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Rauru really had left him no other choice.
He had condemned his own Kingdom to ruin the moment he had stood against Ganondorf. If the Zonai really thought he had any chance to win, then he really gave the Gerudo no other choice but to enlighten him on how wrong he really was.
Ganondorf was a Commander among his people. He had laid out all the pieces carefully, had studied the playing field thoroughly. He would allow no weak link in his strategy, he would give no openings.
The Hyrule King had invited him over to play the game. He had made the first move. A simple, easy, predictable move. Corresponding of a coward like him.
The Gerudo King had his counterattack planned. It would have been effective if only the Zonai didn’t have to rely on cheating. Introducing a new piece to the board once the game had started wasn’t the most sporting of moves, after all.
It didn’t matter. The match had just started. A good strategist could adapt easily, after all.
This new strategy required him to play nice, so Ganondorf swallowed down the bile and knelt in front of the King.
That shiny little new piece glared at him from the King’s side.
Well then, Ganondorf thought as he analyzed the board in front of him once again, if he really had no other choice than to suck up to these idiots, then he might as well get something out of it.
Seducing Zelda was the most enjoyable part of his strategy.
There she was, one of the King’s pawns, beautiful and docile. She didn’t trust him at first, cleverly deducing he had veiled intentions under his diplomatic guises.
Still, Ganondorf prided himself on being both patient and observant. Two things stood out to him clearly. Things he planned to use in his favor.
She obviously did not belong there. Sure, she spent time with both the Queen and the King’s sister. And often, she would be sought out by other courtiers of the King, hoping to get the young lady’s favor.
Ganondorf could see she was lonely.
They had used some ridiculous story to explain where the girl had come from. It did not really make sense when it was torn apart, but Ganondorf kept quiet. Whatever the truth was, it was evident the girl was far from home.
The second thing he noticed actually surprised him. At the beginning of his stay at Hyrule Castle, he had heard Zelda tell Koume and Kotake that she possessed a little magic. Rauru proceeded to jump into the conversation, claiming that Zelda was very diligent in her training and had improved greatly.
The patronizing edge in his voice as he spoke and the way the girl seemed to take his interruption as a compliment made Ganondorf believe the girl was a novice. Her power must be marginal, he thought, barely amplified by the secret stone that hung around her neck.
Oh, how wrong he was.
He really should have known just how stupid the Hyrulian King could be, to dismiss the amount of power the girl contained. It was the fact that Zelda believed her power to be so little, though, that had him fall for the lie in the first place. After all, someone as clever as she was would not be so easily misled.
She stepped out of the training grounds, a hint of sweat on her brow and an incredible level of power just brimming underneath her skin.
It made his hands twitch.
Zelda saw him standing there, watching her intensely and she ducked down into a quick curtsy, as if ashamed to be seen by him.
“Why do you hold back so much of your power?” He asked, just as she had gone past.
She froze, but she turned to look at him with a mix of distrust and confusion. “I don’t understand what you mean, Your Majesty.”
“I’m not going to tell Rauru, you know.” Ganondorf said. “I just don’t understand why you are wasting your time training against his men, when you could clearly overpower them easily.”
Zelda shook her head, “I’m sorry, your Majesty. I have been trying to improve so as not to be a burden to the King and Queen who have taken me in so generously, but I still have a long way to go.”
Ganondorf saw red.
In an instant, he had encroached her space, relishing the shocked little gasp he received as he forced her to take a step back, until she was pressed against the wall.
He towered over her, and still there was no hint of fear in her as he reached for her wrist. Instead she glared at him with fire in her eyes.
Good.
“You may have other idiots fooled, My Lady, but I will not fall for your little tricks.” With his thumb, he forced her hand opened and called her magic forth.
It responded beautifully to his summons, as a flash of golden light surrounded them completely.
Zelda snatched her hand out of his grip, holding it tightly against her chest. She looked at him and for the first time since he met her, there was a flash of something resembling fear.
He pushed her farther into the wall, leaning down so he could whisper directly into her ear. The scent of her drove him wild, pushing errant thoughts into his mind.
