Prologue:
Round-robin storytelling.
-Ganon-
The voice was a whisper. It called me by name, and accused me of failure. If I'd had the energy, I would have laughed. It claimed to have granted me power... and then found me Power.
….Yes. The shade had granted me power. The shade summoned by the two old witches in the desert, to bring me strength and skill for the day when I was to be officially made king of my people. But it had not stopped there. It had locked me away, a prisoner in my own mind, barely able to interfere at all. And then it had used me, and my people, to do more evil than I alone ever could have.
It said something else. I remember... it saying it was leaving. I didn't believe it. Couldn't, really. It had used me over and over for centuries. Why would it abandon me now?
I cried out in pain as fire burned through me. Agony coursed through my veins in the same manner as it had arrived so many long years ago. I can't say how long it lasted... but when I opened my eyes, for the first time in centuries I opened my eyes. Not the shade that had kept me trapped in a corner of my own mind for so long. I did it.
(Get on with it Ganon, we get the point.)
Pendent.
(Piss me off and you won't get to tell your side of it.)
Fine, fine...
Before my eyes was a ball... no, not a ball, or an orb, something bigger. A globe, I suppose. Bigger than me, bigger than anything. Bodiless power, black and angry flames that seemed to spiral on forever in the white of the void.
It laughed at me then, the shade. Laughed as it whispered out into the light, and found a crack somehow. Into the Twili Realm, or the Hylian one, at the time I didn't know. All I knew was that I was, at long last, free.
It... I moved slowly. When I finally moved at all. There's nothing really in the void between realms. Not like the Twili lands, or the inverse of Hyrule, whatever that place was called. The void is just... empty space. Whiteness. It took me time to realize I could move. Time to realize that the shade had made a mistake.
It had not taken the Triforce of Power from me. Granted it had taken a good deal of my... well, its knowledge, rather, when it left. Spells it had cast through me, things I had once thought to learn for myself, those were gone. But the Triforce piece itself has... a longing, I suppose. To be reunited with it's other two parts.
And it made an excellent crutch in getting back to the world.
Not that it was a world I recognized. Not really. The desert had been... tamed at some point. That's the only reason I have for the prison in place of the temple. Oh, I vaguely recalled it from one of the shade's failed attempts at taking the palace, just as I recalled the pain of the 'failure' that had happened. The shade loved taking anger at failure on me, and in some ways it was right to blame me. It held me captive in my own mind, and it was hard to influence anything... but I managed, in small ways, to induce failure.
(You're rambling.)
Like you don't? You said yourself this is all that you're giving me. Let me have my damn say, woman.
(Oh, like you're not going to but in and make corrections when I have my say. Yeah right.)
Women.
(Boyo, I can still kick your ass from here to Snowpeak. D'you really wanna push me?)
…...
(That's what I thought.)
You're still a bitch, Raiha.
(And you're still an asshole, Ganon. Are you done?)
No! Now stop interrupting me, dmanit!
(Hehehehehe.)
Bitch.
(Uh huh. Keep talking.)
+Come on you two, stop fighting...+
Anyways.
I ended up in the desert. But it wasn't my desert. Just like there weren't a lot of my people left. And none of them would have followed me willingly, so I didn't try to seek them out. Up until this woman found me, I had no intention of leaving the desert at all. I had the Triforce of Power in my hand. And there was nothing in Hyrule I wanted.
….Now it's your turn.
(Gee, thanks, leave me with the asininely long backstory. I feel so appreciated.)
You're welcome.
(I will kick you, I swear to the goddesses.)
+Uhm. I still can't tell if that's you two flirting, or just being scary. But... Rai, c'mon. It is your turn.+
(Ugh. Fine.)
…...thanks. I think
+You just like pissing her off.+
Can I help it if it's funny?
(I will slug both of you, I swear to the goddesses. It's entirely not fair that you get along so well.)
Hehehehe.
+...sorry?+
(Pricks.)
