Afternoon

A chorus of cheers and zaghareets filled the air as Nabooru dismounted her steed and lost herself among the throng of Gerudo screaming excitedly. Tournament was won! Competition had been fierce but the day was hers, and her friends gathered around her with desert flowers to add to her garland.

The tournament had many events: archery, both standing and on horseback; hand-to-hand combat, knife-throwing and sword-fighting. Nabooru knew she would prevail in archery and sparring, but she also happened to have a little luck with archery on horseback, which is what, in the end, won her the day. Perhaps she shouldn't call it luck. A few months ago, a Hylian came riding in like he was the king of the Gerudos and challenging anyone in a shout's distance to a match at the target. Well, no Gerudo woman was about to let a man waltz around without learning his lesson- even a young man- but each was bested, one by one. Only Nabooru could offer him a true challenge- but even she couldn't out-shoot him. Gerudo don't take a liking to outsider men... but this one had proven himself, by all accounts. And more than that, Nabooru thought- he was friendly. Yes, he was a restless teenager, cavalier and aggravatingly nonchalant about jumping the ravine with his horse (the bridge had been out for years- the Gerudo left it that way on purpose). Nabooru had been among those on watch at the ravine when the Hylian rode into view and didn't even blink as he rode his stallion hard, clearing the rift like it was no big thing. And then beating every single Gerudo at the fortress in archery AND sword-fighting? Unheard of!

"If our king was still here, he would be wearing your skull on his necklace!" One particularly angry woman had taunted him when he bested her for the fifth time.

The Hylian's eyes hardened for a moment. Then a strange sadness seemed to fill him, and his anger faded away. He bowed to her.

"My condolences for your missing king."

This only infuriated the guard further, and she stomped away in a huff.

But from watching this encounter, Nabooru knew the Hylian was kind. Did he somehow know what happened to the Gerudo king? Nabooru knew he had been an evil man. From the flash of anger in the Hylian's eyes, she gathered he knew something of the king's evil, too. That he set aside his own feelings to offer a gesture of peace told Nabooru he was kind at heart.

For Nabooru's part, she was glad the Gerudo king was gone. Even if only one male was born every hundred years, she could still do without him. He was truly evil, and sometimes she felt like she was the only one who could see it. All the others were happy to serve him, to have him as their leader, to offer themselves to him- but she had dreaded the day she'd be called upon for such a duty. Thankfully, he had disappeared when she was ten, before she was old enough. She was grateful for this every day.

Everyone else, though, bemoaned his disappearance. They had all loved him, or at least were loyal to him, and none of the others would have begrudged a good romp with the only male Gerudo. Why had she been different? Why was she the strange one? Thank the Goddesses he had disappeared, gone these last five years. If he had remained, her loyalty might have been called into question. Now, she could just pretend to grumble and grieve like the rest of them, and secretly rejoice.

Perhaps the Hylian somehow saw that in her, for in him she recognized a kindred spirit. Like her, he seemed not to want to take orders from anybody. So when he bested her at archery on horseback, he didn't relish in his victory, or boast to the others, of treat her low, trying to coo to her or paw her like she might expect. No- he said, "It was luck, mostly. Really. But let me show you a trick, that I learned..."

He didn't just show her a trick, though. He hung around for a few weeks, training her, correcting weaknesses in her stance or her aim. And that was how she beat her opponents in tournament today. So perhaps she couldn't take full credit for winning so brilliantly over her peers- but then again, why not? Maybe there was an extra quality in her that compelled the Hylian to teach her. And if that quality had awarded her new training, then was it not also a quality a warrior would desire?

Nabooru and her friends were making their way back to the archery range, where Nabooru had dominated so easily, and where they would celebrate with carefree, uproarious wild dance while her opponents came to her with plates stacked high with offerings of meats and sugary fruits till late into the evening. Nabooru and her friends- her supporters, her mentors, and her underlings, who loved her and were loyal to her, not knowing the secrets of her heart- would dance till the moon had long set in the indigo sky, blanket to the endless desert she called home.