Time for a little chat between a certain two enemies. :) How awkward is this? I know I wouldn't want to be in their shoes. So sorry for the wait, my lovelies. But I couldn't do much to help it.
Ganondorf had never taken excessive time for preening or hygiene like so many of the members of the royal court did, only going so far as to execute what primping was absolutely necessary to seem presentable among them. This habitual neglect of attention to appearance had come naturally, as it did with most all of the Gerudo, unless they intended upon having a good time among the seedier alleys in the market. It was an honest unspoken law drilled into you as a child when you lived in the desert: you did not care much about cleanliness.
It wasn't that their people were exceptionally dirty or grubby. Water was simply not readily available, and therefore, you were to take your baths quickly and gratefully, often with more than one person at a time, especially when you were small and could afford the double room in a tub. Your clothes were hardly ever clean, beaten by the sand and rarer mud too often for comfort. They were certainly rarely washed, because to waste such a precious resource on vanity was folly. Your hair would be unkept, blown by the winds throughout the day, or look stiff and limp, lilted under the sweltering sun. The heat also made sweat, which in turn made body odor more prevalent. It wasn't frowned upon, for the entire race suffered from it. It was just fact.
So it was expected Ganondorf had never spent much time looking at himself in a mirror. He imagined this was what looking in a mirror for an extended period of time would be like- extremely odd and uncomfortable. The boy had been unconscious throughout the whole night and the whole of one day, and now it was growing near to the second night of their little meeting. Moving even in the slightest wracked his body with pain, so Ganondorf chose to preserve his energy until the boy awakened. Putting his knowledge of survival to good use, he'd immediately taken to providing necessities, an accomplishment after being unconscious for a decent chunk of the last day. He'd managed to use both some of his and some of the boy's clothing to stoke a fire, which was important since they were so close to the water and on the receiving end of the cold therein. The moisture of being so close to the water didn't help things much, but experience in survival had prompted Ganondorf to make due.
He made a few observations about himself as if he were looking in a mirror, thoughtful and still feeling odd when faced with his reflection. I always knew I was tall, but I really do tower over the boy. My hand is twice the size of his. Unable to help himself, his gaze drew down, following along his body until it reached his pelvis. I wonder what else is twice the size. He chuckled and reached next to him, where he'd taken the satchel the boy had slung around a shoulder. Otherwise he didn't have any weapons or tools, so he'd spoken truthfully to Nabooru on that part. There wasn't much in the satchel, but he did have a skin which probably contained water at one point (empty now), and some strips of dried meat carefully wrapped in cloth, smelling faintly of a smoky flavor persevering after their soaking in the river. Ganondorf wasn't hungry, but he knew the food would come in handy after the boy awoke, gritty or not.
He'd delayed long and hard about removing the arrow in his chest, still sticking there obviously and honestly, quite painfully, though the constant reminder had dulled to a low throb. He knew, as much as it was equally painful for him to admit, he would need the boy's help in aftercare. He did not know where the arrow had struck, but his own attempts to remove it proved only to make his fingers slippery in the blood on the shaft, and send a screech of pain wracking his body. There was nothing to do but watch and wait. But this didn't bother him excessively. Ganondorf was used to waiting.
#
Link's eyelids fluttered open and he groaned, vision ebbing into clear throbs, his head pounding. He lifted a hand and touched the source of pain, where he could feel a trail of congealed blood from a bump. A labored grunt stole its way from his chest as he shuffled and tried to sit up against the wall behind him. Then, with a thunderclap of surprise, he saw the familiar figure sitting across from him. He inhaled through his nose, body stiffening, hand groping instinctively for a sword that was not present.
"Your sword isn't here," his body stated, unmoving. "Don't bother trying to find it."
"You… are you…" Link began, swallowing and watching as his body shifted a little. It was immensely odd to see himself moving without his consent, much like facing his dark self in the Water Temple.
"Yes. And it's clear you are me. The Goddesses seem to be having a laugh at our expense," Ganondorf shifted again, a pained expression seeming to spread on his features. He uncapped his hands from the arrow, revealing the shaft still stuck in his chest. "But that is the least of our worries."
"… Goddesses… your…" Link stared at the arrow shaft stained in old blood, where Ganondorf's hand covered the wound. "My chest… the arrow… I remember…" His eyes drew up to face the man. "You jumped in front of it."
Ganondorf ignored the stunned look from Link. "I need your help to remove it. I can't see well enough to do it on my own."
"I've never taken out an arrow before…" Link drew nearer, wary of the man trapped in his body despite the fact he looked sickly paler by the growing moment. "What should I do?"
