Sheik Valda

Sheik is very physically fit and highly agile, preferring to walk or run most places rather than travel with a mount or in a carriage. He's highly flexible and all compact, wiry muscle-- quite slim, because he doesn't eat enough when he travels, but with a more stable diet he would likely bulk up more.

Sheik has a narrow, straight nose and thin lips, and eyes that people might describe as 'calculating' or 'suspicious'. He also has sharp cheekbones, a sharp jaw, and a slightly pointed chin. He has a faint tan line across the bridge of his nose from his mask.

If you can get close enough to see them properly, then the red eyes are a dead giveaway. From a distance though, most people assume they're brown.

Sheik is one of the more powerful vessels of Hylia from history, having also his abilities as the Sage of Time. He's recieved visions of the future since he was a child, long before the Avatars usually have their powers awakened, and has always been very spiritually-attuned. He can perform incantations with the Goddess Harp, and has the gift of language as the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom. Along with Hylia's sealing power, he was also able to send Link back in time using his own fading life force to gain a final burst of rare power.

He can also tie a cherry stem in a knot with his tongue.

Sheik was born as Princess Zelda, to the High Queen and King of Hyrule not long before the Civil War. He was always the only heir, and was a sad and lonely child. Ignored by his parents, Sheik was raised primarily by his guard, Impa, from whom he learned every lesson he ever valued. People often said that Sheik seemed 'wise beyond (his) years'; a perfect heir, loyal and quiet and studious. He moved through the castle like a shadow.

Sheik was always an avid reader, with a deep curiosity for the world and a growing appreciation for poetry. He knew there was something inside him that ran deep, that he would express through elaborate and artful verse one day. It was just a matter of digging through all the words in the world until he found the right ones, no matter the language, be it Hyrulean or Sheikah or God's Tongue. When Sheik met Ganindahr, the Parapan chief was happy to foster and guide the young royal's budding passion, for it was one he shared.

In addition to his more artistic literary pursuits, Sheik also spent a lot of time reading about history, politics and economics. From an outside perspective this may have seemed like he was simply committed to preparing to one day rule Hyrule, and while that may have been true on some level, Sheik was already not planning to emulate his forebears. He was finding plotholes and gaps of logic in his tutors' lessons, and wanted more information to form his own principles with.

Though at twelve years of age Sheik had yet to awaken the blood of the goddess within himself, he had for some years already been preparing formally for it. But, even before that, he had always had a strong natural intuition for spiritual sight, and often experienced dreams of prophecy. The only one to always take those dreams seriously was Impa. A few months before Link's appearance in Hyrule Castle, Sheik had begun to have proper visions of the future, and tried desperately to warn everyone of the dark fates he had witnessed in his mind's eye, but these visions were taken even less seriously by his parents, as they believed it was impossible for Hyrule to fall and for their reign to end, and therefore Sheik must be mistaken.

After the Master Sword seal was broken and Sheik and Impa escaped to Kakariko village, Sheik hardly spoke a word for months. Still and quiet and always deep in thought, Sheik first asked Impa to teach him how to meditate, so the visions of the future that he had been having sporadically would come more easily. Then, after having another vision in which Link returned to their realm with a harrowing quest ahead of him, Sheik demanded that Impa cut his hair and train him as a warrior, that she let him call her 'Master'. For three years Sheik toiled, relentlessly training his mind and body to be the best Warrior Monk he could possibly become, to earn his Master's pride. Impa gave him his final test a year early, so that he would be ready to travel Hyrule and visit each Goddess Spring, in order to awaken his powers as the Avatar of Hylia. At age sixteen, the mark of the Eye of Truth was inked into his skin, the large red tattoo spanning across his shoulder blades, the same place Impa wears hers. The ceremony turned his eyes crimson to match. It was very painful, but a great honour. This was when he was given the name Sheik, another honour that Sheik values highly, but secretly believes he does not deserve, because of the heavy burden that is his blood inheritance as a member of Hyrule's royal family.

Sheik has not returned to Kakariko since then, having spent a year honing his Avatar abilities and another two traveling Hyrule, preparing for Link's return. He cannot return home until his own quest is complete; he knows this, and so does his Master.

Ever since Sheik was a young child he had a desire to be a boy, envisioned himself growing into a man, but it was not until he was thirteen that he realized he could actually make that dream a reality. Since then, Sheik has completely shed his female self, leaving Princess Zelda behind as little more than a dead memory. At this point in Hyrule transgenderism is something extremely taboo, making it also very rare as those who do have these feelings will push them down and repress them, as Sheik himself once did, but within Sheikah culture they have a more fluid and generous understanding of gender. At home in Kakariko village he does not need to hide who he is, but outside of the hidden village on his travels, he conceals his nature as a trans man.

Sheik is heterosexual. When he was younger, the concept of relationships and intimacy was something he found intimidating, and would refuse to think much about that part of his future and shut down any talk of it. After he began, however, things changed. Once he'd become comfortable in his relationship to himself, it became possible for him to consider being comfortable in relationships with other people. One of the main keys to unlocking Hylia's power in inner clarity, so Sheik has always been well-practised at knowing himself... and knowing what he wants. As soon as he discovered his interest in girls, nearer the final months of his training, he started... well, chasing skirts, for lack of better phrasing. Impa hadn't thought 'the sex talk' would be something she'd need to prioritize having with Sheik, incorrectly assuming he would be too emotionally repressed and angsty to get up to anything with anyone. By the time she noticed anything was going on, Sheik had already had his hands up the skirts of more than half the girls his age in Kakariko. That was kind of a mortifying realization for her.

After leaving Kakariko village, Sheik became even more active, trying to sate a deep hungry pit within him by sleeping around with girls pretty much everywhere he went. When he properly met and befriended Ruto, who had developed her own issues with intimacy, emotional vulnerability and commitment, the two of them ended up developing a casual, friends-with-benefits aspect to their friendship. It's never been more than casual and never will be, but it is fun. Sheik and Ruto are pretty similar in lots of ways-- ways that make them great friends, but romantically incompatible.

Actually, Impa was sort of right about Sheik. As much as he is balls deep (metaphorically) in his fuckboy era, he is extremely emotionally repressed and angsty. So while he's been in more women's beds than one could count on both hands, he's still never actually kissed anyone. Which is... kind of worse.

He'll settle down eventually. He's a romantic at heart.