And that has made all the difference.

Afternoon of Tuesday, July 2, 2019 (plus several finicky editings through July 16 because I couldn’t leave it alone) .... (and just one note from 2023)

And that has made all the difference.

It’s been about two weeks since I’ve beaten the game.

And I guess.... I can’t help but feel a kind of letdown.

I’ve experienced it before; I’m sure many people have. You draw near the end of an epic adventure, and you can sense the finality impending somehow, and you almost don’t want to proceed.... even though the Hero in you knows he must.

You don’t want it to be over.

But I guess, for me, here and now at least, it’s not really over. Not really. There are still two shrines to get. More Koroks to find. My Compendium to fill.... And of course the faraway dread terror of the option to Start A New Game, which would overwrite the present. Dratblast it, Nintendo, why couldn’t you make multiple saves....?

But then, they’ve never really done that, not for Zelda games. You were always allotted one file, and that was it. And it sufficed. I think some other JRPGs must have spoiled me....

At any rate it doesn’t have to be really over. There are new files to play, old sequences to break, and beyond a new game.... another new game. For I have seen the new Zelda trailer. Or another old game, for there are some Zeldas I haven’t played yet. Or another different game, for I’ve been hankering after Tales of Symphonia lately for some reason. Or maybe the Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2 I picked up for Switch. Always heard good things about those ones....

So I guess this kind of adventure is never really over. But it does come in seasons. And seasons still have to sleep. And that does leave you feeling.... kind of empty. Though like a bygone feast you can still taste it on your lips, and there is great satisfaction in the memory as you finally recline to digest.

I would make a terrible Buddhist.

....

I still have not moved from where I left my saves two weeks ago, but I’ve decided.... not to go back and play from the save before I entered the Sanctum. I won’t overwrite where I’ve been. I don’t want to dishonor the very first ending of my adventure, or vanish my initial slaying of the Great Beast of Malice.

Things experienced for the first time are different. They’re special.... How did I put it....? “....Initial playthroughs are always special, because the secrets and surprises are all fresh, the twists and turns jarring....”

So long ago I said that, back at the head of this very log.

Good thing I wrote it down. The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.

And speaking of things written down, I found what I thought I had remembered—I did experience that same conundrum of choice before, at the end of Skyward Sword. The abominable saving quandary. I had journaled about it. Of course I had. Because I am the Journaling Fiend. In case you hadn’t noticed by now:

“Sunday, June 10, 2012, into the very early morning of Monday, June 11, 2012

I stood stock-still, fearful of accidentally pushing any buttons that might kill the buzz. But as everything finally faded to black, I was presented with a choice.

Do you want to play in Hero Mode?

The affirmative answer read, “Bring it on.”

The negative answer.... well, I can’t remember.

What pause this gave me.

But I never wanted to play this game again, so.... no. No thanks.

Are you sure you want to return to the start menu without saving?

Augh, but I did enjoy the feelings of those cinematics. Although they’re never as good the second time....

Um, no, not sure. Yes. Save.

Your progress up to this point will be deleted. Are you sure you want to save and do Hero Mode?

Deleted? Oh dear. Wait. No, don’t save.

Are you sure you want to return to the start menu without saving?

.... My eyes bugged in flummoxation.

Cinematics, viewed often, lose their charm. I’d negotiated the same turmoil at the first savepoint after Groose crashed my skydiving.

I couldn’t go through those again. No. The adventure I’d just survived, the shattering of my shield in some godforsaken phantom realm of turmoil and lightning.... that insistent little fairy I had forgotten....

No, I wouldn’t go back there again. Among the million different stories told for the million different players, my own version of this adventure had come to too satisfying an end.

This story needed to be saved and put to rest.”

So even then I couldn’t bring myself to erase what had already been done, I see.

Maybe it comes from a journaler’s need to record. To save. For better or worse.

Save file linearity notwithstanding, I ought to be grateful that Breath of the Wild seems to end Ocarina of Time style, rather than Skyward Sword style. That is to say, I can beat the game and have the ending under my belt, and then play the end again without having to start from the very beginning.

And still have time to play in between.

The whole world is open to me now, all of Hyrule. And I am strong. I want to find those shrines.... and then storm the castle again....

....

Did I write down all of Skyward Sword, too? No. No I didn’t. Just bits from the ending, as they struck me so deeply.

Heh, so deeply I could feel their reverberations even here, as Fi still sang her song from a bleeding blade on the battlefield, deep in that last rainy memory....

Did you hear that soundbyte?

Hahhh!

It has always pleased me to write down that which strikes me. Or if not always, then for a very long time at least. It’s therapeutic. It’s insightful. It’s often surprising and inspiring! They say you don’t learn much when your mouth is moving. But I would dare to say it’s the opposite case when your pen is scrawling or your keys are ticky-ticking. In writing down what strikes you, you might just strike yourself in turn.

And in this case of logging down the entire video game of Breath of the Wild.... well, it’s true that it has pleased me, yes.... It has pleased me, bothered me, tickled me, TORMENTED ME, DELIGHTED me, INFURIATED ME, ENRAPTURED ME, and driven me STARK, RAVING and GIBBERING BONKERS.

The entire game.

I wrote the entire game.

I have journaled my way through an entire video game.

What an intriguing notion.

What an exciting project.

What a gargantuan undertaking.

I knew I should’ve set all my affairs in order before I started playing.

