Archive of Our Own

The slate clicked against the podium. Link felt the rush of cold energy behind him and knew, without looking, that the floor behind him had lit up in electric blue. 

Not that he could turn to check even if he weren’t sure. His eyes were pinned to the wide arching doorway into Vah Ruta. Ashy malice floated through the opening as if beckoning him deeper. He could only stare. 

“You’re... here.”  

The Eye stared back. Malice stemmed out from it, clogging the entranceway. It didn’t stop the voice— her voice— from reaching him. Floating on ash-filled air until it found him. 

“I a-always… knew… you would… would come…“ 

Link entered the beast. He breathed in the polluted air. 

Something oozed. He turned to his left and he froze. He froze fast, and cold, and boiling.

Golden eyes stared back at him. The Zora’s red scales were dull in the shade of Vah Ruta’s belly. The rotting patches of flesh–– scales long since fallen away–– squirmed with malice. Eyes blinked. A multitude of all sizes of them bulging along her fins like an infesting mold. As he watched, small dirtied clumps of them dripped off of her, caked around the edges in blackened ooze. 

She was one festering wound, towering over him. Gaping and raw. So caked in malice Link was terrified she was being eaten alive by it, slowly consuming her right in front of him.

Even then he knew her. He knows her. It was undoubtedly the princess of the statue. The daughter of the king, the sister to a new friend. The childhood friend he was unable to remember beyond fragments, pain-filled and light and happy and gone…

…and yet not gone at all. Link stared up at Mipha and tried to breathe. 

She watched him. Her golden eyes were hazy and fever-bright, flickering around as if they couldn’t fully focus on him. Malice bled into her sclera. Even as She looked at him, pupils steadying, Link could make out the pulsing of the malice leaking deeper, squirming in the thin veins, bleeding the familiar gold black.  

“Li… nk,” she wheezed. The malice did something wretched to her words. Link watched her collapsing chest stutter around the attempt, watched black ooze sputter and spill out through her swollen gills, and tried not to hurl. “The… terminals. Please. You… Can do it.” Her face twisted. Malice dripping as the flesh beneath moved, curling up. Yellowed teeth gleamed through the black slime at him. 

Despite everything, his new awakened fate, the weight on his back, the princess’s glares, Link could always rely on Mipha. The sweet Zora was unchanged as time passed, docile yet steadfast to its thrashing. Even when Link could not, she smiled. It eased something in him. It always did. This, this would always be unchanging. His friend would always be there. Waiting, radiant in the blue glow of the Domain, smiling at him. 

Always. Always. Always. 

He couldn’t. 

Link whipped around on tottering steps and fell to his knees, calloused fingers squeezing white around the edge of the platform as he threw up over the edge. 

Alive. She was alive. The whole time he was asleep. Trapped just as Zelda was–– Trapped in a different way, in a worse way. One more person he failed, one more friend he couldn’t fully remember, unable to even have escape granted through death ––   Link’s breath came out of him ragged and gasping. His entire body was trembling like a leaf. I can’t look at her. I can’t. I can’t do this. All this time…  

“I can only hope,” Dorephan rumbled, low and solemn because he knew, he knew, he knew it was impossible, “that they are somehow alive, in there.”

Dripping, sizzling. Link gagged on his next pull of rancid air. The ashy pollution of malice floating around Vah Ruta was nothing compared to the scent of rotting flesh. 

“...L...Link,” Mipha slurred out. 

His fingers curled impossibly tighter around the platform. Everything was blurry and wet. Link stared without seeing down at his knuckles. “Pl–– please,” He choked out. “No. N-no.” 

Quiet. He shivered uncontrollably as something gurgled sickeningly behind him. There was no response, but Link’s ears twitched as he caught the unmistakable sound of the–– the–– It slowly shifting away. 

He waited for Its slopping footsteps to drag further into the Divine Beast before he even tried to do more than shake. The oppressive air lessened enough for him to breathe in, out. Flaking little bits of malice still stuck sticky and uncomfortable to the sides of his throat, but it was far easier to handle than when It was near him. 

In. Out. Again. Again. 

Link slowly peeled his fingers one by one from where they had cramped around the edge of the platform. This time, they barely trembled when he raised one to wipe messily at his mouth. He stumbled when he stood–– but he stood. 

He crept back inside Vah Ruta’s belly. 

It wasn’t gone. Link could feel it watching him. The churning mass of malice and what was supposed to be a Zora (was supposed to be his friend) did not move from the large side room, fixing itself in place by the pulsing glow of the strange control-looking unit. Though the eyes sprouting from it’s body followed his every move, the creature itself made not even a twitch towards him. 

