When she woke up, a demonic face was looming over her. Zelda shrieked and scooted backward, fumbling at her belt.
"Looking for this?"
The leering scowl belonged to a young man sitting cross-legged on the ground next to her. He was holding her sword. When she saw the silver collar around his neck and the cracked topaz set into a tarnished diadem on his forehead, everything snapped into place.
"You're the Demon King," she said, wanting desperately to search for the chain attached to his collar but unwilling to look away from him.
He rolled his eyes. "Hardly. My name is Ganondorf."
It couldn't be. The name was infamous in Hyrule. "Ganondorf Dragmire?" she whispered.
"One and the same," he replied, setting her sword down. "I thought you'd never wake up. You must be thirsty." He reached around behind him, retrieved her water skin, and tossed it to her. She caught it and wondered whether what this man – if indeed he were a man – had given her was safe to drink.
He seemed to read her thoughts. "Don't worry, it's not poisoned," he said, rolling his eyes again. "What good would that do me? I can't touch you, and I can't move away from you either," he explained, tapping his collar with his index finger.
Although it was entirely possible that he was lying, Zelda was extremely thirsty, and she decided to take her chances. She unscrewed the lid of the cap sewn into the water skin and drank until it was empty.
As she lowered the skin, she saw that the creature calling himself Ganondorf had turned his back to her. He gestured toward the underbrush alongside the road, and Zelda understood that he was trying to give her privacy.
When she returned, she found him standing and waiting with his arms crossed. He had left her sword on a boulder beside the road. As she picked it up, she measured the blade against her opponent. Running her eyes over him, she registered how tall he was, and how wide his shoulders stretched, and how massive his hands were. The armor he wore under his dark robe consisted of nothing more than cured leather, but it bore clear signs of having weathered its share of battles. Although he was terrifying as a boar, as a man he was even more unsettling. Zelda arrived at a quick deduction that her rapier wouldn't be of much use against him. He had probably come to the same conclusion himself, yet it was curious that he had returned her weapon.
"Took you long enough," he muttered.
Despite the danger he posed, the strongest emotion she felt at the moment was annoyance. If he were going to kill her, she'd prefer that he put his intentions out in the open.
"What do you mean, 'it took me long enough'? Are you in a rush to get somewhere?"
"As a matter of fact, I am. You just drank the last of the water, and I'm starving," he replied, cracking his knuckles as he stretched. "You're obviously an inexperienced traveler, and you didn't pack anything useful. It's a wonder you even made it this far."
Zelda's response rose to her lips unbidden. "You. Are. RUDE," she spat.
To her astonishment, the giant laughed, his broad shoulders shaking.
"Those are strong words from a woman who spent the past two days complaining about how hard it is to be a princess," he taunted her.
Suddenly she was furious at him, and even more furious at herself for becoming entangled in this situation in the first place. "What would you know about being a princess," she hissed.
"More than you might think. Before I woke to find myself in a boar's body, I was a prince, born and bred and surrounded by young women of quality. I happen to remember you when you were little, and trust me, you weren't much of a princess then, either."
"That can't possibly be true. I never so much as saw you before in my life. I think I would have remembered."
"It must have been another of your reincarnations, then. What does it matter?" He waved his hand, dismissing the argument.
Zelda couldn't believe his audacity. Even though he claimed to be a villain from the pages of history, he didn't seem to be that much older than she was, and she resented the way he treated her like a child. The last thing she wanted was to get into a verbal sparring match with a strange man who had only recently been a boar, but she wasn't about to let the matter drop. "I'll have you know that I am not a reincarnation of anyone," she asserted. "That's just a myth, that all the Zeldas are reincarnations of each other. No one takes it seriously! You foolish creature, to think you know anything about Hyrule."
"Fine, fine." He shrugged. "What do I know? Are we going to keep arguing over metaphysics in the middle of the road, or are you going to take me back to your precious Hyrule?"
"If you're really Ganondorf Dragmire, then you must be a powerful wizard. Why can't you just transport us?" Zelda snapped.
"You foolish creature, to think you know anything about magic," he sneered back at her.
"Why would I know anything about magic? And besides, I'm not the one who disrupted the time and seasons of Labrynna and Holodrum, and I'm not the one who tried to destroy Hyrule. If that's how magic works, then I don't want anything to do with it."
"I don't think you have any idea how this enchantment you've got me under works, Princess, so let me enlighten you," he said, bending forward and lowering his voice. "You could do anything – literally anything – to me while this collar is around my neck. Maybe you feel like the ends justify the means, but let me ask you, do you really think an ensorcelled object like this is a good idea? Do you for one second think every prisoner bound by this magic was as terrible and dangerous as you seem to believe I am?"
"That's not my concern," Zelda responded. What may have happened in her country's history had no bearing on her current situation, which involved no more and no less than standing on a deserted road with a monster that had conspired to take on the form of one of Hyrule's most notorious criminals. She had no intention of debating ethics with him.
Zelda picked up her pack, turned her back on the demon, and continued down the road, praying that she was headed in the right direction. After a few moments, she could hear the heavy fall of his footsteps as he began to follow along behind her.
"And anyway, I didn't try to destroy Hyrule," he grumbled in an undertone, just loud enough so that she could hear him.
"What in the name of Farore were you trying to do, then?" If the demon had decided that he was Ganondorf Dragmire, then she would just have to humor him.
"I was just..." He trailed off, and they walked for several paces in silence, the sounds of the forest breaking into the conversation. Birds sang, leaves rustled, and the dirt and gravel of the unpaved road crunched under their feet.