Five megabytes this document weighs now. Five megabytes!?

Have you ever written for five megabytes straight? 614 pages of solid twelve-point Times New Roman inside one-inch margins? Though there are some dregs below this down to page 630.... and a lot of material preceding this that remains unedited yet as of this writing; that’ll push this part further down.... And it’s all been slowly shoved ever lower by the ever-expanding CONTENTS section anyway.... I knew the confluences would never last whenever I remarked on what page I was on.... Where’s Revali now?

....Heh, looks like he’s been pushed to page 501.

Poor sod.

Five megabytes....

279,000 words.

[And I’m sorry to say, as of the deep waking of Thursday, May 11, 2023, that I can calculate the final size no further, due to much of the latter portions of this work being completed in segments post-computer-failure. But maybe some day.]

I wrote the entire game.

I’ve scripted a searchable Let’s Play.

I’ve birthed a mutant metafanfiction.

I actually made it through.

....

It’s been a different experience for me than for anybody else, I think.

Well, of course it has; that’s how Zelda games are, and especially this one. But.... I mean a very different experience. Very far from.... normal.

And I cannot deny that it has affected my playing.

It takes time to write. And being tied to the log.... I couldn’t move as fast as I might have otherwise done in the game.

I remember playing Twilight Princess for the first time, plunging ahead, hurtling forward through the frays, into the woods, into the darkness, breaking out of dungeons, stalking in fearful yearning through lonely shadows, running in desperation and longing for stolen friends, staying up late into the nights, losing sleep and geeking all over my friends the following days, lamenting that I COULD NOT FIND THE CHILDREN.

How invigorating, how all-consuming it was! What a RUSH!

....

But I couldn’t do that with Breath of the Wild. I couldn’t plunge ahead.

Or I didn’t let myself.

I had to move slowly.

Or I chose to.

I chose to put the game away for weeks at a time and force myself to catch up on logging when I really wanted to keep playing.

Wary of spoilers, I chose to shut myself out from certain internet groups. I chose to stop watching certain art circles—oh, that was the hardest. I chose to interact only cautiously with other Zelda fans whilst I floundered behind in the game.

For two years I shied away from the jabbering Zelda community, to keep the discoveries and twists and turns safe for me to discover on my own. And whenever I did find something incredible or unbelievable, all I could do was wonder.... Have people already talked about this? Did they discuss it all in a flurry, months ago? Were there funrowdy times of tightly localized exploration or experimentation, with bursts of forum posts and YouTube videos? ....Or am I the only one in all the world who knows about.... this? And I too isolated to ask aloud.

It felt very.... solitary, a lot of the time. Even when I’d caught up to David, and could finally relieve him from keeping his mouth so faithfully, painfully shut for me. He was heroic, really.

Do I regret any of this?

No. I don’t. I can’t. I chose this.

And besides, the experience was not without its own kind of reward and fulfillment. Chewing and stewing for so long over every point in the game, giving myself time enough for writing, time enough for deepest thought upon every last person and creature and bug that stepped into my path, has granted me a finer and more flavorful vision of the myriad denizens of Hyrule than I could ever have expected. Like Pi drifting slowly over the ocean, seeing and knowing every fish and turtle and whale, instead of only the spray of a rapid wake.

I really did care for Leekah and her poor unlucky happenstance. How could I not, when I barred myself from leaping headlong into so many other multitudes of things to worry about? I really rooted for tender young Kabetta, and seeing his efforts made me both proud and worried. It was heartening and encouraging to see Mils and Mina standing their ground so bravely. Calyban’s turn to generosity truly warmed my heart. Benny’s brave curiosity was endearing and inspiring. I wished Tye and Sorelia all the happiness in the world. I couldn’t bring myself to blame Jerrin.... too much. But I could Zyle; OH who raised that man....? I sometimes felt sorry for murdering hapless red Bokoblins far below my level, while I was under the guise of my Mask. Fronk’s bowed and weeping gratitude made every second of the outlandish pains I took to find and bring back his wife Mei absolutely worth it. Seeing Kass come home to be with his family and make beautiful music with his daughters was so utterly fulfilling, especially to my musician’s heart. And hearing lessons from Sesami’s friend Palme—the man with the unflattering haircut, the poor lost wanderer, the softest and most unable man in a fight—as he delivered the truest, deepest, and most unexpectedly powerful words of wisdom for a meaningful life... is an instance I will treasure.

It’s been a different experience for me, playing this game. Different than it otherwise might have been.

But I don’t regret it.

....

There’s a strange catch there, though. When you think about it, I really can’t regret it. If it was a choice between playing it through for the first time normally, and playing it through for the first time with a journal in tow.... there is no way I would be able to experience both of those. I can play it through for the first time only once.

And so unable to compare the two, how could I know which would have been better or more enjoyable?

I couldn’t.

It’s like that Robert Frost poem about two roads. You are only one traveler; you can’t walk them both.

But I suppose such fractaled pathways are what make life interesting. It’s all right to favor one horizon over another; there are enough to go around.

And from what I have observed, in myself and in others, I think I can rest on that.... as far as The Legend of Zelda ~ Breath of the Wild goes.... I think any pathway would have proven to be good, beautiful, beloved and fulfilling.

But I think I really did take the road less traveled.

