Fan Fiction ❯ Never My Destiny ❯ Under Darkness ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Never My Destiny
The World’s First (Serious) G/I Fic!
By Galaxy Girl

A/N: I’m on a roll on this one. ^_^;; hehehehee… once again, thanks a million times over for the wonderful reviews. I’ll keep working my hardest on this story all the way until I wrap it up!

Ultra super thank you to Ryn-Ryn the Milkshake Queen and The Girlie Gyarados (AKA Tegu-sama), my two plot-bouncer-offers for this story. NMD couldn’t exist without people like Teg and Ryn to help me out! Thanks a million guys! ^_^

Anyway! As I said last time, this chapter takes place seven years after the last one, which is when Adult Link awakens from the Sacred Realm. It makes Impa and Ganondorf both 33 (which sounds a bit young for them, incidentally… but it worked out with my storyline, okay?), and Link and Zelda both 17 (math fans!).

I also forgot to mention last chapter… When Zelda became Sheik at the end of last chapter, she was A TEN YEAR OLD SHEIK. Not randomly a teenager. Man, that would be horrible. O_o;; Poor Zelly. In and out of puberty every five seconds…


CHAPTER EIGHT: Under Darkness

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Both Impa and Zelda were very quiet as they stepped across the border into Hyrule for the first time in seven years. The sky was dark and unsettling and the air smelt of rain, a light, misty fog hanging several feet above the ground, cloaking the traveling pair in itself and hiding them from distant eyes save for their broken silhouettes.
“We’re… home,” Zelda said softly, leaning back on the horse and brushing her corn silk blonde hair back out of her face beneath her hood.
Nearing her 17th birthday, the Princess of Hyrule had grown into a beautiful young woman, even after all these years of traveling from place to place avoiding the gaze of the Evil King. She was wispy in figure but was in quite good shape and was stronger than she looked. Her deep blue eyes echoed just a little bit of sadness, but her smile was the same as always, able to light up a room better than any lantern.
She was wrapped in a burgundy smock and very carefully drove the horse over a small gully, muddy from a week’s worth of long rains. The horse was the white stallion that she and Impa had originally escaped on, now a worn-out gray color instead of the radiant white he had been.
Zelda reached out and scratched the horse behind the ears, glancing down at her nanny. “Do you think the rumors are true?”
Impa was gazing wearily off into the distance, longing for even a small view of the castle or the town or the ranch, or anything that had been part of the Hyrule she left. Age and stress were evident, even on her young face, and her hair had been slung over her back in a long silver braid. She walked next to the horse, carefully stepping through the muddy patch.
“I don’t know, Zelda,” she replied honestly. “There’s no telling how accurate the words of travelers are…”
“But you think they’re all right about…?” Zelda began quietly again.
Impa interrupted her gently. “About the Evil King holding the Triforce? There’s no point in denying it any further… It must be true.”
“I had no doubt he’d have taken over in my absence,” Zelda said, a bit bitterly. “But if he’s really got the Triforce… there’s no way we’ll be able to defeat him easily.”
“I don’t know about that,” Impa murmured, mostly to herself.
Zelda sighed and clenched the reins of the horse tighter. “Link should be awakening soon. He’ll need to learn what’s happened since he was gone…”
“You barely know anything yourself,” Impa said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Zelda gave Impa a solemn look and nodded. “Mmhmm. I won’t sit back and leave him all alone in this. I want to help.”
“You know it’s going to be extremely dangerous,” Impa reminded her.
“I’ll be all right… Sheik will help me,” Zelda smiled.
Impa nodded sagely and smiled back, though her heart was quaking inside her chest. “You’ve always tried to do what you think is right… I’ve always admired that about you, Zelda.”
“I learned it from you,” Zelda said somberly, patting Impa on the shoulder.



Their nature towards each other was only just beginning to warm up again. The past day’s ride had been quite silent, on the heels of the closest thing they’d ever had to an argument.
The night before crossing the border had been stone cold, a thick fog settling over the forests just beyond Hyrule. Like a chilly blanket, it wrapped the border in a blood-freezing cold snap that forced them to put off their return until morning at the risk of freezing to death.
Even the horse stuck close to the roaring fire as Impa and Zelda wrapped themselves in cloaks and blankets and tried to get as much warmth from the flames as they could. Their breaths were easily visible even in the pitch black and the stars had been deadened by a cover of trees above them. It was like the world had disappeared and all there was left was the other and the horse… two sides.
Finally, the silence was broken.
“How can we defeat him if he truly has the Triforce?” Zelda said out of nowhere, staring coldly at the fire as she chased a shiver out of her spine by pulling the blanket tighter.
Impa glanced up at her with a stern glance. “You plan to defeat him?”
“I’m not going back to just sit there and watch him destroy my father’s land,” Zelda replied seriously. “I want to organize a rebellion… a revolt… something. I won’t let him sit on a false throne any longer. By my father’s memory…”
She drifted off and looked up at Impa. “I thought that’s why we were going back.”
Impa nodded a little bit and looked off to the side, almost like she was too nervous to meet Zelda’s eyes. “We must free the people from the poverty they’re being subjected to, yes…”
“And how else besides to defeat the Evil King?”
Yes… she had a point, Impa told herself. What was she expecting? To go back to Hyrule and have things as they were before? There was no shortage of stories from Hyrule about the king’s cruelty, the miserable poverty, the bloodshed and the suffering…
There was no use in denying it anymore. Ganondorf was the cause.
Impa was thoroughly disgusted with herself. She’d seen for herself what he was capable of. The blood-soaked corridors, the slaughter of the king and all those guards… that insane look in his eyes the last time she saw him, as she turned to see him on horseback.
Why was she still denying it? There was nothing to deny. This was no case of mistaken identity. The Gerudo King had overthrown the King of Hyrule and murdered him. There was no point in hoping it wasn’t true.
But something had to be said…
“He’ll be nearly invincible to face in battle,” Zelda said in a very different tone. Impa glanced up and realized that Sheik was speaking through her. “The Hero of Time will have his work cut out for him.”
“Hero of Time?” Zelda said immediately once Sheik had finished.
“It’s an old Sheikah legend that seems to be coming true,” Impa explained quietly, leaning back on her hands and glancing up at the pitch-black ceiling of trees.
“When Hyrule is endangered, the Hero of Time will descend from the Sacred Realm with the Master Sword in hand. And with the Sages at his side he will smite evil and restore order to Hyrule,” Sheik said.
“It’s Link… isn’t it?” Zelda whispered.
Her body nodded. “Yes… the boy named Link. He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”
“We were working together… to stop…” Zelda drifted off yet again.
Impa glanced away uncomfortably and nodded. “Yes…”
Silence invaded the strange conversation yet again. Finally, Sheik continued.
“Well… I think our best bet will be to continue following the legend. Those predestined to be Sages will be awakening soon, and if this ‘Link’ fellow is truly our Hero of Time, he’ll need to be meeting them as they wake.”
“Will that be enough to kill him?” asked Zelda.
“The Sages and the Hero of Time? No telling… but it’ll give us a huge advantage compared to what we’ve got now.”
“Must we kill him… at all?”
Impa’s voice had come out very small and unsure, quite unusual for her. Zelda glanced up at her with a questioning look.
“What?”
Impa almost looked ashamed to repeat it. “I said… ‘Must we kill him at all?’”
“Is there an alternative?” Sheik asked realistically. “I doubt he will listen to reason.”
“And if there was an alternative, why take it?” Zelda let out strongly. Her eyes narrowed into a stern expression. “He’s shown no mercy for my land… why should we show mercy to him?”
“It’s not as simple as that,” Impa replied. “We must consider this from all perspectives... People have many reasons for the things they do, and we should not pass judgment on a man until we know his purposes… his reasons.”
“You know his reasons already,” Zelda said, a hint of bitterness in her voice. “He’s a bitter, angry fool… he can’t have what he really wants, so he punishes everyone else to make them as miserable as he is.”
“That’s not true,” Impa said coolly.
“It is true… he couldn’t have you, Impa.”
Impa’s face lit up a brilliant shade of red and she turned away quickly, squeezing the edges of the blanket and staring down at the ground.
“Did I miss something?” asked Sheik quietly, like he was afraid to interrupt.
“Impa and Ganondorf were in love,” Zelda said, though it seemed like she was affirming the fact in her own mind rather than explaining it to the man in her head. “He wanted her to be his queen… she refused, and because of that, he killed my father and took the throne.”
“That’s not true!” Impa cried out. “That’s not true at all!”
“It’s not that hard to figure it out, Impa,” Zelda replied bitterly, glaring down at the ground to the side of her. “I was just a child then, but I heard the things he was saying to you the day we escaped. I heard him pledge himself to you and I heard you tell him over and over that that wasn’t what you had in mind… and I saw you kiss him! I’ve been mulling over it for the longest time… And now I finally understand what made him insane. He was an evil man who couldn’t get what he wanted, so he killed others to make up for it.”
“But you DON’T understand, Zelda!” Impa shot back. Her fists were clenched tightly over the blanket wrapped around her and her voice sounded very unlike her- desperate, almost. Desperately denying the guilt she felt.
“You don’t understand at all! You didn’t know him like I did- you didn’t know him before he became the king, when he was younger… he was sweet and kind and everything he isn’t anymore. You can’t lay the blame on someone until you understand everything about them… you don’t know his reasons or why he does what he does, and you can’t pretend to! You’re rushing blindly into these accusations without any idea of why!”
Zelda stared back at Impa, shocked to see tears beginning to form in her eyes. “Do you love him, Impa?”
“That’s got nothing to do with it.”
“It has everything to do with it. Do you love him?”
“Yes. Yes, I do love him,” Impa said sternly. “I love him.”
“I don’t know if we can trust you to help this uprising then, Lady Impa,” Sheik said out of nowhere.
Zelda turned bright red. “Sheik!” she gasped loudly.
Impa glared at Zelda (or Sheik, rather) with venom in her eyes. “What did you say?”
“I only speak what I see to be true,” Sheik admitted calmly. “You love Ganondorf, Lady Impa… it’s only natural that you wish to see him come to no harm. You wish for mercy towards him… but mercy is something that cannot be dealt out liberally. You can’t deny the fact that he isn’t who he used to be… Mercy will mean very little to him, and he will offer none of it if he has a chance to strike us first. We cannot trust him to accept our mercy… do you know what I’m saying?”
Impa hugged her knees in towards her chest and glared at the dirt in front of her. She swore she wouldn’t let herself cry.
Everything they said was true. Everything… the man she loved was a monster, bloodthirsty and vengeful, merciless and cruel. There was almost no chance that he would be unseated without violence, and almost no chance that he would go down without being killed.
But to admit the truth…
It was not her fault. She could not take the blame for the death of Harkinian and the pain of all the others who had suffered in Ganondorf’s rule. She just couldn’t… it couldn’t have been all her fault…
“He will kill Zelda the first chance he gets. He will kill Link the first chance he gets. He won’t remember you… the Triforce has mutated him beyond humanity, beyond anything he ever was. There’s no use in denying it, Lady Impa. I’m sorry… but we cannot show him any mercy. We must destroy him before he destroys everything,” Sheik concluded solemnly. “I’m not accusing you of anything… but you know that I’m telling the truth.”
“I am a woman of my convictions, Sheik,” Impa replied coldly, a bit insulted at his insinuations. “When I devote myself to a cause, I devote myself fully.”
“Yet you don’t want him to die?” asked Sheik.
“No. I believe there is still a good man inside of him, locked up by his own rage and hatred. I’d like to free that good man, if at all possible.”
“I admire your idealism… However, you may be the only one who still believes in that good man,” Sheik sighed quietly.
“Then I will believe in him by myself,” Impa retorted.



