Guide of Time.

   According to Impa there was a set of rules that he had to follow. Rules set not by her but written in the prophecy that he was fulfilling. Rules that, according to her, made sense. That she expected Sheik to follow as closely as he was following his prophecy. If you asked Sheik himself the rules didn't make sense, they just made things more difficult than they were already going to be. Which was fine, he was no stranger to difficult tasks. The same couldn't be said for some child from the forest.

Seven years she said he'd sleep. Seven years. With your mind frozen in a suspended place of sleep for seven years how much would you be able to grow? According to Impa he could still dream, but he'd lack education and experience. No offense to her, but to Sheik it wasn't age that determined how old you were, but life experiences. As it stood at the age of twenty Sheik had seen war, fought for his life, looked death in the eyes and stood before the darkest creature to ever call himself King. He's seen the end and that definitely didn't make him feel barely out of his teens.

He couldn't be one to judge though, Sheik didn't pull the Master Sword (thank the goddesses for that). Whatever the world had planned for him he had to believe the Goddesses picked their chosen Hero wisely. His place was to guide them, not to figure out their mental state. As curious as he might be about it.

Impa was safe guarding the Princess, they'd taken residents up in an old Sheikah tunnel that ran beneath Hyrule. It was supposed to be secure considering the difficulty of getting inside. Sheik's job was to keep eyes off of them, which led right into what he was supposed to be doing while the Hero slept.

Playing both sides.

It wasn't hard to get Ganondorf to believe Sheik was on his side. With the Sheikah's history with the Royal Family he just needed to convince the man he hated Hyrule as much as they did. The only problem with proving that was Sheik's hands were far from clean. He only hoped if the Princess ever found out what he needed to do to play this part, she'd understand. Not forgive him, Sheik didn't even think he'd forgive himself, just understand.

He learned what he could from Ganondorf and then took that information back to Impa. The tasks that Ganondorf gave him tended to be easy. With Hyrule under his thumb he didn't need Sheik to strike fear into the hearts of its civilians, thankfully. He mostly, ironically, used Sheik as a spy himself. He was supposed to be looking out for the Hero and then when the Hero did show his orders were simple; kill him.

Not that Sheik was going to but it certainly made pretending to be Ganondorf's spy easy. The tasks thrown at him seemed to all be merging together, if either parties blinked it would be clear he was playing for their side. So long as neither squinted too hard to see just what he was doing.

It might be a thankless job what he was doing and he might not have ever wanted to do it in the first place. But he did hope that at the end the things he had to do were worth it. That single thought and hope was what got him to keep moving.

His fingers stilled on the strings of the harp and Sheik tilted his head upward toward the sky. The sun was rising, it was just about time for the Hero to awaken. Placing the instrument away behind him, Sheik swung himself down from the tree and started for the Temple of Time.

Getting around unseen wasn't hard for a Sheikah. Their powers were deeply rooted in shadows and so with just a single attempt he could vanish into them and move through them. It was simple but desperately needed for the type of work that he was doing. As he comfortably got himself settled on the rafters of the temple he waited, patiently, for the Hero of Time to appear. Considering this moment had been timed since the moment he got his destiny thrown at him, it didn't take long. Sheik nearly had it down to the exact second, clock ticking in the back of his head.