Mipha’s face, basically recognizable through the carnage made of her body, remained turned to the floor, eyes slid shut. 

Link swallowed several times. The lump in his throat refused to budge. Moving slowly, all too aware of how the eyes followed his hand, he moved his fist in a quick set of circles over his heart. Once, twice, three times, four times–– 

“The… the termin-al.” it’s voice whistled oddly, breaking off. It was not allowing itself to look at him still, even as It raised a hand to point past him. One of the rotting remains of it’s fins slid off It in a malice-clogged chunk. It didn’t even seem to notice. Link watched, eyes huge, as it fell to the floor with a thick splat. “Guide… Guidance stone. You need… then, then… Term...m-m… als. Pluh… Please.” It’s face split open, a horrible stench wafting out. Link stared sightlessly at the trembling curve of an attempt to smile and distantly felt himself shut down a little further. “I… I believe…” 

It couldn’t finish. It slumped, exhausted, head drooping lower. Malice dripped in a clotted chunk off it's cheek. Link waited, but it did not try again. A rattling wheeze stuttered from it's ruined chest. Link couldn’t look at it. He couldn’t look away. He couldn’t––

This isn’t helping. Link blinked away tears again and forced himself to turn away. Guidance stone. Quick. Easy. It was right there by the entrance, just a few steps and a turn to the left. Easy. Easy. He could do that. He just had to think about it in little steps. Manageable, easy little steps: one foot in front of the other, face forward, moving past the looming figure trying to breathe. 

He shot the eye as if on autopilot, barely aiming. The guardian sentry went down in a hazy burst of seconds. The second eye was ripped apart from a single bomb tossed without thought into the water. 

Link raised the gate. He stood before the guidance stone. It whirred and buzzed, humming with light coldly deposited within the slate. The screen glowed. Link watched, unseeing, unfeeling, as his friend’s tomb lit up in Sheikah blue at his fingertips. 

What was left of her lumbered behind him. Link squeezed his eyes tightly shut, heart battering in his chest. He could hear it. Every shuddering pull of rancid air. Every slopping, wet squish of it's feet dragging across the Divine Beast’s belly. But it didn’t come any closer than the far wall of the room. Link listened, and listened, ears perked carefully back, but Mip–– but it remained far away, wheezing with the effort of even that. 

“G-good. Term…” it whispered. A wet cough shook out of it. It said nothing more. 

Link didn’t need it to. The first terminal was close. He didn’t even have to leave the room. A quick use of the Sheikah slate would make it easily accessible for him; a burst of magnesis, a turn of a metal lever–– something seemingly so easy and simple would do much more to help than apologizing ever would. 

Will this heal her? Will it even free her? What if I just hurt her further, what if…

He moved. He walked. Step, by step, by step. His feet splashed in the water. He hadn’t been able to find the trousers that would complete his Zora armor set. The Sheikah tights, at the very least, didn’t chafe. The material was too fine to produce any friction, and the lack of shoes meant no water filled his boots. But the water was cold. So, so cold. Colder than he… than he vaguely thought it should be. Hadn’t–– hadn’t he swum here, before? In this very lake, in the reservoir, with… with…? 

Link shook his head violently, hard enough to make himself dizzy. The metal adornments of the Zora helm clicked and jingled. 

He pressed forward, ignoring the water, the cold, the malice floating like oil on the surface. The terminal lit up under the slate. 

The clean blue of its light settled a tiny bit of the frenzy in his chest. 

Behind him, he heard a low, rattling sigh of relief. “Yes,” it whispered, more to itself than it seemed to be for him, “Three… There are four. Four more. You… Link, you can... “ Its voice trailed off into slurred murmurs. 

Link shoved down the urge to turn and check on it. It wouldn’t be her. It couldn’t. What was left of her was barely holding on to help him–– he refused to make her wait for him to finish grieving too. He had a hundred years of that already, asleep as he was. 

Four more terminals to go. Four more, and this would be over. Four more, and the Zora’s Domain would be safe, and Mipha… her shade could rest. He just had… to finish this. 

The first terminal was easy. He could do this. He could do it, and do it fast, and well, and then he could…

Link grit his teeth. He moved on towards the side of the beast, eyes locked on the sunlight peeking through the entrance into the beast’s belly. He steadfastly ignored the slimy footsteps hushed and slow behind him. He ignored it so good, so well, that he didn’t even run. He walked. He walked so, so calmly. 

