Two days later, Zelda and Ganondorf went to the Bridge of Eldin. Zelda had slept horribly the night before, woken multiple times by nightmares – or visions. She could not shake her foreboding feeling, the dread that had been pooling in her stomach all morning.

As they approached the bridge, it didn't appear as though anyone else had arrived. She supposed it was still early in the day, not even noon. The Gerudo hadn't given a time in their letter. Yet when they got close to the bridge Ganondorf halted abruptly. Zelda nearly ran into him. Then she saw it: a glimmer of magic in the air, barely perceptible.

"An anti-warp barrier," Ganondorf muttered. He looked at her seriously. "Zelda, stay close."

She nodded. "Shall we?"

They stepped through the barrier. Zelda felt magic rush over her, dampening her. There would be no warping to safety now. They continued slowly walking towards the bridge, Zelda readying her magic. Just in case. Beside her, Ganondorf was stiff as a board, his jaw clenched. She wondered if he was afraid of the possibility of meeting his mothers again. She did not dare ask. Still no one had appeared.

She gazed out across the bridge, towards the province of Eldin, seeing the familiar sight of Death Mountain billowing smoke out into the sky. She could see large cracks in the bridge where it had been broken and then repaired magically by Midna and Link. She would need to send someone to reinforce it – another task to end to her endless list, she thought with a sigh.

"What?" Ganondorf said shortly.

"You really have caused me no end of work," she replied.

He gave her a bemused look, but before he could respond, there was a cackling from above them.

Zelda looked up and saw two figures circling in the air over their heads, one glowing a faint blue, the other a faint red. Blinking, she saw that they were riding on broomsticks. Slowly they came to hover at the foot of the bridge. Ganondorf stepped forward, putting himself between Zelda and the newcomers.

"Hello, mothers," he purred. "You've looked better."

The two women in front of her were so ancient Zelda was not sure how they could be alive. They were small, shrunken looking, hunched over their brooms which they grasped with frail wrinkled hands. Their green skin was marked with sores and spots. Their hair was thin and white, and one woman had a scar across her nose, which was large and protruding. Despite their obvious age, their large eyes glinted with clarity and intelligence. The two sisters were nearly identical both in appearance and dress, but for the jewels embedded into their foreheads, one a flaming red and the other an icy blue.

"Now, dear son, is that any way to address your mother?" said the blue sister, her voice breathy.

Ganondorf's lips thinned. "How are you still alive?" he demanded.

The red sister let out a cackling laugh. "I think you could be asked the same question!" She narrowed her eyes at him. "You don't even look old; how unfair!"

"Answer me."

"But son, should you not first introduce us to your friend?" The blue sister's eyes slid to Zelda and she smiled unkindly. She looked to how Ganondorf had positioned himself in front of Zelda and her expression turned to disgust. "You appear to have become quite close."

Zelda took a step forward. "I am Princess Zelda of Hyrule. Although I imagine you know that already. Where is your chief?"

"I am afraid she fell ill and could not make it," replied the blue sister. Ganondorf let out a disbelieving laugh, which was ignored. "She sent us in her stead. I am Koume."

"And I am Kotake! The younger sister!"

"We are twins!" Koume snapped. "How can you be younger?" She shook her head, refocusing on Zelda. "I see you have not brought the girl."

"She fell ill and could not make it," Zelda said sweetly. She had decided she did not care for Ganondorf's mothers. "I have taken her into my care."

Koume picked at her nails. "It does not matter. We can deal with her later."

"Enough of this!" Ganondorf snarled. He drew his sword. "You will answer my questions. Now!"

Kotake's lips stretched wide in a grin. "Grumpy, grumpy!" she said in a sing-song tone. She chortled. "This is not the family reunion I was expecting. What has gotten into you?"

"Stop playing, mother." He was shaking with rage. "How are you still alive? Why were you enchanting that girl? What do you want with the Princess? And what is all this about male babies?"

"So many questions! What do you think, Koume?"

"I suppose we can answer some of them, Kotake." She looked at Ganondorf disdainfully. "And put that sword away, boy."

