Running (FOUR SWORDS FANFICTION!)

Vio's Point of View

When I dreamed of Shadow, I was totally clueless as to why a little kid was hanging behind him.

"Shadow, you're being followed," I said.

"That's just Aki, she's cool," he replied.

I raised an eyebrow and looked closer at the girl. She squirmed beneath my gaze. "You mean you're willingly allowing a kid to follow you around?"

"Shes lost and hurt, and...I just couldn't not, Vi, I--what's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, I'm just so proud of you, I thought you hated kids."

He looked over at Aki. "I guess I can't hate this one."

Aki stood on her toes and whispered to Shadow, "who's he?"

"That's Vio, he's a hero and a really beautiful man, and the love of my life, he won't hurt you."

"How...How can you be so--are you..." She just looked at him uncertainly.

"Vio's trying to get me out of this forest," he said slowly. "And he stopped Vaati and Ganon from destroying Hyrule, you know about that?"

She nodded. "My parents told me...are you the shadow...did you...you didn't have anything to do with that...right?" She seemed to suddenly realize something and looked scared.

I spoke up. "Shadow helped me and my team beat them, if it wasn't for him, they would have won."

"My mom said he killed Peony," she said quietly. "That...That's not true, right?"

"Who's Peony?" Shadow asked.

"She died in a village he burned down."

"Oh no," Shadow breathed.

Aki kept going. "He set a part of the forest on fire on top of a dragon, and the fire spread, and just engulfed the entire village, there was no survivors." Her breathing started getting all shallow. "It was so scary. I watched it happen, and people kept screaming for help. No one came." She went silent and then looked up at Shadow who looked really guilty. 

"I'm so sorry, I..." Shadow sighed.

Her voice was small and tinsely. "It's you...isn't it?"

"I hurt so many people, Aki...I was fed up and angry, and I may have been under orders, but I have no excuse. I'm very sorry about Peony and all the other people who died."

"Mom said she...Peony deserved it...to die. Her exact words was that, that 'the entire village should be burning in hell.'" She shook her head. I realized she had a knife on her.

"Shadow, there's something really wrong..."

"What do you mean, Vio?"

"We went to look for the pieces to the Dark Mirror, someone was there before us, and they took them all, there wasn't a single piece left."

Shadow buried his head in his hands with a muffled "that's not good."

"Dar...Dark Mirror..." Aki looked up at Shadow.

"How are we going to do this now?"

"I don't know, Vi, maybe..." he frowned. "You can't stop now."

"I can't. We're going to keep going, we'll figure something out, Shadow." I sighed.

Shadow gave me a small smile and I found myself getting closer. "I always hated it when you sighed like that, Vi." He pecked me on the cheek. "You better wake up soon."

"I don't want to if you won't be there."