Early chapter is early because I do not have the brain power to do The Thing I'm Meant To Be Doing but maybe I will tomorrow. If I post the chapter today, that'll give me one less thing to do on Friday. (Also I aced a job interview today so I deserve this.)
I feel bad that I haven't shown Link doing many chores compared to Zelda, so this chapter fixes that a little. I also want to clarify that he does take out the bins without being asked (except for that One Blasphemous Time). He totally vacuums the house at 5am too, much to his family's annoyance. Honestly, before he runs off on his adventures without warning, he probably does a bit of tidying just to soften the blow.
Link: *texting Ganon* Just dusting the shelves. Be there soon.
The Magic Awakens
Chapter 38
As Destiny Decrees
Ganondorf awoke to the rain beating down on his bloodstained clothes. Traces of Impa had already faded to brown, so where had the fresh red come from?
He addressed the entity within, anger and fear dripping off every syllable. "What did you do?"
Check your pockets.
Whatever horror resided in them became heavier as he reached in. What his hand closed around made his breath catch. He didn't need to see as he ran his thumbs over the cold, metal ridges. Six dented and bloodied police badges had been collected like medals, and they invited the memories of massacre into Ganondorf's mind. With a roar, he threw them into the mud. He slumped against the nearest tree as he wrapped himself in his arms, but how could he comfort himself with arms that had just snuffed out six lives?
I thought you'd be pleased, Demise taunted. Did they not kill your mother? Brutalise your kind?
"If you think the Gerudo are out for revenge, then don't claim to know us. Don't claim to know me."
This is exactly why you're too weak to command this form. Ganondorf ignored the taunts as he reached around the trunk. Demise exuded even more contempt for him. You know that won't work.
That didn't stop Ganon from clawing his way up the tree, bark to branch, branch to bark, until he stood on the highest arm that would hold his weight. Far below, mud smeared the shrinking forest floor. He kicked off, hurtling head-first with scrunched his eyes that would open to the welcoming arms of the Goddesses at the gates to the Sacred Realm.
Crunch.
He tasted blood. Choked on it. Rain pelted the innards of his cracked head. Broken bones skewered his flesh. He was horribly mangled, in excruciating pain, and yet none of it felt close to dying. Against his wishes, he was alive, and against his wishes, his body was mending itself.
What did I tell you?
"Shut up," Ganondorf gurgled.
Demise did not shut up. You've tried it all, he said. Your swords could not fell me, nor your ropes or heights.
"Shut. Up." Ganondorf had mended enough to peel himself from the mud. "I'll find a way to stop you."
You refuse to eat and drink, but my aura sustains you, Demise continued. You destroy that slate of yours, but I always restore it.
"You have a weakness." Ganondorf stumbled aimlessly through the woods. "With Hylia as my witness, I swear I'm gonna find it."
And if you do, what then? the demon gloated. I sense your thoughts. You don't want to die.
No, but Ganondorf didn't have a choice.
The trees parted and feet dragged along the stone tiles of the ancient Sheikah training grounds. The place where he and his best friend -his destined enemy- had sparred a dozen times. Dreams of the sacred blade ending Ganondorf's life resurfaced, and finally he accepted what needed to be done.
The news garbled in the background. Cycles of snide comments that made Link scrub the dishes with new vigour.
"He was apprehended by the enemy just like that?" Revali pretended to be taken aback. "I don't see how we could ever expect him to save us from anything now."
Revali and a second news anchor that Link didn't care enough to know continued to pick him apart on live television. They dug into his criminal record, his relationship, his failures, and his asthma. There was footage of his coughing fit before the media, of him curling into himself like a scared little child. "This is our saviour?" they said, aghast. They said it on the news, they said it on social media, and they said it in Link's own mental psyche. This is our saviour? Last night, the eyes of every single hostage had said it too.
Link scrubbed harder, as if the frying pan was the beak of that stupid news anchor. Revali had no clue how hard Link had worked to get this far, but at the same time, he was right. The threat looming over Hyrule kept growing. Soon it would outgrow the chosen hero. Maybe it already had.
