Work Text:
In the Yiga Clan, Ganondorf only had to worry about one thing: growing his power, so that one day he could face the Hero, slay him, and take over Hyrule. That was all that consumed his thoughts for most of the last decade.
That, and claiming the cliffs around the Yiga Clan fortress (like he’d one day claim all the lands known to mortalkind), and devouring the tales on his bookshelves (like he’d one day devour this entire kingdom), and occasionally, terrorizing the cook (like he’d one day terrorize all the peoples of every tribe). Those things were equally important in their own way. They practically counted as growing his power, too.
Ganondorf was currently remaining indoors due to a small misunderstanding on his last foray into the cliffs, so he was reading a book about the great Voltaleo, the legendary bird that lived in the high cliffs of the Gerudo Desert, where the rest of his people lived.
Many of the Gerudo were great beast tamers—like himself—but only the great Gerudo hero Utona could tame Voltaleo. She climbed to the highest cliffs where the burning desert heat turned cold as the void, and she discovered Voltaleo’s nest. Every day, she left offerings of food for Voltaleo, but still it wouldn’t allow her close. One day, she finally offered the Pulu Fruit, and this was such a royal offering that—
Of course, he knew from a different legend that the Pulu Fruit could only be picked from the back of the World Tortoise, because that was the only place where the Pulu tree grew—
But in order to climb the back of the World Tortoise, one needed a special artifact that the Rito crafted long ago, and only those who were worthy—
Anyway, he didn’t have a book on the Rito artifact, so he didn’t know what “worthy” meant, but what he did know was that Utona was cool as heck, and she was the Voltaleo rider. One day, he’d tame Voltaleo, too. He’d put it on his to-do list next to all the conquering he’d do once he was strong enough to leave this place.
He was all-powerful, but the Yiga Clan told him he’d taken grievous wounds in his last battle with the hero, and that was why he was in a weakened state for now. It was only a matter of time before he returned to his former glory.
He didn’t remember. It was coming back little by little, but not quickly enough for his limited patience. He was terribly impatient about his return to power, too. Patience, patience! They were always telling him to be patient.
But he wanted to leave! He wanted to start exploring and conquering! And he wanted to return to the home of his people and find Voltaleo.
The book said Voltaleo was crimson like the blood moon, and it had a tail of five colors and a beak that shined like gold. There was an illustration in the book and everything.
He pressed his palm to the illustration, feeling the edges of the gold leaf.
A horn blew in the distance. He jumped in his seat and slammed the book closed.
That was his reflex when he heard any loud noise, because it might be his tutor coming in, wondering why he was reading that book again when he should be studying history or cultivating his dark power. He did as he pleased, but it bored him to argue about how he chose to spend his time.
But that wasn’t his door. It sounded like the alarm.
He pushed the book aside and went to the window. At the bottom of the tower fortress, there was noise and clatters of steel at the inner wall. The gates of the outer wall had burst open, and throngs of people flooded inside in the darkness.
Ganondorf couldn’t see exactly what was happening in just the flickering red torchlight, so he focused his power in his eyes.
The shadows flickered to life, and he could see in the dark of the night. The guards of the Yiga clan on the walls were raining arrows down on the encroaching force, but there were so many. There were explosions and elemental bursts of magic.
And that wasn’t all. There was a sweeping light down there, pure white, slicing through the Yiga Clan guards.
A blade? It was hard to tell in all the chaos.
His tutor did burst in. “Lord Ganondorf! It’s Hyrule! The Hero has come!”
Ganondorf gave another start. “What? You said it would be years!”
“I know what I said!” his tutor shouted. “I didn’t expect…not this soon…!”
His tutor was masked, as the Yiga clan always was when they went to battle, but Ganondorf could tell he was gasping for breath and panicked. His tutor was a stern and stoic man. He never panicked.
It frightened him, but he recalled what the clan had taught him. The hero would not fear, so he mustn’t, either. He must summon his power and plunge himself into the darkness, and only then would he beat back the searing blade of light.
