Chapter Text
The darkness festers.
And Ganon awakens.
The new world is strange yet verily familiar. Familiar sun, familiar sky, familiar sands.
Different mom, different dad.
His mother was shocked, always was and always will be.
A male Gerudo is only born once every millennium.
He calls horse malarkey every damn time.
For as long as Ganon can remember, he was always a Gerudo.
Different body, but the same person.
Always male, always ostracized, always red hair, always strong build, always different, always Ganon.
Always evil.
He didn't blame people for not understanding the Triforce. It had taken him several lifetimes before he realized what was truly happening.
Ganon would be born, soft and kind before malice and hatred took over his skin and bones.
For the Triforce only ever woke them up whenever there was corruption brewing.
And he would always be the sole bearer of that corruption, letting Power and Wisdom grow in purity to take him out.
It was a song and dance that neither ever remembered.
Wisdom had stopped remembering after the eighth lifetime.
Courage had lasted three.
They knew what to do. And that was all that mattered.
Ganon would forever be born first. During their first lifetime, they had been so much closer in age, had been close friends with only months apart between them. But it never changed their order.
Power, Courage, Wisdom.
He knows when Courage is born- he is only sixteen when the Triforce sings and Courage brushes against his force.
Wisdom is born only a few months later.
He smiles against his will, pausing in his work to push back against the familiar auras.
They don't remember him, but they brush back greedily, the sounds of laughter echoing across a connection that was soon to break.
When Wisdom is born, Corruption haunts his mind.
Ganon does not know its name this time around.
Not yet.
He continues his work outside his hometown, banned from ever stepping foot inside Gerudo lest they tear the bond he has with his mother.
His father had left years ago, never even knowing he was born.
It's a bittersweet thought.
Years crawl by, and Ganon hears the word, the words and whispers of Bokoblins and Bats infesting the night. Starts to hear the words of darkness coming through.
Darkness.
Evil.
Malice.
Calamity.
The corruption sings, and Ganon now knows the name of the corruption ready to infect him.
He always lets it touch him, refuses to ever let Power and Wisdom fall to its clutches.
He had a plan, had the drive to change the course, to let himself lose time and time again so the world they lived in was always alright.
So, Courage and Wisdom always won.
He's barely 22 when the Calamity moves within their Triforce, breaking through cracks and wiggling through to latch onto him.
It's a similar song and dance where it would slowly corrupt him, slowly eat at his mind, and twist everything till he was a soul trapped within his own body.
Still, his Triforce thrums with Power and he reaches out a Metaphorical hand.
Take me, I give myself to you.
He barely suppresses a wry grin at the back of the tiny bar he's in, pressing newly created whiskey against his lips as the Calamity slithers its way to him.
The bar is loud, ringing in his ears as people drink and gossip and cross-trade with each other back and forth. Hands under the table people in the dim lighting.
It was almost a perfect place to get corrupted.
The Calamity takes its sweet time, inspecting them all closely.
Each corruption did it- it always did this.
Its powers curl over his force, feeling out each and every part of his life- of his lives- and Ganon is 100% sure it's going to latch.
Except it doesn't.
He doesn't move, tensing as it slithers away from him, thoughts going a mile a minute.
He didn't always understand the Triforce, sometimes it did things and gave things that made no sense to him even across many timelines - how many has it been now- he couldn't bear to hold a torch to it.
But Corruption? Evilness? Darkness- whatever you wanted to call it. It had a pattern; it had a lock.
It never looked for the strongest, couldn't, for it could never truly keep them under its clutches.
If that happened Ganon is certain Link would have been taken a few Millennia Ago.
No.
Evil took the ones that were the easiest to break. Turmoil and hurt, an edge in their heart that only sharpened as they grew, that would worsen under the Calamity.
He sat up straight, feeling out for the other two before figuring that it was a moot point. As much as he could tell which Triforce was what, he couldn't pick up the sickness that quickly. He was only so adept in Magic; he couldn't find it.
This… hadn't happened before.
Ganon was the one that was supposed to take it all.
Kicked from his village for being a boy.
Abandoned by his father for not wanting a child.
Kept at a distance from a mother who didn't know how to raise a son.
The one who was scorned for his race and gender.
The one all alone and in pain, working a pittance job to try so hard to keep up with the hunger and rent.
The one who had been evil for many a millennium.
The broken and damned.
He was 22.
Courage was only 8.
Wisdom was 7.
The fear rakes across his heart, claws seemingly digging into his stomach as the realization slowly comes to a grinding halt.
Who was hurting them so much for the Evil to reject him, of all people?
Ganon rises from his chair, the wood scraping against the stone as he walks out of the bar quietly.
No one follows him, because no one sees him.
He panics, shivering before he spots a dull horse nearby, barely even tied down and with empty bags draped across its back.
He walks forward and presses his hand against its snout.
"Obey," The magic swirls out of his fingers, and the Horse's eyes widen ever so slightly before it relaxes, a reddish tint hovering over its fur before it blows away.
Ganon pulls himself up, glancing at the bar before nudging the horse forward.
It follows without complaint.
He barely knows the way around this world- he should have had a few years to figure this out but not anymore.
Once he's a good distance from the bar, he bucks his feet, snapping the reins as the Horse begins to gallop and then outright sprint.
"Hyrule Kingdom, what have you done?" Ganon whispers, the panic beginning to settle.
Dear Goddesses, what have they done?