Fan Fiction ❯ Never My Destiny ❯ Sage of Shadow ( Chapter 9 )

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

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

A/N: Congratulations to Quueenie and Mynxine, who simultaneously gave me the correct answer to my Random Trivia question last chapter (ten years ago). Jaime and Nicolas were twin brothers (one a doctor, the other a hippie, respectively) who did indeed originally appear in Isabel Alende’s “The House of the Spirits”. Incidentally, a very, very good read if you don’t mind a bit of weird gore. But you’re reading this, so apparently you don’t.

I had fun writing that question (it kind of makes all this depression and crap less sad for me!) so I’ll give you all another one! In this chapter, Ganondorf in particular has some dialogue based on the lyrics to two songs by one of my favorite bands (you can see what those are under my profile). Name the band and the songs in your review (or in an email to me) and you’ll win a special prize- Oh, and no fair if I told you prior to publishing this chapter (via IM).

Mmkay. Down to business. I really don’t know how long this story will be, but probably a few more chapters… then it’ll get REAL depressing. I want to thank everybody for reading this story and giving it a chance… I have worked really hard and it and though it isn’t my usual style, it’s helping me add angst into other GG-riffic works of mine and it’s very good practice.

BY THE WAY. Who else things FF.N’s sudden deletion of all asterisks and tildays is stupid!? ::raises hand::! Not to mention… ergh… Well, we won’t talk about that. I think you all know what’s happened to my poor account. Ah, well.

Sorry it’s been so long since an update, incidentally! @_@; I’ve had a lot of trauma lately dealing with the last of my scriptfics and stuff.



CHAPTER NINE: Sage of Shadow

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“Ruto says thank you.”
“Does she?”
“Yeah… But I wouldn’t encourage her if I were you.”
Sheik smiled oddly behind his thin veil, shaking his head with a short chuckle. “She’s a bit overbearing, isn’t she?”
“She redefines the word.”
Two young men sat on a grassy section of an island, far out in the middle of the serene Lake Hylia. Waters lapped at dried-up sections of dirt on the lakeshore and around the island. For a little over a year, the lake had been dry, its sacred waters sucked away by the demon amoeba dwelling deep within the temple below them, an ancient maze of marble corridors and traps. Now, the Sage of Water, Princess Ruto of the Zora had been awakened, and there was a rare moment of calm for the Hero of Time.
He was a stunningly handsome young man of seventeen. He had soft, barely sad blue eyes that stood out among his pale face and features and his feather blond hair. His tunic, still wet from the battles within the temple, clung to his well-muscled body and he leaned back on his hands, watching the sunrise.
Perching on his shoulder in a faint circle of blue light was the form of a tiny, curvaceous female fairy. Her wings were patterned like a fine, glassy doily and within the glow one could make out a shock of pink hair falling down her shoulders, bright blue eyes and a tiny, carefully sewn dress. She rocked back and forth on her charge’s shoulder and wiped her pink curls out of her face.
And sitting a short distance away was a Sheikah teenager, for once not racing off after the fact and stopping to take a break and watch the sunrise.
“The sunrise has never changed, has it?” Navi asked, her voice like a bell in the silent morning.
“Nav, what are you talking about?” asked Link, playfully swatting at her with a few fingers.
“The sun comes up every morning, and there’s always a dazzling sunrise to come along with it. Even with a darkness over the land, it’s always risen. Right?”
“Right,” Link replied.
“And it’s the same sun everywhere,” Sheik went on. “Even in lands far away from Hyrule, the same sun rises at the same time every day. It’s almost like the goddesses wanted to make sure every land had a piece of the sun, no matter what was happening within them.”
Silence fell over the odd group.
“Well! That temple took a lot out of me! I’ve never used so much of my magic keeping myself dry before!” Navi burst out. “I’m exhausted.”
“We can rest a while longer before we go looking for the next temple, Navi,” Link assured her. “Make sure you get your magic back before we run headlong into another situation of certain doom.”
“Nah, I’ll be fine. I just need a flower or two and a whoooole lot of water,” Navi assured him. A few glowing sparks fell from her body as she rose from Link’s shoulder, stretching and yawning a bit as the first rays of sparkling light grazed the water. She made her way to the water’s edge and stopped, kneeling and carefully scooping droplets of water out of the veritable ocean to drink. She was careful not to be splashed by the swelling tide and had to leap backwards several times to avoid being soaked and knocked in.
Link and Sheik watched the fairy, trying hard not to laugh at her difficulties as they continued their conversation.
“I’m really… doing it, aren’t I?” Link asked with a hint of pride.
“Of course,” Sheik nodded. “You’re doing spectacularly. It’s just like the legend says. I’m starting to believe you really are the Hero of Time.”
“But I can’t have done it all by myself,” Link shook his head. “I’ve had help from almost everyone. Saria, Darunia…” He paused. “… Ruto… Rauru, you, and Navi. And Zelda, wherever she is.”
Sheik smirked beneath his veil.
“Is she still alive?”
“Absolutely,” Sheik assured him. “She’s in hiding right now, until the moment is right for us to complete our final strike against the Evil King.”
“That’s good,” Link nodded. “And she’s safe?”
“Yes. She’s very safe,” Sheik said bemusedly.
“Do you know anything about the other two temples?” asked Link in a business-like tone. “Forest, Fire and Water were self-explanatory… but the other two…”
“I know them,” Sheik replied casually. “There’s the Shadow Temple in Kakariko Village, and the Spirit Temple out in the Gerudo Valley.”
“Gerudo Valley?”
Link made a bit of a face. “That’ll be… fun.”
“Don’t worry… You’ve found a way everywhere else. I’m sure you’ll be able to get there without clashing with the Gerudo too much,” Sheik said.
Navi flew up from the surface of the water, her wings beating time against the soft breeze. “We probably shouldn’t stand around too long. Let’s get going!”
“Slave-driver,” Link teased.
“Where are you going first?” Sheik asked, wiping a bit of hair from his eyes.
“I don’t know… maybe we’ll get Kakariko done and over with since we know we can get into the place without being killed,” Link surmised.
“I may see you there,” Sheik pulled a marble-sized object from his pocket and backed away. “There’s someone staying there right now who I need to talk to… and she may be able to help you.”
“Thanks, Sheik,” Link nodded his appreciation.
“Certainly. See you around,” Sheik tossed the object to the ground and it exploded with a flash as he vanished into thin air.



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As is usually the case, it seemed like a normal evening.
Impa’s home was silent except for the soft sounds of breathing from below. No less than ten villagers with nowhere else to go were crashed all across the floor, sleeping in great piles with a few meager blankets and the body heat of the others to keep them warm.
Impa herself was up in her bed, studying an ancient book by candlelight. Despite the tenseness that always came during the night when she was the only one who liked to stay up late, everything was quite peaceful and cozy. The blankets were warm, the candle was bright, and a soft breeze entered through a nearby open window. The night air smelled crisp and fresh.
As she flipped the pages in her book, she smiled and remembered fondly nights like this back when she was a girl. Sneaking down to the great bookshelves that lined the wall, carefully memorizing which steps squeaked to avoid waking her mother. Breathlessly snatching a candle from the table downstairs, sneaking back up and reading contently until the first light of dawn could be seen from the windows.
It was so serene, Impa could almost forget that she was in the midst of an underground war.
No physical battles yet, anyway. So far, all Impa had done was to inspire the people of Kakariko to try and improve the place. Great gangs of men and older boys, hoisting boxes of hammers, axes and crowbars could be seen working by day on repairing the decrepit houses and fences. Everyone too weak or with no knowledge of repair spent their days on their knees in the modest vegetable patches of the village, tending to weeds and sickly plants. Impa herself alternated her time between working and attending meetings with the resistance leaders to discuss future plans for Ganondorf’s overthrow.
The spirits in Kakariko seemed brighter and healthier than they’d been in ages. Aching from a long day’s work, the people would gather around huge bonfires at night and share stories, anecdotes and songs. Laughter could be heard again from the little children as they discovered worms and bugs in the fields or played in the mud after watering. Smiles frequented faces and everyone seemed friendlier and more willing to work with their fellow man.
Though no progress had been made against the reign of the Evil King, it was like an entirely new place. Hope seemed to be circulating amongst rumors of a green-clad young hero making his way across the land and freeing the curses of the ancient temples. Death Mountain had settled down and stopped spewing its magma and rubble all across the passes above the village. Things were beginning to look up…
Yet, there had been no word yet from Zelda.
Impa couldn’t help but be worried sick about her and the young Sheikah with which she shared her consciousness. Hide nor hair of them had yet to be seen. Not even a note, which worried her most of all. Zelda was considerate enough to where she would at least try and contact Impa to assure her of her safety… But perhaps with the Hero of Time out and about and all this confusion going on, she had spaced it. Or perhaps Sheik was the one in control of the agenda and he didn’t think it necessary to check in with Impa like she was Zelda’s mother.
Not that Impa wasn’t grateful to the ancient Sheikah for concealing Zelda like he did… it couldn’t have been a picnic for him, after all, with no body of his own, forced to inhabit a girl and only show his consciousness when the time suited her.
He was still an enigma, even though Impa had technically known him for almost seven years. His personality was unusual—a constant, smug sort of cheer, even in the face of dangerous circumstances. He always seemed like he knew more than he was letting on, but Impa supposed he had learned a lot in his several centuries of wandering the earthly plane as a ghost. But he was trustworthy, and took extremely good care of Zelda. He’d treated her like a younger sister through their teenage years as a single body, and now that she was a young adult he still regarded her with a kind closeness but gave her enough room to have her own thoughts and opinions.

The candle’s flame flickered as Impa gave a long exhale, clenching her eyes shut to pass off a wave of ache. She really shouldn’t be up this late… tomorrow was another long day and it was just irresponsible pushing herself like this. But the book was so fascinating and it had been so long since she read it last.
Unusual how calm she was considering the circumstances. Perhaps she’d become good at hiding when she was terrified or worried about the future.
She had become good at pretending she didn’t mind, or even boisterously supported the plans to destroy him. She sat with a straight face through every meeting where they discussed possible ways to end his life and his reign, some of them quite ruthless. Understandably, the people of the village did not view their oppressor in the same sympathetic light as Impa.
Orin, however, was the sole exception. Though at first he was the number one contender for the quickest and more painful possible death for the Evil King, he had begun to let up on his enthusiasm for such a thing after seeing Impa’s reaction to one particularly gruesome suggestion he’d had.
Impa had gotten to know the village leader quite well over the past couple of weeks. Together, they worked to restore the morale and prosperity of the stricken little village, sharing the same devotion to the cause.
She’d spent more time talking to him and the two of them shared their respective life stories. Despite his older appearance, Orin was actually a few years younger than Impa. He’d been born to a peasant family in Hyrule Castle Town, and in Ganondorf’s initial attack, watched in horror as his mother and father were murdered by Gerudo thieves.
The dazed young man had laid in the ruins of his home for several hours, too traumatized and scared to leave. When, to his shock, his parents began to move again, this time as soulless Redeads, he fled with nothing but his father’s sword and a small wallet full of Rupees.
He tried his best to be a rock for the people to depend on, but told Impa in secret that he was having trouble even thinking that they had a chance.
He was responsible for late-night watch tonight. He and the brothers were out patrolling the village for intruders, probably arguing the entire time.


