Guileless
She watches as the lives as men come and go, melting away like the snows of winter into spring. Over and over again, she sees them breathe their first and their last. Kings rise and fall at her behest. Men are made and are broken at her whims with a cleverly spoken word or a deftly done deal all without their knowledge or consent. She waits in the shadows, clever as a spider in its web. As the centuries change, so does she. She becomes a soldier or an assassin or a third cousin of no consequence, all with a change of hair and eye color. She assumes a new identity, one that is easily overlooked by the eyes of those that think themselves her superiors. So she waits and bides her time until she is called once again by Destiny to take up her throne, her crown, her birthright. This time she assumes the throne as a young maiden, the fourth of her name, and she is beautiful as she always has been, as she always will be.
There is something different this time though. The great cog that turns the Cycle is missing a tooth. Something has changed, and she thinks she has revealed herself too soon. It is sixteen years into her fourth rein before the other two pieces flare to life suddenly in the night and leave her gasping and panting from a nightmare of dark, boiling clouds.
Zelda appears to be a woman in her thirty-fourth year of life though she is far older than that as she sits beneath the harsh desert sun. The golden rays beat down on her shoulders through the thin material of her white silk shawl. It is comforting in a way to visit this place again. Out of all the things she has seen, the Desert remains as unchanged as herself, ever constant in its merciless nature. It is through this that she feels some strange camaraderie with this piece of land that only recognizes her as an intruder and seeks nothing more than to expel from its sands and back onto her own soft, green hills.
The winds whip at her face, blowing sand into her eyes, and they break for camp as a sandstorm approaches. They wait it out in tents with a warding-spell around them that she has hastily thrown up to stave off the worst of the sands' wrath. The queen sips her tea and contemplates silently the man that she will meet, who does not know her face though she has memorized every line and angle of his. He will be young this time, she realizes, younger than her. He will not be a man etched and tempered by experience and tragedy. This time the Gerudo King will be newly forged and untested. She wonders what he will be like and what he will make of her on their first meeting as two monarchs seeking to only half-heartedly form some sort of peace between their long-feuding peoples. The prospect thrills her in a way she has not felt in decades, not since the last time they encountered each other over a century ago.
Ganondorf is barely a man when she meets him astride her white mare, and he is standing on his own two feet. Regardless of that fact, he is able to look her in the eyes. The Gerudo is tall and broad-shouldered like he has been in every life that she has known him. His hair is red and his eyes are gold, and his skin is still that lovely shade of dark umber that she adores. She is surprised to find that his skin is smooth and unlined though he wears a perpetual scowl that will no doubt form frown lines in the years to come if he lives that long. She thinks that she might like to see him live that long if fate allows it.
He greets her with the bare minimum of courtesy, his tone blunt and unrefined, nothing like the elegance and honeyed poison that she is used to encountering in him. In all of the other lifetimes she had met him, he had long been in the king's court and amongst the Hylian nobility. He had always learned their ways and was able to adopt them for his own use and benefit. This time he is not given that luxury. He is raw with fury and bold in his indignation at the things that he perceives as slights to his royal person and the wrongs done to his people. Ganondorf only sees the here and now. He does not know like she does how far back these injustices go to the very roots of who they are who and the roles they play. It is not a handful of slights that should send him into a rage, not even a hundred, but thousands upon thousands that overlap each other and form a mosaic rendered in shades of crimson and rust, the colors of old blood.
They have dinner together, and the conversation is stilted and awkward. Zelda is given a place of honor as befits her station but nothing else to indicate any warmth between the two rulers. They drink their wine and eat their food and suffer the other's company, eying each other over the rim of their goblets. His eyes are narrowed to slits of topaz, wary and venomous. The queen suspects he thinks she has somehow managed to poison him in his own fortress. She meets his glares with only bemused indulgence. It fascinates her to see him so young and unguarded, so openly hungry with desire for the things that are not his but he believes ought to be.
When the conversation has run dry but the wine has not he loudly calls for a dance. Music strikes up as the Gerudo women in their airy pink and purple clothing begin to pluck their zithers and blow their flutes and strike their small drums made of stretched animal hide. The music is wild and skirling, echoing howling desert winds and a haunted moon riding over silver dunes. The women of his tribe get up and dance on feet so light it is almost as if they are striding through the air and the earth has no hold on them. It even manages to loosen something in her Hylian entourage who dance much more clumsily to the unfamiliar music. Soon everyone's faces are flushed with excitement and strong liquor that continues to flow freely. Some of the unease has dissipated at the lack of necessity for words, but the tension remains. It is like a swollen river threatening to overrun a dam, and Zelda can feel it pounding against her when Ganondorf advances towards her.
He offers her his hand, and the gesture is more of a challenge than a request. Can a soft, old woman like her keep up with the fire of his youth? She hides a poorly veiled smirk and slips her slender white hand into his larger, darker one. He grips her fingers tightly and pulls her to her feet.
They weave in and around each other, feet constantly moving and shuffling. They spin and dip and twirl, threatening to collide with each other but never quite. Their bodies brush dangerously close to one another, his shoulder grazing hers with their palms held against each other in the space hanging between them.
Zelda stares up at him defiantly and relishes the look of surprise in his face before it is quickly masked by pride. Her nerves are alight with electricity. The queen tonight does not feel as if she has lived five hundred years and worn a thousand different faces. She almost feels like the young, sweet thing she had been when first the crown was placed upon her brow. Almost, but the heaviness lingers in the air, the knowledge of what is to come and what she is to do. She tries to predict the course it will take this time, the pattern it will form, but finds that she cannot. It will bring itself about as it must, but the shape of it remains uncertain.
