Hello, everyone. Happy Christmas Eve! :)

The name's Connor (in case you can't tell by my username), and I mostly write Earthbound Fanfiction, but I'm here today with the first installment of this twoshot. The next part will come tomorrow. To be honest, I'm not super confident about this chapter, but if I release it any later then it will lose its effect, you know?

But yeah, Any reviews are greatly appreciated (unless you're going to rage mindlessly or something like that haha). This is my first SSB fic, so... um, I don't know what I was going to put after that. I guess go easy on me? :D

Okay, I'll shut up and give you the story.


Zelda couldn't put into words how much she hated these meetings with Princess Peach.

"Oh, you'll totally get along," everyone said. "You're both princesses, so you must have a lot in common."

Yeah right.

Couldn't these people see how vapid the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom really was? Well… maybe not. After all, princesses were supposed to act a little shallow. It didn't surprise her that most people lapped up Peach's personality like nothing was wrong.

Maybe that was why she hated Peach so much.

So why in Hyrule was Zelda sitting in an overly cushioned chair across from Peach right now? Why had she agreed to this?

I guess I'm just used to doing what I'm told, Zelda though with an internal sigh. I should take more initiative over my own life. Just because Link and Mario think that I should hang out with Peach doesn't mean that it's a good idea.

Zelda took a look around the room. She thought that her chair was on the squishy side, but everything else seemed even more cushioned. The couch, the other chairs… even one of the tables. And it was all pink. Disgusting, hot pink. Zelda was pretty sure that her eyes would start bleeding if she looked at the room for much longer.

"Oh, Zelda!" Peach exclaimed, her eyes widening in alarm. She dropped the pink parasol that she had been holding up until that point, sending it clattering on the ground. "I just remembered something!"

Zelda had to force herself not to plug her ears. Why was Peach's voice so shrill?

"What?" Zelda asked, as politely as she could manage.

"I forgot the tea!" Peach exclaimed, taking an excruciating eight seconds to bend down and pick her stupid umbrella off the ground. "How could I possibly have forgotten something so important?"

Zelda didn't trust herself to reply to that.

"Toad!" Peach shouted. "Some tea for both of us! What kind do you want, Zelda?"

I hate tea, Zelda thought.

"Peach flavored," Zelda answered, flashing a smirk.

"Oh, how sweet!" Peach said, her eyes lighting up. "You're choosing peach flavored tea after me because we have a special connection!"

No, Zelda thought. I want to feel like I'm consuming part of your essence.

"Yeah," Zelda muttered. "Let's go with that."

"Aren't we such good friends, Zelda?" Peach asked, her beady eyes making Zelda feel guilty about her earlier thoughts.

"Uh… sure," Zelda said.

"Yay!" Peach exclaimed. "I think that we're going to be best friends forever!"

Somebody, kill me now, Zelda thought, any semblance of remorse vaporizing into thin air.

After a suspiciously short amount of time, a toad came into the room, bringing two cups of tea.

"Here I am, your highness," the toad said, giving one cup of tea to Peach and the other to Zelda.

"Oh!" Peach exclaimed, almost swooning. "This is my favorite kind of tea, Toad. How did you know?"

I don't know, Zelda thought sarcastically. Maybe it's because you drink the exact same kind of tea with every meal?

"I'm honored that you like it, Princess," the toad said. Zelda noted the lack of awkwardness in the toad's posture.

I guess he must be used to this, she thought.

"Did you really need to bring servants here from the Mushroom Kingdom?" Zelda asked as the toad walked out of the room.

"Ah, you know how easy it is to bring people into this dimensional rift," Peach said, waving a hand dismissively. "And what am I supposed to do? I need my tea and cupcakes!"

Does she know how whiny she sounds? Zelda wondered.

"…It is possible for you to learn how to make them on your own," Zelda pointed out. "I mean, you did learn how to fight in the Smash Bros arena when you came here. I'm sure that self-sustenance is easier than that."

"Oh," Peach said, blinking her eyes in a rapid succession. "Did you say something?"

Zelda sighed.

"Never mind," she muttered.

"So what do you want to talk about?" Peach asked. "Ooh! I heard that Captain Falcon asked Samus out on a date again."

Whoop de do, Zelda thought flatly. Seriously, that happens at least once a month.