"If you want to live you'll have to learn quickly." Grunting, Ganondorf took the hem of the boy's green tunic. "Help me get this off."
Link carefully moved the tunic up and over his head, avoiding the arrow at all costs but still brushing it as the clothing was removed. He felt exposed, especially watching Ganondorf examine his chest although it was clear he was examining the wound itself. He set the clothing aside and took a good look himself in the fading light of the sun. The ugly wound glared up at him, encrusted in blood and scabbing, buried just above the lines of his left pectoral. "What should I do?"
Ganondorf snorted through his nose as he looked over the Caucasian, fair skin of the lad, his chest slim and somewhat bony without definition. "Pitiful." He caught a slight glower from his own face and shook his head, jutting his chin toward the river. "Rinse your hands. We need to keep the wound as sterile as possible. Use the skin to get some water, too. It needs to be cleaned. Let it heat over the fire until it's hot. It shouldn't take long."
Link did as he was told, stunned by how direct and how knowledgeable Ganondorf seemed to be. Whenever he'd needed healing after facing battle, he'd simply released a fairy from a bottle, but he suspected fairies were a rarer commodity in the desert. True to his word, the water didn't take long to heat up. Link brought it over to his body, studying the wound once again. "How should I pull?"
"You don't pull an arrow out, boy! How were you taught about weaponry? About fighting?" Ganondorf snapped, glowering at Link. "Pulling an arrow out like you would a common weed will rupture the internal flesh! You have to open the wound and wretch it out yourself…" He fiddled beside him and held out a sharp piece of rock, sparkling in the firelight. "Here. Use this to open the wound enough to get the arrow out. Then you'll have to cauterize it quickly. You know what that means, don't you?"
"Yes…" Link looked doubtfully at the wound, feeling queasy the longer he stared. It was one thing looking at blood, which he was somewhat used to after all his journeys. He'd been wounded more than once. It was different looking at himself with such a devastating wound, much less readying to effectively maim himself to remove a foreign object.
"Good." Ganondorf hefted himself back against the wall and reached for the skin, taking the strap between his two teeth and bearing hard, as if it were a bit between a raging stallion's jaw. He cleared his mind of all thoughts, all beyond bearing on that strap as hard as he was able."Go!" he grunted between his white teeth, jutting his chest out for Link. "Now! Do it now!"
Link gripped the shaft and swallowed, wedging the rock where the shaft disappeared into his flesh, and prying in a sudden push. A spurt of blood gurgled from the wound, trickling down his body's abdomen and melting into his tights, turning them a crimson color from their previous white. "Oh, God…" Link murmured in a choked whisper, swallowing again. He turned his attention on Ganondorf for the briefest moment and saw the man's eyes squeezed shut, face wracked in pain. He hadn't said a word. "Okay, okay, almost there…" He wrenched the wound further open, causing Ganondorf to gasp, and saw the tip of the arrow, a small outpouring of blood accompanying it. "I see it, I see it! Here it is, almost there!" He angled the arrow and slid it free, tossing it away in favor of the bundle of cloth to make a makeshift torch. He moved the cloth and the fire quickly, pressing it against his skin to cauterize. The smell of burning flesh immediately filled the cave, and he tossed the rags away as the skin hissed angrily, the blood stopping with a few bubbling noises, an angry dark color.
Panting, Link backed away, his hands red with his own blood. He watched Ganondorf, waiting for the man to erupt into cursing and screaming, but the most he did was look down at the shaking wound from his ragged breathing and grunt, dropping the satchel from his mouth. "… Good work, boy."
Link just stared at the imprint of teeth marks on the satchel's strap.
#
"So…" Link was the next one to initiate conversation, staring at Ganondorf across the way with slight amazement. The man had not rested since the removal of the arrow nigh half an hour ago, but remained vigilant and solemn, not moving apart from stoking the fire between them, the sparks rising into the air like fireflies before flickering away into nothing. Neither had spoken, and Link wondered if the man felt as awkward as he did.
Ganondorf looked to the boy across from him, but said nothing, letting the crackling of the fire be his response. What do you say to your mortal enemy when you both just saved one another's lives? Should he be thanking him? "Thank you" was not a commonly used expression for Ganondorf. What would the boy ask? Would he try to kill him in his sleep? Had he thought the situation through as deeply as Ganondorf had? He continued to rinse his wound with the hot water in the skin, washing away the dried blood and hopefully, any dirt which had made its way into the source.
"… are you in pain?"
