The sun had become his sworn enemy. It sat high overhead, a brazen, burning, beacon of gold in the afternoon sky; cooking the earth, simmering the horizon, baking the sands, and slowly but surely draining the life from him. Wherever he looked, whatever direction, he could see the heat lifting from the earth in distorted waves, as if the land had become one, giant, frying pan, and now his fate was to be slowly cooked upon it. On the western horizon, sand dunes rolled on for an eternity in undulating, golden, waves. To the East, a flat stretch of valley that ended in a rise of spired mountain peaks, a thousand meters separating him and them with nothing but sand and more sand along the way. Behind him, the sandstorm he'd fled from raged on, swallowing the world up in its wrath and fury and leaving only one option: forward, always forward.

Link mustered what strength he could to dig his heels into Epona's sides. His steed was carrying him along, but just barely, and he knew it wouldn't be long before his weight grew too much for her and he would have to dismount. He'd already shed every last saddle bag he'd brought, and not long after, the saddle itself. He'd also removed his tunic and his boots, stripping down to nothing but his breeches and a thin blanket he'd tied around his shoulders and hooded himself with to guard from the sun's might, but even with all that lost encumbrance, he still felt Epona's strength waning with every step forward she took.

The shield, he thought, glancing back at the last two things he had left. And the sword. They have to go. Have to… lose weight. If he discarded them though… and came upon something dangerous… well, it was as good as discarding his life there and then. It was a decision, however, he'd have to make sooner rather than later. For Epona's sake if nothing else.

His hand fell to her mane and stroked up and down, letting the soft hair slip in and out of his fingers before moving aside to the shorter bristles sprouting from her shoulder blades and giving a squeeze. "It's going to be… alright, Epona," he croaked from a throat that had turned to sand paper, from lips that had dried and cracked over so many times they no longer felt like his own. He squinted into the horizon and watched the heat lift shimmering claws of death out of the sand in wavy lines. Overhead, vultures were swarming the skies: hungry, waiting. "It's… going to be… alright," he repeated, though whether telling his steed or himself then… he could not say.

If only the storm hadn't come. If only it hadn't gotten them all twisted around. If only he'd brought more water. If… if… if.

Slowly, he leaned forward and laid his head against Epona's mane. Her hair was so soft on his cheek, it felt like a pillow. The notion sent a faint smile tugging at the corners of his chapped lips. His eyelids felt as if they were made of steel. He needed to shut them to preserve energy. And it was hot; so hot. If only he could rest for a while. Rest and regain his strength. Some stronger part of him left alive inside the burning shell of his body told him 'No', but before long, his eyes fell shut anyway. Epona's steps were slow but steady, and each hoof that plotted into the sand send a gentle tremor up against his cheek and temple. The sensation was relaxing; the most relaxing thing in the world.

And not longer after, he drifted into a deep, deep, sleep.

At some point his eyes opened, though how much time had passed since they'd closed he did not know. He was laying in the sand. It was incredibly hot against his bare back. He groaned and pulled his legs up and it cooked the soles of his bare feet just the same as his back. He tried to rise to escape the heat, but their was no strength in him still and he had to resolve to simply lying there being cooked. He squinted and made his head turn. Epona was there, waiting at his side, chasing off the occasional vulture that strayed too close to him.

Good girl, he thought, closed his eyes, and drifted again before long.

When his eyes opened next, he found a woman's face filling his vision. Link groaned and meekly lifted a hand to test the reality of the image, but a strong grip took him by the wrist and forced his hand back to his side.

"He's alive," the face said.

Link's vision blurred, focused, blurred again, and finally righted itself long enough for him to see the face clearly. It was most certainly a woman's. She had dark, auburn, hair tied into a what looked like a very tight ponytail behind her head and bronze skin that looked as golden and smooth as the sand itself. Her nose, mouth, and jaw were concealed beneath a veil of plum-colored silk, and when she talked, Link could see little tufts of air puffing the fabric up and down over the contours of her lips. Her ears were pointed, like his own, and a thin, silver, crown ran the length of her brow; a bright, yellow, gem adorned in its center. There was a choker around her neck of a similar plum color, but anything lower he could not muster the strength to lift his head and see.

