A/N: Hey everyone! I hope you all are well. Here is chapter five and it is back in Link's perspective. Zelda's will be next week, and today a bit of Ganondorf's purpose will be revealed. Thank you to everyone who read and or reviewed, you guys are my motivation, so thanks!

Gojira Geek: yeah I agree with you about bellum, it was a tad disappointing.

Generala: Oh wow, thanks for the three reviews! They made my day! I agree with you about the comparison with Frodo . I shall go in to how his is alive at a later chapter It would spoil a few things if I told you now. If it were me I would feel pretty bad if any action of mine hurt someone I cared about even if it was right and I thought she would feel the same. I plan to try to make equal screen time between Link and Zelda and I might switch perspectives every chapter or couple of chapters. Thanks again

Yami no Nokutan- I have more! Ganondork *sniggers* yes he does need to go down! Your question shall probably be answered next week :D Thank you for the review!

Storm Dragon Wolf Princess- something is telling me that you may be right :) Yeah I can see why Morphia would be a bit of a letdown when it comes to character development. Many thanks for the review!

Captive March

Link woke to an odd rocking sensation and, for a moment, he felt he was going to be sick. He opened his eyes to see the ground passing by below him and the black flank of a horse. He closed his eyes again, fighting the wave of nausea. He realized why the rocking had felt so odd a moment ago, it was because he was lying face down, draped sideways over the saddle of a horse.

He groaned softly. He felt like he had just been trampled by an entire army of bulblins. Well, he thought ruefully, that was sort of what had happened. He tried to move his hands but to no avail. They felt strangely heavy and would not spilt apart. Chains, he realized miserably, and his legs seemed to be chained as well. He opened his eyes again and without moving his head much, so as to not alert his enemies to that fact that he was awake, he tried to get a sense of where he was.

He scanned the ground and plant life. It looked like hard packed sandstone and the plants were sparse and, for the most part, appeared to be young desert plants: like young green tumbleweeds, and chamisa. The entire area was glowing in the odd way the world does at sunrise and sunset, and half the path was shadowed. Based on this, he suspected that he was in canyon lands. Because the light seemed to grow in strength rather than wane, he guessed that it was sunrise. As he bumped along, he realized that he had mostly been taking in all this information with his left eye, and this was because his right eye seemed to be swollen nearly shut. He was positive that he had a nasty black eye, and he had to quell the urge to reach up and comfort the offending spot.

Tilting his head almost imperceptibly, he looked at his right arm. It had been badly bruised and slashed the night before and he was surprised to see that it had been roughly bandaged. A small red stain on the wound strips of cloth was the only sign of the gash underneath. Why would Ganondorf have had his wounds seen to? he wondered, partially confused. Before he could dwell on his enemy's seemingly illogical move further, the soft voice of a complainer cut through the silence of the morning.

"We have been on the march all night and I, for one, am sick of it." The voice sounded pompous, whiny, and strangely familiar but Link could not place it.

"Shut your mouth before you get us in trouble. His lordship doesn't like to hear complaining and insubordination," a second deeper voice reprimanded the first.

It appeared that not everyone in Ganondorf's army were mindless monsters.

"Tirkon," the whiny voice continued, "you know, at first I thought Ganondorf was insane when he said we would need a large force to take that boy. I mean, I knew he save the blasted kingdom of Hyrule the first time, but I wasn't expecting us to lose so many solders to him. It's no wonder Ganondorf fears him. I'd be afrai-"

"Shut up" the second voice, or Tirkon, commanded the first. "You know how touchy his lordship is on that subject. Are you trying to get us killed? Also, that rat will be waking up soon and you don't want him to hear you now do you?"

"Why don't we just finish him off now?" the whiny one sneered. Link heard the sound of a blade being drawn from its sheathe. He prepared himself to roll off the horse at the sound of the blade's swipe, but relaxed fractionally when the second voice once again reprimanded the first.

"Fool! Stay your blade. If we were going to kill him we would have done it already. His lordship wants him alive. Hush, captain's back."

The two ceased their prattle as the voice of who Link assumed to be the captain boomed out orders and called a halt.

"Set up the lord's tent and wake the boy; our liege wants a word with him."

The procession halted and Link was roughly seized, lifted off the horse, and some freezing cold stream water was thrown on him. He shook the icy water from his head and tuned to look at the water thrower. In front of him, stood the plumed darknut who had killed King Bulblin and punched him in the face the night before. The plumed soldier took off his helmet. He was not a darknut after all, but a man in darknut armor.

