Part IV
"An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate."
-Criss Jami, Venus in Arms
Thirtieth April, 1517 12:00 noon
City Square
New Hyrule City, Lanayru Province
New Hyrule
When Ganondorf next lays eyes on Zelda, she is her own niece, and it is her coronation day.
It's been over twenty years since he last ventured out in public. King Link damned Ganondorf to the dungeons, but an appeal in court freed him and put him under house arrest. The sentence had only been lifted when the king died of influenza, leaving a small council to make decisions on who should stay in prison and who should go free.
Needless to say, Ganondorf was released under their orders.
And now he stands in City Square, peering easily over the crowd trying to press up against the newest queen's podium.
She is more beautiful than any Zelda Ganondorf remembers. This Zelda is a spry youth of twenty-two, with thick golden hair and a pick satin gown that flutters in the breeze. Her expression is jovial and flirtatious, her heart seemingly weightless in her chest.
Remember your promise to her aunt, Ganondorf has to remind himself. You promised her not to fall in love.
I agree wholeheartedly, Demise remarks in Ganondorf's mind, and the Gerudo Lord scowls.
I am not your slave, he thinks angrily.
No, the response laughs. No, you are my muse.
Ganondorf glances at the podium again. A hush falls over the crowd as Zelda takes her place at the head of it, beginning a speech that rings loud and clear over her subjects' heads.
"My dear ladies and gentlemen," she begins, "it is my honor to stand among you today…"
The gold circlet in her hair is brilliant in the sunlight, like a halo. She is the opposite of her aunt in the way that she is a source of light, of beauty, of pure, unadulterated optimism.
This is the image he never forgets.
You'll break your promise before the year is out.
Would you be quiet?! he demands internally.
I think you'd hate that.
The world melts away at the edges and Ganondorf is being pushed to the side by the crowd.
"Leave me alone," he says, clutching his head. "Be silent!"
You would destroy yourself without my guidance.
"I would live as I wish without your interference!"
He's beginning to get odd looks for shouting at the voice inside his head, but he doesn't care. All that he wants is freedom.
You would be weak without me. You would be a god without divinity, and like a fish without water you would rot until nothing was left of you.
"I would welcome an end to the madness!"
On the contrary, you'd be madder than ever before…
"What?"
Silence.
"What do you mean? Take that back! Why do you say that?"
But Demise has drifted away. His presence lingers, but his voice is gone, like the promise of a shadow to come. Ganondorf's heart is pumping adrenaline in circles, but Demise is doing nothing to stop it.
He stumbles about blindly for a minute- is he free? Free to think his own thoughts, to do as he wants without facing the old phantom's scorn?
"…and together, we shall bring our beautiful Hyrule into a new era of light and life!" the new queen finishes from her podium.
A cheer explodes from the crowd, and Ganondorf's heart soars. He looks to Zelda again- golden braids and familiar blue eyes, the closest Zelda to his first Zelda of all the princesses and queens he's ever known.
The old god is silent. The illusion of freedom is pleasing to the eye.
Fifth June, 1517
9:12 a.m.
The Throne Room of Hyrule's Capitol Palace
New Hyrule City, Lanayru Province
New Hyrule
"Gerudo Lord Ganondorf, I wonder whether you know why I've called you here," Zelda comments. Her voice demands attention with its melody and clarity.
"I'm afraid not," Ganondorf answers. He bows low in front of her, but Demise scorns him.
"I have called you to my side because I would like to pardon you for any misdemeanors of which my uncle might have had you accused."
"You are most generous, Your Majesty," Ganondorf says with the utmost sincerity. He glances at her through his bangs and sees an elegant beauty in a periwinkle gown, her golden hair pulled into a loose knot that suits her perfectly. She descends the steps as soon as they lock eyes and rests her fingers on the side of his face.
"You blush, Gerudo Lord," she flirts, and just like that, his promise to the last Zelda shatters.
"You tease me," he replies easily, and then kicks himself internally.
Don't fall in love.
