Hyrulean Legends

"Cursed? How was I cursed? Is... Am I still cursed?" Sheik asked. He knew the Goddess of Shadows-- his namesake-- was not a forgiving Goddess. If he had forsaken his blood... then the fact that he still lived meant that a price was paid to even out the transgression.

A long pause followed Sheik as his brow furrowed.

But it wasn't a lie. Zelda had allowed Shi to take Sheik to the Shadow Temple. She could have barred his way, could have acted out of a rightful sense of fear and worry that doing so would only cause more harm to the damaged young man. She could have insisted that they just needed to give him more time to recover, and perhaps her belief would have paid off in the end. Shi suspected it wouldn't have, but there was no way for them to ever know for sure.

Her willingness to trust in Shi had allowed him to save Sheik, and he was fine giving her credit for that decision.

"You were cursed... you just were cursed." How? The question was unexpected and he found himself caught off guard by it, left blinking as he stared at Sheik. "It was a curse - it meant something bad would happen to you." And it had! He had been captured and tortured by Ganondorf!

How am I still alive?

"You're the twin of the Princess Zelda. Even the Goddess of Shadows can't hurt you." Another lie, but it slid from his tongue easily enough. Better that than the truth. Better that than learning about just how much Shi had sacrificed to keep him alive.

"From where I hail, Gerudo males are rare, but not to such a degree. 70% of Gerudo are assigned female at birth, while the other 30% are assigned male at birth. There is also a royal line similar to Hyrule's, but there are more chances for one outside the bloodline to become a monarch. Nevertheless, I was not born in Gerudo Fortress but in a hamlet bordering Hyrule's central region. I was unaware of what was happening in the main city, so I cannot say who ruled then." He's not adding that it's been centuries since, and he can't recall her name correctly.

Then there's her other question. It's completely reasonable; Link was already closer to Zelda than he was. Yet he avoided mentioning their deaths for a reason. No matter, he can explain now.

He pauses, taking a moment to think over his words. "It was an epidemic that spread throughout Hyrule Castle and Castle Town. I was also ill at the time, but I managed to survive. Both Zelda and Link also caught the infection, and that same illness already took the lives of her parents. They were recovering, but it came back tenfold and managed to overtake them." Another pause, primarily for himself. While he outwardly seems stoic and calm, it's but a mask. When recalling this, he always feels regretful, but he knows he must press on.

If she truly delved into it, Impa would agree it didn't make much sense. There was no logical way for their race to actually function in such a fashion. But legend did say they were cursed, though in what form was unknown. The only logical assumption to make from that was simply that the curse was why their male offspring were both so rare, and so revered.

"That is... interesting." Was it true, though? It was such an odd thing to lie about. "Outside of you - or the... other you, I suppose, there is no other male Gerudo in this world, and there has never been."

A Gerudo royal bloodline that didn't end up ruling their people? Impa wanted to ask more questions, but it was becoming quickly apparent that she could end up asking a million and still wouldn't be fully content with her knowledge of how this other world seemed to function. She would have to be content with what he had given her in the moment. Perhaps later she could continue to pick his brain over how their society functioned. It did sound... far better than how it worked here.

There was a lot to take in with his final words. Link and Zelda, both dead, and both willingly giving up their pieces of the Triforce to him. It would have seem unthinkable, but the golden glow that had been coming from the back of his hand was unmistakable. It didn't completely erase the possibility that he had taken it by force, but it was more likely that the Triforce would have fractured again if he had. But that wasn't what caught her attention and sounded so completely unbelievable to her.

"Ganondorf Toba Dragmire, king of Hyrule, though that fact does not apply here." There's no need to hide his identity, not from another Boarblood. Hopefully, this one isn't going to try and use this information for anything, but knowing his incarnations, it's always a possibility.

There was little else the stranger could have said that would have caused his blood to run ice-cold in that moment. Golden eyes widened as he drew in a sharp breath through his nose. Nothing else needed to be said; his reaction gave away more than he would have liked.

"That fact does not apply here." He repeated what the other said in a flat tone. He did not reach for a weapon still, mostly frozen out of surprise - but also because part of him couldn't help but feel that it would do nothing against the man standing in front of him. What good would his weaponry do against someone else who claimed to be him?

There were parts of his introduction that didn't entirely match. Toba. If that was a Gerudo term, it was one that Ganondorf himself was unfamiliar with. Perhaps he had earned the name elsewhere.

