Chapter Text
Mipha is definitely not jealous.
It is over. Calamity Ganon is defeated. Zelda is freed from her prison, Hyrule rid of the curse of the blood moon, ending one hundred years of strife. Link and Zelda head off to Kakariko to tell Impa the news, both alive and relatively well. All in all, a happily-ever-after they could only have dreamed of just a couple of months prior.
Mipha is definitely not jealous.
Link and Zelda live in the house at Hateno together. Link cooks and hunts, does odd jobs for rupees. Zelda visits Purah, but equally often helps the villagers with whatever trouble they are having. They share a bed. When either of them have nightmares, the other holds them until they calm down.
It’s difficult, especially for Zelda. Sometimes, she forgets that she’s not in a dream and is slow to react to danger, many times coming precariously close to falling from high places or into bodies of water. Every now and then, she shuts herself in the room underneath the well and cries for hours until a worried Link comes to find her, steaming cup of milk in hand. She struggles to sleep at night, and her health deteriorates until Purah finds a herb for sleeping that helps.
At first, Link doesn’t really know what to do other than treat Zelda like fragile pottery. But as summer turns to autumn and the rice turns golden in the fields, Zelda seems to enjoy helping with the harvest. In plain wear, a little muddy, scythe in hand, she seems to find some kind of peace. Link smiles a little brighter, and rests more easily at night.
Link collects apples, teaches Zelda how to crush them and extract the juices, before putting the pulp back in to start off the fermentation process. Next year, he proclaims with pride, they’ll have cider. He makes apple tart with the rest, filling the house with the smell of cinnamon and apple, and Zelda cries all over again, ugly and raw. But the next day, there’s a new lightness to her steps.
They bring in the pumpkins and late berries, make dried fruit and preserves. As the blustering snows come down from Mount Lanayru, Link collects firewood for the stove. In the warmth of their home, Zelda teaches stories to the children – Hyrule’s history and mythology, of great heroes and genius inventors, of the Champions and their achievements.
The children like her and her grand stories. They set up a school, which keeps Zelda occupied throughout those chilly months. There’s a new rhythm like this – Link is finally happy to venture further out while Zelda is teaching, and in early spring, sets about clearing the path to Kakariko of monsters. Trade booms. As Hateno expands, new faces are abundant. Zelda learns to smile again, and there’s new joy in Link’s laughter.
Once planting season is over in spring and the days lengthen, the two head off on a journey across Hyrule to pay their respects to the fallen Champions. After the Calamity had been defeated, the Sheikah shrines had mysteriously disappeared, which left Link without fast travel. He is quite despondent about this, but Zelda assures him she is happy to take the scenic route, and Link finds her a suitable horse.
They go leisurely, clearing monster camps and helping villages as they go – down the path south of Hyrule field and into Gerudo, then up along Hyrule ridge to Hebra. They sleep in stables and inns, but equally often, under the stars, by a campfire. They share a bedroll, pressed close to each other for warmth. They pay their regards to the old Deku tree, go up Death Mountain, and just as summer dips back into autumn, they make their way to the Zora domain.
Sitting on the stone platform where Vah Ruta used to stand, they watch the deepening twilight. Zelda has brought a wreath of Silent Princesses, now placed against the grey rock, their petals glowing in the fading light to the west. Next to it is a fresh Sizzlefin trout, offered by Link.
On the east, a pale moon rises against a backdrop of deep blue, amongst a scattering of stars, twinkling through wisps of dark clouds. The weather is clear enough for the towering slopes of Mount Lanayru to be visible, and Naydra snakes its way upwards amidst the glowing pillars of ice, a snowstorm following in its wake like the bubbling trail of a fish in water.
The two watch as Naydra disappears into a swirl of clouds. Between them, their fingers are intertwined.
“Do you remember her?” Zelda asks.
“A little,” Link signs, a subtle tightness between his brows, and Zelda’s hands tighten around his.
Zelda looks back at the horizon. Her face is bathed in moonlight… just like all those years ago, on some nameless day before the Calamity, on the balcony of Gerudo palace, the air filled with the sweet scent of incense and wine. And the touch of tragedy that graces her is just as beautiful now as it was then.