I can’t know what it’s like to play Breath of the Wild like I’ve played other Zelda games. And that’s all right. But maybe.... if I’ve wielded my words right.... you reading this can glean some small taste of what it’s like to play the game with Contraltissimo’s very fine-toothed comb. Maybe the experiences are similar after all. I wouldn’t know.

But you might.

Looks like you have the advantage here.

And in truth.... I am glad to offer it, if you’re willing to take it.

After all, it’s dangerous to go alone.

Now, I think I’ll finally have a listen to that Breath of the Wild ~ Sound Selection disc that came with the statue and the Switch case and everything else in that super-mega-deluxe-or-whatever-it-was version of the game I bought.

Hey, music can be spoilerish too! Of course I put it away for later. It was only recently that I actually took off the shrinkrap and loaded the tracks onto my original black iPod Nano, Sylphie. Named for a mermaid.

And now.... I think I’ll finally let myself enjoy it.

As well as the complete soundtrack I bought more recently. Hm, which includes music from the DLC....

Guess I’d better play that, too. I did purchase it, two years ago. I’ve just never booted it up. But in the sparse visits I allowed myself into the Zelda circles of the internet in the meanwhile, I received some very high recommendations for it.

Think I’ll play with my amiibos too at some point. And maybe.... see how the game feels on the Switch.

Man. I’ve put off a lot these past two years.

I just wanted the pure experience first.

Well, I got it.

Boy did I get it.

Turns out anything worth doing.... really is worth overdoing.

That’s why all Heroes are called Fools.

This is Contraltissimo, signing off.

 

Never The End

Evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2019 (comprised of many raw note editings from May 1 through May 10, 2023 that I really hope sound consistent because I left it alone for too long) ~ 5

Never The End

Credits.

It was really the Credits.

The game was done.

The game.... was done.

I let them wash over me.

And as they rolled, Mom asked, “Are there going to be any more Zelda games?”

Ah-heh, well.... I knew just the thing to show her.

But for whatever reason I kept it inside and only probed what she knew....

“Why do you ask?” I said, letting just a little tightness into my voice, and wondering what she suspected.

“I don’t want you to commit suicide.”

Oh.

Oh Mom—

I don’t remember if—I don’t think I responded, but only.... went back into the credits.

We were looking at the pictures, and I was identifying them.... And I saw the American’s name! Wow! He was one of only two programmers for the wildlife! They did such a wonderful job. ^_^ And I was so happy for him for going so far to follow his dream....

....

Mom.

....

I guess if someone who loves you sees you wounded, and hears you name your salve, even in dark jesting.... they don’t forget it easy.

I don’t even know if the cure is real or psychosomatic.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

These were the most relaxing credits I had ever seen in my life. At least, that I could think of just then. Slow through the serene iterations of familiar musics.

I gave a little cheer at the name of Eiji Aonuma! And did some up-and-down worshipful bowing from the couch. Mom laughed.

And I gave another at Shigeru Miyamoto!

And at.... Satoru Iwata.

I told Mom that he’d passed away.

Still glad to see his name in this beautiful game.

The Legend of Zelda ~ Breath of the Wild

Copyright 2017

Or some such words.

This last segment came to a stop and hung still in the middle of the screen.

2017.

Two years ago.

I can still remember standing in the cold outside the GameStop. I was first in line. And that employee with the glasses and the handsomely-trimmed scruff had been so friendly. Despite that he almost forgot to give me my amiibos as well.... See the preorder receipt.... ?

It’d been a long journey.

The serene credits finished into a breathless black.

And then.... the Castle....

I had never seen it so still and sunlit before.

Birds even chirped.

Zelda and I stood before the ruined gates in the sunlight. I in my blue Champion’s Tunic, she still in her beautiful White Dress.

The malice was gone.

And the Castle was in ruins.

But.... it was quiet now.

It was at peace.

We looked on it.... and then turned our backs to go.

....as high above among the spires, the spirits of the Four Champions.... and lastly of Her Father....

                                                                                    ....departed from this world.

Seeming to sense something, Zelda stopped and looked back.

So did I—

A blue breeze was blowing through the air....

The sky was full of Silent Princess petals.

But the Princess only gazed up at her once home, the sun beyond beaming it into a silhouette.... into a line.... into a memory....

The Piano that had softly accompanied us, having had no real aim for the spotlight anymore, now turned the final notes of its wanderings to the familiar ascending Theme of Legend, as the view arced up into the blue, blue sky....

The End

But it wasn’t.

We were on a hillside. Zelda and I.

Somewhere southeast of the castle, seemed like....

Zelda once again wore the blue tunic and dark trousers in which she had so often traveled in my memories. Boots and all. She held the Sheikah Slate in her hands.

“We’ll make our way to Zora’s Domain. Divine Beast Vah Ruta...looks like it stopped working. Let’s investigate the situation.”

There was something there, I thought. Something in that last sentence. A kind of spark.

The Princess was still a nerd.

And confident, and brilliant, and determined.

She was going to make it.

But her glittering eyes softened after a moment, and she looked up.

“Mipha’s father...” she murmured, “I believe he would like to hear more about her. The least we can do is visit him and offer him some closure.”

The Piano and the Pipe courted about the hillside on the simple Hero’s Theme, as the sun shone so brightly on the rolling grass.

“Although Ganon is gone for now, there is still so much more for us to do.”

Some clouds still rolled between, though.

“And so many painful memories that we must bear.”

The Princess took a few steps forward down the hill, standing confidently.

