Groaning, Aria slowly sat upwards, her hand creeping to the back of her head to run through her bloody, matted hair only to brush through tangled, but clean locks. Her eyes flew open as she brought her hand in front her face. It was bandaged, where previously her hand had been covered in small puncture wounds covered in dirt and sand. Curling her hand into a fist, Aria looked around the room. It wasn't really a room, but more of a cell. The 'bed' she laid one was really just a pile of itchy hay and a sheet. The light coming in from the bars was from two large torches in the stone hallway.

Aria was truly alone.

That didn't stop her from trying to get out. Slowly coming to a stand, her legs threatening to buckle beneath her own weight, she forced the burning in her veins forward to her hands. They gave off a warm glow and she pressed them to the metal of the bars on the far side of her prison cell. Aria tugged as hard as she could away from the stone wall as the metal began to warm up slowly. If she could just get one of the bars far enough to the side she could slip through and...soft footsteps could be heard down the hallway.

Aria rushed back over to the bed, laid down and tightly shut her eyes pretending to sleep. Not that anyone would be fooled with her laboured breathing. She turned to face the door at the sound of the lock clicking open. Two women in purple came over to her.

"Where am I?" Was the first question that blurted from Aria's mouth. She said no more due to the annoyed glares the two women gave her. One woman grabbed her shoulder and hauled her to her feet, shoving her towards the doorway. There were two other women in the same light colored garb waiting for her. They didn't touch her, but it was obvious from the tension in the air that they wouldn't hesitate to crush her like an ant under their thumb if she tried to get away.

The halls they went down were winding and endless. They rarely passed by any windows, or anything that would remotely make a landmark in case she did figure out how to get out of the compound. Then what? Would she even have the time to find Titan? Would she keep heading east? Aria wasn't given much time to contemplate an escape route before she stood in a grand hallway, where at the center of the room stood a tall woman in pink clothes similar to the guards next to her.

"I was told there were no survivors from that little spat in the west. Who are you?" Golden eyes stared at Aria from all corners of the room.

"I… I.."

"Oh? Has the little westerner lost her tongue? I won't repeat myself again. Who are you?"

"I'm Aria, apprentice of the Great Nicar. Where am I?" Aria clenched her bandaged fist, the sting of it a firm reminder as to the ordeals she went through in the desert, of all the men felled in their service to their kingdom.

"You're in the Gerudo Valley. What was your plan exactly? Storm the fortress with no army, riding a limping horse?" Laughter echoed around the room.

"I didn't..." Aria paused, staring at the the woman grinning before her. She must be like a walking joke to them, some naive little girl who just magically survived wandering through the desert.

"You don't look like a warrior. If you were, you wouldn't be stumbling over your words right now. Is your kingdom so weak that it sends trainees to the front of their self-made wars?"

"No. I just… I followed my mentor who was drafted."

"Why? Why not stay home, keep training? What was so great about this Nicar?"

"He.. he was the only one who could teach me to control … my skills."

"Oh? So he was your best warrior?"

"In a way… yes."

"And now?"

"Now? He's gone. Now.. I don't know what I'm going to do. There's nothing left at home for me and…"

"And?"

"And I'm your prisoner aren't I? So what are you going to do with me? Kill me, sacrifice me to your gods..?"

This time the room roared with laughter. The pink garbed woman before her doubled over with laughter, her eyes shining with tears of mirth.

"Sacrifice you. Oh Goddess, where do you get your ideas from? First you survive an ambush, then you travel across the desert all alone, and you think we're going to kill you for showing that you have the strength to survive? No!"

"Then… what?"

"That's for you to decide. If you want to stay a prisoner, I won't deny you that, but there are much more useful things you could be doing."

"So I could just ride out of here like nothing happened?"

"Not exactly."

Of course. Everything had a catch.

"Passage through the Gerudo lands has to be earned."

"You just said that I-"

"I know. So you have a few choices. Stay as a prisoner, train as one of us- you'll be trained as a warrior since you've already shown an aptitude for it-"

"Um… I'd rather not."

"Not?"

"Be trained as a warrior. I survived the desert, sure, but I.. I'm not a warrior. I don't have any training, I've never actually.." Aria paused in her protest. She had killed someone. Not with the heavy broadsword, but with the magic she couldn't control. She lifted her bandaged hand to her face, staring at it as if it would burst into flame at any second.

"Hey… kid?" The redhead touched her hand, moving in front of her face. "What's wrong?"

