"You haven't even touched your wine," interrupted Sasha in the middle of Rowark's telling of his days as a page. There was nothing about the viscous velvet or the pungent smell that inspired an appetite. Not even a desire for intoxication could fortify his stomach for another sip. He felt that he had spent the past hour or so talking about shoveling horse dung, polishing swords and shields, and all the boring details to avoid another whiff of the foul miasma.

Rowark sat on a plush cushion across the circular, cherrywood table from his hostess. Sunlight filled the room and covered all its exotic furniture with a fierce, sunset glow. The sweet, aroma of the room thankfully overpowered the wine's foul odor.

He politely replied, "I am not thirsty."

The courtesan gazed deeply into his eyes, as if trying to search for the truth in his mind, "I know that is a lie." The vexing smile on her face disturbed Rowark more than it put him at ease. Behind the face she wore, it was very difficult to tell what she was feeling underneath. This conversation between the two was merely sport to her, and her defenses were always up. Then she stood up and walked over to her dresser behind her, "After a cup full of wine, I always thirst for some tea. Would you like some?"

Trying to imitate her calculated composure, Rowark shrugged, "As long as it does not burn my mouth."

"Ha!" laughed Sasha, even though it was hard to tell whether the laugh was genuine or not. "You have nothing to worry about, my friend," she reassured him as she walked back and placed a dark gray, ceramic cup in front of him. Lifting the warm cup up to his nose, Rowark cautiously smelled the flowery aroma, and then he inhaled deeply once he recognized the distinct yet familiar smell of the deku flower. This was definitely a drink he missed from his time spent camping near the south woods.

"Enough of your young days," said Sasha as she sat down next to him with her own cup of tea, "tell me about some of your great tales of bravery."

Rowark sipped on his Deku flower tea and scoffed, "You mock me." She must have met some of the greatest knights Hyrule had ever seen.

"Was I being condescending?" was her polite response, which did little to reassure him.

"Surely you must have heard them all," he deflected.

"I have heard many tales from many knights, yes" confessed Sasha, "But I have not heard them all."

The city guard humbly dropped his eyes to his tea, "I assure you my stories are quite boring in comparison."

"Have you been in battle before?"

"Yes."

"And have you killed a man before?"

Rowark paused. He had no desire to answer the question, but not answering the question was as much of an answer. "Yes," Rowark answered truthfully.

"Then surely one of your gallant deeds must have launched such a young boy into knighthood."

"That's not how it works," Rowark lamented, "I think you got me mistaken for a hero of some sort who has slayed countless men and beasts. Sadly, I am not one of them. I fight in a unit. I have held a spear in my hand, yes, and I have thrust the point into men's hearts, but that is because doing as I am told and trusting everyone else to do the same is my best chance of survival. Killing people is but the last intention I have. I am not the warrior like Boom is."

"Don't sell yourself short. Believe me when I say that most of the knights I have 'personally' met," her eyes tilted upwards, as if reminiscing of partners past, "were not promoted for cutting down men by the scores."

Did a courtesan know something about the military that Rowark didn't know? "Then, what for?"

Sasha responded with a smile which alone convinced Rowark her words were truth, "Many times, it's for saving a comrade in battle. Other times it is for accomplishing missions against overwhelming odds. What does the Queen like to say? For rising above the call of duty?"

Did the Queen say that for everyone? Oddly, the answer to his question did not make her words feel any cheaper, only more united with the men who had been knighted by the Queen.

Silence again. For the better part of how many hours they were sitting there together, much of their broken conversations started, carried, and then faded into the nothingness before repeating the cycle. Sometimes, Rowark asked her a question about her heritage, and other times Sasha asked about his military past. Any questions about his life before his recruitment oftentimes killed the flow of dialogue.

During the moments of quiet, Rowark did his best to feel happy for his friends, who were certainly enjoying their time more here than he was. Sasha broke the silence again by summoning a question out of thin air, "So where were you stationed before your promotion?"

"Well," where was Rowark to start? He had stayed in the city for many years, but he had also been transferred between companies on a few occasions as well, and then there were all the volunteer companies that he had deployed with too, "well, um, I was stationed here in the city for the past five years, I was on watch duty all throughout. Then my company got assigned to a campaign."

