Ganondorf King Of Evil
Legacy Name: Ganondorf King Of Evil

The man whose lust for power had nearly destroyed the kingdom was silent. He glanced up, his yellow eyes roving over the assembled group of six. The tiny runt half-hidden behind a tall, stern woman with blood-red eyes. The shapely woman with gossamer fins trailing from her limbs. The white-haired elder who'd just addressed him. The wretch from his own people who had betrayed the man who should have been her king and god. The massive brute who looked to have been chiseled from the mountain stone itself.

The finned woman stepped forward."For these crimes, you have been sentenced to death," she continued, her violet eyes as cold as the ice that bound her people. As she stood glaring at him, a long sword appeared in the air in front of her; its blade looked as if it were made from pure light. She grasped the glowing hilt of the weapon and stepped forward, thrusting it into his chest.

Pain burst through his body, turning his blood to hellish fire. The infernal flames ravaged him from the inside out, consuming him. He could not think beyond the agony. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped against his bonds limply. At that moment, it seemed as though Hyrule's great terror would never wreak havoc again.

Then one finger twitched.
Another.
An olive-skinned hand clenched into a fist of murderous rage.

As the seal of the Goddess of Power burst into light on the back of Ganondorf's hand, the Sages realized their mistake. Horrified, they watched the impaled criminal strain against the golden links, until the first chain burst apart. He snarled loudly, straining against the second chain for a few moments before it too snapped. Now free, the Gerudo rushed forward, slamming into the Sage of Water and ending her life with no more than a blow from his fist.

Panic broke out. The Sages of Shadow and Fire stepped back, aghast. The Sage of Forest gave voice to a shriek of pure terror. The Sage of Light stared in horror at the fallen body of the Sage of Water. The Sage of Spirit lunged forward, her face twisted into a snarl.

Ganondorf ripped the blade from his chest, brandishing it. The Spirit Sage rushed to meet him with scimitars at the ready, but was called back. She followed the pointing hand of the Sage of Light, to the cursed mirror behind them. The five who remained focused their power, and though he struggled to resist it, the Evil King found himself pulled back through the glowing portal that formed. His body burst into countless shards, flying away to the land where the Goddesses had sealed those who sought their power once before.

But this is not the end of Ganondorf's story.
And neither is it the beginning.
He had not always been a ruthless madman with a lust for domination.
Years before that failed execution had taken place, Ganondorf had been a man with honorable goals and intentions, adored by his people.

The Gerudo Desert was harsh and barely habitable. In the day, the sands were scorched by the merciless sun; in the night, the cold and distant moon offered no warmth as the desert froze. The only source of water--aside from rare, small oases buried in the brutal, cursed, storm-torn wasteland--was a thundering river. The old folktales told of conditions far worse back in their old homeland, which was said to have been across a distant sea, but as the boy grew into the man would shake the Sacred Realm, he began to wonder if such a thing were possible.

His mother had died shortly after he was born--complications from the birth that not even the skilled Gerudo midwives could reverse. Two of the tribe's elders--the sorceress sisters, Koume and Kotake--had taken it upon themselves to raise him. The sisters, collectively known as Twinrova, were two of the most powerful sorceresses that the Gerudo had ever seen. Under the tutelage of his surrogate mothers, Ganondorf would develop and expand his mastery of magic to become just as powerful as they were, if not more so.

As the lone male born once a century, Ganondorf was their prince. Every woman in the Fortress loved him from the moment of his birth, and the Twinrova sisters assured him that he deserved their love and devotion. "You will be the greatest King our people have ever known," they told him every day. "You deserve nothing less than the world at your feet and all people to serve you."

A lofty dream, but an impossibility given the current situation. The Gerudo made their living largely by trade; their fine textiles and high-quality glasswares could fetch good prices. It wasn't always enough to fuel their population's growth, though, and the years where their future King was born and growing up, trade was at an incredible low. It wasn't unusual for women to go hungry as they gave what little food they had to their daughters. But of course, their young prince only saw this hunger. He never felt it for himself. Women without daughters gladly gave him their meals to keep him strong and well-fed as he grew.

