the size and dimly flickering torches set in a square in the centre of the room. Link had stared at the flames with unconcealed fascination at the colours of the flames, causing Sheik to half-smile at that childishness that still remained.

As they had approached the central feature of the room, four poes had materialised from the darkness, floating towards a respective torch. With a flurry of motion, the lights had been snatched from their lamps, the flames sucked into the tiny lanterns that the ghosts carried with them before the spirits disappeared again.

Link had sworn as the lift they so obviously needed to take lowered. In fact, he hadn’t stopped muttering curse words under his breath since it had occurred. That had been a good hour ago and Sheik was beginning to get frustrated with the young man’s constant complaining.

“And then we have to go all the way through the temple doing pointless tasks and….”

“I get the idea.” Sheik interrupted, brushing past Link and climbing up the ladder just ahead of them.

“Well, you know it’s just….it’s never straight forward is it? There’s always something in the way, holding you back from your goal and you have to fight so hard to get there. And then…even when you get there, it’s not always worth it.”

The Sheikah turned stared at him from the higher level, his eyebrows raised slightly and he swallowed before speaking again.

“Not always…but usually. Sometimes there are things that you know are worth struggling for.”

“Like the world?”

“…yes, the world.”

Link cocked his head to the side slightly as he watched the Sheikah rise from his crouched position and walk away. He had been…awkward. The cool, calm, collected warrior had been uneasy and Link had to think carefully about what he had said to him before the answer came.

With a grin, he latched onto the ladder, climbing quickly to follow his companion, knowing that he might just be getting through.

“Sheik! Wait up!”

His voice echoed through deserted, winding corridors and he broke into a run, hoping to catch up to the other man, bursting into an empty room to find the other man leaning against the door.

“I waited.”

“So I see,” Link grinned as Sheik turned and fit the small, silver key that they had collected earlier into the lock on the door. With a click, the inner mechanism retracted and the panelled door swung inwards of its own accord, revealing the corridor behind it.

It was, in a word, weird. Twisted. Mind bending and warped. Literally.

“This is…interesting.” Link stated, the only word he could think of currently to describe the sight.

“Indeed,” Sheik replied as he watched Link walk up to a wall, running his hand along it, feeling the curves of the plane. “I was aware that the temples had some unusual mechanisms in them, but I have never heard of a twisted corridor before.”

“No kidding.”

The Hylian was examining every inch of the wall before him as it arced, yet remained straight.

“We should get moving.”

Link nodded “Yeah, this is…messing with my head.”

He stepped away from the wall and walked down the centre of the corridor with Sheik, amazed to find that every time he took a step, the floor beneath his feet was completely flat, the walls around him at a precise right-angle to the floor. Flawless and yet it seemed so deformed. The sensation was only increased when he looked behind him, to see that the flat ground they had just walked on was twisted again, the door they had entered through at an odd angle.

“Weird.” Was his only comment and the blonde quickly entered the next room without bothering to check for danger, which was about to prove to be a mistake.

Sheik was still standing in the doorway of the twisted corridor his eyes locked onto something above Link’s head.

“I’d advise you to move…quickly.”

“Huh, wh..AHH!”

A second after Sheik had advised Link to move a large black hand had dropped from the ceiling, pinning the hero to the floor, long bony fingers wrapping around his body.

With its prey securely held in its grasp it jumped to the floor, using its free finger and thumb to perform an odd loping walk, making for the wall where it could climb back up and return its victim to the outside of the temple…where the hand clearly believed the green clad hero belonged.

Its goal was never reached, however, for a sharp cry echoed around the room and a second later, it released the elf it was carrying, its thumb latching onto the first knuckle of its curled forefinger and dropping down, letting out a bizarre screech that sounded like paper being rustled. A silver, needle like blade protruded from between two knuckles and after releasing a finally screech, the hand retreated back into the shadows of the ceiling.

“Again,” Link commented, rubbing his back as he sat on the floor where he had been dropped “I say weird.”

“It would not have hurt you anyway; wallmasters merely return you to the temple’s entrance.”

“Yeah well if it tries it again it’s gonna die.”

“Hmph.”

“I’m coming, calm down.” The Hylian staggered to his feet, climbing up a nearby ladder to meet up with the other blonde and the two continued on into the next room, down the winding staircase adorned with paintings of poes into a large, circular room.

“I believe you may be tested here.” Sheik informed Link, the Hylian staring into the hole in the centre of the room.

“Why d’you say that?”

“Look up.”

Link did so, starting when he saw a pair of Stalfos standing on the other side of the gap.

“Oh.”

It was the only thing he had time to say before the creatures leapt across the gap towards him, and the hero had to back peddle furiously in order to keep his distance.

Rolling backwards he drew the Master Sword, holding it tightly in his left hand, heavy shield strapped onto his right arm in seconds.

“Aim for the one to your right, I’ll take the left.” The Sheikah whispered the instructions in Link’s ear before he bounded away to the left, leaving Link to face his own skeletal creature.