"Is there any reason for me to introduce myself?" Much like the other, he saw no reason to try to deny who he was, and he doubted that this other, that Toba hadn't already pieced it together. Logically it made no sense, but Ganondorf knew better than to doubt what he could see with his own eyes in the face of what mattered logically.

"I am Ganondorf Dragmire, King of the Gerudo, and I will be King of Hyrule. But you... already knew all of that." His brow furrowed, gaze narrowing, and finally his body started to move as he reached for his weapon. Not to draw it, just to place a hand on the hilt of his sword.

Lifting his hands to show no harm meant, he froze as he finally registered the form of the other standing before him, a warped mirror that immediately sent alarm bells blaring through his mind. What did it mean that someone so like him stood before him now? Was this another one of the tricks of Calamity? Link thought it could only infuse the mechanical devices with power and energize the monsters. This was something else...

He did not know sign language. Or, rather, he would have thought that to be the case. There was so much that he simply assumed that turned out to be false, and this was another example of that. There was no logical reason for him to be able to understand what the motions meant, but the meaning came to him just the same.

"There's nothing but monsters here." Was he including himself in that statement? "So if you aren't one, why are you here?"

Why do you look like me?

But isn't that also where the shadows were the strongest? In the face of the light, they stretched on the furthest? Perhaps in her presence was where he would be strongest - even if he wasn't certain just who he was.

"I don't know who he is." There were brief, fragmented memories, but the more he tried, the more his head hurt and the further the memories seemed to slip away.

They were there, though, and as the shade moved to glance around the small spring he knew he had been here before too.

The real problem with her getting away from Link was that she did not have the same sense of direction as he did and, with Link holding onto the Sheikah Slate, Zelda didn't have a map to find her way back to their campsite.

Which meant she was lost.

Her best bet, as Link had always told her before, was to find shelter and stay put until he could find her. So when she'd caught sight of the cabin - even as poor condition as it was - she figured it was the best place to shelter to wait for Link. She was hardly dressed for night out on her own, wearing one of Link's tunics and a pair of trousers they'd purchased for her since her dress had been all but rags after the Calamity was sealed. She had no jacket, no bed roll, and only a bow and a handful of arrows for defense.

Confronted by the man inside the cabin as she neared, Zelda froze in place, reaching back for the bow she carried until she caught a good sight of him.

She was familiar. He had seen her before. But that wasn't possible. Nothing that the shade knew was possible. So many people and so many things that he was aware of that came from places and times he couldn't actually recall. He wasn't so full of himself to think that he had been around in the past to meet the prior Champions, and yet he could recall memories of speaking with them. He hadn't done anything to help stop the raging Divine Beasts, but he could recall being inside of them.

"You-- I've seen you before. At the castle. You-- why would you be at the castle?" He didn't mean the castle in its current state, but it was in reference to old memories from when it was still untouched by the ravages of Malice. Yet another thing that he knew and yet could not know.

"My name isn't Link. I don't know who that is. Why would you call me that? Who is he? Why-"

All that power unleashed from him when the Calamity had taken him over was gone - sealed by the Princess' magic, leaving him with far weakened magic of his own and a body that was exhausted.

It was only that exhaustion that had him considering a night or two at the stable.

And yet, he still hesitated to step closer. The rain was no real bother to him, refreshing and cooling - he'd always enjoyed the rain before, when he would sneak away to the Faron region to enjoy the storms. He wore his tattered robe over his head and wrapped about his shoulders, which did much to hide his red hair, but little to protect him from the rain.

"You don't have to pay just to have shelter from the storm. There isn't a price on kindness."

Shi glanced over at him again, smiling once more. If he continued to refute the offer, then coming up with a way to organically be able to travel with him would be harder but not impossible.

"Even if you enjoy being out in the rain, you regret it if you get soaked and have to continue traveling with wet clothing. It'll chafe you like you wouldn't believe." And he made a vague gesture toward his own pants. Nothing made for a more uncomfortable walking experience than trying to slog through with half-wet pants.

And it had happened more than once.

The soon to-be-wed maiden was sprawled across the chaise lounge that rest catty corner to the window, the back of her golden hair illuminated like starlight from the moon’s light pouring through the window. She’d laid there wallowing in her own sorrow since the maids departed from her bedchamber after assisting Zelda in both bathing and dressing for bed, that carefully composed mask finally shattering into thousands of porcelain pieces the moment she was alone.

