Chapter Text
It was nearing winter. Ciella could tell as the dying red and brown leaves had stopped falling down and through her fabrics. Instead, they would crunch beneath her brother’s shoes and swirl around Ciella’s feet when she drifted past. It had been a few days at most since she and her brother were reunited in a waking moment and they traveled the countryside with much leisure and joy.
When the girl had discovered her brother’s corpse, she was more than confused. The corpse was preserved perfectly by some puddle of Malice in a dark cave, somewhere near Hyrule Castle, in the ruins of what used to be a small town or village. Perfectly preserved and completely dormant. No ReDead would’ve stayed still upon hearing the loud ruckus of Ciella’s sobs. No Poe was going to sleep without its lantern nearby and no stalfoes or stalchild was going to have that much flesh on it after at least 100 years of death. The malice covered her brother around his waist, keeping him stuck to the ground. All the Poe could manage was to cry over her brother’s body. One day, at her weakest hour, when she was ready to simply step into a Poe hunter’s path and resign her soul to stay caught in a bottle, her brother suddenly rose, the malice on his waist disappearing. She stayed there for a year until he rose, or that’s the conclusion she came to, as when she stepped out of the cave it was the beginning of winter once more, as if the season restarted. Hyrule was always getting stranger by the second, wasn’t it?
But now, after nearly 120 years apart, they were together at last. They walked over days, weeks, and months overtop the green rolling hills that looked at the back of the castle. It was still in ruin, but under repair due to the instructions of Princess— no, Queen Zelda. Her coronation had not happened yet, but under the circumstances of the kingdom needing to focus on rebuilding from the Calamity, Zelda decided there would be no ceremony for now. After all, they didn’t exactly have the funds or even a nice enough place to hold the coronation.
In awe, they saw Hyrule clear of guardian stalkers and watchers. The 5 massive pillars that once surrounded the castle had now retreated into the ground, leaving large and deep holes in their absence. This kingdom was not in its golden age but was at least at peace once more. Vines that had ruled over each stone wall that stood against terror so defiantly were beaten back by shears and scissors. Lovely weeds, Labyranna broom, Holodrum pokeweed, Termina henbit, dandelions, chickweed, all plucked from the ground without second thought and the dreaded petals were replaced with large expanses of building. Research labs, cabins, farm houses, anything the Hylians had a need for.
“Such a wild change from when we were young.” Astor said. Astor, some said it meant ‘hawk’, others said it meant ‘star’. She liked to think her brother had a heavenly name, that way the two would match, like a little pair of twins.
“The world has moved on without us.” Ciella replied simply, carrying no emotion. ‘Ciella’. Most claimed it meant ‘heavenly, sky, celestial’, but there was a nagging definition, one she couldn’t make sense of. In older texts, it meant ‘the root’. The root of what? Astor always said names aren’t by accident, that it is fate, even if no one cared what they named you. You live up to your name somehow. The siblings wore similar features. As they drifted along, Ciella’s braids lay flat on her back. Long and neatly done, the dark and muted purple strains reached an inch or so above her waist. Once or twice she glanced behind with her mismatched eyes, one pink pupil and white iris, one blue iris and black pupil. Paler than death she and her brother would remain for as long as their spirits roamed this plain of existence, or until the stormclouds finally cleared from Hyrule’s skies, which they somehow didn’t seem to be moving along anytime soon. However, Astor kept his yellow eyes upon Ciella’s drifting form, his dull purple hair holding two small braids on the front right side of his face obstructed his view.
“Why do you look back? Are you expecting something?”
“Perhaps… perhaps not.” She answered with hesitation. “I keep hearing a call, something’s calling my name.”
“Where do you hear it?”
She turned her head to the blackened towers of what remained of that blackened silhouette that dared to call itself the landmark of the country. “Hyrule Castle.” Astor made a face, a face that showed he thought her lying or joking. “I mean it, it’s coming from there.”
“Are you certain it’s coming from there and not past it?”
Ciella shook her head. “It’s too close to be past the castle. It's in its walls, there’s no other way.”
“How badly does it nag you? Does the voice pain you?”
