Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Zelda.

It's a been a while since I've written anything, but the lovely Sorceress of Shadows suggested an odd pairing, "Naylark", and I had my own idea for it, so I wrote it down. This took a couple hours and I don't really want to improve it (this was a study break) right now, but hopefully it's good. I think this is the first thing I decided to rate as M, though whether or not it really deserves it I'm not sure. What this does deserve is an editing, which it probably won't get due to my current fatigue and apathy.

Warning: Dark themes. Of many sorts. Nothing too intense but I WARNED YOU HERE. DON'T SAY I DIDN'T.

The darkness did not die. Not like his mortal counterpart of Goddess-blessed light.

The insidious creature, even after all these ages, still crept around Her temple. Slithering in its shadowy form the way only a thing of complete malevolence could, he wandered the deteriorating structure so completely alone that a being capable of emotions might have felt forlorn. Within the space and the fascinating halls, the water controls, and the endlessly respawning little beasts, the monster that the Hero, in life, had dubbed "Dark Link" prowled; chasing out stray visitors cruelly, killing his fellow monsters for cheap entertainment, finding new corners and crannies to hide and watch over his watery abode in, and always wandering back to that incongruous room in which he was born with a certain fondness. It was almost a reverence. Day after endless day of the same meanderings brought him back, again and again. Kill, sneak, shadows, dead tree. Creep, darkness, hunt, thick fog. Over and over and over, complete monotony.

The Goddess did not care. For all Her Omnipotence, the Goddess could barely bring Herself to show even interest. A fine work of dark sorcery, but a mortal invention, and therefore crude and subpar. It was not condescension to say, merely truth. Ganondorf had been a fine spellcaster in life, even at the relatively young age at which he had made the shadow, but it could not compare to any feat Nayru, the Goddess of Wisdom and the Writer of All the Laws of Magic and the Universe, could perform. Even working within Her own Laws and not teasingly suspending Them to make a Miracle, She could do better work. It gave Her faint satisfaction to know.

So the thing in the temple did not bother Her for many ages, even as the lake grew deeper and deeper and the Zora decided to build a newer, grander temple in Her Honor, and She let it live as a challenge to any future hero who could manage to stumble across the wretch. In a perverse way, She delighted in the thought that the only remnant of Ganondorf's reign and challenge to the Very Gods Themselves now lived such a miserable existence in the ever-damp doldrums of a forgotten shrine. It was a spiteful way to live and let live, and Nayru was perfectly content to comply.

Until, of course, it threatened Her new temple.

Nayru the Goddess of Wisdom did not take to love and celebrations in Her name the way Her Fellow Farore did, nor to endless worshipping in massive, intimidation-inspiring temples the way Din did. She quite preferred quiet meditation of the thoughtful, for it was the best way to grasp the world She and Her two Companion Goddesses had Created. While the Lakebed Temple was only a mortal creation and as much a status statement as a place of prayer, She knew the feats of engineering and architecture the Zoras had put into its construction and blessed it to acknowledge their efforts. She did not descend to get rid of the pesky bloated eel that decided to make a nest out of its base (She would not even have to descend, merely have a whim, in the first place) because it seemed to be a fine trial for the hero that the light spirits communicated to the Goddesses about. However, many decades after the fact, the Hero returned once again to his Shade form for a time, and none were around who could address the crumbling of the Lakebed Temple.

Dark Link's insistent efforts on a jailbreak were finally paying off, not in the form of an escape route but in the form of mindless destruction.

The Zoras could do nothing. Whenever they tried to go beneath the bottom of the Lakebed Temple to reinforce its supports, the shadow terrorized them. Their best warriors could not match his swordsmanship and ferocity. Mages succeeded only in repelling him briefly. And so, after all their efforts proved futile, the Zora finally called on the Goddess to stop the monster in the temple.

Nayru deigned to descend only because of the honest efforts made to spare a divine intervention. Her pride in the Zora's achievement and the sincere wish to spare them more effort on yet another temple persuaded Her to go against what had become normal for the Goddesses, and descend Herself instead of an emissary. With a sigh, She drifted across the fabric of space and time and the fog between the realms and into the dank chamber that the shadow currently lurked in. With practiced grace She stepped to the side as She materialized into a vaguely human form, foreseeing the shadow's rabid lunge at Her. On a whim, She flattened Dark Link as his pounce failed, crushing him as he tried to roll out of the lunge. After suitably hurting him, She made him hover in front of Her, limply hanging in the air, neck around an invisible noose made entirely of Her Will. Paralyzing him with a passing thought of how annoying it would be for him to writhe, She gave her meek materialized form some more grandeur to intimidate the wretch, and then examined it.

