Heart of The Gerudo Pt. 3

Part 3

Heart of The Gerudo: Shackled Choices

Written by SilkenScribe

Original Story inspired by the Gerudo Link works of HeartGear

Minutes ticked by and became hours. Hours ticked by and eventually led to morning. Avery had no idea just how long he'd been out. Lost in a world of swimming images and dizziness. He did know however that when he awoke he was in a large prison cell. Its interior is dimly lit by a small slit-like window cut in the back of it.

He came to rather blearily. A small groan escaped his lips as he eased open his hazel eyes.

This was not the same place he'd fallen asleep in. Nor had his hands been bound before. He looked into his lap, thick woven rope encircled his wrists, cinching them tightly together in front of him. Muscles flexed slightly, testing the bonds and finding they were quite secure.

Although perhaps less secure as he could to his surprise still feel the the daggers sheathe hanging about his waist just beneath the edge of his tattered shirt. Why bind his hands and still leave him armed? It seemed a bit of an odd choice, but he wasn't going to look the gift horse in the mouth.

His shoulder, while it still ached felt slightly better than before. He found when he looked at it, that its makeshift bandages had been changed and swapped out for crisp white ones. Another curious fact. His captors cared enough to treat his wounds. But had been unwilling to let him into the city to keep him from dying of thirst.

~How strange...~ He thought to himself.

Across from him on the opposite side of the cell was another occupant. A woman who belonged to the Gerudo tribe inhabiting this village. She looked rather ragged and had a strange and almost ominous air about her. Her bright red hair fell about her face in a rather unkempt mess and her wrists too were bound neatly in front of her. She was staring across at him rather intently.

Avery shook his head a little to clear the fog from his head, "Uhm. Hi." He said awkwardly to the woman across from him, "How long have I been here...?" He asked cautiously.

The woman grinned slightly, "Well. Long enough for me to find this anyways..." She reached under one leg and produced the silvery dagger that had until recently been inside the sheathe about Avery's waist. She rolled it over in her hand.

Avery felt anxiety bubbling up in his stomach. Had he awoken just to get stabbed by his cellmate? Great.

The woman chuckled slightly, "Don't look so scared Voe. I'm not going to use it on you but I am..." She twisted the dagged about and after a minute of sawing back and forth with it, cut her wrists free. She let out a long groan, "...Going to get out of here. I have no intention to rot in this place."

Avery stared at her for a long moment as he considered the woman's newfound freedom, "Get out of here? How?" He dared to ask.

The Gerudo woman looked towards the front of their cell, "Food and Water twice a day. They're not generally expecting a prison to be unbound. So I'll make my break then. You can follow me, or rot in this place until they decide what to do with you. But I can assure you, Voe are not punished lightly."

"Not punished lightly? All I did was sneak into the city. I passed out on the bloody fountain before I could even do anything. I doubt my punishment will be all that severe."

The woman let out a laugh, "Sure sure. Keep telling yourself that. Just existing within the bounds of the city without permission is enough to keep you rotting away in this place for the rest of your life. Voe are not permitted here for a reason. Your sneaking in was a bigger transgression than you might think. Not that I see eye-to-eye with my people anymore." She shrugged a little bit.

"I'm getting out. You can go when I do, or face the consequences of remaining. But alert the guards to my intentions and I'll gut you like a Hyrulean bass. Got it?" She stared at him intently.

Avery gave a small nod. He had no intention of crossing her. He was no fighter.

~Could my punishment for coming here really be THAT bad?~ He racked his brain, trying to remember what he knew of the Gerudo tribe. But what little he did know, had only been learned in the last day. Served him right for being so narrow-minded in his view of the world around him.

The pair of them shared no words as the rest of the day went on. Avery sat on his side of the cell, contemplating just how deep of horse shit he'd gotten himself into. He wasn't dead, but he certainly wasn't putting any more distance between himself and his pursuers outside of this city. Though most of them were men, so perhaps he was safe here at least for now. But then, if his crimes were as bad as this woman said they were. Perhaps he'd been better off in the desert.

Eventually, enough time passed that it was time for the guards to bring them a meal. Avery hadn't eaten in several days so the idea of getting food or drink into his belly was an exciting prospect. Though it was rather overshadowed by whatever his cellmate might be planning. He stared across at her as footsteps echoed down the nearby steps in front of their cell.

From the stairwell emerged another Gerudo woman, vibrant red hair braided with gold and falling down her back in a thick braid. She wasn't wearing any sort of armour, only silks of soft green and blue. A keyring jingled on a jewelled belt about her taut waist. She moved up to the front of the cage. The woman inside the cell had buried her wrists between her legs to hide their unbound state and the dagger.

"Oho. The guards sent royalty in to feed us this time?" Asked the woman.

