The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 43: The Skull Kid's Games
By, Frank Hunter

It was out of sight, but not even close to out of mind. Rigo knew from its tone, from what it said, that it was still close by. Still watching. And there was nowhere else to go, nothing else to find. If he could goad the creature out, maybe he could take it down, coerce it into leading him out of here. Or back to Amili. He had to try.

What do I need to know about this thing? he asked Nabooru.

It's only a child, Nabooru answered. Though it may be much older than it looks, mentally Skull Kids never age. They're playful and reckless, and not fully aware of the consequences of their actions. Treat it carefully.

Can it help me out of here?

Only if it trusts you.

The Skull Kid, wherever it was, just went on singing and chanting, seemingly indifferent to Rigo's concern. "Lost little raven, high up in the sky," it went on. "Has nowhere to land as the world spins by."

Rigo backed out of the clearing, no longer so concerned about becoming lost. He already obviously was, and apparently there were consequences if he didn't find his way soon. But an idea came to him, and he opened his mouth as he kept his eyes on the trees.

"But bold as it is, downward it dives," he added onto the Skull Kid's line.

The Skull Kid giggled loudly and finished. "And beak first to the ground, it crashes and dies." The little imp laughed uncontrollably as though it had just come up with the funniest line ever conceived and did not stop for some time. Rigo wondered if this was the kind of kid that would pull the wings off a beetle given the chance. The kind of kid that is violent and cruel for cruelty's own sake. He figured yes. Nabooru had already said, it does not understand cause and consequence. Why would it sympathize with pain?

He'd have to trade it something it did enjoy, though. If he wanted to enlist its help.

"So," he ventured. "You like stories, huh?"

"Mmmmm hmmmmm," the creature drawled out. Rigo thought he could see the slightest flicker of the orange lantern light up in the branches in front of him. He kept slowly backing off, but as he did, the flicker went out and simply reignited closer to him.

"Do you know a lot of them?"

"Tumu tells me. Stories. Riddles. I listen."

"Who?" Rigo stammered. "Who's Tumu?"

"My friend," the Skull Kid said. As he did, the lantern blazed into existence mere feet from Rigo's eyes, and he shielded them from the glare. When he dared look again, the Skull Kid was hanging upside down in front of him, holding the lantern out to Rigo, as if showing him something. "See?" it asked, shaking the lantern slightly.

Rigo looked, but could see nothing in the lamp besides some obviously enchanted firelight.

"Tumu's my deku fairy," the Skull Kid said. "She came to me, cause she was tired of those silly little forest children. She came to me for fun." It regarded the lantern and its expression seemed to turn cross. "But you haven't told me any new stories in a long time!"

Rigo examined the lantern again, more closely now, but still saw nothing. There's no fairy in there, he said to Nabooru.

Fairy's probably long gone, she said. If there ever was one in the first place. This creature seems a little bit lost itself…

"Well," Rigo said, speaking to the lantern. "It's a pleasure to meet you Tumu."

"Ooh!" the Skull Kid exclaimed. "He's polite! He's nice! I like him, do you? He's not like the other one. Not like him at all."

"The other one?" Rigo ventured.

"Lot of people getting lost today. Lot of people in the Woods."

"This other one…was he wearing, like, metal clothing? And he had a scar right here?" Rigo pointed to his cheek.

The Skull Kid nodded vigorously. "Yes!" he hissed. "Ugly man. He promised us. He promised, and then he didn't play."

"Uhh," Rigo wondered. "Promised what, exactly?"

The creature flipped itself right side up and dropped to the ground in front of Rigo. At full height, it would probably come up to his belly, but he didn't know because it sloped and fidgeted and did not stand up straight.

"I didn't want to, it was Tumu that said we need to be nicer, we need to trust people," it said, getting defensive. "Tumu said listen to him, so we did. We helped him, and he said if we helped he would play with us, and so we helped. But then it was time to play our game, and instead he tried to catch us and hurt us. He tried to break Tumu."

