A/N- So I changed countries, and rather than getting myself super stressed out I just skipped an update cycle. Sorry about that! Constructive criticism, encouragement, or just tough love telling me why I stink as a writer is appreciated!
...
Ganondorf looked down into the deep pit before him. The only sight he could make out was the fading grey of the walls as they descended into the darkness. No lights, or even sounds, rose to greet him from the depths. Had he been alone, he might have dropped a stone into the hole to see if it even had a bottom but he felt that his guide wouldn't approve.
"So," Impa spoke from beside him as she readied her bow, "you are clear on your task?"
Ganondorf nodded, swallowing to moisten his throat. The air in the labyrinth was cool, yet unbelievably dry. He looked across the pit to the door on the other side. It rested within the mouth of a misshapen stone head, much slimmer and taller than that of any human. Both the jaw and the sunken eyes were disturbingly large and its long tongue extended to create a platform in front of the door. "I cross, find an item which will let me escape, then return here to you."
"After you cut the rope," Impa added, "as for returning to me, I will probably be gone by then. I am uncomfortable leaving the princess unattended for longer than necessary." She tied a rope to the shaft of an exceptionally thick arrow.
Ganondorf turned to the older woman, "Wait, I thought that this exercise was part of my training. How am I training if you leave me here?"
Impa shrugged, then drew back the bow. "I am training you. Your lesson today is to rely upon yourself, to overcome the obstacles before you when you are truly alone. Nobody can help you beyond this point." She released the string, causing the arrow to fly across the gap and embed itself in the door on the other side. Turning to Ganondorf she handed him the bow. "These caverns are treacherous alone, you had better bring this." Slinging the quiver off her back, she gave that to him as well.
He positioned the items comfortably across his pack. "Into the mouth of the beast then?"
Impa nodded, then moved to one of the room's lanterns to secure the rope. Ganondorf wasn't sure which was more unnerving about the lanterns, the unnatural blue flame they gave off or the skulls from which they were fashioned. She nodded a second time, so Ganondorf walked up to the edge of the pit and grabbed the rope. After tugging on it a few times to test its strength, he took a deep breath and wrapped his legs around it, allowing himself to dangle below. Releasing one hand, he grabbed the rope further up and began to crawl across the pit.
"At least I am not looking down," he thought glumly as he stared up towards the ceiling. One hand, then the next- he tried to ignore the slight breeze he felt under him. Though it took an eternity, he finally saw the shaft of the arrow above him and let himself down to rest on the platform. The stone tongue may have been precariously suspended over a dark pit, but to him he never felt more solid ground.
Looking back to the other side, he saw Impa standing with her arms crossed, immobile. With a sigh, he undid the knot holding the rope to the arrow and let it fall into the pit. The woman nodded, kneeling down to draw the rope up from her side. Turning from her, Ganondorf grabbed the arrow and twisted it, dislodging it from the door. He wasn't quite sure how the tip managed to hold his weight yet detach so simply when he spun it but, whatever piece of engineering was responsible, he wasn't going to complain. Slipping it into his quiver, he opened the door and peered though.
The next room consisted of a narrow passage, which sloped downwards into the darkness. Withdrawing a lantern from his pack, he lit it and passed into the next corridor. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all dirt, absorbing the sound of his footsteps and causing him to descend in silence. After a few minutes, the passage opened up into a mid-sized room with three doors, one on each wall. In the center stood a statue about his height, with a metal eye fixed to the top and rotating slowly. Hmm, a Bemos. Ganondorf fingered an arrow in his quiver before thinking better of it and looking at the doors again. The one on the opposite side of the room had a conspicuously large chain draped across it, fastened by a large padlock. The other two doors were bare.
Well, guess it is trial and error then. Waiting until the eye was facing the opposite way, Ganondorf stepped silently into the room. Ensuring that he moved at the same pace as the eye, he crept around the perimeter before reaching the first door and ducking into it. Turning forward, he was taken aback at the massive skull carved into the sculpture before him. Pausing a moment, he remarked, "Creepy, it could swallow me whole." After taking a moment more to notice he was talking to himself, he went to one of the stairwells besides the sculpture and ascended. At the top, he found nothing except for the fact that he was level with the top of the skull, out of which more blue flames rose.
Scanning the room, he couldn't find anything else of note. Looking back at the skull, he noticed the top of it was open, thus allowing the flames out. I wonder if I should hop in, he thought for a moment, before concluding that such an idea was idiotic. Working his way down the opposite staircase, he looked around the room one more time before passing through the doorway. On the opposite side, he was greeted by the Bemos, which was now looking straight at him.
