Author's note:
Keeping it short, this time around.
Chapter XXI
The Nomad
Part II
Almost nine otherwise uneventful months had passed since their visit to the twin sorceresses. Uneventful in a sense, because life, had found its course and while he was now making a name for himself amongst merchants all over Gerudo, and Vawatai had found her calling in passing most of her abilities to the nomadic Gerudo tribe, the only event was, of course, that they were expecting a baby any day now.
The story of how they had ended up living as husband and wife, was one they had chosen not to share with the rest of the world. As Va -as he now lovingly called her- had said one day, not long after meeting with the Rova twins: "It is frowned upon when a man falls in love with his pet-snake friend". A remark which cracked him up every time.
As he now spent his days ripping off naïve but rich customers, he had little time to tend to the needs of her wife, so Va was pretty much on her own while he worked. So, she had somehow managed to start a little gathering of Gerudo vai, that were really keen on how she seemed so strong, agile, and otherwise unaffected by her pregnancy.
"It all comes down to your hips and legs, you need to build muscle there!" she heard her shout one day to a very sweaty group of women twice as tall as anyone else. She had them squatting and jogging in the desert for hours and hours and although they sweated like anyone else, they could outrun anyone else, too.
The days passed and started to roll one into the other, with a relative peace and quiet he had never known in his life, and that had started to make him feel uneasy. A particularly warm night, after the eleventh time he rolled on the bed, Va muttered not without a tone of annoyance:
"What is it, my love? You've been like this for weeks now". He rolled over to look at her, more pregnant than ever and with an eerie glow to her, or perhaps it was just the moonlight entering their tent.
"On your days as a snake, did you ever feel this?", he asked. She raised a brow. "What I mean is. Is this feeling, here, us, now; is it something you have ever experienced before?", his gigantic wife smiled tenderly at him as she caressed his face.
"I never felt peace in my life, Dragmire", she continued while putting strands of his graying hair behind his ears.
"I don't think I have told you this before. But the night we met, I had been without food for almost a month, and I almost ended up inside the belly of a very hungry Lizalfos. I only managed to get away because they were busy fighting for the eating order. I had been slithering all night hoping to find a quiet place to die in peace. That's when I found you".
Before that, my life had always been battles, blood and war. I am almost one thousand years old, and these six years have been the only peace I have ever known."
Dragmire looked at her for the longest time, just taking in the true beauty of this incredible being beside him. "Before you, I never knew what the word love meant", he found himself blurting out. She smiled at him.
"Before I found you, I was nothing. I ended up a third hand scavenger after the war. I had only survived up to that point because lying had saved my life so many times before. At the expense of many lives", he averted his gaze from her. "Now, I know I still rip off customers, but I see it more as my tools of the trade to sell the good stuff now. I'm not the nicest person, but I never knew my family, since I was abandoned to die in a desert not unlike this one.
The first time I felt a connection to anything or anyone other than money or myself, was the night I found you". She held his hand in silence and let him continue.
"I-I", he stuttered.
"Something's been bothering you ever since we last saw Koume and Kotake", Va whispered softly. Dragmire shivered at the sound of those names. He still didn't know why, but…
"I don't trust them", he said. "Something that old hag said has been nagging me ever since", his wife looked at him intently. "As of now…" he trailed off.
"What do you mean, 'as of now'?", her tone was slowly matching his troubled mind.
"When I asked her, if we owed them anything, for… whatever they did. The one with the zephyr on her forehead said, "we are, as of now, even". He paused, thinking. "But how could we be even if we didn't pay any fee?" It was too late when he realized he shouldn't be thinking out loud. Va was now mirroring his thoughts with her face.
"So, you fear something will happen to our child?", she asked in a faint whisper. He nodded.
"If I ever learnt anything, it's that no one does anything for free".
That was the first time they didn't sleep at all since their visit to the witches.
A fortnight later, Dragmire could still not get a full night's rest. Whenever he could manage to fall asleep, it was only to have the sister witches visit him in his dreams, or rather, nightmares.
