The room the sages were sitting in had been dark for days; none of them wanting to procure a light because they would have to see the outcome of their actions. However, they were forced to when a sudden loud thump echoed in the corner of the room.
"What is this!" cried the Zoron. Everyone crowded around the lump that had appeared. "Someone make a light!" someone called. A faint glow chased the shadows from the room, revealing a groaning Ganondorf on the floor, a stunned silence echoing for a few seconds. Sara kicked him hard in the side, producing a low moan from the prostate body.
"He's still alive" someone smirked.
"Where in the world did he come from?" asked the Darunia. Ganondorf seemed to have gone through a leaf shredder, his armor was eaten away, his arms were scratched, and even his hair seemed shorter then usual.
"He always did have a lumpy nose," noted Zelda. A low chuckle emanated from the crowd, however, a respectful silence echoed as a fat balding man parted the crowd, resting his left foot on Ganondorf's stomach.
"Who has control of whom now, eh?" The man poked his finger at Ganondorf's especially pointy nose as he spoke. "I strip you of the title of Ambassador to the King. You are hereby banished from all lands of Hyrule, including your homeland. I would sentence you now to the Forbidden Realm, but I believe that your friends have something else to use you for yet."
Two forms stepped out of the shadows, each bowing and curtsying respectively to the King of Hyrule.
"I am afraid we do," said Link gravely, "however, I have no idea how to go about said business." The sages exchanged glances, realizing that they too had no idea.
"Well, this is certainly a pickle!" said the King after a silence. Each of the sages crowded around a table in the corner, consulting maps and legends that were so old, their binding was made of tree sap held together with a pinch of modern magic to prevent decay. Leaving the professionals to their business, I slid down the wall close to where Ganondorf lay; although he still wasn't moving, I could feel Link's awareness of my position acutely. While the sages, Link, and the King deliberated, I became preoccupied with the body beside me.
Ganondorf hardly seemed to be breathing, but his eyes were open.
"Are you all right?" I asked softly enough for only him to hear. Ignoring me, he closed his eyes against the sounds of the argument.
"I am afraid that your design was doomed to begin with," I whispered slowly. I don't know why I felt the urge to tell the man who had caused so much pain the reason why he had failed. Perhaps, I like to believe that no one is really all evil, but they do evil things for a reason.
"No one can take any of the triforce pieces from anyone else. The creators of this earth designed it to give; each tree, rock, leaf and animal has something to offer this earth. Their beliefs are manifested in the triforce, the ultimate symbol of their dream for this world and though it could fall into human hands, it is safeguarded by their original creational ideas. No person, whether they be evil at heart or good, can take a piece away from another. The triforce was created to give; therefore, the pieces must be given freely in order for their power to merge." When I glanced back over at Ganondorf, his eyes had opened and he was breathing more visibly.
"You see, neither of us can take your share of the triforce," I concluded firmly, "It is yours alone to control."
I watched him out of the corner of my eyes for a while,but sleep soon claimed me as its own.
I awoke groggily to a heated argument. Princess Ruto stuck out her tongue at Darunia, who promptly repeated the action back. So mature…. These are the people controlling Hyrule? I vaguely wished for a democratic system of succession.
"Why don't we save this for tomorrow?" I yelled over the din. The sages began to protest loudly, however, I knew that if there was no intervening, their passions would lead them to the wrong conclusions.
"It would be best to continue when you have calmed yourselves," I said flatly. "Sages should not be engaged in verbal abuse." This time, they agreed.
Later that night, I found myself on a balcony overlooking the whole of Hyrule. Each peak, valley, river, stream, mansion, and hut was clearly visible through the amazingly crystalline air. Every place I saw was new to me, having never left the forest before I met Link, I wanted to see each of the places personally.
"I can't believe how beautiful Hyrule is," I sighed to myself.
"Neither can I," came a voice. Link leaned over the railing next to me, smiling as he saw the perfect pastoral spread out before him. "I wish I could take you to those places," he smiled, lost in the memories accompanying each area.
"Perhaps you shall," I murmured. Link turned to me, surprised.
"You would want to accompany me?" he said.
"Why not?" I asked. "I know very little of the land outside my home and I know more then most about the land inside my home. It wouldn't make sense to leave the virgin wilderness on my doorstep unexplored."
"Hardly virgin," he laughed. "There are settlements beyond the southern river."
"Really?" Link burst out into laughter, which made me even more confused. For the rest of the night, he regaled me with tales of his travels, fighting monsters, saving countless lives, but remaining the same fragile person in his heart.
Years seemed to pass within the confines of the parallel realm, though the moon proved that only a month had passed. The sages deliberated and argued, but they never seemed to come to any conclusive agreement about anything, so Link and I whittled away the time by ourselves.