How easy it would be to push her further, to hold her tightly against the wall, to press his mouth against her and taste her magic as it mixed with her blood.
“Like I said, you can play your little games with Rauru, my lady, but you will not be able to hide your secrets from me.” He pushed away from her, needing to clear his head of the images that were brought up simply just being in her presence.
Ganondorf turned to walk away. Her voice stopped him, soft still but full of fire, as she spoke. “It’s strange, Your Majesty.”
“What’s strange, My lady?” He said, turning to look at her studying him carefully.
“The expanse of my magic is not really common knowledge, as you said. I’m not intentionally hiding it from King Rauru, though. It’s just… not very practical.”
He was starting to get annoyed. “What do you mean?”
“You see, my magic serves a very specific purpose. And it is not as easily invoked.” Zelda’s gaze seemed to be holding him in place. “It is a sort of sealing magic, meant for something big.”
“It usually only reacts to the presence of a great evil.”
At that, he could only laugh.
She was the one that came to him after that. As they spoke more, it was easy to steer this girl exactly where he wanted.
He talked about the desert, and his family. He talked about the hardships the Gerudo had undergone the past few years. He painted a picture for her of a Gerudo man forced to take action under Hyrule’s conquests.
While some of that was true, he opted to omit the desire he felt to take this wretched Kingdom for himself. For it to be his and ruled only by him, just to then watch it all burn.
And she, such a hopeful little creature, believed him. To her, he was a wounded animal, who could be nursed back to health and guided to a different path.
He used that against her easily, slipping closer and closer until he got beyond her defenses. There, he took what he hungered for.
At first, fucking Zelda was his own personal form of revenge. There he was, turning Rauru’s precious pawn into a doll for his own pleasure.
He’d suck angry marks into her neck and leave finger shaped bruises on her thighs, as if to mark her as his.
He’d hold her down for hours, drawing orgasm after orgasm from her, drinking down her essence, reveling in her shameless pleasure.
He’d use her mouth roughly, fucking into it as he pushed further down her throat, and the sounds of her choking and her tears would only serve to excite him more.
Then he’d fuck her over and over again, relishing in the sight of his seed deep inside her.
And she saw through him, he knew, but still she let him into her room night after night. Still, she pulled him down and responded to his kisses hungrily. Still, she was always soaking for him as he sunk into her warm heat.
Still, she would sigh or scream or cry his name into his mouth as she came.
He supposed both of them kept expecting to fuck the other into submission. At one point, he was sure both of them knew it could not be done.
Still, neither pushed the other away.
It became a game to Ganondorf, to see just how far he could push her, how far she was willing to let him go.
The Hylian King invited him to a hunt. “It’s become a bit of a tradition, you see. To celebrate the founding of Hyrule there will be a big feast. To prepare for that, some of us go out to hunt for a stag or a boar that can be used for the meal. It’s turned into this big competition, you see, to see who can hunt down the biggest or the most amount of game. All guests in the castle are welcome to come.”
“It sounds delightful,” said Ganondorf, trying not to let out his disgust bleed through. And these people considered him barbaric.
So the Gerudo found himself surrounded by Hylian idiots mounted on their steeds, bragging about the number of kills they had gotten other years and how their superior hunting skills would surely outshine the others. The ladies of the court, who in Hyrule’s backwards culture were not deemed suited for such events had stayed behind at the palace.
They were waiting for the King to start the event, but he seemed to be waiting for something, as the men started growing more restless.
“Ah, finally,” King Rauru called out attention to the newest addition to their group. “Lady Zelda, we were waiting for you.”
“I apologize for my tardiness, Your Majesty.” Zelda said, ignoring the murmurs around her. Her hair was slightly messy, and there was a slight blush dusted across her cheeks, but she sat straight as she addressed the King.
“Are you joining us in the hunt, My lady?” Ganondorf said. In public, the two of them kept appearances. While they didn’t avoid each other completely, nobody would think the two of them were close.
“No, Your Majesty, but since the group is headed to the Great Plateau, I asked the King if I could ride along with you. There’s something I’ve been meaning to look into there but King Rauru insists that it wouldn’t be safe for me to make the journey alone.”
