Fan Fiction ❯ Hymn to the Night-Mare ❯ Chapter 1 ( Chapter 1 )

Author’s Notes: This has been created out of the deep dark desire to slash the Wind Waker timeline. Given my belief that Zelda and Sheik are not the same person ((They lie, I tell you! Lie:shakes fist in denial: )), I really wanted Sheik to just pop up in WW. It would have made things interesting. I don’t have anything against WW. It was a fun game, even if I didn’t get to finish it due to the GC being ripped from my clutches by the person I “borrowed†it from. Given that, I don’t know the exact ending… Inconsistencies galore! Feel free to tell me of them, and I’ll attempt to change the story to fit it. I got hold of a script… and it actually has helped me with various questions on how to do this story… but anywho, I am now giving in to my slashy fangirl desires to somehow integrate Sheik ((and maybe DisassociativeIdentityDisorder!Link :snickers: there’s, like, four of them)) into this timeline. I’ve been hoping someone else would do it for me, cuz I’m lazy lazy lazy, but I can’t wait anymore, so please forgive my lack of talent as a writer. :bows and begs forgiveness: This is my first attempt at a fic that’s more than a piddly one-shot. I hope y’all give this a chance and enjoy it!

Rating: Eh… I’ll figure it out sometime. PG-13 for now.

Pairings: Sheik/Link, Link/Link, Link+Zelda/Tetra (…not for long…. Mwahahahahaha)

Summary: Going with the assumption that Zelda and Sheik are not one and the same, where’s Sheik, and what is he up to? ...and villains and fun things involving the Night-Mare in the title.

Disclaimer: Legend of Zelda is not mine. If it was, it would become the best made rp/action/adventure porno game ever released. It instead belongs to someone who has a name that no matter how many times I read or hear it I can’t remember. Also the song “Hymn to the Night-Mare†belongs to Mercedes Lackey and Leslie Fish and is supposedly inspired by Diane Duane’s “Tale of Five†(Which I SO need to get. Duane rocks.).

Extra Note: For your mental eye’s sake… pretend that this is uber-spiffy drool worthy cg LoZ and not uber-spiffy but not sek-say cell animation? …I like OOT Link’s hair better anyways… he has that hair now. :feels shallow:

Extra Extra Note: ….anyone wanna beta? Pwetty pwease?

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Chapter 01-

The Wind blew softly through his open window, carrying the briny smell of the sea and the soothing scent of a pending storm. It rustled frayed curtains through a cracked-open window, and upon it rode the remnants of a haunting melody:

“…if i see her again

i must die or kill

in the bleak dark wood

on the slumbering hill…â€

Sheik lay awake, panting from his dreams of fire and a familiar form lying broken on the shore, as the sweat dried on his still quivering body. He lay listening to the Wind’s song:

“…when the year wears down

and the trees are bare

in the form of an upright

white-fanged mare

for where she appears

death is on the air

and someone in sight

must die…â€

The faint words became indecipherable as the squall blew in, rain beating on the window like war-drums and dripping down off the windowsill to splatter like so much spilt blood onto the wooden floor. He was only able to catch a couple words, a phrase or two:

“...dark… nine fold… thighbone staff... crown… light… hoof… heaven’s vault…â€

And, in a lull of the storm, the last stanza hung hauntingly in his ears:

“…she will dance in flame

‘til the stars cry halt

and all but a few

shall die…â€

A crack of lightning made him yelp and throw the sheets over his head, soft tremors shaking his body, the melody whispering teasingly in his ears as the storm quickly died away leaving nothing but the sound of the waves crashing upon the shore.

He pulled the sheets down from over his head, and wrapped his arms around a ragged stuffed keaton that had seen better days. Sheik turned it around till the scratched button eyes faced him and sighed.

“Keaton, why did they have to make me a Prophet this time?â€

Sheik didn’t know how he had been able to fall back to sleep, but it seemed a mere instant later that the sun was shining too brightly in his eyes. He stretched lazily and yawned, his splayed out limbs sending Keaton to the ground. Lady Ira would not be pleased with him. The Priestess of Farore was a hard task-worker and believed that all of her wards should be up and working at the crack of dawn, if not sooner.

He sight and rolled out of bed. It took all of a minute to straighten the sheets and set Keaton in his place of honor on the pillow. By rights Sheik knew he should feel silly having a stuffed animal, but he justified it because the body he was in was still young, barely thirteen. He tossed off his patched nightshirt and quickly threw on a pair of hand-me-down shorts and a tank-top that was too big. One couldn’t be picky about their clothes in the Temple’s orphanage.