"Oh by the-" he was cut off by a whirring sound as the Bemos recognized him and began blinking. He bolted to his left in time to avoid a dark blue beam originating in the statue's eye. Not breaking stride, he dashed to the other door and flung himself in, looking down to discover a piece of his boot had melted off. "Accursed place! I swear that I… I…" he trailed off as he registered the sight before him.
Like the original hallway, the room was dark and etched into the earth. His lantern didn't shine enough light to fill the entire room, but possessed enough power to illuminate the figure standing before him. Though the shape of a Hylian, the monster was taller than him, consisting of leathery, brown skin draped over a bony frame. It wore what appeared to be a wooden mask, though the eye-socked were filled only with a black void. Ganondorf caught a glimpse of the creature's sharp, white teeth as it began to shuffle forward.
An inhuman scream filled the air, causing Ganondorf to freeze in his place. Though the creature continued to amble towards him, his only thought was to remain still- to try to conceal himself in the darkness. It wasn't until the creature's fingertips were almost to his neck that he spun out of the creature's reach and brought his sword down violently on its shoulder.
Despite the frail appearance of the beast, the sword hot stuck halfway through the monster's frame- sending the force of the impact up Ganondorf's arm and into his shoulder. The monster continued to push forward, completely disregarding the weapon upon which it was impaled. Reaching forward, it tried to grab Ganondorf a second time. With a violent jerk, Ganondorf managed to dislodge his sword and swung desperately at the creature's neck. He felt another impact in his arms, but this time his sword kept moving.
The monster's body fell backwards as its head landed right at Ganondorf's feet. Its mouth opened and closed a few times, showing its long teeth, before finally going still. Taking a moment to calm his heartbeat, Ganondorf stood and glanced around the room, attempting to see if any other creatures waited for him. Fortunately, the room was completely empty aside from him and the dead form before him. Moving slowly, and still trying to recover his breath, he went about the perimeter of the room, bushing the dirt walls with his fingertips. Nothing.
Overcoming his revulsion, he turned back to the body in the room. With reluctance, he slowly crept forward and poked at the corpse. A thin rope ran around its waste, securing a small pouch. "Now what do we have here?" he muttered to himself as he unfastened the knot. Taking the pouch in hand, he opened the top to find a trio of blue spheres, each with a thin piece of thread sticking out of the top.
"Yes!" he exclaimed, bolting back to the door and peering out of it. The Bemos was facing the other way, so he brought one of the orbs to his lantern and lit the fuse. Hopping out of the doorway, he tossed the bomb at the statue, accompanied by a loud yell. After a moment, the device exploded, hurling the statue's eye upwards towards the ceiling.
"Not so tough are you now?" Taunted Ganondorf, only to duck out of the way as the eye almost landed on him, trigging a second explosion. He stood there for a moment, taking in the wreckage and realizing he probably hadn't needed to waste one of his bombs on the contraption. For what purpose could he use them then?
After a moment's hesitation, he returned to the room with the skull statue. Climbing to the top, he peered into the hole again before lighting a second bomb and tossing it in. Dropping to the ground, he covered his head with his arms as the statue detonated, raining fragments throughout the room. Crawling over to the lip of the platform he was on he looked down, spying a large, silver key in the rubble.
Huh, I didn't fully expect that to work. He down, he collected the key and returned to the other room. Pausing to compose himself, he unlocked the door and entered the next corridor.
Like the first hallway, this one steadily descended but this time with stone walls. As he walked, he could hear the sound of metal rubbing against metal. What sort of place is this, Impa? Turning at a 90 degree bend in the hallway, he found himself confronted by a giant guillotine. As wide as the passage, the blade would rise up into the high ceiling before crashing down. He focused at the top of the metal piece, watching the rope pull the device up for another drop. The rope!
His momentary elation was disrupted as a Hylian-sized spider dropped from the unseen ceiling to land on top of him, knocking him to the ground. "Aaaggghhh!" he screamed, shooting his hand up to catch the monster's throat before it could bite him. It scratched at him with its legs, but he kept a firm grip with one hand as he fumbled with his sword for the other. Getting it loose, the thrust the weapon into the creature's underbelly and continued to restrain it as it spasmed and went still. He threw the carcass underneath the guillotine, watching as the blade came down with a satisfying crunch- shattering the spider's shell.
Ganondorf lay there for a few moments, gasping for air and trying to recover his original train of thought. His panting was accompanied only by the grating sound of the guillotine as it continued to cycle through its deadly function. Pulling himself up slowly, he stared at the ceiling, trying to make out any other shapes hidden in the darkness. I have got to get out of here! Standing up, he clipped the lantern to his belt and waited.