“Then I’ll meet him now!” Ganondorf said, and he took his sword from where he’d propped it up next to his desk.
“No, my lord!” his tutor said. “We must take you to safety! Your restoration is not yet complete!”
“Who cares? I can already destroy him! I’m already more powerful than all of you combined!”
That was…sort of true. Ganondorf did have the power to destroy them all, he was sure. Whether the power would answer when he called, or direct itself where he pointed, was another matter. That was the source of the misunderstanding in his latest exploration attempt. That shed must have offended his dark majesty somehow, but for some reason, that explanation didn’t persuade the clan chief that Ganondorf was in the right.
“My lord, I’m sure you are more than powerful enough,” his tutor said, “but the time is not right. We must bring you to safety. There’s a line on the sixth floor we can use to make our escape. Please, come! Quickly!”
Escape?
There was another explosion below. He heard the second horn, the one at the inner gate. He peered out to see the invading force swarming the bottom of the tower.
He blamed his tutor’s complete lack of composure for how badly he lost his nerve. He took his mother’s earrings, just in case he couldn’t come back for a while—and he would come back, because there was no way he’d allow the fools of Hyrule to have his fortress—but just in case.
This wouldn’t be forever. Patience, they said. He would recover, and then he would reclaim what was rightfully his.
Ganondorf followed his tutor up the stairs of the tower. Below, he heard shouting, slicing, clanging, and flame coming closer and closer. Footsteps hammered up the tower.
“We know he’s here!” one of the Hylians shouted.
“King of darkness! Show yourself!”
“Link, go! We’ll hold them off! Just go!”
Ganondorf took a glance down the center of the spiraling stairs that led up the tower. He saw someone throw a small bomb-shaped thing into the center of the floor. It heated up and burst into flames in a circular area on the floor. A heated updraft rose up through the center of the stairway.
Someone—someone clothed in green—leapt into the center of the flame and unfurled a sail—no, a personal glider. It caught the updraft, and the person in green came soaring up after them.
The clan said he’d be clothed in green.
Sudden terror seized Ganondorf’s heart as the person he’d heard so many terrible stories about soared up after them, bypassing so many of the guards. They said this person was the reason he couldn’t remember anything, and the reason he’d awakened in such a weak state.
He raced up the stairs with his tutor. The hero landed on the stairs just one flight below.
Ganondorf’s tutor opened the door to the room on the sixth floor. They rushed inside, and the tutor shoved a crate against the back side of the door. “That should slow him down,” he wheezed, still short on breath. He grabbed a zipline hook from a different chest and tossed one to Ganondorf, then threw open the shutters of the west window.
The door rattled as the hero tried to open it.
There was a rope attached to the window that led downward, into the cliffs. Ganondorf used to love using it to get out of the tower when no one wanted him to leave. It was a lot of fun. Now, it looked more daunting.
“I’ll go first to make sure it’ll hold,” his tutor said. “Follow me at once and do exactly as I do!”
His tutor hooked onto the line and jumped out the window, sliding down.
Ganondorf attached his hook to the line, and was about to jump when a bomb blasted the door open. He flinched and covered his head, hunkering down on reflex, without a single thought.
The shadow of a man rushed in through the smoke. The hero drew a bow.
A fire arrow whizzed over Ganondorf’s ducked head and struck the rope line. It snapped.
Ganondorf heard his tutor scream, and heard that scream fade away into the chaotic noise all around.
Was he dead?
The hero stashed the bow, and instead drew his shining blade and his shield. With one swipe of the sword, he cleared the smoke.
And there he stood, in green tunic, with a hood, with golden hair and blue eyes like a beast. Ganondorf had his back to the wall.
He had to defeat the hero now. It didn’t matter if he was ready. Everyone else was dead. Everyone. He was alone. No one else was coming.
And even if they did, only he had a chance of defeating the hero. That was why he was important.
He drew his curved blade, though it was quite a bit shorter than the legendary Master Sword, and brandished it forward with a quivering hand.