Zelda's head poked from the stairway. "Link, I can hear your grinding the dishes into dust from my room." He increased his vigour to spite her.
Her ears twitched at the venomous discussion coming from the television. She went to the coffee table and picked up the remote. "Don't listen to this. It's not good for you." The screen switched to black.
Link stopped scrubbing. "How do you know that?"
"Look, I know you're not well, but-"
"I'm fine," he snapped. No thanks to you.
Zelda flinched. "I know you're not, and I know it's my fault."
Link threw the brush into the sink, leaned back against the bench, and crossed his arms. Waiting.
Every silence Link led always meant something. Sometimes he was holding space for someone who needed it. Sometimes it was a show of solitary contentment. Sometimes he was simply enjoying the company of those he held dear. This silence was claustrophobic. Delicate. Poisonous. A swollen balloon that, if punctured, would unleash an explosive gas, and yet it demanded that Zelda be the one to break it.
She swallowed as she took a step towards him, and then another, as if descending into the mouth of a beast. "I knew about the ambush. Well, not for sure. Ganon warned me in a dream. I thought my anxiety disorder was acting up again."
"But you were ready for it," Link said, "and you didn't tell me."
Zelda sighed and leaned against the bench beside him. "No, I didn't. I'm sorry."
More scalding silence followed. "You said Ganon warned you?" Zelda nodded. "How is he?"
"He's trapped somewhere. Maybe his body's subconscious. I don't know."
"Was he himself?" There was an edge of hope in Link's voice.
The tears stung her eyes, so she squeezed them shut and mustered a nod.
"Then we can get him back." It was the one spark that made Link believe that he could raise his sword again, that Hyrule wasn't doomed by his… his… whatever he was going through.
Zelda bit her lip and shook her head. Don't make me tell you, she thought. Don't make me tell you don't make me tell you don't make me tell you don't make me-
"Why?"
He was already so hurt. Why did she have to hurt him more? "Because I made a promise to Lanayru. In exchange for the Water Medallion and the lake, I won't seal the magic away."
Link knew he could forgive her for keeping the plot a secret. Give him a few days to hurt, and he wouldn't find it in himself to hurt for much longer, but this? Refusing to complete the very goal that he had fought and bled and drowned for? Nullifying all their progress for the spirit who tried to kill him?
In the crashing waves of betrayal, there was a dash of relief. The rugged road to the final medallion stretched beyond the horizon, but now he didn't have to trek it. Guilt and grief and terror followed. If they didn't seal the magic away, that meant Link needed to-
With psychic timeliness, Link's slate buzzed against the bench. He snatched it up, and as soon as Zelda glimpsed the contact's name, she leaned over to read it too.
Meet me at the Sheikah Training Grounds. Bring the Master Sword.
"Don't go." Zelda said it the moment Link made up his mind.
"Why?"
"You are sleep-deprived, injured, and traumatised. I am not letting you leave in your state."
With a defiant glare, Link pushed himself off the bench towards the garage. Zelda flew into his path, but he spun around her with a warrior's grace. When his fingers brushed the knob, Zelda latched his other wrist. "Link Rune Harkinian, don't you dare go through that door."
She openly displayed her tearful eyes, knowing they were his weakness, that he would always give into their pleas. Look at her. Helpless and fragile. Desperate for her strong, protective brother. How could he leave her now?
For the first time in their lives, Link's desperation outweighed her own. He had failed to protect his best friend and his family that Tuesday, failed to complete the mission on Thursday, failed to defend his peers on Saturday, and failed to project the image of the capable hero this very Sunday. He needed a win, and Zelda didn't understand because that week, she got plenty. She was the one who recovered the Water Medallion and the lake, she was the one who saved Impa, and she was the one to rescue everyone at the dance. She had her successes, and she even withheld them from him by hiding the plot.
Now that Link was called for a mission that only he could complete, one that could possibly break the curse on Ganon and end this impossible quest, she wanted to deny him that as well.