Avery tilted his head in obvious confusion.

"Quiet yourself Kutina. My curiosity was piqued and so I decided to bring your meal down myself." She held up the tray she was carrying bearing a loaf of bread and a jug full of what Avery assumed was water.

Kutina chuckled, "Careful with that curiosity. You might end up like me, Lady Aikoro."

The woman unlocked the cell and looked over at Kutina, "Doubtful. I'm not interested in murdering my own people for self-gain. So I doubt I'll ever be QUITE like you Kutina."

Kutina narrowed her eyes as Aikoro stepped into the cell and set down the tray between the pair of them. Looking over at Avery, Aikoro would study him for a moment, "How is your shoulder?"

"Sore, but feeling better. Please thank whoever changed the bandages for me." He replied plainly, again his anxiety bubbled up as he watched Kutina drawing out the dagger behind Aikoro.

~I can't just let her...can I? She'll kill her...~ He felt himself wrestling internally with a choice at that moment.

"I will."

She might have said more, but it was at that moment that Kutina decided to make her move. Silvery dagger gleaming in the light, she'd spring to her feet and lunge forward at Aikoro. Luckily for Aikoro, she was a trained warrior. Daughter of the Lady Riju, the leader of their tribe. She managed to turn just in time to catch Kutina around the wrists and stop the thrusting dagger just short of her chest as she was slammed against the back wall.

Avery's heart lurched as he watched the scene suddenly unfolding in front of him. On the one hand, he could flee, but on the other, his morals and instincts were screaming at him to intervene as Kutina used the weight of her body to push the dagger ever closer to Aikoro's chest.

"Nn...Where did you get.." Aikoro stammered.

Kutina grinned evilly, "You'll never know, because you'll be dead and I'll be free."

Kutina shifted her foot and stepped back, yanking the dagger from Aikoro's grasp and then lunging forward a second time with all her weight behind the strike as she drove the dagger towards the woman's chest.

For a moment, it was like time slowed down in the cell. Avery felt a surge of adrenaline rush over him and in that split second, he chose to intervene. He couldn't just let this other woman commit murder right in front of him!

There he was suddenly, throwing himself between Kutina and Aikoro, letting the dagger catch him in the shoulder as he rushed Kutina, tackling her to the floor with all the strength he could muster, slamming her into the ground. Lady luck was on his side as the impact was enough to knock the woman unconscious.

For a long moment, the cell was filled with nothing but the ragged gasps of Aikoro, The unconscious Kutina and himself. He looked to Aikoro whose eyes were filled with a mix of gratitude and confusion at his decision to help her. Moving quickly, she stepped up to Avery and reached down, unceremoniously tearing the dagger from his shoulder. He let out a sharp cry of pain and slumped down against the wall, holding the wound.

"Keep pressure on it," Aikoro said flatly, grabbing the unconscious woman by the collar and after dragging her out of the cell and locking it she disappeared up the staircase without another word, dragging Kutina with her and leaving Avery in the half-darkness of the cell, bleeding from his shoulder.

"Well, that was bloody eventful," Avery told himself as he sat there clutching his shoulder. He had not expected to let himself get stabbed on someone else's behalf today. But he couldn't just sit there. Not when someone else was in trouble. He'd lived a life of crime but he had morals, the crimes he committed were to help others, not harm them.

He looked down at the tray in the middle of the room, surprisingly untouched despite the scuffle. Even with the pain in his shoulder which was now doubly injured, his stomach groaned and that primal survival instinct demanded he eat. He tugged the bandages a bit tighter around his shoulder to stem the bleeding and let himself take a few bites of bread and a sip of water.

Twenty minutes later, a young Gerudo woman came down, escorted by two guards. Not a word was spoken to him but as the guards stood and watched she cleaned the wound on his shoulder, re-bandaged it and then left without a word.

Avery was left with nothing but his thoughts. How far he'd come from his home. Chased across the land, only to end up in the dungeon of a city he'd knew nothing about. More and more lately, he truly wondered where he belonged in the world. Even home had never really felt like home. Such was a life of...poor choices.

Nothing new happened in his cell for the next day. He was left in silence, with two new guards being posted at the bottom of the stairs that came into the prison area. Kutina had never come back and other than the meal that had been left the previous day, nothing else had been brought down. He was beginning to wonder if they simply intended to let him wither away in this cell. Perhaps that was an act of mercy based on his actions the previous day.

But then why would they fix his shoulder?

Eventually, a guard wearing slightly more intricate armour than the other two came down, "Bring the prisoner to the throne room, now." She said brusquely before disappearing back up the stairs.

The guards unlocked his cell and in moments he was hauled to his feet, hands still bound in front of him as he was led out of the cell and up the stairs...his fate awaited him.