Blinding Darkness - Zelda X Ganondorf

Chapter 28

Five years of war.

     The endgame.

     "Happy birthday!" Aria swept out of the kitchen holding a small, sloppily frosted cake.

     The years had changed her. If her eyes were molten gold once, burning with passion and energy, they had cooled, hardened into a solid block of gold, colder.

     She was no longer the little girl she had once been at the start of this war. 

     And yet, her spirit, the very core of who she was, was the same it had always been.

     Link's eyes were shining. "Yay!"

     "Five years old." Aria alone knew the significance of this age, and she plastered a cheerful smile on her face, not letting Link see that something was amiss. "Getting way too old, aren't we?"

     "Sixteen is much older." Link shot back, grinning. 

     "You're right. I'll be in a wheelchair soon." She joked, setting down the cake and wiping her hands on her dirty apron. 

     Link cut the cake and they ate it. It was slightly burnt, but he didn't mind in the least.

     It was good.

     After they finished eating their dinner, Aria stood up, her face clouded, unreadable.

     "Five years." She murmured. Then she turned to Link with a soft smile.

     "Do you know who your real parents are, Link?"

     He cocked his head, confused. He had never thought to question it. His life with Aria was great, albeit a bit lonely at times.

     "I've never told you because I wanted to save it for today." Her eyes were somewhere far, far away. "Your mother is Queen Zelda."

     A light bulb immediately went off in Link's head. "You mean... The Queen Zelda, that vanished five years ago without a trace? And I'm..." Link stumbled back, dumbfound. "Her son?"

     She nodded gravely. "But that's not the worst." Aria winced before continuing on. "Your father is Lord Ganondorf of the Gerudo."

     Link's lips moved, but no sound came out.

     "...Impossible."

     "Improbable. Everything's possible."

     "..." Link was shocked to silence.

     "You break rules in every way." Aria kept going, relentless. "A son in the royal family. The second Gerudo male in the century. You were entrusted to me when your parents went to fight the shadow beast that had plagued Hyrule for five years now, which came from the portal that had been opened five years ago leading to a separate dimension."

     Aria fell quiet, leaving Link to process the huge amount of information that had just assailed his mind.

     Five. Five years.

     It didn't take long for Link to put the pieces together. "So it's because of my birth... that the portal opened. And my mother and father are fighting it... right now. For five years. And I have double Triforce."

     Finally, Link had something of an explanation of everything, although just the notion was terrifying. Aria bringing him up even though she was obviously not her birth mother. Why she was always away, tending to "business". Why he had a monster dwelling inside of his body.

     It made so much sense, it hurt.

     "I wanna help my parents." He said immediately, a slow-burning anger starting to smolder in his chest. It was his fault, after all, that all of this happened. If he was never born, then would Hyrule still be in ruins?