Shards.

Chapter 1 – Shadow Eyes

In which Link goes crazy. Or does he?

Author's note: Welcome to my new story! I will try to update it regularly. This story spans the ending of Ocarina of Time, all of Majora's Mask, and then continues on into the unknown future. As such I've tried to not let it bog down in minor details of these games. Otherwise it'd be way too long and much too boring. I try to cover the major events, especially those important to the plot I'm developing, but a lot of things will be mentioned only in passing or skipped entirely. This is a work of fiction, not a walkthrough. :) Some things are lifted directly from the games, especially certain pieces of dialogue, other things are actually changed a fair bit, though by and large I try to stay true to the story as found in the games, even if I put a different spin on some aspects of it. I love getting comments, so don't hesitate to review it. Just be aware that I'm not trying for perfect nit-picky game accuracy here. I do, however, try to make it accessible to people who haven't played, so even if you're not familiar with either game you should hopefully still find this comprehensible. Thanks again for your time, and I'll let you get on to the actual story now!

My shadow returned almost immediately after I killed it.

You seldom notice your shadow. But recent events had made me very aware of mine. He'd attacked me only moments before, after all. It felt funny to think of my shadow as "he". Shadows were things, not people. But he'd been something like a person. A twin to myself, but completely black, with burning red eyes.

I'd beaten him, though it hadn't been easy. And he had died as he'd fought, without any expression on his shadowed face. I had wondered for just a moment if I'd done the wrong thing. My own shadow, and I'd killed him. But what else could I have done? I had a quest to complete, and he had barred my way. And my shadow had reappeared beneath my feet almost as soon as I left the room where I'd fought him. So perhaps he hadn't even been my shadow, not really, for there it was, the same as always.

Still, the image of his red eyes lingered with me.

I thought it was only a memory, the first time I glimpsed them again. It was just after I'd left the Water Temple, where I'd slain my shadow. I'd paused for a moment on the shore of Lake Hylia. It was peaceful there. Below the Water Temple's dark, maze-like halls lay beneath the smooth surface of the lake, but above the sun shone down brightly on a sandy shore, where grass ran down nearly to the water's edge. I was thirsty, after all the work I'd done, and I leaned over the water to drink from my cupped hands. When I looked down at the still surface of the lake I saw my own face there. It still startled me a bit, to see an adult rather than a ten year old boy. I had gotten used to this body, I'd had to in order to fight in it, but it didn't look like me. But for just a moment it looked even less like me, for the eyes in my reflection suddenly flashed red. As soon as I saw the color it was gone, and I dismissed it as some sort of fatigue-induced hallucination. I should rest before heading out to fight again.

I did rest, and felt better for it when I set out for Kakariko village. But I kept seeing those red eyes. Any time I caught a glimpse of my own reflection they would be there. Usually it was just a moment, an instant, easily dismissed. But the more often I saw them the longer they persisted. Seeing those eyes made my skin crawl. My shadow was watching me out of my own eyes.

I put it out of my mind. I had more important things to worry about than my shadow. Ganondorf needed to be defeated.

It's hard to describe what those weeks were like, when I more and more frantically fought and searched and tried to do everything that I needed to do in order to beat the King of Thieves. They were a nightmare, and yet they were intensely, amazingly satisfying. I was doing what I was meant to do. I feel more comfortable with a sword in my hands. Even now I bear it with me everywhere I go. And the Master Sword in particular felt so right! I don't have it any more, of course. It's back in its pedestal in the temple of time.

That surprised me, to tell the truth. I'm not sure what I was expecting, after Ganondorf was defeated. But Zelda sending me back in time wasn't it.

I see her wisdom in doing so, of course. She does bear the Triforce of Wisdom, as I bear the Triforce of Courage. She knew that if I went back to my past, the horrible future she'd experienced could be halted before it ever happened. So she returned me to my childhood, seven years ago, when I was only a child, my adventures just barely begun.

The first thing I did after being returned to the past was to make my way once again to Hyrule Castle and find her. She didn't remember me, time had run straight for her. But I remembered, so I told her all I knew. And it was enough to prevent the future I'd experienced. Ganondorf never gained power, Hyrule Castle was never leveled, Zelda never forced to flee and live a life in hiding. None of it.

