Part I – A King is Born
Chapter XI – Divine Inspiration
There were two things in this world that Ganondorf hated. First was darkness. Darkness was the premonition of evil, the promise of bad things to come. Darkness controlled emotions and warped thoughts. But the one thing that Ganondorf hated the most about the dark was that it could deceive. It had the power to hide things, cloak people, and it held no alliances. The most dedicated thief, an ally to the shadows, couldn't even trust it. The second was silence. Silence meant one of two things, death or surprise. Ambushes are set in silence, it is a false security. But Ganondorf had been trained to analyze situations and he knew that silence was not safe. It was uncertain. Anything can happen when commotion dies. It was a saying within the Gerudo ranks that "Nothing is more unsettling than a quiet battlefield" and deservedly so. To Ganondorf, dark and peaceful was the worst chaos he had ever known. This was his training. Every morning he would train deaf, every afternoon he would train blind, and every night was another brutal shove into the tranquil bedlam that was fighting blind and deaf. Sometimes he would detect and exploit a pattern in the witches' attacks and be able to dodge a few, but the sisters quickly and easily corrected their fighting style to an unfamiliar pattern and the child would be thrown to the ground again.
You're holding back they'd say to him within his mind, you restrict yourself and that is what truly makes you weak. Use what you fear to release!
Today's training was no different than the last two months had been. The three had already trained blind and deaf and were right in the middle of another full session. Ganondorf couldn't see any incoming attacks and he couldn't hear them before they did. All he could do was wait for the next blast of Kotake's ice or Koume's fire to wound him and bring him closer to whatever strength they believed he had. The attacks never did any real damage but bruises were a common sight on his dark skin. Yet they healed overnight as if his bed was imbued with healing magic. In any case, Ganondorf didn't feel strength as the training carried on, he only felt anger. It was the same anger and frustration with himself he had felt when he had destroyed the leever, the same anger that hurt his own people, the same anger he feared. Each training session he went through gave rise to this feeling and each time it arose, Ganondorf held it down. He continued the training for his family, he wasn't going to take steps backward by losing control again. He didn't want to hurt anybody again.
However, two months of this intense training had loosed his grip on his emotions and it was only a matter of time before he broke. It felt like the twins were being more aggressive than before but it was just Ganondorf's hold on his aggravation mounting. They attacked much like the leever did, waiting for him to get up then attacking before he could fully recover. It was painful. It was humiliating. It was aggravating. Each attack brought his anger closer and closer to the surface and he wasn't going to be able to keep it together for much longer.
Then something different happened. Instead of his anger flaring into a blaze of uncontrolled rage, the world seemed to stop for a second as if time had a slight hiccup. Within that second Ganondorf heard a feint voice resonate from deep within his mind, a voice that had been trying to contact him for a while. In the single moment of clarity he heard a deep dark voice erupt from some dark hidden place in his mind and it gave him a single short sentence.
Use it.
At first Ganondorf was confused, use what? He didn't have any weapons or senses to defer to so he was genuinely puzzled. Then there was a single moment where Ganondorf considered something he hadn't before. Use… use my anger? Is that it?
All it took was the thought and Ganondorf felt a surge of power. It was unyielding, explosive, and extremely frightening. The sheer amount of power Ganondorf felt was incredible and exactly the kind of power he was looking for. The boy invited the feeling and embraced the power and when he opened his eyes he could see. But it was not the world as he knew it. Everything around him was illuminated with different colors that glowed from millions of particles that inhabited everything he looked at. The twins were silhouettes of blue and red among the greens and yellows illuminating the room. Then the twins attacked. Ganondorf felt the energy around him shift and change as spells were hurled through the air at him. Ganondorf made small and controlled movements that used the least amount of effort and made each attack miss by inches. The twin energies, connected by a thin white tether, gave off a positive feel as more attacks were thrown towards Ganondorf. He dodged each attack flawlessly as if he knew they were coming before they did. He moved with the fluidity of water and as the last spell sailed inches away from his arm, he couldn't help but smile from a sense of accomplishment. This was what the twins were training him for.
Koume floated over to him and removed the spells blinding and deafening him. When she removed her hands he was surprised to find that the energies that he saw were now overlapping his normal vision. He saw Koume and Kotake as he normally did but now the energies they exhumed coursed around them like a heavenly glow. When he looked at his hands they had a dark green glow around them.
"I think the boy has succeeded, huh Kotake?" "Yes he most certainly has. We must celebrate!"
The twins had the biggest grins he had ever seen on their faces and it was strangely comforting. They celebrated that night with sugary treats, baked bread, rice, and rich soup, all things that Ganondorf had only eaten on special occasions.
"Tomorrow your training changes." Koume said during the festivities, "No longer will there be such intense sparring." "Now we train your mind" "As well as your body."
