Title: Shadow
Author: Melissa Grey
Rating: A soft R maybe.
Warnings: Non explicit sex.
Word Count: 1300.
Prompt: Legend of Zelda, Dark Link/Zelda: coercion - Show you what you really want
Summary: She told Link that the clear water's surface reflects growth, but when she looks down at the pool barely covering the Temple's floor, all she sees is rot.
A/N: I drifted a bit from the coercion part of the prompt. Oops. This fic kind of took its own direction. Set during Ocarina of Time. Written for the areyougame challenge at Dreamwidth (.org).
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"Time passes, people move . . ."
Seven years have passed since she first learned that even a princess has to retreat. Seven years of fighting. Seven years of hiding. Seven years of losing.
First, she lost her castle. This, she survived. A castle is but stone and glass, built to withstand much but not all. A castle is a symbol of a kingdom, but not its heart. So long as the people survived, the kingdom survived. They were the lifeblood of Hyrule and it would continue to beat so long as they hoped it would.
Then, she lost her crown. This, she also survived. It, too, was a symbol of her identity, but not the meat of it. She locked the princess away in a tower of her own making. She made herself into Sheik. She lived at its center - not hiding - waiting. She rested behind the wrapped cloth, knowing that one day, she would unwind it to find the princess - the queen - safely interred beneath.
Finally, she begins to lose her hope. This, she is not certain she will survive. One person was never meant to bear these burdens alone. That is why Hyrule needs Link. It needs its princess to give and its hero to save. He is full of goodness and light and Zelda tries not to remember what that felt like. Sometimes, he threatens to blind her with how much he shines. Sometimes, all she sees is the dark.
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"Like a river's flow, it never ends . . ."
Sometimes, it's all she can do not to choke on the irony. She has come to the Water Temple to rescue the princess fair from her cage of ice and shadows.
That is where she finds him.
He is everything Link is not. There is shadow where there should be light. Despair where there should be hope. There is a darkness more complete than the blackness of night - so terrible and great that not even the pinprick of stars could penetrate it. His eyes bleed as red as her own - Sheik's own. He casts shadows the way Link shines. If she looks at him straight on, it's easy to miss. From the corner of her eye, she sees a halo about him like a stain.
She has never seen anything so perfect.
The first time is the hardest. She lets him unwrap the white cloth from around her head. She is too afraid to help. Not afraid of him or his shadowed hands, but of herself. Afraid that once revealed, there will be no princess waiting for the curtain's rise, no queen clamoring to be free of her prison. Afraid that after so many years of hiding all that's left is a disguise. A husk. A shadow.
She thought she had forgotten how to feel. She had buried herself so deeply that she'd long since given up hope of unearthing her own remains. What she hadn't buried, she'd cut out with her own blade. Sometimes, she misses the pieces of herself she's left by the side of the road, the bits she's handed out to those who needed them more than she did. Sometimes, it feels like there's not enough left of her to care.
He shows her what she had thought she had lost. She feels. It is a medley of cold and pain. It is an antithesis to her very existence but at least it's something. He shows her what she has become. She is a princess and a beggar. She will give all she can and take what she can get.
Somewhere between bruising her lips with his and scraping his teeth along the skin of her throat, he rasps it out.
"Show you -"
His teeth sink in, just this side of breaking the skin.
" -what you really want."
---
"A childish mind will turn to noble ambition . . ."
If her soul is the price she must pay for this world's freedom, she will pay it without hesitation. Her people cannot afford for her to falter in this task and she knows she will not fail them. It is on this altar, in this Temple, that she is laid, a sacrifice from the people of Hyrule to bring their world out of the night.
It still hurts even after the first time. He pushes inside her as though he could cut away the parts of her that still crave the light. It doesn't always hurt in the same place in the same way. Sometimes, her face scrapes along the rough stone of the altar over which she is bent. Sometimes she thinks her tears would make the sting worse if they ever came. They don't. Sometimes she wonders if there's enough of the princess, of the girl left in her to cry. Sometimes, her hips ache where he digs in his fingers. His calluses mirror the ones on Link's hands. Sometimes, she wonders what it would feel like if they were his hands tracing the bruises on her body. Distantly, she knows that this is the part that hurts the most.
She tells herself she is a willing sacrifice. She is their gift. She promised them she would be their protector. She promised them she would she would the noble guard they so desperately needed. She promised herself she would give everything until there was nothing left and when that time came, she would find more to give if she had to. Sometimes, she wishes that were enough.
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"Young love will become deep affection . . ."
They will always have their shining heroes. They will always know that it was the purity of courage, of wisdom, of love that saved them from the pain of the past seven years. They will cradle this knowledge to themselves when the night becomes too dark to bear and all they're left with is a memory of a broken world.
She offered them her love and they gladly accepted the gift. She gave them all of herself and she smiled through the loss. She smiled and she learned to hate. She hates them for their greed, their need. It wrapped its hands around her throat and it suffocated her. She hates Link for his light. She watches and sees herself and knows what she has lost along the way.
She hates herself the most of all. She hates herself for wanting, for needing to give. She gave her people her life, she gave Link her strength, and now she gives herself to the shadows. Sometimes, she thinks she will forget what it is to love. Sometimes, she thinks that perhaps this is for the best.
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"The clear water's surface reflects growth."
Sometimes it seems like his eyes reflect her own. Sometimes, she knows this isn't true. Sometimes, she only wishes it weren't. His red gaze holds her own as he moves in her, holding a fire she's forgotten how to feel. She supposes it should burn. It doesn't. She supposes that should frighten her. It doesn't.
She told Link that the clear water's surface reflects growth, but when she looks down at the pool barely covering the Temple's floor, all she sees is rot. All she see is a dark form bent over her like the coming night. All she sees is the truth and it is terrible and dark and it burns through her skin, not like fire, but like the coldest ice. It burns and she pretends to feel. She pretends she is where she needs to be. She knows there is no place for her anymore but she pretends because it is all that she can do. She knows the truth, she understands, and she hates.
The truth is this.
Link belongs to the light. A princess belongs to her people. She is a princess no more. She is Sheik. And sheik belongs to the shadows.