Laruto played peacefully, as she did every day. The music was a sacred piece whose steadfast melody comforted her when she was distressed. Playing the song was essential to the maintaining of the Master Sword's power to repel evil; so were her prayers to the Goddesses. There was not much in the physical room in which she strummed her lyre that was of much interest anyways – just an empty, circular space. But the lands she traversed with her spirit were beyond glorious. She had recently been speaking to two of the Seven Sages from the ancient times – specifically, to Nabooru and Impa, Sages of Spirt and Shadow, – concerning the true nature of that elemental structure which she, Laruto, looked over, Earth. There was so much that she did not yet know, and the knowledge held by Shadow and Spirit sages was most peculiar to her.
Fire and Water she understood easily; Darunia and Ruto had taught her as a youth all about their elements, when Laruto had been recently tasked with her duty. Knowing of those two were essential to being a Sage of Earth, after all. Forest and Light she comprehended easily enough; she was too shy to go to meet the great Rauru, but she learned quite a bit from a talk that she had with Fado, the Sage of Wind.
But still, after her long walk with Impa, shadows puzzled her; and despite a brilliant view of many great spirits (Levias, the Spirit of the Skies, was particularly fantastic to her,) she did not feel that she knew truly what a spirit was.
This was not all that troubled Laruto. She had, long ago, been able to see within her spiritual walks Hyrule, the kingdom from whence she came. It had been quite a while, but one day that sight had been shrouded in a great storm, and by a deluge of water which she did not understand. Today, however, she felt something stirring the waters, climbing out of the depths of the darkest sands. It put fear in her heart to just think of the absolute blackness that was out there, somewhere. So, she played the Lyric of the Earth God Din even stronger (though it was not louder).
To ease her mind, she let it wander on new tangent, all the while having the song continue on. 'Why is it that I, a Zora, whose matron Goddess is Nayru, am chosen of all to be a Sage of Earth and to pray to Din? Why is it…" She, always a bit loose with her mind's river, found that it had flowed into a different topic already… "Why is it that this music which is of Din is so peaceful and light, when She so often appears to be a strong and powerful, and a fierce Being?' She continued on that line of thought, and over the next hour began to understand a truth, that though new to her, was from even before Nayru created the river of Time.
The distinctions which are so often made between the Gods, the elements, and truths, inevitably will cause those things to diverge in peoples' minds from each other, despite the fact that they no longer see – that all things are intimately linked. And, when those diversions become great enough, many would begin to say that each thing is independent of all other things. But then, those things would become interloped lies, twisted and often darkened manifestations of that which was once sacred and special. Laruto paused, and looked at it the other way. If instead different truths and different elements were converged and compared, then all of them become whole together. All things which are true become evidence of all else that is true, and therefore become evidence of their own truth. All that is deception and all that is dark are cast out by the light of the fullness of truth.
The Heavens were but the Sea of Wind and an Ocean was a Sky of Water. And they stretched out to that great Horizon, where they met in blue glory, streaked at times with the red glow of the twilight sun. They are naturally bound to each other, not separated or dead, but under covenant with each other. The very sight of them quickened all Life that would bear its sight, and did not spite the light.
'O the Earth! It is that great bind between the Great Sky and the Great Sea, the soil upon which the Woods of Discovery and the Woods of Deception grow, Woods wherein the foolish lose their way, and the humble find wisdom; the Woods through which all worlds, realms, and kingdoms may come united, upon one great Earth.
'O that I could fly, and soar in that Sea of Wind, even as I soar through a river! O that I could live on the red Earth, in harmony to the Wind!' All the while she played, for she never ceased…
Until Ganondorf entered her hall.
He didn't have much patience left, and the brat's defensive stance got on his nerves. He grimaced at the sight of Laruto, standing there as if there was anything of any true worth she was protecting. "Stubborn, I see. Foolish, as well; there is nothing here to aid you, and nothing to stop me."
The Earth Sage held her ground. She knew very little of the "King of Evil", but she knew enough to retort. "You are the fool here, Ganondorf."
"Mmm," he said. "And how is that?"
"Look at yourself; it is by your own obstinate lust that you have failed to achieve that which you desire! There is no strength of yours that can triumph over that great Force of the Goddesses; you are nothing more than a pig!"
The Demon King lifted his right arm and let the crest of the Gods glow. "Don't insult me, you rotten fish! I have rightfully earned that Power from them! I –"
"SILENCE!" Laruto spoke with a voice that shook the temple. "You dare enter, walking upon the earth of my stewardship!? You take hold of the Golden Gift of Din against me, Her servant – claim it as your own, as some title you EARNED!?"
"Yes… yes, I do. And do you care to know why?" Ganondorf spoke very quietly, smoothly.
Laruto wasn't expecting that response.
Ganondorf continued, chuckling: "Do you know why you tremble inside at the sight of me, as I bear the Power of Din? Why, despite your generous and long-lasting prayers, the Gods have not seen fit to save you from me?"
Laruto did not speak; Ganondorf took a small mask out of his pocket, and surged Force into it; it grew very, very large. He spoke again, after tossing the mask at Laruto's feet.
