Chapter 9:

Two months was almost over, and Ganondorf had counted the days until he would make his return to Hyrule, claim his bride, and rid her of her Triforce. Everything was riding on this plan. If this failed, then it would certainly be a very long time until he could try again. He wouldn't be able to fool them a third time with the same trick. It was more than seven years ago when he had first stepped foot in Hyrule castle, offering his services to the King. The princess had only been a child then, and so had that wretched boy. But since that time the King had grown weary and tired, longing to pass on his throne. He hadn't worried about whom this new stranger was that had come to save his dying land. Ganondorf had seen that he was only too pleased to have his war ended.

But he was suspicious that there might be rumours, and he knew that the King was becoming wary. Twinrova had been reporting the various whisperings via the gossip stone that he had left in their possession. He only hoped that there was still enough time before everything was made clear; that Hyrule would once again plunge into darkness by the hand of the King himself!

Ganondorf grinned, his dirty yellow teeth emerging from his dark lips. It was only a matter of time until Hyrule would be his! He could almost feel the thick grim that would pollute the air, see the perpetual grey storm clouds that riddled the blood-red skies, and taste the burning stenches of the Hylian corpses that littered the ground. His minions would rise from their earthy graves, reborn with the darkness that would be thrown over Hyrule's light, never to re-awaken again. They would rule the earth, flood the waters and invade the fiery mountains, claiming what was rightfully theirs in a glorious battle of bloodshed…

A knock came from the door of his small hut, and immediately the grin fell. The prominent thought of being discovered rooted his feet to the floor of his secluded hut. He dared not breathe or even blink. The air was thick with the soggy decay of wood. Nothing made a sound. Then, a screeching, high-pitched wail came from outside and Ganondorf breathed a little easier. He moved silently, and unlocked and opened the spy-hole in the upper part of the door. Peering through it, he saw below him the distorted vision of his loyal witches.

"Master, master! We have important news that you must hear!" they both said together, their heads growing in ugly shapes as they moved in front of the convex glass.

Ganondorf unlocked the triple bolted door and, before he had barely eased the door opened, Koume and Kotake scuttled in with a strange mixture of anxious glee in their long, wrinkled faces. Their bulging eyes were rolling in their sockets as they spoke.

"Lord Ganondorf, the King has been plotting!" Kotake yelled.

"Yes, yes! The King doesn't want you to marry his daughter, master. The King - "

"He sent her to Gerudo Valley!" Kotake interrupted, wanting to be the first to be rewarded for such brilliant information. "He was going to deceive you, lord Ganondorf! Yes! He was going to say - "

"That she had been captured by nobody knows whom!" Koume squeaked. "But we overheard him talking to the Sheikah woman and - "

"We came straight here to tell you, Lord Ganondorf! We came straight here to tell you that you were trying to be - "

"Deceived!" Koume barked, wanting to get the last word.

This was not something Ganondorf had thought about. A second's dread flew through his blood at the thought of being discovered, but it was replaced by something more contemplative. This could work to his advantage. He grinned again, but his shrieking witches were a little confused.

"Does this…please you, master?" Kotake said slowly.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, this pleases me very much. I thank you for bringing me this information, and I shall reward you when the time is right. Come, we must make haste. Perhaps we can fool the old King before time runs out. There's still a month left until I return; that will give us time to make a visit to the Gerudo Fortress, don't you think?" Twinrova nodded with mirror-splitting smiles. "Well then, let us prepare a small trip to our homeland."

Zelda had her eyes closed tightly. In her heart she still doubted Impa's words, but her powers as a sage were gathering within her. Already she could feel her heart become warmer and her soul lighter. A faint sigh then invaded her ears. She could hear someone breathing; a deep breathing that belonged to neither her nor Impa. She could feel their eyes watching her. They were staring at her with a gentle, glaring gaze.

Zelda didn't want to open her eyes; but the aching in her chest, the craving of her mournful spirit and the teasing of her senses all forced her to do so. They all overpowered the silent, screaming voices of her reason and the unheard shouts of her mind. She resolved to take a risk, and believe.

The princess looked down at the floor, opening her eyes to look at the grey flagstones. The breathing was louder than before, coming from behind her, the breathing that didn't belong to either of the two women. Stinging, unshed, and frightened tears crept painfully into her eyes as a pair of cool, ethereal hands bound themselves around her bare shoulders. Zelda was too overcome to say anything at all. The only thought that she could even possibly begin to comprehend was the feeling of the rough hands resting over her skin. They were the very hands that had loved her so dearly, clothed in their worn gauntlets and patterned network of scars.

Her shred of reason kept telling her that it wasn't real. It was a trick, all a trick of her imagination, nothing more. She couldn't let herself be taken in like this. But she sank under tears and desire. Everything became unreal. Her ears rang, her hands trembled and a pulsing nausea pumped across her forehead.

She couldn't tell when she had compelled herself to turn around, but finally she looked up to see a wet blur of green and gold. She felt as though she might lose her balance at any moment, but the cool battle-worn hands still held her softly by the arms. They grew firmer over her skin, transforming into something terrifyingly more real with every passing moment, and the dread of awakening from this dream flooded her with an incomprehensible fear. All she could see and trust was this clouded illusion of her tears.

A hand left her and drifted to her face. The deep lines of their fingers stroked Zelda's cheek, tearing away the veil of tears that kept her belief locked away inside her. Her vision cleared, and there he stood, the very image of her long passed away lover. She saw him as she had seen him in life, as real and as warm as any other.

