zelda oneshot || i am the shadow of your heart;
title: I Am the Shadow of Your Heart
pairing: SheikXLink
rating: PG?
summary: Link feels Sheik become more and more distant from him; he wonders what exactly Sheik is, and Sheik's shadow mind may have an answer.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, spirits_shadows! sorry for the lackage of tranny!ganny as well as the generally fail use of your prompt and my not noticing the damn time difference XDDD
I.
A moment of flashing sweetness inside the searing storm- storm of blood, storm of lightning instinct. Link’s breath sharpens, something inside his mind's lulled to softness and warmth as Sheik leans closer to him: eyes of a judge, between starry magic and voodoo fire.
Link can hear the footsteps, the dying cries down the hidden alcoves of the dungeon, but Sheik’s foreign eyes, his stranger’s warmth, are more frightening to him than the imminent peril. Sheik seems to hum something under his breath; Link vaguely remembers the dream-music that follows Sheik whenever he shows up.
"Wh-why are you here, anyway?" Link manages to laugh; "Not that I don’t want you here-"
A flash of Sheik’s anonymous eyes. Link cringes, maybe he’s ventured too far.
Sheik laughs softly. In his laugh wisdom is jailed, death is put on trial. Sheik suddenly moves and the new danger of his motion puts Link on edge. Metal scrape, stars and switchblade instinct. Link holds his sword level, looks up to Sheik, standing above him. Sheik’s knives are unsheathed- funny-looking things, curved like animal teeth. Why had he expected Sheik to attack him?- of all people...
Sheik’s eyes are strange to Link in that they forgive and condemn simultaneously; and sweetness in his voice as the cries devour the silence like fire. "Well, they’re coming," Sheik says, and marches forward, shadow soldier- Link charges ahead, but later that night he’s hard-pressed to figure out what Sheik’s eyes had wanted in those silent moments.
II.
"Are you very badly hurt?"
Sheik’s voice like moving sand against the choir of crickets.
Link blinks. When did Sheik even get here? He shifts curiously, swings around; shows Sheik his leg with the sweet seriousness of a child. "Not very," he responds, lifting the strip of cloth he’s been using to steady the flow of the blood. He pauses. Sheik looks over the wound with illegible eyes. Link lets off a small laugh, and Sheik looks at him. "Maybe badly, but not very."
Sheik regards his softly tired smile with interest. "And the alcohol?"
"I’m a closet drunkard."
"I guessed as much," Sheik replies, with the hint of a laugh in his voice. His hollow hands seem to twitch; the posture in his feline body changes underneath the naked moon. Link wonders why he’s so hard to see.
Sheik fixes him with dagger red; Link shrinks back. Navi whispers a warning. "Tonight the moon is glacier blue," Sheik says, as though reading a prophecy, "-And too many skulls to be counted. Well, then-"
"Wait, what does that mean?" Link asks, moving forward with strange alacrity- recoiling when the cold shooting pain stabs again into his thigh.
Sheik’s eyes flash and smile. "Nobody’s asked me that before," he answers, and ends there- turns to walk back into the pooled darkness. Link thinks that it clicks in some way, but---
"The last time I saw you," Link begins to say, and Sheik’s walk halts, as though called by wind, "...Was in the Fire Temple, when I got mobbed by all those monsters."
Sheik turns back to Link, listening carefully.
But Link shrugs. "Oh, it’s nothing, I’d just like to see you more often is all I guess," he replies, and toys with the bandage...reaches for the bottle of alcohol and pours some on his wound.
The night breeze passes over the star-burned grass. "That’s," Sheik starts to answer, and Link hears his voice falter, "not prudent."
Link’s mind is shadowed blue; his memory clenches as though it’s a heart. "Oh," he responds. Sheik looks back to him again. Link’s smile is a half-moon full of fire and sky-
"Furthermore I don’t believe it’s good idea- as shadow can’t mix with light," Sheik continues, with just this acrid bite in his voice that makes Link cringe with confusion. "Neither can I come close to you" (or your angel tongue).
III.
Sunlight caresses the hills of night and stars; the air is low and cool and Sheik and Link sit next to each other, seeming like two lonely gamblers. They sit playing Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground- which sounds weird on harp, but it suits the ocarina well- until Link breaks through the cold melody with a startling laugh.
Sheik’s eyes pass over him. "What is it?" he asks, with slight amusement in his voice.