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It had been a few nights ago, on the tail end of one of the tri-weekly resistance meetings in Impa’s home.
“We have yet to do anything worthwhile!”
“What do you call worthwhile? Marching to his doorstep and sticking your neck out, begging to be killed?” Orin roared back.
“Just sitting here and talking isn’t going to do anything!”
Jaime rose from his seat and narrowed his eyes at Impa and Orin. “Anybody can sit around and talk about when they’re going to act, but if you never act then it’s useless! We haven’t sent ANYTHING off to fight him!”
“Because anybody who goes is going to be killed if we don’t plan it right!” Orin shouted.
“Planning’s all well and good, but I’m not going to sit around and watch my brother die of a plague HE sent to us!” Jaime yelled.
“And if Ganondorf dies? So what? You think that’ll make him and all the other sick people get better, just like that?! You’ll be killed and it will have been for no reason!”
“Dying for what you believe in is a great reason!”
“Let’s keep this civil, you two,” Impa interjected sternly.
“Civility isn’t the answer right now! Did he show us any civility when he destroyed our lives!?”
“We will move in due time, Jaime! We haven’t heard from Marya in several days, and we will not even consider moving in without her approval!”
“… Fine! F-FINE!”
Jaime stomped towards the door, stealing a candle off of a nearby bookshelf and glaring back at the adults at the table.
“Stay here and plan all you like! I won’t let my brother die because I was busy planning!”
He slammed the door, just in time to avoid being hit by a book thrown from the meeting table.
“Damn IDIOT!”
“Orin, calm down,” Impa sighed, shaking her head.
“IDIOTS!! Him and the others! They think they can possibly make it inside the palace to do the job themselves? They’re young, stupid idiots who deserve whatever comes to them!” Orin spat bitterly, having a seat at the table again and shaking his head in disgust.
“They’re passionate in their beliefs… Foolhardy, but passionate. You can’t blame them for being upset,” Impa replied. “They want to show courage.”
“There’s a difference between being courageous and being stupid. They have that optimism that comes with youth… They have that stupid belief that if you really, really try hard and want it, you can do anything and have anything,” he said darkly.
“It’s not a bad belief to have.”
“It is if they use it to throw their lives away,” Orin sighed.
“It’s a belief that a lot of people have,” Impa pointed out. “I’ve had that belief before… Everyone has. From childhood, we’re told that we can have anything and do anything and be anything. It’s hard to realize that that isn’t exactly true… but…”
Impa drifted off and stared at the flickering candle before her.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t try.”
“I think I disagree,” Orin stood up again and paced around the room. “You shouldn’t try for something that’s impossible.”
“We’re doing just that right now,” Impa argued. “This entire resistance is to stand up to a man who literally holds the power of the gods in his hands. Death is certainly an option. Though it might seem meaningless, to know that someone was willing to die for that cause is a real eye-opener for anyone, even the Evil King. He would certainly notice a boy of that age, dying for the sake of someone he loved and a cause he believed in…”
Orin paused, facing away from Impa and staring intently at the wall.
“Are you sure we’re talking about the same Evil King?”
“Not really… no,” Impa replied softly. “I’m talking about a young man I knew when I was a little younger than Jaime. He was awkward, skinny, generally knew nothing about manners or protocol and yet he was a king of an entire race. He was the only one like him, too. And though he couldn’t control his own life or his own fate, he set himself a goal that he swore he would reach, all for the sake of a love he couldn’t have. Even as that dream got further and further away, he wouldn’t stop… He ended up doing something terrible for the sake of that dream. His sin destroyed him and his goal. Even now, he must realize his mistake and his sin… But he hasn’t stopped. Like the Evil King, I’ve dedicated myself to a goal I don’t know I can reach… But even when people tell me it’s impossible, I won’t stop trying.”
“The Evil King isn’t capable of love,” Orin replied, shaking his head. “He who watched his people slay the inhabitants of an entire city with no remorse. He who couldn’t possibly understand the look in the eye of someone who’s just watched their parents die right before them…”
Impa exhaled a deep breath. Oh, how wrong he was. And he hadn’t deduced that her goal and Ganondorf’s love were interconnected.
“And yet…”
He turned around and Impa caught a very familiar look in his eyes.
“Why is it when you speak of him like that, I almost feel sorry for him? You’re an amazing woman, Impa…”
She felt a little cringe within her as Orin went on to say things Impa had only heard from a certain person before.
“When you talk about dying for love… I can certainly understand it. You’re a miracle yourself. I think I could die for you any day.”
He smiled at her behind his prematurely graying beard, looking suddenly more youthful than she had ever seen him. “Maybe someday, when all this is over, we can live the lives we always wanted to live but couldn’t.”
“Orin… I…” she stammered nervously. “I’m flattered, but… I see you as a close friend.”
He paused.
“… Did I… I sounded like I…?”
“Yes,” Impa replied slowly.
“Oh. Oh… my gods, I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t mean to sound so forward.”
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not,” Orin shook his head. “I can’t be letting dumb things like that get in the way, for the sake of the village… I’m sorry. I’ll leave now, Lady Impa.”
“You don’t have to-”
“No, I do. Goodnight, Lady Impa,” he said, leaving as quickly as possible.

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She stared at the flickering flame on the bedside table.
Poor Orin. He would never understand.
Her eyes were growing weak and heavy with all the thinking and reading. Unusually quickly, though… normally she got to lie for a while before even beginning to fall asleep.
She swore, she hadn’t fallen asleep that moment… just closed her eyes for a quick second.
But then she faded from consciousness and was falling.

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“Nice try.”
Orin glared at Nicolas sternly, his arms crossed against his chest and a look that read absolutely no kidding examining every inch of the boy’s face. They were standing just outside the set of buildings near the well, halfway through guard duty, and halfway up Orin’s last nerve. Jaime had disappeared somewhere when his back was turned.
“There were two of you when I left,” he said sharply. “Where’s your brother?”
“He had to take a leak?” Nicolas offered with a weak smile. He was a bit paler than usual this evening, as he and many of the other villagers had suddenly taken ill with a strange malady. He had a bit of a cough, but at this point it didn’t look serious enough to worry about.
“This is serious business! When are you boys going to take this responsibility seriously?! Honest to Farore, the entire village is depending on us tonight and you and your brother are busy playing games with me!”
“Nothing ever happens, Orin,” Nicolas sighed in a bored tone. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Where is Jaime?” Orin demanded.
“Can’t tell,” Nicolas maintained.
“Where is Jaime before I cut you two off of eating for the next three weeks?” Orin said, dead serious.
“Okay, okay, jeez!” Nicolas coughed a little into one of his hands. “He went to the food store to steal us something to eat.”
“What are you stealing for?” Orin groaned in disgust, grabbing Nicolas by his shirt and dragging him along on their way to the food store. “For the love of Din, you two are eating just as much as the rest of the village! Why do you keep stealing? If everybody stole food we’d all STARVE!”
“He wants me to eat more now that I’m sick!” Nicolas whined. “Let go! I can walk on my own!”
The two of them stopped outside a large, slightly run-down building halfway up the slope towards Death Mountain, just to the south of the potion shop. The door was wide open and from within, they could hear somebody rustling around in bags of vegetables.
“Jaime!” Orin shouted.
“Whaaaaat?” a voice groaned back.
“Get out of there! Dammit, you two’d let the whole village starve as long as you got what you wanted!”
“Nicolas is sick!” Jaime replied from within the shed, very indignantly. “He shouldn’t have to eat the same slop the rest of us eat! How’re the sick people ever gonna get better if they don’t get some better food?”
The ground shook suddenly, a deep and penetrating rumble that sent tremors all through the village, almost knocking Orin and Nicolas over and sending Jaime crashing into a bin inside.
“Whoa! See, look how hungry he is?” Jaime yelled outside.
“What was that?” Orin burst out.
The tremors didn’t happen again.
Silence fell across the village as the three of them waited for the source of the noise.
“What the hell was that…?” Orin repeated. “Jaime, get out of there… we need to go…”
That was all he got out before it happened.

