[Trigger warning for violence and mental abuse.]

The afternoon sun beat down upon my shoulders like fire from Din herself. In the distance, I saw huge sand seals resting in the shade of rock formations, only moving when their shade shifted with the sun’s angle.

“Mother of Hylia,” I muttered, wiping the sweat from my forehead for the 50th time. Kara Kara Bazaar was far behind us now, and I knew in my mind it wasn’t a long trek to Gerudo Town. But this heat was oppressive.

My sandals did little to protect my feet from the burning sands that covered everything from my toes to my heels. Still, I did not dare complain. I’d been granted the one thing I wanted all my life. . . sanctuary among the Gerudo.

Lady Riju had looked me in the eyes and asked what I was. I’d found the courage to tell the fierce warrior I was a vai, and she judged my words true, welcoming me into her village.

***

“You will count yourself among my sisters, Nayru. You will swear your allegiance to me, and I will fight to protect you as I would any vai counting herself among the Gerudo. So long as we have the understanding, your sanctuary will never cease,” she’d said before we left the bazaar.

I remember bowing my head as deeply as my spine would allow short of touching my skull to the ground.

“I swear allegiance to you, Lady Riju. I thank you for your gracious mercy. And I will do whatever you ask to help your people as they need it,” I’d said.

Buliara had walked over and put a hand on my shoulder, standing me up straight again. Her massive sword hung from the warrior’s shoulders and reflected a little of the moonlight above.

“Understand, little vai. Once you walk through those gates, you make your home among us. You are one of us. And I have no doubt you’ll come to be a pleasant addition to our community. As Lady Riju says, you will be protected. I will put my blade between you and any who wish you harm, just as I know you will put your hands between ill health and any Gerudo suffering sickness or injury,” she said.

That was the most I’d heard the massive bodyguard speak, and now I found myself speechless, merely nodding and swearing her oath 1,000 times in the space around us.

“Good. Then once we are ready early tomorrow afternoon, you will travel to your new home with us, Naryu. Sav'orr, little vai,” Buliara said before I bowed once more and took my leave.

***

The voice of my best friend carried my mind back to the scorching present, among each desert wind gust swirling around us.

“Naryu? Are you okay?” Liruf asked. “You’ve been swaying a bit, and we’re starting to fall behind the caravan.”

I shook my head, trying to knock any sand loose from my blue hair. The only thing keeping some sand off me was the azure scarf I kept over my nose and mouth.

The scales on my elbows and forehead felt like they were on fire, crying out for me to run and jump into a lake or stream. Their tiny voices carried around to my pointed ears, saying, “Waterrrrrrr. Give us the cool, damp once more.”

Unfortunately, I’d blown the last of my rupees on melons from Liruf last night, trying to rehydrate after using my abilities to heal Tamouk from the Yiga skirmish. They’d helped a little, but what I needed was a long soak, entirely submerged.

I’d found that I could hold my breath for 10-15 minutes if I wanted to, yet another gift of my bloodline, it seemed. And that didn’t just leave me soaking for fun. There was a rejuvenation process that came with submersion I desperately needed every other day.

“Yes, Liruf,” I said, my voice sounding raspy like a cucco. “The heat is just getting to me a little is all. I’ll be fine once we get to town.”

The Gerudo merchant raised an eyebrow.

“Little vai, if you need help. Ask. We’re not a community that’ll anticipate your needs and go out of our way to meet them. But if you require assistance and ask for something, most of us will move entire mountains of sand to get it for you.”

A small grin worked its way into my sunburned face. These people were so much nicer than any I’d met back in Hateno before being exiled. Just a bunch of nosy folks searching to find something they could look down on you for back home. And with me, they didn’t have to look far.

***

“You can’t just say you’re a woman and be one, Boga. I was there when you came into the world. I know you in ways you don’t know yourself. So stop this nonsense,” my mother had told me on the eve of my exile.

My heart felt shriveled like a radish left in the ground for too long. And it was taking everything I had not to cry.