An angelic expression covered his face, with the softest of smiles and the most beautiful eyes in all of Hyrule gazing down at her. The light in his sky-blue irises still shone as brightly as ever. He no longer wore that ethereal, ghostly air about him, but became vibrant in her eyes, almost glowing as her belief in him flourished more and more. This was no figment of her imagination. Link was really standing in front of her, crying with tears of happiness as she was. Her heart fluttered in her chest, believing completely in Impa's words, and in the race of confusion she gave herself entirely to accepting the impossible caress between the living and the dead. Nothing else could have mattered at that moment.

Impa watched her young princess with a small smile on her lips. But as she watched the star-crossed lovers with a slightly averted gaze, she began to squint in the heat of the room. She thought it was her imagination, but it became more and more apparent to her that Zelda was becoming less and less visible to the human eye. Her heart began beating quicker, thudding against her chest. The happy reunion had held her captivated for longer than she realised. Zelda's power began radiating in hot waves from her body, and Impa stood dumbfounded at the sublime display of magic. Through some miracle she brought herself to call Zelda's name again and again with more and more urgency, but each shout went unheard.

The princess was completely unaware of anything but the bright form of her love standing barely inches away from her. Through her tears she smiled as she looked up at him, returning the hopeful longing in his face. She could feel herself become lighter and lighter, feeling almost free of this gruesome, heart-wrenching world. If she could just touch him, she felt as though all her sorrow and mourning could be washed away, cleansed and healed by his overpowering smile. She lifted her heavy hand up to his golden hair, and her fingers barely grazed his cheek when a hand slammed itself on her shoulder. Zelda lost all concentration and suddenly Link was as pale and ethereal as he was before. Reality set in; she snapped her head round to the owner of the hand and saw Impa staring at her wide-eyed.

"Why?" Zelda whispered hoarsely, but Impa didn't answer.

The princess turned to face Link again, but all his warmth, all his life had faded away. She stepped closer to him, wanting desperately to hold his face in her hands, wanting her pain to be dashed away in an impossible manner, but they passed straight through him. She shivered involuntarily, but tried again, wanting nothing else but to feel him against her skin. But again her hands went through the dwindled brilliance of his figure, and Zelda could do nothing but sink to her knees. All life left her eyes and she could hear her reason laughing spitefully at her. Inwardly she cringed at the cackling devil, knowing that she should not have let herself become a victim of her desire. She had known that believing might have caused her more pain, and she was sorry to have neglected the protestations that had tried so vainly to guide her.

Nonetheless, she finally lifted her head and stared longingly at the pale, nearly non-existent picture before her. She looked at him with all the sadness of the world, and Link could do nothing but watch her fall into defeat. He could only do what he had done so many times before, and so he enclosed his love in a loose, cool embrace, expelling the heat of depression.

But as Link did so, a familiar breeze of nostalgia passed over Zelda, filling her heart with a single flicker of comfort. The frosty spectre in her room on the morning of her visit to her father; the gentle caress of the wind that had awoken her atop her father's tower; the sudden but consoling drafts that followed her around the Gerudo fortress…it had all been him. She smiled sadly at the thought. All this time he had been watching over her, always with her in her times of distress and in her times of comfort. He had never stopped loving her, and she had been completely unaware.

"I'm sorry, Zelda," Impa said quietly, but the princess did not reply. "If I had not stopped you then, you might have assimilated yourself with the spirit world, never to return to this world again." She spoke with a fearful but sensible rationality in her words, and she continued to speak, walking slowly toward Zelda as she did so. "It is possible, you know, to believe so passionately in what the spirit world is. Many Hylians in ages past have sought after it, believing so intensely that they merged with the world itself, becoming lost to Hyrule forever. That is how the Great Sage Rauru became so."

"I know, Impa," Zelda sighed, dropping her eyes to the floor. She turned to look at Impa and forced a small smile for her satisfaction.

Impa extended her hand and helped Zelda to her feet, embracing the daughter she wished she had. "There are many things you have yet to do before you can leave this world, Zelda. However much you want it now, you must restrain yourself," she said softly.

"I know, Impa, I know," Zelda sighed again, letting herself relax in the motherly protection of Impa's arms.

"There is a way to see him again sooner, Zelda." There was a pause. Both the young lovers' eyes snapped up at Impa's face, eager and curious to know how. Seeing the expression on their faces, Impa continued. "Listen very carefully as time is very short. I shall now tell you what I had come here to say."

AN: I'm so sorry about leaving this so long, and about this one being so short XD. Thank you to everyone who reviewed too!

Hououza: That episode is the best! It's so corny and chessyXD The mocks went well too! Thanks! I hope this wasn't as bad a cliff-hanger as last time.

serenitythefaierikin: I know, I'm terrible. That has to have been the most terrible cliffie I've ever written. Hopefully I won't be that horrible again.

vladimir the hamster: Thanks for reviewing so many chapters! It's good to see new reviewers:D I can see how the whole ZeldaxGanondorf could work, and I think it would be interesting to write about, but I prefer this couple so much more ; And to answer your question, Ganondorf may have been 'king' of the Gerudos, but there was still the King of Hyrule. If you look back at chapter 1 or 2 (I can't remember which one XD) but I think it will explain about the whole time issue thing with Ganondorf.

Some Say the World will END.: I'm sorry! I hope this satisfied you:D

Akinababy: Thanks:)

Niamh nic Raghnall: Sorry for not updating for a while XD I'll try not to be so terrible again next time.

Jessica Kazama-Mishima: Thanks! I'm honoured that you've got an idea from this. Let me know when you've written it:D