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Opening her eyes, Impa blinked in shock and laid still for a moment upon realizing that she had no idea where she was.
Her entire body felt like it was suspended from gentle strings above her, floating to infinity through this unfamiliar space. It looked vaguely like the night sky- black space, stars and speckles of light all around her, a glowing blue walkway beneath her, and a man facing his back to her from a few yards off.
She sat up, still floating in midair, and looked around quickly to spot anybody else here with her… no, it was only herself and that strange man.
“Good evening, Lady Impa,” the man said in an old, hoarse voice that sounded like it hadn’t been used much.
It was then Impa realized that she had slipped into a dream. This was a dream.
“This isn’t a dream, actually,” the man repeated, turning to face her.
“What?” Impa gaped. How had he read her mind?
The man smiled. He was a short man, aging and balding, with tufts of white hair alongside his ears, temples and chin. He was dressed in robes of burgundy and yellow, and there seemed to be a strange glow about him, a sort of comforting light that shone from within him and touched everyone around him.
“H-how do you know my name?!” Impa asked suspiciously.
“Don’t be frightened… I can sense all thoughts in this place. I am not your enemy, Lady Impa. My name is Rauru… I am one of the Ancient Creators of Hyrule, the Sage of Light. You are at my home in the Temple of Light, deep in the heart of the Sacred Realm.”
Impa didn’t quite know what to say to that. She placed her feet on the invisible ground and bowed politely, just a little bit, keeping her eyes glued onto the older man before her.
“Why… am I here?” she asked curiously.
“I believe you’re having a vision… A waking dream of sorts,” Rauru said, scratching his chin and nodding. “Princess Zelda has them all the time, you know… I suppose it was only a matter of time until you caught on and had one of your own.”
“I don’t understand,” Impa began slowly. “Why am I seeing this?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m not entirely sure. I must admit, I’m curious as to how you are seeing me right now… your time of awakening draws close, but it is not upon us…”
“Awakening?” Impa queried in confusion.
Rauru nodded slowly and gestured for Impa to come closer to him. “Are you familiar with the legend of the Hero of Time, Lady Impa?”
“‘Descended from the Sacred Realm, the Hero of Time, wielding the legendary Master Sword will awaken the Six Sages… And when all six are awakened, their powers will restore peace to Hyrule,’” Impa recited almost robotically.
Yes, yes, that legend… Repeated over and over and over again the past few weeks. That was all anybody could seem to consider for an option to restore Hyrule. That was the only halfway viable plan right now, and it sounded like a fairy tale.
“Yes. That’s it exactly… then you have a headstart and I have less to explain,” Rauru smiled, motioning for her to follow him.
Suddenly, her feet seemed to gain a mind of their own and she was able to walk, without even thinking about it, drawing closer to the old Sage. Soon they were side by side, and Rauru was smiling sedately beneath his veil of whiskers.
“This is not a dream, Lady Impa. This is a vision,” Rauru explained calmly. “As I mentioned… I am quite unsure of why you are seeing it now. Usually, the awakening vision can’t even happen until the temple curse is broken…”
Something about the suggestion in his words made Impa’s stomach cramp up into a tiny knot.
“Awakening?” she murmured again, her voice sounding echoing and far away in this infinite space.
“Yes… Destiny has left its mark upon you it seems, my dear,” Rauru went on calmly, continuing his walk down the limitless corridor towards a shining purple light. “The survivor of the Sheikah race… Guardian of the Princess of Destiny… and now, the great Sage of Shadow.”
“Sage of Shadow?” Impa pronounced reflexively, her throat tightening around the words.
The purple light ahead of them slowly began to grow, tingling against their skin and nearly blinding Impa with its brightness. All she could see anymore was Rauru up ahead of her, his voice still sounding clear as a bell but his body fading into a silhouette, slowly turning yellow with a glow of its own.
“Yes… traditionally, the role has been held by one of your race, Lady Impa. Seeing as you are the last of the Sheikah, even if you were not already the matron of Kakariko, it is not surprising that the duty has fallen upon your shoulders…”
“What…?”
Her voice was broken and quiet.
“A great power sleeps within you, Lady Impa… You are the guardian of the place where the shadow spirits rest, the temple beneath the graveyard in Kakariko. You are the conduit through which the spirits of shadow can take the form of magic. You and only you can control them… You are one of the six who will join powers and defeat evil in Hyrule forever.”
“It’s not just a legend?”
“Of course not. Over the past few weeks, the Hero of Time himself has been venturing around this wasteland of Hyrule and awakening Sages. The Sages of Forest, Fire and Water have already been freed and your time is not far off,” Rauru smiled. “And it couldn’t happen at a better time! Forces are combining in this already turbulent land and something huge is about to happen. Hyrule will need all six of its great protectors to save it. You are the only one of us who can fully protect Kakariko Village and the souls of the dead, sleeping within the graveyard.”
“I’d like nothing better than to protect my home village,” Impa spoke up. “But if I already know I am to be the Sage… why must I wait?”
“The awakening call is impeded by the presence of evil. Right now, there is an evil spirit infesting the Shadow Temple, your temple, beneath Kakariko… A fierce, bloodthirsty shadow beast known as Bongo-Bongo. It had been stagnant and sleeping in the temple for many thousands of years, but in the time you were away from Hyrule it awakened and escaped into the village,” Rauru exposited.
“As the Sage of Light, I was able to use a bit of my waning power to seal the monster away at the bottom of the well. I thought that the seal would hold for at least a few more centuries, but here, only five years later, the creature has somehow gained enough strength to shatter my seal and escape again, ten times more violent than it has ever been. The creature is, as we speak, gaining the strength to appear in the village and cause unimaginable chaos.”
“How can we just stand here, then? That village is full of innocent civilians!” Impa gasped. “Send us back! We’ve got to help them…”
“We cannot,” Rauru shook his head. “You haven’t the power to battle this creature.”
“I thought you said I was the Sage of Shadow,” Impa queried.
“You will be. But you have yet to awaken. As long as that monster lives, your power is trapped, dormant, within your body. When Bongo-Bongo is weakened or killed, the awakening call will be heard and your powers will come forth so you can use them.”
“So what do we do about the spirit, if I’m helpless against it?” Impa asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“You can’t fight destiny, Lady Impa… the spirit will awaken… actually, very, very soon. There is nothing we can do about it but pray for the Hero of Time to come.”
“You can’t seal it up again?” Impa demanded.
“No. My power was severely weakened before, and now the last dredges of it are with the Hero of Time. He carries the power of all the Sages whose medallions he carries. Link already has four Sages backing him. He is a strong, clever young man who has already proven himself an expert at killing even the darkest demons the Evil King can throw at him. When all we Six are awakened, we will be able to assist him in the final plan…”
“What is the final plan?” asked Impa.
“It’s simple… Using our power, we will open a gateway into the Sacred Realm and seal the Evil King within it.”
Impa took in a short breath.
“Sealed?”
“Yes… And even the Triforce of Power is useless when facing the power of Six Sages AND the Sacred Realm.”
The light vanished. The Sacred Realm began to fade around her, and in the darkness around her, she could see pieces of her house beginning to form and she was sitting again.
Rauru’s voice still echoed in her head.
“Don’t worry, Lady Impa… When the awakening time comes, you will be ready. Until then… Pray for the Hero of Time.”


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She awoke suddenly to the smell of smoke.
Impa sat up quickly in her bed and gazed down at the lower floor of her house. The sleeping villagers were gone. She glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it had been almost five hours since she’d spaced out into her vision. The air was thick with black smoke and a strange, sickly, acidic smell burned in her nostrils along with the scent of charred wood.
Her heart began to pound a million beats a minute and she realized that perhaps Rauru had dropped her off again a few minutes too late.
She sprang from her bed and raced down the steps and to the doorway, flinging it open in time to see something that made her scream in horror.
The village was burning.
Vermillion flames leapt from every red rooftop, licking at the old wood and smoldering into ashes that fell to the ground like snow. People ran, screaming, carrying buckets of water scrounged from the bottom of the dried-up well, children screaming in terror, teenagers trying to comfort them or helping out with the adults.
And Impa was just STANDING there.
She sped down the steps and into a group of children surrounding a single adult, shouting, “WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?!”
“Lady Impa!” shrieked the distraught woman. “A monster, Lady Impa, a terrible, terrible monster!”
“Help us, Lady Impa!” yelled a little boy by her side. “Please, please help us!”
“Where are the others?” Impa shouted to the woman. “Where’s Orin!?”
The woman clutched the boy towards her and shook her head. “Either working to douse the flames or trapped inside!”
“There are people still INSIDE?!” Impa gasped in horror. “Gods… Get the children to safety! I’ll take care of things!”
“Oh, thank you, lady!” the woman, guiding the children off towards the village exit and leaving Impa standing there in shock.
Dammit, Rauru! He may have been a Sage and a kind old man, but his sense of timing was TERRIBLE! And to drop her off like this, defenseless, powers still dormant and no way to even defend against something like this…
Impa stood in the center of the square, hit with a terrible, thundering avalanche of helplessness. Buildings were burning, people were screaming on all sides of her and she was one woman! How could she possibly… where would she even start?
Something inside her head was buzzing just at the feeling still in the air since the disappearance of that spirit. Her heart was pounding and her pulse was racing at the mere afterglow of its presence.
Her powers were calling to her.
“LADY IMPA!! LADY IMPA!!”
A young, panicked voice picked up from a short distance away. Impa whipped around and saw a familiar face, pale as flour, staring at her from across the way.
Nicolas kneeled near the collapsed, fire-scarred ruins of a small building, tears pouring down his filthy, pale face as he waved at her. “LADY IMPA!! PLEASE! HELP ME! JAIME, HE’S-”
Impa deafened her ears to all the other screams and sped to his side. “Where is he?”
Nicolas pointed within the collapsed rubble and stumbled a few steps backwards, shaking his head. Shoving him off to the side, Impa scanned the smoldering building for a place to set her hands, finally grasping onto a heavy plank at an uncharred section and yanking it as hard as she could, making an opening. She took a deep breath and ducked into the ruined building, catching sight of an unconscious young man pinned beneath a few burning beams and sacks of grain.
She kicked the beams away and lifted Jaime by his shoulders, dragging him from the ruins and back out the way she’d come in as carefully as she could. She squinted to see in the thick smoke, but could make out the silhouette of another Hylian body within the ruins, too late to rescue.
“JAIME! JAIME!” Nicolas screeched in panic as Impa lay him down on the grass. “JAIME, NO, PLEASE DON’T BE DEAD!”
Jaime’s face and hands were visibly burned from the fire, hot pink and swollen in the cold wind that whipped the burning village around them. His eyes were closed gently, almost like he was only asleep.
“JAIME!” Nicolas shrieked, kneeling next to his brother and grabbing him by the shoulders. “JAIME, NO, DON’T LEAVE ME!”
“Stay back!” Impa ordered in a voice she didn’t even recognize. She tilted the older brother’s chin back and placed her ear near his mouth, listening for even the slightest evidence of life. A soft, warm breath grazed her face and she sighed with relief.
“He’s alive, just unconscious,” she assured Nicolas. “Give him some room, let him breathe!”
“Oh Nayru… Nayru, let him be okay!” Nicolas prayed in a panic behind her. “Oh Nayru, I didn’t mean for it to happen! He was in there because of me! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”
“Tell me what happened!” Impa demanded, fanning smoke away from Jaime’s face with her hands.
Nicolas wiped the flood of tears, smudging the dirt on his face. “L-Lady Impa, we… we were getting our food from the storage a-and there was this horrible rumbling and then w-we couldn’t breathe, and… and then the building exploded into flames and I leapt out of the door b-but Jaime and Orin…”
“Orin?!” Impa gasped.
“O-Orin and Jaime were trapped inside! Th-then the roof collapsed and Jaime was in the doorway, but Orin shoved him out of the way…” Nicolas was shaking his head as though in denial the whole thing could be real. “And the roof fell… a-and Orin…”
Impa felt her gut twist in despair. “Orin’s dead?”
“Y-yeah… L-Lady Impa, I’m so sorry, I t-tried to drag him out, b-but… b-but he and Jaime were stuck in there and he got hit by the roof…”
It was his body she’d seen within the building.

