Legend Of Zelda Fan Fiction ❯ The Legend of Link: Lucky Number 13 ❯ What's Done In The Dark. . . Pt. 12: Unpredictable Predictability ( Chapter 44 )

Chapter Forty-four

Sepaaru had ran to the window to see the outcome, only to cringe sharply as Link and her father hit the ground a hundred plus feet below. For a long time after they hit the earth, neither man moved. As the rest of the resurrected gathered around, there was a sort of group disbelief. Even after all this time, some Gerudo thought, Link still hadn't gone soft. He was still crazy enough to leap out of a window-or let someone throw him out of one, as the case was-to defend someone that he cared about.

Stupid, I should've broken his neck the minute he touched her, Sepaaru thought spitefully of herself, noting Link probably wouldn't have reacted if she had. She leapt from the window to the rooftop outcropping some odd feet below, leaving a gasping consensus behind her. She landed silently, rolling to absorb the shock as Link had taught her-even though her body was more than strong enough to take the full impact and then some-and then leapt down to an even lower alcove. With her new position, Sepaaru could see that Link and her father were still breathing.

Ganondorf's neck and shoulders made impact first, with Link's weight situated mainly on his chest. The wizard had screamed a bloody gasp as his lungs collapsed and expelled all of his free air, pain seizing him briefly before the broken bones severed his nerves and his abilities to move and feel pain. From Link's position atop his foe, the sudden impact jarred him forward and face-first into the grassy ground, breaking his nose and sending a few teeth down his throat. His thigh bones had been jammed up into their sockets having landed at such a force on his knees, which were also broken. While his right hand, which he used to hold onto Ganondorf's collar during the fall, was broken, along with his right arm. On top of that, his right elbow had been completely dislocated, leaving his forearm bone parallel to his bicep, creating an illusion of a thick, stumpy arm.

He'd never screamed about the pain nor did he lose consciousness.

In the here and now, Link fell to his left side-his wounded side-and lay there beside Ganondorf. Clumps of grass and dirt were stuck between his remaining teeth and, as he gritted his unbroken teeth to blow air through his nose, there were also chunks in his nose. Link couldn't unfold his crunched up legs and Ganondorf couldn't even feel anything from the chest down, but they were both still conscious somehow.

"You idiot," Link muttered, a thick glob of blood coming up into his throat as he coughed. It splattered across his lips and chin.

"Don't … blame me," Ganondorf wheezed. "This is your fault!"

"If you didn't put your hands on my … on her," Link's burst of speech faltered, a wave of dizziness impacting him from the massive blood loss.

"She hit me in my face!"

"You hit her mother!"

"And …?"

"You could've talked!"

"Kettle-"

"Oh, shut up," Link replied, reconnecting enough with his powers to keep himself alive.

"Like we could've talked before this," added Ganondorf, his ability to breathe regulating some. Link made a sound indicating a yes, and the old king laughed. "Sure, we could," he said with a subtle sarcasm. "Some people will never talk-not with that much bad history. It's impossible."

"We agree on that much," Link noted, he too not realizing that they were both doing the impossible at that very moment. "Ugh, I can't believe I let you get to me."

"Heh, I own you," Ganondorf chuckled.

"Don't be deluded," Link replied. "I've got your daughters. I've turned your kingdom into one of the wealthiest spots in all of Hyrule. And, to top it all off, my mom's your goddess!"

Ganondorf grunted, trying feebly to reach out and kick the boy. He'd yet to panic about his lack of feeling, but right now he desired nothing more than to put his foot in Link's ass up to the ankle. Robbed of that ability, he relied on his last working attack force: his mouth.

"So," Ganondorf began, suddenly aware of how casual the tone had become. "How is Varia? Does she have any children? Or a husband?"

"She doesn't like men, so I doubt there'll be grandkids from that end," Link replied, still talking from his post-battle daze and blood loss.

"Wait, despite everything with you and Nabooru, Varia and Nabooru are still … involved?"

"Involved? Involved how?" Link asked, completely oblivious to the undertones in Ganondorf's voice.

"Involved, involved," he elaborated with more emphasis, coughing with the extra exertion of effort.

"Oh," Link replied, eyes widening as he reanalyzed a few things. "I guess that explains why Varia hated me for so long."

"I don't think Nabooru thought of Varia in that manner, so much as she wanted to wish all men were like me, and took up a woman as the ultimate sign of her loyalty to her sex," Ganondorf continued, laughing at his former lieutenant's idiocy.

"Nonetheless, neither of them was thrilled to learn of what I was going to do, though," Link said, transitioning topics to sort through the revelation about his wife on his own time.

"I can imagine, boy. I can imagine," the old king sighed, a low kind of gurgling come from his chest. "I don't know why I didn't claim her as my own when Vestia had her…" he muttered, voice ebbing as he spoke too freely to someone that had tried to kill him for the fourth time.

"Why didn't you?"

"With trying to be the bringer of the great Gerudo savior and all, I treated her like she was another mouth looking for me to lead it to salvation," Ganondorf sighed, the cleansing showing its effects on his soul in the form of open regret. "I just told Vestia to tell her that she was some Hylian's brat. Then, years after that, Tasca gave birth to the boy after I defiled her, and I started training him, and then Vestia … and Sepaaru … and you … and the Triforce. Heh, all my plots and plans had me so turned around that Varia was a bitter young woman by the time I took notice of her again. It's so funny. I've fathered three children, and they're all in allegiance with someone else against me. Varia's been Nabooru's right hand since they were children, Ganon's gone who knows where, and Sepaaru's-what is Sepaaru to you?"

Link didn't know how to respond to the sudden shift. It wasn't the question so much that threw him, but Ganondorf's sincerity … his softness. For whatever reason-perhaps because he couldn't see the face of the man to which he spoke or the fact that he hadn't regenerated blood enough to think properly-Link took a breath to order his thoughts about her.

