Between my job and personal projects (and certain characters being VERY. STUBBORN) Static Red is slow going but WILL be finished!

Also, after assessing why I hadn't worked on Pandemonic (my big original story) for ages (it *was* a modern fantasy) versus what I've written the most for ever (Static Red) Pandemonic was revamped as a politics and war pseudo-sword-and-sorcery story.

Thanks to Myoutakara for betaing despite busy schedules!

Chapter 24: A Paragon of Holiness (will not be found herein)

It was the morning before Kafei was to escort Schwarz of Weiss, accused murderer of King Daphnes of Hyrule, and Duke Hell of Weiss, his suspected accomplice, back to Hyrule Castle to stand trial before her majesty the queen.

He was sick with worry, had been drinking too much, and needed to hear that Sheik had been found alive (and well!) before he would get better.

Sheik had made it through war as a child. Kafei absolutely forbade that he die now! He couldn't, he just couldn't, Kafei had promised himself he wouldn't let another friend be lost, and he'd made sure of it in blood, so Sheik had to be…

A warm hand was heavy on his shoulder. "I think you've had enough milk," Kishin said, unusually gentle as he took the jar of Chateau Romani away. Kafei stared after him, frustrated and angry and so, so lost and tired that he could hardly believe that he was no longer ten years old and asking someone 'why' he couldn't fix what was already broken.

"He made it through a war." Kafei mumbled, broken. "But anyone can die."

"… I know." Kishin sat beside him. "But I don't believe he's dead yet. And you can't stop living whether or not you think he is, Kafei."

"I hate you. More than anything."

"You don't really mean that." Kishin mussed his hair, so obnoxiously understanding that Kafei just wanted to break his nose for it. How dare he be calm. "And – since I'm sure he's fine – imagine what he would say if you were lax about your duties over him? He'd be so angry."

"He'd bitch and whine," Kafei corrected, glum. He needed that. He refused to lose anyone like this! It was not allowed.

"And you don't want that, do you? Of course not." Kishin petted his head again, and Kafei nearly lashed out for it. "I know you're upset. I know. I get it. But there is a time and a place. Majora will be back soon… you need to get ready."

Majora opened the door before Kafei acted on the voices screaming in his head to break Kishin's jaw, however, and for once he was a savior – however unintended.

It was still dark ouside, ominous with the howl of the mountain wind rushing through the city and the sound of waves rolling over themselves and crashing into the bridges and barriers laid out below. It was surreal and anonymous, safer than the too-warm house and its well-lit reality. As soon as Majora had moved from the doorway, Kafei leapt to his feet and ran out.

Before Kishin could shout after him he'd disappeared into the shadows of an alley, and they knew they wouldn't be finding him again that day.

Majora blinked, then stared at Kishin as though it were his fault.

Kishin lifted his chin and gazed back. "It seems I'll be escorting them with you instead." He said.

Schwarz and Hell raised their heads from the corner to stare at their guards – Hell with dull eyes, and Schwarz with blind. Majora – the arguable devil of this world – stared back, while Kishin looked away because he maybe understood a little more than he should have, what it felt like to be let down like that. And still not be able to cut ties.

"We should be going." Kishin said, because he wanted to think about something other than a little kid wandering the streets alone and unwanted, or a mage trying to burn down the world.

"That would be preferable." Hell murmured, rising from beside Schwarz with a stagger. His hair was limp and his eyes haggard. He looked much worse than he should have, but Kishin suspected his selfcare had been on a steady decline since the disappearance of Schwarz. And had likely taken a nosedive since finding him again.

Schwarz had not spoken since his confession days before. Hell would not look at him, either… though he hardly seemed willing to look at anyone until now, when his eyes met Kishin's with tired dignity.

Well, it was understandable. He'd come here hoping to find his friend and protect him. Now that he heard a confession from the criminal's lips…

Kishin took their chains and tugged them out the door. They would use one of Majora's portals to return to Hyrule past the Hell Gate, then.

Perched on the throne, Zelda sat with her ankles crossed. The doors before her creaked open to admit the man she remembered as Majora, and another who served to remind her of Link. He was tall and lean in a white tunic, with face paint and white hair. He even wore the same stupid sort of hat as Link!

(She wondered briefly where those two were. The sight of a shadow grinning at her with Link's face this morning assured her they were still among the living, but…

Where?)

Behind those two came Duke Hell of Weiss, in chains, and Schwarz of Weiss, the strange scarred man who'd been his guard.