A guardian sentry fell quickly to his sword. Link scarcely remembered pulling it from his back. 

The second terminal stood before him. A rolling water wheel. A spout of cold water. Link stared at it, wondering what he could do. Perhaps he––

A gurgling, strained exhale. Malice slapped wetly against the doorframe as It caught up to him, hauling it’s towering frame back within the beast. It’s wheezing was the only sound beyond rushing water as it leaned against the walls beside the door, shoulders shaking where they curled inward. Golden eyes tinged a damning red and black blinked at him. 

Link tore his eyes away. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of his neck. 

It didn’t stare. A brief shuffle and the freezing burn of it's eyes lifted from him. Link breathed out shakily. He couldn’t seem to breathe back in for a long, too long moment. The air tasted like malice and smelled like rot. Like beached fish and dried river beds and blood, blood, blood. 

His heart pounded in his ribcage. Link swore he could feel the scales of his armor rattle with the force of it. 

Why? Why did it have to follow him? Why couldn’t it leave him alone? Why couldn’t he just tell it to? 

Wheel. Water. Link raised the slate. Ice hardened. The wheel churned to a stop, terminal dull and patient. 

It pulsed a deceptively calming blue under his hand. 

“Good…” It rasped behind him. Nothing more escaped it. It seemed to have lost the strength to do so. 

Link braced himself against the terminal. He stared into the blue, into the eye carved upon its pedestal. He tried to forgive it. He failed. 

Three terminals. Three. So simple, so easy. He knew where they were, the slate told him. It was just a matter of going there. Taking the steps. One, two, three. 

He could do this. He could. 

In just a moment. 

At least it knew better than to linger by the door. Link was unable to move past the all-consuming something yawning dark and raw in his gut to feel bad for the shade as it shifted away from the door frame, curling it's fetid vessel as far from his sight as it could. It was a valiant effort. Bile rose in his throat anyway. He hefted a hand up over his mouth and just as quickly tore it away before it could touch his skin. Bits of malice clung to his gloves. It was oil-slick where it tainted the pure silver of his wrist cuffs. Broken, uneven red scales shone dully where they stuck out of the bigger clumps. 

Link swallowed thrice before he felt settled enough to move on. A bitterness clung to the back of his tongue. He was starting to think it would never fade. 

Keep moving. One step, two steps. The platforms led him out, up–– into the brief glow of the sunlight. It felt almost cleansing. 

(It would struggle to follow him up the incline. Maybe this time it simply wouldn’t try. He hoped so.)

Another wheel. 

How many goddamn wheels were in this thing? Link stared hopelessly, unsure what to do. It wasn’t moving. The other one was moving, why wasn’t this one moving? It was supposed to be moving, he was sure. It needed to be. The terminal was upright, but it was caged. Alright in place, and yet he could not reach it. Not even through the bars. He tried, but the metal was thick–– too thick for even his slight frame to reach between. He didn’t try for too long. Goddess knew he would likely drop the slate trying, and then what? Be unable to access the one thing he needed , absolutely needed , to be able to do anything?  

Wheel. Not moving. He looked to the second wheel, just to his right. Moving. Moving with water. There was no water here. The second wheel couldn’t reach the first. The water definitely couldn’t. What was he…?

Shuffling. Dripping. 

Link’s shoulders rose up to his ears. He hadn’t even realized he had relaxed enough for them to fall. 

Mipha’s shade all but crawled through the doorway. It’s rotting claws scraped gratingly. A clump of her scales sloughed off her knees, rubbed away like a layer of wet paper against the stone floor. 

“Ruta,” it whispered. It did not rise. 

Link was moving before he could think. He approached the corpse, hands outstretched, barely managing not to flinch away as his gloved, armored fingers met the gooey malice of his old friend’s shoulder. It froze. A shuddering noise ripped out of it. Link bit his cheek hard enough to bleed as it raised its head, poisoned eyes meeting his. 

The hint of gold remained. It stood starkly out from the red and the gold of malice, like little flecks panned from a river. He could almost swear there was… more of it than before. Just a little extra, eating away at the shadows leaching from the sclera. Enough of it for Link to catch the hope bleeding through, plain and painful and happy. It mouth curled up into something shakily like a smile. It softened it’s face, dissolved at bits and pieces of the broken agony twisting what he knew were meant to be delicate, serene features––

He–– he couldn’t. He couldn’t, could not do this. Link tore away from his friend’s corpse. It made an awful noise. Something anguished, grieving, sickly and watery and wrong-wrong-wrong. He stumbled frantically back outside, to the ledge–– heaving so hard it hurt, emptying his guts of nothing. He threw up until he swore his insides would come up too. He lay, gasping, unable to unhook his fingers from the ledge even to cradle his own aching stomach. His head pounded. 