They sit in silence for a long while, until Zelda shivers. Link wraps an arm around her, and Zelda rests a head against his shoulder. Link holds her with such tenderness, just like he had once held Mipha, by a pond lit by fireflies.
Mipha is definitely not jealous, but she finds herself terribly, terribly sad.
-
The sun is setting on the beaches of Faron.
Under the warm hues, the sand is deep orange, and the waves lapping at Mipha’s feet is touched with crimson. The air tastes of salt, carried by the wind rustling the tops of sparse palm trees, and the afternoon warmth lingers in the water underneath Mipha where she sits, knees tucked to her chest. She squeezes her fingers and feels the wet sand pass through them, granules digging into the gaps between her scales. Water pools in the hole left behind, which she idly splashes with her fingers.
“You’re still here.”
Zelda’s voice is ethereal. The sand glows where Her sandals touch it. All around Her is golden light, and Her prayer dress is a white too bright to look at. Her presence encompasses the space, like a whirlpool except with no water, no movement in the air either… just a heaviness so great it warps the surroundings. When She speaks, Her voice echoes through the very fabric of reality.
“Don’t you want to move on?”
“… I don’t know how,” Mipha admits.
The others left easily once the Calamity was gone and their homes were safe. Only Mipha remains, a ghost clinging to the world.
Zelda takes a seat on the sand besides her, and she is back to her ordinary self, nothing divine or glowing about her. Mipha can feel her warmth, and she resists the temptation to lean into it.
“Tell me about it,” Zelda says. “What’s on your mind?”
The rhythmic crash of waves sing in Mipha’s ears. Foam sprays over them, the touch warm on Mipha’s scales. Her grip on the sand tightens, and it crumbles between her fingers.
“I’m not…” Mipha starts, and trails off. “I don’t know.”
There’s a strange peace in her mind, like the deceptive calmness of a river surface just before a waterfall. She is afraid to cross that final distance, lest she be swept away.
Far ahead is a flock of white birds, visible as flecks of light against the pale sky.
“I remember you took me to the edge of these seas,” Zelda says.
“Oh,” Mipha says, a little embarrassed as she remembers how that ended. “That was just a dream.”
“There’s a fine line between dream and reality,” Zelda replies. Mipha looks at her, surprised, and Zelda’s smile is knowing.
“You were watching?” Mipha asks.
“Everything,” Zelda replies.
It’s an odd feeling. In Mipha’s mind, Zelda is still the girl with a passion for learning and worries of the future. Sitting next to her like this, it’s easy to forget she held back the Calamity almost single-handedly for a century, her power beyond mortal understanding.
“… Is everything well?” Mipha asks.
“As well as it can be,” Zelda replies.
“And Link?” Mipha says tentatively.
“As reckless as usual, but relatively well.”
“I see,” Mipha says softly, and her gaze wanders to the waves at her feet.
Mipha wonders whether Zelda is going to give some celestial insight which will help Mipha move on. Or even just to fill the space like she used to, with her chatter about whatever had her interest at the moment. Anything, so that Mipha doesn’t have to think about what to do next.
Instead, Zelda simply waits. It feels like an eternity passes like this, bathed in the light of a frozen sunset.
What is Mipha supposed to say?
What is there left to say?
All is done and good, everything is fine, Zelda and Link have their happy ending, complete with a house in Hateno with a bed that they share and a town full of people who ask them if they’re thinking of marriage.
The thought is as painful as an electric arrow, and Mipha wonders what is wrong with her, to not wholeheartedly desire the happiness of those she loves.
Zelda gives a long, thin exhale.
“I’m sorry, about Link. It should have been you,”
A stab of annoyance. That’s not it. Mipha has no problem with Zelda and Link’s relationship – never has had a problem – because they’re meant for each other, their stories written into fate… and whatever Mipha had with Link is a thing of the past, buried by the decades, and to think otherwise is childish fantasy. Mipha is not so selfish to want Link to tie himself to someone who is dead. Someone he doesn’t even remember.