Heartsickness and a strange awakening power combined as a heavy ache in Impa’s chest. She took a few deep breaths and stood up, stepping away from Jaime and Nicolas and scanning over the chaos. Villagers surrounded the burning buildings, dumping as much water as they could on the out-of-control fires, screaming orders to one another, children crying and people still trapped inside shrieking for help.
Voices were yelling at her in her head. Her mind was a twisted, confusing torrent of sounds and sights and the thick scent of smoke and heat licking at her from all sides, panic rising from her depths and her heartbeat racing even faster. She felt dizzy and weak all at once, like she could have fallen over backwards and just passed out, waking up when it was over. Over like a dream… this had to be a dream…
What was it Rauru had been saying about that spirit? Bongo-Bongo was its name. It had been dwelling in the Kakariko Underground for centuries, yes, Impa knew the legends, but it had always been docile before and never attacked! In the years Impa was gone it rose up as a plague to attack the village, but he sealed it away… a holy seal… it couldn’t break a holy seal… But it escaped on its own. How had it gained enough power so-
Power.
Power…
POWER!?
It hit Impa like a brick.
“Oh NO.”
Her mouth dropped open. She could taste the flame. Her eyes blurred at the smoke and the gathering clouds. She could hear the screams of the dying and the wounded, Hylians…
In her hometown of Kakariko…
Her hideout of Kakariko…
The last sanctuary, Kakariko…
Where Ganondorf knew she was, Kakariko.

“JAIME!”
Jaime’s eyes opened slowly and he gagged, gasping for air, clutching at his burnt face and moaning in agony. Nicolas leapt over him and started screaming all over again.
“JAIME! ARE YOU OKAY!? I’M SO SORRY, I’M SORRY!”
“Where…” Jaime gasped out, barely able to speak. “Where… Orin!? Where’s…”
“He couldn’t get out,” Nicolas replied softly.
“IDIOT! He… he pushed… he knocked me out… out of the way…”
“Stop talking!” Impa said frantically, standing up and backing away from the two brothers. “Stay here! Make sure he can breathe, Nicolas, just… just wait, okay?!”
“Okay Lady Impa!” Nicolas called shakily.
Impa raced further into the village. She couldn’t be helpless… No… It couldn’t be… Ganondorf woke up that spirit. Ganondorf had sicced it on the village… Ganondorf had told it to spare her house. Ganondorf was murdering the villagers in a wild fire she couldn’t stop, she was helpless to stop.
She HAD to stop it. She HAD to stop that creature!
Powers or not, the weight of things was crushing her. That monster was here because she was here. It was the thing keeping her from awakening as a Sage, it was the thing destroying her village and keeping her from being able to do anything about it.
“Where did it go?” she screamed into the night, for anyone who could answer her. “WHERE IS IT?! WHERE DID IT GO!?”
“Into the ground!” a man yelled over his shoulder as he dumped water on the wall of a house. “It went into the ground!”
The Shadow Temple.
Impa reached back behind her and nodded with relief to feel her knife fastened securely into its holder on her back. It was her only weapon. It was the only thing she could do right now.
She HAD to awaken. She HAD to stop it.
The plan was insane, but it was better than nothing. She would head into the Shadow Temple as fast as she could. Somehow, somehow, her powers would have to awaken… Either by the wounding or weakening of one of the evil monsters inside, or SOMETHING, but once she awakened her powers she could use them to stop the fires, save the village, seal the monster away for good and protect Kakariko.
There was no excuse. No excuse for this to happen. When the man she loved proved a danger to even her home village, there was no way she could sit around any longer.
She could hear voices deep within her head, violent voices whispering to her.
Yes… Do you hear me, Sheikah Sage?
Yes… I know you can hear me…
Let me rip and maim them more… Burn… let it all burn, all except for you…
Master said not to touch YOU…

“Impa!”
A voice cut through the panic and she turned around, screaming in shock as she met a single blood-red eye.
“Sheik!” Impa gasped in relief.
“What happened?!” Sheik demanded, sounding equally panicked.
“The shadow spirit escaped from the well and attacked the village!” she said quickly. “I need your help! We’ve got all these people to rescue and no time to do it!”
“Did it escape?!” Sheik asked, grasping her wrist.
“We’ve GOT to seal it up!”

“How can you seal it up!?” Sheik (but obviously Zelda) gaped, “You haven’t got that kind of power!”
“I will once I get to the Shadow Temple,” Impa replied. “I’ve got to get to the Shadow Temple… I’ve got to seal it up!”
“The Shadow Temple!? By yourself? You’ll-” Sheik argued frantically.
“I have no choice! I must! I’ve got to stop that thing before he uses it again!”
“‘He’ who?!” Sheik demanded.
“No time! Help the villagers!” Impa cried out.
“Impa-”
“SHEIK!”


A third, vaguely familiar voice echoed from the entrance of the village.
Impa and Sheik turned just in time to see a young man in green standing in shock near the village gateway. A blue fairy hovered over his shoulder, and a legendary sword hung from the scabbard on his back.
“Is that…” Impa murmured.
“Yes,” Sheik replied quickly.
“I’ve got to go. Help him. Help the villagers. Please!” Impa ordered.
“Yes, of course!” Sheik finally nodded, readying a battling pose and staring into the well as purple mist began to belch out of it.
Impa nodded to her “nephew” and raced towards the graveyard as fast as she possibly could.

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

Sheik stared helplessly around at the fire and the chaos. He glanced into the well and saw the purple mist, evil, toxic clouds of darkness belching out from deep within the well, where the creature had grown and grown until it gained the strength to do… this.
Link appeared by his side. “What happened here!?” he screamed. “Who did this?! Ganondorf?!”
“Get back!” Sheik shouted, shoving him backwards as he took a few steps away from the well. Something within it was stirring.
“It’s horrible… it’s so horrible…”
Navi was murmuring from over Link’s shoulder, shivering at the darkness in the air. “Oh, it’s so horrible… I can barely even fly, it’s numbing, it’s THAT terrible!”
A sweet melody echoed across the burning village, the sound of an ocarina. Storm clouds began to gather overhead as Link lowered the Ocarina of Time from his lips and heavy raindrops began to fall from above.
The villagers stared up at the miraculous rain and yelled in joy as the fires began to die down. Sheik kept his eye on the turbulence in the well as Link stuffed the Ocarina back into his bag and pulled out the Master Sword.
“Just wait until it comes out…” he murmured. “It’ll pay…”
“It’s too powerful right now!” Sheik argued. “You have to get into the Shadow Temple to…”
But at that second, an explosion from within the well sent the wooden scaffolding flying into the air and shattering into splinters on the ground a good twenty feet away.
Link and Sheik both gasped and took a few steps back, as a purple whirlwind rose from the well, an unearthly roar filling the air as the creature escaped from beneath the ground and burst out at its challengers.
Sheik went flying nearly as far as the scaffolding before he hit the ground and passed out with a scream far too high-pitched for a male, and Link was soon to follow.

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

The Shadow Temple was nothing if not dreadful.
A deep trench dug into the back of Death Mountain near the graveyard, it was a dreary, morbid little pit lined with human remains and cold, black marble. Voices whispered in every corridor, terrible, violent voices that echoed the screams of the dying in ancient and modern wars, victims of torture telling of Hyrule’s bloody past and the darkness gathered within the temple. Traps lined its narrow, twisting hallways, and in the distance an unlucky traveler lost there could hear the moans of monsters.
And Impa was to be the guardian of this terrible place.
She assumed that a good deal of the horror in this place was only a result of the evil spirits dwelling here. The Sheikah who built it had been the guardians of shadow, mysteries of the mind and the earth, not the darkness she saw.
It would have been horrible indeed for her if she hadn’t been a Sheikah. The voices whispering through the temple were somehow able to guide her. She was currently crawling through a short tunnel where a voice was calling her to a shortcut.
Bongo-Bongo’s lair was within this temple, at the farthest, deepest end where it was safe from the light and from adventurers and holy men who had the courage to try and kill it. The voices of Sheikah were guiding her.
She reached the end of the corridor where she saw a grim face painted on the wall and a hole leading down into another tunnel along the wall. Really, the tunnel was cloaked over with a veil of illusion, but Impa could see through these weak mirages. An ordinary person venturing into this tunnel would see a solid floor, then take one wrong step and fall.
Impa slowly lowered herself into the hole and found herself in another stone tunnel with a light at the far end. She crawled along until she came out in a caged area on one side of what looked like a tremendous room. The only door out of the cage was blocked by a huge stone, but she wasn’t a Sheikah ninja for nothing.
Reappearing on the other side of the cage, she saw a bleak, black ocean of fog and shadows lining a long canal into the far side of this huge room. A ghostly, decrepit ship floated in the canal, with a dock on one side for anyone who would try to board it.
She climbed onto the deck of the ship, the voices yelling at her that Bongo-Bongo’s lair was near. The spirit wasn’t far away now… She’d already been wandering in here for a good hour and a half, and she was looking forward to escaping, one way or another. With acquired Sage powers, she could go in and out of the temple as she pleased. And dead, she wouldn’t have to worry about the way out of the temple anyway.
The ghostly ship didn’t move even as she stood at its helm, staring into the deep darkness on the other side.
Then she caught sight of the Triforce mark.
She placed her fingers in her mouth and whistled Zelda’s Lullaby, and the boat began to move lazily into the blackness.

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


Finally, she reached the great door.
It was a gateway seeming to appear out of nowhere in a room with no floor, sealed with thick chains and a skull-shaped lock. Islands of land made a pathway up to the door, and Impa could appear on the other side if she was sure there was, in fact, a room large enough to stand in on the other side.
She leapt across the islands of land and shook her head to rid herself of the voices shouting at her. All echoing the same words, “Shadow Sage, Shadow Sage”. The temple knew she was here. It was trying to awaken her. She felt a tingling deep within her energy, no doubt the powers trying to bring themselves to life within her but held back by the curse of Bongo-Bongo still haunting the temple, behind this door.
Impa paused before the door and began formulating a battle plan in her head. Once inside, once she was engaged with Bongo-Bongo, all she had to do was weaken it… Break its seal on her powers, allow herself to be awakened. She would then use her powers to form a better seal on the creature, locking it deep within here and never to escape again until Link could permanently destroy it.
She certainly was taking this Sage thing well, considering what it meant. It meant that she and Ganondorf, though it had already been this way for some time, were now sworn enemies. As a Sage, she would be expected to fully devote herself and her new powers to destroying him and his evil. There would be nothing sympathetic about it. To hold back would mean disaster. It would mean failure for the entire attempt, a total failure to stop him.
But… it was easier, somehow. Knowing that despite the fact it would be her and her alone, there was a way. There was a way she could end his reign, destroy him, set him free.
Just like Marya had said. She would rather see him dead than like this.
It was worth it. Even though she would be the one to do it, she was grateful there was a way at all.
With an expression of resolve on her face, she closed her eyes and prepared to make the leap across the doorway, into the next room where Bongo-Bongo was waiting.
“I’ll do it all for you,” she said under her breath, sealing her dedication.

