Chapter Text
A day's delay, while unplanned, was not wholly unexpected. Yet, the cause for the delay could never have been predicted . Slowing down for Princess Mipha's sake, while necessary, did not bring any comfort to Zelda's anxious heart.
She chewed her thumbnail, pacing around the front of the Woodland Stable. At every rustle of leaf or whiff of smoke, she flinched in expectation of a hidden blade. Surrounded by travelers and friends, she should have no reason to fear. No matter how many times she told herself this, her heart would not believe it. Much like she told herself that the previous night was the greatest anomaly, a phenomenon that would never be repeated , she couldn't tear her attention away from Link.
A bowl of warm stew in front of her at the communal table could not tempt her away from the tumultuous thoughts in her head. Even when he left through the colorful, wide tent flaps of the stable to go practice with Daruk, she stared after the doorway, his afterimage seared into her vision.
Weeee- oop? A sharp whistle beside her shook her from her trance, drawing her notice to the tiny Guardian nudging her calf.
"Oh! Yes, little friend? What is it?" She asked, reaching down to pet its hard shell. She had no way of knowing whether such a gesture meant anything to an automaton, but it seemed to appreciate her, regardless.
"It's worried about you," Impa said, sitting down across from Zelda at the table. "We all are."
Beside Impa, Lady Urbosa lounged on the wooden bench, like a great cat settling in. "You haven't been yourself, little bird."
Heat sparked in Zelda's chest. She stirred at her stew, watching the chunks of meat and vegetable float around in the thick broth. "I'm just tired," she insisted. "I couldn't sleep last night." She very much did not appreciate the look traded between her friends.
"Couldn't, or didn't want to because you had something better to do?" Impa said.
The spark flared up to her cheeks, burning to her ears. "Why does it matter?!" she snapped, though quickly lowered her voice when other guests took notice of her. "What I do or don't do with my time is no business of yours," she hissed.
Unmoving, her friend stared her down, her brown eyes set firm. "I went to your room last night to check on you."
A cold stone settled in Zelda's core. Her heart raced, her bones trembled, every nerve alighting at once in fight-or-flight. Still, she said nothing, trying to keep her face as neutral as possible.
Impa drummed her fingers on the table, leaning closer. "Neither you or your guard were there, Zelda. Do you have any idea how terrified I was? You could have been kidnapped for all I knew!"
Zelda's gaze hardened. She crossed her arms. "If you were so concerned, why didn't you raise an alarm?"
"I did," Impa answered, glaring back at her friend. "I went to the guards immediately. That's when I learned that Poplin wasn't on duty that night. He swapped with Link."
Despite the hammering of her heart trapped behind her ribs, she refused to budge an inch. "So what?"
"So-! Because I told you to stop!" Impa quickly lowered her voice again, noticing the other guests who were now listening in on the juiciest gossip this side of Hyrule. "Come on, Zel. You know better than this. We're on the verge of finding the Master Sword. You can't afford to waste your time chasing after something you can't have."
Barbs stuck into Zelda's soul with every word, digging into her flesh. She blinked back the furious, exhausted tears from her eyes.
"Little bird," Urbosa reached across the table, offering her hand in friendship. "We love you, and we're only telling you this because we love you. The path you're walking will only lead to heartbreak and strife."
Her gaze flickered briefly toward Urbosa's offer, so similar to the gesture Link had done the night before. Her heart ached all the more, tears blurring her eyes, the more she remembered the highs, and the devastating crash of watching him close her door behind him, knowing that the fantasy was permanently over. Impa gave the same advice that Urbosa had in Gerudo Town, and the same rationale that had encouraged Zelda to stomp the flower into the ground harder and harder every time it dared to grow an inch. But she was tired. She'd let the petals open for just a moment, letting her guard fall. She'd gotten a taste, however slight, of sweet nectar. It had been so easy to convince herself to kill the ugliness inside before he called it beautiful.
Through the tightness of her throat, she attempted to answer them. "I know." Her voice was little more than a cracking squeak, fighting as hard as she could to contain it. When the battle appeared utterly unwinnable, she pushed herself up from the table. With a slight gesture, she bid her friends to follow. If she was going to cry, there was no way she would do so where any word of it could get back to her father.
Pushing her emotions down, down, as deep into her core as she could shove them, Zelda exited the stable, her friends close behind. She heard the distant clash of metal and the rumble of Daruk's laughter to her right. She turned left, toward the river. Hidden from everyone else, she plopped down by the bank and pulled her knees to her chest. Clear water flowed, fish and turtles swimming through the currents, blissfully unaware of the world of the ridiculous people who walked on land. Some part of her wondered if the fish would be spared the Calamity's wrath - someone had to be.
