₀₁. ᴱⱽᴱᴿ ᴮᴱᴵᴺᴳ

the flow of time is always cruel.

[sheikage-a]

WE DREAM IN THE DARK FOR THE MOST PART. a writing blog for sheik of the legend of zelda franchise. oot based + totk compliant, canon divergent on the terms of sheik being an independent character within hyrule canon and lore.  read the rules linked in the description before following.  est ‘20.   affiliated with dvaurga and daylighter.

TO STUDY: the warrior monk, divine intervention as a person, dreams as reality, the fettered, been there and shaped history, the living shadow & darkness is not evil.

INTRODUCTION: sheik's story is mostly settled within the hyrule timeline from ocarina of time to twilight princess, having originated as a person during the era of skies. sheik has always lived on the surface as a servant in the name of goddess hylia and from the first prophecy coming true remain a steadfast protector of link and zelda, as well as proficient warrior of the sheikah tribe. over time they are cast as the archivist in the shadows, keeping hyrule's history an the memories of past ages alive within song and accounts of legends.

[sheikage-a]

moved to @sheikage! i encourage you to follow only if you want to interact and write with sheik. if they're not the character you've hit it off with absolutely no hard feelings. 🤍

[sheikage-a]

moved to @sheikage! i encourage you to follow only if you want to interact and write with sheik. if they're not the character you've hit it off with absolutely no hard feelings. 🤍

[sheikage-a]

moved to @sheikage! i encourage you to follow only if you want to interact and write with sheik. if they're not the character you've hit it off with absolutely no hard feelings. 🤍

[sheikage-a]

moved to @sheikage! i encourage you to follow only if you want to interact and write with sheik. if they're not the character you've hit it off with absolutely no hard feelings. 🤍

[beargirl2]

[punkcopy]

      raised amongst the symphony of the trees.   when she came into the world kicking and screaming it was to the chorus of heavy rainfall.   even then,   she knew how to cut a dissonant harmony and she hadn't stopped since.   they were travelers,   her people,   belonging to nothing but the dirt beneath their boots.   at once welcomed and welcome in every town they blew threw.   covey weren't meant to be known.   sure,   they told their own stories but ballads always carried the weight of a shared history.   the single kernel of truth in every song;   that the journey was endless and not always kind but we all had to walk it.   

       the consequence of impermanence;   she doesn't fight it.   maybe she had already penned her own legacy and that is the very reason why she was here.   a job well done and all she's got to show for it was a kick in the rear by the powers that be.   not even given an opportunity to take her final bow but that was the fate of any narrator.   ONLY EVER THE OPENING ACT...   AND PERHAPS THE EPILOGUE.   if it were her story she wouldn't be the one diligently recording its details   (   heroes never had time for that sorta thing   )   

       someone had to watch.   someone had to remember for them all and they were those someones.   

       keeping them talking is becoming more of an amusement than a chore.   proving to have a mouth to match that imposing presence of an ever-looming shadow.   the darkest parts of the forest,   the most deadly and most misunderstood.   a spot of cool respite in a riot of color and sound   —   she is both of those things and none of them.   the fire left set,   the ash that remains;   a dying ember that was the smoke limed gravel of her voice.   too mature for such a young face but it suited her eyes warm as earth,   as filled with endless possibility as rich soil.   

       ❛   do you get a lotta that around here ...   peace,   i mean?   no one really sleeps 'til they're dead and all that but that shoe don't quite fit you i reckon   —   ❜   many dances done in the company of specters.   it was true what they said of the dead,   their lusting after life,   their longing for music and drink.   anything to distract from the yawning void of existing in perpetual limbo.   there is no desperation about them,   maybe longing of a sort but not the same hopeless clawing towards the past.   

       when she expels the eerie music from her body it has all of that hopeless grief.   a lament in place of ballad,   not a cautionary tale but a weeping set to melody.   it is the cicadas rubbing their wings together,   humming their late august requiem.   it is the cry of the wolf to be reunited with the glow of the remote moon.   the flute leading her into every leap and bound,   letting the tide of its sound send her down the river.   ❛   what ever happened to secrets,   sweetheart?   now you want all of 'em for free.   ❜   they should know it,   the language of leaves.   how she speaks it with such fluency as if she grew up from the root;   fed on rain and sunlight alone as a babe.   

