By All Our Sins Remembered
"I never asked for this."
"No-one asks for this gift."
"It's not a gift!" Ifriti shouted. "Why can't you understand that?"
Her mother, damn her to the fires beneath the sands, just sat there. Her buttocks mounted on the camel's fur, her wrinkled face contorted in a frown, her eyes heavy with age and the poisons she had flooded herself with over the years. "I was wrong," she whispered. "I dared believe that you were no longer a child."
"Seventeen, mother."
"Seventeen, and yet with the mind of one ten years younger. Unable to comprehend the world beyond your own selfish bubble."
"I can comprehend the world mother. I've been there. I followed tradition as all Gerudo do." She gestured to the hut's eastern window. "There, mother. Have you seen it? Can you possibly comprehend what lies beyond the desert?"
"Quite well my daughter, as it was in my travels that I bore you." Her mother got to her feet – she was wider than Ifriti, but taller as well. "You have received this gift, and the Sand Goddess has honoured you."
"Didn't feel honoured when that drunk bastard put his manhood between my-"
"You have been honoured, and you will fulfil your duty. From the fruit of your loins, the Gerudo are gifted with a king who shall lead us to glory."
Ifriti, despite her rage, smirked.
"Does that amuse you?" the elder woman whispered.
"Look around you mother. For over a hundred times a hundred years, we have had one king after another who would 'lead us to glory.'" She spat. "What do we have to show for it? A decaying fortress, a scattering of villages, and a ruined temple that reminds us of bygone days."
"You will hold your tongue, lest I rip-"
"The goddesses laugh mother. The Sand Goddess slumbers, and the Golden Goddesses laugh."
"Speak not of the heathens' falsehoods."
"The heathens reside in the east where they have milk, honey, grass, and water. They laugh at us mother, and you're too old and fat to see it."
Her mother was indeed old. And she was indeed fat. But neither of those facts stopped her from being fast. Or strong. Fast enough to slap her daughter before she could react, strong enough to send her falling to the ground with the force of the blow.
"You will compose yourself for the naming ceremony," her mother whispered. "Our people expect it of you, and tradition demands it."
Ifriti rose to her feet, shaking.
"Are you listening to me?"
"To the sands with tradition," she whispered. "And to the sands with our people!"
She ran out of the hut, out into the desert sands. Where wind carried whispers of better times, and the dust of the past.
Her tears as well.
"Is it so bad?" Cleris asked her. "To be the queen mother?"
Ifriti tossed some sand at her friend. It dissipated in the wind before it even hit her.
"Guess not."
In spite of herself, Ifriti chuckled.
"See?" Cleris asked. She drew herself over, giving her friend a playful nudge. "You won't have to worry about it."
"I think I have plenty to worry about."
"Why? Because you were the first Gerudo in a hundred years to give birth to a boy? Our new king?"
The smirk disappeared. "I never asked for this Cleris."
"Yes, I know, but the Sand Goddess-"
"I never asked for any of it. I…" She took a breath. "You weren't there, Cleris."
"No. I wasn't. But I thought it would be good for you."
She threw some more sand at her. This time, it hit its target.
"Guess not then."
"You guess right." She turned away and looked back west. Sand as far as the eye could see. She knew the trade routes. The hidden oases. The tales of civilizations that had risen and fallen. Of times when the Gerudo had ridden across the desert sands, where the mere sight of them had compelled entire cities to surrender. Where they had torn down the temples of heathen gods, and erected their own to honour the Goddess of the Sand. Of the times, at their apex, when they had ridden into the soft lands of the east. To take sheep and cattle, to take riches at their own. Where they had listened to the songs of wailing women as they hauled their men back to the desert in chains. For it was by the will of the Sand Goddess that all Gerudo be female bar the one that led them. By her will, they took what men they desired, who, one way or another, would further the line of the Daughters of the Sand. It was a time where they were invincible.
Those times were long gone. Ifriti had little desire to return to them. But their line had to survive. That was why, a few months after her sixteenth nameday, Ifriti and a number of other Gerudo had been led into Hyrule. Not as conquerors, but as concubines. Into the capital of the kingdom, to its darkest alleys and deepest warrens. The people laughed at them, before they offered them the pleasures of the desert. And by "offered," Ifriti knew it was language for "procreate, because it's your duty." Every Gerudo woman was expected to bear at least three children in her lifetime. And in her case?
"Ifriti?"
She looked at Cleris. "What?"
"You're trembling."
"I am? Oh. Bit cold here."
"It's a desert. It's never cold. Well, guess it is during the night, but…"
Night. Just the word took her back to that night. That point where she offered herself to fulfil the duty expected of her. Where her suitor, drunk, and decades older had…he had not been gentle. She had not struggled, even as his clumsy hands had ripped off her silk. She had remained on the bed as he deflowered her, even as she begged him to be gentle. Even as she had wept, and cursed her mother, the Goddess, and the sands that cursed her. She had left the room before the rise of the sun, to join her fellow Gerudo in the journey home. She had ridden in silence, hopeful that it would end there.
