His thick fingers ply the skin of the drum, dragging music from the darkness.

The pattern beats on, extending so long that it ceases to be a pattern at all; merely a series of disconnected melodies and beats.

It is all music to the player. Bongo Bongo.

It's soothing. The beats make sense in time, make sense in a language the Hylians don't know, can't ever know. He speaks to himself in this way: who he was, who he is, what belongs to him.

The drums remain cold and silent without him; he makes them meaningful. And as he carves sound from silence, he thinks of all the ones he cannot control. The Shadow Temple was not his before the Sheikah left it open to him.

He has claimed it, and populated it with nightmares dredged up by the drum's music. They, like the sound, belong to him.

There is power here, something he hasn't known in… So long. The demon finds that the power harmonizes well with his newfound freedom. He can't help but be amused at the Sheikah that kept him imprisoned long before. He is powerful. He cannot be held by their curses.

He has retreated to the innermost depths of his Temple, cut himself off from the illusions and monsters he holds sway over. Yet he remains watchful, and he knows when the shaft of light pierces his shadows.

He knows when the Lens is probing through the falsehoods for the hero, the boy in green.

His hands quicken on the drumhead. The pattern changes; there is a new element, new strikes.

The rotten air stills when the first Gibdo falls. Bongo Bongo hears the creature's blood spilling along the hero's blade. It is his, after all. He drags his stubby fingernails across his instrument's surface, drawing up a shriek.

A few beats on his drum, thumping slowly like a heart stuttering to a halt, mark the last moments of his servant.

He knows when the hero reaches deeper, waking the traps that guard this place.

Bongo Bongo slides his hands over the drumhead, mimicking the singing of a blade cleaving air.

He likes this new hero. He is new music, complicating this pattern that never repeats.

Bongo Bongo considers what it will sound like when the hero dies. He thinks he shall like that sound the best.

Maybe it shall be a single strike – SLAM – and there will be a moment of silence as the world forgets another savior. Perhaps it shall be slow, as the ReDeads take him, and his sound will fade into pitiful nothing.

Whatever it is, Bongo Bongo feels anticipation for the first time in a millennia.

The Lens of Truth – when the hero peers through it, Bongo Bongo's hands move of their own accord over his instrument, teasing out soft, quick ripples of tension. He doesn't like the Lens – it finds what he meant to hide – but he likes the sound it makes.

He feels it in the melody when the hero bleeds. It is sharp, acidic, sweet to his ears. The tempo picks up, and he knows the hero is afraid and in pain. He wonders which of the traps will destroy him.

He waits for the hero to die, anticipation ringing in every tone.

He never finds the strain of pattern for which he searches. The hero yet lives.

And then the pattern dims: he is near, and Bongo Bongo knows what this means. The demon closes his eye, feels the drum skin thrum with tension.

He hears the hero's scream as he drops onto Bongo Bongo's instrument, the sound just the right note in his dimming symphony. He listens as the hero draws his sword, the blade singing against the sheath.

You will play a duet with me, boy?

The song begins, and the sounds tangle together, the clash of blade and the drumbeat's murmur. The two musicians in this dirge lock gazes, and Bongo Bongo hears with grim satisfaction that his duet is perfect.

A/N: I really can't justify the amount of crazy here. So much of this game is based on music, both to set the atmosphere and advance the plot (and is often oh so creepy). The fact that a boss fight takes place on a drum of all things got me thinking. That's one of the the only clues to whatever personality Bongo Bongo may or may not have (that and how godawful creepy his Temple was), so I ran with it. (Oh, and none of the Zelda games are mine. Duh.)

Please read, review, and enjoy.