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Zelda didn’t so much as flinch when the door to her parlor slammed open hard enough to rattle the hinges. Her eyes stayed fixed on the pages of her book, though she could easily picture what she refused to look at: his hand gripping the frame like he meant to tear it off, his eyes narrowed in fury at her calm indifference, his shoulders taut with irritation he was barely holding in check. She could hear the way his chest rose and fell with clipped, impatient breaths.
If she weren’t concerned it would set him off further, she might have laughed at how dramatically her husband announced his presence.
What troubled her more was how easily she brushed off such outbursts these days. Arguments had become so frequent they no longer startled her; they were just another part of life in this household.
“Where is she!?!”
Zelda sighed softly, turning another page as though she hadn’t heard the storm raging in her doorway.
“Where is who, Ganondorf?”
The low growl rumbling from him nearly undid her composure, but instead it coaxed the corner of her lips upward into a restrained smirk. Perhaps she was cruel for needling him when he was so clearly frayed.
“Who else could I possibly be talking about!?!”
Finally, Zelda looked up at him. He looked a lot worse for wear than he usually allowed himself to appear — still dressed in his training clothes, hair wild and unbound, curls falling into his face. Barely restrained anger twisted his expression, but she knew better than most how to read the subtler truths beneath it.
It wasn’t fury. Not truly. The restless way his eyes darted about told her plainly enough that worry was what plagued him.
“Tetra?” she asked, though she hardly needed the answer. The last she had seen them, Ganondorf had been all but dragging their daughter off to train, while Tetra loudly reminded him she had her own plans for the day. He had declared the lesson urgent, that it could not wait another moment. To him, the passing on of his Gerudo heritage through the art of swordsplay — an opportunity that war had nearly robbed from him — was sacred, so sacred that he often forgot he was dealing with a moody teenager, not a soldier at his beck and call. Zelda had let them sort it out on their own, though in hindsight, perhaps that had been a mistake.
It still amused her, in some corner of her heart, that she had birthed a girl who was practically his reflection. The same vivid red hair, though hers curled tighter. The same sharp eyes that could cut down an opponent without so much as drawing a blade.
And, most of all, the same ironclad stubbornness.
Zelda had long since abandoned trying to convince her husband that shouting matches with a teenage girl were a battle he could not win. Perhaps it was the smallest cruelty of fate, where the hero had laid down his blade at his feet, where Hyrule’s princess had crowned him her king, that the goddesses had given him one adversary he would never overcome: a girl he adored too fiercely to even think of harming.
She closed her book at last, setting it neatly aside before looking up at him fully. His panic was plain now, trembling behind the mask of frustration.
“Given your state, dearest, I take it you’ve torn through half the castle already.”
Ganondorf dragged a hand through his hair.
“How does she do it? How the hell does she always find the most hidden corners of this damned place?” He stopped, pressing the heel of his hand to his brow, exhaling through his nose in a poor attempt to calm himself. “Did I not once cloak every single corner of this castle in twilight, and fortify every single inch of it so I would know the moment the hero came knocking upon these doors? She can’t possibly know this place better than I do.”
Zelda shook her head slowly, her smile softening into something patient.
“You underestimate the spite of a disgruntled teenager.”
Ganondorf fixed her with a hard glare.
“Are you not worried at all that she’s nowhere to be found? What if she’s run off beyond the walls of this castle? What if she’s… hurt herself?”
That gave Zelda pause. She studied him more closely, how his voice still held a raw edge to it, the way his breathing still hadn’t calmed.
He was definitely underestimating the spite of a disgruntled teenager.
“And why would you think that? Surely your quarrel wasn’t that catastrophic.”
His eyes flickered wide before narrowing again. He didn’t answer.The longer she watched, the more he fidgeted restlessly — not the warlord who had once cowed armies, but a man cornered by his own conscience. Finally, with a huff, he folded his arms across his chest and turned half away from her.
“Well… she said things. Things that concerned me. It’s only fair I make certain she hasn’t acted on them.”
