ENVIRONMENT FOR GODHOOD.

𝑾𝑹𝑰𝑻𝑻𝑬𝑵 𝑰𝑵 𝑩𝑳𝑶𝑶𝑫.

[drgmire]

luxdea​.

     HIS OWN MAGIC resonated with hers, & light shone from her fingertips ( flickering & delicate, it hadn’t  been used properly since her century long stasis, like a weakened muscle she needed to strengthen ). she hated it. hated how he could call forth her own power as reflect to his own, as if she was a puppet on a string. she didn’t want to humor him, but ignoring him was harder without link by her side. zelda was aware that a single call for him would send him running, but she didn’t want to impede his rest, & wanted to prove she could handle this watch on her own.  ❝ shouldn’t you know? ❞ there was curiosity hidden beneath the bite of her tone, no matter how much she wished to hide it. ❝ weren’t you there, lying in wait & watching? ❞

     IT UNSETTLED HER, knowing just how close she had gotten to uncovering the secret herself. that her time spent researching below the castle had almost led her right here–––– but with no power & no link. the thought shook her to her core, but her expression changed little. ❝ or were you truly unaware of all that went on until we––––. ❞ she struggled for a moment, looking for a word that encompassed their sudden meeting. ❝ disturbed you? ❞

        magical signatures still so similar, after all this time ——— but then : they are the same / they aren’t the same at all. ( one incarnation after another after another after another and always they are different, different hair different face fluctuations in personality / but always there is THAT : that look on her face, as eternal as he is. is he the same? well. he knows that answer on his own. ) he could laugh. her magic is his ——— though that means that his is hers / they remain, evermore, made of the same weave. THE PRINCESS snaps her teeth with the eyes of a scholar and steadiness. steadiness. steadiness. the face of a queen absent a crown. ❝ i was both aware and unaware, ❞ of the passage of time, of the movements of the world, yet lacking specifics. a statue with no features.

        ❝ trapped, i had no concept of time nor space. held within a limbo of near death there were years where i was unaware that i even still yet lived, ❞ or rather, decades if not millennia. ❝ and when i regained awareness it was as if i were buried in the sea, lost amongst the sands,” his fingers extend / the flame crashes like a wave. he watches the flicker of her light. “would you rather hear that i was aware of your proximity, princess? lying in wait, gleeful that would you, of all, would disturb my torturous slumber? ❞ ganondorf grins / oh how dire how grim how, ❝ i was not. why else would i ask? ❞

[drgmire]

hilariously gan doesn’t even hate this zelda and link ( at the moment? definitely doesn’t want to kill them he just wants to kill hylia mostly lmao ) he’s just mad about being trapped in the throes of an excruciating death for fucking eons and he’s venting his anger on the literal only people around

[st-hedge]

Ancient era Ganon 😌

[drgmire]

        ❝ ——— tell me, princess, ❞ he weaves fire through his fingers / ember—warmth encircling / it still hurts to look at anything too bright. eons in the dark—moments in the light : the never—ending existence of the DEMON KING. magic pools in his palms ( runs through every cell of his body / it is a familiarity, a comfort, not from a bygone era but from here and now : it is his ) and he makes the flame dance. how whimsical. ❝ how far had you ventured within the ruins of hyrule castle before the end? what unseemly secrets had you uncovered, before you found the most gruesome of all? ❞ there’s something sardonic about him, the curve of his mouth. the fire jumps / imitates the affectation of a CORPSE. he looks at her, fingers passing through flame.

@luxdea

[luthienne]

Adonis, Selected Poems; “Beginnings of the Body, Ends of the Sea” (tr. Khaled Mattawa)

[drgmire]

ganondorf rly said i’m going to goad the hero of the wilds just bc i can and should cause what’re you gonna do, kill me again?

[drgmire]

corferox​.

     HIS ARM HURTS. he wants to laugh at such a simple thought, but there’s nothing funny in how true it is. he’d hoped, foolishly, that the glow & the ache would eventually fade, the spirit that had possessed it moving on, especially as they got closer to the surface. that didn’t happen. of course it didn’t, for he knew without inspection that this affliction of his was a rot, burning through his muscles & laying waste to the very marrow of his bones : an inevitable loss waiting to happen once this spirit was done using his limb as a vessel.

     fuck. fuck. he needs a distraction, so he burns holes through their other stowaway, & hopes it’s enough to drag himself from the burn in his sword arm hidden beneath his cloak. it’s not, but he’s managed to pretend with less. though … to describe this person as less would be a disservice, wouldn’t it ? & link was far from the type to underestimate friend nor foe. especially foe, & this one was perhaps the most perplexing yet.

     ganon. ganondorf. the hero knew who he was facing —— who he had faced, on that great open plain, but this was a man, not a beast, not that beast. there was none of that unhinged rage that burned with every, massive step, but a rage just as calculated as link’s own ferocity. they’d all been weak & exhausted when the husk had become whole again, but even still link had known then that the fabled demon king could have overwhelmed him instantly ( for what is a man to a king ? ), but whether it be because he was weak himself, he felt he was outnumbered with zelda there ( for what is a king to a goddess ? ), or for reasons still unknown to the two of them, he had stayed his hand & … accompanied them. it had showed a level of intelligence that, frankly, scared him : the courageous hero. what a joke. he wants to fight it, to take the sword that seals the darkness from its sheath & cut these fears away. it would be so easy. it would——

