It occured to me that it was Valentines Day soon! Fic opportunity galore~! XD Anyway, this is a two-part (possibly three) story, so I'll send that actual finishing chapter on the special day.

This fic is for all those who got recently dumped (I know how that feels), those who have someone they want to share that Valentine with but don't have the guts to (I also know how that feels) and for those who like angsty-Sheik-fluff (that's me. XD)

Enjoy!

He remembered the first day they'd met.

She'd been eleven, and he'd been, well, seven years younger than he was now, he didn't know exactly how old he was anymore. The last time he'd been awake was when Napoleon was making a fuss, and he'd been banished back in the Lens for stating that invading Russia would be a bad, bad idea.

He dropped into the dark, the forever going dark, the equivalent of sleep within his existence. But he was awake, and as he dropped, gently, an immeasurable time passed before he sunk into light and new surroundings, and he was still wearing the French military uniform as he found himself in some sort of dusty storage area.

Groggily, vaguely aware that he was sitting on a box that was collapsing in on itself because of his weight (he would learn later it was made out of cardboard) he looked at the child that was holding the Lens, his prison, and somehow knew exactly who he/she(?) was. He could feel the history in the blood, the old resonance of power like a passed thunder-growl, shivering his ribcage.

A descendant of the Hero of Time and the Princess of Destiny. His jailers.

The descendant looked at him, mouth agape, holding the Lens in shaking hands. His/her hair was short, and wore a strange pair of trousers that was baggy enough to look like a skirt, and on her shirt was a star with eyes that gave a cheeky wink. Sheik opened his mouth, to say something but he was interrupted, and he knew by voice that the child was a girl. "Are you a genie? If you are, can I have a pet dog? Please?"

He closed his eyes and prayed for patience, despair colouring his desperate plea.

-8-{C3 ... -8-{C3 ... -8-{C3

Not that it had been necessary. In fact, it was her that'd had to be patient, teaching him about cars, computers and washing machines. It was her who'd supplied him with books on TV, Shakespeare and other important pieces of literature, and the modern dress-code. Thankfully, that'd sparked her interest in history, and she filled him in on everything there was to know about what had happened since his incarceration.

He knew of bits and pieces, but it was a matter of stringing them together. He'd served under Tutankhamen, he'd watched premieres of Euripides' plays; he'd fought alongside Author Pendragon, he'd ground his teeth at the Great Wall. He'd teased Siddhārtha Gautama, rolled his eyes at a man who'd preached forgiveness (which, after learning what he'd accomplished, felt a little sheepish over) and other things that he vaguely remembered in no particular order.

He still found it hard to believe that he was somewhere around five thousand years old. But trapped he had been in the Lens of Truth, and there he had stayed as floods worthy of bathing gods roared over the world, drowning magic and Hyrule and everything he'd known, and new cultures, new wars and new systems of government wheeled past, his only companions the endless line of Heroes and Royalty that needed advising.

And his charge right now, was none other than one of the descendants of the Hero of Time and the Princess of Destiny.

Not that she looked it, which was understandable after roughly fifty centuries. Her eyes were less blue, more grey, like sea mist against the sand. She was short, and had more ample bosom than Zelda ever had. She didn't tan in the sun; she burned, reddened, freckled if she was lucky. She was broad in the shoulders; talked in such a brash and confident, uncouth way that it would have put Zelda in a roll in her grave. She didn't resemble her powerful male ancestor either; Link would have gawped in horror if he could see one of his descendants back away from a shop window because of the mere sight of dolls because they were creepy things out to get her soul, not to mention her complete incapability to live in the wild.

Only her name held a shadow of her long lost past. And that was just by frightening coincidence.

-8-{C3 ... -8-{C3 ... -8-{C3

There were a lot of things he remembered, watching her grow up.

Aged ten:

Her parents were going out but the babysitter they'd hired couldn't come anymore because of the flu. They'd searched for a replacement with all their desperate hearts, and they called a cell-phone number printed on a piece of paper that'd been shoved into their letterbox, advertising a sensible young man, ready to go anywhere at any time.

Lin hugged him as soon as he opened the door, a plan successfully executed. They didn't comment on the colour of his eyes, as he'd charmed them to look brown.

They were watching a movie when she'd asked, "When's your birthday?"

He'd shrugged. "I don't remember."

She mashed her palms into her face like the famous painting 'Scream'. "You don't know your birthday?"

"I didn't have anyone to remind me."

"But it's the best day in the whole year! It's even better than Christmas because you don't have to give anyone anything."

He glared at her.

Her pity flipped to excited glee. "Let's make you one."