That particular night, the nightmare consisted of mostly blood-chilling screams and blood puddles, some evil cackle and a very low voice that said, 'These toys are too much for you!', after that, it was usually silence and he woke up in a cold sticky sweat. Now however, the screams were not subduing, they were deafening…
It's coming…
It's coming…
It's coming!
HELP ME!
"DRAGMIRE HELP ME!", he shot straight up without opening his eyes. The voice of his wife now burnt deep inside his skull. Something warm had found it's way underneath his left hand. As he opened his eyes and turned around, he realized what it was.
Blood. So much blood.
"IT HURTS!", Vawatai was beside herself with pain, writhing and kicking everything. Her back arched every now and then, he grabbed her hand. He instantly felt the bones on his own hand break with a loud 'crack'
It took him a second to understand what was happening. His hands began to shake and he felt his heart racing like a sand seal. The pain of his broken hand rooted him in the real world.
"I'll go get the-" he never got to finishing that sentence. He felt a searing pain inside his chest and watched as his hands started to wrinkle and then pale, he felt his skin hang like wet cloth. He fell on his back, the canvas of his tent was all he saw.
"DRAGMIRE!", she shouted. "MY LOVE!", her voice sounded sore. She must have been exhausted from screaming. A faint cackle made his heart stop for a moment.
"Now, we are even. Swine", he heard a familiar voice say. He saw a pair of beady eyes, and a crimson light. The last thing he heard was the ear-splitting scream of the love of his life.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM?!"
He felt a single tear drop and slide on his temple and his ear. Then, it all faded to black, and he was dead.
"You were never meant to live the rest of your life with that cockroach, O great Din!", Vawatai heard one of the witches say with a deep bow. She could almost see her grinning. The pain she was in was the only thing stopping her from squashing her insect-like face against the ground. A cockroach was a fine metaphor.
Dragmire
A strong spasm traveled through her back and her legs. She could feel the baby was struggling. Something was off. A boney hand rested over her forehead, it was as cold as a desert's night.
"You should not worry yourself with that mortal, he was undeserving of every breath he took. The world is already a better place with his dead, and balance has found it's way through this baby. You'll see", said another voice. A calmer one.
"I'm rea- really cold now", she said, shivering. The pain had not subdued, but she could not stop herself from shaking. She had stopped sweating altogether.
"We know, dear. But it's the only way". The calmer voice said.
"You need to push now, I can see the top of the head already! PUSH!", demanded the fiery voice.
The pain was so intense now that all she wanted now was to get it over with. Her heart had instantly broken the moment she saw Dragmire wither away like an old leaf and die. He was still lying there with his eyes open, staring blankly at the ceiling. For some reason, she noticed a trail of drool coming out of his mouth. She started to cry and push, tears of heartbreak mingling with tears of physical pain. Her throat was so sore now she couldn't scream, and all that came out were grunts and squeaks.
The moment she felt the baby finally come out, she wanted to die. She didn't want to see it, she just wanted to close her eyes and disappear forever. When she opened them, a single tall figure towered over her. A woman about her size. She was holding her baby.
"Your sacrifice won't be in vain, Din", her voice was deep, and the way she spoke was calm and collected. She understood nothing.
"Din?", she croaked. A faint smile crossed the strange giantess' face. Her baby wasn't crying.
"Give me my baby back!", she pleaded. She was still shivering from the cold.
The woman didn't speak, instead, she placed her hand over the baby's face. It started to move, still naked, she noticed it was a boy. His skin was turning blue. Then he stopped moving. His skin then turned into a deep shade of green. His newborn son lay limply over the woman's arm.
"You shall return to them", she said. At the same moment, two tongues of fire shot straight out of the hand she had over her baby, then spread all across his body, and then the flames engulfed the woman too. Soon the whole tent was on fire. Vawatai could feel the flames licking her skin, burning it and exposing the muscle.
She was screaming at the top of her voice, but she had gone deaf, the fire had burnt her ears.
The last thing she ever saw was a figure walking away from her. It had something on it's arms.
The flames soon blinded her, and it was only until every sense was stripped from her that she began to move. It was as if she had been bound by some spell.
Her mind as a whirpool of thoughts, and, at the end, the only thing she could think of was only one thing.
Revenge.
"These toys are too much for you", a deep voice roared far away.
