NOTE: When I originally posted this in the fan fic portion of my forum, the Training Grounds Instructor's parenthesized text was actually in size tags, making them a size smaller. I felt this made it seem like she was talking to herself, almost. But FF doesn't use size tags. Please imagine that she is kind of... quieter when she speaks in parenthesis.

Chapter 13: Blizzard from the Desert

Epona was very annoyed. Why do I always have to go with him to dangerous places? It's not like I'm against his adventures, but I haven't been properly groomed in ages. That's Link's problem... I'm his friend, but he never seems to realize that I'm a girl with needs too. At least his friend groomed me a bit. He even used his own comb! Too bad my tail wrecked it, I really liked the treatment, and he couldn't comb his own hair anymore. Curse these tangled tailhairs! Epona snorted, which caught Link by surprise. He patted her side and reassured her, but she only snorted again. And when have horses ever established with people that being patted reassures us? It might be just me, but it's kind of annoying! Again, she snorted. Maybe it's just because I'm upset. I wish I had someone to talk to who understands me.

Link and Epona were riding to Gerudo Valley, which was situated southwest of Hyrule Castle. The hero was still wearing his Keaton mask and his light traveling cloak, which flapped violently in the gusts of wind which were coming from Gerudo Valley. The pair crossed the hills of Hyrule Field and managed to get to the entrance to the place. Ugh! This dry climate and desert sand is going to do nothing for my hair! She was obviously a very troubled horse. Link approached the canyon where a very long drop awaited anyone who failed make it over. Dismounting Epona, he approached the canyon, looking for a place he could use his Hookshot. There was nothing. The only thing he could do was jump it like last time. Link jumped onto Epona's back once more and signaled for her to back up. Waah! Is he going to make me jump that canyon? Why don't you just get a really big log or something? Hmmmmph! "Hyaaa!" Link shouted, coaxing Epona forward. He must be insane! Why must he be so reckless!? Epona braced herself and leapt forward. Don't look down, don't look down, I'll kill you Link! Don't look down, don't look down! Link's hat was enjoying a breeze, flying wildly in the wind as they descended, landing on the other side of the Gerudo Canyon. You're lucky I've been trained well, you knucklehead!

The environment had dominantly yellow and red tinges. The rocky surrounding walls on either side of the path made it a very closed space. The ground was parched and yellow, allowing no plant life to spring forth. Wind blew fiercely through this place.

Epona trotted with Link on her back towards Gerudo Village, full of the infamous band of thieves, the Gerudo themselves. All of them had dark skin, red hair, and extensive combat training. They were relatively normal, except through some odd path of evolution, they are all dominantly female, with the only exception being a male child born every century to lead them to prosperity. As Link approached, he saw guards in front of the entrance to the village, standing still as statues, long spears at their sides. As usual, they were wearing the Gerudo uniform for their usual grunts. Pointed tan shoes, puffy purple pants, a similar violet top, and a likewise colored veil over the nose and mouth. How would he get in unnoticed?

! ! !

Link dismounted Epona and tethered her to a dead tree out of sight. Oh great, now he'll leave me out here alone again. I'm going to get thirsty! Approaching the narrow entrance to Gerudo Village, Link surveyed the guards from afar. They really were like statues... How was Link going to get past them?

The Gerudo guards watched diligently with their fierce eyes. They were not allowed to move or fidget in case they were attacked or watched. This really was a boring job. "Hey, Miku, when is our shift over?", announced the guard on the left, nothing moving except her mouth.
"C'mon, Kona, we've been over this. Three hours and we're done.", said the rightmost Gerudo, likewise unmoving.
"Well, how long has it been? I'd like a nice bath."
"It's been four hours."
"What!?"
"Yes, the people who were supposed to switch shifts with us haven't showed up yet. But at least we get an extra hour off next time. Besides, they'll have to make it up for it later."
"But I'm cold! I've had the urge to sneeze for half an hour already!"
"I understand, but this is our uniform and our assignment and we'll honor them proudly.", Miku said, sighing.

