#this is basically the plot

The teenaged Hyrulean princess, daughter of a Hylian king and a Sheikah queen, once was named Zechariah. She loved her parents, but she hated her name. Hated her body. It wasn’t her, and being the first male-born Hyrule heir in 400 years did not change her feelings. Even if many tried to reassure her that it was good luck; a sign that there was no need for the powers of the goddess Hylia in the near future, despite the odd, worrisome rise in monster activity, the princess was not happy. She had told no one but her parents that she had been born with the gifts the goddess had bestowed upon her female descendants, and to her, that was even more sign that her body had had a miscommunication somewhere before her birth.

 Her mother had trained her in the Sheikah arts, a matter of both tradition and caution, and her parents approved using her skills to change her body to one she liked far better. So, after a year of deliberation and preparation, Prince Zechariah became Princess Zelda, taking the name of her ancestors, blessed by the goddess. No longer was she in a body that she despaired of, and finally, she could bring her gifts to light.  Her parents officially struck the name  of Zechariah, Prince of Hyrule, from the records, and inscribed in its place the name of Zelda, Princess of Hyrule, daughter of King Daedenal and Queen Midana. 

Meanwhile, in Gerudo Valley, a slightly older teenager chafes under his nannies’ watching. His name is Ganon, and he is one of the very rare, male-born Gerudo. As such, he is precious, and in hopes of reclaiming what once was a noble name from the beast of Malice that had corrupted it, his mother, Valja, Chief of the Gerudo, had named him Ganon. The Gerudo believed that a name or word could be reclaimed from evil if given to something good, and their hope rested with the Chieftain’s son.

Ganon is, beyond all doubts, good. His spirit is free from evil, his heart kind and just, and his greatest ambition is to explore the outside world he has heard so much about, but has not seen.  His people believe he should not leave, that he is too young, too inexperienced, but Ganon is also gifted with a silver tongue, and eventually manages to convince even his mother that letting him see the outside world, to let him explore and learn, to understand, will make him a better ruler when he comes of age.

His mother agrees, but on one condition. As he travels, he must stop in the kingdoms of her old friends and ‘check in’, so they can instantly send word to her that he is alive and well. She knows that Queen Midana, King Sidon, and Chief Gokoro will do this for her, and she will let them know to expect him at some point. Ganon agrees after some thought, seeing the worry his mother has for him, and she allows him to be outfitted for long travel, along with a sturdy donkey.

Ganon manages to reach the middle of Hyrule the same time as a delegation from Zora’s Domain, consisting of King Sidon himself, a few guards, and the king’s two daughters: the elder a tall, stately Zora like the king himself, the younger...a slight, somewhat odd girl who could either be half-Hylian, half-Zora, or a full Hylian, no one can quite tell.

In fact, Ganon meets the delegation because he quite literally gets knocked off of his donkey by this second daughter, who had launched herself out of a tree (where she had been hiding from her father’s guards so she could go explore a bit) without looking to see where she was landing.

The poor Gerudo teen is knocked out, Link thinks she has killed him, and she panics and nearly drowns Ganon in a combination of healing power and marsh water in an attempt to bring him to. The good news is she manages to heal the concussion she gave him in the process. The bad news is that in the panic, Ganon’s donkey, with all of his supplies, fled to goddess knows where.

Out of sheer worry and the odd, nagging sense that there is a have to here, the odd blue-blonde haired girl insists Ganon comes back to her father’s encampment and travel with them for a bit, so she can at least replace what he lost. Ganon agrees, if only to ease her mind, and finds out once she leads him back to the encampment that he got knocked out by the younger princess of the Zora Tribe, who goes by the name Link.

Needless to say, this shocks him more than getting kicked in the face and knocked off his now-missing donkey. King Sidon welcomes Ganon with open arms, and upon learning the boy was heading this way to go ‘report’ to Queen Midana so she could let his mother know he was alive, offered to simply take him with them, so he would not have to travel alone, and he could come to Zora’s Domain next and make his next ‘check in’ whenever he pleased. 

Being offered something by a twelve-foot-tall fishman is not something one generally refuses, and Ganon has enough sense to realize this. Plus it means free food, King Sidon’s two daughters are pretty, Mipha immediately starts mothering him (which grates just a bit, but she is technically a young adult, not a teenager), and Link is....oddly interesting, though he can’t explain why. Ganon is a teenaged boy. This is really a no-brainer.

Thus a delegation from Zora’s domain plus one Gerudo chief’s son make their way to Hyrule Castle over the next few days, fighting entirely too many monsters to be comfortable along the way.

There, the three young royals are introduced for the first time, and they instantly feel a strange connection to one another. With all three of them in the same room, Link suddenly has a name for the nagging feeling she had when she first insisted Ganon come to her father’s camp. There is a connection between the three, all of them can feel it, but none of them can explain it. Zelda remarks how it feels as though she has known Link and Ganon for forever, despite having only just met, and there is an almost unsettling agreement between the three of them. It just feels right.

Unfortunately, the three of them do not get to explore this connection further, to try and find out just why they have this odd feeling of knowing, because disaster strikes.

Out of the ruins of the Sacred Grounds, a beyond-ancient evil rises, shattering the peace of Hyrule within one night of the as-yet-unaware Triforce bearers’ meeting. The Sacred Grounds sink beneath the earth, and in its place, the being that created Calamity Ganon some 11000 years before rises: Malice itself. Malice, not to be confused with Demise, the demon whose reincarnation would take the name “Ganondorf” and who would eventually turn into Calamity Ganon. Malice is who created Demise, and thus, through time, managed to keep the original Ganondorf on the reincarnation cycle, despite Demise’s ultimate power being sealed by the goddess Hylia in ages long past.

If Hylia is the goddess of Hyrule and the people of the surrounding lands, Malice was Demise’s god.  Hylia sealed Malice along with Demise, being made aware of the supernatural, incarnation of pure evil once Demise came to the surface, but where Demise had help in breaking his seal, Malice has had to work alone, in secret, for thousands of years. Now, the seals -- under the Sacred Grounds ruins, in the Forest of Spirits, on Daval Peak, in Dragon’s Exile, on Gerudo Summit, in Lake Totori, under the Forgotten Temple, in the middle of the Thyphlo Ruins, under Death Caldera, in the Rabella Wetlands, hidden on the Peak of Awakening, near Koholit Rock, and last but not least, under Lake Akala -- have failed, and Malice returns in full force, beginning to lay waste to the land.

The goddess Hylia appears in a shaken Hyrule Castle and informs Zelda, Link, and Ganon that they are the Triforce bearers, and as she awakens the true gifts  in the three of them - the triforce pieces of Wisdom, Courage, and Power -   the three teenagers who Fate has only just brought together now have to figure out how to work together to destroy this spawner of evil once and for all. Not only do they have to learn how to control their newly awakened powers, but they have to learn how to do so in harmony with Hylia’s blessings, because otherwise Malice can only be temporarily subdued, not destroyed. For the first time, all three pieces of the Triforce can be used to work in harmony, but in the hands of three kids who have never done this kind of thing before, their chances seem slim.