The copper kettle was squealing. I lifted it from the fire and poured its boiling water into one of the small, porcelain cup. Crushed and shredded leaves swirled and turned the water a thick yellow-green-brown. The bitter-sweet scent of Hylian's finest tea rose to meet my nose. I took a deep breath in and sat back on a box of salted pig anuses.

This was the quietest room in the Fortress, the lowest of the underground storage rooms. Aswell as being thieves, the Gerudo were natural hoarders. They refused to throw anything out no matter how useless This was the room where those things ended up. The fact that it was packed to the rafters with anomalous resources block out any noise that filtered down through half a mile of sandstone.

Few people even came down here. It was like a secret place. I'd retreated here for as long as I could remember, whenever things became too much. Recently, I'd been visiting it a lot more.

Life was not really going ideally up above. People were expecting things from me. Really stupid things. Farmers were demanding rain. How did they expect me to bring that? I couldn't even predict the weather, let alone affect it. And the day before last, two subjects had approached me, both claiming to be the mother of an infant child. They'd hassled me for hours. Eventually I'd given the baby to the richer of the two and the other free usage of any of the men in the prison cells. She'd be able to have another child soon but my decision still seemed wrong. It bothered me still.

Worst of all, the two witches had returned from the desert and were stirring the place up a storm. It was a rare appearance from the hags, and despite the rumour mill working overtime there was still no indication as to what they were after, which put a lot of people on edge. Half of the council had locked themselves in their rooms and carved holy symbols around their doorframes, or had just plain left the Fortress. So far however, the witches had only been catching up on gossip. They'd yet to extract repayment for any ancient, unholy pacts.

The sound of a brief but energetic scuffle outside the door disturbed my silence. There was a heavily muffled cry of "you can't go in there, Na-!", and then a sharp crack, and then Nabooru entered the room, loud and unwelcome like a sandstorm. The flaming torch she was holding was almost snapped in two. Her arm was bleeding quite heavily.

"Your bodyguard was awful bitey today," she said with mild amusement, blood pouring down her arm and pooling on the storeroom floor.

"How did you even know I was down here?"

She waved the question away with her injured arm, which I was glad to see made her wince in pain. "You've been coming down here for years. Don't think I didn't know."

"You knew?"

"Sure. I watch you, you know."

"What?"

"When I get bored, I just watch you. Like from a rafter… or behind an urn…"

This was alarming, if true, considering how easily Nabooru got bored.

"No, you don't!" I choked.

"I hid behind that pile of Dodongo skins," she said, pointing and grinning. "You come down here to cry."

"No, I don't!"

"It sure sounded like crying."

"I wasn't crying!"

She shrugged. "If you say so. Hey, is that booze?" she said suddenly, noticing my collection of tea-brewing apparatus.

"It's…" Before I could finish, she'd already scooped up the small cup and drained it. "…It was tea. Hylian tea."

"Blegh! Hylian? No wonder it tastes so awful."

"You're supposed to dredge it first," I sighed. She put the empty cup back down; there were bloody fingerprints on its sides.

"Whatever. This is boring. Come look at this thing I killed."

"No. I'm relaxing. And you really aren't."

"This isn't relaxing, it's boring. You can drink your wee-water later. Come see this thing!"

Why was she never able to understand the simple fact that I could have her killed at a moment's notice? "Nabooru, you come down here…you knock out my guard… you drink my tea… "

"And now I'm taking you away from this dank room to see monster I done in before you turn even more pale and Hyliany. It'll be fun for both of us."

"I highly doubt that."

"Come ooon. You need to get out more."

Looking back on it now, a better comeback would have been to say "no, you need to get out more… Out of my kingdom!" and then sent her into exile. As it was, I just mumbled 'fine' and was dragged bodily out of the room, my tea-set scattered and crushed by the speed and force of my departure.

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Nabooru from atop the corpse of her kill, on which she was posing.

"Yes, very nice," I said bluntly. In truth, I was practically blind in the glare of the sun on the sand and had no idea what the stupid dead thing looked like. I hung back in the relative shade of one of the entrances to the fortress but even here I could feel myself shriveling up like a raisin.

"You're not even looking at it!"

I tried squinting at a different area of searing-bright yellow fuzz. "Am I looking at it now?"

"You could at least try to sound interested!" She sounded hurt. This was worrisome, as when Nabooru is hurt, people around her quickly begin to feel hurt too. Particularly me. In the head, face, and groin regions. But with the skin of my bare shoulders sizzling loudly in my ears, I didn't have the patience to humour her.

"I could sound interested if I could see the damn thing."

"How can you miss it?!"

"Is it big?"

"Huge!"

"What is it?"

"A Great Masked Sandworm. They're very rare."

"So a big sandworm," I said dryly. It was difficult to do anything wetly. Dehydration was already setting in after five minutes in the sun. I felt faint. "Excellent. I'll have a tapestry made. Can we go inside now?"

I heard her jump down from the body of the giant insect. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, the heat is killing me."

"No, about the tapestry."

"Seriously? You seriously want a tapestry?"

"Yes."

"Telling the story of how you kill a sandworm?"

"Yes. A giant sandworm."

"Sure. Fine."

It's likely the impending sun-stroke was impairing my judgment when I agreed to set aside several tons of cotton and hundreds of woman-hours to sate her ego. Certainly the sun had done a number on my knees, which were weakening by the second. I might have collapsed if Nabooru hadn't taken that moment to wrap her arms around my neck.

"Why are you choking me?! I already said you can have a tapestry."

"I'm hugging you, stupid."

"Oh... Well, I don't like it."

"Well, tough."

"If I promise not to have a tapestry made, will you stop the hugging?"

"Yes. But then I'll start the choking."

"Oh..."

"How long are hugs supposed to go on for?"

"I don't know. I never really studied this particular Hylian custom. Perhaps it's in relation to how grateful you are."

A few painfully awkward minutes passed.

"You really wanted a tapestry made, huh?"

"Yeah. I'd have your babies for a tapestry."

"Oh?"

"Four hundred babies."

"That's... a lot of babies."

"It'd be tiring but I think we could manage it."

I passed out from a combination of heat-stroke and excitement.