Zelda looked at them and tried to see monsters. It was hard, though. Hell was a sick, frail, soft-spoken dandy. Schwarz was… a… block. She hadn't really ever spoken to him, or even really seen more than a glance of him. And he was blind! Goddesses above, how could either of them have…?

And yet they had. And her father was dead and her kingdom was now in her hands. Well.

"What do you have to say in your defense, Hell of Weiss?" She asked, regal and tired and very stern. She did her best to imitate Impa's irritated tone, because it was so intimidating to have used on you…

Hell stared up at her. He looked… dead, and Zelda pressed back a shudder while a guard undid the gag knotted around his head. Hell took a moment – perhaps to compose himself – before he opened his mouth, lips cracking, and began to speak. His voice was as toneless and empty as his face, and Zelda wondered at the point of a trial for a man who felt nothing. "The death of the king is my responsibility." Her gut dropped down onto the throne room floor, and stayed there. It took all of her will not to become violently ill. She had to see this through… "I lied to your face and ordered my servant to kill him. He argued against it-"

Schwarz tried to say something with wide-eyes and with his face struck with horror, but he was gagged and so silenced. Zelda barely noticed, but it broke the trance of staring she'd fallen into. The sense of something being wrong, wronger than her father's murder, began to niggle at her…

"-But I gave him no choice."

"Why?"

Hell paused, lips that had been pressed together slowly opening to admit a breath. "… why?"

Zelda's fingers tightened on the sides of her chair.

"… because servants should listen… to their masters." Hell murmured, slanting a look back at his guard and looking almost-guilty. It was kind of ugly how fake everyone had become so recently. A man with a temper who acted mildly, a guard who acted mild until he killed her father. A pair of murderers who looked sick with themselves more than their situation, and afraid of something that couldn't be guilt, because they were sitting in front of her confessing. It was, Zelda reflected, enough to make her very angry.

"No. Why did you want my father to die?" Sir Dietrich wanted her to marry Hell, and Hell was confessing to murdering her own father. Zelda's ears began to twitch. Hadn't he known? Or was marriage never what he wanted? Or…

Hell almost looked baffled. "… because. He allowed… a plague into our country. He let the rats you call sheikah live, my father couldn't stand for it, I-"

Or maybe Hell had nothing to do with it and was covering for his guard. Zelda didn't know why he would do that, but his shitty lying sort of pointed to it.

"Stop. Just. Shut up." Zelda held up a hand. This had to be the stupidest… her father was murdered by idiots. She felt like crying for a whole new host of reasons.

Hell obliged her, bowing his face to the floor.

"You wanted to kill my father because you disagreed with his policies."

"… yes."

Zelda stared at him. "And then who would replace him?"

It was silent in her court a long time, long enough that she could catch the snatches of a bird singing outside the windows, basking in the late noon sun. Then Hell spoke towards the floor. "… I… I don't know."

So. He was covering, he was an ass, or he was an idiot. She was going to cover her bases, then.

"I hadn't thought that far ahead, your grace." Hell added, and Zelda took 'your grace' as the farce it had become in those few weeks of misery. She had tears in her eyes, her gloves were worn threadbare at the knuckles, her dress was warped and stretched from her hands clutching and pulling it in fits. She wasn't graceful, she was a woman in mourning afraid she couldn't fit into the shoes she'd decided to wear. None of that was graceful. None of that implied any blessing from the gods. All she had was the triangle marked on her wrist that called her wise, and her wisdom said there was a mess of lies in front of her and a greater mess below to uncover.

"Don't." Zelda pressed her lips into a thin line, tears gathering in her eyes. "And your father?"

Hell shifted on the floor. He looked very pitiful in his clothes-that-used-to-be-white, very small and fragile. Like a bug under her heel. Why would a noble try to protect his servant for murdering a king?... He knew he wouldn't survive it if she found them guilty. Was he stalling, or suicidal, or was… ("What about him?" Hell asked, peering up at her between white bangs.)

… was he maybe covering for someone else?

Schwarz, as far as she could see, gained nothing from her father's death.

"Raise your head when you address the queen!" One of the guards snapped, breaking Zelda from her puzzling. Hell turned his chin up to give a blank stare to the court.

"… what about my father?" He repeated in a rasp, dead eyes wavering on Zelda's when they met, but not breaking away.