"Which one?"

He hesitated to tell her. Would she even know the difference between them? "The Sixty Fifth Sortie to Quell the Insurgency of Faron Woods."

"Ah, the peasant's uprising led by a Runeth Yeoman. You were assigned to that campaign, led by the inspiring Capitan Vernli?"

"Yes, um," inspiring was not the word he would have described the short and portly commander, "how did you know?"

"After the campaign, where do you think all the boys went?" The answer to the rhetorical question stung. Rowark would not have been the least bit surprised if Lemon, Boom, Garreth, and Tenny buried their grief in womanly flesh while he was fighting to live another day in the Lost Woods. "So what was your role in the battle?"

"I never made it to the battle, actually," said Rowark as he nervously scratched the back of his head, "I uh, I got assigned to scouting duty. I'd never gotten transferred to a different company before, but it was, well, not a good first experience. It was the first time scouting the enemy, but I, uh, made a rookie mistake," he had never forgiven himself for forgetting to put out the fire before he fell asleep, "and got ambushed on my way back. Nine of them," equipped with armor too progressive for what was supposed to be a peasant army and armed with a fierce arsenal of weaponry, "snuck up on me while I was camped in the woods. Goddesses, I still don't know how I managed to get out of that alive!"

"Oh, but how?" asked Sasha, intrigued.

"I ran, of course," was the brutally dull, anticlimactic truth he was okay with telling, "I was only armed with a spear, a knife, and a sling, and they had also just taken my horse. So I ran into the forest, and they continued chasing me further inward. But then they suddenly stopped chasing me." It was as if he could recreate the perfectly timed dodge from the sword and perfect shot from his sling from his memory. Or perhaps his mind would never let him forget any moment that put Rowark in a fight or die mindset: either he lived, or the pursuant on horseback lived. "Looking back, I could see why now," he chuckled to himself. No sane man would ever willingly submit himself to the horrors of the Lost Woods like Rowark had unwillingly done.

Her subtle smile conveyed her deepened interest more than her question did, "So what happened next?"

"Well, I got lost," he chuckled, and she did the same, "Thank Nayru it was spring and the snow was melting. I survived as best I could throughout the season until I met my fairy companion, Miro Miro, who led me out of the woods and back here to Hyrule Castle City. Just yesterday." Only yesterday. Holy Hero, had he returned home only yesterday? "Ha ha," he nervously chuckled as he concentrated to make sense of everything that had happened in the past twenty four hours.

"Is that why you were knighted?" Sasha's question broke him out of his train of thought.

"Um, no." Rowark sighed hesitantly. The events of the prior evening were still burned into his mind, and the last thing he wanted to do was think about the heat of the fires threatening to consume him. "The knight who recommended my promotion wasn't even my commanding knight. On the day I returned to Castle City, which was yesterday by the way, there was a fire," Rowark started, not wanting to continue any further, "I'm sure you heard all about it."

Sasha frowned, "I did. Five people died, and a little girl lost her family. Were you there?"

"I deployed with the 5th Volunteer company to assist with fire extinguishing efforts on the day of my homecoming. Then things got complicated. We were ordered to do nothing, there were people trapped in the building."

"You saved them."

"I…" tears began to well in his eyes. Emotions ran through his head, and he no longer cared that he was about to bawl in front of a woman he had just met, "I couldn't save the girl's family." Tears began to streak down his face once he said what had been on his mind all morning. He swore he could still vividly feel the moisture on his shoulders from the orphan's tears from the night before. The feeling of inadequacy rose from his heart and exited his eyes as salty tears. "I did not deserve to be knighted!"

Sasha quickly withdrew a handkerchief and handed it to Rowark, "Aww, do not feel that way. You may not have been able to save the girl's parents, but saving the girl meant the world to her. You still did the right thing."

"It was my duty to save her, and her family!" said Rowark angrily as he rejected the gesture, even though the tears flowed fiercely down his face. It was not like him lose his cool like this, but he never knew knights that were too afraid to help out those in need. He never knew politics and laws could be designed to keep innocent people from being saved. "I was sworn to keep Hyrule's citizens safe! I am no different from any of the other watchmen, nor am I any better! Other men slay bandits and ruffians by the hundreds, and they never get knighted! The only difference is that I'm a failure!"