The creature glared up at Rigo. It was close enough now that he could probably reach out and grab it, but he was starting to get the feeling such a thing would do no good.

"So you…helped him get through the Woods?" Rigo asked.

"Yes," the Skull Kid answered. "Mistake. BIG mistake. Won't make it again. Not this time."

Rigo swallowed. Tydus had already burned this bridge behind him. He probably assumed that once he had the Fountain's power, he wouldn't have trouble with the Woods anymore.

"I need to go after him," Rigo said. "It's very important that my friends and I go after him."

"Tch," the Skull Kid dismissed. It turned around and started ambling away. "Anyone who wanders into the Woods gets lost," it said again. "Not smart."

"Wait!" Rigo called after it. "What if I give you something for your help? I can tell you a story," he said. "A new story."

It gave the creature pause. "New story?" it asked.

"Yeah," Rigo said. "One you've never heard. I can trade you a story for passage through the Woods."

The Skull Kid turned and looked him over skeptically. "Passage in the Woods should be paid in riddles," it said to him. "Answer three of Tumu's questions, I can let you through. Miss one, I let you change."

"That's the price for just me though, yeah?" Rigo asked.

The Skull Kid nodded sullenly.

"If I tell you a story too, then you help all of us. My friends and me. You show us all where you took him. The other one."

It squinted at him. "You play…two games?"

"Yeah," Rigo said. "If you'll help us out of here, yeah. I'll play two."

The Skull Kid still didn't look convinced. It held its lantern up, looked at it, and seemed to listen to something Rigo couldn't hear, before it looked slyly back at him and spoke.

"I lap at your heels, eat all but the sky. Feed me, I live. Give me drink, and I die," it said to him. "What am I?"

The suddenness of the riddle took Rigo aback. He looked around, found a fallen tree off to his side and went and sat down, and sheathed his sword to buy him some time. The Skull Kid just regarded him as he moved around.

Do you know the answer? he asked Nabooru.

The spirit scoffed. Honestly kid, it's right there next to him. He looked at it when he came up with the line. You ought to be a little sharper than that by now.

Rigo looked, but still saw nothing. There was nothing beside the creature but the lantern it held, glowing brightly in the dim shade of the forest.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, suddenly getting it. "Fire. It's fire."

The expression the Skull Kid wore changed instantly. It fell backward, erupting in a fit of giggles, clearly content that Rigo was able to prove a challenge, and not just roll over and fail. When it was done laughing and flailing in its dramatic way, it set the lantern down beside it and sat up. "He's clever," it said to the lantern. "He riddles."

The Skull Kid turned to regard Rigo, looking up at him. "You tell your story. Tell, and we listen."

"Okay," Rigo said. "But, the other riddles…"

"I'll ask," the Skull Kid cut him off, dismissing the idea. "Want story first."

"Okay," Rigo said again. He dredged through his mind, trying to pull up the most interesting stories he knew, all that he'd learned.

"Once upon a time," he started. "There were three goddesses…"

"Din, Farore, and Nayru," the Skull Kid interrupted. "Left the Golden Triangles. Lots of power. Boooooring. I know that one."

Rigo sighed, but accepted this. It was, after all, a very well-known myth. He thought back to the nights he'd spent in Hyrule Castle, and tried again.

"In ancient times, the land of Hyrule was washed away by a great flood that left nothing in the world but a scattering of small islands…"

"Hero of the Winds, saved the world. C'mon, you're not even trying! Everyone knows the stories about the Hero!"

Rigo gritted his teeth. Fine, so the imp knew quite a bit about Hylian lore. He could go back further.

"Before life ever existed, there was nothing but dust. But a new wind blew from the west, blew from the breath of the Sand Goddess as she sculpted life…"

"From the Desert of Time," the Skull Kid cut in again. "Chosen people, whatever. Ugh, I thought you had a new story!?"