"I'm… cursed."

"Cursed? Cursed with what, dashing good looks, a good right hook? Do you turn into a wolfos every new moon?" That got a few chuckles from around the room.

Aria's eyes scrunched in confusion and took a step back. Magic was.. taboo at best in her old kingdom. It'd taken her months to find Nicar, and even longer to convince him to begin training her. Being a magic user could get you killed if you weren't careful with whom you trusted or used it around, having little control over your magic was practically a death sentence, but now she was here and the only way to tell someone was to show them. Wherever here was.

The first thing she noticed was a vine growing from a nearby window. Plant life was safer than fire. It was the desert, and things burned easily, if she set the room on fire, who knew when it would stop.

Gerudos moved out of the way as she reached towards the vines. She could feel the spark of life that was in the plant, feel it's will to live and slowly she put her will into it- commanding it to grow.

The vines crawled through the window and began to thicken, digging into the stone of the wall fast than she expected, sapping the energy from her unbidden.

"Oh! Why didn't you just say you could do magic? There are a few members that can train you. You can make it stop now, we get the point."

Aria clenched her first, trying to deny the plant her will commanding it under her breath to stop. It didn't stop, the vines thickened and began crawling outwards and across the floor.

"Stop" Why wasn't it working?

"Cease." Aria tried again, verbally louder this time, brows furrowed in frustration. Fire was more behaved, if she could control her emotions she could control the flame, but this was like the plant had it's own ideas.

"HALT!" She yelled at the plant, but it took no heed of her.

"Aveil, go get Koume and Kotake. Hurry!" A woman in red darted through the door as other ladies moved to the other side of the room to get away from the plant's warpath across the stone.

Within moments two figures flew into the room on rickety brooms. They viewed the path of the plant's growth and studied Aria's attempts to stop it for just a moment before the red jeweled one set the plant on flame. It burned with the same intensity as it's growth fighting for life even as it began to curl and burn in on itself. The other elderly woman on her broomstick, calmed the fire with a splash of ice, successfully freezing the plant's remains to the stone.

Aria fell to the ground, tears in her eyes. She hid her face in her knees and softly sobbed. She could barely hear what the woman in pink was saying to the two on their brooms, but it couldn't be anything good. What was the point of having all this power if you couldn't control it and keep it from harming others?

"Hehe, an apprentice! We haven't had one in a long while."

"Oh yes! This will be so much fun!"

Slowly, Aria lifted her head to stare at the group discussing her future. Apprentice? Had she heard right? Even after almost strangling the room with a plant, they were still willing to train her to control it?

A warm hand squeezed her shoulder and when Aria looked up for a moment she could've sworn she'd seen Bjorn's smiling eyes at her only to realize they weren't blue, but gold instead. It was the woman in red from before, Aveil.

"Hey, you'll be alright kid. They'll get your magic under control and then you'll start regular gerudo training. You'll be a pro in no time." Aveil smiled down at her, and offered her hand. Aria took it, and allowed Aveil to help her stand up. Their hands slid up to each other's forearms in a firm friendly grip, smiling at one another.

"You must be exhausted from using all that energy on that plant." The blue jeweled woman on the broom flew over to them,

"Of course she's not tired Koume! Look at her, she's still go the energy to go on all day!"

"Oh hush you, I'm the older sister I say she needs her rest!"

"Older?! We're twins!"

"I was born first, so that means I'm older."

"You don't even remember who was born first, I'm the older sister!"

"No, I distinctly remember you being second."

Aria coughed loudly, distracting the twins from arguing. "Um.. I could do with a bit more practice, if that's alright?"

"Of course! But not here"

"Goddess no, not here! We have an actual room for training in magic."
"Much safer!"

"Come come, follow us"

With one glance backwards at Aveil and the pink garbed gerudo, Aria jogged behind the twin broomstick riding witches. The hallways were long and winding, but it there were more memorable junctions due to being able to see outside of the windows this time.

The training room was huge, and rather plain. There were plenty of lovely painted designs on the wall, but the areas of smashed and burnt wall took away from all it's grandeur.

"Whoa… what happened here?"

"Training of course!"

"Did you two-"

"Some, but most of it was our son."

"Oh yes, our dear son. He's quite powerful, you know!"

"Very powerful! He's the King of the Gerudos. We trained him since he was a little sprite."

Koume and Kotake turned to her, though she wasn't quite sure which one was which yet.

