#for giving me so much ganondorf thoughts

[dinonid123]

I think its pretty funny how everyone loves to talk about the angst potential of Ganondorf/Demise, Zelda/Hylia, and Link reincarnating just to suffer for centuries on end and the angst you can derive from that but like,

1) this is basically not explored in the games to my knowledge (Having played only like 6, but, ya know)

2) Because of the timeline split and the fact that there aren’t actually that many games there’s really not that many canon incarnations, PARTICULARLY of Ganondorf bc off the top of my head I wanna say that at least OoT, WW, TP, and ALttP all actually just have the ONE Ganondorf born to the Gerudo before the events of OoT because of the Timeline Split Shenanigans who goes Ganon fulltime in Downfall and only as a final boss form in OoT and TP (Which are both Adult, I suppose)

3) I think only Ganon is really incarnating by soul anyway- I haven’t played Skyward Sword yet (getting there!) but if I recall it’s the rage of Demise hunting the ones with the blood of the Goddess (so all Zeldas are just related through the Hylian royal family to the original human incarnation of Hylia) and the courage/spirit of the hero or whatever (i.e. whatever kid happens to end up being the destined one, though not necessarily the same spirit reincarnated- how would the Hero of Time be the shade in TP talking to the Hero of Twilight then, unless it was like, his subconscious).

Don’t stop though, I do really like it! Particularly I think you can really do a lot with Ganondorf- poor guy hasn’t gotten the nintendo king villain redemption arc yet, and I’m almost doubtful that the cowards will ever do it. I was writing a fic about it, and I really should go back to it, of the idea of a young Ganondorf reincarnate (like a proper one, a male child born to the Gerudo NOT directly before OoT lmao) knowing of the destiny that is set out for him and actively being afraid of it, of rejecting it, because he’s not a monster, he’s just a man who wants to do his people right! But that little voice speaks inside his mind, more and more as he grows older, telling him to oppose those damn Hyruleans, and to take the power he deserves, that he is destined to wield. Or even better- it just happens to him as he grows- no voice, no seeming outside influence- he doesn’t become evil, he isn’t a cackling mastermind- just a man who wants to do his people right, and knows that the only way for him to do that is to fight Hyrule.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

trying to assign instruments to gerudo characters for thralls' soundtrack. Nabooru is getting the sitar so far, as I think she's good at representing the gerudo side that's closer to the Wild Era in terms of long-term vision for gerudo prosperity, not to mention that it works great for a more laid-back character; though Iftaah could also get that aspect, even though her perspective is a little bit more desperate and a little less actually strategizing about diplomacy and commerce in the way that Nabooru's is... not sure I have nailed down the perfect instrument for her yet though? Maybe a duduk, for its plaintive quality and capacity for softness? But I don't know, I feel like there could be something better out there. Saeruk and flamenco guitar seem pretty great fit for the versatility of the instrument, both harsh and defiant, playful at times, but also extremely sad if needs be, and the fact that she represents more the "older" kind of gerudo works well with more hispanic/romany inspirations. And then there's Aveil, who I feel represent the best the connection of the gerudos to their land, and I'd love an instrument that really represents that. Still looking for that one.

There's a bunch of fun things for Ganondorf that can be done, but I think he'll get... bigger instruments, in general. And church organs are quite versatile too it turns out. :) I like the marimba from his first phase boss battle, but it's a little too... I don't know, I feel like it lacks the roundness and depth and imposing quality that we could get with other picks. But Ganondorf so far has about *eight billion* leitmotifs going on with what I have selected for him (him and Ganon's, as they are... not exactly separate entities in the story, but sort of, it's kind of weird), so it might be more a case of actual melody rather than instruments, or maybe on top of instruments that swap in and out depending on what we want to invoke...

Sorry, rambling, but I would really love to compensate for my lack of voice actors with a pretty meaningful stab at the soundtrack. I feel like I kind of have to honestly. ;;

[bubtans]

the worst part about totk having a legitimately bad story is that it's such a good game and that seems contradictory but it's like. the caliber of the game is so outstanding and the amount of love that you can feel in the actual Gaming Experience just does not carry over to the Narrative experience, and what makes it difficult is that you don't WANT to criticize it for anything.

you want to enjoy every element to the fullest so that the game can live up to its boundless potential. AND YET. just like so many games in this franchise, creative brilliance is so painfully stifled by not only rigid narrative structures and genres but by the inability of creators (and audiences because god knows tloz's playerbase is so rife with some of the most potent levels of misogynoir) to look past biases and see possibilities.

[the-moon-files]

Aaaaa yay, you updated for Linked Universe again! 🙏 And right when the hyperfixation was coming back for me, too 👀 

I was looking over your posts for LU, and if you don’t mind, I’d love to share some of my own random thoughts with you! I hope that’s okay 👉👈

After I read your “Humans aren't just round-eared Hylians?” post I have had,, many thoughts 👀 One random difference between humans and Hylians I thought about was the possibilities of varying strength,,, You briefly mentioned how Hylians seemed lighter than they seemed to Guide!Reader, and let me tell you, it was such a small detail, but I was transFIXED. I have this image of humans/Guide!Reader just being naturally stronger than the average Hylians - and it made me think of scenarios of the Reader just effortlessly hauling around two Links on their shoulders like sacks of potatoes- And them also picking up things that are supposed to be really heavy with ease! Like, Four would make a longsword, and Reader picks it up out of curiosity, expecting it to be really heavy, but it’s actually not that bad?? (Four in the background: 🧍)

If the Reader is already pretty strong (and maybe even has a profession in fighting, like a boxer or something,, [I might be projecting slightly—]), then ooo 👀 I can see there being this one time where a bunch of monsters ambush the Chain, and as everyone is fighting with the Reader giving them advice and whatnot, a Lizalfos managed to slip past everyone and sprint towards the Reader to attack them. The others are panicking because they won’t be able to reach the monster in time, but just as the Lizalfos raised its sword, one single punch from the Reader sent it flying back into the fray, knocking it into a Moblin. Reader is just standing there with their fist still in the air like “👁️👄👁️ h u h … whY ARE YOU GUYS STARING, YOU’RE STILL FIGHTING—”

In your newest post about the Guide!Reader’s voice, you mentioned how some entities could hear them, and I don’t know if he would, but I think it’d be kinda funny if Ganon and all of his other reincarnations could hear the Reader talking to Link- I’m not sure if he remembers his past lives, but if he does and hears/recognises Reader’s voice, I love the image of him thinking “Oh god, THIS guy again??” Because Reader WILL clown on him-

Dehydrated Ganondorf: *insert evil monologue here*

Guide!Reader: Uh-huh, sure, bold words for someone whose skin looks like a prehistoric riverbed. :|

Sage: *w he eze*

As I was writing all this, I had to think to myself, “Huh,, Guide!Reader doesn’t die when they fall into lava, aren’t really affected by harsher temperatures and winds, and also can swim against strong currents. They’re environment-resistant basically. But there’s bound to be at least one weakness to it all, right?” I did come up with said weakness, and I think it’s kinda basic, BUT one idea I had was that because Guide!Reader is so resistant to the natural elements of Hyrule, they are conversely quite weak to unnatural causes in turn. If they get injured, say they get cut with a knife by a Bokoblin, then that wound would take much longer to heal than it should. Any injuries that the Reader sustains in Hyrule are harder to heal (which I feel like could make some interesting angst,, 👀); their injuries would take more magic to completely heal them, or have more healing potions to drink. I also thought of the Reader being very vulnerable to any sort of poison- Like, if they get a pinch or two (or three) of strong poison in their system, they get knocked out for like two days 💀 

So basically, Guide!Reader is very resistant to the environment, possibly quite strong, but does not have any good constitution,,

[On another note, maybe it’s just a me thing, but I personally love the thought of Wind looking up to the Reader as like a big brother figure,,]

And also!! Happy birthday!! 🥳🥳🎉 As a way of procrastination, I’ve been compiling memes with Guide!Reader and the Chain because the brain rot is hitting HARD,, I can share it with you in the future if you like! /gen /pos And sorry if this is such a long post dkjfgndf-

NOT SOMEONE BEING HAPPY I UPDATED UwU

ur ideas, ur compliments, ur bday wishes, etc. hitting me like^^

Sun: Masc!Reader (he/him) this will be default unless ppl specify otherwise! , Guide!Reader, Boxer/Martial Artist!Reader

Orbit: Headcanons-ish

Stars: Most Links of the Chain mentioned + Sage (Totk Link)! No focus/centric Link

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: light cussing, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

In reference to This Post! Wait, Humans Aren’t just Round-Eared Hylians??

YOUR BRAIN>>>????!!!

This was such a yummy treat tysm for this, sharing is caring 🫶

I absolutely think Humans could be 10x stronger than Hylians, I mean if we base everything abt their universe off of Link weighing ~8 apples lmao

that means swords, armor, broadswords/claymores, battle axes, huge shields, if those weigh abt like fake swords/wooden ones back on earth to us, then i cant even imagine what canons/horses/tree trunks/boulders weigh 💀

like props on a stage weight rather than the real thing lmao

No but how many Links can you fit in one carry??

ok u got a heavier Link on your back, like Time, Twi or Wars, then Four/Wind/Hyrule/Legend (yes he’s light/smaller side, tho he may deny) in ur arms like one Link per arm, maybe 3 Links if you can like wrap ur arms around them

so like 4 Links total? well, Wind or Four r so light/small one could possibly ride on ur shoulders, so 5 LMAO??? that's like half the Chain already AHALJFAfJLL-

on another note,

I LOVEEE ganon being able to hear Guide Reader bc spent too long around them, also i originally based that off of characters who’ve shown they're meta/highly magical kinda (esp the meta part where they may have directly addressed players/broke 4th wall)

No bc Ganon would just be SO fed up by like, Wild’s time, it would literally be EXACTLY like what u said I’d imagine:

(u just playing the game and not realizing until later they can hear you)

Ganon: “ugh that blonde twink again, god when will this plan actually work-?!”

You: “eyyy, Ganon! omg, why’s he?? Hot??? damn, botw best ganon version fr”

Ganon: “you know what maybe you should just kill me right now, hero Link.”

(the thought of Ganon never being able to escape ur voice whenever Link was near him bc u didnt have a body to fight/kill, and instead he just had to deal with ur comments is SENDING ME)

changing subjects again sorry

YES!! that's the weakness/drawback I was thinking abt for Humans in Hyrule, while yes their environment isn't that effective on us, (i like to use “inside a video game” as the reason bc i think its neat)

humans are notoriously fragile in our own world already - we get sick, we get acid-reflux/throw up from bad food/food poisoning, etc.

so it makes sense we’d be more sensitive to this new environment, but even if we got adjusted,

we’re more external-proof, not internal-proof

(u know that's another reason why it works for Hylians and not Humans, we aren’t automatically healed by food, but their world does, and even in botw/totk when u have “dubious” food, its never inedible, its just useless to eat, so technically Hylians can kind of eat most anything off of that logic, like there is no such thing as “bad food” for them)

and u could take this either way tbh,

like we’re either entirely resistant to magic/dont take to it well bc our world didnt have it so potions/fairies don't work and we have to heal naturally

or just yeah, its like ur in a new country tbh, new germs/nature/food/etc. and u def cant guarantee u wont get a little sick from that

this would definitely include genuine poison!

bro the amount of WORRY the Links would feel after realizing the human guide guy who’s physically here now can barely handle their food??

Wild’s making a thorough list of what foods work for you and what don't, like safe foods to go back on, including recipes,

the way Time/Wars would absolutely be willing to take little detours/stop by towns more to make sure you have the right food you can eat,

and even tho Wild’s cooking, Sage is constantly testing for poison, like the dish itself, the herbs/plants, every ingredient needs to be extra safe even by Hylian standards (like not eating adventurous stuff like pufferfish or smth that could possibly have poison if cooked wrong/not enough etc)

that is to say, even if Wild makes a new recipe/other meal, he always has a backup safe meal to give you instead on those nights, and just way too many in general (yes he knows it doesn't buff ur health but he cant help his Hylians instincts to stuff the hurt person’s face with food ok??)

Hyrule! Is!! Losing!!! It!!!!

he has all the healing magic in the world and the one man he wants to help the most, for keeping him from being lonely on his adventure/looking out for him/being on his side no matter what, now he finds out he can’t even help them??

mans would literally keep trying to heal u til he’s drained it all out to just try and get the wound to close, if u didnt stop him

U get injured for the first time, and while a bruise/cut taking weeks to heal (depending on how bad) is normal to you, Hyrule + lowkey everyone is Freaking Out

Wounds DO NOT take weeks to heal?? They take hours at most??? Dude, are you dying-

(Wind got elbowed for that one, purely bc he voiced Sky/Hyrule/Wild/Twi paranoia out loud lol)

that is going with the version ur mostly unaffected by magic, but u could also do the human thing where we get adjusted to things over time (at least more than nothing), including food/sickness

The way All the Links just surround you or outright don’t let you come into crowded parts of town so ur poor immune system wont make u sick again 😭

on the bright side they'd all get rlly good at preventative measures like this, and taking care of sick you lol

(yes, u bribed Wind to get little bro cuddles when ur sick, it wasn't hard, he sees u as the most genuine bigger bro probably bc ur likely hte most affectionate out of all the Links)

(should I get into cultural differences between humans/hylians like humans being more openly cuddly/affectionate? like how in humans are space orcs fandom they acknowledge its unusual for us to “packbond” so easily to so many different species? and how this could possibly apply to not only Hylians but any Friend-shaped creatures across the Hyrules?? ..nah. I’ll save that for another post)

AND YES!! feel free to shoot rambles/thoughts/not even requests my way! Id love to talk abt it or just post it for the world to marvel at too lol

ohh mY God;; YOU HAVE MEMES FOR THIS?? PLEASEEEE SHOW ME????

thank you for this, srsly /pos

Peace out,

🌙

[sciencelings-arts]

Post totk Lu Wild concept where he comes back to the group six years later with one less arm, a magic rock, and even more patches added to his champions tunic. Also I wanted to add concepts for what the light bow and arrow would look like when made with parts from the light dragon, since light arrows are infinite and appear in the bow when it’s being drawn, so that would make it easier for a single armed Wild to still participate in archery, he just has to use his teeth to draw it back.

More lore and close ups under the cut

Someone had to inherit Mineru’s secret stone, and we all know how I’m a fan of giving it to Link. Also I hate the way the batteries are clumped together in the game so I changed it. The flames are based on poes and the other beaded waist part is made of dragon parts, they have a minor healing effect.

The bottom of Wilds tunic embroidery is based on the astral observatory and the master sword room in the master sword trials, where all around the room there are landmarks from Hyrule pointing where they are on the map. So I wanted to have the post totk floating Hyrule castle as the main thing, mostly because it looks cool and bc I wanted Wilds perspective to be from the great plateau kinda. Anyway I worked hard to make it recognizable lmao.

One more thing I want to bring up is the new golden sleeve(s), the one(s) that Ganondorf burned off, replaced by fabric made of the light dragons hair. I just thought it would be neat and I feel like she would shed after not having her hair brushed in thousands of years. It glows in the dark and helps with the pain management in his amputated arm.

Edit: I forgot to mention but the placement of the secret stone is also something I thought about. I realized that since the other members of the triforce had their secret stones aligned with the center of their body (forehead, chest) I figured that it would make sense for Link to have his following the same rule. So I decided on his belt. Otherwise, it would've been lower on his chest, maybe where the triforce would be on his master sword embroidery but I didn't want to crowd the space too much and I really wanted to doodle that part to my heart's content lmao. The belt just seemed a little bare so it made sense to me lol.

[ganondoodle]

totk rewritten (for me, specifically)

since i dont have time to get to drawing it right away AND im worried people might take this the wrong way, i thought i could write out some bullet points about my rewrite of totk (meant as a fix FOR ME not saying its inherently better) to give you a better idea on what im going for:

the core structure largely remains the same, the biggest change is no time travel, thus making zelda your travel companion, and zonau tech being lagerly gone/broken with shiekah tech instead

it is not shown but said in dialog that shiekah tech, such as the ancient furnaces, shrines and towers are either turning off or have flickering power supply and purah having calculated that all their connections point towards beneath hyrule castle

game starts pretty much the same as real totk, most zonau ruins are so withered away that they are barely recognizable and the further you get down theres more and more shiekah tech pipes and occasional a miasma vein, some pipes are broken and spill miasma, others flicker

instead of the room with the wall carvings theres one with old ancient shiekah research remains, old broken tech and prototypes you dont what their purpose was, all documents are too withered to read but zelda finds one that was sealed in a container and takes it with her (she got a backpack now)

theres a structure similar to the bed thingy of the shrine of life from botw but its working in reverse; within it is sealed ganondorf (i gotta work out the details around it still)

(details still missing) it breaks and zelda takes the enigma stone but doesnt touch it directly and puts it within a sealed container (you know kinda like you should do with soemthing you have no idea of what it is and was alsO LOCATED ON A CORPSE)

ganondorf isnt the elegantly talking villain type in this version but more of a mess, talking in different languages both modern and ancient but you cant make out any clear sentences, struggeling with suddendly being awake and half alive after spending thousands of years in an agonizing limbo, having witnessed every second of the passage of time yet also it feeling like everything just happened all at the same time

the ground breaks as he recognizes zelda (bc of her fighting calamity ganon in botw) but also not really, still sees her as a threat (also bc of the enigma stone in the container she still has in her hand) attacks her, link deflects with the master sword, it breaks and damages his arm, zelda drops her torch and pulls link away towards where they came in from and both run as the caves fill up with miasma like a flood with arms starting to reach after them while they both run back through the tunnels (creepy chase sequence anyone?)

cataclysm happens (ground breaks, miasma bursts out of the ground, especially where shrines and towers where since they were still connected to the pipelines) ground shifts massively in some places giving alot of the map a whole new structure; all shiekah tech that was not independent stops working due to power loss

links arm is amputated since otherwise the miasma would spread to his whole body; purah, robbie and zelda work out a prosthetic arm prototype to give to link (protoype at first will be upgraded at halfway point of the game) that can switch between multiple modes, like a hand to hold normal items or a weapon that isnt crafted, and a fusing ability (though maybe limited in the prototype) that lets you make weapons similar to the weapon fusing in canon totk (potential upgrades including an extendable guardian arm that doesnt break, grapple hook anyone??, also the ability to build stuff out of shiekah tech parts, not glue needed you actually screw it together, maybe zelda even helps)

now you are given free roam of hyrule, the goal is to explore and find what has changed and check on people, see what the underground has, new monsters have spawned etc.

zelda is your companion the whole time, she can use the shiekah stone/purah pad to analyze enemies for you, she also carries at least a dagger for her own self defense but doesnt contribute much to the fight (subject to change maybe), you can talk to her anytime and she usually has something to comment on depending on where you are or what you just did, can give you tips and advice IF ASKED FOR IT, when you discover ancient ruins, whether zonau or shiekah, she can either decipher it for you or take photos for later to find out more about everything that has happend and what it means, she also takes part in conversations when you talk to someone, her outfit changes with yours (meaning when you wear the tingle set she wears it too, opens up alot of funny interactions njfkdk)

purah has built new towers but they function different (still working on the details) mainly that they function independent from the energy source in hyrule castle

there are floating islands but they are bigger and in more connected clusters, when reaching them its ancient withered ruins that the ancient shiekah built support around (like the platform used by monk miz kyoshia) to keep them afloat; there are building like observatories and research labs, but all very overgrown due to being up there for so long, theres a titan prototype on one of the islands, its shaped like a whale and zelda deciphers it was called vah narisha (reference to the whale deity in skyward sword) (i havent decided yet if its fully broken and just a big piece of enviroment to explore or half functioning floating around, or maybe first broken but later half repaired so it can fly around at least giving you an easier way to reach other island, you cant steer it tho) some of them are falling bc of energy loss but the bigger ones have independent energy sources (work in progress)

the underground has more diverse zones depending on which part of the map it is located on, there are old mines (for luminous stone) from the zonau but all is extremely withered, in each one its been mostly built over by the shiekah but there are construct remains that were clearly dissected and studied, half built shrines and towers, you can find collectibles and lore there (working on more details, but an idea was to include remains of ancient shiekah tha fled there when they were persecuted by that old king of hyrule, adding to the eery vibe)

some titans (maybe two, and the other are still on the sruface, like vah medoh) feel down during the cataclysm, broken apart or malfunctioning/ possibly being a boss as in they were used by a big cluster of miasma hands like a hermit crab uses its shell, the inside filled with eyes and different sized hands dragging itself towards you like a drowing man grabs after anything to save him)

dongos are your go to transportation here and a little different, when you call one they dig a path to you (not permanent, just so they can always spawn near you) they glow in the dark and can climb on walls (bc why not), and can point you towards the next objective/point of interest, likely where theres a high concentration of luminous stone since that is what they eat and its usually where old mining/construction sites are (still working on a replacement for light roots that are less invasive)

the rat from the trailer is a miniboss/boss you need to defeat in order to get the broken mastersword back into your possession

(im still working on how the sages work, but the idea is to incorporate their abilites for more efficient and reliable use into links shiekah prosthetic, so you can still use their abilities but only when you actually want)

(again still working on details) halfway point of the game is you trying to find out where ganondorf went, not intending to fight necessarily but just to find out more but it devolves into you fighting some sort of miasma monster (either him or some sort of manifestation he made) and you get a bunch of short memory flashes from him, all vague and a wild mess from both the time he was sealed and from the time afterwards, maybe even a perspective shift from when link was fighting dark beast ganon, but from ganons view, from zelda when she was keeping that manifestation in check, random views from the malice eyes from botw, from the blights, maybe even from the fight with the old and new champions, from the point when shiekah built their tech around him while he had to watch not able to do anything etc.)

links arm gets upgraded from prototype to a full prosthetic, opening up more fusing abilites and other things (like the grapple hook, again working on it, im open for ideas lol)

i will reblog this and add more over time if you want, but do let me know if you like it thus far, bc im still unsure if its worth the effort of working more on this QnQ

(also if you dont like just keep scrolling, i dont need to know that you hate it, it literally changes nothing but make me annoyed xD)

[skyloftian-nutcase]

(content warning: heavy angst, SI, despair, and some body horror) Link felt sick.

He’d done it. He’d found one of their graves. He knew if he lingered here too long it would give his position away. He knew if Ganondorf took control at any point from here on out, he’d find out his daughter could be found, could be resurrected and controlled like Link was.

It was an accident. He had been looking for sword shards and had stumbled upon this place, nondescript as it was. Hemisi had never been one for flair, unlike her father.

He couldn’t do this. He refused to let his beloved be corrupted like he’d been. Link would rather die a thousand deaths, would rather burn in the magma of Death Mountain, than let Hemisi feel the agony and torture he felt when Ganondorf used his dark powers to bend his will.

