An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
"I coveted that wind, I suppose."
By Junk-Artist
Links: AO3 || FFN
Summary: Ganondorf shows Nabooru what lies beyond Gerudo Valley. Gift fic for Jammerific on Archive of Our Own. Gift fic for Jammerific on Archive of Our Own.
I wrote this fic for part of a secret Santa exchange with Jammerific. I've done beta work for her before and I feel really fortunate that I got paired to someone whose fandoms I'm actually familiar with and enjoy. I've never had anything more than a few scrapped drafts for Zelda.
I spent a while ruminating on what exactly to write instead of, you know, doing the writing part. Initially, I thought about doing a comedic echo of Jam's longfic, where I novelize an attempt to almost speedrun Breath of the Wild, heading straight for the final boss, but in finally managing to borrow a Switch, I was too breathtaken by the game's visuals to what I intended (that and it took substantially longer than I expected to do). I sat down and meditated on what to write about as someone suggested combing through the memories I had of the series and picking one to write about.
It soon hit me that my strongest memories of the series have never had anything to do with the plot or the characters. When I think about what I liked about this game or that game, it's always something about the atmosphere, the environment, or the sense of freedom. It's hard to explain to someone born after the Nintendo 64's console generation what was so breathtaking about seeing Hyrule Field for the first time in Ocarina of Time. It's full of nothing compared to modern open world games, and even games made a few years later blow it out of the water, but when it's the first and only time you've ever seen something like that, it's special.
My memories of Zelda games aren't of the things that "matter". They're of the time I spent galloping across Hyrule Field, swimming through the ocean, diving off of waterfalls, sailing until I hit the game's edge and wondering what lay beyond. So ultimately, I decided that was what I wanted to write a story about, and I hope Jam likes it.
