Nabooru's Diary
How it all began…
In my country, the wind is feared above all else. During the day, heated by the sun, it scorches the land bare, drying and burning everything in its path. But at night its chill freezes the heart of all living things as it whips by.
My name is Nabooru. I am the Queen of Thieves and Leader of the Gerudo Tribe. My kingdom lies within a vast desert which itself resides in the kingdom and province of the great land of Hyrule. I am daughter of the late Queen, Rajinni, and sister to the black abomination that once plagued this world. Yes. Gannondorf, the self-proclaimed Lord of Darkness and the man responsible for the deaths of uncountable innocent lives, is my brother. But he was not always evil, no. Even Gannondorf was innocent once.
Every child that is born from a Gerudo's womb is female. The origin of this curse is unknown, but it is a curse nonetheless. However, every one hundred years or so, when the Gerudo Tribe is of great need, a boy is born to the Queen. And our need was great. Sandstorms from the west had become strangely frequent over the past few decades, bringing with them plagues of flies, lice, and locusts that spread disease and destroyed what little crops we could harvest from our dry soil.
The Kingship of Hyrule had long ago accepted our raids on small towns and convoys for food, clothes and money as an unavoidable nuisance. The Royal Family understood our situation in the desert, which was constantly on the verge of drought, starvation and poverty, and they had often offered to send us tithing. But we are born to the way of thievery, and a thousand years of tradition was not about to change. So Hyrule castle was forced to accept us and our ways. We were always grateful for their tolerance, and in return never stole more than our tribe needed. Killing an innocent was to us considered the most heinous of crimes, and was punishable by expulsion into the Great Desert where certain death awaited among the sands and the wind.
However, the recent King of Hyrule had become impatient and angry with our overly-frequent raids and threatened to mobilize his armies against us. We tried to explain our desperate predicament, but our pleadings went unheard.
And that was how Gannondorf was born. My Mother, Queen Rajinni, begged the Gods to fulfill the prophecy and send her a son to end the reign of death and despair. The Gods obliged and Rajinni fell mysteriously pregnant. He was born nine months later and the moment his fragile body left his mother's, the plagues stopped. Crops began to flourish and rains fell. It was as if this small baby boy emanated some sort of pure, positive force. Our race rejoiced. I was then three years old at the time.
A year later, the weather returned to normal, and our raiding of the Hylian villages commenced as usual. As children, my brother and I played often all around the fortress getting into all kinds of mischief. But when I became the proper age of eight, my training began and I suddenly had no time for my younger brother. At age twelve I was qualified enough to take part in the raids, and Gannondorf had already begun his own training. He grew into a brilliant swordsman and a hopeless archer, never managing to hit a bulls-eye. But it was his magical prowess that amazed our kingdom. He picked up the Gerudo's special branch of defensive spells almost on his first day of practice, a feat previously unheard of. This was explained away by many by the fact that he was to be King, and the Gerudo King was said to lead the tribe to a noble success in every aspect of his life. The kind of people who quoted these lines of text obviously ignored his archery ineptitude.
On his 14th birthday, Gannondorf was taken on his first raid, led by myself and accompanied by five other thieves-in-training. The target was a small convoy carrying precious silks that had stopped to rest for the night. It was also Gannondorf's first time in Hyrule and he was amazed by the green fields, tall trees, and the wind. A wind that did not burn but cooled the skin, a wind that did not inflict suffering and panic but calmed the mind into a state of tranquility. As we lay below the convoy on the slopes of a hill, Gannondorf turned to me and said "Why cannot we live in this country?"
"Oh Brother," I replied, "The Hylians do not accept us for our past and present deeds. To live here would be foolish. We probably would be at the brink of battle everyday. The Gerudo and the Hylian are too different in our beliefs to live peacefully. Think nothing more of it, dear Brother."
He muttered something I could not hear, but then our focus was on the silks. The attack was successful. With great stealth we rendered the twelve convoy members unconscious using the flat of our scimitars, as trained, and tied them into groups of three. Those who awoke were gagged. All of them were subdued, and none were harmed. As my raiding party carefully placed the precious materials into our sacks, one of the Hylians spat out his gag and cried "You will never get away with this you filthy hags!" Gannondorf stepped forward and silenced the man with magic.