"You are not a failure, you are different from the rest."

The word different struck a nerve. Anger pierced through Rowark's silence, having heard every synonym for the word different but experienced the same harsh treatment from his peers everyday, heard the word queer thrown at him behind his back, heard every excuse behind why he ate alone and why nobody in his company liked him, and heard every question whispered amongst his peers about his affinity for women. He never asked to be different; he only wanted acceptance. Even after killing a man for the first time, a detestable act that forced him to vomit after the battle, he thought he would finally provide common ground with his many thousands of compatriots. Instead, the only people who bothered to eat with him were the ones too selfish to think about what Rowark wanted to do for his celebration. Though Rowark wanted to be angry at his for enforcing their idea of fun on his celebration, they were the closest thing to brothers in arms that he had ever had.

"Many men come to the Desert Oasis once they have been knighted, whether by the Queen or their liege. And when they come here, all they do is boast of the biggest creatures they've slain or the hundreds of men they have have cut down with their blades," it sounded like Sasha had heard the same stories too many times, "But when I asked exactly why they got promoted, they always gave me the same answer. They arrive to drilling promptly and follow orders faithfully. They volunteer frequently. And when that pivotal moment arrived with brutality and placed everyone in in chaos or danger, it was he that placed himself in charge of the crucial moment that was the one who eventually became a knight."

What Sasha said sounded so unbelievably simple and defied any conventional, masculine logic. But the way she said it made so much sense. Rowark dared not ask how closely she knew these men, but common sense implied that intimacy also tended to lead to braggadocio. His angry eyes were now welling with tears. Perspective had granted him forgiveness to himself. I did all I could, he told himself, I did my best.

Sasha broke into a lighthearted laugh and handed him her red handkerchief, "I have never met a man who believed he was unworthy of the honor bestowed upon him by the Queen herself!"

Rowark sniffled and accepted the handkerchief before blowing his nose, "I wish I had more than just my modesty that separated me from the others."

"Of course there is more. Men tend to think that an act of bravery means being able to cut down whatever foe stands before them, but I see it differently. Any man can swing a sword and cut through flesh if ordered, but not every man is willing to risk his life when he knows the odds are not in his favor. Not only were you willing to act in spite of the odds, but you also prioritized Hylian life above politics," she had said all of this as motherly as possible, and it truly helped lift Rowark's spirits. Given all of Rowark's prior distrust of her, listening to Sasha removed much of the wariness, "It truly takes a wise and compassionate kind of soldier to see through the laws and policies of Hylian society for what they are and protect what is truly important, the people."

He sniffed and wiped a tear away. All Rowark could do was smile in response to her kindness, "Thank you, I needed that." A sentimental wave of happiness and gratitude compelled him to lean in for a hug.

"Clearly," Sasha quickly went back to her teasing self and returned the embrace. They stayed like that for several, long heartbeats before she finally broke the gesture and said, "You seem comfortable enough to start," before she began slipping off her long sleeves, sending a torrent of blood up Rowark's face.

"Whoa, um, what are you doing?" Rowark realized how stupid that question was given their setting.

"Getting more comfortable," she said while slowly peeling the sleeves off. "Tell me you have seen a woman undress before," she said with her hands gripped onto the bottom of her pink, cropped blouse.

As she slowly yet seductively began peeling the top off, Rowark shook his head and looked away.

"You grow endearing by the minute," Sasha took pleasure from Rowark's discomfort, he was sure of it.

"This isn't funny anymore," he said, blushed and annoyed.

"Well, I am honored to be the first woman that you will have seen naked," and with that, the courtesan pulled off her top completely and revealed her bosom to Rowark, who was still looking away, "You can peek. Don't be shy."

Once his eyes caught a glimpse of her large, exposed breasts, he looked away again and sighed, "I am sorry for not being, um..."

Sasha chuckled, "Accustomed to this? You have nothing to apologize for. You may be a knight, but you truly are just a boy underneath the title."