Her friends settled on either side of her, waiting for her to speak.
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, loathe to confess the truth that she'd carried inside her all day - the truth that made her flinch in shame whenever she looked at the terrible gashes in Mipha's side. "Last night, Link and I went into Castle Town," she began, already wincing in anticipation of her friends' criticism. "He couldn't sleep either. We talked about why, about Korok Forest and the fate my father has condemned me to." At the first roll of a tear down her cheek, Urbosa's warm hand on her back gave her enough courage to continue. "I told him that I didn't want to marry. I didn't want to clear the forest of monsters because it would mean that I had to." Her voice cracked again. She took a shuddering breath, hardly caring about the tears that flowed, so long as no one but the fish saw them fall. "So, yes, I admit that I was with him. I admit that I kissed him, and that he walked me back to my chambers, and that we were out together all night. And we- we agreed that was the end of it. We said what needed to be said." She wiped away some of her tears, glistening water on her hands. "It's over, alright? He's gone back to Princess Mipha, and I've resigned myself to my fate with the unknown hero."
For several seconds, no one spoke. The distant rattle of carts and flow of the river, the chirping of birds and croaking of frogs, all filled the uncomfortable space left by her pitiful honesty.
Without warning, Urbosa pulled Zelda into her chest. Tears were far easier to cry when hidden in Urbosa's warmth. "Little bird, if I could change your father's mind, I would have done it years ago." Her arms tightened around Zelda, holding her closer. "You deserve so much more than a resignation to your fate."
Zelda's hands curled into tight fists, hiding herself in Urbosa's embrace.
"…Do you think he told Princess Mipha?" Impa wondered, drawing Zelda out of herself for only a moment.
Zelda wiped her tears with her sleeves. "No. I don't think he intended to, not right away." She took another breath, the rippling water below splashing on the banks. "I don't know how he intends to tell her. It would be an awful thing to confess, if he ever did." She wasn't sure whether she would prefer to know of such infidelity, even from a husband she didn't choose, or to remain permanently ignorant of it. Her stomach twisted at the thought of the harm she caused to someone as kind as Mipha. "Skies, I hadn't even thought of poor Mipha's feelings in all of this. I feel just horrid about what I did! I've completely betrayed her!"
Guilt and shame stung like vipers. She hid herself in Urbosa again, too overwhelmed by her own evil actions to face the reality of her friends' censure. "I've ruined everything! And you all warned me! You warned me and I didn't listen to you!"
Urbosa's strong arms held her as she sobbed, all of her exhaustion, shame, fear, and guilt rising to the surface. She placed a soft kiss on Zelda's head, like she was a frightened child. "But you're listening now," she soothed, stroking Zelda's hair. "I know it isn't easy, little bird. But I'm proud of you for walking away while the offense is still too small for lasting damage."
Sniffling, Zelda lifted her head. "What do you mean?"
"It's not like you bore his child," Urbosa reasoned, waving her hand vaguely.
Zelda nearly choked on her breath. She'd never known Urbosa to mince words or soften her bluntness, but such a statement caught Zelda entirely off-guard.
"I think what Urbosa is trying to say," Impa clarified, her cheeks not spared the second-hand blush, "is that it can be mended with an apology. Princess Mipha is too gracious of a person to hold grudges. And while it will be up to Link to rebuild her trust in him, if you tell Mipha that you're sorry, I'm sure she'll forgive you…eventually."
A little less mortified by such an idea, Zelda nodded, pulling back from Urbosa's embrace. "Yes. Though I- I'll hardly deserve it." She sniffled, wiping the last of her tears away. "It isn't my place to tell her yet, but I will begin making amends, at least for the trouble I've put her through today." Slowly, she stood from the bank and brushed grass from her clothes. "Have either of you seen her?"
"She was by the pond," Urbosa said, nodding toward the back of the stable. "She said the water helps her heal faster."
Steeling herself, Zelda fixed her eyes on her next goal: apologizing. "Right. Then I will…I will do my utmost."
Stepping carefully back out of the little woods between the river and the road, Zelda surveyed the area for any sign of the knight she wished more than anything to avoid. When she saw no further sign of him, she continued into the open, heading around the stable toward the pond.