The combination of her tears with his stealth meant she’d never had a chance of realizing she was far from alone. Had he chosen to remain silent, she may have crawled into bed without ever detecting his presence.

But that voice.

That was a voice she knew better than any other. That voice was one that still whispered to her in her dreams — even haunted her in those hours where she’d been deprived of sleep but the ability to slumber escaped her. It was a voice she thought she would never hear again, save for the exception of her memories. 

Bolting to an upright position, the Hylian princess twisted to look back towards the window, watching as he stepped out from those midnight shadows that concealed the corners of her room. She would have thought his voice was another trick of her mind had he not stood in front of her; even then, she wasn’t certain this wasn’t some dream or hallucination. Shi had been gone for over two years! Zelda couldn’t even be certain he was still alive after all that time. Assuming death had not claimed him, why would he have suddenly returned to Hyrule Castle? Why now?

He made no comment on her tears, and she refused to wipe them away to further draw attention to them. Instead, the sage’s brow furrowed as she looked the male over, taking in how much he’d changed in the more than two years he’d been gone. There was little in his appearance that would tie him back to the Sheikah clan, with the exception of the prominent Sheikah features that could not be easily erased. 

But she knew that voice, and she’d never forget those crimson eyes that peered at her through the dim lighting of her room. Those eyes that were present in her dreams as often as his voice.

“Wh-what do you mean?” 

Confused, the princess pushed to her feet, now standing beside the lounge as her cerulean gaze scanned him from head to toe. He was alone, and nothing about his appearance screamed that he was now a threat, but Nayru help her, none of this was making any sense. 

“What do you mean I will no longer have much of a chance? Play along with what? Shi, what is happening? What are you doing here?” 

It would have made it easier for him to ignore the tear tracks that lined her face as well. Just like the Princess seemed to want to refuse to acknowledge him, Shi knew he couldn't take any time out to comfort her even if he wanted to. He also knew she doubtfully would want to be comforted by him by the time this was all said and done.

He had abandoned her. She had told him to go, but he had still been the one to go. And he had stayed gone, leaving her to try to fend for herself against the wolves of the Royal Court, and that had lead her here. To a future she didn't want but had no power to say no to, because she had tried once and it had blown up in her face.

To her first question he said nothing. Shi simply stepped over to her, gaze glancing over her form. As much as he might had wanted to take in the shape of her body beneath the thin gown she was wearing, his main focus was on how light the color was; it would be a near-shining beacon in the dark. It also would provide her with no protection from the elements.

"Groose... Loftwings won't fly past the cloud barrier, not even Crimson." There was an unspoken apology hidden in his voice, "I can ask around Skyloft for any ideas? Beedle has a flying house, so something like that could work?"

Link takes a deep breath to calm his own nerves before callused fingers wrap carefully around the other's wrists. "I promise, as a knight of Skyloft, that I will get you home safely no matter how long it takes," his voice is firm, full of confidence and righteousness, and then it softens along with his expression, "I won't let you get hurt, so try not to hurt me too much before we get home, okay?"

Somehow Groose knew that really wasn't going to be the case.

There was no reason for Link to be willing to make any sort of promise to him. It wasn't like the two of them got on, and it wasn't really Link's fault that they were constantly at odds with one another. The true problem, the culprit, was Groose. They had been butting heads for years now and it probably would have continued unabated for years more if Zelda hadn't vanished. Even with her disappearance, Groose hadn't been willing to let up on Link - if he had then he wouldn't have decided that jumping after him was the best decision to make, and he wouldn't have found himself stranded on the Surface!

His grip tightened for just a moment against Link's shoulder, but before it could reach the point of being painful Groose released him. There was a moment before he took a step back, turning as he did.

"Don't worry about me Link. I'll be okay." His attempt at trying to put on a brave face was laughable at best. Groose was weaponless, and he had never been all that good at training with a sword regardless. "I won't get in your way either. I, I'll figure my way around down here."

But he’d accepted with only a few sentences. He truly had so little in his life, which made it easy for him to go wherever the wind took him.

Even then, he must have had his reasons for agreeing?

“Okay...” she replied with a nod, a simple response to show she was content with his acceptance. It wasn’t as if she could reach for the shade and lead him back to the castle, but she offered a smile, a small gesture that she hoped would be at least a little reassuring for the male. She’d been about to nod and gesture for him to follow when he interrupted her train of thought, the princess pausing as she took in the enormity of those words.

