Hurried footsteps echo throughout the castle.
"Sorry!" The woman calls as she haphazardly collides with a group of knights patrolling the halls, fumbling to ensure that the garment in her arms didn't fall to the ground.
That was the last thing she needed. She was already running fashionably late. By fashionably, she meant that she was trying to convince herself that she wasn't going to get scolded by the king for being late on this very special day. And by running, she meant literally.
The news of Princess Zelda's court had swept through the castle. He was said to be the king of the desert but most knew that no men lived there. Perhaps, Impa thought, she was to wed a woman.
"Impa!" Zelda exclaims, her nervous pacing coming to a halt and a relieved expression overtaking her as the advisor skids to a stop within her quarters.
"Where have you been?!" She asks with a point. "I was starting to worry!"
"I'm sorry!" Impa nearly whines, bowing her head.
"The seamstress had misplaced it! It took her an hour to realize that it had been sitting in her cupboard since we tasked her with fitting it to your measurements and.." Her attention is drawn to the heavy wooden door as it is pulled open. Her first instinct was to cower but when her eyes meet the boy's, she crumbles in relief.
Link eyes her curiously, amusement clear on his features. She had run here, without a doubt.
"Oh, don't look at me like that!" She cries dramatically. Zelda chuckles.
"Your father wishes to see you, princess." The knight bows.
"In the dining hall, I presume?" She suddenly grows rigid, a flush on her cheeks, arms flapping helplessly to her sides.
"...to have tea with the man that I've been set to marry - I simply cannot do this. What if he believes me to be...? What if he's ill-mannered? His people are thieves after all! No! Mother believed them to be kind! - oh mother, how I wish you could be..."
"Princess?" Impa interrupts, her lips pursed, eyes avoiding the man who was having a difficult time keeping it together. The princess turns on her heels, her blush becoming a deeper red in realization.
"I was rambling...wasn't I?"
Link breaks there, into a gentle laughter that tugs Impa along with him.
x
"Do you trust him? The King?" Ganondorf asks, with a turn of his head. The movement shakes his crown into its spot in the middle of his forehead but only his eyes meet Urbosa's.
"Why must you be so distrustful? He would not so easily give up his daughter's hand if he had negative intentions. Zelda is his most prized."
"He says the same of his kingdom."
The Gerudo King turns away from the chieftain, thumbs rolling over the side of his index finger in anxiety. He'd woken up that morning to the chill of Hyrule's dawn, feeling as if the moment he'd shut his eyes the moment came one again where he opened them. Ganondorf rarely slept for long periods of time. His mind was always searching, always calculating, trying to decipher the dreams that plagued him both waking and unconscious. Malice filled them and yet every healer that he'd seen had told him they meant no harm.
No harm to himself, he supposed.
"Ganon..." Her tone soothes his anxiety. Ganon bows his head.
"I have known Zelda since she was no bigger than nightshade. She will not disapprove of you. Her soul is as kind as her mother's once was." Ganon had only met the queen in passing. He had not been king until after her death. He remembers that her eyes had been kind, even on him.
"Why would he allow me into the castle? More so, into his daughter's bed? Do you not think it's odd?"
"He does not see you as the vessel of Demise. You would do well to stop thinking on it yourself."
"And yet I am the only man who walks the desert walls. Perhaps, you would do well to stop denying what that means. The lives of this kingdom, more importantly, the reputation of our people depend on my fate. If I do not think on it, I cannot predict when I will become most vulnerable to him..."
Urbosa sighs.
"You were always stubborn. Even as a child."
The air between them hangs as thick as black smoke and yet both found themselves smiling. Urbosa understood that the pressure put onto Ganon's shoulders, not only by their own people but by the entirety of the kingdom, had weighed him down since the moment of his birth.
It was a sad story, she thought, the birth of the first male Gerudo in a hundred years. She believed that it would be miraculous to witness the birth of their king and now? She wished this poor boy had never been born for the sake of himself.
"Ganon," starts a voice from the hallway just outside of his given quarters.
"Astor wishes to speak with you. The brat believes he is entitled to it."
"Let him enter."
"Ganon, you're asking for trouble." Urbosa warns with a grin, giving him a pointed look.
The King hums, his melancholy expression changing to a grin that mirrors Urbosa's.
"Perhaps I should've thought of that when we met. It is much too late to get rid of him now. Besides, he's proved helpful before."
"If you mean that he hangs on your every word, you speak the truth. Helpful, on the other hand, isn't the first word that comes to mind."
Ganon stands, clipping his chest piece at the perch of his breastbone and adjusting his arm guards so they rest at the bend of his wrist.
With a roll of his neck, he watches the door.
"I will go meet with the King - make it quick." She directs at the prophet upon entrance.
"What have you seen, child?" Ganon asks softly, his smile growing with every step Astor took toward him.