       ❛   where i'm from the mountains play their own kinda music   —   plenty tell ya not to listen.   when the woods speak you better do your damndest to forget it.   ❜   make eyes with the haints and they may mistake you for their own   (   my,   my,   lucy gray you've been gone for years   )   looks like it was all catching up to her now,   she only wished she had some white liquor to wash down the sentencing.   ❛   too bad i've never heard a tune once that i couldn't spit right back up.   guess i'm cursed somethin' awful,   huh.   ❜   bad news,   a foreboding wind blowing through town.   no one cared for excuses,   she might just be the messenger but that was bad enough for most.   ❛   no more than you i bet.   ❜   

[sheikage-a]

when the song ends there is silence, nothing but the wind in the trees a good few paces away. if they were in hyrule, then some of the chords in the lamenting music may have opened the door to a graveyard or ushered nighttime in the middle of the day, but here so far into the borderlands it is only a wistful offering to those departed souls that couldn't find a way home. this is also the purpose of music, they are more than aware, to give solace where everything else faded and to be at least some form of communication for the dead to hear the living, to feel that acknowledgement that only ever went inwards within the private matter grief so often is. something about hearing such a song from someone else, when in the story they served it was only ever themselves who played, gave them long enough pause to let the silence she filled with word and song stretch on for a while. as if in accordance to their quiet, the trees kept brushing their leaves against each other, the cacophony of watchers and witnesses, who have not sought out being present for this strange union but are there all the same, forever more confined to this moment in between moments.

that they have mistaken her for a spectre seems almost comical now. she very much is one, those that walk here all are, but she has the fiery conviction only survivors of a full and brimming life had, a rare burn to her that only makes her shine more in a warm light, the light of the dawning sun, where compared to her they are a new moon, hidden in the dark and only ever with a pale outer line to speak of their presence. she could see them here within the fabric of several realms overlapping into a mysterious haze of woods and more meadows, but they know she'd probably have seen them even in a rainstorm, even deep into a plunging cliffside, because she has those eyes that always find the moon and the north stars to lead where she wants to be, not where she needs to be. a traveller; someone naturally attuned to their role as a guardian and a guide - lucy gray doesn't even know the half of the power she holds and yet she already knows more than might be good for anyone.

" the dead don't sleep, " is all they say at first, a truth so apparent to them it seems unbelievable that the mortal realms beyond their own kingdom seem to have spread it so far and wide, that even those that have such little time to their conscience existence still think this is all there would ever be, that nothing would follow or has existed before. tucking the ocarina away, their hands free now, they can feel the usage of the instrument against the tattoos in their palms and the ones down their body - a call to those long shadows, that eerie silence where dead turned violence, where those with endless night ahead used to hammer violence into passages. blinking, an afterimage of that place lying over her, they wait until they can only see her again; a natural reckoning they prefer to focus on right now. " you couldn't shake those woods. you didn't even need to tell me. i can tell - it is all over you. as if there are leaves behind your ears, in your hair; in so much colour. not much of those mountains on you, lucy gray, " they tell her then, thoughtful but not worrying yet. no one in these spheres would ever get their pity, but she'd get some truths from them for the tune she shared with them. " i am not cursed. maybe you'd say i am. i am blessed, even if i walk that blessing on my own. i suppose that would be my secret, but you found me in one of those hiding places. "

[storge]

You’re lucky. Not everyone gets that chance.

Kasamatsu Sho | Tokyo Vice (2022) 1.08 “Yoshino”  

[punkcopy]

      as a child,    she had entered into this very same wood through lullabies.   dreams permeating the intangible,    as a fiddle guided her through the dense foliage.    then she had been a mere passenger in the journey   (    here she led the charge   )    a solitary pilgrimage through the dappled sunlight.    above the larks mimicked her song as they circled in their musical procession,    commanded by a phantom melody that once graced her lips.    they are more sure-footed than her,    more practiced in moving through the in-between.    born into it or destined for it for those with more romantic ideals of purpose.    of which she had never considered herself,    lucy gray wasn't much for sugar-coating as sweet as her voice may be.    the cut of reality always won out over the light flow of poetry.   SHE WROTE CAUTIONARY TALES,    SHE WROTE HER LIFE.    covered in coal dust and robbed of innocence.    they must have been young once too but she can't picture it not fully.    those years they had of them weren't so easily revealed with the pulling away of a mask.    

