Sins of Darkness REWRITE || an SSB Fanfic

Chapter 20: Reunited

Zelda groaned as she felt something wet and warm slide harshly across her forehead. For a moment, she thought it was a dog's tongue giving her a kiss, but she quickly remembered that dogs tended to stay clear of these parts. She struggled to open her eyes, she wanted to keep sleeping quite badly after all, but she forced herself to open them, immediately blinded by a bright light. She raised her hands and shielded her eyes from the light, blinking several times until her eyes adjusted, and she saw clearly that she was in a different spot than where she remembered. Bark from a tree was all around her, and she assumed she had been brought inside the Deku Tree, where she knew there was a small inn. But how had she gotten there? There was no way the Koroks were able to lift her up, not her or her friends, and she hadn't roused in the slightest the entire night.

It was when she looked to her left that she got her answer. There, she was met with her brother, and his eyes a mix of surprise and, albeit slight, concern. There appeared to be a towel in his hand, and it seemed to have strange red stains on it. "Sheik...?" she said quietly, not fully registering that it was truly him.

He swallowed. "Hey..."

Hearing his voice, that was soft and careful, her eyes widened, and she knew she wasn't dreaming. She smiled and laughed as she immediately shot up from her resting place, tightly wrapping her arms around her dear brother as tears threatened to fall from her eyes. "Sheik! Oh thank the Goddesses you're alright!"

"Yeah...and I'd... appreciate it... if you let me go...!"

Zelda gasped and immediately moved away, not realizing she had been accidentally choking him. She put her hands on his shoulders instead, patting them, "Sorry, sorry, I got too excited. But really, I'm so glad you're alright." Her face suddenly turned serious as she flipped his bangs over so she could look at his forehead and scanned him for injuries. "You are alright, right?"

"Yes," her brother sighed exasperatedly, pushing her face away, "I'm fine. You... on the other hand..."

She smiled, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Not ideal, but I'll live." Her eyes glanced at the towel in his hand, which Sheik noticed despite how quickly her eyes shifted back to him.

"I was wiping the blood off your forehead and your hair," he explained, "I-I was trying to be as careful as I could, but the blood is dry and it wasn't really coming off so..."

"It's alright, thank you for trying anyway," Zelda reassured, her smile growing wider. She touched her forehead, feeling the dry flakes of blood. "Is it that awful?"

"You look like you came out of a slasher movie."

Zelda laughed, a cackle that resonated within the Deku Tree. "You know, Marth said the same thing-" She gasped, looking around herself as she realized that her friends were nowhere to be seen, "The others, where-where are they?!"

"They're fine, they're outside with Link," Sheik said.

"Link is here?"

"He was the one who thought to look here."

Zelda nodded, recalling that she had asked the Deku Tree to call him to them somehow. She didn't know how he managed to do it, and she didn't care much either. At the very least, she knew for sure now that her friends were safe, and that her brother was safe. There was still another person who's safety she worried about, but that could wait until later. She wanted to check if her friends were alright; they might be safe, but she imagined they were in quite a lot of pain.

She flipped her legs over the bed, pushing herself off with a groan. As soon as she was on her feet, however, the pain in her thigh nearly toppled her again. If it weren't for Sheik catching her, she would've ended up with a face-full of wood. "Easy, that injury on your leg is still fresh... and deep," Sheik said as he helped steady her. "It's possible you have a fractured bone there."