Legend of Zelda: Reconciliation

by Rose Zemlya

Sequel to The Legend of Zelda: The Return. Based loosely on A Link to the Past.

22. Chapter 21

The Legend of Zelda: Reconciliation

Author's Notes

THE SECOND-MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THESE NOTES:

The previous chapter has been updated with its shiny new ending – make sure you head there and read it before you pick up this chapter. I'm not sure if ff dot net sends you a notice when I change a previously existing chapter.

THE THIRD MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THESE NOTES:

Yeah…so…

Hi!

Told you I wasn't giving up / letting the story die / dead in a ditch somewhere! And you didn't believe me! Silly readers. Just because it took me three years to post the next chapter…

/cough

In all seriousness, I recognize this has been a long time (as in…significantly longer than most fics). I have a list of excuses, most of which can be melted down into the big pot called Real Life. Promotions at work mean more responsibilities and no energy when I get home. Home means dealing with family and friend based stresses of varying degrees of seriousness. Time is at a premium, and so little of it is mine – take what's left and divide it by all the things I want to write, all the things I want to read, all the things I want to play, all the things I want to do…

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss school. I miss it SO BAD. Back in the days where all I had to do in a day was maybe go to class and stare out the window and pretend to listen to the teacher while instead scribbling the next chapter of any of my stories, or doodling in the margins.

Now I go to meetings and there's no window to stare out of and if I don't listen I could get fired and doodling is generally frowned upon.

To those of you reading who are still in school (Secondary or Post-Secondary) treasure the brain-time you have right now. Time to think of whatever you want, work on stories, imagine drawings, play scenes out in your head.

So, all of that to say (for the millionth time) no, I am not giving up on this story. It might be another three years. It might be ten. But I refuse to give up what little brain time I do have and am able to dedicate to this story. It entertains me far, far too much. I recognize this won't work for some of you, I recognize it would definitely be preferable (for you AND me) to update more often. The reality of the situation is it's unlikely. I will continue to write the story, just at a painfully slow pace.

Aside: For those reading my originals as well, I tried NanoWriMo last year. Didn't finish, naturally, but I'll try to post up what I managed to get through on fictionpress dot net at some point in the reasonable future.

THE ABSOLUTE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE NOTES:

I cannot say what it means to me that so many of you are still reading this story. Every other day somebody adds it to their favourites or alerts. I stumble across random deviant art or other pages recommending the story to others. There is some INCREDIBLE fan art out there (I started a collection on my DA account (KA-Rose) – for real! Check them out!) including a manga or two, a cover for The Return, and more. I get e-mails every so often (and bear with me if you're waiting for a reply – I'm probably worse at responding to my e-mails than I am at updating this story).

I really don't know how to thank you for it. To be honest, I'm kind of boggled by it – especially after so long.

Special shout-out to the folks from the old FSConnect forums who – whether they know it or not – have been immensely helpful, inspirational, and entertaining. I know I don't post much, but you guys have made my day too many times to count.

Also, for those who aren't aware – the forums are now here on ff dot net. Do join us.

As always my doves, thank you for reading and I (really) hope it was worth the wait!

Less than three,

Rose Zemlya

---

Chapter 22

I come to with a noise that is something less than manly. Every muscle in my body aches, and my head is pounding like I've spent just a little too long at a Goron celebration. My throat is dry and coarse and when I cough even my lungs ache like I've been using them too much, or not enough, or something.

"Adrenaline hang over," surmises a voice from somewhere to my side. It sounds tired and stressed, but is making a decent attempt at good humour. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel anything but sore.

I make another noise in response. Manlier this time. A good, solid grunt.

"Are you still real?" I ask after a moment, forcing myself to roll over with a visible wince. I suppose I should be grateful that nothing's broken and I'm not bleeding. A night spent shivering and shaking and tense in a bag is still a million times better than a night spent running loose and killing people, though on a deep, personal level I am happy my mind remembers nothing of what my aching muscles hint at – in either case.

"Nope," Hunter says, and realizes his mistake when my face drops and I whirl to look at him. He holds up his hands in a placating gesture. "Joke!" he says. "I'm joking! Sorry. I forgot nothing's funny here."

"It's really not," I say, too tired to discuss it. "Where are we?"

He smoothes out the edge of a piece of parchment he's looking at and taps it thoughtfully. "Here," he says as I move over to peer. "Though to be honest, I don't think that's useful."

It's not. The parchment is a map he must have started making last night after we left the town-that-isn't-Kakariko. So it shows us where we've been, but not where we're going, which means, naturally, that it completely fails as a map. I tell him as much and he throws me a disgruntled look. "Well at least it's something," he says. "We might have to backtrack a lot to get this all done, so better to know how to go back than not know how to go anywhere."

"I guess," I say with a negligent shrug, then: "I'm starving."

"There's some rations in the backpack – which, by the way, it's your turn to carry, since I've been dragging it and you around all night. Don't eat them all, we don't know how much farther we have to go and I don't really want to try eating any plants that might actually grow here." A weird, displeased expression crosses his face. "For all we know they probably used to be people." He goes back to looking at his fail-map and I content myself by rifling through the rations we packed back at town and try to find something that doesn't look completely unpalatable.

"Do you need sleep?" I ask, destroying Hunter's careful packing job in my attempts at finding something that isn't green or brown to eat.

"No," he lies without looking up at me. "I've been the equivalent for weeks. I never want to sleep again as far as I'm concerned."

"That'll wear off eventually," I note dully. "We should probably figure somethingout before it becomes an issue." Hunter, of course, is not even listening to me, still frowning down at his parchment. I roll my eyes. Fine. He can come up with a system when he's finally ready to pass out. I give up on my quest for good food and grab a brown something-or-other out of the bag. It's either dried fruit or dried meat but it's definitely dry and it tastes like Hell.

Which, I realize belatedly, is where it's from. So I guess that makes sense.

I wolf it down anyway.

"Are we still on track at least?" I ask, peering around at our surroundings. It's mostly rocks. We're near the foot of the mountain – what did Feran call it? Turtle Rock. I turn and shield my eyes from the rising sun to peer up at the craggy peak above. It towers menacingly overhead, like a great, black obelisk. A permanent storm rages at the top, lightning cracking viciously into the mountainside; I can hear just the faintest rumble of thunder from all the way down here. The lightning's likely the cause of the landslides Feran mentioned. Just the sight of it is enough to make you feel small and powerless and vulnerable. I make a face at it.

So, back in Hyrule we have a dormant volcano filled with peace-loving, brother-hugging Gorons and we call it Death Mountain. And in the Dark World they have what is literally a mountain of death and they call it Turtle Rock.

Goddess. Whatever.

"Depends on what you mean by on track," Hunter answers me finally, rolling up the map with a sigh. "We're still heading south east along the mountain, so I guess yes, you could say we're on track, but it's not much of a track, and I'm worried about what happens when we get past the mountain. We don't really have any indication of where to go from there except 'east.'"

"Maybe we can stop and ask for directions," I say. I meant it to be sarcastic, but at the last minute I change my mind. It's actually a legitimate possibility. "There were friendlies – well, sort of friendly. More like, not-entirely-not-on-our-side-insofar-as-they're-on-anyone's-side-lies – in Blind's town, right?"

"And maybe," Hunter says with a wry grin, "this Makani of yours will fly down out of the sky and carry us back to her palace. But from the sound of things, she can't fly, and I doubt we'll be meeting much more that's friendly."

"Well," I say, "then I guess we just head around the mountains and head east. I'll know the place when we get there, and besides, I got the impression that Anduriel's realm is actually pretty large. Once we're in there she'll know it and be able to find us. It doesn't have to be precisely the Dark Palace or whatever it's called."

"Oh good," says Hunter, "because I had exactly zero interest in meeting this giant maeasm of yours."

"It's dead," I point out. "I killed it."

"No offence, Link," Hunter notes, raising an eyebrow at me, "but not everything you kill actually stays dead, if you take my meaning. I'd rather avoid the possibility entirely."

"Fair en—." My concession is cut short by a long, low howl from somewhere to the south. Hunter and I both turn and look in the direction of the noise, startled in my case and alarmed in his. The sound trails off eerily, leaving an odd stillness in its wake. It didn't sound close, but it's hard to say for sure, and there's no way to tell which way it's moving.

"Maybe…we should head out again," Hunter says after a moment. "Keep moving."

I say nothing, but – agreeing entirely – I turn and repack the bag as Hunter gets to his feet and rolls his parchment up. I sling the bag on my back and we head out again, neither of us saying anything, but every now and then shooting a furtive glance back over our shoulder. Whatever the howl was, we don't hear it again.

Sometime later we slow our pace again, back to a steady walk. "So," Hunter says once the silence has gone from tense to companionable again, "what was it like?"

"What was what like?" I ask, my brain obviously not in the same place as his.

"The Makani," he says. "The Sentinel. What was it like?"

"You mean Anduriel?" I think about it. "Honestly? She was kind of…heart breaking. I've never heard of her and her siblings before, but even so I get the impression that she's just…a shadow of what she was back when things were the way they're supposed to be." A frown plays across my face at the thought of her. "She's…blind, and she can barely fly, and there's this stoop in her shoulders. She kind of looks like she's just…like every step is a struggle; every day is a fight." I shift the bag's weight on my back. "I think I know how she feels, but I can't imagine how much worse it must be for her."

"Do you think she knows about the other one?" Hunter asks.

"The one posing as God?" I ask. He nods. "She knew it was corrupted. Whether she knows it's dead…I don't know. Maybe she does – like how the sages can sense each other." The thought causes a shiver of guilt to run up my spine. Whatever they are now, the other sentinels had once upon a time been her only family. It's not like I could have gotten away with anything less than killing the corrupted one, but…I hate to think I may have added anything to Anduriel's burden. She's carrying enough.

"You've really never heard of the Sentinels?" Hunter asks curiously. "The Hylians call them angels."