     —— but his arm hurts, & the other has noticed his staring.

     link says nothing, just keeps his gaze steady & firm. he knows he doesn’t need to waste breath on idle conversation & answers that are already known, & true enough ganondorf continues to speak without link’s input — a blessing ( he’ll take any of those where he can find them these days, even from his fated enemy ). but then he asks for that same question, & once again link internally curses his own curiosity from the day before & the reminder that he’s been subconsciously trying to stand taller this entire time. what do you remember ? he had asked. he should have stayed quiet : to let the man believe that this hero was well & truly mute. words were power, & link had given them, foolishly, & now the other intended to take. still, still, it was only fair, right ? it was only fair.

     ❝ nothing, personally, ❞ he could barely remember anything from his own flesh & blood life, let alone past ones that only his spirit knows, but —  ❝ the sword sometimes shows me ; when i’m sleeping. nothing concrete, but i know i’ve been a lot of things before. it’s shown me you, too. ❞ he pauses, overtaken with the dreamlike memory of a life of infinite ocean & little red boats & — he fights a smile,  ❝ you were fatter, once. ❞

        what is memory? the midday sun settled on his skin, warm as an embrace. an embrace, arms encircling him holding him oh so tenderly, adoringly, with love / fear/ revulsion. the strong body of a horse between his thighs, the wind in his hair, wild joy in his heart : misplaced / mistimed. spices on his tongue, sense memory, honey—soaked cakes, the bursting of fruit in his mouth. laughter. laughter. laughter. no more laughter. pain. fear. fury.

        no, too ( ... ) sentimental.

        what is memory? a collection of thoughts, concepts, ideas ——— recollections : fallible / infallible. a complex network interwoven throughout—around—within the mind. MEMORY IS INTANGIBLE, impossible to grasp, coming and going, never quite settling / and worse yet, imperfect ( fallible ), often not to be trusted. oh, but not his, no. his is too perfect, mind too sharp, perception too high ——— or, is that the insistence of another? himself?

        but what is memory to one who is undying? he is : undying. everlasting. eternal, for all the attempts to destroy his very essence, and all of the failures that they have amassed. he lives again and again and again and now, memories fractured yet whole. OLD WORN ARROGANCE A SECOND SKIN : he remembers all. he remembers nothing. he remembers pain / death in repetition / no, not death in repetition, undeath. death would have been kinder but, ah, that would simply start it all again, would it not? he, undying undeath, he who is A GOD inasmuch as oh holy queen is A GODDESS. moreso, perhaps. ganondorf has died far less, after all.

        oh, the hilarity of it all / that to lock him away simply makes him stronger. why not simply bring him to his demise? ( ha. )

        THE HERO SPEAKS and memories intermingle. he is made of memories / not the hero ( or perhaps the hero, too ) but the god—king. or is king—god more appropriate? inconsequential, he supposes : there is no crown for him here, and merely a sense of vague fury tinged bemusement at his words. ( he had been mute, once ——— ganondorf remembers that well. ) the man intermingles with THE BOY. well, this man is not so far from a boy, after all.

        ❝ certainly ——— fatter, healthier, whole, untouched by the throes of cyclical, suspended death, ❞ the king who wanted glorious winds for his land. ❝ i was not a WARRIOR—KING, then, there was hardly a need. you were no more than a child, ❞ should it shame him to admit that that incarnation of the hero had not even been in adolescence? it doesn’t ——— it simply is. his head tips forward / smile widens / HIS HEAD ACHES ( his entirety aches ) can the glorious hero see the scar upon his forehead? he remembers : the searing blade piercing his skull.

        ah, memories again? well, that will do him no good.

        ganondorf looks to the arm. hidden / shielded from view / so fascinating. looks and looks and looks away : always so deliberate. ❝ and now you stand before me : my savior, ❞ voice heavy with derision / in truth it’s almost funny, this twist of fate, that the ones who saved him from eternal suffering are, after all, the two who must KILL HIM AGAIN. if only they had the means. ❝ the one who showed me the sun for the first time in eons. the ever benevolent hero. ❞ he is being GOADING, of course / they had all been exhausted and perhaps ganondorf could have killed one ( likely not both ) : he simply hadn’t wanted to.