Behind him, it sobbed quietly. It didn’t say a word. Link wasn’t sure if it could, anymore. Every time it tried, it’s voice got worse. Roughed and rougher, grating like stones ground together. Even now, wordless, mute with grief, it’s very breathing rasped loudly. 

Link panted, hair spilling free from the helm to curtain his sweaty face. His hands trembled almost to the point of blinding himself where he raised them to brush it back. He spit over the edge. It didn’t do much. It did enough. Slowly, carefully, he sat back on his thighs. Braced his hands against the floor and stood on shaky legs. 

He stepped back into Vah Ruta and knelt before Mipha. 

It was her turn to flinch, now, when Link gently laid a hand on her, light and careful, deftly avoiding the caked, murky layers of malice on her skin. “No,” she whimpered. She shook her head. Even that sluggish movement tore a glob of malice away, taking a strip of red scales from her tailfin as it did. “Pl-plea-se. Link…” 

“‘S okay,” Link rasped, the words like sandpaper in his mouth. Mipha startled at the sound of his voice, eyes wide behind her fingers. Link tried to find another bare patch of skin. He settled for patting (more like stroking with two fingers) a tiny clean area of her wrist, below her tarnished silver cuffs. “‘M sorry. ‘S okay.”

He leaned forward while she was still stunned and took her hands in his, gently helping her to her feet. She… really was tall, now. Up close, it was hard to avoid it. Even here, trapped within her divine beast, she had managed to grow up. She wasn’t as tall as Sidon. A century in malice, without food, without clean water, had likely stunted her permanently. But she had grown beyond the deceptively fragile princess Link vaguely remembered.

She had grown. She was alive to do so. Malice could not, would not, do that for her. 

Tears stung Link’s eyes, hot and painful. He bowed his head not to avoid looking at her, this time, but in apology. 

She was alive. She was alive, in here. The entire time. 

He was such a terrible friend. 

“Sorry,” he whispered, tears rolling down his cheek. He cradled Mipha’s hands in his. They still seemed so small. Malice squished between their fingers. He didn’t care. “‘M so, so sorry.” 

It would never be enough. Could never even hope to. 

“I left them,” Zelda sobbed, the dirt under her nails probably getting into his wounds with how hard she dug them in, yet Link said nothing, felt nothing, because he–– “left them all to die.”

Mipha shook her head, over and over. Her lips quivered around a whimper. Her hands trembled in his but held all the tighter for it. Even the rattle of her chest seemed soothed, somehow, a little smoother where she breathed in and a little looser where she breathed out. A tiny flicker of familiar warmth fluttered against Link’s palms like a trapped fairy. 

“I missed you,” Mipha said quietly. 

Link squeezed his eyes shut against his tears and leaned precariously closer. Mipha allowed him to, sighing shakily into the embrace… but only for a moment. 

Gently, she pulled away. “The terminals,” she murmured. She raised her hand, reaching out as if to wipe away a blotch of malice on Link’s armor. She quickly stopped. There wasn’t a single untainted piece of her hands. It was under her nails. Gunked up beneath her scales. She settled for pointing at the slate instead. “Ruta… you must m-move her. Her… her trunk…” 

Wheel. Water. 

Link slowly stepped back, keeping his eyes on Mipha the entire time. But she made no move to reach for him, nor did she look to be in as much distress as before. He still kept an ear perked back for her even as he moved towards the caged terminal again. A few presses of the slate, Ruta’s roaring cry echoing in their ears–– and Link was heaving a sigh, slate propped back on his hip as he returned to Mipha’s side. 

“Two,” she reminded quietly. What uncovered bits of her face Link could see pinched in something indecipherable to him as he took her hands in his again, helping her straight off where she had leaned against the wall. He squeezed gently, trying not to hurt her. So much malice was on her hands, he couldn’t tell what the state of them was beneath it all. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. She squeezed back weakly. “Two…  two more.” 

Two more. Just two. It was easy, simple. They could do this. 

Link glanced back down at the slate. Mipha leaned slightly into him, careful not to accidentally touch, and he pulled the slate up to better let her see. 