"Well sure I've heard of angels," I say. "Probably seen a picture or two, but none of them really hit the mark – I mean, to be honest, I'm not sure it's a mark you can hit if you haven't met one – but the Hylians don't keep as many stories as the Sheikah and Gerudo do. They're too concerned with the present to really care about the past."

"Dad never told you any?" Hunter asks, genuinely surprised. "They're some of the best stories we have. The Makani are like…everything the Sheikah are supposed to be. Completely loyal defenders, relentless in pursuit of their duty, merciless in its execution."

I laugh despite myself. "I don't see Anduriel being merciless," I say, shaking my head.

"Hmmm," Hunter says, "but even you admit she's not at the top of her game. And almost all the Makani stories are war stories. Epic battles here in the Sacred Realm and once or twice in Hyrule. All over the Triforce. Stories about them destroying entire armies – just the seven of them against a thousand soldiers. The army destroyed to a man, and the Seven hardly breaking a sweat. They even fought with a Hero once – capital H Hero, by the way. Like you."

"The first Hero, actually," I clarify, and Hunter blinks in surprise.

"Yeah. How'd you know? I thought you hadn't heard any stories."

"I met his father," I say. "Remember I told you about Sahasrahla? The first Hero was his kid. Anduriel said he died defending her."

"Wow," Hunter said. "You weren't kidding when you said he was old."

"What, you doubted me?" I demand, offended.

"You, um, like to exaggerate," he points out, the mock-gentleness of his tone belied by the smart-ass twist of his lips. "I tend to play down just about everything you say that sounds like it ends with an exclamation mark."

"I don't exaggerate!"

"Oh! What was that?" He cups a hand to his ear. "Is that an exclamation mark I hear?" He gestures negligently. "Playing it down as we speak."

I throw a punch at him that he's more than ready for, ducking and weaving easily, a broad grin on his face. I don't quite manage my usual laugh, but I offer him a grin of my own in reply and he falls back into step beside me. I shift the weight of the bag on my back again.

It's a simple exchange, and even though I don't actually feel any more hopeful about our odds or the situation – I'm still pretty sure I'm doomed to fail and now I have the added guilt of dragging one of my best friends along for the ride – but somehow I guess I don't feel quite so bad.

Even hell, it seems, is better for the presence of a friend.

XXX

It's midday by the time we've come far enough around the mountain that we start debating whether it's safe to change direction or not. Hunter is a fan of keeping to our current path, and I am a fan of turning east and getting away from the mountain.

"Why?" Hunter asks, giving me a look that says he doesn't not-believe me, but he's not ready to concede the point yet either. "What's wrong with playing it safe and following the mountain for a bit more? If, like you say, Anduriel's realm is big then it wouldn't hurt us to make sure we're definitely going to hit it, instead of just skirting the edge. We're not in danger of going too far, but we're in trouble if we don't go far enough."

"It's making me nervous," I say with an irritated shrug. It's making me sound crazy is what it's doing, but it's true just the same. "Anybody tracking us will know where we're going – our path is too obvious."

"If anything we'd be harder to track," Hunter points out. "We're walking on solid rock for most of the way. We're not even leaving a trail."

"Not one you could see," I counter. "But there's more ways to track than with your eyes. Too many things here track by scent."

Hunter's expression is calculating. "You're thinking about that howl," he notes and waits for a shrug of acknowledgement from me. "Link, that was hours ago," he points out.

"Yeah," I say, "about that…I heard it a couple more times after that."

"What?!" Hunter demands, and I wince. "I didn't! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to worry you," I say, "and the last time I heard it I wasn't sure. It was early this morning, after I'd changed back and I still sort of had the rabbit's hearing. It was fading by the last one."

"Did they sound like they were getting closer?" Hunter demanded, worried now.

"No," I answer. "But they weren't getting farther away either, so they're moving in our direction."

Hunter falls silent, lips pursed in thought as he considers the latest development in the ongoing drama that is our lives. "Technically," he says slowly, "there's no reason to believe that whatever it is is after us."

I give him a look that he, as recently as thirty minutes ago, dubbed my 'Dark World look': it's an expression without light, or animation, or hope; dull, resigned, weary down to my bones in a way that has nothing to do with physical fatigue. "Hunter," I say grimly, "I'm the Hero of Time and you're a recently stolen maiden that Ganon just happens to need to keep the seals bent around the portals so he can take over Hyrule. Unless that thing is out hunting for fun – which I admit is a possibility – there's no reason to believe it's not after us. We're currently the Dark World's Most Wanted." My lips twist sardonically. "Just like home, I guess. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate irony?"

"It would be more ironic if we were heroes here," he says, but his heart's not in the exchange. His eyes are distant as he looks behind us and considers the situation. "How sure are you they're after us?"

I close my eyes and carefully weigh my opinion on the issue – how much of it is just Dark World defeatism, and how much of it is based on an actual impression of events? "Very," I decide finally. "That howl…it wasn't a casual thing. I think it was a call. Whatever it was picked up our trail. And the other howls were probably answers."

"Answers?" Hunter says, looking distinctly displeased with the information. "Like, it called for back up?"

"Yeah," I say grimly. "Exactly."

"Great," he says. He looks for a moment like he wants to keep questioning me, but decides better of it in the end. He's smart enough to know he hasn't been here long enough to understand just how brutal the logic of this place is. He's also learned over the years not to question my instincts. The less able I am to explain an opinion, the more likely it's true. Call it my Hero sense. Sometimes I think if I listened to it more often I could avoid ninety percent of the trouble I seem to get myself into. "All right," he says at last. "Let's break from the mountain. East it is."

The sun burns blood red above us as we change direction and move away from the mountain, toward the dark planes in the distance. It's a few minutes before Hunter voices the question neither of us wants to ask.

"Do you think it's the Gerudo?"

"I think we need to keep moving," I respond uneasily, which is all the answer Hunter needs.

"We need a plan," he says quietly as we pick up our pace. "If it's the Gerudo then I don't think we'll be able to outrun them. I mean, I don't think we'd be able to outrun normal Gerudo, let alone crazed Dark World Gerudo."

"Crazed Dark World Gerudo who can tear people in half," I point out, Wandi's hideous, painful cackle rising unbidden in my mind. "What the Hell kind of plan do you want to put in place for that exactly?"

"Well I don't know," Hunter snaps, "you're their freaking King. What do you think we should do?"

"Kill ourselves," I snap back. "Failing that, find a deep, dark hole to hide in until they go away. I'm not their King – Ganon is. All of my crazed Gerudo are back home, probably going to war on the Hylians because oh my Goddess I just realized they don't know what happened to me." I come to an abrupt stop, my face going slack in horror.

"What?" Hunter asks, stopping a few steps ahead and looking back behind us nervously. "Link we need to keep—"

"Hunter, the Gerudo," I say, looking at him now, panic rising like a tide in my chest. "My Gerudo. They don't know where I am. They don't know what happened to me. All they know is that I went to Castletown and never came back. They can't even…Nabooru probably can't sense me."

Hunter gives me a look like I've gone crazy. "I'm not quite sure what this has to do with—oh my Goddess." His eyes go wide as he realizes just what it is that's made me stop. "Link," he breathes. "Link, they wouldn't. Tell me they wouldn't."

"I don't know," I say. "They wouldn't…Nabooru wouldn't, not right away. She knows better, and the other Sages would…but there's only so much she can do. And only for so long."

"They're busy," Hunter says, trying to keep his desperation out of his voice. "There's a Tower in the desert too. They'll have their hands full with the moblins. They won't be able to go after Castletown."

"I have to get home," I say, and start moving again. "Nabooru will need a direct order. I need to tell them I'm not dead." My face twists furiously. "I'll kill them if they attack Castletown. They know that. I didn't go through everything I went through to unite the whole damned Kingdom and bring them into it for them to destroy that now!"

"In their defence," Hunter says, "Aghanim started it by nullifying the treaty. And from what I understand, him attacking you is actually more of an act of war than attacking the whole fortress. If the Gerudo killed Zelda it would be the same."

"Gee," I say humourlessly, "and what do you know, the entirety of Castletown thinks a Gerudo did kill Zelda."

"Ah, Farore," Hunter swears. "How smart was Aghanim? How the Hell did he play us so badly?"

"Never again," I vow, and there's something of the beast in my face and voice when I say it. "No one will ever play us like that again."

And then I hear something I never thought I'd hear again – a hollow, wretched sound, like dust on old bones, like a Stalfos, but with too much flesh.

"Are you so sure?" asks a voice that is something right out of my nightmares. Hunter hisses and I swear and we both whirl around, weapons clearing sheathes before the turn is complete, instinct and muscle memory initiating a reaction before our brains have even begun to process the impossibility of hearing what I'm hearing.

"Aghanim!" Hunter shouts, face twisting with hate and disbelief.

And so it is. The old wizard stands before us, robes billowing around his form, making him appear larger, stronger than he is. His face is hidden behind a scarf and cowl, but the hands he weaves in the air are unmistakable – crooked fingers, old and brittle, covered with dark rings just as ugly as him.

"I killed you," I snarl, and something tickles the back of my brain. Something is wrong here. This isn't possible. I watched the old wizard die; I watched him turn to dust and bones in my hands. I ran him through myself.

"You did," Aghanim agrees and chuckles, the sound is as hollow and cold and wretched as the rest of him. "But can you do it again?" And without waiting for an answer he laughs maniacally and turns, streaking off, back toward the mountains, his feet not touching the ground.

I snort contemptuously. Like Hell I'm chasing him down. I'm not an idiot, and this has trouble written all over it. There's no way he's—

Hunter, unfortunately, doesn't think to ask me my opinion. He says nothing, but I catch just enough of a glimpse of his face as he bolts after the old wizard to know what he is and isn't thinking of. He's thinking of Bruiser, murdered by a mind-controlled friend. He's thinking of Malon, vanished without a trace except for a streak of blood on the Ranch's wall. He's thinking of where we are, and how we got here, and whose fault it is. He's thinking what the Dark World wants him to think, and I suddenly realize what it was Anduriel saw in my face when she would tell me to fight it.