“I believe in my heart, that if all of us work together... we can restore Hyrule to its former glory. Perhaps...even beyond.” Right on that hopeful secondary dominant, Pipe, you dastardly genius.... “But it all must start with us,” Zelda finished.

The dancing pair on the grass invited the rest of the Orchestra to the theme.

“Let’s be off,” Zelda said. And started walking straightaway.

Like she did.

And.... I followed. That gilded sheath still bearing the Master Sword on my back.

Ah.... our horses. Grazing higher up the hill.

And hers so white—was that Memory she was riding, then?

It suited her.

....

It suited them both.

Zelda came near to them, but.... stopped before she got there.

I was once again faced, as I had been many times before, by only her unreadable, lovely blonde mane of hair....

It wasn’t long before she spoke.

“I can no longer hear the voice within the sword,” she halted again.

I knew that she had yearned for some connection, some awakening. To lose it again....

“I suppose it would make sense if my power had dwindled over the past 100 years...”

Princess Zelda turned then and looked at me, and even the Orchestra took pause.

The wells of her eyes ran for a thousand miles and looked.... tired of it.

But she allowed the sorrow only a moment’s heaviness on her gaze before softly blinking it away with a little turn.

“I’m surprised to admit it...” she started, and something else shaped her lips now. Something brighter, as she faced me directly. “But you know? I think I’m all right with that,” she said.... and smiled.

And the Deku Tree was right.

She did have a smile like the sun.

And I jogged just a few paces to come even with her, and follow her to the horses, as the camera swept back from the beautiful, sunlit hillside, up the slope to where the Silent Princess flowers grew all over, in the lofty heights overlooking the ruggedly beautiful kingdom of Hyrule.

The End

.....

There’s a star by my last save file.

....

I’ma look at it.

2 Spirit Orbs

118 Shrines

534 Koroks

2089 Rupees

In the castle.

And I have the pictograph of Ganon’s butt.

So.

Do I go seek shrines from here?

Or from a previous save?

If I wish to maintain this choice....

I cannot move.

....

Hm.

I quit for now.

.... Soon.

If I were to go back to a previous save, wherein I had not beaten the game yet....

That would do no justice to the adventure I just completed.

.... I feel as though I faced the same thing in.... Skyward Sword.... somewhere....

Yes. I quit for now.

....

I’m still short two shrines.

But.... should I say....

You know?

I think I’m all right with that.

 

 

 

The Promise Of Ages

Evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2019 (comprised of many raw note editings from May 1 through May 10, 2023 that I really hope sound consistent because I left it alone for too long) ~ 4

The Promise Of Ages

The Calamity howled his thousand-dragon-howl, bracing his monumental hooves and throwing up his neck, his putrid tongue lolling between his jaws—the Eyeball in the nape roved and twitched—

And a Light—that Light again!

A White Light SHOT UP from deep beneath the muscled crest of the Beast.

It was her....

It was Zelda.

It was Princess Zelda.

She gleamed like a Star in the Heavens, hands clasped before her as if in prayer, eyes serenely closed, golden light gleaming from her person and leaving a spray of diamonds in her wake.

She was free of the Demon’s grasp.

Everything had stopped. Only the holy resounding ringing of her appearance chimed ceaselessly, cyclicly, like a heavenly glass armonica, humming and shimmering to eternity.

The Calamity snorted, the sound shrunken, roomed in without an echo, as his eyes beheld the Princess.

She hovered back down, haloed as if by a holy golden flame, alighting in the grass so softly she did not even bend. Gentle as a flower, soft as a sigh, she opened her eyes, and no fear marred her brow.

The Demon collapsed onto its chest before her, crashing massively at her feet, its all-rending tusks coming close to crushing her on either side—

—and yet never close at all.

Still blazing, still heaving, still rumbling, the wind of its throes sweeping the grass and casting up the Princess’ hair—

And yet all about her person still was only that serenity, and that gentle ringing.... and perhaps.... as her brow betrayed the slightest furrow.... perhaps.... a little sorrow.

Her eyes looked on the Demon then, purposefully.

And that was the only sign to be seen.

The holy light around her pulsed into renewed ringing, the golden flames moving, growing stronger, no longer at rest, the little glimmers breathing about her person now casting forward like embers in a wind.... toward the Demon.... toward the Calamity.

The Beast chuffed, roared, gnawing the air, its jaws working—what it couldn’t grind to a pulp with that defiling tongue, the foul teeth....

Its eyes still gaping....

But for only a moment more.

For in the next breath the Princess’ shining and ringing redoubled, tripled, overflowed beyond themselves all at once into a radiating brilliance. She was become a tremoring golden sun made flesh, as waves of holy light washed outward and over the Demon.

Beaming spears of golden light shining outward in every direction from her person....

And this final insistence could not be denied.

With a last descending groan, the Calamity mourned out its defiance as its body, the horrible, writhing, Malice-bound mountain of itself, began to recede and wither away, evaporating beneath the Princess’ holy light.

An almighty sizzling electrified the landscape as the hot magenta flames were purged from the crumbling form, licking up into the sky, until all the was left.... was that ghostly form I had first seen of it so long ago.

It mounted into the air, coiling from the cloud of its corporeal death and twining like a snake—its terrifying jaws still roaring fit to swallow the world—

It swooped and stooped like an enormous bird of prey, unable yet to take that woman in its jaws—

But Zelda—her eyes still calm, her brow even, her lips not yet even parted—indeed her face as set and still as one holding her breath underwater—Zelda raised her hand with a final renewed gleaming, and—

SHEEEN-RING!

