Chapter XVII – Lost Hope
"Ganondorf! Watch out!" The warning came too late when the wooden sword of Link slid off of his own, crashing into his body. Soon afterwards, Ganondorf found himself on the ground while rubbing his hurting ribs. "Say, just what is wrong with you? Are you ill?"
Ganondorf released a grumble when he picked up his weapon again. He did not even look at Link who still sounded bewildered. "Ever since you came back from the stables, you've become extremely thoughtless as well as absolutely inattentive while training. Just what happened there? Have they let a horse ride on you instead of the other way around?"
"No." Ganondorf stood up again. "There's nothing. And now spare me your jabbering and keep those ridiculous assumptions to yourself, they piss me off!"
"Ganondorf, I've told you to behave civilized if you speak to me. And I've furthermore told you that I do not like to repeat myself." Although Ganondorf stared piercingly at him, Link remained steady. "Either you control your aggressiveness or it will end here for you today."
"I'm not aggressive!" Ganondorf burst out and could barely hold himself back from putting his hand on Link's throat.
His superior showed no signs of being intimidated, despite his trembling body caused by his rage, absolutely none when he raised an eyebrow. "Yes, of course you're not. Just like there is nothing bothering you." Link's calm voice gained a threatening undertone. "If you don't want to tell, it's your decision. But then it's also my last warning. Control your temper, or else you can additionally report to our head chief for dish washing."
"Just to hell with it!" Ganondorf smashed his sword into the dummy puppet which burst into pieces. Some other comrades practicing in the training hall shrank together and turned alarmed their heads around. Even Link stepped back, but although he had a shimmer of fright in his eyes, his expression showed he would not give in and his voice remained strong. This man carried indeed too much courage in his heart.
"Ganondorf. I've warned you. This behavior is not only inappropriate, it's downright intolerable. Your training season of today is over. Go, now!" They both stared menacingly at each other and it itched strong in Ganondorf's fingers to risk a battle with that man, a serious fight of the kind he had fought often in his old life where it meant kill or be killed.
In regard to the men surrounding him and the thousands of others roaming inside these castle walls, he certainly would soon join Link in death, which was why he, despite the burning anger pulsating in his veins, refrained from making his desire a reality. Ganondorf, still utterly tensed, stomped past Link while he tried to suppress his rage and grumbled to himself. When he had reached the door to the anteroom, he heard Link saying, "Don't forget your report to our head chief."
The frightened man next to Ganondorf jumped aside when his fist crashed into another puppet, destroying it while he roared at Link, "Just to hell with you!"
With his power, he took the door off its hinges and did not listen to Link anymore, even though he called after him, "And it seems like our chief has yet another temporary employee for tomorrow," and only shook his hand to lessen the pain caused by the blood-smeared splinters sticking in his skin.
Ganondorf stared at the ceiling when he laid awake on his bed. Again. His anger still pulsated inside him when he thought back at the hours he spent in the kitchen with a mountain of dishes in front of him. At one point, he was unable to hold his wrath back anymore when the chief complained about his work. Ganondorf threw a plate at him. Unfortunately, he missed and had to pick up its fragments from the floor, while additionally earning another evening with dish washing. Alone the thought of two other days in company of a sink fed his aggression further.
Link certainly knew which punishments hurt him the most and that they were not the ones involving longer or harder training. He was used to them and to aches as the scars he carried around were not solely testimonies of arena battles. Physical torment was a common punishment back at the arena if the gladiator behaved too inappropriately while the fights did the rest to get familiarized with pain.
Ganondorf despised it the most if anybody insulted his pride, and tasks like serving in the stables or the kitchen achieved exactly that. The humiliation was far worse than any physical wounds that anybody could ever inflict on him, especially since the people here would never go as far like the ones at the arena did, as knights were not the property of a man. Committing actions like the guards did would equal crimes here on these grounds, including severe punishment, whereas even the death of a gladiator meant nothing, regardless if he died in the arena or by the hands of his master.
Although it itched strong in Ganondorf's fingers to refuse to fulfill those humiliating tasks, the alternative meant to spend an even longer time in prison for the refusal was treated as another willful misconduct. At his first misdemeanor, the men had shown him the oubliette, deep under the castle where the sun never shined and the air felt to stagnate, never meant to let the rotten stench and the misery of the men down there escape.
An unpleasant place. A very unpleasant one and when Ganondorf looked in one of the cells, small and sticky, he could not tell if they were even worse than the ones in the arena or not. No room for walking and the chains attached to the walls could restrict movements even further. Unlike the gladiators, the prisoners spent all day in here for as long as their punishment took place.
He was more than glad that he, despite his bad mood after that fateful encounter in the cathedral, could avoid to getting locked down there. Although he could not finish his work at the stables in time, Garthar agreed to give him more hours to get it done. It meant less leisure for him, but anything was better than serving his time in that oubliette.
Bugged, Ganondorf kicked against the shelf standing on the end of his bed, causing some books and other belongings of his to fall on the floor while he stood up. The more he thought about the punishments from Link, about the oubliette, even about Zelda, the more enraged he got. He took some clothing and left the castle for the outside.
The wind whirled through his hair, but tonight it was a cold one. Even the stars seemed to have lost their glimmer when he searched his way to the cathedral. He still could not understand, could not accept, what happened in that one night four weeks ago. And he loathed himself how much it still affected him that it showed on his suffering swordsmanship that even Link addressed it.