Sheik’s consciousness faded away and Zelda was left reeling in her own tumultuous thoughts. A million memories were ready to burst at the seams of her mind and she was filled with a sudden, passionate emotion…
She remembered the first day she saw him, strutting towards her father’s throne with that smirk plastered on his face- bowing, but not sincerely. She remembered pulling closer to her father and squeezing his arm; his warm, comfortable voice reassuring her and urging her to be polite. She’d curtsied… and the face he made at her made her want to vomit.
Then watching him through the window as he met with Harkinian… She remembered his leering face in her dreams, his cold, deep laughter echoing in her head long after she went to sleep and even when she woke up and laid there, cowering under the blankets for fear that he was anywhere nearby.
She remembered his behavior that day in the hallway. The feeling of his hand, gripping her arm as he ripped her away from Impa… his sweaty palm on her throat as he squeezed her until she couldn’t breathe anymore… Then the moment that STILL gave her nightmares. Saying her last goodbyes to her father when he came in the door… his face contorted into a vicious, inhuman snarl, his furious eyes glaring at her, and his voice roaring like some kind of monster…
Then something happened that Zelda couldn’t understand then… and still didn’t now. Impa had thrown herself at him, knocking him to the side and against the doorframe. Zelda leapt to her feet and her heart soared at her nanny’s rescue, and she prepared to run… when she saw it.
She saw Impa kissing him.
Zelda paused in the doorway and stared for a good number of seconds. It didn’t make sense… WHY? Why was Impa kissing him? HOW could she? Was she just trying to distract him from Zelda? Or…
Zelda was halfway tempted to throw herself in between them and kick him in the shins. “How DARE you touch my Impa?!” she wanted to scream. “How DARE you?!”
But her senses told her better than that… she turned and fled down the stairs, only to be swept off her feet by Impa a few minutes later, just as she reached the main hall of the castle.
Impa was flushed and breathing heavily as they ran together… but Zelda could not resist asking the question that had been torturing her since the scene upstairs.
“Impa… why did you kiss him?”
She didn’t answer for a moment as she struggled to catch her breath. Finally, she said, “We’ve got to get out of here now, Zelda…”
“Why did you kiss him?” Zelda repeated.
Impa said nothing.



Zelda’s vision of the kiss was playing on loop in her memory, intensifying as Sheik and Impa argued about whether or not there was a good man inside the Evil King.
A good man? A GOOD MAN?
“Then I will believe in him by myself,” Impa retorted calmly, facing away from Sheik and his host body.
There was a good man inside Ganondorf? Ganondorf was a GOOD MAN?
Impa had kissed a GOOD MAN?
“HOW can you say that?” Zelda burst out incredulously a moment later.
Impa glanced up at her and she exploded in a rant, words held back that she’d wanted to say for years. “HOW can you think there is ANYTHING good about that man?! I knew it from the moment I saw him he was evil! And he only confirmed it when he killed my father!”
“Zelda, you didn’t know him-”
“I knew him enough,” the princess hissed hatefully. She tightened her grip on the blanket around her until her knuckles were white. “There is nothing redeemable about a man like Ganondorf. He who would kill someone’s father for a stupid reason that he had nothing to do with… Didn’t you love my father, Impa?! More than you loved HIM? How could you love that monster more than Father? How could you forgive him for what he did to Father… what he did to Hyrule… how could you forgive him for what he did to YOU?”
“All he did to me was love me.”
“He killed for you. He destroyed both of our lives… how could you possibly forgive him for that? What if he murdered the entire rest of Hyrule? Would you forgive him then?”
“Zelda, please,” Impa sighed wearily. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore…”
“What if he raped you? Would you forgive him then? Just because he was acting out of love?”
“That’s enough!”
“What if he killed me? Would you forgive him if he murdered me in cold blood, Impa?”
Impa’s reaction that time confirmed that Zelda had hit a nerve.
“YOU WATCH YOUR TONGUE, ZELDA!”
The princess was silenced as her nanny glared at her furiously, angrier than Zelda had ever seen her.
“I gave up everything for you! I gave up everything to protect you. I said no to the only man I ever loved. I watched him lose his mind, watched him go insane and kill your father, the only father I’d ever known…”
Zelda struggled for words as Impa’s anger climaxed, and Sheik knew better than to speak up now.
“And how DARE you think I could ever go back?”
“But WOULD you?” asked Zelda. She immediately regretted it.
Impa stood up abruptly and threw her blanket down, a furious look on her face. “How could you ever say that? How could you EVER think I wouldn’t do anything for you, Zelda?”
She spun on her heels and stomped away from the warmth of the fire, off towards where the horse had been tied up. She didn’t know where she would have gone, but anywhere but there sounded all right at the moment.
“Impa, wait!” Zelda yelled after her.
But she was out of the clearing before Zelda could speak anymore.



“… Why did I say that? Why did I have to say that?”
/But you make a good point, if not an irrelevant one…/
“What do you mean?”
/Do you think, if Impa had another chance, she would change the decision she made all those years ago? The decision to protect you and do her duty, rather than what makes her happy? /
“I don’t know… I don’t even think she knows.”
/But the truth is, it doesn’t matter. She made her choice and she’s stuck by it… I just brought up the fact that it was a hard choice to make and it reminded her of that. /
“But you’re right… Ganondorf doesn’t care about anything anymore. He won’t care if Impa still loves him, and if we give him mercy he will use it to kill us.”
/She knows. /
“So why doesn’t she realize that she’s wrong?”
/Ah, but it’s not wrong to her, Princess… you’ve verbally spoken a debate that’s been incubating inside of her for almost seven years now- a debate that Impa herself can’t answer for sure. Love or duty? It’s an age-old question, brought to life in a terrible example. /
“But I don’t understand… why she’s so angry…”
/It’s frustrating. /
“What is?”
/To love someone… a vision of them in your head that only you can see. And the rest of the world sees them as a monster. /

/Who is wrong? If you are hearing voices that no one else can hear, are you insane? Or is everyone else just blind? /

/What if it’s love for another person? If you love somebody that no one else can love… are you insane, or is everyone else just blind to your reasons? /

/To others, it is intolerable to have one person against the fray… one person who can see that love in a cold heart. And how can you show the world something only you can see? Isn’t easier just to destroy the heart? Then no one can hear the voices… and everything seems right. /

/You can’t see the heart either, Zelda. If the heart was destroyed and the world was set right, everything would be fine again…/

/But, you see, Impa believes in the heart. So to her, it is not a matter of destroying an evil man…/

/To her, it is to throw aside her own beliefs. /



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I’m sorry…
I’m sorry I left so abruptly all those years ago. There were a thousand other things I wanted to say to you, but time was against us and I had to go.
This is the last thing I wanted to do… the last thing I wanted to find when I returned.
I was hoping you’d have been able to control yourself, but… you’re not you anymore.
I love you… I love you and I’d never want to hurt you. But I have no choice…
Because I believe that you are still alive somehow, somewhere inside that dark goliath, I must do this. I must help defeat you.
I will give my life if I must to destroy you. I will destroy the false god and set you free, no matter what it takes…
I doubt you’ll understand, but please try to see what I’m doing.
I’m sorry I have to help them kill you now…
I’m sorry…

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After several blank and mostly silent hours of riding across the field, at last, signs of civilization began to make themselves known to the traveling pair. Familiar things. The wooden outer wall of Lon-Lon Ranch. The small belt of trees and Zora’s River, gurgling on in the distance like it always had.
And snaking along with the river, cutting back so it was several hundred yards wide was the white marble exterior of the castle town’s wall, still standing as strong as ever. The drawbridge was shattered, splintered and lying half in and half out of the river, with its rusty old chains hanging out of the opening that had held them like dead arms out of a coffin.
Zelda’s eyes were wide with shock and disbelief as she reined in the horse and stared at what remained of her childhood hometown. “Impa…” she murmured in a short exhale.
Impa reached up around her and grabbed the reins herself, whispering to the horse to calm him still. Zelda inched off to the side and slipped off, landing to the horse’s right and stumbling to the ground.
She stood up and took a few more steps towards the castle, her eyes as wide as plates and one hand closed over her mouth. “Oh Goddesses…” she whispered.
Past the ruined drawbridge, she could see the extent of the town’s ruin. A cold wind rushed through her ears and past the broken-down houses and shops, gutted out, plundered and robbed. Bright colors of signs and people had faded into drab, gloomy grays and browns and there was no one to be seen. The dank, dirty streets, flooded over from the rain were absolutely silent.
The princess took a few deep breaths as she surveyed the damage, finally, kneeling down in a helpless heap on the ground. She placed her hands before her as though in prayer and whispered something very quietly.
A bright flash of light engulfed her, sweeping up from her hands and covering her body. Her golden hair shortened and her soft face was enshrouded in dingy white bandages, her blue eyes blinking then opening a definite blood red. Her body fought off a quick feverish rush as the magic ended itself, and Sheik stood up where Zelda had kneeled. With a sweep of his skinny hands, he pulled off the cloak Zelda had worn and threw it over the horse’s back.
“I want to go inside,” he said back to Impa, quietly.
“Not by yourself,” Impa replied sternly, dismounting the horse herself. She pulled the reins to lead him towards a broken piece of the drawbridge jetting out of the water. A poor hitching post, but it would have to do.
Carefully, the two stepped over the crumbling drawbridge and entered the castle town, stepping carefully like a pair of grave robbers avoiding the gaze of the living.
Fire scarred the roads and the buildings and water from recent rains dripped from every ripped rooftop and through the cracks in the cobblestones. The sky was dark and the wind howled forebodingly, and it was apparent that this place had been this way for a very long time.
And off in the distance in the place where the palace had once stood… a tall, gothic, brooding tower, so high its peak was surrounded by clouds. Black as night, steel and stone, gargoyles and great spikes protruding from its sides. From here it looked like a figure standing off in the distance. Death, perhaps, shrouded in black, and they were standing in its skeletal hands. Bones, remains to remind its victims of what had been.
“My God…” Impa whispered in horror as they stood in the central square, taking in all of the destruction at once.
Sheik was silent, his shared mind with Zelda filling up with memories. Memories from his life, the old castle town, trips to the market he’d taken with his princess… the days that most of these buildings were finished, their opening ceremonies. Memories of Zelda’s- frolicking in the market, gazing at that beautiful purple hairpin she’d been admiring before they left, her 10th birthday when the streets were filled with celebrating people, the Harvest Festival…
All of it, crushed, in ruins.
Impa stepped over a broken cart and had a seat on one of the planters lining the center of the square, the flowers long dead and rotting. She stared across the market at that familiar shop, the familiar street, the familiar…
This was the exact place she’d been standing the day she first saw him. Peering out of the back of the wagon shyly, then pulling his head back inside before she or anyone else could get a very good look at him. She recalled the people standing around her, gossiping about him and his people, wondering why someone had invited them…
There was no denying it anymore. The capital city of the Hylians was crushed like an insect under the power of an Evil King… and his identity was very easily guessable.
“The Temple of Time still stands,” Sheik said with a nod in its direction. Impa glanced up over her shoulder and it was true.

It was the lone standing object in the castle town, still as magnificent as ever though its outside was stained gray with grime and seven years’ worth of living in a ghost town.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He wouldn’t destroy the Sacred Realm, seeing as it’s the source of his power…” Sheik thought out loud quite bitterly.
“Could one man destroy the Sacred Realm at all?” Impa queried.
“It seems unlikely… But anyway, the Hero of Time is still asleep. I can feel it in my hand,” the teenage Sheikah told Impa as he made a few steps towards the Temple.
“You’ll wait for him, then?”
“He’ll need someone to help him learn his fate,” Sheik replied. “I owe it to him… seeing as I’m partially responsible for what happened to him.”
Impa nodded very quietly. “Do what you think is right.”
Sheik stood, gazing back and forth from the Temple of Time to the dark castle off in the distance, almost like he was having trouble deciding something. Finally, he glanced over his shoulder, his visible blood red eye fixed on Impa. “Are you coming with me?”
“Actually…” Impa replied, “I thought to go to Kakariko for the time being.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s become the refugee camp for those who fled the castle town. If we want to get a movement started, we’ll need more information about what’s happened while we were away,” she explained.
Sheik was silent for a moment.
“I’m worried about you wandering around alone Ze… Sheik,” Impa caught herself. “But I realize that we’re going to have to separate, at least for the time being. Besides… I trust you to take good care of her, and yourself.”
Sheik’s mouth was covered, but his eyes smiled. “I appreciate your faith in me… I’ll be careful.”
Impa opened her arms and Sheik gave her a hug back, and they stayed embraced that way for several minutes.
“Please be very careful… Don’t take any stupid risks. And I mean it.”
“I’ll be careful Impa,” Sheik said quietly, but the words came from Zelda.
With a final pat of the back of his head, Impa released him and turned to leave, promising that she wouldn’t cry.
“You be careful too,” Sheik called to her as he turned back towards the Temple.
“I will.”
After the footsteps died away, streets were silent once again.

