Din's Blessing

by eolianstar

Zelda: Ocarina of Time © Nintendo

Rated for suggestive themes

P a r t . t e n : Ruca

It was warm, so unlike the fortress with its stone walls and cold décor. It was so light, as if a bright world completely surrounded her where she lay.

When she woke, she realized that she was covered with a sheep-skin blanket and supported by soft cloth pillows. Sitting up, she peered at her surroundings, looking around the large tent. The material that draped from the central stake and formed the ceiling and walls of the shelter was orange and let in so much light that she could tell that it was already midday. An enormous rug spanned the entire length of the tent, and she could feel the sand under the cloth beneath her feet. There was a desk space and many books with parchment neatly arranged on small shelves.

The entrance was a little ways away from her, and it was the brightest spot as the flap was slightly open and the ground beneath it was shining and golden from the afternoon sunlight. Through the thin walls of the tent she could hear the sound of bleating and a sharp scent permeated the air, but it smelled so good. She was so hungry.

After surveying the area, she very quickly came to her senses and came to a painful realization that there was something missing. She sprang up, letting the sheepskin blanket fall at her feet, and started to anxiously look around, spinning in place as her eyes searched the entire tent. She picked up each of the folded blankets that had been in a nearby pile one-by-one and did the same for all the pillows.

After a few more moments of panicky searching, she stumbled out of the tent to see the fire and something roasting in the pit. There was a small group of sheep close to the tent close to a small well and watering trough. There, she could also see her horse tied to the short fence, drinking from the water source.

Something further off sparkled in the sand. Squinting her eyes , she could make out a dark, slate-blue colored stone with a flat surface. On the smoothened side was the engraving of a symbol that looked like the sun with one circle towards the top surrounded by rays. When her eyes trailed around, she could see many other stones just like it surrounding the camp.

"Ah, so you're awake."

Startled, she dashed away from the sound of the voice, her hand instinctively moving to her side for her imaginary blade. The man coming up behind her was holding a wooden staff in one hand and carrying Azhaer in the other. He was an older man, maybe in his early thirties, but the desert wind and sand had caused the skin of his face to look dark and worn. His beard was a reddish-golden color, and his nose was aquiline, like the gerudo, but she could see that he was a foreigner. Though they were hiding behind his hair and cloth headdress, she could see that his ears were pointed. His most prominent feature, however, were the sky-colored eyes that held so much clarity that they looked almost like glass. Even though there was a dark shadow cast from his turban, his eyes seemed to shine and smile too, wrinkling at the corners. A kind face.

Azhaer looked quite comfortable in the stranger's protection, but her hands darted out to retrieve him. The man looked apologetic and created more of a space between them.

"Pardon me… He was so intrigued by the lambs that I took him with me to the pasture." She said nothing about this explanation, but rather made demands of her own.

"Who are you? And where are we?"

The stranger picked up on the suspicion enlaced in her tone of voice and knowingly alleviated the tension by moving closer to the fire, busying himself with the task of moving more kindling into the flames.

"My name is Ruca, and I am a shepherd in these parts. We're in the desert, but don't worry… whoever you were running from, they won't be able to find us here, even if they do have a guide through the Haunted Wasteland. You were fortunate that I was able to find you in that dust storm… the gods must favor you."

Azhaer cooed and smacked his mother's arm with his tiny hand a few times. She furrowed her brow and tried to remember the last moment of consciousness before waking up in Ruca's tent. There was that dryness and thirst, the memory of that strange midnight flight, away from the Fortress, away from the gerudo…

"Come sit by the fire and eat," Ruca continued, preparing the meal, working with his large, and yet deft, hands. "You must have some story to tell."

The woman did so, her son still in her arms, and she took the bowl without thinking. Azhaer let out a piercing peal of laughter, and she could see how Ruca's sky-colored eyes brightened.

"What is his name?" He asked as she blew off the steam from the hot curds and fed the boy.

"Azhaer."

"And yours?"

There was a bit of silence at this, and she looked so focused on spooning the food into the child's mouth that it might have looked like she hadn't heard his question.

"I have no name anymore. And I have no story to tell."

"Well, that's going to make things difficult," the shepherd responded, he himself scraping his bowl with his spoon. "What am I to call you then?"

"Whatever you like," she responded indifferently. There was a moment of silence, and she suddenly felt upon her this strange pressure to start talking. To tell him about what had happened, who she used to be, why she was running away… it was almost as if he were patiently waiting for her to start speaking in her timing, without any verbal prodding on his part. He had a strange kindness that she did not particularly want to appreciate. Frowning, she pushed aside the feeling.

"Chiyo," Ruca said suddenly, as if he had decided something.

"What?" she snapped.

"That's what I will call you, if you don't mind."

She watched him suspiciously and the child laughed again. He didn't continue on to talk about why he had chosen the name or what its significance was, as if it were once again her cue to ask. But despite herself and the curiosity she had towards his name of choice, she wasn't about to appease the stranger, so she simply just let the question go unsaid.

But he seemed all right with the awkward silence, and busied himself with the tea as the metal kettle whistled from on top of the bed of coals.

The silence went on for a little while, and eventually, full of curds and milk, Azhaer inevitably fell asleep in his mother's arms, his crown of scarlet ruffled as his head drooped against her shoulder. Ruca offered her a steaming mug of dark brownish-purplish tea, but she declined by refusing to take it.

"He is a boy." Ruca stated the obvious fact, but because it was Azhaer, the woman now known as Chiyo felt strangely defensive. "But Ganondorf himself is rather young still, is he not?"

It was so strange to hear his name so casually used. Perhaps things were really different in the outside world, after all.