It hadn't. She'd discovered that soon enough when her flower had ceased to secrete nectar. And dashing her hopes that it was only temporary, her stomach had soon begun to swell. What followed was months of illness, hunger, and a little bastard that just wouldn't stop kicking. And a week ago, it had happened. She'd screamed. She'd yelled. She'd cursed so loud that those attending her had given her looks of shock she had never seen…at least up to the point where the offspring of rape had passed between her legs. Where what lay between her child's legs had drawn stares and whispers. She, Ifriti, daughter of Danal, had given birth to a boy. The next king. And she, as the queen mother, would name him. Raise him. Direct him so that he might direct the Gerudo in turn, and lead them to glory.
Far as Ifriti was concerned, the people saying that could stuff it. But her concerns counted for nothing.
"Ifriti?"
"Hmm?" She looked at her friend.
"I know it's challenging, and I can't imagine the pressure you're under, but…" She tapped her belly, swollen with her second child. "Well, I'm raising Farah as my daughter, and my second child will be raised in the same manner, Goddess willing. And while I have only mothered Farah for a year, I must tell you, the experience has been…what?"
"What?"
"You're giving me the look."
"What look?"
"The look you've given me for over a decade when you were amused at something." She shoved Ifriti again. "Go on. Out with it."
Ifriti sighed. "Does it not bother you?" she asked. "The Sand Goddess forges us in her image – an entire race of women."
"That's what the legends say."
"Which means that our continued survival is dependent on those outside our culture. And every time a man is born, we're expected to follow him."
"The kings of the Gerudo have led us to glory in the past."
"Glory," Ifriti snorted. "Look around you Cleris. Our glory is nothing but sand and dust."
Cleris put a hand on Ifriti's shoulder. "Then raise your child well. If not for your sake, then for mine."
"For yours?"
"For me, and my daughters. So that we may retake the glory of which you speak." She got to her feet. "Besides, you don't have a choice."
"No. Of course I don't. Neither of us do. Only unlike you, I'm not happy being a mule who-"
Cleris kicked her into the sand. "We're friends Ifriti. But I won't have you talking like that. Not now. Not when you've been given this great honour."
"Sands take you Cleris!"
Cleris wasn't listening. She was walking east, back to the fortress. Ever cradling her bulging stomach.
The ceremony was as miserable as Ifriti expected it to be.
The Gerudo had made all the effort they could to hide their poverty of course. From across the desert, their tribes had come. Some came on horses. Some carried banners. Some even blew into horns and beat on drums. But like a mirage, it was as nothing. The Gerudo Fortress, once the barrier between west and east, was in a state of disrepair. The clothes she wore were ill fitted – too large, intended for a woman of older years than she. The stories told of the people of east, south, and north journeying to this place on an occasion like this. To offer tribute and blessing to the new king of the Gerudo. Actions carried out of respect, and the hope that he might be merciful to their peoples.
No such people here. Just desert-dwelling savages Ifriti reflected. And, to top it up, the little bastard wouldn't stop crying.
"Shut up," she hissed, as she walked out onto the fortress balcony. He instead cried even louder.
By the Goddess be quiet!
He couldn't hear her words, spoken or thought. She hadn't held him for a week, and as far as she was concerned, that was not nearly enough time to separate herself from the little bastard. A bastard that she held up to her people, who cheered, blowing their horns and stamping their spears on the ground. Treating this as a moment of glory rather than one of shame.
"Today," Ifriti said. "We are gifted with a new king. The Son of the Sands, come to lead the Goddess's daughters to glory!"
She didn't believe any of it. But it didn't matter. The elder women, her mother included, had given her the words to say, and reminded her that if she didn't say them with conviction, her back would have an appointment with the lash.
"By the sands, we anoint him," Ifriti said, pouring some sand on her son's head, causing him to wail. "By the wind, we bless him." She blew on his forehead, blowing off the sand, and causing him to wail even harder. "By water, we cleanse him." Taking a small jug, she poured water on his head – it was meant to symbolize that the king was cleansed of the taint of the outsiders that had spawned him, that he was Gerudo through and through. "And with this fire…" She paused, letting the priestesses on the top balcony light the braziers, "we signal the start of a new age. An age of glory. An age of conquest. An age of bounty!" She held him up again. "All hail the king!"
"Hail!" the Gerudo yelled.
"All hail the king!"
"Hail!"
The king began to cry and Ifriti grit her teeth. She would spend the rest of her life looking after this filth. This reminder of her misery. Of the night that had spawned him. She looked down into her son's eyes.
"Sands damn you," she whispered.
He fell silent, and for a moment, Ifriti's heart stopped. Whispering the truth that her mind refused to comprehend. He was hers. He was her people's leader. He would lead, but she would teach him how. She could be better than her mother. She could give her people bounty. She could give him the greatest bounty of all even…
"Lady Ifriti?"
She looked at the priestess.
"The name."
Yes. The name. Her last choice – she had the right to name her son as the queen mother after all. And name him she had.
"Hail the king!" she declared, holding the child up again. "Hail Ganondorf!"
"Hail! Hail!"
The people below. They couldn't see his mother's frown – a look of contempt at the people below. A look of disgust towards the east. A look of contempt towards the west. A look that carried many emotions, none with the name of love.
I'll raise you, Ifriti thought to herself as she brought her son into her breast and walked back into the fortress. But I will never love you.
Moments later, throughout the halls of the fortress, an echo of a crying child was heard.