Hunter's smarter than this. But the Dark World has found his weak spots and impaled them all with spears of hate and rage. The maidens are resistant to its pull, Anduriel said, to a degree that depends on their purity. Laruto's never seen anyone die, never killed anyone, never blasphemed, never hated, never consciously chose to hurt someone. She's too young.

But Hunter….

The Dark World gleefully stabs its spears into my weak spots as well and I'm off like a shot after him. Fear lends me the rabbit's speed. I can't lose Hunter to the Dark World; I'm already its prisoner, but if he loses himself too…we're done for. "Hunter!" I call. "Hunter, stop! It's a trap!" But he doesn't hear me, or doesn't want to.

It has to be a trap. The wizard's dead. I know he is. And now his corpse is leading us back the way we came – back toward our pursuers. The coincidence…the convenience is too much.

I spot them as I round a corner, feet pounding hard against the rocky ground. They're above us, at least three of them lining a crag, little more than shadows hidden in the mountain's bends. I skid to a stop and tear my bow off my back in a single, fluid motion. I don't know what they want, and I don't intend to find out.

Light arrow, fire arrow, ice arrow, regular arrow?

Go big or go home.

If only it were that easy.

The light arrow is nocked and streaking through the air almost as soon as I think it. It hits its target with a blinding explosion of light, and the figures on the crag are suddenly shrieking in surprise and pain as they clutch their eyes and retreat further back into the shadows – minus the one I hit. I smirk despite myself.

That's the thing everyone always forgets about the light arrow.

It's still an arrow.

The figure I hit cries out in a half-howl, half-scream and topples from its perch. I get enough of a look at it as it falls that my breath catches in my throat and everything sort of goes cold from the inside out. It's definitely a she, and she's definitely a Gerudo judging by her uniform, but that's where the sense-making ends. Her form is twisted and bent, half-woman, half-animal. Her face is as lupine as a wolfos', may as well be the head of a wolf, and half her torso and one arm are covered in dark grey fur. Her hand ends in claws. Her legs are bent oddly, having picked up a fourth joint somewhere. Her thighs, under her dirty white pants, look vastly more powerful than even a Gerudo's have a right to be. The rest of her, though – the other arm, most of her stomach – is perfectly normal. Dark skin, five fingers ending in fingernails, nothing unusual about it..

She looks like I imagine I do when I'm half-way to being the beast.

She hits the ground with a sickening combination of cracks and thuds, right in front of Hunter and it's finally enough to snap him out of his rage. He stumbles to a stop and whirls around to look at me in surprise; an expression that abruptly turns to horror.

"Link!" he shouts, reaching out to me with his free hand in that helpless way panicked people have. As badly as I want to know what's got his shorts in a knot, I'm afraid it'll have to wait.

It's a sad testament to my life to date that I'm completely unsurprised when something hard and blunt smashes into the back of my skull and I fall head-first into the familiar comfort of unconsciousness.

xxx

When I come to we're still sitting at the bottom of the mountains, except now I'm trussed up like a misbehaved calf at Lon Lon, complete with a foul-tasting gag shoved in my mouth. I can see Hunter out of the corner of my eye, bound in an equally inconvenient fashion, and studiously avoiding my gaze. His lips are pursed around his gag, and his eyes are downcast. He is, without a doubt, embarrassed as all Hell and probably kicking himself for having been a thrice-blinded idiot. Were I not so intimately equated with idiocy – especially Dark World spawned idiocy – I might rub it in.

I grunt at him in what I hope is a conciliatory fashion. He must understand because his face twists into a Very Sheikah Expression, which basically says 'it doesn't matter if you forgive me; there's no excuse for what I did. The only redemption I can find is on the end of my own sword'; because they're stupid like that sometimes.

Sometimes I wish the races of Hyrule could all be just a little more like the Gorons.

Just chill out. You don't need to be hardcore all the time.

Though – as I finally take a look around to see just how much trouble we're in, here – it occurs to me that maybe a little hardcore wouldn't hurt us after all.

A collection of Dark World Gerudo is gathered around an impressively large fire, atop which I can make out the vague shape of what has to be the woman I killed earlier. This would be her funeral pyre, then. Oddly enough, the familiar ritual brings me some degree of comfort. They can't be completely lost to the Dark World if they still care enough to burn their dead.

"Add more wood to the fire," one of the women snaps. Like the dead woman – like all of them, actually, now that I look closer – she seems to be half wolf, though her face and both her arms remain a woman's. "We need to speed this up. She'll be mad enough the fool got herself killed; we don't need to let some idiot scavenger consume the flesh and steal the power."

Disappointment settles in my gut, hard and cold. Silly me, thinking this was about some kind of emotional connection. Should have known better. I have a hard enough time getting my Gerudo to acknowledge or act on emotional bonds. These are Ganon's Gerudo, and he's not exactly warm and fuzzy.

A dark shape peels away from the group and goes to a nearby wood pile. It's a wolf, I realize; a large one. There are a few of them mixed in with the strange women, but it's not until the canine grabs a log in its jaws and turns to return to the fire that I catch a glimpse of its face – more specifically, of the too-intelligent yellow eyes, and the large yellow jewel that seems embedded in its forehead.

Oh.

The wolves are Gerudo too.

Or were.

She returns to the fire and drops the wood, then nudges the woman who spoke earlier, throwing a glance back in our direction. The woman turns to look at us, and I see in her face something that stirs up memories of a few years back, when I first met the Gerudo – before Zelda changed time and after.

The Gerudo are a layered people, which isn't necessarily something you know unless you've spent a lot of time with them, or else you're particularly intuitive. The Gerudo themselves don't necessarily know it. My dad does, and I do. I think Sahasrahla knows it, too.

The outer layer, the one that everyone sees, is rock. Hard face, harder fists, not even a hint of mercy in either. Beneath that is the Gerudo fire, licking around the edges and burning all the time. It's their pride and their ferocity and their tempers. It's what makes them thieves, as well as warriors, what drives them to compete and to conquer. It's what makes every Gerudo throw herself at the desert and dare it to do its worst. Most people don't get further than that.

If you can, though – if you can survive that second layer – you find an unexpected oasis of calm. If it's the fire that makes them dare the desert, it's the oasis that lets them survive it. It keeps them from being consumed by their own flames. It lets them stand steady, unwavering, immovable. Their single-mindedness, their determination, their abject refusal to be beaten stems from there.

The woman approaching us from the fire has all of that, and in spades. I can see it in her walk, in her stance, in her face. Turn her into a cute little kitten and I would still recognize it. That's not what bothers me, though. It's her eyes. Her eyes that stir up those old memories.

In her eyes I can see that underneath all of that, Gerudo layers and overwrought analogies aside, there's a hollowness that shouldn't be there. It's easy to think that Gerudo strength comes from their hardness or their fire or their calm, most people think exactly that, but they're wrong. There's something in them, something at their core, underneath everything else, that's undefeatable, and incredibly essential to their existence. I don't know what it is, I haven't found a way to describe it yet, but I know it when I see it, and I know it when I don't. This woman doesn't have it.

Not unusual, I suppose, given who her King is.

Ganon has no use for that fourth layer.

The woman crouches down in front of me and I meet her stare defiantly. Her strange eyes – they're mostly brown, but with a yellow ring around them that appears to be bleeding in toward the pupil – flick up to the Master Sword on my back, then back down again to my face. "You are the Hero of Time?" she asks, as though the answer isn't immediately obvious to both of us. I narrow my eyes at her and she pats my cheek as she gets back to her feet. "Don't get comfortable. We won't be here long." There's a chorus of harsh laughter from the women around the fire and I'm reminded of another aspect of the collective Gerudo personality – they're not funny.

"I wonder if Nobernal will take his eyes," muses another half-woman half-wolf as the first returns to the fire. "His spirit must be strong. I wonder how much power they hold."

"Hush yourself," the first woman snaps, crossing her arms and staring into the fire. "The Hero belongs to the King. Nobernal will not touch him, and neither will you."

A wolf at her side barks at her, and turns to look hungrily at Hunter. She shrugs. "But he must be dead for the eyes to have any power at all," she points out in answer to some question we are obviously not equipped to understand – though the answer is all kinds of concerning in and of itself. "And if he dies we will be in a world of trouble. Ciardi would have our heads."

A woman to her left – Gerudo face, but wolf-ears and eyes – snorts in a decidedly derisive fashion. "I doubt she'd want yours, Apheri. No teeth to bite, no ears to hear. Even your eyes aren't—"

Apheri moves so quickly and so viciously that Hunter and I both give a start, and the Gerudo around the fire scuttle backwards to put room between themselves and her. She leaps at the woman who spoke and drives her fist into her gut with devastating force, then cracks the other one across her face. The woman drops to the ground, gasping, blood running along her cheekbones from the nasty cut next to her eye. "Do you wish a Blood Challenge?" Apheri snarls, Gerudo face twisted with a distinctly canine rage. "Because I will happily issue it. Say the word, sister."

The woman on the ground stares up at Apheri and I can see her trying to find a way out. She obviously does not want a Blood Challenge, but just as obviously to admit that now would be to submit to Apheri anyway. I know I should be paying more attention to the politics at play here, but I'm sort of stuck on the Blood Challenge thing. I didn't even know they still did them – even before I became King they were practically non-existent; nothing more than climaxes in Gerudo stories. Rue said she saw a couple when she was a child, but there hasn't been one issued in decades.

Luckily for the bloodied woman on the ground, she's saved from burning disgrace or violent death by a sudden and frightening crack. The air around us suddenly drops several degrees in temperature. Hunter shudders beside me as our eyes fall on the new arrival spontaneously standing in the firelight, and it's all I can do not to do the same.

This, then, must be Nobernal.

