Disclaimer: I don't own anything Zelda aside from my own warped fanfics and the freaking awesomeness of my Sheikah costume that I hand made. Other than that, leave me alone for my weird crap.
Author's Note: Normally I'm not a fan of the "Sheik is Zelda" train of thought, despite it being canon, but this little fic kind of wrote itself. The inspiration for this can be blamed on a photo-shoot I did with a Zelda cosplayer; namely one picture. That picture (under the same name as this fic) can be found at my DeviantArt name, Fire-Mouse. This is sort of a psychological thing, making the assumption that yes, Sheik is Zelda, but what if she had some kind of mental disassociation? Not MPD (multiple personality disorder) per se, but sort of near it without quite touching it. End result: Sheik and Zelda were once one person, and this is kind of Sheik's musing about what it was like before they were… well that'd be spoiling things, wouldn't it? In any case, yes this is a "Sheik is Zelda" fic, but it's also a "Sheik and Zelda are their own people" fic. Yeah… It's weird. And there is a second part I'm working on… Just read it, review, and let me know if I haven't completely fried your brains. C&C is always appreciated, so enjoy and tell me what you think!
WARNING: This fic does contain hints of a guy crushing on a guy, so don't friggin' gripe at me about it.
Two sides of the same coin; each a reflection of the other. There was a time when we were one… Do you remember? No, of course you don't. We were so torn back then… You wanted to be the princess, the devoted ruler that thrilled in doing your best for your people. I wanted to be free. I wanted to run. I wanted to escape into the brilliant sunlight and laugh aloud while singing out every Sheikah song and praise I could think of. As one person it was hell.
When we were one you wanted to pay attention to your lessons; how avidly you listened to Impa as she lectured you about wars long past! You drank it all up with the interest of one that such things were valuable to. Not me. I'd cry in frustration and boredom. I'd get distracted. When we were one I was surprised that you ever learned anything past my continual yearning for open air and the great outdoors.
Then again it was the same thing whenever I was in combat training. I couldn't be happier as I learned some new sweeping move that was sure to impress and quick to devastate. I gladly chased after horses and took flying leaps off of high ledges without a rope for safety. With my worst stunts you'd be in the back of my mind screaming; followed by either howling or rampant sobbing as I came down off of my adrenaline high.
We never really argued back then because we were the same person, and we were by no means crazy; but we were tearing our self apart and we didn't even know it. We knew something was wrong as we were growing up in amongst the Sheikah. No one else was so torn in two different directions constantly. Maybe it was a hylian thing? Oh we hoped, but we found out differently after spying on hylians in my form. You were hylian, through and through. I wasn't. I was full-blown Sheikah. It wasn't as if we were two separate personalities back then, but we still knew there was something wrong with us.
How could one person feel like two different people in the same skin? No one knew. Impa didn't know. Link didn't know. Once we understood that being that way, being two different minds but only one at the same time was somehow wrong, we never told anyone. Yet we knew. When my form was out, I was out. When your form was out, you were out. It wasn't strictly so; there were times as a man when you were out rather than I, and there were times (so many I've lost count) as a woman that I was out rather than you. It was just easier to try to stick to that strict division. It was viewed as 'good acting'; something to be prized in a ruler-to-be.
I had no patience for what interested you. You had no patience for what interested me. When you wanted to go sit somewhere quiet and read, I wanted to be out risking my life in reckless jumps from dizzying heights. When I wanted to sit and play my harp you wanted to tend to the little gift garden Impa gave you for our eighteenth birthday. We were good at keeping the frustration at ourself hidden. We were good at keeping anyone from knowing about the cloud of anger that hung about us constantly.
It was one big never-ending act. I can't even remember when we started 'splitting' as it has been called. Yet that first time around we could never completely split. We were still one person and we knew it. We didn't feel like separate entities, we didn't talk to each other; we were Zelda/Sheik/Zelda/Sheik/not Zelda but not Sheik/Sheik and Zelda/some bizarre mixture of both that was frantically trying to pull apart into two people and yet was completely incapable of doing so. Being attached to you was making me mentally sick; your being attached to me was making you mentally sick. Even so we struggled on, never hinting, never giving away our greatest secret; never even telling our father before he died that he had a daughter, he had a son, he had some child that was pure-blooded hylian/not hylian that was mentally losing it.
We got along of course. We had to. We were so talented at acting flawlessly when we got along. It was nice, because then the cloud of anger was gone. We were happy. We agreed. We were just one person going through their normal day as just one person. There were times where we hoped that it would stay that way; that we could remain one person and never pull apart again. It never stayed that way. Something would always happen that would have us pulling in different directions.
Like that instance with Ruto. You know the one; the one where she stormed into the throne room and started whining about monsters invading her territory and her insistence that all monsters were the responsibility of the hylian royal family to take care of. I wanted to tell her to get off her ass and do something about it herself if it was such an imposition to her. You wanted to be diplomatic and tell her that you would do your best, provided that she gave help. Could we have reached a compromise? Perhaps, if we had been given enough time. Since we didn't have that we had to send out Link to take care of it, and Goddesses know that he had long since been through more than his fair share of dealing with monsters… and Ruto.
How we hated on-the-spot decisions! Especially ones that we didn't agree on. If we paused long enough to figure out a compromise we could stand, then others would guess at our wrongness. They would start to realize that Princess Zelda, one of the best rulers Hyrule had seen in over a century, had something horribly wrong with her. They would begin to figure out that we were splitting, torn, slowly pulling apart and going through agonizing hell for it. We couldn't have them know. We didn't know that we wanted to be different people, but we did know that we couldn't have anybody else find out. Hyrule needed a competent ruler… even with my point of view I understood that. I took it as a matter of honor to help you keep your throne, no matter how much I hated being along for the ride. In return you usually gave me the night, when we could be free of anyone else. I'm thankful for that, even if you never knew that you were granting freedom to someone other than yourself.
