Yeah... My own Sheik origin story. Because I like the idea of him being seperate from Zelda. I suppose I ought to point out right now that I don't rabidly support anything. The only thing I'm really against is ruining a character just so your plot works. So if you support Fem!Sheik, I'm fine with that. And if you support Sheik and Zelda being the same person, I'm fine with that. I'm fine with you pairing him/her with a guy, or a girl, or a monster, so long as you make it work within the parameters of his/her character.
So, in other words, follow the Don't Like, Don't Read policy, because I wouldn't diss your stuff. I am open to constructive critisicim, but that mean giving me advice on how to improve my writing, not tearing me apart based on your own opinions.
Her governess was a Sheikah. Indeed, Impa was the only Sheikah Zelda had ever met, so as soon as she could read, the first thing the princess did was look for books on the elusive tribe. She studied until there was nothing more to study, as she knew it was rude to pester someone with questions.
Which is why she knew how to address the ghost.
He was a little older than she, maybe ten at the time he'd died. She knew he was a ghost because she could vaguely see the outline of the furniture through him. And she knew he was a Sheikah by the way he dressed, covered from head to toe in bandages and skin-tight blue cloth.
The princess bowed. "Hello, kind sir. You seem to be a bit lost."
He jumped, clearly surprised, but didn't respond.
She tried again. "Sir? Are you lost? I know most ghosts prefer draftier, more morbid places to haunt than here." They were, after all, in the little library, which was not much larger than her bedroom and had fewer places for the shadows to pool ominously.
He stared at her for a minute before, speaking as though he thought her rather slow, inquiring: "Can you really see me?"
Zelda beamed. "Yes, sir, that I can. And since this is such a nice room, I was wondering what you were doing here."
He nodded to himself. "Alright. My apologizes, ma'am, I'm not used to people seeing me. And to answer your question…" He shrugged. "Can't a guy get bored after a hundred years haunting an old tower?"
"Of course!" Her smile dimmed a little. "How can you read if you're just soul-stuff, though?"
"I was planning to find that out." He reached for a book. As she'd suspected, his hand went straight through it. The boy's brows snapped together in a V of concentration as he tried again. This time the book trembled a little, but still didn't move in an encouraging manner. He blew his bangs out of his face and tried again.
Zelda stepped forward and grabbed the book. "You want this one?"
"Yes, please."
She walked over to the table and set the book down. "What page?"
"Erm…one?" he said, making it into a question. The boy walked over to stand behind her, gazing curiously over her shoulder.
She opened the cover and turned passed the title page. Arriving on the first true page of the book, Zelda declared, "Tell me when to turn the page. And tell me your name."
"Sheik," he muttered, already absorbed in the words on the page.
(-)
Over the next few years, the two quickly became friends. Though no one else in the palace could see Sheik (and only Impa honestly believed her young charge could commune with the spirit of one of her ancestors) they didn't find it too odd that their princess could have an imaginary friend, and so no one did more than exchange amused smiles when she walked down the hall, happily chattering away to the air. And though it sometimes aggravated him to have to rely on her for almost any interaction with the solid world, mostly he was glad to have a friend.
Sheik understood Zelda's need for information, both the good and the bad. A wandering spirit since the last Great War, he provided her with everything from gruesome facts to gossip from any period in the last hundred years. And, slowly, she weaseled the boy's own story out from him.
Legally, Sheik would be considered an adult in his culture. He'd finished his training, like most Sheikah of his time, by age ten, and had the rest of his life to polish his skills. However, after every war, the people who "won" need a scapegoat, and after the final battles had ended, the Hylians rose against the Sheikah. He showed her the grisly hole through his eye that had killed him, and assured her it didn't hurt. He told her how odd it felt to be a ghost for the first few years, when you're just a ball of soul-stuff trying to figure out what in Din's name just happened, and how downright freaky it was to live so long and not age. Sometimes he'd sigh and wish that he'd had just a few more days of life. Other days he'd rage against how helpless his lack of body made him, and purposefully do stupid, dangerous things to try and make the world react.
Zelda always cried when he did that. He always felt awful afterwards.
(-)
"Run!"
Zelda looked up as her friend dashed through the door. He made a desperate grab, trying to yank her off her bed and drag her away. His eyes were wild with fear. "Zel, you have to run! We're under attack!"
She swung her legs out of bed and hurried into her closet for a cloak, startling Impa. "I assume you wouldn't come like this if it wasn't absolutely dire?"
"They shattered the front lines. Hurry up!"
She stepped out, shouldering the disguise with a frown. He was pacing. "Impa, we need to leave."
The woman nodded. "To the stables."
The whole way out of the castle, Zelda could feel the slight pressure that were Sheik's hands pressing against her back, as though he could make her move faster.
(-)
They sat around the campfire. Impa had insisted on scouting, even though they all knew it would be safer for Sheik. Zelda knelt in the soft soil, copying a complex symbol from the book she'd been reading (and forgotten to put down) when they'd fled the castle.
He sighed. "What are you doing?"
"Magic," she replied, pausing to compare the two drawings.
"Why?"
She looked at him, sighed, and went back to sketching, making the outer circle much larger. "Well, when we were running, it occurred to me that none of us are safe now, or until Ganondorf knows for sure that I'm dead. And I don't have the skills I'd need to stay alive out here."
"So?"
"Well, before we left, I was trying to find a way to bring you back to life." She gave him a small, wry smile. "The closest thing I could find was a spell that could, supposedly, pull a spirit into an existing body and reform it to match the new owner's old form. It also said that when the spirit left, the body would revert to its natural form, and the original owner took control again."
If he'd been alive, he would have been holding his breath.
"Obviously," she continued, "it would be safer for all of us if Ganon had no one to hunt, right? And the Hero won't wake for a while." Standing, Zelda dusted off her skirt. She turned to look into her friend's eyes. "Would you like seven more years of life?"
(-)
Impa stood in the shadows, watching curiously as her young charge stripped off her clothes and stepped into the odd pattern she'd drawn. After a moment, the circle began to glow.
A shadow appeared the silhouette of a child. It sat across from Zelda, holding her hands. Slowly, color and opacity seeped into it, transforming it into a boy, maybe a year younger than the princess. But as he became clearer, Zelda began to lose her own solidity. There was an incredible point when they were both there, translucent, exactly the same. And then something seemed to snap, and the transformation finished at at least three times the speed it had started.
The princess vanished.
The glow dispersed.
The boy collapsed.
Impa unfroze and dashed over, snatching Zelda's dropped cloak and draping them around his naked shoulders. Shivering, he looked up at her, one eye as red as her own, the other blue as Zelda's.
"I'm…sorry," he whispered in a voice that didn't sound as if it had ever been used.
"What was that?" she demanded, "Who are you?"
"Sheik." Another shiver passed through his body. "Zel…Zel offered to lend me her life. For everyone's protection."
"And you said yes?" Impa demanded, aghast.
The eyes filled with an unnamable pain. "Who could say no?"
Yep. There it is. Please Read & Review.