The Waters of Nayru
Chapter 33: The Revolution
By, Frank Hunter

Upon learning of Rigo's miraculous survival, Amili immediately agreed to a more formal parley, albeit just between herself and Rigo. Tydus looked particularly bitter about being left out, but after much grimacing and griping agreed to pull the Hylian army back to the clearing over the river chasm, out of range of the Gerudo fortress, where they set up a camp.

Rigo went with them at first, allowing Amili a brief time to prepare for the he returned to the pueblo though, he was summoned into Colonel Tydus's command tent. The Colonel wasted no time on formalities when Rigo arrived. As soon as the two were alone, he stalked up to Rigo, the anger he felt rippling from him palpably. "You have two hours," he instructed, jabbing a finger into Rigo's chest. "If you're not back here in two hours, I'll have no choice but to assume you've deserted and are in coalition with the enemy."

Rigo shoved his hand away. "What are you, thick?!" he demanded. "That's the whole point of me being here. That's what I came to do!"

The Colonel took a step in on him, standing over Rigo in a pose of pure dominance. "Not before you recover the Chalice as you agreed. Not before you have removed this army from our doorstep. Do not forget, you are still my prisoner. You meet with this woman because you have my permission to do so, and if you cannot follow my instructions, then be prepared for the consequences."

Rigo stared into his eyes but said nothing. He tried to look defiant but felt he was lucky if he just kept from looking intimidated. Tydus's cheek twitched and he held up the index and middle fingers of one hand. "Two hours," he repeated, and dismissed Rigo from the tent.

Rigo left the camp and made the short hike back down the path alone, though he was certain there would be eyes in the Hylian camp following him, perhaps with the aid of those binocular tools they were so fond of, just as he was certain there would be Gerudo eyes on the cliffs above him ensuring that he came alone. When he turned the final corner and came into sight of the pueblo once more, he found that a single door at the center of the complex had been opened, the gate barring entry removed. Outside that door stood a single guardswoman. She stood straight, but still seemed nervous and fidgety as she waited for Rigo to close the distance to her. Along the roof were more guards, each trying harder than the last not to look eager to catch a glimpse of Rigo as he approached the pueblo.

"Prince Rigo," the guard at the door said when Rigo got within earshot. "I am to escort you immediately to the Stewardess."

Rigo nodded. "Sure," he said. "Thank you."

As he thanked her, the guard all but swooned. "Thank…thank you, my lord!"

In a beat, she turned and scurried off. Rigo started as she ran away, and then began to trot after her, needing to legitimately trot to keep up. This excited over a simple "thank you"? What had happened to these people? The last time Rigo had seen Gerudo, they couldn't have cared less who he was, and they were in fact ready to kill him. Now he was being treated like a celebrity despite having been missing for five long years. It was all so confusing.

Along the corridors and through room after room Rigo was led. All of it was broken and desecrated, though the army had restored some small comforts in places. There were tables at which to eat, there was a barracks in which to sleep, but all of it was built on top of the rubble and ruin.

Your memories of this place are a lot nicer than the place itself, he thought silently to Nabooru.

It's seen better days, she agreed. You have any idea what you're gonna say to the girl yet?

Not a clue, Rigo admitted. Gotta find out what happened. Then, we can go from there.

Do yourself a favor, and be careful with her, Nabooru cautioned.

Rigo had to work to keep from laughing out loud. It's Amili, he said to the spirit. She's not gonna stab me in the back or anything.

Nabooru remained guarded. Whoever she was when you knew her, she's the Stewardess of Gerudo now. Trust me, no one earns that title lightly.

A few more twists and turns and the guard led him to a room with a closed wooden door. It was the first functional door he'd seen in the whole place, and when they reached it, the guard lifted a fist and pounded three times. There was a heartbeat of a pause, and then a deadbolt was undone on the inside, and the door pulled open. Amili was on the other side, still dressed in her formal attire.

"The Prince is here to meet you, Stewardess," the guard said, with a curt salute.

Amili stared at Rigo as she answered. "Yes," she said, "Thank you, Selen. You can leave us."

The guard took one last look at Rigo, up and down, before turning and bustling off down the hall.