(And yet…)
“It’s not… fair!”
It’s a decisively untrue statement. If anything, Zelda has it so, so much worse. For everything that Zelda has been through, she deserves the entire world. But for once in her entire life and afterlife, Mipha wants to be spiteful.
Her cheeks are wet. Her tears fall unbidden.
“Oh, Mipha…”
Zelda moves, and she’s enveloped in a tight, tight hug. Mipha’s feelings hit her like a wave, threatening her teetering balance. She’s slipping towards the roaring edge of a waterfall, desperately trying to pedal back, and Zelda… Zelda gives her that final push.
“Mipha, you’ve been through so much.”
“It’s…”
The word alright doesn’t make it past her lips. Because it’s not alright, is it?
She died. She will never be able to eat Link’s seafood skewers or her father’s freshly caught bass. She will never swim in the warm waters of Faron, and never feel the sun on her scales. She died before she had even reached a hundred, yet to go through her coming-of-age ceremony, yet to even start preparing for taking over the throne. She will never see Muzu retire, and she will never see Sidon take her place.
It feels suddenly so frustrating.
“There was… so much… I wanted to do.”
She wanted to live with Link in Lanayru. Hylian lives are fleeting – the time they had together would always have been limited, and having a family impossible, but she had thought they would have at least…
At least a few years. At least some time in peace, not worrying about the impending apocalypse and duty and responsibility and fear of the future. She had thought she would at least have a sleeping pool of her own, decorated how she liked. She had thought she would have at least…
Have been mourned by the love of her life, no matter how selfish that might be. She thought she would at least have been remembered and cherished, for the years they spent together to have meant something, for her trust in him to have amounted to… something that would be treasured. She had thought she would have at least…
At least…
At least…
And she is afraid of dying all over again – ironic seeing that she is dead anyway – and the knot in her non-existent heart tightens until she feels like she might die all over from it. It’s so unfair – everything is so unfair – and she feels anger, not just at the Calamity which took so much from her, but to the Goddesses for letting it happen.
“I know,” Zelda says softly. Her eyes are like the sea, deep green and tragic. “I’m sorry.”
“I loved him,” Mipha whispers. “I loved him so much.”
And pathetic, infatuated, stupid Mipha would not have lasted one hundred years on her own without that love… that hope. Beneath all her titles and honours, she is just a girl, and she wallows in the crushing guilt that comes with it.
There is a heavy beat of silence.
“I know,” Zelda says, and Mipha has never believed someone so much.
It crashes down, all at once, with a force that knocks that wind out of her. The sound that is ripped from her throat is an agonised wail. She screams at the sunset as if it would help, screams without knowing what or why, only that she needs to get something out of her – this desperate sadness that threatens to consume her.
“I’m sorry,” Zelda whispers, her touch like spring sunlight. “I’m so sorry.”
Mipha cries until her throat hurts, until her eyes feel dry. Until she feels like there must be no tears left in her, that she will turn to dust like this, having wept everything out of her. Zelda holds her, steadies her, keeps her grounded, and the waves lap gently at their feet.
When it’s over, there’s stillness, accompanied by a little dizziness. Mipha takes a few shaky breaths – in, out, in, out. With the tears gone, she’s left with a little embarrassment at her outburst.
“It’s alright,” Zelda says, as if reading her thoughts.
It’s funny. Zelda has a way of undoing her.
“He’s gone, isn’t he?” Mipha says, voice scratchy and awful.
There’s heartache on Zelda’s face. Because for all the snatches of the past Link has recollected, he’s not the same. Maybe he never will be. Mipha gives a hollow laugh.
“All that time we spent waiting for him to come back… he was the only one who never did.”
“He’s not the same Link, but he’s still Link,” Zelda says quietly.
But Zelda doesn’t know the Link Mipha knows.
There is something calming about grief. About the finality of it. Mipha hugs her knees tighter to her chest, feeling the great heave of the ocean around her. She swims in her sadness, languidly. Lets herself sink into it. Passes over every treasured memory – of Link, of Sidon, of everyone back at home – and lets each one of them go. All the while, Zelda says nothing, and Mipha is grateful for that.
