air

When the stale air of the temple buzzed awake, when the tiger-orange sun striped through the black-blotted sky, when Link descended like some god on a blue column of swaying light, Sheik wanted to tell him. When he was green and golden and right there in front of her, so gloriously alive and the foretold bearer of that legendary blade, she wanted to pour it all out to him. She wanted to rip her mask and enchantments away and throw herself at his feet and beg for forgiveness. It was enthralling, filled with such relief, that odd hanging second where she witnessed the birth of the Hero of Time, swinging from his Sacred Realm womb towards her aching clock-tuned body. He would turn the war to their favor, and maybe he would-

Her heart hammered against her chest. Her stomach twisted into a billion knots. And she knew.

She didn't tell him.

When stench bloomed thick over Castle Town and he cut his path through Re-deads and no stars shone through a suffocated sky, she followed him. New and gangling, though already strong-still, he might need her. When he called out the first time, she was there, and the next, and the one after, each time, the air between them too chilly for her liking, each time, his skin warm, his mouth warmer, she could always tell, even from a distance. And his fairy, always blue, bitchy, blinding, piercing thru bombazine pinings and heavier duties, reminding, you need rest too, you know, little shadow, little liar-but Sheik liked the sprite, a little deceiver, too, neither knowing how to bend their love of a hero to stay in place, long as the nights they lasted.