“SHEIK!â€

Sheik winced.

“SHEIK! Get your WORTHLESS ass down here and earn your keep like everyone else!â€

He’d heard this many times before and knew the entire speech by heart, it was almost a ritual. He spoke it to himself as Lady Ira yelled up the stairs from the kitchen. “All the others are already out doing their chores. Just because you’ve been here longer than anyone else doesn’t mean you can shirk your duties! So grab your broom and sweep the alter room NOW, boy!â€

Sheik leapt nimbly down the stairs and grabbed the broom that was waiting in Lady Ira’s hands. She fondly ruffled his hair as he took it from her, and he playfully swatted at her feet with the bristles.

“Little scamp,†she muttered with a smile.

He grinned roguishly at her and headed outside through the gardens and the brush towards the Temple Proper.

It sometimes amazed him how much he had changed in this new life. The more Sheik thought about it, the more he realized that the break from lives of constant training was a good thing, even if it meant he had to suffer the dreams that were sent to him and the Wind always murmuring in his ear. He felt he could spread his wings and grow in a way he hadn’t been able to, stifled as he had been with the Sheikah in his past incarnations.

The Sheikah were gone now, as was everything he was familiar with. It had been hundreds of years since his last incarnation as guide for the Hero of Time. The changes since then were heartbreaking. Hyrule was no more, lost beneath the sea. It had been three years since the Wind told him that it was gone forever, nothing but a mass of ruins that would never again see sunlight instead of the carefully shielded relic it had been. Sheik looked down at his hand and the shining Triforce now engraved on it. On that day the Triforce had fallen from the sky to him. He smiled. As long as the Triforce existed, so would Hyrule, if only in spirit.

The Wind said the Hylian race still survived, though he had yet to see any. No races other than human lived in the Goddess Isles, the three islands of Dima, Sonia, and Keena. No Zora, no Goron, no Kokiri. The only variety in intelligent life was him and the odd Keaton that showed up to throw everyone for a loop. He had kept his Hylian long ears and pointed features along with his own distinctive red eyes and pale complexion. He always looked the same, and was rather pleased with how he looked when he allowed himself any vain thoughts. However, Sheik felt so colorless and washed out compared to the richly tanned people of this place. If they had red hair, he would have sworn they were Gerudo, except Wind had told him of the death of their tribes.

It had been thirteen years since he had washed up on the shore of Keena, the Island of Farore, wrapped with his old harp in a threadbare Sheikah tunic; when Lady Ira showed it to him years later he had recognized the Eye of Truth carefully embroidered on the front. He’d been found by her as she walked along the shore hunting for shellfish with her many adopted children. He had no doubt this was Fate. The Goddesses wouldn’t take the trouble to conjure him a body only to have it drown or starve before he could do any good.

Lady Ira claimed that when she first looked upon him Farore had whispered his name in her ear and asked her to take care of him. She used this argument whenever any of the islanders decided he was devil spawn and had to be done away with. Much to Sheik’s amusement, and Lady Ira’s exasperation, this happened fairly often. He figured it was the red eyes. In the human mind, red eyes equaled a demonic nature. How surprised they would be if they found out that in his case it was the exact opposite.

He walked into the Temple of Farore and breathed in the air with reverence. Every breath was so much richer in here, smelling faintly of pine and cinnamon. Upon Alter on the far side of the Temple a flawless bloodstone pulsed with a green glow in recognition. Sheik smiled faintly and waved at it, as if it were Farore herself. For all he knew it could be, and not just an afterimage of her power.

He hummed a sprightly little tune as he swept dust and debris from the storm out the Temple entrance, pausing only for a moment to laugh quietly as he recognized the song as the Forest Sage’s from so long ago.

The Wind ruffled his hair as he stepped back outside, broom slung over his shoulder, and he closed his eyes to listen. “Visitors today,†he muttered to himself. Sheik started back down the overgrown stone path towards the living quarters.

He arrived quickly, mostly because he hadn’t had breakfast yet, and grabbed a sweetroll before Lady Ira could rap his knuckles with her infamous spoon. “The Wind said we’re going to have visitors,†he said casually before shoving about half the roll into his mouth. Sheik had never hid his ability to hear the Wind from her, trusting that she would keep it to herself.