She opens her eyes to a sun sinking into the horizon. The sky has deepened to an indigo, clouds tinged with lilac. It’s pretty, she thinks, how it mingles with the orange. How it’s reflected in Zelda’s green eyes.
“Don’t you need to go back?” Mipha asks. Because the living can’t dream forever.
Zelda turns to her with a smile infinitely gentle.
“I’ll be here as long as you need.”
They are similar, Mipha realises. Their strength, their kindness, their stubbornness.
“… Can I kiss you?”
The slight parting of Zelda’s lips might have been surprise. Mipha flicks her gaze away.
“Sorry, this isn’t the right time at all…”
“Yes,” Zelda says. When Mipha stares at her dumbfounded, she looks flustered. “That’s to the kissing, if it wasn’t clear.”
Mipha clasps her hand over her mouth to try and contain a snort of amusement, unsuccessfully. Zelda is surprised this time, but soon the expression melts into something warmer, setting off a wave of butterflies in Mipha’s stomach.
It’s like magic, how the world clicks together when their lips meet. As if all the turbulence that spins Mipha around has slipped away, leaving her paddling on calm waters. Mipha sinks into the warmth of Zelda’s body as Zelda wraps an arm around her waist, marvelling at how they slot together.
They end up tumbling into sand, clutching each other. She leans down to catch Zelda’s lips in her own, and Zelda rises to meet her. They take it slow. She feels every movement, every touch. Zelda runs her tongue along Mipha’s own, and hums when Mipha gently nibbles her lips.
Leisurely, Mipha leans back to see the flush on Zelda’s cheeks, the swollen red of her lips. She’s so beautiful like this, hair sprayed out beneath her like a halo – so beautiful it almost hurts. Zelda giggles when she tells her so.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispers back breathlessly. “The most beautiful princess in the world.”
Mipha laughs.
“You’re actually quite the tease, aren’t you?” Mipha says. There’s a twinkle in Zelda’s eye.
“I do mean it though,” Zelda says. Then smugly, “I have the wisdom of Hylia, of course I am always right.”
Mipha is going to get a stitch from laughing if she allows this to continue, so she leans down to kiss her again. Zelda’s dress has hitched upwards, and Mipha’s mind goes blank when Zelda slides a bare leg against her own.
They move apart – still close enough that Mipha can feel Zelda’s breaths underneath her, but far enough that they can see each other’s faces.
“Are you alright?” Zelda asks.
Mipha leans back in to nibble on an earlobe, pulling a hum of appreciation out of Zelda.
“Are you?”
Zelda shifts, rolling both of them so that they are on their side. The red of the sunlight makes her skin golden. Her expression is forlorn.
Of course they are not alright. After everything that has come to pass, how could they be alright?
But still, they have each other.
Mipha sits up and tugs Zelda towards her. Zelda’s hands find her sides. She shivers as they pass over her gills. There’s heat pooling in her gut, while her heart is deceptively calm. She leans in. Presses a kiss against Zela’s neck. Zelda gasps, and Mipha feels a little thrill travel all the way down her spine.
Was it self-pity – Mipha wonders – a need to have one last thing before the sun set for good? She finds comfort in Zelda’s arms, in all the sounds that Zelda makes. She wants… a desire spurred neither by duty nor expectation, not complicated by situation, and the simplicity of that soothes her.
And maybe, just maybe, there’s a little bit of selfishness there as well. For everything that was taken from her, she wants to take back. To take and to take and to take, until all that Zelda could think about was her.
Zelda grasps weakly for the ties on the back of her dress, and Mipha wraps her arms around her to lend a hand. The bows slip easily with a tug on the strings, but then it gets stuck as she tries to yank it down.
“Maybe you could you turn around?” Mipha says.
Zelda shuffles around, and Mipha sweeps her locks over her shoulder. She loosens the ties, marvelling at how the skin of Zelda’s back is revealed little by little. There’s a scatter of freckles across her shoulders. Mipha presses kisses into them.
