two: wide-eyed wanderer
At first, I can only stare.
When I last breathed this air—and it is fitting that I should rise again, here, from the place where I fell—I was strong. Sure. Made of muscle and iron and will. I was clad in armor and I had a huge scar on my stomach, a painful testament to my own immortality. A sword in my hand and a dream in my heart—those are my memories of life.
Back then, I was Ganondorf in mind and body and soul, and all three parts were one, and there was no living creature that was stronger.
Now…I am confused. My mind is here, and my soul. My body, however, is gone. What is now my 'body' is a skeleton, a wisp of air, compared to my former self.
That mask….
"Majora," I croak, almost startling myself with my own voice. The sensation is surreal—even more surreal than seeing naked mounds of fat where my plated chest armor used to be, last time I checked—and I have to put my hand to my throat and feel the vibrations of my voice to make sure that the husky and lyrical gargle that just came out of my mouth actually belonged to me.
"Majora, what have you done to me?"
No answer. I put my face on my hands and groan. I was a fool to have gone into the situation. I have been tricked, of course—but I quickly decide that is no matter. I have been granted a rapid rebirth. I am free.
The mask thinks it has me under its command. How amusing. I will play along with the mask as long as it suits me, but I was a god, once. I will be, again, and then I will no longer have to rely on a wide-eyed, painted piece of bone. I shall obtain all three shards of the power of the heavens and I will regain my body and all will be as it should. I am living on borrowed power but that will change. Soon.
But even so…this turn of events is unexpected. I am naked as the day I was born and not only that, I am a woman. A woman whose real form is, as far as I am concerned, gone. I crushed her like a spider when she confronted me in Hyrule Castle during our last confrontation. The Fused Shadow she wore on her head like a comical crown crumbled in my hands. Her power sighed away on the wind, and yet in this supreme twist of fate, I am whom I have slaughtered.
I have to concede this small victory to the mask. It certainly possesses a cruel sense of irony. My skin prickles in the heat of the midday sun, almost painfully. Twili cannot exist in the Land of Light. Perhaps this body has been altered, somehow. It still hurts to be in this kind of heat without any clothing for protection. I look down at my body, trying to force the reality of the situation into my head.
I am not Ganondorf the Gerudo, with time-worn muscles and sun-worn skin. I am Ganondorf the Twili, and I am a woman, and I suddenly feel very very ill at the thought.
I am a stranger to myself. Blueish skin, interrupted with swaths of dark charcoal that spread from my (my?!) breasts, across my back, and down my left leg. I am rather too thin and knobby, like a newborn foal. I figure that's what I'll look like when I attempt to stand up.
My prediction is correct. I rise to my feet with all the gawky grace of a duck with a broken leg.
The first thing I notice is that my body feels entirely too light, like I'm going to float away if I even do so much as jump. I must learn the limits of this new body quickly if I am to make short work of Hyrule as I'd planned.
Of course, I haven't had time to formulate a battle plan, but that is no matter. I am still Ganondorf the King of Evil, even if I am trapped in this ridiculous shape. I am a general and a demon thief and I hold a third of heaven in my hand. I can call up troops from the very ground I walk upon and they will follow me unto death.
Which had better not happen this time around.
But even as I think, the sun is starting its slow descent from its throne in the sky. I must begin mobilization at once.
I raise my arms and, trying not to grimace at the fluttering sigh that involuntarily escapes my lips—it was supposed to be a grunt!—I call forth Din's magic. The magic that I made mine so many years ago.
Take form, I coax the ground around me. Help me get what I want out of this world.
Seconds pass. The dirt does nothing but blow in the wind.
Suddenly, the earth bucks underneath me, throwing me onto my back. I scramble to my feet, looking around. From across the hill there are sounds of agitated animals.
But nothing else happens. And suddenly I feel very, very tired. I start panting, my knees buckling under my own absurd lack of weight.
"What the hell was that?" I grumble. "What did I just do?"
I hear a snort ring out into the sweltering air, clear as a clap of thunder. I spin around as quickly as I can without losing my balance and falling onto my ass again, and when my eyes meet the source of the snort, I mutter a curse.
Apparently, instead of calling forth an army of evil, I have managed to piss off the local wildlife.
There's a fully-grown Bullbo standing an arm's length away from me, javelin tusks pointed straight for my gut. It's a wild one; no saddle adorns its back, no reins hang from its mouth. The stench reeking off of its massive, short-haired body nearly turns my stomach.
Usually, this wouldn't be a problem. Under normal circumstances, I could turn this beast into a holiday ham roast with the slightest flick of my wrist.
But these are not normal circumstances, and I don't even know if I can survive being in direct sunlight, let alone the impact of two tons of pigflesh crashing into my newly born body like a wave onto a beach. I hold out my hands and begin to shuffle in the opposite direction, trying desperately to get some handle on whatever sleepy magic currently resides in me. Surely, Din has not withdrawn herself completely from my presence? Majora commands potent magic but it certainly can't purge the power of the goddesses out of my body without my knowledge; yet I don't even feel like I can even do a decent card trick with my current arsenal.
