Lukewarm air dribbles through the open window. He's more than happy to let it drift sluggishly passed him, enjoying it despite the fact it isn't making him any less sticky. It's a small price to pay for being able to leave freezing cold tent life behind him. He rubs a patch of cadmium red smudged on his wrist. Most of it comes of but a persistent couple of flakes stay put. He nestles the brush in his hand down amongst the others scattered over the small table next to his easel. Sheik rolls his wrists, the right-hand one popping the way it always does. He grimaces at it, glad that Zelda is around to joke about how he'll be arthritic before he's forty. At least he's pretty sure he'll live to see forty now, there were a few years where he wasn't so sure.

He stretches out of his chair, twisting like a cat to knock all of the kinks and knots out of his muscles. It feels so Goddess damned good. Not the stretching, although that is a damn fine experience too, but being able to do this. It's the first time he's sat down to paint properly in, what, a year? Year and a half? More probably. When he'd first settled down to it little strands of fear that he'd have forgotten how to had risen up from the back of his mind. They weren't unfounded, he was a little slow, a little awkward and out of practice but it hadn't left him. The shapes still drifted from his fingers onto the stiff paper and the colours layered up to give them depth and weight. So what if it wasn't his best work, it was still a serviceable landscape. All that mattered was that he'd done it, could still do it, that he was more than just a man who killed things and couldn't sleep because of it.

Sheik pulls his torso through one last stretch and walks from the corner he commandeered for his art to the kitchen table. His stock of oil pastels is spread across the top of it. He rolls one that had made a break for the edge of the table back towards the epicentre of the colourful mess. It bounces into a comrade and knocks it into the back of a small, pale hand bracing the edge of a sheet of paper. Viorica looks up at him. She smiles, moving her hands so he can see what she's been up to. Ever since the end of things had come into sight he'd always thought it was too much to hope for. He'd said as much to Link, that even though he wanted desperately to come back home and have to set the table for three, it was too much to ask.

They'd braced themselves to say goodbye in Ioana's kitchen. Hands holding on tight to each other to try and make it easier. Each one reminding themselves it'd be better for Viorica to stay where she was, in her now free native country. As it turned out, she'd had other ideas. She came thumping down the stairs to meet them, a small, hard leather case dragging behind her. Her jaw was set, chin jutting out the way Zelda's does when she's made a decision. She'd told them she wanted to go with them. They tried to talk her out of it, had bitten their tongues to hold in what they really wanted to say. It was Ioana's faith in Viorica's choice, and the way her little's girls voice had broken over the mere mention of her family home that made them give in to what they all wanted.

Sheik side steps around the table so he's not looking at Viorica's drawing upside-down. He grins, it's a spectacularly fluffy looking sheepdog. She's given it lopsided ears and tan and brown patches on a smiley face.

`You like her?' She stares up at his face, looking for confirmation.

`She's lovely,' her ruffles her hair, `what's she called?'

`I called her Button because she has spots,' the deliberateness of Viorica's Hylian gives the statement a weight that makes Sheik laugh.

`Button is a wonderful name, I like it.'

Maybe they should get a dog. With lopsided ears and tan and brown patches. Link has a soft spot for dogs anyway and as much as Sheik is a cat person knowing how happy the other two would be makes it more than worth it. Maybe someone in the village will have a litter of puppies needing homes.

`Is it lunch hour?' She's turned to face the table again now, collecting the oil pastels and putting them back in their box.

Sheik casts a glance out of the window, trying to guess what time it is from the shadows thrown by the fence posts, `looks like it, are you hungry?'

She nods, plaits bouncing along in time and shimmies out of the chair. He hasn't stopped finding it adorable to watch Link and Viorica conspiring amongst the blankets and pillow nested on his and Link's bed every morning about how she'll have her hair for the day. It's lucky that the Gerudo were enthusiastic teachers and Link a quick study because the quantity of hair in need of taming in their household practically just doubled. That being said Sheik usually just resorts to scraping most of his into a scraggy bun and letting his bangs do whatever they want.

Viorica pulls a chair over to the kitchen counter from the table, climbing onto it so she can reach into one of the cupboards. Sheik bends down to the little cold store they have, fishing around for the cheese and slices of ham tucked away inside. Viorica places the bread carefully on the counter before getting down from the chair and putting it back. Sheik cuts thick wedges out of the cottage loaf. The butter slides its way next to his hand. He glances in the direction it came from, eyebrows raised. Viorica is steadily examining the fruit in the fruit bowl, very much not meeting his eye. He sighs, chasing the breath out with a chuckle and spreads butter over the freshly cut bread chunks. He's definitely got a challenger to his title of most fervent dairy product lover in the house. He glues the slices together in pairs, buttered face to buttered face and puts them next to the other bits and pieces they've gathered for lunch.