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The room was dark, and the air was thick with the scent of burning candles and old papers. An eerie silence filled it from floor to ceiling and it was all Marya could do to keep from yelling to end the awkward silence.
She stood at attention behind the large figure of a man crumpled in an elaborate chair, carefully studying a map of Hyrule on the table in front of him. He hadn’t moved or said anything for several hours now, except for a few times when he had slid the map around, rotating it to get a different viewpoint. Marya was beginning to wonder what he was looking for, but knew better than to ask.
Ganondorf less resembled a man than he did a god, or some ancient statue portraying one. His was tall in stature and thick with muscle, bound in layers of iron armor and leather bracers, covered over all by the customary royal cape. His forehead, hands and neck were decked out with a good assortment of accessories and expensive ancient Gerudo jewelry to proclaim his role, not only the King of the Gerudo, but the Evil King of all Hyrule.
He was made less of a man and more of a mysterious god by his demeanor- silent, sullen, strong. He rarely spoke unless he had something he needed from one of his attendants and when he did, his voice was deep and commanding like thunder. His face bore a cold, calculating look at all times, accentuated by his thick eyebrows and steely golden eyes.
He gazed silently at the map, his head resting on his two hands folded in front of him, having toned out the entire rest of the world. It was like he couldn’t even hear his aunt, standing behind him, shuffling her weight from foot to foot when one of them began to ache.
At last he spoke on his own, to Marya’s immense relief. “Can you hear it?”
“Hear what, my lord?” she asked back, almost too enthusiastically. A conversation was her greatest desire right now… anything to break this unbearable silence.
“Footsteps, coming up behind me,” he went on quietly. “Silence broken by the noise of someone walking… Trying to sneak up on me and failing, hoping to get inside my head and instead wandering into my grip.”
Marya gazed over his shoulder at the map, which was behaving quite silently to her. “What are you talking about, my lord?”
“Everyone wants to be me, Marya…” Ganondorf went on, pushing back his chair and standing up. Marya quickly raced behind him and unfolded his cape from where it had hung on the chair before he could feel her doing it as he paced behind the table.
“Can’t blame them, my lord,” Marya smiled pleasantly.
“When seven years ago I was a bastard to them… a bastard king of a race of thieves,” he grinned at her darkly. “It’s a delicious, beautiful irony. To think of it makes my heart quake with glee. To know that I have risen so high above them that they can’t even touch me… I was the dirt on their shoes and now I’m stepping on them. How I’d love to know what one of them thinks…”
Marya nodded deeply and smiled. “Only room for one on top, my lord.”
“Yes… just one…”
He paced back and forth, folding his arms across his chest as he continued to speak. “But to be on top… the only spot that anyone vies for… Yes… it presents me with a dilemma.”
There was a short pause, and Ganondorf burst out again in a booming voice. “What can a man such as me do when there are a million murderers and thieves at his back, waiting to slay him and usurp his power in his death!?”
Marya let out a short, uneasy laugh. “No one would dare, my lord. It is known far and wide that to mess with the King of Evil is to mess with death.”
“It’s not funny.”
Marya silenced herself immediately as he continued to speak.
“I’m well aware of what most people think of me… Jealous of me, high up in this tower, my Mount Olympus. Jealous of the power I hold and the power I exert over them. Furious at my… ‘cruelty’, furious at my disregard for whatever happens to those measly worms in their miserable little villages… I’m well aware there are uprisings hiding in this land like parasites, incubating until they feel strong enough to latch themselves onto me and suck my power like blood. I’m well aware that most of them would like to see me dead…”
“They are fools not to realize how magnificent you truly are, my lord,” Marya said, sinking into a deep bow. “Any who would rise against you are staved off. They know you could crush them like insects should you so desire.”
Ganondorf turned to her, his face a stern scowl. But it seemed to lighten when he saw the deep, smug grin on Marya’s face. “Heh…”
“To fear an uprising only weakens you should a real one ever start, my lord,” Marya told him proudly. She strolled over to her nephew and gave him a pat on his broad shoulder.
He smiled darkly once again and he reached up, pressing his aunt’s hand down on his shoulder with one of his iron palms. “You’re right… you taught me better than that, dear Marya.”
“Let the commoners pretend they have the strength for a while longer, my lord. It will make it all the more crushing when you strike them down like naughty children, somewhere where the rest of Hyrule can watch,” Marya suggested.
“You’d think that I would no longer have a need to prove my strength to them,” Ganondorf snarled bitterly.
“They know of your strength. They are merely in denial.”
“Yes, denial…”
Ganondorf stepped away from her and back towards the table where the map was spread out. Reaching over to a quill pen at rest in a jar of ink, he removed it and began to scribble bits of writing on the edges of the map, outside where Gerudo Valley was pictured.
“Can I trust you to distribute the ranks again, Marya?”
“Of course, my lord.”
“Let them switch locations or remain as they wish… I give you full command over my ‘special’ lieutenants.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Marya bowed to him yet again.
“And send a message to Koume and Kotake… tell them to let Nabooru go.”
Marya’s eyes widened immediately and her voice rose up hopefully. “Let her go?”
“Yes… her monthly treatments should be finished by now. I want her posted somewhere else this time. I fear my grandmothers enjoy keeping her at the temple a bit too much… post her at the fortress this rotation.”
Marya nodded deeply and spoke once again in a respectful, solemn tone. “Yes, my lord… however, I was hoping…”
Ganondorf turned to eye her over his shoulder, pausing his writing and leaving a small ink splotch on the paper. “Hmm?”
“I was wondering, my lord… if you might release her completely.”
“It is not an honor to have your daughter serving in my ranks as a special lieutenant?”
“Of course it is, my lord… but if she could have a free mind again…”
“If it is in her free mind to oppose me… then absolutely not.”
Marya’s face sunk. “But if you could only-”
“I SAID NO!”
Marya quieted herself and nodded. “I’m sorry… I did not mean to upset you, my lord.”
Ganondorf let out a short sigh. “Don’t worry about it… and don’t ask me again. I’ll release her when I feel she has learned her lesson.”
The unbearable silence returned to flood the room, sending an uneasy chill down Marya’s spine as she watched Ganondorf continue his work on the map.
“You are excused, Marya,” he finally said a moment later, as though he had briefly forgotten her presence.
“Thank you, my lord. I will perform your will,” Marya said, striking another deep bow and quickly exiting.




Marya’s head was a jumble of loud thoughts echoing against her footsteps as she descended the stairs of Ganondorf’s Tower.
He promised he’d let her go this time… it’s been another three months…
She folded her arms across her chest and continued her mental conversation as she passed through the iron-plated doors leading into the lower levels.
He’s suspicious of an uprising already… perhaps not mine, though. He’s absolutely right- everyone else in the world seems to want him dead too…
Play it cool, Marya. Don’t lose your nerve now…
She stopped to salute a pair of his royal guards- Gerudo women known as his “special lieutenants”. A fancy way of saying that they had been brainwashed by those cursed witches out in the Spirit Temple. Decorated in iron armor and more like living statues than people anymore, they crawled all over the Spirit Temple and other Gerudo holy ground as well as the palace.
Nabooru had become one.
It had been nearly seven years now, almost at the beginning of his rule. Soon after murdering the king and establishing himself as the new sovereign, he’d ordered a thorough inquisition of loyalty through his people. Nabooru had failed, and though she tried to flee, had been placed under experimentation by Ganondorf’s two grandmothers, Koume and Kotake.
Marya had gone seven years now, without a kind, loving word from her daughter. What was left of Nabooru was a cold, calculating military genius. A heartless warrior who slaughtered anyone who dare stand up to her or her cousin and master. As Marya had hoped, Nabooru was indeed a legendary Gerudo… an infamous one. “The Lone Wolf Nabooru”. The Great Ganondorf’s number two.
And Ganondorf. The “Great” Gerudo King. The “Great” King of Evil. Her nephew… a man she had begun to hate through to her very core.
Perhaps hate was a strong word. Marya felt more like she missed him. She missed the way he had been before all this. Before this kingdom, before that murder, before everything.
She stood behind him as his most trusted conscious advisor, offered him tactics for battles and advice on his affairs, watched him kill and maim Hylians and punish the other races who had humiliated him in his teenage years. But secretly, she was at the heart of the best-laid plot to unseat Ganondorf from the Hylian throne.
As his aunt and advisor, she knew everything about him. She knew his strengths and weaknesses… and as a result, so too did the Hylian members of the underground who could make plans full-time.
She constantly pondered the question of whether it was right or not to betray her own nephew this way…
And the answer she always gave was that this evil king was not her nephew. Not anymore.

------------------------

The village of Kakariko had become the last salvation for the commoners who had fled Hyrule Castle Town after the death of Harkinian. The tiny mountainous village that had once only served as a home for the poor and the struggling was now the sanctuary of all Hylians. For there was no line between the rich and the poor anymore… everyone here was in the same boat.
Poor inhabitants of Kakariko had gladly opened their village and their home to the outcasts from the market. Such compassion had not been offered to them when they were in need, but as the old adage went, “the enemy of the enemy is a friend”, and all Hylians of whatever social classes happened to be left had only each other to depend on. Other races had grown reclusive in their attempts to survive. Interracial assistance was nearly non-existent and outsider races were extremely suspicious of one another.
In a way, it was like another Great War had taken Hyrule in its grasp… but now, the opposing army was in the form of one man and all others were merely other pawns, feebly attempting to gain enough strength to protect themselves, much less worry about each other.
The village had gotten bigger in the past seven years, but only just. New homes had been finished by the hired carpenters, but dwellings could not be built fast enough to accommodate the steady stream of survivors from the castle town’s attack. Overcrowding was widespread, starvation and famine were on the rise, and disease was a constant threat. But there was no other choice.
The Hylians could not leave the slums of Kakariko. There was nowhere for them to go that was NOT slums.
The village did its best to unite itself and grow up a resistance of its own, but the sad fact was that the people of the village were by no means appropriate for an army. Many of the survivors from the castle town had been elderly citizens and children- in no shape to fight anyone, much less the Evil King. And those who had always lived in Kakariko had always suffered from malnourishment and were quite weak. No match for the Evil King’s forces.
So, Kakariko neither grew nor shrank and the people living there neither lived nor died. It and they merely existed, and that was enough for them.

Leaning against one of the shabby white houses this particular evening was a young man on the cusp of adulthood. He couldn’t have been much older than 18 or 19, yet the scars on his face and the dark circles under his eyes gave him the appearance of a much older man. He was clothed in little more than a shabbily mended coat and pants, and his dark hair was caught up in such a knot his ponytail vaguely resembled a rat’s nest. His stubbled face was hidden beneath the folds of the coat he wore, and he had his hands hidden roughly in his pockets as he watched the villagers beginning to gather their pathetic livestock inside for the night.
Seated in a curled-up position on the ground next to him was a younger boy, early teens at the oldest. His hair was shorter than his companion’s, but still filthy and still in a tangle atop his head. He was wearing a tattered gray smock-- poor even by Kakarikan standards-- and with his scrawny, pale body it looked like he could have used a few square meals.
Jaime and Nicolas were brothers, orphaned after the Gerudo attack on the market. They had only been 11 and 6 at the time, and were prime examples of the tragedy of the Hylians’ situation. They were homeless and hungry, forced to steal from traveling idiots in order to feed themselves. Very few people were dumb enough to travel nowadays and they often ended up surviving on the kindness of a few of the richer citizens of the village.
Tonight they were on guard duty, in exchange for the promise of a five Rupee an hour paycheck and a hot meal.
Guard duty was the only job in Kakariko that paid exceptionally well. After all… the Evil King knew as well as the citizens of Kakariko did that they had nowhere else to go. They could live there only as long as the Evil King permitted it… at his slightest whim, they could lose this town just as they’d lost the Market. It was the guard’s jobs to make sure that there would be survivors if this ever did happen. The guards were also ordered to keep an eye on the residents of the town… even friends could not be trusted. Though the most severe thing the guards had ever had to put a stop to was an instance in which crazy old man Shikashi had mugged the wife of the carpenter boss, desperate for enough Rupees to afford his week’s worth of grain.
It was never worth the risk to let down the village’s guard.
“I can’t keep my eyes open any longer,” Nicolas mumbled, his head lolling off to the side.
“You have to… we’re not being paid to fall asleep out here,” Jaime replied sternly, nudging his younger brought with his foot.
“I’m STARVING… Can’t I go inside and get something to eat, Jaime?”
“We were promised our food after our duty is over… Just stay awake a little bit longer.”
“It’s your shift anyway… can’t I get a little bit of rest while you keep guard?”
Jaime gave his brother a smug glance. “We didn’t set up ‘shifts’. And besides, the sound of you snoring will put me right to sleep. We’re in this together… or else I get all the food.”
Nicolas made a face and let out a deep sigh, leaning back against the house. “Fine…”
“Stand up if you need to. We’ve got to keep our eyes out for anything suspicious happening… anyone entering without permission,” Jaime ordered.
“Why? No one’s gonna come at this time of night…”
“That mindset is exactly why we have to stand out here,” the elder brother snarled. “Can’t you take this a little more seriously? If someone enters, we’re the village’s first alert.”
“I’d take it more seriously if I could have a piece of bread. Butter optional… I’ll even eat the crusts at this point. I’m hungry and sleepy, Jaime… let me take a break, will you?”
“I said no, Nicolas.”
“Why am I asking your permission anyway? You’re not my boss!” Nicolas spat, suddenly aware of this fact. He rose to his feet and dusted off his cloak, a fairly pointless endeavor as it was already caked with mud and dirt.

