"The First Generations of Dragmire lived in Reylisia for many years, no better or worse off than any of the other clans

"The First Generations of Dragmire lived in Reylisia for many years, no better or worse off than any of the other clans. Over the years, several of the clans specialized in certain trades or talents; for the Sauteri, it was strategy and combat. For the Omako, story-telling and entertainment. The Dragmire, of course, specialized in magic, particularly the dark arts.

"Gerudo politics are nervous at best, and each clan has at one point or another attempted to take control of the country. Technically, representatives from each clan are supposed to choose the High King. Coups, however, are common. At some point a Sauteri – that's King Ridiyah's clan – overthrew a Dragmire High King. In addition to fighting resistance by force, the Sauteri king planted seeds of suspicion in the peoples' minds, leading them to believe that the Dragmire held secret powers over death and disease, and would unleash these among all the Gerudo if they were not destroyed.

"After several fierce battles, the Dragmire fled in the only direction they were not pursued – the Great Wasteland. After losing most of those few who remained, they came across a series of small fiefdoms in a spacious, bountiful country. Their head, a woman named Sogolon, negotiated with the Four Races of Hyrule and settled her people on the edge of the Great Wasteland.

"For centuries, the Second Generations of Dragmire lived alongside the other races, albeit not always peacefully. They adapted to their new lifestyle and, though they chose guardians to keep the old ways, began to forget their history and their homeland. Unfortunately, as the Hylians gained wealth and power, they began to make demands on the others who inhabited 'their' land. They claimed their royal family's line was the guardian of a sacred treasure, the cornerstone of the entire country, and therefore had rights to all parts of it. The other indigenous races, none of them strong fighters, for the most part bent to their will.

"But the Gerudo refused, and with dissidents from the other races, mounted a rebellion. The Hylians called it the Great War, or the Fierce War…you probably know it better than I do."

Here Link interrupted King Ogadai, tugging at the translation device he had given him. "Yeah, we've got that pretty well covered. We heard they left because of a great famine."

Ogadai blinked, and turned to Ganondorf. "He 'heard'? Did you not know the nature of your own peoples' demise?"

Ganondorf flinched ever so slightly. "I was imprisoned in the underworld for several years, over which time they died out."

Asai leaned in closer. "Was this part of the pact you made with the Hylians?"

He shook his head. "That came later."

She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Zelda interrupted her. "It's a very complicated story. Maybe we can tell you more after we're finished with this one."

Asai sat back, and Ogadai continued. "After the battle for the Hylian Triforce, the Gerudo's meager resources had deteriorated to almost nothing. The Princess of that time – that's you – had offered aid, but just as the society began to rebuild itself, your son cut it off, after you died."

Zelda bowed her head. "Forgive me for the mistakes of my descendants. I did not live very long after that altercation with Ganondorf, and I could not pass on my wisdom to my son."

Ogadai inclined his head slightly in her direction, accepting her apology. "The Spirit Temple guardian's daughter, Namu, grasped the severity of the situation and told her people to choose – to stay in Hyrule and wait out the famine, or follow her on a desperate mission to return to the homeland. Some joined her, some stayed. Only a handful of those that followed her into the Great Wasteland survived the trip, but all of those who remained in Hyrule perished.

"Unfortunately, more trouble awaited these Dragmire, the Third Generations. By this time the Dragmire had become little more than tales of ill omen in Reylisian society, and were shunted to the outskirts of society. Even so, we are a strong people, and managed to create a small haven for ourselves in this country. We still had allies, and were among our own people, so we figured that we at least were luckier than our Hylian counterparts.

"Then Ridiyah took power. He felt that the Dragmire had gained too much acceptance among the other clans, and dug up the old tactics of his ancestor. In addition…he appears to have taken an interest in sorcery, legitimizing his claims to our meager magic by stating only a 'dependable' leader can control it."

Here Ogadai nodded to Asai, and she continued the tale, her face darkening with each statement. "So how does Ridiyah use our magic if he and his clan never learned it? He kidnaps our people and forces them to give up their knowledge. Yet sorcery is an inborn talent – a person without such talent can learn it, but never master it – so much of our arts can only be seen in artifacts like your translator device. And, of course…the Clockwork Hound." Scowling deeply, she ignored Ganondorf's attempts to catch her eye.

"The Hound was once a form of security," Ridiyah stated. "It would patrol the borders and keep out intruders. Nowadays, it is used to sniff out dissidents and crush anyone Ridiyah perceives as a threat. Those without magic talent are killed on the spot; those with magic skills are brought to the bowels of the palace, where they are tortured until they give up their information."

