The main entrance of the lair was somewhat more obvious than the brewery bolt-hole had been. Ganondorf instantly understood why it would have been a useless idea to walk in the front door: it was a tradehouse in the middle of the makeshift city. Tearing through it would have given the operation precious time to mount something more organized than the poor resistance Ganondorf had faced down below.

Not that it had mattered. Zelda was gone and away. Ganondorf's foul mood didn't temper him; he nearly wrenched the front doors off their shrieking hinges as he burst through. "And where were you?"

Link was quite small, hidden in the wake of Ganondorf's fury. The tradesmen scattered; the few of Blind's old guards inside left took one look at Ganondorf and fled for their lives. The man himself hadn't really considered what he would look like, walking about after the struggle down below. His wounds were closed, but his clothes still were sodden with gore, and his sword blood-smeared. Ganondorf couldn't put it away in such a state; he just kept it out. Let them run, a satisfied part of him said. They ought to run.

"Meeting father," said Link after a nervous pause. "But more important things happened, so I had to come get you."

"I was a fool to think there wasn't more to this," Ganondorf grumbled. He'd been taken for a ride, he realized. How hadn't it been obvious? How could it have been so simple to think that Zelda merely needed rescuing and there was a Sheikah and a would-be Hero on watch to guide him into the bandits' lair so smoothly and easily, that they'd not bat an eye at him as the King of Evil? The boy had clearly been instructed to double back, and Ganondorf had let him out of his sight!

How foolish have I become to let a spy run loose?!

Ever since that whack on the head, Ganondorf had become acutely aware of how this one flaw, this one succeptibility to panic and fury had seemingly ruined absolutely everything he'd managed to reclaim. And it sickened him that it was so difficult to understand his surroundings while unable to stop himself; how does one realize he has to think harder when the problem is a fundamental lack of thought? He spit on a rag, a corner of what was his ruined sleeve, and roughly wiped off his blade. A sickly gush of gelatinous blood and fat slid off the tip, leaving it stained but at least clean. Ganondorf put it away; he'd polish away the faint red taint later.

"It doesn't matter," he snarled out loud. "The girl can't have gotten far, without money, shelter, resources..."

"Actually, she has a cache," Link said.

"What?! How!?" Ganondorf's pace quickened over the filth and dirt paths, parting the crowd. "She hadn't left her room!"

Link's voice could barely be heard over the clatter and the dull hum of the street noise. "She tucked notes into mens' pockets. Eventually one reached my father's eyes, and we prepared one for her. That's why I broke into your rooms, to leave the instructions about where the cache was, when she escaped."

The boy's voice turned wistful, as if recounting a job well-done. "They were rolled up in a spool of thread."

"I'm not a fool," snapped Ganondorf, "If you had not entered to take from me, then you had to have left something behind."

"Then why didn't you find it?" asked Link, innocently. "And stop it?"

"I don't have the patience for your games," said Ganondorf, in a tone that cleared half the street. "I don't care to search every damn tangle of thread, or for your useless yarns, either."

"You care an awful lot for not caring," Link observed.

That was it. For all his rabbitlike agility, Link could not avoid the full fury of Ganondorf whirling around to pluck him like an offending weed from the dirt. Ganondorf hoisted him over his shoulder like so much baggage, where the boy struggled in terror. "It's a good thing I know someone who cares for you," said Ganondorf. "And for your sake, I hope he cares deeply."

Zelda had even been so bold as to mention how inopportune a rescue would be, to say to Ganondorf's very face how relieved she was to be in his care, safe from Hyrule's grasp. Ganondorf hadn't entertained that she meant to orchestrate her own freedom, instead. He could have kicked himself. Of course she was going to escape on her own. How could he have underestimated her strength of will?

Insufferable woman!

"I will have no more of your, and Impaz' attempts to manipulate me," said Ganondorf. "This is the way to get some honesty out of that son-of-keese father of yours."

Ganondorf hardly had finished when out of the darkness of a thin alley, something long and pale snaked from the shadows and curled around his throat. Choking in surprise at its sudden, frightening strength, Ganondorf found himself hauled into the close and dark quarters of a crevasse barely wide enough for him to turn sideways. In fact, he was nearly stuck; unable to twist around to draw his sword, not that he could in the first place with Link gripped in his one good hand. He scratched helplessly with his capped arm at what he first thought was a rope.