-Raiha-
I'm going to condense this down, since long and tragic backstory is admittedly ridiculously long, and kind of not a point to the story. Everyone knows there's three pieces to the Triforce, and someone with their heart in balance—unlike this dumbass =Again with the insult, woman?=—can wield the True Force and make a wish. Jerkface over here, under command of the shade, fucked everyone over and broke it. If I had known more about the Triforce legends as a kid it never would have happened.
Unfortunately, I knew nothing. It happened. For a while, he won. And then we won.
=Yeah yeah, no need to rub it in. I did help with the sabotage.=
Uh huh. Whatever sandrat.
=Like you're not a sandrat yourself.=
This is your revenge for me bitching at you when it was your turn, isn't it?
=Yup! So glad you noticed.=
I can ship your sorry ass off to the desert you know. The cannon's right over there...
=Try it, I dare you.=
+Come on you two...+
=...fine. I'll stop. For now.=
Hmph. Anyways, we won, we sealed him away, and for a while, that was that.
+Uh Rai? Missing a point. You died.+
I reeeeally don't want to get into that.
=He has a point though. You don't usually take the active roll in any of the legends, so they won't know why this is important for you.=
Aaagh. Fiiiiine.
So, because I screwed up so magnificently, after I died in attempting to help Link and Zelda seal Ganon, the three goddesses gave me the mandate to fix what I broke. To that end I was reborn, and once I hit the tail end of puberty, I stopped aging. This has benefits and massive pitfalls. Benefits being that when magic started fading because of the broken Triforce, I was able to do something about it. Like the Light Spirits. Also, y'know, not dying.
The pitfalls were... well, I didn't age. After a while, people notice this sort of thing. And being Gerudo, even with more Hylian heritage showing, meant that I was already not a liked person. Granted this faded as memories of Ganon did, but still. You get used to not being welcomed in places and you stop trying to make any sort of friendly overture after a while.
And I did screw up a lot in this long life of mine. I let myself be talked into making the Mirror of Twilight, and then had mages set on me. You can guess what happened there.
+Well, the Twili people never resented you?+
That we know of... And Zant sure as shit had a lot of resentment in his ass.
=Not just his ass=
….I'm pretty sure that's more information than any of us needed, thanks, Gan.
=You're welcome.=
Prick.
+And this would be why we haven't tried doing this before...+
Hey, for once, I get to lay the blame on you, kid. This was your brilliant idea.
=She has a point. This is your fault.=
+Eheheheheh...+
….I lost the thread of thought.
+Twili+
Oh. Right.
After that, the Mirror was the only way to get in or out, but I hadn't worked out a way to bring people back. They installed the Mirror in the prison, and after the Sage-constructs were give the activation keys, I went away for a while. Long enough for this ass to break out and get sealed away again. I'm sorry I missed that.
=Because it was a stupid idea?=
Intensely. I may have gaps in my memory, but I know, I know I told them that trying to do that to the Evil King was a bad idea! Stupid fucking idiots. And then you broke one of the constructs! D'you know how hard it was to get those things working right?
=The shade broke it, not me.=
Still your body. And don't tell me you didn't want to do it yourself.
=...maybe a little.=
+Guys. We're kind of getting off track here again.+
Right...
=And you say I ramble.=
I will slug you. I may not have wanted to make those things, but I also didn't want them broken.
+Easy Rai. It's still your turn. How'd you know he go loose?+
…...When you're as tied into the world as I am, you become sensitive to the various partings of... I guess you would call them dimensional walls. The Mirror, before Midna broke it, could do it deliberately, but it still carried with it a sound, a tone, that would let those who could hear it know that they were doing something admittedly a little dangerous. World boundaries aren't lightly crossed.
I wasn't in the desert at the time. I almost never visited the desert; the road was still impassible after the earthquake, and despite attempts to build up from Lake Hylia, it never worked too well. I was actually in Kakariko. The sound that woke me... think metal claws on slate. Under a bell, or in a dark cave. A literal dark cave where you can't see your hand in front of your face without a lantern. And then put that sound right inside your head. That was the shade coming through.
