Chapter Two

a/n I bet that all you people who read this in 2010 thought I'd never update this!

Hatred follows you like a shadow, bound to you as you are bound to the earth you stand on.
-Zelda

The days passed quickly as Ganondorf studied magic under the witch Koume. It was like a part of him that he never knew existed was waking up. Swordsmanship was simple. You hacked a man apart based on the sharpness of your blade and the strength of your arm. But to light a man on fire by sheer willpower? It was madness. And he loved it.

His studies came to a halt when the Gerudo Desert fell into war.

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War did not come in the traditional way, with frantic scouts or starving refugees. War merely marched into town and apologized politely for the inconvenience. Captain Ashen could have lit the little town of Aveil on fire, but he was courteous about nearly everything.

Captain Ashen was not an ambitious man, nor was he slothful. He was, in every sense of the word, a soldier. Some of his peers mistook brutality for strength, but he saw it as a lack of discipline. Queen Zelda had no quarrel with an entire province, but with a single thief alone. The rest needed to be kept from causing trouble.

Aveil had no wall about it. The endless desert around it was all the fortifications it had ever needed. He halted his army in front of the village proper. One did not ignore an army, and if he charged in uninvited, one of the residents might panic and do something foolish.

"Do you believe she is here, Agahnim?" he asked.

The wizard Agahnim scowled in his white robe and squinted in the sunlight. He grabbed his face and left a white handprint of frost as he froze his sweat into ice. "Someone's in there," he growled. "And not someone I'd like to face. Her powers had not waned with time, it seems."

"Do you believe you can take her?" Ashen asked.

Agahnim shook his head. Wizards did not join armies to fight. They used their powers to scry, communicate, and advise. "Not alone," he said. "I'll need a dozen archers with me. I should be able to neutralize her long enough for them to kill her should she resist."

The captain nodded as a middle aged Gerudo woman approached the army. Her red hair was tinged with grey and her tan skin had grown leathery with age. "If you are looking for Aveil, you've found it," she said. "Although I can't imagine why you would be. We have no issue with your people."

"Unfortunately, good Gerudo, that is not the case," Ashen replied gravely. "There has been a dispute between our two nations over the past few weeks. They escalated quickly, and Her Majesty Queen Zelda was forced to issue a declaration of war."

The woman's eyes widened. "I have heard of no such declaration."

"We are the declaration."

She scanned the army behind him and nodded. "And your intentions with my village?"

"War is, at its core, a disagreement between two people that a few hundred thousand others involve themselves in. I intend to prevent your village from becoming involved."

She nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"We will need to confiscate all weapons, which will be returned after the main conflict is concluded. Kitchen and farming implements may remain with you unless your people begin to use them as weapons. For the most part, your people will be able to continue go about their lives as they normally do. My men will not rob, plunder, or kill indiscriminately, however if your friend on the rooftop releases her arrow, that may change." He waved at a perched archer aiming at him.

The woman—Aveil's leader? Representative?—gauged the strength of the Hylian army again. "That sounds reasonable. Is there anything else?"

"Yes," he said. "There is the matter of the sorceress named Koume."

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Ganondorf had been out buying mushrooms when the army came. He wasn't afraid. He couldn't remember ever being afraid. He was eager, until he realized that no one in the worthless backwater town wanted to fight.

He kicked open the door of Koume's hovel and brought in a bag of fungus. "Did you hear? We've been conquered. And what a glorious battle we just lost!" He dropped the bag on a table, leaned his sword against the wall, and sat down.

Koume didn't respond. She was staring into a mirror. She had said that you could see anything in a mirror if you knew how, even the future, but Ganondorf never managed anything besides his reflection.

"The world is turning," she whispered, "and we are numb to it. The ice screams, and we are deaf to it. Cowards rule, and we submit."

Ganondorf rolled his eyes. "Well, if you want to talk sense, I'll be in the other room."

Koume gasped and jumped back as though she had seen her own death in the mirror. She clutched her head and caught her breath.

"You okay?"

Her eyes darted frantically and landed on him as though seeing him for the first time. "You must leave!" she croaked.

"Well, if you need a moment..."

"Hasten to the golden land, thou o man of markéd hand. Free the dark and mock thy fate, lest the starlight withers late."