She squinted down at it. So close, Link could see the way the malice seemed to swim in her eyes, swirling in and around her irises, pulsing in the veins of the white of her eyes. She jerkily pointed a claw at the screen. “There,” she said. Link started as she pressed at something–– the trunk, maneuvering Vah Ruta to lower it from where it poured water into the belly where they stood. She seemed almost as startled as him. Link wondered how it had been that she had controlled it, before. Try as he might, details like how the champions, not just Mipha, went about using their divine beasts were utterly lost on him. 

Apparently, it was not like this. Mipha frowned down at the slate. Then, she sighed. “Trunk…” she pointed again, this time careful to not let even the tip of her claw poke the screen. “The tip. See…?”

A glowing point, marked on the internal blueprint. The very tip of Vah Ruta’s trunk. No, that couldn’t be right–– that was where––

Mipha was looking at him. Link blinked, taken aback as her face softened into something relieved, something tentatively hopeful. “Yes,” she said, seemingly more to herself than him. “That’s where… where we… I…” She ducked her head a little, eyes sliding shut. Even the malice sliding down her face, dripping from her mouth, couldn’t dim her little smile. “Oh, L-Link… I…” 

She trailed off. Link waited, but she did not continue. 

He decided she would simply let him know when she chose to. When she could. He could trust that of her. Mipha was quiet, but she was not distant. She had told him once, long ago, how happy she was to have someone she could speak openly to outside of her role, her duty, her people––

Link blinked. When had she done that?

He was distracted by Mipha moving forward, slowly detaching herself from his side. Even without the pressing warmth of actual contact, he felt colder without her there. “Come,” she rasped, moving unsteadily towards the smaller wheel, “Must… we must go…”

Up. Over the wheel, towards the trunk… 

Link faltered. He eyed the gap they had to jump. It was a decent leap, for him. But he was very small, especially compared to Mipha… 

Regardless, he wasn’t sure if Mipha could make that. She was barely in a state to walk as it was. Hesitant, he looked up at her. 

Mipha blinked slowly. Her secondary eyelids flicked over her eyes, seeming to do more to smear malice residue into them than clean them. She didn’t seem to notice. Perhaps she was simply used to it. Link felt the lingering nausea churn in his stomach and violently tried to stomp it down. It wasn’t her fault. It was the farthest thing from her fault. He refused to treat her like that again, even for a moment. He pointed at the wheel, at the marker on the slate, and made a wavering hum. 

She breathed out a little sharper. It wasn’t a gasp, more of a rush of air–– one that left her coughing wetly to the side, her arm flopping weakly back down before she could even lift it to cough into it. “I-I,” she wheezed, rattling and sick. It sounded like there was something stuck in her throat. She hunched over, continuing to cough, and Link hovered over her uncertainly. Thumping her back would certainly hurt her. Probably both of them, with all the malice choking out the scales along her spine. But she was coughing, choking, and he couldn’t––

She shuddered. Gagged. Link cringed a little as she heaved, a half-solid sticky mass of malice splattering at their feet. It… it looked back at him. A bulbous eye, sickly yellow and staring–– 

Link lunged and stomped on it before he could think. It popped under his foot. Thick, sludge-like malice clung like mud to the bottom of his sole. It was bitterly cold. 

He panted, breathing heavily as he warily watched more malice seep from the fluttering gills at Mipha’s neck–– but no more eyes sprouted from them. She didn’t cough up another one. There was only normal, oily malice in her gills, murky and disgusting where it spilled from her. Trying to find a barren patch of his gloves to wipe it away was a useless endeavor. He had long since abandoned any chance of cleanliness when he realized it was her. 

More pressing, was the realization that the malice was not only on her, it was… it was in her. He knew it was in her. There was no way it wasn’t, with the way she struggled to breathe. 

But to see her choke up the phlegm like darkness was… disheartening. 

Link straightened, his mind made up. 

Mipha gasped roughly as he reached up to touch her shoulders and gently pushed her down. “Li…?” She stumbled slowly back, blinking as he carefully guided her back down against the wall. She slid a bit awkwardly to the floor. “Link, what are…?”

Stay, Link signed. Mipha frowned. No. Please, do not move. Her hand not bracing her on the floor reached up, seeming to forget her unspoken rule of no contact to curl around Link’s wrist. Mipha, Link signed, his hands moving without input–– Mipha’s eyes widened at the sight of her name, signed in the exact way she hadn’t seen repeated by any other in over a hundred years–– Please. Stay. I’ll be back quickly. 

“Link,” Mipha said, upset, but Link shook his head. “I… I don’t…” 

Please. Please, Mipha.  