“It is like an ant crawling on the insides of my ear and mouth. It itches all inside my head on every inch of flesh.”
“I suppose we should be off then.” Astor said, sighing and changing their direction.
“You’re going?”
“You’d head off without me if I didn’t tag along just by how you described it. You wouldn’t last an hour more under those conditions.” The way down was unpleasant. The steepness of the hill made Astor slip a few times and Ciella had a hard time seeing which way was the best for getting into the castle. “I heard a rumor of an underground entrance into the castle, though I doubt it’s in tact after all that was done.”
“We ought to cross the moat into the docks and go from there.”
“We need a boat.”
“…We do not have a boat.” She realized, feeling awfully dumb.
“We indeed do not have a boat.” Astor confirmed.
“Well, aren’t you a prophet?” She put her hands on her hips with a sassy manner and looked at him. “Can’t you prophetize where a boat will be?”
“My prophecies only predict doom as you might’ve been able to tell by now.”
“Come on, let’s go, it’s getting worse.” So they walked around the most, searching for a raft of some sorts. The most they found was a tree stump with an axe stuck in it, a Korok leaf laying next to it.
The girl picked up the leaf and held it carefully. “We can use this to propel us forward, right?”
“It should do if the wind isn’t blowing in our favor.” However, as Astor looked around for anything to use, Ciella became still in a manner highly uncommon for Poe and she suddenly dropped the leaf and floated forward with not so much a glance behind herself. Despite her brother’s calling, she floated across the moat like fine mist. With no other choice, the prophet of doom swam after her with urgency. Upon reaching the docks, he turned to Ciella. “What in the Calamity’s name?! Why would you do that? Don’t wander off like that, you scared me!” But catching the look in his sister’s eyes showed him something was terribly wrong. She wasn’t entirely there as she began to float up the stairs, rigid as if she were someone still solid, alive and breathing. Thick clouds of black gas filled the air in patches and almost seemed to beckon the Poe this way and that way along her winding path of ruined stone. The Malice had a life of its own and it made its opinion of Astor’s tagging along quite clear. A near wall of black clouds blocked his vision half the time with him only able to see Ciella through small little gaps where the flakes of pure Malice shone through the smoke and her lantern in harsh blue was glowing. It got harder and harder to follow her as she swirled past rubble and debris and when she phased down the grated gate into the underground, he lost her. It was as if she had completely disappeared from reality itself. “Ciella? Ciella! Ciella! Ciella, where are you? Where are you?!” No words of his sister bounced across the walls back into his ears and he began to panic. “Ciella! CIELLA!” He rushed from rotting corridor to rotting corridor, stumbling over his own shaking legs until one piece of floor gave way and he fell into a much darker hallway of dead overgrown plants that clung to a material he could not identify as natural rock formation or carved stone due to the blackness that surrounded him and obscured his senses. At the end a dull green light came from the narrow doorway. With hands outstretched, he tentatively continued on the path, finding the doorway to be thinner than he initially thought. Astor had to suck in his chest and stomach and go in sideways, shimming back and forth until he was free. A pit of infinite blackness was waiting for him with only the sight of a rotting corpse in suspended animation being there. A hand of green glow gripped the decaying skin of the chest and from the wound that was there spilled thick tendrils of Malice that traveled along the ground and up the walls, even to the ceiling and on the other side of the figure was Ciella herself with a hand outstretched as if she were being drawn to the figure by an invisible string attached to her middle finger. She intended to touch it! “Ciella! Don’t touch anything!” And the world echoed ‘anything!’. She paused but only for a moment as the back of her left began to glow and the corpse suddenly grabbed her wrist and she screamed, finally out of the trance.
“You…” The voice rasped. The floor collapsed and both the Knightford siblings, crying and afraid, could see no more.
Astor awoke in an unfamiliar place. Well, he was not unfamiliar with the ground but he was unfamiliar with this ground. He was left on a worn red carpet with gold tassel trimming as he was hit with waves of pain from his aching forehead. Still, in those waves was a rocking boat that had not yet capsized and its name was Ciella.
Ciella!