Rowark frowned, "Stop it."

"The way your eyes are avoiding me is beginning to make me feel unattractive."

"Sorry," he took a deep breath and promptly turned to face her. Offending his hostess was the last thing he wanted to do, but seeing a topless woman for the first time made him feel more uncomfortable and self-conscious than any of his comrades' jests about his virginity could. Why me? Rowark cursed to himself.

Her hand pushed the bottle of wine towards Rowark, "Drink some more wine, that will certainly calm you down."

Wanting to drink anything other than wine, Rowark still reluctantly poured the Cobra's blood into his chalice and followed through with Sasha's suggestion with a big gulp. He then downed his hot, bitter tea which helped assuage the burning in his mouth. He hoped his indigestion would help divert his attention away from her indecency.

"Shall I continue?" asked the temptress as she crept around the table.

"Wait," he was clearly not ready, and he had other thoughts on his mind besides trying to keep two plump breasts from reaching him.

She stopped her approach at his command, "Do you need some more time to adjust to my nudity?"

"Um, no," there was no point in hiding his discomfort by this point, "Uh, um, I'm sorry, mmm, I'm just... not ready yet, sorry." He kept his eyes stared straight down, his hands trembling.

Had his eyes looked at Sasha's face, they would have seen her frown, sympathetic to his cause. "Listen, if you don't want today to be the day, then we can simply talk until your companions are done with their meal." Once Rowark lifted his eyes to meet hers again, Sasha had already replaced the blouse back on herself.

Delighted, he thanked her from the bottom of his now relieved heart, "Thank you so much for understanding! But, um, can we tell a different story to the men?"

"Ha! What would you like me to tell your companions?"

"Tell me it happened, please? Enough for them to get them off my back about it, once and for all."

Sinister intentions crept into her coy smile, "I have a counter-offer for you."

"Oh Goddess…"

"I ask any one single question about you, and you must answer it as truthfully as possible."

A loud, hesitant sigh erupted. It was only fair, "Okay. You have yourself a deal."

Sasha sipped on her tea and acknowledged his response with her eyebrows like loading a question into a crossbow and communicating, If you lie, I'll know. And somehow, Rowark had to search for that trigger that was hidden somewhere behind her face before she asked the wrong question.

Perhaps, he could take control of the conversation so that she would forget? "May I ask you something?"

"Oh?" the question threw off Sasha, who Rowark was sure had never had a patron try to delay a good sheathing like he had been doing, "I may have an answer."

"What will you tell the other women who work here?"

"About what?"

"About, our affair."

The corner of her lip lifted, "That becomes a Gerudo secret."

Rowark gulped, "What's that?" it was not the answer he wanted to hear and not the question he should have asked.

"A secret so long as you know how to speak my tongue. Don't worry, though. These secrets never leave the walls of the Desert Oasis. We have, specialists, who handle anybody who would dare break that trust between my girls and our clientele. I am afraid too much of our reputation is largely staked on our power of discretion."

His eyebrow picked up, "What kind of secrets?"

"You are playing a dangerous game, boy," now she was talking down on her by the way she emphasized the last word, "If I were you, I would leave that question unanswered."

Nearly ten years of serving in Hyrule's military, training in how to survive, and watching men fall lifeless around him still could not give him the resolve to perk up and confidently say, "It is my duty to face danger."

Her unamused expression remained unchanged, "You may have fought in battles before. You may have even killed a man before. But what you are asking for will put you in a place where you will be anticipating death from unknown enemies. You are just a boy, do not go down this road."

"Don't chastise me," the quick retort from Rowark took her slightly back, "I know I haven't, done it, like the others, yet, but I have fought side by side some of the bravest paladins in Her Majesty's ranks."

"You are dangerous," she sighed with a sly smile, "but you are also foolish. What would you do with such knowledge?"

"I would easily put it to use to protect the realm."

