Coronation day!!!! WHOOOO. I've waited SO long to post this and now it's here!! YES. This is a major turning point in the fic.
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Coronation day.
Sheik lurched over the toilet, her hair falling into her face. She pushed it away shakily before her stomach tightened and--
Why today? she thought, sweat dripping off her nose. Of all days, why did it have to come today?
She coughed, trying not to gag as she involuntarily swallowed. The light streaming in from her bedroom told her dawn wasn't far off. She slumped to the floor, closing her eyes. Slowly the cramps eased, though she knew they'd be back.
A knock on her door heralded Mia, a steaming cup of tea in her hands. "Here you are," she said, pitching her voice low. She of anyone knew how sensitive Sheik's ears got during this time. At one point she'd offered to have Purah do an assessment, but Sheik had waved her off. "It happens every time," she'd told her handmaiden.
Now Sheik accepted the tea and downed half the cup at once, making a face at the bitterness. If it will keep these bloody cramps at bay, it's worth it, she thought, forcing more of it down. When just the dregs were left, she handed the cup to Mia. "Thank you," she croaked.
Mia pursed her lips as Sheik's head fell back, tipping the cup forward to peer inside. "I think some honey wouldn't hurt," she commented wryly. As the outside door opened, she stepped out to greet the visitor, leaving Sheik to her misery.
"How is she?" a male voice asked.
"Better than she was an hour ago, and she'll be better still another hour from now, so you can quit your worrying, Sir," came the sharp response. Sheik managed a tiny smile, imagining Mia's finger jabbing into the offender's chest.
Her amusement was cut short as her stomach tightened again, and she practically dove into the bowl, effectively emptying her stomach of the tea that was supposed to have stopped the vomiting. Ferona rubbed her back soothingly. "Best to get it all out at once," she murmured.
"I won't have anything left if this keeps up," Sheik groaned.
Mia stopped her rant long enough to shout, "That's why you don't drink it all at once, darling!"
Sheik had just enough time to make a face at her handmaiden before her body tried to purge its insides again. She pressed her hands to her head, half-delirious, and when nothing happened for ten more minutes, she felt for handholds and pulled herself up shakily.
Ferona slid an arm around her and helped her to her bed. As Sheik crawled beneath the covers, suddenly freezing, she saw her visitor going head-to-head with Mia. His golden hair was messy as usual, barely contained beneath his cap, and the hilt of a Royal Broadsword peeked above his shoulder. His blue eyes were filled with growing impatience.
"I'm not trying to force her to do anything," he growled, exasperated. "I'm just saying--it's not like I want to make her get up in her state, but--"
"But what?" Mia put her hands on her hips, and Sheik managed a weak smile. She knew that pose. "But what, Sir? You don't want to, but you will anyway?"
"I--it's not--"
"She's sick enough, and she'll have no more of this nonsense."
It went on like that for several minutes; Sheik was content to let them argue. It allowed her stomach to settle, albeit slowly. After a while, though, it started to wheel around to the same demands and stuttering responses, and though she hated to get up, she knew this was something she had to do.
It's more than that, she thought, staring at the ceiling. Less than a year ago, she'd been content to run from her coronation, and never look back. She'd wanted nothing to do with the court, let alone being an empress.
And then he had showed up . . . Sheik snuck a glance at him. He still argued with Mia, his hands pushing through his already-messy hair, dislodging his cap.
Always there. Always pushing her forward, from the moment he'd met her. Sometimes he didn't even realize it; he spoke the truth as he saw it, without any pomp, without dancing around it. Sometimes the sincerity was almost too much.
Where did that sincerity come from? The answer came easily.
Loyalty.
He was loyal--more so than most people ever hoped to be. He'd rushed to Midna's aid, had waited for weeks for word. He'd stayed by Sheik's side through no obligations, no pledges of allegiance, no promises. He stayed true to what he believed in--and after weeks on the road with such a person, how could Sheik have ignored the questions in her own mind?
What was she loyal to? Herself? The empire she tried so hard to run away from? What about her values? Did she even have any?
He'd forced her to face herself, and he had no idea.