One day, we found a room that was filled with books from across the entire world; that kept us amused for days on end, breathing in the smell of each new place by just flipping some pages. We played endless games of hide and go seek, though it was unfair to me. Link would always put on a blue tunic and hide underwater where I could never reach him, though the bubbles of his laughter disturbing the surface always gave him away. It seemed as though we had both lost hundreds of years of worry in a single hour and the children whom we had ignored for so long, finally wanted to get a bit of freedom before we returned to reality.
Ganondorf, in the meantime, was kept in a locked courtyard on my request. Though no one else could understand, I felt somewhat sorry for him. Like Link, he had been prodded into a direction that he did not want to go, being the only male child to be born to the desert people in 100 years. Whether he was evil or not, I felt it was inhumane to keep him locked in a room for weeks. Still, with all the fun I was having, I forgot that he existed at all.
In Hyrule, the damage that had been wreaked by the storm was meticulously being repaired. The king of Hyrule had given up the throne to Zelda's younger brother, Torin, in light of the fact that she had died. She took her place in the hall of the sages, arguing louder than any of the rest that Ganondorf should simply be killed and let that be that. I didn't like her too much; for one thing, she was horribly bad at hide and go seek, but whenever I saw her with Link, I got a squashy feeling at the bottom of my stomach. Perhaps she was too beautiful for her own good.
Zora's Domain, to the relief of Link, finally thawed.
"I defeated that damned wolf," he complained, "why in the world did it take this long to melt?" The Zorans hadn't complained. Their frozen homeland had become a large tourist attraction during the summer, but even after the water thawed, they would hold yearly Yeckball competitions, which is a sport eerily close to ice hockey.
Also to the relief of Link, his friend Malon found her night in shining armor. Someone had rescued her from the undead skeletons which prowl the wilderness after dark after she had gotten lost. When she first recalled the incident to us, she had a look in her eyes that said she was thinking about him sans vêtements. She also was reluctant to reveal his name to us, but Link said everything comes in good time.
For myself, I was granted the task of repairing the damage which Ganondorf's shadows had wreaked, which included my homeland. The sages even, if grudgingly, allowed all the people who were killed to be returned, with no memory of what happened to them. To keep myself occupied when Link was busy, I planted thousands of trees throughout Hyrule, which grew to be some of the most beautiful in the world. One in Hylian Lake, which I didn't plant, became quite famous for blossoming large, white flowers once every year, though it had been dead for longer then memory itself. I hear that the Zorans make a tidy profit in the tourist business nowadays.
But anyway, I regress.
After a particularly large pillow fight between Link and I, in which feathers fell like rain, our inner children finally decided that they had gotten enough fun to satisfy themselves for a while and left. We awoke to find that we had cuddled up together in a large pile of cushions with feathers inside all of our clothing, hair, mouths, and every nook and cranny of the room. Without saying a word, we agreed to spend the rest of the morning cleaning the feathers out of the corners.
The afternoon found us joining a heated argument in a conference room. Zelda, her hair frizzing in the rising humidity, pointed at a large map of royal genealogy, her voice becoming progressively louder as the volume of Darunia's snores increased. After only a few minutes of hearing her tirade, I began to feel my head grow heavy as well. Link had his eyes closed and was breathing slowly, a slow smile spreading over his face as a small dispute erupted over the relationship of Darian the Gold to Mariiann, Gelda's daughter.
Suddenly, a large bang made everyone yelp. Darunia's head had slipped out of his hand and hit the table.
"Hm?" he said sleepily, rubbing his head.
"Well… I never!" stammered Zelda, her wrath growing. "I…If you can't pay attention, well… then… I won't talk at all!"
"Finally," murmured Rauru, the sage of light, to himself. I saw Link laughing silently in the corner of my eye, his shoulders shaking as he tried not to snort; I pressed my lips together, but it was too late. We both erupted in laughter, crying and gasping for air as Zelda shot us a venomous glare, her mouth gaping at our audacity.
We were unanimously ejected from the room.
Because of our rude interruption, I was regulated to kitchen duty, which wasn't so bad, considering what Link had to do. Normally, Nabooru would feed everyone, but for some reason, she was taking a break today. Princess Ruto had made a fish casserole, which smelled worse then it tasted and it tasted pretty bad. After everyone had "cleaned" their plate, she gave me a plate of food and told me to go feed Ganondorf, which irked me a bit. What was he? A dog?
The guards next to the door unlocked the door, after I had answered a plethora of questions like: What is Nabooru's middle name? A rush of cool air emitted from the door as it slid open with a groan.
Ganondorf's courtyard was rather darker then mine, but the stars shone like glass in the inky sky. The plate clinked loudly against the short stone wall I had set it down upon. Can he feel my fear? I wondered, but didn't stick around to find out. I fled, but a cold hand grasped my arm firmly and reeled me in. I met Ganondorf's yellow eyes as he pressed something warm into my palm, grabbed my shoulders, turned me back around, and pushed me from the yard. I ran, the guards shouting at my back, to my room, firmly shutting the door before I dared breathe normally. Looking down into my hand, a gold triangle winked at me in the pale light.