'Football,' here, refers to the sport that you actually play with your feet.
Chapter 8
Saturday morning, Link awoke to the scent of bacon wafting up from downstairs. After showering and making his bed, he descended to find a platter of scrambled eggs, fried bacon, and a quite excessive stack of pancakes awaiting him.
"Mothers really ought to feed their children," Anju said. She sat across the kitchen table from him, dressed in a brown bathrobe, nursing a glass of orange juice.
Link poured salt on his eggs and began to force them down. They tasted more of cardboard than egg, and they had the texture of chewing gum, but he smiled all the same.
"It's wonderful," he said, after cleansing his mouth with a bit of milk.
"You've been cooking for us so much, I think I'm starting to get lazy," she said. "It's so nice to be back in the kitchen again. Between you and Kafei, I haven't made a proper meal in a month."
Link held back a laugh. Of all the words he could use to describe Anju, 'lazy' was not among them. She worked at her inn six days a week, usually leaving well before dawn, and staying until Link's stomach began to cry out at the wait for dinner. And even then, she would still somehow find the energy to help him with his homework.
"I've been trying to get Kafei to let me make him breakfast for years now, but he says a cup of coffee is all he needs."
As she said this, Kafei entered, coffee mug in hand. His gaze flitted from the heap of food, to Anju, to Link. He grinned and shook his head as he joined them at the table.
"What's so funny?" Anju asked.
"I'm just remembering how worried you were about being a good mother," he replied. "Looks like you're taking to it quite naturally."
She smiled. Unlike the tense mask she wore to dinner, this one spread naturally up her face and into her eyes.
The smile was catching. He struggled to imagine that grin of gentle relief on someone who wanted only to use him. He had to believe that she, at least, was pure, that her care was genuine. He would have leaned across the table and hugged her right then, if he had not thought that doing so might make them think there was something wrong.
Even Kafei, for all his deceptions, made the morning more enjoyable. The simple way he sat there and held his wife's hand as they enjoyed a rare breakfast together spoke of an affection deep and true. They belonged together, as a Triforce belongs with its bearer, and for whatever reason they had chosen to give him a place beside them. Link was living out what he had not dared to dream in half a decade.
But then the meal ended, and the day resumed. Kafei went off to read. Link helped Anju wash the dishes, then retreated upstairs to his homework. Anju, most likely, took up a knitting project.
When it came time to go to the castle to exercise with Zelda and Nabooru, Anju drove him. It felt somewhat odd to enter a car without being belittled or cursed at, but he welcomed the change. He welcomed, too, Anju's care with driving. Speed limits were followed, turn signals were used, and not once did Link's fists clench in anxiety.
Anju waited with him outside the guest entrance while he waited to be admitted. He was expected, the guard assured him, but he would need an escort all the same.
A few moments later, Nabooru emerged. Her attire was not quite as traditionally Gerudo as he had seen before. She had exchanged her baggy pants for a pair of athletic shorts. They looked weird on her, as though they were somehow too comfortable for her to be wearing.
She was nonetheless fearsome for it, however. She was, as always, shirtless, exposing a stomach knotted tight with muscle. Her diamond gleamed upon her brow, and her naked scimitar hung from her hip.
Beside him, Anju retreated a step.
"Her Highness is still observing a meeting," she said. "Come. We shall wait for her in the gym."
Link bid Anju farewell, then followed Nabooru into the castle. As they strode through the corridors, Link could not stop noticing the back of the Gerudo's legs. They were not what he might call beautiful, but there was something about the stretch of her taut skin across ripples of stern muscles that entranced him even so. They were leaner, almost than those of the cross-country runners at school, yet firm and robust as those of the football stars. Though he knew it was rude to stare, his eyes kept coming back to her, as he wondered what it had taken for her to be in such excellent shape.
Nabooru barked out a laugh. "Look all you want, boy. I take no offense."
Red-faced, Link came up abreast of her, so that he would not be tempted again.
"What you said last time I was here-" he ventured, in an attempt to change the subject. Nabooru cut him off with a look.
