A/N: Alright, so as soon as I said I might keep writing, I started thinking about multiple Idea's for stories. Turn's out this might work to be a not so terrible as last time story "huzzahs internally". Anyway, thanks for stopping by and let me know what you think afterwards.
Also Scarlet/oldman upstairs, may or may not reference "The Thieve's Tragedy" in here. Also if any people I don't know read this, go check out ScarletCurls stories, well worth it.
Onwards!
Chapter 1:
I looked up into the sky, the pounding sun staring back at me. It's scorching heat felt as if it were piercing into me at all times, wishing for nothing but my demise. I chuckled to myself about this thought "Certainly a favor from "our" goddesses" I said silently under my breath.
"What was that Ganondorf?"
I stood straight quickly and replied "Nothing Inoori!"
She shook her head before me, "You may be the one male among us for the next one-hundred years, but you are still a pup in my eyes and will obey my orders! Are we clear?"
"Clear ma'am!" I replied sharply.
"Good boy, well I suppose six hours of swordplay in the desert has at least earned you a brief rest. Come boy, let us eat" Inoori curtly finished as she sat herself into the baking sand.
I sighed, promptly seating myself opposite her on the ground, reaching for the offered roll of bread Inoori passed to me and my waterskin on my side. Though the bread was hard as the earth we sat on, it was still breakfast. The water still cold from the underground stream through the village, no doubt a subsidiary from Zora river.
Inoori decided to grab his attention then, "This is a time of rest, you may remove the urn."
"Oh this?" I smiled, gesturing to the large clay run strapped to my back. "I'd rather keep it on, we still have more training afterwards anyway."
Since my body has begun changing and my strength and size increasing, Inoori has seen it fit to make me train with… impairments, if you could call it that. The pot contains sand, approximately two-hundred pounds worth. I've been increasing this weight gradually since the anniversary of my 13th cycle of life. Though it was a trial at first, I feel much more on par with Inoori. I have always preferred a close fight, but am not ashamed to show dominance for the sake of dominance.
Without warning, Inoori grabbed her knife and rushed me. I was at a loss and ended up falling backwards, smashing my pot with her utop my chest, knife to my throat.
"Thats once you should have died today, what have I told you about not being vigilant?"
"It kills." I coughed as I tried to get down the last of my bread. "Although" finally with air back in my lungs, "I assume this rule applies to you as well, right?" I explained looking down to her midriff. She followed my gaze downward to see my own knife at the corner of her exposed stomach.
Inoori brought her gaze up to meet mine and studied my face for what felt like eternity before she let a light smirk come to her lips.
"Well done, I find it oddly impossible but amazing to see you not only master my courses and techniques, but to do them in half the time I could." She stood, pulling me along with her. "From now on when we spar, we will do it as comrades" she paused and let forth a genuine smile "and as friends."
The walk back to their village took at least an hour, the sandstone walls coming into view after surfacing over what must have been the thousandth dune. Certainly they had not been formed by water, something this goddess forsaken place had not seen for nearly 1200 years. Even this long after the Hylians subjugated our people, they still treated us as lesser beings, meant to lounge with the mutts begging for scraps. I ground my teeth thinking about the one man to make the decision to rape and pillage my people so long ago, Ambross. But anger was a trivial thing to have this far from anyone of that nature. Inoori turned to me under the gate to the desert.
"Will we be training tomorrow?"
I nodded to her, "What else would we be doing out here?"
She laughed at my statement, " Honesty has always been your strong-suit."
We parted ways as she entered her home and I made tracks for mine, though at the fork to my stone carved room I instead walked to the bulk of the fortress and scaled the exterior bricks to its summit. I had always been a fan of sleeping under the stars since I could remember, it made me feel closer to the heavens, "and the goddesses that have abandoned us…". I found my collection of burlap blankets on the edge of one building. "Scratchy yet effective" I thought aloud. With the peaked heat of the day subsiding and the frigid air fast approaching, I swaddled myself in my nest of discomfort and looked to the skies crafted by the goddesses so long ago. The questions of why we were forsaken to live in such an unbearable place soon came to mind gazing up at the heavens. However, lucky enough for me, exhaustion was far too high on my list and I was soon under.
Sleep seemed to end faster than it began as I was abruptly awoken by water being poured on my face. Sputtering while barely being conscious, I quickly sat up to find Inoori standing above me in the early dawn light. "What time is it?" I hissed.
"Roughly 5 A.M. I would guess" she stated matter-of-factly.
"Why are you up an hour early?"
She kicked me in the calf which I reached for with a moan, "Cause".
"Well, that sums it up doesn't it?" I laughed, getting up from my sleeping position and grabbing another pot from my stash atop the fortress, created with my own clay and shaping.
After a mutual decision to venture farther out into the desert. We stopped to begin our sparring. Removing our dulled scimitars from their holds and walking away from each other.
"I trust we aren't playing by any rules as usual correct?" I said turning to face her to immediately receive a kick to the stomach, knocking the wind out of me.
"Of course not!" she taunted. "What fun are rules?"
"In that case…" I mused as I slid off the pot, allowing it to fall and sit in the sand. I stood to my full height of 6'6" ( I don't want Ganondorf to seem as entirely beastly as he is depicted, therefore i've taken the liberties to scale him down a full 12.5". I will be changing a few things around to make him seem more human, for now…) as I rotated my neck, letting forth a multitude of pops. However, our fight was ended instantly when I spotted a flash of green from just behind Inoori. "Look out behind you!" I shouted already bounding towards her with great strides.
Nothing short of time slowing down happened when the Leever reached her, shearing off a portion of her calf as it careened past her. She instantly fell to the sand, screaming in agony as more Leever's came up from the sand. One of the beast span for her, it would have snuffed out her life easily had I not thrown my scimitar with a bellow of rage hard enough to pass through and into another cactoid creature not far behind it. In the instant I reached her, I scooped her to my chest and ran. My body knew nothing but instinct, running from the danger that would harm my teacher and friend. When I finally believed us to be safe, I dropped to both knees and laid Inoori down upon the sand, who was shaking with quiet sobs. I grabbed for my pant leg and cut it knee high to make a makeshift tourniquet and stripped more for bandages. Pouring some of our water over the won to cleanse, I did the best I could in terms of medical procedure and checked her for a pulse.
"I'm not dead you idiot, just in horrible pain" she quavered.
Noticing rather quickly that it was stupid of myself to check for a pulse after all of the bandaging, I sighed and sat on the ground beside her, burying my face into my hands. Rather quickly though, I brought it out to look towards a noise approaching us, expecting another pesky Leever. What I saw nearly stopped my heart as I stood and grabbed Inoori once more. "We have to go!"
"What is it" she asked shakily, looking behind me to have a similar reaction. It was now a race against time as I ran for both of our lives from the one thing that all Gerudo and men alike feared, a sandstorm.
To be continued
So this is one of the ideas that went through my head, speculating now, I couldn't predict how long this will be but I know where I want it to go so we'll all just have to wait and see. Until next time, ciao.