“I…” She stared into his eyes, her own darting across his face frantically. He stayed firm. Stern. He could not, would not, put her at risk any further. It was visibly hurting her just to follow him through the short corridors of Ruta’s belly. How was she supposed to follow him out onto the vulnerable path of Ruta’s trunk? What if she collapsed? What if she fell off?  

Link shook his head, the thought alone made his heart race. 

Mipha slumped, fins drooping. “I… alright. You’re… yes. A-alright…” Her hand reached for his. Link took it, quickly, without a second thought. Her fingers didn’t have enough strength to fully squeeze his hand, anymore. She still made a valiant effort. “Be… B-be safe, Link. Term… Terminal is… beneath. The trunk’s h-head…” Her head dipped. Her hand was loose in his. Link had to hold onto it to make sure it wouldn’t slip out from his. Mipha’s eyes slipped shut for a brief moment, almost making him panic–– but just as quickly opened again halfway, bleary and sightless. “I… I’ll wait… here. Rest… just a… a mo-moment…”

Her eyes closed. Link searched her face, heart thudding painfully, but her chest continued to rise and fall shakily. She was fine. She was just… resting. Just for a moment. 

So little had so thoroughly worn her out. Just what… what did she do, all that time he was asleep? She was too destroyed to move the way she used to. Traversing Ruta was likely impossible, with the malice wresting control from her bond with the divine beast. Swimming… Zora needed to swim. Needed to. Their scales needed water, their gills needed water, the amphibious, scaleless patches of her face, her palms, all needed water to be healthy and functional. 

But the water was so tainted. Shadowed, thick with malice.  And she was so weak. Could she swim, still? Was trying the reason that the malice was in her, in her lungs, her throat, her gills…?

The thought made him uncomfortable. 

Link, as gently as possible, lowered her limp hand to rest in her lap. 

He would be back quickly. Two terminals, quick and easy. If he was lucky, she would simply sleep through it, taking the time her body so desperately, desperately needed to rest at least a little. 

He stepped away. Link couldn’t pull his eyes away from her slumped form. Somehow, at that moment, she looked more corpse-like than ever. Like a broken doll. A vessel for nothing but malice, crumpled and broken on the floor–– no room for Mipha.  

He swallowed thickly. I’ll be back, he signed, even knowing she could not see it, and turned away. 

The moment he could, he broke into a sprint. Up onto the wheel, turning slow, too slow –– up into the head, out of the face–– Vah Ruta shook with a cry as its trunk lowered under the slate’s direction, hovering low to the water. Link flung himself from the beast’s head and made for the terminal. 

Under the trunk, Mipha had said. Easy. Easy, easy, easy. He landed on it, swiftly directly the trunk to curl in, lift higher. He bypassed the spout where water endlessly sprayed, soaking his hair anew. He ignored the spot where they had once sat, healing and speaking and laughing, when Mipha was smaller and younger and healthier and whole , both of them whole. Before it all. Before everything. He strode past it and didn’t even glance at it for a moment, for longer than a moment, two moments–– he tore beyond his past and slapped the slate upon the terminal. It pulsed with light. Link was already turning, leaping. 

He flew. He fell past the snout, beyond Ruta’s face. The snout followed him and he barely remembered pressing the buttons to do so. Water cascaded over his back, a bruising torrent beating into his shoulders. 

Link ignored it. The last dregs of fire sizzled and nipped at the soles of his feet. He ignored that too. 

Terminal. One more terminal. He could almost hear Mipha’s whisper, encouraging and kind, as he stormed the pedestal. 

Blue. So blue. Calming, accusing blue. 

Mipha’s voice rattled in his ears, dying and sick. Link peered over the edge, nearly tripping himself over it. She hadn’t moved an inch. Still slumped in restless slumber against the wall. Her golden eyes shut. Her limbs were limp, her head lolling into the wall. 

Beyond her, below her… the main control unit pulsed orange. 

Beckoning. The last terminal. Link launched from Ruta’s head, gliding silently as an owl down to the bottom of its belly. He stared as he fell, but Mipha did not even twitch from her rest. She was still. Peaceful, almost. If he squinted, blinked fast, he could almost imagine… 

No. no distractions. He would finish this. He was going to free her. She would awaken to a new world, one clean of malice. She didn’t have to wake up. Link could just–– just finish this, and go nudge her back awake. And then… and then they’d go home. 

Sidon would be happy to see her. Dorephan would be ecstatic. The Zora had loved her, had missed her–– and none of them had dared think her alive, all that time. That thought they lost her, those hundred years ago. She and all the champions, Link, the Princess––

His failure weighed less than he thought, knowing he could bring Mipha home. Maybe–– maybe he could bring all of the Champions home. 