"What part did he play in this?" Zelda asked with a note of impatience. Her fingers twitched against her leg. (She remembered sitting in the courtyard with her father once, after Ganondorf's fall, talking. Saying she wouldn't have made it in Link's place, the puzzles of the temples would have driven her mad, because she couldn't stand to leave one unexamined in its entirety….) "You'd have me believe he knew nothing of it?"

"He didn't!" Hell exclaimed, and something about his face was angry but not with disbelief, more like realization and a little dash of horror. It melded with his voice in her perception of him, and what came out almost sounded like He could have.

Hell looked more alive, all of a sudden, invested in his own trial.

A grim joy lifted her heart up from the shadowed depths of its cage. "Liar! You came to the capital looking for a bride." Zelda leaned forward, fingers clutching the arms of her throne and making the threadbare silk of her gloves that much more warped in the knuckles. "Was that the plan? Become engaged and kill my father without suspicion so you could-"

"N-no!" Life had drained back into Hell, and shown most prominently was unadulterated confusion. "No, never! I-"

Hell had gotten along with her father. Hell spent most of his time in town instead of in the castle. Hell only drank in the company of others, and never requested wine by himself. He was never seen near the kitchens. A sheikah he was not.

In his time in the castle he hadn't sent out one letter and refused any he received (and they were all, always, from Weiss). Hell's story was terrible because Hell had no idea what was going on… he was just covering for someone that had been his guard for almost as long as they'd both been alive.

He was doing for Schwarz what Zelda would do for Sheik.

Hell was not of interest. Zelda's eyes locked on something over his shoulder instead. "Gag him." She ordered, with her gaze fixed on something far more interesting. "Schwarz of Weiss. You wish to speak?"

The bound and scarred guard nodded, wide blind eyes fixed in her direction. Zelda waved to the guard attending the prisoners, and Schwarz choked in a breath once his gag was taken.

"The lord wanted your grace to become engaged to Duke Hell." He managed between coughs. Zelda's brows arched, and her heart thumped.

"And I suppose Hell didn't know a thing." She almost sneered, grateful that Sheik wasn't here to murder anyone. Thank the Three. Hell was starting to struggle in his binds, too… Zelda ordered him taken away with a sigh. She'd deal with the two separately. Better to keep them from working together on their lie, then.

Schwarz almost seemed relieved that Hell was going, too. He was a servant… it wasn't likely that he believed in their cause, but she had to be sure.

"He didn't, your grace. It was kept from him. He is too defiant of our lord, and would have committed some act to incense you."

"Like ordering you to murder my father." Zelda had grown a bit detached, and mused with numb amazement how flat her voice had become.

Schwarz choked, and bowed so low his forehead touched the floor and stayed there. "Please, I can explain everything, about your father, Hell, everything."

"… What is your full name? I want you to swear by it."

"Schwarz Efah."

"That's an alias." She wasn't that sheltered, thank you. Efah was another name entirely.

"It is. It is, highness, since I was a child. Lady Amelia of Weiss named me such."

Zelda pursed her lips. "And your name before her?"

Schwarz let out a breath. "… Efah Abd Al-Rashid. Lord Hell was not aware of this, nor Lord Dietrich. O-only three people knew."

"You're claiming to be a sheikah, then." He was dark-skinned, but his eyes and hair were a far cry from any sheikah she'd yet seen.

"I am. I was born in the castle to Ihsan and Husni Al-Rashid." Schwarz almost sounded sincere with his pleading… Zelda turned to Impa to ask and paused.

Impa was staring at Schwarz with bright, narrow eyes.

"Impa."

"Your highness?"

"You can look those names up, can't you? I'd like to see if he's telling the truth." She said, plenty loud enough for the prisoner to hear.

"It will only be a moment, Lady Zelda." Impa bowed and left to do so, and Zelda turned her gaze back and tried to steady her breathing.

Zelda cocked her head. "And the three people… who knew?"

Schwarz sighed. "Lady Viilinn of Weiss, Lady Amin, her guard, and Lady Amelia."

"… all three of those women are dead."

"Yes, your highness."

"I cannot question the dead."

"I beg forgiveness for my insolence. All I can offer is my assurance that this is the truth." Schwarz was begging. He sounded as though he'd fallen quite deep into despair.

A scarred, begging, pathetic servant. Zelda cocked her head and settled her cheek in her hand. "… you're blind, aren't you?"

"Yes, your grace." Schwarz said, face to the floor. Zelda nodded.

"How did that happen?"

Schwarz paused. "… it is unrelated to the trial, highness…"

"I want to hear it." Zelda's fingers twitched. "Tell me."

