It was dawn when Eria set off from Gerudo Valley. She left early for two
reasons- she wanted to see a Valley dawn before she left, and she didn't
want to have every warrior in the Fortress watching her back vanish over
the horizon when daylight bloomed.
She saddled Freia in silence, loading her up with the saddlebags she had meticulously packed and repacked the night before. The air was warm, moist with morning dew, and scented with desert plants and sand. She had already tried to reconcile herself to the fact that she would be leaving for a year, possibly would never return, but her body wouldn't comply. She inhaled the scents of the morning with the same enthusiasm that she'd had when she knew every day would have roughly the same ending. When she'd had a home.
Goddess, she wished she was out on the road already. Standing here thinking about leaving was harder than she'd thought it would be.
Eria lead Freia out of the Fortress grounds by hand, wanting the comforting pressure of a warm bay nose in her back. Mechanically, she opened the iron gate, crossed the wide wood and rope bridge. She took a moment on the other side to stare down at the bright canyon green of the river flowing a hundred feet below her. The river flowed to Lake Hylia. Lake Hylia had access to the land of the Zoras. Zora's Domain.
Father, she thought with particular wrench of love and anger that filled her at the thought of Patros. Would you be happy now? What would you say to me?
Given that her father had skipped out on a tradition older than his whole heritage, she could imagine.
That's not fair. The little guilty voice that argued her father's perspective spoke up. Your father didn't know what he was getting into. He wasn't of the blood, and he had no control over his fate when it was decided for him.
But still! You'd think he'd have some basic sense of responsibility, instead of running away from his birthright as soon as he possibly could. How honorable is it to be taken in by a people at birth, live with them for eighteen years, learn their ways, achieve honor and power among them besides what he was already given, and then leave with no justification save that he didn't want to rule?
In her opinion, not very.
The river, apparently, had no opinion.
Eria stopped to fill her waterskin at the small freshwater pool just inside the boundaries of Gerudo Valley. The water was clear and pure, the same gentle, healing green as the river. The water in Lake Hylia was blue- she wondered what color it was in Hyrule Castle.
Why am I doing this? She asked herself for the thousandth time. Why do I insist on defending the honor of a people that have rejected me and my tainted blood?
Tainted, she repeated to herself. Even I don't seem enthusiastic about contesting that opinion.
But I want to prove it wrong. I want to earn my own honor, even though I'll be starting from further down than all my year-mates. I don't even want equality, necessarily. I just want respect.
Which, of course, lead to the question of why she couldn't prove herself in ways more likely to earn the approval of the Council. She lifted her waterskin out of the pool, waited for the ripples to fade, stared searchingly into her reflection.
Damn this temper of mine.
But was it really fair? Her mother said the Council never discussed Eria's parentage when they sentenced her. Of course they didn't- it would be rude beyond compare to talk about the unfortunate results of a mistake made by a woman on the Council at the time! Any slander, any gossip, any mean little natterings like the ones Eria'd been taunted with since her year-mates grew old enough to define 'traitor', would take place behind closed doors. But still, it was obvious just looking at her that Eria's blood was thin. Something about her father's heritage carried over to his child where Gerudo blood usually stayed strong- she had his blue eyes, though darker, and her skin was tinged with gold amid the bronze and cinnamon. Her ears, instead of being the rounded shell of the Gerudo, were slightly pointed.
"Sheikah." She whispered the word like a curse. Her father had been found as a baby wrapped in a blanket dyed with the Sheikah Eye of Truth. His hair was light grey, almost silver, as theirs was, and his eyes were the blue of winter frost. He was pale, shaded with gold and olive, and his ears pointed. Skeikah.
Anger brimmed up from the secret, constant pain inside her stomach. Her mother was the descendant of women of strength, cleverness, wisdom. Her father was the descendant of professional assassins. This was her personal burden, to be the end result of a match that should never have happened, to be physical proof of the mixture of honor and dishonor. According to her year-mates, nearly every woman of influence she knew, it was Eria's lot in life to work her way out of the hole her father had dug. The first step in this work would be to reject her father, curse his name and memory.
But how could she do that to the father of her mind, the one who played with her and taught her and let her explore Zora's Domain to her heart's content whenever she had visited? It was only recently that those visits had been tainted with the publicly enforced shame Eria carried from Gerudo Valley across the country, along with the growing anger of a daughter who didn't understand her father's absence.
Freia nudged her mistress, anxious to be on the road and away.
"You don't know we won't be back for awhile," Eria whispered to the mare, who snorted.
"Okay, maybe you do. I don't know." Standing, she plugged her waterskin and turned to face the huge canyon one last time. The bridge spanned away from them, leading to a home she wouldn't see until it wanted her back.
Staring at the rock walls of the canyon, Eria felt a deep regret. Even if she never returned to the Gerudo's Fortress, never claimed the cold bed waiting in a high room, the red rock and green river, the hot, stinging sands of the desert, would always be her place.