I still remember it all though. All that darkness. All that conflict. All that blood...

And the red eyes of my shadow came with me into the past. Did he remember too? Did he remember dying at my hand? I didn't know. But I saw him often. He wasn't just a flash of red now and again any more. He was there, staring out at me through my own eyes every time I looked in a mirror. I could almost believe that my eyes had turned red.

While talking with Zelda one day I asked, hesitantly, "Zelda? What color are my eyes?"

She laughed. "They're blue of course, silly. Haven't you ever looked in a mirror?"

"I have, I just... I dunno. I saw something weird."

"Weird? Like what?"

I found myself reluctant to discuss my shadow with Zelda. "Just like... they didn't look like my eyes."

"Well they look the same as they always have to me."

I smiled, trying to put it out of my mind. "Okay."

There was a hallway in the castle, called the Mirror Hall. Paired mirrors were hung at regular intervals, so you could see your reflection repeated endlessly. It was a little bit creepy. The hall had no windows, it was lit only by a few lanterns, so gloom gathered in the corners, and the infinite reflections were dark and dim. I didn't usually have cause to use it, but one day my path took me there, on my way from one end of the castle to another, playing some childish game with Zelda. I never felt entirely comfortable acting like a child. I had grown up too much. But Zelda was my friend, and she loved all the running, hiding, chasing games of childhood, so I played them with her for her sake.

I glimpsed that flash of red again, and stopped to look. I was repeated infinite times, stretching away in the distance. The sight made me shiver. Suddenly my reflection smiled darkly at me, and my hair in the mirror slowly turned jet black, as though ink had been poured over it. I could see the strands hanging in front of my face, and they were still as gold as ever, but in the mirror all the infinite copies of me had hair as black as night.

"Link."

I jumped. My reflection jumped too, but his face didn't look surprised. The voice had come from the mirror.

"Link. Do you know who I am?"

"You... you're my shadow."

"Yes."

"What do you want?"

"To live. To be. To exist. But don't fear, Link. I'm not your enemy. I don't hate you for killing me. I am you, after all. If I hated you, I would hate myself."

"I don't understand."

"Don't worry about it. Just promise me, Link. Promise me you'll come back here."

"Why?"

"So that I can live. Come at night. Grant me that much, Link. I can live only if you allow it."

I hesitated. Was my shadow evil? But the expression in the mirror wasn't malevolent, it was beseeching, desperate even. "All right," I said slowly. "I'll come."

"Thank you, Link. You won't regret it."

Then in an instant my reflection reverted to normal, as though it had never changed. Even my eyes were blue again. I stared a moment longer, then ran off in search of Zelda. We played all that afternoon, but she won more often than usual, for my mind was not on our games.

I returned that night. It was easy enough to creep from my room and walk silently down the castle's corridors to the Mirror Hall. It was dark, and when I turned to look at my reflection, the eyes in the mirror were glowing faintly. I shuddered. Was I doing the right thing?

"Link." The voice was my own voice, but somehow subtly different. "Thank you."

"Shadow," I said, and stepped close to the mirror. I don't know why I called him that, but I felt that it was more than just a description, that it was his name.

He lifted his hand, and all the other reflections followed. But my own hand was still by my side. It was eerie and strange. Stranger was that I felt a compulsion to lift my hand as well. My shadow put his hand against the glass from the other side. I touched my hand to the same spot. For one bizarre instant it felt as though I was touching warm flesh.

The next moment I was touching cold glass. My reflection still had his hand against mine, like a reflection should, but something had changed. The first thing that I noticed was that the reflection's clothing had turned black as well. In the dim light the second change was harder to notice, but a cold chill came over me when I finally saw it. The strands of hair I could see from the corner of my eye, that weren't reflections, but were my real self, were also black.

"What's going on?" I said. Or tried to say, but nothing came out. I couldn't speak. I tried to move and couldn't move, I could only stand, touching the mirror. I dropped my hand a moment later, but I hadn't been the one to perform that action, my body had done it without me.

My eyes looked down at my hands without my guidance. My fingers flexed. My lips smiled. "It's good to be alive," I heard myself say, but the voice was not quite mine, it was the voice I'd heard from the mirror.