While she wasn't very surprised to see Mipha in the water, she didn't expect to find Revali on the shore. She stopped, hardly believing that the Rito pilot would show such a measure of compassion for anyone.
"It's really not your fault," Mipha assured him, her smile sweet and gentle. More of her wound had healed, her body submerged up to the top of the gashes.
Perhaps unwilling to get any closer at the risk of getting his feathers wet, Revali shifted uncomfortably. "It was still a failure on my part, Your Highness." His wing flexed and formed into a fist. "When I see that damned Yiga again, I swear I won't miss."
"Hm," Mipha hummed sweetly, finally catching sight of Zelda approaching. "Oh, Princess Zelda!" She raised her hand from the water, waving at Zelda. "Have you also come to check on me?"
Something about the way Revali stiffened when Zelda approached struck her as very unusual, and somewhat amusing. For all the pompous air that he put out, she could only imagine how personally he took his failing. It would probably haunt him for the rest of his life, assuming he didn't eventually avenge his pride. Before Zelda even reached the shore, Revali gave her a stiff bow. "Good evening, Princess. Ah, I've tarried here long enough." He gave a somewhat smoother bow to Mipha, sweeping out his wing. "Have a good night, Your Highness."
"Goodnight, Master Revali," Mipha giggled, clearly as amused by his change in behavior as Zelda was. She watched him a moment longer, hiding a laugh behind her clawed hand. "It's very sweet of him to worry about me."
'Sweet' was perhaps the last word any rational person would use to describe Revali, and yet, Zelda couldn't refute it. His behavior and attention to Princess Mipha was certainly out of Zelda's expectations. But, then again, she'd only known him a short while. Perhaps his perceived failures held more weight in his mind than were warranted . It certainly would explain his persistence in training. His pride might be double-edged.
Zelda approached the water, the edge of the pond lapping against her boots. "He's not the only one worried about you," she began, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. As confident as she'd been in convincing herself to apologize, her bravery waned the longer she remained in Mipha's presence. "I, too, feel responsible for what happened today."
Mipha's eyes softened. She rose from the water, wincing slightly with each step she took toward Zelda. "It is no one's fault but the man who threw the blades," Mipha assured her. Taking Zelda's hands in hers (Zelda tried not to think too hard about the dampness), Mipha stood a little shorter than Zelda, looking up at her. "We all knew what we were getting ourselves into when we agreed to pilot the Beasts. Our safety is never guaranteed."
Frowning, Zelda gave Mipha's hands a slight squeeze. "Perhaps. And yet…I cannot stop thinking about how close we both were to death."
"Hm," Mipha ran her thumb idly across the back of Zelda's hand, in thought. "I…I have been thinking much of that. Why he chose to target us, you know?"
Zelda attempted a half-hearted laugh. "Because I'm small and an easy target?"
"Oh dear, and what does that make me?" Mipha teased, laughing softly. "Perhaps you're right, but I did think of another reason."
Hearing a new mystery unfold, Mipha now had Zelda's full attention. "Yes?"
"I…Oh, well, now it seems a little silly…" Mipha sighed, blushing a little, "and perhaps rather presumptuous of me-"
"Mipha," Zelda squeezed the Zora Princess's hand again. "I wish you wouldn't say such things about yourself. You're very clever, and I truly value your opinion." Though she expected the words to taste like lies in her mouth, she was surprised to find that she believed them. For as long as she'd spent needlessly hating someone as nice as Princess Mipha, she still couldn't hide the truth of her admiration.
Bolstered by Zelda's good opinion, Mipha smiled a little more. "I was thinking of Link."
Oh Goddess . The one person she'd wanted most to avoid in this conversation, at least until the knight had taken the first blow on her behalf. She swallowed hard, attempting to remain as unaffected as ever. "What about him?"
"Well, it's no secret that he and I are engaged," Mipha began, her fins shifting back and forth as she spoke, only occasionally meeting Zelda's eyes. "Perhaps he thought that, if he attacked you and me at the same time, Link would abandon his duties to you to protect me."
Cold seeped into Zelda's veins at hearing such a theory. "O-oh…" Her mouth struggled to form words, caught between fear of being found out and guilt that she hadn't been yet. But he didn't, she wanted to say, yet found the words stuck behind her teeth. She couldn't say it, though the sentiment was clear in Mipha's expression. "Does that…bother you?"
Mipha paused a moment, still idly holding Zelda's hands in hers. She frowned, a rare sight on the joyful princess's face. "No," she decided, "for as long as I've known him, Link has been devoted to his duties more than anything, or anyone, else. I would not expect him to abandon you for my sake."