There was a knack for metaphor that you get after you turn ninety that Ganondorf didn't have. "Unless you start talking sense, old lady, I'll hasten all the way to—what was that about gold?"

The door opened and a man in radiant metal armor stepped inside. He carried a longsword designed to pierce the joints of the same sort of armor that would roast a man alive in the desert. Outside behind him stood several more men similarly armed and armored.

"Oh, look, our conquerors have arrived," Ganondorf said conversationally. "And they didn't even knock. If you're here to plunder, ravish, and murder, the people next door have more rupees and women whose ages are still in the double digits."

The Hyrulian soldier ignored him and addressed the witch. "Are you the sorceress Koume?"

Koume had recovered from her fit of...whatever it was, and stared at the man suspiciously, as though she expected him to try to sell her something that was no good. "I am."

"You are to come with us immediately," he said. "It would be best for everyone if this occurred without violence."

Ganondorf watched Koume carefully. Her mastery of fire was unequalled throughout the Gerudo Desert, she could burn water if she wanted to. It would be a hat trick to ignite these Hyrulian invaders, scorch their skin to a brittle crisp, melt their fat to oil to ooze out between the cracks. Do it, he thought. Let someone in this barren waste have the heart to fight!

"Well, alright," Koume said finally. She picked up her cane and hobbled out towards the door.

"What?" Ganondorf demanded. "What are you doing?"

"And who are you?" the soldier asked. "Are you a servant of some kind?"

"Apprentice." Servant? Did he look like a servant?

"I see. In that case, you will have to come with us as well."

Ganondorf eyed the place where he had set his sword. It was on the other side of the Hyrulian. "For what?"

"All practitioners of the arcane arts are required to leave the village," he explained. "We will supply suitable accommodations."

Ganondorf sneered. Only Hyrule could instigate a war and invade a country and be so disgustingly polite about it. "You and what army?"

The man's hand drifted toward his sword. "We have a contingent of five hundred men just outside the city."

"That's it? Well call them over and we'll have something to talk about."

"If you're looking for magi, you're wasting your time on him," Koume said. "I speak from experience. I wasted two weeks on that whelp trying to teach him the meanest basics, and he can't even boil water."

"Teach me?" Ganondorf repeated indignantly. "Is that what you were trying to do? I thought that you just gave me your broom to sweep the floor because you were too fat to fly on it anymore!"

Koume fumed and Ganondorf could have sworn that he saw smoke coming out of her ears. "You ungrateful oaf! You're a big dumb buffoon who can't hold a clay pot without breaking it, let alone the fabric of reality!"

"And you're a withered old spinster who can do nothing with her life but wait until she dies alone!"

The witch's face contorted with rage. She drew her hands together and pulled fire out of the air. The fireball flew from her hands and blasted Ganondorf square in the chest, knocking him off his feet and slamming him against the wall. He fell to the ground in a smoldering heap, coughed, and growled, "I should have kept that pig."

Koume turned away from him dismissively towards the Hyrulians, who had drawn swords in the chaos. It seemed to dawn on them that their swords, their armor, and their training would do nothing against a sorceress of her power. "Well?" she said. "Are we leaving?"

The head soldier sheathed his sword and nodded. He also picked up Ganondorf's sword on the way out. "We will also need to confiscate all weapons. If you have any others, you may turn them in at your earliest convenience."

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Agahnim watched Koume as she left the limits of Aveil. He had grown up hearing legends about her, how she had bound the Fairy Queen and tamed dragons. When he heard that she had retired in a remote town, he knew in his bones that it was a hoax, that she was planning something great and terrible and secret.

Escorted by a squad of soldiers, she continued her deception, hobbling slowly with the help of a cane. Agahnim scanned the cane for secrets, but it appeared ordinary. Of course, that would be too obvious, and why would a sorceress like Koume need to store her magic in a walking stick?

Agahnim bowed lowly to her. "I apologize for the inconvenience, Mistress Koume."

"Bah. The town was stale anyway."

"You will be escorted to our main force immediately."

"I hope you don't expect me to walk there."

"Transportation will be provided." Agahnim considered having her hands chained together, but that would do nothing more than insult her.

"Fine," she said. "As long as I don't have to walk."

