Chapter 11 is here, I have no idea whatsoever to say, so let's just get to it!
"There." Sarami said after feeding Gevoam the potion she had prepared, "It should only take a little more treatment before the antidote completely rids her body of the poison."
"Thank the desert goddess.. I'm so glad she'll be okay." Aviel sighed with relief.
"How is Mr. Dakas doing?" Sarami asked a nearby nurse.
"We did just as you instructed, and he's doing fine for now." the nurse confirmed, "In fact, he's already up and chatty with the other nurses."
"What." said a deadpan Nemisa.
The group looked into Dakas' room to see him around multiple nurses, laughing like crazy, telling them jokes and antidotes, while the girls were all giggling in response.
"Hey, your highness!" he waved to Link, "Thanks again for saving me, and for bringing me to this desert paradise! You're a lucky man to rule this place!"
"Uh huuuuh..." Link said sweatdropping.
"I blame you and Dr. Sarami for this." Nemisa said annoyed.
"Least he's not suffering." Aviel pointed out.
"He gets anymore touchy with those nurses and he will be." Nemisa retorted.
"Well if you all excuse me, I have more tasks to do." Sarami said, "Thank you all again for your help."
"It wasn't a problem Sarami." Nabooru nodded, "Helping our sister and friend is never a chore for us."
Sarami nodded and went off to a backroom.
"I'll have the guards escort Dakas out of town after he fully recovers." Nabooru said, "Maybe we should return to the palace and rest."
"Sounds good." Aviel said, "I'll race ya Nemisa!"
"Hey, don't run in a hospital!" exclaimed Nemisa following after her.
As they and Nabooru started on their way out, Link was going to follow them when heard a faint thumping sound. Curiosity took over him, and he headed in the direction of where he heard it, a back room he could have sworn he saw Sarami go into.
"Dr. Sarami? Did something hap-" He then looked down in shock to see Sarami had collapsed to the ground.
"Doctor?!" exclaimed Link, he quickly ran over to her, "Are you okay?!" he quickly called out "Hey, somebody! Dr. Sarami is-"
"No! D-Don't worry..." said Sarami, doing what she could to force herself up, "I'm okay now, I just got a little dizzy."
"Here, let me at least help you up." Link said frantically, helping to get Sarami up onto her feet and sit her down onto a chair, then handing her a cup of water.
"Thank you.." sighed Sarami, "Please promise you won't tell the nurses about this, I don't need them worrying about me."
"What happened?" asked Link, "Are you sick?"
"No, I just get a little fatigued at times." she sighed, "I guess I overdid it going out to the ruins like that..."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Link asked with concern.
"It wouldn't have mattered if I did, Gevoam needed my help, and I was happy to aide Mr. Dakas as well." she smiled weakly.
"Still, we would have tried to find another way..." Link sighed, "Have you been like this for long?"
"Almost my whole adult life to be honest." she said, looking somewhat distant.
"Really?" Link exclaimed, "What happened?"
Sarami paused, he could tell she was hesitant to talk to him, so he patted her on the shoulder.
"Go ahead, I'm willing to listen." Link assured her.
"O-Okay." Sarami nodded, "I... used to be a warrior and thief-in-training as a teen. But when I became an adult, I was chosen to become one of the former king Ganondorf's child bearers."
"A child bearer?" Link asked.
"Yes, it was my job to conceive and raise the children of the king, to ensure his bloodline stays intact." Sarami said. "My parents were very encouraging of my new job, telling me it was something I needed to devote my life to. At the time I believed it was truly an honor, so I gave up on my warrior training and focusing entirely on child birthing and care, adapting to a diet to make my body both healthy and curvy, and learning all the techniques to seduce even one like the king."
Sarami continued, "The day soon came, I laid with Ganondorf, and I became pregnant with his child. It was a joyous moment in my life, I felt a true sense of purpose at that time, carrying the future of my people..."
She then gulped a bit.
"Then, the day came when my child would be born, I did everything as I was taught... b-but..."