       no,    like a tree the only way to tell that would be to cut them open and count all the lines.    nothing showed through all that bark and sense of purpose    —    how else do you keep walking these same paths like this?    ❛   no more than you,    even if you don't look the type.    i know a wiseapple when i see one    —   girl's gotta watch out for the quieter ones.   ❜   catching the tail end of a compliment even as it's bogged down by the pitch of assumption    (    it was always the presumed wallflowers,    wasn't it ?    )    those that were too watchful for their own good    —    she'd know a thing or two about that.    sizing them up all the while even if it was fruitless work.    that was the intent of the songbird's vibrant feathers,    a lure...    and yet in nature beauty should be seen as a warning not an invitation.    

       ❛   damn,    you'd make a hell of a songwriter with all them riddles.    i'm no ghost though,    not yet.    still got my shoes on and my tongue about me.   ❜    the silent dead;    more tales from the mountains although even without breath plenty managed to speak from beyond the grave    (    plenty managed to sing too    )    despite all their talk of keeping secrets and maintaining mystery the curious instrument is presented for appraisal.    curved body,    jutting mouthpiece,    the whole of it lacquered in cerulean.    gorgeous and strange as the songs that blew threw it.    theirs is a brow raising comparison,    bold in its implications though not entirely off the mark in any sense.    leaning back on her heel,    a hand gliding to her hip with her chin tipped up she counters,    ❛   uh huh,    you gonna put it to use then ? no use talkin' bout what it can do.    show me how you play it.   ❜    the she starts them off,    setting the first note in her throat.    gradually,   it moves up from a hum into a sorrowful croon.   

[sheikage-a]

they could tell when someone traversed liminal space before, they could see when someone mended themselves together out of fabric woven from different thread; she is made of a whole lot of woven threads. it has been their sole purpose back then, to see those that are not from their land, to pick them apart for motif and morsels of their psyche, and to judge like a blade coming down in the dark. that has not been needed for a long time now, or for little time in the grand understanding of everything they have experienced, but more of their days have been spent as quiet eyes in that old darkness, taking note of any- and everything they have seen, and committing it all down to memory where it would pass the rest of them all by. that was much more humble, just as silent, a kind of work that felt more like spiritual practice. sometimes the harp kept them company, before it would be granted into the hands of the princess, and sometimes it would be the ocarina after all; a flute they have played all of the songs on they have made and found, and one that was never meant to be theirs for too long either. nothing permanent belonged to them besides the passage of time like a river flowing onwards.

a burdened heart could survive an abundance of horror and still come out of it with a story to tell, with some notes to hum. aren't they just like that? the kind of silence that only comes from being accustomed to it, from choosing it, not from having nothing to tell anymore. a good story takes time to ripen just as a good song needs a little practice - they wonder how much her heart carries to have gotten her here, or if the carefree crackle of her voice is less smoke and mirror and more true than an invested look at lucy gray would beg to differ. sheik has always been pessimistic, the kind that knows a soul is usually torn in to a few pieces through getting older along; but even they couldn't deny the freewheeling spirit the other possesses so readily, like armour or a weapon even. " silence is a hardly-won practice for some. i do not stay quiet for the sake of quietness all of the time, though that has its virtues too. peaceful for one, " they indulge her here, where she is more balladeer than frightened bird, more a story-teller than a poet only. this they understand, they can feel a sense of kinship for. it is only those to carry a message beneath their skin that break through the lines defining countries and realms.

the ocarina is not meant to be played in far-and-between places. technically, neither it is meant to played by its teacher, the harbourer of its songs and notes, but technicalities run abound in the kingdom of hyrule and not its fringes, not outside of it. lucy gray's demands like the strum of a harp, or the tuning of a guitar, it forebodes something that everyone who heard it knew would happen next; like a direct line to the truth. they do not feel smartened by it, rather it inspires a deeper dwelling of respect - a cautious thing to be dug from the confines of the ancient teacher's ribs. a musician they have been for so long, but they have guarded ribs and hearts even longer, and here both of it meets as they go to play the flute along the tune of her voice. the notes remind them of those eery songs for the dead, or at least those that long for them, and they follow the cadence of notes easily as if they both know the same song. once that is done, they lower the instrument. " where did you get that one from? it sounded like something i've played before, something we play to see the dead where i come from. "

