I always thought the first time I'd write something for Malon it'd be fluff. Oops. Consider that this takes place not long before Link reappears.
When she was young, Malon wished for a knight to come and take her away. To sweep her off her feet, profess his dying love and take her on adventure after adventure as they live their lives out while traveling the world.
Stupid, childish dreams, she thinks as she drops pig slop into a trough. Wasteful wishes that mean so little to her now.
The day Ganondorf flew into Lon Lon Ranch like a dark and malevolent storm, was the day that she'd lost her hope. Malon was always idealist, still is even now, but—
Well, ownership of the ranch passed on to Ingo and Ganondorf's demands only got worse and worse.
Malon doesn't consider herself sensitive to the powers that be or the magic within the realm, but she knows evil when she sees it. Ganondorf radiates it, shadows melting off of him, tarnishing everything that he touches. Ingo, the ranch, even her father who's slumming it up in Kakariko Village.
Every day is a struggle. Malon used to see the world in the bright colors of the wild sunset— the oranges and yellows and bright vermillion rays— but now everything seems so dark and dim, varying shades of gray that weigh heavily in her heart.
Her bucket is heavy. She struggles to carry it from the kitchen to the stable. She ignores Ingo's needling as he follows after her, citing the chores for the days and their schedule, and even a mention of their esteemed Dark Lord who's due for a visit.
Malon sighs as she looks at him flatly, dumping the bucket out before the second pen of pigs. "I'll make myself scarce then," she says, "Go to the market and get the supplies that we need."
Anything is better than being here under this dark, oppressive cloud of evil.
Ingo frowns, hands folded behind his back. Sweat gleams on his forehead and drips into the ridiculous frill around his neck. "You know, Lord Ganondorf might be pleased by your presence."
Malon blinks; it isn't the first mention of this wildly absurd assumption. "I would think that he doesn't know that I even exist." Because he's barely ever looked at her, his gaze passing over Malon for the horses instead.
"Still, it would do good for you to stay, just in case."
"In case of what? Ingo, I'm not yours to marry off." Not that Ganondorf would, anyway. She's fairly certain he won't.
"I'll remind you girl, I don't have to let you stay here. I could easily kick you out just like your father."
Malon doesn't even start at his words, so utterly used to hearing them. But her fingers tighten around the bucket handle and she levels Ingo with a fairly disgusted face. His threats are sound but in the end, her hands are far too useful.
Ingo's drunk on his newfound power and he'll do anything to keep from handling his own chores. She's his only worker, the only one left that stayed after he'd sent away her father. Malon pushes right past him and out the stable door.
She wishes that she retained th e naïveté of her youth, that it could be as simple as dreaming of knights the moment her eyes slip closed. But the ranch is dark and the days drag on and on, and her fingers are busted and blistered with every new chore that she takes.
A knight wouldn't want her anyway, not this shell of the feisty person she used to be. Not with her limp hair and bleeding knuckles, and her skirts that smell like cow shit even after a second wash.
Malon sighs as she wipes the sweat from her brow.
"It's for the horses," she murmurs to herself as she dips her hands into a water trough. "It's for Epona," she says as she wipes them clean on her apron. Ingo is beyond caring, only seeing them as tools to trade off.
That isn't why Lon Lon Ranch was started and that isn't why it thrived for so long. Without her father here— even as lazy as he is— the ranch only withers away, a shadow of what it was once proud to be.
The day is hot. Clouds roll in and it looks like rain. Malon pins her hair back and brushing through her bangs as she sighs.
She has to be strong because there are so few left who are, in this desperate version of Hyrule.
"A knight," she softly muses as she pumps water into a pail. "How stupidly idealistic," she continues as she mucks out the horses' stalls.
There's no use for idealism anymore. She's just about lost everything she's had.
"Long live evil," she supposes.
Might as well do what she can in order to survive.