Jaime frowned at his brother and reached over to grab him by the collar. “I am your boss. I’ve been feeding you for all these years, you little ingrate…”
“I’m just going to get something to eat!” Nicolas whined, ripping his collar away from his brother and stumbling away. “I’ll be RIGHT BACK. But if I don’t eat something, I’m going to DIE.”
“If someone gets into this village while you’re gone, we will ALL die!” Jaime said darkly. “Get over here and help me keep an eye out.”
“I think you can manage by yourself for a minute or two, Jaime.”
“No, I can’t. I’m starving too. If you go off to eat, there will be no one between me and Miaka’s chickens over there.”
Nicolas looked at his brother in the manner you would look at a man with a bucket on his head. “Are you insane?”
“Getting there. Come sit down again.”
“I’ll only be a second!”
“I can’t WAIT that long- I will have wrung that bird’s neck and be eating it raw by the time you get back!”
“Jaime, that’s gross.”
“So is starving to death. By Nayru, if I waste away into nothingness, you’re coming with me!”
“You’ve lost it, brother,” Nicolas rolled his eyes and tried to walk off again.
“I said come back!”
The two brothers began to tussle, Jaime knocking Nicolas back against the house and Nicolas quickly punching Jaime in the face to get him away. Soon they had each other in a chokehold, and were about to land on the ground in a wrestling heap when a third party intervened, poking Jaime on the shoulder with a slender finger.
“Excuse me…”
Both brothers screamed in terror and leapt a good three feet in the air before landing and whipping out the staffs they’d been armed with for guard duty.
“Who the hell are you?!” Jaime growled.
“This village is off limits!” Nicolas shouted.
The woman took a few steps back, blinking in confusion. “Is that so? Hmm… I should like to ask the person in charge about that.”
She pulled off the hood of her cloak and set out her hands in the universal “coming in peace” gesture. “I mean you no harm…”
“You’re a Gerudo! Of course you do!” Nicolas snarled. “ALARM! ALARM! INTRUDER ALERT, AND SHE’S A GERUDO!”
“… I’m not a Gerudo, you silly boy,” Impa replied with a cross look on her face.
“You ain’t a Hylian!” Nicolas retorted coldly.
“She’s a Sheikah, stupid,” Jaime told his brother, nudging him roughly in the shoulder.
“… A what?”
“They haven’t been seen since before Princess Zelda disappeared,” Jaime explained matter-of-factly to his brother. He seemed much calmer about this revelation than Nicolas did… Nicolas looked like he was about to go ballistic.
“So what are we supposed to do if one of THEM shows up?” Nicolas asked, still not letting his eyes leave Impa for even a moment.
“Well… the rest of the village is wakin’ up. Let’s ask,” Jaime shrugged as uproar began to take seed and sprout throughout the dark houses.
Doors were opening and village men carrying broomsticks, scythes, rakes, anything they could find that could work as a weapon began to appear, rushing towards the brothers and their guest.
“This village is forbidden to outsiders!” Nicolas repeated, giving Impa a look of seething venom. “And I’ll die protecting it…”
Impa looked quite put-off by this whole ordeal. “There’s really no need to raise uproar about it… Has it really been so long that no one remembers me? I told you I mean you no harm, boy.”
“We’ll see about THAT!” Nicolas roared, lunging at her.
Impa easily sidestepped the boy and sent a fist crashing down on the back of his head, knocking him to the ground and out cold.

By the time the other villagers had gathered, Impa was standing with her hands on her hips, watching as Jaime tried to revive his unconscious brother.
“Who the hell are you?! How DARE you hurt one of our boys?!” snarled a large man with a pitchfork.
“Frankly… Nicolas did deserve it,” Jaime sighed from his position helping his brother sit up.
“She’s an outsider and she’s not welcome here!” another, skinnier man in the back piped up, inciting a vicious grumble among the other men.
Impa sighed deeply and shook her head. “Is there nothing I can do to convince you that I’m not here to harm you?”
“Aren’t you… a Sheikah?” asked a man standing behind her.
Impa glanced over her shoulder at the man, a muscular man in a cap with a thick gray beard. “Yes… I’m Lady-”
“Impa?”
The mob immediately fell silent as the bearded man pushed forward. “My God… You’re not… Is it really you, Lady Impa?”
“LADY IMPA!?”
Impa cringed as she was set upon by the mob of men, but now rather than threatening her they seemed overjoyed at her return.
After all… she, as the lone survivor of the Sheikah, had been named the heir to Kakariko Village when she was only a teenager. She was the one who had opened the village to the poor of Hyrule in the first place and she was the one who had, until her escape with the princess seven years ago, been helping to sort out the village’s affairs. Those who had lived in the castle town knew her as Princess Zelda’s guardian. EVERYONE knew who Impa was.
Some of the men she recognized from her visits in the past, only they were much older and their eyes were much sadder now. Many of the men shook her hands, several fell at her feet, nearly weeping, and the bearded man seemed to take charge over the rest of them.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lady Impa,” the bearded man bowed deeply. “We did not recognize you after all this time… and our guards tonight were quite young and quite rash.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Impa smiled pleasantly, pushing her way out of the circle of men and kneeling down where Nicolas was just coming to.
The boy glanced at her with a horrified expression. He’d just attacked the MATRON of Kakariko Village. “I’m… I-I’m s-so sorry, Lady Impa,” he bowed deeply.
“Please forgive my brother… He is an idiot,” Jaime said solemnly, lowering his head respectfully.
Impa let out a short laugh and lifted up Nicolas’ chin. “Didn’t hit you too hard, did I? I’m sorry about that… Please, don’t feel bad. You did what you had to do.”
Jaime and Nicolas both looked shocked at her lax nature.
“I’m glad to see Kakariko is in such able hands,” Impa winked at the brothers and stood up, brushing some stray hair out of her face.
“It’s been seven years since anyone’s heard from you, Lady Impa… your visit warms my bitter old heart,” the bearded man said happily. “D-do you have news of the princess?”
All of the men looked very earnestly at her, anxious to hear her reply.
“She is alive, if that’s what you’re asking,” Impa smiled calmly at them.
A loud, raucous round of laughter rose through the men.
“I knew it! I knew she was still alive!” a younger man sobbed loudly.
“There is still hope…” the bearded man sighed.
“There is always hope,” Impa corrected him. “I’m sorry to drop in on you all so late at night… but I only just arrived back in Hyrule tonight, and I needed to find somewhere to stay.”
“You’re ALWAYS welcome to stay here, Lady Impa!” several men gushed.
“Are you a part of the resistance, Lady Impa?”
“Do you know about the revolt that’s starting?”
“You’ve heard of that sick Evil King, haven’t you? Not been out of the loop, Lady Impa?”
“Is the princess here in Hyrule too, Lady Impa?”
“Let’s not burden her grace with petty questions, gentlemen,” the bearded man ordered his comrades, helping to usher Impa out of the crowd and a bit to the side.
He leaned in towards her and whispered, “We need someplace we can talk privately…”
Impa nodded to him and motioned to the house that had at one time belonged to her family. “Will my home suffice?”
“Fine… Just gotta ditch the mob,” the bearded man smiled sedately.
Impa turned to the mob of men and raised her hand for silence, with immediate results.
“I think that stories are best suited for sometime not so late in the evening,” she said. “Let us all get some rest and tomorrow we can continue this, all right?”
The crowd of men offered their goodbyes to Impa and slowly began to disperse, all except for Jaime and Nicolas, who were still standing as though waiting for something a short distance away from Impa and the bearded man.
“We have much to discuss, Lady Impa…” the man sighed.
“Hey!”
Both turned back to face the brothers- Nicolas, with a bleeding lip from his crash into the ground and Jaime, who looked quite indignant. “We were promised food, Orin. When’re you gonna deliver?”
Orin frowned, “I promised food when the guard duty was completed,”
Nicolas let out a short whined before Impa interrupted, “Sir Orin… can we not give them a break for a little something to eat?”
Jaime and Nicolas gave Orin a pair of quick puppy-dog faces, and he sighed at first. “But no one will be watching…”
“At least until his lip stops bleeding. That’s my fault,” Impa smiled.
“Fine… If that’s your will, Lady Impa.”