Zelda swallowed, forcing her hands not to shake. She nodded, too flustered to speak.
As quickly as it came, her frown vanished again. "I'm glad that he chose to save you. And I'm glad that Revali acted quickly enough to save me. You and I…we're princesses. We are the beacons of hope and light for our kingdoms." Mipha paused, letting out a slight sigh. "Zelda, I have been praying for you every day. And I know that you will unlock your powers, just as I have unlocked mine." She looked up again, meeting Zelda's tear-filled eyes. "I have complete faith in you, my dear friend."
Unable to stop herself, Zelda hugged Mipha as tight as she could, evidently surprising the much smaller princess. She hardly cared that her clothes were going to get soaked. That didn't matter. Maybe no one would think twice about her wet cheeks if the rest of her was even damper. "Thank you, Mipha," she sobbed, her heart breaking at her own evil, guilt, and the horrible, horrible secret she bore in her chest. "Thank you…"
Thick fog hovered around them, a blanket of pale blue and gray. Floating motes of light faded in and out, winking at her in the gloom. Revali and Urbosa led the group, their ranged attacks always at the ready in case something lept out at them from the wall of obfuscating mist. Link and Impa stayed in the back, keeping watch over the trail behind them; vigilant, anticipating an assault from behind. Daruk's heavy footsteps thumped into the ground just behind the two princesses. Though significantly improved, Mipha still winced when she had to twist her body at all, even to examine her surroundings.
"This is quite the fog," Mipha observed, her voice hushed, as if the forest itself would strike at her if she offended it.
"Are we even making progress?" Revali huffed, his beak clacking in frustration. "We could just be going in circles."
"Good point," Daruk agreed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "If only someone could fly above and scout the way." Zelda bit her tongue, a sharing a smile of silent laughter with Mipha.
"As if I could see anything through this muck," Revali snapped, sarcasm entirely lost upon the bird who took himself far too seriously. "Honestly, do you ever think before you speak?" When he turned to fuss more at Daruk, he paused, spotting the two girls in their silent giggle at his expense, and quickly turned back around, his feathers fluffed around his neck.
"Getting lost is the least of our worries," Urbosa said, nervous sparks prickling over her hands. "If something attacked us, we wouldn't see it coming."
The same thought had been swirling around Zelda's head since they'd entered the strange forest. Stories of odd monsters, ghosts, skeletal foes, and trickster spirits flooded unbidden to her mind. She kept checking the timepiece on her Slate. Though they'd only been walking an hour, and had many more until sunset, she couldn't see the sky or sun through the fog. If they didn't get out of the woods by the moon's rising, they would certainly be lost forever.
She took a breath, trying to calm herself. Damp, old wood and hanging moss filled the air, a miasma of ancient magic - the untamed, wild magic of the earth, vestiges of Farore. Not evil magic, like the kind she read about in the little history they could find on the Calamity, that glowed pink and red and reeked of brimstone and iron. Not the holy magic of the priestesses of Hylia. Even the magic of the pilots, tied to the elements of their homelands, could be channeled and harnessed, refined. A shudder ran down her spine. The magic of the wild would do whatever it pleased, regardless of consequence. That terrified her more than anything else.
"Yes," Zelda agreed, "we must be prepared for even the most," the flash of something in the corner of her vision caught her attention, bringing her to a stop as she got a better look at the manifestation of her anxious thoughts, "unus-u-al…" She did not expect her greatest fears to shake colorful maracas. "Huh?"
"Shaka!" The massive spirit, slowly becoming more solid before her eyes, danced and bounced. Like a round, exuberant tree, it shimmied and laughed, the shaking leaves on top of its head joining the music of its strange instruments. "Finally, finally, finally! Somebody finally sees me!"
As strange and alarming as the being was, Link appeared the most on edge, quickly rushing forward to put himself between the princesses and the dancing, nonsense-singing…
"Korok!" Mipha gasped, her eyes widening. "You're one of the forest children!"
This thing? Zelda frowned, taking a step back from the delighted spirit. It…didn't resemble the forest children of her books. She supposed it had some similarities. A broad leaf for a mask, a body like a tree, yet this being now shaking its maracas and singing was far from child-sized. It towered over Daruk!
"Yahaha! That's me! I am the one who brings song and dance to Korok Forest," it gave a flourishing spin, its maracas bursting with (rather anticlimactic) red sparks, "Hestu!"