"But...?" Link felt some unease from where she was going. She seemed hesitant, but Link placed a hand on her own, giving it a gentle squeeze. "It's okay, you can tell me."
Sarami blushed lightly, placed her other hand on her stomach and rubbed it softly, as tears were forming in her eyes.
"My daughter... didn't make it."
Link's eyes widened, "T-That's... I'm sorry to hear that..."
"No, it's fine." Sarami said with a sad smile, before continuing, "After learning about what happened, Ganondorf was furious, he said that someone like me who can't even so much as deliver a child is no use to him or anyone, and banished me from Gerudo Valley. Not even my parents or Nabs could do anything to help me."
"That's terrible..." Link said he had always feared Ganondorf as a child, and outright hated him as an adult in the dark future, but this just made Link feel more contempt for him, "So... you knew Nabooru for quite a long time I take it?"
"Mm-hmm. Her parents were friend of mine, and I saw her like a little sister, I think she took it the hardest when I left." she sighed and continued her story, "I eventually found myself in Hyrule, trying to find a new place in life, but I didn't have much luck. After abandoning my warrior training I didn't have the skills to survive off the land, and thanks to the bad reputation of my people being thieves and killers, work was hard to find... and I was too afraid of being in a relationship."
"Afraid? Why?" Link asked.
"Because if I did, there was a good d chance I could become pregnant again and... after what happened, I became afraid of it... the idea of conceiving another life, only to lose it again so soon, I couldn't deal with that kind of loss again..." Sarami trembled, "Eventually I found myself in Kakariko Village, with no where else to go. I was at my breaking point, and I..."
She paused.
"...I attempted to take my life that day..."
Link gulped, he wanted to say something, but just continued to hold Sarami's hand, and he could feel her start to squeeze it back.
"I plunged a dagger into my chest, and I passed out from the pain... However, when I came to, I found myself on a bed in some kind of shop. It was there I met an elderly woman who called herself Granny, she ran the potion shop there."
"Granny? I've met her before, shes the one with the cat, right?" Link said.
"Yes." Sarami nodded, "She had fixed my wounds expertly. At first I was furious that she took away my attempt to release myself from this world. I asked her why she would save someone like me; someone who was part of a cruel tribe of thieving killers, someone who was so useless they couldn't even bare a child, so useless I was banished by my own king... and you know what she said?"
"What?"
"That she's a doctor, and a true doctor doesn't pick and choose who they save." Sarami smiled lightly, "She also told me that everyone has a chance to become more then what they are, to grow beyond what they know."
"I see..." Link said, reflecting on those words.
"Granny took me in as an assistant to her work, I spent most my time helping her with physical tasks she was too old for, that and taking care of her cat." Sarami added with an amused grin, "During that time, I came to learn much about medicine and health care for people. And she eventually took me on as her apprentice instead. I even found her old books on alchemy that I took a great interest in, it was what lead me to discovering the potential of using Chuchu jelly to help people..."
Her glasses gave of f a gleam and chuckled darkly, "Well, that and using it to trap my prey..."
"O-Oh..." Link thought back to when she used the green goop to immobilize the Skarmah.
"I stayed there with Granny until after the war, when I heard the Gerudo lost. I knew at that time they were all suffering from their losses, and I needed to help them rebuild their lives. When I came back to Gerudo Fortress, I met Nabooru, and was overjoyed to see she had taken over as the leader of the tribe. When she saw what I was capable of, she announced me the head doctor of the town after it was built." Sarami said, she took a drink of water and continued.
"I've devoted myself to being a doctor because it's the only thing I'm capable of doing... even if it drives me to the point of exhaustion. I want to use my skills to my furthest extent to help the Gerudo stay happy and healthy and deliver healthy children, since I'm too cowardly and weak to do it for myself..." Sarami explained with a heavy heart.
There was a long pause between the two, Sarami was about to release her grip from Link's hand, but he just tightened it, surprising her.
"Dr. Sarami..." Link said, "That's ridiculous."
"What?!" Sarami asked.