As she appeared on the other side, she immediately opened her eyes and reached around for her knife.
It proved useless, as there was nothing in the room.
It was a small, stone, cave-like room with a sort of glow about it. There was nothing inside. Her senses were screaming at her that there was an evil spirit nearby, but it wasn’t here.
She narrowed her eyes in confusion and looked around for another door. No, that was it… There was nothing else there.
A little feeling of despair rose in her chest. Well dammit! Where was it?!
Until that thing died or was wounded, she had no hope of her powers awakening… None of it could start until it happened!
How was she supposed to save him if the thing that was keeping her away from this power wasn’t where it was supposed to be? It was supposed to be waiting for her, ready to battle it out to the very death, the Sage of Shadow versus the Shadow Spirit of Kakariko Village, the love of Ganondorf’s life versus the creature he summoned to gain her, Impa versus the Triforce of Power…
“Impa.”
She nearly leapt three feet in the air at the sudden voice behind her. Frozen in place, she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck slowly standing on end when the voice echoed in her ear and she knew without a doubt who it was. The same voice she had heard in reality so few times, but the voice that haunted her every dream and thought…

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



Ganondorf stepped out from the shadowy doorway she had just entered, staring intently at her, not letting his piercing gaze drift from her eyes even for a second. So this is what he had become… he looked remarkably similar to the last time she’d seen him in person, except that he was stronger now and his hair had grown longer. And his eyes… his eyes… amber veiled in madness.
He clenched his fists together and took another step towards her, into the light, where a very disconcerting grin was plainly visible on his face, creased with wrinkles of anger and deep thought.
“Ganondorf!” she said suddenly, as though she was shocked to see him. As if she hadn’t imagined this meeting a thousand times with a thousand different outcomes…
“They said I wouldn’t find you, didn’t they?” Ganondorf smiled at her again and came closer, raising his arms as though to embrace her. “But now I’m beside you at last… Nothing they can say or do can separate our love, Impa… Time and time again now, they’ve tried, the goddesses and the hands of fate… but even now, seventeen years after we were ripped cruelly apart… our love is alive. Can you feel it in your heart, Impa? I can feel it now… radiating from within me, all through my body, out, into yours and back… a love I’ve missed… a love I thought I had lost forever…”
“You shouldn’t be here…” Impa whispered, at a loss for words. “You shouldn’t be here, Ganondorf…”


“Absolutely nothing could keep me away.”
She tried not to shudder as he ignored her words and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, pressing her head into his chest with his fingers gently sprawled and running through her hair. Her heart was quaking with fear but she was somehow able to return his embrace, equally tight, clasping her hands together behind his back and feeling just how much they were sweating for the first time.
A melodic silence filled the room. The silence of a reunion that should never have happened… It was the sound of Ganondorf, lost in his ecstasy, holding his dearest treasure, the only thing he did not rule in his arms for the first time in years. It was the sound of Impa, loving him and his embracing, hating him and his madness, loving his touch and hating his title, loving his voice and hating his words.
He took an abrupt step forward and Impa almost stumbled backwards, but he held her up and took another step, one after the other until she was pressed against the wall behind her, still cradled in his arms. With an almost alien gentleness he placed a kiss on her temple that repeated and trailed down to her chin until she released a tiny, helpless sigh.
He spoke his next words in between tiny kisses along her cheek. “I was foolish and impulsive seven years ago when I last saw you, but now I have come to realize my powers… I realize my destiny now, Impa- and yours as well. We were destined to be together… It’s clearer to me now then it ever was… I belong with you.”
There was an uncomfortable amount of sincerity in his voice.
“I love you.” Impa’s first thought betrayed her and escaped as words.
“I love you more than anything else in this world… my throne, my people, my power… there is nothing I would rather have than you,” Ganondorf sounded enough like his old self to force Impa into tears.
One slipped out of the corner of her eye and slid down her face. No. No, no, no… This was so wrong… How could she be doing this? She promised Zelda… she promised the whole village… she was against him…
It was supposed to be DONE. It was supposed to be OVER WITH! Her resolve was to stop him! Her resolve was to destroy him! Yes, she knew that she loved him, but she wasn’t supposed to do this… touch him, cry about him, tell him how she felt… It was wrong! She wasn’t supposed to ever see him again, until the final moment when he fell from his throne, defeated by the Six Sages and the Hero of Time…
He wasn’t supposed to recognize her. He wasn’t supposed to still love her. Marya had said it… Everyone said it! He wasn’t supposed to remember her! He was a monster, a monster, a terrible demon, a King of Evil!
It wasn’t supposed to be like this! He wasn’t supposed to show love anymore… He was a monster! A monster she HAD to stop!

The feeling inside of her was growing stronger. The voices in and around the temple were calling to her, more loudly… she was without doubt now that they were trying to awaken her powers fully, wrap around her and with their help transform her into the Shadow Sage. Fifth of Six. Sworn enemy to all evil that threatened Hyrule…
The evil that was embracing her and making her feel more whole than she ever had.
“You’re more beautiful than I ever remembered,” Ganondorf whispered in her ear. “I’d nearly forgotten what it feels like to touch you… it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world, even better than the moment the Triforce grafted with my body and granted me this power… the power to control things… the power to be yours.”
“Ganondorf…” Impa said again, lost for anything else she could really say.
“Look at me now, Impa! Remember? Seventeen years ago when I swore to you I would gain the power I needed to keep us together, and at last it is mine… Those who would stand in our way are dead. The meddling Hylians in Kakariko…”
Impa closed her eyes and tried to seal the nightmarish visions of the houses on fire out of her head. She prayed silently that the villagers would be all right…
“… My treacherous aunt…”
“Marya?”
“Yes. You met her, didn’t you?” Ganondorf went on, pressing her head into his shoulder again with one broad hand. He ran his fingers through her hair, blankly caressing her ponytail as he went on sedately. “She tried to convince you to join her little rebellion… How I would have loved to see the look on her face when you told her ‘no’… It probably would have been much like the look on her face when I killed her.”
Impa swallowed heavily and stared upwards at him, hoping to force the tears back down where they came from. Ganondorf had killed his own aunt for thinking she was betraying him, proving that he didn’t mind killing those close to him for fear that his rule was in danger… His reaction to her Sagehood would probably be ten times worse.
“They’re out of our way now, and all that stands between us is that loathsome little Hero of Time… He’ll be here shortly, I imagine. Running to save you… I’ll take you away with me long before that, though… then we can watch from a safe distance while tries defending himself from my little pet down below.”
Impa pulled back away from Ganondorf and glanced at the floor, catching a glimpse of a small crack in the floor for the first time. A sickly greenish-purple glow of light was visible through it. The monster must have slipped through it, into its lair below this very room!
She’d been that close to reaching it!
“Say something, Impa… Tell me what’s in your heart… Your deepest thoughts… I’ve waited so long to hear your voice, and I cannot wait any longer…” Ganondorf said softly, reaching up and catching Impa’s chin in one hand. He squeezed her hand in his other and lifted her face up to look at him, very gently.
Impa stared into his yellow eyes and could clearly see madness clouding behind their sentimental gaze. For a moment she thought she could see the Ganondorf she had loved again, but the way he was looking at her… no, leering at her made her feel squeamish and weak.
“Ganondorf…” she said again.
He let out a deep sigh and leaned in to kiss her for a good few moments. Impa felt her knees buckled and it took all her strength not to just collapse against the wall. She felt like an utter traitor when one of her hands wrapped up and around his arms to touch the back of his head and make sure he wouldn’t pull away.
She was fighting an internal war between those two sides of her, the two voices. The voice that assured her that this was right, and the voice that screamed for common sense.
This man was not the man she loved anymore. He was insane and murderous, a vicious barbarian who’d thrown the entire kingdom of Hyrule into poverty and misery and was quite content with watching it rot away as long as he was still its king and he got what he wanted.
He was a gentle man… a man who wanted to be normal, a man who wanted to fit in… he wanted to be able to love whomever he pleased and be loved in return… He was a man willing to make sacrifices to please her, a man who loved her with every bit of whatever was left of him.
She remembered the dead face of Harkinian, the blood-splattered bodies of the guards, the terror on Zelda’s face, the gutted remains of the marketplace, the starvation in the eyes of the Kakarikan children, the fire engulfing the buildings and the sick glint in his eyes as he’d done it all without remorse.
She remembered his sweet teenage face, the shame and humiliation in his eyes as the wagon holding him left the castle, the awkward grin he’d thrown her across the meeting room, the tapping of his boots on the metal crossbar under the table, and the shape of his napkins.
It was wrong. So wrong… all of it. Just plain sick and wrong.
She pulled away from him and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to disperse the tears that were forming.
“Why did this have to happen to us… to you?” Impa said, her voice breaking mid-sentence. “Why did it have to be you? Why did it have to be you, Ganondorf?” She stumbled away from him and back out into the room, shaking her head at the unfairness of it all.

“The stars were cruel when they chose our fate, Impa…” Ganondorf replied, squeezing both her hands in his, pulling her back away from the wall as though leading her away. “But we’ve overcome them… all we have to do now is leave this place. Leave those villagers to their fates… Leave that Hero to die in this temple… Just leave everything. Come back to my palace with me, Impa… I’ll treat you like a queen. No… you WILL be my queen. We can live together on top of the world for the rest of time… The Triforce makes me immortal and I’ll make you immortal, too… No one can tell us what to do anymore! I’m finally a god, Impa, and you will be my goddess…”
Impa leaned her head back and took a deep breath, fighting back more tears as Ganondorf pulled her towards him again.
“Tell me you’ll come with me. Tell me the past doesn’t matter… tell me you’ll fight fate with me, Impa!”