Threatening or not, this Korok was certainly odd. Link kept his shield up.
Daruk, who never had to look up to anybody, craned what little neck he had toward the masked face of the forest spirit. "We're trying to get to Korok Forest ourselves. Mind guiding us through the fog?"
The Korok paused a moment, then slumped its shoulders. For a creature without a face, it certainly was expressive. "Oh, I'd love to get home myself," Hestu whined, "but there's big, scary monsters in the way, and I can't get past them!"
Zelda took back her earlier conclusion. This was, without a doubt, a child.
Revali scoffed, crossing his wings over his chest. "You could probably sneak right by them if you didn't have those noisy maracas."
For all of Revali's lack of tact around children, Urbosa more than made up for it, using a tone even gentler than the one she spoke to Zelda with the day before. "Nevermind him. We have business in the forest. If you lead the way, we'll take care of the monsters for you."
Its earlier despair entirely forgotten, Hestu popped back up, startling Link and Impa, whose hands flew to the hilts of their swords in anticipation. "Woohoo! Yay! Yippee!" The Korok whooped and danced and sang. Without even being home yet, the spirit celebrated as if the monsters were already slain. "Follow, follow!" For a creature as massive as it was, its body didn't have the weight it should. When it hopped around to lead the way, its stubby legs hovered and settled slowly on the ground, like a leaf caught in a breeze.
Even if they lost track of the giant Korok, which was doubtful given its size, the noise it made as it danced and sang through the foreboding woods could have woken a slumbering Hinox. With each shake, the fog retreated. Passageways opened, solid trees revealed to be mere illusions.
Skeletal hands and glowing eyes sprung from the fog and moss-covered ground, frightening the jovial Korok, but each was quickly dispatched. While Zelda hadn't heard of Stal monsters during the day, the cover of the fog must have provided them enough protection from the divine light of the skies.
Yet, it was not the stench of death and decay that reached her. But rather, the acrid scent of sulfur.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, dread settling into her core. The deeper they went, the clearer the source became. Pools of writhing, bubbling magic, concentrated evil, giving off a faint glow of pink from a dark mass. Though she'd only read descriptions of it in her studies, there was no mistaking it - the animating force that gave Stals false life. That would explain the abundance of them.
"Malice…" Zelda whispered. "Don't touch it!"
None in her party appeared inclined to do so, regarding the strange, pulsating goop with disgust and disdain. The path Hestu bounced along twisted and turned, avoiding the largest patches of malice. It hummed a pleasant song, apparently unconcerned with the pools of darkness that dotted its home. "We're almost there!" Hestu announced, pointing ahead with his maraca. "The beans lead the way!"
Sure enough, bean-shaped lanterns emerged from the haze, becoming clearer with every step. Malice leaked from the ground. They had to watch their steps carefully. In the end, Revali just flew.
The winding trail eventually ended, opening into a bright, sunlight-filled space. Birds chirped sweetly in the branches. Grass and leaves danced in the wind. A stone platform, marked in three corners by standing stones, rested in the center, below the branches of the widest, tallest tree in the woods.
She'd dreaded seeing the sword, her stomach souring every time she thought of it.
How strange, then, that someone was blocking her view.
On the steps up to the sword's dais, a lone figure stood. Dark robes covered his form, his face hidden by a heavy hood. In his hand, a light, raised high. It pulsed pink and red.
Zelda barely had a moment to gasp before the light burst, a mockery of Sheikah constellations flashing through the air. Malice bubbled up from the ground and shallow water. Then it grew.
She could only compare it to Impa's illusions, these beings of malice with burning eyes. Four illusions blocked their way - each in the shape of a pilot. And each, in unison, locking onto her .
The phantom of Urbosa rushed forward first, a scimitar of crackling red and black aimed at Zelda's chest. The real Urbosa met it, her shield slamming hard into the phantom's body.
Daruk and Revali met their illusions, crashing into each other and taking to the skies. The phantom of Mipha, however, was unchecked.
The true Zora princess raised her trident, hissing with pain as she prepared to deflect her copy's assault. Instead, Impa met the dark princess, slicing her sword through…nothing.
With every strike, the phantoms phased in and out of existence, dodging every sword and arrow a mere moment before a hit. Confusion and frustration surrounded them, swinging wildly after ghosts that could strike at them, but they couldn't hit back.
Metal clanged into stone and wood. Heavy footsteps splashed in shallow water. Bomb arrows exploded and thunder cracked, shaking the earth and air. And Zelda, the target of the attack, tried to ignore it all.