"Make sure that this scum's hands are tied securely behind him," he commanded.

"Yes sir," the whiny one replied from behind him, tugging sharply on the chains that bound his wrists.

The man in darknut armor looked sneeringly in Link's direction, "does the poor boy have a headache? Does your eye hurt from the blow I gave you yesterday?"

Truthfully, Link detested being spoken to in such a condescending manner, especially by one who had been the cause of his friend's death. But he did not show it. Instead, he made a mock sorrowful face as he answered back in the same condescending tone. "Yes, I have a headache and the blow you gave me does hurt my eye," then he smirked as he continued in his normal voice, "but not quite as much as the sight of your face hurts it."

The commander scowled angrily at the insult, "how about I make the other one hurt twice as much," he snarled, raising his fist.

"Xiphos!" a voice cried angrily from a makeshift tent at the edge of camp, "How long does it take you to fetch me a prisoner?" It was Ganondorf's voice.

"Coming lord," Xiphos called prodding Link forward with one of his jewel embossed daggers, herding him roughly to the tent. It was slow going because Link's feet were chained together and the chain running between them was not long enough to match his normal stride length. It had the same effect as a hobble on a horse.

As they walked Link took stock of his surroundings. The procession had just exited a canyon and a mesa lay in front of them breaking off further down to reveal high mountains. Snow adorned its peak and went about as far as halfway down. All around were short juniper bushes, stubby pinon trees, and a few other desert bushes.

What was surprising was that he did not recognize any of the land around him. He was not in Hyrule. If he managed to escape he would not be sure which way to run too. He did not know if Hyrule lay to the north south east or west. As they neared the tent, Link focused his thoughts. Ganondorf had all but lost his power and had some scheme to get it back, one that involved himself, and required him to be alive. The situation was rather bleak indeed.

As he entered the dimly lit tent, he saw Ganondorf seated towards the back. Xiphos stood at Link's side and spoke.

"My master has no wish to lower himself to speak to such as you so I will act as his voice."

Then I will not lower myself to answer, he was about to say before he thought better of it and bit his tongue.

"My master wishes to know the location of the twilight shard," Xiphos continued. "He knows it was in your position- the embodiment of the magic cast by the usurper king Zant. His lordship needs it, Answer truthfully or it will be the last lie you ever speak."

"Brilliant threat," Link said smiling, and edge in his voice. "Especially since it's location would die with me then."

"We have other ways of getting information," Xiphos snarled pressing his blade against Link's throat. "I would enjoy making you talk."

"You'd be wasting your time. I destroyed the shard when Midna sealed herself in the land of twilight," Link lied boldly. "I destroyed it because I did not want it to cause any more suffering or pain."

Ganondorf, forgetting all pretense of being distant, leaped up angrily and strode towards Link, but as he drew nearer his furious expression turned into a smile.

"Search him," Ganondorf said in a confident voice, "If he isn't carrying it on his person then I believe he is telling the truth."

"But sir-" Xiphos started to protest but was cut short with a silencing gesture.

"The twilight shard is an incredible source of power," Ganondorf explained. "That being said, do you think he would separate himself from such a power source or hide it for some fool to find? If he did not destroy it then I am positive he would carry it on his person. He had no knowledge that I would be returning and therefore had no reason to secure its location before our ambush."

Something about Link's expression proved his assumption to be correct; not that he had ever had any doubt that he was wrong. He had never been wrong about anything before and this matter was no different. Power was his specialty; he knew what it did to people and what it made them do. It was possible that Link had been too foolish to take control of the power that the stone possessed for the trifling excuse of protecting others but, if he had not, even a fool would keep such power close at hand and he knew it. Why have a power if one had no intention of using it? Ganondorf knew Link was not stupid, foolish in the ways of mastery, but not stupid. He would never underestimate him again.

He looked expectantly at Xiphos who reported that he had found nothing. Xiphos's voice was halting as if he were afraid of telling the supposed terrible news. Ganondorf smiled inwardly. He could not help but revel in his ability to strike fear in the hearts of lesser men. He took great pleasure in seeing Xiphos's shocked face as he explained.

"The twilight shard was but one power link, there is another. Granted, it would have been easier to have the twilight shard, we will have to go slightly out of our way to get the other, but this is only a minor setback-"

"Are you positive he is telling the truth? I would enjoy wringing it out of him if he lied," Xiphos announced boldly, a bit to bold for Ganondorf's liking.