The sound was like the resonance of an everlasting church bell, mighty from a cathedral tower, resounding and warming and booming and golden without fading and without concussive instigation. Just.... ringing.

The Princess conjured an ever expanding sphere of holy golden light against the Demon’s last lunge. Its wickedness could not stand before her Power, falling to dark shreds and nothing before the divine glow, the sacred Triforce ringing at the center.

The sphere continued to grow, as if to cast a shield around all of Hyrule....

But its only aim was the Calamity—the fleeing Calamity Ganon—and it engulfed him, even his ghostly form then deforming, the jaw unhinging one last time as the Light consumed him and he vanished. His terrible, terrible eyes....

Zelda stood, her right hand still raised, the mighty, flaming, burning, golden sphere of her holy Sealing Power still ringing upon the earth.... until with a final rush like a whipping flag, the mighty sphere shrank with a subito sudden silence, and—Vvp!—

—!—

Blinked its bound captive out of existence.... and back into planes of darkness.

The world faded out to white.... for a looong, loong breath.

And then....

DESTROY GANON

COMPLETE

I exhaled, and Mom and I gazed and gasped in wonderment at each other.

“I didn’t think I would do this on a Wednesday!” I growled in happy exasperation.

The world faded back into view—the battlefield faded back into view.

The sky still raged crimson beneath a Blood Moon.

But.... no....

Light was beginning to shine through.

The racing cloud-wrack, so fitfully tormented, began at last to still, its nightmare finally ending....

The Castle pillars in the distance—they were blue now.

The Piano was the first to step back onto the grass. And it tenderly held the hand of the Lullaby, and led it childlike back to she to whom it belonged, where she stood in the grass. Even as the last dusty maroon in the sky was giving way to lavender.... to the shadow of blues waiting to be born....

“I’ve been keeping watch over you all this time...” the Princess halted.

Her back was to me. That beautiful white dress. The very same? The one with a Grecian grace....

The fiery glow left her hair as the sky cooled further still.

“I’ve witnessed your struggles to return to us as well as your trials in battle.”

I stepped toward her. The Bow of Light still slung across my back.

But she still didn’t turn.

Under the foggy blue of the sky, she had returned to her proper honey-blonde now. The trees in the distance beyond her now green again, no longer clawing nightmares....

“I always thought—no, I always believed—that you would find a way to defeat Ganon.”

The sun beamed brighter still. Haloing us both.

“I never lost faith in you over these many years...”

As at last her feet stepped—swiveled—and stood.

She was a lily about to bloom under the radiant sun’s light, shining new on the world.

“Thank you, Link...”

Hands still clasped so elegantly over her heart.

“...the hero of Hyrule.”

And her green eyes shone. No longer burdened, no longer so solemnly set in power so great and terrible.

Just.... smiling.

But the little furrow came back, as her shoulders rose yet.... and a gentle uncertainty tugged at her brow.

“May I ask...” she started breathlessly....

And the Music held its peace.

“Do you really remember me?”

As we stood apart, together, in the sun.

—A timeless piping took my hand, though, singing the Ancient Song, as it drew the curtain on the Orchestra’s soft cadence, and faded the scene to black.... the Piano voicing the final tremulous laughter from my quivering throat.

 

CALAMITY

Evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2019 (comprised of many raw note editings from May 1 through May 10, 2023 that I really hope sound consistent because I left it alone for too long) ~ 3

CALAMITY

.......

....

.

.

.

.

The Demon lay on the floor, its figure still, but its form yet crawling—Malice writhing beneath the surface, across the surface, still obscuring the monster in a pall of unknowableness among its folded, gangling legs bent everywhere—

But it stirred again.

Leg and arm and limb and joint moved, shuffling as the heaving mass hauled and pulled to raise itself—tromp, tromp.... tromp-tromp, tromp.... the varied ends of its nightmare legs squelched against the floor. Dark blood or some perversion thereof came spurting from every surface at the strain, spattering the ground—Shkang!—one Guardian leg clamped against the ground. A literal Guardian’s leg. This dark amalgamation of terrors....

It burbled a sonorous, crocodilian rumbling as it pulled to face me.

The giant flaming sword arm, no longer roaring, heaved up and pounded mightily down as the Demon dragged, shaking the floor.

Its eyes still clutched my throat to strangle the life from me.

The smaller left arm stepped once more and then buckled—the shoulder collapsed—something ruptured and a torrent of black-magenta liquid shot out—from the neck, from the belly, the hindquarter, the other side, again and again, more and more—the Demon screamed, rearing as dark, splattering pools formed viscous and foul over the stones beneath its wilting body—

It didn’t stop—more kept coming.... and more kept coming.... spurting.... SPURTING....

The Demon’s head rolled in a moment of silent, open-mouthed agony, like a dying man’s, and its terrible eyes, like fiery glowing holes, looked on me again.... One of them was fixed wider than the other....

And then the screaming came again, as the monster lurched more viciously than before, pulling the stones beneath it with ungodly strength as its liquid muscles glowed hot and red in its rage. Pounding, pounding, dragging, pulling, screaming, reaching—

The jaws of Hell gaped in its face as it came toward me.

And then came the light.

It was not a goodly light.