"… yes, highness." Schwarz let out a sigh. "I did something irreparably foolish…"

It should be interesting to hear, Zelda thought. She wondered how many tales the two of them would spin to try and escape punishment for their crimes. Schwarz was welcome to play Scheherazade while Impa ferreted out what she'd asked to know.

"And, your highness should know, what I say will sound like a lie, but I would swear on my parents' graves that it is the truth. All of it."

Zelda held back a sigh. "You seem quite sure of your fantastical tale." Her hand curled and clenched, fingers digging into her cheek. "Tell it, then."

The war had just ended, and the wind on the mountain howled long and vicious in his ears. He'd never been so far north of home before… It had been well past a decade since he'd been to Castletown or Kakariko… he'd never gone past Death Mountain before this week.

… it was very cold here. The scars that edged his ears stung in the wind, and he pulled his hood up in hopes of stopping it from hitting them. It still managed after the attempt. Just another misery in a string of them.

He hoped Hell was doing better. He'd been feverish when Schwarz had left and… well…

He didn't know what he would do if something happened. He needed to get done and get back to Bremen-Verdant…

He clutched the scarred remnants of a map tighter in his hands and hurried on. Tot, Tot… secret City of Sheikah, though no longer so secret – they'd been taking fleeing hylians in during the war, after all – they had… a valley… before the mountain entrance. And overlooking that valley was a house with two guardians.

House Weiss had lost a good deal of money in the war. And many servants. Schwarz needed to pick up the slack, for Hell's sake. Lord Dietrich had no fondness for the guardians of a city of sheikah… it had come to his attention that one of the guardians was a well-regarded author, responsible for the writing of a book that normified – nay, glorified – the scourge (scourge, ha, the shadows were always there, neither good nor evil but call them a scourge because you don't understand anything- Schwarz had to stop talking, a moment, to choke back bitter laughter and press his bound hands towards his head. He trembled on the floor with the force of it.

Zelda adjusted her head and pursed her lips at him. "Are you done?"

Ah… "My apologies, highness. I am."

"I'm sorry, too. I'm sure it would have been a very funny joke if you weren't on trial for regicide.")

… Books that glorified the scourge slowly seeping its way through Hyrule's once-hallowed kingdom.

That… couldn't stand. Schwarz was to find what books he could and destroy them. And to kill the menace.

(… Hell was in bed at home ill, and instead of staying at his side, Schwarz was trying to break into someone's home to murder them. He was… yes, he understood. He was scum, but he couldn't stop now. He was far too close. Thinking back on it he felt as ill as he had then.)

If the guardian was dead, perhaps, for a while Dietrich would rest easy. Perhaps Schwarz and Hell could be alone, and safe in silence. It was almost too much to hope for, for a man without hope, and he carried on up the mountain while a blizzard began to brew.

The sunset was so bright and so beautiful, he stopped a moment on the steps leading to the Guardian's pass to stare out at the world. The sun bled out color onto the dusty plains until it twisted from gold and red and brown to violent on the edges of the world. He wished he could show Hell the landscape stretched out on every side of him.

Perhaps someday…

Schwarz continued his uphill trek to the dominion of the guardians, and entered the valley to introduce himself.

The guardians were a pair of monsters… one looked human except its mask. The other was white as teeth with arms and hands dyed obsidian, hair as the ocean, eyes and mouth like hellfire.

"You're going to kill me because you don't like my books?" The pale one stared, arms crossed in front of… him? Her? It? And eyes like sulfur fixed on Schwarz, wide with disbelief. "… Fine."

The pale beast turned to the masked one, "Sanguine, get lost. This is gonna get messy."

"Alright…" The tan-skinned demon got up and walked away without a glance back, but Schwarz didn't drop his guard. Nothing stopped him returning, after all.

"What's your name? Before I break you." The monster asked, striding toward him with far too much self-assurance.

"Schwarz Efah." He began to draw his blade.

The Devil Guard smiled. "Great. Mine's Kers. Hope you enjoyed living, Schwarz Efah~… heh. That's a fine name, isn't it?"

And he leapt. And Schwarz couldn't move fast enough, and pain and bright fucking red exploded across his vision before everything fell into darkness.

"Schwarz Efah…" The monster's voice crooned while its wet talons stroke his cheek and left little bloody gouges, "Let's see how you like the Black Ether…"

"… I woke up in the snow," He recollected, mournful. "And nearly froze. A man named Beat found me and took me in from the cold in Tot… that was how I met him. He was a murderer… which I suppose I wasn't meant to find out. I talked him out of killing me. … I… I promised I would get him into Lord Dietrich's good graces, which I did. I don't know how many acts he performed at the Lord's… discretion."

