(A/N- ::dodges random pointy things thrown at her head:: Um, I love you guys! You still love me, right? Right?! DON'T KILL ME!
It seems has made the lovely impromptu decision to veto the existence of asterisks - or, however you spell the name of those little star-looking thingamawhatsits - hence the screwed up formatting of the previous chapter. I am too lazy to fix that one, but all future chapters will be sans asterisks. But on the upside, ITALICS SHOW UP! W00T!)
I could get used to this, I thought. Somehow, waking up in the morning didn't suck when I was wrapped up in Link's strong arms. His lack of shirt at the moment didn't exactly hurt either, I decided.
"Good morning," he said, reaching a hand up to stroke my hair. I sighed. Yeah, I could definitely get used to this.
"'Morning," I returned, opening my eyes to look at him. I smiled, and combed my fingers through his sleep-tousled, baby-soft hair. He started to blush, which made him look even more adorable.
"I love you," he said in that shy tone of voice that makes me totally melt everytime he speaks, let alone professes his love to me.
"I love you back," I replied, pulling myself up to kiss him.
Only seconds after our tender moment, Navi chose to drop in and demand that we get up, get dressed, and get going. Personally, I wouldn't have minded cuddling with Link for another couple of hours, but my eagerness to finally meet the (in)famous Gerudos won out on me, and Link and I were soon getting dressed on our respective sides of our impromptu privacy screen.
I blushed as I remembered he'd seen me topless the previous morning. He hadn't said anything about it since. Maybe he was just being a gentleman about it... but what if he'd been really disappointed? Now there was a sinking feeling in my stomach. Oh, come on, I scolded myself, this is such a stupid thing to worry about!
We arrived in Gerudo Valley right before sundown, to a hell of a welcoming party composed entirely of beautiful women clad in harem garb - which they somehow managed to look utterly badass in.
"It's about time you visited, we were getting pretty damn anxious," said a woman with a constant self-assured smirk on her tanned face.
"Nice to see you, too, Nabooru," he said, grinning and hopping off Epona to shake her hand. In stark contrast to, like, every other person I'd met in Hyrule, Nabooru noticed me as soon as she'd finished greeting Link. Her smirk grew.
"Cute girl, kid, good job," she remarked, nudging him in ribs. I think I was blushing just as much as Link was at that particular moment, as I slid off Ebony's back. Nabooru, being the very extroverted person she'd shown herself to be already, came right up to me and conducted our brief introductions, which were basically the same as any until she happened to add that it was "cool that the kid finally found himself a woman."
"Nabooru, that's kinda-" Link didn't have the chance to finish saying whatever he was about to, because the rest of the Gerudos were busy loudly agreeing with Nabooru's sentiments, and at the same time making plans to throw a party to celebrate. (Personally, I got the impression that they were looking for any reason to party, and we were simply convenient.)
"Oh, now these clothes won't do at all," a Gerudo wearing bright red remarked, examining the sleeve of my left arm. "C'mon, girlie, let's get you dressed for a party!"
I managed to shoot a desperate glance at Link before I was led into one of the sandstone buildings by Red Clothes and three other women, who immediately started babbling about which color and size they should dress me in.
"By the way, darlin'," Red Clothes said, "my name's Kali. That's Toki, Freya, and Ishtar," she added, gesturing in turn to the woman with tattoos, the woman with dreadlocks, and the woman wearing a particularly large machete at her waist. The one called Freya briefly looked me over, before crossing to the opposite wall and flinging open a large wardrobe full of brightly colored clothing.
"What color, ladies?" Freya asked, her voice muffled as her entire head was inside the wardrobe.
"I think green would suit her well, Freya," Kali suggested, as the dreadlocked woman continued to root through the wardrobe.
"Aha! Got it!" Freya called, tossing out a bundle of diaphanous emerald green fabric which Kali caught easily, and shook out to reveal a Gerudo outfit with gold trim. I felt my face getting hot.
"You expect me to wear that?" I asked, horrified.
"Why not? This is the desert, you won't catch a cold," Ishtar pointed out.
"Well, no, but..."
"Aww, she's shy!" Toki cooed. "How cute!"
"Oh, is that it?" Kali asked. "There's nothing to worry about, kid, we're all women here-"
"-With the exception of Link," Freya interjected helpfully.
"And I'll bet he's seen you in less anyway," Toki finished, winking. I wanted to protest, but they kinda had a point there. Yes, Link had seen my breasts, so why was I so reluctant to let him see me with a bare midriff? Well... because I'm weird like that.
"I still don't wanna wear it," I grumbled, blushing like hell. I'd hoped for them to leave me alone. I got the opposite reaction.
"Ooh, so he has seen you in less?" Ishtar asked eagerly, looking like she wanted nothing more than to hear every detail. Now that I saw her up close, she might actually have been a year or so younger than me (the heavy makeup the Gerudos wear makes no age distinction possible from a distance of more than a few feet). I crossed my arms and looked away.
"It was completely accidental," I assured firmly. There was a round of giggles, which indicated that they didn't believe me for a minute. I growled.
"Oh, just wear the thing," Kali laughed. I shook my head. "C'mon, Link'll really like it, it'll be worthwhile..."
If possible, I think I blushed even more.
"So, what brings you to this neck of the woods, Hero Boy?" Nabooru asked, flopping carelessly onto one of the silk-upholstered lounge chairs in her private quarters.
"Honestly, Nabooru," I cried, my hand flying over-dramatically to my heart, "whenever I'm here, you act like I have some kind of hidden agenda! I'm hurt by your suspicion!"
"Don't give me any bullshit, kid; you're not the type of guy who just drops in for a visit," she stated flatly, looking dead serious now that we were alone. "You might get it past the other girls, but I've learned not to take anything for face value. You're here because something's up. I want to know what it is, and how the Gerudos can help."
