Comes after Volga confronting Cia (and Link on Skyloft, but it’s slightly less necessary to understand this)
...
Volga seeks out and fights the strongest. That is his objective.
He goes where the sorceress tells him, leads monsters into battles as she deems fit. He sees others only as adversaries, evaluating them solely on the threat they pose, the strength they wield.
Nothing else matters.
Only his orders, and strength.
The Hylian army is at their gates, working steadily through the valley, and despite the sorceress increasing Volga’s power, they’re still advancing, calling upon the Great Fairy to aid them. Volga himself is forced to retreat back to Cia’s side, and he stands silently beside her, waiting for her orders.
She’s watching the battle with a look in her eye that grows steadily more enraged, her knuckles whitening on her staff. It isn’t long before she orders him back out, commanding him to find the princess and crush her.
Volga nods, preparing to obey, when the sorceress stops him, a manic look in her eyes.
“This time you will destroy them,” she snarls, and thrusts her hand against his chest.
Power rushes through him, greater than what he had received before, and Volga roars as it fills his veins, turning into a dragon and leaping into the air.
This time he will be the strongest.
Volga glides across the valley, making a beeline towards the army’s leader, the princess’s sword flashing across the battlefield. He lands with a roar, and she quickly turns her attention to him, eyes widening as she leaps out of the way of his first attack.
Volga is merciless, using his weapons of both spear and claws, shooting fire and dive bombing with his dragon form. The princess is annoyingly stubborn though, avoiding nearly all of his attacks, parrying blows and dodging flames.
Some distant part of Volga is impressed.
He snarls as she avoids yet another thrust of his spear, and the princess looks at him, something odd flashing in her gaze.
“Volga! Come to your senses!” she suddenly shouts, parrying an attack. “I know you to fight with honor! What glory is there to be found in using dark magic to win all of your battles?”
“Don’t mock me!” Volga snarls, slamming a clawed hand towards her. How dare she?
“Open your eyes!” Zelda shouts as she dodges, still not giving up. “I believed you to be a proud dragon warrior, not a mercenary for darkness!“
Their weapons clash, and Zelda looks up at Volga without fear, her blue eyes bright.
“Think of your family, Volga. Look past the darkness clouding your vision.”
Volga falters just a hair, a snarl dying in his throat. There is certainly no darkness clouding him, merely the extra power the sorceress provided, but Zelda’s words of family carry a spark of something different. Something... important?
Volga shakes his head, frowning.
...What had she said again?
The spark fades, and Volga roars, hitting her backwards with a clawed hand. The princess is thrown to the ground with a cry, but before Volga can press his attack, there’s a flash of blue and green, and the Hero stands in his way, sword raised.
He has a stricken expression on his face, but Volga barely registers it, roaring again as he goes to face the both of them. The princess regains her footing as the hero slams his shield up to block Volga’s spear, and the three of them resume the fight.
Other monsters join the attack, and the hero’s attention is drawn to keeping them away from his princess, mostly leaving her and Volga to fight alone. Volga draws constantly on the sorceress’s power, and it’s soon obvious the princess begins to flag against his brutal attacks.
She fights on though, tenacious as ever. Soon enough Volga finds their weapons locked again, her eyes fixed on his face.
“Knight Volga, I thought you a protector, a dragon of honor,” she says, voice breathless but earnest. Blood drips across her eye but she doesn’t loosen her grip to wipe it away. “This isn’t who you are, drawing on dark power, fighting in wars for a cause you don’t believe in!”
That persistent spark of something comes back in Volga’s mind, flickering in his thoughts, buzzing in his memory. It makes him falter, just a little.
“Please,” Zelda repeats, still straining against his spear. “For Link’s sake.”
The name rings familiar, and Volga stumbles as a face flickers in his mind, blue eyes shining through the murk. Looking at him in trepidation as information spills from hylian lips, scales glittering in places they have no right to be.
What is this memory?
He can’t recall the events that led to it, or what came after, or even where he was when it occurred. In fact... all he can really recall is the sharp urge to fight the strongest, destroy the enemy, do as the sorceress commands.
Who is the boy with scales on his arms, and hair nearly the same color as his own?
“Volga,” the princess speaks again, less strained now, and Volga belatedly realizes he’s stopped fighting. “Fight past this darkness. I know you are more than what Cia is letting you be.”
Cia.
The name is like a clap of thunder in his head, and suddenly the darkness he’d denied was choking him is all too evident, coursing through him alongside his fire, constricting his thoughts and twisting his actions. Its influence is overwhelming, and Volga clutches a hand over his chest, thoughts whirling as memories rush back.
