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Between the scuffed leather armour that the Hyrulean guard wore in the training yard, which Blue had long suspected was older than him, and the wooden or blunt-edged weapons set aside exclusively for sparring and practice, it was rare for a combatant to be injured during training. Minor bruises were a relatively common occurrence, especially when training with the less experienced fighters who tended to wave their weapons more wildly, but it was rare to see blood unless someone caught an unlucky blow to the lip or nose.When mishaps occurred, however, clothing tended to be less fortunate than flesh.Blue had been training with one of the recently appointed soldiers when an erratic stab almost caught him in the shoulder. It scraped over his leather chest guard and caught on the neckline of his tunic, tugging at the shirt beneath. When the other man attempted to pull his weapon back Blue found himself yanked forward along with it.“Stop!” he commanded at once, letting his own weapon clatter to the ground. He grabbed the sword’s crossguard. “Try aiming your strikes. Don’t flap around like a panicked Cucco. You’ve got me stuck.”“Sorry, sir!”Before Blue could stop him the other man had pulled back sharply. There was a loud ripping sound as the shoulder of his tunic tore open. His chest guard sagged, one of its straps broken by the rough treatment.“Good job,” Blue said sarcastically to the horrified soldier. He unbuckled the piece of armour and shoved it into his hands. “Now you get to repair this. I hope you know your way around a sewing needle better than you do a sword.” Retrieving his dropped sword, he sheathed it and stormed off out of the training yard without another word.The candle beside his bed flickered in the breeze as he tossed the damaged tunic onto his desk. There he stood leaning against his chair and staring down at it. A sharper sword would have been better, he thought resentfully as his eyes traced the rip. Perhaps the edge had been too blunt to cut, but the countless nicks in the blade were more than enough to catch and tear. Not only had the seam split, but so had an inch or two down the shoulder.It could have been worse, he concluded with a sigh. He could fix this easily enough. Perhaps his repairs would be more noticeable than he liked, but that was hardly anything new. Most of his clothes had been torn or slashed open and stitched back up at some point. Even one of his formal shirts had once had an unfortunate encounter with a doorknob.His rough hands smoothed out the fabric. This tunic was one of his older ones. Not old enough to have seen his first adventure - he had grown out of that one years ago and it now hung on the back of his closet door, a memento which he was reluctant to let go of - but old enough to have dulled in colour from countless washes and be not quite as warm as it used to be. If it had torn now, maybe that was a sign it was time to discard and replace it. Red had been talking about needing a new belt; perhaps they could go shopping together the next time their breaks lined up.He found himself opening his desk drawer and reaching for his pair of tailoring scissors. If he was going to throw away this garment anyway, then it wouldn’t matter what he did with it. His right arm rested across the fabric to hold it in place as he began to cut, making a straight line from one arm opening to the other. When he finished the shoulders and neckline had been completely separated from the rest, leaving a largely shapeless tube.His hands were seemingly working without input from his brain as he cut several strips out of the area around the neckline. These he lay aside before folding the fabric at the top of the tube inward and pinning it in place. As the night wore on he worked his way methodically around the upper edge with a needle and thread, turning it into a waistline without thinking about what he was doing.The candle was burning low when he finished sewing the final thin strip into a belt loop on the side. He cut the thread and slid the needle through a piece of scrap fabric for safekeeping as he pushed his chair back and stood. His fingers closed around his new creation, dragging it off the desk and toward his closet, where he opened the door and stood staring into the mirror that hung on the inside.What he had started with was an old tunic, worn and weathered, torn open enough to completely expose one shoulder. What he held now, though shapeless, clearly too loose around the waist, and definitely too restrictive around the legs, was unmistakeably a skirt.I did this for Shadow, didn’t I? he thought dazedly, staring at his reflection as he held it in front of himself. I did it without thinking. He was saying just the other day he was curious how it’d feel to wear a skirt. I made it for him.
Shadow doesn’t wear blue.