When he ripped from her grip, it tore into her like a vicious sickle. The door to the garage slammed and locked and Zelda rattled the knob and pounded the wood and shouted over the rumbles of the motorbike and the creaking of the garage door until she found the sense to barrel onto the front porch and splash through the pouring rain after her stupid brother who was about to get himself killed over a damaged ego.
Zelda called his name so loud that it scraped her throat like a knee on the sidewalk, and even when he disappeared from her sights, she kept running and running and running until she tripped and splashed into a puddle.
Gods, he had no clue. He hadn't faced the Demon King like she had. He hadn't known his speed, or his suffocating grip, or even his presence. To pick a fight with that monster in Link's current state… There was no surviving it. There was no catching up to him, either.
As a last resort, Zelda summoned her slate, hunched over the screen, and called Midna's number. It went straight to voicemail. Of course it did. Her parents must have confiscated her slate again. Still, Zelda choked back her sobs and spoke.
"I'm sorry. We need you again. I'm so sorry."
The rain pelted against Link like a shower of pebbles, each drop coaxing him to a safe and dry home where he could be exhausted and numb. That was exactly why he stayed his road through the woods. Out here, he was forced to hold himself together. Out here, he had no choice but to confront his destiny.
A familiar silhouette stood out from a thick trunk, but as the bike drew near, the evening shadows stole him away.
Link parked his motorcycle by the tree and summoned the Master Sword to strap onto his back. The blade's burden was heavy. So heavy. However did he pull it from the pedestal?
As the sun sank further, the shadows stretched towards Link's destination, but nature did everything it could to stall his progression. The rain beat down heavier, the mud latched onto his every step like a suction cup, and the wind billowed his clothes with the force of a tsunami. Still, he pushed on, stumbling over roots shrouded in shadow and brushing away the leaves that stuck to his wet clothes and skin.
After many uncounted minutes of resistance, the trees opened to a circle of stone, the wind ran out of breath, and the rain petered to a drizzle. There was nothing left to protect him from the one who stood in the centre of the arena.
The burly silhouette and long red hair reminded Link of the warning the Shadow Temple had offered, but there were so many differences that the similarities were mere footnotes. There was no prideful stance, or black steel pricking the stone between his shoulder-spaced feet, or opulent jewellery and armour. This was the posture of someone who found their own body too heavy to hold upright, who was strangled by bloodstained, bullet-punctured cloth. The dark, kingly presence was absent, but so was the rightful host's lively warmth.
Link's boots clapped against the damp stone, drawing Ganondorf around. The voe was also struck by the paradoxical image of his best friend. Link stood before him, dressed in green with the sacred sword upon his back, just as he had in all of Ganondorf's nightmarish visions, but the heroic determination to enact violent justice wasn't there, and neither was the twinkle in Link's eye that always asked what misadventure they'd chase that day.
What Ganondorf saw was a teenager suffering the burnout of an army. He had seen the news and knew what ailed his best friend, and even though Demise had conditioned him to fear the boy in green, Ganondorf hated that he couldn't have been there for Link. Poor guy didn't deserve to be hurt by this cursed quest any longer, and Ganondorf would ensure it if it was the last good thing he would ever do.
"Thanks for coming," he said.
"No worries," Link grunted. "How are you?"
After hundreds of visions of Link's past lives slaying Ganondorf without hesitation or remorse, after weeks of Demise's thoughts isolating Ganondorf from his best mate, he didn't expect Link to still care. "It doesn't matter."
"Does to me," Link said. "Zelda told me you warned her about the dance. You saved us."
"So that wasn't a dream," Ganondorf mumbled, then he composed himself. "Still, I planned it. Well, he did." Link tilted his head and Ganondorf knew the question. "We're calling him Demise, after the original Demon King."
"And he's the guy who…" Link's eyes traced the blood splatters.
"Yeah." Ganondorf chuckled dryly. "How does it feel to stand before a serial killer?"
The emotional numbness Link projected cracked. He shook his head as a grimace resisted the sting of tears. "No. That wasn't you." Determination flickered in his features. "What do you need? How do we get rid of him?"
