AN: As a cursory scroll through my profile will tell you, I am very bad at actually following through with stories. Still, I have been playing BOTW recently, have a plan for this, and have nothing better to do, so I might actually finish this one! I hope you read despite my past failures to finish these stories, and I hope you enjoy :) /alexxx
As specks of hot sand flicked her face, a marked contrast to the noticeably-cooling air of the Gerudo desert at dusk, Riju let her hair down. Lately, it seemed to Riju that every day was a cacophony. In the first days of her chiefdom, just after her mother died, her role as Chief had been mostly symbolic; much of the responsibilities of running the town and leading her people had been diverted to the adults around her. Now, though, she was an adult, and it became harder and harder to rationalize why she shouldn't make important but boring decisions. Make no mistake, Riju was no longer a little girl given power too early; no longer feared that she did not deserve her people's respect. Still, every day that she sat through back-to-back administrative meetings to discuss her town's budget, debates about the efficacy of different materials to bolster the outer wall, and, worst of all, listening to ideologues rant about the values of purity to the Gerudo tradition – against her unstated, but always understood, desires to loosen the town's strict social codes – Riju found herself counting the hours, minutes, and seconds until she could break away from the life-draining stream of information and find a moment for herself. Only in the evening, the business of the day completed, could she stop being the Gerudo Chief and just be Riju.
In the past, her independent streak had been the source of significant controversy. Buliara had tried her hardest to prevent Riju from going out alone at night for years. Riju understood why, of course: she was an open target in one of Hyrule's most inhospitable environments, precisely at its most dangerous hour. But as she grew older, she became more comfortable with her power, and in a fiery argument once invoked her full authority to command Buliara to let her leave, to hell with the risks! She didn't much like that conversation – didn't like invoking the because-I-say-so authority technically vested in her generally – but it had to be done. From that day onward, she would set out with her sand seal Patricia just as the sun set. Over time, Buliara had come to accept that Riju needed the hours out on the night sand to unwind. Riju could tell as much by the way that not only Buliara, but the entire Royal Guard, increasingly let her be during her evening sabbaticals. Exactly as Riju wanted it to be.
Unfortunately, this evening, Riju's time on the sands was to be cut short. The first warning thereof came just northwest of the Southern Oasis, when she noticed three Lizal Tri-Boomerangs lying on the ground, alongside the messy remains of what – presumably – had once been the three Lizalfos that had carried them. Upon observing this, the Gerudo was a bit concerned, as only the toughest Lizal warriors carried those weapons. Any single member of the Gerudo guard would've had her hands full with one such foe, let alone three. And, so far as Riju was aware – which is to say all but certain – no members of her army were out in the southern sands in this hour of the night. Riju racked her brain and figured that despite the bad omen, she was likely in no danger. After all, the Molduga of the Southern Oasis had been vanquished for good just after the fall of the Great Calamity in Hyrule Castle several years earlier. The threat of wandering Guardians was similarly taken care of. The probability that a Lynel was responsible for these three fiends' untimely demise wasn't zero, but it was low: no such man-beast had ever been reported to have survived the harsh variations in the desert's climate from day to night. As such, she carried on into the night.
Riju's concern grew, though, as Patricia pulled her further into the desert night. This was because the Lizalfos from before weren't the only monsters that had recently met their ends. As she struck a path to the Arbiter's Grounds, the frequency of the fallen remains only increased. By the time Riju finally reached the pillars where the Mirror of Twilight was rumored to have once stood, it was difficult to find patches of ground that weren't stained by blood and entrails. Morbidly curious, she slowed Patricia to a halt and inspected the scene on foot.
She was greeted by a grisly sight. Though she wasn't a detective by any means, the remnants of the fallen legions were in patterns, making clear the progression of the battle that had taken place before Riju had arrived at the scene. Underneath the northmost archway of the Grounds, the pace of fighting had increased exponentially. While cadavers marked the path from the Southern Oasis to the Arbiter's Grounds in small clusters, there were dozens surrounding the arch, suggesting that the army had set an ambush for whatever killed them. Among the horde had been several White Bokoblins, a dozen White Lizalfos, and at least ten White Moblins – all dead; less executed than slaughtered. After dispatching this first wave, the victorious party moved south through the Grounds, along the way slaying four Black Hinoxes. After fighting through another wave of less-dangerous foes, the battle moved onto lower terrain to the west of the Grounds, where there lied not dozens of bodies, but – more worryingly – the decapitated body of one Golden Lynel.