When the metal trap fell again, he leapt up and grabbed the rope holding it. His sword in one hand, he waited as the rope slowly pulled him towards the ceiling. As he neared the top, he could make out the gears which controlled the blade. Thinking for a moment then sheathing his sword, he drew the last of his bombs and lit it as the rope pulled him upwards. Just before he was pulled into the gears, he flung the sphere into the mechanical assembly and jumped, landing and rolling right before he heard the explosion.
Ganondorf curled up and made himself as small as possible as gears and pieces of debris clanged around him. The noise was terrible, and he felt that any moment he would be struck by a large piece of metal. After a few moments, the cacophony stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Ganondorf peered out from between his arms, the blade now rested at the lowest point of its track, with the rope lying limp. Off in the distance, he could hear the grating of another one of the contraptions.
Crawling forward, and ignoring the faint ringing in his ears, he took his sword and cut the rope off from the guillotine's blade. Coiling it around his arm, he trotted back the way he had come. Upon reaching the pit where he had first left Impa, he tied the rope to the climbing arrow as she had done and drew back his bow. It was only as he was scanning for an opportune target that he noticed something- there were absolutely no wooden objects in the room. The corridor they had entered by had no door and all the lanterns were made only from metal and bone. In desperation, he shot at one of the skulls only to have it shatter.
With a sigh of defeat, he sat down on the stone platform with his legs dangled over the edge. He slowly pulled the arrow back to himself as he looked back down the corridor behind him. The last thing he wanted to do was to return to the depths. After some time of staring hopelessly at the other side, he finally stood up, gathered his courage, and walked once more into the hallway leading to the darkness below.
...
Link leapt to the side, somersaulting off of his hands and narrowly dodging the knight's broad axe as it cut the air where he had been standing. When Kotake had spoken about "special training" he hadn't realized she meant putting him one poor move away from death. Kalila was also dancing around the chamber, trying to find a hole in the construct's armor with her spear. Despite her best efforts, the only thing she had accomplished was being smacked aside by the flat side of the immense axe… twice.
A shrill voice echoed down from above. "Your weapons are not strong enough to penetrate the Knuckle's armor, you have to draw upon your power like we have been teaching you."
"Easy enough for you to say," Link muttered. Control over his Triforce continued to elude him. Though he had called upon its power several times in the temple, he couldn't draw upon it at will. Rather, it seemed to act up on its own, usually when he and Kalila were only a step away from death. But this construct is going to make mincemeat out of us if I don't do something, he glared at the marking on his hand, Come on, fire!
The Knuckle swung again, only a moment too late to open up another airhole in Link's throat. He was beginning to feel truly frustrated now, and he could see the same emotion on the face of his companion. She dashed inwards and thrust at the back of its knee, only to have it whirl around and smash the side of her face with its fist. Kalila crumpled to the ground, the Knuckle towering over her and lifting its axe to deal the final blow.
"No!" Link cried, a familiar strength coursing through his blood. Dashing in, he took hold of his foe's armor and released a wave of crackling energy into it. Convulsing, the Knuckle stood there with the axe elevated above its head for a few moments before crumpling to the ground. He stepped over the husk and extended his hand to his friend.
Kalila glanced up at him with a look that broke his heart. Though her jaw was bruised and a thin line of blood ran from her mouth, it was her eyes which betrayed her shame. Time and time again they had been pushed to the breaking point in these trials, only for his Triforce to come through at the last minute and save the day. She had almost saved him once, a hand had come right out from the wall and grabbed him. Kalila reacted with lightning speed, spinning with her spear and ready to impale the creature, but by then it was writhing on the ground in pain, surrounded by a crackling aura. For that brief moment, she had had the look of a proud warrior serving her king. Now...
Perhaps seeing his concern, she forced a smile. "That was tough, good thing I was here to distract him so that you could get in close." She almost sounded like she believed it. She pulled herself up then spit out a gob of blood.
Link smiled, "Yea, not to mention how much more fun this is than if I were doing it without you around." He turned upon hearing footsteps coming down the stairs to the ground level of the chamber.
"Not good enough," Kotake scolded. "You are still struggling to summon the power you hold. Yes, you can use it when in a pinch, but you need to learn to channel it even when your sister isn't about to be cleaved in two." She gestured to where Kalila had retreated, at the base of the goddess statue which dominated the room. Despite sitting crosslegged, the statue was almost as tall as the two-story room she occupied.
"From what I can tell from our records, your Triforce can feed off your desperation. When you feel weak, you call upon it for power without thinking about it." The elder continued to glare at him. "But magic is more than this, it is a tool to be commanded at will and not just a last desperate effort. You need to take possession of the power within you."
"You make it sound like I can just talk to it," Link countered. "Maybe I should learn magic the normal way first, I just don't seem capable of reasoning with this artifact."
