8- Retreat, Regroup, Recuperate

Everything was on fire. The cobblestones, the soldiers, even the sky seemed like it was ablaze.

Link darted between panicked figures, ignoring the screams and yells rising up all around him as he looked for someone, anyone he recognised. Smoke was starting to fill the air, making it hard to see and even harder to breathe. He'd felt a spike of panic, when the fire had first appeared, but now he'd settled into the usual rhythm. Clamp down on all unwanted feelings, ignore the fear or pain or whatever else, and just get the job done.

That job being finding the others.

He found Nabooru and Aveil first; Aveil was helping Nabooru to her feet, both of them looking around with definite fear on their faces.

'You all right, kid?' Nabooru asked as she caught sight of him, visibly pulling on a shroud of false calm, and he gave her a half-nod, half-shrug kind of gesture. 'Good. Got any idea what's going on here?'

He started to shake his head, then paused. He had a pretty good idea, actually. Looking towards the manor he found he couldn't see the others, only leaping shadows from the fire and hectic soldiers running around in the smoke trying to deal with it. From somewhere within the chaos Impa was barking orders, and every so often he felt a surge of magic quickly followed by the hiss of doused flames.

It didn't seem to be doing any good though. The whole world felt like it was on fire.

'Come on, we need to find the others.' Nabooru stood still for a moment, looking around, then walked out into the commotion without the slightest hesitation. Aveil followed without a word, and Link did the same after another moment. The others might have already fled, that's what they were supposed to do, after all, so they were really just risking being caught again, but he wasn't about to leave until he knew everyone was safe.

This was his element, after all. Chaos, pandemonium. Fire wasn't half as bad as lava, and they weren't even in an enclosed space. The only real threat was any soldiers not focusing on putting the fire out, but as he made his way through the crowd Link couldn't see that being a problem. What were seven or eight thieves when it came to stopping the whole city burning down? Petty criminals could wait, the flames would not.

They found Kian, Simin, and Dana next. Kian was on Dana's back, unconscious, burns all up his right side. Dana herself looked a little charred around the edges; there was ash on her clothes, and her hair had been singed. Simin seemed relatively unscathed, but shaken.

'You lot get out of here,' Nabooru said, or rather yelled, once the initial shock of the sight of them wore off, gesturing urgently. 'Get him patched up. I'll find Gan and Maram.'

'I'm staying,' Link yelled back, and Nabooru's angry response was cut off by a voice nearby. 'We'll find them together!'

'I'm here.' Maram suddenly appeared from the confusion, looking none the worse for wear despite her treatment at the hands of the guards. 'Let's find Gan and go.'

'I'll find him,' Link said, shaking his head and raising a hand as Nabooru tried to say something. He met her gaze and held it. 'No. I'll find him. You need to look after the others, and you need to get Kian help.'

Simin might have been the mother of the group, but Nabooru was the one in charge. She was the one they all listened to in times of crises, the one who would keep them calm and stop them from doing anything dangerous.

They wanted to argue, he could see it in all their faces, but he didn't give them a chance. He just turned away and dove back into the chaos, heading for the manor. Nabooru would take care of everything, so all he needed to do was worry about Ganondorf. He had to be around there somewhere, probably freaking out about what he'd just done.

After all, they'd all thought his magic was pretty weak. Good for little things, for tricks and traps, but nothing on this scale.

Of course, 'they' didn't include Link, because he'd known. How could he not? It didn't matter what time or year or age it was, Ganondorf was powerful. He always would be, as long as his spirit was bound to the Triforce of Power. Likewise, Link was always reckless when it came to other people. If he could protect them, he would, no matter the cost.

So he headed back into the chaos, dodging soldiers, skirting around bright tongues of flame, choking on the smoke. It didn't take him long to reach the front of the manor, and it didn't take him much longer to find Ganondorf. He was stood motionless not far from one of the windows, now empty of its panes, watching the pandemonium around him.

