Role Reversal
Lying perfectly still in a vain attempt to not aggravate the bruises covering her weary body, Forest Blossom cursed herself for her arrogance and carelessness as she laid inside the crude cage the filthy flying beasts had shoved her in.
She was a pretty mare with a burnt orange coat and a violet mane, her looks never failing to turn stallions’ heads her way, not that she had ever overly cared about her appearance anyway. No, like her cutie-mark of a proud wild tree at full bloom could easily attest, while she liked her looks, her strength had always been what she had prized above everything else.
Forest had always prided herself on her ability to traverse the woods around the village with ease, she had always bragged to everybody that could hear that nothing could ever approach her within said woods without her notice, and she had always boasted that even should any being by some miracle be able to do so, that they would find nothing but a swift end beneath her strong hooves.
So of course she had outright scoffed at Sure Shot’s offer of help when the ranger had offered to accompany her and her sister on their little foraging trip this morning.
After all, why would she ever need the other mare’s help? She was more than strong enough to protect both her sister and herself from any forest beast that may cross their path. And while the skirmishes between the pegasi and the unicorns were growing worse by the day, the rumors of earth-pony villages being attacked kept growing wilder and wilder, and the whispers about how the chancellor was being pressured more and more by both sides in taking a side in the growing conflict, it wasn’t like anypony really cared about a small hamlet in the middle of nowhere. They would be fine.
How that thought burned within her now. All her bravado and strength, it all had availed her for nothing as the cursed beasts had descended upon them like a flock of vultures, as they had been foraging for the rare wild herbs Old Oak, the ancient stallion that was the village herbalist, had asked them to retrieve.
Well, at the very least there was the cold comfort that she got something right in the end; no pony was interested in their forgotten little village.
She had been collecting some elderberries while listening to Singing excitedly talking about her apprenticeship under Old Oak, when the disgusting half-breeds had attacked them with no prior warning.
Even though she had been caught unawares she had attempted to fight them off. Despite knowing that she simply could not win against six armed gryphons she had still thrashed and bucked, attempting to use her beloved strength to at the very least buy her little sister a chance to get away.
It really didn’t matter to her that her little sister had gotten her cutie mark more than two moons ago already; Singing Blossom was still a filly in her eyes and simply had no business having to endure such a perilous situation. And if getting her out of there meant gaining quite a few new bruises and cuts, or even something worse, then by Faust it was her duty to try and do so. But it had all been for nothing, her desperate attempt at giving her little sister a chance of escaping to alert the village, all for naught.
So much for her vaunted strength, so much for her lauded skill, for no matter how skillful one was, in the end only a fool would face down naked steel with nothing but their bare hooves, and no matter how strong one was, in the end it was simply impossible to tear down metal with nothing but sheer physical strength.
And the small whimpers that were coming from the figure huddled close to her side sharing the cage with her only made everything worse, as they reminded her that she hadn’t even been able to manage to allow her little sister to escape the filthy beasts.
Fighting back the burning feeling of tears in her eyes and ignoring the pain from the collection of bruises and cuts that were covering her body, she futilely attempted to comfort her little sister, hugging Singing Blossom as best as she could with her pained body,
The worst part was that she knew that soon the cursed beasts would raid their village. She knew far too well what the savages were doing, that the group of gryphons that had attacked them were scouting the area in order to make sure no pony sounded the alarm early, taking down and capturing any pony that worked or ventured outside the village, making sure that no warning ever reached the settlement about the incoming attack. And what was worse, she knew that it would work.
The only other pony that regularly braved the woods was Sure Shot, and after the way she had brushed off her offer earlier, Forest bet that the sea green mare would be either at her little cottage sulking or drinking at the tavern while grumbling about young upstarts.
Which meant no one would see the raid coming, and that come nightfall, their village, their home, would be sacked and burnt to the ground.
And so there she laid, body bruised and pained, as she silently fumed at her own powerlessness. She stewed in worry, unable to do anything about the fact the damned gryphon war band was planning to attack their village.
She could barely move her body without feeling pain all over, which meant that any chance of escaping and alerting everypony about the coming attack was a forlorn hope at best. Even now that there were only a few of the damned beasts strutting through the tents of their camp, there was simply no way for her to even free her sister so that she could try and escape.
She was powerless… and she hated that fact with all her being!
And even worse, the fact that most of their captors weren’t here was due to the fact that they had departed to take down a group of ponies that one of their scouts had apparently spotted. And the mere idea that said group could be actually out searching for her and her sister, worried because they were late coming back, made her want to scream in frustration at it all!