Death Mountain. Death Mountain.

A thought crept into his head, dark, twisted, sickening and horrifying but efficient. It came from his heart, a desperate desire encased in love and fear, sharpened into clarity by his crumbling mind.

With trembling hands, Link picked up the urn. Gerudo more often than not burned their dead. The desert was not a forgiving place in general, and bodies rotted quickly. It was the quickest and cleanest way to lay them to rest. Link wasn’t sure Ganondorf could work with just ashes, but considering he’d managed to resurrect Link from likely dust—given how long it had been, he was surprised there had been much left of him—he wouldn’t put it past him.

Link walked for a long time. There was no way he could teleport with the gloom - it would give everything away. He ducked around canyons, hid behind monster camps; he knew the layout of a majority of the Depths like the back of his hand by now. He certainly knew this area.

In the distance it was brighter. Crimson glowed, a dichotomy of innocence and foreboding in comparison to the purple dim glow of the gloom everywhere. Link made his way towards it, feeling the air growing stiflingly hot. He didn’t have any elixirs to protect himself. He didn’t care.

The lava’s heat made the air swim. Link was already sweating, his footing growing unsteady as his lungs screamed in protest. He felt like he could breathe fire at this point. He still didn’t care.

This is the only way. He can’t resurrect what no longer exists.

May Hylia forgive me. May Hemisi forgive me.

I’m so sorry.

Link was close now. The lava was beginning to make the area unbearable. He nearly dropped the urn with as much his hands sweat and shook. He grimaced as a fiery wind tore through him, his skin blistering, his nerves crying for relief, his mind screaming to accomplish his goal before it was too late, his heart begging to join his beloved in this fate.

He was close enough now. Flames licked at his feet, snapping hungrily at his clothes. He took a breath.

He threw the urn into the fire.

The old clay shattered immediately, and the precious ashes it contained couldn’t even be seen in the lava’s voracious hunger. Every last piece of Hemisi disappeared in a heartbeat, as if her memory being erased were simply an afterthought.

Link threw up.

The force of it made him fall to his knees. His head was spinning, and the dirt here was more hot coals than soil. He didn’t have it in him to scream, even though every fiber of his being was doing so. The rancid smell of bile was only compounded and worsened by its cooking in the heat, and Link heaved again.

A scream finally did tear out of his throat as his hands started to smoke.

Leaping to his feet out of instinct, he tried to scramble back, but he wanted to move forward.

To hell with the sword shards, to hell with Hyrule and Ganondorf’s plans for it, he wanted to go home, he wanted to see her—

He was so tired. He was so lonely.

Link stumbled ahead, tears dried before they could ever leave his eyes. The lava was so close, it wouldn’t take much longer before he—

A hand gripped his wrist, cold and clammy, a blessed relief to his skin, but his mind screamed. Link gasped, trying to run, when another hand grabbed his other wrist, and then his body froze up. Cold, dark energy snaked around him from head to toe, except on his forehead, which burned. Link felt his breath stop, his muscles seize, and then, with agonizing effort in each move, he slowly turned away from the magma. A gloom spawn was directly in front of him, easing him away as he walked with it, his mind and heart screaming and flailing and kicking despite his body placidly going along with the beast. The sword shards were warm in his pouch, a comforting kindling fire in an ice cold abyss, and he almost felt himself hesitate despite Ganondorf’s control.

But no. It wasn’t enough.

His head exploded with pain as he fought the puppeteer, as he tried to break free, but he couldn’t. He never could. Unconsciousness was pulling fast, but he’d lose control entirely if he gave in.

Just do it, his mind whispered. Just let him win. What difference does it make now? He can’t hurt her.

Link was so tired.

Just give in. Let him guide you, go along with it. Let him take care of you.

Link was so lonely.

Let him love you.

He couldn’t stop himself from getting sick again, dark control or not. But since his body was no longer his own, he continued to walk, though his steps stumbled to a halt as he vomited. Gloom spread under his feet, easing the burning from earlier, and Link was pulled under.

When the darkness faded, he was back in the Center, the focal point of all the dark energy, and he heard footsteps rushing towards him. The world was spinning so dizzyingly he could get sick again, but miraculously he didn’t - either that or he just had nothing left in him.

The icy puppet strings that infected his muscles receded, leaving him with a pounding headache and body wide shivers. His knees buckled just as Ganondorf reached him, catching him.

“Link, what were you thinking?!” his fa—abuser demanded, voice shaking. “Why were you over there?”

He’d been playing his role so well. He’d been distracting Ganondorf, helping him in smaller ways, gaining his trust. He didn’t want to do it anymore. He just wanted to die.

“I’m tired,” he whimpered, the tears beginning to fall.

Ganondorf held the boy with trembling arms, but his grip tightened as Link fell apart. The child had no more words to say, only convulsing with full body sobs as Ganondorf gently picked him up to support him better. Link gripped his tunic, quickly soaking it with tears, and the demon king found himself at a loss of what to do.

The image of the boy laying in his arms, bleeding and crying and dying flashed through his mind, and he held him tighter, swaying back and forth.

Ganondorf didn’t understand what had happened. Link had been fine, hadn’t he?

His cries clearly indicated otherwise.

He felt his anger start to swell, an automatic response as his heart screamed, as he felt it race in terror at what had almost just happened. He didn’t like feeling afraid and out of control like this, so desperate to try and fix something that he couldn’t just fix. He bit back a snappish rebuke, channeling his anger into energy as he started to walk around the chamber, holding Link close, so close, he’d almost lost his boy—

For once, he didn’t know what to do.

This was why he had placed his magic in the boy. This right here. Because he’d done this before, this was how he’d died before! He’d sacrificed his life to save that pathetic excuse for a king! Why did the child think he could just throw his life away like this?! Did he not realize how important he was?

Ganondorf again found himself fighting his anger. It wasn’t particularly easy, as he usually just let it out, but years of parenting had taught him some self control.

This place was taking a toll on the boy. He needed to fix that, to help him. He channeled his rage into power, reaching up above into the Surface, feeling the swell of the Blood Moon like a high tide pushing on to land. Gloom gathered around the pair, and he made it take them above.

The air was suffocating a moment as they moved, and then it cleared substantially. A breeze blew, cooling the Gerudo’s hot cheeks, and he took a steadying breath. The smell of cherry blossoms and sweet honeysuckle saturated his nose, too unfamiliar to be comforting but pleasant enough. But for Link, it would mean the world. He’d taken them as close to Kakariko as he could manage. He hoped it was enough.

Link’s sobs hitched and paused as he felt the change in atmosphere, and he peeked his puffy eyes out from the folds of his guardian’s tunic. Ganondorf swept a hand up and down his back as he gazed around in wonder and confusion, a glimmering hope shining in his eyes for a moment.

When he looked upward, red eyes matching the moon perfectly, his face fell.

“W-what—what are you doing?” he asked shakily, eyebrows pulling together in worry. “Stop it, you’re going to hurt everyone—”

“My power is slowly growing. This is not hurting anyone.” Ganondorf assured the boy. “When the time comes we’ll take what is ours.”

Link wiggled feebly in his grip. “No, why can’t you just—stop—”

Ganondorf frowned, tightening his hold. “We had nothing but the harsh sun and winds, while Rauru sat on every resource this bountiful land had to offer. The only way he offered aid was through a vow of fealty, yet he did not have the strength or impetus to rule. Everything about Hyrule is a disgrace - a people who think peace is a more palatable option to the point of laziness and stagnation, an over bloated land full of weak fools! I am a true king, Link, and I will rule this land properly. Nothing will stop that.”

Link’s energy drained out of him, and Ganondorf brushed some hair out of his face. “You’ll see, child. When it’s all over, you’ll see how much better it is. Just trust me.”

Link closed his eyes, crying once more. “Let me go.”

“Link—”

“Let me go.”

“No,” Ganondorf said firmly, placing a hand on the boy’s cheek, demanding his attention. “You’re my boy. Your life isn’t a waste, you’re not destined to be cast aside and forgotten. You’re a prince, and I am never letting you go.”

Link watched him, some kind of yearning and desperation fighting the dull look in his eyes, those eyes that used to be so bright with fire and determination, that used to reflect the blood moon beautifully. Ganondorf felt his heart break a little at the sight of it, and his hand shifted to behind the teenager’s head, pulling him forward so he could kiss his forehead. The magic he’d imbued there was a promise of protection, and he would ensure this boy was safe, even from himself. Link trembled under his hold, and he heard him sniffle.

Sighing, he let the boy sink into his embrace once more. “I love you, Link.”

The young boy’s cries carried on the wind, filling the blood stained land. The demon king swayed back and forth, soothing him with gentle hushes. And in the distance, a Hero perked up at the sound of crying, pausing from his meal and grabbing his gear to investigate.

[genericpuff]

Genuinely I would give anything to hear your thoughts or read more critical analysis of yours on other webcomics writing (*slides you Marionetta* I like the webtoon but there are some things in the writing that I'd like to see be discussed critically more often but the fandom focuses way too much on shipping. sighs..)

Anyway, you probably have been asked this before but are there any webtoons in particular you would recommend? :D

Oh lord, you don't know how many times a week I get asks in my inbox asking for my opinions on webtoons they're reading. It's really sweet that people wanna hear me talk about other works outside of LO, but unfortunately I just don't have the time to read as much as I used to, even keeping up on LO lately is getting really difficult 😅 I'm definitely keeping a list though of works to check out!

That said, I try not to read series on the basis of criticizing them because frankly I just... don't want to spend time reading something if people are only looking for me to rag on it? 😆 Of course I know that's not the only reason, I know there's also just the element of seeing me talk extensively about other works the way that I do with LO, but it's not really something I can turn on and off like that, I have to get really into a series to want to talk about it to that extent. So it often comes down to just luck of the draw :'0

Right now the series I'm keeping up the most on (or have completed and would absolutely 100% re-read):

Alfie (18+, it's porn with plot but the plot is REALLY GOOD , I SWEAR LMAO the art is gorgeous, the characterization is IMMACULATE, and it ironically tackles the subject of purity culture way better than LO ever has lol)

Theia Mania (the creator is often in my comment section / neck of the woods, she's been working on an Abduction of Persephone retelling for a long while now and has also tackled other myth retellings in her style! I always love seeing new pages of her work in my feed :' ) <3)

Tales from Alderwood (if you like fantasy and comedy, this one's great, the plot's really starting to get interesting and it's just got this really great sense of humor about it)

The Black Parade (this one's REALLY interesting, it's a comic-stylized version of My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade, using the songs as narration and sometimes even dialogue to tell a visual story, it's really cool and the art matches beautifully with the lyrics and style of MCR!)

A Tale of Two Rulers (this is a Legend of Zelda fancomic that poses the question, "What if Zelda and Ganondorf got married to solve their political crisis?" It updates a lot slower than most of the other comics I follow but the art and writing is so worth it <3)

Dogs of Future Past (and p much all of Lynx's Undertale comics which can be found in the link, seriously, THESE are the comics you wanna read if you wanna get into Undertale fanworks, they are PEAK)

Tamberlane (this one's an anthro comic, I normally don't read anthro but this one actually gripped me by the throat, the art is gorgeous and the character arcs so far have been great!)

The Mafia Nanny (okay it's legit so funny that I'm including this one here but I've been reading it the last couple days after seeing it basically beat out LO at the top of the trending tab for a couple days, so I figured I'd give it a shot, at first I was like "great more tropey shit" but the more I read it the more it's actually started to get pretty good, I'm holding out and hoping to god it stays that way LOL it's not especially deep or anything like that, but it's really fun and cute to read and the shipping of the main character within the narrative isn't too self-absorbed which I can always appreciate, I'd honestly be 100% fine with it if it didn't turn into a romance)

City of Blank (I talk about this one a lot here, but it's one of my favorite Originals right now, the art is super polished and the writing has gotten INTENSE, go check it out if you want some fun action / sci-fi storytelling!)

Time and Time Again (a time-travelling vampire and his werewolf boyfriend get into all kinds of misadventures, what more could you ask for?)

Touch of Divinity (like the Mafia Nanny, this is one I just started reading, it's got a very interesting premise so far and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes!)

[mylove-iv]

❝the one that got away.❞

ʚ aged up, oot! link x fairy navi, fem! reader ɞ

synopsis: a fairy and a hero who were everything to each other—knowing what they are and what they are not—ignorant of the longing clouding their eyes when looking at the other until it was too late.

genres: angst, romance.

content warnings: mentions of impending death (you shouldn’t be surprised >:D), mentions of blood and wounds, and major spoilers of ocarina of time.

word count: 1.3k words.

author’s note: inspired by katy perry’s ‘the one that got away.’

―originally posted on @mydarling-iv, jan. 17, 2023

ʚ masterlist ɞ

The battle against Ganondorf has long been won, you and your hero claimed victory with one final swipe of the Goddess Blade.

Now camping in the woods, a serene silence enveloped you and your peacefully sleeping partner as you made the trek back home.

Home. The word makes you feel giddy and warm inside.

Taking a good look at Link’s sleeping face, the blue glow of your wings casted a blanket of a baby blue hue on the hero’s face which accentuated his pretty features.

You smile softly, recalling of your various adventures around Hyrule but your solace is short lived.

In another life.

Pain wracks your body and you bite your lip to prevent a cry to leave your lips, a soft plink that would wake up your beloved hero.

So, you twist away, fluttering to a nearby lake you and Link had stumbled upon before you set up camp.

Pain flares up and a scorching heat spreads atop your skin before a garbled scream leaves your lips unwillingly.

You force yourself to shed your miniature form before reverting to your true form, limbs and body growing to that of a grown hylian woman’s but with delicate, baby blue lace-like wings adorning your back.

You feel warmth run down your limbs and a grimace etches its way to your face at your realization, it was the blood seeping from your wounds warming your skin.

You wanted to laugh at your pathetic chances, even the goddesses above won’t grant you a small bit of time to tell him before you’re tittering on the edge of life and death.

I would be your girl.

Stumbling into the lake’s clear waters, you see your blood mingling with the water, creating ribbons of red that made you feel sick, your body screaming in warning at its incoming collapse

Your fixation on the water keeps you distracted and before you know it your knees start of buckle.

Yet, strong and familiar arms circle your body, preventing you from collapsing into the water.

Through your blurry vision, you meet sky blue eyes that remind you of a stunning, cloudless sky and the familiar blue orbs somehow eases the pain you feel.

“Navi?” Link croaks.

His scent of sweet pine and roasted chestnuts engulf your nose, hugging you in an embrace that brought thoughts of home and nostalgia.

You smile softly, bringing your hand to cup his cheek before your thumb caresses his cheekbone. “Y/n.” You hum weakly.

You see confusion flooding his bluebell orbs, “Navi is my fae name, we fae never give away our true names, dummy.” You breathe out and Link’s heart drops.

Eyes following his, you see his eyes surveying your wounds. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You don’t know if his question is directed to your wounds or your true name, “I was planning to, but I was too late.”

Smiling painfully, a bitter ache makes a home within your heart. “I had so much to tell you, Link.” You laugh softly and you know he can pick up on the anguish within your tone.

We’d keep all our promises.

Link falls silent, tears collecting behind his lashes. “Why must it be you?” He croaks, his sturdy arms hugging you tighter and you relish being in his embrace.

A comforting warmth embraces you and you're reminded of home once more.

Link—He is your home.

The realization makes your heart flutter as it also intensifies the ache you feel.

“The three goddesses will it, my beloved.” You hum, laying your head against his sturdy chest, listening to the strong beats his heart gives against his chest and you find yourself wishing it’d beat for you too.

Be us against the world.

┊ ੈ✩‧₊*°࿐ྂ。

Link thought he was going insane.

Through bouts of fever and illness, he’d catch glimpses of a woman with soft blue wings and a stunning smile adorning her face, an aura of familiarity blanketing the air around her.

But now, he sees the very woman in his arms, fully lucid enough to soak in the entirety of her.

She turned out to be you, his fairy companion he’d call ‘Navi’ on his shared journeys with you.

Y/n. Your true name rolls smoothly off his tongue like honey, just like the sweet scent you radiated.

In another life.

Your e/c eyes meet his and he feels his heart skip a beat, pulse skyrocketing.

You’re as beautiful as the first time Link had caught fragmented glimpses of you when he first fell ill early on into your shared journey, too sick to be fully lucid.

Yet those shattered pieces of the remnants of you seemed to have been burned into his mind and Link doesn’t know if it was by his will or something else.

A painful melancholy digs into his heart before making a permanent home there. He had just gotten to know you, the true you, the you who constantly plagued his mind.

You’d appear within his mind during the moon’s reign and you’d whisk through his thoughts when the sun rose, leaving him fumbling like a fool.

But yet, you’re starting to drift from his reach once more; a dream he could only yearn for, always out of reach.

“The three goddesses will it, my beloved.” His heart aches and flutters in an agonizing mix of forlorn hope and pain.

I would make you stay.

“I love you, you know.” Link’s heart drops at your admission, the words heavier than anything else he’d had to bear the burden of.

He doesn’t know whether to embrace the happiness or the pain dancing within his heart.

He cups your face tenderly, as if any drastic movement would break you, before bringing you to face him, his grip on your jaw gentle enough for you to pull away if you so desire to.

You nuzzle into his palm before a weak yet pretty smile adorns your face, the very face that invaded countless of his dreams that would leave his heart hammering with a simple smile that was oh so sweet whenever he awoke.

So I don’t have to say,

Link feels his heart become heavy, being tugged painfully with your incoming demise.

Goddesses, he wants all the time in the world with you.

He so desperately wished that the time would travel back to a period where he can undo your wounds and wrap his arms tightly around your figure with the intent of never letting you go.

And yet, here you are, slipping through his fingertips like fine sand that’d ultimately determine that time would be up.

You were the one that got away.

Tears freely roll down the Hero of Time’s cheeks because of the overwhelming melancholy that wound so tightly around his heart.

His life had been full of countless losses, everything ripped away from his rightful hand in devastating waves.

He had never asked for anything else from everyone surrounding him, not one thing from the Kokiri, from Saria, from Zelda, or even from the Goddess Hylia.

And when he did realize that he wanted one thing, you and your safety, even that one simple request seemed to be a greedy wish of his that the Goddesses could not fulfill.

Link wanted to scream at the absurdity of it all.

He was destined to be a hero.

He is a one.

Yet he couldn’t even save you.

So why does he feel like a fraud?

Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness make a home in his heart at your incoming absence and it utterly kills him inside.

So now, he holds you for the first and last time, basking in the comforting warmth you radiated and the sweet scent of nectar and honey emanating from you.

Link’s thumb traces the edge of your lips, oh so soft and delicate, causing your eyes to flutter softly to a close.

Hand moving from your jaw to the small of your back, he provides support to your head as he brings you closer.

Link’s hand gently cradles the base of your head and he presses a saccharine kiss to your temple before tenderly confessing, “I grew to love you too.”

The one that got away.

© 2024 𝐌𝐘𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄-𝐈𝐕. do not copy, repost, share, or translate any of my works to tumblr, social media, and any other websites/platforms.

[swiftllama]

January Compliments ☀️🔍

[Compliments Masterlist]

Hello everyone and welcome to the first Compliments Post of 2024! Hope the year has started off well for you all, and if not, then I hope this post can at least provide a little bit of joy to your day 🫶

We may be only one month in but the boys have been delivering since the very first day 🙌 So let’s get into it shall we! :-

January 2024

Ian’s 2023 Wrap Up

So to start us off, first day of the year and Mr Sunshine was already tugging at our heartstrings with his wrap up of 2023, and who made his 2023 what it was? Well Anthony of course 🥹

STOP IT! RIGHT NOW! 😩

LIKE WHAT IS THIS??? IM MEANT TO COPE WITH THIS??? HOW???

The fact the WHOLE post is Anthony - from the photos to the caption! EVERY SINGLE PHOTO HAS ANTHONY 😭 Also don’t even get me started on the two unseen photos and the fact they’ve been kept from us till now. How dare 😤 AND the fact the first person he thanked was Anthony! Like yes he’s thanking and appreciating many people with this post but come on now, from the pictures alone it’s clear who made his year. This is just SO SPECIAL! Especially coming from Ian, who isn’t normally a big one for sharing his emotions (I think we’ve seen a change with that recently though), but this is BIG!

Anthony also in return left a sweet comment :-

“proud of you buddy.”

CRYING 😭 They kill me these two, couldn’t even go one day without being sappy to each other - not that I’m complaining. And as much as I would love to just sit here in this gooeyness, we’ve got a lot to get through so I must move on 🥲

LEGEND OF ZELDA RAP (Flashback)

So they reacted to the classic Legend Of Zelda Rap in this Flashback eps and got a few little compliments thrown in :-

-

[discussing the scene of Ian dressed as Link winking at the camera that spawned a viral gif]

Anthony: “That for some reason was a clip that went viral- or a gif that went viral.”

Ian: “Yeah, it’s like horny posters.”

Anthony: “Yeah.”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “I see it way too much.”

[shoutout editor Kortney for this 😆]

Ian: “Gotta say, never looked better.”

Anthony: “That’s true.”

Anthony agrees 😏

-

Erin: [asking Ian if he had spicy time in the Link outfit like Anthony said about the Assassin’s Creed outfit in their 2 Truths 1 Lie eps]

Ian: “I did not have spicy time in the Link outfit because that outfit was very tight, there was not much of a range of motion in it.”

Anthony: “Right. Well you could be a pillow princess in that.”

Ian: “I’m not a pillow princess.”

Anthony: “Oh really?”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “I’ve heard otherwise.”

[look at each other and Anthony laughs]

Ian: “Oh yeah, cause canonically we had sex for seven years.”

Anthony: [laughs] “In the Food Battle lore.”

Ian: “Yeah. Canonically in Food Battle, we’ve had sex for seven years. You know every crevice of my body.”

Anthony: “Of your anatomy.”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “Anywho…”

Ian: “Wow, this went a weird place.”

Anthony: “Back to looking at Link in his prime.”

Ian: “Back to me looking freakin’ HAWT.”

Anthony: “Yeah.”

Just them casually discussing the fact they’ve canonically had sex for 7 years and then Anthony once again agreeing Ian looked hot in the Link outfit… I don’t think I even need to say anything.

-

Anthony: “Oh! And I just want to give a shoutout to myself.”

Ian: “Oh, [sings] shoutout to myself.”

Anthony: “I painstakingly added those fucking stars [in the scene] for some reason. I thought they were so necessary.”

Ian: “Yeah, no, that was sick.”

Ian giving Anthony a little compliment for his hard work 😊

…

Speaking of the stars it was also something Ian brought up again later when they appeared in the video again :-

Ian: “Stars. Stars.”