“So, hero!” Ganondorf said, with a tighter throat than he always used when he practiced this speech, “You’ve come at last to my fortress.” This wasn’t exactly how he’d planned it. He always imagined this would happen at the top of the tower under a stormy sky, or something cool like that—
The hero’s eyes grew wide. The tip of his blade dropped a few inches.
Ah-ha! He’s scared! Of course! Even in my weakened state, I am the terror of Hyrule!
That gave him some confidence. “You’ve done well to come this far, but I’m afraid your journey ends here! All will bow before the great Ganondorf. So will you.”
True shock and horror sank into the hero’s pale face. His sword dropped further. When he spoke, it came out as a whisper. “…Ganondorf? Is that you?”
“That’s right! It is I, the king of darkness! Who else would I be? Do you know any other Gerudo voe with this kind of power?!”
Ganondorf raised the palm of his hand. The hero brought up his shield, but nothing happened.
“Come on!” Ganondorf hissed.
He tried again. This time, a wave of corrupting darkness blew from his palm and struck the shield. Sure, it wasn’t as powerful as he intended, but he got the hero to flinch that time!
“And that’s only a taste of what awaits you!” Ganondorf declared. “Now, come! Let us do battle as the tales tell of us.”
The hero didn’t move. He kept staring at Ganondorf with that stricken look in his eyes.
“What’s wrong? Has your courage failed you at long last, hero?” Ganondorf pressed him, feeling better by the moment.
The hero’s brow furrowed like he was confused. “Ganondorf,” he said, still softly, with the caution a beast tamer might use to approach a wild animal, “how…old are you?”
Ganondorf frowned, too. “I…wasn’t expecting that, of all questions…it doesn’t have anything to do with anything…but…if you must know…I’m nine years old!”
The hero dropped his sword tip to the ground, completely taken by despair, Ganondorf was certain.
The hero shook his head and whispered, “No…this doesn’t make sense….”
“Don’t look so surprised!” Ganondorf huffed. “You’re the one who did this to me! Because of how you wounded me, I ended up in this weakened state!”
The hero shook his head again, and dropped his shield, too. “You were slain,” he said. “It’s been one hundred years. You were reborn. You’re not weakened. You’re a child.”
“S-same thing!” Ganondorf complained. “You’re overthinking it!”
“How long have you been here in this tower?” the hero asked him.
“I’ve always been here.”
“You’ve been raised in a fortress of assassins dedicated to the cult of Ganon?” the hero asked, somehow more and more alarmed the more they spoke, and Ganondorf hadn’t even told him all the things he was going to do to Hyrule yet.
“Yeah. So?” Ganondorf asked, and jabbed his curved shortsword in the hero’s direction. “Are we going to fight, or not? I think I’ve been very patient until now. Who cares about that stuff? The time has come for our epic battle of destiny!”
The hero didn’t move. His eyes tightened up, particularly his lower eyelids. Ganondorf couldn’t quite place that expression.
“Come on! What’s wrong with you?!” Ganondorf complained.
The hero answered, “The youngest I’ve ever been when I faced you was ten.”
He had his memories of past lives? No fair! “Oh yeah? Did I kill you dead?” Ganondorf spat.
The hero swallowed and shook his head. “No. You didn’t.”
The hero was taking so long to start fighting that one of the other Hylian soldiers caught up with him. He was a decorated officer by the looks of his knight’s armor.
“Link! Did you find him? Did you find—”
The hero held up a hand to stop him and gestured at Ganondorf. The knight stopped in his tracks.
“Goddess,” the knight said, “is that…?”
“Ganondorf, king of darkness,” the hero, Link, said. “He’s nine years old.”
“Nine?!”
“Captain,” Link said, “he doesn’t have her. Look at him. We were wrong.”
The knight groaned. “I…suppose it looks that way, doesn’t it? We’re searching the tower now, but we’ve found no sign of her.”