“What the… Hey, you, what do you think you are doing?!” she heard one of the damned beasts screeching in clear confusion.
Shaking herself out of the slight stupor her dark train of thoughts had led her to, she slowly raised her head to see what was happening, a small movement by her side showing that Singing was doing the same.
She watched with muted confusion the scene before her eyes, her mind trying to make sense of it all. The three armed gryphons that remained at the camp were pointing their swords towards a large pony that was calmly trotting straight towards them, as if he had not a care in the world.
And he was quite a large stallion, easily the largest Forest had ever seen. His large dark brown body was covered in muscles, his legs thick and sturdy looking, and his chest and barrel appeared as if they had been chiseled from stone. All in all, alongside his rugged looks and deep crimson mane, she had to admit that the strange pony was quite the looker.
Not that his good looks would serve him for anything in this situation. Just as his muscles would serve him little against three armed gryphons. Like her own strength had served her for naught, she knew that he too would fall before the beasts.
“You, mud-pony! Get down on the ground now before I end your pathetic existence!” one of the gryphon raiders commanded, moving closer to the brown earth-pony and placing his sword near his neck.
“Hmm, guess this is the place after all,” the stallion muttered to himself, completely unconcerned by the fact that a steel blade was all but pressing against his neck as he took in the tents and the supplies they held for a moment before moving his gaze towards where she and her sister where being held.
“Are you fucking deaf! Hug the ground, mud-dweller!” the feline avian shouted as he pressed his blade against the stallion’s neck, clearly angered by the fact that he was being ignored.
And yet, the stallion seemed unable to comprehend the seriousness of his situation, for despite having a blade literally pressing against his neck, he simply gave the gryphon holding the sword a cocky smirk, completely unconcerned by the fact he was about to die.
“Well then, better mop this up before the others finish with the stragglers,” she heard him speak, moving his right hoof towards the naked blade all the while still completely ignoring the gryphon holding a sword to his neck. “Wouldn’t do to let the Kid take down more of you than me, after all.”
Forest swiftly closed her eyes while hugging her sister closer and making sure that she couldn’t see what was about to happen, now quite sure that the crazy stallion was about to get himself killed.
She waited in silent dread for the wet sound of steel slashing through flesh and the muted thump of his body hitting the ground to reach her ears, of an innocent, if apparently slightly crazy, pony being killed by those filthy beasts. All the while cursing her own powerlessness.
She most certainly did not expect to be greeted by the sudden, sharp echoing sound of metal being snapped in two, nor for the sudden deluge of confused, perplexed and slightly panicked curses coming from the flying beasts.
Opening her eyes she took in what was happening, only to blink in confusion as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. The stallion was casually inspecting a long length of polished metal, one end sharpened to a point and the other ending at a ragged mess of torn and crushed metal. It almost looked like the sword the gryphon had been pressing against his neck, now that she thought about it.
“Seriously, don’t any of you filthy mongrels have a decent blade?” the stallion asked, disgust clear in his tone of voice, hard eyes moving towards a pole-axed looking gryphon that was staring with wide eyes at the hilt and about three inches of a blade he was holding on his talon.
“What the…?!” the flying beast started to say, only for his words to be transformed into a pained squawk, as a brown hoof suddenly impacted his chest with enough strength to send the creature flying into one of the trees circling the camp.
Watching wide eyed, Forest Blossom took in the unbelievable sight happening before her eyes. As the magnificent looking stallion blocked the spear thrust of the second gryphon like it was nothing, the wooden shaft of the spear actually shattering due to the strength of his hooves, and dodging the wild slash of the third beast with such ease that it looked like he had barely moved at all, he then took the filthy mongrels down with one blow each, none being able to withstand the sheer power of his blows for even a moment.
Forest Blossom had no idea how this could possibly be happening, how she had been transported to what looked like an old tale regarding the long lost Age of Legends.
And yet, as she watched entranced as the mysterious stallion come towards their cage, his crimson mane flowing freely on the wind and a fanged smirk playing across his rugged muzzle, and as he casually bent and ripped the iron bars of the cage they had been trapped in as if they were nothing but dry twigs and not two inches of solid metal, freeing them from captivity with the same ease as he drew breath, as she fought down a incandescent blush, Forest realized a single truth.
As she stared at his strong muscles and sure gait, at this embodiment of power incarnate, despite her bewilderment and confusion she knew without a shadow of a doubt what this stallion was.
