Chapter Text
The night that Hyrule Castle Town goes into flames is a full moon. On top of the guard tower he claimed as his base of operations, King Ganondorf stands silent and watches as flames spread across streets and buildings, devouring everything within. He wonders if tomorrow morning his soldiers will look within and find the charred corpses of those who would not leave, be it by their choice or not.
He warned them. That is more than he can say about the enemy.
Phantom is waiting for him when he descends, pawing at the ground with his hooves. Gan imagines the other horses fled long ago, but not his Phantom. The black stallion looks derisively at the flames and snorts, as if the mere idea that something as mundane as fire can scare him is insulting. The Gerudo king chuckles, enjoying this rare moment of levity, and before sobering once more and mounting his steed. Together, they begin to wander the burning streets.
Hyrule Castle looms in the distance, its beauty turned grotesque by the backdrop the town's destruction. Gan hardly pays it mind anymore, directing Phantom over the smaller fires and rounding the larger ones, looking for anything that might prove interesting. He comes across a handful of civilians and points them towards the escape route, then deals with two soldiers that try to ambush him. It amuses him, really — they must be green boys to think they can strike down a Gerudo on horseback. Two kicks is all it takes. Phantom rears onto his back legs and Gan pushes on, closer to the town center. Something beckons him forward.
The town square — the no man's land between his army and that of Hyrule — is deserted like never before, market stalls in pieces, canvas and wood burning away. Somewhere far away, a woman is crying. The Temple of Time stands above it all, untouched by the battles, its marble gates almost shining in the dark. Gan draws to a stop in front of it and carefully dismounts, patting Phantom's flank with one hand and unsheathing his sword with the other. Hope might be man's greatest folly but still he hopes that the holy men will be smart enough to not fight. It would be a shame to spill blood here.
Phantom buries his muzzle into Gan's shoulder, causing the king to pause and gently pat his steed. Familiar black eyes stare back at him, unblinking. Loyal to the very end.
"Don't tell me you are getting scared now, boy," he says, a small smile pulling on his mouth. "Wait for me, if you wish, or go back to Nabooru. I won't be long."
Phantom stomps on the ground and snorts again. Gan runs a hand over his mane before turning around and pushing the gates open, the tip of his sword dragging across the floor as he advances.
There seems to be no need to worry about spilling blood, however. The temple is deserted, its halls empty, no sign of life to be had. Gan keeps an ear out for the sound of approach but ears nothing, not even the flap of a bird's wings. He notices a broken down door here or there, but they seem several days old at best. The whole place has a haunted air about it that reminds him of wandering the Fields of the Dead back at home. It smells like death.
Abandonment, massacre. He wonders which it was.
His path takes him through the courtyard in the middle of the hoof-shaped building. Overgrown greenery climbs along the walls, showing signs of disuse that don't match the temple's imposing facade. If not for the smoke floating in the air above, he would almost think it to be peaceful. A sliver of a world without war and without death and without blood.
He pushes on.
The sanctum stands at the end of the courtyard, behind yet another stone gate, its rounded ceiling and what he can see of the walls made out of stained glass and marble. Gan tightens his grip on his sword as he ascends the stairs, only to stop when he finds the gate already cracked open. Not much, but enough that he can hear the sound of sobbing coming from inside. The crying woman from before.
Not completely abandoned, then. How awfully curious.
Ganondorf deliberates for a moment, for once unsure what to do. Something compels him to barge in and grant her a quick and merciful death, but he has not made it as a general and war king by brute force only. He cleans his sword and sheathes it, taking care to make no noise, then pushes the door open just enough that he can walk through. Not for the first time he is glad his armor is light, for it keeps him silent as he makes his way into the place of Hyrule's birth.