"Because I know. Can't you understand little one? Don't you see…?" Poes had begun congregating around the mask, and the whole temple began to slowly be overshadowed. The lights shining in the room were covered by an unseen hand, and the mask slowly gained an ethereal body around itself, as it rose into the air. Laruto choked, slowly, falling in an endless blackness – that very Darkness in which lost souls of old had fallen. She lost control of her limbs, which were suspended just above the earth.
"Your gods destroyed you… they don't care for you enough to toss even a pebble near me!"
Laruto finally spoke, but not with her lips, even as her frame quaked and snapped. "The God's Power is against you, and your own darkness shall betray you, even as you wander as a fly to the light. I have seen it, that "magic" of yours; it is nothing but malice, destruction… and it shall be thy Demise, in the end…"
The earth rumbled, and the foundation below the floor cracked open. Laruto died. And Fi, the witness for the Gods, silently and invisibly fled with her spirit.
Fado moved across the winds, adding ever to them his melody, the Wind God's Aria, through his violin. He always felt at peace here, the air flowing around him with a purposeful motion. They, the winds, were his teachers. They would speak to him throughout the day, when his spirit was in the room, telling him wondrous legends and peculiar truths.
It had been a long time since anything serious had come to his attention, but the winds were still intruiging to listen to. It had been years since the fell winds blew across him. The last time they had... that day years ago... it had come so suddenly, and just as quickly left with a salty, almost wet smell. It was strange, unsettling, that nothing serious had come to him since. Closely preceding that brooding wind's departure, he even thought he had heard an ocarina being played…
Still, he played on. That was one of his first lessons from when he was a musician for the Royal Family: "Worry and doubt are not cause to cease the music of joy and jubilee!" They were the words of his instructor, a descendant of the ancient Composer Brother Sharp. In fact, his instructor was so proud of this heritage that he had plastered his ancestor's famous line on the back wall of his music room:
"The rising sun will eventually set,
A newborn's life will fade.
From sun to moon, moon to sun...
Give peaceful rest to the living dead."
Fado was always particularly fascinated with the melody the poem referred to: the Sun's Song. He hadn't heard it in a long time, though; he couldn't play it quite right on his violin, and there were not any wind instruments around to play anything with. Besides, he couldn't just stop playing the Wind God's Aria; how ashamed would Farore be of him if he did!
He wasn't hearing anything too intriguing from the winds at the moment, and so Fado instead reflected on how he had arrived to this place. He had been returning home from a concert conducted by the King himself, holding his violin. It was at that moment that appearing before him at the woods' edge was Saria, the great Sage of Forest. He had knelt down, in awe at the sight of her. And many things did she speak unto him, which he whispered again in his hall today as he remembered them, though they cannot be written by man. He was officially called to the work as the Sage of Wind.
Fado felt that fell wind again.
"Why?"
"I might ask you the same."
Ganondorf laughed in his gut, his head bent so that it seemed he was hurling his outburst at the sky. "So stubborn, just like your friend. Unfortunately, you two don't seem to understand that it won't save you."
Fado glinted worry past his eyes – the winds hadn't told him of anything happening to Laruto!
"Now, little child, I'll ask you again... Why?"
The Wind Sage had a humble and most definitely angered air about him as he responded. "I stand here because it is right. I worship here because it is good. And I certainly defy you, because you have no power that can last, and no goodness that you sustain."
Ganondorf's lips twiched on the left side, both at the Kokiri's answer and at the sand slowly pouring through the ceiling. "Boy, do you know where this temple lies?"
"At the very same castle where you were defeated by the Hero of Time."
Ganondorf gave a single, brooding nod. "And surely you've felt the cool winds that surround this place – the sweet scent that travels with it?"
Fado had no clue where the Demon King was going with this. "Yes."
The sand on the floor had noticibly risen, and the downpour from the ceiling no longer went unnoticed by the sage. Still, Ganondorf continued.
"How sheltered your life must be. But it won't matter much soon. Do you feel that air above you?" Fado nodded absently as he stared at the roof, but Ganondorf was continuing regardless. "That is the wind of my country, come to... greet you. Do you hear the message on its breath? The words which it ceaselessly drones?"
The Wind Sage looked back at the pig before him. Ganondorf's hand glowed yellow, and he released some form of magic into the rising sand floor.
"So innocent – what are you but a mere child from a world of proclaimed immortality; a boy, locked up in a room filled with petty drafts speaking of rainbows and butterflies. You are a fool, dreaming up fantasies of a world you are blind to!"
The Gerudo King took the child by the neck, as behind him Molgera leaped from its sand sea.
Fado was scared; he had never felt such fear and anxiety before from the winds... it was so unlike what he knew.
Ganondorf whispered, "These are the Winds of Death," and flung the Wind Sage into the air.
But, as the monstrous worm came to swallow him up, Fado stopped feeling that wind. He was enveloped by a new being – like a calm sea breeze. It had a still, small voice, and said to him, "Fear not, for your end is not here."
He felt a new determination inside of him, and he swung his violin bow at the beast. It struck the tip of its tounge, which shed off, leaving a transparent end to the purple appendage. The monster turned away and back into the sand, leaving Fado in free-fall. The beast, and the sand it seemed, were retreating away.
As he saw Ganondorf pull up two blades to cut him through, he again heard the peaceful wind. "Be not afraid, for I am with thee."
Fado's spirit was carried off to safety by Fi, leaving the dying Gerudo King to laugh alone at the blood-stained corpse on his blades.
