From one underwater city to another

[the_drowned_desert]

Who: Ganondorf and you. Yes, you.
What: Showin' up and causing trouble without lifting a finger
Where: near the Lamufao
When: When normal people should be sleeping
Style: Brackets, brackets, unto infinity
Status: Open like a book

[If anyone is up at this late hour and happens to wander over to the Lamufao, they may just find an absurdly tall elderly gentleman hunched over on one of the benches nearby. He looks terribly tired, as if he had just recently seen everything he had worked for snatched from his grasp and the world fall down about him. Inwardly, while he's too tired to do much angsting about apparently being dead, he certainly finds it ironic that what appears to be the afterlife is an underwater city not unlike the one he had spent the greater part of his life sealed in, and where he had been turned to stone.

Go bother him?]

Comments

[blessedbyfarore]

[Link's expression twists into something pained when he sees the arrows.] ...That's what went wrong last time, [he says suddenly, picking at the sheets and dropping his head again.]

I ran out of arrows. And just hitting his attacks back wasn't good enough without the light arrows.

[zelda_hylia]

[A chill runs through her. She remembers that part of the fight. All she had been able to do was watch helplessly. Link had barely any arrows left in his quiver by the end of it. If he had run out...

...this would be the result, wouldn't it? Zelda pushes away the image of the scar where Ganondorf must have run him through, forces the thought of what could have been to the back of her mind.]

I will not let that happen this time. He won't imprison me and force me to stand by as you fight again. I can break free of that now.

[The eight months in Vatheon have done the princess a lot of good. She's learned to stand up now. There's no reason to hide behind Sheik, Ganondorf knows they're here. Her body isn't awkward and unfamiliar like it had been when she first awakened. No. This time, she's ready.]

[blessedbyfarore]

[Link lifts his head at that, the most tentative of worried smiles tugging at his lips.] Then... we'll fight together, this time?

[Can they do this? He exhales, then holds out his hand.] I promise I'll do everything I can to protect you.

[zelda_hylia]

[Zelda shoulders the quiver and bow, then takes his hand firmly and nods.]

Together.

[Though...]

Do not forget, in Vatheon, no one truly dies. This will be a battle of words at first. We just need to be prepared to fight in the event that he's as pigheaded as ever.

[Killing him every time he respawns doesn't sound like a terrible idea, really.]

[blessedbyfarore]

[He gives her hand a bit of a squeeze, but the thought has given him pause. He can fight, and maybe he'd lose again - but eventually, perhaps he could come out the victor.]

[And he really doesn't want to die again. But Link knows that so long as he can keep the people he cares about safe, he will.]

...Okay. Should we go now?

[zelda_hylia]

Yes. There's no point in waiting.

[Zelda turns to charge out in her nightdress when the feeling of carpet on her feet reminds her that she isn't exactly prepared for battle.]

Ah... perhaps I should change first. You get anything you need to, as well. I'll meet you down by the door, alright?

[Smiling sheepishly, she ducks into her room.]

[blessedbyfarore]

[...Yeah. Pyjamas aren't exactly conducive to battle.]

[Chuckling briefly, Link hurriedly gets changed - his original outfit has long since been destroyed, but he can dress in the closest approximation he has. Master Sword and Mirror Shield on his back, bow and quiver settled beneath them, and the ocarina in a padded pouch on his belt, he exhales, then hurries out to meet Zelda.]

I'm ready.

[He thinks.]

[zelda_hylia]

[As for Zelda, though she's wearing the shoulder armor from her royal regalia, the rest of her clothing is simple. For once, she's wearing pants. In public, even! A quiver is strapped to her back, and she has a bow in hand. She slipped a note under Zelos's door just in case Ganondorf does kill them.

If he does, he'll have more people to contend with next time they meet.]

Let's go.

[Straightening her shoulders, she heads out the door.]

[blessedbyfarore]

[Link nods, and the two start for the plaza and the coral. Neither speak particularly much - it's tense and quiet, and Link's hands itch to take the sword up and defend both himself and Zelda.]

[As the coral comes in to sight, Link slows, glancing at Zelda uncertainly.]

Thread order Zelda > Ganondorf > Link starting now? <3

[zelda_hylia]

[Her eyes dart around wildly. Where is he? Where --

The man on the bench. Yes, he's about the right size. Through the fog of her anger, he looks menacing rather than tired, dangerous rather than lost. Her voice is cool as she addresses him, and though she's ready to draw an arrow she hasn't done so yet.]

Ganondorf.