"Would someone who's cowardly and weak work so hard for the Gerudo people? Would a coward or weakling go to the desert ruins and help us defeat a monster just to save one girl? Would one defy the laws of this town to save that man we found back there? Someone who went back to help her people because they needed her, and after all she suffered in her life?"
"I..." Sarami's face flushed, seeing Link staring into her eyes.
"Sarami... you're stronger then you think you are." he said. "Even if you're not strong physically, you have such a strong will, and I think with that will you can someday be able to have the daughter you wanted so much." Link continued.
"That... I doubt that will ever happen." Sarami smiled sadly, "I'm thirty five now, well past my expiration date... I don't think any man would take an old lady like me."
It was then that Link let go of her hand and embraced her into a hug.
"L-Link?!"
"Don't say that, you're a beautiful woman, you're talented in medicine, and you're one of the kindest people I've ever met. Any true man would be lucky to have you for a wife."
Sarami found herself tearing up at Link's words, and her arms found themselves hugging him back.
"E-Even you...?" she asked.
Link paused as he held her, he thoughts went back to Nabooru's words that morning, his face flushed a little and smiled.
"Even me, Sarami." he answered.
Sarami trembled, squeezing Link as tight as she could, with tears running down her eyes uncontrollably as she started babbling words.
"B-But I'm so much older then you! I have age marks, and I haven't lost all my pregnancy weight, my breasts are so large they're starting to sag, ... I... why... are you... so..."
Link just held her close.
"You're perfect just as you are. You just need to rely on others more, and not shoulder everything yourself." he said.
The two just held each other for what seemed like the longest time, Sarami couldn't help but feel such a state of bliss in that moment...
"Link... I..."
"AAAHHH!" screamed a voice from outside the room. Link and Sarami immediately got up and ran out to see what was going on. They arrived at the entrance lobby of the clinic, where all the nurses, along with Aviel, Nemisa and Nabooru were. They were all looking at Dakas, who was holding a Gerudo child in his arms, with a dagger held to her throat.
"W-What's going on here?!" exclaimed Link.
"That man, as soon as we told him he could get up, he grabbed one of our child patients, Ilite, and ran here with her, and she's too weak from her condition to fight back!" explained a nurse.
"Help!" shouted Ilite, coughing loudly
"Stay still kid, if you know what's good for ya!" shouted Dakas, he looked up to the women and Link and said, "Alright, let's make this quick and easy, I need supplies and money to leave with, so hand over whatever you got and I'll let the girl go."
"You bastard!" shouted a furious Nemisa, "How can you do this after we saved your life?!"
"Listen, I'm grateful for what you all did," Dakas admitted, "But a guy's got to survive as well, and since my attempt to collect treasure from those ruins was botched, a thief like me has gotta get what they can to survive!"
"Hylian mongrel..." snarled Nemisa.
"We don't have much options to deal with him." Nabooru said, her arms folded and her eyes narrowed, "If one of us steps out of line Ilite could be hurt badly, or worse..."
"If I didn't run out of arrows fighting that monster at the ruins I could shoot him right between the eyes..." Aviel said in anger.
"Mr. Dakas, please release Ilite and get back to your bed, you still need to-" Sarami started, but was cut off by Dakas.
"And what skin is it off your backs?" Dakas asked the girls, "Aren't the lot of you a bunch of thieves and cutthroats yourselves? From what I've been told, you all have caused a lot of pain for the Hylians for years. If anything, this is a taste of retribution for what you've done!"
Link let the words he was shouting sink in, he clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes coldly at the thief Dakas. He looked over to Sarami who was hanging her head low, trembling. It was clear she was remembering a lot of what she went through again.
"Grr... fine." Nabooru finally said, "See to it that he gets what he wants."
It took a little while, but soon a few bags of food and rupees were given to Dakas.
"There," Nabooru said, "You've gotten what you asked for, now release Ilite and leave now."
"Heh, not bad." Dakas said grinning, "Unfortunately, I don't think I'm gonna let her go just yet."