It's another Sentinel; definitely corrupted, like the one playing God. Black wings, grey-tinged skin, hands and feet ending in taloned points. This one has black hair, long and straight as bone, but dishevelled and damaged. Its leather armour is battle-scarred and unkempt. Two long knives hang at its waist, rusted and coated in what's probably blood. It looks like it's been fighting a war that's never ended and never will. More frightening, however, are the gaping holes where its eyes should be. Two points of nothing in its eerily beautiful face, like looking into a void.

The Gerudo have thrown themselves onto the ground, the Blood Challenge forgotten.

"You have lost one of your number," says the Sentinel. Its voice is sweet and high, almost melodious in tone. If I close my eyes I can almost imagine I'm hearing one of the angels from the Hylian pictures. But I don't close my eyes, and that thing is not an angel. Not anymore.

"The...Hero fought back," Apheri says, her voice struggling to rise above a whisper. I can hear fear in it. "He shot her from her perch."

For a moment the Sentinel says nothing, turning its sightless face to the fire and contemplating the diminished form within. "Did you save her eyes?" it asks, but Apheri is already reaching for the pouch at her side, apparently predicting this question.

"Of course, Nobernal," she says, and I can see her fingers shake, just a bit, as she pulls the pouch free and tosses it to the Sentinel.

Nobernal catches it effortlessly and pulls open the drawstrings with slow, deliberate motions. She reaches into the leather bag and pulls out a perfectly round eye, glistening wetly in the firelight. She makes a pleased noise and delicately pushes the organ into her own socket, then reaches into the bag again and follows suit with the other. Hunter gags beside me and I feel my stomach turn.

Just when I thought the Dark World couldn't get any creepier...

Nobernal blinks slowly, clumsily, around the unfamiliar eyes. They're yellow, like the wolves', but the colour is shifting as I watch. A sickly green seeps slowly out from the pupil, bleeding into the iris as Nobernal blinks and looks around at the Gerudo crouched before her. "She hated you, Apheri," the Sentinel says slowly, as though reciting something. "She thought you were weak and fearful. She plotted to kill you in your sleep tonight and deliver the Hero and the Maiden to Ciardi herself. She knew of at least two others plotting to do the same and intended to beat them to it." She's blinking faster now, each flicker of her eyelid spreading the green like poison, eating through the yellow until there's barely any left. "Her only concern was that I would seek you out myself and then she wouldn't get her chance." She laughs, a strange, almost girlish giggle. "Well," she says, as the yellow in her stolen eyes disappears entirely, overwhelmed by the green. A strange smile splits the Sentinel's face and her new pupils seem to expand as we watch, growing rapidly, eclipsing the iris and spreading deeper, into the whites – there's no green anymore, either, as lost as the yellow under the black. "I guess it's a moot point now, isn't it?" And then the eyes are gone entirely, vanishing into the spreading darkness, lost in the voids in the Sentinel's face.

Hunter makes a small noise beside me that translates roughly into: what the Hell was that?! Before I can respond with my own, however, Nobernal turns to peer at us and the noise dies in my throat. She starts walking toward us, still graceful for all her general state of disrepair, and all I can think is: I want my sword, I want my sword, I want my sword. But my hands are tied behind my back and out of reach of my sword or any other weapon, so all I can do is shift closer to Hunter – whether to protect him or hide behind him I don't even know. Neither is technically an option at this point.

The corrupted Sentinel drops into an easy crouch in front of me. She smells of old blood and rotten meat. I can feel my face pale, but I force myself to stare her in the face, if not the eyes. Shamed though I am to admit it, there's still too much of the rabbit in me. I'm afraid to look into those voids. "Hello," she coos at me, tilting her head to the side in a curious fashion. "You're not what I imagined. I thought you would be taller, less blonde. I was picturing a brunette. More like your friend."

She turns to look at Hunter, who I'm sure would stiffen dramatically if he wasn't already straight as a board. "You're a Sheikah, yes?" she purrs at him. "Clever little Sheikah, escaping my sibling like that." She reaches out and gently takes his chin in her taloned fingers, turning his face one way and then another, to study it. "Pretty eyes," she murmurs. "Pretty, pretty eyes. Blood of the Sages there, I can see it. Lots of power, shame you have to be a Sage to get at it. Be a sage or be dead. Would you like to get it? Would you like to access your power?" She giggles again and shakes her head. "No, I thought not. Clever little Sheikah." She kisses his cheek and releases his face. "You'll stay in your prison this time, yes? Crystal and magic, not so bad. There are worse prisons, little Shiekah. Worse cages. I know. I've been in them."

She turns back to me and tilts her head to the side again. "You, though...no cage for you, I think. No cage could hold you. Not the Hero. Destiny loves you, she does. Destiny loves you like a son, loves you like a mother. Like a lover. She loves you like a God, and like a worshipper. So close, you and destiny. So close. But destiny is a fickle mistress, easily distracted and no heart to break. She would not miss you. She would just call another. Something my master fails to understand I think. There has always been another. There will always be another. And there's something you fail to understand too." Her smile grows cold and fear wrenches my gut sideways in anticipatory terror even before she reaches out to wrap her hand in my tunic and hurl me bodily through the air. I crash into the kow-towing Gerudo and they scramble frantically away from me as the Sentinel gets to her feet and storms over to me.

She peers down at me with a face twisted in pain and hate. "Heroes die," she snarls. "You always forget that. All of you. You're not immortal! Not like me! Not like my family! We cannot—we do not—you cannot kill us! You can't! Not even you!"

"Nobernal," Apheri says cautiously, looking panicked. She has her hands up like she's dealing with a skittish horse. "Nobernal, the King...your master...he said—"

"I KNOW WHAT HE SAID!" Nobernal shrieks, and reaches down to grab me and hoist me into the air by my shirt. "That was before! That was before Sirana died!" She bares her teeth at me, razor-sharp and entirely too close to my face. Her breath is rancid. "You killed her. You killed her, but you can't. We can't die! You can't kill us! YOU CAN'T KILL US!" She shakes me violently and in between the dizziness and terror I can barely think. "I WON'T LET YOU!" She raises a hand, talons just as sharp as her teeth, and for what I'm sure is the last time, I am one hundred percent convinced that this is it. I'm dead.

I'm really, honestly dead.

And like every time before it except once, somehow, miraculously, I'm wrong.

She freezes where she is, arm in the air, obviously struggling to bring it down. "No," she hisses, fighting with herself. "No, I have to. I have to. I have to! I HAVE TO!" She breaks through whatever block it was preventing her, but the delay was all the time destiny needed to save her favouritest person in the world (or however that's supposed to work). Hunter – clever little Sheikah is right – has taken advantage of the rather dramatic distraction to cut himself free with one of the multitude of knives hidden in his uniform. Been too long since these Gerudo had to deal with a Sheikah, I guess. The awkwardness of doing so aside, everyone knows you strip 'em naked BEFORE you tie them up.

He's smart enough to know he can't hurt the Sentinel – or too scared to try – so he does the next best thing. He throws himself at my back and tears his knife through the ropes binding my hands behind me. I give myself over to instinct – no time to think this through – and raise my hand to my sword. As her talon comes down to tear my head off, it meets nothing but cold steel and blue fire. The Master Sword slides through her wrist like it's butter and she screams and drops me, stumbling backward.

You would think she'd be clutching the stump where her hand used to be, but she's not. She's trying to cover her eyeless voids with her remaining hand. "No!" she screams. "NononononononononononononoNO! Stop! STOP! I don't want to see! I don't! I don't want to! STOP!"

I freeze where I am and stare uncomprehendingly at her. She keeps stumbling back, tripping over the wood pile and falling to the ground, still scrambling away. She's...terrified. Despite myself – despite everything – I feel a sudden stab of pity. Moving very slowly, I sheathe the Master Sword, putting out the blue fire, and the Sentinel finally stops moving backwards. Breathing raggedly she jumps to her feet, and I tighten my grip on the hilt of the sword, ready to pull it out again if I have to, but Nobernal doesn't approach. Her face twists again with fear and hate and grief, and I realize she's crying. "I'll kill you," she whispers, a promise if I've ever heard one. "I swear I will. I'll kill you for what you've done." And then she turns and spreads her wings, leaping into the air and speeding away.

"What the Hell?" I manage, staring after her in shock and a complete lack of comprehension. My hands are shaking, I realize belatedly, and Hunter looks like he can't quite believe we're not dead.

"Farore," he breathes slowly. "Nayru. You weren't kidding. Oh my Goddess, you were so not kidding. That thing is...was...I've never—."

"You'll want to be taking your hand off your sword now," says a dangerous voice behind me, the residual panic in the tone doing nothing to dull the menacing edge.

Oh. Right.

Gerudo.

"Um, no," I correct her, turning around to face Apheri and her heavily armed Gerudo, once again on their feet and pointing various weapons at us, "I don't think I do want to do that, actually. I didn't just stare that Sentinel down so I could surrender to you." The contempt is dangerous – very dangerous if the sudden flash of teeth in Apheri's face is any indication – but deliberate. It's not that I think I found us a way out – because good Goddess we are so unbelievably screwed right now it's not even funny – but I might have found a way to buy us some time. And every second I buy is another second we keep breathing.

"Link," Hunter says nervously, because he's never quite sure whether I'm being cocky because I have a plan, because I'm bluffing, or because I'm just like that. He doesn't generally like my plans anyway. He's definitely not going to like this one. "We're outnumbered here. I don't know that we have much of a—"

"Apheri, right?" I cut him off, nodding at the woman who spoke. She scowls at me and says nothing, so I scowl right back at her. "You got the drop on me last time, you understand that? You used a cheap trick to get us into an ambush and I still managed to kill one of you before you hit me from behind. I wasn't ready, I didn't know how many of you there were, or even what you were. I was worried about a friend who was distracted." To his credit, Hunter doesn't show it on his face, but I know he's wincing on the inside; unfortunately, I'm not in a position to be polite.

"Making excuses?" Apheri demands with a smirk, and I'm telling you, that twist of her lips is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It means she's buying it. She's taking the bait.