She knew what she was loyal to now, she thought, returning her gaze to the ceiling. Her people. Her nation. Her empire.
The arguing voices leeched into her thoughts and she groaned, throwing the covers off. "Can't they just crown me from my bedroom?"
Mia and Link both broke off and stared at her, one with incredulity, the other with exasperated amusement. Sheik squinted at Link. "I hope you know I was serious," she said.
His smile widened. "I would never doubt you," he replied, exaggerating his words with a bow. Sheik snorted.
"Enough, Mia," she called, as her handmaiden readied herself for round two. "I'll get up. Would you prepare a bath for me, please?"
Mia bowed. "Of course, Princess." She jerked a thumb at Link. "You. Out."
Rolling his eyes, Link left the room, and within minutes Sheik was lowering herself into a tub, relishing the water scalding her skin. She let her eyes drift closed, her senses soothed by Ferona's fingers massaging her head, and soon she was asleep.
/
She woke ensconced in warmth; she burrowed further in, snuggling down into the deep mattress.
"Finally awake, Princess?"
Sheik's eyes cracked open. She knew that voice. Then she froze.
She flew up out of the bed, the blankets sliding down her shoulders. The fitting! She'd missed the bloody fitting--
"No need for that, Princess. You haven't missed your fitting, so don't worry. You must be awfully tired, though."
Sheik blinked, her sleep-muddled mind slow to catch up. She stared at Styla, who was lounging in a chair, her blond hair curled to perfection, as always. The tailor raised a brow as Sheik muttered, "What?"
"Your handmaidens had to keep you from drowning, and even then you still didn't wake, so they dressed you and put you to bed. Your bodyguard escorted me here instead."
She could tell Styla was enjoying herself. The tailor looked around, her sharp blue eyes scanning every inch of Sheik's messy room, teasing out the different styles of the furniture, the cuts of the curtains, the colors that complemented each other. Always on the hunt for style, Sheik thought.
She took the lull in the conversation to wallow in her embarrassment. She hadn't realized she was so tired . . . had Link really had to escort Styla here? How late was she?
Styla seemed to realize it as well, because she stood. "Well, I think it's about time we got started. Can't afford to have the empress-to-be late to her own coronation, can we?"
And so began the arduous task of getting Sheik into her coronation gown, an affair that took longer than was strictly necessary, due to Sheik's own inability to keep still. She tried, and it took getting pricked--both purposely and accidentally--numerous times by Styla's pins for her to finally stiffen up. Once the gown was on, Styla laid a heavy white cloak overtop, and stepped back.
Sheik turned to the mirror and sucked in a tiny breath. "Oh, Styla, you've outdone yourself," she breathed, turning to get a look at the back.
The cloak itself wasn't of much note, and the gown beneath was simple, covering her shoulders and leaving a small space open where it buttoned at the back of her neck. The real masterpiece was the back of the cloak.
Trimmed in white fur, the edges glinting with golden thread, the back was overtaken by a massive Triforce, all in gold. The crests of the three goddesses were nestled in each piece. Din, in brilliant crimson thread, in the top Triforce. Farore in forest green, in the bottom right. Nayru, in deep, cerulean blue, occupied the last triangle. And in palest golden thread, shimmering faintly every time Sheik moved, was the Song of the Goddess, in ancient Hylian script.
The song was so old, even the history books had no date for it. But its verses were etched in some of the empire's oldest, and most honored, ruins, and its words never faded. It was still sung in Temple. Even today, it would be the first song that Sheik would sing in her Dedications.
She could have stood there all day admiring the craftsmanship, but--as Styla said, there was a pew with her name on it, and she was going to be late.
She hurried out of her room, raising the hem of the cloak so she didn't trip--goddesses, she'd never hear the end of it--and headed for the gates to the castle. Link and Ilayen were on her heels, her squadron of guards conspicuously absent. The halls were mostly empty, though she knew the servants passages would be filled to capacity, and she felt a twinge of guilt that they be put under even more stress than usual, just on her account.
That's just the way it is. She could almost hear her father and Impa's voices in her head, and had to hold back a sigh. I suppose so, she thought.