Fighting fate.
Impa took another heavy breath and turned away from him, facing the wall.
“Ganondorf… do you understand why I had to leave seven years ago?”
“Of course. I was nothing but an impulsive fool. You feared for your own safety from me… and I don’t blame you for it. That was before I found the Triforce and became the god I was raised to be… before I understood why I was unworthy of you. But it’s all changed now…”
“No. No, it hasn’t. Nothing’s changed,” Impa interrupted him bitterly. She turned back around to face him. “Nothing’s changed at all.”
“How can you say nothing’s changed? I was a weak Gerudo King, and now I am the king of all-”
“Do you think I cared about that?” Impa replied sharply. “Do you think I cared about what your position was, EVER? If I’d cared about that, I would never have fallen for you in the first place! I knew as well as you did that you weren’t allowed to be with me, Ganondorf… your position or the powers you’ve held have NEVER mattered to me. NEVER.”
Ganondorf’s mouth dropped open a bit at her sudden anger. “Impa… if that’s…”
“I left because yes. You were insane. You still are. You’re insane. You’ve lost all touch of reality, Ganondorf… you lost it a long time ago. I knew something had happened to you when I first saw you again, seven years ago… I could barely see the man I’d fallen in love with anymore. All I saw was an angry man who’d come to seek revenge and take back what was left of his dignity… I could tell you weren’t all that stable then, but I still wanted to believe you were the same. I wanted to believe that Zelda was wrong, Link was wrong, my entire gut instinct was wrong! But they were all right… and I was wrong… You proved me wrong when you murdered Harkinian and all those people… You proved that there was nothing left of the man I loved. No more kindness… no more compassion, no more empathy or remorse… Nothing left but a murderous shell. That’s what you were then, and what you still are…”
Ganondorf was frozen, listening to her, still staring at her intently with those deep, boiling eyes.
Impa clenched her fists at her sides as she went on.
“I left with Zelda because you weren’t the man I loved anymore. I left to protect her from you… You’d already proved that you didn’t mind killing innocent people to get what you wanted. Harkinian was only the first… you killed your own aunt, Ganondorf. Your own aunt! When I spoke to her… she told me how much she loved you and missed you, the REAL you, the you that I loved as well… we were working together to find that you… and now she’s dead and you killed her. Did you even listen to what she had to say? If you had heard what she told me, perhaps she’d still be alive… she told me she regretted every single day what she and the other Gerudo did to you. She regretted turning you into a monster every waking moment… she longed to be like a mother to you, and because of her one mistake, she never could. Did you listen to her, Ganondorf? Did you hear what she told me? Or did you just kill her in cold blood like you killed Harkinian?”
Ganondorf still looked calm, but something behind his face showed that he wouldn’t for long. “Impa…” he said quietly.
But she wasn’t done yet. She may as well finish what was on her mind before he was able to show his reaction… whatever it would be.
“When I came back, I was trying to defeat you. I did join a resistance. I’m partially running it… do you know why, Ganondorf? It’s because I can’t stand you anymore. I can’t stand to see you like this, a murderous shell… I want to destroy your power and your throne and everything you killed for. I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it. I don’t want to be a queen. You said you became a king for me… I don’t want a king. I want a prince. I want that boy prince… The boy prince who told me he never wanted to become a king like this. Like the way you are now… That’s the man I loved. I won’t continue this madness any longer… you need to wake up! This is the truth, Ganondorf. The cold truth, and I swear it on my honor. I don’t want this. None of it. I didn’t want any of it… at all.”
Then her voice drifted off into a short sob, and the unwanted tears spilled freely out of her eyes.


Silence pervaded the room.
Ganondorf stood, still staring at her in complete silence. The yellow pools of his eyes were stirring, though. Something was coming up from within him, within his mind. Something was about to happen.
“… you don’t want me?”
“No,” Impa repeated firmly, as she wiped her tears.
“You… don’t want me…?”
“No.”
“You don’t want what I’ve become…? You don’t want what I’ve killed for…? What I’ve sacrificed…?”
“No. I don’t.”
A vein in Ganondorf’s left fist bulged out as he clenched both of them together until the knuckles turned white.
“Do you know… DO YOU KNOW WHAT I’VE GIVEN UP FOR YOU, IMPA?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH BECAUSE I LOVE YOU?! DO YOU KNOW WHAT I HAD TO DO TO GET ALL OF THIS?! WHY I DID IT ALL?! I DID IT FOR YOU! I DID IT ALL BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU DESERVED BETTER THAN ME! BETTER THAN A WEAK, USELESS GERUDO PRINCE! YOU DESERVE A GREAT KING, IMPA! I HAVE BECOME THAT GREAT KING, AND NOW YOU SAY YOU DON’T WANT ANY OF IT?!” he roared, very quickly turning red.
Impa took a few steps away from him. Yes… this is what she was afraid would happen.
“Do you know what was going through my head when I killed Harkinian?! It had nothing to do with my mother or the treaty… IT WAS YOU, IMPA! I KILLED HIM BECAUSE I WANTED TO SET YOU FREE! I ATTACKED ZELDA BECAUSE IT WOULD SET YOU FREE! I TOOK OVER THIS KINGDOM BECAUSE IT WOULD GIVE ME THE POWER TO SET YOU FREE! ALL I WANTED WAS YOU, IMPA! THAT’S ALL THE REASON I DID ANY OF THIS! THAT’S THE REASON I GAVE IN TO THEM WHEN THEY HAD ME BEAT! ALL I WANTED WAS TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE THAT I COULD BE WITH YOU! HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?! HOW COULD YOU TAKE FOR GRANTED EVERYTHING THAT I’VE SACRIFICED FOR YOU?!”
“You should have known I didn’t want that! If you really loved me, you should have known that I didn’t want you to do any of those things… I loved Harkinian, Ganondorf, like he was my own father! I never, never wanted you to hurt him…”
“You loved Harkinian? You love Zelda? MORE THAN ME?! YOU LOVE THEM MORE THAN ME?! ME, WHO GAVE EVERYTHING FOR YOU? ME, WHO DAMNED MYSELF WITH ETERNAL POWER JUST SO I COULD HAVE YOU?! Did Harkinian kill his own family just to be with you?! Did Zelda enslave her own people to be able to touch you?!”
She took in a short, weak breath to try and keep calm as he burst out in anger at her.
“What is the measure of love, Impa!? The love between a master and a slave!? The love between a princess and her maid!? The love between you and I? What did Harkinian and Zelda ever sacrifice for you, Impa!? I gave everything! I gave you everything I had, my whole life… and it wasn’t enough!? It wasn’t enough for you!?” his voice was an incredulous rhetoric, his breathing quickening, his boots clicking heavily against the stone floor as he stumbled towards her with his hands out, grasping her around the arms and squeezing quite hard enough to hurt her.
“Ganondorf… please…” she murmured. “I’ve said all this before! You’ve never listened…”
“And all this time, when you were all I believed in,” he went on darkly, pushing her back against the wall again, tightening his grip on her arms, slowly trembling in fury with his face turning redder and redder. “After all this time… it turns out I’ve been doing nothing but throwing my faith away… What ever could have made me think that there was someone else who understood me!? How long did it actually last, Impa? How long did you actually believe in me… How long did you actually feel safe around me? How long did you actually love me!? Did you EVER believe in me and love me?!” he snarled.
“I love you…” she whispered again. “I did, and I still do… I’ll always love you…”
“DON’T SAY YOU LOVED ME, YOU TRAITOR!” Ganondorf roared, shoving her backwards and collapsing his weight on top of her.
Impa screamed and took in a deep gasp as his hands slid up her arms and rested at her throat, applying just enough pressure to where she knew he could do it if he wanted to… He could squeeze her throat, cut off her breathing, suffocate her or break her neck. His rough fingers trembled against her skin and in his eyes, she saw a look like nothing she’d ever seen before.
She’d seen his hatred for Harkinian. She’d seen his bloodlust for Zelda. She’d seen that desperate haze as he chased her through the market. She’d seen the childish, almost pathetic look of the deepest love.
This… this was a look of the deepest betrayal.
“DON’T SAY YOU EVER LOVED ME! YOU DON’T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORD! LOVE IS TO CRY AND YEARN FOR SOMETHING EVEN WHEN YOU CAN’T HAVE IT! LOVE IS TO DREAM AND TO WASTE AWAY, LOVE IS SACRIFICE, LOVE IS DEATH, LOVE IS TO SLAY EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IN YOUR PATH FOR ONE PERSON! LOVE IS TO BLEED AND TO BURN AND TO SUFFER! LOVE IS SUFFERING! YOU, THAT I LOVE… IT’S YOUR FAULT THAT I SUFFER!”
Impa gasped, clenching her eyes shut and releasing a few more tears from their corners. “Love is protection, Ganondorf… Love is hope and protection and acceptance… Everything I had for you! Everything I have faith is-”
“YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN ME!” he replied viciously, gritting his teeth together and tightening his grip only the slightest bit. His eyes were torrentially spinning through a million emotions a minute, his arms were trembling almost convulsively like he couldn’t control them. The tiniest motion could snap her neck… one little pulse could send evil magic sizzling through her body and end her life, just like that.
“Acceptance!?” he oozed, “That’s a funny word to hear from you… You certainly did accept it well when I slaughtered all those people… You ran from me! YOU ABANDONED ME! You PROMISED to be with me, you PROMISED TO LOVE ME AND BELIEVE IN ME!”
“I do…” she whispered through tears.
“YOU DON’T!”
“I do… I believe in you… I believe you’re still alive in there… I believe you won’t hurt me… I believe you still want to be a good person, a good king… Please, don’t make me wrong…”
“If you loved me…” Ganondorf snarled, pushing her down on her knees before him. “You’d love me the way I am… the way I’ve become after giving up everything for you… You’d let me take what I wanted… you’d let me do what I had to to make myself happy, now that everything is GONE…”
Impa struggled, pulling on his hands to try and loosen them from around her neck but his muscles were forged over years and years of brutal training, the scars on his back, and could not be budged. She gasped for breath as his fists tightened around her and her pulse raced, her eyes closed in a pained squint, her eyes leaked tears that trailed down her filthy face and ran down the sides of his hands. His fingers trembled even more at the hot, liquid sorrow touching them, traced his knuckles and jewelry and dripped into the floor, silent in the cold room.
“‘Cry, cry, tears of blood, the only ones that matter! Release your sorrows through your wounds and wear a smile on a dry face!’ Know that one? It’s a Gerudo proverb… they sang it behind me when they tore my flesh off my back… Cry, cry… Release your tears… I’ll squeeze every last one out of you… You stole them from me… I’ll squeeze every last bit of me out of you… Open your eyes, Impa! Open those purple eyes, tell me that you love me, whore!”
Impa choked out as he shoved her hard backwards and she tumbled over, landing on her back and hitting her head on the cold stone, her legs folded up above her and immediately kicking and pushing to get him off of her. He snarled and pressed his thumbs, only his thumbs, harder into her throat, shivering as her rapid pulse beat against them.
“Tell me you love me, WHORE!” he screamed, something seeming to clog his own throat as he ranted on. “MAKE ME BELIEVE IT! SAY IT! SAY IT, IMPA!”
“I LOVE YOU!” she screamed in a choked whisper as he lifted her up.
“I KNOW YOU’RE LYING! I KNOW… Y-YOU’RE…”
Then all of a sudden, his hands released. Impa jilted away as he almost seemed to throw her down, falling back away from her and on his knees a few feet away.
She grunted in pain as she slammed into the hard ground, knocking her head and feeling skin ripped from her elbows as she skidded. She coughed for a moment, struggling to breathe uncontested and grasping at her head as the dull ache spread through her skull and made her vision blur.
He crouched in the corner, clutching his face in his hands and panting even harder than she was. Sweat poured down his forehead and fingers, and his voice was choked deep in his throat as he murmured almost incoherently.
“I can’t… I can’t… I can’t do it… I can’t stare at those eyes… I can’t look away from them… I can’t end their gaze… I can’t…”
Impa sat up on her elbows and slowly began to crawl backwards and away, keeping her eyes locked on the pathetic man in the corner. He was trembling like a child, sweating, barely breathing in terror or some other emotion. He looked less like a great king and more like that pathetic young man she’d met in the courtyard all those years ago.
But she knew much better than to let her sudden swell of emotion and his sudden hesitation cloud her mind. She had to get away. Get away fast, and now.
“I can’t look into that face anymore… I saw it every night, every waking moment, every… every second of every day, I saw it… I can’t look at it anymore! I can’t!”
“Ganondorf…” she whispered, squinting remnants of tears out of her eyes as she continued to crawl backwards.
“Close them! Close those eyes, PLEASE! I CAN’T LOOK AT THEM ANYMORE!”
His hands sunk away from his face and for the first time, she could see his expression. His eyes were wide open but he seemed blinded by visions only he could see, staring at the floor as he fell and his fingers clutched the ancient stone, soaking wet hair hanging over his shoulder and what looked like tears falling freely.
“Those sincere… beautiful, crystal eyes… I dreamed of them… I dreamed of the love and the acceptance swirling within them every night… And you opened those eyes and I saw emptiness… An emptiness…”
“There is no emptiness in my eyes,” Impa whispered, shaking her head. “There is no emptiness for you, Ganondorf, anywhere in my body. I’m hopelessly, helplessly devoted to you… Your life… your goodness… your smile, your eyes… Everything I’ve done, everything I try to do… it’s to save you. All I want to do is free you, whether or not it means I’ll ever see you again! I would rather us live apart and be free than trapped in this eternal spiral of death, damnation and misery… It’s not too late. I will save you… I want to save you, I can save you… I don’t want to lock you away anymore…”
“Lock away…?”
“There is still hope, Ganondorf!” Impa exclaimed breathlessly. “There is still hope… The Sages aren’t awake yet, but they’re well on their way… Stop this. Stop this now. You can end all of this, only you can… I don’t want to lock you away! I don’t want to have to help them destroy you, Ganondorf, but only you can save me from having to! Stop this… Stop it, end it all right now! Relinquish the Triforce and I’ll never awaken, I’ll never be forced to destroy you…”
“Awaken…?” he exhaled.
“I am the Sage of Shadow, Ganondorf… I am destined to protect Hyrule from any evil, any darkness… As long as you hold that Triforce in your hand, you are the darkness. I don’t want to destroy you… I love you more than words could ever say… Relinquish the Triforce, Ganondorf… Save me. Save yourself!”
“The Sage of Shadow?”
His voice was completely different suddenly.
“You… are the Sage of Shadow?”
“I will be,” she nodded.
“By what order?!”
“Fate,” Impa shook her head, slowly beginning to stand up. “Please, Ganondorf…”
His fingers gripped at the floor until the knuckles turn white.
“You’re a Sage, now? You’re FORCED to defy me?! You’re FORCED to destroy me?! EVEN AS YOU OFFER THESE WORDS OF LOYALTY AND LOVE, YOU ARE FORCED TO DESTROY ME!?”
“But I don’t have t-”
Ganondorf interrupted her with a burst of unsettling laughter.
“Oh, it’s a sick, sick, HILARIOUS play… We’re on a stage, Impa, don’t you see?! Someone SICK has crafted these lines and these actions! Someone is laughing right now! Someone finds it infinitely amusing at every turn to twist destiny against us! The Last Sheikah! The Lone Male Gerudo! The leads in this theater of tragedy! We’re puppets on strings for the gods, Impa! They’re laughing at us! They’re toying with us, lowering the stars, making us think we can have them and control them and make them ours, then burning us when we get too close! Blinded, we try over and over again but the fires never cease! We’re driven by a fuel too complex for stage directions, too difficult for an actor to portray! It’s fate! It’s fate that brings us here over and over again, trapped in a web of sins we can’t undo… And isn’t it ironic? Our sin… LOVE was our only sin! Isn’t it hysterical?! Isn’t it comedic, it’s HILARIOUS, isn’t it!?”
His voice dropped away and he froze.
Impa shook her head in disbelief and stepped towards him. “It’s not funny…”
“It’s WONDERFULLY funny…”
“It’s NOT FUNNY!”
“It’s HILARIOUS…”
“OUR LIVES ARE NOT A JOKE!” Impa screamed. “There’s no such thing as blind fate! Our decisions are the things that drive us down these paths! Luck and fortune take their tolls but in the end, WE are the reason we’re here! It was our own decisions that took us here, Ganondorf! Take responsibility and know that it’s YOUR fault! It’s MY fault! IT’S NOBODY’S FAULT BUT OUR OWN!”
“It’s nobody’s fault but the fates… It’s a wonderful, wonderful divine comedy,” Ganondorf laughed under his breath. “Well-written… it kills me. It KILLS me…”
She stopped in place at the tone of his voice in the last sentence.
“… And it will kill you, too…”