"And I should like to continue," she says with a dreamy sigh. She withdraws her hand and gazes about the room. The motionless soldiers which line the room face her rapidly when she gives the command. "Guard captain!" she addresses. "Do me the favor of fetching darling Impa and asking her to prepare a chamber for Lord Ganondorf Dragmire."
"Dragmire?" Ganondorf repeats immediately.
"It means Fire Thief in the ancient Hylian tongue. Are you not Gerudo?"
"I am."
"It is said that the Gerudo Desert was once the cinders of a great fire. That's why it was always so dry."
"Do you read often?" Ganondorf asks hopefully. He receives a shy smile.
"I read endlessly, Lord Dragmire. And you know…" she bows down close and winks. "I write, too."
Don't fall in love.
"You write?"
"Oh, all sorts of things."
"Such as?"
She exhales, playing with a strand of hair to hide her blush. "That is a secret, I'm afraid."
Don't forget your promise.
Seventeenth June, 1517
7:00 p.m.
The Dining Room of Hyrule's Capitol Palace
New Hyrule City, Lanayru Province
New Hyrule
Some days, he feels as if he has turned back time.
The halls of Hyrule's Capitol Palace haven't changed much since the days of his beautiful scarlet-haired Zelda. Its occupants dress differently and speak with a new accent, but the palace itself has remained unchanged.
He visits rooms he knows by heart. He finds the gardens where they once took tea and sits in the sunlight for awhile. He recalls how out of place that stiff, cold woman looked in the light of day.
Then he finds his old chambers. The bastard was conceived here- the bastard that never lived. It had been barely a month old when Zelda tried to rip it from her womb…
It is with reluctance that he tracks down her old dressing room. The door squeaks as he wills it open, staring into the cavernous room from the outside. He's surprised at what he finds. The room's been used recently. There's a dress hanging over a chair and a pair of shoes left haphazardly on the floor. On the vanity there is a bottle of perfume, a lace fan, and a comb. He has always pictured this place as a tomb- has always assumed (without thinking) that Zelda's body, her bloodstains, and the beginnings of his child's body have been left in this room, untouched, unbothered-
But, no. The illusion disintegrates, and he realizes that Zelda's body is resting on a hill somewhere. The sun sets on her gravestone daily, and King Link is almost certainly buried next to her. The headstone probably reads Here lies His Majesty King Link and his beloved wife, Her Majesty Queen Zelda.
There is a name missing.
Here also lies her unnamed child; in its veins ran the blood of two gods, forbidden by the heavens but commanded by nature-
"Ah!" Something shatters not two feet behind him and he whirls around. The golden-haired Zelda stands white of face in the doorframe, a broken teacup at her feet.
"I apologize," he says immediately, and brushes past her in an attempt to escape. He's halfway down the darkened hallway when her voice stops him.
"Did my aunt truly kill herself in this room?"
He freezes. "Why?"
"Because that's what I've been told, and I am wondering whether it's true." When he refuses to answer, she sighs. "I know of your affair with you, Lord Dragmire."
He glares. "How?"
"I've read of it. She- she wrote about you, Lord Dragmire."
What?!
"You brought her great happiness during her short life."
Ganondorf swallows heavily.
She's not truly dead, he wants to say. She is alive in you, Your Majesty.
But he doesn't say the words that destroyed that last woman. Not yet. Perhaps ignorance will keep this Zelda alive.
"Did she kill herself?" the young queen asks again. Ganondorf allows himself to catch her eye, and he sees all of his beloved Zeldas alive in her gaze.
"Your aunt's death," he explains, "was a tragic accident. She was not- she was not trying to die, she… she was…"
He can't figure out which words are the right ones. He feels like even speaking of the incident is to disrespect her memory. In the end, he gives up and falls silent. Let the girl figure out the rest for herself.
"My aunt's portrait is in my study. My uncle had it hung there before I inherited it from him. Would you like to see it?"
"No," Ganondorf answers firmly.
"You mean you don't want to see her again?"
His eyes roam over the young woman.
Don't fall in love.
"I see her," he mutters, "when I look at you."
Don't forget your promise.
He hates himself when he realizes that Zelda is blushing.
