Don't be afraid of the dark

   What was that? The young Prince jumped behind when he saw that weird thing on his room — it looked like a boy but still, it seemed so different and creepy. Who was that? It was his room, right? The servant told him it was his room so why had someone inside? Hans blinked a few times, eyes wide and arms up in front of his body, as if he were ready to push anything that came near. 

He took a step back, his gaze focused on the hero. The hero knew pain, that fact was very well known to Dark Link. But did the hero know of the pain he himself held? He doubted it, and he doubted that the hero would ever know or understand the fact. Why should he be afraid of death when it was all he had ever known? Death and destruction, that was what Dark Link saw the very first moment he was brought into the world. It was all he would ever know and he knew this. He had already accepted the fact that it was all he would ever understand. Dark Link was ready to die, but was the hero? By this point, he didn’t care whether the hero escaped death or not. Dark Link just wanted release.

Freedom. It was such a foreign word in his mind. Did other creatures get freedom, unlike him, who was bound by darkness and evil goals? Not even Link, the very hero of Hyrule, had freedom. He was held down by destiny. Could Link ever escape that destiny? It was yet another thing he doubted. The shadow didn’t realize he had so many doubts. Doubts in himself, the hero, and even the world. But there was one thing he would never doubt. He never doubted that death would bring him his release.

But death was different for him; it was not an end, but merely another beginning, another iteration in a cycle he could never escape. For as long as hate and darkness remained in Hyrule, he would always be needed again, and he would always be forced to return. The only moments of reprieve that he would ever experience would always turn out to be lies, a time existing only for him to grow strong enough for the sword. He was nothing but a tool, picked up and cast away as the goddesses pleased; no matter what pain he would experience in this life, he would always feel worse in the next. Always.

Ah, but wasn’t the same true for the shade that stood before him? He didn’t know how tightly they were bound; would death separate them and give the dark beast escape? He didn’t know, and he couldn’t know; he would be brought back without his memories in his next life, question still unanswered. How many times had fate weaved them together and apart, and how many more would it do so again? He wondered, but he could not know. He could only hope the other would rest; such a burden as Link carried was one he did not wish on anyone else, even a being that held as much malice as his own shadow. The dead were not meant to be brought back - but then again, what was already dead could never die. And he was dead, really. These were his final breaths, weren’t they? Ah, there had been pain, but it was fading now.

But despite being little more than a corpse, he still didn’t want to die, because death meant failure; death meant returning again and going through agony again, only to postpone the inevitable.

He could not bring words to answer the shade; the only response he held was a cough of crimson upon the glistening sand. He, too, was naught but death; he was herald of destruction. The scent of doom had clung to him since birth, though he had never recognized it. Destiny was that which had haunted him, the fate of bringing demise to those who opposed him. Really, they were not all that different; one and the same, fighting under a different banner but waging the same war. Would that he could express these words…! But he had nothing but gasps in answer, and even those gasps faded into silence.

Without life being in the hero, Dark Link's own was starting to fade away. His breaths were ragged as he felt the last string be tugged and pulled out, awaiting for it to snap. He let his legs buckle, knees striking the hot sand, body collapsing next to the hero. There would be no happy ending for either of them, it seemed. The hero would return to Hyrule someday, that he knew. Link's destiny was to go and fight again, to save Hyrule and keep it safe. But what of himself? Ah yes, what sort of fate was Dark Link destined for?

Fate, it seemed, was cruel and unkind to those that had one laid out for them. Dark Link had been created for one purpose, and that was to kill his counterpart. He had succeeded in that, unable to hear a single sound of life coming from the hero. But that had brought death upon himself. He had hoped death would bring release and freedom, and it seemed that it were going to, in the same sort of fashion he had imagined. Dark Link knew that this was going to be his final battle, and he fully accepted it. Both of them had fought on till the end.

A battle unlike any other, strange and difficult yet it would not be remembered by another. The strongest of battles were the hardest to read, the hardest to understand what truly had happened. If someone were to stumble upon himself and the hero, both laying there in the sand, one having gained success and the other defeat, they would never know. All they could do was guess and wonder why Link had been pursued by his very shadow and killed.

That didn't bother him. He didn't care whether someone understood it or not. All that mattered was that the hero was dead. He shifted himself, moving his body that now lay on the hot sand closer to the hero until they were side by side.

"Are you afraid of death, Link? Is her embrace welcoming of a hero who accomplished good deeds, or are you to be cast away like all the others?" His voice was quiet, words broken and voice cracking. Dark Link fell limp.