#appleheartwrites

Kingdom of Dry Bones on AO3, fully uploaded now.

Hey friends. I'm not "back" per se. But I am still alive, and more importantly, I finished KoDB, that ZelGan(Link) novel I have been talking about for literal years. First chapter is up on AO3, and I'll post a new chapter every Friday for the next nine weeks until it's done. I hope you like it. All you ZelGan fans, you Gerudo culture fans, all you who joined me in the beautiful meta discussions about the LoZ lore 2014-2017 - this is for you.

Chapters: 1/10 (finished) Fandom: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms Relationships: Ganondorf/Link/Zelda, Ganondorf & Nabooru Additional Tags: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Assassination Plot(s), Being Too Old For This Shit, The Gods Hate You, Screw Destiny

[shuffle prompt 1/5 - "only hope" by switchfoot]

When the wizard broke his bonds, the crowd that had been screaming for his blood began screaming in panic instead. Those who had been pushing close, eager to watch the executioner’s blade swing, now struggled against the press to get out of the way.

He spat a curse at the executioner, who fell heavily, magic swarming around him like a flock of evil crows. The royal guards fumbled bolts into their crossbows but hesitated to fire into the mass of innocents. In their uncertainty, the wizard ran—not for the gates and freedom, but for the dais, where the princess waited to witness her enemy’s end.

Those in the back of the square saw only his broad shape rising like a mountain, erasing the princess from their view.

If you had been there, jostled and straining on tiptoe to see, the clamor would have deafened you. Instead of slaying her where she sat, the wizard threw himself on his knees before her.

If you has been much closer, you might have heard the distant-thunder rumble of his voice.

But only the princess herself heard his actual words.

He bowed his head until his forehead rested in her lap. Just for a moment, she laid her white-gloved hand on his head.

She paid little thought to him at their first meeting. She was eight years old and deeply unimpressed with adults at the time. They had such potential, and they squandered it. She expected him to be the same as all the rest of her father’s courtiers and officials, allies and supplicants--just bigger and darker. Her thought was that he was ugly, terribly so, and the sight of his round deformed ears made her stomach churn. After their meeting, she felt the divinely pointed tips of her own ears and thanked the gods she had been born to hear them.

He knelt to her father, but he only bowed to her--very low, from the waist, but still he towered over her. She didn’t like that. One day she would be Queen, and the desert man would be sure to kneel then.

She liked his guards better. Twelve of them, bronze-skinned and fiery-haired, with quick hands and bright steel and grins they hid behind modest veils. She knew her attendant could best them, but she liked the graceful flashing dance of their swordplay as they practiced in the hall outside the ambassadorial quarters. It was a show meant to impress her father, not her, but she sat with her hands folded in her lap and watched them with greedy eyes.

He came out and was kissed by the winner of the round, then saw her. In that voice all adults used when speaking to children, he asked, "And how do you like my warriors, Princess?"

She ignored both the question and the condescension with stately poise. "How young do they start training?" she asked instead. She gestured to one of his guards. "She is my age, or nearly."

"They start when they can walk a ridgetop and hold a javelin without dropping it."

"Then I must practice hard to catch up."

He laughed (the first time she would make him laugh, a sudden lion’s roar and a flash of bright pointed teeth in his dark ugly face!) He said, "I did not realize you were training to join my guard, Princess. Should I put my life in those little hands of yours?"

She smiled back, thin-lipped, reserved. "Likely not," she said.

She had his attention then, for a minute at least. He regarded her threat with good humor, stroking his jaw. One of his guards came over to him. She thought it was the same one who won the sparring round, but they were all so foreign to her eyes that she could not be certain. The desert man made a place for his companion on his knee, as she drew the saber from her belt and offered the hilt to the princess. She wrapped both of her hands around the sweat-stained, smooth-worn leather. It was too heavy for her to lift. Her eyes narrowed.

"I must have my attendant arrange more time for exercises," she murmured.

"Would you like to train with my warriors, Princess? I could make that a condition of the treaty--to have the training of you."

He did not particularly care about the physical education of a foreign child, she knew. It would promise good things for his future, though, to have his liege lord’s successor be kindly disposed towards him.

But she knew her father too well, and said as much. "You could ask for a thousand years and never have me."