There was a bright flash of light and the floor disappeared out from under her.
Impa let out a terrified scream as she fell, before she could even blink, down the hole Ganondorf had opened beneath her. The quick acceleration whipped her hair in her face, and her breath was choked off by that toxic, acidic, stinging scent that filled her mouth and nose and made her sleepy and sick all at once.
She was falling, falling helplessly into the chasm below, still screaming, looking up to catch one final glimpse of Ganondorf’s eyes, smiling sickly as she tumbled down. One hand reached up to him, the other clutched at her stomach if only to give her the sensation of touching SOMETHING rather than the free-falling air.
Then all of a sudden, something snatched her out of the air. Something roared, something tightened around her, something squeezed so hard on her waist that her left hand crunched against her side and she felt every joint pop. Her voice was stolen away, silenced by the pain, silenced by the knowledge that her hand and forearm were very much broken and she was still falling.
Suddenly, Impa slammed face-first into something hard but strangely pliable. A loud boom sounded and she caught the first sight of a purple, ghostly hand pulling back away from her, a blood-red eye in the darkness, sick drool sliding down an invisible mouth, and the steady rhythm of another hand banging on the drum.
Without having time to think, she rolled out of the way and avoided being smashed into the surface of the drum. She stumbled to her feet and backed away, clutching her wounded hand in her other arm and sizing up the monster before her, the infamous shadow spirit Bongo-Bongo.
It occurred to her, in the very back of her mind, that she was going to die. She was defenseless—no magic, no weapons, no left hand, no way out. The poisonous mist rising from the unearthly slime surrounding the giant drum was making her faint and dizzy, no one could possibly drop in to save her, and with this spirit still alive, her Sage powers were still sleeping deep within her reincarnated soul.
She stumbled to stay up as the spirit’s hands grazed the drum, its single red eye glaring at her hungrily. A million thoughts were rushing through her head, none of them good ideas, none of them strategies, none of them of any use at all.
No hope, no hope!
One of the hands vanished in midair and Impa screamed again as her body was sent pitching forward, feeling the invisible fingers clutching around her and squeezing. She wriggled as hard as she could to escape, pausing as her wounded arm pinched between two ethereal finger bones, clenching it and rubbing her own bones together. She howled in pain and threw her head back in agony and hopelessness as the hand shook her right and left, up and down, in all directions, whipping her limbs around and pressing harder, harder, harder every second.
Impa’s voice vanished again as her legs flailed, then cracked below her knee. Mind-numbing pain snaked through her veins, up through her body, silencing her every thought and sending her into a terrible oblivion of agony and torrential thoughts.
So this is how she would die.

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Lady Impa of the Sheikah, born into commoner society in Kakariko Village. Orphaned in the Sheikah disappearance, the last one. Nanny and bodyguard of Princess Zelda, daughter of King Harkinian of Hyrule. Matron of Kakariko.
Sage of Shadow.

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As she slammed into the surface of the drum and the ghostly hands left her, between the screams of agony a grim smile trickled onto her face.
She would die as she lived… Always fighting the inevitable. Always the last one. The last Sheikah, the princess’s last line of defense, the last person to stop believing in Ganondorf Dragmire.
A huge palm flattened over her, pressing her firmly into the drum skin. The other hand was high in the air over her, tightened into a fist, raised up and prepared to fall and crush her beneath its mate. The blood-red eye stared at her from the corner.
All around the sides of the wall, she could see the seal. A triangle with three circles around its outsides. It looked almost exactly like Bongo-Bongo’s eye…
So this WAS fate.
She fell in love with an outcast boy, a foolish man, the Gerudo King of Thieves. He stole the Triforce from the Sacred Realm and became an Evil King. Against everyone else, she maintained that he was good. She raced to get the power she could use to stop him. Then he killed her.
And just before the fist hit her, just before the final moment passed, just before her life ended, something came flying from behind her, something round and metallic, something that slashed into Bongo-Bongo’s single eye with the squelching noise of cutting flesh and a monstrous roar of pain. Then something exploded from the ceiling, a burst of black lightning and struck the creature and drove its hands off of her and away, far past her, back against the wall on the other side of the chamber.
She blinked in confusion, squinting as a stream of blood from a wound on her head leaked into her eyes and joined with the tears of pain. She couldn’t sit up for her broken arm and legs, and could only gasp for air and watch as the lightning continued, raining down on the creature and forcing it back as a voice rang out clear through the room.
“YOU WILL OBEY ME!”
Impa swore she felt her heart stop.
“I AM YOUR MASTER! YOU WILL OBEY ME! GET BACK, STAY DOWN!”
Why!?
He entered her field of vision, eyes narrowed in fury at the monster in the corner, hands raised and sparkling with magic, the golden Triforce shining clearly on the back of his left hand. His cape flowed behind him from the force of his magic in the other direction, and for a good moment or so he really did look like a god.
Impa turned her head barely over to the right to see Bongo-Bongo cowered in the corner of the room, covering its eye with its disconnected hands as Ganondorf’s sorcery rained down upon it. It was howling in pain, almost drowning out the furious sounds of his voice.
“DIDN’T I SAY TO LEAVE HER ALONE?! DIDN’T I SAY I WOULD PUNISH YOU?! YOU DEFY ME AND YOU WILL SUFFER FOR IT, YOU MISERABLE DEMON! GET BACK AND DON’T MOVE AN INCH UNTIL I SAY YOU CAN!” he screamed with rage.
The pain was almost putting her to sleep. She could barely tell what was going on with the unbelievable agony flowing all through her body. She lay like a broken doll on the surface of the drum, listening to the electricity and the howling as he drove the monster back.

