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Mipha didn't know when things had changed for her. She didn't know how quickly it had happened.
But she found herself eagerly waiting for every one of Link's visits and watching him leave until he was far out of sight, and something about the soft space he had always occupied in her life had very clearly, very substantially, shifted.
At first, she could push the feeling aside. Delude herself into misreading it. She hadn't seen him in three years, give or take; of course she was excited to see him on a semi-regular basis again. He'd saved her little brother from the most dangerous beast she'd ever seen; was it not natural for her to pour out every ounce of gratitude she could for him?
But it wasn't very long before she had to face the facts. Gratitude wouldn't leave her flustered and steal her words from her every time she met his gaze. It wouldn't leave her overwhelmingly aware of precisely where he was at all times whenever he visited the Domain. And it wouldn't leave her quietly mourning the loss of the bright smile she'd always used to associate with him, wondering if and when he'd ever look at her with more than the barest trace of it again.
(What had happened to him in the intervening years, for that smile to vanish?)
Whatever the answer to that question was, if what Mipha was feeling wasn't gratitude, she felt that she must be in some type of... danger, for lack of better words.
If anyone caught on to her internal conflict, they didn't let on for the longest time. If Link had caught on, Hylia herself would've had a difficult time figuring it out. And so, Mipha just kept trying to push her feelings to the side and look normal, perfectly self-possessed.
She perhaps should have expected that her father would be more observant than most. She was, of course, no actress.
"Are you alright, Mipha?" he asked one morning after Link and Princess Zelda had left. "You've been distant recently, my dear."
And Mipha, who had been busy thinking, predictably, about him- how resolutely he followed behind the princess wherever she went, where they might find shelter for the night, whether he'd stay safe- startled and looked up at him, wide-eyed.
"I'm- I'm sorry," she stammered. "I suppose I've just been distracted." Yes, that was as good a word as any.
Her father rumbled out a laugh. "By what, I wonder?"
Mipha felt very faint all of a sudden. She took a deep breath. "Oh, a lot of things. There's... a lot going on." This wasn't a lie, even though she managed to make it sound like one with how shaky her voice sounded.
"Indeed." He paused for a moment. "If you are unsure about piloting the Divine Beast, you do not need to. I won't have you giving yourself to a cause you aren't certain about."
Mipha straightened, almost affronted by the suggestion. "It's not that."
Her father hummed. "I can promise you that neither the princess nor Link would hold it against you."
He was likely right about that. Princess Zelda had certainly been a bizarre mix of excited yet extremely apologetic when she'd first approached Mipha about the subject. Even now, months later, she always seemed on edge during her visits to the Domain- like she was just waiting for Mipha to back out.
But Mipha still remembered the way Link's face had paled when he'd drawn the Master Sword, before he'd recovered his composure, and that was an image that would be sticking with her for a very long time. If she hadn't been there for him through whatever had landed him where he was, at least she could make up for it now.
"I'll pilot Vah Ruta. I want to do that much," she said firmly. "It doesn't bother me in the slightest."
Her father studied her for a long moment, not quite disbelieving, but- waiting. Waiting for an answer to the question still floating in the air. Ah- he knew. He knew.
Mipha looked down, painfully aware that her face was flushed.
"I suppose I've missed Link," she said, very quietly. It was such an understatement it was actually ridiculous, but she didn't know if she could bring herself to say much else.
Her father's eyes twinkled affectionately. "You've both grown up."
Wasn't that the truth? "Is it wrong of me?" she whispered. "To-"
"My dear," he said. "You're at the same stage in your life as he is in his. These things aren't as unheard of as you fear."
She couldn't help a little sigh of relief at that. "I know it isn't the time," she said. "But I really have missed having him around. And he... Well, he..." She trailed off. "I hope I can be like him someday. Repay him for everything he does for us."
She could practically feel the laughter her father was holding back. She couldn't look him in the eye.
"If it's any comfort," he said eventually. "I approve." He paused, contemplating something. "You know the stories about Princess Ruto?"
"Yes?"
"They say she once fell in love with a Hylian hero. She repaid him for his kindnesses by aiding him in defeating a great evil. Perhaps all of this may be drawn full-circle."
Mipha's face warmed at that. "Perhaps," she whispered. In truth, the notion of following in the footsteps of her distant, distant ancestors to follow Link to the end of the world appealed to her much more than she cared to admit.