Long live Gerudo pride.

"Stating the facts," I reply, with my own smirk. "Trying to keep you from making a very bad decision. What I'm saying isn't that those circumstances applied before – it's that they don't apply now. I'm not just ready, I'm willing, do you understand that? I know what you are now. I know how many of you there are. And now I know I've got nothing to lose, because if I let you take me, I'm dead anyway." I smile at her with too many teeth. "That's some damn good incentive to kill people right there."

"You know, I don't think you do know what we are," Apheri returns with a derisive snort. "If you did you'd know just how pointless your bluster is. We're—."

"Gerudo," I interrupt her flatly. "Two Elites, three red, five purple, and whatever the full wolves count as. Assuming you're a standard tracking group, I'm guessing at least two of the three of them were red before they changed."

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" Apheri demands. The corners of her lips twitch up into a canine smile. "I suppose I'm surprised, at least, that you've fought enough Gerudo to know the uniforms at your age, but—."

I bare my teeth right back at her, letting my own Gerudo pride drive any hint of amiability or friendly competition from my face. "Fought them, trained with them, rule them," I answer, drawing on every single ounce of whatever blood in me counts as Gerudo and channelling it into my voice. "Link, King of the Gerudo, at your service."

There's a spatter of startled laughter from the Gerudo, but Apheri's eyes flash and she clenches her fists – not easily startled, this one. "You think this is a game, child?" she demands, and in her voice is a promise of imminent violence. I've crossed a line and suddenly it's not a game for her either anymore. "You have no idea what you're saying."

"Look me in the eyes and tell me I don't," I dare her. "I'm not joking. It's a long damn story and I don't much have the patience to go over it with you when all your little friends have their weapons out and pointed at me. Want me to prove it? The nursery is in the west wing of the Fortress, buried in the back of it to keep the kids away from any attacks. Coming in from the front entrance, left, left, right, second right, two lefts, right, and it's the third door on the left." That, at last, startles her, and I, in turn, am startled by the sudden flash of concern that flickers through her eyes like lightning – is she worried about the younglings? Seriously?

Don't have time to ponder it now. "Not enough for you?" I ask cooly, and blink when I realize I've got all their attention now – maybe directions to the nursery was overkill. "Ask me anything. Anything a Gerudo King would know. I can tell you the history of the Gerudo, from the deal you made with the Goddess in the Sand, right up to the current war with first generation Moblins that the sisters you left behind are fighting right now. I can give you names and personal histories of the entire Elite, half the reds, and no few of the purples. I can show you a half-dozen fighting styles unique to the Gerudo. I know all fifteen ways to catch a leever, and the only way you ever seem to prepare it."

"You're bluffing," Apheri snaps angrily, and the faces around her harden. Fists tighten around weapons. It's not a game for anyone anymore. I've seriously offended them now.

"Do you know Rue?" I ask, and there's not a face before us that doesn't register recognition of the name, and shock at hearing it from an apparent outsider's mouth. "Little old lady with fists as hard as the mountain, and a left hook that could knock a Goron flat on his back. She gets this expression when she's not happy, like her face is going to collapse in the middle. She's a mage of no small skill, and cooks up a mean sleeping draught. She had four daughters before she got too old to, and she knows all their names but won't tell me who they are. All she's got to do is come out on the wall on a bad night and stand there for a bit, not saying anything, not speaking at all, but every woman out there knows she's there and is stronger for it. She's well past the age where she should have wandered out in the desert to find a Gerudo's death, but the fact of that matter is that none of you can bear to part with her and there's always someone with some excuse to keep her around just a little while longer."

"How do you know Rue?" demands one of the wolf-women nearest the fire, and abruptly lowers her head when Apheri glares at her.

"I know her because I'm her King, and her friend," I respond. "Who, in that fortress, doesn't know Rue exactly?"

"It doesn't matter," Apheri snarls, and draws her sword. "There's only one King, and that's Ganondorf. It doesn't matter how you know Rue. You're no King, and you're certainly not Gerudo. Lay down your weapons and submit, or we'll drag you back unconscious and bleeding to death. I won't tell you again."

I resist the urge to lick my lips nervously. I've poked at their pride long enough. Time to get to the point. "You're in charge of this unit?" I demand of her.

She gives me an irritated look. "Obviously," she snaps. "And you're our prisoner, so—"

"Ah, ah!" I say. "Not prisoner. Honoured guest. And I don't just mean because I'm King."

Apheri stares at me like I've grown two heads; so, I can't help but note unappreciatively, does Hunter. "Did Nobernal rattle your brains?" she demands. "Get on the ground. Now."

"No," I say flatly. "I said I'm your honoured guest, and I meant it. What's the name of your leader? Like, the woman you report to. Head of the whole Gerudo contingent out here."

"Ciardi," Apheri says flatly. "And if you don't—"

"Good," I interrupt, grinning widely at Apheri's obvious irritation – the Gerudo in me is gone, chased off by a little Kokiri boy, made giddy by his proximity to the wrong end of a sharp blade. "Then I issue a Blood Challenge to Ciardi. Until the challenge is met, I'm your honoured guest."

There is a collective dropping of jaws around the circle and their expressions alone are almost worth the sheer amount of pain I know this "plan" is going to cost me in the end. Apheri takes a step forward, rage twisting her features. "Do you have any idea what you're playing at?!" she demands. "You can't just—"

"Yes I can," I interrupt her again. "I know what a Blood Challenge is. I know what's involved. And as Gerudo I have the right to claim one. It also means that as soon as the lot of you put your weapons down, I'll release mine and we can all just head back to your main camp like one big happy family. I won't run. I know the rules."

"Really?" Apheri says, unimpressed. "Then who's your second?"

"Hunter of the Sheikah," I say without hesitation, gesturing at Hunter over my shoulder. He hisses in annoyance.

"Thanks for highlighting my race, there, Link," he says. "Really. I appreciate it."

"Oh for Nayru's sake," I snap back. "You're wearing a pair of pyjamas with a big freaking eye painted on the front. I think they noticed."

"Sheikah can't take part in a Blood Challenge," Apheri interrupts angrily. "You don't know the rules."

"No," I correct her with exaggerated patience, "they can't issue a challenge. But they can take part in one. No rule against that."

"Does he know what's involved?" Apheri demands, and Hunter rolls his eyes.

"Lady, I never know what's involved," he says bitterly. "Soon as he opens his mouth I'm lost."

"I'll brief him on the way," I say with a shrug. "And before you ask, I don't know who my third is yet. I'll decide once I'm face to face with this Ciardi."

"Planning on making some friends between here and there?" Apheri demands dryly.

"Farore, I'd be happy not to make any more enemies," I respond honestly.

"Apheri!" cries one of the other women – the one who started a fight before Nobernal arrived. She's the other Elite. "You're not seriously going to humour this? He can't issue a challenge. He's not Gerudo!"

"My job is to get him back to base in one piece," Apheri says, turning to face the dissenter. If I didn't know better I'd say she's showing the other woman more teeth than she showed me. "He says he wants a Challenge, that means he goes peacefully and we avoid a lot of trouble. He makes a break for it, shoot him down, then break his knees." The other woman opens her mouth again, but Apheri's eyes glint and she speaks before the dissenter can. "I haven't forgotten about our own Blood Challenge, Lierana. Do not question me again."

The other woman scowls, but backs down. Apheri turns back to me. "Fine. I hear your Challenge and will relay it to Ciardi at my earliest convenience, oh blonde Gerudo King. You and your friend will remain within 10 feet of one of us at all times, and you're responsible for finding your own shelter within that limit, or doing without. Give them back their bag and their rations – you'll find your own food or go hungry. We won't be sharing."

One of the wolves barks questioningly, cocking its head to the side. Apheri snorts. "That's Ciardi's problem, not mine. A Challenge is issued; how she reconciles that with orders is up to her. It's out of my hands." She turns away from us and starts moving back and away from the fire. "I want the reds on watch, keep a close eye on our honoured guests. They try to run, we go back to the original plan. Anyone touches them otherwise, and I will feed your eyes to Nobernal myself. We'll head out when the flames die."

Hunter slings an all-too-friendly arm around my shoulder as we watch the wolf-women throw us distrustful looks and reluctantly go back about their business.

"Hi," I say without looking at him, busy watching the Gerudo to make sure none of them decide that maybe my Challenge isn't worth respecting.

"Hi," he says without warmth. "Remember back when we were past the mountains, dealing with all those foreign representatives and nobles and stuff?"

"Yuh-huh," I confirm. One of the women near the fire (two wolfos arms, a tail, and teeth) makes a threatening gesture at me, and in return I give her my biggest, friendliest smile.

"Remember the rule we had? The one where you weren't allowed to talk unless I said so?" he asks.

"Nope, can't say I do," I lie, but he grabs my shoulder and wrenches me around to look him in the face.

"Link, I'm not joking," he says, dropping any attempt at putting a humorous spin on this. I can see legitimate fear and uncertainty in his eyes and I immediately feel bad. "What just happened? What's a Blood Challenge? What did we just get ourselves into?"

I hesitate, casting a suspicious glance at the Gerudo, before drawing Hunter further away – still within 10 feet of the nearest Gerudo, thankyouverymuch – and lowering my voice. "A Blood Challenge is an old – like, the oldest – way of settling disputes among the Gerudo without splitting the entire race into factions, or between Gerudo and outsiders, without resorting to all out war. It's like a Hylian duel, only it's not just one fight, and it's not just the challenger and the challenged. If a challenge is accepted, then each side has to pick a second and a third, and the three of them are considered a single unit – one's honour is all of their honour, and one's shame is all of their shame. If I remember the stories correctly, there's three stages – archery, mounted combat, and melee. The first two are there to give both sides time to consider whether they want to actually go through with the whole thing – if you back out it's very, very embarrassing, and you will never live down the shame, but if you go through with it and you lose..."

"What, Link?" Hunter demands. "What happens if you lose?"