"Have you performed this dance before, Your Majesty?" he says as their sides press subtly against one another.
She laughs and her face brightens. "Perhaps, my lord," she answers coyly, and the look of puzzlement returns.
They spin on their heels and face each other once more. His expression of fierce anger is gentled by something else. A modicum of respect, perhaps? Dare she even think that he has a small amount of affection for her beneath that frown of his?
The revelry lasts long into the night until everyone is blissfully drunk and bleary eyed. Gradually, they totter off to their beds in ones or twos or even threes if they are feeling particularly adventurous. The Queen of Hyrule and the King of the Gerudo part more amicably then they met.
Zelda retreats into her chambers that night and sleeps little. Her brain buzzes in a way that it hasn't for quite some time. Memories pour through her mind, glimpses and flashes of things long buried, of friends, counselors, and lovers all turned to dust by now; always though she catches a shining of gold that teases her and melts into mist when she reaches too far for it. She sighs and finally turns on her side to rest.
The next day is only a little easier than the previous one. The proper pleasantries have all been observed, and now the treaties and trade agreements must be hashed out. It is slow and painful, but it is nothing new to her.
She and her councilors remain locked in the meeting room with him and his two great-grandmothers, twin crones who have shriveled with age. Zelda thinks that they might be as old as she is if not older. He proves to be stubborn and gives no ground on his demands, unused to the deep political waters that he finds himself in. Any fondness from the previous night is forgotten on his part. The old women sit on either of him and say nothing except for the occasional word whispered into his ear. The queen sees their dark influence hovering over him like a storm cloud threatening to break into lighting and thunder.
Zelda grits her teeth and straightens her spine as she has done many times before and compromises and promises and pleads when she must. It is all temporary anyways, and everyone knows that. They are heading towards an inevitable war, but it something no one wants to bring about any sooner than it must come, not even Ganondorf. He had never liked war. He had liked the planning and scheming that went into orchestrating one, and he had liked the benefits it could reap for him. War was messy and long and tiresome, and he had known that as well as she had. Even in his older incarnations, he had never had the patience to suffer through a long war, and that had always been his downfall. Zelda had never liked it anymore than he had, but she could stomach it when necessary.
The meeting lasts into the late evening, and both parties leave the table dissatisfied and embittered.
That night she sits and thinks while running a brush through her blonde hair. Tomorrow afternoon when the heat has lessened she will leave to head back to Hyrule castle. The prospect agitates her, and she increases the speed of her strokes. She does not know when she will see him next when it is not across a battlefield. She bites her lip and sets her brush down.
Clucking to herself, she shakes her head at her own foolishness. "He is an arrogant, swaggering boy," she mutters, staring at her hands lying uselessly in her lap. Indecision wars inside of her even as she stands and marches to the door of her chambers and speaks quietly to one of the guards standing outside.
"This is madness," she says to herself as she sits down again and waits. Regardless of her own personal wishes, her hands start to adjust her gown and arrange her hair so that it falls over her shoulders just as she likes.
He enters wordlessly, the door creaking up without even a knock to signal that he is there.
She waves at him to take a seat across from her, but he refuses, continuing to stand with his arms folded over his chest. The queen attempts to make a show of courtesy by offering him wine and food. Once again, he declines her offer and shakes his head.
"You have not brought me here in the middle of the night to make small talk, Your Grace," he says impatiently and shifts from foot to foot.
She blushes and looks down in embarrassment. When had she gotten so bad at this? She had always been good at leading men to where she wanted them to go, and things had always gone more smoothly with him than this in these situations. Then again, he had usually been the instigator or at least thought himself to be.
"I thought we might further discuss the deals from earlier today," she said weakly.
He leans over and plays idly with a strand of her hair, and she wonders if perhaps some unconscious memory is bubbling to the surface in his mind. The action seems to be as easy and intimate for him as it is for her, almost instinctual.
"There is nothing more to talk about concerning those, and if there is it may wait until in the morning. It is very late, Your Majesty. We should both sleep," he replies and starts to draw his hand away.
She grabs his wrist and keeps it down beside her face. She can feel his pulse fluttering against her cheek. Looking up at him through her long lashes, she licks her lips and gives a breathy laugh. "Yes, I suppose you are right," she says and releases his hand.
Zelda expects him to withdraw and stumble out of the room in confusion, but he keeps his hand where it is. His short nails scrape lightly against her cheek as he draws his fingers down to her chin. He tilts her face up to look at him.
The Gerudo swallows and his eyes are wide. His hand wanders from her chin to her neck and down to her shoulder, his fingers sliding underneath the gauzy material of her gown. His touch is hesitant and almost shy, his fingers retreating and cautiously edging forward again.
At last, she takes his hand in hers again and kisses his palm before standing. Regaining some of her usual confidence, she stands on tip and loops her arms around his neck to bring his lips down to hers. The contact is sweet and painfully familiar. That wonderful tingle starts from her tongue and lips and races down her spine to her toes. She has missed this more than she had realized. Tomorrow she might regret this, but now was not the time to think on that. Tomorrow they would be enemies again, but tonight they could be something else. Tomorrow he might try and kill her, but tonight he would lay wrapped up and tangled in her.
This is a story I have been wanting to write for some time. I went through a number of drafts and reiterations, but this was the closest thing I got to liking it. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed, and please let me know what you thought of it!