Chapter Text
If there was one thing Link knew, it was that looks can be deceiving.
A simple merchant passing through an outpost could really be a murderer from Castletown and is hiding out on the Frontier, praying to the Goddesses that no one would recognize his face. Or the mother who would come to the outpost screaming, telling him that her husband was kidnapped by Gerudo slavers, could be the person who sold him into slavery to get some money and escape her boring, mundane life as a farmer’s wife.
And if there was one person, place or thing that this old adage applied to, it would certainly be the Faron Frontier. When looking at a painting of one of it’s magnificent fields or just passing through on one of it’s unpaved, dirt roads it looked like it came straight out of a fairy tale. Lush green forests as far as the eye could see, with breathtaking waterfalls near the Gerudo Highlands and maybe passing through one of the villages dotted along the roads for a drink at it’s tavern.
But those beautiful scenes were a mirage, a trick from the Goddesses themselves and a cruel one at that.
Those same forests that seemed never ending certainly could be to a lost traveler who wandered too far from the road. And never ending does not have to be literal, just has to be longer than a three days walk before that lost traveler runs out of water and dies from thirst. Of course that’s assuming a bear or wild animal doesn’t get to them first. Or those waterfalls that many young lovers see as a perfect place to get away and have a nice romantic evening alone was like ringing the dinner bell for slavers and bandits. More than twice a month there would be reports of a poor couple getting sold into slavery or robbed of all their worth.
The Frontier was a dangerous place. The locals knew it, the Rangers who patrolled it knew it, Link only wished visitors knew it. That whoever was spreading the rumor that the Frontier was an amazing place to start over and build a new life there would drop dead. That people realized that even though the Kingdom of Hyrule has been in control of this region for hundreds of years, it’s still dubbed the “Frontier” and not “Faron Province”. That proper knights would be patrolling the roads, not Rangers.
Of course, if that last wish were true Link would be out of a job. His time as a Ranger had taught him all of this firsthand. His first kill was in these woods, his first time with a woman was in these woods, his first time seeing the true depravity of mankind was in these woods. In a place where the nearest Ranger could be a day's ride away, it really shouldn’t have surprised him at how dangerous Faron could really be.
Being a Ranger for the past few years certainly made him see things he wished he had not, but the worst to him were the slavers. Hyrule had abolished slavery centuries ago after a King and his son fought a civil war over the issue, however being so close to the Gerudo border where slavery is still alive and well made the isolated Frontier a perfect place for slavers to pick their prey.
Setting up outposts by the valley connecting the two Kingdoms didn’t slow the slave trade down in the slightest. Most of the time, they walked up to the men on guard and paid them a fraction of what they would sell their merchandise for at the slave markets at Kara Kara. It was immoral and vile, but Link came to expect these sorts of things.
His only saving grace was that they had to make it to the border in order to bride the Rangers there. That was something Link made sure wouldn’t happen.
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As much as Link despised slavers, he had to admit that he loved their clear disregard for subtlety. It made finding them a lot easier.
He had been on patrol near the Gerudo Highlands but still aways from the valley crossing so he had been on the lookout for any signs of slavers. So when he saw a smoke stack a few hundred feet high, he had to check out its source. Even if it was a natural fire he had to find and notify the nearby villages.
Coming into the clearing he didn’t know what to expect but when he saw a small barn on fire with all the animals out front slaughtered, he knew he was dealing with slavers. A quick check of the house only confirmed his suspicions, anything of value was missing. While it could have been a bandit, they usually don’t kidnap their victims since they couldn’t expect a large ransom for a farmer and his family when they live out in the middle of nowhere.
Taking a look around, it seems like the slavers didn’t care if they had left any track behind. The path that led out from the clearing was riddled with footprints, and a set of hooves and tread marks from a wagon. Link guessed that it was only a day and a half ride before they made it to the border outpost, and judging that the fire was still fresh they must have only been here an hour ago.
Another thing he admired slavers for was their lack of urgency along with their lack of subtlety. Even though they were in a foreign country where they were committing a crime that would result in a trip to the chopping block, they didn’t realize time was of the essence and for that he was grateful. He had only been following the tracks for two hours before he heard the familiar taunts of a Gerudo slaver. He heard it all before, mostly addressing the women or children to try and scare them so that they don’t try and escape. It always made him sick to his stomach no matter how many times he had heard it.