Ganondorf grew up in the harsh and unforgiving desert with but one desire in his heart: Power.

Even as a child, he knew what Power did. Power gave authority and strength; it let those who wielded it be perfectly in control. The King of Hyrule commanded Power, which in turn let him command a mighty army of soldiers, which was really the only thing that could keep the Gerudo from rising up from their hostile desert and claiming the green fields of Hyrule for themselves.

He knew he had some degree of power here in the Desert. The women around him would obey his every request, no matter how silly it might be. More than once, he used that power for mischief, though he quickly learned that in their dire situation, the Gerudo often could not appreciate their future ruler's humor; he learned to withhold his pranks.

He also knew that if he had true Power, the Gerudo could leave behind the desert in favor of richer lands. No woman would ever have to give up a meal she desperately needed so that her daughter would not be hungry. They would not lose children to thirst, nor elders to the heat. They could finally thrive.

The boy wanted this more than anything. He would give anything to have Power for himself and his people.

Anything.

His fifteenth birthday marked a time of great importance in the young man's life. As boyhood had given way to adolescence, the Gerudo women had stopped bending to his whims. When he hit thirteen years of age, the women stopped obeying his commands completely. He was their prince; if he wanted any respect, he would have to become their King.

The female leader of the Gerudo, an aging woman by the name of Naveed, approached him the night before his birthday. She told him again what he already knew: That in order to regain the obedience of his people, he would have to prove himself worthy in their eyes. Out beyond the Haunted Wasteland lay the place that every male Gerudo went upon coming of age.

Naveed had handed him a satchel packed with the bare minimum of essentials. Enough water to last him to the Arbiter's Grounds--if he rationed it carefully and took only the most direct course--a meager amount of food, and a few bandages and salves. This and a weapon were the only things he was allowed to take with him.

The trip out to the Arbiter's Grounds was by far the easiest part of the rite. Once there, he could very well be killed before he reached the end, but such was the risk run by those men who wished to truly rule the Gerudo. The fierce race of warriors recognized skill, cunning, and strength, and respected it; only those who displayed all three in inhuman proportions could hope to be their King. They would gladly wait another century for another prince to be born, if it meant that new prince could survive and prove himself worthy of being their ruler.

On the day of his fifteenth birthday, armed with his favorite sword and all of the magic his mothers had dutifully taught him over the years, the prince of the desert had set out into the unforgiving wasteland that howled outside the Valley like a hungry ghost.

The journey was rough, but the Haunted Wasteland had been but a foretaste of the hardships ahead. He forced himself to keep going, despite adversity. In less than three days, he had reached the sprawling arena that marked the end of the first part of his trial.

Before the Haunted Wasteland became the dangerous place it was today, would-be Kings had had to face a slew of monsters in this arena, captured and forced upon them by the women they hoped to serve. The Gerudo in those days would be able to watch their rising leader prove himself worthy...or else see him be torn to shreds.

Today, though, making it through the wasteland and the Arbiter's Grounds was enough of a test. Princes needed only to take a piece of stone from the old walls of the arena; the pale sandstone was like no other, and the elders would compare the piece brought back to them with a piece they already had, to ensure that the prince had not simply knocked off a chunk of any old rock.

Closing his eyes, the youth unsheathed his sword and lunged forward. He brought the pommel smashing against the sandstone, again and again, hammering away at the wall. After a few minutes, he stopped and stepped back, his golden gaze falling to the floor of the arena. A smirk stretched across his face, and he bent down to pick up a piece of sandstone roughly the size of a child's fist, chipped from the wall by his own might.

Upon his return, Ganondorf ate dinner in triumph. Women hovered around him eagerly, offering him plates of his favorite meals; others simply hung onto him, leaning against their new King like friendly dogs. Later in life, he would regard that night as one of his finest, for that was the night that he became a god.