Every time a new ruler was crowned, the coronation day always began with a series of prayers, songs, and intonations, called Dedications, the first of which was the Song of the Goddess. It was this way so that the first act as ruler was pledging oneself to her people and nation, but above all to the virtues that kept Hyrule strong and allowed it to prosper.
As such, these early morning Dedications were usually done in silence and solitude, with only the minimum company allowed. In Sheik's case, Link and Ilayen were admitted because of the recent attacks. But once she entered the Temple of Time and began her Dedications, even they would be kept out.
Hence the empty halls; Sheik suspected the promenade and road to the Temple would be bare of life, as well. Even so, the presence of the two at her back was almost too much. She could feel Ilayen's tension, could practically see his brown eyes flick from corner to shadowy corner even though she walked in front of him. He's expecting an attack--and he's right to think so. If anyone were to upset the coronation, now would be the time . . .
Sheik mentally scolded herself. Thinking that way wasn't going to help anyone, she thought, struggling to keep her gaze ahead and her steps light and unhurried. Glancing to her left did nothing to help, though it was for a completely different reason.
From the corner of her eye she could see Link watching her, his gaze flicking from the path ahead to her. For whatever reason, seeing his blue eyes made her remember the night he'd touched her scars, and heat bloomed in her chest.
Her eyes darted forward again and she nearly tripped. That was nothing, she told herself, ignoring the way her heart pounded. It was just--we were just sharing our stories, and--and--
Sheik took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind. But the absence just made more memories crowd forward, and so, growing desperate, she filled the empty space with prayers. Slowly, the memories of his callouses against her skin faded, and she no longer saw the black flecks in his eyes, reflecting candlelight, but the statue of the Goddess Hylia.
Her thoughts now trained on praying, she hardly noticed when she climbed the steps to the Temple and entered. Once inside, though, she blinked and looked around.
She'd only been in the Temple a few times, but the sight was never easy to forget. The Temple was enormous, set in the hills behind the castle and framed by tall pines, and sunlight shone in through huge stained glass windows. The inside was made of massive blocks of white stone, and was bare except for a pedestal in the floor, inscribed with the Triforce, and a marble slab in front of a series of slightly raised steps. A flight of stairs led up to a balcony and an arch, all cut from one massive block of stone.
Sheik approached the marble slab, bowing her head. As the hushed words of the Hero's Prayer bounced off the silent walls of the Temple, she saw the Three Spiritual Stones glittering in their places, nearly blinding in the sunlight. They'd been there for millennia, ever since the ancient Hero of Time had gathered them in his quest. The Hero's Prayer was based off of them, telling the story of that long-ago savior, and was among the first of the Dedications.
A figure detached itself from where it knelt at the top of the stairs and turned. "Welcome, Princess."
Sheik raised her head as the figure--a man--descended the steps and looked down at her, clad in wide robes of orange and red. "I am Auru. When one reign ends and another begins, the first step is always the same." He paused, tilting his head at her.
"Are you ready to begin?" he asked.
Her throat was suddenly dry. She swallowed, her voice tight, and nodded. "Yes."
Auru smiled, gesturing with one sweeping arm to the pedestal in the middle of the floor.
Taking her place on the pedestal, Sheik felt a strange sense come upon her, like the eyes of all the past heroes, all the kings and queens who had tread the same path she now did, were upon her, watching her take her place among them. Her chest felt heavy, and she tried to take a deep breath as she knelt, making the sign of the Goddesses, and began her Dedications.
/
The feeling persisted all the way through her prayers, but as she made her way through each murmured hymn, she felt not pressured, but . . . safe, in a way, as if they were merely there to let her know that she was not alone. She couldn't explain it, and was sure that if she tried she'd sound like a raving lunatic, but as she began the last prayer, she decided she didn't care.
The last of the Dedications was the longest, though it felt to Sheik as though the words flew from her lips, and too soon she was standing, her knees weak from nearly an hour on the hard marble floor. Auru had been on his feet the whole time, and now he came forward, producing a small bowl from his robes. He dipped his fingers into the bowl. "The Dedications are complete. May this blessing let all those who see you know that you have the goddesses' fortune."