"That's a difficult question-"

"She's made some difficult decisions for you appear very, very simple."

"I know," Link said in lieu of that. "She's been a lot to me over the last twenty years-an enemy, a friend, a student … a lover." He looked at the clouds overhead, floating lazily past the sun and sighed. "I came here to leave Hyrule, and ended up with her beating me until I was almost dead."

"How'd that happen?"

"Got sick of living," Link told him truthfully.

"Oh," Ganondorf said without inquiring further.

"She sucked more than you did as a warrior, you know?"

"Don't start."

"Anyway, Nabooru and I hooked up, and Sepaaru was just out to prove she was a good Gerudo," Link continued solemnly, ignorant to the fact that his houseguests had piled into the lower door approximately twenty feet from where he and Ganondorf were sprawled out, and perched forty feet above them all loomed Sepaaru. "Even before the whole god thing, I think it was pretty transparent of her to ask me to teach her how to fight. Obviously, she wanted to learn the moves of the man that killed the strongest man in her life and use those same moves to bring him down-"

"But you did it," Ganondorf interjected.

"Call it a favor, but she worked so hard to distance herself from your name that I couldn't let her keep trying to prove she wasn't like you by fighting to impress her sisters. Besides, something was going to kill me sooner or later, so if it eased a kid's suffering to think my death would somehow vindicate her father and prove her strong, why not? I'd gone through worse for reasons a lot more selfish than that." Link laughed to himself, his lips flapping as the air passed between the spaces his front teeth once occupied.

"You can't honestly sit there and tell me that you taught her to the utmost of your abilities knowing full-well that she'd kill you-"

"I took her beyond me, Ganondorf," Link interrupted in that calm, stoic fashion that let you feel the truth he spoke. "I tried to talk her out of the training, tell her that you and you alone had to atone for your crimes here. But she insisted on going through whatever I put her through. When I got my godhood back, I put her through the trials that you put me through. I even twisted some of them into levels of difficulty that were obscenely difficult to make her quit, but she wouldn't. For years, I trained her at the highest levels of difficulty, made her eat, sleep, and breathe our battles-my life out there-over and over again. I've dropped her in that timeline so many times that she's damn near ancient.

"But she never quit. She never cried. And, well, she quit complaining, but that's the only thing she quit doing. To fight her as I am now, I couldn't survive. As a Hylian, in this timeframe, she's been able to kill me since she was seventeen years old. Even when I lost my powers, when I was a feeble old man that was damn near deaf and blind, she could've killed me then. Instead, she cared for me. When I'd ran my kids away with my shitty attitude and my wife had made her choice, Sepaaru was there, feeding me, clothing me, bathing me-"

"I get the point," Ganondorf interrupted.

"Do you?" Link asked sharply. "Do you understand what it is to sit in a tree house, unable to do the simplest of things because a series of senseless battles that three fucking goddesses could've stopped with a thought have left you with injuries so severe that you ache when it rains? Do you know what it's like when your daughter can't stand the possibility of you as an old man, so she keeps sending her little brother in to make up excuses?"

"Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch-at least you've got family," Ganondorf grumbled, continuously wheezing with every breath. "A hundred and fifty years of life, and I've got what-another thirty-five percent of evil on my soul that has to be purged before I'm reintegrated into the world as who knows what? So don't take me down the woe is me path."

"You'll get to forget, though," Link said, drawing a thoughtful hum from his ground mate. "Where your soul goes on to be a little kid or grasshopper or whatever, I'll be here biding my time until Sepaaru, my kids, and all the rest decide to leave."

"And why would anyone leave this paradise you've created?"

"That's the million rupee question," Link replied. "Whatever it is that dictated my existence has also dictated that I spend that existence alone. No matter how strong I am as a god or a man, it never changes: Sooner or later, I'll be alone."

"Sounds like you've quit trying," Ganondorf noted, finding it an almost despicable quality in the man who'd killed him.

"I haven't quit; I just realize there are some things that even I can't change," Link said, once again accepting his situation for what it was without hating it at the same time. "I guess we're the same on some sick levels. We keep trying to do what we think is right, but it's inevitably wrong to everyone around us. No parents, just guardians that kept us alive long enough to reach the pinnacles of our twisted little lives. Sad, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is, Link," Ganondorf agreed, reflecting on his life and the parallels it drew to the boy's. "Indeed it is. I don't know why I should ask this or why I even want to know, but do you love her?"

Link sighed loudly, completely caught in the gears of the mortal design in his current form of godlessness. Those gears grinded and pressed against his emotions, and before long he was going with it, a little more aware of his company, but a tad bit helpless to stop the thoughts swirling inside of his head from coming out of his mouth.

"You know, for a long time I've asked myself that same question," he replied.

"And what's been the answer?" Ganondorf asked, his chest making an audible gurgle with fluid as he breathed.

"I don't know," Link told him. He then added: "I never arrive at an answer so much as I look at the overall combination of the pieces that put us together. You're there giving me the choices in the archery track. Then, there's me at the bridge with Sepaaru volunteering to take one of the pieces … and she's crying. I want to believe she's crying for the added benefit of playing with my emotions, but there was a sort of sincere innocence to it, like Nabooru's when I first came here. The next piece is her finding Cornelius, and, despite everything she said out by the lake, he meant the world to her.

"She even skipped lessons for him. I was happy that she'd found something to take her mind off the damn fighting, because I wasn't sure how much more I could put her through. And then everything with Nabooru and Cornelius came to light, and we ended up together that one time. It wasn't even supposed to happen, but I wasn't regulating my powers or my senses, and I was feeding off our emotions and … you know what happened. I come back old and she stays with me until I came back to godhood, and then we end up making this pact. We'll fuck, but we won't make all the bullshit promises of love and devotion.