It was true that the Gerudo were skilled at keeping secrets, but that truly only extended to other people. Among their own, the desert women prized honesty and openness above all else. Lying was punished severely, even among young children.

The thought of lying to his people sickened him, but perhaps he would not have to lie at all. Lying was disgusting, but merely refraining from mentioning something was acceptable. He would still be keeping secrets from them, but that would be forgiven once his plan came to fruition. He was only doing it to help them, after all.

Rich merchants often traveled with bodyguards to discourage robbers. While deals were being worked out, Ganondorf spoke to some of these bodyguards, though not because he wished to recruit them. Bodyguards knew about bandits and thieves, and right now, that was what he wanted.

While the sandstorms were still calmed and the travel routes clear, Ganondorf had told his people he would be leaving them for a time. With fervent promises to return as soon as his business was tended to, he had left the Desert.

He traveled far, to the lands that lay on the other end of the Haunted Wasteland, and headed straight for the seedy underbelly of the desert town. There, tucked into a corner of a dingy pub, he found a few of the men he'd crossed the wasteland to find.

It took several rounds of alcohol, but finally, the thieves were sufficiently relaxed and inebriated that they were willing to hear him out. There, in the dark and smoky corner, he laid out his plans to bring his people to power.

The thieves listened to the youth, and when he finished, the oldest spoke up. "You're wise to start small," he said. "But perhaps you're starting too small. Thieves from a distant land? How is that going to help you? You need to rethink your execution of this plan, my friend, or else you'll wind up executed yourself."

"What must I do?"

The thief fell silent for a few minutes, staring at his empty mug. Smothering a sigh, Ganondorf called for another drink for him. The thief gave him a coy grin. "You'll need a place to keep them. Maybe that Fortress your people have."

"They can't stay at the Fortress. The others don't know about my plans."

The thief raised one eyebrow. "Aren't you Gerudo known for your honesty?"

Ganondorf flinched. "I haven't lied to them yet, and I've no intention of ever doing so."

"Whatever you say," the thief replied. "Lie or no lie, the point remains the same: You're going to have to find a place to house these thieves before you can truly go recruiting them."

Ganondorf had left that city a wiser, but poorer, man. He hated that he was returning from this trip without any gift for the little girls running around, but he knew he had something far more valuable than any material gift: a greater understanding of just what the Gerudo's rise to glory would take.

Koume struck upon an idea. The Spirit Temple was equidistant between the Fortress and the far cities. Food would need to be brought in, but there was a good water source within the walls of the Desert Colossus.

Ganondorf had vetoed the plan. The Spirit Temple was a sacred place; under the watchful gaze of the Goddess of the Sand, secret meetings would be blasphemous. Besides, it was the place where young women went for their coming of age rites. If they met there, and meetings overlapped with the ritual, they would be discovered.

"The Spirit Temple is larger than anyone in the Valley knows," Koume had assured her son, settling one gnarled hand on his shoulder. She looked over at her sister. "When we underwent the rite years ago, we discovered many hidden passages--one of which led to a large basement."

"I remember that." Kotake appeared at Ganondorf's other side. "Needs a little cleaning, but it will work. One of us will show you how to reach the passages."

The young King looked between his mothers. "The monsters," he pointed out dully. "They multiply; there's no way to kill them all. No one will want to meet inside a place so dangerous."

The twin sorceresses looked at each other, then back at their son. "Leave that to us, dear one," Koume assured him, patting his shoulder. "There are spells to control beasts, which you will learn in time."

Two weeks from that day, Ganondorf told the rest of the Gerudo that he would be leaving them again for a time. Women had asked why. He took a long breath to steady himself. "More business," he said.

As he trudged through the screaming sandstorms, those words played through his mind endlessly. It wasn't a lie, he told himself. What he was leaving to do was related to "business." It just wasn't that business. He'd told the truth. It was just their interpretation of the truth that wasn't right.

Once within the Spirit Temple, Ganondorf followed Koume in silent awe. Here was where women became true warriors...and where others met their demise. The Gerudo protected their own jealously, but they demanded strength from their warriors. It was the only way to ensure their survival in the harsh desert.