When she had turned a corner and moved out of sight, Rigo could no longer help himself, Nabooru's warning be damned. He stepped in quickly and wrapped his arms around Amili, pulling her into a hug so tight he might have been building it up for her all these years. She was taken aback at first, but quickly recovered and returned the hug, resting her cheek against his. Hers was wet, Rigo noticed, as though she might have been crying. He chose not to mention that. He didn't want to embarrass her. He didn't want to do anything at all, except embrace her and be grateful to the Sand Goddess that they had been reunited.

Amili, though, forced them apart a little too quickly, before they could find the opportunity to become any more intimate. She took Rigo lightly by the arm and led him out of the doorway, into the room behind her, shutting and deadbolting the door behind him, assuring them privacy.

The room was small, but it was obviously Amili's private quarters. There was a table with a candelabra alight on it, a rather comfortable looking cot, and in one corner, a desk covered with maps. Though Rigo didn't know the lay of the land, he recognized the image of Hyrule Castle dead center in many of them and postulated that they must have been maps of Hyrule itself. Possibly anticipated infiltration routes. Different Stewardess then, but similar plan.

"I thought you were dead," Amili said softly. "Everyone, they all thought you were dead. When Sooru took me away, that night, we heard an explosion from the Temple."

Rigo nodded. "I blew my way out. Thanks to-"

"Pureet," Amili cut in. "I know, Sooru figured it out. That's why she…" Amili trailed off. She didn't have to say it. Rigo already knew.

He waited for her to collect herself, but walked to the table and pulled out a chair, gesturing for her to sit. Amili took a breath and did precisely that. When she was in her chair, Rigo selected one for himself beside her and lowered himself into that.

"She sent soldiers back after you. They said they found you, that you had fallen from a cliff and had been…'killed on impact.' Isn't that horrific? Those are the words they used."

Rigo scoffed. "The story's almost true. I fell into a lake, though. They might have thought I died."

"Rigo," Amili said, looking back up at him with newly watery eyes. "You have to believe me. If I had any idea you were still alive, I'd have come back for you. I'd have brought you home in an instant. I swear to the Sand Goddess."

"It's fine, Amili," Rigo consoled. "It's fine. You didn't know. But I'm here now. I'm still alive."

"Right," Amili steadied. She shook her head and tried to bring herself back to the pose and dignity that her station demanded.

"Tell me what happened," Rigo prompted her. "With the Gerudo." Amili nodded, took a breath, sat up straighter, and began her story.

"Sooru brought me back to Jirin, under armed guard the whole way. When we got there, she told the whole pueblo that you had been killed in the Desert Temple by a monster the Hylians had put there. That by some miracle, I had survived and she had found me and saved me and brought me home. And she made me promise to stick to the story, too. She said if I didn't, she would take it out on your grandmother."

Rigo's heart clenched at that. What a sinister thing to do. To even think. The woman was nothing if not pure evil.

"How is she?" Rigo asked tentatively. "My grandmother, I mean." But the sad expression that surfaced in Amili's eyes confirmed what he'd been so afraid of.

"I'm sorry, Rigo," Amili said. "She died. It was years after, though. In her own bed. She was just old."

He was silent then for a moment, fighting the tears welling in his eyes. He hadn't thought about his grandmother much during his time in the Stockade. It had been too painful in that cold place to remember the warm home he had come from. And once he'd gotten out, the thought that she might not be there hadn't even crossed his mind. How fixated he had been on an impossible happily ever after.

"You should know, though, that even at the end, she never really believed you were gone," Amili added. "Sooru showed the Chalice she took from you to the people."

A look passed over Amili's face, as though she'd tasted something bitter. "From what your buddy outside said, I guess you still remember about the Chalice."

"He's not my buddy," Rigo said.

"Anyway, Sooru told them what it was and what she thought it would do. She figured that the Chalice would rally them all under her, get her the support she'd need to pull the pueblo's guards into a legitimate army, march back in an attack on Hyrule to take the Fountain of Nayru and establish the Gerudo as a new dominant race here. And people liked the idea more or less. Sooru wasn't the only one who'd known the legends of the Chalice. Have you heard them?"

"Yeah," Rigo said. "I know what it is."

"Well, the plan wasn't bad. It almost worked, but there was one thing that she hadn't counted on."

"What, their fear?" Rigo asked.

"No, their loyalty," Amili said. Rigo looked back up at her.

