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Sooga had no idea how he ended up here.
One minute he was doing his daily rounds throughout the clan, checking up on training and making sure everyone had their tasks to complete, and the next he found himself trapped at a tiny, pink table in a bright pink tutu with matching tiara.
His five year old daughter, Lara, sat across from him, busied by pouring herself a cup of imaginary tea. On his right was Mister Snuffles and to his left was Ganon, a fluffy stuffed dragon and rabbit respectively. The four of them together made quite the company of afternoon tea drinkers according to Lara. Even if the tea was actually imaginary, who was Sooga to insist otherwise?
Sooga lifted the teacup with his pointer finger and thumb pinching the handle. The cup overall was too tiny for him to properly grasp with such large hands, so this would have to do.
“You gotta hold your pinky out! Watch me,” Lara said and stuck out her own pinky in demonstration. She sipped the ‘tea’ perfectly, and for a moment Sooga wondered where she learned such nice manners. He stuck out his pinky nonetheless.
“Like this?” He asked after replicating her movements. Lara beamed.
“Yeah! Just like that!”
Sooga smiled beneath his mask, which was lifted up just over his mouth to add to the effect of tea-drinking immersion. Lara always wondered why he never took it off, but the last time she asked, Sooga insisted he just liked the way it looked. She didn’t see a reason to ask again.
“The tea is very delicious, little one.”
“Thank you, I made it myself.”
“What flavors does it have?” Sooga sipped once more with a loud slurp for emphasis. Lara tapped her chin.
“Hm. Probably…bananas! And wildberries from the mountains, I love those a lot.”
Sooga nodded. “That must be what I’m tasting then. You brew a fine cup.”
“What’s brew mean?”
“It means to make a drink.”
“Oh,” Lara pursed her lips and looked into her cup, which still had nothing in it. Then she looked up and grinned. “Daddy, can you braid my hair for me? I liked it down but now I wanna braid it so I look like a princess.”
“Of course.” Sooga smiled and scooted his tiny chair from the tiny table. He patted his thigh, and Lara quickly got up to sit on the floor in front of him. “However, you are already a princess. A braid or crown does not just make it so.”
Lara gasped. “Really?!”
“Yes. Master Kohga is the chief of this clan, is he not?”
“Mhm, Papa’s the best chief!” Lara said, waving her arms around like Kohga always does during training.
“Indeed he is. And you are his daughter. That makes you the princess of the Yiga Clan.”
Lara gasped. "THAT'S SO COOL!" A grin spread across her face the more she thought about it. A real princess, just like the one in Hyrule Castle! "Does that mean the hideout is our royal castle?"
Sooga thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I suppose it does. A castle fit for a royal family."
"Does that make you the king or the queen?"
"I expect your father would much rather be the queen," Sooga said. Kohga had always been the one to take up the more maternal role for these sorts of things. The only reason he wasn't able to make it to this very important tea party, in fact, was due to him rigorously teaching new magic techniques and being absolutely exhausted from them. It was unusual for Master Kohga to put off his own naps, and Sooga worried. Kohga put him in charge for the day once he finally accepted sleep.
The clan often joked about how often Kohga needed his naps, but when it came down to it, Master Kohga was a determined teacher.
"Yeah," Lara nodded like she knew exactly what she was talking about. Sooga draped the twin braids he'd fashioned on either shoulder and finished off her adorable new look with one of her favorite bows with flowers on it.
"There. How do you like this for today?"
Lara stood up and took the mirror from its recent place on the table and positively. "I love it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Sooga’s chest swelled with pride. Learning how to fix a young girl’s hair, a daughter of his own no less, was not something he ever imagined his life coming to, but here it was. He was surprised by how much he enjoyed the relaxing pastime.
"I'm very glad."
Out of the blue, a knock pounded on the doorframe to Lara's room. Sooga's brow furrowed. The rest of the Yiga should have been training in the practice rooms. He squeezed a hand on Lara's shoulder, stood, and turned to the entrance tapestry.
“Enter.”
A young blademaster appeared on the other side and bowed his head. "Lord Sooga, sir.”
Lara waved her hand excitedly. “Hi, Andrew!”
“Hi, weirdo,” Andrew mocked.
"Hey!"
Sooga smoothed down the frilly tutu as his subordinate walked in. The blademaster did not voice it, but there was a distinct pause of staring as he analyzed the scene before him. The older Yiga cleared his throat. “Did you require something of me?”
"Uh–yes, you asked me to deliver a written report of yesterday's mission this morning." Andrew ended his explanation by pulling out a piece of parchment with several types of letters on it, letters of which Lara couldn't understand even if she was tall enough to see the paper itself. She tried to get a closer look on her tip-toes, but Andrew held it higher. "I have it finished, but I have to admit, I don't understand. Usually we just present our results to you and Master Kohga."