That one caught Rigo up. How could this creature possibly know the legends of the Gerudo? How old would it have to be to have ever spoken to one of his people? Where would it have heard such a story?

"Do you have one or not?" it pressed him.

Rigo shook his head quickly and tried to come up with something. If it knew the Gerudo legends, Rigo wasn't sure he would be able to come up with something that it hadn't heard before. Obviously this creature had listened to and told more stories in its long life than he had. But maybe something recent, something from out of its reach, would work.

"So, you know about the chosen people?" Rigo checked with it.

"The Gerudo from the desert, duh," it said, irreverently.

"Well once upon a time, among the Gerudo people, there was a woman. She was not an exceptional woman. She was a tailor by trade, and made clothing for the tribe, but she was a good woman. Her name was Denali."

The Skull Kid propped its head up in his hands, but did not interrupt. Rigo was reassured, but realistically, there was no way the creature could possibly have heard this story before.

"Denali, like many of the Gerudo women, took a fancy to a man in the village nearby. If you know the legends, then you know that all Gerudo born are female, except for one man, every one hundred years, who becomes their King."

The Skull Kid nodded, but said nothing.

"Since there are no Gerudo men, the Gerudo have to bond with other men nearby, in order to keep the tribe going. So it is normal, even acceptable for woman to go down to the village and take mates. They attract males, seduce them, and then bring the children back to the village to be raised as Gerudo."

"They use them," the Skull Kid said, a puckish smirk spreading across its face as though it enjoyed the idea.

"Yes," Rigo admitted. It was fairly dirty when put this way, but without going into the details of Gerudo religion, customs, and traditions, this was the simplest way to describe it.

"Any sort of association beyond the necessary is strictly forbidden. And that's not just by the Gerudo. In the town, the leaders know that Gerudo don't have a vested interest in them, and so marriages, even relationships between the two races are looked down on. Any sort of mingling that goes on, goes on secretly and quietly. And that's where Denali ran into trouble.

"Denali fell in love with a man, and gave her heart to him. And though he eventually gave her a child in return, she refused to cut him off or abandon him as she was supposed to. Her mother and the Gerudo midwives insisted that she keep away from him, that she stay with them as her pregnancy progressed, but whenever the opportunity came, she'd sneak out of her home and back to the town to be with the man she loved. And it was during these travels that the idea came to her about leaving the Gerudo and running off with him, to raise the child together, away from all of it. When she shared the idea with him, he at first didn't want to, but eventually he came around because he did love her too and he wanted her to be happy."

"Love makes people do funny things," the Skull Kid said.

"I guess it does," Rigo answered. "It's exactly because they were making plans to escape that Denali found herself with this man the night she went into labor. He brought in a nurse to help deliver her child. And the birth happened right there, as easily as it could possibly happen, but when it was done there was a different kind of problem. To Denali's great surprise, the baby was a boy."

The Skull Kid's eyes widened. "The King!?"

Rigo nodded. "Yes," he said. He had the creature's attention now. That was good. It meant he'd want to hear to the end of the story.

"I want the second riddle," Rigo said to it.

"No!" the Skull Kid cried, as though it were in pain. "No, no, no! You tell the story! You tell the story, and then we play the other game!"

"I want the second riddle now," Rigo insisted, pressing his advantage. If the Skull Kid wanted to get to the end, he wouldn't throw him a riddle that was too difficult, and risk making Rigo stop. "I'll do the third at the end, but I want the second one now."

The Skull Kid groaned and looked at its lantern as it picked the thing up. It rattled the lantern quickly from side to side, and then cast it back to the ground. "Slight of build and green of skin. My sharp, slim blade will cut the wind," it said.

Rigo smiled. He had guessed right. Green blade, cutting the wind. This was an easy one. He was surrounded by it. "Grass," he said.

"Yes," the Skull Kid replied impatiently. "Good. Got it. Now tell more!"