Aye~ <3

[the_drowned_desert]

...Hello Princess. Hero.

[He'd been expecting them of course. How could he not when the pieces of the Triforce call to eachother? What is a bit of surprise is that these are not the children he had last seen far below the waves of the Great Sea. No, these are the two from all those centuries ago. Two more points on the side of being stone dead.]

[blessedbyfarore]

[Link watches warily, half-desperate to reach for the sword on his back. It means safety, a way of defense... but if this battle of words can be won without violence, then that has to be a better solution.]

[He doesn't speak yet - that'd betray the tremor in his voice, the terror he's desperately trying to keep suppressed - but instead stays close to Zelda, a second away from drawing his sword (if need be) and attempting to mimic her calmness and coolness.]

Slight interlude and Sola shows up~

[replicatedcourage]

[Sola was dreaming.

A restless dream of dark, roiling skies and deep chasms, pits in the land where the bottom is invisible and if you dropped a stone you couldn't hear it strike. Groaning and keening echos across blood-slick streets, terror just as much of a being as the monsters themselves, a black presence of choking energy, stealing air, stealing life, stealing hope until everything is shadows and flame and all that can be heard is a single.

Reverberating.

Laugh.

...

Sola jolts awake with a cry, his chest constricting painfully in anxiety. It's not a new nightmare but he could feel him that time, the King of Evil, his fell power creeping across the land. He could feel it so vividly. He can still-

Still...

...

No...

Heart in his throat Sola tears out of bed, pulling on tunic and trousers in a rash flurry of movement, all weapons and accessories to follow at a harried pace. He can still feel him, his Master, he's here and so are Link and Zelda and he knows what that means, he knows it in every fiber be it from Ganon or Link that there is little chance of this ending in any other way but blood.

He runs full tilt through the streets, making his panicked way to the coral without knowing why he knew to go there, just knowing. Yet his boots slow as he nears the place, coral visible over the street but not yet in the plaza.

Can he really face his Master after so blatantly disregarding everything he'd been told? After failing? After calling Link his brother? These are all things for which there is no forgiveness to his memory, all things that once Ganondorf would have killed for.

But he can't simply walk away. Should he fight? Should he grovel?

Heart still pounding, the shadow walks into the plaza to approach, unsure himself as to whether it is Sola or Dark Link that returns to his master's presence.]

Ok, now Zelda > Ganondorf > Link > Sola~

[zelda_hylia]

[In truth, Zelda is just as afraid as Link and Sola, but she doesn't dare show it. She lifts her head as she approaches to a comfortable speaking distance, regal despite her battle-ready clothing. Upon closer inspection, she can tell that he's older. He seems relatively calm. Is it possible that being sealed in the Sacred Realm really did purify him? She won't count on it, but the thought is nice.]

As you may have deduced already, this is not Hyrule or the Sacred Realm. This is not our world at all. It is a location known as Vatheon, and we have all been marked by it. There is no point in our fighting here. If you must engage in violence, I ask that you direct it towards our captors.

[the_drowned_desert]

[He chuckles darkly at that.]

So death is referred to as "Vatheon..."

[The small grin drops again, almost as if it were never there to begin with, replaced once again by soul-deep weariness.]

...I have nothing to gain from further violence. It will not return Hyrule to the land above the waves.

[blessedbyfarore]

[Sola's emergence makes Link lift his head, a sudden pang of worry curdling in his stomach. Ganondorf made Sola, didn't he? But he's his brother now - silently, hoping Ganondorf doesn't notice, he holds a hand out to him, gesturing for him to come to join them.]

[To stand at their sides.]

[When Ganondorf speaks, Link returns his attention to him, his voice soft but at least reasonably steady.] What do you mean, above the waves?

[replicatedcourage]

[The copy keeps to the shadows, so unsure about this entire situation that he subconsciously wills himself to blend in with them, barely visible save for a vague outline and his dimly glowing eyes. He sees Link's hand and nearly takes a step, then recoils, retreating further. It's not that simple. Link is his brother but Ganon is his master, his creator. He owes him his life.

He'd rather be by Link's side, to stand in the light like a hero, to cover each other and protect each other, to protect Zelda as they know they should, but...

He can't bring himself out of the shadows alone. He remains where he is, watching, waiting, hoping for a sign of where he should go or what he should be.]

[zelda_hylia]

[Link speaks the question on her lips, and she forces herself to continue explaining rather than demand an answer out of Ganondorf immediately.]