[punkcopy]

      plucking strings, pulling on threads,   certain music can wake the dead and pierce the veil. her mama used to tell her stories about ghosts clouding campfires,   dancing in stolen shoes they'd taken from the homes of the living.   then there was lucy gray herself,   named for a child spirited away into the snow.   was she the girl in the storm ?   or the storm she was caught in ?   a highly contested ballad that no matter how the lyrics changed with time the note of tragedy remained.   those very same verses bring her to this place,   between the curtain of worlds a non-destination but there is no doubt she has fled her body for this vast wilderness.   plenty of strangers inhabit this dusk,   walking in shades of faceless silhouette.   of them all she can only make out one traveler and the wind which passes the foreign flute.           she may not be from here but she is allowed,   a soother of sorts.   her voice like balm on the aching wound of the lost.   a dead-end conversation as they seemed immune to her every charm   (   cheap tricks that worked well in the hob wouldn't make it past this keen-eyed stranger )   still,   a performer did not so readily leave behind the stage.   ❛   oh no,   darlin'.   i'm partial to mysteries,   like 'em an awful lot actually.   so much i might even be one myself.   ❜   two could make a case for an enigma,   the casual openness of her person,   a facade that was seldom glimpsed beneath.   

         meanwhile,   they are a closed loop   —   nothing getting in,   nothing getting out unless they wanted to part with any of their fables.   arms crossing over her chest,   the mist gathering like a trailing gown around her ankles as they come to a clearing.   ❛   but you   —   you're just fresh for the game of it.   keepin' that trap of yours shut just to watch us all squirm.   ❜   the mask may reveal little but for someone so tight-lipped their gaze was expressive enough to make up for what she couldn't see.   ❛   if i were beggin' you'd know ...   what's that there ?   ❜   not quite crossing into their space but taking a confident stride forward and nudging her head towards the cradled ocarina at their side.   the timbre of which she had only caught from a distance before they come upon one another.   ❛   it's gotta pretty tune to it,   nothin' like i've ever heard before.   ❜  

[sheikage-a]

one forest blends into another, one tree line becomes one with another, and like this lines are blurred easily enough not to speak of where one exactly finds oneself. they have become used to this kind of disorientation, it speaks to being on the intended path, but this occurrence also includes that they meet wayfarers on these roads that might not be able to tell where the lines of spaces begin to blur and why suddenly there is an intruder amidst the wild no one else usually traverses. she is no such confused ingenue, neither one to scoff at anyone or anything that treads upon the fringes she treads on as well, snake slithering in the high stalks of grass alongside the fox on the prowl or the birds weaving in and out of branches depending on the time of day. where she remains across from them, she is more human though, not fully blending into her surroundings like the shadow could do; but there is an air around her - not off this world, rather more than this world.

the faint light of the sun illuminates her in autumn hues, the kind of dark and rich tones they only ever see in the late sun when the days come to early ends. yet she is full of life, as vivid as the sun or the sky, as undeniably present as the breeze rustling through the trees they leave behind now. " mysteries rarely get to speak for themselves, but you're in luck - i prefer the ones that can talk. and i gather that you like to tease. " what they mean by that is up to anyone's ear listening is - someone like her could make the whims of people bend towards the clarity of her voice, the rare beauty of someone who has something to say. it matters less how she appears or to know where she goes.

where she may not be known, she is curious for two people. the ocarina has not been back in their possession for long ( technically it shouldn't even be ) but just how a bird returns to its home, the ocean and strange lands only temporary dwellings, this instrument finds its way back to them in cyclical nature. they move to lift it up with one hand so she may have a better look at it, the air around it cleared of the misty haze such deep wilderness usually enshrouds itself with when the sun flits down as it does now. " you have a keen ear for a spectre. it is not mine, or rather, it will belong to someone else again soon. but if you know how to play it, it can be of good aid where i come from. " here their gaze sweeps up from the flute and to her, something keenly aware in their gaze. " a little like your voice, i'd say. it got you here, didn't it? "

[sheikage-a]

sheik loves hylia more than anything else in the world. they'd do anything for her and follow any morsel of guidance she gives them. hylia is unattainable and out of reach to them. when they pray, they pray to her name and statues in her image, and they have a direct link to the feeling of being fully heard by her, but they will never fully see her and never fully reach her. hylia exists as an echo, a feeling ( the only feeling they truly trust ) and as the symptom of their moral center and thought constructs. sheik does not pay to anything as much attention as they pay it to hylia, and hylia is in every part of hyrule. hyrule forces sheik to live on and on, they get to their knees and thank the land themselves for it no matter that it means knowing death in a hundred different ways. no one gets to be as close to them as they keep hylia. they have never seen her in the flesh. zelda is so much more than hylia, to reduce her to an afterimage would be an insult. and yet sheik seeks penance not from zelda, not from her family, but from a statue and a temple and an image in their head.

