A Birthday Surprise

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• Datura [Sinistrari]
• Remei [Electronic Ink]

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The night was young and wild. The looming chains and their monstrous anchors groaning in the biting gales despite their incredible weight. Searchlights glided across the black waters illuminating nothing but curdling foam and the occasional shark fin as it glided out of sight. All the while the moon waned overhead through thin straggles of smoky cloud.

Datura’s only companions were the oars in her sore palms and the mermaid hiss of waves crashing against sharp stone as she approached the Forsaken Fortress. Cold and ominous; her home was just how she remembered it and worse.

For a long while – too long – it had been nothing but a memory, tucked deep into the recesses of her wilfully ignorant mind with all the bitter pains that came with it. But this wasn’t just the imagining of a young girl or something magicked up from a granma’s tale in front of the warmth of a cackling fire. This was real. Every speck of wet, lethal stone and broken shard of vessel was real. She could already smell the stench of the moblins and corruption that awaited her within.

And this is where I abandoned my daughter.

Remorse splintered her expression but there was no use in tears of self-indulgence: they would help no-one save herself. It was time to face the music. Come what may she had to at least see Remei. No excuses. No attempts to steal her. She’d respect her wishes and allow her to vent whatever frustration and wounded fury the young girl had likely held rotting in her bosom all this time. It was the least she could do.

Since when did so much time pass? Why did it take me so long to muster up the courage to come back here? Did she fear capture forever, or worse? Her ‘sisters’ were a vengeful, ruthless lot. Yet even if her fears had every possibility of becoming a reality, a mother was a mother. She never should’ve done that.

The giant, wooden gates before her yawned to a great gaping opening as her pathetic, little one-man vessel waded its way into prison. It didn’t take long to be surrounded, though they at least had the decency to allow her to dock and stand on her own two feet first. Yet that was as far as their courtesy extended. The rest of the greeting came with the jewelled handle of a scimitar and the sudden fizzle and black of losing her consciousness.

When she next awoke she was lying face first in dank dirt behind bars: Remei’s prettily dressed present missing and her hands shackled.

Remei stared down at her 'mother' with a raging torrent of competing emotions racing through her, fighting over whether her throat should have a lump or she should crack her neck or ball her fists or turn and flee or burst into tears. All seemed a threatening possibility at the moment, and she was fighting furiously against every single one, an internal battle that only manifested itself in a statuesque pose of emptiness, a blank slate staring down at the woman on the floor.
She wondered if she should say something. The first thing that came to mind was why? Then she thought that might make her look weak, so she considered an insult. No, then she would look petty and insignificant to the Gerudo and Moblins, if they were watching. Rhetoric? A snarky comment? What was the right response here?

The Gerudo chewed on her tongue thoughtfully- a bad habit of hers. She didn't quite know what was going on here. Why, after all these years, had her mother suddenly showed up now? What had she been hoping to achieve?

There she was, her girl.

Through the trickling dirt that had collected on her eyelashes and the sodden locks of hair that stuck to her face, Datura admired how well her daughter had grown up. She was becoming a woman now. A dependable and promising young woman that made her chest swell with suffocated pride.

But the small frame was trembling, stiff and fretful as it stood silhouetted against the cackle of nearby lanterns. Datura hadn’t known how much time had passed or how long Remei had stood there, like that, but she almost didn’t mind. Unbroken and not tainted the thin ice that had spread beneath their feet was a momentary pause – the eye of the storm. She wanted it to be suspended forever, just like that, so she could admire the face of her child without interference, carving every new detail afresh in her memory while she could.

With a muffled grunt restrained behind sealed lips and their barred teeth, Datura heaved herself upright and onto her slippered feet; with slow but steady, heavy movements. “Remei.” She at last breathed. A cross between a sigh of relief and the last breath of a heartbroken mother, there was little else she could find to say. Nothing would do her emotions justice, and even less would likely soften the hard glare of her own daughter.