This is not the afterlife. This place is located between worlds and outside the proper flow of time. It is possible that you are from another timeline than us entirely.

[She takes a breath, some of the ice melting off of her expression and being replaced with worry.]

What happened?

[the_drowned_desert]

[He is quiet for a time, slowly turning this new information over in his mind. Finally deciding that this will do for now, he begins his tale.]

...For a time the seal you placed upon me held. I am uncertain for how long I remained in that realm, slowly growing mad with rage - generations perhaps - until one day the seal finally gave under the force of my anger. With no hero to stand in my way, Hyrule was laid to waste. In retaliation, the goddesses themselves sent a great flood, sealing the land and myself beneath the waves of a vast ocean, leaving only those who had taken refuge upon the highest peaks.

The land itself was sealed within a vast bubble, much like this. In the ages I spent under the waves, the rage faded and I found I had gained nothing from my previous actions. Eventually the seal once again broke, and I returned to the world above, seeking to reunite the Triforce and drain the sea from the land.

[He lets out another humorless chuckle.]

The last king of Hyrule snatched success from my grasp at the last crucial moment and saw to it that Hyrule would forever remain buried.

[blessedbyfarore]

[Link doesn't answer immediately, expression going slack as he processes the information. A seal - then this Ganondorf is from the time Zelda is from, where they succeeded.]

[This isn't the man who killed him.]

[But even that brief relief is little compensation against the rest of the story - a Hyrule without a hero, a Hyrule flooded under an ocean - almost automatically, he glances up at the water above their head, and blanches a little when he imagines the forest cut off from the sky.]

[And Ganondorf had been the one who had wanted to save it. Does that mean he's...]

[Right?]

Why - why wasn't there a hero? [he asks instead, so as not to focus on the uncomfortable realisation that he agrees with Ganondorf on something.]

[replicatedcourage]

[The shadow too freezes. He never saw much of Hyrule; all he knows is the temple and what he can glean from the memories he shares with Link, but like those that hold the Triforce he is also intrinsically bound to the land, their world, their Hyrule. So it is this story that finally causes him to reveal his presence to his master. He wants to know the answer to Link's question as well, but there is another thing he also doesn't understand.]

...why would the king do that?

[Wouldn't Hyrule even under Ganon's rule be preferable to losing it forever?]

[zelda_hylia]

[No. No. Her entire being rejects Ganondorf's words, and she's about to shout and call him a liar until she hears him say that there was no hero.

No hero, because she had sent him away with her own hands. Ganondorf had been sealed away at the time, there was no way he would know that unless it actually had happened. Her tirade is delayed momentarily as she gathers her thoughts. Even if he says that much, he's still wrong! The goddesses wouldn't do that. Her children wouldn't do that! Trembling with such intensity that her whole body is essentially vibrating, she glares up at the king of thieves.]

No. No descendant of mine would condemn Hyrule to such a fate. The goddesses wouldn't do that to our land, either!

[Though she hears Link's question, she doesn't answer it or address it herself, essentially revealing she has no argument with that part of Ganondorf's story. She knows that much is true.]

[the_drowned_desert]

[He raises an eyebrow at the princess. How strange that she would deny that the goddesses would flood Hyrule and the king would doom her to a watery grave, yet have such a reaction to the mention that the hero was missing. Curious...]

I know not why the hero did not appear. Perhaps he had not been reborn at that time. As for the king... I cannot be certain of what drove him. However...

[He looks Zelda dead in the eyes.]

...I know just how powerful a motivator the prospect of vengeance is.

[blessedbyfarore]

[Not reborn - then this could be a long time after their time. Link frowns, glancing between Ganondorf and Zelda and Sola uncertainly.]

[Why would a king condemn his own land? Just for revenge? Why would the Goddesses choose to drown Hyrule, when Link is sure that they'd be powerful enough to stop one man?]

[And why, why did Zelda react like that, not even questioning that there was no Hero to stop Hyrule from being drowned?]

[zelda_hylia]

[Sola's presence is completely forgotten at this point. When Ganondorf locks eyes with her, she feels it - the absence of that burning rage that had always personified him. Even though he's speaking of vengeance as motivation, she doesn't feel threatened by him. That might be the most terrifying part of all. That might mean that he's telling the truth. Hyrule would be drowned because there was no hero, and it would be her fault. Unable to accept that, she lashes out.]

You expect me to just believe you want peace now? That you were going to take the Triforce and wish for Hyrule to be returned to the light? That the goddesses would sink it in the first place?! It doesn't make any sense! You will not fool me as you fooled my father!