Anthony: “Oh yeah. Stars. We got ‘em in there.”

Very cute how he wanted to shoutout Anthony’s work again ☺️

-

Erin: “That’s Anthony?! [as Ganondorf]”

Ian: “Yeah.”

Anthony: “Shut up. You knew that was me.”

Erin: “That’s crazy.”

Ian: “You didn’t know that was Anthony?”

Erin: “Where’d your, like, jaw go?”

Ian: “What do you mean? He’s got an epic jaw.”

Ian got so defensive on Anthony’s behalf here, I love it! Reminded me of the moments from Who Meme’d It when Anthony was defending Ian 😌

And that was us for this video!

Moving on…

SOUP!

Gets a big title cause why not!

But yes, soup! So Ian has gotten into making soup this year and on that same Friday we got the Flashback, that evening we were blessed out of nowhere with these stories :-

THE WAY I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW THESE 😩

Like this is the cutest, most domesticated shit ever! They kill me!!!!

And okay yes when that first photo was posted I thought Ian was right then and there cooking it for him, Ian then responded with this :-

Let me live in my fantasies Ian! 😤

But regardless of Mr dashing-my-dreams Hecox, I’m still of the mindset they were hanging out that day and that’s when Ian gave him the container of soup.

Evidence :-

This photo only. That I believe Anthony took 😌

Also I try not to make these posts too shipper-heavy so that everyone may enjoy them if they’re just here for the friendship alone, so I’ll just leave this other little post I made here about some other thoughts I had on this soup situation that isn’t in the friendship realm 🤭 All cool if that’s not for you though!

VidConfessions

So 7 months later Vidcon finally decided to post this little interview they had with them lol. And even with such a short video we still got a few complimentary/cute moments :-

-

So Anthony was being his usual self and finding Ian the funniest person alive as always. There was a couple moments where Ian gave his answers and you just hear Anthony’s laugh in the background 🥰

Q: What are the last three things you Googled?

Ian: “Jared Leto cult…”

He’s a cutie ☺️

…

And it happened again!

Q: What’s the cringest thing you’ve ever done for views?

Ian: “I mean like our whole channel’s cringe.”

Anthony, once again: [laughing in the background]

Love him and how much he loves Ian and his humour 😊

-

This was just one wee last bit I thought was cute :-

Ian: [signing out the video] “This has been Ian from Smosh, that’s right, the channel that is 17 and a half years old that’s doing sketch comedy again with my best friend Anthony.”

Can never resist them calling each other ‘best friend’ so of course had to include it!

Making of Pokémon In Real Life 2024

So they brought back the classic Pokémon In Real Life sketch, and from that obviously we got the BTS. Only a couple little moments from this one but just wanted to include them cause they were silly 🤓

-

Ian: [sneezes] “Sorry. Your hairspray.”

Anthony: “Ohhh… he’s allergic to me [smirks].”

👀 Don’t know what that was about but alrighty, Anthony…

-

Ian: [cuts his finger and there’s a dot of blood]

Anthony: “Oh my god, dude. Are you okay?”

Ian: “No, I’m not okay. Trigger warning gore.”

Anthony: “Do you need someone to suck out the blood?”

Why did this just turn into Saltburn? Don’t know what Anthony was on with the these two moments but I won’t question it 😝 And despite saying ‘someone’, he was definitely offering to suck the blood from Ian’s finger himself 🤭

Pokémon In Real Life 2024 Watch Party

Of course with the sketch and BTS we got a livestream, which gave us some cute and complimentary moments 😊

To kick off this livestream I just wanna point out that they were wearing matching colours with Anthony’s jacket and Ian’s hoodie, plus matching Smosh Pokémon hats which is very cute 😊

-

Ian: [apologising for getting annoyed in the BTS due to the background noise messing up their filming] “Dude, this video. This Pokémon video. I apologise if I looked very angry in the behind the scenes.”

Anthony: [laughs] “You didn’t look that bad. Honestly, it amped up accurately.”

Erin: “The compilation of you getting angry, it was pretty funny.”

Anthony: Yeah, so it was justified. People knew why you were angry.”

Love the reassurance from Anthony here so that Ian isn’t worried about how he came across in the video.

-

[take their hats off]

Ian: “How’s my hair? Is it weird?”

Anthony: “Is mine weird? Yours is fine.”

Ian: “No, I feel like yours is like, yours has like a messy chic to it, you know.”

Them just complimenting each other’s hair - here for it! Also Ian’s added compliment of “messy chic” 😄

-

[playing Pokémon quiz]

I&A: “Jinx.”

Crew: [laughs]

Anthony: [smiles and points to Ian] “Jinx.”

Ian: “That’s our favourite. Favourite Pokémon.”

Funny because it’s both the Pokémon’s name and they said it at the same time 😝 Cute how Ian also got in that that’s their favourite ☺️

-

[complete the quiz]

Anthony: “Dude, 100 percent, bro.”

I&A: [high-five]

Of course always gotta include the highfives 😌

-

After the quiz they go on to play a Pikachu x Sonic crossover. Anthony plays a round and then Ian goes to play but can’t get the controls to work for him so Anthony’s showing him what to do 🥹 I don’t feel the need to include what they said here as it’s just Anthony saying what buttons to push but just wanted to include a little description of what was happening at this moment 😊

-

Ian: [completes the game]

Anthony: “You won the game.” [clapping]

Just another little cute moment I wanted to include of Anthony clapping for Ian 🙂

-

[playing Pokémon Among Us]

Anthony: [playing the game well]

Ian: “Alright, I hate that you’re like kind of eating.” [as Ian kept dying]

A begrudging little compliment from Ian there 😄

-

[signing the livestream off]

Ian: “Happy New Year, hope the holidays were a fun time for you and you had some eggnog and sat by the campfire…”

Anthony: “Roasting chestnuts.”

Ian: “Roasting chestnuts.”

Anthony: “Or chestnut. I’m not making any assumptions.”

Ian: “….What?”

Anthony: “Just if they don’t have more than one chestnut.”

Ian: “Ohh, okay. I don’t know if you could buy a singular chestnut but…”

Anthony: “I think there’s a way.”

Ian: “Go off king.”

Just a silly little one to end on because I wanted to include Ian calling Anthony ‘king’ 🤭

Can I Guess Who Slapped Me?

So the video of Anthony getting slapped finally dropped! And it was everything and more, especially when it came to moments between Ian and Anthony so let’s jump right in :-

-

Right off the bat we had this as the description for Ian…

👀👀👀

Now onto the actual slapping…

-

The moment that got us all was just before Ian slaps him he slowly started caressing Anthony’s face so obviously that had us all going crazy! Including the cast and crew!

Anthony: [after the slap] “Oh. Wow. Uhhh, this person thinks they’re hilarious.” [laughs]

Cast & Crew: [laughing]

Ian: [Trying not to laugh]

Anthony: “Uhhh, who would do that? Who would caress my face and slap me out of nowhere?”

Ian: [boops Anthony’s nose]

Anthony: “Uh, it feels like an Ian move to me… Did you just boop me? Um, that feels like an Ian move.”

Kiana: “That is correct.”

Everyone: [celebrating and applauding]

Anthony: [puts his hands out and Ian high-fives him]

Angela: “Friendship always wins!”

Ian: “Well done. Well done. Good job to you.”

Anthony: [bowing]

Ian: “There we go. There we go. That’s the only one you truly needed to get right.”

Anthony: [laughs]

So true Ian! That was the most important one he needed to get right! And I just want to point out how Ian was only the 3rd person Anthony got right, and of course he knew it was him right away with his cheeky little joke of “this person thinks they’re hilarious” 😝 he knew the second Ian caressed his face that it was him cause they truly just know each other that well ☺️ Live for Angela yelling “Friendship always wins!” after he got it right too! And can we also talk about the totally unnecessary, but very, very cute little nose boop Ian threw in there just cause he wanted to! Obsessed!

-

A little bit later in the video during Duran’s round of slapping Anthony another little moment happened that I just wanted to include cause I thought that it was funny and showed how silly of a mood Ian was in, I think Anthony being blindfolded was playing a part in that and he gained a little extra layer of confidence to just fuck about with Anthony 😆

Anthony: [standing with his butt pushed out waiting to be slapped]

Kiana: “The stance is great. The stance is great.”

Ian: [runs over and pretends to go in to slap Anthony’s butt]

Anthony: “Why’s there wind?”

Cast & Crew: [laugh]

Hehe 🤭

Anyways! That was it for the slapping video but I did also want to include something that came off the back of it and that was…

Bonus

Anthony dedicating a whole Instagram post to Ian slapping him :-

Obessed with this though! The fact he went out of his way to make a post specifically about Ian slapping him over anyone else, plus that caption! ‘only ian would slap me like that’ - truly the cherry on top of it all 😌

Jacksfilms Confesses His Biggest Regret

So they had Jacksfilms on as a guest for Flashback to react to some of his old videos and an old collab of his the boys had been a part of.

-

Jack: [talking about how he moved to LA after he graduated] “…And that’s when I started collaborating with some, then, very big YouTube channels.”

Anthony: [looks at Ian] “Yeah, back then we were big.” [elbows Ian and Ian elbows him back]

Them just being silly 😄 loved the little elbowing of each other too 😊

-

Jack: “I remember I was in college, I was like out hanging with my friends. I just got 50,000 subs on YouTube, baby. And one of my friends just like took the air right out of my tire, or sails, whatever, and was like ‘Uh, yeah, did you know that Smosh has like a million now?’.”

Ian: “Pffft.”

Anthony: [silent laughs] “Noice!” [high-fives Ian] “Noice!”

Again, just more of them being silly. Plus high-five!

-

I should have mentioned at the start of this section that Ian is in a tshirt-dress for this video as a reference to Jack as it’s got tweets of his printed on it. Anyway, as a result his legs are out obviously, and that’s relevant to this next part :-

Anthony: [talking about how there’s always an audience for every kind of content, it’s just about what kind of audience you want to have]

Ian: “That’s true. And you want this audience.” [pointing to show off his legs]

Anthony: “You want this.”

Ian: “You want the audience that accepts this.”

Anthony: “This is what you want. This is the audience that we have. And we are very happy with this audience.”

Ian: “Exactly.”

Anthony: “They’ve been begging for this.”

And we’re more than happy to be the audience for it! 😌 (As is Anthony considering how many times he was checking out Ian’s legs during this video 😉)

Anthony also had this to say about YouTube’s hate for Ian’s attire 😤

-

Jack: [talking about a sponsorship he done with other youtubers to test out a new workout program]

Ian: “Did you get Jaaaacked?”

Anthony: [looks at Ian with a smirk and high-fives him]

Second high-five for this video! Also Anthony just quietly complimenting Ian’s pun 😄

-

Ian: “Do you [Jack] have any regrets? Any videos that you regret making?” [smiling]

Anthony: “You look so happy saying that.” [smiling] “This is happiest I’ve seen you all episode.” [laughs]

Just thought it was cute how Anthony seeing Ian smiling made him smile and laugh 😊

And that was it for another Flashback!

No1 Ian Fan Strikes Again

So Anthony was back at it! The Smosh team was out celebrating one of the crews birthday - Erin posted this to her story. Now I’m sure there were probably multiple photos and videos taken this night but what was the only thing Anthony shared from it? That’s right! Ian of course!

He’s obsessed with that boy and I love it! 😌

Ian also reshared and replied to Anthony’s story which you can find here

Making Of “MrBeast Copycats Have Gone Too Far”

So the BTS of the MrBeast Copycats Have Gone Too Far sketch offered us a few little moments :-

-

So this seemed to be a very high-five, hand-hold heavy BTS. Think they were just in one of those moods where they want any excuse to touch each other 🤭😉

[Finishing off their little video introduction]

Anthony: [goes in to high-five Ian and grips his hand]

Ian: [high-fives Anthony back and also grips his hand in response]

I&A: [still holding each other’s hands] “Let’s go shoot this shit!”

-

Ian: [messing up his line] “I’m having a trouble! I’m having a trouble…” [facepalms]

Shayne: “That’s so funny. ‘I’m having a trouble’.”

Anthony and Courtney: [laughing]

Anthony: [to Ian] “Are you having a trouble?” [puts hand on Ian’s shoulder]

Ian: “I’m having a trouble. Words.”

Anthony: [laughs]

I know they were (lovingly) poking fun at Ian here, but the wee glimpse of the shoulder touch from Anthony to Ian is what got me ☺️

-

I&A: [In character but joking around]

Ian: “There’s a twist. There’s a twist.” [puts hand out to Anthony] “There’s a twist.”

Anthony: “There’s a twist.” [takes Ian’s hand and grips it]

I&A: [still holding hands whilst lightly pushing/tapping each other and repeating “there’s a twist”. They then start scissoring their fingers together, before gripping each other’s fingers and pulling the other in closer to them whilst now repeating “getting twisted” and manically laughing]

Well… that was… something… 👀

Told you they were just looking for any excuse to touch each other. But hey, wouldn’t be a Smosh BTS if Ian and Anthony weren’t flirting with each other 😜

-

And to finish off this high-five heavy BTS, I’ll leave you with this :-

Ian: [talking about how Anthony injured himself by dropping a laptop on his foot and how he should take an Advil but Anthony doesn’t take Advil so he doesn’t know if it’ll help]

Anthony: “I don’t care about the pain, I just want the throbbing to stop.”

Ian: “He doesn’t like throbbing.”

Anthony: “I don’t like throbbing. I like pulsating.”

Ian: [laughs] “I hate both of those words.”

Anthony: [laughs] “Yeah, usually I say throbbing or pulsating member…”

Ian: [acting disgusted]

Anthony: “Speaking of members thank you so much being a Smoshtastic or Smosh Royalty member!”

Ian: “Yeah! Thanks for being our throbbing members.” [laughs]

Anthony: “Our pulsating members.”

Ian: “Yeahhh, throbbing members.”

I&A: [high-five]

Um… thanks boys, I guess… happy to be a throbbing and pulsating member… 🥴🤦‍♀️ They high-fived so I had to include it, don’t blame me for what they said! 😩

-

And on that’s note that brings us to the end of January! Hope you all enjoyed reading - I’d say it was a very good start to the year in terms of content, and the boys very much delivered in terms of complimentary moments so can’t complain 😌

Thank you all again for reading and I shall see you next time! 💖

[pallisia]

so, final thoughts on totk? answer with spoilers please

sure.

first: i enjoyed totk a whole lot. even if its charm wore off quicker, it recaptured the joy of early botw for a bit. i've finished the story, but i'll probably continue idly checking off shrines and running around caves for a while longer. if the game had just been that, i'd probably have no significant complaints.

totk has the same problem as botw where all the main dungeons feel like homework. you might have seen me gripe about the fire temple early on, but the spirit temple was probably the most tedious stretch of the game. (like, the least they could have done was make mineru fun to use, surely??)

the story disappointed me most, not because i went in expecting much, but because it was actually engaging for a while. watching zelda aimlessly fly off after getting the master sword back was a devastating moment. but even as i was gushing about it with my friends, i knew they weren't going to commit.

and they didn't! you might call me a cynic, but zelda should have stayed a dragon. i didn't realistically expect her to, but i was at least hoping for a more convincing reason than "rauru and sonia suddenly appeared and blasted her with energy til she got better." also, why retroactively lessen the weight of her big sacrifice by clarifying that she didn't remember being a dragon at all? why give link his arm back instead of a cool new prosthetic from purah? why reset absolutely everything back to zero?

i also have to mention ganondorf. it's a shame that they (nintendo) made a big fuss about bringing him back, but neglected to make him interesting. isn't that why people missed him in botw? the geoglyph scenes made me expect some kind of fun backstory between him and rauru, but...no, he's just the evil desert man? that's it?

the fake zelda took the wind out of my sails too… there was a lot of potential for fun storytelling with her, but we didn't even get to wonder "could that really be zelda…?" for a moment because she acted like a cartoon villain from the beginning. and! i wanted to fight her!! it was a no-brainer!!!

anyway, i'm getting incoherent. good game overall in spite of my disappointments. i am simply fatigued by stories that pull their punches to avoid upsetting the audience. i don't want the happy ending if it's not the most interesting ending! let me have fun!

[rawliverandgoronspice]

still trying to make antiphon happen before the end of the month and I made decent progress today, but it's legitimately the hardest piece of the "trilogy" in spite of of being less than 6k worth of words

there's just... so many layers to everything? it's at once a sort-of post breakup fic that explores the aftermath of a toxic relationship, but also asks what future is worth living for during the early stages of reddition/colonization, and also a continuation of the ongoing philosophical debate about how to free yourself from arbitrary divine and systemic violence, and also a window into Zelda/Sheik's shattered and Wisdom-pumped brain post OoT when she's all alone in the world, and also some setup....

It's A Lot to balance.

[kaisers-house-of-desires]

Hello! Not to send in another Ganondorf request (I'm sure he's popular lmao) but if you wouldn't mind, maybe some soft smut would be fun? I'm specifically thinking a reader who just doesn't have a whole lot of experience with sex, if any at all, and now Ganondorf would treat him and whatnot.

Thank you for your time, I love your writing!!

Not a problem at all! Ganon is a personal favorite of mine so I'm always excited to write for him~!

Thank you for your kind words, and I hope you enjoy~

Title: Inexperienced Lover

Characters: Ganon x m!reader

Contains: inexperienced sex, soft sex, fingering, pet names(love, dear)

Fandom: Legend of Zelda

Full request below the cut

All characters are 18+

MINORS, FEM ALIGNED, AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS DNI

Reblogs > likes

"W-Wait!" Your voice startled Ganon into stopping immediately from entering you.

"Yes, love? Is...everything okay?"

All your breath came out in a rush, having held it until he spoke. "I-I...it's my first time. I-I'm sorry, I should have told you. I-I just..."

Given your position on top of him, you buried your face in his chest. His hold on your legs loosened from the slightly firm grip, and he replaced the area with gentle strokes of his fingers.

"You don't need to apologize, dear. I should be the one to do so. I never did ask if you were capable of withstanding such a size. I merely assumed."

You let out an amused huff, turning your head to the side to speak. "H-Honestly, I thought I could handle it. But I guess I wussed out."

"Don't say such a thing. You just aren't ready." He moved a hand to pet at your head, large fingers gently playing with your strands of hair. "Are you wanting to continue at all?"

You nodded. "Is there...anything else we could do? Or...how could I...be better prepared?"

"Hm...well. You mentioned you were not prepared for my size." A hand traveled down to the soft mounds of your butt, gently kneeding them under his grip. "I know of a way. That is, if you will allow me."

Swallowing down your fears, you nodded once more, silently enjoying the feeling of his hands on your bottom. "You're free to do anything except use your...um...y-y'know..."

Ganon couldn't help but chuckle. "Are you that inexperienced that you refuse to say 'penis?'"

Your flushed red, lightly slapping the Gerudo's chest. "Y-You hush! S-So what if I didn't want to say it?!"

His chuckled turned into a soft laugh. "I jest, love. I jest."

With the two of you settled and relaxed, Ganon returned to what he had in mind. He gently massaged your soft behind once more before spreading the cheeks. You immediately reminded Ganon of earlier, to which he assured you he wasn't inserting his shaft into you.

No no. Instead, the Gerudo gently teased your entrance with a finger, circling the tight ring with gentle movements. You relaxed against him, humming in delight over the sensation.

Okay, you thought. This feels fine. I can manage this.

Once you fully relaxed, when Ganon was able to see you were ready, a finger slowly slid inside. Granted his fingers were thicker, but they were still much smaller than his cock, so he figured this would be the best way to get you adjusted to him. He was slow, gentle, stopping whenever you made the slightest sound of pain and only continuing when you gave him the word.

"F-Fuck...e-even your finger is thick," you breathed, gently gripping at the man below you.

"You're okay, though, right?" Ganon's voice was gentle, careful.

You slowly nodded with a hum of confirmation, allowing Ganon to slowly slide his finger fully inside. He gave you further time to adjust, moving when you patted his chest.

The movement of his fingers was slow but calculated. He slowly pulled them to the closest knuckle before slipping back in, giving you about an inch of movement with every slow thrust. You felt tight around him, but that was the point of this; to gently work you up.

He kept this pace until he felt your hole loosen a bit, using that chance to gently speed up, making his movements a bit deeper. Such a change urged your hips to rock, your cock grinding against Ganon's muscular form. The two of you let out such pleased hums as the moment passed, Ganon keeping such a close eye on you and your reactions.

It wouldn't be long until, with this current pace, you could manage full movement of his finger, lewd, squelching sounds echoing into the air with every thrust, causing you to bury your head into your lover once more. Ganon chuckled at this, slowing his movements some.

"Love? Are you alright?"

You were too shy to answer at first, but with a teasing push of his finger, Ganon urged you to speak.

"I-It's...loud back there," you breathed. "I-I'm making...dirty sounds..."

"My dear, those sounds are nothing short of bliss." The Gerudo's voice rumbled in his chest, allowing you to not only hear, but feel how aroused he was by the sound. "You are feeling good, and that's your body reacting as such."

You were feeling good...Yeah. You were so embarrassed to say it but he was right. This was all wonderful. You never knew his fingers alone could feel like heaven. You almost thought you were ready for his dick, but a part of you still shuddered at the idea.

"C-Could I get more of this for a bit? P-Please?"

Who was he to deny his love?

Ganon even surprised you with a second finger, repeating the actions he did with his first finger: slow, stopping when you showed pain, and resuming when you called for it. Hylia, you felt full, but knowing it was just his fingers eased your anxieties. Just like before, he would move shallowly, letting you adjust before you were loose enough for him to move more. In all honesty, your mind was nearly mush from this by itself. Your mouth hung open in soft, breathy moans, your eyes staring at nothing in particular before fluttering shut.

"How is it, dear?"

You almost didn't realize he spoke. It was the vibrations of his chest that jolted you back to reality.

"S-So...nice...~ G-Ganon~ I-I think I'm ready."

"You think or you are ready?" For a man hellbent on ruling the world, what king would he be to his partner if he didn't let him decide if he was ready for such an experience?

"I-I'm ready," you breathed. "I'm ready. P-Please."

He was careful to remove his fingers, a whine leaving from your mouth at how empty you felt. Though you wouldn't have to wait long, as you felt the head of his shaft pressed at your opening.

"We're on the cusp. Are you sure, love?"

For the first time tonight, you sat up against him, gently taking the king's face in your smaller hands as you gazed up at him with pleasure hazed eyes.

"My king...you may enter me."

Your words nearly broke the man, but Hylia bless him for having composure. He slowly slid his cock into you, treating it like he was using a finger once again. The difference was that this was still thicker than two fingers, but on the bright side, the fact he stretched you out beforehand was enough to loosen you up and allow him to slide in with some ease. He wrapped his arms around you like a protective hug, and with each movement, he treated you like a fragile glass doll.