"And now he's dead, too, I assume." Sarcasm hadn't dripped so thoroughly from someone's throat since Sheik last stepped foot in the castle.

"He led your sheikah and hero straight to me. I don't know what he was thinking." Schwarz confessed, "But he was killed in the tunnels, yes. I do not know the details."

"I'll find them out soon enough." Zelda supposed.

The door creaked open.

"How old were you when you were adopted by Lady Amelia Rosenthal of Weiss?" Impa asked as she returned to Zelda's side.

Schwarz started rather badly from it. Seemed like he'd forgotten she'd gone. "Er… perhaps… six."

Impa hummed in thought. "How old are you now?"

"Twenty eight, ma'am."

Impa showed Zelda the parchment she'd returned with. Zelda stared at it a moment, lips in a thin painted line.

"… repeat your birth name for the court." She demanded, trembling eyes fixed on that page.

"Efah Abd Al-Rashid."

One gloved finger – black silk for mourning except where she'd worn the knuckles dark grey – traced the long-dried ink on a paper older than the queen herself.

"Your parents died in a… culling." She said, shaky, feeling more than a little faint. "… how did you…?"

He should have been dead. By the king's order, before she or Sheik were ever born. This wasn't by Schwarz's word… this was a paper written and notarized by the hylian court, presented to her by Impa, her most trusted… no. No.

Nononono. What were you thinking, father?!

Zelda nearly crumpled the paper between her hands. She gave it back over and struggled to hold back her shaking. Tried to breathe. In, out, in… Everything felt too tight and close all over.

"How did you escape?" She rasped, wide-eyes fixed on blind ones.

Schwarz lowered his head to the floor again. "I ran from our room and hid." He said, lamenting and raw and wrapped up in memories no one should ever suffer. "I ran into an adult's legs. I-I thought I would die… it was Lady Asima preparing to leave." He struggled to breathe. "She'd just given birth and had to leave because…"

Because Sheik wasn't supposed to be born, and his mother had broken the law by laying with her charge. Because she had to be punished and banished from the king's service. "She… took me from the castle to Weiss and brought me to Lady Amelia. I was told… that I was to call myself Schwarz, and she was Amin, and to never speak of any of it ever again, to protect my life. I only bear the truth now because Hell's life has come to risk." Hell with his shitty temper and shittier lies and his fucking strange attachment to his guard.

"Why does it matter?"

"… he is all I have left." Schwarz shuddered. "I killed the king to keep him alive. I… he lied to you. He didn't know. He was so angry when he found out that I had…" He shuddered again, and Zelda looked down to see her own hands trembling. The tears began to run down her face. "He's an idiot. He thinks that if he can be executed I will live. I'm going to die w-whether or not your highness is my judge… so I would far rather you be my judge." Schwarz looked at her, trembling and pathetic – and she was the same, and it was awful. "I beg you to believe me. I am the only one responsible for my choices."

"You aren't the only one who suffered from them." Zelda snapped, eyes burning.

"I deserve to die." Schwarz acknowledged, and her fist thumping the arm of her throne silenced him.

"Then why did you run?" The triforce burned against her wrist and her mind and his words.

"Because I am a dog." Schwarz laid his head on the floor, the back of his neck bared.

Zelda had had enough for today. "Take him away." She snapped, rubbing the wrist of her glove hard over her eyes, trying to scrub away the tears and sting of salt that clung to her stubbornly, and made her skin stiff. "We will resume later."

"Y-yes, your highness." One by one, the court filed out, until it was Zelda and Impa left alone.

Once she was, Zelda curled up on her throne and cried.

The flowers were blooming in Weiss.

Dietrich smiled at them, leaning on his cane. He'd had trouble walking since a skirmish with the gerudo three decades ago, and so even though he wasn't a very old man, he walked with a limp. His hip ached today, but the sun shining was far too lovely to resist. He forced himself to hobble into the garden.

A rainbow of all variety of blooms climbed the courtyard walls and spanned high above his head, dangling from trellises and arbors. It was paradise trapped between brick and mortar.

Soon he should hear back from the capital. Hell had gone missing, and he was more than a bit concerned about that…

"I fear I may have lost two heirs, now…" He murmured, smile falling as he came closer to his destination. A large white stone rose out of the grass, marking a memorial for the previous Duchess – his eldest child, Viilinn. She'd been a willful, obstinate creature and they'd fought at the best of times, but she was his little girl. He'd had high hopes for her life, that… had been cut short too soon. Viilinn and his grandson both… He sighed through his nose.