“She’s right, Boga. This is insane. You’re 22 years old, and it’s time to stop living in whatever sick fantasy that occupies the head on your shoulders. I have an entire patch of land outside waiting to be plowed. But my son instead wasted the day hunting for blueberries to mash and dye his hair. Don’t you think you’ve embarrassed our family enough?”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw myself at the wall and pound some of this frustration into the wood until my hands bled and stopped shaking. But the last time I’d raised my voice, it was my father’s fists that’d found me. You’d be amazed how quickly an arm would break if struck repeatedly in the same spot.

“Please, my son. I’m begging you to come to your senses and put all of this aside. The dresses you’ve hidden in the back of your closet, the earrings tucked away under your bed, and the nail paint you keep under your dresser. . . it’s all wrong. Your room should be filled with hunting bows and farm tools. Not flowers and paintings of—”

But I cut her off, tears streaming down my face.

“Paintings of what? Of the powerful women that helped shape Hyrule through the years? Because you so desperately want a traditional son to show off to your friends, I can’t have portraits of Lady Mipha and Queen Midna hanging by the window?”

There was a swift movement and then a stinging pain in my cheek as I fell to the floor. My father’s hand again. I knew its violent touch even without seeing it.

“Don’t talk to your mother like that, Boga. Certainly not with that pathetic voice you keep trying to use. Is that how you think Hylian women sound? Chalk that up to one more embarrassing thing you cling to. But make no mistake. I will beat these delusions out of you until you become at least half the man I am,” he said, wiping the back of his hand.

A small dot of my blood stained the skin between his first and second knuckles. Now that I focused, I could feel some dripping down the side of my mouth.

I stood up.

“You want to talk about delusions and fantasies, Bo?! You and Ohia gave birth to a daughter in the body of a boy. But you won’t see her. You won’t see me! And it doesn’t matter how many times you strike me or call me the wrong name, it won’t get you the son you so desperately want,” I yelled.

Taking a deep breath with battered lungs, I unloaded every awful feeling upon the stains that called themselves my parents.

“What, we can live in a nation founded by literal goddesses and torn to pieces by a malevolent reincarnation of an evil man from the desert, but there’s no way for me to be a woman? Dragons fly over our village every day. A legendary knight wielding a sword of evil’s bane drives back the darkness to keep us safe. Lynels scour the plains and mountains for prey. Great Fairies craft magical clothes from flowers the size of houses. And there’s just no godsdamned way for me to be a woman? Why is this so impossible?”

With a loud growl, Bo grabbed the front of my shirt and slammed my head back into the wall behind me, causing the room to spin and more water to leak from my eyes. I couldn’t tell what I had more of, tears or questions. One of those things fell to the ground from my cheeks, and the other echoed in my head without answers.

Why? Why couldn’t they see me? Would they ever come to their senses and love me? What blockage existed in their brain to keep these two otherwise rational Hylians from recognizing they had one child, and she was deeply unhappy? When would I just give up and throw myself from a high cliff into the Necluda Sea to end this futile struggle once and for all?

My vision was still spinning when his voice tore my ears from the sides of my head.

“Listen to me, boy! You’re born as you are in this world, and there’s no changing that! Do you think I asked to be born a farmer instead of a king? No! But I accepted reality and found a way to live my life anyway. Why can’t you do the same? Hey, answer me!” he hollered, grabbing my chin and squeezing until the bones in my face started to groan from pressure.

I managed to look past him at the woman that only enabled his violence. She didn’t stare at the ground. Ohia had her arms crossed, scowling at me like I’d done something unspeakable.

“I will never be him, Dad. Never. I will rip into my chest and pull out every breath with my bare hands until I’m left heaving on the ground, my heart unable to give even one more beat before I surrender to being an unforgiving, savage, and merciless Hylian man like you. I, Naryu, swear this,” I managed to choke out.

When had his hands moved to my neck? Just one more question in my mind without an answer.

Bo slammed my head into the wall twice more before dragging me along the surface to a post, where I was battered anew. Finally, he spun me around and lugged me across the room to my window, which overlooked a steep hillside that dropped into the forest below.