'Ganon!' Link nearly ran straight into him in his haste, just managing to pull up short before they collided. He grabbed one of his friend's arms, tugging. 'Gan!'

'Link…' Ganondorf blinked slowly, turning to look at Link with fear in his eyes. 'I did this, Link. I did this. And Kian- Kian was on fire and he- oh Din, what did I do? How did this happen?!'

'Now's not the time,' Link said firmly, giving Ganondorf's arm another tug. 'We need to go before Impa gets things back under control.'

Ganondorf's brow furrowed. 'How are you so calm?' His voice was weak, distant. He looked like he might collapse at any moment.

'This isn't the worst situation I've been in. Not even close.' Link gave the arm in his hands another firm tug. 'It's barely even life-or-death. We're going to be fine, so just come on.'

'But…'

It was kind of tempting to slap him, maybe stomp on one of his feet, but Link resisted. Instead he just turned away and started yanking Ganondorf along, hauling him towards the nearest alley. After a minute or so he stopped dragging his feet, which made Link's work a little easier.

They left the scene without looking back-or at least, Link didn't look back-and kept walking until the soldiers' yelling was distant and the only sign of the fire was dark plumes of smoke rising up towards the night sky.

Only then did Link let them stop, watching as Ganondorf immediately slid down the nearest wall, dropping his head into his hands.

'How are you so calm?' he asked again, voice muffled by his palms, and Link sighed as he moved to stand next to his friend. He sank against the wall, curling his hands into fists because he could feel them starting to tremble.

'Like I said. This kind of thing, I'm used to it.'

'Me setting fire to things?'

'Well, yeah, I guess.' Link paused, pursed his lips. 'Though fire's not usually the way you go- went. Energy balls were always more your things.'

'And let's not forget that pig monster.'

'Oh yeah, that too.'

Ganondorf gave a heavy sigh, slumping a little further. 'I always kind of thought you were joking about that. I've never- never done anything as powerful as- as this.' He sat back, training his gaze on his hands as he flexed his fingers. 'And I didn't even mean to it just- I can't believe I did that.' He seemed more horrified than anything, which honestly Link found himself relieved about. If Ganondorf had been excited, or awed, or something, he'd probably have been worried.

But Ganondorf wasn't, and so Link wasn't. Instead he just felt bad that a friend was clearly so upset.

'Kian'll be fine, y'know,' he said after a moment, as his thoughts turned to the rest of their friends. 'His injuries didn't look bad at all.'

Ganondorf didn't reply, and Link resisted the temptation to regale him with tales of some of the worse injuries he'd got in various Fire Temples, because lava could really do a number on you even when you were wearing protective magic. He'd been set on fire more times than he could count. Kian would be fine.

'We should go,' Ganondorf eventually said, though he made no move to stand. 'The others, they'll-' he stopped, and Link could practically see the thoughts running through his head. Ganondorf wasn't nearly as inscrutable as he'd thought, once you got to know him.

'They'll be worried, Gan,' Link finished, nudging him in the side with the toe of his boot. 'They have no idea what happened. It wasn't your fault, they'll forgive you.'

Ganondorf tilted his head to look at Link. 'You really think so?'

Link just smiled and offered him a hand.

They found the others in the back rooms of a certain doctor's establishment, one who catered to the city's more questionable residents. It smelled like herbs, and there was a careful quietness in the air, a general acknowledgement of the need to be discreet. The lamps in the inner rooms were all lit, filling the place with warm yellow light, so different to the blaze of Ganondorf's fire.

When Link and Ganondorf got there Kian was being patched up, the others all sitting around anxiously as they waited for the doctor to be done. There was a palpable impatience in the air, because they needed to leave. They needed to flee the city for a while, as was always the plan if things went wrong on a job.

And things couldn't have gone much more wrong than they had that night.

When Ganondorf, pushed by an increasingly impatient Link, stumbled into the room the others were waiting in, the relief that flooded all five faces was immediate. They crowded around, voices all mingling together, but the general gist of their questions was obvious.