Then there was silence.
She could feel a dull tingling from within her chest. That was it… Bongo-Bongo was wounded. His curse on the temple was weakened.
Her powers were awakening.
She heard footsteps coming in her direction and let out a few short breaths, waiting for it. So Ganondorf had regretted his cowardice in throwing her down for Bongo-Bongo to take care of. Now he was descending to do the job himself. Good. Fine.
But when he came into her field of vision, she didn’t know what to think.
He was crying. Not just crying, sobbing. Hysterically. Tears poured down his face, contorted into a purely emotional look. Sweat dripped from his hair and hands, and he collapsed to his knees beside her.
“What have I done? What… what have I done to us?”
His voice was like she had never heard it before. Not since seven years ago, not since seventeen years ago. There was more raw emotion in his voice now than she had ever heard from anyone, ever.
“Ganondorf…?” she whispered, lost for anything else to say. The tingling in her chest was growing. It wasn’t long now.
He lifted his left hand, clutching his wrist with the other one and held it over her. A golden light burst around it, and the pain was gone. Impa felt her bones mending themselves, the blood disappearing and the wounds sealing up in a matter of seconds.
A few more seconds and he was cradling her in his arms, sobbing as he held her close and a soft purple glow came to her body as the power of the Shadow Sage began to awaken.
“Even given the chance to be a god… I destroyed it. I destroyed everything… I destroyed my people, my land, and when I almost destroyed you…” he drifted off, shaking his head. “I am no longer a man… I am a monster… A monster with only a fraction of this cursed divine power at my disposal… just a fraction, and look what I’ve done with it…”
She could barely move between his tight hold on her body and the tingling feeling numbing her senses, but she was able to raise her hand and touch the side of his face. “Ganondorf…”
“I want to undo it… I want to rewrite it, and undo it ALL… I broke it, I broke EVERYTHING… I broke my promise to you, I broke my promise to myself… I destroyed it, I destroyed EVERYTHING… I’ve got to rewrite it… I’ve got to undo it… I swear, Impa, I won’t let it turn out this way! It won’t end this way, I swear! I’ll never stop… I’ll never stop until I can change it… I’ll change everything… I’ll erase these sins of mine and we can finally, finally be together, alive, everyone, happy… alive… and happy…”
She was crying too, now, at a promise she knew he couldn’t keep. “We can’t…”
“We can… I’ll make it so we can… I won’t let it happen this way because I was so stupid!” he growled furiously. “I’ll change it… I’ll change it all… I swear, I will…”
Impa sat up, leaning on her newly healed legs, a purple glow engulfing her body and feeling herself begin to disappear. She was going back to the Sacred Realm… back where she had been with Rauru, to join the other Sages in the fight to destroy Ganondorf forever.
“It won’t end this way,” Ganondorf told her fiercely as he squeezed her arms. “It won’t. I’ll see you again. Wait for me… I swear, I’ll change everything.”
“I love you,” Impa said again.
“I love you, and I WILL see you again. It WON’T end this way!” Ganondorf repeated.
She forced the kiss this time, and midway through it vanished into purple sparkles and then into thin air, leaving Ganondorf alone in the deepest pit of the Shadow Temple.

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

The rain clouds disappeared from around the village.
The people gathered around in a circle in the center of the town, watching the grayness draw back and vanish from above, the droplets of water finally fading out, the turbulent humming in the air finally gone.
Everything was quiet.
Nicolas stared at the sky, then at his brother. Jaime was bandaged up across his face and hands, sitting with the others, staring at their suddenly quiet surroundings.
“What happened?” Nicolas asked.
“Bongo-Bongo is dead,” Sheik replied from nearby. He stood near the back of the group, arms crossed, feeling the energy of someone very familiar in the back of his left hand.
“D-dead…? How!?” asked a woman quickly. “It just vanished away! How could it be dead?”
“The Hero of Time has destroyed it,” Sheik answered. “The curse on this village is lifted… There is an energy radiating around it. A divine energy, a powerful strength that could only be the work of a Sage.”
“A Sage?” the people murmured.
“The Sage of Shadow has awakened,” Sheik said, but oddly he didn’t sound exactly pleased. “This village is now protected… The Sage of Shadow is a mystical being, a conduit through which energy flows. That energy connects to this village and protects it from harm.”
“That’s… that’s wonderful!” an overjoyed man exclaimed. “Where is Lady Impa?! She’ll be so happy to hear this news!”
“I think she’s the Sage,” Sheik answered honestly.
“Where is she? Where is Lady Impa?” Nicolas asked worriedly.
“In the Sacred Realm… when Hyrule is plunged in darkness, the Sages watch over it from the Sacred Realm.”
“How will we tell her?” asked Nicolas.
“She knows… and we won’t see her again,” Sheik said under his breath.
“WHAT!?”
“Until the immediate threat to Hyrule is eliminated… Lady Impa will not live in the same world as us,” Sheik told them.
An outburst rose up among the people.
“WHAT?!”
“But Lady Impa-”
“We NEED HER!”
“With Sir Orin gone, we need someone to lead us!”
“What about the resistance?! How will the Evil King fall if Lady Impa isn’t here?!”
“We must speak with her! Where is she!?”
“You people are a bunch of babies!”
Silence hit the group, and they all turned to stare at Jaime.
“You’re babies! Can’t you take care of yourselves!?” he shouted.
“Jaime… you’ll hurt yourself even worse!” Nicolas scolded.
Jaime shoved the others away from him and stood up, reaching up to touch the bandages along one side of his face.
“Lady Impa risked her life to save us! Lady Impa ran into the Shadow Temple while the rest of us ran around like chickens with their heads cut off! Lady Impa is now living in another world, just to protect us from harm! And all you people can do is scream and whine about how we need her so badly to help us!”
“You ungrateful little…” a man began to step forward.
“Lady Impa disappeared so we would be safe! She believed in us enough to know that she didn’t have to be here… We survived without her here all these years, and we can survive without her now! Impa and Orin gave everything for us… Now all we can do is ignore their sacrifices and whine and cry about how we need them. We have perfectly good people here. We have lots of work to get done, lots of repairs to do, and now we’ve got a Sage behind us, watching over us!” Jaime crossed his arms, cradling his injured hands in his elbows. “Now enough whining… We need to get back to work! For Orin and for Impa!”
“For Orin and Impa!” the villagers echoed.
They turned back to their work, leaving three people standing in the square, still idle.
“Jaime…” Nicolas murmured, a little shaky, “You sounded just like Orin just then.”
“Did I?” Jaime replied with a sad smirk.
“Enough to convince me you’ve got things well in hand,” Sheik added from behind him, walking by and setting a hand on his shoulder.
“Th-thanks…” Jaime murmured, turning away at the last second.
Sheik paused and after thinking for a moment, reached up and pulled away his veil, revealing his entire face and the scarred pink skin that marked where he had been burned during his lifetime.
The two brothers didn’t even try not to stare.
“They get worse if you keep them covered,” Sheik told him. “Give them lots of air once they heal up a bit… and they shouldn’t scar as badly.”
“Y-yes, sir,” Jaime nodded.
“And don’t be ashamed of them.”
The brothers watched the young Sheikah walk a short distance away and then disappear. They glanced at each other and Jaime let out a short sigh as he rubbed his bandages.
“I really did sound like Orin, huh?”
“Yeah,” Nicolas nodded.
“Damn. I’ll never live that down,” he sighed with a melancholy smile.

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“She’s really gone…?”
Only until Ganondorf’s rein is ended.
“She knew running in there would awaken her… she knew it. She really knew it. And she still wanted to do it. She could have been killed by that horrible thing, and she still… she still wanted to be a Sage…”
Well, she said she was devoted to the cause.
Zelda wiped a few tears from her eyes as she sat beneath a tree on Hyrule Field, still in Sheik’s clothing but in her original body. She touched the Triforce mark on the back of her hand and smiled wearily.
“She ran in there knowing once she awoke, she would have to destroy him. She knew it and she still did it,” she said, almost laughing.
You actually doubted her?
“I thought I did… But I don’t know how I ever could have.”
You’ll see her again, you know. You’re guaranteed to.
“I know… but for the first time, she’s not here to protect me…”
On the contrary, Princess.
That’s why she did it.

Neither of you believed it, but this proved it.
Impa loves you both enough to throw her life away.
“And now, for her… I will save Hyrule.”

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


Now, he knew.
There was only one way he could change it. There was only one thing that could save Impa now, one thing that could let them be together, one thing that could undo his mistakes, his destruction, his stupidity.
Ganondorf sat, pounding on his organ in his tallest tower, staring intently at the keys before him and spinning the plan in his mind.
One temple left. One last Sage to awaken. The clock was ticking, counting down until they would try to seal him away. The Hero of Time came ever closer, and with him, the knowledge of the Sages.
Only one thing could reset it, rewrite it all. Change history, send them back in time, make it so it all would be undone.
Now she was in the Sacred Realm and he lived for only one thing. The thing that would make him a master of that world, this world, both worlds, time. Only one thing was worth living for.
He would do absolutely anything to get his hands on it now.
The Triforce.

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Well, now I’ve slipped into a nice state of depression. ::sniffsniff:: Not so dark now, is it!? Surprisingly, it’s lightened up quite a bit in this chapter… I mean… after the whole “Tell me you love me, whore” part, anyway… *ahem* So! Next chapter we get a chance of pace, alternating between three POVs, two of which we have NEVER HAD BEFORE.

That’s right, Nabooru and Twinrova are getting in on the drama next chapter! And after that, it’s the FINAL CHAPTER. OOWEEOOO. Things are getting tenser and tenser. Now that Impa’s a Sage, will she still be dedicated to sealing Ganondorf? Will Ganondorf figure out that Link and Zelda have the other Triforce pieces, and will he finally get his hands on it? Will Nabooru be freed from her prison and awaken as the final Sage? And will GG EVER RECOVER FROM WRITING SUCH HORRIBLE, DEPRESSING THINGS!? Stay tuned to NMD to find out!

-Now I’m off to write H,O and make poor Ganondorf look like a moron.

(PS: Rest in peace, Orin! ;_; I feel awful, but I’m sorry… he just had to die.)