Disclaimer: I do not own Zelda.

Some of these ficlets/drabbles I’ve posted on my livejournal, some I haven’t, but I thought I’d share them here. Let me know what you think if you want!

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You are her friend. The thought becomes your mantra – nurtured, picked-at, cherished – a feeble votive that quails before the threat of the promised prince. It becomes as durable as any shield, its toughness redoubled every time you meet her on her balcony of a night, every time you kneel before her dais in carefully affected obeisance and dare to look into her eyes. They are the same color as yours, yet are blue glass instead of liquid, reflecting both a ruler’s serene confidence and your shared secret.

You piece together your future with her crooked stitches, weaving your fantasy from the baseless promises she whispers to you when you are completely alone. Yet in an instant, all is changed, your careful plans smashed from foundation to crenel by the force of reality. Holding the rubble heavy in your heart, you climb the steps to Hyrule Castle’s highest tower where she has bidden you, the trek now seeming funereal.

There she meets you, as you knew she would, like a princess in a song – only her hair is undressed and her eyes red-lined, her appearance wholly different from that of the woman who walks through the castle’s chaste flag-lined halls in daylight hours. “You are my friend,” she reminds you, but all you can think of is pulling her close and pulling off her tabard and making her…

Then the floor comes up to meet you. The cobbles beneath your hands seem to blur as your eyes burn, and she is gone. It is as if nothing has ever happened.

Later, as you tremble with helplessness, the memories come in pieces. It seems half a dream, and why not? Perhaps it was a dream after all. You’ve sought to make her yours, all your life – putting the possibilities through their paces, knowing you must have missed something, anything, everything… The thought of her friendship is so fuzzy in your mind, all but torn to tatters as you witness her on the starboard side of the ship’s deck. You’re the only one who remembers now. You can’t forget, as you watch her from the pier, can’t allow yourself the relief. That secret must be reviled, guarded, repressed.

No one else can ever know. No liege lord, no close friend, no other woman whose heart is filled with thoughts of love. You all have your lies, you know; lies kindly meant, lies you come to believe, the lie that shapes an entire life. There’s nothing wrong with you answering “no”.