"Agh- man," Link replies, laying his hand on Sheik’s shoulder, leaning against him like he’s a stone cross, "Sometimes...I don’t know." Eyes are close; eyes brush light against each other. "I feel like I don’t even know what you are."
"I’m many things," Sheik responds, humming the melody softly.
"I guess so, everybody is," Link shrugs. He puts his ocarina aside...takes off his hat, then looks again to Sheik. Sheik seems not to regard his words. Link looks at the sun as if it could answer the question on his tongue. "I feel far from you sometimes."
And that seems to irritate Sheik- he misses a note and his eyes go dark and dull. "Far away, distance- what should it matter?" he snaps, looking away from Link. "Close, everybody speaks about closeness." He turns suddenly to Link and there in Sheik’s eyes is the fire, the strange magic, that Link had seen on that silent day in the Fire Temple. Sheik seems to lean- lean as a cat would, into its own cushioned darkness. "No matter how close we got, we would still be strangers. Everybody is alone in the world, Link. You should know it better than anyone."
"I don’t think that’s true," Link replies, and he feels to come closer to Sheik- to bridge the negative space that separates them, and his pulse quickens. "I’m not a prisoner-"
"You would be if you were close to me," Sheik replies, voice like knives.
"That’s not true- why would you say that?" Link asks- demands, sounds as though he’s protesting some inequity; Sheik’s eyes flash at the sad sweetness of his voice. "I believe in you more than that, Sheik."
Sheik can’t take the sincerity, the kindness, of Link’s baby blue voice. He turns away; he seems to taste a thought inside his eyes- and then he looks back to Link pointedly. "You’d like to know what I am," he says, slowly, but there’s still acid in the trail his words leave behind. He leans back, puts distance between them. "Well, what if I told you I was a traitor?" Link bites his lip subconsciously. "What if I told you that I would sell your location if it would get me by? What if I told you I don’t care what happens to you because without caring about you, I’d be able to be my own person- to move freely?"
He measures the strange, suddenly fallen look in Link’s eyes. He studies his hands, and goes on- with sugar covering the corrosion. "Conversely, what if I told you that I was madly in love with you and that I’d killed the Princess to eliminate competition?" Link’s mouth twitches into a smile, and Sheik seems to have calmed down- but the fire is still in his glance, and he fixes a condemning look on Link. "What good would it do you to know what I really am? If any of those things was true, what would you do?"
He pauses. He watches Link as a cat would watch a bird. Link’s bones seem to quiet, his eyes look lost- Sheik feels a searing pain behind his eyes, but how can it be helped? Link coughs absently. "I mean. I don’t know. How could I-" He pauses. He shrugs. The light skims slick off his hair, making purple and red in his eyes. "How could I say anything? I mean. It’d be wrong but- you would have your reasons." He pauses, seems to grow more resolute. "I know you’d have your reasons."
And how can that be helped?- Sheik has a bitter tongue and knives and fire eyes, but what defenses does he have against the softness, the kindness of Link’s cool eyes, the truth of his heart? Sheik feels defeated; he slips forward past the things that separate them- traces Link’s jaw with a burning affection. "How does it feel to be able to forgive?" he asks him, moving forward-
Link feels his blood rush into his throat, wonders if Sheik’s doing what he thinks he’s doing, if they’ve really gone that far; he inhales sharply. "I couldn’t do anything else," Link responds, and his hands awkwardly move to touch Sheik’s hands on his face-
Sheik pauses; he laughs warmly. "You want to know what I am," he says, pulling the mask down, pulling pride, licking his lips quickly and kissing Link on the jaw- "I am Sheik, survivor of the Sheikah." Electricity from eye to eye- a flash of darkness, a flash of light. "I am a bandit or a poet; blood evades me and I can hear the spirits around your eyes."
Link clutches the grass, looks at Sheik with curiosity in his eyes. Sheik kisses him lightly on the mouth. "I am the shadow of your heart."
Link begins to interrupt, to say "You’re not my shadow, or anybody’s," but the words die out against the dark sugar smoke of Sheik’s mouth on his. "I am the shadow of your heart," he repeats, running a hand through Link’s hair, pushing against him, bone against bone- naked in thought, naked in memory, "So when things change, and when I’m gone, look for me there."
Link wonders what that means- he can never see Sheik clearly; but he can feel him, always feel him: the song of his blood and the masked sweetness of his eyes, and maybe that is what Sheik means.