"Does Ridiyah know that this settlement exists?" Zelda asked.

"He knows it exists," Asai answered, "but he doesn't know where it is or how to get to it. That doesn't stop him from trying, however."

"He pretended the Dragmire don't exist." Ganondorf gave her a puzzled look. "Does the rest of Reylisia believe this? Or is it just something they tell outsiders whom they don't want prying into their secrets?"

Asai sat back and sighed. "Most Gerudo know there is a hidden clan living among them. We do have a few allies among the lower classes. However, they will never mention us, for doing so will bring the Hounds after them. We have been in hiding so long that many of the younger Gerudo believe we are a myth, a kind of bogeyman race that mothers use to frighten their children."

A spasm of rage crossed Ganondorf's face. "And what are you doing to correct this?"

An identical flash sparked in Asai's eyes. "Who are you to question us, Mad King?"

Before Ganondorf could answer, Ogadai stated, "Actually, I was hoping you could help us. I told you of the prophecy given to us by the High Priestess. Would you be willing to lend your aid to the cause?"

"I am," Ganondorf replied immediately.

"As am I," Zelda added.

Link nodded. "Me too!"

Asai slammed her fist on the table, startling the other four as well as a set of Gerudo who had been ignoring their conversation. Her head down, obviously struggling to restrain herself, Asai said to Ogadai, "Your Highness. I am sorry, but I must respectfully bring this to the attention of the Council."

Ogadai sat up straight. "Asai. I hardly think this merits bringing in…"

Sticking her finger in Ganondorf's face, she snapped, "He is the reason we are here in the first place. Have you forgotten that this is the man who threw away his entire clan for a place among foreign gods? I will not participate in any plan that involves him, without the Council's blessing."

She stood up and stalked off into the night.

"What Council?" Ganondorf demanded of Ogadai. "I thought they were only needed if there was no male to lead."

Ogadai sighed. "I'm sorry, but your reign has left quite a mark on our people. One of the changes made after the exodus from Hyrule was the appointment of a full-time Council. Any member can call them into session to take a vote on any issue. They are rarely called to session – I've never had the Council question my judgment. Until now, that is."

"My own former adversaries will vouch for my character." Here Ganondorf gave both Link and Zelda a look that clearly said they better not say otherwise.

Neither would have contradicted him anyway. "A lot has changed since then," Zelda assured Ogadai. "In fact, when our country was threatened by an outside source, Ganondorf helped us secure it. That is why the Goddesses allowed him – and us – to remember ourselves in the Endless Cycle."

Ogadai shook his head. "It's not me, but the Council you have to convince. They will likely convene tomorrow afternoon."

"Then we'll speak before the Council," Link declared.

"You may do as you wish," Ogadai said with a sigh. "I don't think the words of a foreigner will help much." He stood. "In the meantime, though, you are our honored guests. The festivities will go on all night; you might as well have a bit of fun before we turn back to grave matters tomorrow." He bowed slightly, and followed Asai's path.

Link stared after him. "That was weird."

Zelda shook her head. "This place is very different from the Gerudo Desert back home. It doesn't surprise me that this Third Generation has adapted to its surroundings. What do you think, Ganondorf?"

They both turned to find his seat empty. Glancing around, they spotted him downing an enormous flask of the palm wine that flowed freely during the feast, surrounded by a group of the locals cheering him on.

Link made a face. "I'd expected him to be a little more serious about this. I know the King said 'have fun', but…"

A small line of worry formed over Zelda's brows. "I have a feeling there is more to it…let's go join him."

Link followed her, reluctantly, to the edge of the raucous crowd. Ganondorf and one of the women appeared to be having a kind of shouting match, but as the two Hylians drew closer, they could distinguish rhyming words amid the loud clapped beat.

Take it closer, take it high

I know it's coming, time is nigh

Blood will flow, tears will fall,

Returning home? None at all

Take it on, take it hard

Pulling out the spearhead shard

Retribution, it comes near

I have no time for love or fear

Pray that I might see dawn again

Pulling deep from the strength within!

Ganondorf's booming voice contrasted sharply with his opponent's high shriek as they traded verses, the whole group cheering as they both finished. "What's going on?" Zelda asked a woman sitting near the edge.

"You don't know?" She blinked, then smiled. "Hylians don't play this? It's a game, sort of. Two people make a song, out of their own heads. One person starts and the other has to match it with a rhyming verse."

Link's mouth dropped open. "You mean, they make it up as they go along?"

She nodded. "Takes a lot of talent, yes? Your friend is very good!"