After a moment of just looking, imprinting the sights and sounds and smells and emotions in her heart, Eria turned. Pulling herself up into the saddle, she squeezed the warm barrel of the mare between her knees and rode away.
She saddled Freia in silence, loading her up with the saddlebags she had meticulously packed and repacked the night before. The air was warm, moist with morning dew, and scented with desert plants and sand. She had already tried to reconcile herself to the fact that she would be leaving for a year, possibly would never return, but her body wouldn't comply. She inhaled the scents of the morning with the same enthusiasm that she'd had when she knew every day would have roughly the same ending. When she'd had a home.
Goddess, she wished she was out on the road already. Standing here thinking about leaving was harder than she'd thought it would be.
Eria lead Freia out of the Fortress grounds by hand, wanting the comforting pressure of a warm bay nose in her back. Mechanically, she opened the iron gate, crossed the wide wood and rope bridge. She took a moment on the other side to stare down at the bright canyon green of the river flowing a hundred feet below her. The river flowed to Lake Hylia. Lake Hylia had access to the land of the Zoras. Zora's Domain.
Father, she thought with particular wrench of love and anger that filled her at the thought of Patros. Would you be happy now? What would you say to me?
Given that her father had skipped out on a tradition older than his whole heritage, she could imagine.
That's not fair. The little guilty voice that argued her father's perspective spoke up. Your father didn't know what he was getting into. He wasn't of the blood, and he had no control over his fate when it was decided for him.
But still! You'd think he'd have some basic sense of responsibility, instead of running away from his birthright as soon as he possibly could. How honorable is it to be taken in by a people at birth, live with them for eighteen years, learn their ways, achieve honor and power among them besides what he was already given, and then leave with no justification save that he didn't want to rule?
In her opinion, not very.
The river, apparently, had no opinion.
Eria stopped to fill her waterskin at the small freshwater pool just inside the boundaries of Gerudo Valley. The water was clear and pure, the same gentle, healing green as the river. The water in Lake Hylia was blue- she wondered what color it was in Hyrule Castle.
Why am I doing this? She asked herself for the thousandth time. Why do I insist on defending the honor of a people that have rejected me and my tainted blood?
Tainted, she repeated to herself. Even I don't seem enthusiastic about contesting that opinion.
But I want to prove it wrong. I want to earn my own honor, even though I'll be starting from further down than all my year-mates. I don't even want equality, necessarily. I just want respect.
Which, of course, lead to the question of why she couldn't prove herself in ways more likely to earn the approval of the Council. She lifted her waterskin out of the pool, waited for the ripples to fade, stared searchingly into her reflection.
Damn this temper of mine.
But was it really fair? Her mother said the Council never discussed Eria's parentage when they sentenced her. Of course they didn't- it would be rude beyond compare to talk about the unfortunate results of a mistake made by a woman on the Council at the time! Any slander, any gossip, any mean little natterings like the ones Eria'd been taunted with since her year-mates grew old enough to define 'traitor', would take place behind closed doors. But still, it was obvious just looking at her that Eria's blood was thin. Something about her father's heritage carried over to his child where Gerudo blood usually stayed strong- she had his blue eyes, though darker, and her skin was tinged with gold amid the bronze and cinnamon. Her ears, instead of being the rounded shell of the Gerudo, were slightly pointed.
"Sheikah." She whispered the word like a curse. Her father had been found as a baby wrapped in a blanket dyed with the Sheikah Eye of Truth. His hair was light grey, almost silver, as theirs was, and his eyes were the blue of winter frost. He was pale, shaded with gold and olive, and his ears pointed. Skeikah.
Anger brimmed up from the secret, constant pain inside her stomach. Her mother was the descendant of women of strength, cleverness, wisdom. Her father was the descendant of professional assassins. This was her personal burden, to be the end result of a match that should never have happened, to be physical proof of the mixture of honor and dishonor. According to her year-mates, nearly every woman of influence she knew, it was Eria's lot in life to work her way out of the hole her father had dug. The first step in this work would be to reject her father, curse his name and memory.
But how could she do that to the father of her mind, the one who played with her and taught her and let her explore Zora's Domain to her heart's content whenever she had visited? It was only recently that those visits had been tainted with the publicly enforced shame Eria carried from Gerudo Valley across the country, along with the growing anger of a daughter who didn't understand her father's absence.
Freia nudged her mistress, anxious to be on the road and away.
"You don't know we won't be back for awhile," Eria whispered to the mare, who snorted.
"Okay, maybe you do. I don't know." Standing, she plugged her waterskin and turned to face the huge canyon one last time. The bridge spanned away from them, leading to a home she wouldn't see until it wanted her back.
Staring at the rock walls of the canyon, Eria felt a deep regret. Even if she never returned to the Gerudo's Fortress, never claimed the cold bed waiting in a high room, the red rock and green river, the hot, stinging sands of the desert, would always be her place.
After a moment of just looking, imprinting the sights and sounds and smells and emotions in her heart, Eria turned. Pulling herself up into the saddle, she squeezed the warm barrel of the mare between her knees and rode away.