It was tall and broad, gleaming white in the semi-darkness of the room, its bones rattling as it moved, sunken pin-prick eyes glowing red in almost empty sockets.

With a shuddering step it raised its jagged red blade, sweeping it down towards the blonde in a vertical arc.

Link jerked out of his state of confusion just in time, his own blade snapping up to meet the red, sliding down until it reached a niche in the metal, locking into it. The Hylian hunched his shoulders, tensing his muscles as the skeleton warrior grinned and pushed against it, its superior strength bearing down on him, forcing him backwards until he collided with the wall, weapons still locked.

Grunting, the Hylian allowed himself to be flattened against the wall until the pressure became almost crushing. With a wing and a prayer Link pressed the Master Sword back against the stalfos’ blood red blade, drawing his legs up, the tension holding him against the wall.

And then he kicked.

His feet landed heavily in the centre of the stalfos’ chest, cracking ribs and sending the creature flying backwards to fall down the pit, only to crawl back up a second later.

Link growled. Had it been a living creature the battle would’ve been over already, but that would be way too easy now, wouldn’t it?

It grunted, rushed at Link, slashing at him, the Hylian easily parrying the blow with his own sword and following up with his own attack, the silver blade snapping left, then right, slamming through bones and knocking them away to land on the floor. It wore the creature down, its spine steadily shortening and if the situation hadn’t been quite so dire, Link probably would’ve laughed at the sight of a pelvis connected to 3 inches of spine and then a large skull wobbling precariously on top of the bones.

Red eyes stared up at him and if the creature had had eyelids, it probably would’ve blinked up at him in bemusement.

Turning to his left, Link redistributed his weight onto his left leg, before slamming his foot into the skull, sending it down into oblivion.

Link glanced over to Sheik as he lowered his leg, watching as the Sheikah snapped the neck of his own assigned enemy, the movement strong and confident. Practiced. It was actually quite a disturbing thought.

Red eyes met his own blues as the shadow warrior realised he had an audience, and he threw the severed head of the creature away, dusting himself off and giving Link a nod of acknowledgment.

“So…uh…was that it?”

“I would hardly think that’s all.”

The Sheikah pointed a bandaged finger overhead, indicating a circular platform that was lowering at an alarming rate. Within seconds it had slammed into the hole in the floor, bringing with it four more stalfos.

“Ok…this might be a little more difficult.”

Sheik didn’t reply as the stalfos rushed forwards, all aiming for Link, surrounding him with their weapons drawn.

Doubting the young hero’s abilities in his current physical state he threw himself forwards, blades in hand, only to be knocked by a stalfos that had been forced back by one of Link’s attacks.

It seemed, however, that the Hylian was actually doing pretty well on his own, his attacks managing to keep the stalfos at bay as he wore them down, one by one and Sheik stood back, letting the Hylian fend for himself but ready to jump in if there was a hint that he couldn’t hold his own.

He was quite impressive. His attacks were simple but strong and cleanly executed, his body performing the movements so easily, so naturally that it was clear that this boy really was the warrior to save Hyrule.

A stalfos fell, its bones crumbling to dust even as Link turned, slamming the hilt of his sword into the eyes socket of another, his right arm flying out, shield colliding with the chest of another, knocking it off balance.

The third stalfos however, had caught hold of the outstretched limb and Link turned to it in alarm, mouth open in an unheard gasp as the second stalfos straightened out, raising its sword to hack through the restrained arm.

Sheik leapt forwards, jagged blades appearing in his hands again as he raised one to into the stalfos and help Link out of his situation.

Something made him stop though.

The Hylian was crouching, his right arm still in the stalfos grasp, the sword in his left hand held out to the side, blade beginning to produce blue flames that licked along the cold steel.

The stalfos made a movement with their jaws in what Sheik guessed to be a sort of grin or laugh.

And then the flames were orange, bright and hot, encircling the still cool blade and tearing through the white bones in a display of volcanic intensity, the captured arm pulling free as he whipped the blade through his enemies.

He straightened, blade silver and bare once again, stalfos lying in pieces on the floor, bones burning and he breathed out, his eyes inky blue with darkness. The Master sword sparked warningly, seeming to struggle in the boy’s hand as he stood, staring blankly, his head slightly lowered, mouth contorted into an expression of disgust.

Silently, Sheik sheathed his weapons, remaining a good distance from the Hylian, unease growing in the pit of his stomach, his body flooding with adrenaline, instincts telling him to run.

He couldn’t though. So he waited patiently, anxiously, until the eyes lightened and face softened, the sword was sheathed and shield replaced onto his back.

He turned to Sheik, his bright blue eyes widened and uncertain, scared of what he was capable of achieving. He was saying something, his voice so quiet that Sheik didn’t hear it at first but the Hylian kept repeating it, voice gaining strength painfully slowly. His words chilling Sheik to the bone, though they were hardly malicious or evil.

No, it was the child-like tone and the meaning behind them that troubled Sheik.

“What am I?”