"Then explain to me how you keep managing to use it on some of the temple's most powerful defenders." Kotake crossed her arms and glared at him.
"I…" Link hesitated, "I don't know. It's just that, when we are truly in danger everything clicks into place. I know exactly what I have to do in the moment, but afterwards I forget it all."
"You forget it all," Kotake scoffed, "Well we will keep going until you remember something." She walked over to the stairwell and shouted upwards, "Kohume, release the keese!"
Link sighed and walked over to Kalila, who was already assuming a defensive posture. "No help when I am getting a tongue lashing?"
Kalila shrugged, "That monster I will leave to you." They stood there for a moment, grinning at eachother, until the sound of hundreds of tiny wings from above snapped them back into the moment.
...
Ganondorf paused, panting for breath. Before him lay the scattered bones of the two skeleton warriors who had challenged him. The crypt was causing him to lose all sense of time as he continued to explore and fight his way through the horrors within. What is the point of this training, just to prove that I can fight my way through the undead? He sat down on the stone beneath him and poked at a femur with his sword.
"I guess, this is what I am truly meant to fight against. The return of the great evil and all that." He ran a hand through his orange hair and let out a sigh. "The curtain comes up, and we all take our places. Actors in a play which is to be rehearsed again and again before the goddesses." He chuckled, "and we go along with it, every time."
Lifting himself up, he proceeded wearily to the next room. A statue spun in the center, armed with two scythes protruding in either direction. The door on the other end was elevated above the ground level, presumably once there were a set of stairs running up to it. Pieces of chairs and tables lay strewn around the room, as if it had been some sort of dining area before the blades had begun their work. I wonder what this place was like, before fate decided to come in and work its own will.
He had been thinking a lot about fate recently, how his entire destiny and purpose were being dictated to him. A portion wanted him to rebel, to just stand still and let the spinning blades end the drama before the third act even hit. But… he thought, I can't do that, not to her. He had promised Zelda he would stand beside her. If securing the power to do so required trials like this, then so be it. Reaching the corner of the room, he noticed a pouch mixed in with the debris. Ducking under another pass by the blades, he snatched it and retreated to the doorway on the opposite side.
Opening it, he found a set of four claws, two with grips and two which looked like they would clamp to his boots. Looking down at them, he thought back to the pit and the brick walls which made up that first room. "Let's not," he commented, before equipping the claws and testing them against the wall. They dug easily into the cracks littering the stone, enabling him to pull himself up and work towards the door. Making sure the claws were secure, he took one hand and opened it before climbing into the entryway.
The first thing that struck him was the stench. It was like stepping into a barrier, trying to force his way through a hedge which had grown up in his path. Any attempt to move forward and push through was thwarted by an impenetrable crisscrossing network of branches. He blinked a few times to clear his watering eyes, only to make out a series of thin, sickly arms sticking straight up out of the ground. They stood taller than he, despite being no thicker than his own arms, and were topped by white hands with blood red talons. Despite their menacing appearance, they did not make any movement to his presence. That is, until the quivering mass on the opposite side of the room began to move.
Ganondorf's gut churned. The pale mass turned to face him, revealing an inhumanly long neck attached to a head with sunken, black eyes. The monsters mouth could easily accommodate Ganondorf's entire head, and it had no other appendages except for red-stained arms which ended in points. Opening its mouth in a silent roar, it began to move towards him as the hands also angled themselves to attack. Ganondorf screamed and leapt of the ledge, slamming the door behind him.
"Nope, nope, nope, nope," he chanted to himself, spurning himself onwards as he worked his way back through the traps and corridors. The metal hooks on his boots clacked against the ground as he ran. By the time he reached the room with the pit, his entire body was shaking from the exertion. Though he wanted to fling himself immediately against the wall, he took a moment to pause and rest. Looking back down the corridor, he couldn't make out any noises implying a pursuit. Regardless, he didn't plan on hanging out for very long.
Moving to the wall, he wedged his claws into the shallow cracks between the bricks. Testing his weight, he found that he was able to lift himself off of the floor with minimal difficulty. Hesitating a moment, he looked down at the bottomless pit again, feeling a little dizzy from what he was about to attempt. One look back down the corridor, however, and his hesitation vanished. Lifting himself fully off the platform, he worked one spike free and sought a new handhold.
Upon finally reaching the other side, he collapsed. "Solid ground," he muttered, temporarily overcome by his escape. Turning to look over his shoulder, he regarded the stone face which he had crawled out of, a face which now was terrifyingly familiar. Not waiting a moment longer, he pulled himself to his feet and moved quickly to the exit, promising himself he would never return.