[sheikage-a]

from lucy gray baird: "Do you always push buttons?"

darkness that pierces through everything, that breaks open the fine lines between one world and the next, between night and day, and grips at the hinges to pull itself through onto the other side. this is how they move, undetected and foreboding, and there are no apologies sought and no excuses made. strange dwellers from strange lands have been disposed of by them whenever the matter was turned around, but for themselves they only move in the spaces they can see, which means all of the spaces others cannot. it is remarkable that she can do it, amidst rivers of blood and high-branched trees turning from her voice to their figure. this tells them already something, she is not home-grown to this realm's tapestry but is encouraged to move within, and she can still detect those like her, who are not of this place.

when they realise neither of them will let the other go they end up talking, though sheik's elusiveness seems to bemuse and irritate the songbird, who depicts the fangs of a sharp-witted animal in the face of someone known to evade traps while laying all of them themselves. it earns her their respect, hardly if ever given quickly.

" do you consider secrecy only ever aggravating? i have no need for lies, yet it does not mean i am beholden to spell out every one of my steps to you, lucy gray, " they return the kindness of her curiousity to her, a kindness empty of valour but filled to the brim with the earnestness of the living in fabled lands that still remember what it means to be something reminiscent of mortality, something real, something they have not been in a long time. leaning against the trunk of a watching tree, dark eyes against white bark, blood-moon pupils nearly rolling in response to their surrounding's curiousity, they lower their voice enough so only she could hear. " i would not beg you of your secrets either, even if it would make me frown. "

[sheikaeh]

ENTRY   :    𝚂𝙷𝙰𝙳𝙾𝚆𝚂.    (     ON SHADOW MAGIC   )

there are rarely people in hyrule who so openly practice magic as sheik or impa do … besides maybe zelda herself obviously.  the sheikah are called the shadow folk because they have been trained to remain hidden and because most hylians really do not even know they existed in the first place    -    though also because the sheikah are one of the few tribes in hyrule were most if not all of them can or could actually practice magic,  as they work in favour of the goddess and that is her favour to them.   their magic is different to the one zelda can practice,  that being magic that is steeped in holiness and light,   or even the one ganon can practice,  that being magic drawn from his calamitous being as well as the split triforce of power. 

sheikah are not singular in their magic among each other as most of them can practice it,  and it can take up several forms of visibility, endurance and manifestation.  so while it is unique to each mage or even just each sheikah among the tribe and across history,  the magic itself is not a singular or lonely experience for them.  they see it as a blessing,  of course,  and hold it in high regards because of that,  but they also see it as an extension of who they are,  another part of their people and of their individuality among each other.  the magic of the sheikah is shadow magic,   and it was used to create the shadow temple as well,  but throughout history it has mostly been used among each other   -   which makes impa and sheik the exception of a rule and not the rule in itself.

sheik is one of if not the strongest mage among the sheikah,  and among the entire history of the tribe.  while their magic is also shadow magic  (  and that should not be confused with calamitous magic or hylia’s magic that lives within zelda … or even terminal magic as seen in majora’s mask.  )  their magic is not only shadow magic that is known by every sheikah of the time,  due to their connection to zelda and the oath they have sworn to the goddess but also to zelda and link specifically,  their magic is infused with the power of the triforce,  specifically the triforce of wisdom.   they are the shadows to the light of zelda’s magic,  as well as to the courage carrying link’s destiny forward.  their magic is an extension of them and they are an extension of their magic,  which makes them the strongest amongst their folk,  besides impa,  and makes them an example for other sheikah to follow down the line.