Retiring to the abandoned old house that Impa had grown up in, Orin and Impa sat at a small table upstairs around a brightly flickering lantern. From below, the sound of Jaime and Nicolas devouring the bread and soup they’d been given could be heard faintly.
Impa folded her hands before her on the table and smiled sadly at Orin. “I imagine these two are a testament to how things are in Hyrule these days…”
“It’s a shame… but Jaime and Nicolas are not an isolated case. Hundreds of us are starving, working day and night to produce enough food for the palace that we cannot possibly toil any longer for ourselves. We are poor, sick, and exhausted… And still, we are forced to work that the Evil King not completely destroy us,” Orin sighed bitterly. “As long as we are useful to him, we can remain here… if ever should come a day when our food production is below his standards, the consequences would be disastrous. I haven’t a doubt that Ganondorf would destroy the entire village.”
Impa shivered slightly at the mention of his name.
“Things have definitely gone downhill since his majesty was murdered… Not just for us Hylians, either. All the races have their problems… nothing any of us can do to help the other. We just survive by ourselves, day-by-day. Hard times for everyone… Except the Gerudo, naturally.”
“That is why the princess and I returned,” Impa explained. “However… I wouldn’t be so enthusiastic about it. Now that the true heir to the throne has returned, the Evil King’s rule is in danger. With the Hero of Time awakening soon, our chance for an uprising is quickly approaching. If we are going to take our kingdom back, now is the time when we must prepare.”
“We’ve been preparing… for a long time now,” Orin replied. “I know of several revolutions in the works, most of them small, but all of them growing quickly. I myself happen to be involved in one of the larger ones… My job within the revolution is to keep an eye on things here. Keep the men in fighting shape, the women happy, and the children alive.”
Impa nodded silently, folding her arms across her chest.
“Of course… we’ve no standing army at all. The Evil King is too smart to allow something like that to happen. I use the term ‘revolution’ quite loosely. We’re actually little more than a small faction of members who all support an overthrow of the throne… Bigger, because we have a few key people working with us.”
“Such as?”
“Big Brother Darunia of the Gorons… Until recently, the Zora King was also involved in this organization. We’ve also got a Gerudo woman… a direct insider to the Evil King’s forces. She’s sort of our leader… she’d know more about the revolution than I do.”
Impa gazed at Orin with a bit of alarm. “And you’re sure you can trust this woman?”
“Absolutely,” Orin replied back, sincerity gleaming from his sad brown eyes. “This woman… Marya is her name. She’s a blood relative of the Evil King, and her motives for fighting him are purely based out of her own love for him.”
Marya…
Ganondorf’s aunt, Marya?
Impa’s memory was reeling back to the time she’d seen Marya, back when she was a teenager… that evening in the courtyard. That crazy woman who’d ripped Ganondorf away from Impa and slapped him. The woman who’d screamed at him about his duty.
Now she was fighting him?
Something didn’t fit here.
Impa’s face creased with worry. “… I see…”
“Something wrong, Lady Impa?”
“That doesn’t sound right to me… Exactly what have you been telling this woman?”
“She’s our leader, Lady Impa. She knows everything I do, possibly more. If you’re looking for inside information on our revolt, Marya would be the one to talk to.”
“Where could I find her?”
“Depends on the day… She’s often inside the palace itself, but she’s usually in charge of the Gerudos at their fortress. I would imagine you could catch her in Gerudo Valley if you wanted to speak to her…” Orin drifted off. “However…”
There was a brief moment of silence.
“The Gerudo are Ganondorf’s personal army. Most of them are extremely loyal to him… and we are usually only able to speak to Marya when she comes to see us on her own accord. To go into Gerudo territory to talk with her about overthrowing the Gerudo King would be EXTREMELY dangerous… not to mention a bit asinine.”
“That goes without saying,” Impa said with a short smile.
“Well… if my lady could be patient… I could try to contact Marya and tell her that you have returned. She’s interested in anyone who could help us out, and without a doubt, you will be helpful to our revolt. She may issue a summons to you, which would save you from having to sneak into the valley to speak with her.”
“That would be very helpful, Sir Orin,” Impa nodded. “Please… contact Marya, and tell her I’d like to speak with her as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do as you ask, Lady Impa. In the meantime, we would be most honored if you would stay in the village for a while.”
“That was my plan. I need a place to lie low for a little while, where the Evil King would not think to find me,” Impa replied.
“Absolutely,” Orin smiled. “Though… I imagine with your return, you will wish to become our matron again?”
“It seems to me that you’ve had things running well to the best of your ability, Sir Orin. I would actually be honored if you could continue to run the village for me until I’m ready to make a move with the revolt.”
Orin turned a little bit red. “As you wish, my lady… I will send a message to Marya at once. Now… please excuse me. I’m sure you’re tired after your long journey and you could use your rest.”
“Thank you, Sir Orin,” Impa smiled at him.
Orin rose from his chair and began to descend the steps down to the lower floor, where Jaime and Nicolas were well into their third helpings, devouring the food like wild dogs. “You two! Hurry up and shove off, Lady Impa needs her rest!”
Jaime eyed Orin with a cold expression. “You promised us food. We’ll leave when we’ve had enough.”
“They don’t have to go anywhere if they don’t want to,” Impa spoke up from upstairs.
“But my lady… I don’t imagine you’d like to share your home with these ruffians?”
“I’ll take them and any other ‘ruffians’ who have no place to sleep tonight,” Impa replied crisply.
Nicolas beamed at Impa as he finished drinking the last of the broth from his third bowl of soup. “Th-thank you, Lady Impa!”
“You’re quite welcome, Sir Nicolas. It’s the least I could do for knocking you out,” Impa smiled at him.
“Finally… someone who knows how to run a village,” Jaime sighed, throwing Orin a joking glare and waving at him.
Orin rolled his eyes and bowed to Impa once more before heading outside. “Goodnight, Lady Impa.”

------------------------

(A/N: Okee, little time jump here. This scene takes place three weeks after the previous one. The point in the OoT storyline is just before the Shadow Temple and just after the Water Temple… as can easily be inferred.)


It was such a fascinating chain reaction of events. Every time Ganondorf’s hand made a stroke with the whip, his victim would scream. Every time he heard the snap, blood would spatter from a fresh wound and across the floor. Every time he would kick the body, she would fall over again and the chains would stop her from hitting the ground.
Even in the darkness, he could see the dark outlines of her pooled blood staining the floor, staining his boot and staining his whip. He could barely see her silhouette, crumpled on the floor like a broken statue, the tears occasionally leaving her face and falling down onto the floor to join the blood in a lake of sorrow.
And yet, she still refused to follow his orders.
“For the last time…” he spoke in a deadly voice, leaning down close to her and squeezing her ponytail in his fist so hard it pulled her hair. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way… All of this pain could be over, if you’d only cooperate with me, my dear…”
The woman gave a guttural moan and shook her head weakly. “Never…” she whispered in a faintly familiar voice.
Ganondorf let out an enraged growl and roughly threw her head down towards the floor. Her body whipped as the chains once again saved her from hitting the ground, and then lurched as the whip cut across her back again.
“Why don’t you people ever understand?” he roared, whipping her over and over again, savagely, playing with her like she was a toy. “Why don’t you EVER UNDERSTAND that if you’d OBEY ME, it would all be SO MUCH LESS PAINFUL!?”
“I’ll never obey you!” the woman screamed defiantly in between her shouts of pain. “NEVER! AAAH!”
Ganondorf aimed a kick at the center of her back and she flew forward, her legs almost whipping out from under her with the force. She let out a cry of pain and fell limp on the chains, trembling very softly in the dim light.
“This is your last chance…” Ganondorf murmured in a deadly whisper, leaning in close to her. “Pledge loyalty to me… pledge your love to me. Obey me… swear you’ll always be true to me…”
“Never…”
“Swear it.”
“Never!”
“SWEAR IT!”
“NEVER!”
“Fine. Have it your way. You’ve turned down my mercy… I have no choice but to show you my fury!”
With a short wave of his hand, the chains on her wrists snapped and released themselves. She very nearly fell to the ground, but was stopped and almost lifted into the air as Ganondorf backhanded her so hard she went flying across the room. Very nearly catching herself on the wall, she stumbled and landed on her knees before collapsing into a bloody heap, a nasty bruise beginning to rise up on her face.
Ganondorf laughed deeply and evilly as he stepped towards her silhouette, lying in the faint moonlight pouring in from the lone window. “Face me.”
The woman remained motionless on the floor.
“I said FACE ME!” Ganondorf snarled.
Cruelly, he kicked her body over with his foot so that she rolled into the light, and what he saw almost made him die of shock.
Impa, her face beaten and her body bloodied, her silvery hair tarnished by filth and blood and her eyes weary and bleak gazed up at him. “G-Ganondorf…” she whispered.
“IMPA!?”
His heart began to pound a million beats a minute when he realized what he’d done. “Oh my God… Oh my God, Impa! Impa, I didn’t know it was you… I’m so sorry! Oh my God, Impa, how could I… how could I have done this to you?!”
He fell to his knees beside her and lifted her wet, cold body. She stared at him forlornly before going limp in his arms, her eyes clouding over with a thin veil of death.
Ganondorf shook his head. “No… OH DIN, NO! GOD, NO, IMPA! IMPA, NO! I DIDN’T… I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT YOU! I DIDN’T… I DIDN’T… I DIDN’T WANT TO… WANT TO…”
“Ganondorf…”
Her voice was echoing through the room, even as she lay before him, dead. The other bodies still chained to the walls began to whisper in her voice as well. “Ganondorf… Ganondorf…”
He raised his head and leapt to his feet as the bodies all began to move again, sitting up, glaring at him with cold, dead eyes. Impa’s eyes. Impa’s bodies… at least a hundred of them… all were staring at him guiltily, all questioning why… Why had he hurt her? Why had he killed her? Why?
Ganondorf let out a short scream of terror and stumbled backwards, nearly tripping on his cape in a very undignified manner. She was watching him… staring at him from all corners of this room… He’d killed her… He’d killed her a hundred times or more, beat her to death, every time… How could he have failed to notice it was her?! And how could he have actually killed her, much less ignored his mistakes and killed her a hundred times?!
The newest murder victim stood up very slowly, her eyes sinking into her skull and her face frozen in a dead expression. She lifted her hand and pointed at him with one finger, her lips mumbling something he couldn’t hear.
“Impa! I’m so sorry! How… How could I have done this to you? ANSWER ME!”
“Evil King…” she whispered.
“Evil King…” a hundred of her voices echoed.
Ganondorf stumbled towards her. “Impa, please forgive me!”
Suddenly, he was hit with a staggering pain in his shoulder. Like a knife had flown through the air and through his body, he stumbled and almost fell to his knees. Blood was flowing freely from a fresh wound in his shoulder, dripping to the ground around him.
The chains on the wall victims snapped, and soon Impa was stepping towards him, pointing at him, blaming him from every direction at once.
And like a hundred knives were being thrown at him with deadly accuracy, he screamed as a hundred wounds appeared on his body from his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his legs, his throat. The knives multiplied, soon there were a thousand wounds, then a million, blood dripping from every wound until Ganondorf himself crumpled on the floor, surrounding by a pool of his own blood, riddled with wounds and holes, trembling as he felt death slipping over him.
“EVIL KING… EVIL KING… EVIL KING…”

Ganondorf screamed as he awoke.
Beads of cold sweat flew from his face and hands as he sat up, gasping for air, clutching at his chest as his heart beat so quickly he thought it might explode. He looked around… he was in his personal chambers, in his own bed…
It was a dream.
Letting out a deep and angry sigh, Ganondorf threw off the blankets and stood up, marching across the cold room and stopping in front of the ornate mirror, where a small basin of cool water was sitting on top of a nightstand.
He splashed a few handfuls on his face and squeezed the corners of the nightstand, taking deep breaths and trying to clear the horrible visions from his mind.
Another twisted dream… This was the third week in a row he’d been awoken in the middle of the night by horrible nightmares, sick visions that even he could not stomach.

Visions of violence and death, mostly against himself and those he still felt close to… Marya… and Impa.
He sank into a chair in front of the nightstand and buried his face in one hand, squeezing his forehead and clenching his eyes shut.
It hurt so much to dream of her…
Seven years as the King of all Hyrule could not erase the agony of losing her. The memories of the last words she said to him, the last kiss she’d given him, the knowledge that because he used to be weak and stupid and impulsive, she had left.
He doubted that there was a moment in the day when she wasn’t somewhere in his mind. Even when he was busy doing his favorite things- surveying his troops, torturing prisoners, practicing his deadliest spells, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Every minute of every day, he questioned what it would be like if she were indeed his queen… if she were by his side instead of out of his reach and on his mind.
What it would have been like if he hadn’t been too dumb to go after the Triforce then… if he’d always been this strong and if she had stayed instead of fleeing.
Some goddess up there must have thought it very funny to plague him with dreams of her. Especially dreams with the sick idea that he could kill her without even knowing it… The look on her face as he’d rolled her into the window’s light was etched in his brain, even if it had only existed in a dream.
Ganondorf often found himself wondering where she was now. Still with that damned annoying princess, perhaps… still forced into playing “nanny” and still only concerned for Zelda’s happiness and not her own.
Perhaps Zelda was dead and she was finally free. Perhaps she was trying to make her way back to Hyrule now… to rejoin him. To take him up on his eternal offer to make her happy.
Perhaps she had died… in a distant war, of a strange disease, cold and alone and dreaming of her Gerudo King.
Perhaps he plagued her dreams like she plagued his… perhaps she longed for him like he longed for her. Perhaps she spent her days wondering “what if”. What if Harkinian had never existed… if Zelda were never born… if Milana had never died and if Ganondorf had never been raised a false king. If she had never fled…
It was late, and he had to get back to sleep if he was to be ready for the day tomorrow. Marya had some kind of distraction keeping her from meeting him here at the palace like he’d requested… so he’d have to perform the rounds himself rather than having her write him up a report. Checking the performances of the demonic hoards that guarded his tower, checking the behaviors of the Iron Knuckles to see if the experiments really were getting better…
Even thoughts of the next day’s important activities weren’t enough to distract him.
To be crippled by a dream… what a weak, foolish trait. A trait worthy of a teenage boy or a pathetic man… not of a great Evil King.
He kept repeating that to himself.
But still, the dream didn’t go away…
Ganondorf stood up and made his way back towards the bed, trying to think of other things. He tried not to let the dream pool up with the other things that had been upsetting him lately… The sudden death of Volvagia, the dragon he’d worked so hard to resurrect… The sudden absence of power in the curse he’d placed on Zora’s Domain to teach that cheeky King a lesson… The loss of a fine breeding mare he’d been promised by the new owner of Lon-Lon Ranch…
The defeat of his phantom from the Forest Temple by a very familiar young man.
Yes… The “Hero of Time”, as he was calling himself. The little bastard currently out wandering somewhere in his land like a parasite, the little punk who’d stood up to him all those years ago… that Link.
Reports were flooding in about his actions. Reports of his slayings of numbers of Ganondorf’s demonic armies. Reports of his liberation of not one, but three of the ancient temples that housed the powers of the Six Sages.
And somehow, this little bastard “Hero of Time” was able to slip under Ganondorf’s radar time after time, no matter how many Wolfos or Stalfos he dispatched to kill him. No matter how high of a bounty he’d set on the boy’s head… a good 10,000 Rupees for anyone who was willing to bring him to Ganondorf, dead or alive. Preferably dead.
But alive was always more fun… the dead can’t scream, after all.
Ganondorf was briefly reminded of the phantom voice in the Chamber of Sages all those years ago that had taunted him and told him that he would fall if the Six Sages were awakened.
Impossible… the Hero of Time, this “Link”… he couldn’t know of that prophecy?
Ganondorf snorted with disgust as he prepared to sleep again. Now he was just being PARANOID.
What chance did a punk kid starting a one-man revolt against HIM? The Great King of Evil? Keeper of the Triforce of Power, the very ESSENCE of the Goddess Din?
These damn nightmares are making me soft… Ganondorf thought darkly as he closed his eyes and prepared for further rest.