He lowered it to his knees and lifted one foot into it. After a short pause the other followed. Blue carefully avoided looking at the mirror again as he pulled it up over his tights and reached for his discarded belt, slipping it through the loops before buckling it firmly in place. The hem fell to midway down his calves when he was done. He stood there for a moment, breathing hard, eyes firmly shut, before tentatively turning to look into the mirror again.Her pale-faced reflection stared back at her.Blue remained in his room throughout the next day. The skirt had been bundled up, shoved deep into a corner of his closet, and buried beneath a pair of formal boots and several books on the various weapons used by Hyrule’s different races. The leftover scraps of fabric had been methodically cut into tiny fragments until it was impossible to tell how much there was or which part of the garment they had come from. It was like a pile of soft blue confetti that he sat slowly pushing around the surface of his desk for hours, fighting to keep his thoughts from wandering.The sun was beginning to set when a gentle knock came at his door. He flinched and a wave of confetti cascaded into his lap when he withdrew his hand abruptly. Carefully he began to pick it up piece by piece and return it to the desk.“Blue?” Red’s voice called out.Blue’s hand shook as he plucked another scrap off his nightshirt and deliberately placed it into the middle of his desk. As much as he loved Red, he was the last person he wanted to see right now.“Blue, Green told me you weren’t at breakfast or lunch,” Red continued. Blue’s stomach rumbled loudly at the reminder and he quickly folded an arm over it to muffle the noise.“I’m going to come in, Blue,” Red called softly. A few seconds of silence followed as he waited for any protests. When none came, he took the silence as consent and the doorknob began to turn. The scent of freshly cooked steak and vegetables wafted into the room, earning another loud and meaningful complaint from Blue’s empty stomach, as Red stepped inside.The door clicked shut quietly again. Red was silent for a moment and Blue knew he was taking in the room’s unusual state of disarray. Then the footsteps began to cross the floor and circle around the bed toward him.“Was this your cap?” Red asked in a gentle tone, his fingertips gently brushing a scrap of fabric.He shook his head jerkily. His cap was still lying on the floor where he had dropped it when he changed in the dark the night before, too overwhelmed to do more than crawl into bed and wait for sleep to come.“Okay,” Red whispered, a hint of relief in his voice, before his hand carefully pushed the confetti toward the back half of the desk. In its place he set down a steaming plate of food in front of Blue. “Here you go. You must be starving by now.”He was. Blue tried to resist but found his hands reaching for the utensils of their own accord. Quietly Red perched on the edge of the bed behind him and watched for a few moments as he ate.“How are you feeling?” Red spoke up eventually. “A little too warm? Lightheaded? Any nausea? Do your muscles hurt?”Of course he would jump to assuming illness; he was training to be a healer, after all. Blue swallowed his mouthful and shook his head. “I feel fi- normal,” he corrected himself quickly. He certainly didn’t feel fine in any sense of the word.“It’s not like you to skip meals. Or to still be in your nightclothes at this time of day. I think I should go back up to the infirmary and get my kit-““I’m not sick,” Blue interrupted. His fork hovered over his plate for a moment before he set it down along with his knife. Suddenly he didn’t think he could handle another bite. “Thanks for the food, but I’m not hungry either.”A long silence passed between them before Red spoke up again. “Could you look at me, please?”It took almost as much effort to face Red as it had to look into the mirror the night before. The moment Blue saw his beloved partner’s face gazing back at him with such concern and love, he felt his defenses begin to crumble. His fist clenched around a handful of his trousers, struggling to fight back the tears that welled up in his eyes. And then Red’s gentle fingers reached out to touch his shoulder and he completely broke down.He barely felt the warm arms that guided him up from his desk chair and pulled him down onto his bed, wrapping securely around him. Only a small part of him registered the soothing voice murmuring comforting words into his ear. All of the thoughts and emotions he had spent the entire day fighting to contain seemed to be engulfing him all at once, burying him under their weight until all he could do was cling desperately to Red and sob until his throat was raw.In fits and starts Red extracted the story from him. The scraps of fabric were what was left over from the tunic that had torn during training. No, he was not upset about its destruction. Yes, it had been in a far more identifiable state when he had brought it back here. No, he had not cut it up in a fit of anger. What was left of it didn’t matter to him in the slightest. When he hinted that the rest was in his closet Red started to rise, only for Blue to redouble his grip to keep him on the bed. His voice was a tremulous whisper as he explained his night of sewing, only to trail off there when he found himself incapable of saying any more.“So you made something else from it,” Red clarified, one hand still rubbing Blue’s back in soothing circles, “and hid it in your closet. Is that right?”He nodded shakily.“And that’s the reason you stayed in your room all day?”Blue drew a shuddering breath. “I couldn’t… I wasn’t… I don’t…”“Shh.” Red bent to kiss his forehead tenderly. “It wasn’t the type of thing you’d normally own, was it? It was something you might’ve made on impulse, and then you weren’t sure why, and it was strange and confusing and maybe a little overwhelming…”“H… how do you…?”“Because you’ve spent the whole day shut up in here thinking about it,” Red pointed out. “It’s obvious how much it’s bothering you. Blue, I promise no matter what it is, I’m not going to judge you. I won’t even ask any more questions about it if you’d rather keep it to yourself. But I just want you to know that it’s okay. You’re allowed to discover new things about yourself. Everybody does it. Otherwise we’d all be the same, and that would be boring.”That was true, Blue thought to himself through his haze of distress. Red himself had only decided not long ago that he wanted to turn pacifistic and become a healer. Green had spent the past few years struggling with the question of whether he liked women, men, both, or neither, and seemed no closer to discovering the answer. And of course Vio and Shadow had both questioned their gender and come to the conclusion that it was not what they had originally assumed it to be.Vio and Shadow. Blue closed his eyes and tried to breathe, thinking about his two close friends. Vio’s coming out had been the first time these strange feelings made themselves known. He had managed to bury them again for months until, during their last quest, Shadow’s own journey of self-discovery had brought them back to the surface. He had thought he had managed to force the feelings out of his mind again as he settled back into regular life, but apparently had they pushed their way back in through the cracks in his attention.He could talk to one of those two. They would understand. But he couldn’t stand the thought of opening up to either of them about something so personal. If he couldn’t bring himself to tell Red, he couldn’t tell anyone at all.