"You know," she says quietly, "I've wanted to meet you ever since I learned your name. I used to wonder about you sometimes. Wonder what you looked like, what your voice sounded like- how you smelled-"
"And were you disappointed?"
"Rather the opposite, actually." She is leaning on the doorframe as she speaks, half of her body basked in the light of her dressing room window, the other half shrouded in the darkness of the corridor.
Remember your promise.
"She loved you with all your heart, you know," Zelda says. "She thought you were a great man with an awful weight on your shoulders. She said that you sickened her but you brought her joy. That you had cold eyes and never smiled. That you were often angry. She liked you best when you were angry because it meant you felt something."
"I always thought the same of her."
He's walking towards her now, but only because her eyes are reeling him in.
She wants him to break his promise, whether she knows it exists or not. And so they stand together in the darkened hall, her hand finding his and guiding it to the bare skin of her shoulder. He grasps the lace of her collar, testing her boundaries and finding with an equal amount of terror and pleasure that she seems to have none.
"Lord Dragmire…"
Don't fall in love, he thinks, and kisses her.
First July, 1517
7:00 p.m.
The Dining Room of Hyrule's Capitol Palace
New Hyrule City, Lanayru Province
New Hyrule
When they finally dine together, they dine alone.
"I've asked the servants to leave us be," Zelda explains. She is running her index finger around the rim of her wineglass absentmindedly, eyeing Ganondorf through her lashes and biting her lip. "Poor Impa implored me not to seek a private session with you. Not after what happened last time."
Last time: A royal council, each councilman seated at a table, waiting for the queen to arrive…
And when she did arrive, with wet hair and rosy cheeks: "It was the Gerudo Lord! He convinced me to join him for a swim… I'm afraid I lost track of time!"
Now she sighs and flops back in her chair, eyes fixating on Ganondorf's face. "But you know how Impa is," the queen drones. "She babies the gods I finally convinced her that I should prefer to be left to my own devices."
"Do you have a reason for that?" he asks without needing an answer.
"I've told you I'm a writer."
"You have," he murmurs.
"So give me something to write about, Lord Dragmire…"
Then they're kissing over the table and Ganondorf's world is igniting. Her hands fold around his neck and she kisses him hard, dragging herself onto the table and knocking dishes onto the floor. Ganondorf's body temperature skyrockets and for just a split-second he gives into this Hylian beauty, the very woman he's trained himself to love without even having to know her-
Breaking your promise again…
His scarlet-haired queen flashes into Ganondorf's mind. He doesn't realize he's pulling away until the golden-haired beauty's face falls.
"What's the matter?" she asks, her hushed voice sultry and pleading. "Did I do something wrong?"
His face is stiff as stone. "No, I did."
She pulls back just the slightest bit. "The history books say you're a monster, but I don't believe them, you know."
It's enough for him. He drags her closer to him and kisses her with everything he has like he's always wanted to. She grips the tablecloth as they sink to the floor, dinnerware clanging and shattering on the tile as it rains down around them.
Your promise died with your last Zelda, Gerudo Lord...
It's not the first time that this has happened.
Sixth June, 1517
12:03 a.m.
Queen Zelda's Chambers in Hyrule's Capitol Palace
New Hyrule City, Lanayru Province
New Hyrule
You liar. You villain. You oathbreaker.
Even though the thoughts belong to him and him alone, he hears them almost in Demise's voice instead of his own. The old god has been dormant for months at Ganondorf's own request, and as a result, he's started making up for it by scolding himself whenever possible.
"Get out of my head," Ganondorf utters into the wind. He's standing on the balcony, the glass doors wide open behind him. He can make out Zelda's outline on the bed, her white skin glowing in the moonlight.
Demise is a part of you, he tells himself in response. More so than Zelda is, at the very least.
Ganondorf scowls. "You're asking me to be a monster, not a person!"
That's what you are.
"That's not what I am!" the Gerudo says harshly, realizing in the process that he's countering his own argument. He hardly cares. "It's not- I am human!"
Humans don't live for centuries.
That's true. Enraged with himself and even annoyed at Demise's silence, he threads his fingers through his own hair and tries to suppress his own self-depreciating thoughts.