They continued in silence until they reached the gym, if indeed it could be called that. A padded flooring covered the room, large enough that he could break into a full sprint and slow down again before reaching the other side. A mirror spanned one wall, and a small collection of strange equipment sat neatly arranged in one corner, but the room was otherwise vacant.
"If you have things in your pockets, remove them."
A cell phone, a set of keys, and a wallet went beneath the mirror.
"Now, we have time and privacy. You had questions?"
There was something odd in the way she stood there, looking at him. Her yellow eyes peered down at him, unblinking. Though they appeared relaxed, perhaps lazy even, they seemed to compel him to speak.
"You don't seem too fond of Zelda's plan."
Nabooru snorted. "Were I to speak mistrust of the Princess, it would not be to you."
Link flinched. Nabooru's gaze softened somewhat, and she continued.
"Yet wrapped up as you are in this, boy, you deserve some measure of honesty at least." A deep sigh escaped her nose, and her eyes floated shut with her breath.
"Yes, there is something stirring, some sorcery out of the Age of Heroes, before the drought of magic. A fool could see it, and I am no fool.
"Has she found her Hero? Hers is the blood of Hylia, and hers the gift of prophecy, if indeed it has awoken once more. It is not for me to say yea or nay.
"Yet I fear. You cannot even bring yourself to admire me without worry turning your gaze every which way. How, then, will you stand against that Power which levels kingdoms and draws forth legions of undead from the void between dimensions? Look to the desert, boy! From there has the threat of legends emerged before, and from there will it come again, whatever these fools who mutter of tolerance might say.
"Look to the desert. There, forces which have long since departed this land linger still. I have seen the Goddess, watching o'er her lands as the red sun rises. I have seen her prophet, a sorceress wielding magics of fire and ice as easily as you might grip a pencil.
"And yet, if Ganondorf rises once more, these will appear as but an annoying wind next to the sandstorm that consumes all. Can you stand up to that, boy? Do you dare?"
Link held his ground.
"Not yet."
They stood there for perhaps a minute, she looking down with a curious stare, he refusing to look away.
"You are, at the least, honest. And perhaps not so great a fool as I feared," she said at last. "But if you seek the means to defy the beast with this weekend training, you are mistaken. No woman can hold lead you into adulthood, nor any man, for that matter. That is the purview of life alone.
"But Zelda comes. Let us get ready."
Even as she spoke, the door burst open, and Zelda stormed in.
"Stubborn, short-sighted, simpering idiots!" she spat.
Her fury was such that Link almost cringed from it. He would have, had he not just spoken with Nabooru. Instead, he kept his feet firmly planted, back erect, as she crossed the room, scowling.
` "I can't believe this! The Gerudo have shown us nothing but peaceful intentions since-"
Nabooru's arm shot out. Before Link could even gasp, Zelda lay on back, Nabooru leaning over her.
"You have not the luxury of anger, however righteous," Nabooru said. "Find the rock."
For a moment, it looked as though Zelda were trying to sit up. Then she rested her head on the mat, and her eyes closed.
When at last the Princess stood up, her face was a vacant mask. There remained some tension still in her shoulders, but altogether she appeared entirely transformed from the girl who had strode into the room, cursing.
"Thank you," she said. She took a deep breath, and then her usual smile returned to light her face. "Ready to get started?"
Nabooru was ready. She launched into a flurry of calisthenics that had him sweating and breathless within minutes. And that was just the warmup.
"Follow," Nabooru grunted, and then she dashed off to the other side of the room. She had already crossed halfway before Link even realised she had moved, and Zelda too had broken into a fierce sprint. He struggled to catch them, but by the time he arrived, they had already begun the next exercise. They squatted to the ground and thrust out their legs behind them so rapidly it was like they were simply falling. A single push-up followed this. Then, returning their legs beneath, them they leapt into the air. Link tried to follow as best he could, but he soon found his legs trembling from the strain, and his breath came in ragged gasps.