while sheik can use sheikah magic as it is,   they have individual abilities going beyond what most sheikah can do    -   and what most magic practitioners in hyrule can do,  as that is part of their destined role but also how they have grown as a hidden presence in hyrule,   which includes carrying the sheikah forward and ensuring their mark on this land does not wither and neither will they.   sheik can not only bend light and work with it as much as they are truly an extension of the dark,   the other half of the sun at all times,   that is where their magic excels.  they are bound to the shadows not by oath but by nature,  and they can infuse themselves with them as well as use them to their own liking   (   though to an extent and always in the realms of their natural surroundings unless strengthened by their runes.   )  their teleportation abilities and some of their elemental magic falls into this,  but most of all this is how they enhance their stealth abilities and how they are so one with hylian land.  shadows are everywhere,  in the presence of light and the absence of it,  and this is how sheik is connected to the land.  they are hyrule’s shadow.

[seraphinesaintclair]

Clark Ashton Smith, “Lament Of The Stars”

[gloomglimmer]

›       TENSION   LINER   PROMPTS     

"I   dare   you   to   try."

"Do   you   always   get   close?"

"You’re   pushing   my   limits."

"Stop   looking   at   me   like   that."

"I’m   losing   control   here."

"You   have   no   idea,   do   you?"

"I   can’t   resist   you   anymore."

"Stay   back,   or   don’t."

"I   know   what   you   want."

"This   is   getting   dangerous   now."

"You’re   too   tempting   for   me."

"I   shouldn’t   want   this,   but…"

"I   don’t   play   fair,   remember?"

"Careful,   you’re   testing   me."

"You’re   just   making   it   worse."

"You’re   too   close   for   comfort."

"Do   you   always   push   buttons?"

"Stop   before   I   kiss   you."

"You’re   making   it   too   hard."

"I   can’t   stop   thinking   about   you."

"I   want   you   too   much."

"You   know   exactly   what   you’re   doing."

"I’m   not   playing   games   here."

"You’ve   crossed   the   line   now."

"Keep   pushing,   and   you’ll   regret   it."

"This   is   dangerous,   isn’t   it?"

"I’m   trying   not   to   care."

"Don’t   make   me   regret   this."

"You’re   playing   with   fire."

"You   don’t   know   what’s   coming."

"I   shouldn’t   be   this   close."

"We’re   getting   dangerously   close   now."

"I   can   feel   the   heat."

"Don’t   test   me   right   now."

"I   want   you   too   badly."

"Don’t   make   me   chase   you."

"You’re   distracting   me,   you   know."

"I   won’t   fall   for   this."

"I   want   you,   but…"

"What   do   you   want   from   me?"

"I’ll   never   give   in."

"I’m   trying   not   to   care."

"You’re   playing   with   my   patience."

"Don’t   make   this   harder,   please."

"I   can’t   stop   this   feeling."

"I’m   already   in   too   deep."

"You   won’t   walk   away   unscathed."

"You’re   walking   a   fine   line."

"I’m   trying   to   stay   calm."

"What   are   you   doing   to   me?"

[sheikage-a]

thinking about young sheik ( not even 100 years old ) learning everything about the sealed grounds and hylia’s presence and what the older sheikah promised her and how they lived with her and took her words so deeply to heart but also thinking about young sheik who thinks they could be a monk already but then become a warrior instead and how that path informs so much about their faith in hylia and how they express it and how the impressions of seeing impa guard and protect zelda shapes so much of their conduct around link later on and also thinking about young sheik who had a name and grew up alongside sheikah of their generation and who didn’t know yet that the title they’d go by years and years later would become more than their name ever was

[daylighter-gone]

he had nearly looked away but they had never made this feat possible or easy, either on him or themselves. it caught his attention the way light caught against the surface of a glinting blade or, the way a fox seized up at the first hopeful rustle of a rabbit in the underbush. something sensed before it was caught, something they had not wished for him to see or perhaps, they were leaving the space open for him to snag his nails on. a bait, and this, a habit he had failed to diminish with them. he lowers his head momentarily close to their own as if his eyes could continue to pierce through them for the truth he always sought but rarely gave back, and they could continue to look away, as if he were not hovering there like a menacing phantom. ❛ oh yes, the last time. keeping score, are you? ❜ 

there was no time for them to respond. the gap between them returned with a vengeance, and because he had turned himself away to the side, their hand initially goes unnoticed where it reaches nearly for his waist. it hovers there like a spec of immobile time, another moment that bruised without touched. he pulls the white wrappings from his hands where his palms had grown reddish with ache, a familiar sight that came with wielding the weapon he did. next to him they speak with little of the fervour that is more customary between them, as if speaking louder than a whisper now would break the sanctity of this rare invasion.