One thing he didn’t admire in slavers was that they always travelled in groups. And while it would make sense, it always made killing them much more difficult. Luckily, this group only had three men, one steering the wagon with the other two in front of said wagon. This was both a positive and a negative, the positive being that no one was watching the rear. The negative was that taking out two men standing next to each other was a lot more difficult than a man by himself. But no one said that this was supposed to be easy.
In this situation taking out the man on the wagon was the first priority. He was closest to the people in chains making him the most likely to use them as a hostage. Since he was trailing the wagon he could have gotten a better angle so that he didn’t risk hitting the family, so instead of trying to run ahead Link decided to bid his time. He knew this road and he knew that in a few hundred feet, they would have to take a sharp left turn.
Sure enough, he saw the intersection coming up. It's hallmark sign pointing left or right. Left towards the Gerudo Valley or right towards Hateno. “Oi! Ashad, hold up. Gotta take a leak, don’t take off with the merchandise!”
Link looked up and saw one of the men up front take off into the woods, with the wagon coming to a complete stop. Silently thanking the Goddesses as he took his bow off his back and knocked an arrow, taking cover behind a tree only twenty feet from the back of the wagon. Sneaking another glance the Gerudo on the wagon was staring ahead while he saw the other man that was in front of the wagon pacing around the cage, hitting the side of it with his sword. “Don’t worry sweetheart. I’m sure you’re going to love your new home….you’ve got the body for a pleasure house. Maybe I’ll come visit after I sell you to your master...would you like that?”
“P..please...just let us go..we’ll pay you whatever you want.” The woman said, holding her young daughter to her chest.
“Oh, but you already have! We got all the rupees you had stashed at that shit stain of a house. You really should be than-”
He didn’t get to finish before an arrow went right through his neck, his body lurched against the metal bars of the change with a loud clang. As soon as the arrow left his bow, Link was already nocking another and moving for a better angle on the one remaining. Unfortunately, he heard the sound of his dead comrade hitting the cage and immediately jumped off the side to get to cover. While his immediate instinct was to draw his sword, he paused knowing that there was still another one unaccounted for and didn’t want to chance it.
Link held the advantage, so he chose to wait it out. The longer he waited, the more likely it was for the slaver to make a mistake. Link kept his bow drawn and ready to lose an arrow the first chance he had. Sure enough, after less than a minute he saw the top of the slaver's head peek up from the side of the wagon and with a flick of the wrist, an arrow went right between his eyes and down he went.
Link had always excited caution while out in the wild, it’s why he managed to live so long. Ranger’s didn’t exactly have the longest life expectancy so he was hoping to be the outlier. But, seeing that poor family caught in the middle almost made him come out from the bushes and try and get them out. The sound of the last remaining slaver coming back prompted him to nock one more arrow.
“Oh Din!” He yelled when he saw two of his friends with arrows in their heads. Link didn’t even give him one more second to think about how to retaliate or more likely run away.
Now that it was all clear, Link emerged from his hiding spot. He heard a gasp from the woman in the cage, looking over she still had her child in a vice grip to her chest with the man who he assumed to be her husband knocked presumably from when they were abducted.
“Oh three blessings to you, Ranger! Goddess bless you! See Hilda? We’re alright..we’re gonna be alright.” The woman managed to croak out, with tears or joy falling down her cheeks. Link gave her a reassuring smile as he searched the body of the one with the arrow in the neck, it didn’t take long to find a key.
With the keys jangling in his hand, Link made his way to the back of the wagon where the cage opened up. It must have felt like more than just a few seconds for the mother and daughter before Link found the right key for the lock. But once he did, Link heard another sigh escape the woman, she must have been putting on a brave face for the child still held tightly to her chest as her sigh quickly turned into sobs.
“Th...thank you so much, Ranger. I...don’t even want to imagine what would have happened to me and my family if you hadn’t arrived when you did.”
‘Only bad things, so best not to think about them.’ He thought to himself.
After getting them out of the cage and giving the man a once over. Other than a splitting headache whenever he woke up, he’d be fine. Relatively speaking of course, physically he’d be fine but mentally is a different story.
Just another day in the Faron Frontier.