-------------------------

“Thank you… for coming on such short notice, Lady…”
The Gerudo woman drifted off and gazed at Impa’s face in the low candlelight as though she was trying to remember.
“Impa. Just Impa,” Impa said modestly with a little nod.
“All right… if you insist,” she replied with a small smile.
Several weeks after Orin had fulfilled his promise and sent a message to Marya, a reply had come in the form of a male Hylian trader who’d been snagged by the Gerudo just outside the borders of their valley. Stuttering and terrified, he arrived in Kakariko with only the message that Impa should be waiting at the bridge in Gerudo Valley three days from that time.
Upon her silent arrival on horseback, a woman in a deep purple silk cloak had motioned to Impa from nearby a tent set up on one side of the bridge. Impa dismounted and followed her without a word, knowing well that this was the infamous Marya of the Gerudo. Second-in-command of the Gerudo thieves, beneath Ganondorf and his first mate, Nabooru.
Marya led Impa through the small Gerudo village of the fortress, where Impa had been fascinated for the brief time she was walking by. Hundreds of beautiful women of all ages, their skin the color of cinnamon and their hair all ruby red and flowing had been standing guard, sparring off fighting, riding horses, shooting arrows. She saw a group of Gerudo children playing, several young girls inside of which had golden eyes and prominent noses that could only have come from one person.
So this was the desert prison that Ganondorf had come to both loathe and love.
Marya gained clearance through a large gate to the west of the fortress, and grabbed Impa by the cloak as they wandered a short distance through a blustery, sandy hell of a place and into a small stone building that was dark and abandoned, except for a single glowing torch, a stolen wooden table, and several sacks full of grain. This was a food storage building, which Marya had deemed an ideal place to hold their meeting.
She bowed down towards the table, leaning against her hands folded on the tabletop before her. She was near middle age but still quite beautiful, her scarlet hair framing her face that was only slightly aged and golden eyes that looked sad beneath their fragile smile. Over her lavender Gerudo clothing she wore a thick wool cloak and shivered in the coldness of the underground room, deep beneath the wailing sands of the desert.
“I am Lady Marya of the Gerudo,” she began in a quiet voice, like she was afraid somebody would be listening to her. “I’m second in command among our people, beneath my daughter Nabooru… and my nephew, Ganondorf.”
Impa nodded. “I recognized you from the ball seventeen years ago… I saw you then… in the courtyard.”
“Yes… you were that Sheikah girl, then?” Marya said with a mischievous smile in Impa’s direction. “I’m sorry if I startled you that time… I remember, I was in quite a mood that day.”
Silence pervaded the conversation until Marya finally spoke up again. “Well… Impa… I don’t know how long you’ve been back here in Hyrule, because I heard you’d been gone… so I don’t know how much you know about the situation with… my nephew.”
“He’s the king,” she echoed the many conversations with the residents of Kakariko earlier that day. “And not very popular, I hear…”
“Yes…” Marya went on grimly. “Ganondorf is… he’s… you know, he’s always been groomed for a position of great leadership. Since the day he was born, he’s been royalty. The male Gerudo is only born every hundred years, and that male is worshipped like a god. Ganondorf always seemed to have a hard time understanding why he was different than the other children… his mother and I tried our hardest to give him a level head even while all the others bowed to him and made sacrifices to him… but his mother died, when he was just a little child.”
“At the hands of Hylians.”
“He told you a lot…” Marya sighed, gazing up at the ceiling and weaving her graceful fingers together. She leaned back in her chair and went on, freeing a hundred thousand thoughts that had been gathering for many years now, giving them wings and setting them loose.
“She was out on a raid with some others and they came across a party of Hylian travelers… Unfortunately, they didn’t know that they were actually Hylian guard reservists on their way to the castle for active duty. They fought them off and my sister stayed behind to distract them while the rest of them made their getaway. She was taken custody and punished by stoning the next day… and the rest of her party didn’t find her until her bloody body washed up and out of the river, several miles from the castle. We managed to get her home, but her injuries were severe, and she died right before Ganondorf’s eyes…”
Impa lowered her head, with a sorrowed look upon her face. “That’s very sad… My sympathies.”
Marya shrugged and shook her head. “My sister’s death was very hard on all of us. She was revered as the golden mother of our king… and everyone loved her, even before she became pregnant with Ganondorf. Her death was hardest on him… it made him hate the Hylians, and it made him feel more alone than he already was. No other little boys to play with. Just a bunch of women who treated him like he was special, when he didn’t think he was…”
Impa nodded her agreement with everything Marya said. It mirrored what Ganondorf himself had told her.
“I raised Ganondorf after my sister died, and he became like a son to me… I loved him more than I could ever describe in words, as much as my own daughter. And I tried so hard to raise him the way Milana wanted him to be raised… knowledgeable of his power but not overly fond of using it. I knew he wasn’t a happy child, but… I had no idea he was as miserable as he was until many years later. It seems, Impa… the only happy days of his youth were the days he spent at Hyrule Castle… with you.”
Impa felt her heart give a little leap and didn’t say anything. She merely nodded. Once again, these were things he’d told her himself…
“Again… I apologize for how harshly I behaved in the courtyard that evening, and in the day following when I humiliated him in front of you, and in front of people he hated and who he thought hated him… I was so caught up in worry about him that I didn’t think clearly and I may have been the start of all of this.”
“I’m sure you weren’t to blame…” Impa spoke up quietly. “You seem like a wonderful woman… and I know Ganondorf loves you very much.”
“I am to blame,” Marya interrupted her, her voice becoming the slightest bit icy. “I am to blame for destroying him… I killed him. In a way, I killed my own nephew.”
The room fell silent once again, and Impa broke it.
“But it wasn’t you… who punished him, was it?”
“Punished…?”
“He mentioned that he was punished… in order to convince him to take his coronation?” Impa asked.
Marya sighed miserably, leaning down and resting her head in her hands. “We didn’t punish him… we tortured him.”
She closed her eyes and spoke through the tears that were welling up in her eyes and in the back of her throat. “He didn’t take easily to the punishment I gave him of taking him home early. He went on and on about how it didn’t matter anymore, and how he wasn’t going to be the Gerudo King because he’d found something else that made him happier. He wouldn’t leave the topic alone. He became rebellious and wouldn’t listen to anything I told him to do, and we caught him trying to run away several times, in the dead of night. He was dead-set on keeping a promise, he said. A promise he’d made to the person who fulfilled his life.”
Marya looked up at Impa with a half-hearted smirk on her face. Impa’s eyes widened considerably as she went on.
“He was obsessed with you. He wouldn’t obey us, he wouldn’t stay home, he kept trying to run away to go find you. The time came for him to begin his serious magical training and he wasn’t interested. He spent all his time up in his room, avoiding us so he could think about you. None of us knew what he was thinking about for the longest time, until one day, I finally realized who it was he was so devoted to…”
“It didn’t matter to me that you were a nice girl, or the one girl he truly loved. All I could see was that you were not a Gerudo. You were an outsider… And our king was in love with you. Our king was obsessed with a girl who could never be with him. He would not give you up. He would not accept his role… and the day I found out about it was the day I made the stupidest decision of my life. The others came to me and expressed their concerns… and I stupidly let them do what they wanted to do. If he wouldn’t accept being king… they would force him to accept.”
Marya lowered her head once again. “Under the guise of his ‘training’, we dragged him into the lowest level of our training grounds. We were determined to make him stop thinking about you, to make him stop chasing a dream he could never hold.
“First, we chained him down on the floor and took off his shirt. And one of us would hit him with a wooden switch and tell him not to scream. If he screamed, we did it harder, a second time. If he screamed again, we did it a third. And so it continued on until he could withstand the pain of a switch hitting bloody wounds all over his back without so much as a noise.
“We’d leave him down there when we were finished, saying it would make him more independent. He screamed and cried like a child when we closed the door and it was pitch black and his back was burning… And all I wanted was to rush down to him and help him, but the others kept me out and swore that it was for what was best for the Gerudo nation.”
“He was trained in magic by his grandmothers, but once they were finished each day we’d move in on him again. We forced him to do a thousand things he didn’t want to… we threw him into the training grounds and wouldn’t let him out until he returned to us with a target from the very center of the gauntlet, no matter how bruised or bloody he was when he came, begging for mercy. We beat him more, harder, forced him to pull himself up over a bar as one of us licked at his feet with a whip.
“We’d spar against him ourselves, and we wouldn’t go easy on him- he’d be covered with cuts and slashes before we were done, and we wouldn’t let up until he threw us off of him himself… He’d scream and cry and yell at us, horrible things, things that gave us hope that maybe he’d stopped the reason we had to start… but he’d always end with you. He’d scream your name when we beat him… he’d lay up in his bedroom at night and we’d hear him talking to you in a dream… he couldn’t get you out of his head, and we couldn’t stop hurting him…”

Impa pulled her hand away from her mouth, where it had involuntarily landed as Marya began this part of the story. Her mind was filled with terrible visions, horrible screaming, the cries of pain from a boy barely of age as his own relatives beat him and left him in the darkness to fend for himself… lying up in his room at night, blood soaking through his shirt, staring out the window or lost in a nightmarish dream, inside of which she was the only light…
He was beaten because he dreamed of her, he spoke of her, he wished for her, he longed for her. He couldn’t have her… and because of that…

“It was almost two years before he finally gave in to us,” Marya went on in a low, sad voice. Her eyes were filled with tears, just remembering the sound of his screams. “One day he just couldn’t take it anymore. He was inches from death, I was pleading with them to stop, they were promising they would once he agreed to his position and he screamed out, ‘I’ll be your damn king! I’ll be it, I’ll be anything you want me to be!’… and when they pulled him out from the training grounds that day, I couldn’t see it at first, but he was a completely new person… my nephew, the one I loved and cherished was dead, in a pool of blood down there… and this new person, though he looked like Ganondorf, he wasn’t the same… he was the king we wanted. Or at least… the king we thought we wanted.”
Impa swallowed and turned away from Marya, staring at the place where the wall met the floor of the basement room. Her gut was twisted into a terrible knot and she was overcome by guilt. “My God…”

Marya continued in an even quieter voice, so quiet Impa could barely hear her. “That was the last command we ever gave him. He rose up to embrace his position… and he took charge. He did everything we wanted him to do… became a powerful sorcerer, an expert warrior, a skilled horseman… he fathered three daughters, but has no emotional attachment to them whatsoever. He didn’t seem to have an attachment to anything anymore. He’d just wander around the fortress with his eyes set forward… never speaking unless he wanted something or had something to say.
“He grew distant from all his former friends, especially his cousin, my daughter… and they had been very close before then. I didn’t have any idea what he had planned for us and for this kingdom until we got the message that day… that he’d murdered the king and stolen the Triforce, and he was now the Evil King of Hyrule. We were happy, at first… but the happiness was fleeting for most of us.
“The title… ‘Evil’ King? It was given to him by the commoners, but… he seemed to like it and he adopted it. ‘If my actions are considered evil, so be it,’ he told me. That’s when saw the monster we’d created in action… he killed women and children and innocent men right before our eyes, in his court… Little by little, I knew that something was horribly wrong.
“When we began to dislike the way he did things… strange things began to happen to our people. Almost as though they’d been brainwashed, Gerudo women suddenly became violent and broke the ethics we had set up over a thousand years ago… Nabooru was one of them. She’s nothing like the girl I remember anymore… she barely remembers me or anything about the way things used to be… and I decided I had to put a stop to this. I had to stop the monster I helped to create.”