Her heart turned to stone for every second longer Remei continued to look at her like that. Yet what right had she to complain? Why did everything that came to mind to spark a conversation and distract that relentless fury all sound like excuses?

And so, if nothing else, Datura attempted a smile, gentle and mothering. “It’s your birthday today.”

Of all the things Datura could have said. It may not have been the worst option, but it was definitely up there.
"You think I don't freaking know that?" she snarled suddenly, the feeling of anger overriding the others. "Where the hell have you been? What moronic part of you thinks it's okay to just waltz in like nothing happened?"
She took a deep breath.
"You do realise that you are damn lucky that the guards didn't just run at you and send a glaive through your gut? Do you realise how lucky you are that I haven't corrected them personally?"
Her grip tightened on her own glaive angrily.
"What the hell do you want, Datura?"
At the last second Remei stopped herself from saying "mommy", forcing herself to remember the day she had woken up and her mother hadn't been beside her. She had given up the right to be called "mommy". She hadn't just given it up, she had taken it and spat on it and ground it into the dirt under her shoes. The Gerudo girl tried to still her trembling hands. Weakness would not be tolerated. Weakness was...well, weak. Remei knew what she stood for, and it wasn't weakness. It was strength.

“I was prepared.” Datura assured, a resolute steel hardening her stare through the storm.

The smile had dropped, earnestness instead pressing her lips into a hard, straight line. Her golden eyes flashed towards Remei’s glaive and added, “I still am; if that’s what you really want.”

She appeared to show no fear or tears at the possibility of her own daughter running her through, with what regret was plain to see in her exotic features saved for something else entirely. If this was to be her punishment then she’d take it. As ironic an end as it’d be for the very violence Datura had loathed to manifest in her child’s hands as her final fate. They always say that the children become the exact or the very opposite of their parents. And her father…?

The mother’s stare faltered. After a long moment of withdrawn glaze, she recollected herself and took a few steps closer to the bars – as close as she could physically get. The light was stronger here, clearer: it was easier to see Remei properly.

“Even if it falls on deaf ears, allow me to say this at least once,” Her throat suddenly went dry. The air bulged into a rock high up, only removed by a forceful swallow. “I’m sorry, Remei, for leaving you behind so suddenly.” It was the first and debatably the last apology Datura would ever utter. She wasn’t one to linger on guilt or shame, let alone man-up and admit it to the victims’ faces. But this…this was different. This was her daughter and that meant she was an exception to everything.

Remei flinched, telling herself she should step back but at the same time wishing the bars weren't there. Sorry? All she would say was "sorry"? Remei swallowed a second bitter response, knowing that if this got too heated the guards would rush in. She took several deep breaths. Calm. Power.
"You still haven't answered my first question," she said, forcing her voice to be even. "What makes you think you can just show up again? I don't give a crap what you feel bad about. You left me here. When you ran like a scared Remlit. I find it hilarious that you expected to come back and find your little Remmie pawing at your pants like I did when I was a kid. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't impale you with my glaive."

"Because I'm a selfish creature." She admitted with brash, upfront honesty.

"It may be a crime to appear before you again but that doesn't make it any easier not to. I wanted - no, needed - to see you at least once more.

"I'm not asking for your forgiveness or to listen to any excuses, Remei. I just wanted to see you again. I came here knowing full well that it may be my last day alive and yet still, I came." A self-chaffing laugh burned her throat, in a quick bursting huff of a scoff. Perhaps it really wasn't wise. Perhaps she never should've looked back. It was difficult to tell if this was a moment of weakness or one of strength but nonetheless Datura knew things would never settle back into their original places again: whether she lived to tell the tale or not.