But I think I need to tell someone. I can’t handle this myself.
Blue swallowed dryly. Red leaned over him, reaching for the glass of water beside his bed, and offered it to him. He accepted it gratefully and sipped the cool liquid, hoping it would rehydrate the desert his mouth had suddenly become.“Red?” he croaked out hesitantly. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Red, I… I need to tell you something.”Gentle fingers ran through his hair. “I’m listening.”Blue’s heart was pounding so hard his vision was pulsing in time with the beat. His hand shook, spilling a few drops of water onto the bedcovers, and he clasped the glass between both hands in an effort to steady it. Slowly he took another shaky sip and swallowed, breathing shallowly, hardly daring to think about the words even as his trembling lips began to form them.“I think I’m a girl.”To Red’s credit, the hand stroking Blue’s hair barely faltered. “Okay,” he whispered, accepting the revelation easily.“Y… you’re… you don’t… mind?”“Oh, Blue. Of course I don’t mind. I didn’t have any problem with Vio or Shadow, did I? The most important thing is for you to be true to yourself.”Shakily Blue pushed herself further upright. The tight band constricting her chest had begun to loosen, letting her breathe more easily as she wiped her damp cheeks with the back of a hand and tried to collect herself. Red’s arm curled gently around her waist and held her close. “Although…”Her chest tightened again. “What?” she barely managed.“All those months ago, when you told me you thought I’d rather my first kiss be with a pretty girl… I didn’t realize it actually was.”Blue blinked, her eyes flickering to the slightly mischievous smile Red wore, and despite herself she let out a snort of laughter. “I didn’t either,” she admitted, relaxing slightly against his side. “Back then I didn’t know about this. I was still trying not to think about it. And mostly succeeding.”“Trying not to? Blue, has this been on your mind for a while?”She released a slow breath. “… Yeah. Ever since Vio came out. I did some research myself after that, and… the things I started feeling scared me. So I stopped thinking about it.”“And then Shadow came out too, a few months later,” Red murmured.“That made me start thinking about it again. I’ve tried to shut it out, but…” Her eyes drifted to the closet.“But denying who you really are only hurts you.” Red’s eyes were sympathetic as he leaned his head against her shoulder. “None of us will have any problems with you being a woman. You know that. Would you like me to go and find the others so you can tell them?”She shook her head quickly. Just telling Red had taken all of her strength. “Not today.”“All right. But no more hiding away like this. It’s not good for you. You need to eat, and I know training makes you happy.” He pressed a gentle kiss against Blue’s cheek. “I promise, nobody will know anything’s different just from looking at you.”The idea of facing anyone else still shook her deeply, and yet she knew he was right. It wasn’t as though her appearance had suddenly changed after the realization. As far as everyone else would know, she was the same Blue as ever. She slowly swallowed a few more mouthfuls of water as she gathered her courage. “… I’ll be at breakfast tomorrow.”“Good.” Red gave her a gentle nudge toward the desk, where her plate of food sat growing cold. “But you need to eat now, too.”It occurred to her once again just how hungry she was. Without protest she climbed off the bed and sat at her desk again, eagerly taking up her knife and fork. Red remained on her bed, watching contentedly as she devoured every bite.In fact it was three weeks later by the time Blue finally decided she was ready to confront the others. Red was the one who gathered them for her, directing them all to the very same sitting room where Vio had first come out to them. She lingered just inside the doorway, watching in tense silence as first Green, then Shadow, and finally Vio themself filed into the room and sat down to wait.Red came in last, closing the door behind him so they would not be overheard. He offered a hand to Blue, who grasped it gratefully and held on with an iron grip.“How do you want to do this?” he enquired in a hushed voice.She swallowed and surveyed the trio of faces watching them. This must have been how Vio felt, she realized. She wondered if they had experienced the same sensation of their bones slowly turning to water.Her legs shook alarmingly beneath her and Red quickly guided her to the nearest chair. There she sank down gratefully and drew a deep breath, struggling to find the courage to begin.“Blue has something to tell all of you,” Red explained for her. “It’s something very important and personal, so please let Blue finish before you say anything.”He perched beside her and waited, rubbing her hand between his own. She noted his careful avoidance of pronouns and felt a flicker of thankfulness. Slowly she drew several deep breaths and managed to force herself to speak. “I…”Her voice trailed off. Vio was watching her with that shrewd expression that told her they had most likely already put the clues together. Shadow looked completely baffled, her eyes flickering around the room as though whatever Blue wanted to talk about was hidden somewhere in here. Green was simply waiting, silent and expectant.Blue swallowed. “I…” I wish they’d turn around and stare at the other wall. Then maybe I could get the words out.