But first, he had to remove the malice plaguing them. 

Link stepped lightly into the last chamber. The heart of the divine beast. The last terminal, the last threshold of the Calamity within Vah Ruta. 

He braced himself and held the slate upon the pedestal. 

—and tore himself away, stumbling back through the water, as malice exploded outward. It rippled through the air like a furious thing, writhing before Link. He hefted his shield up and tightened his grip on his sword—

The malice screamed past him. 

Link froze. What—?

Behind him? Was it forming behind him—? Link whipped around, bent low, ready to dodge— but nothing was there. Nothing at all. Not a whisper of malice, not a guardian, not even a bokoblin. It was just him in a flooded chamber. 

He turned, confused. The main control unit still pulsed orange. Tapping the sheikah slate to it again did nothing. 

Nothing was happening. What was he supposed to do…?

A watery scream behind him. 

Mipha. 

Link threw himself away from the unit. Out of the room, up into Ruta’s belly— “Mipha!” He shouted. No response. Not to him. Her scream had cut off into gurgling cries, a wet, hitched sort of sobbing that made all the hair on the back of his neck stand— “MIPHA!” Up ahead. Above. He lunged for the little waterfall between levels and all but clawed himself up the rushing water, tearing up into the air with teeth bared—

Mipha’s rotting body writhed in pain beneath him. Her claws left deep gouges in the floor even as they broke away from her hands, leaving shards of scale and keratin lodged into the stone. The gashes filled near immediately with liquid malice dripping from her. There was— so much of it. More than before. It was sweating off of her, practically pouring off of her— Link stumbled to the floor and was trapped sidestepping around her, circling uselessly as malice pooled around her in an endless swamp. 

She curled up in the very center. Clutching at herself, her crumbling fingers whittling down to stubs where she tried to hold her arms, her heaving gills, her stomach— Link gagged at the stench. He clapped a hand over his mouth as the closed eyes bulging from Mipha’s body blinked open, wide and yellow and awake. As she cried, trembling apart, more of them seemed to sprout from her— pushing up from the sludge of malice, forcing their way out from between the delicate folds of her gills like polyps. Link watched, stricken, as an eye blinked open within the gaping wounds in her stomach. It looked around almost lazily before its gaze landed on him, glaring, shuddering and spitting malice. 

Mipha looked up at him. Her grit teeth parted around a soundless attempt of his name. There was desperation twisting what was visible of her face beneath the sludge, increasing to impossible fervor as she uncurled and tried to drag herself across the floor towards him. The returning gold was changing, leaving, fading into a sickly, alien yellow. 

Link couldn’t help but stumble back.

The left eye bulged unnaturally. Link tripped backward, kicking and shoving frantically away from the encroaching malice. He clapped a hand over his mouth and didn’t quite manage not to hold back his vomit as Mipha’s eye bloated out from her face. His throat burned. Bile slicked his fingers and spilled down his wrist. He barely noticed. 

Mipha shook and sobbed, voice ran ragged in terror and pain. She spasmed as she tried to curl back in on herself. It didn’t work. Her knees slid in the liquid malice, sending her gasp to her side with a wet thud. Her face turned up towards him. “L-Link,” she whimpered.

The malice eye twisted in its host’s socket to stare at him. 

The malice seemed to pulsate beneath him. Link barely managed to roll to the side as Mipha lunged, scrambling like a rabid animal to get her feet under her just to throw herself at him again. She howled with pain as she collided against the wall. Malice splattered across the stone. The eyes sprouting from Mipha followed him. They followed him even as her body struggled to do the same–– keeping him in eyesight despite the way Mipha staggered and lumbered through the malice at her feet. Her right eye was glazed, more passing over Link than seeing him. Her breath whistled through her gills unsteadily. They sputtered malice on every strained exhale. 

An electric blue hummed violently against his cheek. Link yanked himself back and lost a chunk of his bangs. The spear materialized unlike any guardian spear he had ever seen. Longer, wider, sharper –– Less held by Mipha’s ruined hands and more melted into them. A part of her, an extension of her, shackling her palms to its girth. It expanded nearly past Mipha’s new height. The tip hooked, cruelly, meant to catch and hold. 

The jagged edges looked familiar. Familiar yet not familiar. He had never seen it before. Link as sure of it. But it was familiar. Where–– 

The white scales of Mipha’s face reflected the color, turning her pale cheeks a cold, alien blue. Her dull eye was locked onto that hooked edge with a resigned sort of despair. 