"But it's hollow. We're still suffering. I was trying to substitute her for Nabooru and she was trying to substitute me for Cornelius, but it didn't work. I started noticing the little differences between them, like the way light made her eyes less hardened and more … soothing. Or like how her breasts were a bit bigger than Nabooru's, but how her hips were a bit smaller. I noticed little things, like how I didn't care for solid muscle on any woman but her. I quit deluding myself and accepted the facts: Sepaaru would never be Nabooru, but I was fine with that-and I had to acknowledge it. I was so close to admitting my feelings for her, and then she brought me all the others that night I was in the bathing pond."

"Other what," Ganondorf stated, his temper staying steady despite Link's vividness.

"Gerudo, who else?" Link replied. "Then I stepped back and thought it was happening again. `She's using me to better the rest of them,' I thought, `just like Nabooru.' So, I never said anything; I just put the emotion down deep and fucked them, gave them their little changes with the sex where I could and with magic where I couldn't, and went on like it was another day. It wasn't, of course, because everybody acknowledged it as a one time affair. Naturally, Sepaaru and I continued, but where there was once guiltless sex, there were now moments where we'd tense up and pause in mid sentence or mid fuck.

"As much as I wanted to group her up with Nabooru, I couldn't. And on top of that, I couldn't even group Nabooru up with Nabooru, because, as stupid as it is, there's something still there. So, in the meantime, Sepaaru and I hang on the edge. All of the elements of two people that love each other are there, but we are so eternally fucked that we don't say it in fear that we lose it. That's the best answer I can give you."

Their conversation seemingly ended right there, amidst a gaggle of spectators that had never made their presences known. It was a sad, sorry sight for everyone involved, even Varia who'd come out from her room upon hearing the screams. One man, potentially the strongest of all gods, laid there accepting his self-imposed fate of being forever alone. The other, once touted as the King of Evil and bane to the world, laid there paralyzed and forced to confront the sadness in his life. He had no magic to lash out with or old scrolls to immerse himself in to avoid it. Like Link, his life was a heap of battles, pain, and loneliness with a few bright spots in between.

Three generations of Zeldas looked upon them with pity-a begrudging pity in Ganondorf's case. Nabooru and Sepaaru, adoptive mother and daughter, looked at the man that had come to rest in their hearts and shed silent tears, as he'd been so irrevocably hurt by the women in his life that he truly believed they'd all leave him. Junior also stood there stunned in both the heartfelt revelations about his father and the actions he'd seen transpire around the man. He'd gone out that window without hesitation, with no powers or anything! There was a boyish awe and fear inside of him. It made him see his father in a new light, one as a man that wasn't a god who looked to exploit his tremendous powers at every turn like his Uncle Victorious. Even without the powers, Junior realized that his father wouldn't be totally helpless or afraid of anything. It was like a confirmation letter that proved his childish thoughts were right about his dad being the strongest guy in the world.

Vestia nudged her way through the crowd and walked toward her fallen king, her husband, and kneeled at his side.

"You big idiot," she whispered, half laughing and half crying as he failed to squeeze the hand she'd slipped into his. "Are you happy now?"

"I blame your substandard teaching for this," Ganondorf quipped, unknowingly bringing a smirk to Link's face. "I can't move."

"I know," Vestia replied woefully, looking down at his twisted up legs and bashed face.

He moved his eyes over to see her face and smiled. It would always be devilish, she'd long come to accept, but the smile wasn't meant that way for her. Link continued to watch the clouds, listening to the wind. He closed his eyes for an introspective look at what he'd just done, only to open them and find his face staring down at him.

"You know, I'm offended that you allowed him to mess your face up worse than I did," Link's father said, wearing that irrepressible little smile that he always had when there was violence and carnage in the air.

"A hundred-foot fall messed me up," Link replied calmly.

His mother came to stand over him next, smiling that pained smile of a mother looking at her mangled child.

"Are you insane?" Esmerelda asked, her voice cracking despite her best attempt to sound carefree about it all, noticing his bloody gums and missing teeth.

"I passed that point years ago," he replied in good humor, transitioning to a stoic somberness. "Now, there's nothing but bits and pieces."

Bits and pieces of what, he did not say, his parents noted.

Link closed his eyes and tapped back into his powers. The Link everyone had come to expect faded back in an instant. That falsified smirk returned to his mouth as the emotion drained from his eyes, leaving that all-is-well veneer in its place. That hurt his mother more than anything-to watch her only child lock himself away in fear of being emotionally hurt again ravaged her soul in a way that nothing could. As she watched him sit up and move to Ganondorf, all she could think was that it would've been better if she had only been there to raise him.

"So, is this the end?" Ganondorf asked, looking away from Vestia to see Link's hand looming above him.

"What do you think?" Link asked in return, chuckling as an orb of white light began to shimmer in his hand, long tendrils of the energy swirling up between his fingers into the shell of reality. It ebbed out as he recalled what would happen if he manifested energy in a physical form there. "This may feel a little weird," he then said, speaking to Vestia as opposed to Ganondorf. Link touched her shoulder, using the woman as a conduit and her contact with Ganondorf as the catalyst by which to heal him.

Vestia shuddered as the power ran through her body and into her husband's. His body heaved and wretched upwards from the ground, a large gasp of air escaping his lungs as his spine connected with a sickening melody of crunches and squishes. Then, as quickly as they began, the sounds and the light faded. Link had successfully healed one of the people he'd professed to hate for the better part of four lifetimes, and didn't cringe about it. Of course, there were still a few issues to address-and his mother wasn't going to be denied those. So, as he brought his hand down, Link found himself transported back to the Colossus.

His mother gasped as she spoke, the expenditure of power becoming a tad bit apparent. "You're … a difficult man … to talk with."

"Perhaps," he replied indifferently.

"Don't do that to me," Esmerelda said, recomposing from her earlier exertion. "That's why I hung out here, you know. Fate or not, I like the uninhibited emotional ranges of the mortal world."

