This story is a companion piece to “Eternally Sad Eyes” but, like that story, can be taken as a stand-alone.

 

 

 

I can hear the sound of waves touching my heart, selfishly aimless like drops of rain.

The setting sun quietly reassures itself of everything, then sinks into the distant sea, as if giving it a kiss.

Wandering towards the dream of a never-ending future.

Da na na na, da na na…

 

___ Kaze wa Mirai ni Fuku (ending credits to the Trigun anime, second non-televised part, roughly translated to English).

 

 

 

 

Time had done what he could not, its relentless march destroying all that was once pristine, entropy walking proudly forward. Not even the minions he’d sent to storm the castle an age ago could have done what time had done. Funny, he thought, that his old adversary had been the “Hero of Time.” The boy had traveled through time only to assure the decay it wrought over everything. This place was frozen, a frozen carcass left on the wayside while the world above knew only legends.

 

Ganondorf wandered through the ruins of Hyrule Castle’s great hall, observing the worn carpets and the tapestries that hung in tatters. It was most fortunate for him that he’d found his way here after that overweight dragon had burnt his sanctuary at the Fortress. As it was, he did not need that place any longer. That dragon… even the patron deities of the races were growing old and complacent from the long peace. Entropy marched above the waves, as well.

 

Once he’d brought the full light of the sun upon the land again and made it his, everything would be set to the way it should be. It was silent in this hall. Ganondorf could hear the subtle, soft sound of magic, but otherwise, this place was as quiet and as still as a tomb.

 

There was no wind here.

 

He looked up at the statue that was the central feature of the great hall. He smiled broadly. His eyes went to the sword the figure held up in triumph and the Gerudo king remembered how it felt embedded in him. Oh, but he was standing here in flesh, bone and blood while the Hero was only a memory cast in bronze, as static as his surroundings. Link, this one, anyway, was long gone. Ganondorf was alive and here.

 

“Who won in the end, Hero?” Ganondorf said, addressing the bronze and laughing. “Hyrule will be mine in the end, because I am alive to take it. You saved your land only for me to watch it drown. Oh, I’ll bring our land back, but it will be mine, boy, it will be mine, along with its beautiful wind.”

 

Ganondorf paused. He thought he heard something distant and familiar – wind in the grass. He felt a subtle tickle around his body. He saw his robe lift suddenly, then fall.

 

“What is that you say?” Ganondorf questioned, “You say that the wind blows to the future. How quaint. I met a whelp that shared your name. Impetuous boy… rather like you were – a foolish brat. He’s merely a child of the islands… not strong. If he follows me here, this place will become his tomb… just as it is yours. Future… the future, indeed.”

 

Ganondorf let loose a chuckle. “You never realized what a legend you’d become, did you? They don’t know your name up there, but little boys play dress-up, trying to be like you though they do not know why. The details of history have been lost. Perhaps, if they’d known the whole story, children would dress up as me instead?”

 

The Gerudo king contemplated the bronze blade the Hero of Time statue was holding again. “The brat came after me with it,” he muttered, “a useless slat of iron… Fine for dispatching lesser beasts but a joke against me. I’d crippled it marvelously.”

 

The subtle wind swirled around him again. The moaning of the spirits of the slain echoed in his mind. He’d hear them whenever he lay down to sleep – haunting and melodic. Sages had such interesting ways, even in death. Stupid they were, indeed, if they thought they could make him feel guilt. He found the voices to be musical. They’d been sacrifices, yes… sacrifices for a better world, sacrifices for him and the memory of his people.

 

Ganondorf did not care about individuals. No one wielding true power such as his could. He’d sacrificed many beings for his dreams, over the ages. Many people, he knew, would say that what he did was not true sacrifice, as he gave the lives of others and not his own. It mattered not to him. All that would not bow to him needed to be crushed. That was what his beautiful, brutal world demanded. It wasn’t as though the Hylians had not crushed peoples and individuals under their feet for their dreams.

 

He sensed something very strong in the vicinity of the statue. His lip curled up in a sneer as he looked into the statue’s sad eyes. “You’re hiding something, aren’t you? Yes… I can feel my Power resonating…”

 

He stepped back a few feet and laughed darkly. “Yes… she is there. You’re nothing more than a useless memory, but you’re still protecting the princess. How terribly funny!”

 

Ganondorf mustered up the magical energy in his body, from his feet, thrumming through his chest and running through his arms. With one mighty push, he released it over the barrier surrounding the statue. He laughed as he watched the bronze crack in several places and break, sending the triumphant erstwhile Hero to the floor in large chunks, ringing upon the marble floor. The lower half of the statue remained upon the pedestal, which slid open, revealing stairs to a hidden room.

 

“But you’re dead,” Ganondorf said, approaching the pedestal and stairwell.

 

A female voice echoed from down in the chamber’s depths. “Link? Link, is that you?”

 

Ganondorf silently smiled as he made his quiet decent.

 

 

 

“I will not kill you. I only have need of the power you wield.”

 

He’d kept the princess alive to bring the boy to him. It was critical to keep the Triforce together. Killing one or the other of them might have sent their respective pieces off to unknown places out in the world and Ganondorf was too close to his dreams now to bother with tracking anything down. Perhaps killing the children would have simply brought their pieces of the Triforce into his hands, but at the moment, he felt he could not take the risk of the fragments dispersing elsewhere.

 

He’d tried to kill the boy several times – his magical beasts had tried and failed. It was only proof that the child was the chosen of the Goddesses and that he had what was needed. Maybe it was only nostalgia that kept him from slaying the boy. He saw in him his old adversary reborn and all of this felt like old times.

 

Did he miss Link? How absurd! Yet, he realized that he did. He’d missed the little brat of a princess, too. He knew that the child he’d tossed aside would regain his senses and probably try to fight him. He could kill him then, after he’d touched the full Triforce and made his wish. Maybe he’d let him live, then, just to watch the despair in his eyes. Surely, a life lived in failure was a crueler fate than dying upon a sword.

 

Ganondorf reached out to touch the sacred golden power only to find the hand of another upon it. With only a few words from King Daphnes, Ganondorf’s dreams shattered.

 

Another lifetime lived in failure.

 

A future for the children at their feet.

 

He would have his revenge. He’d make sure at least one of those children had no future. The boy stared at him with grim determination even as he dodged his twin swords.

 

The sea was pouring down.

 

Light arrows sailed past his head. Zelda had terrible aim.

 

Ganondorf’s eyes locked with Link’s and locked with Zelda’s. The three fought, a reflection of a past age. Each of them stared into the never-ending future, into the tomorrow that stretches on endlessly.

 

 

END.

 

(The strangely appropriate song lyrics at the head? They were for an anime set on a desert planet with no oceans)!

 

 

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