Chapter Text
No one in the kingdom of Hyrule would have wondered what it was like to be him, even if most could have agreed that no one is simply born evil.
Although he would come to exalt the greatest threat to the era into which he was born, no one would ever stop and question why he had such resolve to imperil the kingdom to ruin. After all, he was not the first who would seek to resurrect an incarnation of the Demon King. And he would not be the last. For nearly every instance of Ganon’s revival throughout the ages, someone was working in his shadow facilitating his revival.
Yet, of the many souls that sought to revive Ganon, the Prophet of Doom was, perhaps, the most tragic.
In childhood, he would struggle to keep faith in the Goddess—the namesake of his people. He could not seem to form meaningful connections with others. For there was unremitting darkness that lingered over him always. He grew to despise Hyrule and all it stood for. And as the kingdom prepared to oppose the prophesied revival of the Calamity, he descended into fanaticism for the beast. There he found his purpose—the promise of the Calamity. But the fate he thought he had could never become a reality; It was the princess with the blood of the Goddess that fate favored, and Calamity Ganon showed no partiality even to those who swore their undying loyalty.
The body of Calamity Ganon became his grave, the beast was sealed, and the kingdom of Hyrule went on. Perhaps in another ten thousand years, the Calamity would return, but the Prophet of Doom would be forgotten.
The promise of the Calamity was a lie all along.
*
His place of birth, Deya Village, sat nestled in the Hills of Baumer. To the southeast, the Popla Foothills rose even higher. There was only one path in or out unless one dared traverse the steep ridges surrounding the humble fishing village.
The lake was frozen on that frigid winter night and had been for some weeks. When the hills lay covered in a thick layer of snow, as they were, the most daring children of Deya Village built makeshift sleds to tear down at breakneck speed.
The air smelled of the smoke drifting up and out over the village from chimneys as the residents heated their homes through that soundless night.
The village prophetess emerged from her home a shambling, lurching mess, holding a bundle in her arms. The first rays of dawn would fall over the village and the residents would begin another day soon enough, though she felt no compulsion to make haste. She knew fate would see her through.
Led by dim moonlight and lanterns affixed to the entrance of each residence she made her way, the well-trodden snow crunching underfoot. The imprints left by the soles of her fur-lined winter boots became indistinguishable from others, meandering around and over tire tracks of wagons that lined and crisscrossed the pure white ground.
In a few months, the snow would melt, and the village, lying between the hills like a basin, would flood combined with the frequent rain of early spring. As it did all the years she had lived in Deya Village.
Under her heavy woolen cloak, her tender belly felt as though it were a deflated Octo Balloon. Her gait was unsteady and wavering, though not from the fatigue of labor, but from the warring thoughts that ran riot through her mind.
Nine months of horrific visions beset her as she slept; she had dreamed the villages of Hyrule being decimated by monstrous machines that roved the fields—of those machines hunting down those who tried to flee. A great porcine spirit swirled around Hyrule Castle, the epicenter of the disaster. And there he was…a mere hooded figure…a Hylian face behind the tragedy, just looking out over it all with manic laughter falling from his lips. And the unfettered quality of it turned her stomach to rot. She feared him. She feared for him.
Once he came to her as a young boy screaming in fathomless despair, his body strained with his continuous, sepulchral shrieking. The fright of him hadn’t immediately awoken her, though her heart plummeted and thundered in her chest, and she stood frozen with fear within the nightmare. His screams grew increasingly pinched, almost hoarse—as though he knew he was lost. And as he threw himself at her with those soul-rending cries, fear overwhelmed her and she too opened her mouth to scream. She mirrored that awful visage and she screamed soundlessly. She had awoken with a jolt, her body as strained with fear as the boy in her dream. The pervasive dread she carried out of that dream never faded, changing her once familiar surroundings into something dismal and threatening.
The bundle in her arms cried a shrill, pitiful wail, and she pressed the palm of her bloodied hand over the little one’s tiny mouth, fearing the sound would rouse her neighbors from their contented and ignorant sleep. She choked back her own sobs to a dull and quiet whimper.
That precious child would grow to be a scourge upon Hyrule. The thought struck her so plainly, and she didn’t know how to cope.
“What have I brought upon Hyrule?” She stammered to herself, her voice fading and untethered.
She squeezed her eyes shut fighting back the sting of tears, chiding herself; even the most insurmountable grief could not alter the fate of this child.