“Of course not, Zelda.” The Hylian King said, as if he were talking to a misbehaving child. “There are many monsters in the plateau and shades too. You have improved greatly, but we wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”
Ganondorf clenched his fist, wanting nothing more than to crush the man’s skull. How Zelda took such insults with grace, he could not understand.
With that, the hunt officially began. The group moved as one until they reached a certain spot. Already, the idiots were fighting over where they would go, what spots they claimed were the best.
Zelda was quiet during the ride, a strange, far away melancholy seemed to be on her mind. As soon as they reached camp, she got permission to leave off to her own exploration while the others were waiting for the King’s signal.
A horn was sounded, as both hunters and prey scattered away. Ganondorf had his own prey in mind.
Zelda had not gone far, but she had moved rather quickly. Still, with how strong her magic was and how acquainted Ganondorf had become with her, there was no hiding from him.
There was no marked path, nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, but Zelda had gone straight to this particular point. He left his horse tied next to hers and wondered over to the ledge. From there, he could probably be able to see the entire expanse of the Kingdom.
All that would one day be his.
But at that moment, he had something else he wanted to claim.
Beyond some vines and in an otherwise inconspicuous location, there was a cave. How Zelda had ever known to come straight to this point, he did not know.
He walked in a little until he found her. A row of Brightbloom seeds guided his path forward until he reached a large chamber where a Zonai lamp had been placed in the corner. She was kneeling down at the edge of a small spring, just big enough to swim in, that was bubbling.
“You cannot tell me you were willing to come all this way and endure the presence of so many Hylian idiots for a chance to find a hidden bathing pool, were you My Lady?” Ganondorf asked, part teasingly, part genuinely curious.
She looked at him with a strange expression. Still, she did not seem surprised to see that he had followed her.
“It’s supposed to be a very powerful healing spring,” she said, with that far away look in her eyes. “I truly did not know if I would find something here at all, but I just had to check.”
Hesitantly, she stretched out her hand, fingertips barely skimming the surface.
He came forward, until he was close enough to touch her.
Without saying a word, he started undoing the belt that held the scabbard of his sword. He had forgone most of his jewelry for the sake of the hunt, as much as he hated doing it. Dressing so casually made him feel…dirty.
He felt her eyes on him, looking at him closely.
Ganondorf could have tried to justify the need inside of him. Again and again he had told himself that the only reason why he was still sleeping with Zelda was that one day it would serve to his advantage. He enjoyed having control over her, making a mess of this perfect little creature, laying a claim on her.
He could try to fool himself into thinking that it was still part of his strategy. But as those clever eyes studied him carefully, he knew it would just be a waste of time.
So there was no rational excuse for the overpowering need he had for her. He might as well give in.
He started undoing the knot of his robe and the cloth wrapped around his waist when she finally asked, “What are you doing?”
“Well,” he said, “Don’t you want to find out if these are actual healing springs? We wouldn’t want to waste the huge risk you took to get here by yourself, isn’t that right, my lady?”
Finally, finally, he saw Zelda’s jaw tighten in indignation.
“And how do you suppose we do that?” She said, a hint of annoyance creeping into her tone.
He sat down facing her, still towering over her. Reaching into the pile of his belongings, he pulled out a small dagger he carried. Ganondorf took off the cover, studying the blade carefully.
Even then she did not show fear, even as she watched his movements. The fact that she still seemed weary, though, he did enjoy slightly.
Almost casually, he tossed the dagger into the air, catching it by the blade between his fingers and offering it to her by the handle.
Unsure, she took it, looking at the blade and then back at him.
He held out his hand wordlessly.
“The engraving.” She said instead. “Power. Did you have it commissioned especially?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly. It always shocked him when she reminded him she spoke Gerudo. It was one of those pieces of her that made no sense. Again he held out his hand.
She studied the sharp blade, not looking at him.
Instead, she ran expanse of her palm along the edge, pressing until it drew blood.
It stained the steel red. For a second, Ganondorf was almost expecting to see it stained gold.
He was about to speak, to say that it was not his intention to have her spill her own blood, when she stood up.