It was hair, a long, twisting braid that tightened with a life of its own. If it was a serpent, its fang was a wickedly curved, heavy blade tied into the end: pressing lightly into the apple of his throat. Attached to that plaited noose was Impaz, the flush of fury plain to see under the glaze of skin. His eyes were more than bloodshot: they were crimson in rage. In one hand, he held a long, hooked knife that oozed a dark liquid from bottomless grooves: meant to tear the skin and invenomate as quickly as possible. In the other, he held a silk fan. In the low light only the tiniest glint from the spokes revealed that the thing was not only laced with razor wire, the leaves were blades themselves and when held in a fist, separated to become a claw of nightmares.

The most macabre corner of Ganondorf's mind wondered if the poison or the blood loss would kill first. The terrible animate braid tightened once again about his neck, the serrated needle plucking along his skin with frightening intimacy.

"Put my son down," said Impaz.

"After such negligence to send him with the King of Evil," Ganondorf choked, "you object?"

"Put my son down."

"Can you protect the wretch from his destiny, and the dangers that go with it?"

"Put my son down," warned Impaz, "Or I will put you down."

It was then that Ganondorf noticed the army of eyes staring out of the dark: staring, silent. They glinted as dully as their blades did, watching. Held back in shadows, only by Impaz himself. Women's eyes, the Naked Eye. More appeared, swarming like the most ravenous of cats. Return the brother, they said, in an unspoken language that Ganondorf found he recognized, from long, long ago. It was a sort of understanding that he was an orphan from, was startled to see again in the waking world. It cut to the heart of him: peeling him like a withered apple until his flesh fell away and the seeds of his memory and mind were exposed to the dry, choking air.

"I will put you down and there'll not be enough shreds of you even for Din to piece together."

Ganondorf dropped Link. The boy slid in terror off of his shoulder, and seemed to ooze behind his father: slinking so low in fear that he seemed almost part of the ground itself. The Sheikah's demeanor changed drastically as the long braid went limp, and then slithered away from Ganondorf's neck. It twisted itself up upon Impaz' head once more, and wagged passively with the man's swaying posture.

"Thank you," said the Sheikah. His girls vanished like a flight of starlings, winging off to places unknown. "Now, we might as well get to business."

"No. Stop." said Ganondorf. "You have much to answer for. I will not be led around like a-"

"It was necessary to move you to eliminate Blind, before the deal could be made," said Impaz quite sharply. "I feared for Zelda's safety; while she may believe that people get what they pay for, Blind had other ideas. There was no pressure on him to deliver her alive, merely to keep her alive as long as it was possible to extract information and possibly wealth from her. When he discovered there was no chance at present of retaking her kingdom, he'd have cut his losses rather than harbor a fugitive."

Ganondorf folded his arms, rubbing his sore and somewhat weeping stump. He must have banged it earlier, in the fight. Blue potion really didn't know what to do with pre-existing conditions, it seemed.

"You must leave this city," said Impaz. "In fact, everyone must."

"Where there's a deal, there are two parties," replied Ganondorf, the light of understanding filtering over his mind. "I expect Hyrule has come to collect."

"Yes, and on swift horses. They will be here within a day." The Sheikah paused. "I have riled the folk here into building a blockade, at least. But that will not last for long against trained soldiers. I thank you for your work, Evil One. I can trust you to keep Zelda in your care, for at least a little while longer."

Ganondorf's brow crushed down upon the offending statement. "Do you see any Zelda with me?"

Impaz waved the comment off. "It you don't have her now, you'll acquire her soon enough. You always do; you can hardly expect me to tell you how to do your business, can you?"

"Then, stop wasting my time," said Ganondorf. "But tell me what will become of the boy."

"My son is no concern of yours," said Impaz warningly.

"No, I think he is," said Ganondorf. "When your son happens to be the Hero of this age."

The answer came in the form of silence. Impaz threw down a flash of smoke and light nearly before Ganondorf's voice faded from the alley, and he was gone. With Link, as well; the alley was empty by the time the spots faded from Ganondorf's eyes.