"Who…?" He croaked, and ran out of energy before he could say any more.

"Water," the woman commanded; her voice as austere as her hairdo.

A moment later a skin of water was coming dangling up over his lips and Link's entire body came alive with desperation. A new strength filled him just enough to purse his lips and lean in to accept the skin's nozzle. Water—wonderful, pure, fresh, delicious, crisp, water—filled his mouth, his throat, his belly. He drank as much as a man could without breathing, pulled away to catch his wind, and went back for more. Immediately he could feel his energy returning to him. He'd never thought in a millions years something as simple as a drink of water could so profoundly affect his entire body, his entire mind: he was coming back to life.

The woman pulled the canteen from his lips and let the last bit trickle over his brow and into his hair and down across his neck and chest. It felt absolutely wonderful, and Link lied back against the sand, taking in the immense pleasure of it as his strength came slowly galloping back to him.

"Epona," he said from a throat that felt in ten times better condition than it had a moment before. "My horse. My horses needs water, too."

"Your horse has been taken care of," the woman said; her silky mask puffing up and down as she talked. "We Gerudo treat our horses very well."

Gerudo… the name was familiar, but Link was still far too exhausted to stress his mind and think any further on it. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you. What is your name?"

"That sword and shield," the woman began, ignoring his question, her dark eyes boring down and sweeping him over from head-to-toe with what might have been scrutinization. "They are yours?"

Link swallowed. He nodded.

The woman returned the gesture. "And how do you feel?"

"Better," Link answered at once. "I was… going to die. You saved my life. I feel my strength returning to me by the second. Epona and I… we were caught in the sandstorm and-"

"Aveil!" The woman shouted back over her shoulder, again ignoring Link entirely. "Bring me rope. Lots of it."

"Rope?" Link echoed, finding the woman's request utterly perplexing. "What do you need rope for?"

"Silence," she commanded in that same, strict, tone she'd used to fetch him water.

Suddenly, Link didn't feel comfortable lying on his back below the woman any longer. He made to get his elbows under him and stand and-

-the woman pinned him back against the sand with her elbow. He tried to move it aside, but her strength was deceptive for someone so ostensibly thin. His eyes moved to the copper arms poking out from the silk blouse wrapping her chest and found them toned and rippling with muscle as they worked to hold him in place. He tried again to lift himself, but she denied him by simply reapplying the pressure more firmly.

"What are you doing?" Link asked.

"Tying you up," she told him as a rope was passed her way from another bronze-skinned woman; this one in red silks instead of plum ones.

"Tying me..? Why?" Link asked. "You saved my life. I swear I won't try to-"

"Silence," she demanded, and her elbow dug deeper into his chest until it a bolt of pain coursed through it. "Telma! Fetch me a gag to silence him while I bind him."

And without further hesitation, the woman looped a coil of rope up, took his hands by the wrists, and slipped it over them. Link tried pulling away, but his strength had not returned yet in its entirety, and the woman worked quick and efficient anyway. Before he'd even had time to protest, his hands were bound before him so tightly he couldn't imagine freeing himself from the restraints without aid. With his hands secure, the woman eased up on his chest, took him by the back of the neck, and flipped him onto his stomach. The sand chewed at his bare abdomen with its scorching teeth, but Link only felt the ropes then; wrapping his arms down against his torso from his shoulders to his elbows to his waist. When she'd finished on his upper body, he felt her take hold of his feet and force them together to bind him at the ankles before moving up to fasten ropes above and below his knees.

All the while, Link was helpless but to lie there and allow the woman to have her way with him, twisting him one way to secure a rope one moment, maneuvering him another to cinch a tie the next, rolling him side to side to fasten her work and tuck away any loose ends the binds had left, and with every tug of every knot, Link felt his freedom vanishing further and further into nonexistence.

When it was finished, and Link was bound up so tightly he couldn't move a muscle besides slightly jerking his shoulders up and down and kicking his feet about a little below the ropes around his ankles, the woman sat him up and squared his shoulders before her own.

