Disclaimer: I do not own Zelda. Nintendo does.
A/N: This is my first fanfic with Link in it. If you have any suggestions, please review because I'm not a telepath and won't know that you don't like it unless you tell me.
Night, just before dawn, the desert was silent as a shadow. Under the navy blue sky, stone structures were barely visible. Anyone seeing them would've thought them boulders, but they weren't. An entire city made of granite stood amongst the dunes, so lonely in the endless expanse of sand.
Link sighed. That lonely city, Katigura, was his home, and it bustled with so much life during the day, but astride his camel atop a dune one mile away, it looked so small and lifeless.
But with the sunrise, and the awakening of so many people, there would come the taunts of his gerudo sisters. So Link was perfectly fine sitting outside Katigura for the first few hours of dawn.
Then the sun peaked out from behind the eastern dunes.
"The orb that reveals truth. The beacon that promises scalding warmth and torture by my sister's hand," Link sighed. "Better get back to town. No point in giving Gerina something else to tease me about."
He nudged his camel in the side. "Come on, Dezra. Time to go to work."
Spurring Dezra towards the city, Link hardened his thoughts to prepare himself for the day's work. Right outside the iron gates, the hylian jumped onto the hard packed sand to raise the blockade. He pushed the towering doors open just enough to get Dezra through, then closed it immediately after she cleared the gate.
But he wasn't fast enough.
"Well, lookie here. The white-skin returns. Had fun outside our fair city, I hope?" a powerful voice rang from off to Link's left.
The boy flinched, then turned to see the lady who had joined him. She couldn't have been more than an inch taller than Link, and had the physique of a professional duelist, just as the hylian did. Besides that, the two were nothing alike. The lady's skin was a deep tan, and her hair was clearly red even in the early morning light. What clothing she had was tight fitting and made of garish purple cloth. Link preferred his baggy, brown tunic and headscarf, mostly because they covered much of his pale skin and dirty blonde hair. It was hard to believe that they were siblings.
"Hello, Gerina," Link spat. "You're up early yourself. What gives?"
Gerina smiled, showing her flawless, white teeth. "Just checking up on my dear brother." She strode up to Link in three steps, which was astonishing considering the distance between them. Looming over the hylian, she grabbed a handful of his tunic, yanking him closer, and continued, "Nothing happened to you, right? We wouldn't want you to get hurt."
'Not by anyone else' is what you mean, Link thought.
Out loud, he said, "Of course not. I'm in great shape, and there's no one outside the gates but what foxes are up before dawn."
The gerudo lady smiled even wider. "Good, 'cause you've a lot to do today." She thrust him away, causing him to fall on his tail end. "So get to it, brother."
Link didn't reply but got up and took Dezra's reins in one hand. His sister didn't say anything else, but he heard her laughing softly as he led his camel to the stables.
"I wonder if Heron's got the same duties as me today," Link whispered as he unsaddled Dezra.
The camel grunted as if in reply.
"Yeah, you're probably right," he continued. "Highly unlikely. Though I doubt there's any luck involved in what jobs I get. Gerina probably gets the taskmaster to assign me the most disgusting jobs with the people I hate."
Link sighed. "Maybe I'll leave for Hyrule someday. Most boys my age already have."
The hylian slumped against the inside of Dezra's stall and stayed there until the sun woke the city.
Every morning, the gerudo youths would assemble outside the taskmaster's house to get their daily assignments. The taskmaster, who was really just the city's banker, was the bossiest gerudo of the lot. No one even tried to disagree with her, and Link was no exception. He didn't say as much as "not again" when she gave him cleaning duty, for the third time in a row.
At least Heron got the same assignment, Link thought hopefully. Against all odds, I actually get to work with her. That makes it bearable.