He gave an exasperated sigh. "I don't need a birthday."

"You get presents! And people have to be nice to you on that day, and you get cake and stuff, too."

"You're always nice to me." He ruffled her hair as he would a puppy's, making her scowl.

"I'm giving you a birthday. I will."

That stunt as a babysitter lasted only once, her parents uncomfortable with leaving their only daughter alone with a young man. Of course, and perhaps because of this, she'd forgotten to give him his birthday for maybe a year and a half. But eventually she presented him with a date, through the use of horoscopes. He was now a Taurus, born on the 1st of April, the Fool's Day.

He couldn't help but find it fitting.

He remembered when Lin was twelve and was learning to swim better and he'd promised to assist her, and had shocked her silly at the scars on his body. She dived on him and threatened to scratch him to shreds if he didn't tell her who'd done such terrible things to him, and he'd had to tell her that it wasn't a single person that'd done it, most of the time they weren't even human, and they were all long dead. He did, however, promise to tell a new tale about how he'd gotten said scars whenever she accomplished goals both he and her gym teacher set for her.

She'd become the best swimmer in hardly no time at all.

He remembered when she was fifteen, marvelling at how she was growing so fast, how beautiful she was going to be, and then it occurred to him that perhaps that he was getting a little too attached. Attached to her odd stream of questions that made him laugh, the way she smiled sheepishly when she was praised, the brash and almost sadistic laugh she let forth when she defeated monsters in her RPGs, perhaps her ancestor's legacy fuelling her triumph.

Her small hand in his.

He remembered how he'd asked her permission to be returned to the Lens.

"Huh?" she replied, draped sideways over the couch, "Why?"

"Because I'm tired. I haven't been out this long in a very long time."

"But don't you like it outside?"

"It's like camping. After a while it's good to get back home and rest."

Which was a lie. He loved it outside the Lens, considering he'd never been let out for more than a couple of hours if he'd been extremely lucky. On average it was more like a few minutes, to ask questions, to seek guidance. But the dark numbed everything, and years would seem like a moment in there, and he was sure Lin would forget him once he was gone.

"Well, okay," she shrugged, "But why don't you just go in and out like you do at night?"

Sheik sighed. "That only happens because sleep counts as being dismissed. I can't willingly go in and out of the lens; it has to be commanded."

"Can't I just, I dunno, free you?" she flippantly enquired as she leafed through her comic, "You're like the genie from the Disney movie, right? I free you and you get to do whatever you want?"

"I'm not a genie. I'm a prisoner."

"Like, jail, crime, and stuff?" she enquired, cocking her head to the side doubtfully, "What'd you do?"

Sheik tapped his foot and drummed his fingers against his crossed arm before speaking. "You know of necromancy?"

"I'm reading about it now." She grinned. "Magic zombies, right?"

"I tried it out."

"Cool." She went back to her comic. "So?"

"I needed to kill a few people to get started, Lin."

He could almost see the shiver that crossed her spine. She finally put the comic down, and looked at him a little fearfully. "Um…?"

"You know Hitler. We had a king like him in my time. And I tried resurrecting him."

She grew pale, and the fear doubled. "Why?"

"Because I was jealous of the Hero that got all the glory for taking him out and marrying the Princess I loved."

She bit her lip. She opened her comic again, as if seeking wisdom from it, before returning her gaze to him. "Do you, um, l-love anyone now?"

Strange, how this girl tossed the three-word phrase around like breadcrumbs but stuttered over that single word like a forbidden curse.

"No."

She uneasily leafed through the comic again, rocking from side to side. "Well, I… are you going to try doing it again?"

Sheik shook his head.

"So, that's why you're stuck in the Lens? Cuz, you tried to bring back the King of Evil?"

He nodded.

"Weeeelll…" she chewed on her bottom lip and hit the comic against her leg, still shuffling where she sat, "You've been stuck in there for a long, long while, right?"

"As you put it."

"It can't be nice."

He sighed. "No, it's not nice."

"Then why do you want to go back?"

She had him there, so he stayed quiet. An awkward moment passed, so Sheik added, "Your parents are worried about you, you know. They know you're keeping something secret. Me, to be exact. You won't be able to call me your imaginary friend anymore. It's best that I'm out of sight for a while."

"I don't mind, you know." She told him bravely, when clearly she did, "I don't mind. I like you."

"Am I worth your parents' worry?"

"I like you a lot, Sheik." She insisted, "And people get let out of prison eventually, don't they?"

"Some people don't deserve to. For some it's for life."

