The characters herein are not my damned property, you legal goons.
The Threshold -Zekhsyre
Cold.
It is so very cold.
That was the first thing I realized when I entered this realm. It is never warm here. No winds blow across this featureless expanse; no clouds blot out the sun's heat. There are no clouds. There is no sun. There is no sky.
I stand here, insofar as I can stand. I could be facing to the north or to the east. I could be upside down or on my back. There are no points of reference. I don't know where I am.
But I do, don't I? This is the Realm of Evil, the Sacred Realm. And I am in a universe of light. Alone. Always alone. I have ever been alone, even when I reigned as King among the Gerudo. Surrounded by my loyal subject, attending the court with a febrifuge in one hand, in bed with a lover…
I was always alone. But this is the first time I have known it. This is the first time in many years I have been so cold.
I told a lie. It's something I have often done. This place is not entirely without feature. There are three of them. Three golden triangles outlining a patch of reality in this surreal world. The three are far away. You cannot reach them, for as you approach them you move slower and slower.
Then you stop. I have stopped.
The three are not intact. One at the top is fractured and tarnished. The Triforce of Power should not be in this place.
But the other two are far too solid for such as me to pass. The gate is sealed to me. The threshold is locked.
Two perfect golden triangles. I hate them. I hate this place. I hate Link. I hate myself.
Wait.
There is only one pure triangle. The other is faded, bleached, somehow…insubstantial. Instinctively I know it: Courage has left Hyrule.
I have hope. I have had it too many times before. Yet I begin to swim through the light. The threshold is a hundred feet away. Ninety feet. Eighty feet.
The brilliant air around me seems to be congealing like blood from an open wound. I press on.
Seventy. Sixty.
The air is against me now. It pushes. But I am strong. I am the holder of Power. I am Ganon, and I will not be denied in this place.
Fifty.
There is wind for the first time. Wind like the wind I knew as a child in the ancient citadel in the desert. It bites at my skin. It is punishing and sadistic, unforgiving. I keep swimming.
Forty. Thirty. Twenty.
The air is on fire. I am on fire. I have never, truly, known pain. So this is what it feels like to suffer. So this is what it feels like to die.
Ten.
I'm bleeding. It's so red against the white emptiness of this place. My eyes are red and scaled. My skin is the color of an old bruise. My hands are torn and bloody.
Five.
Two feet.
Threshold.
I emerge in the center of the field of Hyrule, in a flash of purple and a brief, distant wail. Somewhere the goddesses despair for the future of this world. Let them. I am back. I am powerful.
My magic is gone. It will return. I will journey to the wastelands of the East, rally the monsters and aberrations of the desert too me. I will be strong.
"Hello? Who's there?"
No! No, I must not be discovered, I must not, I will not go back, I-
With one bleeding hand, muscles still strong though my power is absent, I grasp the man's neck, constricting his trachea and cutting off his air. It's a farmer, I think. His receding hair is brown; his moustache is long and bushy. He's short and fat. Death comes quickly.
I drop the lifeless body and walk towards the desert. I break into a run. A gallop. I have crossed the threshold. That realm is closed to me now. I will not return.
I will not.
I will never cross that threshold again.
The Threshold -Zekhsyre
Cold.
It is so very cold.
That was the first thing I realized when I entered this realm. It is never warm here. No winds blow across this featureless expanse; no clouds blot out the sun's heat. There are no clouds. There is no sun. There is no sky.
I stand here, insofar as I can stand. I could be facing to the north or to the east. I could be upside down or on my back. There are no points of reference. I don't know where I am.
But I do, don't I? This is the Realm of Evil, the Sacred Realm. And I am in a universe of light. Alone. Always alone. I have ever been alone, even when I reigned as King among the Gerudo. Surrounded by my loyal subject, attending the court with a febrifuge in one hand, in bed with a lover…
I was always alone. But this is the first time I have known it. This is the first time in many years I have been so cold.
I told a lie. It's something I have often done. This place is not entirely without feature. There are three of them. Three golden triangles outlining a patch of reality in this surreal world. The three are far away. You cannot reach them, for as you approach them you move slower and slower.
Then you stop. I have stopped.
The three are not intact. One at the top is fractured and tarnished. The Triforce of Power should not be in this place.
But the other two are far too solid for such as me to pass. The gate is sealed to me. The threshold is locked.
Two perfect golden triangles. I hate them. I hate this place. I hate Link. I hate myself.
Wait.
There is only one pure triangle. The other is faded, bleached, somehow…insubstantial. Instinctively I know it: Courage has left Hyrule.
I have hope. I have had it too many times before. Yet I begin to swim through the light. The threshold is a hundred feet away. Ninety feet. Eighty feet.
The brilliant air around me seems to be congealing like blood from an open wound. I press on.
Seventy. Sixty.
The air is against me now. It pushes. But I am strong. I am the holder of Power. I am Ganon, and I will not be denied in this place.
Fifty.
There is wind for the first time. Wind like the wind I knew as a child in the ancient citadel in the desert. It bites at my skin. It is punishing and sadistic, unforgiving. I keep swimming.
Forty. Thirty. Twenty.
The air is on fire. I am on fire. I have never, truly, known pain. So this is what it feels like to suffer. So this is what it feels like to die.
Ten.
I'm bleeding. It's so red against the white emptiness of this place. My eyes are red and scaled. My skin is the color of an old bruise. My hands are torn and bloody.
Five.
Two feet.
Threshold.
I emerge in the center of the field of Hyrule, in a flash of purple and a brief, distant wail. Somewhere the goddesses despair for the future of this world. Let them. I am back. I am powerful.
My magic is gone. It will return. I will journey to the wastelands of the East, rally the monsters and aberrations of the desert too me. I will be strong.
"Hello? Who's there?"
No! No, I must not be discovered, I must not, I will not go back, I-
With one bleeding hand, muscles still strong though my power is absent, I grasp the man's neck, constricting his trachea and cutting off his air. It's a farmer, I think. His receding hair is brown; his moustache is long and bushy. He's short and fat. Death comes quickly.
I drop the lifeless body and walk towards the desert. I break into a run. A gallop. I have crossed the threshold. That realm is closed to me now. I will not return.
I will not.
I will never cross that threshold again.