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Muzu was not happy. You couldn’t blame him. Everyone was so excited to see Link, despite the fact that his incompetence was to blame for Mipha’s death. It was as if no one remembered. Muzu refused to forget. He would never forget Mipha. He could never forget her.
A little more than a century and a half ago, Mipha had been born. A little more than century and two weeks ago, Mipha had been stolen from this world. And Link had failed to protect her.
Muzu remembered the night he met her. He was younger back then, not free of wrinkles, but free of worry. Back then, he still believed in the good of the world.
“Muzu,” King Dorephan had said to him, “meet Mipha.”
She was the most beautiful thing Muzu had ever seen. His heart had filled with love stronger than he had ever felt. He kissed her forehead and took Dorephan’s invitation to hold her.
“Princess Mipha,” he said to her, quiet so as to not wake her, “you are my pride and joy.”
And she was. Over the next fifty years, he raised her alongside Dorephan and the queen, until the queen passed away. He held Dorephan’s hand at her funeral, and he joined him in explaining to Mipha and Sidon where she had gone, why she wouldn’t be able to play games with them or listen to them speak about their days anymore. He had held them in his arms as they wept. He couldn’t help but cry, too.
After the queen passed, he took on an even bigger role in the children’s lives. He played games with them that the queen used to, and he taught them songs from his youth, all those hundreds of years ago.
As the Calamity neared, Mipha began to drift away. She grew sadder. That Hylian boy must be to blame. Muzu had never liked Hylians. They were sticky and loud. When Mipha and Sidon were sticky and loud, he didn’t mind. But these Hylian children were a different type of sticky, and a worse type of loud.
The Hylian boy had sworn to protect her, but Muzu didn’t believe him for a second. He taught Mipha to fight, to wield her trident in a way that would make the Domain proud; but he made sure she knew that they would be proud of her no matter what. Her people loved her, and they always would, no matter what happened.
She was a force to be reckoned with, wielding her trident. Little Sidon wanted to learn, too, and she was so full of kindness and grace when she showed him. He wasn’t very good at it, not yet, but Mipha never told him that.
“You’re a natural!” she had said, “But remember, you must hold it so the pointy bits face away from you.”
Muzu smiled. She was truly perfect, and he would do anything for her. How devastated he was when the Calamity came, and… and she never emerged from Vah Ruta. She never came home.
Just as he did when the queen died, he held Dorephan’s hand and held Sidon in his arms. He vowed to never forget Mipha, to never forgive those who had failed her. The Calamity, Link, the Hylian princess, and worst of all, himself.
He wished he had taught her to fight better. He wished he had taught her to fight in the dark. He wished he had showed her ways to fight while injured. He wished he had done something, anything, that would bring his dear Mipha back to him.
But he hadn’t, and he was just as much to blame as Link. When he scowled at the Hylian champion, he scowled at himself. When he berated him for his failures, he berated himself alongside him. And when he told him he must be ashamed to even look at himself in the mirror, he said it also to himself.
“I’m sorry,” Link said. “I’m sorry I don’t remember much about her.”
“You should be!” Muzu replied. “How could you forget someone so important?”
“I don’t remember anything about anyone.”
“How could—”
“But I remember her name, and I remember her face. I remember her laugh, and I remember how it felt to hug her. I remember our inside jokes, and I remember how she was scared of pufferfish. I don’t know everything about her yet. But I remember loving her.”
Muzu remembered loving her, too. But neither of their loves had saved her. He sighed and shook his head. He was not happy, and he felt he never would be again.