"Well, I'm not exactly mortal," Link saw fit to remind his mother, his shadow of indifference slowly lurching forward to encompass his emotions toward her.

"That doesn't mean you have to be a fucking stone," she said, throwing him with her frank language.

"Yes, I do." His face lost its smirk, leaving him with a placid stare. "My emotions are all that I control-"

"You're supreme-"

"What do gods worship?" Link suddenly asked, poignantly ending their loop of interruptions.

His mother faltered, ultimately failing to deliver an answer, because she'd never entertained such an idea.

"There's something out there bigger than all of us," he continued. "Something had to create Fate and Destiny and whatever that thing is, says that I don't deserve happiness unless I don't show those feelings. So, like everyone keeps telling me about this god thing, there are certain things that just shouldn't be fought-and that's one of them. And forget that I have the power to change it, because I just don't want a fucking emotion wasted on me if I have to make it!"

Esmerelda sighed, but was thankful he at least showed emotion enough to shout. "I'm not going to lecture you, but I will give you the best piece of advice I've ever received: Never think for more than five seconds about the answer to any problem-be it a question of logic or morals-or your answer will be wrong. Your gut, in mortal terms, makes the right choice faster than your mind ever will."

"And who reduced life to that `lovely' piece of simplicity?"

"Your father," she replied, smirking as her son rolled his eyes. "He's the only person that I've ever known to not experience long-term regret, and that's one of the reasons that I love him. He recognizes that his instincts are there and that powerful for a reason, so he obeys them. And you're like him-"

"I am nothing like him," Link interjected harshly, earning his mother's laughter.

"Do you think what you did back there was the right decision?" she asked, deviating for a moment.

"Not exactly, because looking at it now-"

"Not looking at it now, looking at it then. If the situation was the same, would you respond any differently?" Esmerelda needled, using what little godly energy she had left to shield her thoughts from Link's almost incessant radial mental scans.

"Probably-"

"Yes or no, Link!"

"Yes, all right?" he shot back defensively, walking to the far end of the Colossus's right hand … his mother's hand. "What's the point of this?"

"To make you see that analyzing every little thing isn't always the best plan of action for people like us," Esmerelda told him, smiling in a way that momentarily brought a twinkling of feeling to his eyes. She walked over, placed her hands on his shoulders, and sighed again, pressing her thumbs into his flesh. "You're a warrior, Link. As such, your emotions and instincts are what make you `you.' You keep trying to spin philosophic and read peoples' minds to avoid listening to yourself, and where has it gotten you?"

"You make it sound so easy," Link replied, laughing in a manner that made his mother shudder, but acutely aware that he was dodging the question.

"It is if you'd let it be," Esmerelda said, sighing as she realized that his mind seemed to be made up. "I know one thing: I'd much rather be dead and silently suffering over having never known my son, as opposed to being resurrected to see this … husk, because this is worse than anything your father could have ever hoped to do to me."

She leaped from the megalithic statue's hand and landed silently on the ground below. Link watched his mother sulk off into the forest, a feeling of abandonment coming over him at not being able to drop his guard with even her. Blah, I'm doing just fine, Link thought, even as he got that pang in the pit of his … well, where his stomach used to be. Five seconds to make a decision, was there anything as stupid?

"Yep," the word seemed to jump from his lips without any effort on his part. "What do you want me to say? I'll keep getting stepped on?"

Esmerelda recoiled as her son's voice came from the forest around her. She thought for a second before replying: "What's your favorite color or your favorite food? Or what's your favorite part of life? I just want something more than a hollow smile and some bullshit story about how there are gods above gods that systematically ruin lives!"

A gentle breeze blew through the trees from across the lake, before there was empty silence to serve as an answer. As that silence lingered, tears began to well up in Esmerelda's eyes. It hurt so much, goddess or not. Perhaps this is what Link meant when he said we shouldn't have children, she thought suddenly, remembering her husband's tendency to be right even when she wished he wasn't. Esmerelda sank to her knees and sobbed in silence, believing that she'd truly failed her only child.

"Answer me this," Link sighed, stepping out from around a tree behind her. "Why are you still with him?"

"Your father, you mean?"

"Father, dick-head, either/or," Link replied flippantly. "Answer that question and I'll answer yours."

His tone was serious now, and his mother composed herself to answer it with the same mannerism. For a moment, Esmerelda thought to answer it the same way that she'd answered her sisters. However, for whatever reason, she sensed Link was looking for more than that. Perhaps, she thought, he was looking for a way to validate his own marriage through hers. The more she stood there and felt the absence of his presence trying to invade her thoughts, the more logical that thought seemed to be.

"That's what marriage is, Link," Esmerelda eventually said. "It's for better or for worse, irregardless of death, while preparing for every conceivable `worse' that you can think of. And it's accepting that every horror you could imagine befalling your marriage still won't prepare you for the inconceivable one that pushes it to the breaking point. But, above all else, Link, marriage is a vow to come back from that unimaginable scenario and find it within your heart to move past it. You just can't call it a done deal when a hard spot arises."

"How?" Link asked, truly looking like a lost man in face of her words. "It's a vow of loyalty, though. That's principle."

"Loyalty is one principle of marriage, kid," his mother concurred. "But so are regret, forgiveness, and willingness to compromise. When you've lost the desire to do all of that-or when there's no expression of those principles-is when a marriage is truly over. Your father still tries, no matter what your aunts may think or say, and that's all I need to forgive him."

Link folded his arms across his chest, and thought about that but quickly halted.

"No," he mumbled, "she's right."

Those empty spaces that used to contain his heart and stomach told him that she was-and he decided to listen to them again for a change. Esmerelda, still on her knees, looked at her son and watched his emotions flicker between raw and suppressed through his eyes. The desire to remain emotionally guarded and inviolable clashed with an old desire for emotional submersion. It was in his nature, so to speak, to obey his word in matters of oaths and so on.