The question took him by surprise, but he didn't let it show. "You'd like that, wouldn't you," Ganondorf scoffed, shuffling his shoulders against the rock behind him to try and otherwise occupy himself.
"Why would I like that? Look, I'm only asking because you aren't… shouting or… or even whimpering or… panting or anything. Doesn't it hurt?"
His brow furrowed. Talking to the boy was like talking to a child, having to explain everything in detail. But then… Ganondorf found himself looking at his hands, flexing them and unflexing them. The boy had missed seven years of his life, hadn't he? He was, in essence, still very much a child. He spoke softer without realizing he had. "Pain is only partly physical in nature, boy. Half of pain, the greater half, is often mental. Control that, and you control your pain." Ganondorf unleashed a sigh through his nose when he saw his head tilt across the way. "Of course it's painful."
Link stared at the man and wondered why he felt so sorry for him. This man was Ganondorf, the king of evil, the bringer of doom for Hyrule, and yet, somehow, he seemed… harmless now. "Why did you do it?"
"Why did I do what?" Ganondorf knew very well what the boy was talking about, but he was not enjoying the conversation as it was and didn't want to drag it out further.
"Why did you… help me? You blocked the arrow from hitting me. Why?" Link's voice was deep and slow, inflicting a mood almost like a parent scolding a child. "You could have let it hit me…"
"Simple." Ganondorf reached for the satchel beside him and began fishing inside it to occupy himself. "I would have died otherwise. I was not going to allow you to let my body die. Perhaps you don't care as much about getting your body back, and I could see why judging from your physique compared to mine, but I do care. I won't have you harming my body unjustifiably. We are going to switch back. I only assume you don't know how to switch back… do you?"
"No." Link shook his head. "But you're wrong. I don't want to be in this body any more than you probably want to be in mine."
Ganondorf leaned back against the rock and let loose a low, deep groan. "We're going to be stuck like this longer than I'd have liked… what we need now is to think. We need a plan of action. We must find out what to do next. Wait. Before I go any further… who have you told of this? Who have you spoken to?"
"No one," replied Link, putting his hands up at Ganondorf's incredulous look. He'd never seen his own body look so intimidating. "I swear! I didn't tell anyone, I thought they would think me crazy if I did. Who would believe us if we told anyone?"
"Yes, I told no one, either." Ganondorf spoke his thoughts out loud. "We know we both touched the Triforce at the same time. That fact must be true. Otherwise the world as we know it would not be as it is now, with nothing changed. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Link responded, following the man's train of thought, although it appeared Ganondorf wasn't really speaking to him.
"So now that we have switched bodies, we must bring the three forces together once more in hopes that touching the Triforce at the same time once more will return us to our bodies."
"Makes enough sense," Link responded, "But how? Zelda is the only one who might know. The Triforce only appeared after she asked for the Goddesses' help. They don't respond to just anyone, anytime."
"If the Goddesses are responsible for doing this, then they are the ones we must see once again. The question is… how." Ganondorf took a strip of the dried meat within his hand and chewed it thoughtfully, expecting it to have lost its flavor among the river. A sudden hint of specific taste caused him to stop his chewing and swallow, looking down at the meat. It had been smoked carefully, painstakingly, over a period of many hours. Spices had been added, black pepper and ground cactus which only grew in the desert. How long had it been?... could it truly be?... He looked up at Link over the fire. "… Where did you get this?"
Link raised an eyebrow, puzzled that Ganondorf would suddenly switch topics. "Some woman gave it to me… before I left that place. Sumata, they called it."
Some woman… Ganondorf took another bite, carefully, closing his eyes to let the flavor sink in among his taste buds. Ideas flickered, popping like fireworks in his brain, bursting forth with emotion and feelings, things he'd long forgotten or kept hidden away. He swallowed them down. "You'll need some of this to keep your strength up as much as I will. Eat."
Link accepted the long thin strip of meat and scrutinized it briefly.
"It's not poison. You accepted it from that woman, didn't you? Eat." Ganondorf found it almost humorous how uncertain the boy looked, even in his body.
"What is it?" Link asked, giving it a sniff and a tiny taste.
"You don't want to know. Just eat."
The boy's face grimaced. "You could have told me to eat without saying that… now I really want to know… and I really don't feel like eating."
"Eat, boy, or I'll make you eat." Ganondorf glowered at Link across the way. "You have to keep your body strong." More importantly, you have to keep my body strong. He bit off the end of a fragment of bone and stuck one end in his mouth, causing Link to cock his head. "You have to suck out the marrow. It's good for you."
