I'm a Sheikah.
No, I'm not. I'm everything but. In all actuality, I'm a weak princess. One who, when her kingdom needed her most, abandoned it.
I'm a coward.
Now I hide. In disguise as one of the Shadow Folk, a member of the tribe that has served my family for ages.
I hide because I don't want to face the truth.
It's painful, keeping secrets. Especially when you know those secrets torment others. But at the same time, the truth would hurt far more.
That is why I watch from a distance.
I can't do anything. I could never do anything except make what came to pass a reality.
It's been seven years. Seven years since he came running up to me in the courtyard. Seven years I've been telling lies. Seven years I've been putting my subjects through hell.
How I wish I could undo those seven years.
I never wanted this, and I know he didn't either. He was just a boy back then, an innocent child. We both were, and it's my fault we both have to live lives we never foresaw.
It's all my fault.
I don't want to hurt him more, but I can see he's concerned. Confused. Scared. Sad.
And something else.
Recognition? I secretly hope, but secrets can be lies too.
I don't know what he really sees; I just know it's not me. Not the real me anyway. I left her behind the day I entrusted the Ocarina to him.
Now I'm Sheik.
He doesn't know, and maybe that's for the best, but now that he's here in front of me, I see he's changed so much. Though I suppose I have as well.
I suppose we all do.
"The flow of time is always cruel."
How right that is… he doesn't even know. I can only watch as it continues to progress… drawing us further apart, pushing the blade deeper in me, and making my lies wear the guise of truth, a disguise just like mine.
"Past, present, future… The Master Sword is a ship with which you can sail upstream and downstream through time's river."
But only for him. I have lost my ticket. Even then... A ship can never go fast enough for me to escape my troubles, my past mistakes. For its sails full are of holes.
My heart too.
I want to tell him more than anything: those three words. The ones I spoke the day we met, the ones I wish to speak now that we are here, together again. I've had so many chances, but I still can't say it.
I am Zelda.
I know he fears for her, for me.
He doesn't know I'm safe, by his side, and waiting for just the right moment. More than anything I want to tell him, take off my disguise, finally reveal the truth.
But I know it would hurt him.
It would hurt him to know I've been a lie – that all this came from my childish ignorance: my overconfidence, my lack of wisdom.
If only he knew the truth, if only I could tell him the truth… but I'm not the truth. I never have been.
I've always been a lie.
And lies just might be the most painful… and that is the truth.