It was a tragedy.

"I don't know what I'll do if I lose your brother." Dietrich confided to the stone, tired and withered with old bony fingers running across the inscriptions on the marble.

The stone remained silent, glowing gently in the noontime sun.

"Lord Dietrich? You have visitors…"

It wasn't long after he'd left his sanctum that a maid came calling on him. Pondering who could possibly be visiting him without invitation or warning, he pulled on a fine houppeland of gold and white to greet his guests.

And who he met in the parlor was quite… interesting.

Sheik was staring at a painting on the wall rather intently while they awaited their host. It was a blond woman with sun-darkened skin, broad shoulders, and a terrifying grin riding a horse and wielding a bow…

It was also unnecessarily huge, the whole of the painting being longer than they were tall and taking up most of the panel of wall on which it hung. The frame was gilt and looked very, very expensive. Sheik caught a maid's attention and inquired about it softly, and the girl's eyes lit up with something strange when she looked the two of them over, then turned to the painting. "The late duchess Viilinn. This portrait was painted on her seventeenth birthday." Schwarz's cries echoed in Link's mind. The name Viilinn seemed as subtle as a church bell flying at his face now.

"And… how old was she when she passed?" Sheik asked curiously. The maid paused to think.

"I didn't work here while she was alive, mind…" She said thoughtfully. "But, from what I know she was quite a bit older than Master Hell… Ah… perhaps twenty?"

"I see… Thank you." Sheik inclined his head. Link fidgeted uncomfortably on the couch beside him, but Sheik was in his element. "And Sir Dietrich will see us?" He could hardly refuse when Sheik presented the royal fucking seal and demanded entrance, but, details.

The maid smiled pleasantly and curtsied. "Of course, Sir Guard. He was not expecting guests, however, and will require a moment to make himself appropriate. Please be patient! Perhaps I could fetch refreshments for you both?"

Link grimaced and Sheik politely declined.

The maid skipped off anyway, no doubt to get a plateful that Sheik would flat out refuse (he'd assume they were poisoned, and considering the number of very poisonous plants he'd pointed out to Link on their way through the Province, Link could kind of almost call it a reasonable fear…)

Not so long after the maid had left the tray of unwanted sweets on the table in front of them, their host came in.

Lord Dietrich was not particularly old, perhaps fifty years of age, and had hair the color of starlight and pale blue eyes. His cheekbones were sharp and the bags under his eyes severe… his lips were creased now in a smile, but it looked forced and fake on his face. When he walked in his legs didn't seem to work quite right, and there was a stiffness to his back and how he carried himself that came from old injury and current discomfort.

He'd fought in some war or another, hadn't he? Sheik had muttered something about that on the way to the place.

"I never imagined I'd come to find the Hero of Hyrule sitting in my drawing room." Dietrich drawled. One hand, bony and with skin so pale it was translucent, clutched a cane like a lifeline. "And with one of the shadowed ones, too… Truly, Weiss has been blessed this day."

Sheik stiffened beside Link on the couch, like a cat presented with prey. It was not a novel thing… Link hoped he wouldn't be hauling him off of the nobleman before the day was out.

The dungeons were dank and cold and it was not so long ago her father was in here with half the nobles of Castletown, the half that didn't defect or flee or die.

Schwarz sat in the middle of his cell with his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees with his legs folded. He looked small and old and infinitely tired. Like someone who had gone so far past the end of his rope that the ground was inevitable and he was just waiting for the fall to end in a splat.

Hell had been in a warmer cell closer to the entrance. Even disgraced nobles warranted better treatment than common criminals. He'd looked more miserable about being alone than being in a cell, worse than he had locked up in his room in the guest wing of the castle.

Zelda didn't know how much he knew about her father's last days, but she knew Hell had tried to pull a wool over her eyes about his own actions and intentions (not once! Never just once! About the search for a wife and the murder and probably more she hadn't yet uncovered!), and she was quite and well tired of that. Her kingdom had done it, and her father had done it, and it essentially summed up the existence of the sheikah. (One didn't have to lie to conceal the truth, after all)

She pulled Sheik's cowl higher over her nose and straightened her clothes.

Schwarz let out a shuddering breath inside the cell and raised his face.