Thanks for reading! :D
pairing: SheikXLink
rating: PG?
summary: Link feels Sheik become more and more distant from him; he wonders what exactly Sheik is, and Sheik's shadow mind may have an answer.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, spirits_shadows! sorry for the lackage of tranny!ganny as well as the generally fail use of your prompt and my not noticing the damn time difference XDDD
I.
A moment of flashing sweetness inside the searing storm- storm of blood, storm of lightning instinct. Link’s breath sharpens, something inside his mind's lulled to softness and warmth as Sheik leans closer to him: eyes of a judge, between starry magic and voodoo fire.
Link can hear the footsteps, the dying cries down the hidden alcoves of the dungeon, but Sheik’s foreign eyes, his stranger’s warmth, are more frightening to him than the imminent peril. Sheik seems to hum something under his breath; Link vaguely remembers the dream-music that follows Sheik whenever he shows up.
"Wh-why are you here, anyway?" Link manages to laugh; "Not that I don’t want you here-"
A flash of Sheik’s anonymous eyes. Link cringes, maybe he’s ventured too far.
Sheik laughs softly. In his laugh wisdom is jailed, death is put on trial. Sheik suddenly moves and the new danger of his motion puts Link on edge. Metal scrape, stars and switchblade instinct. Link holds his sword level, looks up to Sheik, standing above him. Sheik’s knives are unsheathed- funny-looking things, curved like animal teeth. Why had he expected Sheik to attack him?- of all people...
Sheik’s eyes are strange to Link in that they forgive and condemn simultaneously; and sweetness in his voice as the cries devour the silence like fire. "Well, they’re coming," Sheik says, and marches forward, shadow soldier- Link charges ahead, but later that night he’s hard-pressed to figure out what Sheik’s eyes had wanted in those silent moments.
II.
"Are you very badly hurt?"
Sheik’s voice like moving sand against the choir of crickets.
Link blinks. When did Sheik even get here? He shifts curiously, swings around; shows Sheik his leg with the sweet seriousness of a child. "Not very," he responds, lifting the strip of cloth he’s been using to steady the flow of the blood. He pauses. Sheik looks over the wound with illegible eyes. Link lets off a small laugh, and Sheik looks at him. "Maybe badly, but not very."
Sheik regards his softly tired smile with interest. "And the alcohol?"
"I’m a closet drunkard."
"I guessed as much," Sheik replies, with the hint of a laugh in his voice. His hollow hands seem to twitch; the posture in his feline body changes underneath the naked moon. Link wonders why he’s so hard to see.
Sheik fixes him with dagger red; Link shrinks back. Navi whispers a warning. "Tonight the moon is glacier blue," Sheik says, as though reading a prophecy, "-And too many skulls to be counted. Well, then-"
"Wait, what does that mean?" Link asks, moving forward with strange alacrity- recoiling when the cold shooting pain stabs again into his thigh.
Sheik’s eyes flash and smile. "Nobody’s asked me that before," he answers, and ends there- turns to walk back into the pooled darkness. Link thinks that it clicks in some way, but---
"The last time I saw you," Link begins to say, and Sheik’s walk halts, as though called by wind, "...Was in the Fire Temple, when I got mobbed by all those monsters."
Sheik turns back to Link, listening carefully.
But Link shrugs. "Oh, it’s nothing, I’d just like to see you more often is all I guess," he replies, and toys with the bandage...reaches for the bottle of alcohol and pours some on his wound.
The night breeze passes over the star-burned grass. "That’s," Sheik starts to answer, and Link hears his voice falter, "not prudent."
Link’s mind is shadowed blue; his memory clenches as though it’s a heart. "Oh," he responds. Sheik looks back to him again. Link’s smile is a half-moon full of fire and sky-
"Furthermore I don’t believe it’s good idea- as shadow can’t mix with light," Sheik continues, with just this acrid bite in his voice that makes Link cringe with confusion. "Neither can I come close to you" (or your angel tongue).
III.
Sunlight caresses the hills of night and stars; the air is low and cool and Sheik and Link sit next to each other, seeming like two lonely gamblers. They sit playing Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground- which sounds weird on harp, but it suits the ocarina well- until Link breaks through the cold melody with a startling laugh.
Sheik’s eyes pass over him. "What is it?" he asks, with slight amusement in his voice.
