13. Gerudo Girls

I spent that night with the refugees in Mrs. Boss Carpenter's house. I'd been through far too much in far too short an amount of time to care anything about my pride. Not that I got too much sleep; my dreams were full of blood and torture, with my fantasy-Zelda flittering through from time to time. I woke shortly before dawn after a disturbing dream in which my fantasy-Zelda was the one being tortured, while Sheik stared at me with accusing eyes.

I went outside as quietly as I could, trying not to wake anyone up, then climbed that one tree and watched the sun rise next to Death Mountain.

The dream, disturbing though it was, had reminded me of something I'd mostly forgotten.

"Hey Navi, wake up," I shook my hat to dislodge her.

"Link?" she bobbed out, looking unsteady. "What time is it?"

"No idea. Do you remember where Sheik said the last sage was? He listed them the first time we met him, remember?"

"Sure, umm…" she floated thoughtfully. "A deep forest, a high mountain, a vast lake, the house of the dead, and…a goddess of the sand!"

I frowned, thinking. "Where would a 'goddess of the sand' be? What is a goddess of the sand?"

"Well, I don't know about any goddess," Navi shrugged, "but I do know where we can find some sand…"

"Hey, you! If you're going to the fortress, would you mind finding out what my workers are doing over there?"

I looked down at the boss carpenter. "Your workers are in the Gerudo fortress?"

"They ran off days ago. Said I was too hard on them, lazy bums," he crossed his arms and snorted.

"Sure," I said, steering Epona away from the grass she was munching and back towards the fortress entrance, "I'll keep an eye out for them."

I stopped Epona just before we were in the fortress proper and hopped off. "Stay here," I told her. "We might have to make a hasty exit."

"Not if you don't get caught."

"Don't worry Navi," I peered around the corner of a wall into the fortress, "I won't."

Then I nearly tripped and fell over at the sight of the half-dozen scantily dressed women patrolling the fortress.

"You won't, huh?"

"Shut up Navi."

I used the Longshot to latch onto a flagpole and get above most of the guards' line of sight, then snuck past a few others and ducked into the first door I saw.

"Augh!" someone exclaimed.

"Shh!" I hissed immediately, turning around. Then I stopped when I saw one of the carpenters huddling inside a jail cell. "Hey, what happened to you?"

The carpenter stared at me. "Who are you? You're not a Gerudo."

"No, I'm not. I'm-"

"In a lot of trouble," a female voice finished for me.

"What!" I turned and saw a Gerudo guard hop down from somewhere above. She was dressed just as scantily as the others, but I couldn't afford to be distracted by that, since she was wielding twin scimitars and obviously meant business.

I grabbed my shield and blocked her first attack, then made one of my own before she could pull back from hers, and quickly sidestepped and attacked again before she could recover.

I expected to have to fight more, but the guard leapt back up above and disappeared, leaving a key behind.

I grabbed it and unlocked the door to the cell. "Get back to your boss," I ordered the carpenter. "And what were you doing here anyway?"

"We got tired of taking orders and having to work all the time," the carpenter sighed. "I guess we really were lazy bums after all, but no more!" The carpenter clenched a fist and tried to look determined. "From this day forward, Ichiro the Carpenter is not a lazy bum!"

"Good for you," I told him, "now get going."

"Try and save my fellows, will you?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Now go!"

He went.

I hid behind some boxes, snuck down some hallways, and Longshot my way across the courtyard before I found the next carpenter.

This one's name was Jiro, and he was slightly less hyper than Ichiro, but only slightly. Before I could free him that Gerudo guard appeared again and tried to drive me off, but I drove her off instead.

The same thing happened with Sabooro, except that I nearly got caught on the way to his cell, and with Shiro, but after Shiro was gone the guard appeared again.

"I've seen your fine work," she said. "To get past the guards here, you must have good thieving skills,"

"I do?"

"Oh yes," she nodded emphatically. "I used to think that all men, besides the great Ganondorf, were useless, except as playthings...but now that I've seen you, I don't think so anymore!"

"Um, thanks?" The way she was looking at me was making me very uncomfortable.

"The exalted Nabooru, our leader, put me in charge of this fortress. Nabooru is the second-in-command to the great Ganondorf, King of the Gerudo Thieves. Her headquarters are in the Spirit Temple, which is at the end of the desert." She cocked ger head at me. "Say, you must want to become one of us, eh?"

"Uhh…"

"Come on," the guard slinked toward me, smiling. "It's a great honor to be invited to join our tribe, and the invitation is almost never extended towards men. And when it is, well…" her smile grew wicked, "the celebrations last for days."

"C-celebrations?" I was sure I knew what she meant, but I honestly didn't know how to feel about it.

"Oh yes," she was very close to me now, close enough to reach out and play with my belt buckle, which she did. "It's a lot of fun, for everyone."

I gulped, and the Gerudo cocked her head and looked at me strangely.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Um, seventeen," physically anyway, I added silently. I was probably only up to fourteen mentally.

"And are you a noble?"

"Uh, no."

"Then you're still considered young, by most people."

"Um, I guess so."