"What?!" exclaimed Nemisa, looking like she was about to strangle the guy.
"Frankly I don't trust what you say just yet. For all I know you could sic your guards on me the moment I release her, or maybe this food could be poisoned. I'm just going to hang onto her for a while, and let go of her whenever I'm sure I'm safe." Dakas explained, holding up the girl with the supplies strapped to his back.
"No!" shouted Sarami. Everyone turned to her as she stormed up and glared at Dakas, "Ilite suffers from an extreme form of asthma! She needs to stay here in the clinic, and trying to take her outside of the town could affect her too severely!"
"Is that so? Guess I was a little too quick to pick my hostage." Dakas said, "Well it's too late to change my mind, so I'm just gonna take off, and you know what will happen if someone stops me!"
"You can't do this!" Sarami shouted, with tears in her eyes, her body was shaking, her exhaustion from before was getting to her.
"So do you regret what you did for me?" snickered Dakas, "You took me into your town and saved me, and I'm grateful for what you did Doc, but how do you feel now knowing by doing that you put this kid's life in danger? I guess even a old hag like you can make some mistakes."
Sarami's features darkened, her glasses gleamed, making her eyes unreadable.
"Well I gotta take off, and don't go trying to follow me!" Dakas said, he turned to leave, only to stop when he saw someone standing before him.
"Wha- what are you...?" Dakas stammered.
"Link...?" Sarami said, looking back up to see it was Link standing at the clinic's door. He was glaring at Dakas with an angry scowl in his eyes.
"They gave you what you asked for... and yet you continue to threaten this little girl's life..?" Link asked, staring at Dakas.
"H-Hey, back off.." Dakas said. He wanted to continue to hold the dagger against Ilite's throat, but something about the way Link looked at him unnerved him too much, and he started moving the dagger away a bit.
"Sarami saved you... she stood up for you when others would have left you to die... without asking for anything in return..." Link continued.
"I..." muttered Dakas, his arm shaking.
Link continued, "The question is... when I'm through with you, WILL SHE BE ABLE TO SAVE YOU AGAIN?!"
Dakas' body froze, for just a second, he could had sworn he saw Link's eyes turn a blank white with anger.
"T-That's it, you asked for it bastard!" shouted Dakas, bringing the dagger upwards and then down towards Ilite's chest.
"Kyyyaaa!" screamed Ilite.
It was then that Dakas realized he couldn't move the dagger anymore, something was stopping it in mid-swing.
He looked to see Link had grabbed the dagger, by it's blade.
Dakas broke into a cold sweat as he saw blood coming out from Link's hand and turned to see Link himself not even flinching from it. Dakas was in so much shock he was unaware that his grip loosened on Ilite and she fell to her knees.
Link then brought back his other hand into a fist and punched Dakas directly in the face, breaking his nose and sending him flying backwards to the ground.
Sarami, Nabooru, Aviel, Nemisa and the nurses were all in shock themselves as they saw Dakas sprawled out on the floor unconscious. They looked up to see Link taking a deep breath, then knelt down to Ilite.
"Are... you okay?" he asked.
Ilite looked up to see Link, who was now back to his regular self, smiling a big goofy grin. She looked down to see Link's hand, which had let go of the dagger and was still bleeding.
"Y-Yes Mr. King Link," she stammered with tears in her eyes, "I'm fine... but... y-you're injured!"
"Don't worry about that." Link said smiling, "I'm just glad you're okay."
Tears started to run down Ilite's cheeks and she threw her arms around Link's neck, hugging him tightly and crying her eyes out, while Link hugged her back with one arm.
Sarami stood there, seeing Link holding Ilite closely, and the gentle smile he had. She felt her heart flutter a bit, and her face flushed. This didn't go unnoticed by Nabooru, who smirked lightly.
"N-Nurses, please take Ilite and Mr. Dakas back o their rooms for treatment." Sarami then said, snapping out of her stare.
"Wait, you still instead on helping this bastard after what he did?" exclaimed Nemisa.