It was because of our wrongness that we turned down all suitors. We couldn't get close to anybody without them eventually figuring out our secret. We died a virgin; unmarried but mourned by many, succeeded by a cousin and his following family line. That isn't to say that we didn't want somebody to be with, just that we couldn't.The end was peaceful, a fitting end for a glorious ruler of your stature. I never told you, though I'm sure you knew, but I was crying. You had ruled for well over seventy years, more than long enough to have been a grandmother in your own right. Because of me you never had that chance. Because of you I couldn't love. Our attachment was a sickness, but when the end came and took us, we smiled. We smiled because we knew that if anything could be done to cure our sickness, then the Goddesses would do it and free us.
We knew that with such conviction… I don't think it ever occurred to us that we'd become separate people. I think we assumed that one of us would be suppressed, most likely me, the next time we came around. So I cried. I cried because I thought I would be suppressed. I cried because I knew we would be 'healed' and that 'wrongness' about us would finally go away. I was crying, because I knew the pain would finally stop and I was so happy for that fact that I couldn't think of what else to do. And after we died and we had met our end and the Goddesses gathered us up… That was when I finally saw you.
Not me, not some other side of me, not some part of my mind that I seemed to be at odds with over the strangest things, but you. Finally the lines were clear, the distinction was clear, you were Zelda and I was Sheik. No more of the mangled confusion that our mind had been, no more having to lie and act as though everything was fine when we knew it wasn't. When we came to the Goddesses we were almost separate, almost unique and individual. Din, Nayru, and Farore stood over us, eyeing us, until they spoke as one. "In your life you were trapped in one body, trapped as one person. Do you wish to be separated? To each be your own person?" We gave our assent, and then they pulled us apart. Our last connection in our soul was severed.
It hurt. It hurt more than anything we had endured. It hurt more than the various broken bones we had received in our youth due to my stupid stunts. It hurt more than that scuffle with Ganondorf when we were sure that we would die. Nevermind that we had charged into that fight with the idea of getting rid of the Gerudo King before we even knew Link, with all of the idiotic abandon of a youth convinced of their own immortality. Being pulled into two separate people was screaming pain and excruciating agony, and then… a wash of relief that matched nothing we had felt before, and in my case, since.
You were Zelda and I was Sheik. Our souls were wounded, but healing, from where they had been connected. Looking at you, seeing you, and knowing that you and I were no longer one, that I would not be repressed and wiped out, was a shock. We didn't even look like the same person. You had such pale skin and bright blue eyes… With my dark skin and red eyes that burned I looked like the exact opposite of you in every way. I was sheikah, you were hylian. Your first words to me, the first hint that you gave of your acceptance that we were two people rather than one, that I wasn't just a part of you, were, "Sheik… I hope that if we return to Hyrule… I hope that I can meet you. It… would be a sad thing if we never knew each other after this. Having been the same person for so long, I mean… It would be sad… to never know my other self." I agreed with you on that.
Now… Now we are separate. This time around we're different people. How sad is it that we came back as ourselves? That we came back alongside of Link to again endure a set of events wrapped up in Ganondorf? Things are different of course. This time it's hard to find the Sages. This time it's hard to know who the Sages are. This time he hasn't yet met me, but just like last time he's met you. I have to wonder if you remember anything of our former life. This business with Twilight Realms and spirits might distract you though. Even so, we know each other. You spent your stint among the Sheikah, just like last time, due to a scare courtesy of Ganondorf. The difference now is that we grew up as friends; separate individuals, but so, so close.
Things are so much easier… So much easier now that I can run when you're reading history, that you can just sit by and laugh at me as I go through training and occasionally make a fool of myself. Easier for you to learn now that I don't distract you with my daydreaming, easier for me to be a reckless fool and leap from the castle wall while you safely yell after me for being a suicidal idiot. Easier now that we can sit in the garden as you tend to it while I play my harp. When you ask me to play my harp for you from time to time it brings back good memories, even if back then we were just one. Just like back then I'm doing my best to help you keep your throne, as my honor dictates. It's all so much easier to do everything I have to, when you and I aren't the same person.
Now here's an interesting thought; supposing that you remember that we were once one, do you think that Link remembers me at all? I know he's the same Link as before, the soul is the same and the Goddesses have confirmed it, so do you think he remembers me? And while I know you never had any interest in him, do you think I, as a man, stand a chance? Maybe my attraction to him has to do with having been the same person as you were, so perhaps I'm predisposed to liking men. Even so Zelda, even if you can't remember being the same person as I was, do you think he'd even look my way?
Yes, even after all this time, even after we have been going through this second time around as separate people, I still look to your level-headed judgment to help me muddle through. Just as much I suppose as you rely on my capabilities to keep you protected and informed of what is going on in Hyrule. I suppose in the way we lean on each other we're a bit hopeless; but what can anybody expect of two people who once shared the same soul? Regardless, when you give me that bright, knowing smile from time to time, I'm fairly certain you remember- even though neither of us has ever said a single word. Somehow, I don't think I even need to say that I'm attracted to Link. You already know.
Well people that's the fic. As I said, there is a second part I'm working on (more focused on their different perceptions of Link), and when I get done with it, it'll be posted as a second chapter to this. It won't really be a second chapter, just another short fic, but there's no way it'd make sense if it were separate from this. So yeah. Review please. Reviews make the Sheik cosplayer happy. -nod nod-
