The Legend of Zelda: The Desert Heroes

II

Link woke up with a bad pain in his head. Ganon wasn't in his bed but that was probably because he had already left for work. He occasionally had to work early on some days.

Link himself hadn't started his job yet. He lived off of Ganondorf's money from the bar, had been for the last thirteen years. In return, he cooked and kept the house maintained.

The boy was nineteen so he was more than old enough for the available jobs. But Ganon didn't want Link to get a job yet because he was pretty much Link's caretaker. He didn't want Link to be too stressed.

So Link stayed home for the day. He left the hard work to Ganondorf and Link stuck with his usual activities.

The only time Link really had a job was when he was sixteen. He was in the Gerudo army as a knight. So he was able to be drafted if a war were to break out.

He was among the most talented knights, having bested every other knight in his class at the age of sixteen.

He was trained at the Gerudo Knight Academy. It was an academy as old as the legends of the Hyrule Warrior. It had been built by the Hyrule Warrior himself  as a school to teach young knights how to fight and was a place to go if you wanted to be guaranteed into the army.

If you wanted to be a marksman, one of the most prominent figures of marksmanship you studied was of a knight named Daylen and a past queen named Zelda. There were several journals written by both of them explaining how to use a bow and different techniques.

If you wanted to be a swordsman, then you studied the Hyrule Warrior. He wrote a few journals that explained different tactics to use when using a sword. He also wrote about how to hold a sword properly and what stance you should take when using certain sword or shield

If you wanted to be a spearsman, you studied a Gerudo man named Ganondorf and a Zora princess named Mipha. Link often joked about how Ganon had the same name as the spearsman.

Link looked up to the historical heroes of Hyrule. He was named after them but he was not going to be the next hero. His reason was that he was nineteen and a hero started fulfilling his fate when he was around sixteen or seventeen.

He looked at the bookshelf beside his bed where the collection of legend books stood.

Ganondorf had gave them to him when they were little because he didn't believe the legends. And frankly, Ganon didn't particularly like them either.

He claimed they were too cliché and enforced the "hero always gets the princess" concept.

Ganon always complained about how it was never the hero and the prince. It was always the hero and the princess.

Link's argument to this was the Legend of the Hyrule Warrior, who fell in love with a Gerudo King named Ganondorf. That would shut Ganon up for the moment.

The younger boy knew his friend was into men instead of women. He often advocated for the kind of stories where a man falls in love with another man instead of a woman.

Link secretly felt the same way, but he kept it hidden by saying that the stories Ganon wanted already existed and that he liked the current stories. Truth be told, he didn't know how to tell Ganondorf that he liked men and wanted the same kind of stories.

So don't say anything about it. Link's brain whispered. And so he didn't.

Link and Ganon were best friends so he had no reason to think that he would like Link any less. But still, the paranoia was there.

He sighed. Link started fixing breakfast, which was a crab omelet with rice and an egg omelet.

He ate in silence as he thought about his friend. Link wondered what these bubbly feelings in his chest were when he even thought about Ganon.

Link stabbed his fork into a piece of crab. It might just be anxiety that he will someday leave me. Or I could be sick. Maybe the infirmary could help. he considered curiously.

He decided against it. If it was just sickness or anxiety, he had medicine for that. Link reached into one of the kitchen cabinets and dug out his anxiety medicine.

He put the pill in his mouth and drank some water.

Link put his shoes on and went outside. He locked the door behind him. The boy started walking down the street. He emerged into the market, which was a center of trade in the Gerudo Desert.

He walked towards the entrance of the town. The guards stopped him as usual.

"Hey, where are you going?" they asked in a friendly tone.

"Kara Kara Bazaar. Gonna take a refreshing walk around there." Link answered. He knew these guards. Lanna and Merlin were their names.

"Be careful. We'll let Ganon know if he comes looking for you." Lanna said.

Link nodded. "Of course."

He walked towards the Kara Kara Bazaar which was off in the distance. Link was a citizen of Gerudo Town so he could leave and enter as he pleased. Male citizens were often asked for their business but were allowed to enter freely as well.

He was short for a Gerudo male of ninteen years. He was only six foot, seven inches. The only thing he onew about his parents were that they weren't the same race as each other. One was a Gerudo and the other was a Hylian.

They abandoned him in the streets of Gerudo Town when he was six so he had little memory of them.

His memories were of Ganondorf cooking for him, being taught the Gerudo dialect, and reading the legends of the heroes. Otherwise, his childhood was rather ordinary.

Link realized he still had the Legend of the Hyrule Warrior in his hands. He didn't know why but he felt like he needed to check something in the legend.

The mark on your hand last night. Link suddenly realized. He and Ganondorf both had golden triangles in the back of their hand.

He remembered something that talked about golden triangles.

When he got to the bazaar, he immediately went inside of Ghiraati's tent. Ghiraati looked up.

"Oh, hey, Link...? What's up?" he asked in confusion.

"I need to look at the legend of the Hyrule Warrior. Decided to do so while on a walk." Link said dismissively.

"Ah, studying. I'll leave you to it then. By all means, make yourself at home." Ghiraati responded welcomingly.

"Thank you." Link said gratefully.

He sat down on one of the carpets and opened the book. He flipped to a page towards the end that explained different terms in the legend.

One of them was a set of golden triangles called the Triforce.

Alright. What are you all about, Triforce? Link thought with a bout of determination.