"Shadow," I tried to say, wanting to ask him what was happening.

"It's all right Link. The mirror just let me borrow you for a while. Or become you. Or you become me, however you want to put it. I want to live for a little while. I want to experience, and act, and not just watch through your eyes."

"You'll give me my body back when you're done though?" I still heard nothing, no matter how I strained to speak the words.

I felt, somehow, that he turned his attention inward, to where I was in the back of my own mind, while he was occupying the front of it. :You don't need to try so hard to speak.: he said silently to me. :I can hear you. And yes I'll give you your body back. I only want a night every now and then. It's your body, I wouldn't steal it.:

I framed my thoughts without trying to say them aloud. :Thank you.:

:No, thank you. I owe you a lot.:

:But didn't I kill you? Why say you owe me?:

He laughed out loud at that. :No. You didn't kill me. Else I wouldn't be here, would I? You don't need to feel guilt, Link. You're a good person, a true hero. You don't need to feel any guilt at all.: He turned and walked down the corridor, moving as silently as I had. :Now let's go have some fun!:

Leaving the castle was easy. I'd already snuck in and out of it several times, and that was before the many games of hide and seek with Zelda that had revealed every nook, cranny, and secret passage it contained. Hyrule Castle looked simple enough on the outside: a classic, clean structure, rising amid the beginnings of Death Mountain's foothills, but whoever had built it had been fond of convoluted halls that went nowhere and hidden passages that connected nearly everything. Shadow obviously knew these secrets too, for he found his way outside without any help from me.

Castle Town lay just outside the Castle's walls, a sprawl of homes and shops that huddled close together, their white-washed, half-timbered walls cheerful by daytime, thronged with travelers from all of Hyrule. The narrow passages between them were shadowed and gloomy at night, and even the market square with its pleasant fountain was a bit eerie. Few people went out here after dark. There wasn't much to do in town in the middle of the night, but Shadow explored every bit of it, with me along for the ride. He ran and jumped, chased stray dogs and climbed buildings, and caused no shortage of small mischiefs. I wanted to object, the first time I realized he was playing a prank on one of the townsfolk, but letting out the wayward dog I'd once chased down did no harm, for Shadow played with him for some time and then returned him, sneaking in and out both ways, so that his owner may not have ever known he was gone. And I had to admit that picturing the expression of puzzlement on the shopkeeper's face when he found every single item in the shop stacked into a ridiculously precarious tower made me laugh.

Or made me feel like laughing, rather. I couldn't actually laugh. That was the strangest thing about all this. I saw through my own eyes, felt with my own hands, heard with my own ears, but I had no control over anything I did.

But when the night sky began to lighten with the coming dawn Shadow returned to my room in the castle. There were no mirrors there, but I could see when my hair suddenly turned gold again. I looked down at myself, and was mildly surprised to find my eyes actually moving to my will. I was wearing my customary green once more. No doubt my eyes were blue as well.

"Shadow?" I said questioningly.

:I'm here, Link,: he said inside my head. :I'll always be here.:

"But... but why? I don't understand any of this."

:You need your shadow.:

"Huh?"

I heard him laugh inside my head. :You need me. So I'm here. And thank you, Link. It was good to live for a while.:

"You're welcome, I guess."

:You should talk to me silently, Link. If people hear you talking to yourself, they might think something is wrong with you.:

:They might be right.: It was strange to communicate without speaking, but Shadow did have a point. The idea of telling anyone else that my shadow had come to life and now lived in my head was frightening.

:There's nothing wrong with you, Link. Don't be afraid of me. You don't need to be, I would never hurt you.:

:How do I know I can trust you? Didn't Ganondorf make you to kill me?:

:I'm your shadow. Ganondorf didn't make me, I've always been with you. He just woke me up.:

I didn't know whether I should believe him, but for some reason I did. He felt honest, there in my mind. I wondered if it was possible for him to lie, since we were sharing thoughts and not words. Perhaps not. But possible or not I didn't think he was lying. I didn't want to think he was lying. I wanted him to be telling the truth.

I yawned. I also wanted my bed. It had been a long night.