Ganondorf kicked the unlucky foundation of a mud-daube house. It cracked under his steel-toed boot. The afternoon had been a waste, all of it! No Zelda, no leads as to her location, and now soldiers approached...! In dealing with the Sheikah and that damnable son, he was no closer to his goal than before. That was the way with them, he swore, and stepped out into the town's chaos to at least call the damage that had been done.

Wretched and treacherous he was, there was no doubt that the Sheikah had been busy. The town surrendered its precious artifacts: wood, stone, iron, to build a blockade before their only gates. It was a pathetic defense, but it was all an island of wretches amidst the resource-poor wastes could manage. The road skirted where the moors met the sandy desert, which faded into a slurry of quicksand and mire on the village's opposite side: the side they'd approached, Ganondorf thought, when he and Zelda had discovered the settlement in the first place. But there would be no soldiers from there.

And the townsfolk were terrified. Ganondorf understood. The outrage of marching soldiers on their previously-safe haven, and they'd never know it was one of their own that had drawn them close in the first place. But, all of them were fool Hylians, and full of ego. They cried out for the meager prices on their own heads, bawled about their brats who'd be left after their outlaw sires had been arrested and executed. None of them knew that it was Zelda, not their own worthless crimes, that Hyrule had finally came for.

Ganondorf could feel the blood pound in his head as he traced her probable steps. She had been in Blind's grasp, and the bow she had carried was the rough-strung one taken from their rooms, with the last of the chicken-fletched arrows. Those stuck in Ganondorf's mind: clear in detail amidst the haze of his fury. Then, he had lost her whilst injured and sightless, but he assumed she had fled.

And then... where?! Ganondorf shoved men out of his way as he tore down the narrow avenue, feeling his the knuckles of his one fist clench, his skin boil in fury.

No. Think. He forced what felt like molten lead back inside his mind, and threw himself at the problem. Old bow. Old money. Only a few arrows. She hadn't had the cache that the Sheikah had spoken of on her. Which meant that she would have ran to collect it. Ganondorf did not know where it was hidden, but had a guess about what was in it. Arms, food, water, supplies for the road, an easy escape.

All of which were far too much for her to carry in her own two arms.

Ganondorf bolted to the stables, plowing up the avenue and leaving a till of upturned bodies in his wake. He did not pray, but demanded of the cosmos and the universe itself that he was not too late to catch her. It took too long for his liking to reach the tired floorboards of the barn. By chance, two armed men burst into the stable on the other end, just as Ganondorf arrived. The looks on their faces were rapacious and panicked; Ganondorf supposed that while half the town threw its belongings into defending what little they all shared, the other half would loot the corpse and run for it. One of the men was laden with spoils already, and immediately sprang to one of the stable doors to find a beast to haul it away for him.

Or maybe their plan was simpler: Steal a horse, and get out while they could.

There was only one horse left for the three of them, however. Ganondorf, and the other men, they all ran at the stall with wild yells, scrambling for the lock. Ganondorf drew his sword, and aimed to slit the nearest's throat. In poor-handed aim, he missed and instead beheaded the man. Such was life. He turned to the next one as the hot blood pooled about his boots, sprayed his trousers. The man went chalk-white, and cried out in perfect horror.

"Monster!"

The scream cut short with a gurgle as two steel hooks sprouted from the man's neck. Hoof-picks, Ganondorf realized. Mundane tools, in the hands of an old man; Talon had been so quiet that Ganondorf almost suspected magic. But the horse thief fell to the floor just the same, and Talon's sightless gaze averted the act entirely, staring at Ganondorf's calculated height. He hunched, shrinking back down from the shadow of an assassin, into the aged stable master once again.

"It's a dreadful thing," said Talon calmly. "That's the fourth one in the past hour. Is there some sort of commotion? I've sold more animals today than I ever have before, and turned away even more unruly men."

"Yes. Hyrule is coming, old man. You'd be wise to leave," said Ganondorf, though he noted that Talon with his wrinkles was practically a babe compared to the annals of his own antiquity. "Have any thieves been a woman?"

"No, the woman wisely decided to pay," Talon said. "For the finest of the lot, too. Too big for her, and I told her so, but-"

"Did she carry a load?" Ganondorf snapped, unwilling to tolerate Talon's nattering. "Did you hear her hitch supplies to the beast?"