"For better or for worse," Rauru had asked of him some twenty-six years ago.

Link recalled that he'd agreed without the slightest hesitation, but what did he agree to specifically? He'd agreed to his own terms, and figured Nabooru to adhere to them as strictly as he would, and then cast her completely aside when she didn't. It took years to ingrain his mannerisms and beliefs into Sepaaru, and here, Link pitifully realized, he expected Nabooru to just be that way. He paced and continued to mutter and mumble to himself.

"Maybe that's why it hurt so much, beyond the fact that I caught her fucking the same guy twice … over the span of our entire marriage almost," he spoke to himself in a low, haunting register, as the root of his underlying problem seemed to come out at long last. "I was disappointed because Zelda and Nabooru weren't like me-that they didn't act, think, and feel things the way I did." Indeed, despite "doing everything she asked" only to be fucked over again, Link had come to understand that Nabooru (or anyone else for that matter) couldn't act exactly the way he did, especially if she never knew he was expecting her to. Hell, he didn't even know he was expecting her to, either, until now. So, where Link would never seek solace in someone else's bed for the answers to his problems (unless blinded by disappointment and anger), he had come to understand that wasn't true for other people-even if they were married. Marriage didn't just make both parties adhere to the other. Obviously it doesn't or my father wouldn't have tried to kill me despite his wife's pleading, he thought grimly, as his epiphany hit him full on. "Everyone is different" was one of those simple terms that Link understood, but one he obviously didn't fully grasp.

"Doesn't marriage mean you and your partner are supposed to think alike in certain ways?" Link asked, deciding to use his mother as a sounding board to assure or disprove his newfound reasoning. In using her as such, he revealed one of those shortcomings in his interpersonal understandings. His mother smiled as the pang of pain shot through her chest. He was so socially naïve-even after all this time-that it probably would've sparked laughter had Link not been her own child.

"Of course not, Link," Esmerelda said lightly, making sure to keep the chastising tones to a minimum. "You agree on certain topics, but you'll never think alike. Even when you're agreeing on a subject, you're agreeing for different reasons usually. A wedding ceremony, some vows, and a ring can never change the fact that two different people are still two different people."

With that assessment proven wrong, what did Link have left to do?

Slowly, subtly, a smile started to creep across his face. It wasn't a smirk or a curved, sardonic trench cut into a lifeless face. Even more than the look on his face when he appeared to get her from Charon, Esmerelda witnessed her son's first smile. Link opened his eyes and approached her. He still had that looming eminence, but with that gentlemanly quality that made her smile a little as he extended his hand to her.

"I've got three favorite colors: Red, silver, and green, of course," he replied, hauling his mother to her feet with ease. "Before the whole second return to the god thing, I liked fruit and pretty much anything that grew out of the ground."

"There must've been something that you liked to have cooked," Esmerelda prodded, joyful tears trickling from the corners of her eyes despite her cheerful tone.

"Hmm," Link deliberated, still somewhat forcing himself to feel for an extended period of time. "Well, I was partial to pretty much any roasted meat. Oh, and Varia's cakes and pies and stuff. Yeah, I liked ice cream-strawberry, apple, blueberry, whatever." He spoke like a man suddenly remembering who he was and what he liked after years of imprisonment or invalidity. Even if Link was forcing himself to feel, Esmerelda was thankful to see this side of her son.

"I've got an idea," his mother said, green-on-green eyes gleaming with inspiration. "I'll cook for you tonight! I owe you at least one meal in this life … time."

Esmerelda kicked herself for the mental blurb, as she didn't want to make reference to anything unpleasant in fear that it upset his budding joviality. Thankfully, Link didn't make serious note of the history embedded in that remark. He did agree to the offer, however.

"Shall we go?" Link asked, looping his arm for his mother.

"Well, I imagine that your father's probably irritated the mortals into a frenzy by now, and is probably realizing he's technically one of them, so I guess we should," she replied, weaving her arm through the loop before warping off.

Despite the revelations that the Gerudo Forest had lay witness to, little had changed in front of the Gerudo Fortress. Vestia and Ganondorf stood near the incline to the old Gerudo Archery Track, occasionally glancing at their treacherous younger daughter, but without the malice one would expect. Sepaaru could feel their leering while she continued to perch atop the rooftop, though she was more concerned with the weird tingle in her stomach that told her something had happened to Link. And below her-a position that was actually quite literal in feeling and geographical location to her queen-stood Nabooru, with her parents, daughter, and two best friends in the Queen of Hyrule and former right-hand woman, Varia, all of whom were silently anticipating the next move of the fleeting day. Nabooru's jaw had begun to swell, but, naturally, she refused to get ice in case Link tried to disappear again. She'd felt the same twinge as Sepaaru, but, for whatever reason, it seemed to bring Nabooru a sense of hope.

"We need to talk," Link's voice said from all directions, before he and his mother appeared. He looked at his mother for something resembling reassurance, and then his eyes landed directly on Nabooru before he said the same thing. "We need to talk."

Link relinquished hold of his mother's arm and walked toward his ex-wife … wife … oh, he didn't give a damn to classify their relationship. He just had to say something to her. However, it was in his solemn march toward the frozen Gerudo queen that he felt the second pair of eyes transfixed on him. He stopped a mere arm's length from Nabooru, leaned his head skyward, and gazed up into a true Gerudo queen's eyes. This was the moment she'd been dreading for the last few months, Sepaaru was thinking, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it.

"You too," is all Link said as he looked up at her.

Despite Sepaaru's nearly toppling over the edge with surprise, Link reset his head and walked past Nabooru through the crowd. It wasn't until he was down the hall and around the corner that Nabooru's legs received the command from her brain to walk. And even though Sepaaru was included, she stood up like a woman condemned to death. She performed a forward somersault, twisting her body around 180 degrees in the air, only to land facing the silent onlookers gathered in the door. No one uttered a word as Sepaaru quietly marched by, shield clanging gently against the base of her sheathed sword as she walked, creating a sound not unlike her father's when he walked with his swords.

