In the dream, her eyes opened slowly.

Sheik was awake already, his head propped on his elbow, his deep eyes watching her. "Good morning." he said softly. Zelda yawned a smile and stretched, throwing back her arms and arching her back. When she dropped back down, limp and happy, Sheik's arm was underneath her; he pulled her tight and kissed her. "Sleep well?" he asked when he pulled away, his hand tracing idle patterns on her shoulder. She smiled dreamily. "I did, my heart. Did you?" his rose-colored eyes darkened a shade. "Dreams." he said shortly. Zelda's heart sank. "As bad as last night?" Sheik's face was serious and sad. "Worse, lover, worse. I think that the Goddesses are trying to tell me something."

Zelda bit her lip, trying and failing to hold Sheik's gaze. "No. After all these years, after everything you've done, after...after DYING for their cause, you deserve this. They can't take you from me. Not when all we have is here!" She flung out one pearly hand to take in their surroundings--the deep round bed floated in a void of faintly swirling colors. There was no cold floor to walk across barefooted, no window to fling open to let in the sunlight--Zelda could have all those things, or Sheik could, but never together.

Sheik had died saving refugees from the war, at the beginning of it--he was the son of the woman who had been Zelda's attendant once, before Ganondorf had risen to power. When he died, his mother begged the goddesses for him to be allowed to pause in the place where sages rested--they did one better, and allowed him to use a willing body to roam the living world, to shape that body to fit his spirit, for as long as he was needed. Zelda, hearing the story, had offered herself--and upon meeting the young man in this place, had gone further. She loved him, and they spent what time they could together here, in comfort and relative peace.

Discomfited, Zelda rose to her feet. A rosy floor appeared beneath her feet, and she paced back and forth. Sheik watched her, in pain himself, uncertain of what to say. Her little nightshift--imagined, unreal as anything else in this place--swayed a little in a breeze summoned by her unrest.

"Love..." he began, and stopped. He slid from the bed and walked over to her. He pulled her to him, held her to his bare chest. "Everything will be well." He said softly. "If I must die in truth, and if my soul--or whatever I am, here--must pass to the next world, then rest assured that I will wait for you."

"No. I refuse to consider it." Zelda's lower lip quivered, and her eyes were bright, but her stubbornness won out and the tears didn't fall. She looked up at her lover and shook her head. "You will live." She said. "If I must petition the goddesses on my knees, you will live."

Sheik smiled softly at her. "As you say, Princess." he said, with just a hint of mocking in his tone. "After all, you are the high and reigning princess of Hyrule, and your word is law." His ruby eyes twinkled. Zelda smiled despite herself--Sheik was so quiet that in the beginning, when she first knew him, she'd sometimes had trouble deciding if he was serious or not. "You mock me." she said, reaching up and tweaking his nose.

His long hand snaked up and caught her smaller one, caressing her fingers. Never breaking eye contact, he said "Never." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. "I love you too much." He leaned over and kissed her throat, smiling at her little noise of pleasure. Her arms slid around his shoulders and she pulled him close for a kiss, her lips lingering on his for one sweet moment. His hands settled on her hips, fingers caressing her through the silky fabric of her thin gown. Zelda backed up, slowly, leading him to the bed step by step. Her azure eyes were luminous in the shifting half-light, and Sheik paused in pleasure, staring into them. He lowered his mouth to her ear, and Zelda shivered at his warm breath on her throat. "The first time we shared a body," he began, "I stood on the banks of Lake Hylia and watched the sun rise. Just as the very edge of it showed over the horizon, the water began to glow. It was so beautiful...After so much time without a body, seeing something so glorious as that was overwhelming. I remember just staring at the water, watching the color change from midnight blue to the a blue so pale that there are no words for it, all the colors of the sky reflected. I thought I would die from the joy of it."

he lifted one finger and caressed Zelda's face, a faint smile touching his lips. "So it was, when I saw your eyes for the first time. All the colors of the sky, and deep enough to drown in." Zelda let out a little gasp, and then laughed, a low, rich sound that never ceased to surprise Sheik. "Ahh, your silver tongue." she said. She kissed him again, harder now, her mouth opening to his.

"It's good for other things." he said. Zelda's eyebrows shot up into her hairline. "Oh?" Sheik really smiled then, the rare grin that only those closest to him ever saw. "Let me show you." he said.

He turned her and pressed her onto the bed, sliding her nightgown up and over her head as he did so. Straddling her, he kissed her shoulder, and her throat, and then her breasts, delighting in her sighs. "Also, my hands are not without use." He said, running the very tips of his slender fingers along her sides, down her hips and back up again. She wriggled, and pulled him down against her, her small hands running through his hair and swiftly along his spine.

"I love you." She said breathlessly.

And then there was no time at all for thought.