Shackled hands and their tanned fingers reached up to the cold grasp of the bars and hung there. With deeper, more relentless scrutiny now the mother made sure that her child's appendages were in all the right places and as unscathed as they could be in a horrid home like this one. If she discovered that a hair on her head had been harmed, Datura wouldn't just leave this place like before. It would be foolish to hold the blade of a dagger up against the full weapons of a small army of convicts, but there were other ways to fight than with just her hands. She would leave and then one day return with the bitter wrath of a parent set on vengeance and the power to exact it.

Remei drew in a shuddering breath. Stop stop stop stop talking just stop. Every word was like the barb of a hookshot fired into her, trying to drag her back into the position her mother wanted. She mentally tried to snap the chains. You can't make me into what you left behind! she protested mentally. This was a mess. She looked over her shoulder; a guard stood several metres away, out of earshot. She turned back to her mother.

One of her lessons came to mind, oddly applicable to this situation. If the knife in your heart is too painful, ignore it and focus on the one in your back. In practice, the phrase was redundant. No one stabs in the heart AND the back. But she wasn't dumb. If the topic at hand is too touchy, switch subjects to something a little less aggravating

"I...I don't know what you expected," she said honestly. "What did you think would happen when you came back? I mean...you're the first Gerudo I've ever heard of abandoning the fortress."

Why?

Such an easy question and yet so disarming, the simplicity cutting Datura a few breaths short. Why? It was so odd to hear that, to be named as the first to wilfully leave. For so long, almost as long as she could remember, she had been trying to escape this fetid cesspit of degradation. She had never enjoyed it here, not even for a moment. Even with a new babe laid sleeping in her arms she could never truly smile and feel it any deeper than her skin: no-one could after bringing a new and innocent life into such a soul-sapping, forsaken prison. That wouldn’t be a life, it was slavery and it still made Datura sick to the pit of her stomach.

Her hands slid off the bars and she sighed. “I left because I wanted to value myself more. I find it more astounding that there are people who would rather remain here – out of choice too.”

Her golden, lined eyes gazed down at the heavy shackles that constricted her wrists. A little quirk of a ‘smile’ pulled up one corner of her mouth. It could’ve ended so much worse; though it’s not over yet. But still. She was here, talking to her daughter face-to-face, and if that wasn’t a success – if anything else was too much to hope for – then Datura didn’t know when she’d ever be content.

“I came here with an open mind, expecting nothing, Remei.” With sympathy she looked back up at the girl, left alone in a den of beasts to fend for herself. Would anything have been different if Datura had been born in the Tantari Desert instead?

“Have you never thought of leaving?”

Forget a Hookshot. That was an entire armoury of weapons right there. Had I ever thought of leaving? The honest answer was yes. Every single second of every single day for an entire month after Datura had left.
"It's not hard to give up your dreams when you're flogged alone, m-Datura," she corrected herself sharply. She wouldn't lie, had Datura returned in that first month then maybe she would have returned to welcoming arms and joyful tears. Now she was met with a betrayed anger and threats of violence. The only thing Remei knew how to control anymore. She thought back to the days when she was taught that having blood on you was horrendous. Degrading. Made you sinful to Din. Remei wondered if Datura could have made such a face-heel turn. What if Remei had left? Would their positions be reversed? She couldn't see that happening. Datura would have followed her.
She fought the urge to bury her head in her hands. Mess mess mess disaster. This wasn't fair. None of this was fair.

The distance between them both was painful; aggravating to the point of a silently burning fury. Even if Datura had stretched her arms out through the bars they wouldn’t have been able to reach her daughter. Flex and squeeze, try as she might’ve, her fingertips wouldn’t even be able to graze the trembling child’s skin, to touch her again, to feel the warmth she'd long since forgotten. She was too far away and too closed off in her little spiked shell, left to suffer alone in a Din’s fire that Datura was too late to quench. Even if it would’ve been better not to embrace her own daughter, the lack of choice in the matter pounded violently in her chest like a caged beast. All she could do was watch and it tore her apart from the inside out.

“The day you woke up alone,” The Gerudo breathed, voice barely steadied. “Wasn’t one which I had planned.