"Well," Riju mused to herself, distressed, "this is a problem." A group of monsters this large could've put Gerudo Town in serious danger, so the mere existence of all the bodies surrounding her warranted a dramatic increase in defense readiness. But, in truth, that wasn't what truly concerned the Chief. Something out in the desert had killed each and every member of the army that had assembled here and got away to tell the tale. This time, it was to her benefit. But only this time. Out of the corner of her eye, Riju noticed a gleam of gold on the tightly packed sand. As she approached it, she realized that the gold was a drop of liquid; closer still, and she saw a trail of similar droplets leading west into the desert. For now, she was done being Riju, and back to being Chief of the Gerudo: she had an obligation to her people to find out what had happened here.
She whistled – Patricia's signal to come – and leaned down to inspect the first golden droplet. Crouching down onto her knees, the droplet turned a reddish brown, and Riju realized she was looking at blood. Based on the color and consistency, she was reasonably certain it was Hylian blood. She looked to the next droplet of blood on the desert surface, a few yards ahead. It gleamed golden. Sure enough, though, as Lady Riju ventured closer it lost its brilliant hue. This was certainly Hylian blood – the gold was perhaps just a trick of the light. "Strange," she muttered. The Hylians hadn't reorganized into one central society following the end of the Calamity; so far as she understood, most of them had migrated into the far regions of Necluda and Akkala. Very hospitable places, which made it practically impossible for Hylians to stand even the relatively mild climate of the North Gerudo Desert, let alone as extreme a place as the Arbiter's Grounds. Even Gerudo struggled to survive for long out here. Though, she supposed, there had been one Hylian who could stand the radical shifts in the weather. "Link!"
The Gerudo woman leapt toward Patricia, startling the beast with how quickly she harnessed it. Snapping her seal's reins, the pair followed the trail of blood into the night. Disconcertingly, the droplets turned into drops, then into splashes. The splashes turned into a thin but constant line of blood, and the Chief became ever more worried, until, looking ahead, she realized that she was about to come head-to-head with a gargantuan sandstorm. Patricia, remembering the danger within the last great sandstorm kicked up by Vah Naboris some six years earlier, stopped in her tracks. Riju tried to negotiate with her childhood pet for a long moment, with Patricia having none of it.
She sighed. "I suppose I can't make you come, can I?" she asked Patricia.
Patricia, being a sand seal, did not respond.
If she was left to traverse the sands on foot, there was no way that she would be able to follow the trail of blood to its finish. Whether the perpetrator of the bloodbath at Arbiter's Grounds was a great danger to Gerudo Town or a long-lost friend in need of assistance, Riju would never know. No matter the truth, this was the worst possible outcome. Riju was no coward, but she admittedly hadn't been excited to put herself in imminent danger by encountering something dangerous enough to slay that many monsters; regardless, it would be her duty to find the threat herself, rather than allow Barta to find it and get hurt. And, if it were Link… as Chief of the Gerudo, Lady Makeela Riju, she would never admit that she had a special, personal desire to find him. However, here in the desert night, she was only Riju, and could admit to herself that she had a deep longing to find him. After all, he'd been her saving grace in the dark times six years before. By first recovering the Thunder Helm, then by sating Vah Naboris, he'd done her two tremendous favors for which she owed him deeply. Damaging to her honor as Chief, she'd never truly gotten the chance to repay the Hylian Champion: he was immediately off to liberate the rest of the Divine Beasts as soon as he could be. Even when he returned – with more battle scars and war-weary eyes – Riju had been only a child on the throne, without the political capital to overturn her city's ban on voe and fend off challenges to the authority of her rule. He'd been unjustly forced to assume a false identity, even when his real identity was precisely the reason Gerudo Town could exist outside the shadow of Naboris's constant, destructive lightning. Even as she aged into rule and became more confident with her powers, she had been unable to repay him – he simply vanished into the Hyrulean wilderness without a trace. If she could find him, and save his life, she could consider the eternal debt she owed him all but repaid. Perhaps, even, the two could become friends. Link had been around at the time of Urbosa and seemed to remember her in his latest treks to the Gerudo Town. If he did remember her, Riju had much to learn from his recounts.