'I'm fine, we're fine.' Sounding as relieved as the others Ganondorf glanced back at Link, who was hanging back to avoid the crush. 'Are you all okay? How- how's Kian?'

'Fine,' Simin replied, her smile maybe a little strained. 'Shaken and confused but… fine.'

'The doctor says Kian's burns all looked worse than they really were,' Dana continued when Simin paused. 'He probably won't even scar.'

Ganondorf seemed to sag a little at that, letting out a short sigh as he did. Link, still stood mostly outside the room, watched in silence, trying to get a handle on his own relief, which was swelling in his chest and making him feel suddenly exhausted. It was like he'd been hanging on till this moment, and now he really wanted to just sit down.

'So, want to tell us what happened back there?' Nabooru as ever turned immediately to the matter at hand, folding her arms and fixing Ganondorf with a just barely-there glare, her relief ebbing in the face of her confusion and, perhaps, suspicion.

Ganondorf visibly cringed. 'Well, that's…' he paused, clearly at a loss as to how to explain, so Link sighed and wormed his way into the room, finding somewhere to sit before turning to address his friends. They were all looking at him, dishevelled and confused.

'His magic flared up,' he said, not meaning for it to come out quite so, well, condescending, and he frowned slightly as he processed his tone. Nabooru was frowning too, a gradually deepening crease between her eyebrows that said she wasn't in a good mood.

Well, he couldn't blame her, really. This night had been hellish.

'I'd say that was more than "flaring up",' Maram said after a moment, glancing between Link and Ganondorf. 'Gan's never been able to do anything like that. Are you sure it wasn't something the soldiers did? Or Impa?'

'No, it was definitely Ganon,' Link said with a slight shake of his head. Ganondorf seemed to sag a little more; in fact he looked like he might crumple at any moment. 'You've always had that much power, probably more,' Link continued, shrugging. 'You've just never tapped into it before.'

'How do you know?' Nabooru was rapidly heading to outright suspicion. 'And if you knew, why didn't you say anything?'

'It's… complicated.' Now it was Link who was looking to Ganondorf for help. 'And I didn't tell because…' Because despite everything, he still worried what the future would bring, what Ganondorf would do when he learnt just how powerful he really was.

'Does it really matter? We probably wouldn't have believed him anyway.' Ganondorf seemed a little perturbed by Link's lack of response, but it didn't stop him from cutting in. 'Up till now we've thought all I could do was, well, parlour tricks.' He paused, a vulnerable look crossing his face. 'But then I… I could've killed you all.'

That immediately prompted an outburst of protests and a fair amount of head shaking, plus tutting from Simin and Nabooru.

'We all know you'd never hurt us, Gan, not intentionally,' Aveil said softly, squeezing one of his arms.

He offered her a small smile in return, though his heart clearly wasn't in it. 'That's just it, though, isn't it? This wasn't intentional in any way, but I still-'

He was interrupted by the door at the back of the room crashing open, a moment before a broadly smiling Kian stepped through. His eyes immediately found Ganondorf, and if anything his smile got even wider.

'If it isn't my favourite firestarter! Where'd you learn that trick?' There was a pause, in which Ganondorf cringed a little, then Kian seemed to soften a little. 'I'm fine, Gan.' He spread his arms for emphasis; his right one was coated in a thin sheen of translucent slime that caught the light and gleamed mutely. He had some on his face too, and a small pot in one hand that Link assumed held more of whatever salve the doctor had used.

'The good doctor patched me up, good as new,' Kian continued, crossing to join them, seven pairs of concerned eyes watching him approach. 'Seriously, I'm fine you guys. And if I get some cool new scars?' He shrugged. 'S'no skin off my nose.'

'All the same, I'm sorry. Truly.' Ganondorf had his sincere face on, eyes fixed on Kian who, like most people did when Ganondorf fixed them with the look, started squirming after a few seconds.

'Like I said, it's- it's fine. But seriously, where did you learn it? That was some pretty powerful magic.'

