Ganon's Tale

   Mokeeru had no idea how much time had passed when she opened her eyes; she could tell that she was back in the Gerudo village, presumably in the healer's hut, based on the smell of herbs. She sat up, wincing as pain bloomed fresh in the back of her head and her vision swam out of focus, blanketing the room in a watery film. She heard the unmistakable voice of Lyrassa, the healer, speaking up from somewhere across the room, likely cautioning her to lie back, but with the ringing in her head and the buzzing in her ears Mokeeru could not discern it clearly. Raising her hand up to the center of where the pain was radiating from in back of her head, she encountered a layer of gauze and could feel the enormous swollen knot beneath it.    As the fog in her eyes began to recede and the room gradually swam into focus, Lyrassa's face resolved itself from the surrounding murk and her stern visage came into clear view. The dialogue that accompanied it was slower to attain clarity, but after a few moments Mokeeru was able to piece enough together to glean her meaning. She opened her mouth, intending to placate the healer, but nothing escaped beyond a strained croak. Irritated, Mokeeru gestured to her throat only to find that Lyrassa was already there with a dipper of water for her.

   "What happened? How did I get here?" she choked out once her thirst had been slaked, plans to assuage the concerns of the healer forgotten as more of her memory bubbled to the fore. "Where is Nakori?! Ganondorf?! What in the world happened?!" Panic welled up as the fragments of her recollection surfaced and coalesced.

   Lyrassa held her hands up in a soothing gesture, attempting to calm her increasingly frantic patient. "Mokeeru!" she shouted at last, arresting the maiden's accelerating hysterics. "King Ganondorf is fine," she continued, now resting her hands on Mokeeru's shoulders. "He is with the Twinrova, they are planning a heroes feast for you once you have recovered." A fresh icicle of panic speared her heart at the mention of the witches, overshadowing all else. Lyrassa noticed the look of distress and, mistaking the source, took on a somber expression. "Mokeeru. Nakori... didn't make it."

   Mokeeru's focus snapped immediately over to the healer. She shook her head, denying the words, but Lyrassa's face told her the truth. Now there was no mistake; the Twinrova had been behind the attack, and now there was nothing to stop them taking charge of the young king. Nakori had been right to fear them, and their intentions, but Mokeeru had never thought that they would go so far. Now Nakori was dead, and the king of the Gerudo was going to be reared by those evil old crones, and there was not a thing she could do.

   Mokeeru started to weep openly, mourning the loss of her friend and lover, and frustrated at her own impotence. She could only guess at what malice those two were scheming. Lyrassa tried awkwardly to solace the sobbing maiden, though Mokeeru took no note and had all but forgotten she was there at all. She absently brushed aside the healer's largely ineffectual attempts at consoling her and stood on shaky legs, shuffling with the grace of a re-dead towards the door of the healer's hut.

   "No! Mokeeru, I need to keep you here for observation!" stammered Lyrassa, starting after her.

   "I'm returning to my hut." she responded through her sobs. "I want to see my daughter." Lyrassa relented and did not try to further impede the distressed maiden.

   Mokeeru made her way to her own hut, heedless of the maidens she passed along the way, many of whom offered words of praise to her that did not register. Chaos best described her thoughts; a whirlwind of emotions, thoughts, fears, cascading, none lingering long enough to focus on. As she traversed the village, the tumult inside her head finally started to attain some semblance of coherence, though the cacophony was still too much for her to take hold of any one thought for long. Instead, Mokeeru forced thoughts of her daughter to the fore, pushing down the grief, the fear, and the uncertainty and concentrating on her child.

   When she reached her home, much of the mental din had been suppressed and Mokeeru pushed through the leather door into her abode. She expelled a breath she hadn't known she had been holding when she confirmed Nabooru was sound asleep in her bed. The maiden crept over to where her daughter lay curled up and climbed carefully in next to her, taking pains not to disturb her. Mokeeru allowed herself to drift towards her own slumber, nestling in against her daughter and letting her thoughts dissolve into unconsciousness.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

   Mokeeru awoke the next morning to find Nabooru balled up inside her embrace, little face pressed against her shoulder. She set aside her woes for a short while longer and simply reveled in the affection of her child, refusing to move until she stirred almost an hour later.

   "Good morning my desert phlox." she beamed.

   "Mommy!!" exclaimed Nabooru gleefully. "You're back!"

   "Yes my dear, I am." she responded, squeezing her tight.

 "I'm glad you're home." Nabooru declared. "I heard about the awful evil men that hurt you and aunt Nakori." she added. Mokeeru was stunned to silence trying to process what she'd heard. "I hate those awful Hylians mommy, I wish they would all just..."

   "Stop!" she cried out at last. Nabooru quieted abruptly as her mother continued. "Darling daughter, where did you hear such things?"

   "While you were sleeping the Twinrova told everyone about how those awful men hurt you and aunt Nakori, and how you and king Ganondorf killed them all and how aunt Nakori is a... mar... ter?" she replied, chewing carefully on the unfamiliar word.

   "Martyr dear." Mokeeru corrected.