“Hmmm,†she said while stirring a pot of stew, “I guess that means you’ll have to pick more vegetables from the garden. And why don’t you weed it too?â€

Sheik groaned. “But-“

She turned around and shook her spoon at him. “No ‘buts’ young man! Your fingers won’t be too blistered to play that damn harp and you can train later.â€

It was times like this that Sheik found it difficult to believe that she was a Priestess and not a fisherman’s wife in disguise, but then Farore and Din’s Priestesses had always been a bit feisty. It was Naryu who got the dull ones, and it was Naryu’s followers that he was used to.

He laughed to himself and swallowed the rest of the roll. “Fine, fine.†He made a show of slowly getting up and stretching as if this was the hardest task in the world and stood on his toes to kiss her cheek as she kept stirring the pot before he sprinted off to the gardening shed behind the kitchen.

=-=-=-=

“…the Hero this way comes…â€

Sheik froze in the middle of the potato patch as the Wind spoke to him, his spade now lying half-forgotten in the dirt. “…Link?†There had always only been one “Hero.â€

Ҡ;¦on flame he rides…â€

He frowned, wondering what the Wind meant.  The Hero of Flames had not yet been born, and Sheik prayed he never would be.  He dusted off his knees as he stood, and, with a sigh, lifted the basket of potatoes and carrots he’d dug up for that night’s stew.  Sometimes Sheik wished that the Wind would speak clearly to him.  It would have been much easier to be a Prophet for Naryu.  Her Water provided images which, while sometimes misleading, made more sense that the Winds murmurs.

As he made his way out of the gardens, wiping sweat from his brow with the bottom of his shirt, he heard someone stumbling up the old, wooden stairs leading to the orphanage, their heavy footsteps echoing hollowly in the space between the wood and the rocky hillside.  Frantic screaming soon reached his ears as the person, a young girl from the sound if it, got close enough to orphanage for their voice to be heard inside. 

“Lady Ira! Lady Ira! A ship- on fire!â€Â  Her voice cracked as she yelled.

Sheik dropped his basket and dashed for the Temple’s arched entryway to hear more, a sense of dread knotting up his stomach. He got there at the same time as the girl and Lady Ira.

The girl collapsed from exhaustion and clutched at Lady Ira’s robe. “Please- on the shore… there are people on the shore… we can’t help them!â€

The other children of the orphanage were showing up to see what was happening. There were only five. Lady Ira couldn’t take care of any more by herself. Sheik saw Nehri, older by him than a year and just beginning her apprenticeship to become a Priestess, coming from the kitchen with some water for the messenger.

Lady Ira frowned. “Sheik, stay here and guard the Temple. There could be pirates near. Nehri, get the bandages and herbs. Anything we have for burns. Yin, get towels and blankets to dry them with.†A small girl turned and ran back to the orphanage. “The rest of you, get the extra beds ready and set out lots of bowls and bring in lots of water from the well.â€

Sheik rose to go get his weapons from his room. He wouldn’t be getting his practice weapons. Instead he’d be getting his metal-tipped bo-staff and a chain whip that he took great pride in. It had taken years of odd jobs in the main village to get enough money for the smith to make it for him, and even then Lady Ira had to formally order the man to do it, carefully explaining that, no, Sheik was not going to use them to wreak havoc on the village and yes he could handle them without poking someone’s eye out.

He walked up to his room and took both weapons, along with a plethora of throwing knives, out from a compartment he’d made in the floor. Sheik all but purred when he felt the cold, solid weight of the whip in his hands. It had been far too long since he’d been in battle. Bard, and now Prophet, though he was, he could not deny that he enjoyed a good fight. He tied the knife sheaths around his arms and legs and folded up the whip so he could put it in a special pouch on his thigh. Lastly he picked up his bo and left his room, trotting down the stairs and out the kitchen to stand guard at the entrance of the Temple Proper.

=-=-=-=

“Hold him still!â€

“I can’t! He won’t stop- shit!â€

Sheik easily heard the commotion long before the group arrived. He took that as a sign that it was okay to stop guarding the Temple Proper. He rested the bo on his shoulder and made his way back to the orphanage to see what was going on. The wind playfully caressed his ears.

“…the Hero…â€

“â 364;¦â€¦â€¦â€¦our Master…â€

“â& #8364;¦the Hero arrives…â€

“⠀¦Master……arrivedâ̈́ 4;¦â€

“…is here…â€

AN: And thus ends the first chapter of my monstrous plot-bunny.