The two observed the path ahead of them in irritation, obviously not wanting to be there much longer. What was the point? Since when did anyone have the nerve to attack the infamous Gerudo tribe? Sand blew across the path, obscuring many things up to thirty yards. "Hey, Kona"
"Yes?", answered the sniffling Gerudo.
"Do you see something?"
Just barely within their line of vision, a cloaked silhouette dissolved into sight. The two guards instantly went into a combat stance, lowering themselves and their spears towards the unknown trespasser. "Hey! Stop!", yelled Kona. The figure still approached, in an unnerving zig-zag pattern too swift to be human. "Stop, I say! State your business!" The cloaked figure drew nearer, hovering over the ground slightly and still zigzagging. The cloak obscured its face and the wind would have blown away any sound that tried to reach their ears anyway; the wind was carrying in his direction.
Miku edged backward, lowering herself deeper into her battle pose, "If you do not stop without telling us why you are here, we'll be forced to attack you!" The zig-zagging man approached ever closer.
"Seriously!", announced Kona, "These spears are sharp! We just sharpened them this morning! Hey!" The cloaked figure was close enough to reveal an unnerving smile underneath the hood, which bespoke a childishly psychotic nature. It was a very unnatural smile. Kona frowned, obviously becoming a little frightened at the hovering being. She backed up slightly. Oh man, why does it have to be my shift when crazy people show up at our village? It's not even supposed to be my turn! Ever closer, the hovering zigzagging man drew, until finally, it was in between the two guards, trying to pass them completely into Gerudo Village. They simultaneously stopped the cloaked man by crossing their spears. Miku grabbed the cloak of the man with one hand and turned him towards her, "Listen! We don't have time for games! Tell us why you're here or we'll pummel you! Hey, are you listening to me!?" She yanked the cloak off the being, revealing something that looked like a life-sized doll. It had rosy cheeks and a slightly creepy smile. Its arms were at its sides and its eyes bespoke nothing but emptiness. Its legs were together and resting on a pedestal... And it was making a buzzing noise. Kona wore a shocked expression. "Miku... Miku!"
"What?"
"Look... Underneath its feet."
"Hmm?"

Miku glanced under the mysterious toy's feet and saw a yellow and blue object, which bore a striking similarity to...
"It's a Bombchu!!" The rodent-like explosive did just what it was designed for. It self-destructed, which stunned both Gerudo warriors into unconsciousness. The carbon copy of Link created by the Elegy of Emptiness vanished into radiant particles of dust and the cloak was still in Miku's hand. The real hero uncurled from his rock-like appearance. Link had donned the Goron Mask, and rolled into a ball, which concealed his presence. He appeared as a large stone-- a regular part of the Gerudo's scenery. Link decided walking in sand with his new weight would be uncomfortable, so he Goron Rolled towards the two women. He picked up his cloak and rolled towards the stairs where the entrance to the Gerudo Village was. He took off the Goron Mask and placed it inside his tunic. As a Goron, heat and cold didn't matter much, but as a human, Link felt the full condition of the Gerudo's air. It was freezing! Link couldn't understand how the Gerudo could stand this kind of cold! Link took out the Goron Mask and eyed the inner part of it with discomfort. Did he really want to?

After a painful session of mind-rippingly horrible experience and defeat, Link was back to being a Goron, snug and weather-indifferent. He rolled up the stairs and ducked behind a large boulder. Link could see the blocky homes of the Gerudo and almost felt sorry for them. They wore skimpy uniforms and had to eat slop in their kitchen. There was not much comfort on a Gerudo base. They were patrolling as always, with the same purple uniform. If Link recalled correctly, if he managed to defeat and bypass all the Gerudo, he'll become an honorary thief of the tribe... It was hard to get past the guards while rolled up. Link rolled inconspicuously towards the entrance of the Gerudo's home, waiting until the guards were not looking.