Looking at him directly, she stood in front of him, reaching out to press her bloody hand against his cheek to make him look up at her.
Goddesses, the look she gave him, it was like she was looking straight into his soul.
So busy he was lost in her gaze that he had forgotten about the blade in her hand until he felt the cold steel of it pressed against the very pulse of his neck.
He froze.
Part of him thought she was incapable of pushing any further. As much as he loathed to admit it, maybe there was a part of him that believed she cared for him, that his careful planning had worked.
The other part of him wondered how he was still alive.
He could have pushed her away easily. He could have taken the dagger from her and pinned her against the ground, pressing the blade to her neck in a mirror image of how he was at the moment, just to see how she liked to be on the other side of it.
Just as easily, he could have killed her quickly, sealing her body in this strange tomb of hers. Hers would be the first blood spilled in the war, as Rauru finally got the perfect excuse to fight him.
He supposed he could have done all those things, that he should have been able to do any of them.
Instead, he was sitting there frozen, locked in her gaze. He did not even dare breathe as she pushed the dagger just a little further into his pulse.
“Zelda,” he choked out, unable to do anything else.
Then, without the bravado he wanted to put behind the words, he said, "You wouldn't."
She was looking down at him so intensely, "Wouldn't I?" She murmured.
Without moving the blade from his skin she bent down, kissing him cruelly.
It was at that moment that he was finally able to move. Except that instead of doing anything to escape the danger of the blade, of her, he kissed her back.
Just as gently, just as hungry.
The blade was tossed to the side, as his arms reached up to pull her into his lap and her hands buried themselves in his hair.
Earlier he had taken off his robe in an attempt to bait her into something.
As a way to forget the earlier annoyance of having to deal with the Hylians.
As a way to tell her that Rauru was a fool with how quickly he belittled her.
But now there was no other excuse than the overwhelming need for her as her blood stained his skin and his pulse still rushed under her touch.
She ducked down to the crook of his neck as they both tried to catch their breath. She bit down hard at his pulse point where he was sure she had managed to nick the skin with the blade. Her hands were fumbling with the knot of his trousers while he was too impatient to take off her dress properly, instead just pulling down from the top to release her breasts and push the skirt up until he could feel her warm skin.
He let out a loud groan as she placed a gentle kiss on the skin of his neck.
With that she was finally able to pull him out completely. She lifted her hips a little and he distracted with a kiss to stop her from impaling herself on his member.
“You impatient little thing,” he said against her mouth, using his fingers to push her underwear aside and sink into her heat. She was already starting to get wet from him, and as much as she seemed to enjoy the stretch of him inside of her, he always tried to make sure she well prepared.
He might not have been a good person, but he was no monster.
And he enjoyed torturing her a little, suckling and biting down on her exposed nipples as she rose up to pull him harder against her.
“Gan, please.” She sighed after a while, hand on his cheek again to make him look up at her.
They met in the middle with a kiss, the first unhurried motion since they had started.
She reached down to guide him to her entrance as she began to sink down.
They both groaned as he entered her, slowly, bit by bit, until he was fully inside.
In this position, he was able to reach the furthest depths of her, feeling as she clenched tightly around him. Her head was thrown back in pleasure.
He prided himself on his patience, but he was slowly losing his mind as he waited for her to move.
As if she knew what it was taking everything in him not to toss her to the ground where he could thrust into her at the speed he needed at the moment, she looked at him again.
Slow, almost calm, she kissed him gently amongst the raging storm of need and desire inside of him.
It was simultaneously the best and the worst feeling in the world, as every fiber of his being rejected this softness.
Still, before he could implode, she began to move.
Zelda lifted herself up slowly, all the way up until just the tip of him was inside her. With the same agonizing pace, she sunk back down.
Ganondorf could do nothing but pant against her mouth as he was once again enveloped in her heat.
It was then that her own need caught up to her, as she began to ride him quickly, chasing down her pleasure.
He reached for her hips, barely helping her set her rhythm. Her hand came to press against his chest, as if needing to feel the pulse she had so nearly taken from him.