Koume stopped at the foot of the massive statue of the Goddess of the Sand. She left her son gawking up at the impressive figure and moved around to the wall behind the statue. "Here!" She pressed a hidden panel.

The ground gave a dangerous rumble, and it seemed as though the Temple would collapse under the shaking, but the young King held firm. He watched, awed, as a large panel of the floor slid back, revealing a flight of stairs.

Ganondorf followed his mother down the stairs, looking around at what the fire spell she cast revealed. The stairs led to a long hallway stretching back into darkness. Together with his mother, he investigated the rooms stemming from it. Bunks. A kitchen. A dining hall. Cells. A spring and baths.

All of this lay beneath the Spirit Temple? Koume chuckled softly. "Long ago, before this became the place for our rites of passage, it was well and truly a temple," she told him. "Women who had devoted themselves to the Goddess served here. This was where they lived, my son."

Ganondorf struggled to take all of this in. He managed to find his tongue, but only two words would cross it: "It's perfect."

Fairly early into this venture, Ganondorf realized he needed experience. He'd trained under the tribe's most elite warriors, but had never been in an actual battle. The people he was hoping to lead, on the other hand, had been in combat, risked their lives, and racked up scars.

He started raiding to grant him combat experience, earn him the respect of his band as their leader, and rake in plunder to pay them off. Raiding with his band was a new experience. In contrast to the Gerudo's belief of raids as a stealthy affair, the rogues he'd gathered saw it as a loud, raucous event with lots of blood spilling. He overcame his shock quickly, though. He had to be brutal if he wanted to garner the respect of these thieves. It was all for a greater good.

Ganondorf would use that "all for the greater good" argument to justify an action that would have caused the Gerudo to cry for his execution. On one of their raids, he struck down a woman.

There had been no avoiding it. She had been in his way, and he'd had no other choice but to kill her. "There's nothing back there!" she'd insisted. "I swear on my life, there is nothing in this room for you to take! Nothing of value!"

"Stand aside, and let me see that for myself," the rogue King said calmly. "I've no desire to harm you."

"There is nothing for you to take!" the woman stressed again. "Please, you've already stolen enough!"

"Stand. Aside," he snarled, beginning to lose his patience. "Every other house has kept its valuables in a room much like this one. If you are an honest woman, then there should be no reason for you to be so stubborn."

"I am an honest woman!"

"Then what are you hiding from me?"

"I hide nothing! I only say that there is nothing in my house left to steal!"

"Then let me by. If you are truly being honest, I will leave your property undamaged and be on my way!"

"Take me at my word!"

"I cannot."

"Why not? You are a Gerudo! You believe in the value of honesty!"

Ganondorf's temper crumbled, and he snatched the woman up by the throat. She retched and choked, her hands grasping at his powerful wrist. He held her up off the floor. "We believe in the value of honesty," he snarled, his hand wrapping tighter around her throat. "Others do not."

He crushed the life from her throat, then tossed her aside and stepped into the back room. There, he found a small hoard of valuables--an ingot of gold and a handful of silverware. All things the woman claimed she had not had.

Ganondorf told himself that the Goddess would forgive him. He had broken her most sacred code--that a sister must never be killed--but he had done so only to gain Power. For the good of his people.

Then, swallowing her fears, the young woman set out into the blinding sandstorm.

He hardly wanted to believe it, but the young woman who bounced off his chest and fell to the floor was undeniably the future female leader. Nabooru looked up at him; though her yellow eyes said she had no idea what was going on, the relief on her face said she expected a rescue. She scrambled to her feet and moved behind her King.

As the pursuing brigands thundered near, Ganondorf held out one hand. The three burly men halted at his command. He flicked his hand to dismiss them. While the three moved off, he looked back at his fellow Gerudo.

"Continue your rite," he said, starting to turn away from her.

"W-wait!" Nabooru laid a hand on his shoulder. "What just happened? Who are these men, and what are they doing in the Spirit Temple?"