"You do not speak to me that way. I am your king."

Koume huffed. "Not anymore," she said coldly. "Though you could be again, if you come back with us."

Ganondorf froze.

"Anyway, to your questions… what was first? How we are alive?" Koume rolled her eyes. "Well, that's obvious. Magic, of course."

"Clearly," Ganondorf said. His grip was still tight on his sword. "Yet you were already four hundred when I knew you before. Even with magic one can not run from death indefinitely."

Kotake let out a mock gasp. "Four hundred? That can't be right, can it?" She looked at her sister with her brow furrowed. "Did we really tell him that?"

Koume frowned. "Ah, Kotake, I believe we may have forgotten a zero."

There was silence for a moment as they all processed this.

Then, "Are you truly claiming to be four thousand years old?" Zelda asked flatly.

Koume startled. "Ah, you were so quiet I forgot you were here. But yes, that sounds right. Give or take."

"Did you know, children," Kotake said, a gleeful smile on her face, "We even witnessed the founding of Hyrule! Although…" Her face fell, and she gripped her broom tightly. "I fear our son is correct. No magic can stall death forever. I do not think we have many years left." She shuddered.

"Still enough to accomplish what we need to," Koume retorted. "Now, your next question… why we enchanted that girl?" She shrugged. "She was an irritant, asking too many questions. Not unlike yourselves. I wanted her out of the way." She smirked at Ganondorf. "Does this bother you, son? You didn't mind when we were doing it for you."

Zelda's head whipped to him. Ganondorf's eyes flashed.

"What was that girl's name again, sister?" Kotake tapped her chin. "She also asked a lot of questions."

"I believe it was Nabooru."

"Nabooru, yes! He was sweet on her as a boy, remember, sister? Very cute!" She laughed. "But she just wouldn't cooperate. I don't remember any complaints when we offered to bring her in line for him. No complaints at all!"

"That was a long time ago," Ganondorf said with gritted teeth, looking at Zelda.

"Is that regret I detect? Oh dear, it may be worse than I thought." Kotake sighed dramatically.

"Now, I believe your next question was why we wanted the princess here?" Koume pursed her lips. "We thought the easiest way to contact you was through her. We also thought you might like to kill her."

Zelda inhaled sharply.

"What?" Ganondorf growled.

"I remember the promises you made about what you were going to do to that child who got you arrested," Koume said. "Since you never got to fulfill them, I thought this would be the next best thing." She smiled at him with narrowed eyes, looking at how he had stepped closer to Zelda as she spoke. "Though perhaps you would prefer to keep her. I imagine you would grow tired of her soon enough."

"She is quite pretty, isn't she, sister?" Kotake giggled. "I can see why he is taken. But next to a Gerudo woman… Just another weakling Hylian."

"Do you always talk about people as if they are not even there?" Zelda asked coldly. Her fingers twitched, itching to summon her bow or her light. Not yet. Let them keep talking.

Koume turned her cold gaze to her. "Truly, Your Highness, your presence here is irrelevant. Our son we need back. Destabilizing Hyrule in the process is just an extra."

"And why do you need him back?"

"Would you believe if I said nothing can come between a mother and her son?" Kotake cooed.

"Answer her!" Ganondorf bellowed.

Koume snorted. "Well, I suppose this does bring us to your last question. The male babies. What do you know already?"

"Pyra has claimed there have been no male Gerudo since me. She also seems to think that you are doing something to her pregnant sister."

"Hmm, correct on both counts."

"How is that possible?" Ganondorf snapped, his eyes wide with anger. "What have you been doing to that woman? To all of them?"

Kotake cackled again; Zelda was becoming tired of hearing the sound. Koume let out a bored sigh. "It's all your fault, you know. It would have saved us a lot of trouble if Hyrule had executed you properly."

"How dare you speak to me like that!" Ganondorf spat. "You used to revere me, call me King."

Koume raised an eyebrow. "We thought you were our King. Your endless failures have indicated that you are not him. Not yet."

"Everything we have done is for our king," said Kotake. "Everything."