"We'll start with plant life, since that's what you were having issues with. Now as you probably know already, everything has a spark of life in it. Sand, Shadows, Wind, Fire, Plant, Water, even the food you eat may still have remnants of a spark in it. It's seeing and controlling those sparks that make use magic users. Some people can see the sparks, but not touch them in anyway. You can obviously touch the sparks, but can you see them?"

Aria swallowed before nodding, her mouth parched. "I can see them. I can see all of them if I focus on letting them all appear to me. My last mentor said it's dangerous to see them all at once though, they're overwhelming and then some… some sparks start moving on their own, start using your will, your magic against your permission and…" She faltered as she closed her eyes to stop herself from accidentally calling forth sparks that she wasn't meant to be focusing on.

"Well, it's good that your old mentor taught you something, but closing your eyes isn't going to do you any good." The red-jeweled one said, sniffing in disdain.

"Oh Kotake, be nice. It's a start." The one who must've been Koume rolled her eyes at Kotake's disdain. "Well, let's focus on getting you to control your own will then, without the plant. I want you to feel inwards. It'll feel something like the wind or perhaps water inside you, bubbling to get out. It could be leaking out like a crack in a bowl."

"Could be.. It is leaking out, like a weak dam holding back a waterfall."

"Oh shush you, don't scare the girl."

"She has to be made aware of how little she's actually controlling her energy."

Aria ignored their bickering this time, she supposed she'd eventually get used to it. Slowly, she closed her eyes and felt envisioned herself, that covering her was… The energy inside her bloomed forward like an exploding flame, engulfing her in a whirling vortex. For a moment it spooked her, and Aria almost opened her eyes.

She could feel what Kotake was talking about. A lot of the energy was flaring outwards, trying to touch the many sparks around them. Carefully, like a shepherd and their dog herding sheep, she began bringing the energy back towards her. It was difficult at first, sweat dripping down the side of her face as the fire struggled to flow outwards. Once or twice, she dropped the energy long enough to look at the system of her energy. It was like a burning ball of fire, flaring outwards as the rays of a sun does.

"Find a way to smooth it, girl."

"Work it like a well oiled clock." The two witches encouraged her, their voices barely discernable through the rush of energy in her ears.

Clockwork. Didn't Kotake say it was like a waterfall? Every waterfall had a river behind it right? Aria frowned and began reworking her center, pulling it out of a tightly constructed ball that her younger self had allowed it to form into, and began weaving it like knotwork, connecting every strand to the point where all those flares were pulled into the final weave and brought to her center. There was still a ball at the center, but now it was surrounded by a flowing river of molten energy.

Aria opened her eyes, gasping for breath. Like she'd just run a marathon through the desert, her lungs ached, her wounded side hurt, and she wanted to drink a gallon of water. Aria's knees buckled underneath her and she slid to the floor.

"Did I do.. okay?"

"You did wonderful! Such intricate knots! You really have an eye for weaving, which will be perfect for future lessons!"

"Yes… you did well."

"Well… you boof! She did great!"

"Um..." Aria interrupted them before Kotake could respond to her sister's insult, "I don't suppose I could have some water.. or a bath?" Aria looked down at herself. She was drenched in her own sweat and covered once more in sand.

"Of course. Lessons over today. Here, one of the girls will lead you to the bathing room and then back to your room. We'll also have a pair of fresh clothes sent to you. Hmm.. not as tall as Nabooru, but not as slim either.." Koume looked her over, guesstimating her size before calling a purple-clad gerudo into the room.

The gerudo pulled her to her feet and began leading her down the maze of hallways.

"Hi, I'm Aria." Golden eyes glanced at her, but Aria was given no response to her introduction and their walk fell into silence.

Thankfully, it was a rather short walk. The room was steamy, and the walls had shelves of different scented shampoos and soaps. A hand on her shoulder was all it took for Aria to trip over her own feet while turning around, and land on her bum.

"Whoa there little spitfire. It's just me, Nabooru. We met before, remember?"

Aria nodded, a blush spreading through her cheeks. Nabooru offered her a hand up.

"Feel free to use any of the soaps and shampoos on the wall, since this a communal bath. Towels are over here, here's new clothes for you when you're done bathing. Dirty clothes go over here." Nabooru guided her around the large bath, showing her everything she needed to know about the room before getting undressed. Aria blushed and looked away, but followed suit. Back home everyone had their own private baths, or used the communal one, and since she had little control over her magic she avoided being out in public as much as possible.