Finally, the dress is undone and slips to the ground in a puddle of white. Zelda turns around and reaches for the clasp of Mipha’s sash. It clicks as it comes undone, and the blue fabric joins the pile.
Zelda’s skin is hot and supple, smelling of the safflina scented soap that Link makes. It’s different to the perfumes she favoured from before – lighter and more natural. When Zelda dips her head down to peck at Mipha’s shoulder, she catches the scent of it in her hair as well.
Slowly, Zelda moves backwards, and Mipha’s legs part naturally, letting her settle between them.
“Do you remember the first time?” Zelda says teasingly.
“How could I forget?” Mipha says with a smile.
And Zelda must remember too, because she traces patterns against Mipha’s sensitive scales reminiscent of how she had done then. Mipha is about to urge her to press harder when suddenly she does, and Mipha can’t suppress the open-mouthed gasp that escapes her.
Zelda glances up at her, her expression satisfied.
“Like this?” she asks, like she had once done.
“Yes, like that,” Mipha replies breathlessly, and those days they cannot return to fill her with both sadness and joy.
She sinks into pleasure as Zelda massages between her legs. There’s a light furrow of concentration on Zelda’s face, her lips caught between her teeth, and it’s so endearing that Mipha feels herself relaxing. The air licks her newly exposed parts as the scales ease open. Mipha shivers.
Zelda leans down and Mipha bites back a moan as she feels the heat envelop her. Zelda’s tongue is firm and wet, feeling around inside of her, and the tension tightens inside Mipha until she can feel it down her core. There’s a song inside of her, rising in volume, and she’s lost within its harmonies.
Before it can get too much, Mipha tugs Zelda back upwards and kisses her.
“Mipha?” Zelda asks when they pull apart.
“Together,” Mipha says, and Zelda’s eyes are understanding.
She conjurers a bed of water and guides Zelda down. Mipha takes her in, from her pupils blown wide, the soft curves of her body, down to the darker fuzz between her legs. Zelda strokes her tail as Mipha lays kisses against her collarbone, and Mipha shivers as Zelda’s fingers pass over the sensitive spots on her forehead. She leans down to take a nipple into her mouth, and she feels Zelda gasp as she swirls her tongue around it. She sucks and teases before slowly moving to the other side, while Zelda whines above her.
“Mipha.”
She glances up to find Zelda staring at her, and oh, she is desperate. Mipha catches a wayward hand moving down, bringing it up and kissing it gently, licking her lips playfully as Zelda gives a high-pitched keen.
Patience.
Mipha leans back, giving space for their legs to slide together. She exhales sharply as her sensitive folds meet Zelda’s. They’re both wet with desire. Every movement slides. Zelda’s cheeks are red, her breathing ragged, and Mipha feels like she is burning inside.
She forces herself to breathe evenly. Zelda wiggles a little, causing shocks of pleasure, but Mipha keeps still, not quite pressing down.
“Miiiphaaaa,” Zelda whines, and it’s not every day that Mipha doesn’t immediately relent to whatever Zelda wants, but today she is feeling a little mean.
“Tell me what to do,” Mipha says softly. Say what you want.
Zelda’s gaze burns. Gold sparks flicker around her, her power thrumming through the air. She could vaporise Mipha in an instant if she so wished, and to have her there, held down by Mipha, begging with her eyes, is almost more than Mipha can handle.
“Move,” Zelda says. “Dear Hylia, Mipha, please.”
So she does. It’s blessed. Mipha tilts her head back and sighs, floating in bliss. Zelda presses her hips upwards with renewed urgency, and Mipha grinds down, biting her lip as she feels the slide of Zelda’s cunt against her.
They find rhythm like this. At some point, Zelda finds Mipha’s hand and clutches it. Mipha grips her, hanging on for dear life as the tide inside of her rises and rises with each snap of her hips. Zelda’s lips make broken words, spilling out incoherent sounds somewhere between moans and pleading.