It erupted purple-white from within the Demon’s body, spearing out in a piercing shaft—and then another—and then another. At each new beam the Demon’s screams seemed to redouble, layering up upon themselves. A cacophonous teakettle chorus of pain, and rage, and hatred—

Until at last its body could no longer maintain its corporeal form, and all was blasted out, ripped apart from within, by that glowing hot, purple-white sphere like a firebomb....

The dark wind of a boundless evil rolled over me like a gale, rushing out from the center in a wrack of malevolent black flame. I cast up my forearms and lowered my brow, planting my feet against the storm. So much of it.... so much bigger than even that foul, indiscernible thing I had just killed.... I bowed my head lower....

When the rupturing Malice-storm had finally blown itself out, the dark-glistening clouds of it gathered up into the center of the enormous chamber once more.

The beast had no form.... yet it was no less present.... somehow roaring in gurgling fury even now....

The dark cloud swirled menacingly for only a moment more.... and then began to float back up—to ascend back up the central shaft, moving with purpose, another roar guttering in its unmade throat like a dragon....

It was leaving me behind—I had a bad feeling about this.

The Calamity was leaving; everything was leaving—even the Soundtrack had gone. The room stood stock-still and empty. The glik-glik-glik of my boots and the rattle of my gear rang in the hollow space as I jogged a few steps after the departing nightmare.

How do I get out of here?

But even as I stood, gazing upward—that flickering, that glittering—

The Powers of Light and Goodness had not left me bereft. Just as in the times after I had reclaimed a Divine Beast, that delicately twinkling golden light began to gather around my person like living stars, humming like summer crickets and tiny cymbals....

It enveloped me all at once with a high clarion ringing, and bore me up and away as the world whited out....

....

Hyrule Field.

That’s where this was.

Flat, and open, and grassy, and I could see the Castle and those pillars in the distance, blackened to near silhouettes in the golden sun’s glare.

....

No, but was it even called Hyrule Field, here, now?

These Central Plains....

The breezing grass and the lightly scudded sky mirrored fire at one another, as the flickering light descended like a flower petal and deposited me in the field with a flash, soft, and unassuming, ringing like a kiss from the Goddess.

A horse.

A horse was here with me, too. Saddled. Its figure likewise lost in the glow of the molten sky. Brown? It looked liked Brown. But.... Brown was safe in a stable....

The horse from my memories, resurrected?

....

They did look very similar to one another, to be honest. I wondered....

The wind hissed among the grass.

No.... Not the wind....

Streaming tails of Malice coursed through the sky like tadpoles distorted by rippling water. Sickly fireworks, with heads of bright magenta, trailing ribbons of dark fumes behind them.

They slithered over my head, behind me—

Hissing....

“...” Something muffled.

I turned—and saw darkness—

“Ganon...”

The horse turned too—

—It was black, it was swirling, it was a mountain, darkly flaming, writhing and turning as it had done about the castle for a hundred years.... only so much thicker.... Shot with magenta, and fed by a thousand trailing vestiges of Evil as the Demon’s scattered Malice gathered for one final time....

“Ganon...”

It was Zelda’s voice.

“Ganon was born out of a dark past.”

Shapes. Shapes moved in the dimness of the cloud. Solid again. Something big....

What.... rolling mountain of evil-made-flesh was this? I didn’t understand.

“He is a pure embodiment of the ancient evil that is reborn time and time again...”

And another—SHAPE?

!!

THAT one I understood—that was a hoof.

It burst from the cloud and swung ponderously downward. A sound like cracking trees and tearing rocks snapped through the air as the cloven mountain of Malice came to a sudden and violent stop, quaking the earth.

And another hoof.... It tore through the cloud with a shearing, the inverted mountain peaks of its dew claws dragging dark contrails through the air. Every new disturbance to the swirling miasma cast up a blood-red splash as the Demon churned within itself, birthing the new, unholy body.

Oh gosh he’s huge....

“He has given up on reincarnation and assumed his pure, enraged form.”

The head at last erupted from the storm.

Fire.

Crests of white fire.

Evil so concentrated it glowed a blinding burning—

The eye. Horns. Tusks. The mouth gaping like I had seen it do so long ago from the plateau when I was tiny and small and naked. Roaring fit to split its jaws apart and fill all the earth with its howling, its raging....

The ground disappeared in a haze before and beneath it, so towered the Demon over the plains below, the vestigial clouds of the evil that had fed its formation still whirling round it in a disc.

Oh my gosh he’s huge....

“If set free upon our world, the destruction will be unlike anything ever seen before.”

The hooves raised unnaturally high—

From where I stood by my horse, I watched—we watched—as the whole, mutated, broad-shouldered mountain of the Beast came slamming down from the final throes of its transformation. The forehooves landing bowshots apart. Casting up house-sized boulders that rocketed into the air—my horse reared and whinnied—

The Malicey clouds at last receded.

The Demon was whole once more.

And its eyes—its glowing, hollow eyes—set amid the animal patterns of the manes of fire cresting its face and flaring up along the proud hump of its back—

Its eyes.... were upon me.

Me. Alone in all the plain.

Me.... and my horse.

Hardly moving from his enormous, tusk-lowering stoop, the Calamity again sighed out the guttering roar of a thousand crocodile dragons—and a quivering, a shaking, racked along his thick, muscly nape, rippling among his shoulders and down through his neck and into the terrible place where his eyes lived—unmoving, unmoved, unwrinkled by any furrow of the brow—only the massive, man-splitting strain of that monumental trembling betraying the awful fury that no mortal could utter and live.