The fires make the stained glass glow, giving a certain odd beauty to it all. A depiction of the Creation, as Hyrule is so fond of it, the Triforce gleaming large and golden above the stone altar, surrounded by three wispy, vaguely womanlike shapes. She kneels in front of it, body bent in prayer, hands clasped at her front, shoulders shaking as she sobs. Gan comes to a stop several yards away, the two of them standing on opposite ends of the stained glass dome. The woman's small, crumpled form sends shivers down his spine. Though he has never met her before, something inside of him hums at the sight of her. A familiar melody that he'd anywhere.
Princess Zelda's hair hangs around her like a funeral shroud, long and limp, its color that of bleached bone. Her dress might've been white once but is now little more than a rag, torn and soiled and splattered with dried blood. Someone has wrapped a thin shawl around her bony shoulders, but it doesn't hide the thinness of her arms or the scars that cover them, nor the large, golden shackles around each of her wrists. She doesn't appear to have noticed him, and there is nothing princess-like about her, but he knows. He knows as well as he knows his name is Ganondorf, as he knows that Hyrule will fall.
He's never met the princess, however, and the sight of her is so alien that he finds himself stunned, feet as if rooted to the floor. Few people have — the king and queen have kept her hidden from the day she was born, allowing rumors to spread through the land about her beauty, about her healing prowess, about her clairvoyance. The princess can heal the sick, people said. The princess can see the future. The princess can bring the dead back to life. Without seeing her on his own, it was impossible to tell whether there was any truth to them, whether she was real at all, and not simply a fable made by the Hyrulean king to solidify his rule. Looking at her right now, Gan has the feeling that it is all true.
Some of his generals proposed that she could have been hidden in the temple — a holy place for a holy woman — but never did he consider that to be a realistic solution to her disappearance. Why would the enemy leave their greatest asset somewhere he could easily find her? Here she is, small and defenseless. Gan licks his lips, tasting blood on his tongue. It would be so, so easy. Snap her neck. Shatter her pretty little head like an egg. He could kill her. He could make her into his greatest victory. Hyrule's hope, naught but a bloody stain splattered across the floor of her holiest temple.
He will never forgive himself if he does.
"Princess," he says, stepping closer, crossing over the spirit crest painted on the floor. "I mean you no harm, Princess. Submit to me, and I can get you to safety."
The crying subdues. She sniffs and lifts a hand to her face, rattling the chains pooled around her. Small. Weak. Breakable.
"I won't submit to you," she says, in the most beautiful voice he has ever heard. It almost sends him to his knees, the sound of her. "I will never submit to you."
"I have heard much of your wisdom, Princess Zelda," Gan pushes on, stepping closer once more. One hand fingers the pommel of his sword. "You are wise, you are kind. Your city is burning. Your father has abandoned your people. Think of them. Come with me, and I promise to be merciful. To you, to them."
The princess slowly begins to stand.
Her hair hangs nearly to the floor. Now that they are this close he can see it's matted in some places, clearly uncared for. Her wrists, chafed red and covered in welts, shake within the shackles. The dress barely conceals her ragged form.
A pair of large, blood red eyes stare at him from beneath snow-white lashes. Observing. Waiting.
He stops.
"You,” Gan says, voice wavering for the first time in what feels like years, “are not Princess Zelda."
The crying woman that wears the princess’s face smiles an empty smile and spreads her arms as if to greet him, or perhaps the beginning of an embrace. Her chains rattle like bones. The tear tracks left on her cheeks seem to shine in the moonlight, giving her angular features an unearthly glow. It is grotesque, yet mesmerizing. It is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He can’t look away.
“I am Princess Zelda,” she announces to her audience of one, and lowers her arms once more, letting them hang limply at her sides. “Or… Most of her, I suppose. I am Princess Zelda as she was intended to be.”
He bares his teeth. “What is that supposed to mean? You are— ”
“A mortal soul, of sorts, in a mortal body. Or is it immortal? Can a soul be considered mortal, if souls never fade away? People die, but the essence of life cannot be erased. Only contained. Where does the line of mortality lie? Is death truly an end, or is it only yet another point of transition? The winter of the mind, slumbering while new leaves grow to replace the old ones? I have braved so many winters, and yet…” She appears to consider the question with some genuine curiosity, then ultimately dismisses it. The brief spark of warmth that touched her face flickers out as quickly as it came. “The right soul, in the right body. A vessel that knows the reason for its creation and the task it was born to complete. Not unlike you, Son of Din.”