Whether it was from the food or the strain that the training had put on him, Ganondorf nonetheless became tired early on in the celebration and retired to bed as the sun began to dip behind the final ceiling holes. As he lay falling asleep he couldn't help but feel a little hubris for the day's accomplishment.
….
Ganondorf stood before a being of tremendous size within a room of pure darkness. The giant being in front of him had long hair that seemed to be made out of fire. This fire illuminated the only circle of light within whatever dark realm that he found himself in and illuminated its back which looked to be made of rock. The rock was not solid as streams of molten magma flowed in between the cracks of the stone making defined lines in what looked to be the being's muscles. The giant man also had huge arms that were covered in black gleaming scales. His lower half was blocked from view by a sarong tied around His waist by a belt made of steel. It turned its head around and peered at Ganondorf with a single blood red eye over its shoulder.
At first, Ganondorf was afraid. The being gave off a tremendous amount of heat and the boy could feel his body complain about it. Then the heat died down a bit and his fear subsided. He then felt curious and ventured forward to the beings side. It smiled, the teeth in its mouth pointed as if filed, and seemed to like Ganondorf's show of trust. Then the being knelt down to Ganondorf and lay a giant hand on his shoulder. The boy was overtaken with a joyous feeling that took over his entire body. He felt as if he could do anything and that there wasn't anything that could stop him. Then the being reached towards its chest where a black vortex was bleeding darkness and pulled from him a single gold triangle. Taking his hand off Ganondorf, it offered the treasure to the boy.
But the boy didn't dare touch the gold. For some reason he had a complete revulsion to the gift and when he looked upon the being he felt anger and hatred so enormous he yelled at the figure. It drew a giant sword from the darkness around it and began to swing at Ganondorf. But whatever power it had transferred to the Gerudo was already at work against it as blow after blow bounced off of a transparent barrier around the boy. Ganondorf's incredible disgust for the wavering being was incredible and when he had had enough of the monster's attacks he quickly brought a hand up to face his palm at it.
In an instant the being went stiff, standing upright with its hands to its sides and chest puffed out. There was a mixture of fear and anger in its face but Ganondorf no longer cared about it. With a simple flick of his wrist the dark void in the demons chest exploded out and tendrils of its darkness arched around Ganonndorf. Then the being spoke in the strained voice of a dying man, "You may have made your choice, boy. But in the end we are the same. The spitting image. You may not accept it, but we really are… kindred spirits…" the being began to disappear into thin air, "you…" the image of the demon faded, "and I."
The being may have been gone but the light its hair produced was now centered on Ganondorf and he could now see the tendrils of darkness circling him slowly like hunters that had surrounded their prey. Then, without warning they attacked. The tendrils of darkness burrowed into his flesh and began to change him. His legs grew long and had extra joints, his arms and hands cracked and rearranged to form claws, and his nose turned into a large snout with giant tusks protruding from his mouth.
Then he was in front of the monster that he had become. A demon born of darkness and fostered on anger and hatred stood before him with the same red eyes as the demon before it. It had two giant swords in its massive claws that glowed an unnatural yellow. One of them was raised high above its head. Ganondorf couldn't move as the blade was brought down on-
Ganondorf awoke from his sleep with a jolt and he bolted upright in his bed. He was breathing very heavily and sweat had begun to soak through his night clothes. Then he heard a sound from the middle of the room that made him jump slightly. He took some deep breaths and when he got his heart rate under control he was able to listen more closely to the sounds. He turned to the middle of the room where the two witches were standing side by side with their backs to him. They had their hands linked and were muttering something loud enough for Ganondorf to make out some of the words. The two were talking in unison the entire time.
"Yes master. He has passed. He now sees the magic of the world."
The twins paused and Ganondorf, intreagued, stood from his bed and started to make his way to where they stood.
"He does not know yet, my lord." The two spoke in tandem with each other, "I will reveal his divine purpose when he has mastered enough techniques."
Now the twins were referring to themselves in the singular "I" instead of "we". This was even more concerning as he approached the entranced twins. A deep purple aura enveloped the two.
"I will see to this part of the training myself."
Ganondorf reached the twins and, in an effort to snap them out of their trance, he placed a hand on Koume's shoulder. The purple aura jumped from the twins and enveloped Ganondorf as shocks of pain arched up his arm. He shut his eyes, then the pain stopped. When he opened his eyes he was greeted by a large grassy area that was receded into the ground and had only one access rout via a natural spiral ramp that ran around the deep crater in the center was a circular pattern with the twins standing in its center with their backs to him like in the temple.