Alas, there was no point in truly trekking down that hypothetical, for it was doomed to remain hypothetical only. It was time to leave and alert the Royal Guard about the situation. She could go no further now, and perhaps the Guard could mount a concerted search in the morning.
Just before leaving for the Town, Riju threw one last wistful look over her shoulder. Even she wasn't sure why; maybe to catch a glimpse of some king-of-monsters-type beast in the shroud, or to send a quiet prayer for Link's health. Irrespective of her motives, the glance was consequential. It revealed that the trail of blood was glowing the same brilliant gold as she had seen before, only bright enough to comfortably light Riju's path into the storm.
The Gerudo Chief snapped back into action once again. Chuckling, she said, "Well, that's convenient." She turned back to Patricia and commanded: "Stay here. You don't have to come with me if I can see the entire path through this storm, but it'd be very rude of you to leave me."
Patricia, being a sand seal, did not respond.
In response, she scoffed. "Don't you look at me like that! Fine, I'll give you hydromelon when we get home if you stay here for me."
Patricia, being a sand seal, began clapping her flippers at the mention of hydromelon.
"That's more like it. Stay."
Riju, among all the Gerudo, had the most genuine connection with her sand seal. Whereas most Gerudo understood that sand seals were profoundly stupid creatures, allocating most of the energy from their food for fat storage to stay warm at night and almost none for their brain, Riju denied the concept and fostered an almost personal connection with her Patricia. As such, Patricia understood complex concepts that eluded other sand seals, like "stay" and "bad". This wasn't a useful trait in most circumstances, but Riju wasn't a normal Gerudo woman, and as such she took special care to plan for more than just most circumstances. Admittedly, she hadn't exactly envisioned that following a glowing trail of blood into a sandstorm as an abnormal circumstance to find herself in, but somewhere around the time that a living legend had strutted into her town and tamed a Divine Beast before walking off into the sunset, only rarely to be seen again, Riju learned it was best to suspend her expectations of the world and simply try to find meaning in whatever uncertainty was thrown at her.
Reflections on personal philosophy aside, it was Riju's duty to investigate the uncharted storm, so she set off through the howling winds and sand. As she followed the trail of blood, Riju noticed that its glow dissipated when she came near it, just like it had before. The result was that the Gerudo Chief was following the golden glow, constantly ahead of her, through the near-blackness of the night, with even the moonlight choked out by the sands whirling all around her. She could've convinced herself that she was walking through a tunnel into the afterlife, if not for the constant reminder of her mortality provided by the burning sensation of countless sand particles scraping against her, shaving off microscopic bits of skin with their sharp edges. She pressed forward for what felt like an hour, noticing the trail of blood beneath her feet consistently widening. If it was a Hylian she was following, Riju was decidedly distressed for their health. Even Link, with all his strength and vitality, would be in bad shape after losing all this blood.
The Gerudo Chief's long slog through the wilderness came to an end not long thereafter, when she came across the skeleton of what was once a colossal beast, poking halfway above the sands. The trail of blood was thicker than Riju's hand at this point, and it kept glowing even underfoot. Under the tail of the great fallen beast, the golden trail ceased and led to an orb of diffuse golden light. Mesmerized, she forgot all sense of duty. Some otherworldly force overpowered the Chief's will, and she stumbled numbly toward the sphere. The closer Riju got, the brighter the ball's light burned, until the Gerudo had to cover her eyes with her arm just to stand moving closer. She counted her steps, trying to guess when she would finally reach the glowing ball.
Seven steps away. Six, now.
The closer Riju got, the fuzzier her mind became. The very act of counting down became a struggle; the sound of static and rushing winds fiercer, even, than those in the heart of the sandstorm, were crushing her brain inward.
Five more steps.
Riju grunted, focusing all her dwindling energy on keeping her feet moving. "C'mon, now," she growled to herself, "I'm so close…."
Four. Three…
The brute force of the staticky noises tearing at the edges of Riju's sense of self were too strong. She felt her identity fracture, and she tore her arm away from her eyes to clasp both hands over her ears.