"Afraid we're a package deal," Ganondorf said. "We live together, and we die together."
Link buried his face in his hands and shook his head more violently, as if to fling the very thought of what Ganon was asking him out of his head.
"Mate-"
"There has to be a third option." Link shimmied the sheath off his back and held the hilt to Ganondorf. "I've seen it break a curse on someone else. Go on."
Ganondorf glared at the purple metal; he had a longstanding grudge with that hilt. "Then why didn't it work in the mansion?" Link opened his mouth but he had no answer. "He's been with me since Day 1," Ganondorf said ruefully. "Touching that sword didn't do shit."
Link threw his spare hand. "So, what? I'm just meant to kill you? Is that it?"
"Like it or not, that is what you were put on this fucking earth to do!" Ganondorf knocked Link back a step. "You're the Goddesses' chosen. You hold the one weapon capable of ridding this world of evil."
"You're. Not. Evil," Link gritted.
"I will be if I don't make you do this!" Ganondorf snarled. "Be grateful. Every other hero has bled for their win against the Demon King, and I'd know because that bastard showed me." He tapped his temple. "I'm offering you the easiest kill of all your past lives, so you better take it while you can."
In that rant, Ganondorf's hand had plunged into Link's sloshing emotions, reached past the revulsion, the grief, and the horror, to close around the vilest emotion of all. Temptation.
Link had denied it to himself, but temptation had dragged him through the mud, wind, and rain. The temptation to end it all. Right here. Right now. Miles of remaining quest had been condensed into a single step. Take it, and Hyrule would be safe. The magic could stay too, but was that worth the sacrifice of his best friend?
"Could you hold out for the last medallion?" Link asked despite lacking the confidence to retrieve it. "If we seal away the magic, then maybe-"
"There's no time!" Ganondorf's fingers tangled through his hair. The darkness clawed at his mind and chipped away his willpower. Either he died now, or Link did instead. The bloodlust boiled and scorched at the edge of his receding consciousness. "Demise is coming. You don't wanna be around when he gets here." Ganondorf dropped to his knee and offered his chest. "Do it. Before it's too late for you. For everyone."
A trembling hand closed around the purple hilt. The metal sang from its sheath, which clattered onto the stone.
Nine years of friendship, and this was where it led. Nine years of rivalry, of inside jokes, of exploration, video games, and allyship, and this was where it ended. On the point of a blade. Link hated the demons, and he hated the Goddesses, for shoving such a destiny upon two young voe who were brothers in all but blood.
"Are you sure you want this?" Link asked it so quietly that he hoped Ganondorf wouldn't hear.
"I don't wanna die," Ganondorf said, "but I don't wanna kill, either."
If that was the way to reconcile this moral dilemma, then so be it. This wasn't just for Hyrule. It was for Ganon too. "I won't let this be your legacy."
Ganondorf chuckled. "I'm sorry it has to be yours."
They didn't break eye-contact for a second as Link drew the blade back. The clouds gathered ahead, and the rain wept for those final precious seconds of life that Demise threatened to devour. The storm swelled into a crescendo and Link roared with the thunder as the blade thrusted towards Ganondorf's heart.
Lightning blinded Link to the moment it ripped through flesh, but the dark figure slumped against the hilt could not be clearer.
For those first agonising seconds, Link could not connect his weapon to the lifeless form, but when he did, he jerked away from the sword like hot metal. The corpse tilted sideways and slapped against the ground. Sprawled limbs. Mouth lolling open. A sliver of white beneath eyelids half-obscured by tattered hair.
Bile shot up Link's throat like a firework. He lurched onto all fours as it splattered against the stone, then came the second round, and the third. What Ganondorf said was wrong. No other hero had to murder their best friend for the sake of Hyrule. No other hero had to rid Hyrule of one of the most incredible people to walk its surface. All this lurching, all this coughing, all this mental strife, it was as if Link was getting the physical torment of every other hero's final battle. Unlike them, he deserved it.
He wasn't a hero.