Nice try.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" he shrieks against his will.
Oh, you do miss Demise...
"Lord Dragmire?"
His thoughts vanish in a poof at the sound of the queen's inquiry.
"Lord Dragmire, aren't you cold?"
Ganondorf turns to face the figure reclining in the bed. She is perfect as porcelain, and the heat of desire boils in his blood.
"Gerudo are rarely cold," he lies, and returns inside. He clambers onto the mattress and rests a hand on the queen's cheek. Her blue eyes are round as buttons as he lifts a heavy lock of hair behind her ear and kisses her there. He keeps his eyes closed for a long moment- and then opens them. And stops.
"Where did you get that?!" he asks suddenly, his heart struggling to beat properly.
"Get what?" The young queen turns her head, eyes resting on the nightstand. There, caught in a ray of moonlight, is a thin black book bound with leather. Ganondorf's blood rushes hotly at the sight of it.
"That book."
"Oh," she replies, and extends a bare arm towards the volume. "I told you, I'm a writer. It's my diary."
"Yes, but where'd you get it?"
"Truthfully?" she asks with a short laugh. "It was my aunt's, Lord Dragmire, and her mother's, and her mother's… the relations are a bit foggy after that."
"May I see it?"
Hesitation. "I suppose," the queen answers after a long sigh, and offers up the volume. Ganondorf's hands grip the familiar leather, and for the first time in a long time, the gold symbol on the back of his right hand throbs.
"What does that mean?" asks Zelda at the sight of the Triforce. That she doesn't recognize the symbol is somewhat annoying to him.
"It means," Ganondorf replies, "that the Triforce is remembering."
He opens the book nervously to the first page, and his heart seems to stop altogether.
This diary is the property of Princess Zelda II, gifted unto her by the Gerudo Lord Ganondorf, Ambassador to the King, on May the Eighth, Common Era 1018...
"Can I have it?" he asks before he can stop himself. He can feel the world spinning about him. This was her book, he thinks in disbelief. This is the very same I gave to her on her fourteenth birthday…
When the current Zelda doesn't reply, he glances up. He's shocked to find that her lip is trembling. Fresh tears prick the edges of her eyes.
"Lord Dragmire?"
"Your Majesty?"
"Be honest with me- when you're kissing me- when you're laying with me- are you truly laying with me, or with my ancestors?"
He is taken aback by her accusation. "Why- you're all the same woman to me," he says, and it's clearly the wrong answer. Zelda bursts into tears.
"I am my own person, Lord Dragmire," she snaps. "I am not my aunt- I am not my ancestors- and I am certainly not the girl to whom you gifted this book!"
"But you are," he insists. "Your eyes-"
"-Belong to me alone," the queen answers. "It's a new era, Lord Dragmire. I'm a modern woman- I belong to myself, and I can cast you aside just as easily as I've cast aside every other suitor."
Other suitors?
He absorbs the sight of her. She is beyond lovely, and the part of him that is purely human, purely carnal, is overcome with greed. "I can cast aside the women of the past if it is your wish."
"No, you can't."
"What?"
She is shaking her head, her face a crumpled mess of tears. She seems betrayed. "If you could love me and me alone- if you truly could forget the women who came before me- then you'd bring yourself to set aside that awful book."
The black book trembles in his fingers, and he tries to comply. He holds it out over the edge of the bed, ready to drop it to the floor-
It's about to slip from his fingers when suddenly he sees a ten-year old girl curled up in a too-big armchair, a fourteen-year old girl in a ball gown, a pirate girl breathing out oceans, an ebony-haired princess in a coffin, a crimson-haired woman drowning in her own blood…
He clutches the book to his chest.
"No," he says, wondering when he became such a mess to begin with.
You're weak, the memory of Demise scorns.
"Get out," Zelda demands, and it's like a slap to the face.
"What?!"
"GET OUT!" She finds a lumpy velvet pillow and slams it against him, knocking him sideways. "GET OUT, GET OUT!"
