"Mommy, tell me a story?"

The little fingers grabbed at her skirt, and Zelda carefully sat in a rocking chair by the fire and pulled the little one onto her knee. "Well, Zelly, your Uncle Link is coming, how about a story about him?"

Zelly snuggled onto her mother's round belly, just checking to see if the baby was kicking. It wasn't. She shook her head. "No. About Daddy."

Zelda chuckled softly. "Very well." How happy she was, sitting here in a warm room, in a comfortable chair, with her daughter and child-to-be with her. It was probably best she didn't speak of Link anyways. Even though she had her own beautiful children, she was still jealous of him and his abundant family. Her courtship with Shadow had taken nearly a decade, and now she was almost past her motherhood window—for her lineage, anyway. Bearing children was never easy for the women in the Royal Family. Her own mother had died of a failed pregnancy when she was just a girl. Link and Malon, on the other hand, had been able to marry right away, and already had five children, all healthy.

I just need my baby to be born healthy, that's all.

She pushed the irksome feelings away and focused on her daughter. "Once upon a time," Zelda began with a twinkle in her eye. "There was a princess."

"A beautiful princess," a deep voice broke in. Zelda followed it to the doorway. Shadow stood leaning against the door frame, arms folded. His ruby eyes glittered, and they still made her heart flutter.

"Daddy!" Zelly shouted and crawled off Zelda's lap to run into her father's arms. Shadow swooped her up and planted a big kiss on her cheek. "Hello, little princess."

"Hi, Daddy . . ." Zelly snuggled against her father's warm chest and buried her face in his neck.

Zelda knew it was silly, but she worried about the time when Zelly would come to question her father's leaden appearance, or the fact that she shared his eyes. She was able to protect Zelly from distrustful bystanders for now, but that would not always be the case. It hurt to think that Zelly may have to deal with the same naysayers as Zelda had growing up. Zelda feared it would be worse for Zelly. Hyrule had never had a king such as this. Shadow wasn't just different, his body wouldn't stop changing.

In the beginning, he was a life-size version of the Hero's shadow, but with physical dimensions. Over time, Shadow had begun to look less like the Hero's shadow, and more human in coloring. His face was still a dusky grey, but there was a reddish-brownness to it. Not the color of the Gerudo, whose skin were bronzed by the sun, but still dark, and red—Shadow had been quite proud of it, actually.

"I'm finally a person!" he'd say, and Zelda's skin would crawl at the implication that Shadow wasn't a person beforehand. Zelda wasn't sure where the color came from—she'd never seen anyone in Hyrule with it. His hair had become more substantial out of shadows and turned into a thick mop of black, wavy hair to rival even Link's.

It was not just his coloring, even his structure was beginning to change, becoming more solid, his face more square, his chin less pointed, his hands broader. The most curious thing was his ears. His ears were round. Link's were pointed, and very hard to miss because like all Hylians, they were huge. More than once Zelda would look at Shadow and wonder, who was this person and where had he come from?

Whatever the changes, she hoped his eyes would at least stay the same.

Some said in horror that those eyes were the color of blood and terror, but Zelda saw passion there, love for her and their children, their country, their people. She had watched those eyes deepen as she guided a younger, lost Shadow through the experiences of human emotion as he shifted from shadow to human. Now they were the eyes of the man she loved.

Shadow rocked his daughter with a curious expression. As he had said on many occasions before, "This is how most Hylians become adults? Starting out so tiny?"

Zelda smiled, as always. "Yes, my love, not everyone is born a shadow man."

Zelly piped up sleepily, "A boo-tee-ful shadshoo maaaaan."

"Why thank, you, Zelly," Shadow said in a sweet voice. Zelly simply grinned back, but she was obviously struggling to keep her eyes open.

Zelda watched her husband's face with concern. She could see the underlying thoughts flitting across his face. Shadow could not remember anything before becoming the Hero's shadow, and it was getting harder for him to remember what being a shadow was even like. More often than not he gave her a blank expression when she asked about his time as a shadow. Would he continue to forget things until he couldn't even remember her?

"Are you sure you don't have a past?" Zelda asked, not for the first time.

Shadow's face darkened more. He lowered the sleeping Zelly onto her little bed and tucked her in with her favorite princess doll. "I doubt it. I'm not a person, Zel, I don't have a past. Something happened and I got a soul, that's all. I'm just a creation of Ganondorf's the goddesses had pity on."

"Only a person can have children, Shadow. And many do not tuck them in as gently as you do. How can you not be a person?"

Shadow brushed his daughter's hair behind her ear, face dulled.

Zelda sighed into the ensuing silence.

Shadow glanced up, looking slightly guilty. As Zelly had fully fallen asleep, he stood and then knelt before Zelda, taking her hands in both of his, looking her in the eyes with adoration. "Oh, Zelda, my love, who needs a past when I've got such a wonderful present? Please don't worry."

Zelda's face softened, and she put a hand through his hair, admiring each and every strand. "So you're fine, then?"

Shadow nodded. "Very much so."

"Well," Zelda said softly. "You will always be a person to me, Shad."

"And I will always love you for it." He got up slightly so he could kiss her. Then he helped her up, and they walked out the door quietly, leaving Zelly to her nap.