A hero.
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Looking at the two mares that had been trapped inside the metal cage he had just ripped open, Ganondorf, Lord of Darkness, King of Thieves, wielder of the Triforce of Power, found himself in the slightly unprecedented situation of having no idea what to do next.
Freeing them from their cage after dealing with the pathetic feline avians had been more an instinctual response than anything else. He had simply seen two young equines stuffed into a far too small cage, a cage that was not even appropriate for transporting equines safely at that, with the slightly larger one also being covered in bruises and welts, and the Gerudo in him had immediately all but demanded he do something about the completely unforgivable situation!
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For a race of proud horse riders and breeders, such poor treatment of any equine was simply inconceivable! He had killed for far less than that! Din’s fury, most of his former subjects had killed for far less than that!
It was only after ripping out the iron bars trapping the two young mares and seeing the undeniable intelligent light shining within their eyes that he remembered that those were not two young regular equines, but that said ponies were in all likelihood actual sentient beings.
Which brought forth his current little conundrum.
Sure, he knew far too well how to treat a horse, pony, or basically any ride-able equine creature there was. He had done it countless times before after all. By the Three Golden Goddesses! Some of his best childhood memories actually took place either at some stable grooming his newest warhorse or riding one equine or another through the glowing shifting dunes of a desert or another! Treating newly freed captives from a bunch of slavers, or even interacting with them for that matter? Now that he could safely say was a first for him.
The fact he couldn’t exactly be called social even at the best of times also wasn’t really helping.
The younger one, a tiny thing with a light yellow coat and a deep violet mane, seemed to be fine for the moment, thought the way she was looking at him with wide sparkling eyes and a slightly opened mouth was kind of odd. Choosing to ignore that little oddity, he passed his eyes over her body one more time checking for any apparent injuries, and finding none he decided that it should be safe enough to ignore her until either he had an epiphany regarding how to deal with the whole situation or Link and Zelda stopped taking their sweet time mopping up the remaining scouts from the gryphon war band and came here to deal with the social stuff for him.
The older one was another matter altogether, the burnt orange mare was covered in bruises and cuts, and while none of them seemed life threatening, the open wounds were an obvious infection risk just waiting to happen. The way she was looking at him with slightly hazy eyes, drawing short quick breaths as if she was out of air, and the rosy coloration that was slowly taking over her muzzle showed him that maybe she could already be running a fever or something.
Which would be a real bother. He had never really rescued anyone before, after all, so letting one of the first two beings he had ever rescued die to some stupid illness would be kind of anticlimactic, especially after putting forth the effort of freeing them in the first place.
As he took a step closer in order to inspect her wounds more closely to see if he should do anything about it, the way her cheeks were now completely flushed with blood made him wonder if he should check her temperature or something.
Sadly healing magic was something he had never truly researched in depth, so even if he ignored the fact he was still trying to figure out how to properly cast spells through his new body, healing them with magic was a dead end option for him anyway. And somehow he had the niggling feeling that his preferred method of dealing with his own injuries, flooding the wounded area with raw magic and ignoring it until it stopped bothering him, wouldn’t really work that well in this case.
Wracking his brain, he tried to remember if he had ever learned how to dress a wound or anything of the sort, only to draw a complete blank. The fact that he normally had a whole bunch of minions assigned to such mundane tasks, and that he sincerely couldn’t remember the last time he had ever been sick for that matter, also probably wasn’t helping.
Blinking his eyes, Ganondorf realized that he had been staring at the two mares for more than a minute or two in complete silence as he pondered about what to do. And that that was probably quite the faux pass regarding how to treat rescuees, simply stand there staring at them instead of actually helping.
Thankfully the Princess wasn’t here to see that, or the mare would probably start ranting at him for being insensitive or some other such nonsense. But then again, if she had been here from the start, that would mean that he wouldn’t have to be the rescuer in the first place, which would have avoided the whole issue altogether.
He probably should say something, but what? Or would it be better to try and deal with the injured one first? Taking her out of the cage and covering the wounds with something couldn’t really hurt, right? Though he vaguely remembered someone once saying that you shouldn’t move an injured person without due cause. Which, in his personal opinion, was utter nonsense, after all he had fought with a sword sticking out of his gut and other such wounds on more than one occasion and nothing had come of it. So how could moving someone with a few light injuries be a problem?
Letting out a small snort he wondered how the Kid did this all the time while making it look so easy. For he had just barely done it once and was already sporting a small headache for it! Perhaps he should ask for some pointers in the future, there had to be a trick or two he was missing that would make dealing with this mess easier after all!