“It’s okay,” Red murmured softly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.She turned her gaze to him instead and concentrated hard on their joined hands. For a moment she tried to imagine that it was just the two of them, that this was nothing more than a practice attempt in Red’s room, with the clashing of weapons in the training yard outside to disguise her words from any eavesdroppers. When she closed her eyes she could almost envision that it was true.Her next breath came more easily and she seized her chance, blurting out the words before her fear could get the best of her again. “I’m a woman.”Several seconds passed in silence before she tentatively opened her eyes. Red was smiling at her, clearly brimming with pride that she had managed to say it. She held his gaze, too afraid to look at the others until Green’s voice broke the silence. “Is that all?”“Green,” Vio admonished quietly.Blue shot a glance toward him and saw him cringe with embarrassment, covering his face with one hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean… it’s just… Vio had a whole speech prepared. I was waiting for you to keep going. Was there, uh… anything else you wanted to add?”“No. That… that was it.” She didn’t think she could get through an entire speech. Even those three words had taken a massive effort.Vio was nodding thoughtfully. “To tell the truth, I’ve had my suspicions for a while. Ever since the way you responded to my coming out. I’m glad you managed to find yourself too.”“Does anybody have any questions?” Red asked. Blue shrank down slightly into the chair, wondering if she could even handle answering questions.Shadow tentatively raised a hand. “I do. Can we… go try on dresses and skirts together sometime?”“You don’t want me to take you?” Vio enquired, raising an eyebrow.Shadow squirmed slightly in place. “I love you, but I’m still a bit nervous about it. I think it’d be less intimidating if I wasn’t the only one trying them on.”“How about it?” Red prompted, giving Blue’s shoulder a subtle nudge.It was tempting to refuse out of fear, but Shadow had a good point. Maybe she would feel braver too and more free to express herself if she was not the only one doing it. “… Sure. Yeah. We can do that.”Shadow’s expression lit up and Vio smiled affectionately at her.“Green?” Red prompted. “Any questions?”He shook his head. “I understand a lot more than I did back when Vio came out. I mean, maybe not everything, but I’m at least aware of the existence of women. That’s a good start, right? So… congratulations, Blue. Is that the right thing to say?” he added with a glance at Vio.“It’s probably better than ‘is that all?’,” Shadow pointed out. Green flushed bright crimson and cleared his throat uncomfortably.“It’s fine, Green,” Blue told him. However awkward Green’s words might have come out, it was clear to Blue that he was trying his best to accept her. For that she was grateful.Vio stood and began to approach, Shadow not far behind them. Blue eyed them warily, fighting the urge to get up and back away, until they stopped in front of her. “I may not have any questions,” they told her quietly, offering a hand to shake, “but if you have any you’re welcome to come to me at any time.”She released Red’s hand and grasped theirs, giving them a thankful nod. They smiled and withdrew.“Me too,” Shadow piped up. Her hand hovered awkwardly near Blue’s for a moment before she found the courage to grasp it briefly. “I don’t know as much as Vio but I can try.”When she let go Green took her place. “I wouldn’t advise asking me about it, but I support you. Do you… want me to tell Father for you?”Blue’s fingers clenched convulsively around his for a moment before she pulled away. “No. Actually, don’t tell anyone. Can we keep this just between the five of us for now?”“Are you sure?” Red asked softly.“Yeah.” She thought of how the other knights might respond and a shiver went down her spine. She wasn’t ready to lose their respect. “I can’t… there are a lot of people I don’t want finding out yet. So if you could just… keep calling me ‘him’ except in private…”She caught the flicker of concern in Vio’s eyes and turned her head away. “I’ll be open about it someday. I’m just not ready yet.”Red’s arm encircled her shoulders and drew her close. “Well, we all know who you really are. You can express yourself around us as much as you like. In fact, we encourage it,” he added firmly. “I don’t want you to feel like you need to hide. Maybe if you start feeling more comfortable being yourself around us, you’ll feel ready to open up to everyone else too.”“Maybe.” She doubted it, but she appreciated his efforts anyway. “… Thanks, you guys. It means a lot.”Green perched on the arm of the chair and rested a hand on her back. After a moment Vio’s fingers came to rest against her shoulder and Shadow’s joined in a moment later, just above Green’s. She closed her eyes and leaned against Red, letting herself bask in the comfort of her four closest friends.