They try and find a basket to put everything in but when it isn't in either of the first two places they look they give up and just bundle everything into their arms. Between Vioricas only free hand and Sheik's knee they manage to open the door. They're half way across the garden, the warm sandy earth and scrubby, sparse grass wiggling underfoot, when Sheik lets out a strangled, defeated little wheeze,

`Shoes.' He turns to look at Viorica, `shooeeessssssssss. . . we have no shoes on. . .I forgot, I was thinking about cheese, I. . . '

She looks down, spreading her uncovered toes and wiggling them for anyone to see. `Oh,' her shoulders are already starting to shake, `oh. . .oh no.' She presses her bottom lips between her teeth but the giggles still spill through. They walk passed the rickety, salt weathered gate still laughing.

The sand is already verging on slightly too hot so they skip and hop over it, leaving two trails of quite differently sized footprints behind them. At least it isn't too far to Link's boat shed where they're soles can cool down a bit on the sandy floorboards. The doors and windows are all open and they find Link sat towards the back of the shed, in a patch of shade. He's sat on a stack of wooden boards, net twine fastened to a hook on the wall at one end, the other wrapped around the gauge in one hand while the other feeds the shuttle in and out in loops. Sheik smiles, constant anxiety that Link would be out here doing something strenuous even though he isn't healed fully yet once again put at bay. Instead the pile of mended sails in the corner has been steadily growing, along with the number of fishing nets hung along one wall.

'Lunch,' Viorica gently drops everything in her arms as she calls out to Link.

He looks up, hands falling still, and grin spreading over his face. He bounces up from his make-shift seat and sweeps towards them, catching Viorica in his arms and lifting her up. Sheik barely has enough time to put down the bread and cheese he's holding before Link presses him into his arms too. Viorica curls an arm around Sheik's neck as well, pulling him closer in. Link takes full advantage of this and buries his face into the crook of Sheik's neck, pressing his lips gently on to warm skin. Sheik lets his body relax into the wonderful, awkward, warmth. He'll take this over the wailing, hiccoughing, desperate, clutching lump they became after Link. . . after he. . . after Janus.

`Hello favourite people, what's this I hear about lunch?' Link lifts his head back up, beaming.

Viorica throws hers hands in the air, narrowly missing elbowing Link in the temple, `we brought it, some for every each of us.'

`And, that is why you're my favourite people.'

`If that's what makes us your favourites then how must you feel about the palace cooks?' Sheik murmurs and bumps his hip into Link's.

Link moves his mouth to hover over Sheik's ear `True but luckily for you the palace cook doesn't let me touch his-'

`Can we eat now?' Viorica wriggles in Link's arms and the hug breaks apart.

Sheik turns to the unruly pile of food spread over one of Link's work benches, firmly pretending the tips of his ears aren't a little pink. `We've got bread and cheese and ham and' he opens the jar in his hand and sniffs it, `onion chutney and some apples.'

Viorica climbs onto the bench and starts picking out the bits she wants. Link leans over and follows her example of stacking some ham and cheese on top on a hunk of bread. He flicks his eyes up to Sheik as he chews, watching him spoon some chutney out of the jar. It must be nearly empty because Sheik's thin fingers have little chutney smudges on them from how far he's had to reach the teaspoon into the jar. If Viorica wasn't here Link would be very tempted to lick them off. As it is he'll just have to save it for later. She passes him an apple and he can't help from reaching out, fondly patting her on the head as thanks.

He knows part of the reason his chest feels tight might because he's still got bandages wrapped firmly around it but it's hardly the whole story. He made himself a family. The boy that didn't have one. The boy that didn't even have a fairy because he wasn't a real Kokiri. The one that should have died countless times in countless ways but somehow kept hanging on. By the skin of his teeth, by luck and chance and by having a shadowy friend with quick fingers and a clever mind. A shadowy friend that became so very much more than that. So much more that now if you asked him why he had managed to get this far he could give the answer by name.

Now it's those quick fingers that hold him at night when those countless almost deaths catch up to him. That twist into his hair and shiver over his skin when they share their air and space and selves. He loves them for that just as much as he loves seeing them hold the hand of the child they didn't dare to admit they ached to have. Neither of them had ever thought it would be possible for people like them to be blessed this way. At least the Goddesses had more faith than they had. He's not sure he's every going to be able to repay Farore for listening to his last request. For giving it to him, for letting him live to see this. He prays, silently, just with a few words, because at least with the rest of his life ahead of him he has a fighting chance.

...and there we go, finished. I want to thank you so, so much for sticking with me and for reading and reviewing and generally just being there. I hope it's been a worthwhile read and I hope I've made something you've enjoyed. I don't think this is perfect but I'm still pleased with it anyway. I think I've still got a way to go towards getting good at writing but I'm glad you've come along for the ride because this'd be impossible to do without readers like you. So, for one last time,
cheers, Freckles