"Silence," he commanded, irritated at the interruption. Then he turned to Link. The teen was standing completely still, unafraid. Not even Xiphos's reference to torture had made him tremble. A placid expression was on his face, but his eyes flashed angry defiance. This irritated Ganondorf even further.

"Take this scum out of my sight and prepare the troops to leave, I want the prisoner on a horse as well, there are plenty rider-less ones now. The darknut troop, the mounted bulbins, and I will travel up the mountain. The foot soldiers will go through the pass. As soon as you secure the prisoner, I want you to come directly back here, I have an important mission for you. Ganondorf watched as Xiphos roughly shoved Link out of the tent. He smiled to himself; maybe Link did not fear him now, but he would just as soon as the power source was his. He would take great pleasure in breaking his enemy.

As soon as he exited the tent, Link found himself slammed to the ground in a face plant. Xiphos put a foot on his back, and ground his face into the dirt. The dark knight called to one of his soldiers and together they rearranged the chains and lifted him onto a horse. They chained his legs to the stirrups and his hands to the saddle horn. Several worried yet semi-grateful thoughts whirled through his mind. Ganondorf was indeed clever and had nearly perfectly predicted what he had done with the shard of twilight. He had not destroyed it and knew exactly where it was. It was fortunate indeed that not everything he had had in his position the night before had been taken by his enemy. In fact, at one point during the night, Ganondorf had nearly stood on the twilight shard. A hard jerk on the chains hastily brought his attention back to Xiphos.

"It's a pity Ganondorf wants you alive." Xiphos said coldly, "It's more trouble to drag you along than you're worth. I have not forgotten all the soldiers of mine that you killed." Then he smiled unpleasantly at Link's sand coated face, "it suits you to be covered in what you are, dirt."

Link smiled as he swirled all the sand he had gotten in his mouth together before spitting it all out on Xiphos's face, and into his eyes. Xiphos cursed richly as he tried to wipe sand out. Link knew that insulting his captor was not exactly smart but he was feeling rather peevish. He was angry at this monster for killing his friend, hurting his mentor, tearing him away from his home, stealing his belongings. And he was already sick of being treated like a sack of flour... or rather, sack of dirt, he thought with a wry smile.

"You will pay dearly for that," Xiphos snarled glaring fiercely. He grabbed Link by his shirt collar and raised a fist, slamming it hard into his chest. Link grunted softly and tried to ignore the flare of pain as he glared back defiantly, waiting for, and daring, the knight to strike him again.

"Xiphos!" a call emanated from Ganondorf's tent and Xiphos had no choice but to hurry off, after shooting Link a look that clearly said that he would not forget what had happened and would continue his revenge later.

Moments later Xiphos rode out of camp at a gallop, heading for the mountains. A short while after his departure, Ganondorf's troop was ready to move out. Ganondorf took his place at the head of the cavalry on a massive black charger with a fiery colored mane and tail, and the troop set off.

Link was in the middle of the troop, surrounded by soldiers on either side. The horse he was riding was a shiny black Friesian. It was a beautifully proportioned animal with a well-kept coat and flowing mane and tail. In fact all of the darknut horses were rather fine. They must have been pillaged from some lord or king. The horse he was on had no reigns, only a lead rope that was secured to the steed that belonged to Whiny's companion, the man named Tirkon. It was probably to keep him from taking control of the animal and trying to escape.

Link liked horses, even if they belonged to the enemy, so he gave his steed at pat on its graceful neck, reaching out as far as the chains allowed.

Whiny turned around to glance behind him and Link gasped as he saw his face for the first time. He knew this man; the lines of his arrogant profile and his over fine attire were unmistakable. His name was Malver. He used to own one of the most corrupt business establishments in all of castle town-until Link had helped Malo and the Gorons take it over, or rather, buy it out. Malver had been allowed to keep his job as manager, but obviously his greedy aspirations had gotten the better of him. The only thing different about him now was that he carried a rapier. Malver gave Link an unpleasant smile before turning forward again. What must it have taken for this pompous man to turn traitor? he wondered. He could not understand the motive of betraying ones country for greed. In his opinion, life and honor were far more important than money, but obviously not everyone thought so.