"Yes, that would be the case if Master Kohga was available to listen, but I do not wish to disturb him." Sooga took the parchment and glanced at it. It was perfect, just as he requested. "Excellent work. Thank you, Andrew."
The blademaster looked away. "Just doing my job."
Lara, who was positively sick of all this boring adult talk, was tired of waiting on her dad to stop doing grown-up things for the past two minutes. She had a perfect idea how to make things interesting again.
"Andrew, Andrew,” She leaned over and tugged on his arm repeatedly, “Do you like my hair?" The young girl made a point of showing off her twin braids for him.
"Um...Sure." The older boy really did not know what to do with her.
"Thank you! Dad did them just now, I love them a lot. I have to look like a princess so we can have our royal tea party," Lara giggled and took a spin to seal her point, then gasped all according to plan. “You should join us!"
"What?"
"Yeah! You'd beeeeee...hm, what could he be, dad?" Lara tapped her chin and gave a very professional-looking side-glance. Sooga matched the expression under his mask.
"What if he was the princess' royal knight?" Sooga said. Andrew was about to poof out of there at even the thought, but the drawl of his superior’s voice was enough to make Andrew realize whose side Sooga was really on.
"That's perfect!" Lara latched her grip onto Andrew's hand and tugged him over to the empty seat at their table. "C'mon, there's plenty."
"Wait, no–gah!" Andrew stumbled over the mess of children's toys and clothes, but thankfully the table stopped him with a knock against his knee. Tiny, just like Lara. "Look, kid, I gotta get back to work with the others, I don't have time for–”
Sooga's presence suddenly darkened. His motionless stare was petrifying. Andrew paled behind his mask and uniform.
"Okay, maybe I can stay for a cup–"
"YAY! Now put this on," Lara smirked and presented Andrew with another tutu and tiara, this time yellow as opposed to Sooga’s pink. He glanced over at Sooga. Still the same look as before. With a begrudging grasp, the blademaster took the outfit and put it over his uniform, grumbling the whole time to himself.
~
Kohga yawned so loud that someone outside his room could have mistaken it for thunder. He stretched–good stretch, that nice and long one where you feel like your bones are made of jelly–and took a second to reacquaint himself with wherever the hell he was.
Bedroom. Alone. Oh right, Sooga had to force him to sleep for once. Man, just one of those once in a blood moon days, he guessed. Usually he’d pass out right after lunch every day on his own, but this was a special batch of magic techniques.
Kohga hopped out of bed and landed on his legs, stretching those out too with some lunges, and grabbed his mask from the bedside table. He had to figure out where Sooga was and what he’d missed with the clan. And Lara! Gosh, he hoped she wasn’t too lonely with both her dads out of commission like that.
Master Kohga strode out of his room and down the halls, asking around to see where everyone was. The rest of the clan seemed to be doing fine and practicing what they were taught on their own (doing great it looks like, thanks to him of course!), but there was no sign of Sooga or Lara. One of the blademasters seemed to be missing too, Andrew it looked like. This was weird. Kohga was starting to get worried the more rooms he searched and less he found of his two favorite people, until he heard high pitched giggling from Lara’s room down the hall.
In hindsight, he probably should have checked there first, but that’s beside the point.
“Lara? Kid, you in here?” Kohga moved the tapestry and peeked his head in, but never in all his vision-filled dreams was he expecting this: Sooga, Andrew, and his little girl surrounded by a mess of stuffed animals and blankets at a tiny table having fake tea together.
Hell, Andrew was laughing with them. Kohga was starting to wonder if he even could!
“Well, well, well, wouldja look at that,” He started, taking a step inside properly. All heads turned to him with a sharp stop of their charade.
“Master Kohga, you’re awake.”
“It’s, uh, not what it looks like–!”
“Papa!” Lara got up and bounced on her heels. “They came to my tea party, Dad braided my hair and Andrew came too, and I made him wear my favorite crown and tutu, look look look!”
The blademaster in question very conveniently became interested in the glove of his uniform while Sooga chuckled.
“We have had a very eventful afternoon, it seems.”
“I see. So that’s why you wanted me to take a nap, huh?” Kohga made a humming sound and crossed his arms playfully, “To take my invite to the best tea party in the world!”
“Papa, don’t be silly, I always make sure there’s room for you!”
Before Kohga could tell his little girl he was only kidding, Lara walked out with a third tutu and red tiara, just especially for him. She looked so proud, and Kohga definitely did not cry, nope, not even a little.
The rest of his duties as leader could wait another few hours.