"A doctor doesn't pick and choose who they save." Sarami said simply, leaving Nemisa in stunned silence, "But first..." she walked over to the unconscious Dakas and took his rupee purse off his belt."...I'll be taking payment for my services after all." she chuckled darkly.
"She can be pretty scary in her own ways." Nemisa said with an amused smirk, as the nurses went off to do as they were ordered.
Aviel meanwhile ran right up to Link and the bird girl threw her arms around and hugged him
"Link, are you okay?!" Aviel exclaimed.
"I can't believe you did something like that moron..." Nemisa sighed walking up to the two, glaring down at Link.
"Ah, I'll be fine..." Link said, he then took a glance down at his hand and saw the blood coming out, "Um, actually, on second thought I guess I'm feeling kind of light-headed..."
Link stood up slowly, his eyes then turned to spirals and he fainted against Nemisa, who caught him.
"Doctor," sighed Nemisa, her face a little red, "One more patient needs your help..."
"There you are," said Sarami, having put the finishing touches on Link's hand bandage.
"So what's the condition of Dakas?" Nabooru asked.
"His nose is fractured, but otherwise I think he'll be fine." Sarami explained.
"So what do you plan to do with him?" Nemisa asked, raising an eyebrow.
"We'll probably put him in prison until-" Nabooru started, but was cut off by a nurse running in.
"Doctor, Mt. Dakas has left!" exclaimed the nurse, "Our guards said they saw him escape into the desert!"
"You've got to be kidding me." sighed Nabooru.
"Oh dear, that's not good..." said Sarami putting a hand to her cheek, "While he was okay to walk around a bit, he still needed more treatment for the poison. If he exerts himself too much it could be..."
"Grr, namn bitches." said Dakas with his broken nose, stomping through the desert to find a place to stay, "Whed I recovah, dhey're all dead, and that king of theirs!"
As he trudged through the desert, he felt a strange dizziness, and staggered a bit.
"Ugh, wad's goin on?" he muttered, he felt a strong fever come over him, despite how hot it was, "Wad's happenin to me...?
His dizziness overcame him, his legs grew weak, and he fell to the sand.
"Argh!... no... someone... please help me... doctor..."
Dakas the Thief's pleas went unanswered in the middle of the vast desert wasteland.
"Ugh, what a way to go..." Aviel said.
"Hmph, good riddance I say." Nemisa said.
"I feel pity for him, but I suppose there isn't much we can do about it now..." sighed Sarami. The doctor then looked to Link and smiled lightly, "Anyway, you're all set to go." She told Link, "Just take it easy for a little while, and make sure you come visit for a follow up, okay?"
"Thanks Sarami," Link said. Nabooru, Aviel and Nemisa were all waiting for him to be done so they could head back to the palace. "And don't forget to take a break once in a while yourself, you can't do it all on your own. We'll be here anytime if you need us, alright?"
"Oh yes," smiled Sarami, "I'll keep that mind."
"Hey, you forgot to give Link a kiss to make it feel better!" Aviel called out.
"Oh yes, of course." Sarami said with a small smile.
"Alright then." Link shrugged and held up his bandaged hand for her to kiss.
Instead however, Sarami leaned forward and gave Link a gentle kiss on the cheek, whispering a "Thank you" in his ear as she did.
Link's face was as red as a tomato, while Aviel was smiling brightly, Nemisa's jaw fallen in shock, and Nabooru with her hand over her mouth in surprise and delight, while Sarami just giggled.
"Maybe he's going to find them all sooner then I thought." Nabooru said to herself.
And that's the end of this arc. Hope you guys enjoyed this one. I admit as someone who's generally a comedy writer it was strange to find myself tackling subjects like miscarriage and suicide, hopefully it didn't come off too harsh.
As for the next chapter, I think at this point I'm just going to assume anytime I try to do a simple breather chapter that it's gt a good chance of randomly transforming into a major arc, cause that's how it's ending up.
Again, leave a like, follow or review if you enjoyed it!