"That is none of your concern," Ganondorf told her bluntly.

"Considering that I was forced to kill two of them for my own safety?" The Gerudo King whipped around, his yellow eyes wide. "And the fact that the ones who were just chasing me obeyed your commands? I'd think it is my concern."

Ganondorf stared at the young woman in silence for several moments. Two of his men, dead. She didn't know any better--she didn't know that she'd just slain two people who could have helped her King take Power--but the fact remained. "Continue your rite," he repeated. "No one will disturb you."

"Why? Because you told them to?"

"Yes."

"Why? Why do they listen to you? Ganondorf--"The King turned around, lashing out with one hand. He grasped her shoulder like an eagle grasps its prey. "It would be a shame, wouldn't it?" he asked softly. "If Naveed's student--the next-in-line to lead the Gerudo as head woman--did not return from her rite of passage?" Nabooru's eyes widened in shock. "The others wouldn't know. You wouldn't be the first one to die out here, sister. No one would think anything of it."

"G-Ganondorf," she whispered. "That....To kill a sister... Ganondorf, th-the code!"

"I know the code," he told her, somewhat coldly. "That is why you are still alive. And as long as you tell no one of this, you will stay alive, Nabooru."

The young woman mouthed silently for several moments before speaking. "What are you hiding from us?" she asked weakly. "What are you asking me to hide from the others?"

The King gave her a firm stare. "Continue your rite," he said, and his words had an edge of finality. "And remember, Nabooru..." His golden eyes sharpened like ice. "As long as what you've seen here remains a secret, you will be safe."

He turned and walked away, heading for the central room to seal up the passage before she reached it. He would keep back the monsters that lurked here as well, just so that Nabooru would finish her rite and leave the Temple sooner.

The Twinrova sisters would nag on their son for his actions later, but Ganondorf would ignore them. They had not seen the fear in Nabooru's eyes, the same fear in the eyes of the women and children he'd struck down over the years. She had feared for her life, and experience told him that should be enough to keep her lips sealed.

But she says nothing. She just wants to dismiss the matter for now, but part of her fears etaliation from Ganondorf. When one woman approaches with a cup of tea to settle her stomach, she quietly asks for a sedative to be added to it. She does not want to dream tonight.

The answer to his problem came about almost accidentally.

He had been accompanying several of his women when they did their meager amounts of trading among the Hylians, and he happened to overhear an old man telling a story to a group of children.. It was the word "power" that caught the Gerudo's attention, despite its admittedly obscure source, and he had slipped into a nearby corner to listen.

"Din, the Goddess of Power," the old man said. "With her strong, flaming arms, she cultivated the land and created the red earth."That Hylian story of creation again, the eavesdropping Gerudo told himself. Hylians had their three Goddesses that they believed created them, the world, and everything else.

"The three golden Goddesses, their labors completed, departed for the heavens," the elder continued. "And golden sacred triangles remained at the point where the Goddesses left the world. Since then, the sacred triangles have become the basis of our world's providence, and the resting place of the triangles has become the sacred realm."

One of the children flung a hand into the air. "Isn't it true that whoever touches the Triforce gets to make a wish?"

"In a way. The one who touches the Triforce commands its power. Whoever touches it with a wish in their heart will have their wish granted."

Ganondorf pulled away, heading back down the alley again. For some time now, he'd been entertaining the notion that the Hylians had it right as far as deities were concerned. They believed in Goddesses who had created the world and put them in it, and they were the ones in power. The Gerudo believed in a singular Goddess who had created them, and they scraped out a living in the desert.

The fact that he had been losing faith in his people's patron deity for some time now led him to contemplate actions that would lead him to shake the foundations of the Sacred Realm itself.

The next time Ganondorf left his people on "business", it wasn't so that he could go to the Spirit Temple and plot future raids. It was so that he could return to Castle Town, find a librarian, and find out more about this legend.

