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He looks to his Queen, who is gleaming in full armor, gold and shining like the power of the Triforce she carries in one hand. Her Majesty is a beacon in more ways than one, and today she's so beautiful that it makes his heart hurt.
Quietly, he asks, "Are you certain?"
He feels her look at him, knows the weight of her gaze like the touch of laurels upon his head. He knows she doesn't take his question as a sign of distrust, or an act of insubordination. He asks for his own sake, so he can feel the same clarity that his Queen does when setting him loose on the battlefield.
"Go," Her Majesty says gently. "Your triumph over this trial subverts a prophecy of ruin."
---
They die before they know he's even there. The servants of Calamity fall beneath his blade, waves of bokoblins and lizalfos melting away into magenta smoke by the dozens. He moves in a squad of three; him in the front, mowing down the enemy, clearing the grounds that Her Majesty points him towards. Following behind him are Impa and Purah, near-twin shadows that clean up the stragglers as he continually pushes forward.
He walks in half-seen blinks of speed, his body and sword as one, his strike as a scythe against the enemy. The inner lines are Yiga - former Sheikah and Hylian defectors. They're smarter, faster, blink-stepping as he does, but in puffs of incense and spell papers that scatter like clouds. Their blood is the rain that he cuts free, making pools and rivers around him that mark their progress. They don't vanish like the monsters do, and lay scattered where they fall, mangled and going cold.
His leathers are dark and soaked, gloves dappled with resin so he doesn't lose grip on his blade. His shield broke long ago, deflecting a moblin weapon larger than he was tall. It barely mattered, when he had his choice of replacements on the ground around him, hanging off limp limbs.
"Ser Knight," Impa says eventually, carefully, like she's repeating herself. "It's done."
He pants through the rush of his heartbeat in his ears, and pulls back out of the frenzy. They've reached the other end of the canyon path, and only the door to Yiga's hideout stands in front of him.
"Ser Knight?" Impa asks again.
He lets his sword drop to his side and finally turns around. The yellow sandstone canyon is filthy with blood, bodies and silence, the Queen's troops following behind them from a distance. He looks for Her, and easily spots her pure white horse, the gold and violet banners that frame her party. One of the soldiers bearing a standard raises a flag, then a different one, continuing to switch as Her Majesty's orders are relayed from afar.
Wait - secure - camp. And then, food - water.
The reminder brings him back to what his body is feeling beyond the strain of constant motion. The desert heat is oppressive, even in the shadow of the canyon walls. He sticks his bloody sword point-down in the sand and breathes for what feels like the first time since he left the forward camp. The air has the tang of metal, flaking like rust on his tongue.
"Here," Purah says, and then there's a waterskin and field rations in front of him. "You look ready to faint."
He feels disconnected more than anything, but that's usual for the breaks that are forced on him in mid-battle. His hands around the food and water feel like a stranger's, like he's watching them move and doesn't feel them. He wipes the sweat and gore away from his face, peels off his gloves and drops down on a rock to eat.
"Injuries?" Impa asks, crouching down in his line of sight. Close enough to talk quietly, but not set off the itchy sensation of threat threat threat that beats rhythmically in the back of his throat. "Any broken gear, other than the shield?"
He doesn't think so. He feels his skin prickling with a faint sensation, whole body throbbing from over-exertion. A strap on his shin plate dangles - cut, judging from the clean edges of the break - and his hair is partially undone, sticking to his forehead and getting in his mouth, but he doesn't notice anything else obviously out of place.
He shakes his head and drinks his water. Impa moves away.
By the time Her Majesty arrives, the strap is fixed and his hair is re-tied, and he's cleaned off his sword and put his gloves back on. He stands at attention with his eyes on the hideout, while Impa and Purah sit by the statues in the shade.
He has thoughts and a name again by the time he kneels before Her, waiting for his next direction.
Her Majesty joins him, with Robbie and the Gerudo escort party. Chief Urbosa is twice Her Majesty's height, but her eyes are kind and her smile is fierce. If respecting another country's leadership didn't feel so much like treason, he might have admitted he liked her.
"Ready, hero?" Chief Urbosa asks teasingly. Her scimitar is unsheathed and crackling faintly in one hand. He once thought the lightning came from the desert steel, but experience has taught him firsthand that the Gerudo Chief's fury is of Farosh itself.
He says nothing to answer her friendly grin, and waits for his Queen.
"The Yiga threat ends here," Her Majesty says. "The troops will hold the canyon while we clear the hideout. Kogha and Sooga must be captured or killed."
"Understood," he says. He rises to take point, and focuses on the fight ahead. It's close quarters, on enemy ground, and the Yiga are notorious for traps and tricks. It's altogether a different fight than losing himself in bloodlust, destroying all who come before him.