Just as he feared he might collapsed, they completed the exercise. He had no time to catch his breath, however. Already they were sprinting to the other side, as fresh as though they had just woken from a late-afternoon nap.
The pattern continued. Drop. Push. Jump. Drop. Push. Jump. Here and there yet another desperate sprint. Link no longer even tried to keep up. When he squatted down, it was now truly a fall. He caught himself with his hands, his nose not an inch above the ground, and struggled mightily to straighten his arms once more. His sprint had decayed into a stagger. He had not the breath for anything more, and even if he had, his legs would have been too weak to bear the exertion.
Zelda appeared every bit as uncomfortable as he. Her face bore an almost-permanent grimace, and her leaps had turned to stunted hops. Still her pace was unflagging.
Nabooru alone seemed unbothered by the activity. Each jump sent her soaring into the air, graceful as a figure skater. Her control was so great that on the sprints she appeared not to slow down at all, stopping instantly before she collided with the wall, and dropping without pause into the strange, exhausting exercise.
Even more impressive was that she did it all with the blade at her side. She seemed almost heedless of it, but never did it cut her, or interfere with her movement.
At last they stopped. Link collapsed onto his back.
"You do this every day?" he groaned.
"Not done yet," Nabooru said, shoving a bottle of water into his hands. "Time for core."
How long they spent working out, he could not say. He could not force his mind to go beyond the present moment. There was no afternoon, or morning, or school, or quest. He knew only his exhaustion, and the hope that soon it would end.
End it did, at last, but Nabooru would not let him rest.
"Keep your head above your heart," she growled, yanking him to his feet. "Walk it off, and do not slouch. Hands behind your head. Breathe."
"Fun, right?" Zelda said, grinning.
Link scoffed, but even so he returned again on Sunday, and again the weekend after that. He could not shake Nabooru's words from his mind. As but an annoying wind next to a sandstorm that consumes all. Can you stand up to it, boy? He would not let such a simple workout, that even Zelda could do, defeat him. He could not, if there was to be any hope for Hyrule.
In other ways, he trained himself as well. There were more kinds of strength than mere physical, he reasoned, and so he set out to hone his will. He made tasks for himself, meaningless of themselves, but requiring the strictest of discipline. On one day, he might keep the thumb and forefinger of his right hand joined, from the moment he finished breakfast, until it was time to prepare dinner. On another, he might smile at everyone he saw.
He failed more often than not, but he kept at his practice, and he improved.
He worked, and the world continued to turn. The trees changed to gold, chill breezes awoke to greet him in the mornings, and everywhere the seemingly eternal peace of Hyrule continued to reign.
The morning of his Algebra mid-term, he sat straight at his desk, feet deliberately planted beside each other. Today, his goal was to avoid fidgeting.
"Anything planned for the four-day?" he asked Aghreal.
"Study," she grunted.
"All four days? But you're already awesome at everything."
"Look, you obviously want something. Spit it out."
Turning to face her, he unconsciously crossed his legs. He bit back a sigh and added yet another tally to the notebook that sat flipped open on his desk.
"Okay, I have to ask," Aghreal said. "You keep messing with that notebook. Is it some weird Hylian thing I don't know about?"
"No, just me," he said. "I'm building discipline." As he said it, he began to realize just how ridiculous it sounded. He stared down at his notebook self-consciously. "Every time I do something I'm trying not to… um… like crossing my legs—for today, I mean—I mark it down."
Aghreal leaned in, a rare smirk playing at her eyes. She spoke with a low voice: "If you're wanting to build discipline, trying doing it with something useful. Like looking at people when you talk to them."
She winked.
A grin came unbidden to his face, and he let out a soft chuckle. Aghreal was silent, but her smile broadened to show teeth, and her shoulders tremored slightly.
"Noted," he said, not taking his gaze from her.
"Now then, you were taking forever to come to some point?" she prompted.
"Right. Well, Zelda's organizing a camping trip, and I thought you might like to come along."
She paused, as though considering, then broke into a full laugh.
"My sisters would think that disastrous, and deride you just for asking. But I think I feel more than a little rebellious. Where and when?"