This is so stupid, Sepaaru idly thought. I already know what he's going to say. `It's been fun, but now it's time to forgive and forget.' I should just go somewhere and take my ass to sleep.

Sepaaru didn't do any of that, though. Instead, she went through the door and into the stairwell behind Nabooru. Naturally, Sepaaru hadn't realized that she'd walked so fast that she'd actually caught up with Nabooru. They were shoulder to shoulder now, yet neither woman made a motion to acknowledge the other. It was a lesson in subtly, because Nabooru and Sepaaru were acutely aware of each other. More specifically, Nabooru was aware of the hair sprouting from her one-time adoptive child's head. It was black, her mind kept thinking, and that makes her queen now. And while that seemed like it would be the governing thought for a woman so obsessed with position and prestige, it wasn't. Bigger than Sepaaru, bigger than a title, Nabooru's predominate thoughts were all based around Link.

They reached the upper landing at long last. As the ladies entered the room, the door seemed to snap shut behind them, even though it was merely their minds amplifying the sound. The shattered window picked itself up piece by piece and reformed in a matter of seconds, as to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. Now there was silence. Despite three towering bodies standing around the room, there was total, unerring silence. Link sat on the foot of his old bed and looked at the women before him.

He spoke quietly his next few words: "I had a talk with my mother a little while ago, and I realized that perhaps I was expecting too much out of you, Nabooru-" Sepaaru scoffed, figuring herself right in her assumptions, but made no further objections-"basically, I was expecting you to think and act like me. I'm not saying you're faultless, because you are-you really, really, really are-but perhaps that's because I placed that kind of burden on the both of you."

"You haven't burdened me," Sepaaru mumbled, folding her arms as the end drew closer and her temper teetered on the edge of boiling.

"I rush straight at you, no weapons, with my arms out to my sides, leaving my middle open-what's your first thought?" Link asked his protégé.

Without thinking, Sepaaru replied, "Determine a weak spot-" she paused as Link's voice spoke in word-for-word unison with hers.

"Next," he continued.

"Attack at or below your center of gravity, as attacking the head would leave me at a disadvantage because of the height advantage-" Again, their voices overlapped and became one. She didn't understand this exercise in mind reading at all, and neither did Nabooru.

"I have burdened you, Sepaaru," Link sighed. "Throughout all of our training sessions, I unknowingly molded myself a companion piece in the world. I don't have to read your mind to know your thoughts, because they're essentially my own. We walk into rooms and look for the fastest way out. We assess every person we encounter for weak points, kill zones, and so on. We're the only pair in the world that thinks like this all the time-and believe me, I've looked-and that's my fault. You validate my sanity in this world, because I'm not the only one that thinks like this anymore."

"So, what are you saying? Because I'm loyal … because I care … I'm trash now?" Sepaaru yelled, as she didn't know what was to come next. It was a unique position to be in, as she'd always been able to at least gauge the type of decisions Link would most likely make. Quite frankly, it scared her to be on the outs after so many years of virtually knowing. "I asked you to train me! I asked you to do it irregardless of the outcome, and I went along with it!"

"I know," Link replied calmly, watching as his … lover began to crack apart at the seams. "All I'm saying is that it wasn't fair. I honestly don't know if I did it on purpose or if it just turned out this way, but-"

"I don't blame you for it," Sepaaru interjected, her frayed nerves growing calm as that familiar connection seemed to come back with a surge. This wasn't the end, her mind deduced instantly. "I won't blame you for it, or resent you, or bring it up fifty years from now as an excuse for some stupid action on my part."

Link didn't utter another word to her, opting to merely bow his head to show that he conceded her point. Now, the feeling of displacement shifted onto Nabooru. It had all seemed poised to return to the ways of old a minute ago, but now, now she had no idea where this was going. Nabooru was worried that this was the true end of her marriage and there was nothing anyone could say to save it. The connection, whether by Link's design or natural, between he and Sepaaru had obviously grown to encompass more than paternal. And despite that, Nabooru still felt that certain charge as he looked at her … that indescribable happiness and vitality that no other man could replicate screaming inside her.

"So, here we are, Nabooru," Link began with a wistful sort of remembrance. "You wanted first place recognition; I guess I really did want a woman who thought and acted like me, while not thinking and acting like me, which makes no fucking sense. So, where does it go from there?"

"I don't know," she replied quietly. "I'm just tired, He … Link."

The stutter made him frown, and Nabooru cringed.

"Don't call me that," he was quick to say, before chuckling. "You always used my name when I was feeling bad. And right now, I feel pretty good."

"Oh … sorry," Nabooru said a bit listlessly, her nerves too jangled to exercise her face into the radiant smile shown on the inside.

Link slumped forward for a moment, hands dangling languidly between his legs, before letting out another airless sigh. He looked at Nabooru, and then Sepaaru, and then Nabooru, before he noticed the lump forming on her cheek where Ganondorf struck her. His eyes flashed for a brief moment, as the knot shrank and disappeared. Nabooru didn't notice.

"I think you two should see other people," he finally said, as Sepaaru and Nabooru both made something of a faint squeak. "If not forever, then for at least five or six years, because the fact is that we've all been involved in two or three relationships, max. That's probably why none of this has worked."

The two Gerudo were stunned. But, as with everything involving love, stunned quickly turned to anger-and Sepaaru was the first to unleash hers.

"And why the hell should we? What will you do in the meantime?" she demanded, vein throbbing in her neck as this whole thing screamed "bye, Sepaaru" to her, as that gut feeling of hers was proven wrong for the first time.

