Identity
Zelda(Sheik)/Link
Link is really just a knight in shining tin foil - he's fragile and clearly afraid, even when he throws himself head first into life. Zelda doesn't blame him, really. When she isn't Sheik, she feels helpless and burdensome. She supposes that's what courage is - the balance of fear, what keeps him safe, and determination, what has saved Hyrule for millennia. Courage is not hiding behind a mask. But wisdom is knowing that sometimes doing so is the better option.
Her ancestors before her knew this, and Zelda thinks, if she lives long enough to create the possibility, her decedents might, too.
"This may be the last time we meet, hero," Sheik says, it might have hurt a little, in a different life, but now it doesn't. Now it's just the way the legend unfolds. If Zelda can engulf the darkness, long enough for Link to swing the sword, to save the world, she will have done everything she should have as queen.
"Don't say that," smiles Link, "it'll be over in thirty minutes. And at madnesses end, I'll buy you a burger." The light in his eyes is enduring from every angle.
"Promise?" says Sheik, red eyes flashing, and Link nods, "then we should go."
Sheik is stealth and secrecy, less of a person - flexing through social ambiguity. Things like that, thieves and shadows, don't have friends, or ties to the world. This is why Sheik works. He is free to do what a queen cannot, he can leave a castle, kill a person and not stand before a court and defend the action. Sheik can aid a hero, become something of a hero himself. Zelda will always be a queen, will always be everything her people need. That is the price of the role, and if she plays the role as the goddesses had always intended it be played, then no one will starve and everyone will be given the same chance of happiness.
Sheik leaps to lower ground, rolls over the shoulder to reduce the sound and the impact of the land, "wait until I've got his attention," he says, to Link, hidden in the faint light on the ledge above, "don't make a move until you have the perfect shot." And then Sheik is off, using magic to disappear into the shadows on the wall.
Ganon is a monster now, nothing left of the advisor who had once been Zelda's closest ally in Hyrule castle. What corrupts a man so completely?
Power. Obviously. In the wrong hands … Zelda had know for years that Ganondorf carried the triforce of power, had joked with him about it, had humored his questions about the triforce of wisdom - a birthright to the royal family which at the time, had yet to resurfaced. Ganondorf had power and wanted to use it to aid the local economy, to help their people, but power is easily corruptible. Zelda had assumed, as Ganondorf had at one point, that his will was unbreakable and that nothing could steer him from the path they walked together.
Sheik slinks out of the shadows in Ganon's study, lined with monitors, and Ganon turns to him instantly, Ganon is a thing - a demon - and it looks the part, acts the part, tusks and red eyes. Ganondorf is not there and Sheik is sad without being able to feel pity.
"A sheikah," sneers Ganon, "sent by the queen, I presume?" Sheik nods. "Here to save me?"
"To kill you," says Sheik, "the queen knows that you cannot be saved anymore. You have lost humanity."
"I have a different vision for it," says Ganon, raises its hand, draws a sword from the still air and it is blacker than coal and seeping with dark energy.
"She loved you," says Sheik.
Sheik knows that this is how he will die - this is where Zelda ends. Link doesn't know, because how could he? But the master sword is the only weapon capable of blocking a demonic blow. When Ganon swings down, Sheik tries to move but is not quick enough to give the signal and dodge the blow, too.
Link drops from the rafters like a rock, sword pointed down, nails Ganon in the forehead and Sheik takes the blow of the sword with full force across the torso. It is not an instant pain - the shock of it makes Sheik numb for a moment - to watch as Ganon reverts, as Ganondorf stares at Sheik and at Zelda;
"Tell her," he pleads, "I'm so, so sorry..."
"She's already forgiven you," says Sheik, and then the pain hits and the world is red and Sheik can curl in on himself but the cut is deep and demands to be felt.
"Whoa, whoa, Sheik!" Link's hands are warm and gentle and Sheik thinks, not for the first time, that Link is easy to love.
This'll be a two part-er. And I know it might not seem like it just yet, but this is actually set in the age of technology. So look forward to that! And please, feel free to leave a comment ... Or, like, three.