"Welcome to my castle."
His words were meant to incense me, and I did feel a pang as I looked around me. He had transformed my beautiful home into a house of horrors.
In a swift motion, he lifted his hand and my prison fell away from me. I sank to me knees before I could stop myself.
"Do you not like it, little princess?" There was a twisted smile on his swarthy face as I refused to respond. "Too polite to deny it."
"The décor of your…castle… is of no account to me," I finally managed. I rose carefully to my feet under his scrutiny, trying to hide my discomfort. His stare was piercing.
"You've grown quite beautiful, little princess," he said. "How time changes all things, wouldn't you agree?" He spread his hands around him, as if to encompass everything around him. I glared. He chuckled.
"I see you have little to say to me. But we are going to be here for quite some time. You see, I can't take your life, Princess of Destiny, until your hero appears to rescue you. As he most predictably will rise to the challenge."
"Why?" A thousand whys? filtered through his tower, louder than the voice that birthed them.
"Why what?"
"Why not kill me?" I said steadily. "And then kill the Hero of Time after?" It was not out of the realm of possibility. Sure, it would be a low thing, but I didn't see how it was beyond him, frankly. And curiosity won me over.
He frowned at me, and I got the impression that he thought me simple. "I cannot."
I didn't feel the need to voice my question this time, so I continued to look at him, until he would supply me with an explanation. His footsteps were a dark dirge as he moved toward me. I refused to look away from his golden eyes, I would not be afraid of him.
Then he stopped mere feet in front of me and paused. "If I were to kill you now," he said. "The boy would know it."
I began to shake my head, denying his words for their irrationality, but he cut across me. "He would know it, little princess. And I'll not underestimate the Triforce of Courage again."
"So this is about Triforces…" I said.
He shrugged. "Isn't it?"
"Link is formidable with or without the Triforce of Courage."
His laugh was powerful and made me bristle. "You would say that, Princess. He is your Hero, after all."
"He is Hyrule's Hero," I said, thoroughly annoyed. "He is the Hero of Time."
That stopped his laughter, and his hand was suddenly under my chin, forcing my face up to his. "You really are a naïve little mortal, aren't you?" he murmured, something unreadable in his expression. "Forgotten so, so much. I'm…disappointed."
As he spoke, my own face reflected the pits of his eyes and suddenly, he was a monster. And a saw a ravaged world that I could hardly contemplate, and as I cried out, he stepped away from me and entrapped me once more. And he said not a word more to me, until Link careened into his stronghold, eyes blazing and Light Arrows at the ready. My terror at the hero's fate was so strong that I nearly forgot what I had envisioned in the Evil King.
But when the Triforce of Power gave Ganondorf a final form, and I helplessly watched the enormous beast tower over the swordless Hero of Time, he was that monster again.