"So this is the trainee?" an unfamiliar voice echoed through the air. It was a voice of false kindness with a high note at the end of each syllable but coming to an evil hiss towards the end. Ganondorf looked around yet the only entities that remained in the area were the twins and himself. Then black and silver diamonds as thin as paper materialized in the air around him and slowly drifted over to a central point. A silhouette began to form from the many two dimensional pieces but some seemed to get confused and floated uncertainly around the figure while the other formed together. When the diamonds stopped materializing, what had been silhouetted was the form of a man, tall and thin, but with random pieces missing from random parts of his form. The most noticeable of which was the large hole in the middle of his chest. Then the shadow gained color and definition. But the figure beneath the shadow was no less unsettling.
The man taking form had a very slim figure but with defined muscles where they showed. The man had a bright red cloak draped over their shoulders but it too had a hole through its chest piece, showcasing the hole in his chest. One of the most strikingly bizarre features of the man was how white he was. His hair was bleached, the gloves and skin tight under clothes were completely white, and his skin was a slightly darker grey that did little to completely distinguish it from his clothes. The being completely removed himself from the shadow and uneasily stepped forward onto the floor. But the man's figure was just as incomplete as his silhouette was. His left leg was missing its lower calf portion and chunks of his arms, abdomen, and head were completely gone leaving angular holes that revealed darkness inside them. His hair covered half of his face shielding what looked to be further disfigurements to his visage. But the eye that did show had strange black cracks that radiated off of it like broken pottery. Finally, and the most unorthodox thing to Ganondorf, were the pointed ears that he had on each side of his head. They were so strangely long and, to make them even more repulsive, they had no lobes. Their shape reminded Ganondorf of spears and made him absentmindedly touch his own ears.
"Please excuse my… less than graceful appearance. A few millennia will definitely do a number on one's figure." The man paced around Ganondorf seemingly trying to get used to his new form, "But I think I pull it off spectacularly, especially given my age."
"Who… who are you? What have you done to the twins?"
"I am fine young prince." The twins said in unison.
"Don't worry about them, boy. They aren't the focal point of the gods anymore. Right now," the man teleported behind Ganondorf, "you are."
"What? How…" Ganondorf sputtered but before he could turn around the man grabbed his shoulders and brought his mouth uncomfortably close to the boys ear.
"Listen worm and listen well, there'll be a test at the end of the lecture." The man's voice was like a hissing snake, sending chilling spikes up Ganondorf's spine, "My name is Girahim and I don't take kindly to orders from lesser creatures. There are far more valuable pieces in this game, stronger forces at work, and beings that would topple your highest notion of power manipulating this world. There will come a time in your training where you will be taught this. But for now you are…" Girahim appeared in front of Ganondorf, "Insignificant!"
Girahim thrust his hand out towards Ganondorf and he was hurled backwards. His eyes instinctually shut from the sheer force and when he hit the hard floor he opened them again. The space changed back into the twin's room with everything as he had left it. The twins seemed to be knocked from their trance as well but much less violently. They turned to Ganondorf with annoyance plastered on their faces.
Kotake sighed, "You know, we weren't ready for you to meet Girahim," "but we guess it isn't too bad you met him on your own terms." "I suppose an explanation is in order." "Come, sit, we will explain."
Ganondorf made his way over to the rug and sat on the pre-placed pillow. Even though it had only been three months it felt like an eternity since they had just sat down and talked.
Kotake began as soon as Ganondorf got settled, "Lord Girahim is his full title" "And as you could tell he is a bit… umm," "Eccentric" "Yes, that's the word. Girahim has taught us everything we know." "Spells," "Potions," "Incantations," "Summonings," "Every magical thing we can do is all thanks to Lord Girahim." "He's our ancestor."
"Ancestor? He said he was millennia old!"
"Well, divine inspiration I guess." "Though there is a part of us that is part of his line." "However down that line it is."
"Alright, but who was he talking to?"
Kotake was the first to be confused by the question, "What do you… he was talking to us, of course." "What kind of question is that?"
"Then why did you refer to yourselves as 'I' instead of 'we'? He was talking to both of you and yet you responded as one person."
The twins looked in towards each other and gasped in unison, "Oh… Twinrova."
"What?"
"You see," the twins turned back towards the boy, "Girahim was talking to us but… not us? Kotake, is this the correct way to explain this?" "Mmm… yes. Correct, yes. Most coherent? Not at all. But definitely correct." "Then what's a better way to explain this?" "I, uh… only see demonstration as a fitting method." "Oh is that really necessary, Kotake?" "I believe it is the only way he'll truly understand." "But Twinrova, she's just so… annoying." "I know sister and frankly, I'd rather not deal with her right now either. Ganondorf this will wait 'till tomorrow." "Oh, thank the goddess." Koume sighed in relief.
Although Ganondorf didn't really understand what was really happening anymore, his brain tiring from being woken from sleep, he retired to bed at least half content that answers would be provided when the morning came.