Link shared the details, and then it was time for the test. His studying had well prepared him. Though he did not breeze through it as easily as Aghreal, he never once found himself stumped beyond comfort, and only rarely was he unsure of an answer. He finished minutes before the bell, and turned the paper in with a smile. Only a few times before had he felt so confident about a math test.
He gave Aghreal a thumbs-up as he returned to his seat. Her eyes flickered to him, then returned to the apparently-fascinating surface of her desk.
After class, Mike caught his arm before he could leave.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
Link said nothing, waiting for the other boy to explain himself.
"She's dangerous," he said. "Why do you think not even the other Gerudo want to hang around her? You can't possibly think there's a future with her."
"You do not get to choose my friends," Link said, and left for Old Hylian.
That Friday was the first of their mid-semester four-day weekend. Link spent much of it at the castle, first working out with Zelda and Nabooru, then joining Desi to work on homework.
"Zelda was never this responsible before you came along," Desi grumbled. "Stop corrupting her."
"You'll thank me Monday evening," Link said, not looking up from his Chemistry book.
Desi stuck her tongue out.
Shortly after lunch, they all three left with Nabooru to Hyrule Park. They would not be camping there, Zelda explained, but it was an easier meeting place than the castle.
Slowly, the other campers trickled in. They hopped out of their vehicles, loaded their backpacks into the large van Nabooru had brought out for the occasion, and began chattering eagerly. He recognized a number from his classes, but there were just as many that were strange to him. It was not until Aghreal arrived, hiking to the site with her bag strapped high on her back, that he realized there were no other boys present.
He groaned.
"Nice planning," Aghreal said as she passed him. Though she usually wore jeans and blouse, blending in somewhat with the Hylians as the other Gerudo did, today her attire was more similar to the traditional garb that Nabooru frequently wore. There was no gem on her head, nor weapon at her side, but her pants held the same flowing style, and even in the brisk autumn air, she wore no shirt. Link thought he saw Nabooru nod in approval.
The van was almost bursting once everyone arrived. Link climbed in, and, squished between Aghreal and Desi, tried not to think too hard about the long ride ahead.
"Cheer up; at least you get your own tent," Aghreal said.
Link soon saw the wisdom in her words. It was not long before someone suggested singing, and of the eleven of them packed in the van, there were perhaps two who could carry a tune. The thought of curling up on the hard, cold ground in a tent all to himself soon seemed as welcoming as a down comforter and a mug of hot chocolate.
By the time they arrived and all unloaded, everyone was ready for dinner. Eager to do things 'rugged,' Zelda led them all in the task of building a fire pit. Nabooru looked on from the side, eyes twinkling. When Zelda started to scowl at the collection of kindling they had collection, Nabooru started to step in, but Zelda waved her aside.
"I can do this," she said.
Moments later, the flame sprang to life, and they all crowded around its gentle warmth. Nabooru passed out skewers and weiners. Link was half-tempted to eat his cold, but then decided he may as well play along and do his right.
It could certainly be no worse than Anju's cooking, in any case.
After dinner, the girls began to tell ghost stories. They ruined any tension they might have built with their incessant giggling, and he soon stepped away to clear his head.
Aghreal had already retreated, standing several paces from the fire. Link joined her.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked, rubbing at his arms.
"Of course, but this is far more pleasant than their chatter. It's a wonder you Hylians are able to mate for life."
"It doesn't seem to be bothering you, is what I meant," he said, ignoring the jab. She stood still, apart from the motions of her head, not as one bracing herself against the cold, but more as a warrior asserting her territory. If he looked close, he could see her arm hairs standing on end, but that was the only sign she gave that she felt the weather.
"When I told you I spent nine hours a day studying Algebra over the summer, you didn't even blink, and this is what impresses you?" She turned her gaze back to the fire. "Physical discomfort is easy to deal with, if your mind is fresh. All Gerudo can do it."
"Teach me how, then," Link said.
She whipped her head around.
"Better than staring at the fire all night."