Mipha dips in for a kiss. Zelda meets it fervently. Zelda clings to her neck as Mipha braces herself against the floor for better purchase. She feels the beginnings of exertion in her limbs. Mixed with the pleasure, the pain is dizzyingly good.
Time ceases to have meaning. The beach fades away. Zelda’s pants are hot against her ear. When Mipha pulls back to look at her face, Zelda’s eyes are unfocused.
“Look at me,” Mipha says. “Look at me.”
“Oh Mipha,” Zelda gasps. Her eyes fix on Mipha’s with a heat that scalds her, and the world tunnels – there’s nothing except this singular moment, the warmth of Zelda’s skin against her scales, the sound of her breathing, the green of her eyes. Mipha feels raw underneath that gaze, like she is laid bare in front of this goddess incarnate, seen in a way nobody has ever seen her before.
Mipha grinds her hips down hard, and moans at that friction. She feels fuzzy and light, the pleasure swelling inside of her reaching towards impossible heights. Zelda smiles, a smile that’s a little derpy, her breaths shuddering as she struggles to steady herself. Her hand brushes Mipha’s cheek with reverence, as if Mipha is the most previous thing, and Mipha feels ecstasy so intense it takes her aback.
“I love you,” she says, and Zelda’s grip tightens around her. Amidst the roar that ingulfs her as she crests her peak, she hears Zelda’s voice resounding in her ears.
I love you too.
In the final, dwindling light of day, tucked close to each other, they chat about everything and nothing at once. They are rebuilding Hyrule – Zelda and Link, along with everyone else. With the guardians disabled, Hyrule Field is finally safe to traverse again, and the scattered remnants of Hyrule can come back together. They are reconstructing lost fortifications, reintegrating communities cut off by monsters, collating whatever culture and technology survived through the Calamity. Sidon and the rest of the Zora domain is on the forefront of many restoration projects, being one of the few who remember what it was like back then.
“They’re building a trade hub near the remains of Castle Town,” Zelda says. “There were so many guardians near the Castle, it actually meant that there were fewer monsters near there compared to elsewhere. The area around it is still affected by malice, but Purah reckons it should be viable farmland within a few years.”
Hyrule Field had always been the natural centre of Hyrule, even through multiple catastrophes. It’s the kind of area that naturally attracts Hylians, being a prime location for the agriculture they rely on.
“It’s not the same,” Zelda says. “Perhaps it never will be. But… it’s something.”
“Yes. It’s something,” Mipha says.
They never returned to their old domain, the sea Zora who live in rivers. Some things can never be regained… but still, they move on.
They talk about irrigation systems and fertiliser. They talk about fish farms and kelp supply. They talk about Gerudo. They talk about the Champions. They talk about Link.
“You know, you never really talked about your childhood with him,” Zelda says. She looks at Mipha, head tilted curiously. “If you wouldn’t mind, that is?”
Mipha doesn’t mind at all… it’s just that there’s so much she doesn’t really know how to organise it. So she starts from the beginning, of how a Hylian captain had brought a child with a toothy grin and a habit of climbing things he shouldn’t, who quickly captured the hearts of the young children in the domain. She talks about the absolute menace that the Big Bad Bazz Brigade had been, that time they accidently drained an entire portion of the fish farm trying to create an automatic fish catching machine, and recalls with fondness how angry Seggin had been.
“It’s quite incredible that Bazz is as responsible as he is today,” Mipha says. “Captain of the guard! Who would have guessed?”
Zelda giggles.
“I can hardly imagine Link being so… wild. But seeing him now, it makes sense.”
Mipha remembers Link the Knight. His quietness had taken her aback at first, because whilst Link had never been one for spoken words, he’d always been loud in his own way, blustering through whatever he decided he wanted to do.
“You know…” Mipha says. “Sometime after he went to train as a knight… after he picked up the Master Sword… he came back to the domain. He’d… changed. I didn’t realise Hylian’s grow up so fast. It was strange.”
At the time, there was a lynel causing trouble at Ploymus Mountain, using shock arrows that Zora were weak too. It was years before the Calamity proper, long before even the Champions had been selected, but thinking back, it had been the first sign of trouble.