He scrambled to his feet and rushed around in panic, casting his fury at whoever had cursed them in such a way. The broken windows gave a sign to him that he was still within Hyrule Castle. His heart nearly stopped. Who had brought him up? Conversation floated from the dining hall, though the three voices were not remotely of his sister’s. They scraped vowels out in a language foreign and long forgotten, raspy and vile. Dagger drawn, he burst into the room only to be greeted with what looked like three corpses, the one in the middle being the one he saw in the underground, at the table and a purple crystal hanging over the fireplace at the far end. Within that prison was Ciella herself.
“Poor prophet of doom… don’t you realize you were doomed from the start?” A voice spoke. It was the female corpse on the left of the male one, Astor could tell by her worn clothing.
“You vile creatures…! What are you? Who are you to steal her away?!”
“Calm yourself, child, our lord sleeps.” The female on the right said.
“‘Our lord’? I don’t care, give her back to me!” The two women rose, their white hair swaying behind their thin backs that were hardly more than simple spine. They two were perfectly in sync, like twin snakes.
“She’s ours, Astor.”
“Nothin’ you can do to change it, boy.” In his anger, he lifted the knife and plunged toward the left one’s head but she screamed and he froze, blade mere centimeters from the jewel on her forehead. A nail closer to a claw traced along his cheek, it felt like ice, freezing him to the bone. The other came up, caressing his shoulders with unbecoming tenderness and began to ready her teeth to take a bite of his neck that would surely kill him and he felt unexplainable heat coming from her.
“Halt!” A voice boomed from behind. A deep male one. The corpse from before was up. “He’s mine, that boy is mine. He’s been more than devout.”
Astor regained control of his body as the women stepped away, spinning around with a stunned look. “Devout? I only have one master, the Great—”
“Calamity Ganon. Astor, I am that man, I am Hyrule’s scourge.” He stood at last, standing at a towering 8’10, dull red hair hanging all around him like a roughed up fur coat, matted and tangled. He wore sashes and gold jewelry that managed to cover where his reproductive organ would’ve been (if it was still there) but could not hide the dried out intestines and inner organs spilled out.
“How do you know my name?”
“We know everything.” The two women spoke, pushing past him like cats until they glided to go stand by the man’s side.
“You wish to take Ciella back?” He asked with mockery, pointing to an empty chair. “Then sit down and listen to your god.” The man did as he was told. “Good. I shall tell you all. I am Ganondorf Dragmire or as you more commonly know me, the Great Calamity. Your sister… she’s special. She’s a harbinger, you see, and I need her to regain my strength. That Poe’s soul can make a man like me young again.”
“And us two.” The women chimed in.
“Ah yes, dear Ciella has enough Life Force to restore me and my mothers to our former glory.”
“You’ll kill her. You’ll end her existence in the limbo, you’ll force her to an afterlife!” He cried out.
“From the moment I saw you alongside her I knew you would not stand for it, although I don’t know how on earth you’re alive after I sent the guardians after you and Melody all those years ago.”
“You did mean to kill me…” Astor pondered. He knew of what Ciella told him of his awakening, that his dead body was stuck in a puddle of Malice until one day he absorbed it and his eyes opened. The Calamity couldn’t be the one controlling Malice if that very same substance is what allowed Astor to roam the rolling hills now. But if Ganon didn’t control it, who did? Was it a force of nature that could be harnessed? He shook away those thoughts. No time to think about that, he had to save his sister. “How do I get my sister back?”
“Possessive,” Ganondorf’s decaying skin stretched into a devious smile. “I like that attribute. I already know you’ll do whatever I say, so you won’t object when I tell you you’ll need to give me souls to substitute your sister’s, which will be quite a heroic feat.”
“How many do you need?” Astor asked.
“On the safe side, let’s say 50.” The female on the left said.
“I’d say 70.” The other woman retorted.
“Dama, Váma, we’ll need a 100.”
“That many?”
“Are you certain?”
“I’m certain.” Ganondorf stated with finality. “Astor, my boy, you’ll have to scour the land for Poes, are you sure that you’ll be up for the task? Would you rather not let me have her and let you live the rest of your days free?”
“I’m not leaving without my sister.”
“So it is done.”