Chapter Text
It was not far from Zora’s domain, and Mipha’s favourite lookout point, that the miniature guardian’s distress beam had shot up, modulating with a regular blue pulse against the greyer afternoon sky. From there it was a simple matter of diving precisely, through fifty meters of nothing, into the rushing river, then swimming upstream with the dexterity of a salmon and the determination of a loyal friend.
A few blinks of hydrophobic lids quickly clearing her vision, she alighted on the river bank, followed the sound of beeping into a thicket of trees clustered close to the steep cliff-face. There, in a harried pile of adventuring gear, baby-blue fabric and blonde hair that barely clung to its braiding, sat Princess Zelda, rubbing her ankle persistently, annoyance souring her flushed young face.
Mipha announced herself gently and Zelda’s gaze shot up, with surprise and then embarrassment at her rescuer’s identity.
“Oh... goodness, I’m sorry to be a bother. You must be so busy, and now you have to waste your time on me.”
Like all of the Champions, Mipha was no stranger to Zelda’s habitual self-chastising; even their grand victory over Ganon, their restoration of Hyrule into a somewhat peaceful state, had done little to temper the princess’s stringency. Still, it was difficult to navigate, and Mipha was never one to scold – it wasn’t in her nature, and more than that, it absolutely wasn't in her voice.
She shook her head, kneeling down a respectful distance away, “I wasn’t busy. Today is a Zora holiday.”
“It is?”
“It is Peace Day. Celebrating our revised Treaty with Hylians, two thousand years ago.”
“Of course, Peace Day. How could I have forgotten.” She began to massage her ankle again, vigorously with the heal of her hand. The curl of her lip was an indicator of the throbbing pain it was causing her.
“Your Majesty, if I may?” Mipha presented her rosy palms, already iridescent with healing magic.
Awkwardly, Zelda nodded her grateful thanks, though insisted on looking away as she stretched out her leg.
“It’s been more than a year that I’ve been doing this,” she muttered, “and yet still, a handful of loose stones can be my undoing.”
Mipha offered a kind giggle. “We must never underestimate the small things in the wild. They don’t know to show you the proper respect.”
“‘The proper respect’...” Zelda echoed glumly.
“Nobody taught the stones and trees and—”
“Yes, I know,” she interrupted Mipha’s attempt at humour, far too discomforted to allow for it. “I know. I need to be more vigilant. I’m supposed to be learning, after all. Giving myself the education that sixteen years within palace walls didn’t.”
Having first shaped a healing aura around Zelda’s injury, Mipha moved her hands closer now, laying them coolly across the bruised, swollen ankle.
“What you're doing is admirable. But must you really do it all alone?”
Zelda frowned off at a splash fruit bush, abstaining from comment. And in her stead, Terrako (its distress beam now tucked back into its compact chassis) chirped its indignance.
“You’re a good friend to the Princess,” Mipha assured it, “I mean no offence. But sometimes it helps to have one's own type of people along. You understand, don’t you?”
The machine whistled that it did, disappointedly.
Zelda was tensing her jaw, as healing hands forced the inflammation from her joints, and her voice came just as tensed:
“She’s done enough for me, since she was saddled with my care. I refuse to go on being a burden.”
A quick raising of her brow-ridge was all the comment Mipha would make; under different circumstances, she might delude herself that the princess was referring to her Sheikah aide, but was presently disinclined to such hopes.
“I shan’t!” Zelda insisted. “I need to become more capable, in the hazards of this physical world. If I’m to have hope of persisting in—” she flinched, and bit down on her lip before releasing it into a sigh, “letting myself pursue... whatever it is that’s grown between us.”
Mipha’s magic stuttered, with a twitch of her fingers, and she willed her spirit to be firmer.
“Do you need to take a break?” Zelda asked, unexpectedly intuitive; she had not missed the faltering, and was staring straight into Mipha’s honey-bright eyes. Rather than protest and put herself on the defensive, Mipha lowered her hands.
“Just a little while. I must be tired, somehow.”
“From the celebrations?” Zelda offered.
“Maybe.” Though she knew that was not the case; as always, her magic was very much tied to her emotions, and with Zelda's admission, their stability had been shaken.
“Can I ask you a question?” Zelda began carefully. “I’d worry it is perhaps too personal, but you did almost tell me once. I’m not certain you remember, but...” her eyes went back to that time, many months ago yet still horribly vivid in all their minds; Mipha recognised the sheen of it, whenever her fellows recalled the dawn of the Calamity.