"Ha," was the forced, sarcastic laugh that came from Sasha's mouth, "I think you're protecting the wrong realm." My sisters are butchered on the streets because people think we are one of Ganondorf's many offspring. I have watched the Hylian people publicly burn children alive, saw it happen with my own eyes, because they believed they were born from witch's magic." Her words resonated dissonantly against the strings of truth. Many of Rowark's previous deployments within the city, both volunteer and official, had to deal with angry mobs. Disciplined, well trained, and orderly patience versus raw, chaotic, and uncivilized hate. Each rise of the sun over the Eastern Cliff seemed to offer a different excuse for the peasants to be upset.

High taxes, medicine shortages, food shortages, ale shortages, unclean water, the Gerudo, the Gorons, the Dekus, the Lizalfos, all the different types of blins, witches, witch children, religious heresy, greedy aldermen, high crime, corruption, army recruitment practices, unsafe streets, a neighbor nobody liked, even traffic ironically were but a few on the list of invitations for mob violence. Even worse than guessing what they were mad about was guessing where and when one would show up!

"Protecting Hyrule is not worth your time or your life," she concluded. After last night, even he began to question the very laws he swore to uphold and the very society he swore to protect. Rowark sighed in resignation and looked at his wine. His time serving as a page under Capitan Berlon's campaign had simple instructions: serve faithfully and learn promptly.

It was no secret that many of the Hyborns sponsored much of the criminal activity, and it was obvious that many lords openly opposed the Queen even though they once kneeled in fealty to Her previously. With all the lords of the realm scheming and feuding away from the public eye, it was going to be difficult determining who was friendly and who was not. Even more problematic was keeping up with the alliances that seemed to change frequently like the weather.

Rowark suddenly felt a finger brush his straight, blonde hair and found that Sasha had somehow covertly moved into his comfortable space without alerting. "Aww, don't look so sad," she said, forcing blood into his blushed face, "There, that's much better."

He looked up and forced a smile, "Oh I'm, um, I'm not sad. I do know exactly what you are talking about. I've seen it too."

"Don't worry about the things you cannot change in Hyrule," Sasha leaned in closer and planted a succulent kiss on his reddened cheek, "Focus on the pleasure."

Once again, he felt uncomfortable around her, not because of her intrusive mannerisms, but because of the way her keen eyes was scanning his body language. And then her eyes studied Rowark's groin as if she could see through his thick trousers. Slowly, Rowark lifted one leg over and turned away from her but also attempted not to be so rude as to avoid eye contact, painfully awkward as it was.

She leaned in closer and placed her hands on the inside of his thigh, sending a flurry of panicked thoughts into Rowark's head as he fell into chaotic embarrassment. Her eyes trailed from his nethers up to his beet red face and grinned wickedly, "For my question… that you must answer honestly…"

Rowark gulped very audibly.

"Are you…" Please don't say Queer, please don't say Queer, please don't say Queer. Her eyes glanced back down once again before piercing into his eyes. Her advance was too much for him to stay calm, so he backed away and stood up. In that one heartbeat of movement, a minute's worth of thoughts of insecurities and doubts flooded through his mind.

"Queer?"

He held his breath. He did not know what to do or say. Could he tell a stranger the truth? Images of his past flashed into his mind. He saw his home village again, his family, his sister… his father...

With a violent turn of the doorknob, the door suddenly swung open. A Gerudo wearing a headband and leather pauldrons quickly stepped in. Her hair was not dressed in any fancy way, just a slick ponytail straight down to her hip. The glaive she was carrying meant that she was anything but a courtesan.

"Sasha, we have a problem," she said with urgency.

Her sister's intrusion had grabbed the Director's attention, thereby breaking the staring. "What is so imperative that you cannot knock when I'm busy?" said Sasha annoyingly.

"Another mob."

Sasha scowled, "Another protest? Leave them be." It made sense that the Gerudo were a favorite target of the peasants' ire. Sometimes mobs were formed in response to something a herald had said by accident, but nothing mad Hylians more mad than simply being, well, not Hylian.

"Not just any protest, the entire square is swarmed with the vermin, and they are defacing our homes with feces!" her sister's choice of terms for the people outside the establishment unsettled Rowark as if he was not uncomfortable yet. Only the pressure building from his lungs distracted him from all his thoughts.

Growling furiously, Sasha followed her sister out the door and unapologetically commanded him, "Stay here," before exiting and shutting the door as she left.