"Please, don't hurt my daughter!" the woman in rags begged. She stood at the threshold of the cathedral room, restrained by two guards, while her young and malnourished daughter stood before Ganondorf and the three elders.
Ganondorf was excited to witness his first judgment at only eight years old. He was busy learning to prepare to be king, and this was only one of many important tasks he would inherit. The room was set up with three long tables, an elder sitting behind each one. He sat with Chloe, the elder in red, and watched attentively. He wondered what the girl's punishment would be.
"You are accused of unlawfully entering into the room of and stealing food from the young noblewoman Alexandria. How do you plead?" Chloe asked, her voice old but stern.
The girl was scared, wearing patched clothes that were much too large for her. Ganondorf wondered how they survived, but also why they were allowed to live if they were good for nothing. She was caught stealing, the ultimate failure of a Gerudo thief. Did they really need people who were useless?
"I was just hungry," the girl answered in a whimper.
"So you do not deny the charges against you," Elsie said, the elder in a blue robe.
The girl shook her head, shaking and barely able to stand.
"Ganondorf, what is the punishment for stealing?" Chloe asked, quizzing him.
"One finger per attempt of theft," Ganondorf answered proudly.
"Guards! Carry out the sentence."
Her mother screamed, "She is just a girl who is only guilty of starvation caused by you."
"Silence her!" Chloe yelled. The guards took the woman out of the room and out of view before Ganondorf could see. He turned his attention back to the criminal girl.
She was pinned to the ground by one guard, while another held her arm stiffly out, and a third held her wrist in an iron grip. The blade, fortunately, went clean through in one strike, and her index finger was gone.
Ganondorf watched in disbelief. As the girl was dragged back to her mother outside the room, he turned to the elder in red and asked, "Why do they starve?"
Chloe answered him with tried patience. "The peasants are worthless. They are not able to be taught anything, they are dirty, and we tolerate them only because it is inhumane to just kill them all."
Ganondorf struggled for reasoning. "Why not just provide them with food? They are still Gerudo after all."
She looked at him with disapproving, dark, narrow eyes that made his heart jump into his throat. "We can barely feed ourselves let alone the plague living in the dirt!" she exclaimed, her voice full of hate. "Do you understand?"
"Of course," Ganondorf said with a nod.