"How did you find me?!" Impa's voice echoed in Zelda's head. Link's reply followed: "Illusions don't splash."
They were just illusions. They wouldn't take damage or tire or falter. They had to target the illusionist.
She summoned a bomb to her hand and threw it as hard as she could. Sensing danger to its master, Daruk's copy batted it away, smashing the bomb into a tree on the other side of the battlefield.
Real and false pilots clashed, locked in combat with themselves. Impa and Mipha barely held off the Zora's copy. Link rushed to drive off every shadow that drew too close to Zelda, seeming to fight all four copies at once. Sooner or later, her friends would wear out.
"The magician," Zelda said, her voice trembling with fear. "We need to kill the magician!"
Immediately, Link's attention snapped toward the pedestal, from where the puppet-master directed his toys. Link's boots splashed through the water, his sword aimed at the magician's gut.
Red light flashed, Link's form disappearing in the burst of malice. His cry of pain dug like claws into her chest. His armor slammed onto stone.
The magician stumbled, his focus temporarily broken. The illusions flickered. Link had landed a hit - but it wasn't enough.
"Kill her!" The magician shouted, clutching his arm, holding high the source of his magic. Crimson stained his hand.
The rushing blades of phantom friends surrounded her, descending as quickly as the darkness at the snuffing of a candle. Yet, the fear that seized her was not for herself. She ran toward the pedestal, heedless of the danger, a scream rising in her throat. "LINK!"
Electric blue met her eyes - then flooded her vision. The battlefield disappeared in a flash of blue, blindingly bright. When she at last blinked away the haze, the phantoms were gone. Link struggled to his feet, trying to catch his breath.
Behind him, the sword continued to glow.
Silence fell. Seconds, hours, a lifetime. Zelda couldn't tell. Everything stopped, as if the whole world held its breath - waiting, waiting for the hero to take his sword.
He hesitated. Turning back to the pilots, he met her eyes again. He shifted to Mipha, and back again. The sword pulsed. Link's expression twitched; pained, confused, and…angry. Brighter, insistingly, the sword pulsed again.
In all of the prophecies, all of the stories, all of her nightmares and anxieties and despairing spirals, she had never considered this possibility.
She never expected the hero to refuse.
His face hardened, his brow furrowed, his attention now fiercely locked on the magician that tried to back away. The sword pulsed again, quick flashes of light, like the Guardian's whistles. Though she couldn't hear it, she had no doubts in her mind - it spoke.
He faced the sword, gripped the hilt in both hands, and pulled.
The sword came free from the stone with a burst of light, an echo of the flash that dispersed the shadowy enemies. Link turned, raised the point of the blade to the pale, terrified face of the magician, and darted forward.
The magician yelped, splashing as he tried to scramble away, raising his magical orb even higher. With a crush of his fist, the orb sparked bright pink. Constellations wrapped around the magician.
Link's sword pierced empty air.
He stumbled forward, the point of his sword splashing into the shallow water. His chest rose and fell; his hand trembled, the sacred sword gripped with rage.
Zelda held her breath, unsure of what to do next. A thousand thoughts flew through her mind. Relief, joy, guilt, fear, mixing together and overlapping so much that she hardly knew how to begin sorting through it.
One person had no such difficulty. Beside her, Mipha let out a half-strangled sob. She dropped her trident, the weapon splashing into the flooded grass and clattering on stone, and ran. Bursts of water followed her steps, the whole marsh shaken by her cries.
Link immediately gave chase, calling for her. "Mipha! Mipha, I'm sorry!"
A rush of wind buffeted him; Revali's powerful wings sent Link him staggering back toward the pedestal. "Haven't you done enough, hero ?" He spat, launching one last gale before flying after Mipha into the woods.
Link stared after her, unmoving, save for the tremble of anger and the slightest distortion of his face, fighting hard to keep his expression neutral.
Zelda's heart broke, though not in the manner she expected. Slowly, she approached him, wary that he, too, might take off running if she spooked him. "Link?" She set a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Are you…alright?"
His grip on the sword tightened, his knuckles white. He gave no answer, refusing to look at her.
The Sword that would Seal the Darkness gleamed, the symbol of the Triforce staring back at her from the base of the blade. Hyrule's hero at last revealed himself, the final Champion necessary to overcome the Calamity. They'd never been closer to victory.
She didn't expect it to taste so much like defeat.