"No. She paid, and then was off with it," said Talon. "Are you after her?"

But that was enough for Ganondorf. He left Talon there, waiting for an answer that would never come. There wasn't time; Zelda already had a horse, and likely was loading it with her cache, or had already finished. There was only one way she could go now, and if he was too late there was no way to catch her. Ganondorf ran, rasping hard with heavy footfalls, to the gate of the settlement. Every second that slipped by felt like a terrible, looming failure. If she was already gone, how would he track her? How, with riders and dogs and only-the-sands-know what else behind her?

The blockade loomed over Ganondorf. If his magic had been up to it, all of it could have been gone. The whole place could have been a crater in an instant. Instead, he elbowed a panicked builder aside, and began to climb. With only one hand, the speed of his progress worried him. But, Ganondorf finally stood before the gates of the settlement. If she hadn't beaten him, she would pass here. She HAD to pass here...

Faintly, he heard hooves above the clatter of tools.

Yes.

The long, loping strides cleared the barricade with a great leap; the grey horse came into view. Zelda took a soldiers' seat, riding deep into the saddle, wrapping her too-short legs around the wide barrel of the horse's chest. Behind her, Ganondorf could see the beginnings of a storm.

He hadn't really thought his through, he realized. A mortal man, even a large one, could not easily stand against a speeding horse! She blew by him, nearly knocking him to the ground. Ganondorf scowled at her retreating form, feeling the metal cork on his dark power budge; he had to have her back, she could not escape, he'd burn the road to ash if he had to, so help him...!

"Stop!"

The single word erupted from his throat, before he knew what he was doing, how fruitless an empty demand would be.

And, amazingly, Zelda stopped. How? Binding ritual, reversed? Sudden lapse in her sanity? The command of some mad god? What bizarre change in fortune could have ever persuaded her to obey such a command from him?

No, Zelda had not stopped, Ganondorf realized. Her mount had stopped. As Ganondorf neared, he noticed that her horse was the same horse, the same one that she'd been led in on. Of course she'd go for the familiar. Or perhaps she had appraised it as healthier or more fit; it HAD been doing well in the past month...

But it had been the same horse that he had experimented on, tried to enthrall as a beast in his service. No matter how Zelda kicked and pleaded, the animal wouldn't budge. All of that, the whole day's chase - remedied by an offhand, fruitless try.

"You...! What did you do?!"

Ganondorf yanked the reins out of her grasp. "Did you think I hadn't prepared for this?"

Zelda tried to dismount. Ganondorf pinned her to the horse's side with his off-arm. "There's no way you could have known, that you'd bewitch the very horse I'd take," she spat. "It's not possible."

"Rethink your possibilities," said Ganondorf, taking advantage of his bluff. "You will find them now... reduced."

He rubbed his new horse's nose briefly. It stood quietly, with watchful eyes. Good work, he rewarded it. You are an obedient slave. It was somewhat troubling that upon the beast's faint web of magics, it was not the binding ritual that rose to the surface, but the gratitude, the release from torment. A broken switch, and a missing stablehand. A reward, it impressed to him, for that small kindness.

Zelda didn't have to know of that. He slid her small feet from the stirrups and lengthened them to their limit. Then, grabbing a hold of the reins and the crest of the horse in one hand, he hauled himself astride. Ganondorf swung around, pushing Zelda up on the low pommel of the riding saddle. The bewitched horse didn't stagger under the new weight. It was strong enough now, even if it looked too thin to bear it. That would change, once he got it out of this terrible salt-grass; that was no way to feed a beast like this one.

"Certainly if you plan on weighing the animal down," she hissed. "You'll never outrun them."

"Yes," Ganondorf agreed. "But I do not run."

Riding would be the same as if he had a sword in hand. In this case, his right arm held fast to the tense Zelda. He could feel her body wind like a wire in the cold. Ganondorf took the plodding walk to a long-stride lope, Ganondorf's legs stretching down and around the beast's barrel to urge it on. Soon the town shrank behind them, and the track roughened. Fewer feet had beaten it, and the horse's quickening gait threw up a cloud of black siltdust.