“Who?” Ganondorf asked. “What are you talking about?!” He didn’t like that they were paying attention to someone else. He was the king of darkness here! They killed everyone! Everyone! He wanted to slice open their guts and feed their entrails to the monsters, and they weren’t even fighting him!
Sure, he wasn’t attacking them, either, but he would. As soon as he got his legs to move, he would. And then they’d be sorry.
“Well—this is fortuitous in another way!” the knight said. “He’s here, anyway! We’ll save Zelda later, but tonight, we’ll save Hyrule!”
The knight nodded to Link and brandished his halberd. Link’s eyes grew wide as he marched toward Ganondorf.
“H-hey! Don’t get in my way!” Ganondorf said. “You have no idea what power you face!”
“What are you doing?!” Link said.
“Come on,” the knight said. “We smother the dark king in the crib! All together now! For Hyrule!”
Ganondorf’s heart seized in his chest as he watched that knight three times his size march toward him with a blade the size of his head. He opened his palm and managed to summon an orb of dark magic. He threw it at the knight from across the room, envisioning it eviscerating him from the inside out.
But it didn’t eviscerate him. Ganondorf missed, and the orb went right out the door and into the stairwell, detonating there instead. Someone cried out, but it wasn’t the undeterred knight.
“Monster!” the knight said. “Die!”
The blade swung down at him. Ganondorf lifted his blade to try and block, but he also shut his eyes tight.
There was a flash of pure light and a clang of blades connecting, but it wasn’t on Ganondorf’s sword.
He opened his eyes to find the hero standing with his back to him, with his legendary blade braced against the knight.
They were fighting each other.
Ganondorf couldn’t recall a time the Yiga clan had told him about this situation, so…he stood there and gaped.
“Link! What are you doing?!” the knight said. “Have you gone mad?!”
“He’s a child!” Link growled through his teeth, struggling to control the knight’s blade with his own.
“He’s a monster!” the knight said. “Have you forgotten what he’ll become if he grows up?! He’s a child now, but he already wields dark power as easily as breathing! Have a sense of perspective!”
“Perspective?!” Link sliced the halberd blade away and swung again, this time going on the offensive with blow after blow. It occurred to Ganondorf that Link hadn’t been struggling to overpower the knight. He’d been struggling not to. “You think I need perspective?!”
The knight didn’t respond, because suddenly he was unable to carry on a conversation and fend off the legendary blade at the same time.
Ganondorf was suddenly also not as keen on doing battle with the hero at that moment. Time to make a daring escape, probably, while they were distracted. He edged along the wall, hoping to find an opening where he could rush out the door, and…
And then what? The tower was crawling with knights! Maybe he could find somewhere to hide? In the dumbwaiter, maybe? He did that all the time! It used to drive his tutor crazy—
No, don’t think about him. Don’t think, just get out of here!
Link planted his boot into the knight’s chest once he’d got him off-balance and kicked him out the door into the stairwell. That made the stairwell a rather complicated escape route, didn’t it?
While he was hesitating, Link looked back and met his eyes. He extended his shield arm to him. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here.”
The Yiga Clan didn’t prepare him for that scenario either, so Ganondorf stood, stunned, still, and staring, right where where he was.
The knight got his footing back. “Link! You’ve gone mad! Have you forgotten what he’s done to Hyrule?!”
“You forget—I was there,” Link shot back.
Oh, but the Yiga Clan did tell him one thing about Link. “Y-you…you trickster!” he said. “You’re a liar, and a cheater, and a master of disguise, and a shapeshifter, and an infiltrator—and I will not fall for your cheap tricks!”
Link opened his mouth to argue, but then, after struggling for a second to find a response, he cringed.
So it was true!
There was more shouting outside on the stairwell and a cacophony of metallic footfalls. “Sir Link! Did you find the princess?!”
“Crap,” Link muttered. “Time’s up.”
He lifted his hand. A bracer on his arm lit up, and a magical blue laser shot at the knight, freezing him where he stood.
Whoa.
