The father of a Gerudo is voe. The child of a Gerudo is vai.
Laroba II, Councils of the Queen
A Gerudo's husband is often amazed by the birth of his child. The obstetrics of the other races are considered barbaric by the Gerudo, a people for whom the body and the duty of the mother is sacrosanct. That their greatest magical expertise should have been put to the task of successful and comfortable childbearing should come as no surprise—but often does to outsiders who know them better by their military exploits. Among true outsiders, these practices are shared only to the most select few. One who has married into the tribe quickly learns just how highly his wife's people value the life of mother and daughter. The Gerudo know that the next generation is precious and that every daughter is best served by a living and lively mother. Whether in the magical academies or among the itinerant desert sages, research into medicine and particularly into the various sciences of gynecology is given the foremost prestige. That the outside world scoffs at these subjects is their loss, and often literally, in the form of young mothers and their infant children buried in the earth.
These arts are given compensation and favor commensurate with that regard. The occupation is an exhausting one, however, and so its practitioners sometimes choose to save on accommodations and share a dwelling in common. The midwife who had delivered the child beyond the Icehouse belonged to such a community. The apartments she shared with several of the other best young magicians were a bustling place. These inhabitants were needed across the town, in fact served the entire region, and came and went at all hours of every day. No one would give a second thought to the absence of a single member, especially the one considered their most gifted. She was always running from one errand to another. Some days she spent attending to the demands of rich merchants in the town's elite quarter, others she was sent to the barracks at the Southern Oasis, and still others she could be found volunteering in the town slums. Her time was much in demand, whether claimed by others or her own apparently inextinguishable altruistic spirit.
So when the sun rose over Gerudo Town, those who stumbled down from bed to prepare their morning glass of hydromelon juice could make any number of assumptions about their friend the midwife. The earliest risers would have supposed she had stayed, per tradition, in the bedrooms of a new mother's home, spent with the effort of the birthing magic. Later, it would be easy to figure that she was sleeping quietly behind her room's closed doors, or else that she had already left, setting out early perhaps for some appointment in Kara Kara.
If she was thought of at all, it would have been in the pleasant anticipation of the party that the group had planned that evening, for the Day of the Seven. Like much in Gerudo life, this holiday was observed with a mixture of reverence and revelry. The most devout would make a pilgrimage to the circle of massive statues beyond the wastes to the east, but the typical townswoman would honor the Heroines at the annual tournament taking place in a makeshift arena outside the walls. There would be food and drink and wager, and the clash of blunted steel. The event was profane fun, yes, of the kind that the Seven had fought to shield when they took up arms against the invaders at the gates of the desert. The town gossip rated the contenders, women smiled at the thought of teasing their friends' inebriate confessions, and a few prayers were floated to the heavens beseeching the favor of divine warriors.
The guard patrolling the ruins just outside the walls was thinking about the chances of her friend, an academy soldier, who would be fighting later that afternoon. The opponent was a seal racer with a reputation for hotheadedness and a history of bar fights. Although it seemed a sure win, this was a type easy to underestimate. She was circling the Icehouse when when her nose caught a whiff of decay. It alerted her senses, and she drew the short blade she carried at her hip, squinting her eyes against the swirling sands on guard for a waiting enemy. She found no Lizalfos. What she found she had dreaded: a Gerudo, young, viciously cut down, plundered of everything shiny, and lying in a spread of blood caked upon the sand. The guard sprinted to the Icehouse, recruited its attendant to alert the Town, and returned to the corpse. Resisting the temptation to shoulder the dead woman and carry it immediately back to the safety of the town walls, the guard sat and waited for her backup.
When backup arrived, they quickly scanned the scene. There was very little to scrutinize or question. Everyone present was closely acquainted with the savagery of the desert fiends, and between the dead woman's singed hair and butchered belly, there was little doubt of the attacker's identity or methods. All Gerudo know the risks, no matter their confidence, no matter how much they train specifically for such common opponents. One unguarded careless moment is all it takes for a storm of electricity to stun even the strongest warrior, and anyone alone would have been at her enemy's mercy. The Lizalfos have no concept of mercy, and by her appearance, the dead woman had not been among the active warriors. With a shrug, the corpse was loaded onto a canvas stretcher, and the group trudged their solemn way back to the gates.