The Triforce was a relic of the Goddesses' power, left behind when they left for their home in the heavens. Its three pieces were said to represent the purest strength of each Goddess: Courage, Wisdom, and Power. The entrance to the Sacred Realm, and the path to the Triforce itself, lay somewhere within Hyrule.

Ganondorf had gone to the owner of the book, pointing out that final passage. "Does anyone know where it is?"

"Where the entrance to the Sacred Realm lies?"

"Yes."

The man smirked up at him. "Not going after the Triforce yourself, are you?" Ganondorf was silent. "...Yes, well. The answer to your question is yes. If you leave the marketplace, you'll see a large building--the Temple of Time."

Ganondorf nodded slowly. He'd heard of the Temple of Time, of course, but he'd no idea that it could house something he so desired. The Gerudo King thanked his unwitting informant politely and took his leave.

"Ye who owns 3 spiritual stones
Stand with the Ocarina of Time
And play the Song of Time."

Ganondorf returned to his original source and asked for more information. The old man had looked up at him curiously, then apologized, saying that he did not have the books that the King needed. "They might up in the castle library, though," he added. "That library has books that I could only dream about."

No one got into the castle unless on official business, though. That would be a stumbling block, but not for long. Ganondorf was a brilliant tactician who had been told all his life that he deserved to get what he want. As he returned to the desert after what most would consider a failed venture, the man's quick mind discovered a way to meet multiple goals with one action.

Rumors had already started to spread outside of Hyrule, and the private warmonger was never more happy for the blind trust his people placed in him. When traders from across the wasteland cut off partnerships with the Gerudo and pointed fingers at the man who rumors said went about slaying man, woman, and child, the desert women saw them off with a rain of arrows and a flashing line of scimitars.

Ganondorf was the King of the Gerudo. He was the god of the Gerudo. And without their trade partners, the Gerudo would slowly start to die off.

His people were essentially useless to him. Once he had obtained the Triforce, Power would be his, but perhaps the Gerudo would try to rise against him in outrage if he truly abandoned them. They wouldn't be able to stop him, of course, but he'd rather not have to bother with them.

What he needed to do was find some way to provide them with good trade and a source of income, and the way to do that just might grant him entrance into the castle.

When he returned to the Fortress and told the Gerudo that he would be leaving again soon to attend to "trade negotiations", for the first time in so many years, he was being totally honest. He left again a week later, returned to Castle Town, and walked the path up to the castle. There, he told the guard standing at the gate to the castle that he, the King of the Gerudo, wished to have an audience with the King of Hyrule, in order to discuss the terms of a potential alliance.

He was fortunate that the rumors of his brutal deeds had not traveled far into Hyrule itself. The Hylian monarch knew Ganondorf as the leader of a race who brought in works of great beauty, and nothing more. The thought of having more of the glassworks and textiles around appealed greatly to him. Ganondorf asked to see the library, and the King had granted him leave.

The castle library was the rich resource Ganondorf sought. It didn't take long at all for him to pick up a few books that shed more light on the old lore. The Spiritual Stones were artifacts granted to three of Hyrule's races: the Kokiri in their forest, the Gorons of Death Mountain, and the Zoras beneath the falls.

Borrowing a few of the more helpful books, the Gerudo returned to his desert home. He was that coming ever closer to the Power he desired.

"Will you go through this tiny hole and get a treasure that's inside?" she asks him. "Ganondorf and his minions are using the Spirit Temple as a hideout. Only the Silver Gauntlets will allow me to sneak deep into the temple. Once there, I'm going to steal all the treasure inside and mess up their plans!"

He agrees, and she rewards him with the promise of doing something great. An empty promise, and she feels guilty about that, but she will think of something fitting once the Silver Gauntlets are in her grasp. All that is left to do now is wait for the child to hold up his end of the bargain.

She steps outside into the cool shadow of the Spirit Temple, waiting. It is a few hours later that she hears a triumphant cry and sees a glimmer of silver from atop the hand of the Goddess. He's done it! Once he makes it back down to her, she will push past that damnable barrier and finally be able to start her sabotage.