"I must warn you, though," her father continued, more gravely. "You are setting yourself up for years of grieving. By the time our Hylian allies pass on from old age, you will still be very young, Mipha."
"I know," she said. "I know." And she did.
But a hundred years was still more than a lifetime ahead of her, and she decided at that moment that she could allow herself the luxury of entertaining these feelings for a while.
***
It didn't take long for Mipha to begin noticing other things, now that she was allowing herself to unabashedly acknowledge her newfound feelings for Link.
There was, of course, plenty to love. He was stronger and more graceful than ever, and Mipha struggled not to make it known that she thought so. She'd see him just over the bridge, carefully tending to Epona's hooves or brushing out her coat or just feeding her apples and sugar, speaking with a voice too gentle and too soft to make out from a distance. He was excellent with the Zora children, who loved to swarm any newcomer, but especially him. Even Sidon had warmed up to him rather quickly after the lynel incident. And no matter how busy they were with Vah Ruta, he never failed to carve out a little bit of time on his visits to entertain the little ones.
(This particular observation felt like a nail in the lid of a coffin to Mipha.)
There were other things, too, things that Mipha wondered how she'd failed to see before. He'd always been quiet, but he'd become more so; it was rare to hear him speak more than ten words together at any time. What she'd always mistaken for an acute sensitivity to his surroundings, she was beginning to see for what it was- nerves, a near constant state of unease that left him ready to move at the slightest indication of danger. What had left him like that? She should know. She wasn't sure.
She also, very painfully, saw how he watched Princess Zelda. From a distance, at first, with a layer of nonchalance almost- almost- perfectly disguising the ever-shifting anxiety in his eyes. Then, eventually, closer- from her side, at her shoulder, a little more thinly-veiled hope in his expression. She saw his guard coming down when she hadn't been able to bring it down herself. She saw him start to smile more around the princess than around anyone else in the world. Sometimes, she thought she heard him speaking very quietly to the princess when almost no one else was around. More often, she'd see the two exchange glances and come away with some unspoken agreement she couldn't even begin to parse.
Some small part of her mind quietly started saying: "Ah. He's not for me." And that twisted at her heart, almost made her back away from him entirely.
Still, though- still. She owed him honesty, did she not? So she made her preparations regardless. If it didn't benefit her in the end, at least it would benefit him, and that was worth a considerable amount of heartbreak.
***
They sat together atop Vah Ruta, and Mipha's hands trembled slightly as she looked over the deep gash in Link's arm. She hadn't been this close to him since they'd been children, and that was nerve-wracking in and of itself. But more to the point, she was just glad that this wound was the worst he had to show for the ambush he and the princess had escaped on the way here.
It was even quite tidy and clean-looking, despite being far too deep for a simple bandage to suffice. Princess Zelda had tended to him well. The thought, accompanied by the memory of the unmasked worry on Zelda's face when she'd passed him off to Mipha, felt a bit like a knife to the heart.
To look at Link, one would think that this was about as worrisome as a walk in the park. If he was in pain- and he certainly must be in some- it simply didn't show on his face. She wondered, dimly, why.
"This won't take very long," she said, taking care to sound as unbothered as he looked. "That's a relief. The princess said you fought off another lynel, too."
His mouth quirked upward into a small smile that left her scrambling to keep herself focused. "Three," he said simply, as if that were perfectly natural.
"Three," she echoed, stunned. The awareness that she was sitting next to, quite possibly, the most unassumingly powerful person she'd ever known crept over her, and not for the first time. She shook herself out of it. "Well, it's very fortunate nothing worse than this happened."
He just nodded, looking down at the cut in something like curiosity. Mipha mentally reached for the well of energy that always seemed to dwell in her chest and drew some of it to the surface. That was the best way she had of describing the feeling of healing- like drawing water from an internal well and pouring it out.
It was always easier with Link nearby. Not that she ever intended to say so.
"This reminds me..." She trailed off, just beginning to feel a tingling in her fingers as she held her hand over the cut. She was not accustomed to being more talkative than... anyone, really, and the sound of her own voice made her slightly nervous. But Link looked at her when she spoke, clearly listening, and that gave her the courage to continue. "This sort of reminds me of when we first met."
Something she couldn't define flashed through his eyes at that. But he smiled, a little more openly than before, and she went on.