"He should quit," Zelda said. "He knows that Samus is never going to say yes, but he keeps asking her anyway just to make her mad. It's disrespectful, frankly."

"Oh, let them have their fun," Peach said, giggling like a five-year old.

…The point is that it isn't fun for Samus, Zelda thought.

"Why don't we talk about something else?" Zelda asked, wanting to try out the whole "taking initiative" thing that she had resolved to improve just minutes earlier. "You know how I don't like to gossip about romantic relationships. Did you know that tomorrow is a special day on Lucas' and Ness' world? What's their planet called again… is it Earth?"

Peach nodded.

"I heard about that holiday too," she said, clapping her hands together. "And yes, it is Earth. Look at you, studying other dimensions! I'm so proud of you, Zelda!"

…I honestly wouldn't mind dying right now.

"Well, tomorrow's a holiday called 'Christmas' for them," Zelda said. "So Ness went back to Earth to spend some time with his family."

"Aww," Peach said, twirling her pink parasol around. "That's nice. But Lucas is still here, though."

"He is?" Zelda asked. "Doesn't he have family to spend time with, too?"

"Oh, he does," Peach said with a vapid smile. "But he's choosing to stay here instead! That must mean that he likes us, right?"

So egotistical, Zelda thought. She can't worry about Lucas because she's too busy thinking about how neat things are for her. I've never met someone who so thoroughly exemplifies the word "self-obsessed" before. She even puts Ganondorf to shame.

"There could be a problem!" Zelda exclaimed. "Maybe something's wrong with his family and he just doesn't want to tell us. You know how easily embarrassed kids can get about stuff like that."

Actually, she probably doesn't, Zelda realized.

"Something wrong?" Peach asked, cocking her head in mild interest. "What do you mean?"

Zelda had to resist the urge to slap Peach in the face.

"Think about it!" she exclaimed. "Maybe he's on bad terms with his family and he doesn't have anyone else." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Maybe he's alone."

Zelda squeezed her eyes shut. She knew how that felt all too well.

"…" Peach's eyes flashed with… something. It almost seemed like she was thinking, but Zelda knew that wasn't physically possible.

"Peach?" Zelda asked.

"You know," Peach said, her voice losing its shrill quality. She looked down at the floor and shook her head. "It amazes me how must people don't even realize that."

Peach stood up, and Zelda watched in a mixture of awe and horror as her body posture shifted. While before she had sat daintily with her arms in her lap, she now stood up straight, her confident pose seeming strangely natural. Instead of making herself seem small and harmless like she normally did, her reserved posture carried an air of confidence. She seemed like someone who would bend under stress rather than break.

My gods… Zelda thought, her jaw dropping wide open. She seems like… an actual person!

And her face… whereas before it had contained the emotional depth of a plastic sheet, it now displayed an array of thoughts and feelings that ran deeper than anyone else Zelda had seen. Each twitch of a muscle made her face seem fuller, somehow. It was as if she had come to life from a painting.

Was this the real Princess Peach?

"Heh," Peach said, turning to Zelda. A melancholy smirk popped up onto her face. "You seem surprised that changing my posture and voice can make me a completely different person. But isn't that what you did in your world, Sheik?"

How can her voice sound so resolute yet so defeated? Zelda wondered.

Looking deep into her eyes, Zelda found a mixture of worry and pain. But Peach managed to smile anyways.

Perhaps there was a lesson in that.

"It's been a while since anyone has called me Sheik," Zelda said carefully.

"But aren't you more Sheik than Zelda?" Peach asked, her eyes that normally flitted around so carelessly now gluing themselves to Zelda's face. "Sure, you put on a dress and a friendly face because society expects princesses to act that way, but isn't Sheik closer to who you really are?"

Zelda stood up.

"I… guess so," she said.

"We share that trait, Sheik," Peach said softly. "This right here is me. The person who I show to the world is just a character."

"Why?" Zelda asked. "Why not just… be yourself? I mean, I only changed my identity to hide myself when Ganondorf was trying to hunt me down."

"Two reasons," Peach said. "First, it's… actually pretty funny. I don't know what I get more fun out of, people like Mario who I can manipulate with my 'personality' or people like you who I can annoy."

"Glad to know that I'm entertaining," Zelda muttered.

"I'm sorry," Peach said with a guilty smile, "I guess I have an evil streak."

"…So what's the second reason?" Zelda asked, not knowing how to respond to that.

