(A/N) This is an old one-shot. Made for Random's last year birthday. One of those "WTF did you drink?" kind of pairing. Sheik/Zelda. Yes. You read that one right. Don't ask, just enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda and associated trademarks, but I do own plot and any unfamiliar characters.
Reflections of a Fallen Queen.
"The time will come when it will disgust you to look in the mirror." Ovid.
She remembers that day, the day. She can almost taste the adrenaline in her lips and hear the pounding of her heart, overriding the clicking of the horse's hooves as it sped away from the only home she had known. She remembers, often, because she doesn't want to forget the reason she's hiding. She doesn't want to break.
Everyday, she will raise and stare in wonder at the mark in her hand, trace it delicately and hope it will reveal the secrets towards victory. The holy Triangle stays silent and she moves on, prepares, trains. Everyday, her arms grow stronger, and her legs run faster. Everyday, she loses a bit more of that careless childish joy and trades it for the seriousness of a dedicated warrior.
One day, the news came that Hyrule Castle Town had been burnt to ashes and that few people had fled to Kakariko. She does not cry, though she wants to, but she knows crying will not bring back happier times, so she trains until she breaks the blade of her small sword.
When she was younger, and the Echoes of Destiny had not touched her yet, she dreamt of the day she would become Queen. Sitting on a throne and receiving a crown, watching as others would bow to her, because she was pretty and lovely and gentle and pure. But now she knows she will not be crown in the glory she had dreamt so long ago, since her prettiness is fading under the roughness of a warrior, her lovely dress has been torn and patched far too many times already, her gentle eyes are now a blue steel gaze and her pure heart is tainted by the knowledge she has sinned.
The Princess no longer wants to be Queen, she merely wants to be free.
As her studies progress and she tries in vain to ignore the dreadful news on how her World and Kingdom is being torn apart by her enemy, she comes across something interesting. The rolls she's reading are Sheikah and contain the lesser known legends of the Relic of the Gods. In there, she finds a word she likes and she takes a moment to be childish and chant it over and over again until Impa comes and scolds her for childishness.
Sheikah means The Hunter, not The Shadow, but Hylians mistranslated it and no one bothered to correct them.
As the sun goes down, the Princess traces the symbols in the shifting sands, smiling.
Sheik.
The Hunted.
She's fourteen now, and Impa leaves her alone for longer periods of time, trusting her good judgment and her wisdom to keep hidden. She reads and enriches her mind, hoping the knowledge will defeat the Evil one day. On a particularly hot day, she sits on a rock, watching the desert howling and trying to figure out the shapes within the towers of golden sand. A shadow falls on her, but as she turns, she sees nothing, and her muscles tense, expecting an attack. Instead, she feels the brush of lips over her brow and her secret word whispered on her ear.
Sheik.
As she grows older, Impa becomes even more callous towards the men in the traveling troop they hid with after she was fifteen. The Princess impersonates a young singer, her voice soft and melodious as they make their way to far away lands, to where the enemy will not find them. But as she grows prettier in the rough way of a concealed warrior, the looks change, and the humor behind the men's eyes becomes ill.
The troop crosses the desert regularly, making small money in each town they visit, presenting their star singer as the main attraction. And as the Princess sings the songs of the holy temples, hymns to the spirits of her land, she pointedly ignores the looks she's getting and the cruel laughter that follows her around in the camp site.
One stormy night, the desert goddess is angry, and the sands raise and fall and thunder breaks the sky. The Sheikah is away, sealing a deal with a fellow rebel, and the Princess is left alone to try and ignore the fury of the elements. But the men are restless and their intentions doubtful. All the training and her power fades away in a scream as the first man to oppose them falls dead, and her fellow performers are cornered. She feels threatened, scared as she hasn't felt since they escaped the castle and she took off her royal garb for the last time.
The Princess doesn't realize she's crying, as young Venya, a pretty juggler who shared her cot with her, is roughly pulled forward, amidst lewd looks and insulting calls. She trembles and feels something cry out within her, as she sees and feels and hears them talk about what they'll do to them.
So she prayed.
Sheik.
They close up on her, wanting her as the biggest prize, and though she cannot move, her body paralyzed with fear, she feels something within crack violently as the mark of Wisdom glows. And suddenly she's watching everything from afar, as a white and blue shadow wrecks havoc in the camp, slaying the men who had tormented her with a frightening ease. One of the windows is broken and in the shattered crystal, she catches a glimpse of her reflection.
Red eyes, as deep as newly shred blood stare emotionlessly back at her, the Sheikah crest in the clothes and a short knife at hand. The shadow curses loudly, and then everything is darkness.
She wanders the land, hiding in the folds of the Sheikah's mind. The warrior summoned by the Triforce of Wisdom to protect and hide her away from the enemy and his troops. He's restless and quiet at the same time. Melancholic and resenting of her, for interrupting the peaceful sleep of death. But whatever he might feel for her, it never shows as he's always there, protecting her, obeying her wishes and even sometimes, saying the words she longs to speak.
It's strange, the feeling of being but not existing as she hides in the corners of his mind, her body folded and hidden within his own. His mind is always closed for her, and she never dares to peek at it, however briefly, contenting with the sense of security he inspires.
