From Yesterday

Sleep had grown to be her favorite activity as of late. This was credited to the fact that her bed was always soft and warm and that her room was peaceful with a scent lingered about that reminded her of a time long since past. A time when being addressed as princess had been the norm. Such a thing now would have frightened her. The only person who still called her princess was the desert king deep in the bowels of her darkest nightmares.


“Wake up lazy bones, the day isn’t going to wait for you.”


She frowned and held her eyes shut. It wasn’t fair that her companion had so much energy in the morning, and afternoon, and evening for that matter. His voice echoed through her small room, and the light padding of his feet reached her ears. The shutters were thrown open and sunlight was spilled across her bed. She groaned and rolled over.


He was on her bed a moment later, stripping the quilts back leaving her susceptible to the brisk morning air. “What are you doing?” she hissed, tugging the covers back.


He grinned, “Waking the late riser auntie’s orders!”


She glared at him, deep hatred rimming her eyes. “I remember the days when I could sleep in for as long as I want.” She rolled over again and ignored him.


He hoped off the bed, “Yep but that was before you decided to become a Sheikah.”


She grumbled, he had here there; “Okay, fine then. Five minutes and I will be ready.”


He did a sweeping bow in her doorway, “As you wish your majesty.”


“Don’t call me that!” She growled. Her companion laughed again and darted away before she could strike. She pushed herself up in a sitting position in the bed and stared in the direction he went. It hadn’t been like that when she had first arrived in the Sheikah village three years ago. No, laughter had not greeted her ears with such ease; instead it had been harsh voices and hisses at her appearance.


He would come there, if she was to be hidden in the village than the desert king would certainly come. And with him would come destruction on a grand scale. With him, the Sheikah would cease to exist. But her attendant had spoken otherwise.


Her attendant had gone against her people. She had watched as the woman had spread in her arms in defense, not backing down to even the most towering of warriors who stood in her way. Her attendant marched to the hut in the center of the town. Zelda had followed close, nearly kicking her heels more than once.


“You dare to forbid me from protecting the brood of Hyrule’s royal family?” Her attendant growled. Zelda felt herself be snatched and pushed into the way of a large man. He towered over her, his body muscular, his hair streaked with silver, his left eye scarred.


“Look at her Matzo, she cannot defend herself, if we do not protect her then our land along with every other land you can fathom will fall to the Gerudo.”


The large man crossed his arms and huffed. “But if you bring her here, then you risk our people-“


“If I don’t then we die!” Her attendant roared unsheathing the short blade at her back. “The king has fallen Matzo, I bring her here to see refuge from that man from the desert.”


The large man glanced at the blade and his shoulder’s dropped. “Why is it Impa that you care so for the girl? After our betrayal. After we were cast aside like dogs by that ill man who the people called king. We were banished, we were removed as a race and yet you remained by him, why? What did he give you hmm? Did he offer you a warm bed, perhaps you were his pet yes? He made you moan like a bitch in heat didn’t he?”


Her attendant snarled the brilliant composure the ever so calm, ever so stone emotionless features broke with rage and in less than a moment the small woman was at the large man’s throat, the short blade pressed into his jugular.


“You know what I was doing. I had gone to kill her, you know this. I stayed for the girl. I stayed for her and only her, never for that man-never! You and all the others know what prophecy says. Yes we were cast out but we owe our allegiance to the sages and the legend. She is gifted Matzo, if we let her stay, if we teach her our ways then surely all hope is not lost. Matzo, she is born to aid the Hero of Time.”


The large man looked taken aback by the statement. “If what you say proves false than it is high treason you commit sister dearest.”


“She is the one I am sure of it. The first time I saw here, the power I felt. She is not her father’s daughter.”


Zelda need not be told the history of the Sheikah, not yet. In Hyrule they were said to have died off, the casualties of wars many eras before. But the way they hissed when speaking of her father, the sheer disdain ebbing forth made her believe that history had been rewritten to better serve other purposes.


It was then that she noticed the small blonde boy seated behind the large man. He was staring up at the large man intently, his eyebrows drawn together in an effort to look firm. He paid her no notice until the larger man addressed her. He looked to be about her age, a little bit shorter but blonde like her.


“You are the princess Zelda then?” Matzo spoke.


She stared up at him, not with fear that was a feeling she chose to reserve for the desert king. Matzo brought forth a feeling of respect, he was a man who commanded a lot of power, and this emanated from him, an aura that could almost be blinding if one chose to look that hard. “I am sir.”


He laughed. “Not anymore. You are not a princess in this village you are a commoner like everyone else. You will forsake your title or you will be thrown out of our village in a manner like what your father did to my people. I am not a sympathetic man little one, I feel not for the causes of your people, but I will respect the wishes of my sister.”Matzo looked at Impa who fumed but did not speak.


“I will sir. I wish no harm to you or your people.” She said, “I’m so sorry that I must be cast upon you like this. And for whatever it is my father did to you; I don’t know what it was but I’m sorry.” She shrank down to her knees tears streaming down her cheeks. She did not understand the sudden surge of emotion; tears had never come easy for her yet in that moment they fell, dampening her skirts.


The large man nodded; “So be it then. Take her and get her cleaned up. She will begin tomorrow.”


And so it was. It had been a change she could not have begun to fathom if she had tried. She studied the sun through the opened window of her bedroom taking one more moment to recount the events of the last three years. She didn’t miss her former life; it had been a mold unbefitting someone of her mentality. She had been meant to run free in the mountains, to wield a sword


She ran her hand through her long golden locks while slowly dressing. The white and pink silks had been exchanged for hard brown leathers, gems for rocks, and all grace and femininity for the hard course edge of a warrior. She was a princess no longer. She was a Sheikah.


“My goddesses, are you going to take all day long?”


Zelda felt the heat rise in her face and turned. “I get ready faster than you. You know this and yet you still provoke me?”


Her companion laughed. “Faster…yeah sure is that what they call it in Hyrule?”


She snarled and turned, her companion dashed out of the room, Zelda hot on his heels. He had made it easier, the small boy sitting behind his father, the prince of the Sheikah, the companion of the ex-princess of Hyrule. Matzo and Impa had been their combined instructors and together they had learned the ways of shadow.


She bound through the village after her companion. They were headed to the training site, she’d moved along this path over the years many times. She grinned remembering the first time she’d walked the path, hand-in-hand with the boy in front of her. A boy named Sheik.