"People underestimate me," Peach said. "If shit goes down, then nobody expects me to be the competent one… but I am."

"You shouldn't swear," Zelda said. "Nintendo guidelines-"

"Fuck the guidelines," Peach said, flashing a smirk. "It's not like anyone's going to see us talking."

"I suppose," Zelda said, feeling the urge once again to move on. "So… I guess you secretly know how to fight like I do?"

"No," Peach said. "Not more than what I learned here, which isn't really applicable. Spacetime gets really weird in the arenas, which allows for some pretty crazy shit."

"Why not?" Zelda asked. "It's important to know how to defend yourself."

"Not in my world," Peach said with a snort. "Have you seen it? Nobody's dangerous. Bowser tries to be dangerous, but he isn't. Since I'm a princess, there are a lot of things that I need to learn about. Economics, history, foreign relations, public health… and court etiquette." Peach sneered. "It kind of bugs me how princesses are expected to know how to fight so that we don't seem dainty. Knowing how to protect yourself is cool, but warrior princesses simply aren't practical to a nation such as mine."

How in the world did we go from talking about tea to talking about gender roles? Zelda thought.

"Now that I've introduced myself," Peach said with a surprisingly sincere smile, "We should get to the point."

"Point?" asked Zelda. "There's a point?"

"Remember?" Peach asked. "We were talking about Lucas and how he might have family issues."

"Oh," Zelda said. "That."

"Yeah," Peach said. "Anyways, I figured that you would probably be the first one to inquire about him. You've always worry about little kids."

"How did you know that?" Zelda asked.

"Uh, I have eyes," Peach said. "Really, Sheik; It's obvious."

Dang, Zelda thought. She's more perceptive than I thought.

"Could it be, perhaps, that you suffered so much as a child that you don't want any of today's children to know the pain that you did?" Peach asked.

Way more perceptive, Zelda revised.

"…"

"I thought so," Peach said with an empathetic smile. "Since you seem to care about Lucas, you should go have a chat with him."

"Uh…" Zelda said. "By myself?"

"Sure," Peach said. "Why not?"

Because he's really creepy, Zelda thought.

"I'm not sure if I should…" Zelda said.

"Oh," Peach said, her pitch returning to soprano and her posture returning to dainty. "In that case, Zelda…"

"All right, all right!" Zelda said. "I'll talk to him! Just… please don't act like you normally do. This new Peach is way better."

Peach let out a hearty laugh.

"That was easy," she said. "But it has to be tomorrow, all right? I'm trying to convince Lucas to spend Christmas with his family, and I need to do some stuff first. I should be done by seven or eight tomorrow morning… try to talk to him before then, okay?"

"How long have you been helping out Lucas?" Zelda asked.

"I've been trying to help for a few months," Peach answered with a sigh. "The kid's stubborn. I don't know if he'll trust anyone ever again, honestly."

A chill ran down Zelda's spine.

"How old is he?" Zelda asked. "15? 14?"

"13," Peach answered. "13 and already knows too much about the multiverse's uglier side. You really should talk to him, Sheik. It will give you some nice perspective about your own life, hard as it was. He sure gave me some perspective."

"…All right," Zelda said. "I always try to perceive the world from other viewpoints. I'll see what Lucas has to say."

"Good luck," Peach said. "And thanks. If meeting the real me was a little jarring for you, then you might want to mentally prepare yourself before you talk to Lucas. Just a thought."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Zelda said flatly.

"I'm teasing you a little," Peach said with a playful smirk. "But only a little. Lucas is probably going to make you feel uncomfortable, but I think that it will be really good for you to talk to him. You're the only one here besides me who can even stand to listen to the kid. Just make sure to talk to him tomorrow, all right?"

"Okay," Zelda said. "I'll try."

"Good," Peach said. "I'll meet you and Lucas soon. See you later, Sheik."

"All right," Zelda said, walking towards the exit of Peach's room. She opened the door, thankful that the grey hallways outside provided something to look at that wasn't pink. She turned back to face Peach. "By the way, my name is Zelda."

"Is that who you want to be when you talk to Lucas?" Peach asked with a knowing smile. "Who do you think will better connect to Lucas, the princess Zelda or the orphan Sheik?"

"…"

"Just some food for thought."

Zelda walked out and closed the door behind her.