He wasn't a hero.
But at least it was over. Hyrule was saved. Zelda's promise was kept.
When Link had nothing more to expel, he remembered that he had a promise to keep. One that went unsaid. Ganondorf's remains belonged with the Gerudo, in the Tomb of Voe, and it was Link's job to get him to the gates.
Link hadn't the strength to carry the body out, but perhaps he could store it in his void like Midna had with the shadowbeasts. He reached out a tentative hand, towards the closest, unmoving arm.
It snatched Link's wrist.
He twisted away before the grip became iron, scrambling back from the shifting corpse.
The person who rose was not the one who fell. He was shrouded in shadows with eyes consumed by a hateful fire. Lightning flashed around an imposing form, and his malevolent aura enlarged him by legions. A hand pulled the slick sword from his chest, and it clattered to the tiles as if it was nothing more than a needle. All that remained of the killing blow was a puncture in the billowing shirt. No blood. No scar.
Link lunged for the sword and stumbled to his feet. The entity drew closer, so Link swung for the neck. As fast as it was torn, the slit sewed itself shut without a hint of scarring. Link backed away, swinging at the chest, the head, the arms, anything to fell the demon. This made no sense. Why was the Blade of Evil's Bane refusing to bane evil?
The entity's steps were slow and lumbering, and yet they crossed miles. Link dropped the sword and ran for the trees. His guiding shadows were gone, swallowed by darkness. The only light of the forest, those blazing eyes, bobbed after him.
Link spurred faster, and it cost him a foot under a root. There was a sickening pop and he cried through his clenched teeth. The air whistled a warning. He rolled away from a punch that shook the ground. Link shuffled on all fours until he clawed up a trunk for support. Wham! Another narrowly dodged punch. Link hobbled to the next tree and the next. Fists clapped against bark like thunder. The gap between them thinned until-
Knuckles catapulted the side of Link's skull into the next tree. He flopped into the ground and inhaled mud. With blurry vision and hammering pain, only the Demon King's eyes leered over him. Coughs highjacked Link's respiratory system. It hardly registered as he crawled half an inch, only to be stripped from the earth.
A suffocating grip slammed Link against bark. He kicked at air and clawed at the hand around his throat, eyes locked with the fiery hatred that promised to burn all of Hyrule. Link was going to die, and so was Zelda, Midna, Impa, and everyone he cared for. He was going to die a failure, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Everything was a blur. Colours, sounds, and sensations. Some vague grip yanked Link's left hand forward, and those two spots of yellow narrowed at it. The Demon King was sure taking a while to kill his Greatest and Most Underwhelming Adversary.
Link splat into the mud, heaving for air against his swollen lungs. Was this the death Demise saw as the most amusing? To watch Link die of a common medical condition he had brought unto himself? The glowing eyes disappeared behind a whirl of red hair. In a flash of lighting, the Demon King, the one who had Link in his grasp, was gone.
The "hero" was still alive, still coughing, still suffering. Why? Not like he'd be alive long enough to find out.
A feminine garble rolled in his ears, followed by a dozen thumps. Glowing blue, orange, and red collapsed before him. The figure propped him up against the tree and shoved something cold and hard in his mouth. With each inhale, his lungs settled, his senses returned, and the colours sharpened into the distraught face of Midna.
She cradled his face with such care, though she all but spat her words. "You idiot!"
He was alive. He was breathing. He had Midna. He was alive. He was breathing. He had Midna. Three things that shouldn't be true. Three things that Demise could come and snatch away at any second.
The final, stick-thin pillar inside Link snapped, and his entire inner world collapsed. Hope, determination, and courage all crumbled into dust. Link curled forward and clung to Midna like she was all that stopped him from unravelling into the void. All the emotions, all the tears he had bottled up from for the past three months, shattered their containers. His body trembled like an active volcano, tears streamed down his face, and cries of anguish grated his throat.
"I can't do it!" The truth hurt more than his throbbing neck, more than his burning lungs, and more than his twisted ankle. "I can't save Hyrule..."
