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Impa clasped her hands at her front, digging her nails into her palm. “I know you were hesitant, but I am going to attest in the morning to having Link appointed as your knight.” She was sure she hated saying it just as much as Zelda hated hearing it.
Zelda reared on her, hands up in frustration. “I don’t need an appointed knight, Impa! I have you!”
Impa kept stock still, begging herself to keep her own emotions in check. “Princess, I advise we have this conversation in private,” she said, silently begging her to take the last few steps to her room. Her study. Hell, she would settle for the library-- anywhere with an ounce of privacy more than the hallways would provide them.
She wanted to keep fighting back, but the sight of how utterly tense Impa was wasn’t helping her own body feel any less stressed. “Fine, but I have many words for you on this decision,” she huffed, turning heel to continue their trip back to her room. The thought of having her own knight-- while it wasn’t as though she disliked Link, she just didn’t want a knight. Because a knight meant things were too dangerous. That the calamity was too close.
That she had failed.
None of it was a reality she was ready to face.
The entire walk to her room was tense and silent, save for the little guardian’s claws ticking on the stone.
Impa held the door for Zelda, allowing her and the little guardian ahead of her, and remained faced away as she closed it behind them. She dug her nails into the handle, begging herself to keep it together. To keep the tears she felt stinging at the back of her eyes. Even looking up at the ceiling did nothing to alleviate them. Now that they were as alone as they were going to get, the wall she had carefully crafted began to crumble.
As it always did for her princess.
“Little one, go…” Zelda hesitated, trying to think of something for the guardian to do while they, in all likelihood, yelled at one another. They had never once yelled at the other, and she couldn't say she was looking forward to it. “Go up to my study for me, and...guard it,” she said.
Thankfully, the little guardian listened, a nod of their body and a hearty beep. Maybe they sensed the mood, or maybe they just actually felt like listening for once.
Impa took a deep breath, blinking back her tears.
Zelda waited for the guardian to be gone to speak again. “Back to my knight situation,” she began, staring intently at Impa’s back. “I still retain that I do not need one.”
“Yes you do, princess,” Impa automatically responded.
She dug her hands into her hair, pushing the loose strands up over her head. “I have you, Impa! You have always been enough!”
At that, Impa turned on her, and the sight of tears in her eyes- Zelda would have rather been punched square in the stomach because surely it would have hurt less. “I wasn’t enough today, Princess!”
The raw desperation in her voice-- twice she had heard it now, and it wasn’t any easier the second time. She could still perfectly imagine her yelling out her name--so desperate to save her from the lizalfos earlier that day, but knowing there was nothing she could do.
“You almost died today, I was there! I watched it almost happen, and I was helpless to save you. If it wasn’t for the slate-- if Link and the little guardian hadn’t been there--” Her voice trailed off in a choked sob.
Zelda rushed to her in an instant, sweeping her up in her arms, holding her as tight as she possibly could. Squeezing her hard to let her know that she was there. She was alive. She had been spared an untimely fate.
Impa grasped desperately at her, burying her face in her neck, unable to fight back the tears any longer. Ugly, gross sobbing, unbefitting for the princess’s aid. Unbefitting for a warrior of her stature.
Despite it, Zelda didn’t berate her. She didn’t scold her. She merely held her as she cried, and even long after she couldn’t make any more tears.
“If anything had happened to you, I- I don’t know what I would have done. I’m not enough to protect you, anymore. I can’t keep up the arrogance that I am enough, because it’s that precise arrogance that will get you killed.” She hated admitting it. She hated it more than anything. Time and time again, she had been called a “one woman army”. Pride of the Sheikah. Among the best her people had to offer-- and she hadn’t been enough.
The shame in admitting it was almost enough to swallow her whole.
Zelda pulled back, pulling her hand into her sleeve to wipe away the last of her tears. Any other time, and she would have refrained from voicing such a thought. It would have been one she locked away, at best, in a journal, or just inside all together. Seeing Impa so broken-- she couldn't bring herself to lie or hide things. “My death would have mattered very little, Impa.”
Her amber eyes went wide at the admission, a searing pain shooting through her chest.
“There’s already so little hope of me accessing my powers- surely there’s another way to seal the calamity that doesn’t require a useless princess,” she said. Because at her very core, it was what she believed. Sometimes she even wondered if she was the legitimate princess who carried the blood of the goddess. A mistake had to have been made somewhere...
Impa’s expression contorted from sorrow to outright hurt. “It wouldn't have mattered-- It would have mattered to me!” She wanted to start crying all over again, but her body simply had no more tears left to offer her. “I don’t care about the princess-- I care about you! Why can’t you see that? I haven’t cared about you being the princess in years. I care about you, who you are.” Her hands shook as she reached up to cradle Zelda’s face.
On instinct, she reached out for the edges of Impa’s haori. There was still a fine layer of dirt embedded into the fabric.
“There are so many people who love you, Princess,” she said, forehead against hers. “Your father, Urbosa, my sister and Robbie, me-- Princess…”
She caught herself as she was about to ask her to say her name. Say it again. No title, and none of the desperation from before. Standing so close- just barely leaning up, and their noses bumped. “Impa,” she said in a breathless whisper.
Warmth spread through her body at just the thought of closing the distance.
What would that be like? Would it be nice? Would her lips be as soft as she imagined them to be?
Her whole body was warmed with a flush, but something about it felt different from a regular flush. Deeper. Warmer. Golden, was the word that came to mind.
The golden flush almost peaked under her skin at the feeling of Impa tilting her head, leaning down, and--
The feeling disappeared with Impa as she shot away from her, flushed herself and refusing to make eye contact. “Your Highness, forgive me.” Her voice was automatic and cold.
“Impa-”
“That was highly inappropriate of me- a breach of decorum, and a breach of your consent. It was wrong of me to try to take advantage of you in a moment of vulnerability,” she rambled, looking everywhere but the flushed princess in front of her.
She reached out, desperate. “No, Impa, please--”
“I will see myself out. I’m- I’m so sorry, your highness,” she said, and before Zelda could protest any further, she was gone, sheikah-teleporting out of the room.
In her absence, the room felt painfully cold. A rich blue in her once golden tapestry.
Zelda fell to her knees, unable to contain her own sob, barely making sense of any of the emotions she was feeling. When the little guardian scurried down to be at her side, it was all she could do to pull them in, holding onto them like a solid little pillow. They hummed a tune she couldn't hear over her own tears, staying with her until she had no more energy left to cry...