Two ranks of shining bodies appeared as they descended the hill, far closer than the distant marching threat than Ganondorf was expecting. But cutting it leagues close, or meters close, it hardly mattered.

"Are you going to turn off the road?"

"Not through the mire, or the dunes."

"How will you get around them, then?"

"Not around," said Ganondorf.

Zelda's voice choked in horror. "Through," she said.

Only half a kilometer away, now. The men yelled, raised their pikes in protest and alarm. Ganondorf knew they'd be seen. Which would be his message to them, he thought; no one would think that he could be contained by a simple-minded back-fens thief and his gang, or that Zelda would be taken so easily from his grasp. Let the King know not to trifle with me. He gritted his teeth as the doubt clawed at his mind; Calas knew Ganondorf to be the worse swordsman, to have fled the castle, and now to be seen fleeing a second time-

"Ganondorf! You had some sort of plan! They're getting closer! Are you even there?"

Reality sharpened around him, and in momentary confusion, Ganondorf felt almost a passenger in his own body; yes, he had an idea to get here, and what he planned... but how to go through the ranks of soldiers? Zelda didn't seem to take it so much for granted, and he realized with his heartbeat hammering in his ears that she was right to.

"Draw my sword," Ganondorf ordered, gripping the reigns. "I must ride. You must fight."

She twisted back to stare at him, brow twisted into a baffled knot. Ganondorf felt himself scowl back at her, and motioned with his eyes to his left side. He was loath to have to 'trust' her so soon after an escape, much less with a weapon. Quickly, he dropped and knotted the reins with one practiced fist and squeezed the horse forward, clamping his knees; the pace lifted.

"My hand is full," he said, calling forth a small ball of flame and smoke.

With a nod, Zelda pulled the long, slim blade from his belt, awkwardly turning it in her right hand to face the enemy. Only yards away. Meters. None.

Ganondorf struck with smoke and ash, not fire; his diminished strength sufficed. The brief flash of flame was enough to terrify the men into breaking ranks, and the heavy smog did well to shut their eyes and choke them into submission. The bulk of the horse and the bite of the blade in Zelda's wan, tight-gripped fist parted the way. There was a scream, perhaps two men perished, and then suddenly light and clear road exploded back into sight. The frantic clatter of hooves tore them away from the scene; Zelda craning her neck around Ganondorf's bulk, to see the swirling black cloud slowly vanishing in the wind.

"We don't have much time," she said tiredly. "I expected a chase, but not like this."

Ganondorf finally turned off of the road, and into the shadow of dirt and dunes. They traveled south.

–

They traveled further south in a day than they'd traveled west in their first march of exile. With a horse that hardly tired, their hellish pace shook any pursuers from their trail, or at least baffled them in harsh terrain of dry hills and dunes. Zelda had been silent nearly the entire day: all nerves, warm and shaking in Ganondorf's grasp.

Only when night had begun to fall and they'd made their fire-less camp, did she croak words out. "This is probably better," she admitted flatly.

That, Ganondorf had not expected, and hardly stopped to chew his hard rations before answering. "If you saw fit to submit, you should have never been so treacherous."

"You should not have been so oblivious!" Zelda said. "I could be rid of you, if that fool of a thief hadn't learned of who you were!"

"Explain to me everything. Then I will decide your fate."

"You're too dramatic, jailer," spat Zelda, with rare fury. "Either death by you, or death by Blind, or death at the hands of my countrymen... it hardly matters anymore."

Considering she likely had improvised a design for every aspect of their time in exile, Ganondorf was not satisfied with being called a 'jailer.' He felt more like a squire, chasing a falcon that had shrugged its hood and leathers. Zelda sighed, crossing her legs like a child. She swallowed her hard-tack of bread heavily. "It didn't take long to find someone who would help. He connected me to Blind. I would pay Blind a fee, he would take me from my room, and I would tell him royal secrets for which he could have extorted a fortune. He predictably involved Hyrule in this; he meant to cheat the crown out of the reward money, as well. I was contacted by additional benefactors, who planned a cache for my escape. I did not intend to stay with Blind, or honor his demands."

"And why would he let you go, so precious as you are?"