He woke up in a cold sweat, panting. Some stray strands of his matted hair tickled his nose. He wanted to sneeze, but just as soon as the feeling came, it had passed. He coughed once and cleared his throat. The stars were still shining over the night sky, but over the horizon, a faint smudge of orange told him it was almost morning.
He had been having the same dream for years. It had dawned on him that he couldn't remember the last time he had had a good night's sleep. He couldn't remember a moment of peace in his life.
Until now.
He had been roaming the earth for centuries now, just wandering around, initially wanting to settle down, but every time people found out he was a warrior, he had ended up fighting a battle that was not his, for a land that he didn't care for, against an army he had no quarrel with.
He had been close once, but as soon as he had opened up about his past… life, that door closed in his face. He fathered no children and didn't want to.
One could never be too careful with certain things, because, how could he not fear making another him? All his life only one thing had mattered to him, and it was the very same thing that which had brought his demise so many times before. Power.
From the moment he could stand he had been taught every possible way a man could harm, torture and kill another living being. All in a quest for power. It was funny because, he always thought people were like sheep and in his mind, he was some kind of shepherd, instead he found out much later, he was just a wild coyote, and the sheep were better off without him around.
That had been a lesson he had learnt the hard way. Many times. The hatred he had harbored for a particular couple had made roots so deep that he had killed many just to calm him down. It had been them, every time. And every time the thoughts that had crossed his mind were the same.
"Why?!", he asked out loud to an oblivious grasshopper that was watching him intently. Or at least he thought it was watching him. What did he know about grasshoppers?
For a thousand years he was relieved from watching his face, his stupid little determined look, and his stupid smug face every time he defeated him. Sometimes he wished he dreamt other things, so he could gouge his eyes out.
Fuck.
Just the thought of that damned hylian made his blood boil.
But the other one he truly despised. The princess. She had been there every time to stop him, thwart his plans each time, and each time it was out of the blue, just when he had the upper hand and was about to deliver a finishing blow, the blonde regal pointy-eared bitch stopped him.
And yet.
He had seen them just a few days ago, just as he was done watching the giant mechanical wonder in Zora's Domain -Icy memories from another life came to mind - , though he was sure they didn't recognize him. How could they? That is what made him hate them more. Each time they were relieved of any memories, her souls would just find another vessel and live a happy life until they crossed paths with him.
He was cursed with immortality, to an extent. He didn't care for that so much. He actually enjoyed his free time studying, reading, or even playing music. He had found out composing was one of his many pleasures in life.
No, no, what he could not stand was remembering every day of his life, and even his death. He could remember clearly every time that so called "chosen hero" had stabbed him in the face. Most of all he remembered the feeling of the sharp blade cutting through his skin and bone. He could even recall the way it pierced his brain one time…
Why he was drawn to that particular spot on such a massive Realm, he had no idea, but something inside him ached to see the places where those beasts now rested. Perhaps he was doing it just to delay the inevitable. He needed to go to the castle, it was the only place where he would find the answers he was looking for. He really didn't know what those answers were yet, but his gut was telling him to go there.
His thoughts were as scattered as his life through the ages. He collected them as well as the few things he currently owned. He grabbed his cape, which he had used as a makeshift mattress and put it around his shoulders. The first hours of dawn were usually the coldest. He could see his breath escape his mouth. He clasped his hands together and blew inside them to get them warm.
Having visited Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania, all that was left were, Vah Medoh and Vah Naboris. That last one he was dreading, because it was going to be difficult to walk around unnoticed in his own homeland. There was no denying it, he was afraid of returning to the Gerudo Desert, ever since the first war against Hyrule, he had vowed never to return, and so he did.
He looked around to take in his surroundings. He knew he had to travel due west for some weeks. He would take his time. It occurred to him, that he never actually took the time to appreciate the beauty of the kingdom he sought to rule so many times before.
With that thought in mind, Ganondorf walked towards his destiny.
Author's note 2:
Well now the trio is complete, but how will it all come together?
Also yes. Yes, that was Din, as in THE Din. Or at least her mortal form. Not gonna say more.
Only one more part and then we're back in business!
Thanks for reading!