❛ because if we don't, ❜   he smarted back, and glanced only passingly their way with a cold and unpleasant smile. ❛ then you'll really have to open those eyes of yours. ❜  he scoffs at the admission next, as if he had not heard a compilation of this before, variations of their stubborn and stoic mannerism that had shaped the way they prayed and ate and watched him, sometimes with apt disapproval and other times with the word he would not name out of worry that it was immoveable. the contention of that belief had bred the recklessness in his tongue now. he knew, or believed, that if he were to be nothing more than an icon of faith to them, unable to change this creed, he would commit to it with violence : he would become that omen they would not forget they once followed, if it meant he could stain them forever too.

at the altar of a goddess he would have no prayer to give but a sole, miserable triumph: the shadow is my greatest sin. his answer comes in a sharp and cutting sound close to a gentle hiss. ❛ no. this, ❜  and he gestured with a finger, between himself and them where they stood only a short breath away from him. ❛ you and me. i'm not spelling this one out to you. figure it out on your own. ❜   leaving them in the dark as they had sometimes done to him, answers just barely out of reach like a wrist or a waist, which seemed apparent now as he said, eyes turning away finally, ❛ look at that, maybe i've learned something from you after all. ❜ 

[sheikage-a]

these are not signs from the goddess, they would know if they were. kenneth may be an offspring of that blood, the same way they have taken shape from some original duty woven into magic and shadow, but he'd be the first to deny ever being an omen not of his own making. he fought it with a vengeance, more than he defeated every single one he sparred with or any of the lizalfos or other opponents standing in his way to the purpose he seems to take to better and better each day. they know it is not about any sense of obligation to him, that something as evident as a pre-made path eluded him by nature and conditioning of the sum of his parts, but that he simply exists and lives following whatever task or mission he has put himself and his mind to. this might not need to be the salvation of an entire kingdom, of the revival of a land slowly growing rotten and stale from poison administered to it through molasses, but anything that would have crossed his path in an alternative reality of the one they both are in right now. this is something they have sensed before, a blockage between him as a person and all of their places in the cyclical nature of this kingdom's fate, and yet they can't help but dig further into his presence to find out if his place here is still by his own making or someone else's design. something always haunts him, something that isn't them, and maybe the crux of it all is that they felt compelled to dispel this other entity not to share that tall order.

" i do not keep score. maybe it looks this way. in some way, i suppose it does, but i do not keep score. i keep a record, " they say, easy to find the difference of semantics between the both of them meaning the same thing, talking about the same events or non-existence of these events, happenstances to him and a concrete and direct line to the truth for them. to tell him they have every single events of matter, and those that don't, in an ever-growing vault of their mind to reference or go back to or, simply and most importantly, to remember seems futile - to tell him registering his absence in the aftermath of them happening and how this blind spot registered as a visceral ache to them even more so. he'd either not believe them or turn away as he has done again now, always his back turned to their truth or scoffing at it to keep away from them. they look at him from their place, his profile like a scythe in the sun cutting the landscape in too, and find it not in themselves to scoff the way he would do at them or to find poison in the blood of his words; they'd know where it is anyhow.

they study him, the way he twists and turns, his hand motioning between the two of them like a war decree to make it through the day. this does not hurt them, as they rarely feel outwardly wounded, and as the sense of ache he instils in them permeates and prevails solely through his place in their mind as a constant. it is something they have learned to live with, just how they have grown accustomed to the endless mountains of their grief and the deep-reaching valleys of their longing, and the lack of peace where they only ever found silence instead, the closest they'd ever get to something like that simply due to the wiring of their person. this makes them alike - two attackers, two lonely animals circling each other; as natural as day and night. " why would you think i pretend when it comes to you? " they ask him, stepping into his space close enough he could hear their breathing, their voice not soft but quiet, a certain toughness to it - as it only is when they reveal a truth or unleash a part of them long formant. " you and i are the same, and i know what you are to me. i know what i would do for you, to you, and with you. you are the light i follow, and i know i won't follow anyone else. what is between you and me is a river. devotion and violence, and a tender anger you never place at anyone else's feet. "