“You may ask anything, your Majesty. I will answer as best I can.” Truly, anxiety was welling up inside of her, but her courtesy allowed no other reply.
Zelda leaned forward, stretched an arm across her legs, and rested her hand upon Mipha’s, where they were clasped in her lap. “You don’t have to call me that, you know.” Her thick eyebrows drew together in sympathy, though they could not identify Mipha’s malaise. “We know each other well enough, and besides,” a twinge of a smile, “I would say we’re more than equal rank, wouldn’t you?”
“That’s true.”
“And you’re older than I am, as well.”
“Only by technical years,” Mipha reminded her. “We mature much more slowly than Hylians.”
“Oh, I know,” Zelda smiled, and it lasted longer this time. “I remember that much about our neighbours. But still, you've experienced this world for longer than I have, even through the eyes of a child. And so you’ve also...” Her gaze skipped away, and Mipha knew for certain that their thoughts had aligned, “you’ve known her, for longer than I have.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.”
“Oh no?”
Mipha sighed. “I met her before you did, but only briefly. And what could one really say about a friendship made in infancy? I was only a finling. And easily impressed.” How false it sounded, to her heart.
“Well, maybe so. But what about all that time you spent together, while she was an apprentice knight? Granted, we – she and I, we’ve not spoken about it much. And I fear, I fear that was all down to— forgive me, Mipha, this speaks very poorly of me, but...”
Mipha gestured her on, already sensing what would arrive.
“...I'd held a quite unfair jealousy of your shared history. When I had neither cause nor the right to do so.”
Mipha took a slow breath and held it, contemplating how much of herself she was willing to reveal, and how much chance she would have of fully healing Zelda’s injury, in the aftermath.
On an unsteady exhalation, she spoke:
“Do you want me to tell you, about those days we spent together? Sometimes, knowing more details about somebody's circumstance can help you resent them less.”
“Sweet Goddess, I don’t resent you, Mipha!” Zelda’s hand had gone to her chest, brows drawn tight in concern; she was certainly a Hylian Royal, in her gestures, always somewhat poised – and even posed, when most emotional; in contrast to the Zoras' more subdued body language, it sometimes felt like a barrier between their peoples.
“Is that truly so?” she risked probing.
“Well, I- I may have once. But I don’t any longer. I swear.” She was unable to meet Mipha’s eyes, but that needn’t count against her sincerity.
“Then, would you like me to tell you?”
Zelda pondered the question, no doubt weighing her own desires against good sense, her eyes seeking until they landed on her injury, and stayed there.
“I think I would like that,” she sighed. “And I’m very grateful for the offer. But I also think it should wait until I can walk on my own again.”
“Just in case?” Mipha suggested, attempting careful humour for both their sakes.
“In case of?”
“In case you wish to fight me, as a result.” Her petite mouth curved up like a bow.
A tight laugh escaped Zelda’s chest. “It’s more likely I would want to flee. I know better than to clash with you, Zora Champion.”
“Even with your Sheikah Slate?”
“Oh. Well, actually, that’s... at least partially how I got into this mess. You see, I’ve stopped carrying it. I worried I was becoming too dependent—”
A rustle in the bushes caught both their attentions – though that alertness faded just as quickly, as Terrako, who had snuck off without notice, emerged with a spear full of fruits, brandishing it cheerily.
“Oh thank you, precious,” Zelda beamed. “What a lovely treat – for later?” she turned to Mipha with the question.
And Mipha nodded, at the implication. “Yes, let’s get you mended at last, and we can go back to my quarters. The feasting will continue at sundown, but we can escape it for the most part.”
“Are you sure? Will you not be expected to attend?”
Mipha shook her head, silver embellishments dancing. “The Zora people are used to my ways. My father is much more gregarious than I am, he will bring all the pomp and circumstance they could possibly need.” She chuckled affectionately at the thought of her sometimes overbearing but always caring father, presiding in all his bulk over a banquet table somewhat dwarfed by him. And on the other side of that spectrum, dwarfed twice and again by the rest of the populace, would be her finling brother – nowhere yet near the robust and valiant Zora he would one day become (whom she had blessed to fight alongside, in a turn of fate still too miraculous to comprehend).
With the glow of familial love in her breast, she once again extended her hand to Zelda’s ankle, and began weaving tenuous strands back together.