His thrusts were nothing short of careful, moving inside of you with such care, fearing he would break you if he went even a hair faster. Your moans fueled him, aiding him into keeping his gentle pace, and his moans, in turn, only made you shudder. You could make this Demon King moan, make him whimper with how tight you were, and you both relished in this moment.

Though when the time came for it, Ganon didn't expect you to pass out soon after cumming. As he was when you were awake, Ganon was sure to take care of you before he settled you in the bed, admiring your sleeping form before following in your footsteps.

[smilesrobotlover]

Ok this has been bothering me all day. I saw a post talking about how Rauru and Sonia did more for Zelda than Rhoam did and… I’m once again going to defend Rhoam, cuz that’s a very unfair thing to say and a horrible comparison to make.

Rauru and Sonia helped Zelda with her time powers and learning about the secret stone. Rhoam didn’t help her with her sealing power. Why? Cuz he has no magic and he clearly wasn’t the one who had it. Her mother was the one who had the power and was the one to teach her. Rhoam had no idea what he was doing, he didn’t understand the magic, and he hoped that if she dedicated her life that it would awaken so that the calamity wouldn’t destroy their home.

Well he should’ve tried to help her anyways right? Well, yes it’s easy to say that, unfortunately Rhoam was put in a very bad position of being king with the looming threat of the APOCALYPSE!!!! I think it’s implied that Rhoam married into the family, since his wife had the sealing power from the blood of the goddess or whatever, and seeing how he’s Hylian, he wasn’t a prince from another kingdom since all other kingdoms in this world have small round ears. For all we know, he was a prince consort who was never raised to be king. We don’t know what he was doing before, but with his wife’s sudden death and the responsibility of protecting his kingdom, he didn’t make the right choices. Which isn’t an excuse, but in his position, it’s an explanation. Rauru and Sonia didn’t have an apocalypse threatening to happen, in fact, they were in an era of peace and the future seemed bright. Of course they had time to hang out with Zelda and have tea parties with her. They seemed to be relaxed and having fun, which makes sense seeing how there didn’t seem to be much of a threat to their kingdom, minus Ganondorf, but I don’t think either of them saw him as a huge threat, seeing how they were absolutely blindsided by him.

It’s implied in AOC that Rhoam shouldered all of the responsibilities of the kingdom, and it seemed that he was under a significant amount of pressure during the calamity. And I feel like he mostly did that so Zelda could focus on awakening her power. She didn’t seem to have many responsibilities as princess save for awakening her power and helping out the champions. She is barely 17 so it makes sense that she’s not ruling the kingdom, but I do feel like Rhoam did all that stuff so she could focus on the calamity itself. And I’m sure in his stress he grew frustrated whenever Zelda focused more on the machines than awakening her power. Which was not the right thing to do, but come ON the world is literally about to end and the ONLY piece of the puzzle they need is Zelda!!! Some people forget that she HAD to awaken her powers otherwise the world was going to be destroyed! And it almost was cuz they were awakened too late! They were in such an unfair situation! And it’s not fair to compare him to Rauru and Sonia who were not in the same situation he was in, who were lying around in the grass and drinking tea because the calamity wasn’t there.

Rhoam is such a well written character that acts the way you’d expect someone in his situation to act. And he has so much regret over some of the things he’s had to do to protect Hyrule. You can read it in his journal where he finally gives up and desires to act more like a father to Zelda, you can see it when he takes Terrako away from Zelda, and you can see it when he’s a ghost 100 years after everything is destroyed. He’s so guilty but he did what he thought was best so that Zelda could not have a throne to nothing, so that Hyrule will be safe. And there’s a lot of things he could’ve done better, but people don’t act rational under that much stress. Like come on, would you? Don’t lie you absolutely wouldn’t.

And this post isn’t meant to diss on Rauru and Sonia, I like them in their own ways. But it’s kinda dumb whenever people love complex characters and then turn around and hate on characters like Rhoam and make them completely one-dimensional when they’re not. Y’all are completely unfair to Rhoam.

[girlwiththepapatattoo]

you see through me what lies beyond, Chapter 2

Warnings: vaginal sex, oral sex (f receiving), fingering, intimidation, Ganondorf being himself

Summary: Left alone in the Demon King's rooms, you pick up a new skill.

Notes: I hadn't expected to do a second chapter, but I managed to get an idea for a plot! Granted, I'm not sure where it'll go right now, but...that's part of the fun. If you spot any mistakes in this, feel free to point it out, I'm falling asleep editing lol <3

Read on Ao3 here!

Previous chapter

You wake alone. For a moment, you startle at the unfamiliar bed, the silk sheets under your naked skin, before memories of the previous night come rushing in. You feel your face go hot as you remember everything that happened. I can’t believe that I really…with him…

You roll over, pressing your hand to the space he’d been in when you fell asleep together. The sheets are cold. He must have gotten up early, you think. You stamp down on the rising disappointment. I doubt he’s a cuddler…

Slipping out of bed, you make a face at the lingering stickiness between your legs. You start to make your way to the bathroom, before pausing. On the table where you shared dinner last night is a place setting for one, and what looks like a folded piece of paper sitting in front of the plate. Smiling faintly, you grab the card as you head into the bathroom for a quick wash, opening it and reading it on the way. In tidy, efficient handwriting, it says: 

My little beauty, I have work to do today, so you will not see me until dinner. You may read anything in my rooms that you wish; I cast a spell this morning upon your brow that will let you read our common tongue. Avail yourself of my bathroom. If you get hungry or thirsty, simply press your hand to your plate or cup and the food you want will appear.  Above all else: Do not leave this room! I cannot guarantee your safety if you do. I would not see you killed so soon after you’ve arrived.  Ganondorf

“Not until dinner, huh?” you murmur, disappointed. But you know that he’s a busy man, so you try not to take it personally. 

You soak in the tub until pruny, enjoying the way that you can stretch out in the water as much as you want, even floating at one point. But your stomach rumbles insistently at you, and so you finally get out, wrapping yourself in a big, fluffy towel and heading out to eat. Breakfast is delicious, hearty and filling, with a variety of fruits that burst on your tongue. 

And all the while, your mind is racing. Yesterday, so much happened that you couldn’t process it very well. (It didn’t help that you were very thoroughly distracted by a certain giant king, either.) But now that you’re alone without much to do, it all hits you like a truck. 

The Legend of Zelda is real. Ganondorf is real. And this isn’t a game. 

A part of you aches to go explore, wanting to see all the places you’ve only been to in pixelated form. But your lover’s warning gives you a healthy pause. This isn’t a game, and you were no warrior like Link. Odds are, if you were to meet one of Ganondorf’s minions, you would be killed. The thought made you shiver in fear. 

And so, once breakfast is done, you peruse his bookshelves. Leather-bound volumes sit proudly in neat rows, and scrolls are tidily piled in drawers. Titles in languages you can’t read decorate the spines and covers of many of the tomes, and some books give you such a bad feeling that you don’t dare to touch them. But there are a fair few that are written in Common, and thanks to the spell he placed on you, could be read just fine. You settle on a bestiary of various monsters, thinking to arm yourself with some knowledge at least, and settle down into Ganondorf’s huge armchair before the fire. 

This particular book is large to accommodate detailed pictures of monster anatomy, the binding sturdy and a muddy brown color. You read about the different monsters that one could encounter in the world, doing your best to commit them to memory. But when learning about their biology no longer holds your attention, you return to the bookshelves, looking for something different. 

And indeed, you find it. Sitting there amongst the tomes is a thick book, written in common: Magic Primer. “Primer…that’s for beginners,” you murmur, and pull the book out. As your fingers touch the binding, a gentle warmth flows up your arm. It makes you smile, hopeful that this will be something you’ll be able to learn. 

You quickly make your way back to the armchair, Ganondorf’s words from yesterday about your possible talent swirling through your mind. Excitedly, you crack the book open. 

New student of magic, this author says to you: above everything else, above natural talent, above raw power, the one thing that a learner of magic must remember to be is patient. Learning magic is akin to befriending a feral cat. If you try too hard, it will run from you. Not hard enough and it won’t be interested in what you have to offer. And if you do not guard yourself, it will rip your throat out.  As in all things, you must find balance, and be not discouraged if the power doesn’t immediately leap to your fingers.  Patience, student, will get you far further than anything else. 

“Patience,” you murmur. “Well, I’m stuck in this room until he gets tired of me, so I can do patience.” 

You turn the page. The first chapter is about meditation, and how important it is to beginners learning magic. “It is highly recommended that new students meditate for at least an hour before trying anything beyond this chapter. A chaotic mind will yield chaotic spells, which can be dangerous for new practitioners,” you murmur, reading aloud. 

You shift in place, following a diagram from the page about how you should sit. “Clearing one’s mind, for most people, is easier said than done. But it need not be full silence. A monotone hum can be even more effective than trying for nothing at all.”

You nod to yourself, lay your hands on your knees, close your eyes, and start humming. A soft, straight tone sound filters into the air around you as you focus on your breathing. You didn’t think you’d be any good at it, and it is difficult, trying not to latch on to the random thoughts that pop into your mind. But almost before you know it, the hour’s past. You shift, stretching out joints gone stiff from sitting in one place for so long. 

The second chapter details some easy first spells. “A light spell is always handy,” you read, “and relatively easy to do. Hold open your dominant hand and fill your thoughts with light. Keep in mind, light can take different forms. If you think about firelight, a flame will light in the air above your palm, so be cautious. The easiest and safest is to think about pure sunlight, as it will result in a simple glowing ball of light.” 

You open your hand above your knee and close your eyes. You think back to…just a few days ago, actually. On Earth, it’s the beginning of spring where you live, and the snows are beginning to melt. You’d stepped out of your door and felt the warm sun on your skin, the feeling pleasant enough to make you stop for a few moments just to enjoy it. 

It’s that feeling that you bring up. The light against your eyelids, the warmth on your face, the uplifting feeling it gave your spirit…so strong is the memory you nearly feel sunlight on your skin now. 

Wait… 

Your eyes snap open, and hovering above your palm is a baseball-sized orb of light, giving off a softly radiant glow. 

You gape it as it floats above your hand. You did magic. 

You did magic.

You did magic!!!

You’re so excited that your mental control over the spell is thrown out the window, and rather than just fade, it bursts into motes of light that slowly disappear, like a tiny firework that reflects your elation. You all but squeal in delight. “Holy shit, I can do magic!” 

Your stomach takes that moment to grumble, but you didn’t want to stop now. So you take up the book and move to the plate on the table. “Let’s see if I can figure out how to make the light stay without concentrating,” you murmur as the tray conjures you lunch. 

And so it is that later that night, when Ganondorf unlocks his door and enters his room, he’s met with dozens of globes of light, softly shining and floating in the air, and you in the process of making another, still only clad in a fluffy towel. 

He stares in shock as he watches you gently toss out another globe, which comes to rest a few inches from one that’s already made. He closes the door behind him, locks it, and snaps his fingers. At once, all the globes go out. You gasp, jumping in sudden fright as the room is suddenly much darker than it was, and you turn to look at him. Those golden eyes all but glaring down at you make you swallow. “Y-You’re back! Ganondorf, I-” 

“What do you think you are doing?” he all but growls at you. He walks toward you, slowly, and you feel your spine trying to disintegrate. You’ve never felt so small, so insignificant before in your life, like a gnat before a colossus. 

“I’m sorry, I…I found this book!” You hold out the primer in front of you like a shield. “I-I was just curious, I didn’t think it would actually work, but then I made a light, and-” 

You cut off with a yelp as he snatches the book from you, flipping through the first couple pages. He’s quiet for a few minutes, before uttering, “Have you tried any other spells?” 

“N-No! I swear, I only did the light spell!” you gasp. 

He closes the book and sighs as he takes in your terrified appearance. “...that is well then.” He offers you the book back, which you gingerly take. “I did not mean to frighten you. But magic can be dangerous to learn on one’s own. I would be cross if you’d burned up my room.” 

You figure that’s as close to an apology you’re likely to get from him, and your shoulders start to relax. A little, anyway. “I…I wouldn’t want to learn the more dangerous spells on my own anyway. I’m not stupid,” you mumble defensively.

“Glad to hear it,” he rumbles wryly. He tilts his head slightly, and despite himself a hint of  curiosity enters his gaze. “How long did it take you to perform the spell the first time? Tell me about your method.” 

You perk up, and you start grinning. “Okay, so, the book said that before you start on magic work for the day that you should meditate to calm your mind, so I did that. Then, the light spell said to ‘imagine a light source, but be careful if it’s fire.’ It suggested sunlight, so I just…” You explain to him your thought process. “...and when I opened my eyes it was there, above my palm!” 

He looks surprised. “That easily?” 

You nod eagerly. “That easily! I was so surprised and excited that the spell sorta burst, it was pretty.” 

“I see.” He looks thoughtful. Then he suddenly scoops you up with one arm and strides to the armchair, sitting and settling you into his lap. His arms wrap around your waist, and he curves his chest over your back. “Show me. Perform the spell again.” 

You’re a little breathless from being manhandled like that-one night in his presence wasn’t nearly enough to get you used to this. But you nod and close your eyes. “Give me a moment to settle my mind again.” 

Amusement enters his golden gaze, as if he knows exactly what you’re thinking. “Of course.” 

You both sit there in silence as you calm down. Though, it was easier said than done: the fact that you could sit cross-legged in Ganondorf’s lap and still have room left over was…very distracting. But eventually, your emotions settle, and you open your eyes. “Okay.” 

He watches you as you lift your hand, but he’s not just watching your physicality. He’s practiced enough in the arcane arts that he can feel other people’s energies. He hadn’t been kidding yesterday when he told you his thoughts about you and sorcery, but not just because your feelings were able to breach dimensional boundaries. He can feel a wealth of energy inside you, locked behind your world’s limitations. But upon traveling to a world where magic is common, those limitations were shattered, and now your energy flows freely. 

He watches as it travels from your heart and brain, the epicenters of magical force, down your arm, up through your palm to curve into a ball and burst into radiant light. It took all of two seconds. It hovers there, casting a cheerful light over the area. You grin up at him. 

He watches it for a moment. “Show me how you anchor it.” 

“Okay.” You close your eyes again. He watches just a tiny sliver of your energy break off from the main body of the pool available to you. It sticks through the ball of energy as if nailing it to a wall, and you take your hand away, letting it float there.Ganondorf reaches out, poking at the orb, trying to move it–but it stays firm. 

“...I have to admit, I am fairly impressed,” he finally says. You light up, almost brighter than the orb you’d created. “Do not get me wrong, this is a beginner spell. Creating light is not difficult for even children, once they have even a rudimentary grasp of their own energy. However…” He leans back in the armchair, looking thoughtful as you turn around in his lap to face him. “You performed this spell instantly the first time you tried it. That is rare. And to follow it up, in your first session ever using magic, with a holding technique?” He nods. “I will give credit where credit is due: that is very well done.” 

You beam happily at him. “Thank you! I didn’t think something like that would impress you, I’m honored.” 

He nods. “As you should be. However…this will be the last time that you practice magic by yourself.” 

You blink, your stomach sinking like a rock. “...why?” 

“Like I said, I do not want you burning down my room. I have too many important documents and relics in here. Instead, starting tomorrow, you will learn directly from me, in a training room much more suited.” 

Your jaw drops. “You…you’re going to teach me yourself?!”

“I am. Your potential is too great to leave to someone else. I will see to it personally.” 

“Holy shit,” you breathe, and he rumbles a chuckle in amusement. “I…well, I’ll do my best to learn.” 

“Of course you will. I do not expect any less.” He watches you for a long moment, before reaching forward and capturing your chin in between his thumb and forefinger. “Be warned: I will push you to your limits.” 

You swallow hard, but smile faintly. “I figured you would. You’re good at that.” 

His lips quirk up into a smirk, and he leans forward, so close his nose brushes yours. “Am I? Is my little beauty thinking of last night?” he purrs. 

Your heart rate ramps up, your eyes blowing wide. “I’m sitting in your lap and you’re about to kiss me. How could I not?” you whisper back. 

He abruptly grabs your hips, and he yanks you forward against his chest. “I do enjoy how eager you are, little one,” he whispers into your jawline, nipping playfully as his right hand lifts to curl gently around your throat. Heat explodes into your veins, and your gasp is music to his ears. “I like the thought that you are so eager, you would do anything I ask. Would you not?” 

You whimper, trembling at his touch, your hips already pressing forward into his. “V-Very nearly, yes,” you gasp. 

He chuckles, low and dark, the sound curling lithely into your core. “As I thought.” Then abruptly, he plucks you from his lap and stands you next to his chair. “However,” he says, standing as you sway a little, “I have not eaten anything since breakfast. Delicious as you are, you are not very filling.” He smirks down at you as he moves for the dining table. “I will save you for dessert.” 

You gape at his back in disbelief as he leaves you there. The heat is rapidly dissipating as you realize that he’d been only playing with you, and you huff, blushing darkly as you come over to take your seat at the table. “You’re a damn tease, Gan.” 

He flicks his hand at the covered platter, and when he removes the cloche there are slices of roasted beef, smelling of spices and something like wine. There’s also steamed vegetables, and on the other plates appear fresh fruit. It’s a very well rounded meal. “I do not recall giving you permission to shorten my name,” he muses, raising an eyebrow as he serves you a portion of the food. 

You flush faintly. “Well…your full name’s a bit of a mouthful.” Much like other things, you think, though you don’t say it out loud.

“Even so. One night of passion does not entitle you to such…familiarity. Not yet, anyway. You will call me Ganondorf, or my lord. Understood?” 

You glower at him. “If that’s what you want, then fine. But it feels weird being so formal with you, and not just because we…we had sex. I grew up knowing you and your stories, for God’s sake.” You pause as his eyes flick to yours. “How about a compromise? Can I call you Ganon?” 

His lips purse in disapproval. “I am not Ganon. Ganon is my bestial form, and you should know that.” 

“I do, but that doesn’t mean-”

“I have given you your options,” he says firmly. “If you cannot follow my wishes on such a minor subject, how am I to trust you to follow my orders when I teach you magic?” 

Despite yourself, you wince and look down. “All right…I’m sorry, Ganondorf.” 

“Apology accepted.” 

He goes quiet after that. You examine him as you both eat, though you try your best to be subtle about it. He’s perfectly mannered, but his eyes are miles away. You wonder what he’s thinking about, if there’s some problem with his plans. You wonder if it’s Link and Zelda…and that thought makes you freeze, your eyes going wide in sudden realization. 

“Could I ask you a question?” He grunts an affirmative. “If you die, am I stuck here?” 

He looks at you sharply. “Why are you thinking of my death?” 

You hold up your hands placatingly. “I’m not! I mean, I am, but not in-I don’t want you to die, that’s not what I meant. But generally, if you’re alive then Zelda and Link move against you, and that tends to lead to you dying. What if you die while I’m still here?” 

He stares at you for a long moment, before sighing. “If they were to slay me, yes, you would be stuck here. But they would not kill you, as you are not part of my plans. You are only my companion.” 

“All right…” You look down, swallowing slightly as you cut another piece of beef. “That would…kinda suck. I mean, not only do I not want you to die, but I wouldn’t know where to even start about living in a fantasy realm.” 

He snorts. “Yes, a world of much lower technology would be a culture shock for you. But once Zelda learns that you know about…all of us, I am sure she would provide for you.” 

“You think?” 

“Of course. Not only because she is kind, but because you would be a source of information for her.” 

You smile ruefully. “Wisdom.” 

The tone of your voice sounds almost resigned, and he chuckles without much humor. “Wisdom. You understand better than I thought you would.” 

“The outside perspective helps with that.” 

“Indeed.” 

It goes quiet again, save for the snap of the fireplace and the clink of utensils. Only once the food is gone does he turn to you. He smirks, his eyes roaming your form, and he flicks his fingers. The platter and plates disappear from the table. “Stand.” 

You flush, but you push your chair back and stand before him. “Good girl,” he rumbles, and the praise makes a shiver run up your spine. “Come closer.” 

You step forward, and as soon as you’re within reach he grasps you and lifts you from the floor, stripping the towel off and laying you face down on the table. You gasp as he pulls your hips up into the air, his enormous hands framing themselves around your ass cheeks. “Ganondorf!” 

He chuckles, a low, amused, aroused rumble as his eyes feast on the view before him. “Yes? I told you that I would have you for dessert, did I not?”

“You did, b-but I didn’t think you meant it literally!” 

He snorts. “Rarely am I anything but literal, little one. Now, unless you’re crying out in pleasure, hush.” 

You flush darkly as his thumbs pull your lower lips open. You glisten in the firelight, and in the light from the nearby candles, and he watches with relish as your weeping hole twitches in arousal. He says nothing, just emits a pleased near-growl as his eyes roam your folds. His right index finger hooks gently over your labia, leaving his thumb free to rub teasing circles over your entrance. A choked cry is muffled into the table top as all the eager nerves are stimulated around your hole, and he smiles when he feels your thigh muscles twitch under his left hand. 

His thumb suddenly sinks into you, punching a curse out of your lips. He plunges it in and out a couple times, watching the way your slick builds around the digit, before he pulls it out to swipe once over your clit. 

He chuckles as your hips buck. 

His right hand leaves your ass as he sinks one long, thick middle finger into you. Your fingernails scratch against the table top as that finger slowly undulates, and your hips move of their own accord, pressing back to meet his intruding digit. His left hand tightens on your hip, forcing you to stop. 

“You will move when I tell you to,” he growls, and all the while his finger continues to move, to slide along your slick walls. 

“P-Please,” you gasp in vain. You know after last night he doesn’t respond to your begging until he’s good and ready. 

He smirks, his golden eyes darkened and molten, as he watches your quivering cunt responding to him. He watches the way your clit engorges under its hood, wanting attention. He watches the way your juices drip down your folds, squelching around him. 

And then he adds a second, stretching you around his massive fingers. 

“FUCK,” you shout, your hips twisting against his grip as he slowly presses forward. His pace is achingly relaxed, not because he thinks you need him to go slow after last night, but to torment you, the sweetest torture. “Please, please, I-I need more!” 

“Is that so?” he replies, his tone as casual as if talking about the weather. 

“YES! Please, Ganondorf, please!” 

The second please is barely out of your mouth before his thumb is suddenly swiping rapidly over your clit, before his fingers in you suddenly piston rapidly. You shriek in pleasured surprise, your left arm shooting out and knocking a cup off the table with a clang. He laughs as you writhe against his hold. 

And then he slows back down. You whine in protest, feeling the beginnings of an orgasm fade back into your belly, and your clit throbs. 