“I had thought of escaping this wretched place more times than I can count and from way before you were born, dearest Remmie: I’ll admit at least that much. For each lashing your small, innocent frame endured I almost came to hate myself for such fantasies. I was aiming far above my worth and yet it was you who was suffering for it. But…I couldn’t stop.” A spiteful laugh parted her lips. Her knuckles paled to bone-white as they clutched at the cold, biting bars between them both. She should’ve just accepted her punishment for what it is.

She shouldn’t be attempting, as vain as it was, to appeal for some glimmer of anything that wasn’t hatred from her daughter: she didn’t deserve that. She was right not to call her mother. So why then, did the words continue to flow? Why wouldn’t she stop, even if for every pause she took her chest tightened with growing regret?

“My beliefs weakened me but at the same time they were my only strength. I was scared to let go of them completely, scared of what would become of me and my humanity, and the effects that would domino back onto you. I thought we’d both drown if I abandoned them.

“But that day, when I left, I had never planned to.” It was the truth, whether Remei decided to believe the earnestness in her taut voice or not. “I was going to wait until you were old enough to hold a weapon and use it well, matured enough to leave on a raid with me. Yet I-…I got scared. When I saw the chances unfold before my eyes, that lonely, vulnerable sailor and his empty vessel…” Her brow twitched and scrunched. The shame was too much to allow her to speak out loud while holding direct eye-contact with her daughter. “I thought it would be the first and last chance I would get to leave. So I took it.” Her heart sunk, heavy and destroyed. It sounded even worse now that she was admitting it all out loud.

“I regret it. I take no pride in my decision at the time nor how, even after all these years, I have failed to find a way to safely break you out of this horrid place.

“Every time I thought of you only to dismiss it with excuses after excuses, I had somehow convinced myself that what I was doing was right…I-…I can understand – at least a bit – how much you must detest me, and that, I accept as my just punishment.

“But I still love you, Remmie. As twisted and hollow a love as that may seem to you, I still hold you as dear – no, far dearer – in my heart than the day you first came into my life. I wanted you to know that, and that if the Goddess of Time were on my side and I could replay that day again, I’d choose completely differently. Words just can't express how much I hate myself for what I have done to you, and you deserve none of it.”

Remei's knees threatened to fold and she locked them in place so suddenly one kneecap popped in protest. She wouldn't drop to the floor.
"D-don't say that;" she murmured. "You...you can't be sorry. Sorry means you regret it. If you regretted it you'd have come back much sooner,"
She twisted a strand of her fringe furiously around a finger, not even realising it meant she had taken one hand off her glaive. Ginger strands snapped as she tugged fretfully. She leaned slightly closer to the bars.
"I...tell me more about the day you left?" she asked, resolve starting to tremble under this emotional assault. Remei knew she could withstand almost any attack, take any weapon. She silently cursed herself for letting this one past her walls.

Datura’s heart melted. For a long while – perhaps too long – she hesitated on her own words, scared to break the dear girl any more than she already had. It was a weakening sight to behold; one which she hoped no-one else cared for. The last thing the two needed was some sharp-nosed bitches and their foul mutts intruding on their reunion.

The thick but familiar accent of the mother’s voice hushed to almost a whisper, “It was a pleasant day.” She had begun, tanned fingers smoothing down their imprisoning bar in an absent-minded fiddle of a caress. “Not so hot that you could fry seafood on your blade, but pleasant enough that you didn’t need another layer to fight off Farore’s bitter wind.

“That day I had left alone. Despite our differing views it’d been acknowledged that I could catch just as big a loot as the rest, if not more. I worked better by myself and for once they respected that.”

Her eyelashes lowered, the lids suddenly heavy, as Datura took in the maturing form of the growing girl before her. When she left she must’ve only been around three or four years old; a terribly young age to be beaten by supposed ‘relations’, let alone abruptly abandoned by the only warmth she had ever known. Her own actions sickened her to the point where her knees caved in and she sunk down onto the floor, defeated.