Her scowl broke into a grin.
"You're lucky I feel so rebellious," she said. "Raelin would not be pleased with this." With a deft motion she grabbed his wrists, prying his arms apart and throwing them down to his side.
"First, relax. Let it in. It is not so cold as you think."
He did his best to let his arms dangle by his sides, but the night air nipped at him, and he scrunched up his shoulders and fingers, trying to make himself as tight as possible.
Aghreal sighed. "Typical Hylian. You all say we work too hard, but you don't even know how to relax." She pressed his shoulders down. "Let it- Oh, you're making this difficult, aren't you? Like a child."
She passed behind him and began massaging his shoulders and upper back.
"Relax," she insisted. Gradually, he opened up, and his shoulders unclenched, as her hands worked their way around in circles.
"Hands too. Don't make me loosen them for you. Take some pride."
With a deep breath, he forced his fingers to uncurl. A cold breeze blew through them, and he shuddered, but he kept his muscles loose.
"Like a child," Aghreal repeated. "Feel the air. Let it in. Feel what it is, not what you fear it is."
He did as she instructed. Now that he actually focused on the sensations, rather than shying away from them, he found that it indeed was not as bad as he thought. The prickle on his skin still gave him discomfort, but it no longer demanded action. He thought perhaps that the tension he had held in his muscles contributed more to his discomfort than had the cold itself.
"Let's sit down," she said. They found a log long enough for both of them. It was cold and somewhat damp, but he kept Aghreal's words in mind and found it bearable.
"I will teach you to find your rock. Once there, nothing can unseat you."
His thoughts flashed back to his first training session with Zelda. Nabooru had floored the Princess. You have not the luxury of anger, however righteous. Find the rock, she had said. He did not interrupt.
"A boulder in the desert is always there," Aghreal began. "The sun may grow so hot that even camels fall in exhaustion, the winds so fierce that cacti tumble and blow away, but the boulder remains.
"But just because it's there, doesn't mean you can see it. There are storms so fierce that it is dangerous to open your eyes. Even if you could open them without blinking, you could be inches from the boulder and see only the sheet of sand blowing across your face. Do you understand?"
Link shook his head.
"How do Hylians not learn this?" she grumbled. Then she sighed, and her placid demeanor returned.
"Look, the sandstorm is your thoughts. They scramble around, and prevent you from seeing what you really think. Who you really are."
"The rock?" Link asked.
"Yes. And once you have revealed your rock, no wind may discomfort you, the sun will not scorch, and even the Goddess of the Desert would have a hard time moving you, if you set your will against hers.
"See the sandstorm for what it is, and it will fade."
She looked at him expectantly.
"Well, go on," she said.
"Now?"
She closed her eyes for a moment before responding.
"Yes. Close your eyes, see your thoughts fall away, and cling to the rock at the center of it all."
Link shut his eyes. It felt odd, just sitting there, but it was not for nothing that he had done his discipline-building exercises. He forced himself to accept it, to let in the oddness, just as he had let in the cold moments before.
He turned his mind inward, to the thoughts Aghreal claimed were buffeting him. At first he thought a sandstorm a poor analogy, but as he sat he found his thoughts chasing each other across his mind, building speed despite his best efforts to control them.
His shoulders dropped, and muscles in his face he had not felt ever before relaxed. Sitting on the log, his body was calmer than it ever had been. But within, he had grown quite frantic, as though lost in a waking dream.
His legs twitched with a desire to run. His back grew stiff from the lack of support. Sniggers drifted over to him from the fire pit. He dismissed everything and turned his eye back inwards.
At last he found it. The rock, at the heart of all things. The unyielding boulder. His only movement was the breath creeping in and out of him. Here and there a stray thought would intrude on his tranquility, but it was only as a gentle breeze, pleasant while it lasted and gone in a heartbeat. There was not even excitement at finding the rock to disturb him.
"Good job," Aghreal whispered, her voice a gentle breeze of a different sort. He soon felt her stir, and leave him. For his part, he remained long into the night, thinking on what he had learned.