"I imagine he would be," Link muttered under his breath. "He always had a thing for obnoxious speeches."

Another woman, who had obviously had one too many, wrapped her arms around Link's neck. "Ehhh, cousin, are all men this small in your country? Can he even wield a sword?"

The first woman laughed. "Don't you know, it's not the size that matters, but how he uses it?"

The crowd responded with a roar of laughter and Link flushed, sensing the double entendre.

"Honored Guest!" Another woman shoved something into Zelda's hands. "Here, a gift from the best perfume-maker of the Dragmire. One drop will send handsome men running to your door!"

"She doesn't need it," Ganondorf shouted over the din. "You can lock her up and she'll still have them breaking down the door!" More laughter and pounding of fists on tables. Seeing the pair's indignant faces, he thrust two flasks of palm wine at them. "Don't take it personally! They are just teasing you. They don't mean anything by it. Gerudo parties are always a little raucous."

He opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off by cheers as a woman from another table jumped on top and began an impromptu dance. "A little?" Link muttered.

Zelda raised the flask to her lips, so as not to seem rude. To her surprise, the wine had a sweet, pleasant taste, as well as fruity pulp. "There's more in this than just wine," she said more to herself than anyone.

A woman next to her nodded. "Gerudo don't make any food that doesn't have any nutrition in it."

As Link dubiously sampled his wine, Zelda watched Ganondorf. Despite all the liquor, his eyes looked clear, and she saw something in them that she had never seen before – pure joy. Did finding his lost people really affect him this deeply? She said nothing for several minutes as he and all the other Gerudo cheered on the dancing woman, who kept calling out to the only two men in the group. Ganondorf responded with teasing; Link looked uncomfortable.

"I haven't had this much fun since King Ogadai's karakuri!" one woman exclaimed, prompting Link to tap the translator in his ear.

"What's karakuri?" he asked.

She dissolved into a fit of giggles. Another woman answered Link's question. "It means 'Year of Plenty', roughly translated. When a Gerudo king finally reaches full maturity, all women of childbearing age are given extra food…so they can carry healthy children, you see. It kicks off with a party, with lots of food for everyone, food you don't see at any other time."

"Like candied cactus fruit!" The giggling woman exclaimed. "Peeled, covered in honey, and filled with cream!"

"And roast dragon-snake, the heart and stomach ground into sausage, everything covered in spices!" the other woman added.

"Of course, only the King gets the fried goat eggs."

"Goats don't lay eggs," Link pointed out.

This prompted the two women to fall over laughing. Evidently he'd stumbled into another innuendo.

Suddenly Ganondorf rose. "Will you excuse me?" he said, giving the women a gracious bow. "I haven't spoken to everyone yet."

"Oh, but this is the best table! Stay here!" the giggling woman exclaimed.

He bowed again with a smile. "I'll come back, don't worry."

Zelda tugged at Link's sleeve. "Something happened when they mentioned the party. Go talk to him, will you?"

Link gave her an incredulous look. "What makes you think he'll want to talk to me? Why don't you do it, Keeper of Wisdom?"

"Well, because I think it was talk of the karakuri that prompted him to leave…and you're a man."

"I don't know anything about weird Gerudo bedroom customs!"

"Well, I can't do it!"

Link huffed. "Fine. But if I come back here with a dislocated shoulder and a broken spine, I'm blaming you…"

-&-

The holy Triforce as a curse mark. That was a new one.

Ganondorf scowled at the bars of the Hylian dungeon cell holding him in. He had left Kando to find the ruler of this land, who supposedly could give him information about the mark on the back of his hand. Unfortunately, the kingdom was not as stable as people made it out to be, and the uncle of the child Princess – now a teenager – had somehow managed to convince his people that the holy mark brought ill tidings. Apparently, people kept trying to steal it for their own ends, as it granted unimaginable power.

He should have suspected something was up when he saw that the images of the relic had been chiseled out of the castle's decorations, leaving it looking like a smallpox survivor. Well, it made no difference. He had found his way out of dungeons before. The skinny Hylian guard eyed him warily, knowing that the prisoner could overpower him if given a chance.

He heard a muffled ruckus from the other side of the main door to the cell block; the door opened, and a guard walked in carrying a small boy. The boy could not have been more than ten years old, yet he struggled and shouted as if he were used to fighting his way out of these situations.

The guard threw the boy into the cell next to Ganondorf. Rising to his feet and pushing the blonde hair out of his eyes, the miniature fighter rattled the door a bit, then stuck his fingers in the lock, investigating its mechanism.