“Not long into the day I spotted a small, merchant vessel. It seemed like easy picking so I made it my target and soon boarded, earning the sailor’s admiration with ease. He was an old, wrinkled man with slippery fingers and rancid, rotten breath. The corrupted desires that so blatantly wetted his tongue were foul but…” She laughed at herself, bitter and incredulous. “…it was promising.

“I stopped thinking of his riches and instead of what more he could offer me. There was only him to entertain so no-one else posed a threat, and with my knowledge of the seas and my ‘sisters’ patrols I could guide him safely enough to Hyrule.

“Before I knew it the whole plan was already set in motion. The Forsaken Fortress had become just a mirage on the waves. I…could scarcely believe what I had done.” Datura’s voice trailed off into a regretful silence.

Some heavy, dragged-out minutes later she added with broken spirits, “I bought you a present that day: the same day that we docked in Mido. I brought it with me but…I suppose the others have already torn it apart.”

The gift had been a uniquely engraved Boomerang, covered in ornate depictions of floral arrangements trimmed with gold leaf. For some reason or another it had reminded Datura of her child, as it had hung there amongst the rest of the wooden, chiming treasures. Even back then she had wanted to return to Remei, just like that loyal boomerang.

Remei listened slowly, silent for a while. She tried to imagine it; the breeze ruffling her knotted hair, sun on her face, freedom in her grasp. The opposite of her world. When the breeze blew, it chilled to the bone. When the sun shone, it blistered until your flesh peeled. When you saw freedom, it was quickly remedied by the flick of a scimitar.
She stepped closer to the bars almost unwillingly, forcing herself to visualise everything, although she tried to spare herself the image of the toothless letch her mother had described. Mido? She thought on her map of the sea; yes, she thought Mido was a coastal town of Hyrule. Datura had visited the land of peace and heroic adventure?
"What is Hyrule like?" she asked curiously. Damnit! Stop asking questions, dumbass! Don't make this harder!

"Far more than words can tell." Datura replied with a small but glad smile.

She had come expecting little, if not to leave with even less, yet like a pup being slowly drawn out of its sleeping captive's hold Remei was growing both warmer and closer. She could smell her now: that subtle, mixing scent of sea salt, moblin excrement and old, spilt blood. Datura remembered it as clear as day from back in her own youth, a taint which had taken her at least nine baths - she had counted - to get rid of.

"I have found that no Hyrule is the same as anyone else's Hyrule. It depends on who you are and what you say and what you do with your time there that shapes your experiences. But its a vast place, bigger than the contained walls and all its chains of this forsaken cesspit. And so much richer in both its culture and indulgences. There's always something new to see, something else to experience, and you don't need to hold a blade at anyone's throat in order to enjoy it all. Like every place it has its cons, but its worth it."

Shoulder pressed against the bars, the Gerudo breathed a soft sigh as she thought on her life. There was a tinge of joy - almost a thrill - that illuminated her from the inside out, yet consideration of Remei's feelings and a deeply engraved feeling of guilt smothered its true glory.

"I've been making ends meet as a performer: dance and song. Every time I got bored of somewhere I'd just pick up and leave - it's as easy as that. No-one hunts me down or swears Din's wrath at my absence. I just carry on to the next good drink and warm meal, greeting different faces and learning their charms everyday."

She crouched closer to the bars, unsure. Her long-held grudge was starting to flow away like water between the fingers, and she struggled to clutch at the drops. She couldn't just forgive every rat, Keese and Octorok that came her way. This was serious! It wasn't like Datura had just pinched her wallet or anything; she had abandoned her for north of ten years! That's not something you're meant to forgive after less than an hour!