In the dark his eyes were the same muted red as the one painted on her tabard, and she wondered a moment at the magic of daylight, that it could hide such a thing.

The scar between his eyes was corded, bulging and ugly. It looked like it hurt a lot to get. It looked like it would still be a bundle of nerves and pain if she touched it.

Schwarz let out a soft sigh, hands settling in his lap. "I've heard the stories, you know." He said, gentle as a butterfly's wingbeats. "That the demon that served the gerudo king was our very own princess."

She forced herself through long practice not to twitch. Demon? He was calling her a demon? Wasn't that the height of hypocrisy?

Schwarz looked up at her, expression wan as he gazed through the gloom and bars.

"You aren't blind." Zelda challenged, eyes like ice. Schwarz busied himself gazing at the ground.

"It's recompense." His fingers traced shapes in the dust. He didn't seemed particularly threatening, not like Impa or the castle knights or even Link. He had killed with poison, like a coward. He had run.

Zelda didn't think she could stop him, still, if she entered the cell and he decided that he'd rather escape again. She refrained from the urge to open the doors and touched the bars with feather light fingers instead, and hoped it would be enough to tide herself over.

"I don't understand." She told him, feeling stronger behind the mask of someone 'other'.

Schwarz shifted in his cell. "I apologize for any confusion I may have contributed to, your grace." He said to the floor.

Zelda's lips turned further down. "Why are you asking me to punish you when before you ran? Will Dietrich of Weiss do you some worse number if you survive and Hell dies?"

Schwarz snorted and covered his face and… and shook, sobbing.

Zelda almost felt guilty until she realized that Schwarz was laughing, and then she just felt angry and kicked the cell door. "I'm serious!"

"I don't think you realize Hell couldn't hurt a fly. He's a pawn, you know." Schwarz laughed into his hands, scrubbing tears off of his face and… maybe it hadn't been all mirth, after all. "My parents are dead. My mistresses are dead. The only person in this world I can be human for is in a cell down the hall on death-row."

… and it shook her more than a little that she could see Sheik in his place if their father had been a little crueler, a little less nostalgic… Or maybe just a little longer lived. If he hadn't had someone that would-

"Why didn't you ask for help?" She asked, leaning forward, eyes searching his.

The look Schwarz gave her could only redefine hopelessness and confusion for the ages. "Who would I have asked that could?"

Zelda had let herself into the cell after that. Her ugly suspicion that Schwarz wouldn't even move for the door was answered. He didn't react to the sky any more than he'd reacted to her – mild surprise and then indifference. He still stared at the dirt a lot.

She ran her hand over his scar, watching him flinch. She didn't do that long. She wasn't a cruel person, and even knowing who was under her hand and what he'd done, she didn't want to hurt him.

"Tell me about Dietrich." She said, walking backwards to the iron bars to lean against them. They burned against her back, like her blood itself was rebelling for her having touched them.

Schwarz shook his head. "He's a cruel person. He doesn't care for anyone but himself. A politician." He started to laugh again, that helpless sobbing chortle that made her shudder. "I think I've become like him."

"You haven't," Zelda said dryly, thinking that politicians were much better at gauging their audiences' reactions.

"The plan was for you to marry Hell and then for you to die under mysterious circumstances once there was an heir, if you were happy with him or not." Schwarz said, scrawling words in the dust that she couldn't hope to read. "He," And he said he with such gentle reverence that she understood that he could only be speaking of Hell, that was the only way he ever spoke of Hell, it was saccharine and sickening – "probably thinks he's cursed, the way people die around him. I know I was worried that I…" He trailed off and paused and wiped away the image in the dirt. Started another one. "I don't know what to tell you, what I can prove. You shouldn't believe me if you're sane. I'm hoping you're not… or that you'll think me pathetic enough that you'll grant a last wish out of pity."

"I'm not sure if you think I'm an idiot, or if you're being honest." Zelda sighed. She reached up and rubbed her face. "… why does Dietrich want me to die? I'm his niece. I'm not exactly close with him, but…"

Schwarz shifted. She stopped talking and watched him stand up. He was tall, tall enough that his chin could rest on her head without him having to tilt it, and when he walked closer her fingers were curled into fists and ready to remind him that women didn't appreciate being manhandled. He didn't make a move to attack her.

He stopped in front of her, stooped down, and turned his head for her to inspect. One hand swept back the little bit of hair on his head away from his ear, and…

"He doesn't like sheikah," He said, while she cringed and backpedalled into the bars so hard they rattled and hurt her head, "And your nursemaid and bodyguard are…"

Well.

