Third-Person – Focus on Riju – Tone: Majestic, warm, slowly darkening, romantic tension
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The desert did not take kindly to strangers.
Gerudo warriors told stories of men who wandered into the sands and vanished beneath the dunes — not from monsters, but from the desert itself. It was alive. It judged. It tested the soul before the sword.
So when he came, the desert didn't devour him.
It welcomed him.
Riju noticed it immediately.
The sandstorms that usually rose without warning? Stilled.
The sun, brutal and unforgiving? Softened.
The Molduga that had terrorized the western ridges for weeks? Gone — slain in a flash of light and gravity. No injuries. No drama.
Just him, standing calmly beside the corpse, one hand glowing faintly with that strange Tear in his wrist.
---
"He's not a Gerudo," Buliara warned, arms crossed. "He's not even a Hylian we know. He came from the sky, wielding Zonai power — and Princess Zelda herself has claimed him for the capital."
"I know," Riju answered, but her voice lacked its usual edge.
She was watching him from the balcony of the palace. Below, he stood beside the training grounds, surrounded by curious Gerudo guards. They were testing him — gently at first. Asking questions. Tossing small weapons.
He caught everything. Even the ones thrown from blind angles.
He laughed with them.
Like he belonged.
Like the desert had already made space for him.
---
Riju's fingers tightened around the railing.
It wasn't envy. It wasn't even distrust.
It was something else.
An ache she didn't have words for.
A desire that made her want to understand him before anyone else could.
---
That night, she invited him to the top of the palace tower.
The stars above Gerudo Town burned brightly, scattered across the sky like ancient stories told in silver.
He stood at the edge, gazing out over the sands.
"I didn't expect this place to feel so familiar," he said, voice soft.
"Familiar?" she echoed.
He turned to her, eyes dark gold in the starlight. "I've never been here in this life. But something in the wind… in the heat… it feels like I've dreamed of it."
She didn't know how to respond to that.
So instead, she asked what had haunted her since the scouts first told her of his arrival:
"Who are you?"
He smiled — not smug, not secretive. Just… sad.
"I don't know what I was supposed to be. Only what I've become."
---
They didn't touch. Not yet.
But Riju stood a little closer than she meant to.
And when he looked away, her gaze lingered on him.
The shape of his arm. The way the Tear of Balance pulsed faintly — as if answering her thoughts.
Something in her chest pulled tight.
It wasn't love, not yet.
But it wasn't respect, either.
---
After he left, she stood alone on the tower, wind lifting her golden hair.
Below, the guards whispered.
Above, the stars shimmered.
And within her heart, a single truth settled like sand in a storm:
> If I do not move now… I'll lose him.
To Zelda.
To Purah.
To the past.
Or to the world itself.
She would not allow that.
She was a chief. A warrior. A daughter of the desert.
> And what the desert wants, it does not share.