Her Majesty has her bow at the ready, and their small group enters the Hideout. "May the goddess smile on us," she murmurs, as they're going in.
And from Chief Urbosa, "May the Seven light our way."
----
They lay waste to the Yiga Hideout, but neither Kogha nor Sooga are there.
The half-victory leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.
He spends the night at Kara Kara Bazaar with the rest of the male soldiers. They're gathered around campfires on the east side of the oasis, laughing and drinking, talking with some of the locals.
He's alone in his tent, trying to get his hands to stop shaking.
---
The moon rises in full, and he takes off across the cool sands into the night. He's never gone south into the dunes, mostly because every Gerudo will warn travellers against doing so; the south dunes belong to moldugas, and they hear everything that walks on the sands above them.
He goes anyway. He picks voltfruit from cactuses on the way and eats them slowly, licking the juice from his fingertips and discarding the bitter rinds. It clears his mind enough to keep him focused, keep him following the stars toward the raised oasis where the old ruins are buried in the sands around it. In the distance a massive skeleton marks the beginning of the molduga boneyard, stretching off into the horizon.
Once he passes the first staggered line of pillars, the sands ahead of him shudder. A thrill rushes through him in response and sets aflame the first flickers of battlelust under his skin.
He climbs the closest pillar and looks out at the sands, trying to find meaning in the winding patterns made in the dunes. The night is calm, the wind is cooling, and he silently offers a prayer to the Goddess before making his first move.
He jumps down from the pillar and dashes for the next, heels kicking up high to keep him quick. The earth shakes, the sun-bleached bones rattle, and a massive shape pushes up under the sand, heading in a direct line toward him. The sand falls like whispers against itself, but the shape groans deep, like a cavern echoing within a mountain.
He keeps moving. He blink-steps as far as he can manage between one step and the next, and draws the creature into circling tighter and tighter behind him. The groaning turns to a growl, and a giant gnarled fin pushes up into view, followed by huge amber eyes and dusty maw of a molduga. It spots him and pursues, going quicker with the promise of getting a midnight meal.
The molduga lifts its head and roars.
In the instant that he can't be seen, he clambers up the curving side of a rib bone in the sand. The bones are longer than he is tall, and when he stands at the top of the arch it puts him at an even height with his prey.
The molduga mouth drops closed on nothing, snarling with disappointment. For him, it is the moment to strike, leaping off the rib bone and onto the molduga's head. His boots slide on its rough hide, and he grabs hold of a scale's edge to keep from toppling off completely. He knows to quickly search for a weak point, and only has so much time before the molduga gives up and disappears into hiding once more.
The creature roves angrily through the pillars and bones, looking for him. He crouch-crawls higher to the crest of its head, vaults over, and slides down its brow in one smooth motion. He crashes into the spiny scales protecting the molduga's eyes and loses his breath, taking the hit entirely in his stomach. Lights dance in his vision while he unsheathes his sword, and leans around the spines to stab it in the eye.
It thrashes, wails, squirming with its fin fluttering violently in pain. He stabs again, and again, and is just about to slip away into the frenzy when the molduga launches itself into the air and he is thrown from its back.
He flips smoothly and lands on his feet. The molduga squirms on its side on top of the sand, and he blink-steps close to the soft expanse of its underbelly. The hide is significantly weaker there, buttery-soft and scaleless. Unprotected once exposed.
It's too easy to let go of thinking and give himself over to the kill.
----
He offers the fins and eyes of the molduga to the outdoor altar at the Temple of the Seven Heroines. To the head priestess he gives the guts (a rare prize, and powerful healing ingredient) and she helps him prepare the molduga's heart for ritual eating.
He did the hunting, made the kill, and brought the offerings, so he gets the first bites and best parts of the flesh. The rest he invites the temple warriors to finish, and they all dine together on the beast's lifeforce and power.
It's Urbosa who finds him outside the temple, on his way back to Kara Kara just as the sun is rising.
"It's a shame you're Hylian," she says with a smile. "And a voe, especially." The Chieftain shines gold in the moonlight, gleaming with every shift of the wind around them. She looks so much like Her Majesty in the moment that it stops him mid-step, unintentionally inviting her closer.
The fire in his veins has finally quieted, and his voice is even when he replies to her - perhaps for the first time. "I didn't know you'd be here - I would've shared the meal."
"Honored, truly." She sounds it, her lilting voice wrapping around Hylian syllables that are far less elegant than her native Gerudo. "But I would hunt one myself, if I so wish."
"Of course." He inclines his head, mostly in apology. He hadn't meant to imply otherwise.