"Well, that's one of the reasons they call it a Blood Challenge," I answer evasively.

Hunter's face falls. "One of the reasons?" he demands.

"If you fail in the first two stages, you have to accept a non-fatal wound, delivered by the arbiter of the challenge," I explain with a sigh. "It's meant as a punishment for failing, and it puts you at a disadvantage in the melee. If you're caught cheating at any of the stages, you're strung up and bled to death. And if you lose in the last stage, well...." Hunter raises an eyebrow expectantly. I shrug. "The only way to win is to not die. The melee goes until every member of one of the teams is dead."

Hunter grinds his teeth and gives me a look of deep, personal offence. "And you volunteered me for this?!" he demands.

I shrug. "Yep," I say. "Didn't see much other choice, and it's not like you would have said no even if you'd known what it was. Come on, man. It's called a Blood Challenge and they're Gerudo. What did you think it was going to be? Tea and cupcakes and a firm but loving chat?"

"Goddess I hate you sometimes," he mutters. "This was seriously the best plan you could come up with?"

"Do you honestly think I would have done it if I could have thought of something better?" I demand, irate. "It buys us time, all right. If you're such a genius, use that time to come up with something better."

"Don't exactly have a lot to work with here," he responds, running a hand through his hair in a less-than-happy fashion. "And I don't think there's going to be a lot of reasoning with or manipulating these people."

"Eh," I say with a shrug, eyeing Apheri as she approaches us from across the camp. "Don't rule it out just yet. Pay close attention to the way they interact – you're better at that stuff than me, but there are definitely cracks in this happy little family. We might be able to play on them – hello there. Can I help you?"

"Your bag," she says, holding it out. "Everything should be in there. Let me know if it's not and I'll find out who took it."

"Thanks," I say, and reach out to take the bag, but before I can she drops it to the ground, grabs my wrist and twists it behind my back hard enough to make me gasp. She drives her foot into the back of my knees and forces me down onto the ground. I hear Hunter drawing his sword. "Hunter, stop!" I say, wincing as Apheri twists my arm further. "Apheri...I'm going to say this as politely as I can under the circumstances...what the Hell?"

"I just wanted to let you know, your highness," she snaps, her voice low and pitched so the others can't hear her, "that if I find out you've killed Rue, or harmed our younglings in any way, shape, or form, I will gladly bleed out for violating the Challenge just for the pleasure of killing you."

"Thanks for the warning," I grunt. "Rue was alive and kicking last time I saw her, and the only harm I've ever brought to the younglings was keeping them up well past their bedtime because what's the point of being King if you can't give a little girl permission to stay up late once in a while?"

"I'm not joking," Apheri says, and I let the joviality disappear from my face.

"I know you're not," I answer her. "And if it makes you feel better, I share the sentiment. I would happily bleed out for them too."

She snorts derisively and shoves me roughly, but releases me and gets to her feet again, moving back to the crowd of watching Gerudo, all of whom give her a wide berth.

"What was that about?" Hunter demands, offering me a hand up.

"Two things, I think," I answer, getting to my feet and brushing myself off. "One, she's legitimately worried about how much I know about the Gerudo, when as far as she's concerned, I'm an outsider. Two, it was a display of dominance. I think between Lierana, Nobernal and me, she lost a bit of her grip on her authority there. She had to prove that she's still in charge."

Hunter looks thoughtful. "Like the alpha male of a wolf pack," he notes, casting a second glance around at the Gerudo.

"Exactly like a wolf-pack," I confirm with a nod.

Hunter doesn't quite smile, but there's a familiar glint in his eye that will do well enough under the circumstances. "Maybe there is something we can do after all. We'll need to see more, though. Make sure we're putting pressure in the right places."

I gesture at the sputtering funeral pyre, almost entirely embers now. "We'll get our chance," I say. "From the sound of what Feran was telling us, we're at least a couple days away from Misery Mire. Keep your eyes open and we'll see what we see."

Hunter nods, then looks down at the bag at our feet. He kicks it over to me and offers me a ragged grin. "It's still your turn to carry the bag, by the way."

xxx

Much later the same afternoon, Hunter nudges me and gestures up at the sky. The sun is definitely on a downward arc. It's not quite twilight yet, but it will be within the hour, and I suppose I'd better fess up to my condition now and get whatever fight it's going to cause out of the way. I heave a disgruntled sigh and pull away from Hunter, veering over to where Apheri walks. It's worth noting, I think, that she walks alone, separate from the others. It's hard to tell whether it's her choice or theirs.

"Hey, Apheri," I call, jogging up to her and falling into step. "I need to—"

"How do you know about the Blood Challenges?" she interrupts me, apparently not caring in the slightest about anything I might actually want to say.

"Can I tell you after I explain why I came over here?" I ask.

"No," she answers, and frowns at me.

I roll my eyes. "Fine. I know because after I woke up from the maeasm poison – which was how they were able to tell I wasn't making things up and I was, in fact, a Gerudo – one of the first things they put me through was a crash course on Gerudo history and culture. That included Blood Challenges. Also, I mean, honestly, how many of your stories and legends end with Blood Challenges? Nina earned her place on the White with a Blood Challenge. Amiera challenged her own lover – who, I would like to point out as a throw back to our earlier argument, was not Gerudo, but still took part in the Challenge. Faleen, who challenged her own King and was struck down by the Goddess for violating the terms of the Covenant. I'm not sure how I could have not learned about Blood Challenges."

She gives me a disturbed look and I frown at her. "Keep questioning it," I tell her derisively. "Just keep fighting it. You know I shouldn't know about those legends, let alone anything else. You know I wouldn't have found out about Gerudo lore through torture. Who interrogates someone about their legends? The only way I could know those is if a Gerudo willingly told me."

"I'm not—"

"How old is Ganon?" I demand bluntly, then answer my own question before she can. "One hundred and twenty one years old. Guess how old I am?"

"Twenty one?" she ventures with an unimpressed frown.

"And a half," I add. "My mother was Natalia of the Gerudo. She's a legend too now, or would be if her friend hadn't stepped in to save her life."

"I suppose I remind you of her?" Apheri snaps angrily.

I give her an affronted look. "Listen," I say, "if I was making this up, do you honestly think I would try something so cliché? Do you really think I know so little about the Gerudo that I would attempt to appeal to you on an emotional or sentimental level? Really?" I raise an eyebrow at her and she snorts. "I assure you," I add, perhaps unwisely, "you don't remind me of my mother. Honestly? You're nothing like her. She was hard and strong and brilliant. She knew who she was, and she knew what she wanted – for herself and her people – and with one exception, everything she ever did, she did for her sisters. Not like you."

Apheri comes to a dead stop and turns on her heel to face me. There is a storm in her face to rival the worst typhoons in the rainy season. "I suggest you say directly what you mean to say," she snaps, the words brittle and cold. "I don't appreciate the insinuation."

I turn to glare straight at her, uncaring in the face of her anger. I should shut up. I know I should shut up. But blah blah Dark World blah blah anger management issues blah blah screw it. "I'm saying you're a coward," I say bluntly, never breaking her gaze. "In fact I'm saying you're all cowards here – and you've forgotten who you are, if you ever knew it. You fight and you squabble and you compete for power and authority. You rely on archaic mechanisms like Blood Challenges to resolve your issues because you've forgotten what it means to be sisters – to be Gerudo." My face hardens and my own Gerudo pride rears its ugly head. "My mother was Gerudo. You're just a mangy dog in a pretty uniform."

Apheri's face is twisted with more rage than you would think a mortal frame could contain – like, I'm talking Beast level rage. She's practically purple with it, and her hands are flexing and unflexing as she attempts to reign it in. "If I didn't have orders...," she manages, sounding strangled.

I snort contemptuously. "If you didn't have orders you could do a lot of things. But the swine you call King isn't about to stop issuing them, so I guess maybe you should just tuck your tail back between your legs where it belongs. Oh!" I say before she can lunge at me. I point at the sun. "Also, before I forget, when the sun goes down I turn into a ferocious, murderous beast, unless he—" I point at Hunter, "—hands me a mirror to look at and holds a bag over my head. Then I turn into a pink, hyperventilating rabbit. I recommend you let me take the rabbit route. I'll turn back at sun rise."

"You are insane," Apheri manages, still purple, but now with an almost comical perplexed expression.

"No," I answer, "just stupid sometimes. I'm serious about the rabbit thing. Actually, I'm serious about everything. And I'm looking forward to meeting this Ciardi of yours, by the way. It would be nice to meet an actual Gerudo. Here's hoping I'm not disappointed."

I turn and walk back toward Hunter before she can respond or decide I've pushed her far enough that it's worth violating the Challenge to slit my throat.

Hunter is staring at me incredulously when I return.

"What the Hell did you do?" he says angrily. "What did you say to her?"

I shrug at him. "I told her about the beast," I say. I would like to point out that this isn't a lie.

Hunter is unimpressed. "People don't turn that shade of purple without provocation, Link. You provoked her."

"She provoked me," I return defensively.

"How?" he demands, crossing his arms with a severe frown.

"She's all...she doesn't...she just...." I flail inarticulately. "I don't like her, okay?! She's irritating!"

Hunter puts his hands on my shoulders and shakes me, just a bit. "Link," he says, deadly serious. "I'm begging you. Please, please don't get us killed. Please."

"I'm not going to get us killed," I tell him, irritated. "At least not like this. What's wrong with you?"

His eyes darken and he shakes his head. "Have you seen the way these women look at us, Link? It's not just the usual Gerudo friendliness, okay? It's uglier. They hate us. They hate us in a way the Gerudo back home never did. Do you know why?"

"Because we're in the Dark World?" I point out.

He shakes his head again. "That's part of it, playing into it, I'm sure, but it's more than that. Look at these women, Link. Look at their ages. Look at how they got here. Look at when they got here. I know you have a brain in there somewhere. Think about it."

I frown at him. "They've been here at least seventeen years," I said. "Since Ganon tried to grab the Triforce."