"How dare you speak to my sister that way!" and to my utter horror, my own brother, after years of training and lessons of tradition and discipline, drew his sword and slit the poor man's throat. One of my charges screamed, but the others just stared in shock. Gannondorf studied the blood on his hands with a blank expression that read neither fear, nor anger, nor pleasure.
"Back to the fortress!" I ordered. "Now! Back to the desert! Leave the silk, just go!"
I was scared for my brother. The only reason to take another's life was in self defense, all other excuses were punishable by ostracism. But it was Gannondorf's status as future King that saved him. He was beaten and whipped severely by our Mother, but it was unanimously agreed that he would be pardoned just this once, and the tribe would have to learn to forget his dreadful mistake.
For the next two years, the world was as normal, although Gannondorf had been forbidden to leave the Tribe's domain. He spent nearly all of his time studying magic and swordplay, and his handsome face hardened and his soft smile was replaced by a bored frown. But the Gerudo still loved their King. Until the day that is now referred to as the Day of Black Sands.
It was a cool day compared to the scorching temperatures normally achieved in the desert, and most of my people were outside taking advantage of the mild temperature by training in usually exhausting hand-to-hand combat when the announcement bell rang. This bell signals to all Gerudo that the Queen or other persons of importance were about to make an important announcement, and that every tribeswoman was to gather outside the fortress to listen. Absentees were to be punished. We followed the order of the bell as normal and gathered around the speaking podium. To our surprise, Gannondorf was atop the podium, waiting for full attendance.
"Fellow Tribespeople!" he called. "My Mother, Queen Rajinni, often boasted that I would someday be a great King!" He paused for the rapturous applause. "And I intend to be. I will be the greatest King in the province of Hyrule!" An evil smile crossed his face, and I knew something was not right. Where was our Mother? Gannondorf continued. "I intend to one day rule not just this desert, but the entire land!" The applause died slightly. To imagine ruling all of Hyrule was unheard of.
"Unfortunately, you will not be alive to witness it." And at those words, a great sand storm swept across the tribe. A thick, stinging storm that suffocated and burned. We all headed for the heavy fortress doors, but they were locked and would not yield to our desperation.
The children died first. The sand swirled into their screaming mouths, filling their small lungs in seconds. Those who were wearing face veils attempted to seek shelter, but the storm was so thick it was impossible to see an arm's length. Within minutes I was stumbling over the lifeless bodies of my kin, desperately searching for a break in the storm or some sort of shelter. But there was none. I ran into another girl and through the sand I managed to make out her clawing at her own eyes in pain. It was then I realized that the sand seemed to be targeting our exposed eyes and mouths, like a foul swarm of insects. This was no ordinary storm. My own brother and king had conjured this storm using his powerful magic to kill his people. No, not kill. It was not a war. It was an extermination. He was sixteen, and I was almost twenty.
I regained consciousness in the late hours of the night, vomiting sand. The storm had passed. I had only survived because another woman had fallen atop of me, blocking my face from the deadly sand. The other survivors had similar reasons. We grouped together, picking our way through the mass grave. There was at least one thousand dead, while we, the survivors, numbered barely fifty. After much strain we broke down the fortress doors, and there, on her throne, sat Rajinni, the butt of her son's ornamental dagger protruding from her left shoulder. Myself and some others raced to assist our Queen, but she was long dead. I blacked out and remained unconscious for several days. When I awoke, I was crowned Queen of the Gerudo. While the other survivors of the Black Sands pledged their loyalty to me, I pledged death to my only brother.
I was later told that my mother had not died from the dagger. The wound would have been painful but not fatal. A healer discovered that a forbidden form of dark magic had been used upon her. Gannondorf had sucked out her spirit and added it to his own power.
Years passed and our numbers have not greatly increase. I still fear that we will become a forgotten race. Gannondorf did not return until I was 33 years of age and long the Sage of the Spirits. My final encounter with him was when he and his Twin Rova brainwashed me and encased me in that foul amour within my own temple. But I was rescued by a young man who-
Well, You Know The Rest…