"What are you talking about?"

"The reason we have extended our lives so long." Kotake looked to the sky, reverence and wistfulness in her eyes. "The reason we've experimented on any woman pregnant with a male. All to bring back our king, our chief, after he was sealed by that horrid Rauru. All to resurrect the Demon King!"

Zelda felt a squeezing in her chest at her words. "The Demon King in my dreams…" she whispered. "He's real?"

"So long we worked on the spell," Kotake continued, ignoring Zelda's words. "So long that everyone had forgotten about our lord. And finally, with you, my son, it worked! You were perfect! Everything about you was just like him! Your powers, your ambitions, even your appearance... We thought with time and encouragement, your memories would return. So we stoked your hatred of Hyrule, supported your plans to kill the Hylian king. But then you failed! You were too weak hearted to get rid of that princess the minute she suspected you and it resulted in your execution. So we knew, you are not our king."

Ganondorf's mouth had dropped open. "You are both absolutely insane."

"We did not give up," Koume said, ignoring him. "We knew we were close. So one hundred years later, when another baby boy was due, we tried again. We performed the same spells leading up to the birth. But the baby was stillborn! We thought it was just bad luck. But then it happened again, and again. We started calling it a curse to avoid suspicion: retribution from the Goddess of the Sand for your crimes."

"You killed all those babies?" Ganondorf snarled.

"And their mothers?" Zelda asked, horrified.

"The mothers were evidence; they needed to be removed. It was easy – just another part of the curse." Kotake laughed. "And the babies… they were killed by you, darling son."

"What?"

"We thought we had lost our chance – put the Demon King's spirit in you, only for you to die at the hands of Hyrule. We thought the reason they were dying is that we were trying to imbue them with a spirit that no longer exists." She sniffed. "As the next hundredth year approached, we grew distraught. We realized… we do not have much time left. This was to be our last chance."

"It was then that we heard of the strange happenings in Hyrule, of the twilight." Koume said. "We thought little of it; Hyrule has many enemies. But after the Twilight cleared… we could feel you, through a tracking spell we put on you. We knew then that the reason the babies were dying was because you somehow lived.

"We convinced the Gerudo that our next season should be spent in Labrynna, so that we could find you. When we arrived we heard rumors of a hero who had vanquished a great evil from Hyrule – another failure for you, it seems. Yet our spell told us you were still alive, and somewhere in Hyrule."

"Is that why you attacked the desert?" Zelda breathed. "To draw Ganondorf out?"

"We have realized what we were missing to truly bring our master back, and it is in the desert."

The jewel, Zelda thought. Pyra said they were looking for a jewel.

"We knew if you heard of monsters overrunning the desert it would disturb you, so we made sure to be overzealous in our search." Kotake grinned, displaying yellow teeth. "If you did not appear soon we planned to capture and torture the princess until she told us where you were." She turned her head to her sister. "Well, Koume? Anything we forgot?"

"I think that about covers it, Kotake." She stared at Ganondorf, her eyes dark. "So, dear son, you have two options. One, you come with us, regain your memories and your powers, and become the Demon King once again. You can take the princess with you if that is what you want, or kill her now; I do not care. Pyra's sister and her nephew will live. I'm sure she will be grateful."

"And the second option?" Ganondorf said softly. His eyes flitted between the two witches, and his legs were bent in a fighting stance.

Koume smiled coldly. "We kill you both now, since our Molduga apparently could not, and resurrect the Demon King in Perda's son instead."

"You dare threaten me?" Ganondorf smiled viciously. "With how aged you have become, I don't think you are killing much of anything."

"We know a few tricks from our master," said Koume. She waved her arms.

Kotake's eyes lit up. "I suggest you choose quickly!"

There was a thundering sound from behind them. Zelda spun and saw pooling out from the valley towards Lanayru an army of monsters. Bokoblins, Bulblins, Lizalfos, Moblins, all sorts of monsters were approaching them. At the army's head was a monster Zelda had never seen before. It had the body of a large, stocky horse, yet from the spot where the neck would be sprouted a muscular humanoid torso. Its horned head was surrounded by a lion-like mane. In its hand it gripped a large bow, which it lifted to point directly at Ganondorf. Zelda shuddered, and turned back towards the witches at the foot of the bridge. They were surrounded.