[mothprincess]

[drgmire]

       the sun slants across his face and he closes his eyes / the pain of it / the beauty of it. weariness lingers on the precipice ——— bone—deep and absolute. it had not been sleep that he had been caught within the throes of for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years ( none are able to quantify and nor can he / there was no sun or light there was simply : ) but rather an everlasting, inescapable death. caught within the gallows of darkness, strung between furious hatred and his very own mortal soul.

      he’s being watched, he knows. it’s only natural / he has been watching in return, after all / the DISTRUSTFUL PARANOIA well earned by the echoes of what he had done long ago. eons ago. a him that had not been him ——— self on some level, self on a level that few can compare to : ganondorf, through and through. HE’S BEING WATCHED but instead he breathes light, feels his hands flex, lifeblood rushing.

      and when he opens his eyes : there he is. divine princess elsewhere, HERO OF LEGEND in her stead. he has long since catalogued the differences of this one and the other ( he wondered, before, a not—lifetime ago, if the first incarnation of hatred had ever found himself bemused by the differences in each set, each pair. ) this one younger, hair darker, eyes a different color : but still, that eternal look in link’s eyes.

       ❝ do you intend to watch me forever, then? ❞ he speaks dryly, absent of aggression ——— there is no place for it, here and now, beneath the burning touch of the sun. the hatred that lingers, malicious and insidious, is muted. dulled. quiet, lying at the base of his lungs ( but inevitable? ) ❝ should you look away i will not abscond, ❞ he wants to look to the sun again, yet the compulsion to maintain his gaze is stronger than that wish.  ❝ though if you are quite devoted to your task, i would like to return the question you asked, link. ❞

@corferox

[corferox]

the HERO, the PRINCESS —— hand in hand ——                                           must bring the LIGHT back to this land.

                                                                            [ adored by kai & aura ]

[drgmire]

he loses track of how many seconds he spends watching the revitalized man somewhere around the four thousand mark, but he doesn't need it nor the sun to confirm that it's been hours. it's only after zelda goes to bed down for the evening that the hero finally stands, rubs the glowing ache in his right wrist, & steps over. ❝ i need to know. ❞ he pauses then, just long enough to reveal the thin crack in his emotional guard, usually as strong as a hylian shield. ❝ what do you remember ? ❞

       echoes of pain ——— he is not in pain any longer but the throes of it still reverberate through his body, crawling insidiously through every pore of his skin, settling into the marrow of his bones. it had been the only language he had known for a millennia / more than : he finds that his own body is foreign to him. this form of it. this state of it. to know nothing but agony and then ———

      a departure.

      benediction, delivered by those he had been locked within an eternal, never ending struggle. call it IRONY, if you wish / he can see the black humor in it, the bleakness of it all, within one moment and the next he had been freed of that void state while malice flowed from his body, poisonous and raging / anger and anger and pain. torturous pain. mouth split eyes blazing : he had known it to be them. not the same pair that he had known all those thousands of years ago / not the pair that had lived while he had known that other name, here they are younger. changed. divine / heroic, thousands of permutations thereof.

      hatred seethes. the hero watches. ( the divine, as well. of course, of course. )

      hatred of the pair of them? no / yes / somewhere in between. such a struggle, spanning the rise and fall of kingdoms, spanning long beyond what history recalls. he sits here now, GANONDORF, reformed and breathing once more, no longer in abject agony but for the ghost of it, apart from them and of them / their lives so closely intertwined. ( he is a creation of demise / he is demise / or an aspect thereof : and he shall never exist independent of the goddess incarnate and the legendary hero, their souls interlocked. ) with a dull sense of morbid bemusement he wonders of the odd turn of fate that they had not attempted to slay him where he laid, weakened and bolstered only by malice, by the return of his soul to his body, still weak and apart from himself.

      they are children, but they had often been children, before. but they are different, here / but they were always different, with every rebirth, never quite the same. in spirit, but not in action nor form nor personality nor much else at all.

      but there : that look in the hero’s eyes. that is the same, or similar enough, a shadow or perhaps the light. he presses his palm over the back of his hand / a reflexive movement. it burns, it burns. his expression is inscrutable as he meets his gaze. never fearful / not of the hero.

      that would simply be out of character.

       ❝ ——— you were taller in your previous life, ❞ that hero had been older by his recollection, though not by much. definitively within the grasp of adulthood, rather than lingering just on the cusp. his eyes had been darker. his heart thuds against his chest ( beating, it’s beating, he lives ——— brimming with resentment ) and he settles his hand atop it from where he has reclined against a rock, faint glow prominent in the shadow of night. and beneath his hand : lies a starburst of a mark, remnant of a scar / driven through by a blade.

      his head tilts, the lines of his face smooth / yet there lingers tension in his jaw, the set of his mouth. it is not every day you are faced with the one who killed you ——— but that’s simply false, isn’t it? he is ganondorf, after all : and here stands link. ❝ i remember all, little hero, ❞ a statement given with absolution, immutable and certain : he had remembered everything before he had been torn asunder / and memory does not decay in such a state.

      he has far less lives to remember, after all.

      the demon king stares into the eyes of his greatest enemy for a moment longer / and then another : before tilting his head back and gazing at the sky and / closing his eyes. a mockery of rest, of restfulness. listening, acutely attuned, forever in wait.

@corferox​

[lifeinpoetry]

your body has betrayed you by       creating an environment for                         godhood

— Ashley Miranda, from “Aglaophotis, or Expulsion,” published in Moonchild Magazine

[st-hedge]

(Calamity au) Ganondorf from the ancient era