There was a long moment of silence before Marya spoke once again, glancing at Impa with a tiny smile.
“You didn’t know he was so obsessed with you… did you?” Marya asked.
“I knew…” Impa said quietly, “I knew that he was in love with me… but I had no idea he… he went through… that.”
“Yes… He never spoke of you after you and the princess fled, and we dared not speak of you to him… so I don’t know if he even remembers you anymore.”
“Something tells me he will…” Impa said quietly, folding her hands in her lap.
Marya gave a half-hearted snort of amusement. “I’d be surprised if the ‘Great Ganondorf’ remembered even who I was these days. It’s like everything I ever wanted to instill in him has fallen on deaf ears… if he could see what we see, I don’t know if he’d be disgusted… or just not care anymore… I’m so sick of seeing him like this, a shell of who he used to be… and I’m sick of being a tool for him to spread his hatred and bitterness across the rest of the world… I suppose, that’s why I decided to meet with you today. I was hoping… praying, even, that if he could at least remember you… maybe there was still hope for him.”
There was another short moment of silence as Impa took a chance to let it all sink in. He hadn’t spoken of her since she had left, seven years ago… but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten. Only that he’d been unwilling to speak of her to his people, the ones who punished him for loving her in the first place. And that was likely the case…
A man so wicked and cruel that even his own aunt wanted to stop his rule.
Well… why was she so surprised? She’d seen for herself what he’d do if he was desperate enough. He’d murdered over a hundred people in the span of ten minutes, just to show her that he meant what he promised her… he’d do anything to prove to her that he meant what he said.
Perhaps he had even sought the Triforce so that he could do as she told him he couldn’t… and become a god.
The image still didn’t fit. It just didn’t fit… that smiling teenager in the courtyard… then that bloodstained man in the hallway… now, a faceless entity, dwelling in the highest part of that gothic tower in the middle of the castle town, squeezing the life out of the land.
It just… it couldn’t be… it wasn’t right.
“I have to say, though… I’m curious, Impa.”
Impa was snapped out of her train of thought by Marya’s soft voice. She looked up at her. “Hmm?”
“I take it that you, too… loved my nephew.”
Impa blushed a little bit. “Yes… I did.”
“Do you mind if I ask, then? If you loved him, why are you going out of your way to unseat him from his throne? I assume that’s why you’re here… You don’t mind ripping him away from something that he enjoys?”
Impa was quiet for a long moment before she finally spoke again. “I don’t think he enjoys it. I don’t think he’s happy at all… I think he’s a sad, desperate man, struggling to hold the power to take charge of his own destiny. He told me he wanted to be able to decide things for himself… And I think, maybe now, he feels like he can decide things for himself and he’s afraid of losing that power…”
She went on in a steady voice, unshaken by the awkwardness of the things she was saying. “The Ganondorf that I loved said he didn’t want to be a monster… he was afraid of the power he was going to be given. I think now that he’s on top of everything and there is no one to give him orders anymore… I think he’ll try to do anything he can to make himself truly happy… but he doesn’t realize that it’s his own power, his own bloodlust and his own want for control that is making him unhappy. I believe that somewhere, sleeping inside that so-called ‘King of Evil’ is a scared teenage boy, imprisoned for trying to have a hold on something he really believed in. I want to set that boy free… I think that’s what he really wants.”
“We’re on the same page, then,” Marya smiled pleasantly. “We both loved and we both miss the same person… now we want them back.”
“Yes,” Impa agreed.
“Then… I’ll have you know that I really, honestly have no idea how we can do this… my nephew is not a reasonable man anymore, and any sign of a revolt will send him into a frenzy… especially if you’re correct and he does remember you.”
“If he learns that I’m back in Hyrule, I have a feeling that he’s going to come after me,” Impa said uneasily. “He killed for me before… and I have no doubt that he’d do it again.”
“We’ll have to keep this meeting on the lowdown, then,” Marya said officially. “I’ll issue orders that anyone who saw us today keep their mouths shut.”
“But, like you said, if some of the other Gerudo are under his influence…”
“None of them at the fortress,” Marya corrected her. “I made careful sure of that before I began to plan a revolt. Any Gerudo who I’ve suspected of being brainwashed are out in the Spirit Temple or keeping guard in his palace… That includes my daughter, several other guards, and the mothers of his daughters.”
“You’ve thought ahead,” Impa smiled at her.
“Yeah… it’s pretty hard to pull the wool over these old eyes!” Marya grinned, thumping herself on the chest. “I trust all the others at the fortress with my life.”
Impa shrugged softly. “I hope you’re right…”
“I’m not afraid anymore… I think at this point I would rather die trying to save him than stand by watching him damn himself even more,” Marya sighed deeply.
“I agree… it’s what we’re trying to do that’s important. It will give people hope, and hope is what we all really need right now.”
“Yes… but if we’re completely crushed, it won’t exactly be a morale booster for everyone else,” Marya mumbled with a hint of joking in her voice.
“So… what do you think we should do for now?” asked Impa.
“For now? I’d lay low if I were you,” Marya suggested, rising from her chair and proceeding to pace around the room with her arms folded in a very business-like pose. “I’ve managed to convince Ganondorf not to make any moves against the uprisings he thinks he’s on to at the time… but hearing of your return will set him into action immediately if he still remembers.”
“I agree…” Impa concurred. “I was planning on staying in Kakariko a while longer. The people there trust me and will do what they can to harbor me until we’re ready to make a real move.”
“Good idea… In the meantime, I’ll try to find out what I can about his plans and when he might be out of the palace next… That place is like a fortress and it’ll be nearly impossible for anyone to break in.”
“Even the Hero of Time?”
Marya stared at Impa like she was insane. “The Hero of Time?”
“He’s working for us,” Impa smiled sedately.
“… EXCELLENT!” Marya burst out. “Excellent! If he’s half as strong as you crazy outsiders think he is, we just might have a chance…”
“It’s whether or not he’ll leave Ganondorf alive that’s the question,” Impa pointed out. “Not to burst your bubble or anything…”
“That’s fine… I told you, I’d rather see him dead than like this.”
Impa nodded, though she felt she did not share this sentiment. “My ch- … my nephew Sheik is currently working on gathering the Six Sages with the Hero of Time. I’ll stay on alert for updates from him, and deliver any news I hear to you as soon as I possibly can.”
“Excellent,” Marya repeated. “Good… this isn’t bad so far… We’ll both play it cool for now and keep our eyes and ears open for anything that might be important. Got it?”
“Understood,” Impa nodded enthusiastically.
Marya grinned and reached across the table to shake Impa’s hand. “Pleasure doing business with you, Impa…”
“The pleasure is all mine, Lady Marya,” Impa smiled as she sealed the handshake.
“Let’s see if we can’t release that boy from his prison, hmm?”
“Yes… I think he’d be smiling if he’d heard our plan,” Impa mused softly.
“Somehow, I know he would be,” Marya agreed, her mind drifting away to an old portrait of the boy, indeed smiling with as much sincerity as she’d ever seen him wear.

------------------------

Ganondorf leaned back in his chair, his cold yellow eyes boring down, sweeping across the three subjects kneeling before him.
“How are things at the Spirit Temple, Nabooru?” he asked in an almost bored tone.
“Things are progressing well, my lord,” replied his cousin in a soft, dead voice. She kept her eyes low to the floor and her voice held none of its usual character. She was barely visible beneath the thick plates of armor she wore over her shoulders and back, and the axe she usually wielded was placed on the floor next to her.
Her mother glanced at her from her left, but she didn’t notice her at all. “Koume and Kotake have nearly perfected what you asked, and we are growing more successful with each new attempt, my lord.”
“How many times have they done you this week, dear cousin?” Ganondorf asked, resting his chin on his hand.
“Only once, my lord.”
“Then they are improving… tell them to continue as planned, and to up their experiments if they see fit to,” he told her with a sharp nod.
“I shall do so, my lord.”
“Good. Lana, your report.”
“The palace has been quite secure all week,” the Gerudo to Marya’s right said, but her voice was obviously more alive than Nabooru’s. “We’ve had very few threats… a stirring from the inhabitants of the market, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Didn’t I ask that someone destroy those wretched things?” Ganondorf sighed almost boredly.
“We dare not get close to them, my lord. They’re merely tortured souls, monsters formed from the Hylians who couldn’t escape from our movement into the castle town. They seem to feed on human blood, and I don’t want to let them get any closer to the palace than they are,” Lana explained.
“I’m not afraid of a few rotting corpses,” Ganondorf waved her off with one hand. “Let them wander for all I care. They’ll just serve as another deterrent for those who’d wander into my sacred grounds… Other than that, anything to report?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“How are the new guards?”
“It’s more difficult to control the ones who are under your influence, Lord Ganondorf,” Lana admitted.
Ganondorf let out a short, disgusted sigh and cracked his knuckles. “Another unfortunate side effect… Nabooru, ask that Koume and Kotake deal with that little problem as well. And Lana, just be patient with them for now. After a few more ‘sessions’, they should perfectly suit your needs.”
“Yes, my lord,” Lana and Nabooru both nodded respectfully.
There was a short moment of silence before Ganondorf’s commanding voice spoke out again. “And Marya. How are things at the fortress?”
“Things are quite calm, my lord,” Marya spoke up reverentially. “We’ve had some problems with the food supply, but we received a new shipment of grains from the Hylians, who were… HAPPY to oblige our request,” she added with a slightly maniacal smirk. “Other than that… things have been quiet in your absence.”
“That’s good to hear,” Ganondorf smiled at her. “I knew I left it in capable hands…”
“Thank you, my lord,” Marya nodded at him, daring to look him in the eyes.
Ganondorf flashed her an unpleasant smile, then spoke again. “And how was your meeting with that woman?”
Marya’s heart gave a little leap. “What woman, my lord?”
“The outsider woman that Nabooru said she saw you with the other day… the one who you met with in secret out in the food store of the Haunted Wasteland?” Ganondorf asked her, his voice still pleasant in tone.
Marya glanced over at her daughter, whose face was still lowered to the ground with a blank and neutral expression on it. “Nabooru…?”
“You know that it’s forbidden to bring outsiders into the fortress, Marya. In fact… I believe you’re the one who’s supposed to be enforcing that rule,” Ganondorf spat darkly. “Who was the woman, Marya?”
“I was alone all day, my lord. I didn’t bring any outsider woman into the fortress… on that, I swear,” Marya stumbled around her words, though she tried her best to sound glib. “My daughter was mistaken.”
“Your daughter cannot be mistaken. She cannot invent stories, either, Marya… which is what you are proving yourself to be quite good at,” Ganondorf told her threateningly. “Stop lying to me, or you’ll find out the punishment for making me look a fool.”
Marya turned deep red and stammered out, “I’m sorry, my lord…”
“Tell me the truth now.”
“I did have a woman inside. She was one of the Hylian merchants we’ve been stealing from lately, and she had come to negotiate to get back something precious of hers,” she explained quickly.
“And she needed to do so with you, in private?”
Marya almost spoke again, but thought better of it and remained silent.
“That’s what I thought,” Ganondorf said darkly, rising up from his throne and descending the steps before him, going towards his three subjects, lined up. He kept his eyes locked with Marya’s and he stopped before her, glaring at her coldly. Lifting one hand, he waved away Nabooru and Lana. “Step back, ladies.”
They rose and stepped away from him, and he stared down at Marya. Her gaze from his was unyielding, and finally he motioned for her to rise as well. “Please, stand… Auntie.”
Marya stood up and took a few steps away from him, now staring back at him just as coldly as he did her.
“I’ve been unhappy with your behavior towards me lately, Marya,” Ganondorf began, eyeing her cruelly. “You’ve seemed more distant than usual. Almost like you’re afraid of me… or you dislike the way I do things.”
“I said nothing of that sort, Ganondorf,” Marya replied.
“I AM YOUR KING!” Ganondorf screamed viciously, backhanding her hard and right off her feet. She caught herself on the floor and lowered her head, wincing as the sting of his fist dissipated throughout her face and she felt blood dripping down her face where his jewelry had cut her. “YOU BETTER REMEMBER THAT, MARYA! I AM YOUR KING, I AM YOUR GOD, AND YOU SHALL ADDRESS ME AS SUCH!”
Marya stared up at him with a cold glare. “Yes… my lord.”
“What are you staring at, Marya?” Ganondorf went on malevolently. “Why do you stare at me like I’m some kind of demon?”
“You’ve changed, Lord Ganondorf…” she repeated, unafraid of his wrath. “You’re no longer the son I had,”
“I’ve changed?”
He paused and smile cruelly at her. “Yes… I have changed… I underwent a metamorphosis for seventeen years, because you wanted me to, Marya… or don’t you remember? You watched the entire time!”
She burned bright red as he went on. “What’s wrong, Auntie? Are you unhappy with the monster you’ve created? Is that why you’re inviting strange women into my lands… perhaps to speak with them privately, to complain about the way I do things?”
“I would never plot against you, my lord,” Marya assured him. “You are my king, and my nephew… I love you like a son, Ganondorf.”