Link's strength was nearly all back to him then—not like it mattered in his prison of ropes—and with it came a fresh surge of anger. "Why are you doing this to me!?" He asked, a bit louder than he'd intended. "Why did you tie me up like this? I've done nothing to any of you! Do you hear me? I haven't-"

"The gag," the woman calmly requested, and a white knotted kerchief was placed in her open palm at once. She leaned forth and tucked the thick knot between Link's lips and teeth before he could voice another word of protest. She took up the loose ends and joined them around at the back of his head before tying them off, sealing the gag tightly in place.

"Grmmph!" Link grunted, biting angrily down on the knot wedged between his teeth and jerking against the ropes that bound him. "Mmf! Ermph!"

The woman's dark eyes held his own, and though he couldn't see her mouth beneath the silk mask tied over it, he could see the smile in her eyes. "This one has quite a bit of fight in him when he's not dying of thirst," she said, her tone growing playful and almost sardonic now that he was utterly helpless and no longer a threat. "A good catch."

From over her shoulder, more women came, all women, and they were all dressed in similar attire too. Wavy, loose, blouses of varying colors draped around thin, but muscular, frames. Toned and copper or bronze abdomens below. Baggy pants fasted to their narrow waists with wide, black, belts. Some wore boots with pointed toes, others strappy silver sandals, others black flats. Each of the half-dozen or so also wore jeweled necklaces around their throats and rings around their fingers above wrist guards or bracelets. All of their lower faces were concealed under silk veils, but each had pointed ears and dark eyeliner rimming green or brown eyes and red hair in varying shades; some light as if kissed by sun; some dark as if bathed in shadow.

And most importantly: every one of the women was staring down at him with the same, hungry, playful, look etched into the features of what was visible of their faces.

"He's cute," one of them said.

The others looked to her briefly before tittering and snickering beneath their masks.

"Such fair skin too," another added, stepping a bit closer to prod at his side with the toe of her boot.

"And all tied up nice and tight," said a third as she knelt in the sand near his chest and cocked her head as she studied him.

"What should we do with this poor, helpless, young man whose fallen into our possession, Jolene?" Another asked.

The woman with the plum-colored mask who had bound him up in the first place was apparently named Jolene, as she was the woman who answered the question after a short laugh. "Get him on the back of a saddle, girls." Her eyes held his and a mischievous twinkle played within. "We're taking this one home."

With a gag in his mouth and enough ropes around his arms and legs to ensure he was powerless over his own limbs, there was not much Link could do to try and stop the women from taking him. They had an easy enough time hoisting his weight up to spread out evenly between them; one women cradling his feet under her arm, another wrapping her own arms around his chest, and two more on either of his sides to help balance him out. They giggled and conversed casually with one another as they lugged him to the back of a horse, worked him up over the saddle, and bound him down to the creature on his stomach so that he was essentially hogtied to the back of the horse.

One of the women stepped before him and lowered to his eyeline. There was a curiosity housed in her eyes as her hand reached for his cheek and stroked it with the back of her knuckles. Link grumbled and mumbled into his gag, shaking his head from side-to-side as if it could actually loosen the women's prodding fingers from his cheek. She snickered and stepped away after tormenting him for a few more seconds.

Not longer after he was tied down to the horse, the group of women's leader, Jolene, dug her sandaled foot into a stirrup and swung up onto the steed's saddle. Link chewed his gag and glared up at her the best he could as she turned back to him and said, "Your horse has been taken back to our village. We will treat her good… if you behave yourself. Don't make this trip harder on my own horse than it has to and she'll be well fed tonight. Understand?"

Link glowered.

"Make a noise if you understand me."

He held her eyes, hating her, wanting with everything in him to refuse her request, but the woman only stared and stared. "Mmf!" Link grunted, finally succumbing to her demand, eager to be rid of her baleful eyes.

"Good," she said, and he could see that smile playing at her cheekbones again. "We ride!" She shouted, and the pack of women spurred into action at her command, digging their heels into their steeds in unison, sending up a cloud of sand as they all moved forward as one.