"Agh- man," Link replies, laying his hand on Sheik’s shoulder, leaning against him like he’s a stone cross, "Sometimes...I don’t know." Eyes are close; eyes brush light against each other. "I feel like I don’t even know what you are."
"I’m many things," Sheik responds, humming the melody softly.
"I guess so, everybody is," Link shrugs. He puts his ocarina aside...takes off his hat, then looks again to Sheik. Sheik seems not to regard his words. Link looks at the sun as if it could answer the question on his tongue. "I feel far from you sometimes."
And that seems to irritate Sheik- he misses a note and his eyes go dark and dull. "Far away, distance- what should it matter?" he snaps, looking away from Link. "Close, everybody speaks about closeness." He turns suddenly to Link and there in Sheik’s eyes is the fire, the strange magic, that Link had seen on that silent day in the Fire Temple. Sheik seems to lean- lean as a cat would, into its own cushioned darkness. "No matter how close we got, we would still be strangers. Everybody is alone in the world, Link. You should know it better than anyone."
"I don’t think that’s true," Link replies, and he feels to come closer to Sheik- to bridge the negative space that separates them, and his pulse quickens. "I’m not a prisoner-"
"You would be if you were close to me," Sheik replies, voice like knives.
"That’s not true- why would you say that?" Link asks- demands, sounds as though he’s protesting some inequity; Sheik’s eyes flash at the sad sweetness of his voice. "I believe in you more than that, Sheik."
Sheik can’t take the sincerity, the kindness, of Link’s baby blue voice. He turns away; he seems to taste a thought inside his eyes- and then he looks back to Link pointedly. "You’d like to know what I am," he says, slowly, but there’s still acid in the trail his words leave behind. He leans back, puts distance between them. "Well, what if I told you I was a traitor?" Link bites his lip subconsciously. "What if I told you that I would sell your location if it would get me by? What if I told you I don’t care what happens to you because without caring about you, I’d be able to be my own person- to move freely?"
He measures the strange, suddenly fallen look in Link’s eyes. He studies his hands, and goes on- with sugar covering the corrosion. "Conversely, what if I told you that I was madly in love with you and that I’d killed the Princess to eliminate competition?" Link’s mouth twitches into a smile, and Sheik seems to have calmed down- but the fire is still in his glance, and he fixes a condemning look on Link. "What good would it do you to know what I really am? If any of those things was true, what would you do?"
He pauses. He watches Link as a cat would watch a bird. Link’s bones seem to quiet, his eyes look lost- Sheik feels a searing pain behind his eyes, but how can it be helped? Link coughs absently. "I mean. I don’t know. How could I-" He pauses. He shrugs. The light skims slick off his hair, making purple and red in his eyes. "How could I say anything? I mean. It’d be wrong but- you would have your reasons." He pauses, seems to grow more resolute. "I know you’d have your reasons."
And how can that be helped?- Sheik has a bitter tongue and knives and fire eyes, but what defenses does he have against the softness, the kindness of Link’s cool eyes, the truth of his heart? Sheik feels defeated; he slips forward past the things that separate them- traces Link’s jaw with a burning affection. "How does it feel to be able to forgive?" he asks him, moving forward-
Link feels his blood rush into his throat, wonders if Sheik’s doing what he thinks he’s doing, if they’ve really gone that far; he inhales sharply. "I couldn’t do anything else," Link responds, and his hands awkwardly move to touch Sheik’s hands on his face-
Sheik pauses; he laughs warmly. "You want to know what I am," he says, pulling the mask down, pulling pride, licking his lips quickly and kissing Link on the jaw- "I am Sheik, survivor of the Sheikah." Electricity from eye to eye- a flash of darkness, a flash of light. "I am a bandit or a poet; blood evades me and I can hear the spirits around your eyes."
Link clutches the grass, looks at Sheik with curiosity in his eyes. Sheik kisses him lightly on the mouth. "I am the shadow of your heart."
Link begins to interrupt, to say "You’re not my shadow, or anybody’s," but the words die out against the dark sugar smoke of Sheik’s mouth on his. "I am the shadow of your heart," he repeats, running a hand through Link’s hair, pushing against him, bone against bone- naked in thought, naked in memory, "So when things change, and when I’m gone, look for me there."
Link wonders what that means- he can never see Sheik clearly; but he can feel him, always feel him: the song of his blood and the masked sweetness of his eyes, and maybe that is what Sheik means.
Thanks for reading! :D