"I always worried you might be a little too reckless," she laughed. "Getting hurt all the time like that." A little too hurt, if she was being honest, now that she had a few years of distance to look back on it. But she didn't know what to make of that or of the way he barely, ever-so-slightly flinched at the words, so she moved on. "I never minded healing you, though. I never mind."
The gash on his arm knit itself back together evenly. It always seemed too easy when wounds like this healed, in a way- they took more of a toll on Mipha the worse they were, but the wounds themselves always just... disappeared. Slowly, then all at once, until there wasn't even the trace of a scar left. Shouldn't there be a scar, sometimes?
Well, she was glad of it, for Link's sake. He had enough on his plate already. Like that sword on his back, Revali's growing hostility, and the princess' mental well-being, which was clearly deteriorating quickly despite everyone's best efforts.
... And there was a heavy topic if ever there was one. Mipha wanted to tuck away the thoughts of what the next weeks and months might bring, but she could see the dark circles under Link's eyes, and she could practically see Zelda's anxious pacing and hear Revali's scathing remarks born of panic, and- well-
"About this... Ganon," she said timidly, and knew that she didn't imagine the flash of panic in Link's eyes. "Do we really have any new information on him?"
He looked down at his arm- not even a scratch left where the gash had been- and rolled down his sleeve. "Not really," he said quietly.
"That's alright," she said hurriedly. "We can't make records pop out of thin air, can we?" She folded her hands neatly in her lap. "We'll just... work with not knowing much about what we're up against."
She wondered about the namesake of her Divine Beast. Had Princess Ruto known what she was walking into when she'd trailed after her Hylian hero, millennia ago? Or had she been just as in the dark as they were now?
She thought of the armor she had stored back home. A perfect fit for the Hylian beside her, should he ever choose to accept it. She'd intended to offer it to him during this visit, to be honest. But that was before an extremely worried Princess Zelda had rushed into the Domain with Link in tow, bleeding through the bandage she'd tied around his arm, and- well, it wasn't the time for proposals, was it? Not by a long shot. She wouldn't do that to him now.
"I wanted to make sure you know, though..." She swallowed the nerves rising inside of her and forced herself to keep speaking. "Whatever happens, I will always heal you." Link looked up at her again, and she met his gaze despite wanting to shrink into nothingness. "No matter when, or how bad the wound. I'll protect you. Always."
He blinked at her. It was truthfully the most stunned expression she'd seen on him in... goddesses, a long time.
"Thank you," he said in a voice that implied the reverse was also true. "And also for-" He broke off awkwardly, opting instead to gesture at his arm.
Mipha smiled. In her mind's eye, she saw that betrothal armor and tucked it away for the moment.
"Of course," she said. "And who knows? Perhaps- perhaps after all this is over, some things could be the way they used to be." She looked up at him again. "Perhaps we could spend more time together."
The smile he returned to her wasn't precisely a promise, but it was full of unfiltered appreciation. She let herself keep hoping.
***
She stood with the others- all of them- at the base of Mount Lanayru and felt her heart breaking.
They'd arrived before dawn that morning. And after hours of waiting in tense semi-silence (it was now afternoon), they'd finally spotted Princess Zelda and Link making their way back down the mountain.
One look at the princess' face told them everything they needed to know.
Revali, to his credit, was doing an admirable job of hiding his frustration- by his standards, in any case. He was uncharacteristically soft-spoken as he broke the silence with, "You felt nothing? No power at all?"
The princess' ears drooped. She hadn't looked up once since reaching them, gaze fixed on the ground and shoulders hunched up in a posture that spoke of something far beyond despair. Gone was the bright-eyed girl who'd taught Mipha how to pilot Vah Ruta, who'd excitedly told her all about the ancient shrines and ruins and inscriptions she'd uncovered across the continent- who Mipha couldn't bring herself to be jealous of no matter how much she made Link smile or laugh.
In her place was a priestess abandoned by her goddess. A shell walking on forsaken ground.
"Nothing," she whispered. "I'm sorry." Her hands twisted into the plain white fabric of her dress.
Mipha looked at Link, standing just behind Zelda, and the cracks in her heart widened into fissures. She had never seen an expression on his face that she could truly call devastated until this moment. The princess had yet to look at anyone; Link had yet to look away from her. But he was losing the battle to disguise the fear and grief and anger swimming in his eyes. He held Zelda's cloak like it was something precious, and his silence felt far heavier than usual.