He stands, suddenly, but your hips come with him, and you yelp as you hang upside down, your thighs hooking over his shoulders. Your face is pressed now against his clothed erection, his cock firm and hot against your cheek through his pants. His left arm is wrapped around your lower back to keep you there, while his right stays where it is, his fingers still deep in you.

 He says nothing, and you get no more warning, before his lips wrap gently around your clit. Your fingernails dig into his thighs and pleasure surges up your nerves like a lightning storm. His lips work gently around your clit, not sucking, just rubbing, and you choke on a sob of pleasure. 

You can feel it building again, the beginnings of your orgasm, rolling in the base of your belly as he works you with all the patience in the world. His hips never once twitch despite the massive erection under your face; he’s fully focused on you, on making you lose your mind in desperate need. 

Impaled on his fingers, orgasm building achingly slowly, his beard tickling your labia and inner-most thighs, you cry out his name like a prayer. 

Then his tongue begins to swirl rapid, tight circles on your jutting clit, and his fingers piston once more into your aching cunt, and you explode into blinding pressure and heat. He growls against you as your walls seize his fingers in a velvet vice, and before you could even realize that he’s pulled his pants down, you’re bent over the table and he’s pushing into you. You scream his name as his fingers keep rubbing your clit, your orgasm not stopping as his cock spears you open. He bends almost in two over you, biting down against your shoulder as your walls do their best to milk him. His hips slam into your ass, his cockhead hitting a spot inside you that sends lightning up your spine, and with a bellow he follows you into bliss. 

Your body buzzes as he empties himself into you, his teeth leaving your shoulder, replaced by his lips and his rapid breathes, exhaled through his nose. His hips keep pumping, slowly, sliding his softening cock through the mess he made of you. You whimper his name, going boneless on the table under him, shivering as sweat cools on your lower back, on your thighs, in your hairline. 

He gathers you up, making you gasp as his cock slips out of you, and he carries you into the bathroom. You smile tiredly against his shoulder as he lowers you into the water. “I have a feeling we’re going to be in here a lot,” you murmur. 

He smirks. “I have a feeling you may be right,” he rumbles as he sheds the rest of his clothes. “But I do not see you complaining about it.” 

His smug tone makes you want to argue…but you can’t. After all, your new favorite pastime is letting the Gerudo King turn you into a whimpering, dripping, desperate mess. 

Not that you’d say that out loud, anyway.

[yiga-hellhole]

TFTK CHAPTER 20: ENDURING RESOLVE

Ganondorf has gone into hiding. His two most loyal servants guard the desert in his stead. Hyrule approaches, knowing not what kind of death awaits them, deep beneath the sands. Zant tests out his blade.

FINALLY DONE! sooo sorry my beloved tumblr readerbase. this update has been available on ao3 for a little over a week now, but i had to steam through a pretty bad art block to get this promo image done exactly how i liked it. so without further ado, here it is!! i have a real doozy for you all today! again, thanks so much to @bulgariansumo and @orfeoarte for betareading the chapter! there's a couple secret languages in this chapter again... thanks very much to @unironicallycringe for helping me with figuring out Akkadian. as for the translations, well... you go puzzle it out!

content warnings this chapter for: graphic violence, animal death, medical gore, domestic violence/physical abuse (for lack of a better term)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15

ao3 mirror

They rose before the sun had even fully set, thieving their love-nest of its purpose hours too early. Any preparations they could do, save donning arms and armor, would have been too late in this final moment before battle, but they had to be ready to defend themselves at any moment. The air was tense, dead-silent so as not to alert any potential enemy scouts. But in that deep silence, every nervous sigh, every jingle of chainmail, grated the ears from miles away. 

So sat Zant in his chambers, eyelids still thick and heavy with sleep, but nonetheless perched at the edge of his bed, gazing out into the night sky. Ghirahim lied where he’d left him, sunken into his pillows and layers of sheets. In this companionable silence, there was as much to be said, as there was a lack of words to convey them. Indecision to what topic could suit the last hours before this all-out battle, they spoke of nothing at all. Yet there was deep understanding in it, a bond between them that only needed a glance of the eye to be conveyed. 

Pacing anxiously was unnecessary. Ghirahim lay comfortable; to him, nothing enriched the soul like battle, and he was ready to rise every minute of the day. No need for armor, for food, for a minute to come to his senses. He could jump up the second the warning horns blared.

Thus, he dozed, his eyes on the tense Twili beside him until they wandered to the portrait above him. When had he moved it above his bed, he wondered? To think a man so reserved could be so vain. The gold of its canvas glittered in the weak light, egging on the stars in the sky beyond with its own splendor. Ghirahim felt a smile creep up on him and his eyes drew to a close.

He didn’t quite keep track of how long he lay there simply sifting through the favorite contents of his core, before that line of thought was interrupted, and a warm static forced itself through his mental imagery. It started deep in his chest, washing over his every extremity in waves. His skin tingled, his breath hitched. A contented sigh dragged out from him and joined the warm air in the room. This feeling, how long ago it was since he last felt it. It could only be…

Sat on the carpet beside the window was Zant, the Demon Scimitar before him. Moonlight could not hope to pierce the deep black of their blade; their masterpiece was a shadow among shadows. A vibrant teal glow pulsed throughout the veins in its fuller, like light beneath the ocean waves. That glow slowly grew richer, occasionally interrupted by the stroke of a cloth across the blade. 

Ghirahim shuddered. There was the source of that odd feeling, that sent shivers up his back and caused his face and stomach to flush an embarrassing red. Soon Zant caught him staring at him past the mound of sheets and met his eyes – glowing, giving him no choice but to witness them – with a smile.

“Pardon me. Did I disturb you?”

“Disturb is a strong word,” Ghirahim said, unable to suppress a shuddering groan. From fingerguard to its point, the cloth rubbed away every speck of dust and smudge of oil.

The sound that escaped him piqued Zant’s interest immediately. Eyes that should pay attention to the razor-sharp edge of their sword widened at him. “You can feel this?”

Taps of powder against the blade. Puff, puff, little clouds of white dissipating in the gentle breeze. “To some degree, yes.”

Bright, amber eyes narrowed. “What is it like?”

Adjusting comfortably, Ghirahim sank back into the sheets, hiding half of his face. He stared him down no lesser, though. “There is hardly any equal to this feeling, Zant,” he hummed, pleased by the sensation of gentle polishing. “But if I had to describe it… Something akin to having my hair brushed, or hands stroking my back, I suppose.”

Zant’s eyes turned to the sword, now carrying a certain spark. He beheld it in a different light. “I see. How fortunate to know.”

Ghirahim shifted, curling himself in the mass of sheets to get a better look at his machinations, but without abandoning the glow of their joint warmth. Their companionable silence returned, the quiet room filled only with the whisper of cloth against metal, and the gentle churning of his core. Warmth buzzed through him in waves, like fingers with long nails tapping and tracing the features deep in his chest. That so-abstract sensation turned ever warmer, more squeezing, when that familiar smell of cloves arose, and Zant turned to oiling the blade. Ghirahim cocked his head, watching intently. “Tending to it again? So soon?”

Zant only glanced at him before returning to his focus. “Our sword is in its infancy, Ghirahim. It has to be nourished in its first year.”

“You’ve done your homework,” Ghirahim smirked.

“You hardly gave me any choice, Ghirahim-hasir,” Zant smirked right back.

Another honorific! He laughed fondly, ever-so-amused by Zant’s habit of slipping into mother tongue. “That one is new! What nonsense are you up to, this time?”

“No more than usual,” Zant hummed, a touch of cheer in his voice. “Now get back under the covers and leave me to do my bidding. We must be in top shape before dawn, you and I,” he crooned, stroking the cloth down their blade in emphasis.

Ghirahim smiled, sighed, and complied.

That morning, Hyrule conquered the southern settlements in a matter of minutes. The market streets the pair had grown so familiar with, committed to memory through the smells of spices, pastries, and smoked meat alone, decimated at once. Not that they’d made it particularly difficult for their adversaries; a minimal amount of monstrous troops were stationed there. This was their bait. A little trick tucked in falsely heightened morale, to fool the Hyruleans into thinking them weaker than they were. Besides, the locals stationed within sight would surely be healthily enraged by the sight of their beloved settlement being torn to the ground. Zant had planned for a bloody start.

The two of them were thoroughly locked away in the North. The Gerudo Temple Complex was a dark and swirling thing, a monumental goliath of sandstone and brick, its dimly lit corridors designed to trap anyone outside the clergy in the bowels. Deep within, it hid the Coliseum. A holy ground to desert peoples, later desecrated by Hyrule and turned into an executioner’s oubliette. Better known as, ‘The Arbiter’s Grounds’. Since its reclamation by the Gerudo (according to Zant, one of the few good things brought on by shattering the Mirror of Twilight), Hyrule was to never touch it again. The labyrinth would guard it for as long as it stood.

In other words, it was the ideal place to watch the battle unfold from afar. Their intel detected signs of three commanders: Link, the Goddess’ favored hero; Lana, still missing her counterpart; and an unfamiliar Sheikah warrior. Knowing the Hyruleans, they likely had more tricks up their sleeves. They needed caution above all. 

Zant was eerily silent for most of their stay, retreating within his helmet. Had Ghirahim not known any better, he would have suspected him of sleeping on the job again. On the contrary, the Twili could not have been more alert. The ace up their sleeve was heaving and buzzing restlessly deep underground below their feet. The Twilit Bloat, Queen Mother of Zant’s favorite pets, spent days spewing forth countless Shadow Insects, which he’d hidden away in every nook and cranny he thought would make a decent vantage point. They were acting as his eyes in the field and to keep track of them all required his utmost concentration. 

Until at long last Zant withdrew from meditation, the segments of his helmet squeaking as he straightened himself and turned toward his co-lieutenant. 

“They are inching closer to the oases. While they busy themselves there, now is the best time to start our preparations,” he said, beckoning him with a wave of his hand as he made his way through the keep.

Ghirahim, glad to finally have something to do, grinned. “You mean to set up the… Shadow puppets, you mentioned, yes?”

“I have told you of my plan,” Zant agreed, scaling the steps to the decrepit altar at the center of the Coliseum. His visor rolled up to reveal a grin. “But not yet of its execution. It should be most familiar to you, however,” he turned, his hand outstretched and palm facing the skies.

Ghirahim smirked and followed, taking his hand to have him lead him further up the steps. An arm curled around his waist, and he rested his on Zant’s shoulder in return. “How courteous of you, Twilight King. Won’t prancing about distract you from your own casting, though?”

Zant smiled in turn. With a small pull at his waist, they quickly sank into a rhythm, waltzing under the sunbeams that peeked through the stone walls. “We must enact our spell in utter synchronicity, Ghirahim-ili. This is the best way.”

A pulse coursed through him. Diamonds rose from their footprints, flickering with signs of their blooming magic. The beating of their feet and chiming of his core accompanied their dance like a dozen tambourines. Through their joined hands, sparks of power crossed into one another, melting together until the pictures in their minds became clear as day, a single being.

“I shall be the source, and you, my conduit. My power is yours to steer, puppeteer of mine,” Zant’s words echoed, but Ghirahim couldn’t be sure if they came from his lips, or snuck into his mind without his notice. How cheeky. 

And soon, that power manifested into being. Rising from the shadows, Ghirahim’s second pair of eyes came into view – or rather, he came into its view. A second Ghirahim took shape, its features growing more defined by the second. Terrible vertigo struck him, causing a temporary lapse in his steps. There was a disconnect, a duplication of his sight, but no identical one. He could see through his own body but through his double’s, too. His core swirled as he looked himself in the eye, standing in the sand with its muted colors and stiff stance.

“It’s easier if you close your eyes,” Zant whispered with a low croon, “try not to think. Let me lead you, my Blade.”

Easier said than done, he’d say, did it not make such a drastic difference. Ridding himself of his second-sight made it all the easier to at least gather his bearings without the spinning surroundings there to distract him. But reaching this double somatically remained a challenge. It was like trying to steer a phantom limb. The tether was weak, but undeniably there, and getting it to move was akin to timidly pressing the keys on an old harpsichord. All the while this buffoon requested him to dance.

But that was the trick, wasn’t it? Channeling their magic? He was no stranger to their bodies becoming one, in many senses of the term. It wasn’t just his own magic he had to focus on, but the force linking its fingers with it, too. 

Synchronicity. The picture through the eyes of his double became vibrant and clear as day.

His double twitched its fingers until they were veritably his, then took a stumbling step. Then another. Then more, stably, rolling its shoulders and bouncing on its heels. The shuffling of dancing feet was soon nothing but background noise, far removed from where his mind settled. Housed in this spectral clone, Ghirahim grinned, braced his fingers, and snapped.

The desert heat felt like room temperature. Or rather, like nothing at all, in this doubly-false skin. Having teleported himself, he stood a ways from the Southern Oasis, surveying his surroundings. Friend nor foe had spotted him yet, concealed as he was by the heat shaking the sights of their surroundings, but they’d have no choice than to witness him soon. He sprinted across the desert, intending to snicker to himself, only to find not a sound passed his lips. 

A gap in their illusion. How embarrassing it would have been! What if he had attempted to taunt their foe, only to be caught missing his voice? He quickly suppressed the urge to scold Zant for failing to inform him of this flaw. To cause dissonance between his two selves would collapse their plans like a house of cards. Which, obviously, he couldn’t afford, as he was already perched on the walls of the Oasis Keep, staring right into fiery red eyes that pierced into him with malice. 

The Sheikah man would be his first opponent.

His perch high up above did nothing to deter this stranger whatsoever. A long dagger whistled through the air just past Ghirahim’s ear, missing him only thanks to his own last-minute dodge. Ghirahim hadn’t yet the chance to righten himself before his adversary took a running start and leapt against the corner wall, kicking himself off to clamber up and meet him at eye level. It hadn’t even taken him five seconds to get to him. 

This was going to be interesting. Ghirahim knew he couldn’t lose his composure so early in the battle, but a warrior so quick and nimble made the stars dance in his core. The Sheikah was upon him in a split second, a long knife in each hand, eyes red and full of death. His strikes were lightning-fast and precise, but not fast enough to break past Ghirahim. This man was an entirely different territory from that white-haired dog. Where Impa combined her tremendous speed with heavy blows, her replacement depended entirely on the fleetness of his feet. And it carried him well. The two of them danced across the walls, locking blades like a pair of cats fighting atop a fence.

But, truthfully, Ghirahim was only humoring him. Against another human, the slashes of the Sheikah’s knives would have been lethal. But to Ghirahim, razor edges struck his sword with gentle taps at most. He had to put this boy in his place. Hilt in both hands, he boldly raised his blade to bait him with an opening – swung down quickly, to bait a crossing of knives, and catch his sword in between. 

The Sheikah were a near-ageless folk, living potentially centuries longer than Hylians, if they so chose. This very moment, the Sheikah proved his youth, his inexperience, despite his prodigal martial skill. He acted exactly as Ghirahim predicted. 

Now locked, Ghirahim shot him a grin, before pushing his bulk into his sword and tossing him sideways. The Sheikah shouted in surprise, stumbled. With the assistance of a showy flip and roll, he dropped off the wall and down into the dirt, quickly righting himself in fear of being ambushed.

Not a second too late! Ghirahim leaped for him, point of his sword aimed for the heart. Or, rather, aimed for the dirt, as the Sheikah darted away quickly. The pair exchanged blows, barraged each other with throwing knives, but their mutual bulk and speed resulted in nothing more than superficial injuries. 

Ghirahim couldn’t outspeed him. So, he’d just have to surprise him, instead. With only a small chime to announce his departure, Ghirahim disappeared into diamonds and landed himself square in the Sheikah’s way. The boy gasped in surprise, only barely managing to stumble out the way of the obsidian sword that flew toward him in a pitch-black streak. Now, all bets were on discombobulating his foe. The Sheikah was forced to face him more carefully, locked in a fierce combat. For every escape, every attempt at sprinting away for another trick, he was punished by the phantom that appeared in his shadow and threatened to rend him to pieces. 

Dark blue Sheikah armor tore to show flashes of skin and bleeding gashes, staining a deeper red every second. But Ghirahim found himself not as unscathed as he’d normally be – this puppet was fragile, meaning even the small enchantments on this warrior’s knives could hurt him. It wasn’t the same pain as he’d feel on his surface when injured. This was a magical, conjured pain, manifesting as a headache and stuttering of his core. But, injuries or not, he was winning. The Sheikah was slowing, growing into an easier target for his thrusts and merciless cleavings with every pace. And there he darted off again, some desperate manner of escaping! Of stalling time! Blood hung in the air, its particles catching delectably on his lolling tongue. He chased its source hungrily, wishing so it was his true self instead who would get to kill this wretched little thing, a mere pup in comparison to his superior. Ghirahim ached to run him through with this blade! Just a few more paces, another leap –

There was a track in the sand. In the corner of his eye, he spotted another. The Sheikah stopped at the joining of lines, readying something curved and golden.

The harp. The harp! His eyes shot to the Sheikah, who grinned at him with a squint, fingers at the ready over his blasted holy implement. Ghirahim looked back to the ground, where he now spotted an outline… And himself spot in the middle of it. An ominous hum, a faded glow, resonant below him as fingertips tensed the strings. Ghirahim turned to flee, but a second too late. With a mockingly cheerful tune, the magic glyph was activated, and a blinding field of light magic launched him out the gates of the Oasis Keep.

He skidded to a halt, clouds of sand trailing his heels as they coursed through. In his concealment, he was fortunate to find his first flaw; a black patch, crackling on the surface of his puppet. Their illusion was falling apart. 

Now is the time to flee. 

They thought it simultaneously, with Ghirahim immediately annoyed by Zant’s meddling. 

Shielded by this cloud of sand, he turned tail and fled. Soon enough, fleeted feet dashed through the sand a little ways behind him.

Just like he wanted! Bloodlust made blind! 

The next phase of their plan was imminent. He had to cross the sands to get to the cliffs, where he could funnel this little songbird into its cage. This seemed easier said and done, because the Sheikah’s tendency to make pot-shots at the enemy made it increasingly more difficult to conceal the black cracks left on his surface. He kicked up as much sand as he could in his sprint to keep himself shielded from prying eyes.

It was a mad chase. In short bursts, his adversary seemed to be faster than him, leading him to blink around to get away from the scatter of needles flying his way. A haphazard, zigzagging trail of metal pins traced their trajectory. Yet, the Sheikah seemed to be letting him escape, at least a little bit. Did he hope he was fleeing to some kind of hideout, and lead him straight there? Oh, if only he knew!

It was a good thing he didn’t. They crossed into the Cliffs Keep, revealing a dead end. Realizing it’d been a trap, before the Sheikah could fully turn, the gates slammed shut behind them.

The enraged eyes of a cornered animal met with a dark grin. The two men flung at one another, daggers in hand. But Ghirahim felt weakened – the magic holding this form together barely persisted through its many cracks, and it was slowing his reflexes. To save himself some power, he dismissed the false cape, at once revealing the web of deep black fractures spreading across his skin. 

This staggered the Sheikah for a moment, but baited him all the same. Daggers crossed, he lunged forward, and drove the tips towards his core. They tangled, tipped over, and landed in the sand, Ghirahim pinned between steel and soil.

For all this man knew, this was how a Sword Spirit died. The daggers sank into his chest, and Ghirahim let the illusion crackle into shards with a pained groan.

But not before leaving his parting gift. The Sheikah choked out a breath, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Ghirahim had driven a dagger right into his side.

He didn’t have the privilege to see if this caused his opponent to collapse or not, for his eyes caved into dust soon after this deceitful blow. Then followed the rest of his body, leaving only a cackle to fade on the wind.

Deep black turned into an outrageously bright light. With a gasp, Ghirahim came to, finding himself held up by Zant’s arms. Never before had he felt this unsteady on his feet, this jittery like a newborn foal. His shadowy double was gone, which left him to deal with the dizziness of returning to his body. How convenient that this animate coat rack of a man was there to assist him in doing so.

Ghirahim patted Zant on the sleeve, wobbling to righten himself. “Deliciously dramatic timing, Twilight King.” 

“Thanks. I thought so too.”

Zant laughed, patiently assisting Ghirahim through the last seconds of his vertigo. Once Ghirahim collected himself, Zant parted from him, again turning his gaze meditatively to the skies. “We shall let them struggle with this predicament for a little while. Then, I will take your place on the battlefield, Ghirahim-ili.”

The battle unfolded just about how they expected it would. The gates they so merrily left open were breached by opportunistic troops zealously at first, but with the imprisonment of their Sheikah general, anxious caution took the wheel. Nevertheless, critical movement took place: Lana, who had been moving through the desert, succeeded in capturing the Northern Oasis; while Link, having first guarded their home base in the Bazaar, crossed the southern sands to attempt a rescue mission. 

This was their cue. While their demonic troops clashed against Link’s brigade, Zant hopped back on his feet, extending his hands.

“Care to assist me once more?”

Locked again in dance, they watched as a shadowy form knitted into being by their pedestal. The illusory shape of Zant, darker and more muted than usual, readied itself for its host. Much to Ghirahim’s chagrin, Zant was clearly more adept than he at shifting his consciousness, as his double was up and moving in mere seconds.

“You close your eyes too, Ghirahim-ili.”

“Then who will keep watch of where we’re putting our feet? Moron.”

Ghirahim jested, but nonetheless allowed himself a brief respite, and did as he was told. Behind his darkened eyelids, he saw (though subtly) the world through the eyes of Zant’s shadowy double. He briefly worried if Zant had been spying along with him, too. Then, he felt some smug satisfaction in the knowledge, as he thought he’d made for a riveting battle just then.

Not a second longer did Zant let his puppet stick around and promptly sent it away. Just in time for Ghirahim to spin the both of them around and prevent them from tumbling off the altar.

Ghirahim’s impressions of this battle were vague, bestowed upon him in flashes through Zant’s incomprehensible sense of sight. The world was a blur of overly saturated colors in the Twili’s eyes, splitting into sharply defined contours at every moving object. Of course, the rapidly approaching emerald green and blue was then clear as day, as was the glowing blade that cut through the air towards him. 

But Link could not land a single hit on the Usurper’s false shape. Zant blinked himself across the sand and clapped his hands pompously, a playfully mocking tribute to Ghirahim’s favored spellcasting. At once, every gate in the battlefield slammed shut, isolating the three generals in their own death traps.

Wrathful Gerudo, Bulblins, and Stalfos poured from whatever crevice they could force themselves through to descend upon the now-isolated warriors. Whether they would surpass the Hyruleans in martial prowess remained to be seen, but surely, they’d leave not a shred of their morale untouched. 