:Goodnight Link,: said Shadow quietly. :Sleep well:

:Goodnight Shadow,: I said. And somewhat to my surprise I slept deeply, with no nightmares or restless thought to trouble me. Having my own shadow come out of a mirror and possess my body should have been nightmarishly alarming, but it wasn't. I didn't understand any of it, but Shadow seemed like a friend.

He went out again often after that. Mostly just to play in the market town at night, but sometimes on rambles outside the castle's walls entirely. He proved to be just as able with a sword as I, so the wandering stalchildren were no danger to him. Indeed he seemed to enjoy the chance to match blades against the miniature skeletal monsters.

Surprisingly it was the town that nearly got him killed, and myself with him I suppose. He was exploring one of the town's narrow back alleyways when a large, dark form emerged from the shadows and blocked the exit to the alley. For some reason Shadow could see in the dark better than I, so through his eyes I could quite clearly make out a thuggish-looking young man, carrying a very large knife.

"You shouldn't play here after dark, kid," he said. "There are dangerous things about."

"Yes there are," he responded. "I'm one of them." I suspected that his eyes were probably glowing faintly, as they sometimes did in the dark. But the thug didn't seem phased by this.

"You're just a kid. I could splat you like a bug. So hand over your rupees and I'll think about maybe letting you run home to mama."

Shadow's eyes narrowed. "I don't think so. Back off or I'll kill you." He reached back and drew my sword. It was actually not much bigger than the thug's knife.

"Ha! That's rich. Fine kid, I'll do this the fun way." He advanced on us, grinning.

Shadow didn't back down, he jumped forward and met the thug's knife with his blade. There was a flurry of steel on steel, then a yelp as Shadow knocked the thug's knife from his hand. And then he drove forward and thrust his sword straight through the guy's chest.

:Shadow!: I yelped a silent protest. What had he done?

:What?:

:You just killed him!:

:Yes. I told him I would. He certainly meant to kill me.:

:But... but...:

:Link. He needed to be dealt with. He was obviously a murderer. What would you have done?:

:I... well...:

:Tried to talk with him? I don't think he wanted to listen. Brought him to the guard? Maybe, but he might have escaped. This way he's taken care of, and he won't hurt anybody ever again.:

Something about that rang true. Even though I didn't really like it. :You're right. I'm sorry.:

:Hey, don't be. You're a hero, you're used to saving the day from obvious monsters. But sometimes it's people who are the monsters. Maybe that's why evil shadows like me exist, to take care of the ones you heroes aren't suited for.:

:Here now, you're not evil!:

:No?:

:No. Evil doesn't take Mamamu Yan's dog back to her every night.:

:Yeah, well...: He sheathed his sword and stepped over the would-be mugger's body. :Anyway, I guess that makes me dark and not evil.:

:Which is a good thing. I'm supposed to fight evil. I wouldn't want to fight you, Shadow. I like you.:

He chuckled. :I'm glad. I kinda like you too, even if you are a hopeless goody-goody.:

Back in my bed later that night I thought about that. Dark and not evil. It sounded right. He was my shadow, something like my dark side. But I wasn't evil myself, so why should my shadow be? He was just able to deal with the dark things that I couldn't face so easily. That wasn't a bad thing. It meant that with him at my side I could deal with whatever life might bring.

:Together we'll rule the world,: said Shadow, somewhat sleepily.

I laughed. :Yeah right. You couldn't convince me to be a ruler if you gave me a stack of rupees the size of Death Mountain. I'd rather be free to go on adventures. And don't pretend you don't feel the same way, I know you like games even better than I do. You think the ruler of the world gets to play tag?:

:The ruler of the world gets to do whatever he wants. So if I say I'm going to play tag, I'm going to play tag.:

I yawned. :Well, if you try to overthrow the king I'll have to stop you, that's what I do.:

:We'll have an epic battle, light against darkness!:

:I won the last one of those you know.:

:Yeah, yeah, sure. Just means I'm due to win the next one.:

:I am still sorry...:

:Don't be.: He stopped laughing and his tone turned serious. :You did what you had to do. That's all any of us does, really. We do what we have to do.:

:Yeah. You did that tonight, I guess. And thanks. You're right I couldn't have done it, but it was probably the right thing to do.:

:Don't mention it.:

Drifting off to sleep I felt comforted. I'd been right to trust him. He was my friend, and it was good to have a friend by my side.