"Everything." comes a voice that shakes.
x
Among themselves, the royals talk. Princess Zelda is dressed in the finest garbs of blue, gold, and white, bearing the symbol of her people on her front and the golden triangle upon her back. King Rhoam stood at the highest length of the table, overlooking the oak that centered the room.
His eyes run over his only daughter, her appointed knight, and the Sheikah advisor. They were well matched, the three of them. He wondered how the King of the Gerudo would fare in their presence.
"Where are our guests?" The King asks his own guard over his shoulder.
"Urbosa mentioned that their king was running a bit late. They will arrive shortly."
"A tarty King." He huffs; he should've expected as much from the King of Thieves.
Up the cobblestone path from a guard tower below, a King, his guard, and his advisor come to the terrace overlooking the land. It was beautiful here with its lush green and dark soil. The color of Akkala in the distance makes his heart yearn to visit it. As much as he hated to admit it, he wouldn't miss the land of his birth.
Entering through a large stone archway, his eyes drink in the sight before him. Not only was their kingdom beautiful, their home was as such.
The architecture in the desert was much different. It was made to withstand different woes of nature and climate. While similarities between the two stood, they differed far more than they were the same.
"Ah! I was beginning to worry that you had gotten lost!" Rhoam exclaims.
Heads turn in the direction of the terrace and Ganondorf suddenly feels at a loss for words as curious gazes find him there with three women at his side and a smaller boy stuck closely at his front.
Zelda blushes, her head snapping down in attempts to hide it. Impa follows suit, watching the Gerudo guards to try and quell signs of attraction. Link swallows hard when yellow eyes meet him once again, a flush on his neck that he doesn't try very hard to hide. He thought it would make it obvious, to hide it.
Link had met this man before.
However, when they'd last met, he hadn't any clue that he'd been discussing Hyrule History with the King set to marry the Princess that he swore to protect. They'd spoken for most of the night, there on the guard tower and throughout the town. He hadn't uttered a word of his royalty to him, had not spoken of the princess, instead he'd focused solely on the history, on the conversation they'd been having.
The conversation they'd been having about holding warmth for men.
Ganon feels his stomach lurch when his eyes fall on him. The boy who stood beside Zelda was the same boy he'd gotten to know the night before; the boy who knew he could not grow more than platonic love for the girl he was to marry.
Link feels something deep and angry boil in his stomach. Ganon dissipates it with another look, this one matching something that he'd seen the night prior. To him, it looked like a silent plea or a mixture of panic and regret or perhaps complete vulnerability. The King had told him his secret under the light of the moon.
He could understand it now, how coming face-to-face with the reality that the knight he had gotten close to the night before now held the power to destroy his chance to quell the anger between the races, was terrifying for him.
"I..." He tries but it feels almost as if something was caught in his throat.
"I apologize for our delay - this crown is...troublesome to fit."
Zelda chuckles, bringing Ganon's attention to the princess. The Gerudo man takes a deep, nervous breath, giving her a half-bodied bow, his smile gentle.
"She looks like she's going to faint." Impa whispers to Link who remains straight-faced despite his inner amusement.
Zelda held something in her gaze that Link hadn't seen before. Not only was it admiration and attraction, but for the first time since she told her father that she was ready to become queen, she seemed void of her usual anxiety.
Link supposed that Ganondorf had the ability to do that to most. He'd put him at ease the night before even though he hadn't known himself to be anxious until they met eyes. There was something about his energy that was genuine and charming and yet vulnerable and strong. The mixture of them all made him intoxicating.
The Knight casts his gaze to the floor. As much as he believed in there being no lies between him and the Princess, he knew that it wasn't his place to tell her of his secret. In fact, to out him to the woman that he was set to marry, to out him to the entire kingdom, Link didn't believe that that was right.
He wouldn't want the other to do the same to him.
"It's a pleasure to meet you." Zelda says timidly in a low bow. Ganon wishes to raise her head but this was the Castle of Hyrule; their etiquette was very different here.
If she was to be his queen, he was to bow to her.
Women were important to him. Being the only male born to his kind, being raised with and by women had shaped his morality. They were strong and powerful in the desert, their opinions were highly valued, their services of knighthood and protection were praised. He believed that mothers were best suited to be warriors; whether they lived by the sword or by the bonds of family.
He was sure the women governed by the King were much the same. It only seemed that their strong voices were silenced by those of their husbands.
"The pleasure is mine, Princess."
"Ganondorf." Rhoam interjects, his hand extended for the other to take. There is a brief pause as his gaze meets The King's but he eventually takes the hand that's offered. His shake is firm, genuine, and it puts him at ease.
"Shall we?" The King points to the table that had been filled with food and drink. Ganondorf nods, sitting where he was asked to sit; right across the table from Zelda and her knight.
Link.