"And that's why they have parole." She snapped, her patience spent. She returned to her comic, stonily looking for her page. "You're staying out of the Lens and that's final."

He should've scared her more, or something, anything to have her trap him in the Lens until someone less interesting stumbled upon it and asked for his advice. Then he wouldn't have this hole in his chest, feeling like he was watching her helplessly from a time-sealed prison.

-8-{C3 ... -8-{C3 ... -8-{C3

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked once again, still shaking the can.

Because he certainly did, though that was not the point. After all, it was his charge that was doing the deed, and was going to feel guilty over said deed, and Sheik was in no position to persuade her to carry on if she was having second thoughts. Thankfully though, the response Sheik got was what allowed him to happily and vindictively hand the can to her.

This, indeed, were one of the perks of eternal servitude under crazy heroes.

"No." she gave it back to him, scowling. "If I hold that from the start he'll find it suspicious."

Sheik snorted. "Less suspicious and more hopeful, I'd say. Isn't that the effect you want?"

"'Hopeful' is being too, well, hopeful on my part. On a more practical level the mound might collapse while I just stand there." She scowled deeply as she clenched her hands in her pockets. "And I don't want to look like I'm trying to win him back."

For the thousandth time, Sheik looked her up and down, at the boots polished to a shine, skin tight jeans that complimented her figure, an off-shoulder shirt, the make-up and the earrings, hair tied back so nothing was hidden.

She looked lovely, just as planned.

Sheik shook his head and sighed. "I still don't understand."

"Huh?"

"If you're here to, quote, 'officially get over him', unquote, I don't see the point of the effort you put into…" he waved at her whole body and finished, "well, this."

"To prove both him and myself that he is missing out on someone very unique and wonderful."

Sheik grinned. "You don't have to tell me."

"I could use the ego boost," she shrugged before nervously looking around. "Alright, here's the box, and the plate's inside." She handed him said objects before backing away. "I'll pull out my phone when I need them, kay? And lather it on, as much as you can. I'm counting on you."

"I know. Good luck."

She nodded before picking up her book bag and venturing out of the shade, standing in the grass of Auru Park, looking expectantly around. Sheik sat down on a convenient root of the tree, placing the can of cream and the box typically associated with cakes onto the ground, drumming his fingers against his thigh as he played with his butterfly knife.

The boy she was meeting waved to her from a distance. Hesitantly, she waved back.

Sheik's upper lip twitched briefly in derision. Kafei Dotour. They'd dated a few months, and he'd ditched her a few weeks before Christmas, as simple as that. His reasons included 'not taking care of himself', 'he wanted to go overseas' and the clincher: 'they didn't see each other much anyway'.

Of course they didn't see each other often; he worked weekends, and she worked weeknights, and they only shared one subject at university. But she'd looked forward to every meagre time she was to have with the boy, smiling at the thought of him, admitting shyly that she believed she loved him.

That had hurt, surprisingly so.

But, Sheik reminded himself, shaking his head, she was a soul that loved easily. I love you spilled out of her mouth constantly, easily, and she'd always been like that. To her friends, to her family, to him. She was easily flattered too, and considering it was the boy that'd asked her to the movies, the boy who'd confessed his love to her first, she was swallowed whole by infatuation and love. Unguarded.

Sheik snorted at the thought, feeling a little bit of a failure.

He remembered coming home that day, cocking his eyebrow at how viciously she mashed her thumbs against the Nintendo64 console, hammering a computer generated character continuously and mercilessly. She'd even set it so that the character couldn't die. Then she'd gone to work and come back after a terrible shift full of mistakes, and by the time he'd arrived to pick her up from the bus-stop, she'd been gorging on two large scoops of expensive gelato despite the fact that it was nearing midnight, tears leaking from her eyelids as she mashed the ice-cream into mouth.

He'd knelt in front of her, alarmed and concerned, regretting all the jokes he'd made about how she was going to get sacked, canned, snipped, given the push, the pink slip, the guillotine any day now. "Lin? What's wrong?"

She'd hiccupped, hunched over her cone of melting ice-cream, her face completely childlike with the smear of chocolate around her mouth and the red nose and the dripping eyes. "He dumped me."

"What?"

"He dumped me, and I made mistakes at work and I'm gonna be fired, I know so, and I got ice-cream to make me feel better."

He'd sighed, sat next to her on the bus-stop bench, and draped his coat round her shoulders as she sucked on the cold treat. They went home together only after there was no ice-cream threatening to spill over the rim of the cone; and that gave him plenty of time to assure her that she wasn't going to get fired, she was an excellent though careless waitress, and that the boy was an utter dick.

