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Their flight from the castle had been a desperate one, and left them with no time to gather information. Even now, Impa isn’t certain of the events that led to Ganondorf’s takeover. The princess’ warnings had gone unheeded for too long. By the time Ganondorf put his plans in action, there was little Impa could do but take her young charge and flee. They had not known what had become of the king, but Impa was not in the habit of clinging onto hope when there was none to be found. Neither, it transpired, was the princess. Mere days after their escape, she had confessed that she believed her father to be dead. She hadn’t needed Impa’s silence to confirm it.
When they had sought refuge in Kakariko Village, Impa had thought it to be a temporary reprieve, a brief moment of rest before they would have to move on again. Surely Ganondorf would spare no effort to locate the sole remaining heir to the throne. And even stripped of her royal trappings and dressed like any other of Kakariko’s children, Zelda still stood out to any who knew her before.
But Ganondorf never appears. His spies — for surely he must have them — never seem to uncover their whereabouts. And while Impa is confident in her own skills, she still wonders, always waiting, always on edge.
She isn’t alone. With the threat of Ganondorf looming large, Zelda has thrown herself into practice with more vigor than ever before, and she has made great strides in the two years since they took up residence in the village. She was never a rambunctious child, not even when Impa had first been assigned to her, but her dreams left her with a restlessness that she found hard to cope with. Too often, the young princess would spend entire tutoring sessions shaking out her skin with barely-suppressed energy. Impa had started teaching her the Sheikah skills as a distraction, something she could focus on when the dreams became too much to bear.
Now, Zelda works herself to exhaustion almost every day and barely takes the time to rest or play with the other children, no matter how often Impa tries to slow her down.
Today, though, is a rare day that Zelda hasn’t insisted on training. Impa would be relieved by it if she didn’t know the cause: a new group of refugees has arrived in Kakariko Village and Zelda has taken it upon herself to learn about the state of Hyrule through them.
“There are monsters in Castle Town now,” she reports back when noon has passed and most of the new refugees have settled in. Impa sighs, looking through the open window at the slowly-dissipating crowd outside. In the first months after Ganondorf’s takeover, not much had actually changed. Foolishly, Impa had thought it to be just another coup. One that she and Zelda had found themselves on the wrong side of, certainly, but one that would have little impact on the people of Hyrule. Just one more chapter in the country’s already turbulent history.
But that has changed recently. Refugees from Castle Town and the rest of Hyrule bring with them increasingly harrowing tales of the world outside. Monsters roaming the streets of Castle Town might be new, but it is far from surprising.
“We should do something,” Zelda says when Impa doesn’t reply immediately. “We can sneak into the town, find out who needs help—”
“No.” Impa turns to face her, this child with too much responsibility weighing her down. “It is too dangerous. Ganondorf is looking for you, and there is no telling what he will do when he finds you.”
“We have to help!” Zelda insists with all the belligerence of an eleven-year-old. “We cannot leave them to suffer!”
“It is too early. We need to wait.”
Wait for the boy to return. She doesn’t say so, but Zelda hears it anyway. Her face falls.
“It’s my fault. I should be the one to fix it.”
Link, the boy who came to Zelda’s aid, had meant well. He had been eager to help them fight the oncoming disaster. But after they fled from Castle Town and Zelda entrusted him with the Ocarina of Time, he had disappeared without a trace. Ganondorf’s takeover went unopposed. It was only when Rauru managed to reach them through their dreams that they found out what had happened to him. Sealed away in the Sacred Realm, until such time that his body could handle the strain of wielding the Master Sword.
Zelda still carries the guilt of it with her.
“It’s too early,” Impa repeats. “We will be defeated if we rush in foolishly. Who will oppose Ganondorf if not us?”
“Foolish,” Zelda mouths. Her shoulders slump; she glares down at the hand that contains her piece of the Triforce. “Is that not what I am?”
You’re a child, Impa wants to say. A child who did the best she could. With the king unwilling to listen, Zelda’s plan had seemed like a good idea. Impa herself had underestimated Ganondorf’s cunning and knowledge. How could a child have foreseen what all the adults around her had missed?
But Zelda has always been too hard on herself. She will not accept Impa’s reassurances.
“You have mastered the Prelude now, I believe,” she says instead. “I will teach you the Nocturne of Shadow.”
It isn’t the song Zelda had intended to practice next, but it is the one Impa herself is most intimately familiar with. And as Impa had hoped, the prospect of another song is enough to shake Zelda from her turmoil. She nods, eyes taking on a determined shine again. “Yes. Teach me.”
But the new song eats up all of Zelda’s time in the days that follow. She practices her harp until her fingers crack and bleed, and Impa bans her from playing. Separated from her instrument, she instead throws herself into the Sheikah techniques Impa has been teaching her, until Impa refuses to teach her more and Zelda storms off.