“You feel so good,” she said, breathlessly.
“It’s because you were made for me,” he said, trying to sound more in control, to gain the upper hand. He was completely helpless to her.
And because she seemed adamant to finish him off one way or another, she lifted herself up again. Slowly, agonizingly slow, all the way off and all the way on over and over again. Zelda was touching herself as she moved, as Gan could do nothing but watch transfixed until she finally sunk back down completely and came around him.
As her walls clenched around him, his self-restraint finally broke, and he could do nothing as his orgasm shattered him into a million pieces.
For a second there was nothing but her, and her warmth still around him as he sought her mouth for a gentle kiss.
Then, as they finally broke apart, he helped her get to her feet. They both let out a quiet laugh as her legs wobbled slightly and she began pulling her clothing back into its proper place.
He too started to get up when, at the same time, they noticed the huge red stain against the white cloth of her dress.
It was like reality came crashing down at once.
She froze, poised as if to defend herself against what he might do.
He looked down and saw the blade at his side, both of their blood mixing along the edge.
With a sigh, he bent down to pick it up, studying it for a second before looking her way. She was staring at him, not at the blade in his hand.
There was no fear in her eyes, not even then.
Shit.
“You might want to try to get the stain off your dress,” Ganondorf said. There was a strange knot in his throat but he forced the words out. He pocketed the blade without bothering to clean it. “It’ll be easier than having to explain to the King how his fragile charge got hurt.”
Zelda had a calculating look on her face but said nothing as she nodded.
Then, as if she only did it to drive him closer to insanity, she completely turned her back to him, as she knelt down to place her injured hand inside the water.
The blade in his pocket was threatening to burn a whole through his leg.
He should have killed her then. If only to teach her to never turn her back to her enemy.
Because that’s what he was. All he knew for certain was that he was her enemy. As she was his.
The very essence of her magic was an attack to his.
It was a miracle she had not burned through him already.
Shit.
It seemed like once again the nature of the playing field had changed.
Where he had once thought her a pawn, nothing more than one of Rauru’s insignificant pieces, he now realized she was a Queen, a commander in her own right, making calls and moves beyond what Rauru or even Ganondorf himself could truly comprehend.
How easily he had gotten caught up in her game, even when he had thought he had rigged the game in his favor.
Still, as she turned to look at him and showed him the perfectly flawless and now completely healed palm of her hand, with such a warm smile on her face, he knew it was no used pretending.
He was utterly fucked.
It seemed like finally he had met a worthy opponent on the battlefield. And it would be a shame for him to give up so easily.
So he changed his strategy again. Her blood on the blade turned out to be just the right ingredient he needed for his new plan.
After all, not even the best of magic could make something out of nothing. Gloom and just a drop of blood, however, could make lifelike puppets he could use.
With this new plan, time moved forward quickly.
Queen Sonia’s blood stained his hands. A queen taken from the board, almost easily.
The power from her secret stone was addicting. Now that it belonged to him, he had no doubt it had been meant to be his all along.
Rauru dared to stand against him and there was a part of Ganondorf that hated how easily he would finally defeat him.
Except that he had forgotten it was no longer just the two of them playing this game. Zelda did something that took the three of them away before Ganondorf could deliver that final blow.
It seemed like the game would continue on.
He sent his archfiends and his armies to wreak havoc across the Kingdom. He watched as Zelda and her allies fought for control over the land.
Ganondorf rejoiced in their battle. Moves and countermoves, when performed with a worthy opponent, were some of life’s greatest pleasures.
Soon enough, it would be time for them to finally meet. He had no doubt Zelda was also preparing for this moment.
Something had changed the moment he got the stone, though. It was strange, all the power that was now flowing through him was making him slip in and out of consciousness. It was like a thick haze had overcome his mind, now overwhelmed with the rage and anger that had once fueled him. He was thirsty for blood and still he knew that no matter how much he spilled, it would never fully satisfy him.
Maybe he should try to steal another stone. If one already granted him so much more power, another would truly make him invincible.
The thought of taking it from one of Rauru’s “sages” made him sick. Even taking Rauru’s himself would not satisfy him at all.