Cia invading his home and forcing him under her service, ignoring his wishes to be left alone. Using her magic to make him fight, starting a war over lust for his son, putting him on the opposite side of his own kin.
Purposely obscuring the fact that he had a son.
Volga snarls, anger rising as flames drip from his lips. Cia used dark power, foisted upon him without his say, using him as nothing but another pawn in her game and his son—
“No... no!” Volga shouts, gripping at his head with both hands. “I won’t be ruled by darkness!”
He won’t remain Cia’s puppet for another second.
Volga lashes out at the darkness coating him, tearing at Cia’s influence in his chest. He can feel her power fight back the moment he pushes against it, darkness reaching up to claw at his mind, but Volga tears back with claws of his own, refusing to succumb to it again.
He pushes back with his own power, not that of the sorceress, fire clashing with darkness.
A roar builds in his throat as he gains a solid foothold, and he pushes it out, Cia’s dark power leaving him all in a rush.
And he is free.
Weakness follows the loss of power, but even as Volga drops to a knee, he feels more clearheaded, more alive, then he has in weeks.
And it’s overwhelmingly refreshing.
Volga curls his fingers into the dirt as he regains his bearings, clutching his spear as he raises himself up off the ground again. The princess stands a few feet away, watching him with a hopeful look on her face, and Volga huffs, looking away.
...right into the eyes of the hero.
His son.
Volga stares, the boy staring back with an uncertain look on his face. The hero’s gaze is interrupted by a monster slashing at him, and Volga shakes himself, then looks around the battlefield, taking in what he’s missed.
His gaze falls on the princess again, and something burns in his chest, a need to finish what he started. Volga raises his spear in challenge, pointing it at her and the hero.
“This time I will duel you properly. I will win this fight under my own power,” he declares.
He has other business, important business even (Cia will pay, he swears it), but his pride insists he finishes this fight. He wants to show the two of them how he really fights, no dark powers, no false strength.
To finish the fight he began in an honorable manner.
The princess hesitates at his request, exchanging a loaded look with her hero. But he nods, and she nods as well, pointing her sword back.
And they start the fight anew, dragon, princess, and hero.
The fight is invigorating, to say the least. Volga’s very scales seem to buzz with excitement as he battles the two, the old fire coming back to his blood. They’re an incredible team, truly powerful, and fighting them helps immensely with continuing to wake him up, forcing any remnant of Cia’s power from his bones.
They weave in and out in tandem, one of them striking, and then darting out as the other attacks. Despite the remaining weakness from the loss of darkness, Volga matches them blow for blow, his blood singing as he duels the two.
He hasn’t had a fight this challenging in years, and it reminds him of older days, of other duels.
A smile on a tanned face, ruby-red eyes, hair the color of new-fallen snow...
Volga promptly pushes that image aside. He needs to focus on the here and now, and his strength is fading, the hero and princess still pressing their attack.
As much as he hates to admit it, Cia’s actions have left him low on strength, and as enjoyable as this fight is... he’s fading. Rather fast.
And suddenly, he finds himself on his knees, a sword pointing at his neck.
Volga looks at Zelda, then over at his son, both of them breathing hard. An odd feeling of pride runs through him as he looks at the boy, and he almost smiles. Only one other person has ever been able to truly best him in battle, and it’s clear both of them learned from her.
Impa taught them well.
...It was no wonder Cia wanted one dead and the other her captive.
Anger courses through him at the reminder of the sorceress’s treachery, but his energy is spent. Too spent for him to reasonably mount a successful attack on her.
His vengeance will have to wait.
The princess opens her mouth to speak, but Volga beats her to it, closing his eyes as blood runs from a cut over one of them. “I accept my defeat with honor. I lose, but I do so without regrets.”
He exhaled and looks up at the two of them, and his son meets his eyes again, blood and dirt smeared on his face.
Volga gives him a singular nod, then despite his weariness, turns into his dragon form and takes off into the skies. He needs to rest, and recover from his wounds before figuring out what to do next.
And... process the ramifications of having a son.
Impa...
Link and Zelda watch him go in silence, Volga’s wings bright as a comet as he glides away. They’re both breathing heavily from the battle, small injuries bleeding, burns stinging. Zelda is smiling though, and there’s a hesitant sort of hope in Link’s eyes as they watch the dragon grow smaller in the distance.
Zelda squeezes Link’s shoulder as Volga finally disappears from their sight, but they don’t have time to dwell on what just occurred.
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