The small part of Mipha's mind that had been preparing her for this for months spoke up again, and this time the rest of her conceded, too. The thought was accompanied by no bitterness, just a heavy resignation. He really loves her, doesn't he? The Sword even thought so.
Her eyes flicked back to the princess. Realization began to dawn on her.
Wait a minute... The Sword. She remembered the ambush in the Lost Woods, and the moment the Sword had lit up, and the way Link had reached out to the princess in that moment-
"Then we move on," Urbosa said, confident as ever. "There's no use dwelling on it, Princess. It's not like your last shot was up there on Mount Lanayru, anyway." Daruk was nodding vigorously at her words, although the effect was somewhat diminished by the anxiety plainly visible on his face.
Mipha looked from Princess Zelda to her appointed knight and back again. She thought, briefly, about the armor she had stored at home and then tucked it away in her mind.
She took a deep breath.
"If I may-" she began, and then cut off abruptly as all eyes- even Link's, albeit briefly- turned to her. But she swallowed and forced herself to keep speaking, if what she had to say might bring the light back into Zelda's eyes and take the pain out of Link's.
"I- I'm not sure if this is the same thing, but- And, honestly, I'm quite embarrassed to say it..." She shook her head and looked Zelda in the eye. "As far as waking up your power... I was thinking about what I do when I'm healing. You know, what goes through my mind." She very studiously ignored Link, but it was easier because a trace of curiosity had passed into the princess' expression. "It's easier when- when I think about-"
A low rumbling cut her off, accompanied by the ground shaking violently. She stumbled, and Daruk reached out to grab her. The princess stumbled, too, already evidently weakened from her ordeals on the mountain, and Link caught her before she could fall, moving almost faster than Mipha could track. His grip on her arm, she could see from here, was heart-achingly gentle.
"An earthquake," Urbosa muttered, eyes narrowing. "Why..."
Princess Zelda had somehow managed to go even paler than she already was. She reached back and grabbed blindly at Link's arms, breath already coming in gasps. "No- no-"
In a burst of wind, Revali took off, shooting straight into the air, scarf billowing around him. Even from this position, Mipha could see his eyes widen.
"I can't see the castle," he said when he landed again. "I can hardly see the castle."
"What?" Daruk exclaimed. Zelda was already pulling herself free from Link's grasp, running further down the path to get a clear view of Central Hyrule. The rest followed her, Link right on her heels, but they all skidded to a halt at the scene that lay in front of them.
On clear days like today, Hyrule Castle was always plainly visible, towers gleaming almost white with reflected sunlight. But Mipha could barely even make out the central tower through the thick, poisonous-red mass swirling around it. She thought she saw glowing orange eyes- tendrils of red fog shooting off in all directions- thick smoke rising from yet-unseen buildings-
"It's him," Zelda breathed, hands clasped over her heart as though that would keep it safe. "Ganon..."
"Alright," Daruk said, sounding confident for the first time all day- which Mipha was glad for, because she didn't think she could bring herself to speak. "To the Divine Beasts! Let's go- we don't have time to be standing around."
Urbosa took over fluidly from there. "Right. Let's get moving, then- Revali, you and I have the furthest to go, and we need to be ready when Link makes his attack." Revali wilted at that, but said nothing, and although Link's expression remained almost perfectly blank- almost- he'd gone nearly as pale as the princess.
"We'll keep an eye on your position the best we can," Urbosa continued, patting him once on the shoulder before turning to the princess. "Now- we'll need to get you somewhere safe-"
"No!" Zelda reeled back from Urbosa's usually-reassuring touch and grabbed Link by the arms. "I still- I still need to try to help. Let me go with you."
And, oh, if the reckless devotion mixed with panic in her eyes wasn't enough to twist Mipha's heart, she didn't know what was.
Link opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by Daruk, who reached cautiously for the princess' shoulder. "I don't know if we can send you right into that thing's maw, Princess."
But she twisted away from him and just clung more tightly to Link. "Please! It's always- always been this way." Her voice broke. "Hasn't it?"