   "Yes, martyr!" the child beamed. "The witches said that in time we would make them all pay and that Ganondorf... I mean, King Ganondorf... would become a great king and that he would bring ret... retri..." her diminutive face screwed up into a look of concentration as she struggled with the difficult pronunciation, "retri... byou... shun" she finally managed, grinning with the pride of accomplishment.

   "Darling I need you to listen to mommy very closely." Mokeeru said solemnly. "The Twinrova have lied to everyone. I don't remember clearly all that happened, but it did not at all happen like they said." Nabooru listened intently as her mother continued. "Dear daughter, these men were not evil; they were controlled by the Twinrova." Nabooru gasped and shook her head in denial. "Yes honey, I saw the enchantment with my own eyes."

   "Mommy, that's terrible!" she exclaimed, aghast. "Why would they want to hurt aunt Nakori and you and Ganon?!"

   "Well my child, I can only guess, but I don't think they were going to hurt Ganon. I think they used him to stop us from fighting them. They wanted to get rid of aunt Nakori so that they could take Ganon from her."

   "That's terrible!" reiterated Nabooru, dejected. "Momma, they won't do that to you, will they?"

   "No dear heart, I don't believe that they will, because you cannot be our king." Though she was only partially certain of the truth of her statement, Mokeeru felt it was the right thing to say, which was immediately reinforced by her daughter's look of relief. "Whatever happens, be always wary the Twinrova witches. I do not know if we will be able to help Ganon remember his mother, or who she had hoped he would become, but we will do what we can."

   Nabooru, in all seriousness, nodded her agreement. "That's right momma, we'll do what we can."

   Mokeeru beamed with pride at her young daughter and pulled her in for a firm embrace. "Remember my dear, do not talk about what I have told you today to anyone... the Twinrova have ears and eyes in unexpected places and it could be dangerous to speak of it." Nabooru uttered her assent, muffled against her mother's chest. "All right." said Mokeeru, pulling back from the embrace. "Let's go see about this 'feast' they have planned." Nabooru nodded again, and they stood together and headed into the village.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

   “Sisters! Tonight we celebrate the safe return of our King!” Kotake's voice rang out.

   “Ganondorf has returned safely, thanks to his bravery and skill, and that of Mokeeru!” added Koume. Nearly every maiden in the village above the age of five was gathered in the expansive meeting hall in the center of Gerudo village. Koume and Kotake stood by the head table, on either side of Ganondorf at the center. To Kotake's right, Mokeeru sat and listened to the wizened sisters ramble on, instead watching Ganon closely. Not surprisingly, he showed no signs of physical injury, but his expression was completely vacant. Mokeeru could detect no sign of the intelligent, curious boy she knew; sitting in his place was a husk wearing his face. She tried to engage him, but every time she did Kotake would take up the narrative, moving so that Mokeeru's attempts were washed out entirely. Exasperated, she sat back and tuned back into the Twinrova's speech.

   “And she struck down that foul Hyrulean,” Kotake was saying.

   “With her sword in his heart.” concluded Koume.

   “Sadly, not in time to save our sister, Nakori” resumed the first.

   “But, at least in time to avenge her.” finished the second. A somber cheer rose up from the assembled maidens, at the same time both celebratory and mournful.

   “And while she was exacting sweet, righteous vengeance,” proclaimed Kotake as the cheer quieted.

   “Another of the cowardly Hyrulean ‘knights’ was poised to strike her down!” added Koume, disdain evident, to the jeers of the gathered Gerudo.

   “But our King, Ganondorf blasted him to cinders with holy Gerudo Fire!” Kotake bellowed, eliciting a more robust hurrah from the crowd.

   Mokeeru glanced over at Ganon again, but as before there was no change to his expression or position. She then looked past him and the witches, to the maidens seated to the left of Koume and observed Zerah, Koteru, and Goreru, the three maidens who had accompanied her, Nakori, and Ganondorf into Hyrule Castle town. When Kotake made the comment about holy Gerudo Fire, the three shared a glance that struck Mokeeru as odd, each wearing expressions that cycled from mildly puzzled, to vacant, then finally settled on something approaching rapturous in perfect syncronicity as they burst into applause. Mokeeru vowed to herself that she would press one (or all) of them about that later. For the time being she resigned herself to enduring this mockery of a celebration.

   Several hours passed; she absently thanked each of the maidens that approached her with words of congratulations, and muddled through the remainder of the party, outwardly calm but inwardly fuming. Nakori had been killed to further the aims of these conniving old crones, and what's more they had executed their plan perfectly. Now the seeds of distrust had been sown, and the Twinrova would cultivate those seeds as cunningly as they had slain their only true obstacle. Even worse, they were now free to rear Ganondorf without impediment and shape him to whatever ill designs they wished. Mokeeru vowed to do everything she could to hamper them, but she feared it would not be nearly enough.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

   The feast carried on throughout the day and well into the evening. As soon as she could do so without raising suspicion, Mokeeru took Nabooru and left the party. She never got a chance to speak to Ganondorf without the Twinrova around; she had doubts it would have done any good anyway - he remained vacant and mechanical at least until she departed. Likewise she did not get a chance to converse with any of the three maidens, as they all left sometime in the early afternoon.