His unhelpful musings were thankfully cut short as the tiny yellow filly next to the larger mare decided to break the awkwardly long silence under her own terms.
“That was awesome!” the filly boisterously yelled, darting from the other mare’s side and towards his far larger brown form with a very respectable speed. “They were like, roar, you will not pass! And then you were like, out of my way! And then…”
Following the small filly happily bouncing all around him with a small sense of befuddlement as she energetically told him about a very imaginative and colorful retelling of his actions of a few minutes ago, all of it accompanied by impromptu vocalized sound effects and wild gestures with her hooves for emphasis, he wondered how he should react to this new development.
All the while the fact he still didn’t really know what to do with the injured pony kept pestering him like an annoyingly persistent fly.
“T-thanks a lot. I really can’t say that enough,” the orange coated mare said in a slightly shaky voice as she slowly pushed herself upright, a few grimaces of pain briefly crossing her features before she pushed them aside with willpower alone, something that Ganondorf definitely approved of. Letting anyone realize how injured you were was a great way of asking for them to come finish the job, after all.
Seeing her step out of the cage with slightly shaky legs made that little bit of medical advice about not moving while injured drift by his mind for a moment, before being swiftly tossed aside. If the mare had the strength and will to move despite her injuries then that was more than good enough in the Dark Lord’s opinion, no matter what nonsense the so called scholars had to say about it.
“What they were going to do with us… do to my little sister…” the orange mare started to say, something that sounded alarmingly like a hiccup lurking on her tone of voice and an even more alarming shine on her eyes. Until, with a fierce head shake, she thankfully seemed to regain her control before Ganondorf was forced to try and deal with a crying female, much to his relief.
“My name is Forest Blossom and this is my little sister, Singing Blossom,” she introduced herself and the enthusiastic little filly that was still jumping around him, before dipping her head in a small but heartfelt bow. “You have both my and my family’s eternal gratitude.”
“No problem,” he grumbled after a moment, realizing he was probably expected to give an answer. And after another he also realized that he should probably introduce himself as well. “I’m Ganondorf.”
“Weird name,” the tiny yellow pony happily proclaimed with the suicidal sincerity and eagerness of youth, to her older sister’s clear horror and the King of Thieves’ slight amusement.
He had never been one for the stupid rules of etiquette and decorum that plagued the nobility, personally preferring a far more direct and blunt approach, something that had served him well on more than one occasion. Din’s wrath, he remembered more than one time when he avoided a fatal, and far more importantly extremely embarrassing, mistake due to the simple fact that his elite minions felt no compunction about saying one plan or another was utterly stupid and would never work.
Tunnel vision was a thing, and having nothing but bootlickers that feared doing anything but curtsy and throw useless fancy speech one’s way had the nasty side effect of aggravating the problem, as such he had long since completely abandoned the trappings of formality that enshrouded most positions of power.
So the filly’s words didn’t really bother him, point in fact he could even see her point. For if their names were the norm for this realm then both his and Zelda’s name would probably sound a little odd to the ponies.
“But you are really strong mister! And really, really big! How did you get so big and strong? Will I be that big and strong when I grow up?” The fact the little bouncing yellow thing earnestly praising him with sparkling eyes was rather adorable also helped him forgive her a little bit, not that he would ever admit that out loud. “Not even big sister is that strong! So you are still amazing even with a weird name!”
Not to mention that whatever slight anger he might have felt had been swiftly derailed due to the fact that the tiny pony’s eyes were literally sparkling, as in there where tiny shiny stars twinkling inside them, much to his slightly confused bemusement.
“Singing!” the older mare hissed at her younger sibling, receiving a mutinous ‘What?’ for her efforts in trying to ensure the continued survival of the younger generation by preventing it from possibly angering him.
A logical path of action, but really unnecessary at this point in time, and as such he decided to intervene before the mare aggravated her injuries further, since he had noticed that her hiss was more than partially due to pain as she swiftly moved towards the yellow bouncing ball of fluff.
“It’s fine, she is just a filly after all,” he curtly said, all the while pondering about the fact that his Gerudo instincts and knowledge in regards to how to correctly treat and care for equines could probably be a bother later on while dealing with this new species.
“Thank you, good sir,” the mare said with heartfelt sincerity, giving him a dazzling smile, the little ball of fluff by her side immediately imitating her with an equally shining earnest smile.