"Right," Hunter says. "And what was happening seventeen years ago? When these people left Hyrule, what was going on?"

" War?" I venture, and blink. "Oh. Oh I think I get it."

"Right," Hunter says. "The Great War. And for these women, it never ended, okay? Hyrule's been at peace for a decade or two, but these women haven't. We're not just outsiders to them, Link. We're the enemy. And not just because you're a Hero and I'm Impa's nephew. Because I'm a Sheikah and you're a Sheikah and neither of us are Gerudo, as far as they're concerned."

"Well...fair enough, but why does that matter?" I demand. "They're going to hate us no matter what war they think they're still fighting. Between being half-wolf, and being in the Dark World, and being Gerudo, and being Ganon's puppets, I imagine they're a bit cranky and it's not exactly something the can be fixed with a nap, is it?"

"Just don't push them," Hunter says. "Let sleeping dogs lie or some other appropriate metaphor."

"It's not that simple," I say, shaking my head grimly. "I have to push them. The only thing saving our bacon right now, besides the terms of the Challenge, is that I think Apheri might actually be willing to believe I'm King if I keep at her. And one of the ways I can prove it is by pushing. All. The. Time. That's how they work. If I back down, if I go easy, if I lay off...they'll never believe I'm King, and they'll think I'm weak, and that doesn't end well for us either."

Hunter squeezes the bridge of his nose between his hands and heaves a very long sigh, as though a slow exhale can expel the general unpleasantness of the whole situation. "I hate Gerudo politics," he says at last. "Why can't you people just scheme and manoeuvre and stab each other in the back like normal people?"

"We do," I tell him with a shrug. "Just...more directly than you're used to, and usually more literally. Look, just...do the Sheikah thing, all right? Eavesdrop. Spy. Gather info. Don't hand me this bull about not understanding Gerudo politics. You've spent enough time at the fortress and with Neesha. You know more about Gerudo culture and relationships than any full blooded Sheikah has a right to know. These women would die if they knew how much exposure you've had to it."

"What info?" Hunter demands.

"Anything!" I say. "Get me their names. Maybe I know some of them. Who likes who? Who doesn't? Apheri's a loner; she's got no second – if she dies, who takes over? What do they think of me saying I'm King? What do they think of Nobernal? Of Ciardi? Of the Challenge? Everything, Hunter. Anything. I don't know."

He continues to stare at me, but his eyes are distant as he considers it. "It won't be much," he says slowly, but he's not talking to me. "Just what I can overhear. Most of it will be inference or assumption. It won't be ideal."

"Hunter," I say dully, "ideal is sort of a moot point right now, don't you think?"

He shakes his head. "I'll do what I can," he says. "What will you do?"

"What I always do," I say, and throw him a grin with too many teeth. "Provoke them."

He gives me a depressed look, too weary to be horrified. "I hate you."

"I know."

xxx

By noon the next day the rain starts. By the next morning I give up any hope of it ever stopping. "We'll be at the Mire by noon," Apheri informs us perfunctorily. "It's another day of travel from there to the fort."

One of the full wolves walks by us and shakes her coat vigorously on her way, spraying us with muddy water. Hunter takes it without a word, doesn't even acknowledge the slight – it's only about the tenth time one of them has done it to us. He's falling back on his Very Sheikah Habits in the face of such Incredibly Non-Sheikan Behaviour. When in doubt, take the moral high ground. Stiff upper lip and all that. Bunch of martyrs the Sheikah.

For my part, I meet the wolf's stare directly and show her my teeth. She responds in kind and walks away with a sniff.

Insane. They are driving me insane.

I miss my Gerudo.

"So," I say to Hunter in a low voice as I futilely scrape mud from the toe of my boot onto a nearby rock. "We're running out of time. What have we got?"

"Not much," he says, wiping water out of his face as we continue to move, though at a slower pace than the women ahead of us. I could go for a pair of bestial legs right now. My feet keep getting sucked down into the mud and the effort of continuing to move forward is tiring. And we're not even at the Mire yet. "You were right about Apheri being a loner. She never stands with the others. Doesn't sit at their fires. I think it's a mutual decision – she's rejected them as much as they've rejected her. They follow her because she has authority and because she backs it up viciously, not because they actually like or respect her. But she has to fight for it. They make her fight for it. They're challenging her in little ways all the time."

"Is it the wolf-parts thing?" I ask.

He nods. "I think that's a big part of it. The more wolf in them, the more prestige they seem to have. Particularly around the head. Wolf ears are definitely worth more than a wolf's hand, for example. Wolf teeth are a big deal. Wolf eyes are the biggest deal, but if you look at all their eyes, that seems to be the slowest part to change. Over time they get a little more wolf-like, right? Well, each part of them that changes into something wolf-like turns their eyes a little more gold, and a little less human. How gold their eyes are matters the most."

"So Apheri's got a bottom-half that's wolf, but everything above it's human, so..."

"So no prestige," Hunter says. "Or very little compared to everyone else here. Also, I think...," and he hesitates. I raise an eyebrow at him. He shrugs. "I'm not...entirely sure, but I think she might be fighting the change. Some of the others make the occasional back-handed comment, and she reacts most strongly to those around the suggestion that she's not changing because she's weak, or because she's afraid. She fights the accusations with violence, not words, so I don't know what the reasons might be, but she's resisting the change. I think."

I throw Apheri's retreating back a thoughtful look. "Really?" I say. "Now that is an interesting bit of trivia. If she's fighting the Dark World...hmm," I murmur to myself. "Maybe she's more Gerudo than I thought. What else?"

"Lierana fills the same kind of role that Jinni used to fill, but with a lot less blind traditionalism, and a lot more mindful maliciousness. She's the lead naysayer in the group, and she's got a few followers among them – you can see them sitting around her fire. The others are neutral – they'll side with Apheri or Lierana, whoever best suits their interests. But they're more afraid of Apheri than Lierana."

"Do we know anything about Ciardi?" I ask.

"Ciardi is their leader – unquestionably. The kind of politics and backbiting going on here don't seem to be around Ciardi at all. I think she's maybe Ganondorf's favourite, and I've heard some whispering about Ciardi and Nobernal, but nothing I could actually make out without giving away the fact that I was eavesdropping. Ciardi's not a woman to be trifled with. They're afraid of her. I mean terrified. Even those who might be considering challenging Apheri for leadership here are afraid of how Ciardi might react. But there's a few that are saying Ciardi's favour is shifting to Lierana. It's making Aperhi's challengers bolder."

"Anything else?" I ask.

"Yeah," Hunter says dully, "they're all really looking forward to watching us bleed all over the place at the Challenge. They're actually starting to get excited about it."

"Oh good," I say, and clap him on the shoulder. "Then let's make sure we give them a show."

"Please tell me that means you have a plan," Hunter says.

"Hell no," I say with a snort. "My plan is to give them a show. You know, we might not lose, right?" I raise an eyebrow at him. "A little faith is maybe justified. We're not exactly unskilled, are we? I mean, archery and mounted combat? Sort of my specialties. Hell, I can do them at the same time. And that hunk of metal on your waist isn't just for decoration, is it?"

"Yes, I've considered that," he agrees, but then counters me – because he always has to counter me: "but have you considered the fact that archery and mounted combat are also Gerudo specialties? Or how about the fact that I haven't exactly seen any horses around here, so we don't even know what it is we'll be mounting? Or how about the fact that all of these women have pumped up, supernatural, magic-based enhancements to their strength and speed, which were already pretty damn good without the Dark World's help? This isn't a straight up competition, Link."

"You're depressing me," I accuse him flatly. "Stop depressing me."

"No," he responds mercilessly. "In fact, I'm going to keep depressing. You're also assuming Ciardi will even acknowledge your Challenge. She's not allowed to kill us, Link. At least not me. Your buddy needs me to keep his bloody portals open. And I'm sure he'd much rather kill you himself. So how are you supposed to have a Blood Challenge with no blood?"

"Do you have any idea how much you can bleed before you die?" I ask him.

"K," he says, "no. Just shut up." He looks around and lowers his voice. "We could always try running."

I make a face at him. "Right," I say, "because they're not going to be able to hunt us down in three seconds flat."

"The rain here will kill our scent," he argues, "and it's not like we'd be leaving tracks when everything's half bog already."

"It's their home turf," I point out. "They'd find us. Besides," I add, cutting across his arguments with a gesture, "there are seven maidens, right? And seven Sentinels. And unless I miss my guess, each Sentinel guards a maiden somewhere in their territory."

"You're saying there's a maiden here?" Hunter asks, and looks like he wishes he was dead.

"There almost has to be," I say. "And if Ciardi's Ganon's favourite, like you say, and is working with Nobernal, a Sentinel, then I'd say I could make a fair guess where we'll find her."

"Or him," Hunter points out. "Goron-Link's gotta be around here somewhere. And on his behalf, as well as my own, I would like to ask you, once again, to stop calling us maidens."

"I didn't assign the name," I say with a shrug. "And I did protest when it came up. But no one listens to me."

"So," Hunter says, routing us unfailingly back to the main topic, "you're saying there's a maiden-in-a-non-feminine sense somewhere in that swamp."

"Yes."

"And you're saying that you think Ciardi probably has him or her, and probably knows where he or she is."

"Yes."

"So...even if we do run and even if we do get away, we just have to come back again later."

"Right," I confirm. "Without an armed escort and a VIP invitation into their camp."

Hunter shakes his head and frowns. "We're dead no matter how you slice it," he says, frustrated. "Goddess. How the Hell are we ever going to get out of this, Link?"

"I don't know," I answer him honestly.

We exchange a look and continue on our way, shoulders hunched against the rain and the future.

xxx

The Gerudo camp is situated at the eye of the perpetual storm that is Misery Mire. It's not exactly sunny, not by a long shot, but it's not pouring either, and it's almost enough to make me drop to the soggy ground and kiss it. My equally soggy 'companions' sneer at our obvious relief at being out of the storm, and I stick my tongue out at them because oh my Goddess if it never rains again I would be so happy.

