Kingdom of Power, of Courage, and of Wisdom

Rebel's War - Stories and Curses

-Link, Geoffrey-

While the rest of the group waited patiently for their turn, Link approached Geoffrey. "General, may I ask a question?"

"Certainly," Geoffrey said.

"You are an Englishman, a man far from the west, right?" Geoffrey nodded. "Then how did you come to be in Lord Ouki's service?"

Geoffrey chuckled. He tilted his head up in memory and smiled widely. "Ah, now that is a grand question. As one might imagine with that man, first impressions are as grand as the last, as crazy as the first, and one is always left questioning their accuracy. Questioning whether he is serious or in a joking mood. Or in my case... whether he was bluffing or not."

"Sounds funny," Link smiled. The others listened as well, hearing a story coming. When the topic is the Great Bird of Qin, one cannot help but be enraptured.

"Oh, it was. It was." Geoffrey laughed at some memory, then frowned briefly as he remembered something darker. "I still remember it as freshly as when it happened. You see, I was what my people would call a 'crusader.' I marched to take back precious land from the Muslim Horde that had invaded. We were bitter enemies: my people suffered under their Jihads for five hundred years with little resistance until then. Unfortunately, we fought on their terrain. There, they could use speed and raiding to their advantage, and we were but a mass of heavily armored, slow men... It did not go well. I was captured, tortured, enslaved, and finally sold to a merchant... for the price of an onion."

"An onion?!" Link gasped.

"Just an onion."

"Did these people think so little of you?! That's almost insulting! You're worth at least a city or two!"

Geoffrey laughed. "I am glad to hear you value me so highly that you would sell me for so much! But that was the normal price at the time. They captured and enslaved so many young girls, young boys, and women that the price fell to only an onion. It was a dark time for me... for all of us. But I was taken east by my new master. It turned out it was a Gerudo that bought me. I was placed at the helm of a Gerudo slave army, and we marched against Qin."

Link gasped.

"And there... as we crossed the border, there was no army. Even if there was, it would have only been a minor skirmish. We would be little more than a bug bite against a full army. Yet the Qin did not resist with a single soldier. Instead, as we came closer to a city, there was a single man on the road. The army stopped and watched him because they saw he was a very strong man simply putting on an act. He was juggling."

"Juggling," Nabooru grunted. She crossed her arms. "You cannot be serious."

"I make no joke, but only say what I witnessed," Geoffrey insisted. "Ouki Mitagi was juggling nine balls on the road. He stood unarmed in front of us, blocking the road, and juggling exactly nine balls."

"It had to be a distraction..." Link mused.

"That, too, is what I thought," Geoffrey admitted. "Our army stopped and there was a great murmur. At that time, Ouki Mitagi was still among the Ki family, known as Ou Ki, and he was much younger. He was about your age, young man." Geoffrey looked to Link. Link's eyes widened. "And by then, Ouki had earned himself enough reputation as a commander to at least be heard of by the commander of the slave army. Now I don't know if you know this, but juggling is very difficult. It takes great practice, and even then, not many men can juggle more than three balls. Ouki juggled nine. This feat alone caused my fellow soldiers pause, for if he could juggle nine balls, when they could not even juggle two, then how skilled was he in other things like combat? Was this a trap? Was this a distraction? Where was the army? In the end, we fled back to Gerudo."