Yet Zant led the Goddess’ little hero away from the onslaught, seeming to prefer a one-on-one duel, though there’d be nothing honorable about it. This battle was an absolute waste of time, drudging Link along through the scorching desert to chase after his constantly teleporting apparition. Even if his opponent couldn’t hear it, Zant couldn’t help but giggle. With such a jovial mood, one would expect victory, but aside from Zant’s violent retaliations, his health rapidly failed him. Not only was his double on the verge of collapse, but nearly every hack and slash it endured bore down on its host. Dancing with a smile, blood gushed from Zant’s nostrils with every hit he took. Ghirahim doubted whether the desperation on his double’s part was an act –  it contorted, stomped, flailing its arms and hurling wild bolts of magic at whatever blue banner-bearing shape it could see. But Zant seemed at peace, even as his puppet raised its arms to ready a bomb of pure, hexing shadow, only to find itself ran straight through by the Knight’s holy blade.

At once, the tether to their puppet was gone.

“... That’s it… Our first ruse is up,” Zant mumbled, before slumping forward, just barely caught by Ghirahim’s frame. The blood trickling from his nostrils was worrying still, so Ghirahim allowed him to collapse, lowering him carefully to sit at the edge of the pedestal. Yet, Zant declined any fussing over him, preferring instead to retreat into his mind again and survey the damage they’d done. With his ‘death’, every single gate in the battlefield flew back open – save for the Temple complex. Sitting side by side, Zant relayed what he saw through the eyes of his countless insect servants. Among the Hyruleans, there was relief, rallying cries spreading through the battlefield as they once again rushed forth to seize new territory. Their own forces still held fast. The defeat of their Lieutenants sowed seeds of anxiety, which their captains and commanders did not allow to sprout among the common infantry. Though the full plan of today was relayed to very few, every officer of repute knew not to lose hope when all seemed over. 

They’d seen the captured beasts in their chains, after all, and had yet to see them surface in this battle.

One unexpected problem remained. When the gates to the Sheikah commander’s imprisonment were opened, he was already long gone. The trail of blood scaling the cliff wall toward the Temple clued them in where he could have gone. He was trapped in here with them, somewhere. Zant seemed to take nothing but amusement in that thought.

Now, there was nothing to do but wait. Wait for a surge in confidence among the Hyruleans that would raise their might and lower their guard. If this took mere minutes or hours, then the blood spilled to tip the scales would simply have to be an acceptable sacrifice. Time ticked away mostly in silence. On occasion, Zant orated an update from the battlefield with his vacant, manic gaze. Ghirahim stared at the man beside him, bloodstained as he was, and wondered how far the gray blight had crawled up his arms today.

Zant perked up sooner than Ghirahim expected and turned to him. “Their bases are almost settled. They are transporting their goods. Now is the time, Ghirahim. Will you do the honors?”

Ghirahim grinned. “Gladly.”

Within a blink, Ghirahim disappeared from the Arbiter’s Grounds and materialized far below the earth. Deluge streams of sand poured down from above – he found himself in an underground cave, discovered long ago by the Gerudo when digging for water reservoirs. Quicksand pools from above fed this ever-filling chamber with gold, like an hourglass that would never tip. Behind him was a nearly-buried gate leading to the old waterways. In front of him were cages. He didn’t want to keep the beasts inside waiting any longer; he’d kept them unfed a little too long. They frothed at the sight of him, spurred on by Zant’s blood caked into his suit. 

“You’ll find something far tastier on the surface, my dears!”

One, two, three showy snaps of his fingers, and the chains bearing the monsters down disappeared. With a flex of his hands, his fist cloaked itself in glowing, purple magic. He took a running start, heading straight for the back of the cages (where the monsters’ eyes hungrily followed him), and launched himself at the massive lever that stood there. With one solid punch, the old mechanism screeched back to life, and past all its rust, the switch was flicked. A rattling that could only be produced by a machine at the end of its life echoed throughout the room. Tugged upwards by heavy chains, the cage doors were lifted, and out stormed their inhabitants. 

But before they could make for the little creature that stood antagonizing them, a cascade of sand cued them in on the blue skies above. A ring tunnel of diamond magic pried open the quicksand pitfall in the ceiling and allowed these beasts the first glimpse of sunshine they’d seen in weeks. 

Not to mention, the smell of fresh carcasses. 

The Manhandla, a four-headed, man-eating plant; threw itself against the wall and clambered up through its web of roots. The Molduga, the very giant sandworm Ghirahim had stolen away scarce a month earlier; took to the skies and flew through the opening. The Lanmola, a cyclopean centipede; swam up the stream of sand.

But that was merely the first wave. This was the Southern Desert’s treat: the North would get its very own collection of nuisances. His next teleportation took him to the mesas in the northeast, where six pairs of eyes furiously eyed him down from within their cave prison. The caverns in these rocky mountains were straightforward tunnels, opening right into the deserts. After opening the cages, all he had to do was give them an incentive to break free.

So, naturally, he brought the entire cave to a collapse. As soon as the beasts panickedly rushed out of their prisons, Ghirahim snapped his fingers and perched himself on the Mesa’s edge, overlooking the monsters’ exit holes. 

The first to break free were the two Dodongos, bulky, rock-clad lizards; curled up and rolling, shot out like cannonballs. Then came the Helmaroc King, a giant prismatic bird; shrieking wildly and leaving a storm of feathers in its wake as it beat its wings and flew off. Finally, poking out one head after the other, came the Gleeok, the three-headed dragon; with stout little legs and clumsy, serpentine necks, it sauntered to the mouth of the tunnel somewhat timidly. But at the first sight of prey below, it roared viciously and spread its draconic wings, and set off in pursuit of violence.

Ghirahim returned to his post at once, finding Zant just as vacant as he’d left him, but with far greater amusement sketching his face. The Twili didn’t appear to notice him as he sidled up next to him, hands in his sides. 

“Satisfied by my handiwork, Twilight King?”

“More than, Yima Zeeioitneit,” he responded. Zant had cleaned himself up a bit in his absence, but was looking no less gaunt. “Would you like to see the fruits of your labor?”

“Gladly, I would,” Ghirahim said, keeping his apprehension about Zant’s intrusive, meddling magic to himself. 

Zant shook himself out of his daze, at once standing with his eyes bright and glowing. “Then allow me some time to recuperate. I will share my clairvoyance with you in the meantime, Ghirahim-ili.”

Before Ghirahim could utter a word of questioning or protest, Zant’s shape turned pitch-black, becoming no more than a silhouette with shining eyes. A rustle sounded as the shade before him ducked down and turned into nothing more than a smudge, and, shockingly… Melted into the floor. Just like that, Zant seemed to have crawled into his shadow. There was the alarming presence of magic, certainly, but otherwise, he felt not a thing of it. At least, not until Zant fulfilled his promise. Ghirahim then learned, intimately, just what he meant by ‘clairvoyance’. 

A sudden burst of droning visions took over his sight, shaking him into an unsightly stumble. Each flashed by for mere seconds before Zant flicked him over to the next, all blurring into the same haze. Only after sitting there, hands in his hair and groaning audibly, did he piece together just what he was looking at. It seemed that Zant had planted more of his Shadow Insects on the skulls of their monsters, and thus, allowed the both of them front-row seats to each individual rampage. 

To the north, the Helmaroc crested to dizzying heights, carefully eyeing its companions. Yards below it, the Gleeok was circling the desert, scarcely avoiding flurries of arrows from piercing its wings. It found its point of interest in a line of provision wagons, which already had its many hands full with the giant lizards besieging it from both sides. Claws extended, it swooped down in an instant, plowing through the line of them with its razor-sharp talons. 

Now out of a meal, the twin Dodongos sought their fortune elsewhere. They turned straight to the oasis, where they expected to rake in the biggest rewards, only to find the place heavily guarded. Grimoire in hand, Sorceress Lana nervously eyed down the two approaching beasts. She was a nimble woman, swiftly evading raking claws and blazing fire, but she did not take well to being surrounded. From the eyes of this Dodongo, she swooped in dangerously close. Just as the massive reptile thought to swallow her down in one gulp, a large, translucent cube was lodged in its gullet, and with the touch of the Sorceress’ hand, electrified. It shrieked and convulsed, reflexively clamping its jaws hard enough to crack its teeth, and just like that, collapsed.

This Dodongo was down for the count. But before its Shadow Insect died with it, it captured just a few more seconds. From the sound of blazing fire and the screams of their opponent, the beast’s twin appeared to hold fast.

The southern desert was similarly infested. The Manhandla had dug its roots throughout the sand, sprouting additional heads across the desert to drown it in a poisonous haze. Soon, only the dead could wander here, and the very bold. Those who dared approach the floral menace disappeared quickly past its massive teeth. Monitoring this monster led the pair of lieutenants to begrudgingly note that one of its four heads seemed to have gotten hacked off somewhere along the way. Though, they doubted they minded. If the victory was all too crushing, there would not have been any honor in it. Much less satisfaction. 

This next vision was fully dark, until it burst with sudden light. How the fragile insect managed to cling on to this creature through all the sand was a mystery. From the shrill bellowing, these could only have been the sights of the Molgera, soaring through the skies in pursuit of prey. And what a target it had chosen! Skidding away from the sandworm, bow and arrow boldly drawn but visibly alarmed, was their favorite green-clad menace, his blue scarf long lost in the scuffle. He had felled the Lanmola in record time. From the look in his eyes, that wouldn’t be his only trophy of today. Whether he would fulfill that ambition was another question. The Molgera roared and dove for him, but shrieked when an arrow pierced it someplace unseen, and veered off course. It burrowed beneath the sand once more, plunging their vision in darkness. Through the roaring of sand surging past the giant beast, there was a sound; footsteps, hurrying away. The Molgera homed in on its source and launched for the surface. 

It breached, it opened its maw. A scream was heard, then muffled by the resounding clap of the Molgera’s jaws snapping shut. As the Molgera twisted itself through the air, not a trace of the Hero of Legend remained.

Cackles and shouts of triumph and astonishment echoed through the Arbiter’s Grounds. Had the Twili stood beside him, rather than lie hidden in his shadow, Ghirahim would have embraced him and thrown him around the arena for good measure. What an undignified end for the little Hylian! Ghirahim was ecstatic. Already he swell with pride over the thought of informing their Master of this victory. The pair of them sang praises of this magnificent sandworm. Even after they’d treated it so cruelly, it hadn’t let them down in the slightest. Whether it could hear their words conveyed through the Shadow Insect, wasn’t their concern. 

Amidst their celebration, the Molgera suddenly groaned. Shuddered. Slowed in its flight. It contorted itself, squeaking in pain, until it tore its mouth open in a shriek. The Shadow Insect lost all functionality. Its host could only be dead.

What happened? It was in the air – how had it perished!? 

Zant apparently had the same questions. He frantically browsed through the Insects still alive, until he found a proper view of the events through the eyes of the Manhandla. The Molgera fell from the skies, its spiked belly slit wide open. A rain of blood and guts splattered onto the ground before its multi-ton body hit the sand, sending forth an explosive dust cloud to shroud the battlefield from all.

Surfacing from that shroud, visible through the makeshift sandstorm by a glowing silhouette, was a newcomer to today’s battlefield. Fi, doll-faced as ever, but her blue gemstone surface now tainted with viscera, had surfaced from the Hero’s blade, and freed her ‘Master’. Offering her wing, she stuck herself halfway into the Molgera’s eviscerated stomach to pull Link free, soaked in mucus and blood. The morbidity of it all seemed completely lost on her gentle smile, as she stood watching him gather himself.

Ghirahim grit his teeth. “It seems they’ve taken a page out of our book, Twili… They’re hiding commanders!”

“And where there is one, there may be more. They think they have us for fools.”

With the appearance of Fi, a Hyrulean war horn sounded in the Southern Desert. The troops in the North responded. Surfacing from Lana’s shadow was none other than Midna, who immediately clenched a keratin fist around the head of an ambushing Bulblin commander. A sense of fury bubbled forth from his shadow, and lingered somewhere in Ghirahim, too. But as much as the arrival of the Twilight Princess spelled trouble, something about her appearance soothed Zant’s mood into a bubbly giggle. 

She was an imp again.

The war horn sounded in the North. Two responded; one from the Western mesas, and one from the South. Through the eyes of the Helmaroc King, a far more alarming sight poured into the desert. The troops they had fought so deftly to thin out were filling their numbers again. Vast swathes of Zora and Gorons arrived through glowing portals and raced to assist the overthrown Keeps. Only to then clash against equally large numbers of frothing demon forces, pushing each other back and forth past a faultline of trampled steel. This visceral desperation of gnashing teeth and battered armor only left the frontlines in stasis for so long. The Zora Princess, her arrival announced by a tidal wave sweeping along her own troops in massive schooling, forced an opening through the simple measure of washing away everything in her path. She came out the other end of the first line of infantry clad in silvery armor, spear in hand, looking back at the dizzied and drowning mass of demonic forces behind her. This very measure would carry her to the northern desert, where she quickly joined Lana’s side. 

Lana startled when the Dodongo just in front of her was sucked into a maelstrom and launched across the sands. When she turned to find Ruto, some sort of sentimental conversation was surely being carried out. Watching from the Gleeok still soaring above the keeps, neither Ghirahim nor Zant cared to hear it. Their despairing, confused prattles were far more interesting.

The Gleeok swept in closer, ducking out the way of an impending lightning bolt sent from the Sorceress’ grimoire. 

“I don’t understand, Ruto,” Lana cried. “Ghirahim and Zant were defeated, but their armies haven’t slowed down whatsoever!”

Ruto intercepted an incoming belch of fire with a watery shield, bursting it apart in glittering projectiles as she dismissed it. The Gleeok shrieked when one of its many eyes was pierced. “Desperation, it must be. It takes a pair of cowardly men like them to rig such posthumous traps!”

“Are we sure it was really them Sheik and Link defeated?” Midna cut in, surfacing from Lana’s shadow to glare down the limping Dodongo in the distance. “Like you said. They’re cowards! I’ll bet my entire treasury that the foes we saw were nothing more than illusions!”

A troubled expression dawned on Lana, which soon turned to anger. She burst out in front of the Zora Princess, spellbook at the ready, and sent out another burst of lightning. Though, this one was different. It broke apart like fireworks, each spark lighting its own deadly branch, that darted in zig-zags through the air. The Gleeok, hopeless to dodge such a flurry, lost one of its wings to countless tears and perforations and then crashed to the ground. 

Before the beast could stomp its way inside the keep, Lana blocked its entrance with a crackling barrier and whipped around to look at her companions. “Then- The real Ghirahim and Zant… They must be hiding somewhere, commanding from afar!”

“Oh, they can’t be that far. Those two draw to carrion more than a common fly,” Midna grimaced, squinting to peer out into the scorching desert. “Just so happens, I got just the trick up my sleeve to get to the bottom of this. Ruto! Cover me!”

Ruto nodded, readying her spear to join Lana’s side. Lana’s barrier did not hold much longer. Every passing second, the Gleeok was driven to madness by two voices balking commands into its triplet minds, and could only think to throw itself at the magical wards harder. Finally, it burst through, and wasted not a moment to start snapping at the two warriors in its way. Lana fought grimoire in hand, turning scattered parchment into razor-sharp projectiles, while Ruto threatened every impending bite with a thrust of her spear. 

While the Gleeok was rapidly losing scales to the combined assault, Midna stretched out her hand, readying a spell amidst the chaos. A gap tore itself through the fabric of reality, manifesting as a spreading shadow on the ground, soon thrumming and glowing with runes.

Stepping out of the shadows was a little girl, no older than eleven, who curtsied under the protection of her parasol. “Agitha has waited patiently as you ordered, Miss Kitty! How can she be of assistance?”

Lana was almost as disturbed by the girl’s appearance as Ghirahim and Zant, but clearly for different reasons. “A-Agitha? But… The two of you can’t just go out there alone. There are still giant monsters alive!”

The Zora Princess glanced over her shoulder, the second of distraction nearly costing her a fin to the jaws of the Gleeok. “Sorceress, if you wish to accompany them, We will hold down the Oasis.”

“Ruto, are you sure? In this weather, the Zora-”

“Do not doubt the resilience of Our people,” Ruto interjected, jabbing her spear between the plates on one of the dragon’s jugulars. “We know where their limits lie. Place your trust in Us. Now, go! Waste no precious seconds!”

“My, what a shame,” a voice echoed from the dragon. “They’ve become aware of our little plan quicker than expected.”

Zant figured to broadcast his mockery through the Shadow Insect still perched on the dethroned creature. Bleeding heavily from one of its throats, its still-living heads contorted their faces into toothy grins, the Gleeok puffed out its chest and stanced imposingly. The spread of its wings blotted out the sun above the keep, casting it in shadow.

Ghirahim found it a fine idea. “Then let them come find us! We’ll finish them off right away!”

Thus, precious seconds were wasted. By some incomprehensible measure of lollygagging, Midna stuck around while Lana and Agitha made for the desert. The pair of girls slipped past the Dodongo only thanks to Midna’s uncouth taunts, who sent wolves yipping and nipping at its front legs. A little of Zant’s own hatred for the Twilight Princess must have leaked into it, then, because the beast took the bait hook, line, and sinker. So focused it was on the hounds and the woman cheering them on behind them, that it failed to notice its remaining surroundings. Its maw opened wide, readying a blazing inferno, and aimed straight for its annoyance. 

Only for said target to dodge out of the way at the very last second, dragging the Zora Princess out of the trajectory along with her. Instead, the hellfire launched across, square into the chest of the already wounded Gleeok and melting everything in its way. A weaving path of coarse glass glittered in the sand, tying the two monsters by a thread of aggression. Their dragon could not resist retaliation and lunged for its treacherous comrade.

Thus, in the Oasis, two of the beasts were tearing each other down. In the sand wastes, one last beast made itself useful. The King Helmaroc, contrary to its name, was an obedient creature, and soared as high or hovered as low as they needed it to. Through its eyes, they saw Midna had joined the pair a little after her charade of chaos. 

From this vantage point, Ghirahim and Zant quietly observed their desert trek. At least, until Zant clicked his tongue, seeming annoyed. “I see now why they brought the girl. I should have expected this.”

“Somehow, even when we share the same thoughts, you manage to puzzle me. Get to the point.”

“Look closely. They have a Goddess Butterfly. It will lead them straight to us, and the labyrinth will not keep them.”

Once again, silence fell between them. Less time wasted in the labyrinth meant fewer opportunities to whittle down their strength. With this many enemy commanders, such a head start was crucial.

Even so, the thought of their plan failing ever so slightly, filled Ghirahim with a strange sense of excitement. “An unfortunate twist, but… Frankly, I was getting bored. I’m itching for a fight.”

Then, as if Zant had taken note of his excitement, he felt the warmth of a smile inside his mind. “Ghirahim-ili… When they arrive here, let us fight our hardest.”

Of course, the Helmaroc understood nothing at all of such banter. It was far more focused on the triad of two-footed creatures zipping through the sand sea. To a bird, this entourage of warriors must have looked awfully like a line of ants. 

It dove down for them, talons outstretched, as if they were. 

The first to react was not the Sorceress, nor was it Midna. Instead, the young girl turned a pouting face to the sky and popped the cork off a glass jar.

In an instant, a massive, emerald beetle appeared from thin air and swung its horn full-force into the Helmaroc’s gullet. Their eyes in the sky shrieked. An explosion of feathers obscured their vision as the panicked bird flailed its wings, knocked entirely off balance by the throttling of this massive bug. Zant’s quiet marvel for the adversary’s familiar was drowned out entirely by Ghirahim’s rage. How preposterous! This massive bird of prey, knocked out of the sky by a mere insect!? He took the reins immediately. 

The beetle now dismissed, the Helmaroc King chased after the girls on foot, pouncing at them with its claws and jabbing with its beak. But just as it started to get the drop on the group, the Temple complex was in sight, and the doorway they slipped through would never fit their bird.

When the Helmaroc was left behind them, squawking and pacing indignantly at the gate, the trio chased the little glowing insect through the Temple’s ever-twisting halls. Following this journey proved to be a pain. Zant had only set up Shadow Insects in so many corridors, and tracking their trajectory was a dizzying flurry of different angles and crowding soldiers. Yet, Zant managed to follow them in glimpses. Hyrulean and Demon soldiers alike had swarmed the place, fighting pointless battles in corridors leading nowhere. Undead gaolers were already scavenging the heaps of dead and injured, either locking those still breathing in chains, or ripping the bones from the freshly deceased to replenish their own limbs. Thus, the pair of women led a child over this carpet of corpses. The girl’s fighting ability mattered very little here – they were under the protection of Midna and her wolves, but even then, little ‘Agitha’, as they’d called her, looked too stunned to do anything but keep running. 

Along the way, found tearing the talons of a Dinolfos to replenish his throwing needles, was the Sheikah warrior. He had forfeited his turban to use it as a makeshift bandage for the wound in his side. The group swiftly urged him along. Striking down whatever station guards stood in their way, they reached the deeper bowels of the temple, where lines of defense grew more and more scarce.

The three eldest of the company grew more skeptical with each step. Midna leaned closer to Agitha, whispering something the Shadow Insect could not perceive.

“The Goddess Butterfly is never wrong, Miss Kitty,” the young girl assured. She seemed to have full confidence in the butterfly’s sense of direction, and faltered not even a second in chasing after it. And that confidence was well within her right, for Ghirahim recognized these corridors. They would reach their location in no time flat.

Soon, the ground beneath the group’s feet turned sandier and sandier, until the stone tiles were completely covered. They reached a dark chamber, lit only through the cracks of ventilation slits above the massive stone door across them. The butterfly fluttered across without a care, landing on the dusty surface of the door, and fanned its wings in rest. Agitha was about to tromp right after it, but the Sheikah stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder. He pushed her back, right into Lana’s protective embrace. 

Painfully slow, annoyingly cautious, the Sheikah inched into the clearing of the room step by step. He could check for traps, he could listen for mechanisms and dowse for curses or enchantments, but he would find none. Instead, something found him.

A stinger, tall enough to almost scrape past the ceiling, shot out from the sand, and jabbed at the intruder. Its menacing needle missed only by the grace of the commander’s reflexes, pushing the tail out of its trajectory with a talon dagger, but failing to crack carapace. Shaking itself out of the sand, the final bastion had revealed itself. The Moldarach, a massive scorpion of centuries old, screeched and chittered a word of warning. Its pincers snipped menacingly, tendons tight and fierce. Yet, under the threat of its lightning-fast stinger, the little girl was least afraid of them all. 

Agitha looked up at the Moldarach in awe and rummaged in her basket, not taking her eyes off the creature once. “Ohh, I’d hate to hurt such a beautiful bug… I’m sorry, li’l one! But I don’t have a big enough bottle to keep you in!”