That did the trick; the intensity in Ganondorf's expression faded into slight bewilderment and thoughtfulness. A moment later he just shrugged. 'I got desperate, and angry, and it kind of…'

'Exploded?' Dana offered when he paused, waving his hands slightly. He nodded, Kian whistled.

'That's some serious power, imagine what you could do if you got a handle on it.'

'Okay, I just nearly burnt half of you to death and you're already telling me to try it out again?' Ganondorf shook his head. 'No. No, for now, we need to get out of here. Lay low, wait for this mess to blow over. Captain Impa's probably memorised most of our faces now… we'll need to be even more careful.'

None of the others argued; they all knew he was right. Impa had just become an even bigger threat, if that was even possible. But, at the very least, she would be distracted by the fire that night. They had a slim window of opportunity to flee the city, and the Captain would be sure to hunt them down if they didn't take it. There was a chance she would follow them further than the city's walls, but they all knew she rarely strayed far from Castle Town. Only if the princess was travelling somewhere, which she did only once or twice a year.

So they fled. They didn't exactly have much choice. Link, Aveil, and Maram headed back to their hideout to collect whatever supplies they could grab in twenty minutes while the others went ahead. None of them looked back at the smoke still rising to the north.

They met up again in a small hamlet a few hours' walk from the city, and from there they headed for the forest. It was familiar territory for them all, and they knew how to make the best of it. Link considered, briefly, heading back to Ordon, possibly with his friends in tow, but ultimately decided against it. What if Impa did follow them? He'd be putting the whole village in danger. Plus, he wasn't quite sure how he'd face them. Not after how he'd left, not now that he was part of a band of thieves. He didn't regret his choices, or feel bad about the stealing, but all the same he didn't want to see how they'd react if they found out.

All the same, despite his best efforts he still found himself thinking of Ordon a lot, during the weeks spent in the forest. Ilia, Rusl, Uli… the toddlers who probably weren't toddlers anymore, the Mayor, Epona…

He missed them. How could he not? His time in Ordon might've been marred by his looming destiny, or whatever, but it was still home in the end. Forests always had been, and probably always would be.

Given everything that had happened, their little group ended up staying in the woods for a good few months. Occasionally one of them would head out to one of the nearby villages or hamlets to see if anyone was searching for them, but city gossip very rarely reached the outlying rural areas so they had no real way of knowing if it was safe to return or not.

To be honest, though, Link didn't mind the break from city life, or thievery, much at all. After the first few nervous, paranoid days it became more like a vacation or something, just a group of friends camping out in the woods, relaxing and recuperating. Kian healed up nicely, and at the insistence of the others Ganondorf would occasionally try to tap into his power again. His reluctance meant he never really succeeded, though Link kept quiet on the whole affair. He wasn't sure how he felt about it.

And there was a wall, now, between Ganondorf and the others. Particularly between him and Kian. They could all sense it, but Link got the impression none of them knew how to address it. He didn't know how to, and they were all older than him. They were supposed to be better at these kinds of things than he was.

So none of them ever knew what to do when Ganondorf wandered off on his own, vanishing for hours at a time. Link usually ended up volunteering to find him, and most of the time he did. When Nabooru asked him how he managed it he just shrugged and suggested luck, because he didn't know how to go about explaining that he and Ganondorf were bound together, so long as the Triforce pieces remained imprinted on their hands. Plus he was pretty sure it really was just luck that he found Ganondorf half the time.

Which was how he felt when, for the tenth time in almost as many weeks, he stumbled across Ganondorf sat in pensive silence in a random location deep within the forest. Or maybe not so deep, this time; he was sat on the ledge above the Spirit Spring of Faron Woods, legs dangling down, gaze fixed on the small little waterfall at its back. That was pretty near civilisation.

