The Beast Harkens
"Tell me if you're fatigued," he rumbled. "We have to ration our strength if we're to hold out for very long."
"Please," she blew aside a snarl of dangling auburn. "This is nothing. We've been through worse."
"Sad to say we have," he nodded, bones crunching under his boot as the shrieks of the dying droned around them, a wretched chorus.
"I wonder-" Light barreled towards her, mildly cutting her off as she evaded. "If Link's sister found him alright."
"You made sure of it, didn't you?" Ganondorf grunted, heaving a lucent behemoth – bright as the stars, terrible like splintered moonbeams, girth of a mountain – across the canyon through strength alone.
"But imagine a girl like her alone in the center of this madness. Imagine if it was Mari-"
Speak of the devil, and he doth appear.
"Mom!" a voice desperately gasped.
Something inside Zelda plummeted.
"Mom, where…where are you?" it sobbed, and the words seemed to crawl along Zelda's consciousness, drag itself amidst murky perception.
"No," Zelda whispered, eyes frantically searching the valley. "No, she can't be here, she can't-"
And she spotted her. Clothes frayed, crimson curls singed at the tips, the girl's body limping with the weight of exhaustion as it descended the cliffside.
Gold-rimmed serpents spiraled from either side, fangs bared.
But for a flash, and Zelda was upon them. Fragments of the hapless creatures lay cold and dead before they withered into nothing.
Curled against her lap was Marin, hardly conscious.
"Mom…" she croaked, soot across the crease of her brow. "You're here…"
"Yes, I'm here," Zelda soothed, a hitch to her voice. "I'm here, and I won't let anything happen to you."
"The…The castle," Marin coughed. "There was an attack when you were away, and we…we didn't stand a chance. I w-wanted to stay and help, but the guards told me – They told me to run and never look back."
Zelda peered over the canyon wall and sure enough, she could barely make out a trail of smoke wafting lazily skyward where her castle once was. Thoughts of her home, gone forever - her people, left to die at the mercy of monsters - pervaded her mind, but she forced herself to squash them down.
She gave Marin a trembling smile as she stroked her cheek with the back of her fingers.
"Bless them," she murmured. "For saving your life. Ganondorf-"
She looked around for him, unusually panicked, her composure dashed to slivers.
But he was there. A dark hand, steady and warm, against her shoulder.
She grabbed it with her free hand, drawing comfort, breathing his immovable presence.
"Ganondorf, I-I know we can't just leave the troops to defend the valley on their own, but…"
"No," he shook his head. "The world can wait. Tend to Marin. I'll manage things until you're ready."
Heat, slick and welling, bloomed against her chest, and suddenly she found it quite hard to breathe and her grip against his hand tightened like a vice, something within her ruptured-
"I love you," she blurted.
He blinked. Never before had she told him aloud.
"As for my end, it goes without saying," he grinned.
She hugged him desperately once, and he turned his back, waltzing onto the arena, head scraping the sky, single arm poised for triumph and death all at once, a galaxy at each blood-spackled fingertip.
And he was a gladiator. He never forgot that, first and foremost, carnage was his trade.
Author's Note: Some sweetness among the chaos! I'm such a sucker for fluff. Review? :]
If you please.