#I suppose challenges like this imply you'll release stuff you're not super confident about haha

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Gantober #10 - Depths

Today, a short snippet of a vague TotK-adjacent story about this Ganondorf's childhood escapade! And including an arbitrary headcanon I played with, aka: Sage of Lightning being Ganondorf's younger sister.

Enjoy!

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“Hey, slow down! I’ll tell mommy if you don’t wait for me!”

Ganondorf ignored his sister’s worried squeaks. She had bugged him all morning when he had tried to enjoy some rare alone time: she had wanted to know what he was reading, pinched his sides with weak jolts of electricity when he had refused to answer, and despaired at his cold disinterest in a shared play time. At the height of his annoyance, he had snapped his book shut and offered her his very worst smile. Do you want to go play explorers? he had asked, and of course the stupid brat had seen nothing concerning about that.

He would have gladly lost her in the upper layers of the ruins near Gerudo Town if she hadn’t been so insistent, following his long strides with a clumsy resolve he admired just as much as it drove him up the wall. Not losing her for real, of course. Just a little scare. She was the only child who wasn’t at least a bit afraid of him —and in the palace, her tears were so quickly comforted. Their mother the chieftain would throw some harsh words his way: that he was to be king and so ought to act with even more self-control than the noblest of their sworn personal guards, that power should never make room for cruelty. His sister would be hugged, and he’d be called callous in a way that itched.

But here, there was only him and the dark. If she cried, she would need to wipe the snot off her nose all on her own.

“Wait for me!”

He didn’t. Hopping past fallen rocks half-submerged in the sand, Ganondorf took a sharp turn left —froze.

The floor dropped into a hole.

It wasn’t a large hole. He could easily fit in, but his mother might have gotten stuck if she had tried to squeeze through. Underneath was pitch black darkness. Faint red, maybe. Or faint green?

Ganondorf knelt, and plucked a stone from the floor before dropping it in. The pebble was swallowed, its fall completely silent. Nothing ever echoed back to him.

“What is this?”

His sister loomed over his shoulder, nosy as always. He stared at her: her green pupils blown wide, mouth agape. Pointed ears. The kind he did not have. For a brief instant, he imagined pushing her down there, or rather: plummeting himself. There was an alluring call to that long drop. A chill ran down his spine. Something down there... yearned. The knowledge was both visceral and unquestioned. And somehow, the fear that should accompany that knowledge refused to take hold.

His sister’s fascination, however, took up a different shade. A paler one.

She gasped, plunging her tiny nails in his arm without thinking. He clenched his jaw in response. “It’s so deep! You shouldn’t get so close!”

“Let go,” he hissed.

“But...”

“If you can’t handle this, you should have played on your own.”

Her skin darkened in childish anger. “Stop being so rude! I’m gonna tell mommy you’re going to places you’re not allowed to go!”

“Go tell her then.”

She hesitated. Her long braid was powdered with dust and sand. A messy spectacle that would immediately betray she had gleefully followed her brother in forbidden, dangerous places. Ganondorf bared his teeth.

“Go!”

His sister jumped, hissing back at him like a stray cat. She turned around and ran off, the tapping of her soles echoing in the caves underneath the city they were born to inherit. He watched the wildfire of her hair disappear in the dark, then turned back to the hole.

Blowing between his palms, he invoked a small flame —blue, soft, the kind to bounce off its shrine across every sort of stone. The walls of the drop were jagged enough for him to climb down. He brushed his palm across its mineral skin, felt its coldness espouse the calloused bumps he managed to claim for himself in the midst of his life’s luxuries.

He didn’t even think. Blinked. Found himself several meters in, surrounded by rocks that wanted nothing more than to watch him fall. He considered forcing himself back up, out of vague concern for his sister and his mom, before deciding he didn’t really care. Something beckoned him deeper.

And he wanted to know what it was.

Long, long minutes later, far too long, the hole opened to a larger cave. Ganondorf’s magic indicated some sort of base floor waiting for him underneath, covered in moss, which he hoped would be enough to break his fall. Strange, unknowable flowers glimmered in what seemed like an infinite void.

He let himself fall.

The impact wasn’t kind to him. His ankles screamed, but he did not. When Ganondorf opened his eyes, all he could see was blackness, and the roots of immense structures of stone erected straight and far up. These looked nothing like gerudo architecture. Old, decrepit machines stood frozen and dead. Cold furnaces.

Ancient, silent, unwelcoming.

Ganondorf stood up and carefully made his way through the ruins.