The ride hogtied atop the back of the horse was bumpy, uncomfortable, and at times even painful, but at least it was brief. Link had to keep his eyes shut for most of the ride to keep the sand out of them, but it wasn't as if there much to see except sand anyway, and when the horse's hooves finally slowed their beating against the earth and Link was able to pry his lids to cracks one more, he could see they had crested a large dune that sloped down into a valley, and at the valley's heart, a village of brown stones and tents and carpets and palm trees and a central fountain had been erected. "Hya!" Jolene shouted and spurred her horse forth to begin the long descent into the valley.

When the slope ended, and their traversal leveled out again, Link hoisted his head up to watch the approaching village grow out of the horizon. He saw, with a surge of incredulity, that even more women were emerging from their erected tents and out of a three-story fortress of stone at the village's rear to come and greet the six returning to them. He could not be sure, but he thought there might be as many as two dozen of the women in total. Their eyes landed quickly on him, narrowing shrewdly or blossoming with curiosity as he was hauled forward in his hogtie.

Jolene led their group through a narrow channel of tents and carpets to the foot of a stone oval at the village's center, where—somehow—a fountain was geysering over with clean and clear lapis water; its crowning ornament a sculpture of the sun intertwined with a crescent moon.

When the woman finally pulled up on the reins of her steed and brought them to a halt, Link craned his neck around, taking in as much of his surroundings as he could. He could see the golden dunes mounding up all around them on the horizon, as if the sand had swallowed them into the belly of the desert. Wherever the land had leveled out, however, the women had raised and architected varying structures. He spotted tents and huts and brick buildings of a dozen different sizes and shapes. There was a rack of spears and leather-banded shields in the center of a pair of flanking brown tents beside the fountain. Lined below the hulking stone fortress at the village's rear were the stables and pens, filled with the women's horses and a few pigs. Looming behind them, backdropped against the canvas of pale blue sky, the fortress watched over the scene like an ancient and vigilant protector. Link narrowed his eyes into the shadowed windows peeking out from the three stories, but spotted—thankfully-no one stirring within.

And sprouting up intermittently from the sands all around them were palm trees, but how exactly any life managed to grow so far out here in the barren lands of the desert, Link did not know.

"Well, look here! What have you brought us back this time, Jo?" A barefoot women in loose-fitting cream trousers asked, emerging from a nearby tent and sauntering up close to the horse with her eyes locked on Link's own. To his relief, she wore no mask like the riders, and so Link found an amused smile playing at her full lips. "A man?"

"Not just a man," Jolene explained with a hint of pride in her voice. She swung down from the horse and strolled up to lay her hand on Link's bare shoulder, as if displaying a prize. She hooked her index finger under her mask and slipped it down around her neck to reveal the same, cruelly delighted, smile and fix it upon him. "But the best kind of man."

The cream-trousered woman laughed. "The best kind of man? What kind of man is that, Jo?"

"Why, a bound and gagged one!"

A smattering of laughter moved through the quickly-forming crowd around the horses. Link surveyed the small village clearing as it filled in more and more, and feared his original calculation of two dozen women might have been painfully undercounted. They were coming from everywhere; every tent, every building, every lane, they were padding forth to stare at him with interest and curiosity.

A youthful woman with hazel eyes and big, silver, hoops hanging from her pointed ears peeked around her friend's shoulder and grinned. "My my my, look at this… what's his name?"

"We never got his name," one of the riders explained as she dismounted. "Jo tied that gag in his mouth so quickly, we barely heard him talk at all."

One of the village girls asked: "What are we going to do with him?"

Another questioned: "Can we keep him?"

"We're not going to let him escape like the others, right Jo?"

"Yeah. Not like those others. If we're going to keep him, we have to keep him locked up tight."

"Oh, yes, and guarded!"

"Right! Guarded! We'll keep him locked away and tied up tight and guarded at all times."

"I'll guard him."

"I want to guard him!"

"Me too!"

"I want to be his guard! It was my idea!"

"Would all of you just shut up!" Jolene snapped, and her commanding voice quieted the crowd down fast. "There's plenty of time to talk about what we're going to do with our captive, but for now, get him off the back of that horse. I figure we'll tie him up out here by the fountain so anyone who wants to get a look at him can." She faced Link and cupped his chin in her hand. "And you… you just keep quiet and behave yourself… or you will be punished."

