"Why do you provoke him like that?"

Link said nothing as Aveil pressed the stinging salve into his wounds. "There's nothing for you to prove here, Link. You won't gain anything by trying to fight him." She wrapped the bandages carefully, even though he had never so much as flinched when she cared for his whip weals, "Please, just try to calm down. Your Hylian ways are the same, are they not? If you had contradicted Princess Zelda, there would be a price to pay, even if her punishment was less harsh. We're a strong people that require strong handling. That's why we have a King like Ganondorf."

Link let the words roll over him. He realized that Aveil must have sneaked back to his room after dinner. He was grateful for the risk she was taking now, even as she provided excuses for doing nothing earlier. So he lay face down on the bed, as she pressed clean rags against his back, uttering a muffled thanks as she finished and left.

The pain subsided as dawn came, so he rolled over on his back to hide Aveil's work and slept for most of the day. Someone left him water, but no food. His stomach growled, but he didn't mind too much. He was used to going hungry.

Aveil came in again just before the next dawn and hurriedly removed her makeshift bandages. "The King wants you outside today," she said as she stuffed the used rags into her pack. "The two that carried you to dinner will be here soon to bring you to the courtyard." Link nodded. This time his escort said nothing to him as they picked him up, but he could see the look of satisfaction on their faces as they glanced at his back.

In the courtyard, someone had set up a simple throne made of hides thrown over a wrought iron frame. Next to it was a small cushion, of the same type that he had seen in the house belonging to the woman with the pet dog. Link could feel his ears burn as they set him down upon it, but he kept his face carefully impassive.

A couple dozen or so Gerudo were lined up in the courtyard, doing what appeared to be exercises. Link had never seen its like before. They would stand or kneel in one position for a long time, then carefully switch. He could see their muscles bulge as they held their positions, and he knew it must be much more difficult than it looked.

One of his escort caught him watching. "We have learned how to stay strong even in Hylian prisons," she explained. "With little room to move, we taught ourselves how to stay fit even while staying still." Link excitedly filed this information away in his brain for later.

He had a feeling he wasn't supposed to see this demonstration, as Ganondorf appeared soon afterward and barked at the little group to practice elsewhere. Striding over to the throne, he gave Link's back a satisfied look and sat down.

Link was completely unprepared for the hand that touched the top of his head. He visibly flinched, and felt strong fingers grip his hair. "Sit, dog," the voice above him ordered.

Link's entire body tensed as he suppressed the urge to strangle the man. Lips parted in a snarl and the angry retort came out as a growl. Expecting to be struck, he flinched again in surprised as the King merely laughed and began petting his head.

Suddenly Link envied dogs, their ability to bite and tear, to turn hands and arms into bloody rags...

A series of high laughing shrieks knocked him out of his reverie. He looked up in surprise to see little girls racing around the courtyard, dressed just like the women but with little or no jewelry.

"Our young ones stay in the inner rooms of the Fortress, most of the time," said the escort who had spoken earlier. "We've been able to let them out more often, now that things have calmed down in the rest of the world. They are the seed of the tribe, our most precious possessions." She smirked. "And all of them, the younger ones, were sired by the King." Link fought the impulse to roll his eyes.

The girls tackled each other, wrestling their opponents to the ground, in a rough but good-natured frenzy. In the middle of it one of them suddenly pointed and uttered an exclamation, and all the others turned to look.

The girl was pointing at Link, of course. They babbled excitedly to each other in Gerudo and crept forward, a few crouching as if expecting him to attack them at any moment. For his part, Link simply sat and watched. He hadn't seen many children since leaving the Kokiri, and all of those he had were busy with one sort of task or another, like Malon at the farm. One of the girls growled at him as if hoping to scare him off, and the others erupted into giggles.

Another girl crept forward, stretching out one hand, then jumped back with an excited shriek at the last moment. Not sure if he truly frightened them or if they were merely playing a game, he sat still and watched.

A bigger girl swaggered up. She too stretched out a hand, then alternated between advancing and fleeing, two steps forward and one step back. Link smiled at her, but she didn't return it.

In fact, she didn't even seem to be looking at him.

Link glanced up and back, and felt the blood rush in his ears as he saw Ganondorf playfully flipping his hand at the little girl, warning her not to get too close. He wasn't afraid Link would hurt the girl; and the girl certainly wasn't afraid of Link.

He was warning her not to touch his pet.

Wiping the flash of rage off his face, Link turned back to the little group and offered up his friendliest smile. Some of the girls toward the back giggled. Then, the next time one of them reached toward him, he reached out as well.

Suddenly Ganondorf cuffed him. The girls all jumped back, shrieking with laughter. "Bad dog," the King said to him with a nasty grin, and then uttered something similar to the girls.

So angry he could barely see, Link rubbed the ear Ganondorf had struck. Quite apart from the demeaning treatment, the idea that Ganondorf was teaching the girls to entertain themselves with cruelty made him sick to his stomach. He glanced up at his escort to catch her reaction, but her back was to him. The girls made a few more attempts to touch him, but he simply stared at the ground, frowning. Eventually they tired of the game and went back to their original play, a few still sneaking looks of curiosity.

Link's mind roiled. He had to get out of here. He had to get rid of Ganondorf. And not for just his own sake.

As the rest of the Gerudo came up one by one to speak with their King, Link examined the halberds and scimitars they carried. The only straight sword of the type he had trained with, that looked like it wouldn't break from age, was hanging in the King's room. Link prayed that he would never see the inside of that room again. If he couldn't get the kind of sword he was used to (and he knew Ganondorf would do everything he could to keep it out of Link's hands), then he would have to steal a weapon from someone else.

But which one? The halberd was a weapon class in itself. He could probably do a bit of damage, but only against ordinary foes, not the one that had already beaten him once. And while there were certainly enough scimitars around to snatch or force out of someone's hands, the fighting methods used were totally different. The women used two swords to fight, using both to counterbalance instead of a sword and shield. Also, stabbing someone with a scimitar wouldn't work very well. Link knew he wouldn't be able to get hold of one to practice.

He watched the girls scrabbling in the dirt. If he knew a bit of hand-to-hand fighting, would that help? No, probably not – he pushed that idea from his head as soon as it came in. Even if Link knew the secret ways of disabling a body, the joints that would fall under a strike, Ganondorf still had a huge advantage in strength over him.

Perhaps some sort of a trick?

Ganondorf held the advantage as far as wits were concerned, Link conceded that fact. Still, there might be a way to weaken him just before Link attacked him. It would have to be something unusual, something Ganondorf wouldn't automatically guard against as a matter of course. All the methods Link had heard about in the old fairy tales – getting him drunk, poison, finding an ally – wouldn't work in this case. It needed to be specific, simple, and quick to implement. And it needed to come from Lnk himself.

Link cast his gaze over to two of the guards standing near the entrance to the Fortress. There were much fewer now than there were before, so he knew if he could get away from Ganondorf, the rest of the Gerudo shouldn't be a problem. He could sprint for the gorge and jump into the river leading to Lake Hylia.

For now, Link decided, he had to continue gaining back his strength.


Author's Note: This story will not end well. If you've been waiting for the two to kiss and make up, now would be a good time to bail.