“You speak in circles,” Gan says, tightening his grip on the sword he is yet to unsheathe. “Are you mortal, or are you not? You claim to be the princess I am looking for, but you are clearly something different.”
“I am what I am. What are you?” She takes a step forward, chains rattling ominously. She is weak, knees trembling beneath her. Her voice ebbs and flows with entirely mortal exhaustion. “We are the same, you and I. Two parts of the same whole. Two strings woven together. Every knot is a dance, a meeting, a death. One after another after another, two actors on a stage, playing to an audience that will never be satisfied. I have missed our dance.”
Once more she attempts to move closer, her rag of a dress dragging behind her, but the chains pull taut before she can reach him. The princess wilts as she is pulled back, and falls on her knees upon the tiled floor, right by the altar. Her skin has an unhealthy grayish pallor, with bruises in blues and greens and yellows on her arms and legs. Seeing her fall like a puppet with her strings cut finally breaks the stupor Gan was under and he steps towards her, hoping she might allow him to have a look at her injuries. This poor thing, broken, maddened.
But the princess moves faster than he expected. One moment she is kneeling on the floor, staring at her splayed hand with an empty expression, and the other she lurches back and shies behind the altar, pressing herself into the small niche between stone and wall. Rattle, rattle, rattle.
“Don’t touch me!” she screams with a voice that clearly knows how to scream, for it hides the fear so well.
“I’m not going to touch you,” Gan promises, sighing in defeat. The wise Princess of Hyrule, miracle-maker, reduced to a shattered mind. He can’t help but pity her. “I will stand back, Princess, have no fear. You can come out.”
And so he stands back. Three feet, then five, then seven. Silence follows his footsteps. Though he has put distance between them, just like she asked him to, the princess remains hidden. The stone echoes her labored breathing back to him, the sound pulling on heartstrings he wasn't aware he had. After a minute or so of nothing but breathing, Gan lowers himself to sit on the floor, folding his legs as if he were to begin meditating.
"Let's try this again. Why are you here? Who are you?" he asks, doing his best to soften the edges in his voice. Despite her initial bravado, it's clear to him now that she is scared out of her mind. Fear often makes people dangerous, though whether she can be counted as a person is yet to be determined. She doesn’t seem to consider herself one. "You are not— "
"I am Princess Zelda," she replies, whip-quick. "I am Princess Zelda, blood of the goddess, flesh of the goddess, spirit of the goddess. I am Princess Zelda."
Gan doesn't know much about the princess. Just enough to pity her, perhaps. He operates on instinct and hearsay and some deeply-buried familiarity, on the knowledge that the power that slumbers within him is not unlike the one she carries. It is enough to understand that they are not unlike each other, like she said. But neither are they the same. Ganondorf is the vessel of nobody’s will but his own — he made sure of that long ago.
Still, there is something deeply unsettling about the way she speaks about herself. Titles. Purpose. Intention. Grand concepts without much personality to them, without the human element. That too feels familiar. He thinks of his mothers' faces and their teachings and the many repetitions. He thinks of the oaths he made and the blood he spilled and the blood that is yet to spill, and the sweet allure of the magic that dwells within it, just out of reach. Hunger bares its sharp teeth within him. He thinks of his crown, too. The people are for the king and the king is for the people. Does Hyrule play by the same rules?
"Who are you?" he asks again, because her answers remain circular. "What are you?"
The princess inhales sharply. Her hands must be moving because the chains rattle once more. Gan waits, patience one of his few virtues. He can wait as long as she needs him to. Tasting salt in the air, hearing her shuddering little breaths. He waits and waits and waits, until a few minutes later a small hand appears from behind the altar, holding its chain in a white-knuckled grip.