"Ah, the Lynel," Kotake sighed. "Always a favourite of the Demon King."

"Come home, Ganondorf," Koume ordered, a wicked smile on her lips.

She looked at him. Ganondorf was not looking at the Twinrova, instead staring at the army of monsters slowly approaching them. Slowly he turned back to face the witches, his eyes dark and furious.

"Choose!" Kotake cackled.

"Zelda," Ganondorf muttered, not looking at her. "Put your arms around my back and hold tight."

"What?"

"Just do it!"

Zelda stared at him blankly for a moment, wondering if she had heard him correctly. Then she threw herself behind him and grabbed hold of his armor. No sooner had she gotten a tight grip on him that she felt shifting underneath her fingers. Soon what she felt beneath her fingers was not the cool metal of armor but thick fur. There was a dark flash and when she blinked, recovering, she saw that she was on the back of the massive monstrous boar, Ganondorf's beast form.

She just had time to bury her fingers in his mane, securing herself, when the boar began sprinting towards the Bridge of Eldin, where the witches stood.

"Stop him!" Kotake shrieked. Zelda wished she could see the expression on her face, but was too focused on not being thrown from Ganondorf's back. She heard the snap of a bowstring being released and a thud from behind them immediately after. Removing one hand from his mane, she twisted around to throw a ball of light behind her, and was satisfied to see it connect with the Lynel's face. She then grabbed a renewed hold of Ganondorf, for he had reached the foot of the bridge where the witches hovered, still on their brooms, and crouched in front of them. Then he leapt.

He flew over the witches, then landed heavily on the bridge and continued sprinting. There was more shrieking from Koume and Kotake, and arrows and magic flew towards them. She heard the thundering sounds of running footsteps following them. Zelda created a light shield behind them, attempting to deflect what she could. Ganondorf continued to run.

Koume screamed again and raised her hands towards them; a beam of blue let shot from her fingers and narrowly missed Ganondorf's back paw. From where it hit the bridge, ice appeared and began spreading, seeping through the fissures in the stone. Zelda began to hear a loud cracking and silently urged him to run faster. Just a bit farther! The far end of the bridge was getting close now.

She heard another explosion from behind them and her heart thumped as the section of the bridge they were running on – the same section that had been removed and replaced by Midna – began to slip downwards. Ganondorf continued to sprint, then leapt once again into the air, only a second before the bridge finally fell out from under him. Zelda held tightly to his mane and screamed. We aren't going to make it! Her mind raced, searching for magic that could reduce their impact as they fell back down.

And then stopped.

They hung off the edge of the bridge, Ganondorf with one hand grasping the edge. He swung his other hand up and pulled them up to safety. As he paused momentarily to catch his breath, Zelda glanced backwards, seeing the Lynel, along with much of the monstrous army, plummeting to the river below. The rest stood on the other side of the gap, unable to get to them. The witches were flying towards them, but when Ganondorf took off sprinting again, they were quickly left behind.

Safe. They were safe. A relieved laugh forced its way out of Zelda's throat.

She felt her magic returning to her as they passed outside of the anti-warp barrier the Twinrova had enacted. There was another flash and she was momentarily falling before being caught and pulled against Ganondorf, human once again. He promptly warped them away.

Ganondorf let her go the moment he landed. Raising her head, she recognized them to be in southern Hyrule Field, the castle looming above them.

"I'll really need to get someone to fix that bridge now," Zelda said, still giggling. A large part of her wanted to burst into tears.

Ganondorf just shook his head, his eyes wide and angry. "They've lost their damned minds," he spat. "Demon King? Ridiculous."

Zelda stopped laughing.

"Ganondorf," she said tentatively. "In my dreams, I've seen a monstrous figure... destroying Hyrule… and somehow my dream self knows that his title is Demon King."

He whirled to face her. "Do not speak of dreams!" he snarled. "There is no Demon King."

