It felt like a sledgehammer. That's how hard the water hit them. Midna simply turned to shadow, the water passing strait through her. Link felt the full crushing weight of the water, but only had to hold his breath for a moment. After that Midna sent him his Zora armor, and he only had to worry about crashing into pillars. As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about, for they had all been crashed to the ground by the torrent of water. He didn't even bother trying to swim against the current. A real Zora might have been able fight the rush of water (though even that was iffy) but there was no way that he would defeat it with his Zora armor and, comparatively, puny muscles as his only weapons.

Itzal would have received the full force of the shower, but he was fast, and he managed to board the black disk and fly out of the way. He now hovered at the top of the cavern, hoping fervently that the water would not fill the cavern entirely.

Zelda had cast a spell for breathing water. It was shaky, but holding. She was swept along the current as Link was, but while she didn't even have the flippers attached to the Zora armor to aid her, she was ignorant of her own limits. So she was trying as hard as she could to fight the current. She had to find Ganondorf, no one else knew what danger he was in. She realized with a sickening thought that Ganondorf was wearing metal armor, something that would not help his cause even if he did know how to swim.

She looked around her frantically, but, as with Link when he was in the pillar, the water was too murky to see very far. Zelda suddenly realized that Ganondorf's armor would keep him at least near the bottom of the water. She plunged down into the depths of the pool, something a lot easier than fighting directly against the current.

And then she saw him.

Or rather she saw the glow of his triforce. It was compensating for his lack of air for the moment, an activity that made it glow like a lighthouse's beacon. Except in this case Zelda was heading towards the light. He was unconscious now, the lack of oxygen shutting body down as much as possible without killing him. She grabbed his shirt first, making sure she had a hard anchor to him before anything else. Then she ripped the armor off, not bothering with undoing the straps.

As soon as the last strap was torn, the current grabbed again. Zelda was too tired to resist this time; she only used her strength to hold onto Ganondorf. She realized that her spell must not be working too well, for her mind was working sluggishly.

If she wasn't so tired, she would have kicked herself. The spell! She cast one on Ganondorf as hard as she could, but she knew that it was probably even more ragged than the one she cast on herself. Zelda felt her eyes growing heavy but she fought to stay awake. Just a little longer, a little longer. He vision was going black…

There was something ahead of her. It looked almost like a zora, but it was a strange one. Its head was shaped almost like a top, and there were two extra eyes on the left and right sides of the top-head. That shape head was somewhere in the history books, but where? She followed the Zora, only half conscious. The Zora suddenly disappeared, leaving them stranded again.

And then they hit air.

Zelda gasped the treasure up, gulping it down like ambrosia. She hauled Ganondorf's head into the air with a superhuman effort. And another treasure: her feet hit land.

She gave a yelp of joy and dragged herself toward land. In the back of her mind, she wondered how in the world she was carrying Ganondorf, even if she was dragging him. Human muscles, and hylian muscled apparently, seem to have extraordinary power when in extreme peril. Perhaps strength is simply held back until panic unlocks the secret reserves. But however it happened, Zelda made it.

As soon as they were on land, the triforce of power gave a burst of light and all the liquid that leaked into Ganondorf's lungs shot out in a geyser of water (a few stomach fluids seemed to have gotten in there as well but I won't go into detail). He gasped at air, his eyes rolling in their sockets so frantically that Zelda doubted he was actually conscious.

Then his body settled back into normal functioning, his eyes closed and his breathing evened into that of sleep. Zelda sighed in relief and followed his example, collapsing into rest.

She woke to find Ganondorf staring at her. She smiled, feeling almost drunk.

"Hello Mr. Piggy. Fancy seeing you here, is Miss Piggy home?"

He grunted and pushed her up to a sitting position, not sure how to reply to that.

Zelda just giggled, the lack of oxygen still affecting her "Wee! The world is going all tilty!"

Ganondorf decided that a sneer best suited this situation "Don't expect any thanks. I don't do all that 'I'm forever in you're debt' nonsense."