Three… three…
The Gerudo was helpless: she couldn't even take a step forward. In immense pain, she fell to her knees and bowed her head to the ground. Riju had, as a young vai, been prone to headaches, even migraines. Once, a plague had torn through the Gerudo Town. It had infected most of the populace and killed many. It even infiltrated the Chief's own home, where it infected Riju. On death's doorstep, she had become unable to get out of bed, so overwhelmed by fever and chills that she became delirious, wavering between the fixed poles of fear and pain, and experiencing no other sensation for six days. Even that, compared to this moment, had been a cakewalk. Every synapse that fired in her brain was a strike of lightning frying her entire brain – but not quite: Riju had been struck by real lightning before, and it was nothing next to this.
By bits and pieces, Riju's pain subsided. After five very long minutes, she could put herself back together and remember where she was. Still, she was physically paralyzed by the most agonizing experience of her young life. Every bit of her body begged her to stop, to avoid proceeding forward at all costs. She began to shake out of pure relief. It was ironic, she realized as small tears began to form in her eyes and drip to the ground below, that she had withstood the storm of irresistible pain moments ago stoically. Only now that she had a moment of respite did she cry. Through her tears, she gathered herself. Her teeth gnashing together, the Gerudo Chief remembered the great danger her people may be in if she didn't push forward. On her elbows and knees, she crawled toward her destination.
Two.
Another harsh wave of static hit Riju. This time, it wasn't centralized in her head, but seemed to attack her entire body. It felt like her skin was being ripped off, and she vomited onto the hard sand. Riju lost consciousness.
When, much later, the Gerudo woman's eyes opened, she felt euphoric. Not much had changed, but the pain from before was gone. She realized soon after that her eyes were open, and not being seared by blinding golden light. Carefully, Riju scanned her surroundings. It was still night, but the winds had died down and the sand had fallen from the air. A large flower sat before her, and she saw that fairies buzzed around the air. Front and center, a staircase of opulent, multi-colored mushrooms was formed. At the top of the staircase, a hooded Hylian with bloodied arms crouched while holding the limp body of a beautiful woman. It appeared that Riju's suspicion of Link's involvement was valid. Just beyond the two – who, Riju figured, were pretty obviously responsible for the blood trail – lied a pool of water, with an enormous figure emerging, chest only, from it. Aside from the being's gigantic stature and opulent dress, it appeared to be a Hylian vai. She stared for a moment at Riju before jolting upon realizing that the Gerudo was staring back.
"Wait… you can see me?" the large woman cooed. Cautiously, Riju nodded. "That's interesting. Well, there's no point in you lying face-first in the dust, is there?"
Slowly, Riju stood and dusted herself off. The Gerudo Chief never took her eyes off the creature, not feeling out of danger. "Where… where am I?" she asked warily.
A worried look crossed the woman's face. "Don't tell me you've lost your memory, dear."
Riju shook her head, a bit disoriented. "No, no… that's not it. I remember things, I just… don't understand what's going on."
"Mm." The giantess chuckled. "I haven't seen you before. I suppose it's no surprise. Poor thing, you're completely innocent, aren't you? Just followed an altruistic instinct and got caught up in all this. A shame, really, you're really in over your head."
Riju bristled. "No," she snapped, "I'm not. I am Lady Makeela Riju, Chieftain of the Gerudo. I am not some helpless vai; my people look to me for guidance and safety, and I am obliged to provide it to them. Now, if you will lose the condescending act and explain to me precisely what the spirits have weaved into my fate, my people and I would greatly appreciate your assistance."
At this, the woman in the pool laughed heartily for a long moment. Upon taking note of Riju's visible anger, though, she caught herself. "Do forgive me, Lady Riju. I mean no offense by my laughter; I simply appreciate your spunk. Well, seeing as we're making formal introductions, I am the Great Fairy of the Gerudo Desert. Quite pleased to make your acquaintance. I must admit, though, I'm surprised you can see me! I've had no company other than this one," she gestured to the Hylian still kneeling on the alter to her pool, "for over a hundred years. Few visitors have made it this far into the hostile desert," she continued, "and none among them could see me. None but for the two of you. I suppose, given your station, that your ability to see me suddenly isn't a coincidence."
Riju's confusion only grew. "Not a coincidence? What do you mean? Who is that? I still don't understand, and I really get the feeling that I need to."
"Pardon my rambling. It's lonely out here, you know! I understand, though, you have a responsibility to your people, and, I fear, to all of Hyrule. I must admit, I don't know all that happened tonight, but I'll tell you what I do know.