Zelda tilted her head. “Let me guess. She declared you the worst father alive? That she wishes she’d been born to someone better?”
The way his fingers dug into his arms gave her the answer before he could. She sighed, rubbing her temple. Tetra had an unerring instinct for striking at the softest spots. An inheritance, perhaps, from her father himself. The only difference was that Ganondorf reserved his sharpest barbs for his enemies and those he particularly disliked. Tetra, still stumbling her way through the chaos of adolescence, hadn’t yet learned which lines ought never to be crossed.
What fascinated Zelda, even now, was how transparent he became when wounded by those he loved. The same man who dismissed the worst accusations the world had made of him with cold indifference seemed to feel every syllable spoken by his daughter like a blade to the heart.
“Ganondorf,” she said gently, “you know she doesn’t mean it. She’s angry, and when she’s angry she lashes out. You’ve done the same often enough yourself. Once she cools down, those words won’t hold the same weight.”
His shoulders slumped, the fight draining from him.
“…Still. I want to be sure.”
Zelda’s smile turned knowing as she picked her book back up.
“She passed through here not long before you stormed in. You both have a knack for sulking after an explosive row.”
Ganondorf’s head snapped toward her. “And why didn’t you tell me sooner!?”
“Because,” Zelda said evenly, “sending you after her while you were half out of your mind wasn’t going to help. I am trying to calm the flames, not stoke them.”
He stared at her, incredulous. She waved him off and reopened her book.
“She’s in her room. Now that you’ve both cooled off, I imagine the conversation will go better.”
Ganondorf shot her a withering look before spinning on his heel and marching out. Of course he’d be desperate to mend things, always convinced that one argument was enough to make Tetra truly hate him. The same girl who adored him openly, who clung to every story he told her with pride and admiration, who never hesitated to throw her arms around him just because he was her father.
Zelda shook her head, returning to her reading. Ganondorf always took their daughter’s words to heart more than he should. Perhaps it was a small mercy that her patience could temper the fire in them both.
Later that evening, Zelda didn’t bother heading to her bedchambers. She followed instinct instead, climbing the winding staircase to the castle’s highest balcony. Reserved for the royal family alone, it offered rare solitude, and the best view of the stars. It was a place the three of them all cherished.
And of course, when she opened the door, she found exactly what she was expecting.
There they were, father and daughter, perched far too close to the edge with a platter of half-eaten sweets between them, silent beneath the stars. It was a perfect night for gazing: cloudless, the heavens stretched wide like a jewelled tapestry. The moonlight caught in their matching red hair, setting it aglow like banked embers. In Ganondorf’s, the silver strands gleamed ghostly white.
Neither would ever speak the words aloud, too stubborn to concede fault. But their shared silence, the sweets between them, and the comfort of simply being side by side — these were apology enough. They both understood this language without needing to name it.
Leaning against the doorframe, Zelda’s smile softened. They truly were cut from the same cloth.
“So, you’ve made up?”
“Mama,” Tetra scoffed. “Don’t make it awkward.”
Ganondorf snorted. “On this, I agree with her.”
Zelda laughed as she crossed the terrace. They both shifted just enough to make space for her, and she slipped between them. Taking Tetra’s advice to heart, she chose not to press the matter further, instead lifting her gaze to the stars above.
Once, she had sat alone in her twilight-shrouded castle, uncertain if she would ever see sunlight again. Unsure if love, happiness, or even peace would ever return to her life. She remembered the man who had come to her then, steeped in fearsome armour, bearing a wound that seemed beyond forgiveness, speaking of the history of light and shadow as if they were his to rewrite in blood.
And now, that same man sat beside her, fretting over a young girl’s sharp tongue and whether his family truly loved him. On her other side was that very girl — proof that peace could be won by gentler means, even if it came with fiery tempers and bouts of sulking.
Seated between her husband and her daughter, Zelda felt a swell of gratitude so profound it nearly stole her breath.