Zelda watched the world go by outside and fade into the distance. Ordonian trees and dirt roads became sparser until at least they faded into what could almost be called woods. The sun has risen to its climax and began to fall. Twilight had claimed the land as its own.
"Are we any closer to the heroes?" Ganon asked. He let the carriage rest by a river so the horses could graze and drink their fill.
Zelda checked the map. "They should be just north of here."
"Then let's keep moving."
"Good idea. If we hurry, we can find a place to settle down for the night." Without camping, preferably. Despite everything, Zelda was still a princess and camping just didn't suit the royal lifestyle.
Ganondorf cracked the whips once the horses were ready and they set off into the twilight.
There was just one problem.
"Haven't we passed those ruins before?" Agitha asked, pointing to a crumbled pile of pillars and walls.
"We have," Zelda said, and checked the map. "Ganon, keep moving, will you?"
"As you wish, milady," he said in a teasing tone of voice.
Sure enough, they were going in circles.
Giddy laughter filled their ears. Fairies. Zelda should have known. Fairy magic was the most powerful magic of all, capable of things even great mages couldn't accomplish. Turning the forest into an everlasting maze was just one of those many quirks fairies could perform.
After a moment, three pink fairies appeared in front the group, giggling cheerily to each other.
"Play with us!" they cried.
Ganon groaned in irritation. It had been a long day and he was more than ready to settle for the night.
"We don't have time for that!" he snapped.
"Fine then! We'll keep you trapped here until you do!"
Zelda could hear a small bit of malice in their voices, high-pitched and childlike as they were. They could do it too. Even stray fairies were capable of great and terrible deeds. Nothing too awful, of course, or else the Great Fairies would go nuts trying to keep the stray fairies in check. But keeping them lost in these woods was something they most certainly could do.
"We'll play with you!" Zelda said quickly. "But please don't trap us here!"
There was no way she was going to stay camping for the rest of her life. And that was the least of her concerns if the fairies trapped them.
"Then you'll play with us?"
"We will."
"Then let's play hide and seek! If you're able to find us, you win and can go free."
Sounded simple enough.
Ganondorf settled his horses next to the ruins and tied them to an old wooden sign that had its lettering faded away over the years to the point where it was unreadable.
He sighed heavily and looked to Zelda. "Guess we'd better get to seeking then."
"Guess so."
They split up to find the fairies, but kept bumping into each other. Fairy magic, no doubt.
"Why don't we just search together?" Zelda asked after running into Ganondorf for the umpteenth time.
He nodded. "That may very well be a good idea."
They'd no doubt find Agitha as well as they searched, what with how turned around they were. Then they could all search as a group. As they dug through patches of tall grass and peered into the tops of trees, Ganondorf and Zelda talked.
"You know, I hated you when I was little," Zelda said absentmindedly.
"Did you?" the Gerudo king asked.
"I did."
"I hated you as well."
"Why?"
"You first."
Zelda hesitated, then turned to Ganondorf with an apologetic look in her eyes. "I think I was just ignorant. The Gerudo were different from how I perceived Hyruleans to be, so I thought you were dirty thieves."
"We have been known to fall to thievery in the past."
"But you were also known to make fine jewelry and clothing, and I never recognized you for any of that."
Ganondorf raised his shoulders slightly. "But you were just a child."
"Then why did you hate me?"
"For perhaps the same reasons. I was ignorant."
"You?" Zelda asked, genuinely surprised.
"Yes, even I can fall to ignorance," he admitted. "You seemed to have everything that my people lacked – food, shelter, peace – and I despised you for those luxuries. When I came to visit you in the castle for the first time all those years ago, I was just proved right and I hated you all the more."
"You visited me?" she asked.
He nodded. "You couldn't have been older than six at the time. I'm not surprised you don't remember."
If she was only six and didn't remember, then how old was he if he did remember? She decided to ask. "How old were you at the time?"
"Twelve," he said.
So that made him six years older than Zelda.
"So you're twenty-nine?" Zelda asked, a bit surprised. She'd always pegged him as older. Mid-thirties perhaps.
Ganondorf nodded. "Yes. Why? Are you surprised?"
Zelda cracked a small smile. "A little."
At that moment, Zelda peered in a hole in the middle of a tree and a fairy came flying out.
"You found me!" she said cheerfully. "That's three!"
"Three? Already?" Zelda asked, though the moon had risen high into the sky. She'd expected to be here much longer than they had been. Perhaps until morning at the soonest.
"Mm-hmm! The big scary guy found one of us, the little bug girl found another, and you found me! That's three!"
So that took care of that problem. "Will you bring the forest back to normal and help me find our friend?"
"Don't worry. The forest is fine now and your friend is right over there."
The fairy flew past Zelda to land on a blonde head – Agitha. She'd been here the whole time?
Agitha smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. I just thought I shouldn't interrupt since you and Ganny were having a moment."
Ganny? She looked to Ganon with a quirked brow. He just shrugged.
"Well, at least you're safe," Zelda said. "Tell us you're here next time so we don't worry about you though, okay?"
Agitha pouted but nodded her head, her pigtails bouncing as she did. "Okay."
The three fairies appeared before them in a flash of light, speaking as unison. "As a super special treat, here's a gift from us to you." Then they flew above a briar and into the night.
Caught in the briar's thorns was an old deer. Ganondorf made short work of the beast and they feasted on the wild game that night, before settling down under the stars.