"Loyalty to you," she went on. "Loyalty to tradition, to the King. The Gerudo aren't stupid, Rigo. They didn't need me to tell them that Sooru's story was ridiculous. And everything Pureet warned you about back then was totally true. There was a line drawn in the sand between the people who wanted Sooru in charge, and the ones that wanted you. When she came back home without you, it shook everything up. It turned out there were a lot more people loyal to you than anyone expected. Especially Sooru. Things started to happen, accidents around the people closest to her. In less than a year, there was a full-out rebellion. The one side followed Sooru. The other side, well…" She shrugged, waiting for Rigo to follow her line of thought.

"You?!" Rigo stumbled.

"Well, they wanted you," Amili clarified, "but obviously they couldn't have you. They knew I'd been closer to you than anybody though, and as time went on and I could start slipping the truth about us, they found out everything I knew. I told them about why you went to Hyrule in the first place, and about exactly how close we'd gotten on the way. So they made me the figurehead of the rebellion. Jeez, I was fourteen…"

"I never even guessed..." Rigo started, incredulously.

"We were driven out of the pueblo and forced to shelter in Jirin. The Jirin govenment claimed they were neutral, that they had no interest in our civil war, and that made Sooru hesitant to come down on them hard, but their people were still good to us. They took us in and looked after us, and when we could muster the strength, we'd go back periodically and strike at the pueblo. We kept Sooru from coming to Jirin, and eventually she started running out of supplies and got desperate and sloppy. She made a mistake."

Rigo bared his teeth in anticipation. "Tell me she got what she deserved."

Amili stared into the candlelight and nodded. "I killed her, Rigo. For what she did to you and the people, I ended her life instead of taking her surrender. When she died, the rest of her soldiers chose not to go on, and we had gained control of Gerudo. But, we still had no King, and there needed to be a leader. Even though I was still technically underage, I had been the face of the rebellion. I was the one everyone knew. And everyone had figured I'd gotten enough experience in the war to last a lifetime. Besides, with Pureet, I got a little more help and guidance. They made me Stewardess. And I tried to do for the tribe what I thought you would have done. The talks we had during those nights in the desert. I knew you wanted to inspire the people, that you wanted to help them accept Jirin as their new home. I did what I could to bring us closer to the Jirin, and to make life in the pueblo more comfortable."

"That is what I wanted," Rigo said. "But still, here you are."

Amili sighed. "It was the Chalice. You remember what it feels like to look at it?"

"Yeah," Rigo said. "It's magnetic. It feels like it draws you right in."

"That's right," Amili said. "And thanks to Sooru, all of Gerudo had seen it, knew about it, and knew what it could do. Even with Sooru out of the picture, a lot of them latched onto her idea. It's like they couldn't forget about it. Some people became obsessed, and loud. And I couldn't tell them it was a bad idea. After all the shame, the exile and revolution and losing you, the idea of the Gerudo rising again into a respectable power was one nobody could ignore. And with the memories of the bloodshed so fresh in our minds...it was clear no one was going to be comfortable in Jirin any time soon."

"So you came to lead them to the Fountain," Rigo surmised.

"Yes. They've found hope in the Fountain, Rigo. It drives them. The people are ambitious like you've never seen them. They're inspired to rebuild here like they never were in Jirin. I could get them to do it without hesitation. It's all they want. And it would be possible to defend ourselves here, if we had the power of the Fountain on our side."

"Amili..." Rigo sighed. "Even if the story's true, there's an army of Hylians outside right now who want to stop you from doing exactly that."

"But they won't," Amili said. She was starting to get excited, the old glint of giddiness showing in her eye. "Not now that you're back. You can take us to the Fountain now. You can help us claim it. You can help us rebuild. Your people have you back, and now you can help us challenge Hyrule!"

Rigo closed his eyes. He knew what he had to say to her. It had to be said, but he knew as soon as the words left his lips, they would ruin everything.

"Amili," he said, hating himself for it. "We need to surrender the Chalice."

The effect was instantaneous. The happiness that had building fell away, just drained from her. She looked at him as though she'd just been slapped. Her eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean 'surrender' it?" she said.

"It's a condition I promised to the Hylians. It's complicated," Rigo said. He wasn't sure quite how to start explaining it.

"You promised them our Chalice?" she asked.

"I...I didn't have a choice," Rigo stammered.

"Let me get this straight," Amili said. Her voice had sunk, now as cold as ice. "The army down there, an army I thought was just a precaution on the Hylians' part, which I can't even say I blame them for. They should feel threatened. But you led that army here..."

"I didn't lead them," Rigo interrupted.