He hadn’t a name — his creator had never given him a name. He’d never had his own identity, meant to act solely as the shadow of the hero, some dark and perverse adaptation of the Goddesses’ Chosen One. 

Try was certainly the key word there.

The Princess herself seemed taken aback by his agreement, and it left him wondering if perhaps it had been the wrong thing to do. No time to dwell though. If she was caught off guard it lasted for just a moment, and instead the topic of his name became her focus.

If he had anything to suggest then he would have tried to offer it up, but there was nothing that came to mind. Neither Ganondorf nor the ancient magicks of the water temple had given him any semblance of his own being. He had just been meant to serve as a reflection, and likely had been meant to simply die once the Hero had defeated him. Clearly something had gone wrong as he was still here, alive and well -- or maybe that had always been the desired result.

If the Hero was gone, perhaps his reflection was the second best thing that Hyrule could hope for.

“I suppose sealing the creature is better than nothing,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. Regardless of the technicalities of the situation, his invention had worked and aided Zelda and Link in triumphing over evil.

That was the part she needed to focus on.

She was about to take another step forward when she finds herself frozen in place, a shutter rippling down her spine and out through her limbs at the mention of that one name.

Demise.

Not Ganondorf.

Demise was the entity that this warrior had faced. And if he truly had fought off Demise with his Zelda and Link, then that meant….

“Demise? Are you certain?” There were several ways in which this man did not seem overly confident, given the way he’d insisted he wasn’t the one meant to step through the portal for this battle. But he hadn’t wavered or seemed the slightest bit uncertain when he’d spoken that name, and where else could he have come up with it? If he’d truly faced Demise and not Ganondorf, then that meant he was from an era much further back than she would have guessed; he’d been there towards the start of it all.

And if they hadn't been able to keep the beast sealed, then there wouldn't have been enough time for Zelda to be able to awaken her true self through praying, or for Link to be able to power up his sword to become strong enough to slay the beast.

This Zelda seemed taken aback when he mentioned that it had been Demise that they had faced. Groose frowned just a little, feeling almost a bit insulted with the unsaid implication that she didn't believe him. "Yeah, I'm sure." More than sure. He had been there! He had gone back in time with Link to save Zelda. He had caught Zelda when Demise had tried to toss her to the side like she was little more than garbage to him! And he had been there when he had laid out a curse for them.

-- and so of course he knew that time travel was possible. But Zelda had made it sound like she had only been able to do it due to her Goddess powers, and not because of anything... else. How could someone else be meddling in time? And if it was time travel, there being another Link and Zelda...

"Hey, why are you asking if I'm so certain it was Demise?" There was something in the way she spoke that had him bristling, some unsaid implication that perhaps he was simply not telling the whole truth. He found himself glaring slightly at her back. "You know, the monster that Goddess Hylia fought against way back in the day? We had to go back in time to fight him during the same battle he had faced her, or... something like that." The details were fuzzy and always would be, but he knew who they had faced.

Pipit feared it would go down this route, as much as he'd attempted to put the fire out before it could spark and grow. For once, though, he could UNDERSTAND where Groose was coming from; 'tis not as if the star student was unreasonable, or thought Groose to be an idiot. He was hardheaded, yes, and a tad aggressive, but far from stupid. " I get what you're saying, Groose, and I agree you're one of the most equipped... but your track record isn't really... the best, remember? "

Skipping classes, bullying, being an outright unbearable presence to be around if you were anyone besides Zelda, Cawlin, and Strich...

If Link were here, he'd vouch for him. Zelda too. They weren't friends and Groose doubted they ever were be, but the experience they went through on the Surface had certainly bonded them in a way that could never be replicated. They respected one another and Link had seen first-hand all the effort that Groose had gone through to become a different, better person.

And none of that mattered now just because no one here had seen it themselves.

For a moment he stood there in silence, one hand slowly clenching into a tight fist. If Pipit looked closely, he might have even seen the slight signs of Groose's arm actually shaking, though if it was out of rage or effort of just holding himself back wouldn't have been clear.

And then-

"Fine!" And the hand that had been clenched was lifted up, arm jutting out, and a finger pointed rather dramatically at Pipit's chest. He came close to touching him, but stopped just short of actually doing so.