Zelda opened her mouth to argue, before a more urgent thought took her. "The Twinrova. Will they attack Castle Town? My people…"

Ganondorf shook his head. "It would take a great deal of magic to summon that many monsters, and they lost many of them when the bridge collapsed. They will not attack any time soon." He clenched his teeth. "I can set wards. To keep out monsters."

She thought of the great barrier that had been erected around Hyrule Castle during the Twilight Invasion and nodded gratefully.

"I will need to kill them," Ganondorf said gravely. "Their insanity has harmed Gerudo women and infants; it cannot be allowed to continue."

Zelda bit her lip. He became so touchy at the thought of prophecy, so adamant that it was nonsense, and yet… She frowned. She would not keep silent just to spare his feelings.

"And what if they are not insane?" she asked. "No, listen to me!" she snapped, seeing his expression turn fierce once again. "I know you do not believe in my visions but it seems an odd coincidence for me to dream of Demon Kings, and then hear of attempts to resurrect one soon after. I had never even heard of such a thing before dreaming it. And the gift of prophecy does run in my bloodline. Your punishment was perhaps harsh, but my ancestor saw correctly that you plotted against her."

"Hundreds of years of torture in the Twilight Realm," he said softly. "You consider that to be harsh, perhaps?"

"That was not my point and you know it."

"I do not have some demon inside of me. My mind and my goals are my own."

He is scared, Zelda realized, meeting his glare. He is terrified that it could be true. She wanted to reach for him, but thought that may only make him more defensive.

"Ganondorf, in my dreams, there is often another figure, fighting the Demon King." She wrung her hands together, remembering the destruction in her visions. Hyrule, burning. Hyrule, flooding. Hyrule, dying. If there was any chance that it was real, then she had to stop it. "A monstrous beast – a monstrous boar."

When her words sunk in, Ganondorf's lips curled into a cruel smirk. "Ah, at last: the real reason I have been kept alive. The princess wants a new hero, does she? And has deluded herself into thinking that will be me." He laughed coldly. "You think you can manipulate me, do you?"

"What? That's not –"

"I suppose you would need another hero, wouldn't you?" he sneered at her. "Seeing as you are too weak to do anything yourself."

Zelda flinched. "Excuse me?"

"Precious little princess, always needing someone else to fight her battles," he mocked. "How easily you surrendered your castle to Zant. And then proceeded to sit in your room to do nothing but wait for that hero to solve your problem for you."

"You say that as though you were not the one who kept me there," she said, bristling. "And you know what saving Midna cost me!"

"I know that all I had to do was show you the slightest bit of kindness and you eagerly told me exactly what that hero was doing at any time." He huffed a laugh. "Pathetic."

"A lot of good that did you – you still lost in the end. And now you are attacking me because you're in denial. If anyone here is pathetic, Ganondorf, it is you."

"I have saved your sorry life several times over," he said, his hands clenching into fists. "Why were you so insisted on going yourself to fight the Molduga, Princess? I think it is because you know that you are weak, and wanted to prove yourself wrong. Yet you needed me there, and now again, with my mothers, I got us out while you did nothing!"

"Just because I am not a fighter does not mean I am weak." Yet her heart had clenched at his words, and she knew that he had seen right through her, into the fears tucked deep in her heart. She had not been able to do anything against Zant, against Ganondorf, and now, again, against the Twinrova and their monsters. Her subjects treated her as their saviour, descendant of gods, goddess reborn, but she was none of those things. She was passive. She had the power of the gods in her hands but could not use it to protect her kingdom.

She shook her head, banishing her thoughts. "I don't want to argue with you, Ganondorf," she said, cutting him off as he opened his mouth again. "I am done with this conversation. Let's go back to the castle."

Still some stupid, girlish part of her wanted to comfort him after what they had heard from his mothers. She banished that as well. I suppose terrible taste in men is another thing to add to my list of failures, she thought with a bitter laugh.

"What are you smirking at?" Ganondorf snapped. She ignored him, and they returned to Hyrule Castle in silence.