A new title gleamed into terrible focus on the screen:

Hatred and Malice Incarnate

DARK BEAST GANON

Even the title seemed tinged with blood....

The entirety of the Orchestra had risen up through just one earth-shattering sequence of that most ancient organ motif, before coming to hang with the dust in the air on a suspension of high strings that were bending with losing their minds.... watching.... waiting....

That dissonant, ascending organ line.

He was still serenading her.

Still serenading his captive.

But the Dreadful Dialogue pendulated back, as it always did and as it always had, and the Princess’ answering Lullaby came escorted by the Piano alone, standing against the world in a beautiful concerto beneath the rippling sky flowing like a river....

Something was there, like a second sun high above....

She addressed me still—

“I entrust you with the Bow of Light—a powerful weapon in the face of evil.”

And the holy relic descended from the washing pastel of the running clouds, glowing golden, beaming bright, the recurve of its length arcing like a sickle moon decked with gold-wrought tendrils.... sheening.... ringing....

“Link...”

I stood in the grass beside my horse.

“...you may not yet be at a point where you have fully recovered your power or all of your memories...”

Looking down from the easy gaze he had held on the Princess’ final gift, my horse.... looked to me now. Expectantly.

And I looked to him.

And mounted up.

And the Piano reached out with one hand and then the other, drawing in every piece of the Orchestra one by one, stronger and stronger as the Lullaby turned to a new melody.

The oldest new melody in this land....

“But courage need not be remembered...”

The Calamity stomped in the distance beneath the mighty cadence—

“For it is never forgotten.”

Oh my gosh I’m gonna cry.

The Bow finally came down to near ground level, some distance away.... and beyond it, the thunder and terror and roaring of a thousand crumbling mountains echoed from the Calamity’s last raging.

Only the Princess’ Light separated us now.

The cutscene released.

I charged.

Thankfully the pick-up was automatic as soon as we galloped into the Bow Of Light—

And after one FINAL interruption from the You-Get-The-Thing fanfare—oh my, 32 damage times five; that was something—the freeze released us and we hoofed it into the grass.

Oh gosh....

Oh my gosh he’s huge.

He’s HUGE.

Oh gosh.

I took a shot.

But nothing happened.

Oh wrong bow, I was still holding the old one—

I switched out—

A winding, whistling, charging noise and light gathered about the Beast’s head like a collapsing star and then ERUPTED OUT OF ITS MOUTH IN A PIERCING BEAM. Great head bowed low he mowed the blast into the ground, melting the earth and evaporating the grass—and then raised his tremendous neck, arcing the beam along with it, carving a straight line into the ground and off to the horizon and up into the sky and beyond the clouds and high into the heavens—shooting—shooting—SHOOTING!—the earth flaming a raging magenta in the beam’s wake—

Oh my gosh!

“That energy covering Ganon’s body is called Malice. None of your attacks will get through as he now is...”

Good to know!

The Demon charged another blast to spew out upon the earth—was he seeking me out?—My horse and I galloped along his flank, away from his head....

Or was he only blindly blasting his rage wherever he could as it welled up within him?

....

Either way, I didn’t care to invite his attentions!

I spurred my horse onward in the general direction of the Beast’s hindquarters, carving a wide arc and a generous berth....

“I will hold the Malice back as much as I can, but my power is waning.”

Princess!

“Attack any glowing points that you see!”

The Piano bucked like a wild thing among the Orchestra—

“May you be victorious!” the Princess prayed.

I spurred my horse....

Glowing points? His face? His eyes?

But the Princess willed her targets into sight for me—enormous golden rings, overlaid by the sign of the holy Triforce, rang into being across the Demon’s side, glowing hot and shining....!

“Go!” she cried—

OH GANON TURNED—his feet—HIS FEET—!

One deadly fetlock shuffed out and knocked me and my horse to the ground—

He stepped on my horse!

He stepped on my horse!!

I never meant to get this close—

He was MADE—OF—MALICE.

We must not touch him!

I drew back on the Bow of Light—this....Arrow of Light!—and let fly—

The golden targets exploded, and though I could discern no change in the Demon’s ungodly evil hide, I could hear his thunderous roaring in response, and see the impossible writhing of his heaving, mountainous body—it hurt him—

“Ganon’s power is weakening!”

I whistled and my horse was there.

Such a faithful, faithful steed.

Two whipcracks. Came every time I whistled.

Mounting was easier and the horse would run straight away. A mechanic, I suspected, of the fight.... But he was tricky to steer, as the camera wanted to stay focused on Ganon—

“Quickly now!”

More targets—

I’m coming!

The PIANO.

The Piano had accompanied me on horseback before.

It had followed me through the gaiety of sunshine and dappled leaves. It had stalked me lost beneath the moonlight. It had run joyously at my side telling me the Old Stories of Zelda’s Lullaby and the Legend of the Hero—

But now—

Now in the Calamity’s shadow, my horse and I ran to the tune of This Hyrule’s oldest song:

5_ 1_ 8____ 7b_ 5____....

5_ 7b_ 1____ 5_ 2b_ 3b__ 4__

5_ 1_ 3b____ 2_ 5____....

5__ 7b_ 6___ 5____

This melody was ancient on a metaphysical level—already old and well known in teasers before the land had been born. And it strove against the Ascending Organ of the Dark One as the Malice-fires raged and the rain began to pour....