"Because I already know how I feel," Link replied calmly. "I've only had three relationships in this lifetime-four if you want to count a moment in a hole with Nocturna on the exiles' island-and I think I finally know what I want. Meanwhile, you two seem to have this unnatural belief that I'll be perfect in every situation-even if it's never said-when that's just not possible. That's why I propose you go out there and seek better. If you like someone more than me-that's good. If you fall in love with that someone-that's great. But I can't go traipsing off into the world thinking everything is fine and dandy at home, only to wake up one day and find myself alone with a note saying, `I needed to see what else was out there.' Here's the moment to look beyond me and Hyrule for happiness and answer any doubts, second thoughts, fuck around fantasies, or whatever. I'll be here if one of you comes back."

Nabooru and Sepaaru looked at him for a long time after that, and then at themselves. It was a controlled exercise in getting one of them to leave him. But neither woman seemed to gather that from his words, so much as they sought to find some way to refute or rebut the entire thing as tripe. They even glazed over the issue with Nocturna; although, the idea that she had been on fortress grounds and lied about knowing where Link was did irritate both women a great deal, it was arbitrary in comparison to the bigger picture. The competitor in Nabooru wanted to prove that Link wasn't the end-all-be-all, but that wench had shown she was crazy a long, long time ago. She didn't need to go around the world to know Link was the best thing in her life. And Sepaaru, for all of her flares of emotion, twisted her brow up in thoughts of ways to prove that this was her relationship and that she wanted him more than Nabooru ever did. The answer was too slow, it seemed, as Nabooru approached Link.

"How do you feel, Hero … about us?" the Sage of Spirit asked him, voice unshaken and firm even as she uttered the pet name. Nabooru stopped roughly three feet away from him, eyes never leaving his as she waited for the response.

Link looked at her with a hard, calculating gaze that seemed to be picking her brain apart. He wasn't doing that, though. Link was choosing his words.

"I'm in love with you … both," he said in much the same way as his wife, his eyes never once blinking or quivering with uncertainty. Nayru had warned him long ago in this particular time that as a god his ability to love extended well beyond the confines of singularity. She also warned him that if he didn't monitor himself around the mortals such a thing would happen. Needless to say, he hadn't given much weight to her words or even considered them possible. Love was monogamous, was Link's exact counter-thought. "The way I see it-if at least one of you comes back to me, I'll be happy. And, if not, I'll just keep moving forward and forcing myself to think beyond what I've held as truth for so long, because, one day, all the gaps up here have to be filled in." He drummed his index finger against his cranium, and laughed.

Sepaaru's brain had frozen in a particularly painful knot. In all those months of fucking, making love as it were, to finally hear it given breath as more than a painful revelation to her father- Link loved her! And she loved him! And now she could say it without any interference or worrying about him up and leaving her for…

"Nabooru," the thought ran down her brain and leaked off her lips like food from a baby's mouth.

On the other side of the ball, Nabooru continued to stare at Link as though he'd never spoken. But he had. "I'm in love with you … both," he'd said so unequivocally. He was her husband, goddamn it! How the fuck did Sepaaru even get this close? "She was there nursing him back to life, stupid," Nabooru's brain seemed to say of its own accord. "While you cried, she endured his temper tantrums. You're lucky he even remembers that you exist." The Gerudo smirked in lieu of her mind's assault, because it didn't matter. Link did remember her. He even forgave her stupid indiscretions again. He even went so far as to still love her. She'd make it up to him … somehow.

"I'm not going anywhere, Hero," Nabooru said in typical defiance of his wishes. "Like I've always said, you're the best thing in my life-and I'm not walking away from that again."

Link snorted, but laughed at her bravado anyway.

"Not yet," he mused, drawing her smile into a tight-lipped frown. "You can't deny your attractions, Nabooru."

In that instant, Nabooru suddenly knew how she'd make it up to him.

"Not if you make it so I'm not attracted to anyone else," Nabooru suddenly countered, throwing Link's own calmness into disarray.

"What the fuck is that?" Link blurted in a harsh mingling of syllables, insulted by the insinuation that he'd tamper with her like that. "I can't believe you'd even think I would do something like that to you after all this time! That's just-"

Nabooru shook her head, cutting him off. "I'm not saying that you would," she clarified, which settled his ire some. "I'm asking you to." Link's eyes nearly came out of his skull, as he'd forgotten how dynamic life could be when he didn't listen to thoughts as they came to people. "I don't want to lose you because I'm a slave to some twisted gods' plan. Fuck them! I belong with you … to you. I don't care to look any further, because this is where I need to be. I don't care if I see every man as a bloated corpse or if I burst into flames for looking at any man for too long-just kill my attraction to anyone but you."

Sepaaru felt ill and lost. What could she say to top the emotion in her adoptive mother's voice? Fuck! She wasn't even in Link's shoes, but the set of Nabooru's body, her words, they all made her want to grant the woman's wish. Her mind rolled and flopped about inside of her skull like a fish in a death throw, trying desperately to find something to compete with, as she'd never known that gods could love more than one person for an extended period of time. In her eyes, the eyes of a desperate woman in love, Sepaaru just saw Link's leaving her as a bigger, more frightening reality the longer she stood there with nothing coming out of her mouth. Still, there was nothing. Experience had told her long ago that the longer Link stayed quiet, the more likely it would be that he'd agree to whatever it was that made him quiet in the first place. Gods, she was losing him! That was probably why, too-she was too damn stupid to talk! The emotions were there, she just couldn't speak! If she'd been alone with him this wouldn't be happening. Now, there was nothing left but prayer-one of the few things her father had taught her long ago, before he gave up his faith.

"Please, if there are any gods or goddesses listening to this, help me!" she cried out from the confines of her mind in a desperate plea.

"You rang?" Link's voice echoed in her brain, nearly startling her out of her boots. "I haven't forgotten you."