After about an hour's march, Ganondorf signaled for the company to part ways. The foot soldiers marched off towards what Link assumed to be northeast, based on the position of the sun. They were headed for a small pass in between the two mountains. Ganondorf's troop headed northwest at a swift gallop to the left side of the pass heading straight for the smaller of the two mountains.

It was however, the mountains on the right that caught Link's attention. There was something vaguely familiar about the towering peaks. Then understanding hit him. He realized that he was looking at the backside of Snowpeak. He had never seen the backside of the mountain before, because it was far too dangerous to ice hike over the treacherous peaks. None of the maps of Hyrule showed what lay behind their towering mountain. Somehow, Ganondorf had crossed the Gerudo desert or went through the Zora's domain and crossed over the mountains. What did not make sense, was the fact that the warlord had done it in a single night. Xiphos had said the attack had merely been the day before.

The awareness of his actual location brought with it a fleeting sense of ease. Now he would know where to run if he managed to escape. Now that he had his bearings he tried to madly formulate escape plans. When Xiphos had searched him earlier, he had neglected to search his hat. Inside the hatband he had hidden a tiny thin dagger that was really more of a penknife. It was an object that would certainly prove to be useful if an opportunity presented itself. He had no hope of getting away at the moment, surrounded as he was. He knew his only option was endurance and patience. And it was in situations as tense as these that he really hated being patient. The worst part of all was that he did not know what Ganondorf was going to do to him, or what his men would do, what they planned or even where they were going. He was determined to escape, and stop the warlord, before he found out.

The wind whipped coolly by his face, bringing with it the crisp scent of the mountains. And yet this cool scent that he usually reveled in seemed foreign and dangerous to him now. It brought with it a cold sense of foreboding as dark and as brooding as the peeks that rose before him in ominous natural spires. He was a prisoner, completely at the mercy of his captors and far from any source of help. He knew that he could very well die here and no one, save his enemies, would know of it.

The troop picked up their pace gradually as the horses began to canter. He was a rather good horseman and he clung to the saddle with his knees so he had no need to grip to the saddle horn. The mesa they were riding along gradually gave way to the foothills of the mountains, and the trees lengthened and thickened as they climbed higher. Abruptly he tried to force his mind out of his dark thoughts.

As he rode along, he noticed something that lightened his mood and actually made him smile. He detected something of particular interest about his wiry whiny dark-haired captor's horse. Malver was momentarily too busy fiddling with his foppish moustache to notice anything amiss and Link waited expectantly, chuckling softly.

"Shut up," Malver's broader stronger companion Tirkon commanded, "you don't have anything to be smiling about, so wipe that smirk off your face before I wipe it off for you."

Link was happily aware that he did have something to smile about, and he was feeling rather obstinate, "But I do. I can't help finding impending stupidity to be very amusing and there seems to be an unlimited supply of it here," He replied tersely

"Is that so?" Tirkon growled raising a hammy fist, "I can fix that for you permanently. I'll make you wish you were never born."

"You could," Link admitted still smiling, "but you won't,"

"And why not?" Tirkon snarled, easing his mount closer to Link's.

"Because, you don't have time to deal with me right now; in about five seconds, your friend is going to fall off his horse," Link gestured to Tirkon's black haired companion.

"Exactly what are you playing at boy?" The solder scowled, "I ought to-"

He was interrupted by a cry of dismay and a resounding thud. Link had noted that Malver's girth strap was loose, and the saddle strap had only been getting looser as they galloped. It was this knowledge that had made him chuckle in the first place. It had been a rather amusing game to guess how many seconds it would take for the girth strap to give way and the man to fall.

"Halt," Tirkon called "we've lost as man. You!" he screamed at Link, You little son of a-"

"I know I know," Link interrupted, "I was two seconds off. But everyone makes mistakes sometimes."

Everyone fell silent as Ganondorf came in a fury to survey the scene of disarray,

"What is the meaning of this?" He demanded, answering is own question with a mere glance at the wreckage. "If that idiot falls of his horse one more time, then we leave without him. And you," Ganondorf growled at Link. "Make one more sound, or cause any more disturbances and you will wish I actually wanted to kill you. It is so much harder to drag along a nearly dead person than it is a silent prisoner, but I will if you force my hand." Ganondorf never made idle threats; he had no need to, and Link knew it.

I hope you all enjoyed! Thank you to my readers, you are all completely awesome! I wish you all the best of weeks until next time :)

Chapter Question:

How would you describe Ganondorf's personality?