"I am wet," Hunter tells me, as though this wasn't obvious. "I am wet, and I am cold, and I am tired. I want to go home."

"Are you whining?" I ask incredulously.

"Yes," he responds crankily. "Unequivocally."

"Well…stop."

"Why?" he demands and frowns at me. "You do it all the time. How come you're the only one allowed to be petulant? Share the wealth. It's your turn to cheer me up for once."

"Cheer you up?" I say dully, and gesture broadly to encompass the entirety of our situation. "Here. In an old-school Gerudo camp, in the Dark World, when we're on the cusp of a Blood Challenge? For real? You're really going to ask me that?"

"You're not being very supportive," Hunter notes unappreciatively.

"No," I agree whole heartedly, "I'm not. I'm wet and cold and cranky too."

"Wonderful," Hunter mutters, then rolls his eyes and starts into the camp. I follow behind him and survey our pleasant hosts. It's a typical Gerudo outpost on the surface, minus the levees that keep the surrounding mire from infiltrating what is probably the driest spot in the whole damn swamp. Simple, rudimentary buildings here and there, but mostly things are organized in large tents (I don't bother trying to figure out where they found the leather…I doubt I'd like the answer much), laid out in what appears to be a less-than-logical arrangement, but what I know is actually designed with defence of the camp in mind. On the surface, there's nothing unusual at all about the camp, in fact.

What bothers me is that after more than a decade of living here, they haven't bothered to build anything more than this. This shouldn't be an outpost, it should be a fort. Granted building materials may be hard to find, but still….

They really haven't moved on.

Apheri leads us toward the centre of the camp, and by the time we arrive we've collected quite a group of curious followers. I assume they expected us bound in iron and tied to the back of someone's horse, not armed and free, strolling in as if we were invited. Which we technically were, even if I did invite myself.

As I look around I realize something else, in line with Hunter's earlier observations. Most of the women here are mostly wolf. Arms and faces, legs and snouts, ears and teeth and eyes. Apheri is the most humanoid of the lot. She carries herself with her head high, her pride fierce and determined, but it's easy to see that the image is maintained by sheer force of will and little else. The other women are still afraid of her, but they don't respect her, and she knows it.

The centre of the camp is clear in a wide ring – evidently an arena of some kind. For sparring and training and killing each other. At the back of it is a large black tent, with the Gerudo symbol painted carelessly on the side in bright red. "Gee," Hunter says dryly, "I wonder whose tent that is."

"Ah megalomaniacs," I muse with mock affection. "Always have to be special."

"Do not speak," Apheri tells us, and I'm under the impression that it's actually meant as a not-unfriendly warning, "unless you are spoken to. Ciardi has a temper and she will not take kindly to your stories, or, I suspect, your challenge."

"It's not a—" I start to insist, but draw up in surprise the instant we enter the tent. Hunter hisses an oath beside me and stumbles back into Lierana, who's following us in.

Sitting at the back of the tent, at the end of a long table is the woman who can only be Ciardi. She's dressed in white, but wears her hair long in a brazen (completely illegal) claim to leadership. Her face is as hard as ice, and her eyes are as cold as it. They glitter with authority and power and malice. But she's not what causes us to panic and reach for our weapons.

Crouched at her side, like a cat, is Nobernal, still wearing the expression of hatred and pain she wore when we saw her last. "You!" she shrieks, and starts her feet, snapping her wings angrily, but Ciardi places a hand on her arm and pulls her effortlessly back down.

"Nobernal," she coos gently, "remember what we spoke of." She strokes the corrupted makani's head as though she was an animal, and much to my surprise, Nobernal lets her.

"I hate him," Nobernal hisses, and even though she has no eyes I have the distinct and unpleasant impression that she's staring right at me. There's a catch in her voice, not unlike someone who's been crying. "I hate him I hate him I hate him."

"Shhh, I know, pet," Ciardi says. "I know." It occurs to me that there is nothing wolflike about her, but her eyes are as gold as the hunk of pyrite that cursed this land decades ago. And her authority is absolute. Old-school indeed.

Oh yes. This is going to be fun.

"Ciardi," Apheri says, bowing quickly. "I've brought the Maiden and the Hero here, as you ordered."

Ciardi arches an unforgiving brow and I suddenly feel the overwhelming desire to punch her. Really hard. "Did you?" she says, fingers still idly stroking Nobernal's head. "I could be wrong, but I'm sure I ordered them brought to me in chains. Is that not what I said, Lierana?"

"I believe it was," Lierana says, smirking broadly. Now I want to punch her, and she's actually in striking distance. Something of it must be in evidence on my face, though, because Hunter nudges me in that preternatural way of his. I sulk.

I wish Neesha was here.

She never stops me from doing something stupid.

"Ah," Apheri says, "the circumstances were somewhat…unique. This was easier and more effective in the end."

"Hmm," says Ciardi, clearly unimpressed, "and since when do Gerudo care about easier?"

"When it keeps half your women from dying in needless combat with an otherwise accommodating target?" I throw in incredulously. "What kind of commander are you?"

"Tch," says Hunter under his breath. "Forty-five seconds. That's fifteen longer than I gave you."

I ignore that, because honestly I'm surprised he gave me thirty.

Ciardi fixes her glacial stare on me and I meet it with my customary fire, snorting contemptuously at her. Lierana and Apheri both stiffen beside me. The latter gives me a briefly mournful look that I've seen a million times before. It's the one that says, I tried to warn you.

Ciardi gets to her feet, and Nobernal half-follows her before she remembers that she's supposed to stay seated. She freezes halfway, and it would be comical if it weren't for the fact she's a being of corrupted divine powers beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. She could probably rip me in half from there. So no. It's not really funny.

It's actually kind of sad.

I think of Anduriel, with her wilted wings but her quiet strength, and wonder what could have possibly brought one of those creatures so low as this…to play lapdog for a Gerudo as corrupted as this realm.

"Nice ponytail," I say with a sneer. "Shame it's not yours to wear. Cut it off now and maybe I won't feel the need to do anything about it."

Ciardi still says nothing, standing with her back straight, and her hands tense, as though uncertain whether to curl them into fists or out into claws. Her face remains as stone, but in her eyes I can see a sudden fire. I've insulted her terribly and she's trying to decide how to deal with it.

"Apheri," she says finally, "what are these unique circumstances?"

Apheri clears her throat nervously. "He has, ah…he's issued a Blood Challenge, Ciardi. To you. He has named the Sheikah as his second."

"Sheikah can't participate in a Blood Challenge," Ciardi says.

"Oh my Goddess!" I cry, annoyed, startling them all. "Yes they can! You people don't even know your own rules! They just can't issue the damned things!"

"Neither can a Hylian," Ciardi snaps.

"Don't," Apheri whispers beside me. "Don't. Don't. Don't."

"I'm not a Hylian," I respond darkly and Apheri hisses. "In fact, it's probably the only thing I'm not."

"He knows what he's doing," Hunter tells Apheri, though he sounds more like he's trying to convince himself.

"Oh? Another Sheikah then?" She turns away dismissively. "You still can't issue a challenge."

"I'm a Gerudo," I say, and gesture to take in my general not-a-girl-ness. "And all that comes with it."

That gets a reaction.

"You dare?!" she cries, whirling around again and taking two steps forward, her eyes ablaze. "You dare! There is only one Gerudo King and you are in his realm, before his servants!"

"K, first off," I say dully, "there are two Gerudo Kings. I'm the good one. And second off, this isn't his realm, it's his goddess damned prison, do you understand? He's a criminal. He's a monster. He's a greedy, hideous pig and I swear to Nayru that if I get the chance I'm going to kill him for real this time."

Nobernal straightens eagerly as Ciardi chokes momentarily on her rage. She's waiting for a kill command, I can see it. My sword hand twitches, but I resist the urge to draw. Not yet. Let her be the first one.

I shoot Hunter a look that clearly says I'm sorry for whatever follows and he gives me one that says he wishes he'd made good on his old promise to steal my sword, go back in time, and kill my parents before they could spawn me.

"I'm going to give you one chance to do the right thing," I tell the livid Gerudo. "Forswear your allegiance to Ganondorf, swear your service to me – the rightful King of the Gerudo – and cut your hair. Rejoin your true sisters, and recognize the leadership of Nabooru, the only Elite allowed to wear that haircut."

She makes her decision and abruptly the blaze in her eyes dulls down to embers. She snorts and draws her sword. "Fool," she says, and comes at me in a run. She has no intentions of killing me, she just needs to reassert her position as the one in charge in front of her subordinates, and to remind me of just how much power she has over my life right now. But she's missed two things in her assessment of the situation:

1. I'm better than she thinks I am.

2. Winning this fight has jack to do with beating her physically. I'm looking to make a point, not win a fist fight.

She comes in at me and I wait until the last possible moment to move. She thinks I'm trying to duck so she twists to follow – but I'm not ducking. I'm drawing a boot knife. And as I come back up, at the same time as she's following me down, I have just enough time to get my fingers wrapped in her ponytail and rip the knife right through her hair.

I couldn't have done it better if Time had slowed down.

Her ponytail comes off in a complete chunk in my hand, still held together by the leather strap that once held it up.

The move isn't free – her sabre tears a good strip out of my side – but it is so worth it.

She comes to a stop with a gasp as her unspeakably short hair suddenly tumbles down free around her face. Ciardi and Lierana are wearing identical faces, looking like startled fish. Their eyes and mouths are perfect Os of surprise, quickly turning to horror. I finish my move by jumping up on the table and holding the ponytail out, smirking with every ounce of defiance I have in me.

"I did give you a chance," I say.

Ciardi whirls around, her expression frightening enough that for the briefest of moments I feel a bit of the rabbit take hold of my heart, and she's not even done giving the order before something – Nobernal, has to be Nobernal – slams into my back and everything goes black.