From it she retrieved an armful of glass jars, brandishing them as if they were explosives. Her entourage backed away hastily, clearly knowing far more about the contents of those jars than the Moldarach could. She tossed the jars with a sweep, racking them on the scorpion’s hard carapace at first impact. Out swarmed dozens of glowing, spectral butterflies, that headed straight for the first sign of soft flesh they could find: the Moldarach’s eyeball. The beast recoiled, pawing at its face in an attempt to shake the pests off, but it was fruitless. It could now only depend on the eyeballs hidden within its pincers, but in doing so, it revealed the soft tendons holding its claws together. Midna and the Sheikah exchanged a look, seemingly sharing an idea. 

Getting up close to this creature proved to be a challenge. Lunging in to take out its claws also meant being subjected to the monster’s lightning-fast reflexes, and Midna found herself trapped in its clutches soon enough. It squeezed, digging the teeth of its claws into her flesh dangerously. They hardly even needed the Shadow Insect for this – they could hear her cries of pain through the door. A little more and it might have killed her, had the Sheikah commander not severed the tender meat in its other claw. Its grip on the imp loosened in its distress and she managed to slip away, evading its gaze long enough for it to lose sight of her. The clash of claw, stinger, and blade continued, though the Moldarach grew more fatigued by the minute. Butterflies continued to eat at its face and attached themselves to whatever nerve opening they could find. Thus the creature slowed, its jabs and lunges losing their accuracy, until at long last it ceased its attacks altogether. They saw no use in waiting until the monster fully died; their little band of foils took this earliest opportunity to flee and push through the door.

The door slid open, grinding down coarse sand of centuries old as it slotted into the wall, and allowed the quartet of Hyruleans into the Coliseum. In the center they saw Ghirahim, lounging atop the Keep’s crumbling walls and examining his nails. 

Midna scowled, her fangs bared. She felt at the wounds on her chest, already scabbed over – so quickly? – and glanced to her side, where the child stood waiting expectantly. “Great work, Agitha. Now get out of here.”

At this command, Agitha looked to the Sheikah man with big, glittering eyes, smiling when he met her gaze with a nod. She curtseyed – if Ghirahim didn’t know any better, he’d think it was at him – and, with a dainty clutch of her frock, hopped down a Twilit portal.

“There you are, Demon!” Midna turned to foul, biting language the moment less-matured company was out of earshot. “Just you, huh? Go on. Cough it up! Where’s Zant? I don’t believe we got rid of him back in the desert. Not one bit!”

Ghirahim laughed, once again donning his gloves. Now more appropriately dressed, he hopped down from his perch and landed with a feathery flourish. Now that he seemed to be alone, and outnumbered at that, he decided he could afford a bit of taunting. He hummed, tapping thoughtfully at his chin with a wildly exaggerated gesture. “Oh, who can say? You make such a poor host out of me. All these questions, yet I’ve no intent to answer them!” Resting his hand on his cheek, he turned to Midna with a grin. With a puff of diamonds, he vanished, then reappeared before Midna, leaning down to glare at her with one pair of big, buggy eyes to another. “Say, I have one of my own. You look different. New haircut?”

Midna bared her teeth in a snarl, the fist at the end of her ponytail balling tightly until its fibers threatened to give. She lunged for him, the massive orange hand open and clawed. When his defending sword caught on the curved metal of her bangle, she leaned in with a grin. “Real jester you are! I take it this was your idea, then? That gaudy-masked imp told me to send you its regards.”

Majora. Ghirahim winced. It was getting a little too quiet on the Arch Demon’s front, he’d thought. But to rear its head again and mess with the Demon King’s enemies… There was no telling of its little plans. He turned his blade with a flick of his wrist, threatening to sever her hair at the shackle, and forced her back. “If I wanted you to be cursed, I’d ask someone more reliable.”

His eye flicked to the ground. Where he stood now, the low angle of the light stretched his shadow to that of the Keep’s walls… 

Zant emerged from the shadows in an instant, mere inches behind Midna, and swung at her like wings on a windmill. She shielded herself with the hair-clad hand of her ponytail, only to realize within a split second that the Twilight King’s new blade cut right through it. Ducking quickly out of the way, she spun through the air, launching herself to stand closer to her two companions. 

“It is a shame about your plight, Twilight Princess. I would have preferred to fight you in a more dignified form.”

When Midna forfeited a reply to glare him down, he laughed, turning to the altar behind him. “Nostalgic, is it not?” Zant waxed, his arms spread as he spun himself to the center of the coliseum. “The birthplace of our people. And perhaps, where the last of us will meet our end.”

Midna then made the grave mistake of taking his poetics as an opening and launched for him, the hand on her ponytail outstretched. The giant fist clenched around empty air when Zant promptly warped out of her way. Placing himself beside her momentum, he swung his scimitar down like a cleaver.

In an instant, magical wards were shattered. Showered in a foreboding glitter of gold, Midna cried out and smacked to the ground. But before Zant could lift his blade again and cleave her in half properly this time, the Sheikah dashed in to intervene. Only to then, himself, be driven to his knees by the daunting force of the Twilight King’s blade. It was two against one; each time Zant had subdued the one foe, the other would step in to try and take him out through his flanks. But Zant was too quick, his blade too sharp. Screeches rang out when the scimitar coursed past the edges of the Sheikah’s daggers, filling their cutting edges with worrying chips. Then, the first of them shattered to pieces completely.

Amidst it all, Zant cackled maniacally, madness tugging at his sweat-drenched brow with each swing of his sword. “Witness me, Ghirahim! We are unstoppable!”

But Ghirahim had very little time to witness. Lana had chosen him as her opponent and did everything in her power to keep him from uniting forces with his co-lieutenant. Frankly, he was a little amused that the Sheikah had not dared to face him a second time. But moreso, insulted, that the Demon Lord was not deemed a terrible enough foe to require backup to challenge. Tongue lolling from his lips in mockery and Annihilation in hand, he decided to make the Sorceress severely regret underestimating him.

Scratches tore through his robes and the strikes that hadn’t broken through his leather mail had surely bruised him, but Zant didn’t seem discouraged by injury whatsoever. Instead, he pushed through, seeking risk after risk and tearing through everything that opposed him. Soon, that boldness was awarded. Midna held up her hair-clad fist to defend herself, and Zant carved through two of its fingers as if it were made of wet paper.

Zant screeched with delight. “Your weeks of bedrest have atrophied your skills, Princess! While you lay there rotting in your own misery, I have gotten stronger!”

Midna growled, ducking behind the Sheikah to conceal herself from his bloodthirsty glee. Ghirahim, though, could see everything. Portals appeared in the shadows and from it surfaced a trio of wolves, each raising its hackles before bursting past the Sheikah and charging at the Usurper.

“Such cheap tricks will not work a second time,” Zant clicked his tongue.

Then, with a gust of wind, he launched himself backward and well out of range of the two warriors. With a single twirl, he drew a circle in the sand with his feet, and raised his arms to the skies. When he parted his lips to speak, every shadow stilled at once, slithering beneath the feet of each combatant, turning the air thick and heavy.

The air grew heavy, stopping every warrior in their tracks. A pale blue light shone from above, but none dared take their eyes off him to look for its source.

One by one, limbs limp and gangly in their descent, three creatures fell from the sky. Upon hitting the ground, their bodies contorted as they rose, each more bizarrely and stiffly than the next. They were massive, gray things, fitted with stone masks upon their faces and a mass of wet, slithering tentacles pouring from their faces.

Without even having to command them, the monsters galloped on all fours to throw themselves at the hounds. They entangled in a mess of rune and shadow, tumbling through the dust in a bestial scuffle. Midna looked on with horror.

Her companion had different concerns. Distracted by the sounds of magic, she whipped around. “That spell… How does he know that spell!?”

Just as Lana yelped, beset once more by the Demon Lord’s blade, Zant scoffed. “Did I not say I have gotten stronger!?” he taunted, knocking another brittle dagger out the hands of the Sheikah.

“Stronger!? And yet you rely on them?” Midna shouted, hurtling herself past her fellow commander to throw herself at Zant in a raging flurry. Where Zant could not parry her, he settled for shooting her from the air at point-blank with his projectiles. “How dare you utter even a word of affection toward our people, when you force their mutilated bodies to fight for your own gain!”

“Make your dogs stop attacking them, then,” Zant said, thoroughly nonplussed. At last, he forced both combatants off of him with a resounding shock wave, rattling even Ghirahim’s core where it rested in his metal.

When the ringing in his mind subsided, a different, familiar sensation took over Ghirahim. A blinking sound deep within him, imperceptible before, now alerted him to the presence of his kin. Fi – and by extension, most likely the green-clad knight tagging along – was fast approaching. “Oh, thank Our Lord, your cavalry is arriving. I was worried it would get a little too easy.”

Lana fell to the ground as Annihilation jabbed into her ribs. Its point bounced off stronger wards than he’d been met with before, and though Ghirahim didn’t exactly break skin, she clutched her chest with a groan either way. All three of their opponents exchanged a worried look, doubtlessly contemplating how to best gang up on them as they were bound to do.

Just as each of the Demon lieutenants took a step forward, deciding whose head to lop off first, new presences made themselves known. Pointing the glowing Goddess Blade forward in dowsing, Link entered through the stone gate, with Fi soon joining by his side. This second of distraction, a spark of hope for Hyrule, was just enough for the lot of them to scramble back to their feet and cluster into tight formation.

“Everyone, watch out,” Lana shouted, grimoire at the ready. “Only those with the Triforce can wield that magic!”

“He still has it?” Midna asked, eyeing Zant with her fangs bared.

Not expecting that reply, Lana turned to Midna, eyes wide with shock. “Still!?”

“Oh, so you remembered,” Zant chimed, making his way to the clustered group without hesitation. “Our Master is quite generous with his gifts. A small piece of that power is all I need to decimate the lot of you, who now have none at all. You would do better not to underestimate us!”

Midna’s eyes darted between her companions. A heaving, determined sigh tore through her. Then, her enraged expression twisted into a malicious grin. Her arms raised, she placed her hands on either side of her helmet. “Doesn’t matter. I could best you then, and I can do it now!”

The Coliseum was bathed in shadow. Midna drew darkness to her like a cyclone. Where Zant’s shadowy magic was warm and suffocating; a pulsing, all-consuming parasitic disease, hers was an eerie chill. From the pitch-black surrounding her feet, three ancient stone artifacts, the Fused Shadows, surfaced and encased her like a tomb.

When the first spidery legs burst forth from the bottom of the Twilight Princess’ stone-hewn armor, Ghirahim found himself beset by his own opponents. Link, drenched almost completely red with monstrous blood, ran for him, aiming right for his chest. Disappointed, almost, that the boy had learned nothing, he took hold of the blade with his bare hand, flicking it aside just in time to be able to step out the way of Fi’s impending kick. They were teaming up against him again, just as their other, more wounded companions were now piling on Zant. Where worry once would have possessed him, Ghirahim was now buzzing with nothing but thrill. The boy was already exhausted. He would get to tug the cords of his life from him strand by strand, and he hardly had to break a sweat to do so.

With that ever-lasting nuance and his dancing blade demanding his every second, Ghirahim couldn’t spare a glance at his battling compatriot. Not even as tendrilous arms, gnarled and glowing like smoldering branches of wicker, scampered around this battlefield, their incessant thumping shaking the rubble off the walls. Dust and pebbles rained down from above, only to be meticulously carved into halves by his sword. Some time ago, the duo of Link and Fi had bested him. 

But back then, he didn’t have this blade. Annihilation soared and carved, striking hard enough to make even the stone-faced Goddess Blade wince as he parried her swinging legs. With this power, enemy numbers didn’t matter – he would win.

A twinge of anxiety simmered in him nonetheless. While he could indeed not spectate the battle behind him directly, he caught impressions from the piece of himself, wielded by his co-lieutenant. A screech of metal, a beast recoiled. Hair-coiled fists he so easily carved through minutes past now felt solid as rock. Midna could not find a way through his defenses, and the ground shook as she struggled away from his offenses. Those that dared to try left a taste of blood upon his blade, however slight. Weapons crashed into each other in such a cacophony he could no longer distinguish the flashes of light in his own battle, from the ones imposed on him by Zant’s hands. To any mortal, such a barrage of violence would render them collapsed in the confusion, but to Ghirahim, it was Paradise.

Yet, this could not last long. Caught in bladelock with Link, he swiftly kicked the boy off of him when an alarming sensation overtook him. The part of him resting within the Demon Scimitar overloaded him with visions. With the uttering of strange words, Lana had bypassed Zant’s wards. Metal groaned eerily, then exploded, shrapnel shooting into the sand. An inky-black fist clutched around an equally black steel javelin, then threw it whistling through the air. But Midna didn’t aim for the now staggered Zant – she aimed at the ceiling. Chunks of stone and wispy sands rained down, blinding all who waited below, until the dust cleared. Zant noticed it before anyone else, and burst out into a shriek when sunlight flooded every corner of the Coliseum. 

They hounded him like a pack of starved wolves. More blinded than ever and his skin blistering, Zant couldn’t defend himself from the Sheikah’s assault, nor Link’s, nor Lana’s, all the while Fi kept Ghirahim across the arena. His guard dog, forced away from its flock. With every second in the sun, Zant was weakening. He simply couldn’t keep up, not while blinded and in agony like this. With desperate flings of their sword, he only barely managed to deflect the blows that would have otherwise sliced his head off. Blood stained the sand around him as strike after strike tore through his armor like it was no more than air. When his weapon finally fell from his hands, Midna took it as a sign, and grappled his battered body with a tendril for each limb. When he lifted his face, his stare was aimless, but full of malice.

“Sheik, now!”

Lana commanded, desperately eyeing the still-bleeding Sheikah commander. He complied with a nod too serene for such a boyish warrior. A glow gathered in his palms, abstract and foggy at first, until he grasped it, held it before him, and drew the string. Fuzzy sparkles shed from the light-made object, revealing its true form.

A bow. With a single blink, the Sheikah’s eyes turned from red to crystal blue.

It was the Princess! Ghirahim’s body froze over. In Zant’s current state, that single arrow would be fatal. What could stun their Master was deadly poison to his underlings.

An inhibition, once hard-coded into every fiber of his being, now shattered. Annihilation felt feather-light in his hands but crashed into Fi with the force of a stampede. A single facet chipped off her core, and would still be floating in the air when Ghirahim bolted to the center of the arena. Step, after step, after step, pummeling the sand into craters. The arrow nocked and braced, was then released. Ghirahim disappeared. A whistle, fletchings quivered in the air. Ghirahim burst into view in the middle of the Coliseum, arms outstretched. He grabbed Zant by the shoulders, and with a chime of diamond magic, they were gone.

The arrow pierced into the Keep wall. A piece of Fi’s core fell into the sand. Out of the five warriors present, none of them had been able to prevent their escape.

He needed shadows. There was only one place that would suffice. Around them, the world turned monochrome. With the Twili tucked carefully in his arms, he set his sights far beyond the labyrinth and took them both to the Palace. Nowhere would be darker than the quarters of the Twilight King.

Sheets hastily ripped off, bedding drenched in darkening blood. Zant lay stiff and unmoving, gasping like a fish, struggling none as Ghirahim ripped his clothes from him. A decorative fastening pin flew and clattered across the tile floor. Zant’s portrait above them looked on with a smirk.

Hyrulean weapons had gone right through his armor. He was a mess of red-stained wool and torn leather, gaping wounds pulsing fresh blood. Far too much of it. Ghirahim ripped the cork off a potion bottle with his teeth and shoved the glass opening to Zant’s lips, who coughed and sputtered as the thick liquid gushed down his gullet. 

“Just this- Just this, and you will be alright. Stay with me,” Ghirahim hissed, keeping a close eye on the Twili’s battered body. Wounds closed up, but too many remained raw and open. Cursing under his breath, he snipped his fingers, keeping one hand – glove bunched underneath his grip – pressed heavily to a gash on Zant’s thigh. And what a useless measure it was. This wound was just one of many that needed his attention. The sheets he tore from the cupboards, drenched in water from his nightstand washing table and spilled bourbon, soon lost their white cleanliness to deep, deathly red.

Needle and thread summoned themselves with a snip of his fingers. Sewing implements, but Ghirahim had little else in his reach. Zant cried and whined when the makeshift gauze was now pressurized by a knee, Ghirahim’s hands too occupied with the needle. Bent into a rounded angle around his finger, sterilized with a flame. He thread the needle and set to pushing it through flesh.

“I’d say your crying brings me misery, Zant,” he grinned, an expression creeping on him purely from his nerves, “but do not stop. At least then I know you are alive and conscious.”

Pierce, tug, tie, and snip. Rhythmic and perfect, Ghirahim mended wound by wound. He knew how to carve flesh, so too, did he know how to sew it back together. Each wound bled with different severity. His midriff, his legs, his chest. There, he’d been carved down to the rib, surrounded by irritated flesh and glowing veins. The body tormented by these injuries cried and cried, but had not the strength to even writhe. As focused as Ghirahim was, his eyes still strayed and flicked to his right. Zant’s naturally pallid complexion helped him absolutely none in telling how much time he had. But his fading patterns did. Their teal glow almost ceased. Another potion. This time, he poured some of it directly on the still-opened wounds, hoping their sizzle would burn the veins shut. Zant was awake enough to swallow the rest of it, but not to protest against the drops that snuck into his windpipe. Only when Ghirahim had turned him on his side to tend to his back did the healing liquid’s magical effect rejuvenate him enough to rasp and hack it up. He shrieked immediately when the sudden jolt caused Ghirahim’s needle to stick him.

“Keep whining, please,” Ghirahim muttered. “If you have enough energy to act childish, then…”

Zant hissed, growled, snarled, every tug of the thread now an affront. His toes curled and his fingers dug in the sheets, weakly, but characteristically, either way. When every wound he could see was stitched, Ghirahim took the cords of lacing out the loops at his back and rid Zant of his final layer. Red, white, black; teal slowly returning, if it wasn’t simply the phosphorescent glow of the room around them. In a few days, this body would be a rainbow of bruises. Should he last that long.

Only then did Ghirahim allow himself to draw breath. Not as a necessity, but as a soothing tic, to come back to his senses and for a second empathize with a mortal man. He slumped onto the bed, his head resting on Zant’s chest. It was in this rest that the full gravity of the past minutes reached him. Rather, it jumped full force onto his back, its weight forcing him into immobility and sinking him into the bed. Ghirahim couldn’t recall when he started weeping; he’d been on auto-pilot from the second Zelda nocked her arrow.

Zant’s heartbeat thumped against his forehead, hard and heavy as it would whenever the Twili had a lump in his throat. Its pace quickened when Ghirahim spoke. “I almost lost you.”

Zant’s hand raised, then dropped onto Ghirahim’s back. Cold fingers stroked him softly. “You may still, Oibedelrik, Yima Daegge Esweteli,” Zant whispered hoarsely, forcing his words out with the nigh manual contracting of his rib muscles. “Odowuni kem idzidiy Iya, ee Iya-” he murmured, his eyes rolling to the backs of their sockets. His eyelids fluttered shut, then shot back open, revealing darting pupils as if he’d just remembered where he was. “I am not yet bandaged,” wheeze, “and when my blood returns to me,” wheeze, “I may yet fall to fever.”

“Shut up.” Banish the thought. As if he would be so negligent! A doctor, he was not, but as much as he could bring death, he could also spot its tellings, and he did not intend on letting it rear its head again. Ghirahim closed his eyes, listening intently to his pulse – as if it would slip away if he turned away for even a second – then raised himself to finish the job.

He had to go back to the battlefield. There was no telling whether all their beasts had been defeated or not, or whether they even had a chance to take down Hyrule’s commanders. He would return, alone if he had to, Ghirahim decided as he stroked a warm, wet cloth along the dried blood on Zant’s torso where his stitches did not taint him. But he’d only leave when Zant was stable. 

In his spiraling, Zant’s hand had found its way to his hair, running its fingers through the strands. For once, Ghirahim cared not how bloodstained he would get. Zant’s weak voice muttered, slipping between heaving breaths. “All of them, at once… I foresaw many, but every caste and clade…”

“I know, I know,” Ghirahim responded, wringing the blood from the reddened cloth. “But the more we whittle down today, the less prepared they’ll be when Master strikes.”

“There is no ‘we’, Ghirahim. I cannot fight like this. I was bested once again.”

“I will take care of it,” Ghirahim muttered, a frown on his brow. He thought it ripe time to change the subject. “The Princess, disguising herself as a Sheikah... I’d almost say she exceeded us in trickery today.”

Zant sighed, his arm quickly becoming deadweight in his hand as Ghirahim took it for bandaging. That strange gray on his skin had spread almost no further. “Posing as a substitute for General Impa, I reckon.”

Ghirahim left Zant to his musings and grew oddly giddy with his own. The thrill of battle and clawing his companion away from death’s door scalded him from within, filling him with an inexplicable well of energy. 

“But if the Princess is here… That’s good news, wouldn’t you say?” Ghirahim began to prattle, a manic tug at his brow as he pinned the last few bandages in place. “Fewer commanders are guarding the palace than we expected. If we hurry and inform Master Ganondorf, surely–”

“Ghirahim–”

But Ghirahim did not hear him. Whatever he said then, he could not even recall himself, so thoroughly he was caught up in a whirlwind of plans.

“Ghirahim, stop.”

The pair met eyes in silence, one still wearing a bewildered grin, the other lying grim and pale on what was almost his resting place. “There is no point. Your revelation will fall on deaf ears. We were never meant to leave this desert.”

Ghirahim’s expression dropped, managing only a slight grin in his confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Master sent us here to die.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ghirahim frowned, fighting off a pit of dread in his gut. This was just his usual delirium, he thought. The same madness shaken into him by fear and injury, like it had Volga.

Zant, however, did not take his struggle kindly. He frowned at him indignantly. “You call me ridiculous? You deceive even yourself. Face it, Ghirahim. We are two against seven of Hyrule’s finest commanders. This was a suicide mission from the start, as I suspected Death Mountain must have been, too.”

“... But-” Ghirahim struggled, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Zant was a liar, he knew this. But now? To him? About something like this? Neither possibility, not Zant deceiving him so brazenly, nor being abandoned by his Master, computed in his mind. “We were- What could I have done to displease him to this degree? Why would he want to be rid of me? You speak nonsense!”

“You did nothing, Ghirahim. You are perfect. Your sole crime was associating with me. For me, it was only a matter of time until he did away with me. He is unworthy for the throne, and, one way or the other, I would have stopped him from seizing it.”

Ghirahim froze. Pieces fell on the ground before him but he didn’t dare to watch them assemble. Something hot and furious was starting to thaw the ice of his shock from within. “What?”

