Chapter Text
Malon bit her lip as the stranger’s bandaged fingers flipped her hand over to inspect it. She wasn’t sure where to look--it seemed rude to stare at the red eye blazing across their chest, or at the filth-flecked white mask obscuring most of their face, or at the shock of blonde hair sticking from under their cap, pale against their skin. It seemed rude to ask them how they’d gotten here, or --
“How’d you see me in the dark?” She asked it anyway, tensing and relaxing again as a thin ribbon of yellow magic slid into her palm, pooling over the deep gash put there by the Poe’s swinging lantern.
“With my eyes,” replied the stranger without a moment’s glance away from their hands or the glow of their work. A taped thumb pressed down on the skin just above the cut. “It is how I see most things.”
Malon’s felt a flick of irritation but said nothing, eyes settling once more on the bright eye of their tabard, and something pricked in the back of her memory.
A Sheikah?
And once she recalled the word, the memories flooded back all at once--memories of Fairy Boy and his fantastical stories about the inside of talking trees and fire-mountains and fishbellies, of the times he met the Princess Zelda and her always-watchful guard. A warrior, he’d told her, tall, tattooed, with red eyes and a knife strapped to the small of her back.
Her gaze dropped to the stranger’s waist, and the dagger held there. Then back up, slowly, to the uncovered part of their face--
“ Ow !” The warmth in her hand intensified and the yellow brightened before fading. The pain still throbbed.. “No need to be so short .”
Malon received no acknowledgment of her reproach. The stranger merely looked out across Hyrule Field at the Poes’ lanterns drifting over the hills. From far off, the glow of their lights blended with the blue-green cast of the shimmering fog that trailed behind them. She could not see the orange of their eyes -- but wondered if they could see the blue of hers.
“Are you planning to return to the Ranch?” asked the stranger, who had no reasonable means of knowing she was from the Ranch. (Malon reflected uneasily back on tales that Sheikah could read minds.) And then, before receiving an answer, continued “at any rate, you will need to find shelter somewhere.”
Malon squinted. “Are you going to feed the Cucuos?”
---
Sheik paused and reëvaluated whether it was really necessary to save such a nuisance. There were only three or four hours left in the night; Malon might even survive without help--- and if she didn’t, it was clear enough Ingo would run the ranch into the ground. She supposed that was as good a way as any to keep Ganon from having it. But, even so…
“I am not. And if you die for quarrelsomeness neither are you.” Sheik answered flatly, beginning to walk.
“Wait, I wasn’t trying to--look, Sheikah, just wait , please?”
Sheik stopped. She did not look back.
Malon pivoted to stand in front of her, and met her gaze. “These animals. They’re--honestly, they’re all we have? They need to be taken care of, and--”
“Ingo cannot kill them in a day, or even a week,” Sheik replied, standing fixed but dropping her eyes down towards Malon’s blue. “And your hands are presently too injured for serious labor. You may accompany me to Kakariko on my own business, and leave for the ranch in the morning if you wish. Once in town you might even be able to contract someone to send feed to the cuccos. But I am departing now, and you must give an answer.” She could hear her exasperation at the time spent on coaxing this ranchhand to sense creeping into the margins of her voice.
___
Goddesses, what an asshole. But they were a fearsome asshole, one who could likely extinguish Poes with a single flame of such burning gaze, or something--and, if Malon were being truthful with herself, she’d probably get attacked again, and then there wouldn’t be a formidable shadow to save her.
She hated this--how she always had to rely on someone else for something, how Ingo frustrated her so thoroughly earlier in the day, how she allowed herself one single self-indulgent walk, far out into the field where the grasses shifted from green to blue, away from the fences and cuccos and even her beloved horses--gentle creatures, yes, but always in need of a song. And then, the evening sky dropped like black linen on the field, then lit up with the ever-fading rainbows of the dead and--
“Sheikah ,” she said, and decided she wouldn’t wilt under the red snap of their eyes, “I’ve had a horrible day. If you could--” I wonder how many blades they’ve got on them, “be a little nicer, I’ll come along quietly.”
Sheik blinked. They did not seem taken aback, Malon thought, and showed not the slightest gesture of remorse; but there was something in the way they shifted their head slightly to the left that seemed to her like deliberation before speaking again.
“I am extending an offer of protection while you travel-- should you choose to. You may come along as noisily or quietly as suits you, this isn’t a kidnapping.”
“One more thing, though--” Malon swore the Sheikah cursed under their breath, “--what’s your name.”
“Sheik.”
And with that they turned and resumed walking. Never stopping, never glancing back, but they kept their pace slow enough to accommodate Malon’s injuries.