"Twelve hours ago, the sandstorm that surrounds my fountain now kicked up abruptly. That was the first omen of tragedy ahead; the storm raged throughout the hundred years that the Hero slumbered, and my fountain slowly dried up. The winds only dissipated recently, when the Hero brought life back to this once-desolate oasis. At that moment, I began to suspect the beginnings of tragedy. A few hours later, while meandering in my pond, I heard a beautiful voice singing out to me. It was quiet at first, but over time the melody grew louder; as its volume increased, though, the voice grew fainter, as though its source were losing power. As day turned to night, I ventured out of my pool to peer my surroundings and saw a brilliant glowing light in the sands. The sight of that light awakened a memory deep within me. A memory from the earliest days of creation, when all that existed were the immortal deities, gods and devils doing war with one another. Of all the deities, though, only one sported that brilliant hue: the Goddess Hylia herself. As the glow got closer and closer, the voice of the Goddess faded evermore, and was supplanted by harsh static. She grew weaker. I came to realize that she was dying. Reality itself began to fragment as she came closer to death, and, with no heir, when her vessel passed, the Soul of the Goddess flared out in its true form. It was magnificent to see; I highly doubt that I will encounter something so beautiful again.
"So here she lies. The Goddess's vessel lies dead in the arms of her chosen hero." The Great Fairy paused and momentarily pursed her lips, showing her first hint that she felt something other than amusement. "This… This doesn't feel like an accident, that you're here."
Riju waited for the Great Fairy to continue for a moment, but the moment stretched on long enough that she realized the ancient spirit was waiting for a response. "I suppose not," she agreed, not really sure what else to say. She walked up the stairway of mushrooms, suppressing a grimace as they squished under her feet in a manner that couldn't really be described, but was unquestionably revolting. She pulled back Link's hood only to be astounded at what she saw. His face was frozen in an expression somewhere between horror and despair, utterly still. The Gerudo slid her hand in front of his mouth. He was breathing, though each breath was inaudibly shallow, and his inhalations came few and far between. Quickly, out of instinct, her hand darted to the Hylian's throat. She felt a weak pulse. Rapidly, her head darted back toward the Great Fairy. "What happened to him," Riju demanded.
The Great Fairy shrugged. "When the Goddess passed from this world, something happened. You were knocked to your knees, then unconscious. He was even closer to her."
"But he's still alive. There must be something I can do for him?"
The beautifully dressed woman had no response. After all, she was a practitioner of magic, not medicine.
No matter. Riju made up her mind then and there: she owed this Hylian her life – no, the lives of all her people. If not for him, history would've recorded the young Gerudo Chief not as having overcome her age to save her people, but being overwhelmed by it as Gerudo Town was razed. Perhaps, just perhaps, if she got him back to the Gerudo Town quickly, the doctors there would be able to do something. As graciously as she could manage while still acting fast, she removed Princess Zelda from Link's arms. As Riju held her, she was overwhelmed with a sense of awe. The cadaver of the woman before her looked to be that of a woman barely in her twenties, when in reality the Princess had been over one hundred years old. More than that, though, the history of all of Hyrule laid in this body: tens of thousands of years of continued civilization, dozens of wars against an otherworldly evil, and the soul of the One True Goddess Hylia. A single tear dropped from Lady Riju's eye as she laid the Princess down on the sand and muttered a quick prayer for safe passage into the next world – a bit of a laughable act, given that she would likely be a deity there, but a traditional funeral rite passed down through generations of Gerudo that couldn't hurt to perform.
When Riju laid Zelda's lifeless body on the cold, hard sand of the desert night, the voice of the Great Fairy rang out. "You should leave immediately. Once, I could guarantee your safety here. Now, I fear that I can guarantee nothing at all. Take the Hero and go."
In the few seconds that it took for Riju to climb back up the nauseating squishy staircase, throw Link's petrified body over her shoulders, and turn back around, Princess Zelda's body was gone. As she fled the scene, the Great Fairy called out once more: "Make a trip to the Sheikah Village! The elder, Impah, may know how to handle this!"
Riju ran like hell through whipping winds and scraping sands to where she had left Patricia. All she felt was adrenalin. She didn't even notice as, for the first time in anyone's living memory, rains began to pour onto the Gerudo Desert.