The night of her seventeenth birthday, he is strangely absentminded and almost gets them killed twice, however, as he prepares a small fire for the night, he gifts her with a smile and a song. Her song. The lullaby she has been taught since birth, the magic notes echoing in the distance with the elegant voice of a harp.
Not long afterwards, something deep calls her back into her barren world, into the once luminous Temple of Time. It's a call of destiny, she knows, and though it's an echo, something tells her he knows it too. The Hero of Time awakes, coming down the pedestal of time with all the glory of Light and Justice.
Awkwardly, her protector realizes he must present himself, but she puts the words in his lips before he can help it.
"I am Sheik, survivor of the Sheikah."
And though he stifles the need to cringe at the word, she knows he will not contradict or reveal her to the Hero yet.
The next months are busy, traveling through the temples and following the Hero in his adventures to ensure he's safe. Something tells her the sleek Sheikah is growing annoyed at her protectiveness of the strong Hylian, but she says nothing and neither does he. The road is dangerous and the enemy is becoming more and more suspicious so they must be careful.
In the final battle, she forced herself to leave the cocoon of safeness within his mind to gift the Hero with the touch of Light. As her body and mind break through, she feels him hug her one last time, almost tenderly, before vanishing into the shadows of time itself.
Sheik is no more.
Afterwards, she is captured, and she longs for the gentle mind touch of her Sheikah companion, but he is once more buried deep into the earth, resting among the spirits of his kind and too far away to listen to the pleas of a scared, lonely Princess.
The Hero saves her, though, her, her Kingdom and her people, in a loud display of power that makes her ache for something quiet. Still, even as it pains her to realize what she has to do, she knows she cannot escape the call of duty.
As the last notes of the song fade away, she finds herself standing in her private garden, ten and healthy and still a Queen-to-be again, but the memories of the desert and the calming touch of silence, all disappears slowly, leaving her confused and surprised as a young forest child appears before her.
The adventure has ended, and she will be a Queen, but now she knows something is missing.
At the age of twelve, she demands an instructor to learn how to play a harp, claiming it's soothing sound will be the only thing to calm her nerves. The shadows in the castle whisper a word to her ears, softly, it's a secret she longs to understand.
At fifteen, she refuses to look at herself in the mirror, afraid of the shadow she sees there, waiting, ever so patiently waiting for her. Red eyes and blond hair, hidden behind a mass of white cloth, it haunts her dreams, her days and her smile, asking for things she would gladly give if she could remember what he wants.
At seventeen, she dresses as a man and escapes the castle, looking for adventure in the world. Looking for a escape to the caging walls of the castle, with their polished shields that look like mirrors and the stupid shadows they reflect.
At twenty, she returns, peaceful and quiet, but no longer alone. A shadow follows her steps, quiet and accepting and knowing, and Impa wonders if they even know what they are doing.
At twenty two, she is crown Queen, and she looks at her cheering people, then turns to the wide windows instead, finding the red eyes reflected there, watching her from behind a thin veil of amusement. Still, she refuses to meet her own blue eyes on a mirror, and after a moment, a truly amused smile breaks through her face, causing the cheers to grow deafening. She no longer remembers her own face.
At thirty, war breaks through out the land, as the people demand a heir. She's a lone Queen, always followed by a faithful shadow that's silent, with the power of the Gods resting on her hand, but without any hopes of having her bloodline go on after her death. She sits on her throne, listening to the protests and the fears of nobles and commoners, but hopelessly, her eyes end up on the red ones that offer no words, neither of comfort or of scolding, merely acceptant of the fate he has chosen by following her lead.
At forty, she sits on her vanity, hands folded on her lap as a shadow tends to her hair, his hands deft and gentle, soothing her better than any harp melody would ever hope to try. The war has died and peace stretches through the land. Her people know there will be a new crest for a new Royal Family when she's gone, and now they merely wait for the struggle to start all over again.
On her final day, she's way past a hundred, laying tired and wasted on a bed, watching as the sun drifts across the sky. There is a shadow standing near the window, watching the same point in the distance as she does, and this knowledge makes her content. He's young, not a day older than the first time she saw him, because he's not of her world. For some reason, the fact he remains untouched by time makes her wonder and brings a smile to her tired features.
"Why did you call me Hunted?" The shadow speaks for himself, the very first time since they met, in a time that was but shouldn't have been, words he means, not that he needs to say for her.
The Dying Queen Smiles.
"Because that's what I feel, when I look at you within my reflection."
The shadow quirks his lips under his mask, watching as the sun sinks in the distance, patiently waiting for it to die alongside his Queen.
"Sheik," He tastes this new given name slowly, savoring it with his tongue, as the kiss he never dared to steal and almost at once forgetting what he was called before.
In the space between a heartbeat and the next, his soul clenches painfully as its destined half leaves the world. Walking to where she rests, he kneels before her, kissing first her hand, then softly brushes his lips across her forehead. Without another sound, he leaves, as quietly as he arrived the first time, and sits back on the welcoming shadows to wait patiently.
He knows she will come back… and that she'll remember this time.
(A/N) Review!