The little one had come into the world still en caul—’a veiled birth’ as other seers would have called it. Many would have said it was a good omen—an outward sign that the child would have the gift of prophecy. But knowing who he was and what he would become, she hadn’t tended to him as one would after birth. It was like he was already dead, already damned.
He was so still she almost thought that the Goddess had been just and he had been born dead. But then she saw his mouth open, his eyes squeezed shut, almost in a silent scream. Instinct took hold. She fumbled to free him, piercing the thin transparent sac that encased him.
But as he drew his first breath and began to cry something inside her revolted. She shrouded him in a heavy blanket, looking away as she felt held by the newborn’s unfocused gaze, the little one’s eyes the same ochre hue as her late husband’s.
Her mind fixed on this detail as she made her way through the village, a horrible pins and needles sensation growing within as she struggled and failed to disassociate.
This is our child… Our own flesh and blood… The only one fate gave us is destined to… to…
She lost coordination, nearly falling into the snow. She gripped the bundle a little tighter in her frozen blood-stained hands. The night air was so unbearably cold it felt as though her fingers were nothing but bone.
Nearing the village limits, she passed a statue of the Goddess. The monument’s hands were clasped to its stone bosom as if in prayer or adoration.
She stopped, her breath catching as her heart stirred for the briefest moment. She had passed the statue countless times, but something indescribable had caused a surreal feeling to bloom in her chest. Perhaps it was being alone in the night or holding a newborn in her arms—maybe a combination of the two. She turned to glance back at the statue of the Goddess, hesitating to let her gaze linger. The child she held in her arms was marked by fate and belonged more to the beast she’d seen in her visions than to the Goddess—and perhaps she did, too.
The wind whistled solemnly and then silence.
She continued, moving further and further away from the village and nearing a grove of trees.
She approached a mound of refuse piled high and wide, where the residents discarded their belongings that were no longer of use.
The moment had arrived. And there she stood, unable to find it within herself to end this child’s existence in any direct manner—abomination to Hyrule he may be.
She bit back a bitter laugh. Fate had her.
She had been vaguely aware of it all this time. He was not fated to die…not this night…but a night in the distant future after he had fulfilled his dark destiny to Calamity Ganon. And certainly, if not him, then Calamity Ganon would latch onto someone else. No matter what she did, her efforts were in vain. She could not save his soul, just as she could not spare Hyrule the destruction he would bring.
She laid him down among the rubbish, her grief and confusion and revulsion at fate only deepening as she watched and listened to the newborn cry in his discomfort.
Her vision blurred as tears gathered at the corners of her eyes and threatened to spill forth. She thought to entreat the Goddess for mercy she knew she would not receive, and bitter resentment took its place. She couldn’t hold back the tears that rushed down her careworn face, fighting the urge to grab her baby boy up from the pile. To truly hold him. And pretend for a moment that his fate would not be.
Her heartbroken and wretched thoughts came to an unbearable crescendo. It was as though she were in the midst of another terrible vision. She closed her eyes tight, gathering her resolve, and then opened them to look upon the child numbly. The only thought her mind had the strength to form was something between a prayer and a taunt.
If Hylia is merciful…you will meet your end in that heap…
Feeling completely loathsome, she turned and began to retreat. She wanted to be far from him—those terrible screams were now all too real. If she could have lived with this vile deed…if by chance he died and she went on living, she feared the child would be conceived in her womb anew. An irrational fear perhaps, but fate was cruel and hellbent. This she knew.
A frigid gale rushed through the valley, causing the little one to cry out sharply from the pile. The wind pummeled her, and she reeled forward, struggling to catch a breath.
She made her way back to the village, the pitching cry of the infant growing distant behind her. By the time she reached the frozen lake, the night had resumed its silence. She knew where the ice was weak and where she could sink down into those depths. It seemed as acceptable a fate as any—to become one with the lake that had sustained her all her life. Deya lake would be her final resting place and the screams that pervaded her consciousness would finally cease.
As she grew closer to that fated resting place, she pondered why she had waited so long to take her life. Perhaps this too was fate at work.
She scoffed. Only the mad believed in free will.
Mercifully, the little one had quieted and settled into a restful sleep, despite the cold and the hunger that threatened to claim him. A sleep that was full of strange visions. Too young and inexperienced with the world to be frightened, he didn’t awaken as a multitude of yellow eyes stared back at him. The irises were too narrow to be Hylian and he gazed into the dark recesses at their center, captivated.
The ochre glow of sunrise reached the grove of trees hidden between the mountains, although faintly. It brought with it a modicum of warmth to the heap, illuminating the newborn’s features as he dreamed.