Brutally beating down the part of his brain that wanted to offer them an apple or other such treat while reminding himself that they were not pets, Ganondorf concluded that his Gerudo raised instincts would be a bother after all.
“But while I’m thankful for both your help and understanding, I fear we must leave here as fast as possible! A large group of gryphon raiders departed some time ago planning to attack a group of travelers and it won’t be long before they are back!”
Stopping her from trotting away by firmly placing a hoof on one of her shoulders, while noticing that her fever was apparently growing worse due to how red her face was turning, he decided to inform them there was no need to rush and exert themselves before she made her situation worse in regards to her injuries.
“There’s no need, my companions and I have already dealt with the warband, they are just hunting down the last few stragglers and remaining scouts before coming here themselves,” he firmly spoke, the fact he could now actually sense both the Princess and the Kid calmly approaching their location giving even more weight to his words. “So take it easy until they get here so that we can deal with those injuries.”
Forest simply gave him a startled look, as if she couldn’t believe that they had already dealt with that sorry excuse of a warband. Her incredulity lasted until her eyes fell upon the gryphon’s sword he had snapped in half, at which point she simply nodded, not even a trace of doubt still present on her features.
They waited in silence for a few moments longer, until a frightened little whimper coming from the, up to this point, hyperactive ball of happiness, swiftly followed by Singing Blossom running to hide behind her sister, made Ganondorf immediately spin around while lowering his center of gravity slightly to provide him a more stable form so that he could react to any possible attack, sharp golden eyes searching for whatever unspoken danger that had scared the little filly. The fact that Forest had let out a small angry hiss while taking a clearly self-taught but still decently solid looking beginner’s battle stance right in front of the filly, despite her wounds, only reinforcing the notion that a new danger was at play.
And yet, no matter how hard he searched or strained his senses, the fact remained that there was simply nothing to either see or sense. No sign of danger, no threat whatsoever, nothing at all to explain the two females’ current actions.
Nothing but the green coated pegasus and the white coated unicorn that had just appeared at the far side of the clearing and had started to calmly trot towards them before noticing their reactions and taking battle stances of their own, sharp blue eyes searching both the trees and the sky for whatever danger could be lurking there.
After another moment fruitlessly searching his surroundings, Ganondorf traded a slightly confused look with both Zelda and Link. The curious and slightly confused looks that they were giving him in turn showing that they too hadn’t found anything even remotely wrong.
Turning his gaze back to the mare and the filly hiding behind her, which he noted to his growing bewilderment had yet to relax from her battle stance and was glaring at the two ponies that were now once again moving towards them, if at a far more careful trotting speed as they kept searching their surroundings for something they all could have missed, he decided to ask what she thought she was doing.
“Right, believe me when I say that there is nothing out there, if there was, one of us would have sensed it by now.” He spoke with utter certainty, knowing that there were precious few beings skilled enough to escape the sharp senses of even one of them, much less the senses of all three Triforce Wielders. “So, what exactly got you all worked up?
“Them!” the orange mare quietly hissed to him, as if she were trying to prevent Zelda and Link from hearing her words.
“What about them?” he asked in curiosity, not trying to modulate his loud echoing voice in the slightest and noting with some incredulity that she had subtly moved herself and her sister to place him between them and the approaching forms of his two old friends.
“They are a pegasus and a unicorn!” she once again hissed while briefly giving him an incredulous look, as if saying that that should be obvious, before returning her wary eyes to the incoming duo.
“Really, I would have never guessed!” he cheerfully replied with a hint of sarcasm, now thoroughly confused by the fact she was giving the two do-gooders the evil eye while hiding behind him of all beings. “Those are the companions I was talking about, Link, Zelda, meet Forest and Singing Blossom.”
“But, but… but you are an earth pony!” Forest incredulously stated as she finally stopped glaring at the duo in order to look at Ganondorf as if he had just sprouted a second head.
“Is that so? Good to know,” the King of Thieves readily replied, this time sincerely, glad to have the question regarding his species name answered without much effort on his part.
“Oh, and by the way, Princess, we got a wounded one here. We could use some of those healing spells of yours,” he shouted to the wielder of Wisdom, quite happy with the fact that at least one little conundrum could now be solved as the Princess hurried her pace towards them. Now he only had to try and figure out why Forest was openly gaping at him.
Perhaps Link could explain that to him later, or why Forest had been acting so oddly for some time now for that matter. Goddess knew the Kid was way more socially adept than the Dark Lord would ever be.