"Heehee! Of course you don't! That would be polite. You're a total jerk and lunatic. I think I want to be called princess pretty now! " her eyes suddenly snapped into focus "by the goddesses! Did I seriously just say that?"

Ganondorf would have liked to sigh in relief that she was normal again, but he restrained himself "Yes you did. Now if you're quite sane, then I suggest we figure out what to do."

Zelda looked around. They were in a small cavern, probably a pocket of air in the tunnels. They had no weapons, apparently her bow and sword had been washed away, and she had been required to unhook Ganondorf's sword with all his armor. The cavern looked unstable, so using magic might result in a cave-in. Zelda rubbed her forehead, normally, the triforce would have been nice to have.

Ganondorf rolled his eyes "Wonderful, you can't think of something. We're dead."

Zelda scowled "Give me some time; I need to examine this place."

Ganondorf stood up, not responding, and began to pace the cave. Zelda stood up as well and went to the wall of the cave, running her fingers over it in hope that some inspiration would leap out and hit her. How thick were the walls? What was on the other side of them? How-

"For the love of Fyore Ganondorf will you stop pacing?!"

Ganondorf stopped in his tracks, staring at Zelda with mock surprise "Princess Zelda having an outburst? What next! Fireproof zora? Or perhaps the twili will start having noon picnics in hyrule field! Or maybe-"

"SHUT UP!"

Ganondorf just laughed "You know, the triforce usually keeps your emotions under control for you. If your going to pretend you still have it you should at least try to do more than cover your hand."

Zelda froze "How-"

"-do I know about that? You didn't offer to heal my wounds after I fought the bird, you've been acting muddled for a long time, your not as dignified as usual, your spells are weaker, you had no help keeping you alive after half drowning, and" he pointed to her right hand "The disguise bandages came off."

Zelda looked at her hand, where the mark-less skin was indeed showing.

"Then… why am I not dead?"

Ganondorf his face away "I don't know. I do know that whatever is stopping me is the same thing that stopped me from running you over as Ganon at the village. Now lets go back to looking for some way out of here."

Zelda nodded, but didn't move "Ganondorf?"

"What?"

"Since I did save your life…"

"I already told you, I'm not going to be all grateful."

"I just wanted to ask a question, if you answer it, we call it square. If you don't we call it square anyway."

Ganondorf turned back around to face her "What is it?"

"Why did you deceive and betray hyrule?"

Ganondorf was sighlent, finally Zelda turned away, realizing that he wasn't going to answer.

"When I was five years old, I became apprentice to a knight of hyrule."

Zelda turned around in surprise, but Ganondorf kept talking, if he stopped, he wouldn't have the courage to start again.

"The thought was that if the Gerudo and Hylians got use to each other, maybe we could live in peace. The other apprentices hated me. Out of all of them, I somehow found one friend. His name was Chariton. He ended up taking the gerudo initiation right next to me. Then we were the same, I was of gerudo blood but also had hylian title, and he was of hylian blood but also had gerudo title."

"Then he betrayed me. Tried to kill me alongside another knight. I didn't realizes who they were until after I defeated them, and then I had only survived by killing his accomplice. In accordance with the so called 'justice' of the hylians I was sentenced as a murderer and he went free, seen as the victim of the whole thing who had lost his fellow apprentice to gerudo scum."

Ganondorf took a deep breath "The knight that was training me came to my defence, saved me at the last moment by threatening to leave the knight ranks. So I was exiled instead. A few weeks later, Chariton's dagger was sent to me with my master's lifeblood encrusting the blade. They accused me of killing him too."

Ganondorf turned away again, pretending to examine the wall for an escape. Zelda was in shock, and her shock grew as she saw that the ground beneath Ganondorf's feet growing speckled with tears. Ganondorf, crying?

She walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. She opened her mouth, but couldn't think of what to say, so she closed it again.

Ganondorf suddenly smiled, and not a hint of demonic nature lingered in his face "I never told anyone the full story, not even my sister. Never realized how much I needed to let someone know."

Though neither of them realized it, Ganondorf's face had lost all of the sickly tint that had plagued it for so long.