He wiped his fingers on Sheik's forehead. With a smile he stepped back, and after a moment's hesitation, Sheik took that as a cue to leave, feeling somewhat lacking.
Is that really all there is? she thought. For something that holds so much importance in the coronation, it warranted hardly any ceremony of its own . . .
Then, she supposed, that was it, wasn't it? The whole point of the Dedications was pledging oneself to the nation and empire above all else--anything that detracted from that would render the Dedications pointless.
They're like the Temple, Sheik thought as she descended the steps outside and began the trek back to the castle. The sunlight danced through the pine branches, and the only sounds were the chirping of the birds and wind through the trees, Sheik and her party's soft footfalls on the dirt path. Stark, direct, and without fanfare. With a sort of simple beauty--
A hand fell on her shoulder. Sheik jumped a little, looking up to find Link staring at the road ahead. Just before the bend that would take them through the trees stood a hunched shape, a ragged black cloak with the hood up, obscuring the face.
Ilayen drew his Eightfold Blade as the figure hobbled into the trees. On silent feet he followed, acknowledging Link's whispered, "There could be more," with a nod. Sheik waited with bated breath, keeping her muscles loose, wishing not for the first time that she'd brought her own blade with her. How she'd have hidden it under her cloak, she didn't know, but--
A shriek, quickly cut off. Link drew his sword, shifting so that he was slightly in front of Sheik, but it didn't matter because Ilayen stepped back through the trees, his uniform spotted with blood.
"How many?" Link asked.
Ilayen wiped his blade on the grass and sheathed it. "Six bokoblins. I found the remains of a fire, and weapons."
"They knew," Sheik murmured. The boys looked at her, but her words were met with silence. "Is this what he meant?" she continued. "Is this what he meant when he spoke of what he would 'unleash'?"
She didn't wait for a response--didn't need one. Link and Ilayen simply followed as she made her way back through the trees, all three alert for any sign of similar camps. They found none. Sheik suspected that whoever planned this had assumed the first group would have taken them out, but that did nothing to lessen the tension in her shoulders.
They made it back to the confines of the castle unmolested, and as Sheik stood in the receiving room, eyes closed, rolling her shoulders, she heard Link and Ilayen quietly reporting their findings. Minutes later, Impa's voice commanded several search parties to scour the woods around the castle.
Sheik kept her eyes closed even as the commander's footfalls came closer. "Whenever you are ready, Princess."
'Whenever you are ready.' If I waited until then, I'd be waiting forever, she thought. She kept this to herself, however, and headed off to the Sanctum. She knew she was worrying Link and Ilayen with her silence, but she didn't know how to fill it. If she were being honest with herself, she'd rather the whole thing was done and over with so she could get back to the issues at hand.
Beginning construction on the aqueduct. Meeting with the Mining Company to start filtering the Zora River. Setting a course for the Hyrule Railroad to use. Preparing for the memorial. And, of course, making sure no one was murdered by a rampaging gang of newly-resurrected monsters.
Sheik resisted the urge to wring her hands, fighting against the now-familiar onset of anxiety. She tried to push those thoughts out of her head; she had enough things to worry about without giving herself a panic attack, and one of them was getting steadily closer with every step.
How many years she'd prepared herself for this, how many times she'd imagined the way it would happen, and somehow she'd never imagined it would go quite this way. Embroiled in international turmoil, disasters striking every other week--just the other day, the Waker storms had destroyed an outpost. Three months of food and medical supplies, gone. Everyone at court felt the pressure now, and it made Sheik all the more anxious to get to the Islands. The longer the storms went on, the more she was convinced they weren't natural.
Sheik was pulled from her thoughts as she stepped outside. The sunlight was bright, slanting through the stone archways and windows of the towers. The road was lined with cheering people, some throwing flowers on the cobblestones. In the Gatehouses, every soldier was present, and as Sheik passed through the Second Gatehouse, they lined the promenade, their armor shining.