Link's nose wrinkled. He didn't particularly want to taste it, but he finally decided (mostly due to the urging of Ganondorf's grumbling stomach, boy, could this body eat) to give it a try. He chewed, finding the meat had a sort of gritty, but filling texture. He finished and consumed two more strips before agreeing to save the rest, forgoing the marrow much as Ganondorf encouraged it. "Thanks… but what was it?"
"You really don't give up, do you?" Ganondorf replied, settling himself back against the rock and carefully slipping boy's tunic back over his chest. He ignored the question. "We've run back into our problem of how we contact the Goddesses. We can't ask for help from anyone. We run the risk of others knowing who we are as it is. If anyone finds out the truth, things will be far more complicated than they are now. Damn, why couldn't you have known what to do? You're useless."
"It's not MY fault," Link countered, face hardening into a frown. "You're the one who brought this on yourself by trying to get the Triforce in the first place." The two figures just glared at one another for a few moments, tempers as hot as the fire before them, before they settled to a simmer. Link rested his knees on his elbows. "Look, the festival of the Goddesses is only a few days away now. We have the best chance of communicating our heart's desires during that time. Zelda told me the Goddesses descend upon the earth if only in spirit to hear the wishes of the souls they've created. That includes ours, so the way I see it, our best chance to turn back into ourselves without telling anyone is to attend the festival."
"And have the Triforce descend in front of all those people? Are you mad?" Ganondorf retorted, waving one arm in the air. "Why not just send out invitations while you're at it? Have people get in line and hold a race!"
Link's tone grew quiet and respectful. "The Goddesses know what is best. They'll know what to do. Our only hope is to try and tell them with our hearts… if you have one." He waited for the comeback from Ganondorf, expecting an insult or perhaps even some kind of physical attack, but nothing came. He dredged up a response, taking his cloak, still damp from his river ride, and wrapping it around himself. "We should get some sleep… but… before we do… we should make some kind of pact… or promise… we won't hurt each other or the people we care about while we're in each other's bodies. We have to do our best to be… normal. I won't interfere with your life. So do the same for me."
Ganondorf considered this deal carefully. The part about not hurting each other was simple to agree to. Why would he bother damaging his own body if he planned to get back into it? It would make no sense. Hurting the ones the boy cared about was rather appealing, but again, not prudent and impossible in this body, at least not without drawing unwanted attention. It wouldn't hurt anything to agree. After all, promises were meant to be broken… at least, that's what he'd learned in life. "Agreed."
Link felt his spirit ease a little as the words came out of his mouth and settled back, wondering what the next step would be. As he spoke, he felt his eyes growing heavy, but worried if he closed them, he may not open them again the next day. Ganondorf could not be trusted. "I think the plan is, escape from this gorge, head to wherever they're holding the festival, and stake out our hiding places there. We'll have to be unseen for the three days of the festival, if possible. At least I will."
"Lon Lon Ranch," Ganondorf interrupted. "That's where they're holding the festival."
"Then that's where we have to go. We'll figure out the rest tomorrow…" He settled back, sleep making his eyes too heavy to ignore. He had to force himself to keep them open, even as slits.
Ganondorf chuckled, and Link felt it odd it sounded pleasant, even from his body. "Lizard."
"Hm?"
"It was lizard. Now go to sleep, idiot."
#
FriedCuccoLady: Oh my Goodness. o-o I am so honored to have such a long review. Thank you so much to care so much as to leave so much feedback! XD I swear I'm not playing with you, this has been planned for quite some time. You hit the nail on the head regarding one of my story themes: Does that make him (who, we'll see) a good or a bad person? That's up to the reader to find out as we get deeper and deeper into what makes each the person they are. I'm planning on stirring up some real questions. As you've probably discovered, the wound is not fatal. I couldn't possibly rid the story of such an interesting character. As much as I'd like to say there's a chance he would remain conscious after the whole river bit, most of it was probably just plot convenience. Can't really explain it beyond "He just is". There may be hints at something, but I'm not going to label it as "bromance". :) We'll just see.
Warny: Hi there! Thanks for taking the time to write a review! Oh gosh, I'm so glad you like it! I'm sorry to tell ya it's not a ganlink, but there will be a lot of conversation between them and further interaction, so I think you'll still enjoy it!
Melvintheminion: Thank you so much for the feedback!
Yami no Nokutan: Yes he did indeed! Or was he simply saving himself and "happened" to save Link in the process? Hmmm…
Swamp Dragon Princess: :D Yes indeed. I could not wait to write it. It's the first step.
The one who writes the ones: xD Hah hah, exactly!