"'Ey, Roho.", a guard spoke to her companion.
"Yes?"
"Look over there, at that rock."
"What about it?" Link felt a sweatdrop on his forehead.
"Well... It seems odd, right?"
"Yeah, I suppose." Link felt the intense urge to squirm violently, but quelled the feeling with all his might.
"It wasn't here a second ago, was it?"
"Come to think of it, I don't recall it being there." Link bit his lip, which was unwise, because sand got in his mouth. He really wished he had his Stone Mask.
"... Go touch it."
"No, you!"
"Well I have to patrol behind that wall and I can't be bothered by such a trivial rock!"
"Hey! It's not like you're the only one with duty!" Roho crossed her arms.
"Well, fine! Then leave it alone! But when it turns out to be a threat or something, don't say I didn't tell you to check it out!" Link squirmed slightly in suspense, but the two women were too busy arguing to notice.
"It's just a rock! And if that's the case, then why don't you check it out?"
"I have to patrol back there!"
"Then why don't you do it?"
"Fine! I will! Hmph!" She turned around, walking to her duties.
"Hmph!" Roho likewise reversed herself and paid no further attention to Link.

As Link rolled closer and closer to the dark gray blocky structures of the Gerudo's home, he sensed that many of the Gerudo had inner issues that should be helped before fighting breaks out. Link unrolled inside the tribe's building behind a large crate and looked around the hallway he occupied. There was hardly anything there. Just in case, though, Link unequipped his mask, discovering it was much warmer inside. While unlodging the Keaton mask from his tunic and putting it on, he also pulled out his bow. He had a full quiver of arrows, so quantity wouldn't be an issue... But he wasn't out to kill anyone. Link took the arrowheads off a good number of his ammunition and pocketed them in one of his satchels. Link was sitting down behind the crate to avoid detection, peeking out from the side of it. As expected, a guard turned around the corner. Link laid on his back with his head up, aiming the bow with the less-harmful arrow. When the Gerudo woman turned around, he fired the shaft at the back of her head, which knocked her unconscious. Link advanced, looking for a cell with the Zola locked up.

After eight guards and five hallways later, Link found the mess hall. It was a small room with one table and four chairs, with a cauldron at the back of the room filled with a sinister looking red liquid. Link approached the pot curiously and inhaled the scent of the concoction. Just as expected, it was nothing close to the taste of a red potion. It was worse! Link waved the smell away and was thankful he could eat regular food. Continuing on, Link did the same thing over and over. Duck behind conveniently placed crate, shoot, advance. The Gerudo didn't communicate very well. He had yet to be discovered.

Continuing on his raid of the Gerudo's base, he started to wonder exactly why it was so cold near here. What could cause such a deep freeze? He turned another corner when he heard a scream and frantic orders. "Someone's invaded our camp! I told you, Roho! What did I tell you?"
"Shut up Anata! It was just a rock!"
"Just go get the others!" Link scratched the back of his head in slight guilt. As he turned forward and took a step, he collided masked-face-first with the forehead of a medium-height Gerudo woman. The headbutt caught Link off guard, and the woman pulled him forward by his collar to her face. "What do you think you're doing!? Taking out all of the Gerudo like that! Why don't you mind your own business!? Ugh!" She kept her grip, but let him fall away from her face a little. The woman had short hair and a different uniform than the others. Link recalled that it was the same Gerudo who managed the Gerudo Training Ground long ago on a different plane in time. She looked nervously to the side and mumbled to herself. "Jeez, I hate locking up random people like this. We're trying to be kinder to people." She looked at Link and pulled him closer to her again, "Look, we're not bad people! I mean, sure, we're thieves, but ever since Nabooru left to become a sage, we've been honoring her code! We only steal from the rich who squander their money! And we have secrets here that could jeopardize our relationship with the rest of Hyrule, which look at us in distaste already!" She again let Link distance himself from her face. She mumbled off to the side again. "We have enough problems even without trying to make people think we're good, why is our tribe so unlucky? We're placed in a desert! (I mean, this dry climate and sand does absolutely nothing for my hair...)" Link was starting to see a pattern in Gerudo behavior. They seem very nervous lately.