Lin didn't laugh, but she smiled, and thanked him, and told him she loved him.

That had also hurt him surprisingly hard.

He shouldn't be feeling this, for his own sake. This had happened before. He'd gotten attached to the people around him, and then they'd grown old, and he'd been left behind to serve another royal master, or to verse a hero in the ways of heroism as his friends went cold in their graves. The lens of truth had passed through many hands, after all. Thus in the shadows he had regressed, almost forcefully so, so that he knew no anger, nor hatred for his fate, and the bloodline that'd imprisoned him to it. He'd thought, even, that the flow of time had snuffed his sense of desire.

She'd proved that notion wrong.

Lin was still standing awkwardly in front of her ex, though that was a word that Sheik didn't like using. Too modern for his tongue. But what else could he call that idiot? He wasn't used to relationships that were so easily made and then broken; he may not have looked it, but Sheik was an old-fashioned codger through and through.

He watched her nervously starting the conversation, him easily replying. She clutched the book-bag tightly to herself, as she went through her practiced accusations in her head, working herself up to say them. Why was he still here? Why wasn't he overseas? Because that was one of the reasons he'd broken up with her, wasn't it?

Sheik couldn't help a soft smirk. She'd reported fully on the scenario on the break-up, and he couldn't have been prouder; perhaps the courage her ancestor had boasted ran through her blood.

"I didn't cry, you know, not in front of him," she'd grumped the next day, waking up with more sand in her eyes than usual, "Okay, well, I did, but I was hugging him so he didn't see me, and he was crying too. You'd wonder why he'd break with me if he was crying about it, but hey, what's passed is passed, right?"

Sheik had been heartened by her wan smirk. He'd told her to eat the breakfast he'd prepared for her and she'd sighed gratefully at his pancakes. "And you know what I said as he left? I was kinda proud of myself, so don't laugh at me, kay?"

"I won't laugh." He'd assured her as he leaned against the kitchen table, an image of attentiveness.

Lin had grinned. "I told him I'd kick his arse."

Sheik had blinked. "Really?"

"Yep. I said that if he's in the country by the time university starts, because that's when he said that he wanted to be in Labrynna by, I'm gonna beat him up."

She'd speared her pancakes as Sheik pursed his lips. "Isn't that assault?"

Her face fell despondently. "I'd forgotten about that."

"Could be figurative, though," he pointed out, "The beat up. Or I could do it for you."

He'd really, really wanted to. That bastard had hurt his charge. Worse, he had hurt his Lin.

He snapped to attention, waking from his reverie, and he was just in time; Lin pulled her cell-phone from her book bag and furiously began to txt (which was an utter pretence, as her phone was turned off), a sign for him to do his work.

Hurriedly, Sheik opened the cake box, got the can, and sprayed its contents on the plate. He couldn't help but grin, remembering all the days she'd squealed in laughter at this very prank that'd been hosted on TV on numerous occasions.

His work done, Sheik closed the box, placed the can on the ground and walked towards the two, keeping his face straight, a skill he'd acquired over years of practice.

"Do you remember what I said?" Sheik heard her say to him, bracing herself for the deed.

"Uh… yeah?" he was looking nervous as he watched Sheik approach.

"Lin, here." Sheik handed her the box.

"Thanks Sheik," she took the box and Sheik walked away. At least, he made a glamour so it looked like he was walking away. In reality he stayed by her side, unwilling to miss this moment.

"Who was that?" the boy asked, making Sheik scowl.

"A good friend. Does it matter?" she asked back, opening the box. Behind the lid, she smiled.

"Well, I just thought… I remember what you said, and," he chuckled uneasily, "I thought you asked him to punch me or something."

She didn't ask me, Sheik glowered, I volunteered and she declined, you prick.

"That would be assault." She replied primly, making the boy sigh. "But I'm still kicking your arse."

And she reached into the box, pulled out the mountainous whipped-cream pie, and hurled the tinfoil plate of lathered chocolate-flavoured fat straight into his face.

Sheik's face split in a grin and he had to stuff his hand into his mouth to stop himself from howling in mirth as the ex stumbled back.

"That was for dumping me." She spat, face red as a tomato, pulling out a water gun from her book-bag, "And this is for lying to me."

She blasted him with iced water, snarling. Sheik couldn't stop himself; he doubled over and laughed; she hadn't informed him of this part of the plan. The idiot was collapsed on the ground, choking on cream and drowning under the relentless attack. When she stopped and he'd wiped the chocolate cream off of his face, she towered over his prone form, and smiled.

"Happy Valentines Day."

Part 2 will be here in a few days, don't worry! ;D