He was a fine work, indeed. From another realm outside the laws of time and space, Nayru could see that, but here in front of him, it was plain to see that Ganondorf outdid himself. Nayru allowed Herself a smirk at that. That man only became more endearing with the ages. His masterpiece, mockingly designed with precision to mirror and oppose all that the hero stood for; all his craftsmanship and care into this shadowy excuse of a man, fingers twitching with bloodlust and the instinct, woven into his core by the magic that created him, to cause suffering and death. The attention, the consideration, the toil that went into this spell made all his other enchantments pale in comparison. Even with the power of his Triforce, the desert thief never put in as much actual spellcasting into Goddess artifact-given gifts as this. And that, most likely, was why he succumbed so easily. Measure for measure, sword for sword, the Hero and his dark opposite stood equal in combat and the one blessed by the Goddesses defeated with childish ease the best creation of the man who would be a god.

Fitting, fitting, so deliciously fitting.

Nayru blasted the fiesty shadow across the room, allowing him to meet the doorway with a deafening thud that would have left the Hero in bloody pieces on the floor. Intact, the shade stood up with a snarl and lunged, knowing nothing else, but perhaps learning a bit of uncertainty. With the skill of a master swordsman he charged and feinted and moved in for a hit. With a sly grin at the black blade, Nayru froze it in place right before it broke Her flesh, holding Dark Link entirely captive in the grip as well. She paused him thus, for several painful moments, allowing him to absorb the absoluteness of Her Power and the mocking, motherly smile dancing on Her face. Then She made use of him as a tool of destruction, and fired him through the ominous dead tree.

This time the darkness took its time standing, bloody eyes observing the adversary. Slowly, he drew his sword to a ready position, the grip as steady as usual, but the tactic changed. The demon, for once, was on defense.

This pleased Nayru.

"This, Dark Link," She intoned, a voice more powerful than sound reverberating around the room and driving itself into the heart of the personified spell, "is what you would call fear, if you were capable of the emotion." The finality of this statement rang like a sentence, and the shadow actually flinched at it.

She smiled in that soft mocking way. "So, you do have some capacity for emotions and their expressions. But not, I take it, for pain."

Idly, She wondered of Ganondorf's pathetic mortal working could understand, at least intrinsically, the laws from which he was born. Nayru raised both Her arms, summoning above Her a Force beyond Nature. It was Raw Magic, stripped of any spells or artifacts, and it was a rip in the very laws the world worked by. It had infinite potential, infinite possibility, and Nayru would use it to show the darkness a measly little fraction of what a Goddess such as Herself could do. The communication was immediate, intangible, and undeniable.

I am God. I am Omnipotent. I Am Infinite, and you are nothing.

And with this rip in Nature and Magic, Nayru the Goddess of Wisdom bestowed upon Dark Link the ability to feel. And it was agony.

Nayru did not spare him the pain of feeling the means by which he would feel actually form, in an ironic and sadistic pleasure. For the first time in its immortal life, the shadow screamed in pain as his spine flared with matter summoned from nowhere, spinning itself into nerves, branching and weaving and branching again into smaller and smaller networks of nerves until finally each perfectly created neuron ignited with mind-numbing, vertigo-inducing, nauseating, hellish pain. The screams and howls carried, echoing uselessly through the temple, no one able or willing to respond to the helpless beast's cry. The cacophony lasted an age, and through it all, Nayru stood above him, beautiful and glorious, watching his lesson with a smug satisfaction.

Dark Link finally collapsed into a gelatinous heap at her feet, shaking, sweating coldly, and breathing hard. The Goddess, with all the time in the world, waited for him to get up and attack.

The shaking subsided. The breathing slowed. And the shadow made no effort to move.

"Have you learned to fear? That's such an animal response to pain. Truly cute. And you are lower even than Farore's meanest creature."

The figure of darkness flinched.

Nayru felt a thrill and giggled, high and cold, the sound sharp and unyielding and making the Dark Link cringe and cover his ears to no effect. That spurred more laughter. How quick he learned to feel! The Goddess almost wished to let him experience more pain, to see him flinch and twist and agonize some more, but then a delightful thought crossed her mind. He would numb to even the greatest pain if he had no taste of pleasure.

Wiping all traces of malice from Her smile, the Goddess turned a loving look onto the shadow and crouched down close to his form, pressed tightly into a ball. Raising a delicate hand with a shapely, smooth arm, She reached down to the shadow's bared back and slowly, sensually ran a finger down his spine. The elicited shiver was doublefold; the strange, not unpleasant sensation and the reason for it, both beyond comprehension for the man newly granted a sense of touch.

Satisfied, Nayru ran several more light touches down the shadow's back, making him reflexively uncurl, amusing as a trusting infant. Filling Her hands with warmth and love, Nayru pulled the shadow close to Her with motherly gentleness, teasing his muscles with gentle massages to leave him limp and lulled. The darkness savagely tried to claw and resist in hopeless confusion that subsided in the greater wave of incomprehension at the pleasing touches. The caresses, the gentleness... this was not blood. Not violence. Dark Link couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the creature doing these things to him, only that he could never understand Her and never match Her even as the instincts programmed into him by Ganondorf screamed at him to claw, punch attack! The Goddess grinned at his hopelessness sadistically and pressed him to Her, pulling him in, pressing his lips against Hers. The shadow paused, still and calculating, sensing the vulnerability of his position. He did not have time to accommodate before the Goddess went further, stretching Her tongue into his mouth and gently leaning onto him, falling on top of him, pressing him into the cold, watery floor, hands roving pleasantly. He did not react. He simply accepted, confused.