Mentally spouting off every curse she knew, she stared at her mother. Datura was so much prettier than Remei felt she could ever be, but you didn't need looks to be a pirate. Was this how Remei might have looked, had she gone to Hyrule with her mother? She fiddled with the edges of the Wing Tunic under her top. Once upon a time she had considered using it to flee the fortress, but she didn't trust her ability to survive alone, with no idea where to go and who to trust. There was a lot of blatant racism against Gerudo, she had found, and it frightened her to think of being alone in a land of people who thought her race were just theives and harlots.

What to do? There was a buzzing urge in her to juts forgive and forget, but Remei didn't have the emotional purity to make that work, especially not in the long-term.
"I..urk," she grunted, lost, before an idea came to her. She looked back up at Datura. "How would you make it up to me?"

The breath hitched in Datura's throat, her painted lips parting with unspoken bewilderment. 'How would you make it up to me?' Just to even think about hearing those words come from her daughter had felt like a crime in itself. And yet...and yet, scrutinise as she might, desperate as she may quietly be, Datura wasn't mad nor dreaming. Remei had asked.

An onslaught of frantic possibilities played with her tongue, though no one answer triumphed over the others. It had been a question she'd pondered a reply to for so many countless, sleepless nights. To finally be granted the miracle to actually say any of it was overwhelming. Nothing felt important enough any more. None of it sounded right in her head. All those times she'd rehearsed like a fool in front of his bedroom mirror or that inn's wine glass suddenly shattered into wasted, empty noise at her feet. She was left sat there like a fool, wide-eyed and high on the butterflies in her chest.

When it struck her that she may lose the chance altogether by looking so shocked and giving her so much time to regret having asked it, Datura swiftly turned and reached as far as she could through the bars to touch the nearby hand of her daughter. With a warm but secure grasp, the one hand - for the other was laden with chains and obstructions - secured its hold: frightened to press too hard but just as terrified not to press hard enough. What amount of strength would be appropriate? Exactly how much did Remei need and want? Her hands are so rough...

"I would make it up to you in whatever way you wish and over again, dearest Remmie." Her gaze melted like molten gold, the tears gleaming across their surface despite all innate Gerudo pride. "I have thought on that question so many times I can't even remember the multitude of solutions I have tried to piece together."

Remei's face split into a slight smile.
"Right answer," she said softly. She stood up. "Can you wait in here for a few hours? I have some errands to run,"

Not waiting for an answer, she picked up her glaive and turned, pointed shoes tapping against the cold stone of the prison corridor. She waved a hand at the Moblin guard.
"I expect her in one piece. No eating bits off her,"
The monster grunted in response as Remei left the prison. Securing her glaive to her back, she got herself into a running stance and started dashing forwards, tapping her elbows and then throwing her arms out to the sides. Enormous, tawny brown dappled wings burst from the back of her Wing Tunic, and she beat them several times before managing to get into the air. Human frames were most definitely not designed for flight, and it had taken Remei years to build up the core strength she needed to lift her lower body horizontally during flight.

She tilted one wing and flew back past the tiny window out of the prison, just for the thrill of showing off, before realising that Datura probably still had her back to the window and hadn't seen her. Huffing, Remei beat the wings harder and clumsily flew to her quarters. Now the hard bit; landing. Aiming for the roof, Remei let her legs drop sharply forwards, the shock immediately pulling her downwards as if bricks had been tied to her legs. Flaring out the wings to slow the descent, Remei smacked feet-first into the roof and rolled a little before sitting up and having the presence of mind to dispel the wings.
I should probably work on my landings.

Datura was left in the dank, dark loneliness of her cell with more delicious anticipation than she’d ever dared expect before. Her own excitement made her nervous, both in its multitude and in her inability to rein it back in off her curled, parted lips. But it felt good. It felt so, so, so damn good. Her current expression probably looked laughably foolish – she was glad no-one could see it – but, Din be damned, she really couldn’t help it.