Link bit his gag and glared, but stayed silent and did not struggle. He had no idea what the woman was capable of, and didn't feel like pressing his luck.

A few of the women gathered together to remove him from the horse and return him to their hands. They cradled him between them like before and hauled him to a big, red and gold, carpet that had clearly been hand-knotted and was trimmed with silver fray and elaborate decorations around its perimeter splayed out before the fountain and shaded by a nearby palm tree. The girls lowered him onto his butt before sliding him back against a wooden stake, pinning him up against it, and pulling out lengths of rope to tie him up to it. They looped the ropes around and around until he was tightly bound to the stake, then they took him by the feet and pulled until his legs were stretched out as far as they could go and tethered his ankles to another stake. When they finished, he was seated on the carpet beneath the shade with his feet at one end and his body at the other. He looked from girl to girl, desperate to find someone with a trace of sympathy for his situation.

"His eyes are so pretty," one of the girls hovering over him with her hands on her hips said.

"So blue," another added.

"Like the sky."

"Or the ocean."

"Alright, enough," Jolene interjected. "Leave him there for the others to come see while we eat. And to the rest of you," she shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth to carry her voice extra far around the village. "No one is to remove the prisoner's ropes or gag. He's to remain still and silent. No exceptions." Her eyes narrowed shrewdly onto a few women in the crowd. "And you cannot touch him either."

A chorus of disappointed groans moved through the girls and Link's brow lifted almost involuntarily as they pressed the circle in a bit tighter on his position to voice complaint.

"No fair, Jo!"

"That's cruel!"

"You can't put him on display like that and expect us to behave ourselves!"

"Let us touch him a little, maybe."

"Yes, just a little!"

"Just a taste!"

Jolene rolled her eyes. She sneered and pursed her lips as her gaze shifted with annoyance back towards Link and looked him over. "You can… touch his arms or his calves or his feet. Nothing else. Do you hear me, girls? Nothing else."

A smattering of agreement made its way through the crowd and Jolene looked satisfied enough with the response. She nodded, cast one last baleful flick of her eyes in Link's direction, and led her group of riders off towards a large tent erected at the base of the slope they'd ridden down.

The riders vanished into the shade of the tent, and the women began coming forth at once.

The first two practically toppled over one another as they dipped beneath the overhanging canvas and fell to their knees atop the carpet on either side of Link's outstretched legs. Link flicked his eyes cautiously between the two of them. He writhed a bit against the stake and frowned as they stared. The ropes were so tight around his body, though, he couldn't move more than an inch in any direction, and settled down at once to conserve energy.

"Mrhmfr!" He mumbled into his gag, working his jaw around, trying desperately to get them to let him speak. "Hrmf! Grm mmrmf mmrf mmmph!"

"He's the cutest one yet," one of the girls said as her eyes widened on his own. She had light hair and bright green eyes and like a few others, wore no mask on her face. She was biting at her lip as she looked Link over from his feet to his legs to his body and, finally, to stare at his face again.

"All men can be handsome or cute with gags in their mouths," the other girl—this one with a high bun of dark hair over her head and purple eyeshadow—added. "Just remember, he might be like our last slave we had for awhile. Sweet as honeyed wine when he couldn't talk, but when the gag came out… he was a terribly cruel thing."

Slave. Link couldn't help but focus on that word. It sent his stomach into knots and all of a sudden, his ropes felt tighter than they had the entire time he'd been wearing them.

"This one has soft and gentle eyes, though. Blue like water. And long lashes, like a woman's. Maybe… maybe he has the caring heart of a woman as well."

"Ha. Like Jo's heart?"

Both girls snickered.

"Well, no. Not like that."

A silence fell between them, and both girls took the opportunity to begin looking him over again. The one with the bright green eyes stuck her hand out tentatively for his shin and, after a moment's hesitation as her gaze flicked between his face and his legs, laid it gently just below his knee. Her fingers were surprisingly soft as they trickled up and down his leg twice before curving down around his ankle bone, and cupping one of his feet. She grinned and dragged her nails up along the arch of his bare foot.