"And what about you?" Zelda asked, teeth bared. "Why were you kept, then?"

"My eyes are dark. My hair is dark… it's unusual, but it happens." Schwarz cast his eyes to the ground. "Lady Amelia knew me for what I was. She swore me to silence. I only break the vow to protect her son."

He exhaled slowly. "Another thing," He said, edging back away like a dog scolded, "That you might find of interest. He… ah. The gerudo king. Dietrich sent correspondence with him. He's one of the nobles who recommended that… your father meet him." He paused, eyed her in the dark, and asked in an undertone that was appropriate and meek, "Did you injure yourself, highness?"

"I'm fine," Zelda said, maybe a bit more harsh than she need be. "You'd have me believe he'd kill his heir. That you believed he would seriously enough that you murdered to prevent it?"

Schwarz shifted. Held his hands before him like he was begging. "… what would you do to protect someone that you love, your highness? Would you risk their harm if there was even the slightest chance the threat rung true?" Soft and meek and mocking and cruel. Were all sheikah dualistic nightmares or just the ones she encountered? Perhaps they were driven mad by the hylians around them?

Zelda firmed her jaw. Schwarz searched her face and smiled, rueful. "For the good of a kingdom." She said. He shook his head.

"And how good of a king was your father?"

She had to stall her hand from slapping him. He wasn't in the wrong to ask, but it hurt. Her words were knives and he responded in kind, Zelda supposed. His life was on the line. Hell's as well. It wouldn't do to be anything short of vicious. She wanted to admire him but she also wanted his blood on her gloves.

She stood back from him and crossed her arms to fend off the urge to fight… "Better than a novice in the seat, don't you think?"

"Will you do better than he did?" Schwarz made a rather pointed display of fingering the ragged edge of one ear. Zelda knew why he did it but it still brought her to anger that the act was committed in her kingdom. In her lifetime.

"Well. I'm debating if I want you quartered or mounted on a pike." She snapped. Schwarz let out a shattered laugh.

"All hail the true queen." He peered at her with a smile. It rather resembled a wound, fresh and clotting. "I wonder how long I'll survive in here. I'm the favorite," Schwarz pronounced it like a curse, "errand boy, but far from the only." He shook his head from side to side and bowed to her. It felt like an insult. "You should use and discard me before he has his chance."

"You hate him." Zelda realized, canting her head. And here she'd been thinking Schwarz didn't feel much of anything, except maybe some strange and desperate devotion to his charge.

Schwarz grinned the smile of a broken man, with fanged teeth and eyes empty. "I made the choice to kill someone. He ordered me to do it. I can hate him for that, can't I? I am entitled to that much?"

He said entitled like it was a joke. It probably was to him, who'd had his own ears half-lobbed off for the shade of his skin and the shape of his teeth. He'd probably never felt entitled to much of anything long before life had 'corrected' him.

Zelda's fingers twitched. "I'll look into it. If there's proof."

"He's always kept Hell's head clear of it. Because Hell would have run straight to you." Schwarz assured her.

Zelda's eyes flickered. "… we've barely met." She murmured, vexed.

Schwarz raised his hands in a shrug that reminded her of her brother, infuriating because he was right and needing a swat to the head in spite of it. "But you would have listened to him, wouldn't you?"

Hell was a duke. That put him in the line for the throne and granted him the ear of most nobles in court.

Of course they would have listened to him.

Hell loved Schwarz. Certainly he would have listened to Schwarz, which was why, if Schwarz was telling the truth, Dietrich had threatened Hell instead to keep the secret. If Schwarz told the truth then Hell cared more about the people (he'd gotten gushy over the king's funeral being open to the public. Zelda suspected Schwarz wasn't lying about that point), and Schwarz cared about protecting what he had left.

It was, Zelda thought, uncomfortably similar to her own life. Schwarz was very much beginning to resemble a person to her.

"It's very convenient, that the people who drove you do this are dead or so high up that they'll likely get a slap on the wrist." She muttered, thinking, At least when my father was on the throne, but they've dug their own grave with that now haven't they. If he's telling the truth.

… if he was telling the truth then the nobility had had quite enough time running rampant.

Chapter end

So the beginning of 25 was written up and it's a treat, I think. It harkens back to the good old days of Hell's first arrival and Sheik verbally tearing him to ribbons.

I'm looking forward to finishing and posting it.

Also, haha, uh... how is this story almost at 20k views? I can't even comprehend...