“Your surprise tells me he did not even bother to confirm his suspicions before abandoning you.” With a huff and groan, he shifted, trying to prop himself upright on his pillow. The grimace he pulled in his pain remained in his face, molded from rage and hatred. “I detest him, Ghirahim, and finally he has noticed it. He must have known I wished for his death, and that I intended to follow through.”

Ghirahim staggered away from the bed as if pushed. An instant revulsion forbade him from staying anywhere near the wounded man before him, and in his disgust, he willingly followed this instinct. He scowled at him, wide-eyed and vicious, tongue lashing and drenched with venom. “So your title was given to you for good reason. I cannot believe my ears. Immature little boy, you are! Our accursed usurper, unable to keep his grubby claws off any throne when he grows the slightest bit displeased. You ungrateful wretch!”

“Ungrateful? You know not what you speak of,” Zant scowled right back, tears of rage welling up in his eyes and his teeth bared. The Lord of Twilight turned to him unflinchingly, hunched like a pouncing beast as if his drive to convince him had filled him with fresh vigor. “In my time, Ganon was to me what Demise was to you. My God, I adored him,” he waxed, hands covering his face in grief. “I did his bidding. I worshiped him, freed us both from our decrepit prison. Yet, when I gave my life for him, he broke his promise to me. Instead of freeing my spirit to rule by his side, he took everything I ever worked for. And then- then-” Zant paused, hands falling limply into his lap. “When defeated by his little foil, when the strings of his soul dared touch upon mine to beg for my assistance, I denied him.”

Zant’s eyes turned to him again. The first hints of a smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “You understand, don’t you? It was no hero, no princess, who slayed the Demon King in the age of Twilight. The one to deliver the final blow, was me.”

That very second, a little part of Ghirahim’s world shattered. When he realized the consequences of plotting alongside a man so treacherous, the rest shattered with it. Right under his nose, Zant had made an enemy of his Master, and by extension, of Ghirahim. There were questions he wanted to ask, insults to be hurled. He could only think of one question, that bubbled to the surface of his heart like scum in a boiling pot. “How long have you plotted this?”

Zant lowered his gaze, for as far as the stare of a near-blind man mattered. “From the very start,” he admitted, sighing. “After such a betrayal, to awaken to another manifestation of my tormentor, and have him once again demand my services… He may as well have spat in my face. Though, I admit, for a little while, I buckled. Somewhere, I must have loved him still, drawn to his power and our shared hatred for Hyrule as I was. I wanted to see if I could trust this version of him, who seemed so noble. But after your stories, Ghirahim, how his incarnations cast you aside so carelessly… I made up my mind. Ganondorf does not change.”

“So then all of this was just a lie, part of your plans?” Ghirahim asked, his voice quaking. He didn’t care for Zant’s excuses, not when they pulled every minute he spent by his side into question. Not when they sabotaged everything he’s ever stood for. “I, too, just a little scheme for you?”

Zant gasped, inching closer to the edge of the bed to look at him in pleading. “No, Ghirahim. How could I have foreseen this? I came to you seeking an ally, and I found a new reason for my heart to beat. For every lie I have told you, I have spoken to you as many truths tenfold, in how I’ve grown to love you. It is only because of you I have made it this far. You’ve given me peace, soothed my soul when I threatened to bubble over. And, more importantly, Ghirahim-ili, you have made a warrior of me.” Zant urged, attempting a smile, his hand outstretched. “Which is why I ask you to join me.”

Ghirahim was too stupefied by his words to answer. So Zant took advantage of his silence to continue. “You know now of my hatred, my every motivation. Yet you stay loyal to him, even if you must know he will not spare you. He has not spared you, for he resigned someone so loyal to him to the same fate he did a traitor.”

His arms snaked around himself, his nails digging in the false skin of his arms. Ghirahim took another step back; the Twili’s presence alone made it feel like insects were crawling inside his steel, tunneling through him like termites. His mind hit a roadblock, reached a final terminal, and the logic Zant asked from him sat horizons away where his tracks would not reach. “... Then if Master wills it-”

Zant shot up in his seat, snapping at him before he could finish his sentence. “Do you know how it hurts me, Ghirahim? To see someone so precious to me tear himself apart over someone who would shatter him on a mere whim? After all you do for him, he denies you at every turn and punishes you for the barest things. It has taken every shred of composure I had not to tear into him when he threatened to hurt you. If I had not hated him before, the way he treats you would have convinced me to.”

He’d avoided his eyes up until then, but Ghirahim now shot his gaze straight at him. They exchanged a scowl, each gnashing teeth, one from hatred, one from love. Desperation seized him and sharpened his edge. 

Ghirahim made for him and pushed him back into the pillows. “You know not what you ask of me. To think I would care what hurts you now, after what you’ve told me! You speak of whims? You’re asking me to abandon my every purpose for something as small as your mortal love. My purpose is all I have. It is me. To ask me to betray Demise is to doom myself to scrap, Zant.”

Zant had refused a squeak when he was shoved. With tears in his eyes, he simply laid there, glaring at him. He cradled a freshly ruptured suture through its bandages. “You are not yourself when you speak of him! Listen to the words you spew! Scrap!? So highly you think of yourself, you carry yourself as the priceless artifact that you are, yet when around him, you are degraded to the ranks of mere tools.”

Ghirahim gripped his hair in wild frustration. “Because- I am precisely as perfect as I am because of Him! Without Him, without a hand to wield me, I am nothing.”

Zant stared at him, perturbed, before groaning in his agony and sinking into his pillows. For a moment, he wilted again, speaking bitterly as he resigned himself. “Then you have been, and will be nothing, for a very long time.”

In an instant, his vision went red. “How dare you!”

Ghirahim pounced him, hands outstretched and clawed, landing square upon his chest, ignoring the grit of Zant’s teeth, his squirms, his pained squeaks. All he paid attention to were his wide-open eyes and the fear he could milk out of them. He gripped him fiercely by the shoulders and shook him as he spoke. “It’s all your fault, isn’t it!? Why he would not wield me! Why I could not gain his trust!? All because of your greed, he now sees me as a conspirator to your rotten betrayal.”

His hands found Zant’s throat and squeezed. Ghirahim leaned in close, fangs bared. Zant did nothing. Just the sight of those glowing pupils fueled the fire of his rage. “A thousand miserable years I’ve waited, working hard to see him again. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? Your puny, mortal mind could never comprehend the lengths I’ve gone to!”

He reared back his fist, and still Zant did nothing. “Now I can wait thousands more, and he will never wield me again!!”

Ghirahim panted amidst his accusations, tears streaming down his cheeks the second they beaded in the corners of his eyes. He scanned the Usurper’s eyes for substance, for anything that wasn’t pity. When he didn’t find it, he snapped. Before he knew it, his fist connected to Zant’s cheekbone. Crack. “How could you do this to me? We were going to win!” Crack. “I would finally have been happy, after I’ve been alone for so long, and you RUINED everything for me!”

Crack. Snap. A whimper. There wasn’t an inch of Zant’s face untainted by blood and bruising, and still, that horrible fool did nothing to stop him. “I should kill you!”

He sent Zant’s head twisting left to right, right to left, with each punch. His heart had broken twice over today. First, shattered to pieces from all hope of becoming his Master’s blade. Then, its shards were trampled by the very man below his relentless assault, who had punished him so severely for daring to open himself to that mortal love. What a complete and utter fool he’d been. He should have expected to be punished like this, for entering a world he didn’t belong in.

And still, past the swollen, blood-smeared skin, Zant did not take his gut-wrenching eyes off of him, trying to fool him into loving him again to save his own measly life. It was an outrage! A betrayal this massive, and Zant had the gall to try and garner his sympathy. To assert they were alike in fate. There was only one who had lost everything, whose prospects were null, and who was only living on borrowed time. Only one banished from his home, his every goal snatched from before his nose. Only one whom his Master truly abandoned, to never be forgiven.

… No.

There were two.

Before his fist could crash into him once more, a convulsion tore through Zant’s body below him. Within the blink of an eye, he changed. His skin lost all color, turning a deep, shadowy black, while his patterns dimmed, and his hair bristled into a brittle white, like spider’s silk. 

Zant was dying.

The ties to the Demon Scimitar pulsed in his chest. There lied that rebellious little dagger, the one that thumped against the walls of his core whenever this wretch would look at him in his strange ways. Did it not feel good? Its little voice whispered in his mind. Even if it was such a small piece of you in his hands, did it not fill you with joy? Master will not wield us, and this world has so few who are worthy of us. Is it not better to rest part of you in capable hands, than in nothing at all?

Ghirahim clutched his head, begging for silence. He could not handle even a second of doubt, of weakness. If this man were simply dead, everything would be so much easier. If he were the one to kill him, Master would forgive him. But are you ready for him to die? 

He was. He would have to be. He wanted to be. It would be so simple. He just wanted to be wielded. To be held in someone’s hands, to be part of something greater.

He wanted to be loved.

Please, help him.

Oh, God. What has he done?

He detested the despairing little squeak behind him as he walked away from that deathbed. Even more, he reviled himself, for glancing behind and allowing the teeth of guilt to sink into him at the pitiful sight of that beaten creature. 

What he hated most was how he’d been convinced to return after his brief departure, healing elixirs in hand, and seeing tear-drenched eyes looking at him with a bloody smile. 

Don't look at me like that, you horrible man. You’ve ruined my life.

But that pitiful part of him felt relieved how Zant could smile at the sight of him still. How Zant was glad to see him, even after attempting to take his life mere seconds earlier. A withered hand shook as it reached out for him. Ghirahim took it and squeezed.

The room was silent as Ghirahim nursed Zant back to health. Far, far into the desert outside, chaos was unfolding. The few remaining giant monsters were now surely being slaughtered, and their troops would have to cherish idle hopes of succeeding in their reign of terror, in their commanders’ absence. Deep, deep below the ground, Gerudo and Bulblin who could not fight were taking shelter in the dungeons, waiting for the pounding footfall to fade away and leave them in peace.

Neither side knew they were here. They would sit in this room, disturbed only by the glare of Zant’s portrait, judging this pathetic display. Zant strained to breathe. His complexion had inverted almost to its original colors, while his hair returned to its original, rosewood shade. However, some strands retained that ghostly white from before. Ghirahim hoped it would be permanent. He hoped he would remember this accursed day every time he was confronted with his reflection. 

Never before had shadows bothered him. Now, in the deep darkness of Zant’s bedroom, it suffocated him. Neither of them said a word. There was nothing to say, but in this stifling pit of nothingness, he began to crave the slightest noise. He wished he could go back to a time when this dark was comforting, to be filled with nothing but idle chatter and the grappling of their bodies. Like this, through noise, through touch, Ghirahim could only think to hurt him.

So, Ghirahim seized the bridge of Zant’s nose and cracked what cartilage he hadn't shattered back into place. He took hold of his jaw, counted to three in his head, and popped the crooked thing back in its sockets. If Zant had cried out in pain at any of this, he wouldn't have noticed. The ringing in his ears was just too loud. His handiwork now finished, he trusted the potions to do the rest. 

Then, he waited. For anything, really. For the battle raging outside to dissipate. For their forces to come bursting through the castle gate cheering with glee, or for the enemy to come raid it of every worth and woman inside, and drag the two of them to the gallows, while they were at it. But mostly, he waited for any change in Zant. 

Look at him. He cannot even raise a finger to hurt you. You could end this right here, right now, Ghirahim thought to himself. Yet he sat and did nothing. When his eyes met the ones that stared glossily back up at him, filled with agonized gratitude, that thought snuffed out, and its wicker would burn no longer.

Ghirahim swallowed his apprehension, inhaled sharply, and sighed. “What will you have me do?”

Zant opened his mouth to speak, but the shards of crumbled teeth fell into his throat as he uttered his first syllable. Ghirahim sat and watched as he choked and spat them out on his pillow.

“We are to wait out the right time to strike back for the throne, but today, we cannot. So we will have to fool them with one more ruse. Return to the battlefield, Ghirahim,” he wheezed, swallowing the blood from a dry throat. “Strike at whoever is closest. Be vengeful. Be fierce. You must fight like you never have before.

Zant breathed deeply. With each chug of air, another wound closed up, though their scars and deep black bruises remained. “You are to disappear with me. They must be convinced that I succumbed to my wounds.”

You should have.

“And, to their knowledge, you will take to the grave with me. Come closer,” he said. His hand searched beside his face on the pillow and retrieved a shard of tooth, long and pointy, almost complete. With a tiny crack, he then reached over, and fastened it to Ghirahim’s earring, to an empty link remaining there. “A memento, to convince them of my death.”

Ghirahim rose again in silence. A little piece of bone so small dangled from his ear, but the weight of its burden could tip him over. Zant continued to speak as if this was the simplest matter in the world. “Take our blade. My power rests within it, still, and it is all the help I can afford you.”

Listlessly, mechanically, Ghirahim rose from his seat before Zant even finished his sentence. The sword lay by his bedside, hastily thrown to the side along with Zant’s armor. He picked up that shard of himself and apologetically wiped it of its grime. 

A roar reverberated from outside, echoing past the sands and through the castle walls. Zant called to his attention again with his glowing eyes aimed straight at him. “The Gerudo are innocent in all this. The least we can do is scare this vermin away from their homes. I trust you to have tricks up your sleeve, Yima Mionaida.”

Despite it all, his little nicknames stirred in his chest. Ghirahim clenched his fist harder around the grip of the Demon Scimitar, as if to smother it. His Diamond. The miserable, manipulative cretin that he was. And Ghirahim was doing all his bidding. 

Just before he could turn his back to leave, he was halted one last time. “Ghirahim,” Zant started, but he knew saying his next words would only draw his ire. His face said every letter anyway. I’m sorry.

Ghirahim ran. Within a flash, he was back in the sweltering heat of the desert, bolting from the Temple Complex and kicking up sand trails in his escape. He tore past keeps, the slain corpses of their monsters, and field battles still unfolding between forces too stubborn to believe the war was won. Those who dared bar his way were dealt with swiftly, their heads rolling. He left the perfect trail like this. A pristine white lightning bolt with a sword sharper than the cruel edge of time, such a description could only fit one man. The eyes he sought snared onto him. Enemy commanders, skeptically scouring the desert and leaving not a stone unturned for a trace of Ganondorf’s finest. Now, they found him and were giving chase just like he wanted. 

Blood and plate mail carpeted the vast sands racing below his feet. Rock outcroppings raced past; trampled patches of desert scrub – Safflina and a type of sagebrush. The smell of drying vegetation filling the air was the same as when Zant held sprigs from them up to his nose for inspection – and, finally, the gate to the bazaar, zipped past him. Almost, he, the false deserter, had gotten away with leading the lot of them out into the wider desert, until a familiar rumble ripped him from his concentration. 

Ghirahim swerved to the side, narrowly avoiding a boulder that barreled past him. It skidded to a halt before him and unfolded, though he didn’t have to see that transformation to know what nuisance stood before him. There was, once again, Darunia, Chief of the Goron Tribes.

“Not one step further, Pebble.”

The sight of him was enough to startle even Ghirahim, though he was too jaded to find any delight in it. Darunia’s torso was heavily scarred, and his right arm, gone. In its place was a jumble of machinery, with pistons and gears whirring noisily to heave the weight of a massive hammer at the very end of the prosthetic limb. Beyond a solid steel helmet, the Goron Chief wore a wide grin, though one less eye stared back at Ghirahim than last time.

“Thought to slip by us, did you? All on your lonesome?” said the Goron Chief, brandishing his weapon. “I wasn’t looking forward to facing off against that nutcase anyhow, but a lil’ something tells me my siblings took care of that for me…”

Ghirahim looked back. The peaks of Gerudo Palace were no longer in sight. For whatever chaos he would unleash… This would have to be far enough. All he had to do was stall for time until the rest of the Hyrulean commanders caught up to him.

“You truly wish to keep me? Very well,” Ghirahim replied, holding the Demon Scimitar up to the sun. Sand powdered his bodysuit from top to bottom, crusting gray and gold in every crease. But their blade remained immaculate. Its silvery edge still shone into his pupils, like teeth flashing in a hungry grin. “Make this worth my while.”

Darunia’s hammer pounded into the ground fiercer than ever. The springs on his arm, hefty as it might have been, gave him untold speed and force with each swing. Ghirahim couldn’t stop the speed of that hammer anymore – where there were once bulging veins now sat machinery, forged from a steel he dared not chip the Demon Scimitar on. So, he had to settle for the rest of this massive creature. They clashed like this for what felt like hours, neither showing any signs of tiring. The resounding clanks of the warhammer striking upon resonant steel had surely deafened them both, and everyone daring to come near them. It was thoroughly inelegant. Ghirahim hissed, roared, lunged at him with wild swings wielding a sword leagues to big for his frame. Such wild desperation hampered him as much as it worked in his favor. A grief-stricken foe was always quickly underestimated. Even with his new accessories, Darunia would not leave this battlefield unscathed. A blade made from the heart would know how to find another without effort. As he riddled the Goron’s bulging ribcage with scars, a foreboding chime in his core once again alerted him of his pursuers. They were getting closer. He could feel it. 

Then, for a second, he could feel nothing at all. A split second of distraction cost him dearly, when it allowed for Darunia to come within arm’s reach and drive his hammer straight into him. The flat of the giant hammer drove into the side of his head with such a deafening impact he thought his head might snap clean off. Instead, he remained intact, launched across the bazaar to tumble through ruined market stands and trampled carpets. When he came to a halt, all he could see was dust, the approaching Darunia not more than a shadow in the clouds of sand. Ghirahim stood up, a hand to his wounded cheek to find it just that – wounded. Through his false skin, he could feel chips taken out his face, like little razor-sharp dimples on his cheek.

The rest of them were approaching now, right outside the gate. Ghirahim found the least he could do was give them a proper welcome spectacle. Concealed by the dust, he launched forward at the shape of the Goron Chief in ambush. Its wicked, curved tip aimed at the jugular. Darunia staggered away, but every twitch of movement just made the scimitar slice him deeper. With just one more stumbling step, Ghirahim got the vengeance he wanted. An arc of blood gushed from the Goron’s collarbone, splattering to accessorize Ghirahim’s wounded face. Clutching his bleeding wound, Darunia thrust his metal arm forward to push the Demon away from him and hobbled back into the dust. 

Ghirahim gave chase until he remembered his task. Wind whipped through his hair and took the sands with it, revealing at last his surroundings to him. Standing in an arc around him, barricading his way to the desert, stood the mightiest of Hyrule’s army. There was nowhere left to lure them, this would have to be his final stand. He could not fight all of them at once – not Link, not Fi, not Zelda, not all of the other pompous royals gathered here. But he could make them see. The blade, the tooth dangling from his ear. Now, he would make them witness his sorrow. To their knowledge, it would be grief for a fallen friend, but in the depths of his core, he felt nothing more than disgust for obeying the word of another.

Tears gushed from his eyes. He was doing this – he was betraying his Master. Ghirahim (was he even worthy of a name?) contorted his face into a maddened grin. The carnage, the destruction, the pure, unfiltered chaos this final gambit would unleash might have pleased Him, but it would not be in His name. It was moot! He should have accepted his fate in the Arbiter’s grounds. He should have stood patiently waiting in executioner’s row, to be pierced by the very same arrow that he saved his conspirator from. If his Master willed him to shatter, to turn to dust and forgotten in the eyes of history, then that was to be his fate, and nothing more. 

Instead, the Sword Spirit glared down the approaching Hyrulean commanders with the same manic grimace, and readied his spell.

“Šamu dullu-ya, Majora! Bēlu ellāmu-adāni, Lā Naparkû Umṣu! Anāku bussuru kâti bursaggû, naqrabu napištu. Banû annûm āra-šu ašītu, baqāru tidintuka!”

He danced and danced through the sand, flickering himself atop every surface he could find to evade the grasp of his assailants. Midna and Lana were the first to stiffen, to call for someone to put a stop to this, but none of the arrows sailing past could hit their mark. Every word drained more and more energy from him. This was a true summoning, a bargain driven. Within the first uttering of the Arch Demon’s name, he could feel it watching, stalking around him like a wolf with gnashing teeth, licking its lips until it found his offer sufficient. 

He would have thought it an infernal illusion, ripping him to some other plane of existence, did he not notice the straw hat atop the mask and the blue sky expanding behind it. The Skull Kid floated before him upside down, looking him dead in the eye. With a single tap on the nose, it shook him out of his paralysis.

“Took you long enough. Don’t let me get bored again, Ghirahim-ili!”

It mocked, it shrieked with laughter, and it rattled its mask. Arms to the sky, it hovered squeaking and groaning with strain, and then with the same great effort, swung its clawed little hands down as if pulling a massive lever. Then, it waved cheerfully and disappeared within a blink. 

Silence. Nothing at all. The commanders still around him stood waiting with caution, alarmed by the Arch Demon’s arrival, and just-as-sudden departure. Only when a rumble shook the pebbles on the bazaar grounds did they think to look up.

Not Ghirahim. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the skies for even a second. He saw it the second Majora disappeared. A small dot, a mere speck in the endless blue of the cloudless heavens, approaching rapidly. The Moon was falling down on Gerudo Desert.

Cries of panic, of retreat. Chimes of magical transportation rang around him. Hyrule’s commanders were fleeing en masse. Perhaps he would not strike his intended targets, but he didn’t care. This battle would find no spoils or prisoners. Nothing but a wasteland would be left, leaving not the slightest bone for the vultures to scavenge. Swirling clouds of condensation shrouded the Moon in its rapid descent. It was hypnotic, almost, Ghirahim thought, standing in the center of its massive shadow. He considered then what would happen if he simply stayed here. The clouds dissipated as the Moon crossed their threshold. By all means, he was insane for dawdling here, and yet he took the time. 

Head cocked curiously, but eyes blank, he peered up at a giant visage that scowled back. Like it challenged him, almost. He was forged to survive any impact, surpassed only by weaponry that rivaled him in magic ability. But he’d never been hit by a meteor before. Would it shatter him? Did that matter? Oh, how tempting the thought was. He was a dead man walking either way. Where would he go if he survived such an impact? Master would break him. 

Ah, his trump card was getting a little close for comfort now. He could feel the heat of its approach on his skin, its tremors shaking the ground beneath his feet. There were mere seconds between this moment and the inevitable crater the Moon would leave. He turned his stare away from the skies and turned to look around. Not a soul remained in the bazaar, but the soldiers that fled – be they friend or foe – certainly weren’t far enough to escape the blast radius. They’d be dust soon, blend in with the sands.

Playtime was over. He’d fantasized plenty. Zant was waiting for him; whether he’d find him succumbed to his wounds, or in a prime state to kill him himself, he’d have to see when he got there. Whether he’d have the guts to see him to his end…

Now, to get out of here.