Link hesitated for a second or two, eyeing the spring a little warily, then moved to plonk himself down at his friend's side. He didn't say anything as he sat, breathing in the almost heady smell of damp earth and clear water, like Ganondorf training his gaze on the water. They were well into autumn now, the air crisp and getting colder, the rain getting more frequent, the leaves slowly shifting away from their usual green. When the sun caught on them they were beautiful, and when they fell they made a patchwork carpet of red and orange and yellow. It had been a while since Link had just stopped to enjoy nature; back in Ordon he'd been too preoccupied with his looming fate, and then he'd been too busy looking for Ganondorf, and then there weren't exactly many trees in the city.

It was nice.

They stayed like that, sat side by side in a silence broken only by the steady trickle of the falls and the occasional burst of birdsong, for a little while. Link wasn't sure quite how long, but he decided to just sit back and enjoy it. Kicking his feet gently he waited, because all he ever needed to do was wait.

'I've noticed how you never say anything, when the others pester me about magic,' Ganondorf eventually said, not lifting his eyes from the spring. 'Why is that?'

'Should I have said anything? I'm not the one with magic, it's not my decision to make.' Leaning back Link switched to looking at the trees. It wasn't an answer, not really; they could both tell he was avoiding the question, he was sure.

Ganondorf scoffed lightly, confirming Link's suspicions. 'Please. I think we both know why you haven't said anything.

'Then why'd you ask?'

'Link.'

Begrudgingly, Link dropped his gaze from the trees, where he found Ganondorf watching him with raised eyebrows. He shrugged, pursing his lips and not saying anything.

'All right, I'll say it for you then.' Clearing his throat Ganondorf sat up a little straighter. 'You don't want to say you're against me learning to tap into whatever power this thing gives me-' he lifted his hand so that they could both see his Triforce piece, '-because you don't want to hurt my feelings. But you also don't want to say you're for it because you've seen just how evil I can be when I have power like that.'

'You're not evil,' Link said, stubbornly, even if he made no move to dispute Ganondorf's words. 'Not you.'

'Not yet.'

'Not ever. Don't make me push you into this spring.' Link's threat came out a little sharper than he'd intended, which got Ganondorf's eyebrows rising again.

'Why are you the one getting wound up?'

Link sighed, then took a deep breath. 'Obviously I'm not the only one, given how you keep slinking off to sulk.'

'Who's sulking?!' Ganondorf looked immediately affronted. 'I'm… thinking. There's a difference.'

'We all know thinking's bad for you.'

'Easy for you to say, you never think.'

'Shut up.' Link shoved at Ganondorf's shoulder, but by the time he steadied himself they were both grinning. 'If you're so worried about hurting someone else then you need to learn to control your power. It's hardly complicated.'

'And if I go off the deep end?'

'You won't.'

'But if I do?'

'You won't.' Link met Ganondorf's eyes, holding his gaze as he spoke firmly. 'You know what I think'll send you off the deep end? Hurting your friends. You want my opinion on you and your magic? Learn how to handle your power so you don't have to worry about hurting people you care about every time you get stressed, or angry, or anything.'

After a moment the continued eye contact got uncomfortable, and Link dropped his gaze away. There was silence then, as they both tried to think of something to say.

Eventually Ganondorf gave a low chuckle, shaking his head slightly. 'It shouldn't be a surprise, all things considered, but you're pretty smart, kid.'

'Seriously? I'm nearly fourteen.'

Ganondorf snorted, then stood slowly, brushing himself down. 'Yeah, you are. That makes you a kid, kid.'

A retort immediately jumped to the tip of Link's tongue but he swallowed it down, ignoring it in favour of taking the hand Ganondorf offered him a moment later. Once Link was back on his feet Ganondorf turned to start walking away, looking a little lighter than he had done in a while. There was a kind of confidence in his steps, a little regained resolve.

If Link felt any twinges of unease he resolutely ignored them as he followed Ganondorf back to their camp. They joked and laughed along the way, and any and all misgivings were quickly forgotten in the face of the walls Ganondorf had been building these past few months crumbling, if only a little bit. Link was glad. He'd missed the easy chatter their group was so good at, so hopefully once Ganondorf stopped worrying it would return.

In the end his hopes were pointless, though, because things were only going to get worse.