She was right, Mipha knew- it had always been the princess and the knight walking into the face of evil, always, if all the stories were true. And a simple set of unused Zora armor far paled in comparison to that, in comparison to whatever the fear turning to sadness turning to determination in Link's face was. An understanding that far surpassed the current situation, and one that he somehow seemed already to share with the princess, because her shoulders relaxed before he even spoke.
Mipha was simply overcome by a flood of grief and love for them both in that moment.
"Okay," Link said simply, quietly enough that Mipha almost didn't hear him, and no one argued even though both Urbosa and Revali looked like they wanted to. It wasn't their final decision to make.
Everything was a flurry of movement, then. There was a burst of air as Revali took off with scarcely another word. Daruk consulted quietly with Urbosa and bestowed one of his older-brotherly, nearly bone-crushing hugs upon Mipha before turning north, curling into a ball, and rolling away at a dizzying speed. Link hefted his sword over his shoulder, still holding the princess' hand like a lifeline, and started moving- but Mipha caught him by his free arm first.
She spoke through her own heartbreak, which wasn't all that big in the grand scheme of things, was it?
"Take care of her," she said. "And yourself. Please."
And the man she had loved in silence gave her a nod and a brave smile that neither of them was feeling, and said, "You, too."
Then he was gone.
***
Later that night, Mipha lay in a rapidly-growing pool of red-hot pain, and the internal well of energy that had always sustained her had run dry. There was nothing left for her to draw from it.
Later that night, Mipha lay in a haze, in a world of flashing lights that grew ever dimmer, as the sound of the emergency signal she'd sent out grew ever fainter to her ears and went unanswered- for who was there to answer it?
Later that night, Mipha lay where she had collapsed beneath the crushing weight of ice. She no longer felt her legs. She no longer felt her arms. She would soon feel nothing at all.
She didn't fear death. But she did regret it, and she did grieve it. She regretted not getting Vah Ruta further away from her home before falling to the creature that had rendered all her speed and agility useless. She regretted how the sound of screams had risen in the distance over the past several hours, swelling into a steady roar over the land that still showed no signs of stopping.
She grieved the barely-concealed fear on her father's face, and the wide-eyed confusion on little Sidon's, and the fact that she had no more power to put them at ease. She grieved an unused set of betrothal armor, a princess carrying the blood of the gods, and a kind-hearted boy cursed with the weight of a blessed sword.
Her heart bled for the friends she would never see again.
***
A hundred years- more than a lifetime- later, a young Hylian man in Zora armor looked up at what remained of Princess Mipha of Zora's Domain with tears in his eyes.
He was the same as the person she'd watched ride off with the princess in tow all those years ago, and he was entirely different. Experience and innocence clashed in everything he did, everything he said; he had not aged a bit and yet his face was crisscrossed with scars that couldn't be counted, scars that had long since shattered the blank mask that had once hidden his emotions so well. He looked up at her, an open book.
He had lost everything once. He continued, every single day, to recover everything only to lose it all again. And Mipha had never intended to become another lost thing.
He tried to explain himself, as if there was any reason for him to do so. He tugged at the sleeves of his armor self-consciously. "I... Mipha, I didn't know... I don't know..."
What remained of Mipha could only smile at that. "I made that a long time ago," she said. "I'm glad it's finally getting some use."
Link looked helplessly, helplessly lost. "Yes, but..." He swallowed. "We were- we were friends?"
The words were laced with layer upon layer of fear, grief, and uncertainty. Some hope, perhaps. A vulnerability he'd never shown her in life. More than a lifetime ago, her heart would have absolutely melted. What remained of her still felt a tug of emotion that made her smile wobble, ever-so-slightly.
"Of course," she said. "We'll always be friends."
His tears spilled over then, and she was very suddenly reminded of the first time she'd met him, so long ago- just a small child, trying and failing not to cry over a broken arm.
"Come back home," he whispered now. "Your father- Sidon- They miss you."
"Can you say goodbye to them for me?" she replied. "I have to go. I think you know that."
Although the love on his face as he looked up at her wasn't of the type she had once wanted from him, it was love nonetheless. It was heartbreak nonetheless. "Mipha-"
"Save the princess, Link," she said. "Take care of her."
"I will," he whispered. "But what about you?"
She didn't answer. She just reached for the internal well that had sustained her once upon a time, and poured all that was left of it out for him to carry with him. And then she was gone.
Healing had always been easier with him nearby, after all.