Blinding Darkness - Zelda X Ganondorf

Chapter 5

     Aria looked around the hallway, holding her breath, her back pressed against the wall in a vain attempt to make herself blend in. 

     There was no way she would be allowed to sneak around the Castle alone, unwatched.

     Which meant that she would have to be careful.

     Her fingers wrapped around her knives, feeling their reassuringly firm hilt rubbing beneath her hands.

     She pulled on the oversized hood, letting it cast shadows onto her face. At least it would muffle her distinctive golden hair and eyes, even though if it came to it, her size and her knives would give her away immediately. 

     At least no servant bustling around the Castle's capacious halls would look closer. She had learned by experience that nobody would look twice at something that didn't concern them.

     She needed to see Ganondorf again.

     Why? She wasn't sure. However, she wanted to keep an eye on him.

     She still thought Zelda was kind of dumb for trusting him so easily.

     There. A valid reason more substantial than the wordless whispers stirring in her mind.

     Ganondorf was alone, walking purposefully through the halls at second floor. What could he be doing wandering the Castle?

     He rounded a corner, stopped, and narrowed his eyes. Aria was silent.

     "All right, you can come out now."

     Aria froze for a fraction of a second, then took a breath and stepped out of the shadows that cloaked her.

     "Why are you stalking me around the castle?" Ganondorf asked mildly. 

     She stepped back a bit from Ganondorf's towering height, her mouth resolutely shut.

     She wasn't scared in the slightest. Defiant, perhaps, and slightly embarrassed that she had been caught, but not scared.

     Ganondorf was eyeing her with a curiosity that just made Aria more mistrustful. 

     "I'm not going to hurt you, little one." He spread his hands. "Whatever tales you have been told, I don't harm children or unarmed adults."

      Slowly Aria let her hands, already half reaching for her blades, fall to her sides. Every muscle in her body stayed tense, awaiting the first sign of aggression.

     "You need not be so wary." Ganondorf crouched down, his long hair falling over his shoulders. His electric green eyes flashed. "I am here for peace."

     He was so close to her. Too close. Aria tried not to let her hands shake as she steeled herself, her eyes sharp with focus, piercing fiercely, like her knives.

     "You are quite an interesting one, aren't you?" His eyes held the faintest hint of amusement as he cocked his head. "I've never met a girl like you before."

     Aria raised her chin slightly. 

     "Well?" He was wearing a tiny smile. "Are you going to talk to me? Why are you stalking me through the Castle?"

     Slowly and deliberately, Aria shook her head, her lips pressed tightly together.

     "Very well then." He dipped his head. "But I am already being watched by fighters more experienced than you are, child. You don't have to monitor my every movement."

     And he continued on his way, leaving behind an utterly bemused Aria.

    "For the final time!" Zelda was trying her utmost not to lose her cool, sitting in the stifling hot meeting room with a band of men that could never understand her. All the words that she had written out meticulously, had rehearsed speaking, drained away when she needed them the most. "Ganondorf is not a threat!"