A cackle from above interrupts her thoughts and sends a chill down her spine. Nabooru looks up in horror to see the Twinrova sisters circling her like vultures. The twin hags launch their dark magic at her, and a dark vortex appears at her feet. She feels it begin to drag her down into the sands and cries out to the boy on the Goddess' hand to flee this place while he can.

She does not know if he escapes or even tries to get away. The vortex has pulled her down far enough into darkness that she can no longer see the Spirit Temple. She fights for as long as she is able, but in the end, it does her no good. Darkness closes around her.

Nabooru said nothing, her golden eyes burning darkly with hatred. The king of thieves laughed, folding his arms against the bars of the cell and leaning in. "Back when devotees used to make this place their home, rumors spread of a great treasure being guarded in the Spirit Temple," he explained. "These cells were put in place to contain trespassers looking to cause trouble." He rapped his knuckles against the bars appreciatively. "Nice to know that after all these years, they still serve their purpose."

"What do you want with me, traitor?" the young woman hissed. Ganondorf drew back.

" 'Traitor'?" He laid a hand to his heart. "Nabooru, please. Be kinder to your king."

"My king would never tell so many lies to his own people!" she snarled, straining against the chains. He watched with a kind of gentle amusement at her fierce struggles, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "You're a disgrace to the Gerudo!"

"Mind your tongue, sister," Ganondorf chided, his voice gentle as if he were speaking to a child having a temper tantrum. Nabooru surged forward, only to jerk to a sudden stop as the chains ran out. "I advise you not to bother with that. There's no water down here to rust the iron. Those chains are as strong and secure now as they were when they were first set into the wall. Keep throwing your weight against them, and you're more likely to break your wrists than anything else."

Nabooru dangled at the end of her bonds, her breathing sharp and ragged with anger. She glared over at him. "What do you want from me?" she repeated, her voice a feral-sounding growl.

Ganondorf smiled thinly. "What do I from you?" he repeated. "Only what every king wants from his subjects, Nabooru. Respect. Love. Loyalty. Obedience. Subservience."

The young woman bared her teeth in a snarl that seemed better placed on the muzzle of a dangerous wild animal. "You'll never get any of that from me, traitor!" she snapped back angrily. "I'd sooner die than bend to your commands!"

"Please, don't be so hasty," the corrupt King almost purred. "There is no need for you to die."

"Was there no need for the women and children you slaughtered to die?" Nabooru fired back. Ganondorf was silent, staring at the floor in what almost seemed to be shame. "I'm not blind like the others, Ganondorf. I know what you've done. I know you're not opposed to breaking our code!"

Ganondorf said nothing for several minutes. Then, all too calmly, he raised his eyes to look at her again. There was no shame on his face, only grim pride. He shook his head slowly, as if chiding a young child. "Nabooru, Nabooru," he said softly. "Soon enough, you will see--truly see--what I am doing, and you will understand. When that time comes, you will gladly serve me as you did so many years ago."

"What does that mean?"

The Gerudo man turned away from his prisoner without another word, heading for the room where he knew his mothers waited for him. As he walked away, Nabooru's voice rang out through the corridor, its echoes hounding his heels. "Ganondorf! Come back here, you coward, and face me like a man! Ganondorrrf!"

Once hunger, isolation, and pain had broken Nabooru's spirit, the Twinrova hags had, at their son's command, worked their magic. The young woman had been brainwashed, turned into a humble, loyal slave devoted to her master's will. She lived and breathed to serve her King.

Naveed was a good enough leader for the Gerudo, loyal to Ganondorf, but the man wanted to leave no margin for error. It was pitifully easy for his mothers to send down a sickness on the aging woman, and with her death, Nabooru ascended to leadership. Now it was ensured that the Gerudo would follow their King's every command.

Ganondorf left his loyal slave at the Spirit Temple along with his mothers to tend to more important matters: building his dark kingdom up from the ashes of the old. He lorded power over everything in Hyrule for seven glorious--for him, anyway--years.

And then that brat with the fairy had showed up again.