No, he needed Zelda’s. He needed hers specifically and to consume her and her magic and the very image of her that seemed to haunt him everywhere he went in that wretched castle.
And then all of a sudden she was right there, standing in front of him.
“Well now, my lady, this is an unexpected surprise.” He said, still trying to decide if this was a figment of his imagination or the real thing. It was something he found himself doing more and more as the haze grew thicker.
The fire in her eyes told him it was the real thing. As hard as he had tried, he had been unable to capture that in his puppets.
“King Rauru refuses to listen,” she said, almost conversely, as if they were just chatting once again in the walls of the castle, as they had done so many times before. “So I’m hoping that maybe you will.”
“What do you mean?” He managed to ask her, trying to make sense of her words.
“I’m from the future, Ganondorf.” Her words sounded truthful, even if she was speaking about something impossible. “10,000 years in the future to be exact. You have to listen to me. You fight this war but you do not win. Neither do we, ok? Nobody wins. The only thing I know is that all this hatred, all this, curses the land over and over again. Even in my time, it is poisoning our Kingdom, hurting our people. It grows to be an evil that completely destroys Hyrule. Please, if there is something I can do to stop it from happening, then I must do everything I can.”
“10,000 years?” He wants to tell her that she’s being ridiculous but something in the haze tells him she is telling the truth.
Instead of being relieved that someone is finally listening to her, Zelda frowns as she looks at him. “You are no longer you.” She said, “You feel… different. The stone has corrupted you hasn’t it?”
“Corrupted me?” He let out a cruel laugh. “No, my lady, but it has finally allowed me to see what my destiny is.”
He reached out to lift her chin with the tip of his claw. “I have to finish what I started. There is no going back now, even if my future is to fall.”
“Then kill me,” she said, the desperation evident in her voice. “You said that there is no choice. Fine. Go on, what’s the difference between killing me now or later in the battlefield?”
He snapped his teeth in her direction, “So you would just give up? Just like that? I thought, no, I had hoped you would be different. I thought I had finally met a worthy opponent.”
He grasped her face in his hand roughly, forcing her to look up at him.
And even like this, with all his true colors on display, there was no trace of fear as she looked at him with something he could swear was pure hatred.
Overjoyed, he leaned down to kiss her. That would be his prize, what he would demand from her in her defeat. One last taste before his eternal sentence.
At first she fought against him, but soon enough she melted against him, pushing herself closer, letting him in.
Maybe he should kill her, if only to punish her for the way she made him so desperate for more with a single touch. How he longed to sink into her once more, to have her and only her for the rest of his existence.
The shock of the cold steel against his pulse did not surprise him. What did surprise him was that he found himself unable to move under her power.
Now, with all the fire behind it, he spit out, "You wouldn't," against her lips.
"Oh, wouldn't I?" she asked softly.
This time, she did not hesitate as she dragged the metal across his skin. The only thing that stopped him from bleeding out was the same magic she was using to hold him in place.
“I cannot hold you there for long.” She said, the bloodied weapon still in her hand as she caresses his cheek. There were tears in her eyes.
“For what it’s worth, there was a part of me that hoped things might have been different.”
With that she left, using that strange magic of hers to travel out of the room. She did not look back at him.
As he started choking on his own blood, he remembered the place she had shown him. With his new powers, it was only a second before he collapsed into the spring.
Even the most powerful healing spring could not bring back the dead. This one, however, was no regular spring.
Ganondorf had no idea how much time had happened but he emerged from the water with a war cry as his lungs battled once again to breathe. He reached up to touch his throat.
For the first time since he had gotten the stone, his mind was finally clear. He had no doubt the haze would reappear soon enough.
They would meet each other in the battlefield soon enough, and it would be as if that little moment between them had never happened. Zelda had lost the bet she had made. But even with that all she did was manage to lure him straight to where she wanted him.
After all, he had finally decided what to do.
His path forward would remain the same. There was no other way to go.
There were only a few pieces left on the board, and it was his turn. Still, no matter what he chose to do, it would only lead to his ruin.
It was the risk he had accepted when he decided to play the game, after all.