"I was just an ambassador," he finally said. "That's not something I chose, but I assume even an irresponsible princess like you understands that we don't always get to pick our roles."
"I'm not irresponsible." This wasn't the first time such an accusation had been directed at Zelda, and it grated on her nerves.
"Of course you're not. You just absconded from your kingdom to go on a wild boar chase, there's nothing irresponsible about that."
Zelda didn't dignify his sarcasm with a response. She didn't need to explain herself to him.
They walked in silence. After what must have been more than an hour, Ganondorf resumed his explanation as if he had never been interrupted.
"I was happy in the desert," he said. "Everything I knew and everything I wanted was there, and I didn't care about Hyrule. It was too far away, and it had nothing to do with me. Before long I found out that we were a vassal state, and that I would never be the king of anything, just an eternal prince in thrall to your throne. Your idiot king taunted and disrespected the emissaries we sent him, and so the Gerudo elders decided that they would send me. I had no experience and scarcely any qualifications, but I was male, and that was all that mattered, apparently. I had just turned eighteen, and so I was stuck in a ridiculous outfit and sent on my way. I couldn't very well say no, so off I went."
Despite herself, Zelda was intrigued by his story. Perhaps it was because she had been walking so long without rest, but she found herself sympathizing with him. She had long since lost count of how many times she herself had been forced into a dress and sent out to treat with some visiting dignitary. She was too young to have any real power, and the people she was expected to entertain knew it. The only bargaining tool she could use with any degree of efficacy was her feminine charm, and she didn't always feel up to the task of being charming. If it weren't for her bodyguard Impa, who had consented to teach her fencing and archery, she wouldn't have acquired any real skills at all.
"If it weren't for my cousin Nabooru, I wouldn't have made any headway at all," Ganondorf continued, mirroring her thoughts with an eerie precision. "She was the ambassador before I was, and she taught me your customs, and your language."
"You can't have been a very good student," Zelda interjected, surprised that she would say such a thing but deciding to continue regardless. "You speak with an atrocious accent."
"On the contrary. My accent was perfected in the court of your ancestors. You have the accent, Princess."
"That may be," Zelda sighed. She was too tired to argue with him. Now that she was no longer drawing from the energy that the Triforce of Power had sent radiating outward from the body of the boar, her feet and knees ached.
There was a sharp intake of breath behind her, and she turned just in time to see Ganondorf tumble to the ground. It was like watching a landslide.
Uttering a string of guttural words that Zelda could only assume were curses, he sat up and began pounding on his calves with his fists. He probably had leg cramps, and he looked like he was in pain. Zelda, who was more used to riding than walking, had suffered through her own share of cramps at the beginning of this trek.
She knelt beside Ganondorf and touched the tips of her fingers to his knee. He stared at her in shock, but she ignored him as she hummed the melody to a healing spell. Her grandmother had taught it to her during one of the long afternoons they spent together in the queen's solar, and she had never forgotten it. Magic could be a force of terrible destruction, and it had been forbidden for the greater good of the kingdom, but what would one small spell matter?
When Zelda finished the song, Ganondorf stretched his legs out in front of him. "You didn't have to do that," he said peevishly.
"No, of course not," Zelda agreed as she stood up and brushed the dirt from her trousers. "But I couldn't just stand there and watch while..."
"While I suffered? How noble of you." He shook his head and climbed to his feet. "You want to take off this collar while you're at it?"
"What I want is to sit down," Zelda grumbled, "but I can't very well do that while I have a demon tailing along behind me." A part of her was amazed at how querulous she was being, but the sense of danger that had been her constant companion while she traveled with the boar had dissipated, and now she was just tired.
"Am I a demon, or am I a criminal? Make up your mind."
"It doesn't matter, does it? All I want is the Triforce. You – whatever you are – are incidental."
"It's funny you should say that, because I was imprisoned on nothing more than an accusation that I exhibited the same attitude toward you... or your ancestor, vicious little brat that she was."
"If you're going to claim to be Ganondorf Dragmire, you need to get your story straight." Zelda sighed. Her feet were killing her, and she could feel a blister forming on her left heel. "You were accused of high treason against the royal family when you shattered the Triforce. Clearly that wasn't a false accusation, because here we are, you with your Triforce and I with mine."
"You Hylians never listen. I'm trying to explain, that's not what happened. I – "
Zelda missed the rest of his words as the toe of her boot caught on a tree root half buried in the road. Her ankle twisted as she stumbled. Ganondorf dashed forward and reached out to steady her, but he grimaced in pain the second his fingers brushed her shoulder. He cursed as he yanked his hand back.
Zelda steadied herself and tested her ankle, which stung when she put her weight on it. It seemed she would have to use her healing spell again.
"You really can't touch me, can you," she said, more to herself than to Ganondorf.
"Like I told you," he answered, rubbing the silver collar in annoyance. He seemed just as exhausted as she was. If he was tired, then he was probably human, and the fact that he had tried to break her fall on reflex meant he was probably sane enough to be reasoned with.
"You know what? I've had enough of walking," Zelda announced. "The sun is setting, and we're going to make camp right here and right now."
"Whatever you say, Princess." Ganondorf shrugged. "I'd offer to go find firewood or water for us, but obviously I can't, so I guess I'll just follow along behind you and perform whatever tasks you command. I hope you know what you're doing."
Zelda sighed in exasperation. It was going to be a long night.