#so I guess I kind of subscribe to the “termina is both a literal place and a metaphorical place” thing

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Gantober #30 - The Pond

I see we're all in a Termina Ganondorf streak, so I'll add my own piece to the pile!

[Majora's Mask, Termina Ganon AU, no other warning]

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When evening came, the swamp adorned itself in a purple sheen that seemed to muffle the whole world. Frogs rumbled under the mud, and insects weren’t so loud that time of the year as to become overbearing. Earthen scents deepened as the water cooled.

Ganondorf took deep, grounding breaths as he untangled the fishing lines back into tight bundles that wouldn’t make knots during the night. Spending time with the occasional client was always nice —tales of the buzzing preparations for the festival in town always more engrossing to learn about from a safe distance— but the aching satisfaction that came with the end of a good work day was what he preferred above all else in life. The pirates he grew up with would have called it cowardice; but Ganondorf wasn’t one to pursue thrills for their own sake. Habit always reassured him.

Carefully placing the last bundle of lines into a basket nearby, Ganondorf clenched and unclenched his calloused hands before grabbing a bag of fish food and a mug of piping hot tea, and he moved from behind the counter of his fishing stall to the wooden deck overlooking the pond. Carps, eels and snappers circled the support poles crowded by waterlilies and moss and fireflies, expecting their meager part of the deal they had going on; then furiously nibbled on what he gave them with absolute focus. Ganondorf sat cross-legged on the deck to watch them, bringing the herbal tea to his lips. It didn’t taste good, but Kotake, the local apothecary, had insisted the beverage would ward off the cold he had been fighting for over a week —and he knew better than to deny the swamp witches’ doting nature. They had been looking over him ever since he had decided to leave the pirate fortress, a good decade ago. The first time he had called them grandma, they had both squealed with joy. They visited each other regularly, knowing what to cook and what jokes to make and what subjects to avoid. Maybe it was the stillness of the swamp water, that allured wayward gerudos who had grown sick of the sea. He couldn’t say for sure.

Ganondorf sighed in contentment, and looked upward at the evening sky. Stars dwindled at the edge of puffy clouds, and most of the sun’s orange tint had given way to deep violets, pinks and blue. He had picked the pond for his fishing stall to be set halfway through a clearing just so he could get that sort of view —the one thing about the ocean he did miss.

That night, the moon stared back at him.

It seemed closer than before. Angrier too, if that made any sense. Some kind of furious, pained, hateful expression sundered deep through blisters of stone. The moon seemed like it wanted to scream.

Ganondorf drank another sip of the boiling tea. His fingers almost burned against the ceramic, but the pain gave him something concrete to hold onto. That, and the earthen scents, and the insects, and the frogs, and the gurgling water, and the faint buzzing from the Deku Palace nearby.

Still, the moon’s eyes kept him captive for a while longer. Their cosmic pull seemed to tug at his bones, at something worse. A command for him to come crash himself upward. A pervasive whisper, that somehow, somehow, those eyes had something to do with him. Something so large, so wrong, so inconceivable, that mere words would not convey the foul dread that washed over Ganondorf whenever he would look up at the sky.

An impossible sense that, in some form, in some way… this was his doing.

He did that.

Ganondorf wrenched his eyes back down, nauseated. The fishes were done gobbling their food but still circled his location on the deck, expecting more. He took a deep breath. Earthen scents. The bitter tea on his tongue. Mud and buzzing. The good ache of an honest life.

He stood, returned the food bag to the stall, and headed to his shack to spend the rest of the evening reading a book under the soft covers of his bed, under a solid roof he built himself, under the canopy of his chosen home; as far as he could from the purple sky.