"You would kill him," Zelda explained, with startling plainness. "I convinced him that I could lose you by faking arson and abduction. Really, I can't think of anything that would cause you to seek and kill him more. I planned to be gone, by then."

"But that is not what happened," said Ganondorf, disgusted at her betrayal, but darkly intrigued by her designs. If he was an artist in lie-craft, she was a master. He began to wonder which of their exchanges in the inn-room had been real, and which she had staged to manipulate him, or if it was some perverse combination of the two.

"I didn't expect him to speak to soldiers of YOU," said Zelda. "You legacy is all but obliterated. I didn't predict Calas to revive it, to frighten his men with tales of the Dark Lord's atrocity. Did you know they think I summoned you up from hell?"

"I am perfectly capable of finding my way out on my own," Ganondorf pointed out.

"When Blind learned of WHO he had provoked, he decided that I had to be disposed of: to wash his hands of me, and avoid your wrath."

Zelda's voice flattened, until it reminded Ganondorf of wind through a hollow tree.

"He thought he could silence me, give my corpse to Hyrule quietly for reward, and you never would find me. He underestimated you."

"Clearly he had not been frightened ENOUGH. He thought to toy with me, when we fought."

"You were injured beyond sight and steady footing. You were as good as dead. It's an unfortunate miracle to see you still breathing."

"You don't know me very well," said Ganondorf, and even through the deepening evening he could see her flinch. But it was short-lived, and stoic.

Hers was a guarded sorrow. She chewed her small rations, and barely washed it down. She seemed... thin, he noticed, and sunken. Her plain, madder-dye dress hung limply from her shoulders, and her hair curled in tatters about her neck. Zelda had expended all her energy, Ganondorf thought, and after her failed defiance now had little to spare. Her fingers had blisters, from holding a bowstring and a needle.

She seemed acutely aware of his gaze upon her, though she made no protest and did not meet his eyes. Ganondorf knew how Hylian women were, what leers they endured from their men. Ganondorf unearthed the tiniest of memories, protected by a shell of time as delicate as an egg: one of his sisters and a rare offhand remark. How the Hylian women's eyes darted even in friendly streets, how they spoke in hushed whispers at times, and how they quieted like children before their husbands. Gerudo were not welcome in Castle Town except as women of perceived ill-virtue, and had little chance to see such things, and Ganondorf had barely been interested in the remark in his youth. Foolish youth.

Only now, centuries past the thought's vintage, did he realize that Zelda too was a Hylian woman of such make, despite her strength and her exceptional position as his nemesis. His continual failure to predict her movements suggested he had approached her incorrectly, that he knew less of her workings than he thought, even after hundreds of years.

Hundreds of years? Perhaps he had reached too far. He knew what the line of Zelda, of antiquity feared. What did this one small girl, a singular Zelda, need to be properly contained?

He wondered what she saw when she looked at him, and if it was the same as the King of Evil he meant to be, or the king of an entirely different sort of evil. Ganondorf thought of Calas, of the many ancient Hylian kings he had deposed in the past, and what they all had in common. Perhaps in each life, he had done Zelda a favor in getting rid of such fools. They were bad for the land, and only in this time did he realize how bad. Perhaps worse than he was.

But! His mind defended! You are not 'bad' for the land of Hyrule! You are its king, and you shall be again!

Ganondorf assured himself of this, and erased such errant doubts. And, as if she sensed his unease, Zelda spoke for the first time in long hours.

"I wish to make a deal with you."

"We know exactly what happened to the last man to bargain with you," replied Ganondorf. "Why should I expect your word hold now, Zelda?"

Zelda's stare met his own, startling him. He was almost ashamed of himself for suspecting womens' fears and troubles, when obviously she was no mere woman. Or was this yet another act of hers? Now that he knew the fullness of her skill at deception, he could not trust her face or her tone, and her words least of all.

"Because it must," she asserted. "This is all I have now."

Ganondorf scoffed. "What have you lost, between now and when I threw you from your blasted tower?"

"Hope," she said, "In my countrymen. At least those in the place, with the will to help me. But I'm not surprised you don't understand."

Her lip curled into a quiet sneer, a politician's sneer, that Ganondorf did not find acceptable on her face.