The Bullbo lowers his head and takes a solid step forward, opening his mouth and blasting me with a squeal that nearly shatters my eardrums. And then it starts trotting forwards.
"Stay back!" I shout, wincing at the stomach-churning sound of my high-pitched voice screeching out from my lungs. I sound like a dying animal.
No matter. In a matter of moments I will probably be a dying animal, because, with a bellow, the pig charges.
For a second, I remember that I harbor deep and wonderful and terrible magic, and I stand my ground.
And then I remember that I am, metaphorically, a splinter compared to the mighty oak that my former body was. I do not know how my body will react to anything I try to do. I can't even stand up properly yet.
So I spin on my heel and run.
I'm sure that, to a spectator's eye, the situation would be supremely funny to witness. Watching other people running for their lives always gives one a morbid desire to laugh. If I could detach myself from this form and watch from a distance as a tall, blotchy-skinned woman without a stitch of clothing on her body pinwheels her arms in an attempt to stay on her feet as she hobbles across lava-hot grasslands being pursued by a massive raging swine, I should laugh myself sick.
But I'm not laughing now. No, I'm fleeing like a completely ossified bar hopper, gasping for breath, tripping over my own feet. I find myself mortified at the fact that I feel prickling in my eyes. Tears. This body thinks it's going to die.
I can feel its breath on the bare skin of my back. I want to stop running. I want to turn around and face it like a man. This traitorous female body of mine won't listen to me. At the rate my legs are going, I'm just as likely to throw myself off the edge of the canyon than get myself to safety.
Or trip. Which is what I have just done. With a squawk of surprise I sprawl unceremoniously on the ground and wish, for a moment, that I could just melt into the grass and not even exist any longer. If my troops ever saw me in such a disgraceful situation…I can't even dwell on that thought. It's too humiliating.
How ridiculous, is the only thing I can think. I have been resurrected only to get trampled by—
Thwok.
Something rushes by my cheek and thumps mutedly into the raging boar behind me. In a tremendous cacophony of snorts and screams and hooves striking flesh and flesh striking dirt, the boar catapults end over end, flipping in a blubbery mass into the patch of grass next to where I've fallen.
I get up shakily, trying to still my trembling legs. I don't know why I'm so terrified—this body has a mind of its own. It's treating my consciousness like a rejected limb graft.
The boar has curled into itself, lying halfway on its side on the ground. It has an arrow sticking out of its ear, the fletching quivering at the top of the shaft with the force of the impact. The animal is still but is snorting with exertion, trying to get its bearings after such a violent tumble.
I walk up to it cautiously, circling its boulder-like body, until I'm standing in front of its face. I raise my foot and am just about to deliver a savage kick to its sticky nose when a cry from behind me nearly startles me off of my feet.
"Stop!"
There's a drumroll of pounding horse hooves behind me, and I turn my head over my shoulder to see a horse coasting easily down one side of a slight hill on the field, its rider holding a finely crafted bow at his side. Impressive, I think unconsciously, for him to hit a moving target from that far away and not strike me with the arrow instead.
I regret the words the instant they are out of my mouth.
The horse is a red mare, tossing her snowy mane against the bright blue of the sky. Her gallop makes the ground tremble underneath my feet; she reminds me of my own war-horse, Galloughs.
Odd, how even the horses are reborn in our endless conflict.
The rider I would know anywhere, of course. Green, the color of life. He carries it upon his body like a brand. His shock of strawlike hair, the infuriatingly calm look in his eyes; they belong as much to him as they do to Zelda and me. We are one.
The crest of the goddesses on his hand sings out to me like a choir, hitting me straight in the heart like the bolt of an arrow. He is blessed, too. But I knew this. I also know I must take it from him.
The horse comes to a dusty stop in front of me, and the Hero alights from her back with grace that makes me jealous of my current predicament. I realize I'm standing here with my feet squarely planted and my arms crossed over my chest. Not for modesty, of course. I am facing my greatest foe, and I must face him like the warlord that I am.
But Link, the boy who would be Hero, doesn't see the man behind Midna's form. He sees someone, I suppose, who he thought was dead. He approaches me and looks down—down!!—into my eyes with a queer expression of confusion and wonder that looks like he's been slapped across the face with a fish.
He looks older than when I last saw him. Perhaps years. Perhaps decades.
"You…." He says softly, and reaches for me.
Hatred boils in my chest and I forget myself for a second as I step backwards and raise my hand to send a shockwave of dark magic crashing into him to knock him off of his feet.
"Do not presume to touch me, boy!"
And I stop, for I see my arm in the sunlight, and suddenly I realize that I am not what I think I am. The fact that nothing happens when I throw my hand out somewhat irritates me. My magic is still impotent.
Our eyes lock. His face is ashen and I'm shaking with rage.
Suddenly the Hero turns and walks back to his steed, fumbling in the rucksack that hangs from the saddle.
He turns back to me with a blanket in his hands. My nearly sunburnt skin fairly sings with the prospect of being protected from the light.
"You're naked," Link says. He is not smiling.
I look down at my body. And I sigh.
"Yes," I say, crossing my arms again. "Yes, I am."