Chapter Text
The hills of Sanidin were picturesque in any season. Late autumn winds kindled fiery beauty everywhere, and autumn wildflowers bloom in every pasture and hedgerow. Even cottage gardens overflowed with the last vibrant flourish of life for the season, gourd vines crawled over their fences and orchards of apple and pear sweetened the chill breeze with their heavy harvests.
The days grew shorter, but the river of time seemed lazy about pulling the setting sun below the dramatic rust-stained cliffs of Hyrule’s most dangerous neighbor. Zelda spent much of the last nine months longing to cross the Thundering River and see the land herself. So many pages she read praising the beauty and bounty of the golden lands, in books and in letters. The most recent of which crinkled in her pocket with every graceful stride of her ghost-gray hunter.
Impa and her three best apprentices rode behind her, a square on point armed to the teeth and anxious for the ambush they expected to meet somewhere along this winding trail through vast acres of artful park-lands and sprawling estates.
They met no one at all after the last Exchange town but simple people and lesser gentry. Everyone had been polite, and the post-inns linking the capital even to most remote provinces have been quaint, but comfortable. Zelda could not imagine a rustic excursion much more idyllic than this one. Even the weather was perfect, drizzling a bit in the evenings and foggy in the morning, but not enough to spoil the journey.
She rehearsed the plan a hundred more times as the otherworldly charm of twilight layers veils over gentle hills and mysterious groves.
He will meet her at the bend in the road that is not a branching path. He will meet her under the shadow of Risoka escarpment, where the tame forests of fair green Hyrule make a holloway. Not upon or even near the broad flat highway supporting the commerce of this sleepy little province, but in the middle of the winding scenic meander that threads between the holdings of peerage and gentry and common folk fortunate enough to keep a piece of Sanidin in their own humble families. This road connected royal tracts one to the next like the beads of a hundred tangled necklaces in the bottom of her least favorite jewelry box.
If steel is drawn on either side, she will urge her horse to bolt. He will chase her long enough to activate the magical shield in the trap crystal he sent her, and then he will turn back to persuade Impa if he can. He will rejoin her within the hour at the next bend and open a road through shadow to a safer place.
If everyone stays their hand, they will instead enjoy a leisurely twilight ride to see the pocket valley of rare flowers he claims to have found near an ancient border-stone, from the days their countries were friends and Sanidin was Geld’o grazing land.
Both the landscape and the invitation were achingly beautiful.
The path turned at last. The trees reached higher. The breeze was stilled by the lush, rust-kissed understory.
In the shadows of the next curve waited a shadow among deeper shadows. The heavy black horse pawed at the verge, looking for sweet clover to steal while her black-mantled rider was busy watching the princess of Hyrule enjoy a long ride abroad with her bodyguard.
Eight archers stepped down from their hiding places flanking the approach, every one of them veiled in purple — the color of mourning in his country, the color of royalty in hers — bearing heavy laminated recurve bows and gilded quivers marking them as expert marksmen.
Markswomen.
All adult Geld’o but one are women by custom. All avadha wear whatever raiment suits her taste and profession and dresses her hair as she pleases, and they are all sisters by law and by creed, all daughters of the Mother of Sands, formed in Her image.
The one exception must win his Name, his rank, his privilege, and his burden through arduous and deadly Trials of strength and skill, and still his sisters will only hail him a prince until he has demonstrated his mastery of all eight virtues in their religion, and not only opened the Forge of Kings with the hearts of three leviathan monsters but won from the mysterious Trials in that forge an indisputable token of the goddess’ favor.
Only then has he the right to wear the title King.
To become a Great King, he must strive still further, finding in the trackless sands all eight shrines where the crowns are hidden after the funeral of the last, and overcome the enchanted guardians watching over them. It is written that these guardians may be demons, or spirits, or undead warriors sworn eternally to their duty. The translation is not clear, and the faithful correspondent politely bowing in the saddle and gesturing in wordless welcome answered her questions with the cryptic: it is a Mystery.
The archers — dhana, her books said — nodded to her in respect, their bright eyes wary, their bowstrings relaxed. Only a fool would dismiss the threat they embody.
A Zelda must be many things, but she does not survive to carry her title into the future if she is a fool.
She tried to persuade Impa to trust her judgment. Dozens of tearful evenings talking over the circumstance, even dragging Link into one particularly wretched argument. The faithful Sheikah who has been guard and governess and second mother for half her life does not trust the dark sorcerer who reigns over the vast and challenging western lands.
They have learned side by side that the common Hylian understanding of the leeward side of the red western cliffs is not at all correct: though the rain shadow creates a treacherous desert below the highlands, the golden lands encompass also vast fertile steppes and plateaus and canyons and oasis and mountains. Though the Geld’o tribes do raid when the need is great, and their laws on paper seem incredibly harsh, and only some live in permanent settlements, they are not now and never have been the primitive, bloodthirsty bandits outsiders think they are.
Yet Impa felt certain the invitation to meet outside the formality of the summit was a trap. She could not shield her charge through the gauntlet by mundane means, but the shadow arts of the Sheikah extended further than anyone but another Sheikah master — and some particularly lucky Zeldas over the ages — ever learned.
“The only danger you face in this place, you bring with you,” said the Great Ganondorf at last, as they slowed their horses to a walk. “I keep my vows, even — and perhaps especially — the wicked ones.”
“So you have said,” snapped Impa in Zelda’s voice.
Golden eyes smiled under the heavy silk cowl of his vast black mantle. He gestured to the road ahead, inviting them wordlessly to pass.
Zelda stopped when her ghost gray mare was nearly nose-to-nose with his shaggy black mare. She let them sniff each other, waiting silently as was proper for a royal guard.
“You will explain yourself and your business, trespassing on our land and daring to accost us like some baseborn highwayman,” said Impa in Zelda’s voice.
Ganondorf looked only at her. His eyes said he was not fooled by the layered illusion charms, and his silence said he paid her the compliment of maintaining the polite fiction until she chose to discard it. “There is a blossom of unmatched beauty which cannot bloom in cultivation. In fact, the humble plant Farore designed will withdraw her vigor and hibernate under the veil of Din’s red earth until the soil has lain untouched by mortal hands for seven years. Only then, when the Order of — hn — civilization has withdrawn will she flourish again, and unfurl petals of blue so radiant the very stars should bow to her radiance. It is my desire to lead the Sacred Maiden to this treasure and hear her opinion of it.”
“You are a scoundrel pretending your purpose to be innocent,” said Zelda in Impa’s voice, scowling as fearsomely as she could manage. Which was not very. He remained just as dangerously charming as before. Zelda prayed the illusion would help her intimidate him, even a little. “Underestimate our strength at your peril, witch.”
“Hn,” he said, lifting his twisted black horsehair reins lightly. “A king never wastes wind on one thing when he can say three.”