In his earlier life, something like that would have never happened to him. Never. Nothing distracted him that much, he had endured it all, the harsh training lessons, the yelling and ordering, even the punishments. Yet every time he had to, he utilized all his powers to fight the next battle. And now he was easily defeated by Link because he fought like a raw recruit. It was pathetic, just utterly pathetic to see what had become of him. His own inability made him even madder about himself.
With a key he got from one man working at cathedral, Ganondorf opened the door that led to the inside of the sanctuary. He had visited it often in the last weeks after his fateful encounter. Deep inside, even though he refused to admit it to himself, he had this glimmer of hope he would see her again, Zelda, alone within these walls. Yet the cold dominated the hall and affected his body. No one here who oppressed the frost tonight. Like there was no one the last nights either.
Ganondorf walked past the altar, followed up a staircase and sat down on a wooden chair. He first took that seat the following night after he had met Zelda. When he had braced his elbows on the supposed plate before him, a loud and eerie sound had pierced through marrow and bone. Startled, he had fallen from the chair while the sound had slowly faded away. Only then he had noticed that the whole construct in front of him was an instrument. The architecture of the cathedral gave it an inexpressible acoustic might he never heard before, leaving a deep impression inside him.
Though he neither possessed an ear for music nor had ever used an instrument, not even the useless ocarina, the pure power the organ offered fascinated him. He fiddled around on its keys and even though his first attempts had sounded horrifying, he got a feeling for it. Especially after he had, on a free evening, approached someone to show him, who worked at the cathedral and played on it at church service and gave him a key for practicing.
Although he had found a basic melody which fit his liking, he still misplayed a lot of tones or missed them entirely. For anybody besides himself it would be unbearable to listen but it was a welcomed diversion as it let him forget about his surroundings, about his frustration, about his unknown future because he was unsure if he wanted to stay within the army. He had lost one of the reasons why he endured those humiliating tasks his inner nature rebelled against.
Ganondorf grinned desperately when the last tone echoed through the ancient building. Regardless of how much he refused to admit it, even denied it, he felt it. A pain he never encountered before. One not caused by physical wounds or injuries, not visible for anyone, not even touchable by himself, but he felt it. Clearly and undeniably. And the reason, it was her, Zelda.
He still felt her soft arms, her gentle embrace and her hair that strove over his own arms. Definitely, there was no other living being in this world that made him feel that way. That robbed all of his other thoughts, who made everything else look like unnecessary matters. Who even tamed his temper.
Yet from one moment to the next, it was all over. She decided against it, pushed him away and never spoke to him again. Neither had he seen her afterwards as she had not asked Link again if he would join him on his visits. She avoided him by any means necessary for a reason he neither knew nor understood.
Indisputable that he wanted her and her rejection hurt his feelings as well as his pride. Even though he was a free man, he could not get what he desired. And he knew, no matter how strong he would become, how much power he would gain, he would never win her with those. There was nothing he could do besides accepting her refusal, if he liked it or not. He would not get her. Not her, just as Aldar predicted. She was far out of his league. Now and forever.
In that night, after Ganondorf had returned to the castle, he had not even closed one eye and restlessly rummaged around in his bed. No sleep for him tonight and he observed how the sun rose again, inking the courtyard into the morning light.
Still tired, he stood up and made his way to the mess hall to get his breakfast. The other men of his division already chattered about uninteresting topics when he sat down at the table and sullenly stuffed the breakfast into his mouth.
"Hey, Ganondorf. What about you?" After a while in which he only silently sat there, one of the men approached him. "What would you do with 10,000 rupees?"
Although the man tried to involve him into their conversation, he refused to take part. He did not even give them a grumble when he stared unperturbed at his meal without ever losing his gaze from it.
"Probably he doesn't know what 10,000 means. Assuming he can even count up to three", responded Esbern defiantly. "He can do what he wants, but once a savage, always a savage. And not to forget, an obnoxious one as well."
The men got prepared for a counter from Ganondorf and to keep both men apart if necessary, but today, he did not even react. Instead, he stuffed in the last bit of his meal. The cheerful mood and the sober jabbering, combined with Esbern's provocation enraged him to a point where he thought that the best way to keep them quiet was to place his fist in all their mugs. Before he made it a reality and was slapped yet again with another unpleasant task, he stood up in silence.
"You're leaving already? Why so fast, we still have about half an hour before our duty begins." Ganondorf never gave the man an answer, though he could hear some irritated sighs when he left them.
Without hesitation, he headed to the training hall in the hope to release some of the frustration and anger burning inside him when he would feed those puppets with his sword. In the anteroom, he prepared himself for training by buckling on his armor, but before he went to the hall, he heard a familiar voice from behind, "Here you are. I've searched for you since the others told me you've already left."
Ganondorf turned around and Link's severe expression worsened his mood even more. He did not want to ask for the details when he only stared in irritation at his superior.
"We have to talk," demanded Link, though he sounded at least neutral.
"What is it this time?" Ganondorf tried to hide his displeasure. Without success. "Will there ever be a day you won't complain about anything regarding me?"
Link remained sober and did not seem to be bothered by Ganondorf's remark. "Not here, it's not the right place. Come with me to my office."
Ganondorf looked annoyed at him, but Link did not give him any more specifics when he just waved with his hand, indicating that he should follow him.