Agahnim held back one of the soldiers as the others led her away. "Were there any difficulties?"

He shook his head. "Not with us, sir. There was a disagreement with her apprentice, but she came without argument."

"She has an apprentice?" Agahnim asked. "And you didn't bring her too?"

"Him, sir," the soldier said. "And the witch was very insistent on the subject. I thought it best to not press point while she was around."

Agahnim pondered that. He felt a great power in this little Gerudo town and had assumed it was Koume. But he had seen Koume, and either she had a phenomenal ability to conceal her power, or...

"This apprentice of Koume's," he said. "What was he like?"

"Hostile."

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The apprentice had venom green skin. That was rare among the Gerudo, but so was being left handed among Hylians. He didn't have the build of a magus, but of a warrior. At over seven feet tall, some people couldn't look down on him from a horse, and what stood out to the soldiers was that he was hostile.

What would call such a man to a life of books? Agahnim scried him from his mirror within his tent, looking for some clue. Magic called for a subtle touch, and this apprentice did not appear to be a subtle man. And yet, Koume had chosen him, and despite the impression she tried to perpetuate, she was always up to something.

The witch's hut was full of mirrors and windows, maybe even ones that she had built herself. Agahnim watched the apprentice through them, and waited.

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Ganondorf paced the empty halls of Koume's hut. It wasn't a large hut, just an adobe house with a few rooms, but it was empty. Was it his, now? Koume was gone, and it didn't seem like she'd be back. Did that make the place his? What would he do with it? He didn't want it. He wanted to...

He wanted to fight. He always wanted to fight, but now, he had an enemy, and they were right there, and what was stopping him? It was night and they'd all be asleep except for a few sentries. He could just march up to a sentry, break his arm, take his sword, and...and work out a way to deal with the other five hundred Hyrulians.

Ganondorf stopped in front of a mirror. He didn't know why Koume had so many. If he had a face like hers, he wouldn't want to see it all the time. His reflection was a black silhouette in the darkness.

"Why are you still here?" he asked his reflection.

There was nothing for him in this insignificant town. There never was, except for Koume, and they had taken her. To be executed? No, not likely. She'd go along with the Hyrulians until she figured out whatever secret she was looking for, blow up something important, and disappear in the smoke.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

He didn't need to learn magic. He had gotten by without it his whole life, but now that he knew it, there was no going back. He couldn't experience the chaos of the world kneeling before him, and then become a, a potter, or a carpenter.

A thief was a noble profession among the Gerudo, but it wasn't for him. His little sister, Nabooru, was quick and nimble enough to be one of the greats, but Ganondorf? He was strong, but it was a clumsy strength. His arcane aptitude, though, there was no clumsiness in that. He never put much faith in destiny or fate, but if he did, he'd say that magic was part of who he was, who he had always been.

Who he...

He stared into the shadow in the mirror, and the shadow stared back. The reflection was pitched black, except for a glint of light caught in his eye.

"Who are you?" he screamed, and shattered the mirror with his fist.

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Agahnim dropped the broken mirror and jumped back. He tried to calm his breathing and his pulse. The point of scrying was to watch things from a safe distance, but from that thing, no distance was safe. Agahnim could have sworn that when that man had shattered the mirror, his hand had come through it. And on that hand he saw...

But no, that was impossible. He had formed a firm simulacrum between his mirror and the mirror he was looking through. He had put too much tension on the connection, looked through it too closely, and with a strong enough surge on the other end and enough constructive interference, then of course something was bound to give out. There was nothing to be worried about.

But Agahnim was a wizard. Being hopeful was another man's job. He stepped outside his tent summoned a passing soldier.

"Send a message to Captain Ashen," he ordered. "Tell him that I need to speak with him immediately." He looked up. The stars were brighter in the desert than in Hyrule. The captain would probably be asleep at this hour. "Tell him it's urgent."

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a/n So, yeah. There's a limit to how much you can daydream about a story before you have to get back to writing it. Agahnim is named after the wizard in A Link to the Past. It's kind of sad, really. I was playing that game a while ago when I should have been studying for finals, and afterwards, I felt more accomplished about beating the game than finishing the semester. Not every quote will be canon, and I made up the one at the top of the chapter. Anyway, let me know what you think.