This was the Orchestra’s pronouncement for the Battle at the End of the World.

But the Piano....

Upon this framework....

....the Piano danced!

So vibrant, so vivacious, it leapt and spun and stomped and beat and CARED NOTHING for all of Ganon’s raging! It was there to chant. It moved in syncopated defiance of everything around it, Good, Evil, or otherwise. It wanted a piece of this brawl and it had taken it, and was now tearing it to pieces before the eyes and ears of all.

Always mere raindrops it had been before, whenever it ran alongside my horse—Now it was a hurricane!—a torrential downpour splashing and crashing where it would and NONE could stop its rioting revelry!

My heart could have burst for that PIANO....!

—As it burst for my horse!

Would he stop stepping on my horse!!

I had to shoot the thingies....!

Zelda’s voice telling me what to do.... I could sense it starting to deteriorate into the variations reserved for the retarded gamers because I was taking so long—

“Link, now!”

Hang on I’m still over here by his tail—

!

But then I remembered.... and didn’t want to miss another opportunity....

I took out my pictograph box!

Channeling a stupidly fond old memory from one Adam Hanny and his friend Shad Metcalf.... “Here’s a nice picture for ya!” I sneered with a nasty grin, and took a pictograph of Dark Beast Ganon’s butt.

I was a little preoccupied to do any better just now!

Shoot the thingies....

Some of the targets I had missed while being on one side of him, before passing round to the other side—he was just so big.... his flanks and shoulders heaving and twisting like a mountain....

The Princess’ urgings made me want to hurry.... Sometimes I passed underneath him to get back to where I had been.... oh gosh....

And once as I came out on his right side, A BLOOD MOON WAS RISING AND THE SKY WAS TURNING HELLISH RED.

The clouds, the storm, and now this....

The sky was boiling.

Princess Zelda conjured the final target for me—ON HIS BELLY.

Well, I’d been under a few times already....!

I rode in close again and took it out!

“Link! Look up there!” Zelda’s voice came again.

But I was wheeling around toward the tail again. I didn’t like being anywhere near the Beast’s face. His ripping Malice attacks raking across the landscape—

“That is the very core of Ganon’s being!”

Or some such words....

“Do what you must, Link!”

But I’m looking up and I don’t see anything....

Oh—

I could see now, more light—ohh gosh—from his head now, what?

....

. . . . . . .

. . . .

I gotta get up there.

....

I gotta get up there. Up to the front.

And the fastest way....

I turned my horse and rode straight up his tail, between his back legs, under his gross heaving belly and beneath his.... unexpectedly ripped chest.... toward the front.

“I DON’T LIKE BEING DOWN HERE,” I SAID TO MY MOM.

What the abs?

I guessed he wasn’t totally porcine.

My horse and I tore out from beneath his terrible jaws—the searing firebomb waiting to go off—

We got to the front and I could see now—a light.

A good light!

Golden and sheening, bursting from his head, from above his face, from his nape, out of his manes....

The sight of it hummed and shimmered—the Piano had seized upon a single oboe and was now romancing it about the field in an elegantly charged holding pattern—it wanted me to do something....

“Use his attacks to your advantage!” the Princess sang out.

His attacks....

His attacks....?

....

HIS ATTACKS?

She didn’t mean....?

The Light was so high up.... The Beast was too tall.... There was no reaching it....

Except....

Dark hatred and wickedness once again drew in from the deepest corners of every dark, unseen plane, and gathered within the Beast’s throat. He ejected it in a shuddering roar, gouging the land with yet another ugly scar—

And the earth burned.

Those dark magenta fires.

My Horse.... I must leave you.

I swung as close as I dared and leapt from my steed’s back and down onto the ground—the ground, the terrible ground.

I was small, I was alone, I was naked and vulnerable again, down on the boiling ground—running for all my little mouse-feet could give me—I had no mobility—

—Almost.

The ground smoked and dripped those unholy Malice embers up into the noxified air—the fires....

I just needed to reach those.... poisonous.... stinging.... fires....

Magenta licked my legs as I pounded through the grass and into my deadly target—and leapt—

I deployed my paraglider, and the foul swelling breath of the evil flames swept me up into the air—I rode the draft higher and higher—

“There!” Zelda shouted.

And I saw it.

I had been jumping from horseback to fire my arrows—the slowed time, it steadied my hands—

But now I arrowed in mid-flight, high above the ground and far away from anything—

For just one breath—

It was.... an eyeball.

Hah, and only now as I type it.... do I realize how.... Well, it shouldn’t be surprising I suppose.

It was a cacophony of eyeballs. One greater and more prominent in the midst of the rest. All erupting from beneath the thick, swirling hide, as though the neck had been sliced open lengthwise. Yellow. Bulbous. Bloodshot. Evil.

Even between the Calamity’s great flaming manes cresting high and blazing from its back, the Eyeball and its attendant cluster glowed blindingly bright with their own malevolence. So bright.... For something so evil....

But wait.... I had thought that that golden light I had seen....

....

Was Zelda in there?

“Now, Link!”

—Now—

And my stamina commanded the same—I couldn’t hang on forever—and neither could she—

I let fly.

The Arrow of Light struck true.

And all the world was only a gushing and a rupturing as the Eyeball was pierced, as the Demon howled and the light exploded, filling up the sky—