The woman again pulled him closer. "What have you seen? Why are you here? What do you want?" Link started to explain, but she interrupted him. "Hold on, don't speak here! You have an unfamiliar male voice in a time of emergency! They'll hear you, then capture and jail you on the spot!" She dragged him to a closed-off room where she pinned him against the wall. "Speak now." Link explained that his Zola friend had a twin there that was captured and needed assistance. He also said that he didn't see anything, really, except for a drawer he was searching through for a key of some sort, but only found Gerudo uniforms-- "Ayee! You liar!" She slammed him against the dry stone wall. "Ugh! Men!" She let go of Link, who felt no need to be threatened at the moment, but still curled into a ball, shielding his face. The Gerudo woman rubbed her temples. "Don't worry, now... He's being sincere... Just be calm... The other girls have been noting your temper... Calm..." She sighed and grabbed Link again. "See anything else!?" Link shook his head and protested that he'd seen nothing else of interest. "Good."

She let Link go and turned around, crossing her arms. She started murmuring to herself. Link wondered if she had any sense of volume; he could hear her plain as day. Or maybe she didn't know she was speaking to herself? "Under normal circumstances, I would admire his steel and grant him membership into our tribe, even though I just manage the training grounds, (but right now...)" She breathed deeply. Turning around, she wore a very serious face, and pulled Link off the floor. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she spoke; "You say you came here to find your captured friend, is it?" Link nodded. "Do you consider yourself noble or daring?" Link blushed and shrugged, his eyes wandering off to the side in embarrassment. "At least you're humble. So can you keep a secret and help us out?" Link nodded, seriousness in his eyes. "OK, please listen carefully. We have your friend. He's safe, although a bit uncomfortable. We really don't know how to keep a secret in any other way besides keeping it to ourselves, so that's what we did. Although, the Zola doesn't talk much at all; it's pretty unsettling. We fed him our food and let him sleep on our floors; he's been treated like we treat our own. Save for the shackles, but those claws look sharp and we've heard they can breath fireballs from their mouth! It's put a lot of stress on our guards!

"Anyway, the story of how the Zola got here is a very annoying one, at least, to us. About a week ago, a young lad entered the desert looking for someone. We couldn't find such a man, and told him to look elsewhere, preferably Hyrule Castle Town. We allowed him to stay awhile, because we're trying new policies of male acceptance and tolerance, but while he was there, though, a huge pulsing blue light blew a hole in one of the rocky walls in our village! Can you believe it? Just a random blue ball of light. In fact, it unearthed a a large hole leading to a cavern, which three Gerudo, including myself, decided to explore. At the bottom of it was a huge hot spring, with a beach in front of its small shore! It radiated a soft blue light and everything. Could you believe our luck? We had good water to drink and we could bathe in a relaxing hot spring! We could even possibly attract visitors to our fortress! (And I've heard that burying yourself in a hot spring's sand is good for your skin...)" She looked to the side with longing, taking her hands off Link's shoulders, who eyed her as a man would eye a very annoyed and possibly unstable woman.

"We didn't even really pay much mind to the huge pulsing blue sphere hovering just slightly above the spring... It gave us something we valued; who could complain or question it? But then, it pulsed really heavily while we were down there, and a fairy emerged from it! We were on the shores of a blessed fountain of water! We all gawked at it. It was very beautiful. She was blue and had really nice wings, and her hair was shiny white and well-kempt..." The Gerudo closed her eyes and almost seemed to drool a little. "(I envy that hair...)"