“You want to be Naryu?” he roared. “Do it somewhere else. You’re banished, Boga. Now get the fuck out of Hateno.”

With his seemingly limitless strength, the man hurled me through the window, glass crashing and wood splintering around me, parts digging into my arms and shoulders, drawing more blood.

For a moment, I was weightless as I dropped, but then my back struck the rockside as I rolled and tumbled down into the dark forest below. Each blow knocked the wind from my lungs, and the world spun before me. Round and round my vision went, whether I closed my eyes or kept them open.

I was a Hylian avalanche crashing from one merciless boulder to another until my stomach slammed into a tree trunk, bringing my violent descent to a close. I vomited and felt like my diaphragm had ruptured. Everything hurt in ways I didn’t even know were possible.

That’s. . . exile, I thought as my vision spun slower and slower. No home anymore.

I’m not sure how long I lay there, expecting someone from the village to come down and find me or the wolves to drag me away and eat me. But neither happened. So, when I could bear lying there no more, I groaned and stood, picking pieces of glass and window frame splinters from my flesh.

Fear and relief flooded my veins. I had no home, but Bo wouldn’t hurt me ever again. Not physically, at least, so long as I never showed my face in Hateno.

“Come on, Naryu. You were fortunate to be thrown out with your wallet tucked into your pockets. Let’s get moving to the Dueling Peaks Stable. I know I have enough rupees for a room and meal tonight,” I thought, just wanting some soup. My stomach was still bruised and in no shape for a huge dinner.

With one foot in front of the other, I pondered the true meaning of exile with every step.

***

“Hey! Naryu. You’re starting to freak me out,” Liruf said, steadying me by the shoulders. How long had I been lost in my horrific memories?

I didn’t respond. The sun was as merciless as Bo on this particular afternoon, and the heat had me in a vice, like a mighty serpent. My scales weren’t just burning now. They were searing, as though a blacksmith had just pulled them from the fire to hammer them into his preferred shape.

“Liruf. . . I’m. . . not safe,” I whispered, feeling fever taking me and spilling down into the sand with no strength left. The desert had bested me, assisted by the day’s dark thoughts and traumatic memories.

All that remained was sand, claiming my body before I even set foot in the town where I’d been granted sanctuary. Each grain an oven against my alabaster skin that refused to tan no matter how much time I spent at the bazaar.

I heard shouting. Maybe it was Liruf. But. . . I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t have the strength to focus anymore. I’d sought refuge in the one place a Zora descendant just wasn’t supposed to live.

Even the Rito Village covered in a deep freeze would’ve been more hospitable to my scales. But I hadn’t heard one way or another how the sky keepers would react to a Hylian who claimed to be a woman but still looked like a man half of the time despite her best efforts.

And exile wasn’t something I was keen to risk again.

Someone flipped me over, and that was the last thing my consciousness kept hold of.

***

Without understanding how or when I’d arrived at Lookout Landing, I found myself sitting, back against a massive tower the legendary hero occasionally shot himself out of. It was night, and a quarter moon accompanied the stars in the sky above.

“How in Hylia’s name did I get back here?” I asked, looking around. “Did the Gerudo get tired of my weak ass and just ship me back to the Hylians?”

A familiar voice spoke as a friend appeared around the corner with a silver tray and two mugs of cocoa. The night didn’t carry too much of a chill. But it didn’t matter the temperature. When this daring lady wanted hot chocolate, she made it. And she always brought some to me when our paths crossed.

“Malon! What are you doing here? Er — what am I doing here? I’m not sure what the right question is,” I said, looking around and hearing Purah shouting about something in the distance. Probably some new discovery. The woman never did rest when I saw her as I spent time at the landing.

The only other Hylian I knew like me sat down and placed her tray on the ground. She pushed her wavy orange hair back, revealing pointed ears like mine. Her yellow scarf wrinkled as she did so, and I reached over to smooth it back out, pulling her short white sleeves back into place.

Malon thanked me as she smoothed the ruffles from her purple skirt.

“Thanks, Naryu. Here you go,” she said, handing me a mug of cocoa and returning some warmth to my fingers.