Urbosa waves a hand between them, dismissing any misunderstanding that could have developed. "I'm not your queen, save your high court manners," she laughs, head thrown back. Another flash of gold draws his attention again; her earrings and collar shining in the moonlight. He has to force his gaze away. "We're warriors," she says, "So let us speak as such."
That, at least, he can do without thinking. He feels his back go a little straighter when he asks, "Do you need something?"
He doesn't come to attention, but Urbosa's eyes follow him, seeing the impulse under his skin. She doesn't comment on it, and he shoves down the guilty feeling that calls him a traitor for having unintentional clandestine meetings with foreign royalty.
She invites him to walk with her, starting down the beaten path leading back to the bazaar. "Relax, hero. I'm only seeking conversation."
"That's...not something I'm known for," he says wryly.
"All the better," Urbosa replies, "For you spend your words carefully."
They walk in silence for a while, not unusual for him, but she doesn't seem to mind. If he knew how to feel nervous, he might have been, but instead there's only a churning in his stomach like he's swallowed live butterflies.
"I don't know what I can say that you do not already know," he says at length. It's truth and a warning in one - he is only a soldier, and if he was privy to any secrets, he wouldn't share them.
"If I wanted to hear what I know, I'd talk to myself," she sighs. "This isn't an interrogation, voe."
"Yes, Honorable Chief."
She sighs at him again and comes to a stop. He forces himself to continue a few steps instead of hanging back, because she is not his queen and he does not stand at her defence. Again, she doesn't seem to mind his behaviour. Instead she says, "Advice, young one, whether you heed it or not - there will always come a time when we cannot stand on our own. Even for people like you and me."
He risks a look in her direction, and finds her already gazing back at him. There is an understanding in her eyes that he doesn't know what to do with, and it burns through him like Goron spice - hot, but not unpleasant.
"I've walked the south dunes many times," she says, "Sword in hand, or, like you, with only my fury. Imagine my surprise to find another out here at the peak of night, honoring the old ways."
His throat goes dry. "You also-?"
"I also. It would have been a waste of meat to kill another and offer it to the temple tonight."
"I apologise." She is not his queen, but he thinks maybe he has misstepped anyway.
She seems to hear his thoughts and shakes her head. "Don't. If not for after-dinner politicking, perhaps it would have been me on the back of a sand worm, and you watching from the oasis wall. I've grown slow."
He takes her words for what it is - an offer of comradery and gentle teasing. He feels himself weaken slightly at her persistence and gives in. Just a little. "'Slow' must mean something else in Gerudo. Like ga'nenon," he murmurs, choosing the phrase for 'coming storm'.
She laughs heartily, and he lets himself feel a small prickle of satisfaction. They start walking again, the air between them lighter and the lights of Kara Kara much closer. They are almost at the fork in the path that would separate toward the town and the bazaar.
"You do not seem to have brothers-in-arms among your people," she observes. "Those that avoid fire, also avoid its warmth."
He isn't sure if she means that the soldiers are avoiding him, or that he is avoiding them. He isn't sure if he could deny it either way. "I go where my Queen asks. Some go only when She commands."
"Some would say those are both the same thing."
"Yes, Honorable Chief."
Her voice is firm this time. "You know I am called Urbosa. It is only us and the sand here right now."
He hesitates, which is a habit that he cannot afford to develop. He wants to place a limit between them, but cannot deny that her offers of friendship are...tempting. He quietly admires her in a way he does not - and cannot - admire his Queen, and she is as good as his Queen's adoptive mother. Surely She would not protest…
Urbosa leans toward him, always glittering, still full of good humor. "Would you feel better if we arm wrestled? I hear that Hylian soldiers consider it a rite of passage between one another."
He smiles, "I...suppose that's accurate enough. But I think we both know what the outcome of that will be."
"Oh, confident aren't you?" She's clearly purposely misunderstanding him. Like all Gerudo, she is broad shouldered and broad hipped, paragons of strength and beauty purely by existing. Of all of them, Urbosa is the greatest.
"Yes," he says, because he is realistic about his own self-awareness. "But I know when I'm beat."
This gives her pause, and she examines him for a long moment, perhaps deciding if he's humouring her or simply being honest. Her tone is a little neutral when she says, "They say the One Who Bears the Sword is unbeatable."
Legend and rumour have a lot of things to say about the sword bearer, he knows. Not all of it is true, and not all of it is lies. That Chieftain Urbosa may not know where the line lies between fact and fiction, and doesn't seem to care, finally makes him finally accept her offer.
"Maybe." He turns to face her fully, looking up at the curious expression in her face. "But...I'm Link."
It earns him another pleased smile, one that curves widely over her ruby-tinted lips. "And so you are."