One thing you could definitely say for Nabooru - the woman was sharp, one of the smartest people in Hyrule, and a military genius to boot. She instantly saw the big picture behind everything; it was possibly why I valued her so highly as an ally.
"Zelda thinks that Ganondorf is planning another attack," I explained quietly (There was no need for it, really, as the thick stone walls were basically soundproof, but I've gotten a little paranoid over the years).
"Shit," Nabooru hissed. "That's all we need, that maniac returning. But the girls are loyal to me, at least. I can assure you he'll have no backing by my people."
"He doesn't need it, Nabooru," I said. "He has a new helper, one with plenty of minions under him. Name's Carlos, he leads a group of thieves from the land beyond the mountains."
"How many?"
"Close to a thousand," I answered.
"I can rally the girls for battle."
"No. You have only three hundred warriors, it would be a slaughter."
"A hundred and fifty now, actually," she said, smiling wryly. "That's the downside to female armies; the warriors always get pregnant at the worst possible times." I gave her an incredulous look.
"You're offering to go into battle knowing you have only a hundred and fifty fighters? Every Gerudo warrior will die if you go through with this, Nabooru, yourself included!"
"And we will die with honor. I could ask for no better death for myself and my warriors."
I thought for a while, trying to figure out a way to make the outcome more favorable.
"Maybe we could improve the odds a little," I suggested. "I'm sure Darunia and Ruto would send their armies if asked. That would bring us up to about eight hundred and twenty-"
"-And with Zelda's soldiers in the mix, we would make an even thousand," Nabooru finished, grinning.
"Ganondorf's sure to have monsters with him as well as men, though," I reminded. Nabooru waved her hand dismissively.
"We have an advantage over monsters: they're stupid, we're not. We can deal with them very easily. Now come on, I believe we have a party to attend," she reminded, her grin broadening as she stood and went for the door.
"Wait, Nabooru, I have a favor to ask."
"Yeah, kid?"
"Look... if this whole matter with Ganondorf goes down like we think it will, I might... I mean... would it be possible for Millerna to stay here in the valley? I want to keep her as safe as possible."
Nabooru gave me an 'aww, how sweet' look that would have been infuriating under different circumstances.
"She's welcome here for as long as she'll stay," she assured, before letting herself out of the room.
The party was already in full swing when Nabooru and I finished our meeting, and I swear the Gerudos have as much wine and rum around for their parties as the Gorons do, possibly more. They also have annoyingly high tolerances to alcohol, as I discovered once when Kali roped me into having a drinking contest with her - of course, I'd been only seventeen at the time, so I had an excuse for my inability to imbibe as much as she did without vomiting. Well, in my opinion, anyway.
I sat down across from Nabooru on one of the big logs surrounding the bonfire as the majority of the tribe continued to dance around, sing, and chug their drinks. Kali was suspiciously absent (usually she kept herself situated by a keg), but I realized that she and a few others had earlier abducted Millerna in the name of fashion.
Damn, what could they possibly be doing that would take this long?
There was a sudden commotion coming from the closest ground-floor door of the Gerudos' stone city. I recognized the voices of Kali and Toki, and then came the distinct sound of Millerna threatening them with physical violence involving a spoon if they didn't allow her to change clothes.
"You picked a feisty one," Nabooru noted with a smirk. I grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of my head.
"That's Millerna for you," I said weakly, as Toki and Kali seemed to have somehow managed to force Millerna outside. I glanced over to see what they'd dressed her up in that could get her so angry.
I think I stopped breathing.
Her long hair had been let out of its usual ponytail and fell down her back in a sheet of glistening obsidian, and her white skin had taken on that lovely moonlit glow. But it was when I looked down that my heart skipped a few beats. They'd put her in an iridescent green number that, between the barely-existant shirt and the harem pants that rested incredibly low on her hips, showed quite a bit more of her than it concealed. Which wasn't to say she wasn't putting up a valiant effort, with one arm crossed over her breasts and the other hand hiding her navel.
"Breathe, kid," Nabooru suggested helpfully a few seconds before Millerna sat down next to me, arms still crossed about the pieces of her anatomy she wished to conceal. If I hadn't been blushing before, I certainly was now.
"They made me wear this," she grumbled unhappily, shooting a glare at the four red-haired women in a giggling cluster by the door. "Urge to kill rising..."
"Oh, something's rising right about now," Nabooru stated, looking pointedly at me, "but it sure as hell ain't the urge to kill." I coughed and sputtered a few moments before managing an embarrassed
"Nabooru!"
"Couldn't resist," she admitted, laughing at my obvious discomfort like a particularly cruel older sister. Millerna continued to grumble about her clothing. I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her closer to me, kissing her on the forehead, cheek, and earlobe. Nabooru had the decency not to comment, satisfying herself with a knowing smirk instead. I'm gonna spar with her later...
"You look nice," I whispered reassuringly into Millerna's ear. I felt her shiver. Was she cold? It did get a little chilly in Gerudo Valley at night... I held her even closer.
"I'm gonna kill Kali," she declared. "I can't believe the bitch dressed me this way..."
"Just be thankful Navi isn't around to share her opinion on it," I teased, wondering briefly where Navi had gotten to.
"I'm thankful whenever she isn't around," Millerna growled, modesty seemingly forgotten as she utilised both hands in making a violent gesture demonstrating what she'd like to do to Navi. My eyes fell on her wonderfully soft-looking belly, then up to her small, round breasts. I gulped. Thin fabric, cool breeze, oh goddesses!
I cleared my throat, embarrassed, and looked away, silently cursing Nayru for putting more impure thoughts in my head, and imploring Farore for guidance. My only response was a now-familiar physical reaction.
This was going to be a long night...