Impa thinks that will be the end of it, at least for a little bit. She should really learn not to underestimate Zelda’s resolve — or her remorse.
Zelda returns when the sky has already gone dark, and goes to bed without a word. Impa regrets letting her the next morning, when she cannot put weight on her left leg. Oh, she tries her hardest to hide it, of course. As if Impa hasn’t been training her since she was little more than a toddler. As if she hasn’t treated every scrape and injury the little princess has ever obtained.
“Let me see,” she orders. Zelda’s mouth is set in a stark line, and for a moment, she looks like she will refuse. But under Impa’s quelling look, she bares her leg, revealing her swollen and bruised ankle.
“Did you fall?”
Zelda nods reluctantly, refusing to meet Impa’s eyes. Admonishing her won’t do her any good; it will only make her double down on training on her own. So Impa directs her to the table and tells her to sit down, then heads into the village.
At least Zelda obeys this order. She is still sitting at the table, listlessly humming the Nocturne of Shadow, when Impa returns. She hands a bundle of cloth-wrapped ice to Zelda and deposits the rest of her bounty onto the table.
Zelda hisses as she presses the ice against her ankle, face tensing up before going slack with relief as the cold does its work. Impa starts unpacking: carrots, onions, milk, and more eggs than they know what to do with. It is nothing like the fare Zelda was used to as princess of Hyrule. But today, Impa has something better.
“We have beef,” she reveals, showing off the package she got at the market. It cost her more than she would have liked, especially since the meat is old and tough, but it has been a very long time since they had any meat at all. Zelda’s eyes go wide; even though she has never complained about the simple food, any change in diet is welcome.
“Are we eating it today?” she asks. Impa nods, letting a smile shine through.
“It will need time to stew,” she cautions. The meat is too hard to roast, but they have all the ingredients for a stew that will last them a few days. “Would you like to help?”
“Yes!” Zelda shifts to stand up, childish excitement shining through. Impa quickly motions for her to stay seated and finds her a knife.
“Then, would you cut up the carrots?”
Zelda sets to her job with fierce concentration. Impa, in the meantime, starts browning the meat. It takes her long enough that Zelda has finished with the carrots and is eyeing the onions with eager energy, pulling them closer as soon as Impa gives her the go-ahead.
When they had just arrived in Kakariko Village, Zelda hadn’t known how to cook, of course — Impa herself had needed time to relearn her old skills after several years of palace meals. Even now, Zelda’s carrots are cut lumpy and uneven, and she takes so long with the onions that tears are streaming down both of their faces by the time Impa can sauté them.
“Oh, is there nothing else we can use?” Zelda asks through giggles as she wipes at her eyes. Impa laughs as well, happy to see at least some of the child’s old cheer returning.
“If there is, I have never discovered it.”
Onions sufficiently sautéd and their potency finally undone, she adds in the carrots and the meat, covering the whole thing with milk and waiting for it to boil before reducing the heat.
“Now what?” Zelda asks, collecting the carrot peels. Impa will toss them to the cuccos later in exchange for even more eggs.
“Now we wait,” Impa says, smiling at Zelda’s grimace. “You must give it the time it needs to be ready.”
Zelda’s grimace gains the company of an eye roll. “Yes, I get it,” she mutters, but with none of the venom of the days before. “I’ll wait.”
That’s all Impa can truly ask for. They do not know when Link will be ready to wield the Master Sword, and without it, they stand no chance at fighting Ganondorf head-on.
“How’s your ankle?” she asks. Zelda carefully removes the ice, now partially melted through the cloth. She puts her foot on the floor.
“Better,” she announces, “… but I should probably rest a little bit more.”
It’s as much of an apology as Impa is ever going to get. “That would be for the best. We can resume your training once your ankle has healed up.”
Sitting at the table with nothing to do, Zelda actually looks tired. The exhaustion of the past few days is finally catching up with her, and the longer their food stews, the more she starts to slump, until she’s watching the pot on the fire with her head cushioned on her arms.
“There’s a lot,” she says sleepily about an hour later. Impa hums, not looking away from the knives she’s sharpening. Stew, she’s learned, works best when you don’t spare it too much thought.
“Could we hand it out?” Zelda asks. “To the new people?”
Impa had intended to save whatever they couldn’t finish today for the days to come, but she can see the hope in Zelda’s eyes. If she can only do this little thing, then perhaps it will alleviate some of the guilt she is burdened with.
“Of course,” she acquiesces. Zelda lights up.
“And… and maybe to the people outside of Kakariko Village as well?”
“Not quite yet,” Impa says, grinning when Zelda’s expression turns petulant. “But how about this? I’ll teach you how to get around without anyone noticing. When you can do that, maybe we’ll go outside the village sometime.”
“Oh, yes!” Zelda says, already getting up from the table, her earlier exhaustion forgotten. Impa pushes her down again.
“After you’ve eaten.”