The Gerudo hastily cleared her throat and checked herself, swiftly turning her back on the bars once more in case the moblin guard happened to round the corner. Yet as soon as she was turned her face simply cracked once again, splintering into that same proud, almost innocent delight. Datura clasped a fidgeting fist to her mouth and its veil, resiliently pinching her lower lip with a tooth. She shouldn’t dare…but she already had.

A flicker of movement at the window caught the corner of her eye, yet whatever figment of her imagination or creature it had been it was gone by the time Datura paid it her full attention. She brushed the sight and a prickle of her gut off, easily distracted once again by own her emotions and their rampant fantasies of the bright new future that lay before both herself and her daughter.

Yet…was it really okay to just sit here and wait?

Datura doubted that simply asking to leave would get them where they wanted to be. Was then Remei taking care of the dirty work? Was that why she needed a few hours?

A silent, proud fury reared its ugly head in her chest. Her pulse turned hot in her veins and before she could scarcely register it she was standing and then pacing in her compact, rancid chamber. The tooth at her lip dug hard enough to draw blood. But her eyes had narrowed too firmly and glazed with such deep thought that the rest of her body didn’t notice the pain.

After everything her dearest Remmie had already been through because of her ineptitude, to make her suffer even more was an insolence she couldn’t handle. Every little bit of Datura that dared to so much as breathe couldn’t just sit back and watch. She needed a plan. A strategy. If breaking out of the prison by herself was a stupid idea then at least a back-up for when Remei returned. Anything. Anything she could come up with to be of some help. And she needed to think of it fast: she’d already wasted ten minutes of those few hours.

IF Remei is actually going to leave with me. Datura scowled at the niggling doubt until it crippled over and died in a corner. Fool or no fool, she'd be a prepared one nonetheless.

Remei grumbled as she stood up, walking with a slight limp to the edge of the roof. She clung to the rocky area on the sides before swinging down and in through a window as easily as if it were a set of children's monkey bars. She trembled slightly in excitement; this was really it! Every single thought she'd ever had of leaving was suddenly at the forefront of her mind, waving banners and chanting like a crazed army. She fought to keep the enormous grin off her face; it would probably be a bit conspicuous if she wandered down the hall looking like a Miniblin with a banana in its mouth. Then she actually visualised said Miniblin and snorted, biting her nails to stop the giggle. Maybe, before she left, she should find a Miniblin and get it to pose for her with the banana. She was sure there was a pictograph box somewhere she could borrow. Then she remembered that Miniblins generally hated fruit. The ones that she knew, anyway.

Finding her room, she dug out an old leather belt-pack with more pockets than strictly necessary. She had nicked this one off a pretty woman on a boat a few months back. She wasted another ten minutes of furious debating in her head by darning a hole in the bag with one of her roomates' socks, and doing a real bad job too. Remei lifted the bag to inspect it and snorted again at the random sock now sewn haphazardly onto it. Apparently everything now had the power to make her laugh. But then again, with thoughts of accompanying her mother in a daring prison break into the world had seriously brightened her mood.

She glanced across the room. Seven other beds in here. She opened her box beside her bed and shoved her belongings into the bag, irritatedly tipping it back out onto the wooden bed when she realised that it wouldn't fit shoved and she would actually have to fold them. Dammit.
A second attempt, after folding her clothes and neatly rolling up her possessions and putting them down the sides, left a little room a the top. She grinned. No such thing as empty space for a Gerudo; if your treasure chest wasn't full, you filled it up sharpish.

She danced across the room , digging through her roommates' drawers and picking out things to steal. She took a nice pair of gloves from the first. Ribbons from the second. She let out an outraged yelp when she found her own bracelets in the third. Pillaging all the stuff she wanted, she happily stuffed it all back in her back, tying the belt around her waist. Shit, that weighed a ton. She added a second leather belt (roommate five) and used a rope to tie the bag more securely. All set! She turned to leave and came face to face with one of her roommates.
"Remei? What are you doing?"