"Mmf!" Link grunted, involuntarily spasming a bit and shaking his head. He tried tucking his legs in, but the ropes kept him where he was.

The other girl tittered and reached for his arm. She took hold of him just around the shoulder and began stroking the bare flesh there down to the elbow. "Don't torture the poor thing, Kotake," she cooed. "At least… not yet. We don't want him to hate us before he loves us, after all."

The bright-eyed girl—Kotake, apparently—bit at her lip again and fixed her eyes wildly on Link's. "Do you like to be teased and tortured, mystery man?"

Link frowned. He debated not even bothering to reply to such an asinine question, but decided against it and simply shook his head.

"Ooooh, no?" Kotake cooed and raised her brow in what might have been mock sympathy. "That's too bad." She grinned. "For you."

"Oh, stop Kotake, you're scaring him," the other woman interjected.

"I don't have to stop, Gale!" Kotake whined. "Jo said! She said we could touch his arms and feet if we wanted, and I want to tickle them!" She giggled. "I want to torturehim a little. It's been so long since we've had a proper slave." Her eyes narrowed. "Especially one as cute as him…"

"Stop hogging him you two!" A voice protested from the crowed behind them. "You've had enough! Give the rest of us a chance to seem him up close!"

Kotake grimaced and rolled her eyes before fixing them on Link again. "Looks like your safe… for now, handsome." She winked, bit at her lip, and was practically dragged off by her friend when her hand reached for his face.

More women came and went in small groups then, but thankfully none were as… 'adventurous' as the Kotake woman. They all touched and groped and rubbed at his arms and legs and feet, but the most daring any of the others got was to 'accidentally' slip her fingers over his shoulder to briefly touch his bare chest. They talked to each other and sometimes to him as well, as if he weren't tightly gagged and unable to respond in the slightest. They laughed and joked and whispered suggestive things as their fingers trickled along his flesh, but after ten groupings of girls or so, his visitors finally began tapering off; though, all around the village, Link spotted the women's eyes persistently finding their way back to him, like moths drawn to flame. They stared hungrily and eagerly, but kept their distance as they chewed their bottom lips, and coiled strands of auburn hair around their copper fingertips, and burrowed little trenches in the sand underfoot with their toes, and slid their slender fingers along their bare midriffs.

All in all, the girls looked more ready to descend upon him then the vultures in the desert had.

As the sun was finally sinking below the western sand dunes, sending radiant red light clawing down into village between the crests and mounds, Jolene and her riders emerged from the big tent again and traipsed back through the camp to clutter around Link. The rest of the girls in the village kept their distance, but watched with profound interest stirring in their amorous eyes.

Jolene stood looming over him a moment with her hands planted atop her hips, as if to assert her dominance. Link stared right back at her, but tied down, half-naked, and gagged, he felt he was returning none of the power Jolene was exuding over him. She crouched, lowering herself to the line of his eyes. Her head cocked ever-so-slightly on its side as she spoke. "Listen to me, prisoner. We've captured and subdued you. For all intents and purposes… you belong to us. But the Gerudo are prideful, and we will not accept your enslavement so easily." She leaned a bit closer and unsheathed a dagger to dangle before his eyes. "I'm going to remove your binds now, and then you and I are going to spar. No weapons. If you can hold my shoulders to the sand for three heartbeats… you'll be free to go."

A chorus of jeers and groans erupted from the crowd of girls around them.

Jolene held a fist skywards to silence them. "However… if you cannot… and you submit to me… you become the property of my girls and I. You become a Gerudo slave."

The women cheered and clapped then, their previous dissatisfaction forgotten in an instant.

Jolene smirked. "Well, what say you to that?"

She reached around the back of his head and untied his gag. When the knot came away from between his teeth, Link licked his lips and nodded his head. What other choice did he have then but to accept? "Alright… I'll spar."