"Keep to your own business, old man," she said, her tone neutral. He did not seem offended by the inappropriate title she gave him, but rather smiled.

"Perhaps it isn't my business… but I'm very interested in matters of the gerudo. The whole world is watching Ganondorf, King of the desert, especially with the current affairs of the state and politics at Hyrule castle." Silence. "But to be fair, I suppose I also have a personal reason for my interest, as my mother herself was a gerudo."

This surprised Chiyo very much, because she had never before met a man other than the King who was gerudo, even if just partly. Suddenly and very inexplicably, she felt as though the first barrier had been torn down inside of her.

But just as suddenly, the thought of Ruca being a man and being gerudo triggered a memory. That image…

It took her whole willpower not to cover her mouth at the thought. Instead, she pursed her lips and gave her firm response.

"…I will not talk about it. That was the life I have left behind, and will never return to. Don't speak of it to me again."

- o -

Ruca's kindness was something that she could never understand. To take in a complete stranger and share his assets with her, and not only her, but an infant son as well, she could not understand it. He not only met her needs but also took on the extra effort to see to her comforts as well. The conversations were still strained on her end, and yet he spoke amiably and openly as if she were his confidant. This level of vulnerability was so foreign to her. He spoke about what he thought or how he felt about things… it was so very strange.

It began this way, and continued on for a few weeks. He taught her many things, how to herd the sheep and sheer them and milk them. She learned how to make cheese and cook over a fire, all things that she never had to do in her life at the fortress. It was a simple life, but somehow it didn't feel boring. And he never asked her when she was going to leave, indeed perhaps it was because she didn't know herself if she were going to.

Azhaer adapted to this life very quickly as well. He was very fond of Ruca and was like an angel to him, hardly ever crying or throwing tantrums as he did for his royal nurses. It was a mutual affection, and the man was always praising the child and speaking tenderly to him. He started to call him a prince, and the first time it caused Chiyo to start and turn her head, but she realized that it was just a pet name. It made her uneasy, but as much as she did not want to be indebted to him, Ruca made the two of them feel very safe.

Perhaps she could trust him.

One night as the sheep and Azhaer were sleeping and the moon was just a tiny sliver, like the white of Chiyo's fingernail, she and Ruca sat by the fire in a silence, listening to the wolves howling in the distance.

"I came to the desert to learn more about myself, to meditate and pray," Ruca said suddenly, sitting with his elbows on his knees, his staff leaning against his forearm. "I lived in Hyrule Castle town for a long while with my father. He met my mother during one of the yearly festivals at the harvest time. He would always tell me the story of how he met her, he was just a young carpenter at the time, working for the Royal Family. He saw her in the crowd, tall and slender, her hair like a flickering flame as she laughed and spun around and around in the dance. He always told me that he had no chance, in an instant he was under her spell."

Chiyo listened and allowed herself to drift into the story, her knees drawn up close to her chest, her eyes gazing into the fire as she tried to imagine the festival. She herself had never been to Hyrule Castle, but many gerudo sometimes went to amuse themselves. She wondered if Ruca's mother was as lovely as Tamar had been when she danced, or perhaps sultry and cocky like Meela. She continued to imagine the scene as the woman caught the eye of her Hylian admirer, perhaps a man like Ruca, kind and with big hands, and as in a dream swept up to him to kiss him. Maybe the moment felt so right with the swaying music and the lights, and afterwards, in love, they…

It was embarrassing for her to imagine such a scene, and she felt like a little girl as she reddened despite herself. The girl named Aru that was buried deep inside of her thought that it was a wonderful beginning to a story. The woman named Moira only knew the violence that had ended Aru's life, and rejected it. All that was left was Chiyo, forever violated, desolate. Yes, that was who she was now. Ruca could never understand.

"It is a sad story," the shepherd continued, he too, gazing into the fire. "But perhaps a typical love story in its brevity. She always belonged to the desert, and it was always her first love. The next time he saw her, she kept her face veiled and wouldn't let him see it. Instead, she gave him a son to raise, because the child would not be accepted among the gerudo."

"But you feel you didn't belong there either," she said suddenly, distantly, her eyes still far away.

"No. When I was a youth I sought answers. I even studied to be a priest at the Temple of Time, and was ordained for many years. I learned much, and I am the man that I am because of the instruction and mentorship I had at that time… but there is something else that I was meant to do, or rather, am meant to do. Perhaps it is my small destiny."

He stopped there, as if waiting to hear her reaction to his story. The conflicting thoughts and confused emotions built up in her head as she tried to make sense of it all. Of the gerudo, of the King, of dreams and hope. After a little while, she clenched her fist unhappily, and it was, in the end, Chiyo who answered him.

"You are too naïve," she said with bitter sharpness, "to think this way. Destiny is just a word people use to take advantage of the weak, or to make the weak feel a false sense of hope."

Ruca looked at her with no change in expression, and she stood up, brushing the sand off of herself. She didn't hold anything against him. Because of his upbringing in the happy streets of Hyrule Castle town, in the sheltered walls of the Temple… perhaps it was condescending of her to think so, but he hardly knew anything.

"Nobody is born with a purpose."

But he simply smiled that gentle smile and took no offense to her arrogance as she turned to leave.

"Thank you for listening. Sleep well, Chiyo."

end of part ten.

- o -

It's been a while since I wrote here, huh?

Sorry that updates have been so sporadic… thank you to everyone who's stuck with me. I've been waiting to write these last few chapters… Ruca is a character I've been looking forward to introduce for a while! So it's great to have finally gotten here. (Although the astute reader may remember that he was alluded to in a previous chapter…) But I'm glad to get away from the stuffy gerudo fortress life to write about life in the wilderness hehe :D

Only a few chapters left!