I fell out of a tree.
=Hah!=
I'm ignoring you now. This is me ignoring you. Jerk.
+You... fell out of a tree?+
Mmhm. I could have stayed at the inn, or in the shaman's house, I know, but I don't like enclosed spaces. Not as much as I hate heights, but I've come to love staying outside under the stars. Even if it means sleeping in a tree.
=S-so... hehehehe... what did you land on?=
…...
+Rai, c'mon...+
Ugh. I landed in the deep part of Eldin's pool. I was also wearing my Zora tunic, so at least it didn't hurt too badly. Did wake me up too. Can I kick him yet?
+Ganon, I seriously think she'll kick you into the water, maybe you'd better stop...+
=I'm trying, I'm trying... pffffhahahaha!=
Prick.
+What then?+
Mnn... Well, there's ways down into Lake Hylia. Some routes are less pleasant than others. I got down and found the cannon old Feyer used to run. I paid his grandson the money to get out to the desert fast, since none of the old teleport songs work except one, and teleportation is still an elusive spell.
=...yeah, that one's hard.=
Kind of like your head.
+Rai...+
He left himself open for that one.
+You're both stubborn. How did I get stuck with you again?+
You ask as though you don't know the answer.
=Hehehe.=
The desert actually doesn't change as much as people think over time, not without outside intervention, anyways. Sand wears at stone to make more sand, and sometimes rains roll through to make oases, but for the most part, what's left in the desert is actually fairly preserved by it.
That's what helped me to reach and traverse Arbiter's Grounds.
=Where you found me.=
Yup.
=And almost killed me.=
Well hell, what did you think I'd do? Give you a cup of tea and wish you on your merry way?
=...no. I actually did expect that... Just thought I'd have more time to prepare.=
Right. It's still my turn, let me have my turn, please.
=Well, since you said please.=
Asshat.
I didn't see him, not at first, though my senses were alert for anything. Somehow he actually managed to slip though the veil pretty silently. Part of me is convinced that it's because of where he landed. The Mirror Chamber is already an area used to dimensional portals, and thin enough with the help that comes from being perched on top of a dead-filled prison.
=And your Mirror=
….and that. Suffice to say, it was one of the only places he could slip back into the world without setting off that same disorienting, terrifying sound. So I honestly didn't expect him to be there. Plus, he didn't look anything like what I remembered from the time I'd encountered him.
=How did I look?=
…...why am I feeding your ego again?
=No, seriously.=
Seriously? Hn. I doubt that. But all right. Since I doubt you'll be as flattering if you get the chance to describe me when it's your turn again.
=You never know...=
Uh huh.
Tall was the first impression. But then, Ganon has always been tall. Not over the top muscular, but not weak. Well-built I suppose. And young. Well, young-ish. A man in his prime, with a short red ponytail, and clean-shaven. Dressed, if you could call it that, in loose pants and a vest, with short, black boots. Pretty reasonable desert wear, actually. I would have ignored him entirely if he hadn't reacted the way he did.
It was the eyes that gave him away. Wide yellow eyes, shocked at the sight of me, recognizing me in... what was it, horror?
=Something like that. I figured I was a dead man, and I'd only just gotten out.=
Want your turn again?
=...please.=
Go for it.
-Ganon-
I hadn't been there long. Maybe an hour or two when she came bounding up the remnants of the stairs. I was... wary first, mostly because I hadn't even sensed someone coming. I was also still just trying to get used to the idea of not being trapped in the void, feeling sunshine on my face. Wind in my hair.
(You were horribly distracted. I noticed.)
Yes, that's how she got the drop on me. Which, I am well aware, I'm never living down.
(Given the number of times you successfully got the drop on me? Nope.)