Without another word, her dagger slipped between his wrists and sliced upwards, and just like that his hands were freed. She cut the ropes binding his torso before moving to his legs and slicing apart all the ropes there as well. Link reached back and took the stake he'd been bound to for support to lift himself to his feet. He could feel the girl's eyes, if possible, even more intently watching him then. When his legs were under him and supporting his weight again (though not without a bit of wobble first since he hadn't used them in so long) Link felt better than he had since the sandstorm had gotten him all twisted around and sent him right into the waiting arms of these Gerudo women in the first place. He stretched his arms over his head, noting the way the girls' eyes hungrily swept across his bare chest and stomach as he did so, and stepped off the carpet and onto the sand.

Jolene was waiting there across a little clearing. The other Gerudo had circled in to form a sort of 'combat pit' between them, and stood staring with their arms folded across their chests, as if judging the battle… or, perhaps, just judging him. Jolene slipped out of her sandals and stepped barefoot into the center of the circle. She tightened her ponytail and smirked. "Come then, slave. Come and be dominated by your master."

Link retained his composure. "Rules?"

Jolene shook her head. "None. Simply pin me down… if you can."

Link squinted, wary of some trick or deceit.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Fine, slave," she said, lowering slowly to plant her knees in the sand. "I will kneel before you. There. Are you still so afraid? Am I still so imposing?"

A few of the girls on the perimeter chortled into their hands. Most simply watched with rapt attention.

"Come, slave. I'm on my knees," Jolene repeated.

Link took a cautious step forward-

-and Jolene scooped a handful of sand and flung it into his face. Link shielded his eyes and squeezed them shut to protect himself, but could not stop the attack entirely from working its way under his eyelids. He grunted and stepped back, swatting blindly before him, but the next attack did not come from his front: it came from his side. Jolene must have maneuvered around him right after the sand throw, for he felt her shoulder spear his ribs and drive him to the ground. He landed hard on his arm and received a mouthful of sand, but before he could so much as process that, Jolene's thin, sinewy, body was climbing up onto his chest to mount him. Link roared and bucked his hips, sending her weight off balance and providing him just enough time to squirm out from under one of her knees and take hold of her arm. He wrenched it back and heard her yelp, but her free hand took a fistful of his hair and forced his head down to the sand again. Link twisted to his side to escape her, but she moved to counter his momentum with her own, and the two came locked briefly in a battle of pure strength.

If, perhaps, Link hadn't nearly died of thirst not an hour earlier and hadn't then spent the following hour wrapped head to toe in ropes, he might have overpowered her. But, alas, that was not the case, and Jolene managed to work him back down to the sand, take hold of his arm at the wrist, and twist it back, flipping him onto his side and locking his torso down with her knee. She wrenched back his arm and Link shouted in pain. She laid her foot across his cheek and pressed his face down into the sands so that every breath Link drew, he received at least a partial lung-full of sand as well.

"Submit, slave!" Jolene snapped.

"Argh!" Link roared, trying desperately to break free from the hold.

The woman's foot pressed harder on his cheek, her heel driving painfully against his jawline. His arm was yanked back further and further. It was hard to breath with all the sand in his mouth, but it was also impossible not to with all the pain being driven into his shoulder.

"Submit!"

Link squeezed his eyes as hard as he could to fight through the pain. He was grounding his teeth so hard, he felt they might shatter. But he would not submit. Could not. Instead, he let his entire body go limp just long enough for the woman to ease up a bit on her hold, then threw his weight to his side with everything in him. Jolene was caught unaware, and went tumbling down to the sand. Link wasted no time and scrambled up on top of her, ignoring the pain in his shoulder blade. He mounted her as she tried to rise and shoved her back to the sand, leaning forth to set all his weight over her.

The woman had anticipated the attack, however, and tucked her knees up between them before unfolding them again and jutting her feet up and out to either side of Link's head. Her legs back behind him, and she immediately pinched her thighs together, capturing Link's neck between them and squeezing.

Link felt his air choked off at once. His hands clawed for her inner thighs to pry them apart, but her leg muscles were strong and brawny, and Link needed the oxygen they were denying him badly.

He fell to his knees.

"Submit!" The woman growled, her face as red as the setting sun behind her.

If Link could have spoken, he would have said 'No', but he could not talk, for he was falling again down that slippery slope of unconsciousness, and into a deep and dark chasm of blackness.