I took a sip as one of the marshmallows bumped against my lips. She hated the damn things but knew they were my favorite part of this particular beverage.

“Sarqso,” I said, mindlessly mimicking Liruf and shaking my head. “I mean — thanks.”

Malon smiled and took a sip of her drink.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time among the Gerudo, I see. Sounds like you made it to the bazaar. How’s your sanctuary plan going?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I thought it was going pretty good until I woke up here again. The Lightning Sage agreed to take me in. It was the first time I remembered being happy since meeting you, Malon.”

She smiled and patted my shoulder.

“That’s great, Naryu. I’m happy for you. It sounds like you’re finally getting what you always wanted,” she said.

I set my drink back down on the tray.

Overhead a giant owl flew by. I just stared at the humongous bird that I’d never seen before. Was he. . . talking to himself?

“Did you get all that?” the large brown and white owl asked himself as the bird flew out of sight.

That. . . was strange, I thought.

When I turned back to Malon, she was suddenly wearing a heart-shaped mask with giant yellow eyes. The border of the mask was covered in spikes, and purple and red swirls decorated every space between the eyes.

I flinched, finding the thing rather disturbing to look at.

“You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” Malon asked as I shook my head.

“What?” I asked.

She giggled and took the mask off.

“You’re dreaming Naryu. I’m just teasing. Don’t mind this. I just borrowed it from a creepy smiling salesman.”

Picking my drink back up and sipping it, I tried to notice if dream hot cocoa tasted differently than real hot cocoa. And. . . I couldn’t find any differences. It was the environment itself that felt. . . surreal. As though I was stationary, but everything around me carried on in a slow rotation when I wasn’t directly looking at it.

“Well that. . . certainly explains a lot,” I muttered. “You know, Malon. I was going to write you a letter once I got to Gerudo Town. I owe you more than I can say. Without the herbs and mixtures you showed me to change my body, I’m not sure I would have found the wherewithal to even make it to Kara Kara Bazaar. When I needed you most, it was like Hylia personally placed you in my path to save me.”

She finished her drink and looked back at me smiling big with eyes the same color as my hair.

“You should still write me that letter since I’m not actually here, you know?” she started and then paused. Her gaze became reflective to the point I wasn’t even sure if she was present anymore. Then she spoke again, saying, “That’s just what girls like us do, Naryu. We find a way to make the rocky path we’re on a little more smooth for the ladies that come after us. That is our burden and our gift to those born like us.”

Taking a deep breath, I nodded. She’d definitely made my path more smooth. And Hylia willing, I’d find a way to do the same for someone else like me who needed help one day.

“Oh — and Naryu?”

I looked at her again.

“Yeah?”

“You’re safe, okay? You need to find a way to shake those nightmares you keep dragging around. They don’t serve any purpose but to hurt you. You’re safe. Protected. Welcomed.”

I cocked my head to the side.

“Why are you telling me all th—”

***

I awoke with a start and ended up splashing water around me in all directions, soaking anyone near me. The voices of two vai sighed and then giggled.

My body once again felt weightless. I started to sit up before searing pain struck my scales, and I felt a couple of hands on my chest pushing me back down gently into the water.

“Easy, little vai, easy. Calm down. You’re safe.”

Safe. . . I thought, taking a deep breath and letting it out. That’s Liruf’s voice. But where are we?

My eyes adjusted to the darkness. When I looked up, I saw the night sky above us. Torches hung on sandstone walls, and I found every part of my body except my head submerged in clear, cool water. Relief returned to my bones as I settled back down. My head met a pillow that was placed behind me. Apparently, I’d been resting on it.

Reaching up, I found my forehead bandaged, along with parts of my shoulders and thighs.

“What. . . happened?” I asked, looking over and finding Liruf and Tamouk sitting next to me.

They exchanged glances. Then Liruf spoke.

“That Zora blood you carry is a bit of a double-edged sword out here, little vai. You should have told me you needed to be submerged in water every other day, otherwise, the heat drains you. Those healing abilities are great, but you need to be more careful in your new home,” she said, taking on a firm and scolding look. “I was worried sick, you know that?”