Rigo obliged. "Obviously, the boy changed things. Denali wasn't just taking her child and running off now, she was taking the future King of the Gerudo, and that could be very bad. She stayed with the man for several days while she recovered from the birth and thought about what it all meant. But at the end of it all, her feelings weren't one of the things that got changed. When she was ready to travel, she still wanted to go. And she didn't tell the man about the significance of it being a boy. She thought it would be better for him not to know."

"They ran away?" the creature asked.

"They were packed and ready to go. On the night that they were supposed to leave, they ran into trouble. See, the nurse who delivered the boy knew that something was strange about a Gerudo giving birth in town. And though she was sworn to secrecy about it, still she told someone. And that someone told someone else. And it went on, the rumor spreading like wildfire until it made its way back to the Gerudo themselves. When they heard about the birth of a baby boy away from the tribe, they couldn't ignore it. They sent soldiers to the town to collect the boy, and the town's governors, not ready for a fight or willing to fight over something like this, forcibly surrendered Denali and her baby son back to the Gerudo. The father yelled and fought and tried to stop it, but in the end he wasn't able to do anything, and men are not allowed to come to the Gerudos' home. So that was the last time he saw his love or his child.

"Denali was tried and very quickly convicted of crimes against the throne, of not only kidnapping, but kidnapping the future King. So she was branded a traitor, and sentenced publicly. She was executed in the Town Square."

"Whoa!" the Skull Kid exclaimed.

Rigo nodded. "The Gerudo don't take their traditions lightly. Before the deed was done though, Denali entrusted her mother, the boy's grandmother, to look after him. She agreed to raise the boy, and make sure that he grew up into a man worthy of being a King. One that would make Denali proud. And the grandmother agreed to do exactly that."

Rigo blinked his eyes several times and sighed at the conclusion of the old story. It had an impact, though not enough to sate the Skull Kid's curiosity.

"Well?" it asked. "What happened? Did the son ever become King?"

Rigo let out a short laugh. "You know, I don't know."

"Tch," the Skull Kid dismissed. "We think that story was a cheat."

Rigo rolled his eyes. "Did you like it or not?"

"I guess. You gotta make the ending better. And it wouldn't be that hard. That kid got real, real lucky, after all. If Denali'd got away, his life woulda been boooooooring. It woulda just been him, his mom, and his dad, and they'd have settled down wherever, and lived dully ever after. This way, I bet he does become King! He gets a cool life, and probably lots more adventures. Do you know any of those stories?"

Rigo's heart wrenched at the callous yet innocent interpretation of the story's outcome, and couldn't help but wonder if the little imp was right about what might have happened. What the boy's life might have been. But that didn't really matter. Neither of them would really find out.

"Loads," he said, answering the Skull Kid's question.

"Tell me another one?" it asked him.

Rigo shook his head. "I only promised one. And you still owe me a riddle."

"C'mon!" the Skull Kid went on. "I wanna hear about the King! I thought you were fun!"

"I am," Rigo said. "But I'm also running out of time. I need to get after that other man, and I need you to help me. So please, can you ask Tumu. What is the final riddle?"

The Skull Kid seemed to glare at him, but stood up and took his lantern with him. As Rigo watched, the creature began to grow more transparent before his eyes, the light in the lantern going out. He was disappearing.

"Hey!" Rigo yelled, shooting up and after it. He reached out to grab it, but his hands passed through its mostly transparent form, and snatched nothing but air.

"We had a deal!" he snarled at the air.

"Still do," the Skull Kid's voice said from nowhere. "'I'll tell you one more. Say the answer, and we'll get you back to your friends, and show you all the way out. Give the wrong answer, and stay here forever. Then we'll have plenty of time for stories."

Rigo looked around, but knew he wouldn't find it. Much as he may have gotten used to Nabooru's presence, he still did not fully enjoy speaking to disembodied voices.

"Riddle this," the creature said from its hiding place. "They try and beat me, all in vain. For once I win, I end their pain. What am I?"

And Rigo grimaced. It wasn't easy, and he didn't know.