“Link heard the news and immediately went to deal with the problem,” Mipha explains. “I insisted I wanted to come with him. I don’t know why it felt so important… but it felt… it felt so horrible, the thought of him leaving me behind. We ended up arguing about it, and the lynel came up behind us! Can you imagine? We didn’t notice a lynel. A lynel!”
Mipha’s eyes find the horizon.
“I realised then… I couldn’t be a burden for him. No matter how I felt. But… I couldn’t let go of my feelings either, even when I knew… It’s silly, isn’t it? Maybe it’s for the better he doesn’t remember me.”
The smile has dropped from Zelda’s face. Mipha doesn’t know what to expect really. For Zelda to laugh it off perhaps.
Zelda does nothing of the sort. Her expression is thoughtful.
“There’s something Link told me before the Calamity. I wanted to tell you, but I never got the chance.”
Mipha looks at her curiously, and Zelda continues.
“You know Link’s fighting style? He’s always thinking about protecting others. I thought it was because of his duty as my guard at first, but that time you protected me from the Yiga clan… I realised you fought in the same way. I asked him about it, and he said… he’d admired you since he was a child.”
Mipha blinks slowly, trying to process what she has just heard. Zelda gives a light laugh.
“You protected him from a moblin when he was very small, right?”
“Protected him from…”
A memory flashes through her mind. A child. A broken stick. A moblin with a sword. The arc of her trident as it deflected what would have been a fatal blow.
“Oh. He must have been about five years old. I’m surprised he remembers.”
“He remembered. That’s when he decided he wanted to be the best fighter, so that he could protect people, just like you.”
“That’s… sweet,” Mipha says. And so very like Link.
“He thought about you, always. You were the kind of person he aspired to be. And even if he doesn’t remember, you’re still in his heart.”
It’s a small thing. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t change what has happened – what has been lost and what could not be.
Still, Mipha finds solace in what difference she made.
It’s time to go. Mipha knows it with all her being. It tugs her towards that endless night, to a final rest that she has been waiting so long for. She turns to Zelda, and finds sorrow on her face. Zelda knows too.
Mipha stands up and gently brushes the sand off her scales and her blue champions sash. Zelda stands too, ceremonial robes swaying in the breeze. Under a starless night, she seems to glow.
“I’ll miss you,” Zelda says.
Zelda steps forward to hug her and Mipha feels the dampness on her shoulders where her tears drop.
Mipha squeezes her back.
“I’m right here,” she whispers, pressing a hand against her chest. “I’ll always be here.”
Pulling back, Zelda dabs the water out of her eyes, and takes a deep, steadying breath. Her expression is resolute, and Mipha marvels at her strength – in how she shoulders the grief and finds the will to move forward. Fate did not choose its players carelessly.
There are many things Mipha could say to Zelda, but she feels that words are unnecessary for such things. Instead, she deals with logistics.
“Keep an eye out on Sidon for me. He’s overconfident, and will step on his own tail if he isn’t careful.”
“I will.”
“And send my regards to my father. Tell him I love him very much, and I don’t want him to grieve me too much.”
“… I will.”
“Tell Muzu that eating too many sea urchins is bad for him.”
“… Okay?”
“Good luck with Link.”
Zelda smiles to herself, a smile filled with tender love, and Mipha knows that Link is in good hands.
“Mipha, is there anything you wanted? Anything at all?”
Mipha thinks for a long time before answering.
“I want… my own pool.”
Zelda looks at her quizzically. Mipha finds herself embarrassed.
“I always had to share with Sidon. Which was fine! But, you know…” Mipha gives a small smile. “He would always mess up my things by swimming around too fast. I always wanted to decorate my own pool. A big pool, with flowers in the middle, and seashells from Faron on the bottom.”
Maybe it’s an unconventional last wish, and there’s momentary surprise on Zelda’s face. But it gives way to an expression as warm as the heated pools in Gerudo.
“Of course,” Zelda says, and her smile is radiant.