I flinched.

“I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to cause anyone extra trouble. I didn’t want to complain and be. . . kicked out of another home,” I said, looking down at the water again. It carried into a current and depth I couldn’t see from my angle as it traveled down a tunnel also lit with torches.

“Sa'oten! I’ll tell you what’s troublesome, Naryu, when you collapse in the desert because you tried to tough it out and give us all a heart attack. Did Lady Riju grant you sanctuary or not?” Liruf asked, crossing her arms.

I just nodded, too bashful to answer verbally.

“Then vasaaq! You’re home. If our leader said you were welcome, then you are. And nothing is going to see you kicked out of here, got that, little vai? You’re stuck here in Gerudo Town now. And I forbid you from leaving these walls again. Got it? You’re grounded.”

We all sat there in silence, listening to the water run until Tamouk and I started to giggle and burst out into a fit of laughter. Fine. I was stuck here, as my best friend said. I was safe and grounded. I couldn’t think of another place I wanted to be anyway.

“Yes ma’am,” I said when I finally found my voice. And it seemed Liruf cooled a degree or two, sighing.

Now Tamouk spoke.

“Oh, to answer your question. You’re in our cistern, little vai. This is where all our water flows. You’ve been down here for. . . hours and hours,” the Gerudo soldier said.

A couple sets of footsteps walking above us echoed down into the cistern as two Gerudo passed by.

“When you passed out in the heat, Liruf yelled for us. I came running and found you unconscious. Lady Riju loaned us her sand seal, Patricia, and we placed you in a cart, racing you to town. Once we got you here, you were barely breathing and extremely warm to the touch. The Lightning Sage ordered us to lower you into the cistern, and within an hour, you seemed to finally cool down. Liruf and I have switched shifts watching over you since.”

So I’d caused even more trouble for Lady Riju. That probably didn’t make her all too happy, I thought.

Looking down at my bandages, I cleared my throat.

“Tamouk, I’m so sorry you had to do all that. I never meant to cause you and Lady Riju trouble. Where is she? Can I apologize to her as well?”

Tamouk just held up a hand.

“What trouble? You are literally part fishfolk, little vai. Nobody expected you to handle the desert flawlessly on your first excursion into the sandlands. And if you hadn’t been here yesterday? I’d be dead. So I consider it an honor to be the one who rescued you from the searing gusts above.”

Thanking the Gerudo soldier and fighting the urge to cry again, I rubbed the scales along my elbows and realized how dry they felt, even after soaking for so long. Yesterday’s frantic healing and the desert trek today truly damaged my body.

Gods, I’m frail, I thought.

Tamouk put a hand on my shoulder until I looked up at her.

“A word of advice, little vai?” she started. “When your strength returns, you should go talk to Sasog. She’s our town’s mentalist. As you will soon deal with the physical health of every woman here in the village when they’re in trouble, Sasog handles the health of our hearts and minds. She is a great counselor and wise listener.”

I nodded.

“But you’re not leaving this cistern until your body is completely rejuvenated, young lady. Do you understand?” Liruf asked, arms still crossed.

Rubbing the back of my head, I chuckled and nodded.

“You’re safe, little vai. I don’t know of your nightmares when your eyes are closed. You’ve tossed and turned in the water these last hours, muttering something about a man named Bo. But when your eyes are open, you’ll find Gerudo Town a protected place where you can finally open your heart to the calm, peaceful home Liruf tells me you’ve been searching for. Remember that, and get some rest. We will stand watch over you while your body mends, Naryu,” the soldier said.

I exhaled and lowered my head back into the water, feeling my heart rate finally slow to a resting pace. The cistern. The village. I’d finally arrived in Gerudo Town, and they stood watch while I was at my most vulnerable.

Tomorrow, I would seek out Sasog. But for now, I just needed time in the cool depths of the water.

I’m safe, I thought, holding my breath for as long as I could and staring at the blurry torches, my sight distorted by the water above me. I’m safe.