of rabbit flowers and angry moons: prologue
the beginning in which Sheik recites a prophetic sort of vision that dictates the following story.
"Like most trite and unoriginal stories," Sheik explained as he gestured grandly to his other half's best friend, "it starts with a vision."
"A prophetic sort of vision dictating the rest of the discourse?" Peach offered, and Sheik scowled at her, unappreciative of the fact that she was wasting his time with her useless observations since he thought it was quite apparent that Zelda never let him have control for long in his current form.
Sheik and Zelda were quite literally like the clichéd "two sides of the same coin" with Zelda as heads and Sheik as tails (he liked to think he had the better ass of the two, so he didn't mind not being "head" in this instance). They had two opposing personalities, thoughts, and desires yet were unfortunately trapped in the same body. Well, it was more like Sheik was trapped in Zelda's body, and the princess regarded him as a parasite of sorts that she reluctantly submitted to from time to time.
Zelda kind of hated Sheik, to tell the truth. Whenever she let him have control over her body – which therefore became his body, but even she didn't know to what extent and Sheik never seemed to let her in on his little secret – she had no recollection of the things that he did. Zelda thought it would be nice if Sheik would be so kind as to leave a note of his activities before returning her own body to her. A nice little hey, I cooked dinner or a watch out, I punched King Dedede in the face or even jsyk I grew a penis on your body while you were away – but don't worry, it's gone now would only be polite.
Though Sheik seemed to be anything but that…
"Shut up and don't interrupt me, woman!" Sheik hissed. "I'm trying to tell you a story, and who knows when Zelda will be back?"
Peach only giggled in response, which pissed him off even more. She always seemed to giggle at him, and he could never figure out why. The Mushroom Kingdom princess even did it when they broke out of confinement during the Subspace incident…
This one time they were at Mr. Game and Watch's birthday party, and Zelda let him have control the entire time since she quite frankly didn't feel like pondering the physics of the two-dimensional man (much less how he could have been born). And the only Brawlers there were those who were just trying to be nice and those who didn't know any better. It wasn't like everyone hated Mr. Game and Watch or anything… They just, you know, didn't understand him.
Zelda left a nice little message for Sheik via R.O.B. to be especially nice to the paper-thin man and spend some quality time with him, but of course her other self promptly ignored the message and the birthday boy in favor of free food. Sheik couldn't even enjoy his food or his freedom, though, because Peach kept following him around with her incessant giggling. He had to duck into the men's restroom several times just to make sure there was nothing on his face (the part that wasn't hidden by the cowl, that is), and he even checked to see if the birthday punch was spiked. Anything to give reason to why in the hell Peach kept giggling.
Unfortunately the punch wasn't spiked, though Sheik did his good duty and quickly rectified the situation – thereby increasing the party's attendance, which eventually degenerated into beer pong and Link's best friend, Ilia, popping in for some fun. Mr. Game and Watch's birthday party grew to be a hell of a lot more interesting after that.
"No seriously, woman, stop giggling and let me talk."
"Okay."
Sheik cleared his throat and carried on. "I stole Zelda's body one night to go out drinking with Wolf and Captain Falcon. After about nine or ten shots coupled with a bit of acid, I was hugging porcelain, and usually at that point I let Zelda have her body back, but for some reason I remained. And staring into the depths of that bowl, I had a vision. I was all alone in a barren field and just searching for something – anything. But there was nothing in that dead field. Then I walked some more and fell down a hole. I fell and fell and fell until I landed gracefully in a bright and vibrant field bustling with rabbit flowers."
Taking the moment to interrupt, Peach asked, "…Rabbit flowers?"
"Yeah, rabbit faces growing up from the ground with long ears for petals."
Peach giggled and motioned for him to continue.
"Anyway, they were very nice rabbit flowers, smiling and chatting at me, but for some reason I knew they were evil. I knew they were trying to rob me of some ancient, ancestral truth that I've been cruelly denied of. My fate and livelihood rested on me finding what I sought…yet all I could find were those damned rabbit flowers. And then I looked up and saw the moon frowning at me. …So what do you think it all means, Peach?"
"I think it means that you really need to stop going out with Wolf. Last time he took you drinking, Zelda woke up naked and surrounded by Mr. Saturns in Smashville. And the time before that she woke up in pain next to Yoshi…"
Scowling, Sheik growled, "No, the vision! What do you think it means?"
Taking a few seconds to think about it, Peach eventually replied, "Well, it's obvious that you're unhappy in your situation with Zelda, but maybe you don't think that the world, while tolerant of you, really accepts you? …And, uh…flowers?"
Sheik threw his hands up in frustration. "That's not what I meant!"
Peach only apologized and shrugged.
"I think," Sheik murmured after a bit of thinking, "that I need to leave the tournament for a little while to search for this thing. Maybe I need to find first a field or an angry moon…!"
"You can't leave!" she said quickly. "Really…you can't. We're locked into this tournament by the powers that be. Aside from this dormitory-like mansion, we can only access Smashville and the stages. And there's nothing beyond that. We really can't leave this place until the tournament's over. Besides, you'd be…taking Zelda against her will. You can't do that. She's my best friend, and I won't let you!"
Sheik growled a little and crossed his arms, but before he could give the princess a snappish retort, Zelda took over.
She liked to interrupt his life at the most inopportune times, Sheik thought. Once, he was on a self-appointed stealth mission to pilfer Fox's blaster so he could shoot Falco in the face and blame it on the vulpine because he was bored and in control. But just as he was in Fox's room undetected with Fox still in the room, Zelda regained command of her own body and fell noisily onto a pile of dirty laundry, obviously alerting the other to her presence. That wouldn't have been so bad, and Zelda could easily blame it all on Sheik without consequence, but hidden in that pile of laundry was a collection of photographs Fox had bought from Snake that depicted each of the girls in compromising positions and various states of undress.
According to Fox, a fist of Din's Fire in your face hurts like a bitch, and Samus made good use of her electrical whip that day. While proud of his other self for unintentionally stirring up trouble, Sheik was still pissed at her for paradoxically making him miss all the fun. He got back at her, though, by donating all her clothes while she was "gone" to Wario.
As Samus rather forcibly retrieved her clothes for her because neither Peach's dresses nor the bounty hunter's suits fit her, Zelda was forced to borrow some of Link's (which strangely fit) for the week it took to wash the stench of garlic from her own garments. While rifling through for something to wear one day, though, she found a couple of her best dresses and a corset that she thought she had lost at the beginning of the tournament hidden in Link's wardrobe.
She made a scene in front of everyone, and Sheik was kind of irritated he missed that.