And like that, Sepaaru's pulse slowed and her nerves settled like sediment in a pond. The background was fine. Yes, because Link always came into the background for one reason or another. To any onlooker, her sharp switch would've been considered more than a little odd, because she'd genuinely quit worrying or anticipating anything at all, and just stood there as a mere witness to the proceedings with no objections … much like Link did in regards to Arthur and Zelda, yet Sepaaru still didn't realize it.

Link wouldn't let her down … Link never let her down … Link couldn't let her down.

"You realize that you're asking me to remove a part of your free will," Link said, looking at Nabooru and finding her, surprisingly, in complete understanding of what she asked. "This is a key part of mortality, Nabooru-"

"I don't care. I still have faith in you, Hero. And besides," she smirked, "I'm immortal."

Link didn't know why he stood and placed his hands to her temples, or why he felt so fucking compelled to grant such a ludicrous demand. But he did. Just the idea of not having to look over his shoulder, wondering, and waiting for Nabooru to leave-it was almost euphoric. It was weird, he noticed, how easily it was to alter Nabooru's will, when altering her body had been so hard. Then it occurred to him: She actually wants this, he thought, before that cheap feeling crept over him. Wasn't this cheating? Even if Nabooru wanted it, wasn't it her subtle way of telling him that she wouldn't be able to curb her own urges and really didn't want him on some level? Link shook his head free of the distraction and mindfully went with his gut … or, rather, the space that used to contain his gut.

"As much as enjoy having your hands on my head, when does it start, Hero?" Nabooru asked, as she was completely unaware that "it" had already ended.

"It's done," Link replied. "Now let's test it out. Find me."

Instantly, the room was shoulder to shoulder with four rows of Links, each one identical to the next, but only one was real. Nabooru raised an eyebrow, but set about traversing the narrow aisles between the bodies. There was an odd lack of pressure on her, she noticed, even as she studied the replicas for a distinction. As she moved from one row to the next, Nabooru became overtly aware of Sepaaru, who'd taken to moving through the ranks along with her. A handful of minutes ticked by and neither of them was any closer to finding him it seemed. Then, as Nabooru walked down the front row and Sepaaru walked on the row behind that one, they both felt that certain something from the silent men, and grabbed one-the same one.

"Gotcha," Nabooru said in triumph.

"Indeed, you do," Link chuckled, as his army of self-replicates disappeared. "But so does she," he clarified, body turning transparent to allow Nabooru and Sepaaru to see each other through him.

"What does that mean?" she asked, despite already knowing to a certain extent what it meant. It was bad enough that Link had a child with the woman, but now the idea that he wasn't going to cut her out of the picture was becoming real. Plus, there was also the issue that she couldn't have picked him out of that lineup without the magic, where as Sepaaru did, staring back at her. "Are we supposed to share?"

"You two can work the details out, because, quite frankly, I'm tired of trying to feel one or not feel another," Link replied, as an uproarious laughter came up through the floor and rattled inside of his head.

With that, he gave a sort of indifferent shrug and faded away. Nabooru was, as expected, knowledgeably confused, meaning that she knew what was going to happen, but didn't all at once. In complete contrast to that, Sepaaru stood knowingly content about the turnout. She even went so far as to smirk a little at her adoptive mother. This didn't go over well at all.

"What the hell is so funny?" Nabooru demanded from amidst her confusion. "He wants us to share him-"

"I know," Sepaaru replied, her face immediately returning to its neutral state. "I guess I can take even days-"

"The fuck you can," Nabooru shouted, interrupting her one-time child. "I've been waiting for this day for almost ten years! I'm not just turning my husband over-"

"He's not your husband, first of all," Sepaaru interjected in an even voice, stepping forward into Nabooru's personal space in an almost outright threat. "Second, this day would've never happened if you'd just opened your damn mouth and talked. Third, and most important of all, you took the first man that I ever loved away from me. I let that one go, but," she stated, as her eyes narrowed into a scornful glare, "I won't do that again."

It was as if a veil lifted from Nabooru's eyes, revealing to her for the first time the warrior that Sepaaru had become. And, if that wasn't enough, she had to admit that there wasn't much she could do about it. If she couldn't dodge Ganondorf's slow little punch, there wasn't a chance in hell that a fight with Sepaaru could warrant anything more than humiliation. In a sick way, Nabooru found herself admitting, she took pride in this transformation, as neither of them wavered in their icy stares.

"So, what-you want the `throne'?" Nabooru asked, almost foolishly overlooking statements of love at that point.

Sepaaru smirked again, saying: "Gerudo Law already says the throne is mine. But I don't want it, though. Most of the women respect you as a leader, despite everything you've done to screw that up, and so do I. They respect me as a warrior, and that-and Link-are all I really want. So, again, how do we split this up?"

"Let him decide," Nabooru said through her teeth, begrudgingly losing ground to Sepaaru's lack of concern. "Just don't fuck this up for me."

"I won't," she replied, her temper flaring suddenly as she thought of a fitting `punishment.' Sepaaru then picked Nabooru up off the floor from under her arms, like one would a small child, and smiled. "You'll find a way to do that yourself."

Without a second thought in her mind, Nabooru kicked Sepaaru in the chest with the heel of her right foot, and used the impact to push off and flip out of her grasp. She landed with her knee to the floor, glaring up at her adoptive child. The kick had no effect, because, like a megalithic Gerudo statue, Sepaaru stood unfazed. She dusted the tiny footprint off her breasts, and chuckled from the slight rush of Nabooru's attack having absolutely zero effect on her.

"I see you still have some spark left," Sepaaru said without looking up from her chest, though continuing to remove the print. "That's good. That's good."

Nabooru rose from her knee, gritting her teeth behind her closed lips to ignore the pain throbbing in her legs and muscles from such an exertion. The first thing she'd do was restart her own training. Lying around that room had obviously made her soft, even if her body didn't outwardly reflect that. Even if it was a supposed impossibility to win sole possession of Link's heart, Nabooru had resolved to at least regain her respect, because this little event wasn't going to happen ever again.