He scrambles out of her bed and stands alone in the middle of the room. She grabs a heavy book and throws it at him with everything she has. He stumbles backwards and protects the black diary with his arms. The girl in the bed screams for the guards, lies that she has been assaulted, panics.
"I love you, please, I LOVE YOU-"
But even as he's shouting it, he knows that it's just an excuse. The woman in the bed is precious to him, but not in the same way that the others have been. She's been a distraction- an awful, heart-wrenching, intoxicating distraction… but her luster is limited.
He doesn't love her like he loved the others. All this time he's loved her lips and her skin and her stunning features, but that is all worthless in the end.
I did not love the part of her that is eternal, he realizes. I loved the part of her that would die with age- I have lost sight of the divine, and without it, I am nothing.
That is when he knows what it is he must do.
The door is thrust open and steel-clad guards thunder into the room. Everything is a blur as the soldiers pile on top of him. Rage froths about in his chest and he wants to scream, wants to attack- he can feel an urge towards violence building up within him-
And he explodes out of his own skin. The heat is too much to bear. His bones grow and re-mold into something monstrous. His face contorts into something awful. Tusks erupt from his face and a snout protrudes between them. The Triforce of Power is screaming, the world is falling away, and Demise is laughing.
Ha… ha… ha…
Centuries pass, and Ganondorf Dragmire is lost to himself. A beast, he tramples the earth and drags Hyrule to ruin over and over again. He and Demise think as one, both with an insatiable desire for the divine, and nothing else.
He meets Zelda half a dozen times in the three-hundred years that follow. His gorgeous, educated, flirtatious Zelda falls at his hands and enrages a boy Hero who's half in love with her when she dies. The next Zelda is a meek brunette, but Ganondorf- or, rather, Ganon- cannot tell anything beyond that. His rage and monstrosity blinds him.
The beast dwells endlessly on the Triforce. When a muscular, tomboyish Zelda and her old friend the Hero try to stop him, they are only half-successful. Ganon is sealed away for half a century before he breaks out of his sacred prison, and this time, his anger is doubly powerful.
The next Zelda is barely twelve and violently ginger. She loses the battle and the kingdom goes down with her. Her successor, a platinum blonde built like a prima ballerina, is a ferocious archer and takes her kingdom back with the "Hero" stumbling behind her.
The passing decades are white-hot to Ganon as they flash by. He hardly has the ability to make sense of them. All he can register is a sort of tossing back and forth of thrones and ancient relics. Sometimes he is king, sometimes a prisoner, but either way he's a foul bore with dark, matted fur and a thirst for blood.
Demise loves every minute. He refers sometimes to Ganon as his steed.
Your mind, he adds with a smirk, provides me with reins.
When he's finally sealed away again by a muscular brunette Zelda, it is the last that his godly form can take. He drifts in and out of consciousness for a small eternity, and when he reawakens, he is a man again.
At first he can't believe it. The mortal part of his mind is freed from its cage for the first time in ages, and he is abhorred at the realization of what his immortal form has done. When he returns to the fields of Hyrule, the horizon is brimming with new cities and factories, a stream of smoke bellowing up from the skyline.
The world has changed in the time that he's been gone.
That doesn't make it worth any less to you, Demise reminds him. The Triforce is still out there.
So is Zelda, Ganondorf thinks, his obsession returning. She is out there, somewhere…
There is something silver and weighted at his belt. By the time he notices it, he's already crossed through the gates of the bustling New Hyrule City.
"What is this?" he asks aloud, and holds it up to the light. A shout sounds from behind him.
"Oi! No guns inside city walls!" a policeman yells.
Give it a try, Demise laughs. Ganondorf complies, his mouth bending into a smile when the policeman falls at his feet.
"What kind of magic…?" he mutters. Bang! Bang! Before long, nobody stands in his way.
The spires of a distant castle pierce the smog and a grin creeps across Ganondorf's face. Zelda, he thinks. Zelda- Zelda- ZELDA!
"I admire addicts. In a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. He's taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of his death from being a total surprise."
-Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
Two more parts to go! Shoutout to the ZelGan fandom for still existing. A second shoutout to readers who aren't a part of the ZelGan fandom but somehow wound up here anyway.