"'Queen' is not merely a position of power, nor is it merely a position of wealth, or of title, or of anything that can be bestowed upon a person. That is only one aspect, that Calas took from me. Another aspect is that of morale, the symbol that I am to the people; the connections I can make with what I am. The very fact I was queen gives me value, as an idea, to others."

Her thin arms clasped about her legs, in futile defense of her moment of weakness.

"Now I see that whatever I mean to them, it has changed. Or maybe, never what I thought it was in the first place."

Ganondorf's hand itched. However he liked seeing her so beaten, her tone was so very wrong. He settled to strike it out of her with words, despite the army of ants seething in his skin. "You take much of what you have for granted," he scoffed. "Even in exile, your mind is still a Zelda's mind. Your strength is that of Zelda, and your ways and will are those of Zelda. These are treasures that you smuggle, in ignorance, from your safe castle, and are at your disposal. I have leveled your lands with less. Don't be so foolish."

"Lord of Darkness, we agree on one thing at least," she said. "Removing Calas."

"I would replace him," Ganondorf clarified. "And you will die."

Zelda folder her thin fingers in her lap, knuckles pale as ash. "That is a sacrifice I am willing to make, for the sake of Hyrule."

"You would install a tyrant to depose a tyrant?"

"We will be tyrants all around by the end of this, however short-lived," said Zelda. "But there is something I must do first. Before you kill me, would you allow me a request?"

"I shouldn't," said Ganondorf. "But speak, if you think it makes any difference."

"The Hyrule you'll rule over will be barren, as long as the Gods disavow it... and me," said Zelda. "I'm not sure, but there is an ancient legend of Zelda, of my ancestors, that states as long as the Goddesses smile upon Hyrule, it will prosper."

Ganondorf swallowed the sticky dust in his mouth, as her gaze bored into his. He knew exactly what Zelda implied, the reason Hyrule continually fell into ruin, crumbled in his grasp. Why the Triforce in whole, heirloom of the heavens, was needed to rule the kingdom in proper. It had never occurred to him that Zelda could be as unloved by the heavens as he, for them to spite her land so.

He cast a poisonous eye skyward. How typical of Hylian gods to starve and wither the many, in protest of only a few. Or in his case, one.

In Zelda's case.

"In the ancient past, a Zelda shed her mortal presence to grow closer to the Gods, by bathing in sacred springs," Zelda explained. "I don't know if it will work. But I implore you now, to let me try, and at the very least know my country saw a tyrant in prosperity, rather than ruin."

"You wish to beg before them," said Ganondorf.

"I wish to claim from them my birthright," said Zelda. "If they do not think me worthy, I shall have to face them about it myself."

It was then, that Ganondorf realized her perfect cage.

"Where are your sacred springs?" he asked, tempering his voice, keeping out the grin that he subdued.

"The first is deep in the forest, though I don't know where. Or if the forest that housed it still exists as it did in the past," said Zelda.

"Done. We ride in the morning."

Her face was worth the façade of compliance. All the centuries of nobility, reduced to the surprise of one girl. A clever girl, a cutthroat girl, but just one mortal with a gape of confusion that paid for half the humiliation he'd suffered thus far. "That's all?" she gasped, wringing her dress. "All I had to do was ask? After all of that? After months of working around your horrible inconvenience to find a way to escape, I only had to ask if you'd agree?"

"You are Hylian royalty," said Ganondorf, "I am not surprised that you are unused to the idea."

"You're one to talk," she mumbled, and sunk to the dry dirt. Shivering, she curled knees-to-breast and feigned to try at sleep. Ganondorf watched her until her act gave way to sincerity, and with satisfaction noted that she did not cry that night.

Her birthright is her collar and her shackle, her ancestry a vast chain-gang, he thought. She seeks the heavens, her Triforce, even more ardently than I do. For it is the cornerstone of her rule, and without her divinity, her kingdom is nothing.

If I seem eager to oblige, in providing her that service, she will stay within my sight without question. She has no other allies, and humoring her cost him nothing. He had planned to muster what was left of his army anyway, and if she wished to take detours, that would suit him just as well.

Ganondorf himself lay down, to sleep in anticipation of triumph.

May she lead me to more than just one golden piece, he thought.