Sheik rounded the wide corner at the top of the road; ahead, the doors to the Sanctum stood wide open. Behind her, a full squadron of Royal guardsmen had joined. They split off to line the sides of the hall when she entered through the doors, and Sheik had to stop a minute to process what she was seeing.
The Sanctum had been grand before, but now . . . every arch was bedecked in gold garlands, woven with wildflowers. Bouquets of Silent Princesses occupied every vase, swaths of white and gold silk draped between the pillars, and the tables around the outskirts of the room glittered under the thousands of candles, the glass settings rimmed in gold.
The court, which had been chattering while they waited, quieted, turning to watch her enter. Sheik felt as though her feet were rooted to the floor; it was only Link's warm hand on her back, gently nudging her forward, that made her take the first few stumbling steps.
As she did so, quickly righting herself, she was vaguely aware of the morning's events in the woods fading to the back of her mind. Somehow, now that she was finally on the cusp of being crowned, it seemed unimportant. Everything she'd felt that morning dimmed--the fear, the anxiety, the wish for it to be over with--all of it was secondary. Irrelevant. She'd waited years for this--and even though for much of that time she'd wanted to escape, she'd still dreamed of what this would be like. Still wanted it, because it was as much an escape as leaving had been. It had meant her life was no one's to control but her own.
So it was in a daze that Sheik crossed the Sanctum and approached the dais, where Rauru waited, a proud smile on his weathered face. He held a velvet pillow in his hands, on which a spiky shape sat, covered with a silk cloth. As she climbed the steps, Link and Ilayen waiting at the bottom, he spoke, his voice echoing in the now-silent chamber.
"We gather here today to witness the crowning of Princess Zelda Bosphoramus Hyrule, firstborn daughter of the late King Rhoam. She has completed the Dedications and bears the Mark of the Goddesses--and now she comes to take the final step. Kneel, Princess."
Sheik did so, hiding her shaking hands in the folds of her cloak. Rauru came forward until Sheik's nose nearly brushed his robes, and though she couldn't see, she knew he held her crown above her head. The silence was deafening.
"Imperial Princess Zelda, heir to the throne of the Hylian Empire, do you swear to uphold the promises you made today in the Temple of Time, to put your people first, above all else?"
Sheik sent up a prayer to keep her voice steady, swallowing tightly. "I do."
There was a pause, seeming to last forever, and for that horrible moment her mind ran through everything that could go wrong--but then a heavy weight settled on her head, and the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding shuddered out of her. She bit her lip to keep at bay the tears that sprung to her eyes as thunderous applause exploded in the room. Rauru's voice rose above it all, and she could hear his smile.
"Rise, Royal Empress of the Hylian Empire, Her Majesty Queen Zelda!"
Sheik swallowed and pushed herself to her feet, turning to face the crowd, and nothing, not even Ganondorf, sulking between Yuga and Valoo, to the left of the dais, could have stopped the smile that burst onto her face. From Sheik's point of view, he was hardly more than a splash of red in her peripheral.
As the applause went on and on, she got the same feeling she'd had while in the Temple--like all the past rulers were watching her, and their presence, imagined or not, was like a comforting blanket settling over her shoulders. For once, as she stood there and smiled, she felt like she knew exactly who she was.
She'd knelt as Sheik, a runaway, a façade, a nobody, and rose as Zelda: the girl she'd always been, buried beneath layers and lies, scraped away until she was all that was left.
All that was left . . . and all that there ever was.
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sigh* sorry I'm late : I unloaded the truck today at work and didn't get to work on this chap until like...7:20? Yeah.
REVIEW REPLIES.
To Generala: hehehehe, I hate writing slow progressions too because I wanna get to the good stuff, but then there's no precedent for said good stuff ;) I was in agony too trust me haha. And all will be revealed in good time ;)
To Ultimate blazer: hahaha, yeah for real! Thought you may have given me an idea for her first words ;)) HAHAHA.
To Oracle of Hylia: I adore the orphans ugh
Also, I couldn't help throwing that bit with sirela's assumptions in there hehehe. Gotta have those evil/ suspicious friends!
Review please :) and again I'm sorry for the late post. Enjoy! Later~