Nayru triumphed in his stillness, his concession of power to Her. But She did not tire of him quite yet. No, it was fun to have Ganondorf's pet in such a position, it was amusing to Her, and She wanted to milk it a little bit more before easing up. She already had the perfect punishment for him in mind, but a little suffering inflicted on the last remaining agent of Ganondorf's embarrassing short reign was mouthwatering, alluring, and too good a treat to pass up.

A mote of nostalgia and déjà vu passed through the Goddess' perfect memory about the villain enchanted by the darkness in the heart of men, and of the shadow made of pitch and Her, She wondered whose heart of the two was truly blacker.

With a devilish grin, Her roaming hands roamed where they should not. The shadow started and twitched with sudden activity as the newly-formed nerves gave him yet another sensation, an entirely new sort of pleasure. Restlessly his legs twitched and his limbs shook as the Goddess continued to treat him, occasionally keening with noises he felt a whole other emotion making. "Shame." The word filled the room, magnifying the feeling. "Shame."

Quite suddenly the Goddess froze and stood up, leaving the shadow spread out helplessly on the ground below her. "Shame."

With a fluid movement She swooped down upon the confused creature and swept aside the laws of nature and magic, slamming him against a mold-covered wall in the Shadow Temple. Dark Link huffed as the breath got knocked out of him and hastily clambered to wreck, kill, and destroy, instincts taking over once again. Grinning sadistically, Nayru threw him with a great force at the wall across the horrifying Valley, suspending the nature around the wall so that the shadow slammed against an even harder surface than before that did not absorb his impact and did not bend an inch to the unearthly force of the projectile that bombarded it.

"SHAME."

Nerves on electric fire, the creature of darkness did not even try to obey his input commands and fight. Too agonized to writhe, too incapacitated to scream, he lay in a heap of pain against the wall, a few spasms grating his already seared body.

"Shame on you, you scum, you Dark Link, for daring to mar the works of my chosen race. Eternal shame on you. I curse you." As the Goddess verbalized this, the shadow stretched with another kind of agony; that of judgment. "You worthless tool, you decrepit relic. You will find no happiness, no solace, no respite, and no salvation. When the magic holding you together finally dissipates of yet more age, it will be slow, painful, and thankless. You will not survive beyond the pale, and every instant that you deteriorate will be an agony of every kind of pain; the fire's inferno, the bite of the bitter cold, the sting of the scorpion, the shredding of the blade, the bludgeoning of the mace, without respite, without lessening, without pause. You will be driven mad by the pain and your own screams growing ever more hoarse, and when you finally meet your end, the only release you will get shall be annihilation."

Throughout this fiery judgment, Dark Link began to shake with fear at the foreign words and his instinctive understanding of them. He feared the inescapable, the incontestable, the unjust. This powerful creature, unable to be reasoned with in any way, came to offer him the barest glimpse of pleasure in return for ages of torture. A new emotion seized him. Anger.

He could not help being a product of magic. He could not help being a product of Ganondorf's magic. He was made like this. He could not help it. And here he was, suffering the punishment his master should have.

But he could not contest the decision of this heartless Goddess. She would not listen to him. And in angry, helpless despair and agony, he wept at the fate he had never decided for himself.

Nayru smiled at the futile gesture. "Do not rage at me, pathetic thing," She warned. "Ganondorf suffers eternally with all five senses. You suffer for an age with only one. Now stand up, and haunt your new home. It suits you better anyway." Vindicated and once again disinterested, Nayru drifted back to the Lakebed Temple to fix the damage done by the shadow, idly considering dazzling the Zora by raising the Water Temple.

Dark Link lay still in the stone and dirt, hopeless. The silence around him was deafening, the darkness swallowed him whole, and death crawled up from the bottomless Valley that the infant emotion of Hope had tumbled down.

The Will of the Goddess Be Done.

A reviewer pointed out to me that the writing was ambiguous enough that it sounded like Nayru raped Dark Link. She did not; she got him off, purely as a sadistic show of dominance. Before I get a flood of angry comments, I know that Rape Is A Special Kind of Evil and no laughing matter. I know. I understand. I didn't write this to offend or mock anyone. I mainly used the device as a spin on the trope Double Standard Rape: Female on Male. It's not a laughing matter, regardless of who the criminal and victim are. I'm pretty sure I'll get hate no matter what, but hopefully clearing some of it up here will help.

So yeah, this was only a functional Naylark to the legally blind. Goes to show what happens when romance doesn't interest you...

I'll be back to writing normal stuff hopefully soon, with the break coming and all. -LittleBlueNayru