The sun burned like judgment above the Gerudo Desert.
Even with my cloak drawn over my head, sweat clung to me like guilt. The sands whispered beneath my boots—reminding me of every time I stepped here in another life, in another game, behind a controller instead of inside this body of muscle, power, and memory.
But this was real.
Too real.
I was no longer playing a hero.
I was the outcast godling of a forgotten era. And she was waiting for me.
---
Riju.
We'd parted weeks ago, after a skirmish with a horde of corrupted Moldugas. I'd saved her life.
She'd kissed me.
Not just kissed me—claimed me, with the intensity of a desert storm.
Then she told me to leave. For my safety, she said.
But I felt the heat in her voice then. And I feel it now, pulsing like a war drum as I approach Gerudo Town's outer gate.
The guards glance at me, wide-eyed. They let me pass without a word.
---
The town is quieter than I remember.
Shadows stretch long between sun-bleached buildings. Merchants speak in whispers. No laughter. No music. The few Gerudo women who notice me bow their heads, avoid eye contact.
Odd.
I cross the plaza. No one stops me.
At the palace steps, a guard hesitates—then opens the door.
"Chief Riju has been expecting you."
---
Third-person now.
The room is dark. Cool. Fragrant with desert lavender.
Riju stands at the far end, near the throne.
She no longer wears the playful armor of a girl pretending to be queen.
She wears regalia now. A black and crimson dress that wraps her like smoke. Her golden eyes glow beneath her veil. Her hands rest on twin scimitars at her hips.
And when she sees him—her Balance-Bearer—her lips curve into a slow, dangerous smile.
---
Back to first-person.
"Riju," I say gently.
She doesn't answer at first. She just stares. And then she walks to me, slow and deliberate, like a predator circling prey it's already caught.
"You returned."
"I said I would."
She stops just in front of me. I see it now—tension in her jaw, heat behind her gaze, something off in her aura. The Tear inside me pulses.
Riju raises a hand and touches my chest—over my heart.
"No scars," she whispers. "Good. I would've killed anyone who dared mark you."
I blink. "That's… a strong way to start a reunion."
Her smile doesn't fade. "You've been dreaming of someone else."
My heart stutters.
"How do you know that?"
Riju's hand tightens against my chest.
"Because I can feel it," she breathes. "Every time you think of her—Zelda—I feel it like poison in my throat."
She steps closer, her forehead almost against mine.
"I don't want to share you."
---
Third-person again.
The tension thickens between them like smoke.
He raises a hand to cup her cheek—trying to soothe, to ground.
But Riju leans into it like a woman dying of thirst. Her eyes shimmer.
"I waited," she says. "While you played with gods and Sheikah ghosts, I kept your name burning in the sacred flame. I offered the sand wolves your enemies' names."
"That wasn't necessary—"
"I don't care."
She grabs his cloak and pulls him closer.
"I won't lose you."
---
First-person again.
There's no rage in her voice.
Just a terrifying calm.
The calm of someone who has already decided what they'll do if they're denied.
I look into her eyes.
There's love there.
But not the safe kind.
Not the soft kind.
This is the love of deserts—wide, endless, suffocating.
---
"I dreamed of you too," I say quietly.
Riju inhales sharply.
"You… did?"
"In one of them, I saw us standing atop the cliffs outside town. The moon was red. You were older. You asked me to leave everything behind and run with you."
Her breath catches. "Did you say yes?"
"I didn't get the chance. The dream ended."
She frowns.
Then steps back.
"I would've said yes," she says. "And I would've burned the world behind us."
---
Third-person.
She leads him to the palace balcony, where the sands stretch into eternity.
They stand there in silence, side by side.
He knows she's watching him from the corner of her eye. He can feel her need—crushing, consuming.
And yet… he doesn't pull away.
Because a part of him wants it too.
Wants someone to need him enough to go mad for him.
Especially in a world that keeps trying to erase what he is.
---
"Stay tonight," Riju says suddenly.
A command.
Not a request.
He turns to her.
Their eyes meet.
"No dreams," she whispers. "No ghosts. Just you and me. My sky. My sand."
He says nothing.
But he doesn't leave.