He would admit, he'd almost forgotten the little rat. This was the boy who'd opened the gates to the Sacred Realm for him by collecting the Spiritual Stones and Ocarina of Time, playing the Song of Time, and pulling the Master Sword--the blade serving as the key to the kingdom.

The boy had been running around Hyrule, cleansing Temples and allowing Sages to hear the call to awaken. Ganondorf had tried, more than once, to put a stop to him, but the little brat seemed to be invincible. Nothing he did worked. The Evil King was forced to watch, almost helplessly, as the boy who'd drawn the Blade of Evil's Bane set about destroying everything he, Ganondorf, had worked so hard to build.

He thought he could salvage things, even though his world seemed on the brink of bursting apart. When the Princess revealed herself, he was watching, and took that opportunity to snatch her away. The boy, predictably, came running to his castle. Ganondorf assumed that the fight would end there, and he was right.

The fight had ended...with him on the ground, torn to shreds.

Ganondorf lay on the battlefield, gasping painfully for his last breaths. The Triforce of Power roaring fiercely inside him, he made one last effort to crush the two little brats as they scrambled to flee. With his dying breaths, he brought down the tower around them.

Well, it had felt like his dying breaths. The man found that the longer he lay there and shook the foundations of his fortress, the less he felt like dying. Realization struck him. His Power was too great to simply let him die like a normal man.

He surged up, pushing away the rubble that had buried him. The brat who called himself a Hero darted forward, only to draw back with a shocked gasp as the King of Evil's body began to morph and twist. Curled horns sprouted from his head. His feet hardened into hooves. His face twisted, his long nose flattening into a pig's snout.

Renewed by the Power he had wrecked a kingdom to obtain, Ganondorf let loose an earth-shaking roar and lashed his blades through the air. Let the boy run to fight. This battle would be his last.

But the execution, as we saw, did not succeed. Made nigh-immortal by Power, Ganondorf could not be slain, and in desperation, he was banished to a realm that many alive in Hyrule had long forgotten: the Twilight Realm.

The minute he'd been flung through the portal, all sensation had essentially ceased. He was fairly certainly he no longer had a body to speak of. Something about this place seemed to tear at his very soul, and after his body broke apart into nothing more than a diffuse cloud of being, that ceased. All that remained was a dull, throbbing ache where he knew the Sages' power had pierced him.

As he drifted, barely existing in anything but the barest of senses with no sense of time, the banished King overheard the beginnings of strife. Power was changing hands among the people who lived in this realm, the Twili. A Princess rose to the throne, and her dispirited, power-hungry servant was denied.

Ganondorf followed the frantic, wailing sobs and thuds of pounding fists to a balcony of the Palace of Twilight. He had watched this servant with interest, waiting for his chance. Now was the time to strike.

Focusing what magic he had left, he formed a dark, amber-colored cloud over the balcony. He waited for the would-be usurper to raise his eyes, then moved in and wrapped around him like a shroud. Before the startled Twili, a fiery head manifested and spoke.

I have been watching you...Zant. The pale-skinned creature drew back. You have great ambition...and great potential.

"A-are you," Zant stuttered. "Are you...a god?"

Ganondorf had long since stopped caring about whether he lied or not, though it struck him as funny that now, of all times, he would be telling the truth. Whether or not they would have acknowledged him as such anymore, he had once been the King--and god--of the Gerudo. Yes.

Zant's pale eyes shone with awe. Ganondorf smirked. I have chosen you, Zant. You desire Power, and I shall give it to you. I shall house my Power in you...If there is anything you desire, then I shall desire it, too.

"M-my god." The Twili prostrated himself humbly. "Wh-what do you wish?"

The same as you. Dominion. Freedom from this cursed realm. He grinned. Together, we shall merge shadow and light...and make darkness. A darkness that will rule the world.

He granted a fraction of his Power to the Twili, and sat back to wait. Zant had the ambition, the drive; all he had needed was the Power to make it happen. All too soon, he was free from the Twilight Realm, ready to take Hyrule for himself once again.