The Gerudo leaned close and looked me directly in the eyes. "Are you a virgin?"

My eyes grew wide. "A- a- a-"

"You are! Oh this is fantastic!"

"W- what?"

"Since you're a virgin, it means you haven't picked up any bad habits, and probably don't have any misconceptions about what women want. Oh this is too, too perfect!" She clapped her hands and laughed. "And since Nabooru's gone, she can't even claim dibs!"

"Nabooru?" I asked.

"Our leader," the guard explained. "The one in charge usually gets dibs on any new men, but since she's gone and I'm second-in-command…" She grinned wickedly at me. "Come on, rookie," she grabbed me by the belt buckle and led me firmly to the cot in one of the cells. "Let the training begin."

After Lesson One, Nabooru's second-in-command (I never did catch her name) passed me off to a captain who gave me Lesson Two, who then gave me to a couple of Gerudo guards who gave me Lessons Three, Four and Five.

It went on like that for three days. Now, I enjoyed it, I'm not going to lie, but I was conflicted. I wanted to get to the desert, find the 'goddess of the sand' awaken the sage, kill the monster, kill Ganon, and save the world. I wanted to save Zelda. But the Gerudos wanted to teach me things, things that I desperately wanted to learn.

They also taught me a few things that were less…carnal, about their tribe. Gerudos don't have marriage, they don't even have steady boyfriends, they don't really think of sex as something all that private. It's something they enjoy, and something they do as often as they can. Not a special connection between two people, just a hell of a lot of fun. That was a point of view that I enjoyed, but couldn't agree with.

On day two of my "training," just after Lesson Twelve, my instructor turned to me and asked, "Who's Zel?"

"Huh?" I knew who Zel was, of course I did, but I didn't know where she'd heard the name.

"Zel," she repeated. "You cried the name out several times. Perhaps an old girlfriend?"

"Um, not exactly. I knew her when I was a kid."

"Ah," my instructor nodded knowingly. "Young love and childish affection. You Hylians are so weird."

I couldn't really say anything to that.

The morning of the fourth day I snuck off before that night's company could wake up and try to keep me around. Part of me hated to leave (I'm sure you know which part) but most of me knew I couldn't stay. Besides, I had an appointment with Biggoron to keep.

Navi didn't say anything, though she was giving off "You Bastard" vibes like crazy. I knew what she wanted to say, and I think she knew she didn't need to say it. What I had done...was just plain wrong.

The Gerudos didn't think it was wrong, but I wasn't a Gerudo. I felt terrible for being their sex slave, even if I had enjoyed it on a few levels. I've already said there was a part of me that didn't want to go, and right at that moment I hated that part more than I've ever hated anything. More than Ganondorf even.

There was another part of me, a smaller, less physical part, that kept saying I would be really grateful for the Gerudos' training someday. And the rest of me had to admit I had learned a lot. Since I had that information implanted in my head I knew, in theory, how to do what the Gerudos had taught me, but I hadn't known how to do it like that.

I now knew all about the various parts of a woman's body, including the parts most guys neglect. More importantly, I knew that every woman is different, and that it would take a couple of tries before I found out how to send her to heaven and hell all in one moment.

But I could make those tries plenty good just the same. I knew how to make a woman sigh, how to make her moan, how to make her dig her fingernails into my back and scream obscenities.

I also knew that if I kept up that line of thought I would need to go back to the Gerudos for... stress relief.

Three hours later I was back in the Fortress, with Biggoron's Sword and new resolve. Mainly, I just couldn't wait to wail on Ganon with the enormous sword Biggoron had made for me. It was only midmorning, and I managed to convince the Gerudo guarding the entrance of the fortress that my training was fine for now, so I headed right for the gate that led to the desert.

"Hey rookie," the guard greeted me, she had been one of my instructors the day before, "come for another lesson?"

"Not right now," it was tempting, but I had to be strong. "Could you let me into the desert?"

"It's dangerous," she said. "Are you sure you want to go?"

"I kind of have to. Can you just raise the gate?"

"But you haven't even met Nabooru."

"Where is Nabooru?" Several Gerudos had mentioned her, but not where she was or why she was gone.

"She went to the Desert Colossus to try to get into the Spirit Temple. It was a while ago though."

That was some information. The Spirit Temple was in the Desert Colossus, whatever that was. "How long has she been gone, a few weeks?"

"Seven years."

I choked on the expletive I'd been going to say and coughed several times. "S-seven years!"

"Uh-huh. We're starting to think we should go look for her."

"You know what?" I gave her a smile that several of my instructors had melted for, "I'll go look for her. Just open the gate and I'll get right to it."

"Great, I should warn you about the trials though."

"Trials?"

"There are two," she pointed out towards the desert. "The first is the River of Sand. You can't walk across that river. After you cross it, follow the flags we placed there. The second is the Phantom Guide. Those without eyes that can see the truth will only find themselves returning here. You are going anyway, aren't you? I won't stop you... Go ahead!"

"Um, okay."

The Gerudo spun a wheel and the gate opened. "Don't die out there, okay? It'd be a real shame to lose a piece of tail like you."

I rolled my eyes and went into the desert.