Chapter Text
“We meet again, Link.”
There is relief in those words. Not a day passes where Sheik does not worry over the safety of Link. Should he die, Hyrule goes down with him, but each song she shares and each vision she receives brings her closer to him not just physically, but in another way she can’t describe. Maybe she fears for his safety for more selfish reasons. She is not sure.
“If you came here to meet the Zoras, you wasted your time. This is all there is,” she says bitterly. “With one exception, the Zoras are now sealed under this thick ice sheet. I managed to rescue the Zora princess from under the ice, but… she left to head for the Water Temple.”
All these destinies, all these moving parts, never seem to be in the right place at the right time when she needs them. They are right for fate, but not for her, and as always she must place fate above her own wants and needs. She is just another moving part.
“This ice is created by an evil curse. The monster in the Water Temple is the source of the curse. Unless you shut off the source, this ice will never melt.”
Sheik stares into his bright blue eyes and that face, always so stoic. What goes on in his mind? she wonders. How calm he always is, how brave. She envies that. He says nothing yet says it all with the way he runs to her–what does he plan to do should he catch her before she can leave? One day, she wants to ask him, and hopefully he would respond not with silence but with words.
“If you have courage enough to confront the danger and save the Zoras, I will teach you the melody that leads to the temple.” She knows he has courage, but if she didn’t deliver this statement as exactly as it was in her vision, the world around her could crumble and everything would be for naught. Every word she spoke echoed through time, one variable of millions that could bring ruin to the world.
“Time passes, people move… Like a river’s flow, it never ends. A childish mind will turn to noble ambition, young love will become deep affection. The clear water’s surface reflects growth.” And though Sheik has seen these words in her visions, these scenarios taking place between Link and the sages, part of her knows these pertain to her too. That young love, that admiration she felt for him in the garden when he valiantly took up her tasks, turning to the deepest affection–and deepest fear–for him. In the ice, she sees her reflection, and her reflection is not Sheik but Princess Zelda.
“Now listen to the Serenade of Water to reflect upon yourself.” Princess Zelda–no, Sheik pulls the lyre from her belt and plays the melody for the Hero of Time–no, Link. Names are a prison from which she begs to be freed but she feels stuck in a permafrost that even the hottest flames of Death Mountain couldn’t melt. Until the war is over, she will only be Sheik to him. The deepest fear within her, from her darkest visions, is that he loses and never again will she be Princess Zelda. Only Sheik.
By now Link has finished playing the Serenade of Water back to her and she resurfaces from her thoughts.
“Link,” she says, and as a comfort to herself, “I’ll see you again.” He begins to approach but she flings a Deku Nut to the ground and disappears into the world between places where only she exists.
And she thinks she hears him say, “Wait.”