“Yes… how reassuring,” he snarled. “If you did have a son, would you have thrown him to the she-wolf bitches like you did me? Do you think you’d be happy with HIM, Marya?”

“Ganondorf…” she repeated, staring up at him, sadness in her eyes. “You can’t see things the way I see them now… If only you could see yourself…”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he roared at her. “You hypocrite! How dare you tell me you’re unhappy with me, when it’s you who made me the way I am in the first place? When WILL you be satisfied, Marya? First I’m not strong enough… now I’m too strong, is that what you’re telling me?”
Marya had burst into tears and she remained crumpled on the floor, facing away from him and tightening her fingers around the crimson carpet. She heard him stomp up behind her and then his hand was around her throat, lifting her skinny body up and then spinning her around to face him. He leaned into her face with fire burning in his eyes and continued.
“There were only a few people in the world I thought I could always trust when I was younger, Marya,” he hissed at her. “And you were the one I thought would always support me… You were the one I thought would always accept me and always understand me…”
“G-Ganondorf…” she stuttered.
“Then you tossed me to the others, like a sick animal into a pack of wolves… I tried to reform for you, Marya… make you happy… I tried to be the son you wanted to have… because you always were jealous of my mother, weren’t you?”
“N-no, Ganondorf…” Marya shook her head through the loose grip of his hands. “Never…”
“Yes… you were never quite happy with me, were you? If you were, you would have saved me…”
“I only wanted what was best for you…” Marya whispered through tears. “Ganondorf… you must believe me…”
“Is it best for me that your little revolt succeed?”
“I have no revolt!” Marya screamed desperately.
“You want me dead, Auntie.”
“I’d never, never want you dead, Ganondorf…”
“You’d kill me now yourself, if you had the chance.”
“Never!”
“I’m just a defective failure of yours, aren’t I, Marya?” Ganondorf finished in a convincing, but very vicious whimper.
“Never…” Marya repeated. “You’re my son, Ganondorf… I love you, and I know…”
“You know WHAT?” he snarled.
“I know you would hate what you are…”
“I’m fine with who I am, Marya. For once, I’m happy with myself… for once, I’m not being beaten by Gerudo who think I’m not strong enough to be their king!”
“But the Ganondorf I know would never do this… any of this…” Marya whispered.
Ganondorf paused and glared at her furiously, but he released his iron grip around her throat and instead grabbed her around the wrist. “You don’t know me as well as you think, Marya… Now enough of this. You will tell me who that woman was.”
“I won’t,” Marya said, shaking her head and squeezing her eyes shut. Several tears trailed down her face.
“You will tell me.”
“I won’t.”
“You will tell me at the risk of your daughter’s life,” Ganondorf told her viciously, motioning over his shoulder.
Nabooru had taken a step away from her comrade and was holding the point at the top of her tremendous axe towards her own chest. She stared blankly ahead of her, emotionlessly. Lana had crumpled up on the floor, quaking in fear of Ganondorf’s anger.
“Ganondorf, no!” Marya gasped.
“Tell me who that woman was and what she was doing on my land,” Ganondorf told her, “Or I won’t hesitate to kill her.”
“She’s your cousin, Ganondorf!” Marya shrieked.
“And you are my aunt… but it apparently hasn’t stopped you from betraying me, has it?” Ganondorf smiled smugly.
Marya gazed up at him helplessly, and then back at her daughter.
“Tell me her name.”
“Impa,” Marya finally burst out. “Her name was Impa!”

The room fell silent, and Marya didn’t let her eyes stray from Ganondorf’s for even a second.
Slow realization came to him. His eyes widened and the name echoed in his head.
Impa…
IMPA…?
IMPA?!
“You must be mistaken,” Ganondorf said darkly.
“I’m not… I met with a woman named Impa!” Marya repeated strongly. It was obvious that the name had some effect on him. She almost would have smiled, had the situation not been so serious.
“You’re STILL lying to me!” Ganondorf roared. “I knew you would resort to low measures to make me do what you wanted to, Marya… But how DARE you taunt me with HER name, you BITCH?!”
“I’m not lying, Ganondorf!” Marya screamed back. “I’m not, I’m not, I swear to Din, I’m not…”
He released her again and turned away, stomping back over towards his throne with his fists clenched at his side. Marya ran behind him, pleading. “Ganondorf… she’s back, Ganondorf. And she wants to see you… But not like this, Ganondorf. Not like this… she wants to see the you that she loved, the one before all this happened…”
Silence.
“So… you brought her into the valley, our forbidden sacred grounds, without informing me of her return… to tell her about your little ‘revolt’?”
“I’m not revolting, Ganondorf,” Marya repeated once again.
“Your behavior would prove otherwise…” he snarled back to her. He raised his hands and gave some kind of signal to Nabooru.
“Ganondorf, no… please, spare Nabooru!” Marya pleaded. “I’m sorry… this is all my doing, none of the others had anything to do with it… it was all me, and I’ve learned my lesson…”
“Where is Impa now?” Ganondorf said under his breath.
“Kakariko Village,” Marya said quickly. “Ganondorf… please, don’t hurt her… it was all my doing. All my doing…”

There was silence, then Ganondorf gave a broad laugh.
“Don’t worry, Marya… I’ve learned many lessons from the things you taught me. I’m not one for prolonged suffering… I have mercy in this heart of mine… unlike you.”
There was a sudden scream of agony and Marya pitched forward, collapsing onto her knees. She inhaled a quick breath and held in another scream as she looked down and saw it- a steel point protruding from her chest, and the axe it was attached to beginning to bury the corners of the head in her shoulders. Marya trembled in agony, bending over to try and lessen the searing, white-hot pain. “G-GANON…DORF…”
Ganondorf caught her by the chin and lifted her face up to look him in the eyes, relishing the pain and shock on her face. “That’s why I’ll make your death quick, dear Auntie…”
With that, he twisted her neck until there was a crack, then she fell limp upon the steps leading to his throne. The axe disappeared from her back and her body nearly came with it, but its wielder quickly kicked her back down to lie in a limp, bleeding heap, face-down on the stairs.

“Good job, Nabooru,” Ganondorf smiled at her as she resumed a kneeling position before him. “Inform Koume and Kotake that their experiments are succeeding in this aspect.”
“Yes, my lord,” Nabooru nodded deeply, a smirk appearing on her otherwise emotionless face.
Ganondorf kicked his aunt’s body further down the stairs and eyed Lana, who was still huddled in the corner, withholding gasps of terror. “Get her out of my sight and clean this up, Lana. Take her back to the fortress and tell the others that this is what happens to those who betray me.”
“Y-y-y-yes, m-my lord…” Lana nodded fearfully, crawling out of the corner and towards Marya.
Ganondorf had a seat in his throne and stared, never blinking across the room, heavy thoughts weighing on his mind. “You are both excused.”

Impa…
She was back! Here, in Hyrule! Only twenty miles away, holed up in the rat hole of Kakariko and surrounded by those disgusting Hylians!
A deep, evil smile creased itself across Ganondorf’s face as the doors slammed shut and he was left alone with his thoughts.
How would she look? A silver goddess, like he imagined… Wrapped in a traveler’s cloak, weary from her long journey, but still beautiful as ever. Those haunting red eyes would smile at him and her perfect lips would whisper his name. Her loving arms would wrap around him once again, and to feel her in his arms would be ecstasy, what he’d been waiting for all these years…
And huddled in the corner nearby her, terrified at her beloved nanny’s betrayal would be Zelda… the second piece of the Triforce that had eluded him shining brilliantly from her left hand!
At last, Ganondorf’s fruitless search was at an end. The two women who had escaped him that day seven years ago, the only two things he wanted were waiting for him there, waiting for him, ripe for the taking.
He smiled wickedly as he remembered the voice in the Sacred Realm that had told him that only two things would never be his- the woman he loved and the remainder of the Triforce.
Oh, how wrong that voice had been.
Tomorrow would be the day… the day of destiny, the day he’d been waiting for… He and Impa would be reunited, and at last, there would be a queen on his throne! An Evil Queen beside him…
Marya’s death left him without an advisor but presented him with something so much greater… The Triforce of Wisdom, and his future bride, both waiting for him in the village of Kakariko…
He closed his eyes and pictured the well at the center of the village… He’d need to stir up something to keep the Hylians distracted while he appeared to take what was his… Those old legends he had sifted through on his way to find out about the Triforce finally had some use.
Deep in the depths of the well’s darkness, something slept… docile and quiet now, but as Ganondorf pictured it; it began to writhe restlessly in its watery prison. It began to spread and wriggle and squirm as it seeped along the walls like floating water, trying to find a means of escape.
“Wake up, little spirit…”
The Triforce on his hand glared with a bright golden light as its power was tapped into. The mental link grew stronger until suddenly, he could see the dank, horrid place where this creature was trapped. Darkness and death filled him and he continued to speak to it.
“Awaken for me, spirit… Demonic resident of Kakariko… Can you hear me?”
It answered him back with a horrific otherworldly scream of rage and sadness.
“Yes, you’ve been locked up for a long time now…”
It had found the holy seal that had been set in place to keep it there six years ago, and it was helpless to escape it.
“If I let you go… will you do what I say?”
Another scream.
“Listen well, spirit… I am Ganondorf, Great King of Evil, and I am your master…”
Dark omens spilled into the air around him as he continued his telepathic orders to the awakened spirit.
“Destroy the village of Kakariko. Burn down every house and kill every person you find… except two.”
The spirit rumbled its agreement, quaking with pleasure at its happy orders.
“Leave alive the Princess of the Hylians… keep her trapped until I arrive, understand?”
The spirit agreed.
“And leave alive the Sheikah woman… I will take care of her myself.”
An angry scream echoed through Ganondorf’s head.
“She is mine. If you harm her, I will damn you into a place smaller and darker than the well. Leave those two alive, and you may feed on the others as you see fit.”
Finally, the spirit howled its agreement and began to swirl around in a vortex within the well.
“The power to escape is yours, my servant… Gather your strength and you should be able to break the seal within a few hours.”
The beast howled back in an inhuman wail, but its words were understandable to his ears.
“Your will be done, master.”

He opened his eyes and smiled malevolently; almost afraid to believe what he now knew was the truth.
Even if she refused to take his hand like she had before, he now had at his disposal the entire village of Kakariko, as well as the life of the princess.

If for some reason she refused him—but of course, she would not—he could easily change her mind.
His lips erupted into an evil grin and he laughed darkly, once again imagining the feel of her hand in his, her arms around him, her beautiful eyes and her perfect body… soon to be his and his alone.
“Impa, my puppet… your strings are mine!”


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Like the last line? A variation of a verse from a Nightwish song “Feel For You”, which may or may not be about necrophilia. Hmm. PLEASANT! ^___^ Well crap, man. This is starting to look pretty grim for Impa! Ganondorf’s batshit psycho (don’t you love how I said “crap” the line above but then went all the way in that one? Whatever, GG >.<), Zelda’s in danger (wherever she is- which is with Link, of course. Sheik, remember?), who the hell knows what’s up with Link, Bongo-Bongo is about to go Godzilla on Kakariko- OMGTEHSUSPENSE!1!11 Well, stay tuned for the next angst-filled edition of NEVER MY DESTINY- in which the lovers shall meet again! GASP!!

It makes romantics like GG CRY!

Oh yes, and a nice prize goes to the person who can tell me where I got the names for Jaime and Nicolas. I’ll give you a hint: The characters I took the names from were also brothers… but they were twins in the original work. ^_-