Hello. Yes, it’s been a long time. But those who still follow me for my TLOZ work; after some contemplation I am currently reuploading my ZelGan fic after reworking it a little bit.
i got two whole replies i have been satisfied. you will now bear the burden of my mania
(below the cut: dream sequence that Zelda sees through Ganondorf's eyes. preview of chapter 4 of my Twilight Princess fanfic, Queen of Light and Shadow)
In the quiet of the night, after turning around for a good while in hopeless attempts to rest, Zelda finally sheds her pride and crosses the apartment from her bedroom to the king’s, a small reading lantern held in one hand. The bed is as she left it this morning, untouched. Though the man might be gone, his deep, musky scent lingers in the air. She stands there for a moment and breathes it in, hating the way it calms the quivering bird in her chest, before extinguishing the lantern and tucking herself beneath the covers. She falls asleep the moment her head touches the pillow.
In her dream, she sees Ganondorf as she knows him, tall and proud and stoic, standing above a sandy hill astride a giant black beast of a horse. The sky is nearly dark, the sun a thin, bleeding wound on the western horizon. He rides down the hill slowly, guiding the beast over the unsteady ground with the ease of someone who was born on the saddle. When they reach the bottom, he dismounts.
It is, Zelda realizes belatedly, the same desert that she’d seen Midna and her farm boy traveling through for weeks. Ganondorf’s desert. Her eyes, accustomed to the dark after so many months of prisonhood, recognize several silhouettes rising up from the sand. Columns. Walls. Buildings. The bones of a civilization that lived and died upon the sands, its carcass reaching for the slowly awakening stars. She can almost see its death throes, the shades of women and children running through the streets as soldiers bite at their heels. Blades swinging in the air. The sand smells like salt. Blood and tears.
Ganondorf stalks the ruin for so long that the sun disappears and plunges him in the dark embrace of the night, the capricious moon taking her mate’s place. He is quiet and deadly, like a hunter setting a trap, walking around the perimeter without entering while the desert wind whips at his hair and clothes. It feels like hours and hours have passed by the time he returns to the shadow of that sandy hill and commands his horse to wait — the first words she’s heard from him through the entire night— and takes a deep breath, then steps through the ruined village’s gates.
As he walks, Zelda walks with him, the weight of his body around her, his sharp gaze her own. The bit of his spirit that resides inside of her soul sings for him, reaching out for its other half, and in turn he embraces her, allowing her wandering self to take shelter in his chest. Every so often, he stops by one of the many abandoned buildings and attempts to pick at their remains, or read something that his people have left behind. She feels every grain of sand against his fingers, as well as the swelling anger inside of him every time he turns up empty-handed. And the grief, of course.
A whole sea of grief, deeper and darker than she could’ve ever thought. Ganondorf hides his broken heart well, but as she resides within it, Zelda sees the ichor-colored cracks that line its surface, the fine chains of willpower that seem to be the only thing holding him together. She wishes there was anything she could do to help, but tall, impassable walls surround him from all sides. Her own self is but a visitor, a ghost unable to neither leave nor return without him there to open the door for her. When she reaches for one of the cracks, her hands pass through. She can’t help him like this.
It is the grief of a sole survivor, of a single man standing still when all he has ever loved is gone, the world and the Goddesses that made it uncaring of the people that bore him. The grief of a son, of a brother, of a father, who was forcefully ripped away from his home and came back to a mountain of ashes, with nothing but vengeance to feed his soul. The grief of a sword with nothing to protect, but thousands to avenge. Of a king without a kingdom, a fire without a hearth that has nothing to do but destroy.
In the outside world, Ganondorf stops at what seems to be a larger building towards the center of the settlement, one strong enough that most of its walls have survived their abandonment. He enters carefully, and snaps his fingers until a ball of flame emerges between them, floating on the level of his head and affording him a better view of his surroundings. The sandgrains that cover the worn floors shift between his feet as he passes by, but that is the only sound he makes. His clothes, his armor — everything about him is silent, a shadow of black and gold. Zelda is so transfixed with him that if he didn’t stop, she would’ve never noticed the bones.
The corpse of a Gerudo woman sits beside one of the doors, curled into a fetal position. Her flesh has long rotted or perhaps eaten by various desert critters, though strips of fabric remain on her limbs, along with some jewels that signified her status. Ganondorf crouches down beside her and brushes his palm over her brow, his lips moving in silent prayer. When he removes his hand, the bone slowly begins to turn to dust. Zelda watches, fascinated, as little by little the dead woman’s skeleton collapses. After the deed is done, her husband collects her ashes in his palms and walks out of the building to offer them to the wind. As they gently float away, flickering in the night like newborn stars, she swears she sees him shake, as if holding back a great emotion. She wishes to embrace him at once.
Little by little, Ganondorf stops by every home and every building, freeing those who are still trapped and looking for those who are not, though he finds nothing. Zelda watches him collect every strip of fabric and every jewel, every forgotten, moth-eaten book he finds, cradling them against his chest like they’re the most precious thing in the world. He doesn’t even notice the large insectoid creature that shifts in the sands behind him until it attacks him, though it doesn’t survive a single swing of his sword. The creature’s mandibles manage to carve a burning mark into his arm, acid corroding his vambrace, but he curses and shakes it off, and keeps walking.
There is not a single sign of life around him, save for the chittering sandworms. Zelda knows that Ganondorf knows it, but he continues to look for hours on end, fending off the creatures’ assaults all the while. It breaks her heart to see him like this, but there is nothing she can do to help him. Is he even aware of her presence? Can he feel her touch, hear her voice bidding him to stop and rest? If he does, he doesn’t acknowledge her, fearlessly braving the night. Nothing can stand in the Gerudo king’s way as he gives his dead a final farewell and sends their ashes into the night.
The last thing Zelda remembers seeing is the eastern sky beginning to gray as her Ganondorf falls on his knees with an earth-shattering cry, baring his teeth like a wounded animal. Again and again, he slams his fists into the ground, gnashing his teeth so hard she can feel the ache in his jaw, the pain deep and shocking, but satisfying. Pain is always better than the alternative.
Then, she wakes up. Cold and alone, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks.
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