"I am a tool," she says, so soft it could be the wind, and the chains rattle on and on and on. Another hand comes into view. "Mothers made me so I would play the role intended for me to play, and I have failed Them time and time again. This is my last chance to follow my destiny. I must fulfill the purpose They intended for me. I must…"
All this talk of roles and destiny and purpose makes Gan’s head sway in a most unpleasant manner. The king breathes deeply, lulling what he now knows to be the embers of anger to slumber for a little while longer, and focuses onto the shadow of her slowly emerging form, on the way the moonlight casts a halo of silver-white around her head. He knows, in his heart of hearts, that she would not react well to his anger. Ask not how he knows.
“How can you be so sure you know what the Great Mothers intended for you?” he asks, as gentle as can be.
“I know it. I’ve known it for as long as I can remember being myself. It’s the reason I was born…” An ocean of grief, separated from him by a single stone altar. She seems so small as she sits beneath it, though her shadow reaches all the way to him. “We all have a role to play, Gerudo King, but not all of us do it as splendidly as you. Though I suppose that we are both used to failure…”
The resignation in her tone makes him want to snap his teeth around her little throat. Gan resists it. “I’ve not a single clue what you speak of, Princess.”
The princess laughs a humorless laugh. She is beautiful.
“We are born. We fight. You die by the hand of a blessed swordsman, and I am left to suffer without you and make something out of the pieces that remain. And then it repeats.” She chuckles, and the echo makes it sound like a sob. Her blood-red eyes bespell him once more. “King and hunter and monster and lover and murderer. I wonder how it will go this time…”
Gan knows that he should not do this. But instinct is more powerful than thought, even for one such as him, and so his body moves before his mind can hold it, propelling him forward. The notes of a familiar song play in his ears as his sword swings through the air, the edge of the blade some mere hairbreadth from the white spot that decorates her throat. A single drop of blood wells where the metal touches skin and slowly drips down, painting her with rich, luscious reds. Her eyes remain fixed on his face, wide and impossibly dark, their depths unknowable.
“I am no divine puppet, goddess,” he says, the rage within him having turned to ice instead of fire. “I am the master of my own fate.”
“Our fate has long been written, my king, my flame,” she sings, lifting a hand, though she stops before it touches his face. He didn’t realize he was this close. Her trembling fingers cover the thin cut he left. “Again and again we spin, light and shadow, life and death, moon and sun. Meeting, parting. Fading. The pattern continues…” He lowers the sword and watches her shiver, her small frame curling into itself. “We live and dance and die, live and dance and die. Already, you and I have been woven into one. We cannot be separated, we cannot exist without one another, and yet… It will be soon, soon.”
He frowns. “Soon? What will happen soon?”
But she doesn’t respond. Her gaze has turned elsewhere, trained upon the stained glass windows. She reaches out towards it, but her chains keep her away from the sanctum’s walls, and she remains chained to the altar like a lamb at the pyre.
“Mothers,” she whispers, voice wavering, “I will not fail You again. Please, forgive me…”
Once more, the goddess that is not a goddess folds herself in supplication, clutching her blood-stained hands as fervent prayer spills from her lips. Prayer for forgiveness, Gan realizes. Disgust and pity and recognition and righteous anger swirl within him and he takes a step back, and silently wonders if it would be more merciful to end her sad, short life here, to rid her of the mockery of an existence she’d been forced into. He has seen what madness does to one’s mind before, but hers is no regular madness. He hates that he recognizes the truth in her song. He hates himself and her both.
He is nobody’s puppet. His fate is his own
Though goddess she might be, her blood is as red as his on his sword. Gan wipes it clean and sheathes the blade, then turns around and begins to make his way out of the abandoned temple. Her soft, broken voice follows him, as does the ring of her chains, but he pays it no mind. The Mothers hold no sway over him, and neither does their daughter.
Hylia’s cries haunt him all night long.