"What're you in for, kid?" Ganondorf asked. "You're no street rat; those are farmer's clothes you're wearing."

The boy turned to him with huge blue eyes that got even wider. "You've got a mark like mine!" He held up his hand to show an identical three-triangle seal.

Ganondorf frowned. What was this puny kid doing with the symbol of the Goddesses? He had to admit, though, the boy was stronger than he looked. "That's right. You don't know what it means?" The boy shook his head. "It's a magic symbol. The Princess around here has one, and could tell us more, but there's some kind of royal dispute going on and she's been locked up."

"Then we should find her!" the boy said eagerly.

Laughing, Ganondorf replied. "Oh, of course. I'm sure if we ask the guard nicely he'll let us pay her a visit."

Leaning in close, the boy whispered, "If you can keep the guard busy, I can pick the locks."

"Seriously?" Ganondorf's eyes widened. "What's your name, kid?"

"It's Link. What's yours?"

Strange, it sounds familiar, though I know I've never seen this kid before. "Well, Link, I'm Ganondorf of Kando."

-&-

"They're not promiscuous," the big man said as Link approached him, sitting on a rough bench just outside the circle of light cast by the party fires.

"Huh?"

"They don't really mean what they're saying, it's all talk. Well…not all of it, but you know what I mean. When your people are constantly living at the edge of survival, reproduction becomes a frequent topic."

Link sat on the other side of the bench. "I didn't think that. I'm just not used to people being so open."

Ganondorf sighed. "We always got a lot of trouble in Hyrule for that. Two very different races, with very different ideas…sometimes a simple misunderstanding is enough to start a war."

Sensing he was on the edge of something, Link stayed silent. Finally Ganondorf spoke again. "My karakuri…it was one of the things that sparked the Fierce War. We didn't have any candied fruit or roast dragon-snake. It took place at the end of a three-year drought. The elders delayed the karakuri for two years, then decided that any more would be a bad omen. So we had to steal even more than usual, not just from merchants but regular people, the Zora and Gorons as well as the Hylians. People chose sides; on one, the King promised to stop the raids by forcing all the races to follow Hylian law. On the other were the people who wanted Hyrule to remain a collection of fiefdoms, who argued with us that the Hylians' possession of the best land had brought this upon them.

"You know how that ended. But what you may not know is what I had to put up with when I continually pledged my loyalty to the King. If I brought Nabooru with me, he would leer at her with such intense lust that I had to restrain her from attacking him herself.

Ganondorf gritted his teeth. "And then, when I visited, I began searching through histories and other documents, some of which no one was allowed to see. I found out about the Triforce, of course. But the things I learned made me determined to kill the King, even if obtaining the Triforce was impossible."

Link turned toward him upon hearing this last statement. Ganondorf stared straight ahead, his face twisted into an angry grimace. "I found out that the band of raiders who killed my mother and one of my aunts was really a group of mercenaries hired by the King. I found out that a sick animal that the King's men released at the edge of our Fortress, had introduced the outbreak of pox that afflicted us when I was a child."

His voice grew deeper, livid, his eyes taking on the same burning quality that seared through Link during every one of their confrontations. "I found pages and pages of speeches made by the King comparing us to cockroaches, saying we needed to be stomped out, stopped from breeding, before we overran the country and poisoned it. Such bitter hatred in his words! So I made a vow. Even if I could not obtain the Goddesses' power and reshape the world as I saw fit, I would make sure I ended his reign. His daughter was wise beyond her years; if I sacrificed myself, perhaps she would spare my people."

Link drew in his breath. "But…why didn't you tell Zelda from the beginning? Maybe if you had waited until she took the throne, none of this would have happened."

Ganondorf shook his head. "We didn't have enough time to wait until the crown passed to her. He was set on our destruction. Besides…" He paused, as if unsure whether or not to go on, and an involuntary tremor ran through him. "I wanted to tell her. When we are waiting in Yomi, I desperately want to throw in her face what an ugly, nauseating, idiotic, and putrid waste of a human being her father was."

He took a deep breath. "But I can't I just can't tell her those things about the father she still mourns. I can't slice through her heart like that, not when we're sentient, not when we remember who we are. Because…you…and she…are the only-"

Abruptly he stopped, and stiffened. Standing, he spoke in his normal voice. "I don't want to be half-asleep when the Council convenes tomorrow. If you really want to help, you should get some rest too." He walked away.

Link sat stunned for several moments, then crept back to where Zelda sat. "Well? What did you find out?" she asked.

He looked off into the darkness of the night. "I'm not sure even where to begin."