While Ganondorf was gawking at that, Link rushed him.
Ganondorf did lift his sword, but it didn’t do him any good. Link batted the blade aside, and instead of going in for the kill, he grabbed Ganondorf’s sword arm and pulled him along up the stairs.
“H-hey! Stop!” Ganondorf gasped. “Th-this is undignified—!”
“Link?!” one of the soldiers behind them shouted as they came into view. “C-captain! What the—?!”
The magic spell on the knight wore off, and he swooned dizzily on the stair railing. “S-stop him! Stop Link! He’s gone insane!”
Link grabbed Ganondorf around the waist and hoisted him off the ground.
“Th-this is worse!” Ganondorf complained, but he didn’t know what to do. No one had ever manhandled him like this! “How dare you—?!”
Link ignored his complaints and sprinted up the stairs, bypassing rooms until they came to the 10th floor—the rooftop. He kicked open the door to the roof and came out on a wide, flat landing.
Link dropped Ganondorf unceremoniously to the ground and fished out a golden whistle. He blew on it, but Ganondorf heard no sound.
“What are you doing?!” Ganondorf demanded. “We’re supposed to—it’s not supposed to—!”
“You don’t remember, do you?” Link asked him, grabbing his arm to pull him to his feet.
“Remember what?!”
Link sighed. “It never goes the way it’s ‘supposed’ to.”
Ganondorf heard a bird call in the distance, like a majestic hawk, but more musical, like a bell. Link blew his broken whistle again, pulling Ganondorf away from the door to the floors below.
The knights did catch up. One of them said, “Link! Stop this! That’s the king of darkness! I know how you feel, but we have to destroy him! His one life will save thousands!”
“Yeah, probably,” Link said. Ganondorf heard the bird cry closer. Link blew the broken whistle one more time.
“Link…think about what you’re doing for a second!” the same knight begged him. “Think of your duty to Princess Zelda!”
“Trust me, I am,” Link said. He brought Ganondorf to the edge of the roof. “Listen, on three, we jump. Ready?”
“What?!” Ganondorf gasped.
The knight said, “Link, the only way to save Hyrule—”
“NO!” Link shouted at him. “There are thousands of ways to save Hyrule! That’s why I always end up saving Hyrule, and you don’t!”
A great, crimson bird swept out of the sky.
“Ready?” Link said to Ganondorf.
It had a golden beak. It had tail feathers in five different colors. It was the most beautiful creature Ganondorf had ever seen.
“Voltaleo,” Ganondorf whispered.
He took a second look at the hero. Was it…coming to his call?
“One,” Link said. “Two…three!”
Ganondorf jumped with him. Voltaleo flew just low enough under the roof for Link to grab onto a saddle strapped to Voltaleo’s back. Link’s other hand grasped Ganondorf’s tightly, and Ganondorf grasped back.
“Hold on!” Link cried over the sound of the wind.
Ganondorf slung his arms around Link’s body, because he was scared to fall. His head was a mess, so there was no other rhyme or reason.
Voltaleo! He was riding Voltaleo!
The hero was riding Voltaleo.
He didn’t know what that was supposed to mean.
The tower drifted away into the distance behind them faster than the knights could scramble together an alarm. Suddenly, they passed by the farthest cliff Ganondorf had ever visited in his life. Suddenly, they were out in the world, in lands he’d never seen before, the canyons rushing past far below and the starry sky lighting their path overhead.
It was without a doubt the coolest thing that had ever happened to Ganondorf, and nothing the Yiga Clan taught him had prepared him for it.
“Wh…what happens now?” he asked Link. He wasn’t sure he wanted to fight the person who rode Voltaleo….
“Hmm….” The response didn’t come immediately, but when it did, it was firm. “I’m going to take care of you.”
“Not if I take care of you first!” Ganondorf said.
“N-no…not like….” Link groaned. “…First, let’s go back to my house and make something to eat.”
“Oh. I guess we can eat first and then fight.”
“We’ll see.”