"Anyway, she spoke these exact words (in a really smooth and pretty voice...). 'Oh... Oh my! What am I doing here? Where is my regular cave?' And we all just looked at her and shrugged nervously, not knowing the cause of any of this, obviously. She then said, 'Oh... Well, I'm the ice fairy. I normally have a nice chilly cave full of ice all year round, but this isn't it... It's a bit too warm for my liking... I won't make it cold here because I know how people react to the biting temperatures, but I'd really like a nice cold place. Do you know of any?' She smiled this really warm smile at us (which seems odd for an ice fairy...). The blue sphere was still behind her, though, and it ejected a very large bug, which immediately seized the fairy's head, not letting go. She screamed and screamed, and we could do nothing but stand there and ask if she needed help. We should have done something, that bug really messed her up!

"She went all crazy and her eyes weren't kind anymore (And personally, I found her hair a lot less attractive...) The cave started rumbling and it went cold really quick! We were all freezing in seconds! We climbed the rope back to the top of the cave and escaped. As soon as we got out, however, a very cold wind started blasting out of the opening, (which was also very dry, so my hair still suffers...) It was really cold as the wind erupted from the source. We've heard reports that it's much less worse in regions other than this one, but we were almost frostbitten in minutes. All the Gerudo in the village crowded into the fortress, but the young man that visited us went outside to see what was happening. Unfortunately, the fairy was outside the cave waiting, and she turned him into two Zolas! (It was really freaky, and I didn't see much of it because looking out of the holes we have as windows were still very chilly to be around...)

"The Zola you are referring to ran oddly in confusion, as he did not apparently know how to use his lungs properly, only his gills. He ran towards the Gerudo River, which leads to Lake Hylia, and dove in. We tried to restrain him, telling him that he could breath above the water, but the Gerudo who was holding his right arm tripped and accidentally threw him in to correct herself. If anyone saw, then it would be very incriminating..."

Link sat down cross-legged in front of her in the same way he did with Kaepora Gaebora except he wasn't bored out of his mind; now here's some information that he didn't know.

"The other Zola stayed behind... He doesn't seem very intelligent. We've been detaining him without problems. But here's why we haven't looked for help... See, a long time ago, we were trying to make up with the denizens of Hyrule by creating a modified version of our freezing chest traps. We significantly powered them down and made them convenient for storage, so people could use them to cool down their homes during warm seasons. While we were crossing the bridge, though, the weight of the shipments caused the bridge to start breaking. On top of that, the chests had all malfunctioned and turned on with much more force than even the original freezing trap. They all fell into the Gerudo River and washed downstream to Lake Hylia. We had full knowledge of the water ducts connecting the Lake with Zora's Domain, and when we heard that the domain had frozen without clear knowledge of the cause, we were panicked. We kept it a closely guarded secret. If anyone knew this freezing climate was because of us, then they'd connect the Zora incident to us and they'd never learn to trust us! It's a horrible tragedy we've had to endure. We haven't been in Hyrule Castle Town in ages, except to steal funds from the undeserving. And we can't just casually walk in anymore! (I mean, even Gerudo want a boyfriend now and then...)"

Link stood up, brushing off his knees, and told her that he'd solve the problem of the fairy for her. "Really? You can do that? And if you die, you guarantee the secret dies with you?" Link nodded. He'd aid her in any way possible in return for his companion's double. "Excellent! You promise that you'll return?" Link nodded once more, but the woman seemed skeptical. "Give me something important for me to hold onto, so that I will guarantee your return." Link was taken aback; what would he have to give her? The woman's eyes wandered to his weapon. "Hmm... You seem very adept at using a bow. How about that, then?" He looked at the bow, remembering how many times it had saved him from destruction. Indeed, it was a very important tool, and it would be troublesome to adventure without it. He handed it over with an indignant look on his face. "Good. Now right this way, please."

? ? ?

Epona was still tethered to the tree, blinking frequently because of the sand and wind, shaking her tail just as much. Come on, Link! I could really use a bath...

-Chapter End-