"You came with them," she adjusted, not caring, "our enemies, and told them you would take our treasure, a treasure you almost died for, and just...hand it over? Why would you do that?"

"I..." Rigo started, but he didn't know what to tell her. What could he say? That he was a prisoner? He didn't want Amili to know that. He didn't want to tell her he'd been caged like a rat since she'd seen him last. He was the King. Kings don't let that happen to themselves.

"I promised the Queen," he settled on. "The Queen of Hyrule, that I would help her seal the Chalice away. To stop it from being used."

"Since when does the King of Gerudo do the bidding of the Hyrule Royal Family?" Amili asked with a heaping dose of cynicism.

"It's not like that," Rigo said.

"That's what it sounds like. What have you been doing for the last five years, Rigo? Why didn't you come home?"

"I couldn't…" Rigo began. "I just couldn't leave. And even if I could have, I didn't know about the revolution. Sooru, she would have killed me on sight. That's what I thought."

"So you've been living among the Hylians all this time and you think you can trust them now, is that it?"

"No, it's not..."

"What happens to us once you give up the Chalice?"

Rigo swallowed. "We go home, Amili. Back to Jirin, and we make our lives there, like I always said we would."

"Back to Jirin?" Amili asked, incredulous. "Rigo, the Gerudo that are still there are waiting for news that they can leave. They're dying to hear that we've found the Fountain, and that they can come back to Hyrule and start to rebuild here. That is what the people want. Now you want me to go to them and tell them that we got to Hyrule, but I gave the Chalice to our enemies and fled? You want me to tell the soldiers here that that's the plan? Soldiers that are prepared to lay down their lives in your name? How is that going to look to them?"

Rigo was beginning to get inflamed. "Amili, that man outside is looking for an excuse to go to war with you. And he won't stop at just the soldiers here. If he has his way, he will hunt down every last Gerudo on the face of the planet. He will find Jirin and slaughter our people to the last child. He's afraid of us! To him, that justifies genocide!"

Amili stared into him. "And that's the person you want to trust the Chalice of Nayru to?"

"He's under orders to return the Chalice to his Queen," Rigo said.

"You know," Amili said, "if there's anything I learned from Sooru, it's that sometimes people don't always just do what's expected of them. If the man's as violent as you say he is, there's nothing to say he won't just use the Chalice to go to war. How do you know he won't take it, use it, and then kill us anyway?"

"Amili, we have to give him the Chalice to prevent violence. If we don't give it up, there is going to be a war!"

"I came here knowing there would be a war!" Amili said. "We're prepared for war. And I'm not going to stand down and surrender to a hostile commander just because you promised him our secret."

Rigo shook his head in exasperation. "I am the King!" he declared. "I am the King in whose name you're acting. I get the final say here on our course of action. You can't declare war on Hyrule unless I accept it."

Amili's eyes narrowed at him across the short length of table. "Unless you are prepared to force me to crown you right now, to sieze the Chalice from me and give it up to an enemy you don't trust, and, against the best wishes of your own people, march your army back to Jirin in retreat, explaining to them why you have done this, then that will not happen. We're standing our ground here, Rigo. In the name of our people and our legacy and everything that's right and fair. Do you want to sweep me aside to defeat us yourself?"

Her words hurt. "No," he said quietly. But he still knew in his heart, popular or not, the peaceful choice would be the best one. Popular or not.

Amili sat back in her chair, keeping a look of relief from taking hold. "Then we're going to fight," she said with utter certainty. "How about you?"

"Me?" he asked. He legitimately didn't know. "I…I need to go back to talk to the Hylians."

"What for?" Amili asked. "We're not agreeing to their terms. You have nothing to say to them."

"If I don't go back, they'll be marching on the fortress within the hour. I can at least buy some time." He sighed. "I don't want anyone to go to war, Amili. I wasn't expecting any of this. And I didn't h-"

"-have a choice, yeah I heard you before," Amili cut in. Her eyes blazed with a fire he'd never seen in her before. They were the eyes of a leader, and were absolutely terrifying.

"But you know what?" she went on. "From over here it looks like you do have a choice, Rigo. And it's a real simple one. This battle is happening. You're either gonna stand with me against them, or you're gonna stand with them against me. It's one or the other."

She leaned in on him and tilted her head to look at him from under her brow. Her eyebrows raised in inquisition and asked him to do just one thing.

"Choose."