She was armed to the teeth too. A sword on her hip, a bow on her back, armor under her tunic... But yes, when I saw her face and recognized her, I froze. I hadn't expected, or hoped, to see anyone in the desert. Definitely not the one person I never wanted to meet without at least three walls between us.
(hehehe. Nice to know~)
I have height on you.
(I have speed. And magic.)
Hmph.
I choked, I think, when I recognized her.
(You did.)
That got her attention, and I will freely admit, ti was the last thing I wanted. She didn't recognize me at first, I had seen that in the negligible glance she'd given me, but when I reacted like that, well, she took the chance to take another look. And I'm willing to say freely that I have never seen anyone get so angry, so quickly. Not... not even Nabooru.
At the time, Raiha wore her hair long. I vaguely remember that being part of one of your disguises?
(Yup. Short hair as a kid. I grew it out while running away from your first attempt at taking Hyrule. It actually worked pretty well... But then, I think the only reason the shade chased me and caused misfortune in my wake was to fuck with me.)
Pretty much. It... I wouldn't say it knew that you were capable of the thing it wasn't, but it knew you had the means to be a highly credible threat. So it tried to get at you as indirectly as possible, since it was still using me to consolidate power.
(Huh. Interesting.)
Yeah.
(So, how unflattering is my description bound to be?)
Well if you'd let me talk...
(hehehe.)
Brat.
I'll be honest, among the horror was also a bit of avarice. A pain in the ass, yes, but not... not ugly. Raiha's an odd one, showing more of her Hylian heritage than most Gerudo. Pointed ears, paler brown skin, a bit more gold in the hair than red... More slender than the usual Gerudo figure too. But definitely not weak.
So I froze, and she turned. For a moment she didn't have a clue, and if I'd been thinking instead of fighting with myself, I could probably have gotten a head start on running.
(Only if your intend was to jump off. There's really nowhere to run to up there.)
When she figured out who I was, she jumped me. Literally. Sword out, fury in her eyes and on her face, she lunged at me, and I was too shocked to really fight back. I was lucky I wasn't killed right then and there.
Why didn't you kill me?
-Raiha-
Apart from you acting like you'd seen a ghost? You still had the Triforce of Power in you, and do you know how hard it is to find all three pieces in the same era? I mean, maybe I could store them in the Temple of Time, but because you were still The Enemy at the time, we needed the other two pieces in circulation.
Besides, your shade would never have given up his piece willingly. And I had one hell of a time just trying to wrest it away from you when you died at the end of the Twilight incident!
=Which you failed to do=
My point, you just made it.
+Guys, seriously, the scribe is dying of laughter over here, you're not helping.+
Again, Link, this was your idea. I was the one who said it would be a farce.
=She is right.=
+I don't know what's worse, you two bickering or you two agreeing with each other... But the story has to get told somehow.+
Maybe, but I don't see why we have to be the ones to tell it. Let it fade. Everything's done and over with now, and if there's no stories, it could get nice and peaceful for a while. I'd like that.
=So would the kid.=
+...kid, what kid?+
Big mouthed idiot. I'll tell you later. First we seriously need to figure out what to do.
+What kid?+
=The one she's carrying twit. Or two. She hasn't been specific.=
Oh for fuck's sake Ganon, shut up already. I told you I don't even know if it's for certain yet, and given the stress I'm under, it doesn't fucking matter either way, now shut up!
=...yes'm.=
+Scaaaary...+
Hmph.
Look, if we have to tell the damn story, let's just do it one at a time. Because this way, we keep pitching into each other's tales, and don't tell me we wouldn't keep trying.
=It's just so fun to interrupt you, and ow, damnit woman!=
Didn't I just say to shut up?
+...okay. Uhm...+
Ganon goes first, I'll go second, and Link can go third. That way the story gets told in the proper sort of order. Yes?
+...okay.+
=Fine, fine... that's going to leave a mark you know=
Boo hoo. Have fun talking to the scribe. I think I'll go swimming.
+H-hey, wait for me!+
=Figures. All right... let's try this again...=