Aria grabbed a bottle that was labeled 'Willow" for her shampoo and soap, set them down on the side of the bath, before slowly slipping into the water and submerging herself. A hand grabbed her shoulder and jerked her out of the water.

"Are you okay, were you trying to drown yourself?" Nabooru bombarded her.

"No! I can swim, I'm not going to drown."

"Swim?"

"Yeah. You know, move in and underwater. Completely submerge one's self and move around. Swim." Nabooru stared at her oddly. "I.. I guess since you've only really know the desert, most of you don't know how to swim."

Nabooru shook her head.

"Oh. I guess, if we find water that's deep enough, I'll have to teach you sometime." Aria, realizing just how close the other woman was, blushed and turned. She picked up the shampoo only for it to be grabbed out her hand.

"Huh, desert willow. A nice choice. I wouldn't recommend using it on a trip to hyrule."

"Hyrule?"

"Yeah, it's the kingdom nearby. We go there sometimes to have a good time." Nabooru pulled out the stopper and began massaging the shampoo into Aria's wet hair. The hair on Aria's arm rose.

"Uh, I can do it."

"Nonsense. It's more relaxing and fun this way." The darker woman tugged playfully on Aria's pointed ear. Aria winced, her blush only spreading to her ears in response. She didn't have the heart to tell Nabooru that they were sensitive and that back home the only person to touch your ears were yourself or a lover.

"S-so it's just women here then?"

"Yup. Every hundred or so years a male is born and he is our king, but other than that we're all women. That's why we go to Hyrule, to find us some menfolk, isn't that right gals?" Nabooru slowly brought them over towards the other group of women bathing. A small cheer went up in the air in response to Nabooru's question.

"Do they come back here with you?"

"Nope. We just spend a few nights there, then come back. Think of it like.. a women's only club. Not counting our King."

"You keep mentioning a king...will I meet him?"

Nabooru shrugged at this. "I guess. He's away on business, but there's always the chance you'll spot him somewhere around here." Nabooru tapped her lips in contemplation for a moment. "We could always set up an official meeting, but then if he's in a bad mood or if he doesn't find you interesting enough it'd be a waste of time… Ah, you'll see him eventually." Nabooru returned to washing her hair.

"So what's it like back west?" Aveil waded over to the group.

"It's.. nice? It's not the desert, but more of a valley that goes all the way to a huge river. Our leaders aren't… they're not the brightest. They kind of stick to marrying within the family and.. well you know." Aria paused,eyes going wide as she realized how blasphemous she sounded. She was practically spouting off treason!

"Don't worry, you're not going back there all that soon. It's good to have you opinions on your rulers, it means you're not a sheep."

"Do you hear that, all? Aveil just called you sheep!" Nabooru grinned. A splash came somewhere from the side.

"Oh? You wanna go?" Aveil splashed back, hitting Aria in the crossfire. An all out war started. Water flew everywhere, soap dropped into the pool, toes were stepped on, and hair was tugged. Aria ducked under the water to avoid the majority of the fight and swam to the edge. She stood up on the stone.

"You may be sheep, but I am Queen of the Water!" She yelled. She saw the spark, and suddenly there was a small tidal wave upon the other girls. They shrieked as water poured on them from above. Someone pulled her back into the water.

"I've caught the queen, what shall we do with her?!"

"Battle our mightiest warrior!" "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" Aria yelped as Aveil lifted her onto her shoulders. Nabooru was also lifted upon someone else's shoulders and they were walked to the very center of the bath.

"Rules! No ear tugging, hair pulling, biting, strangling, killing, punching, drowning, or magic. Try to keep your balance. Don't drown your mount! Got it? Good. BEGIN!"

Aria wasn't sure what to expect, but she wasn't expecting Nabooru to grab her hands and shove. Her legs came under Aviel's arms and feet rested on the gerudo's back for support as she tried not to fall backwards into the water. Regaining her balance, she grabbed onto Nabooru's hands and shoved back. It hardly made a difference to the taller woman who just shoved right back. Green eyes narrowed, Aria pulled Nabooru's hands towards her instead of shoving this time. Nabooru's balance slipped for a moment, but stayed on. With her only trick found out, it was no wonder Aria soon found herself in the water. She surfaced for air rather quickly, Aveil surfacing just after her.

"The queen has been dethroned! Bow down to you new qu-ahh" The gerudo holding Nabooru up let go and ducked under the water, dropping the winner into the water.

"I guess that means there are no queens in this pool!" Aveil declared, laughter echoing off the walls.