Her arms trembled. Her elbows jerked back and forth. Twitching, almost, as if attempting to hold her stomach even as her new weapon did not allow her to without skewering herself through the gut.

Link’s mouth pooled with saliva. He swallowed thickly. It felt like sandpaper in his constricting throat. 

Mipha did not speak. He wasn’t sure she could. It was a wonder she could muster up anything like words, before. She did not even manage to whimper when her body threw itself at Link. The rotting remains of the fin on her right elbow sloughed off her arm as she attempted to stab him. The spear sliced a burning line over Link’s shoulder, malice bubbling between the scales of his armor. 

He didn’t have time to wince. Even–– even like this, Mipha remained a fearsome spearmaster–– she stabbed and swung with supernatural velocity. It took a frantic, stumbling sidestep to avoid the spear hooking into his guts. It nicked across his ribs. Metal screamed. The armor became superheated in an instant, electric friction against the mine chainmail mesh searing against his skin. Link could not afford to care. Mipha reared back. 

The malice pulsated and tightened. She swung, a harsh, sweeping arch made clumsy and inarticulate with such a wrong weapon for the motion–– nearly lopping Link’s ear and half his face off as it cleaved wobbly through the air. He ducked down to avoid the backsweep, knee slamming painfully into the floor, malice boiling into his skin where it seeped through a tear in the armor. The sludge dripped off the fetid stump of Mipha’s forefins and splattered hotly across the nape of his neck. It hissed where it made contact with his bare skin. Link tossed his head frantically, trying to dislodge it–– making direct eye contact with a bulging eyeball peering out at him from Mipha’s ribs. 

Its pupil slit into a sharp line. Link pushed violently off the floor just in time to avoid the spear stabbing into the floor right where his head had been. Mipha made a hiccuping, wet sound as the malice squeezed around her, her limp arms yanking uselessly at the spear. Her good eye skittered wildly around Ruta’s innards. It landed on him. The spear. Him. A sharp breath hissed through her grit teeth. 

Link clenched his jaw and threw himself forward on his hands and knees. He barely drew a blade in time–– something, anything, a short thing, not the master sword, not the master sword, too long, too sharp, he was going to hurt her if he–– and plunged its edge into the center of that staring pupil. 

A shrill wail left Mipha. She jerked away from Link, the spear coming loose from the floor in her retreat–– swinging wide as she tried to free her conjoined hands from the weapon to press them to her side. The gills fluttered. Opening and closing, wheezing out a cloud of malice-tinged ash. 

But it didn’t come back. No malice flowed to replace it. 

Mipha looked back at him through her working eye, wide and pained and sick, but something hopeful shined beyond it. 

The malice twisted over her scales. Mipha’s eye rolled up into her head. 

Link tightened his grip on his scimitar and waited. Mipha’s body swayed but the malice did not seem to–– or could–– care, throwing her body at him again and again even as it fell apart in front of him. Link weaved between hits, waiting, waiting–– watching intently for the moment when the malice pushed too hard, puppeted its vessel too wide, too far–– 

He backed up against the wall and spun. The Blight’s spear slammed into the side of Ruta’s belly and stuck. Malice sputtered and hissed, flying off of Mipha in rancid droplets as her body tugged violently at the weapon. The eyes infesting her body stared Link down. Link looked up into the spray. Ignored the sizzle as malice dripped down his cheek and burned. He looked, he adjusted––

The malice shrieked as he slashed. The eye seeded deep into her shin melted away like mud. 

Mipha gasped awake. Her body jerked, spasming as if electrocuted. She fell to her knees, yanking the spear from the wall. Link leaned forward, nearly falling. It took conscious effort not to simply drop the scimitar, not to go to Mipha’s side. 

But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t.

She was still down. The malice pushed and pulled but her body was giving up. The spear buzzed like a nest of angry hornets but she could only keep her elbows braced against the floor. The sludge covering the floor was like glue. It gummed to Mipha’s fallen form. Heavy, thick, unyielding where she splayed within it. 

The eye leaching out of her face followed him. Its pupil so thin Link could barely see its sickly yellow glow. As Link crept closer, edging carefully around the spilled malice, it shut tightly. All of them did. Link reach out anyway. The scimitar gleamed in the blue light of the spear. Its curved blade remained sharp even as malice crusted along the steel. It remained sharp in his hand even as Link reached Mipha’s side. It remained true as he pressed the palm of his hand to Mipha’s rotting back. She exhaled, quiet, rusty, as Link guided her down. Pressed her flat to her stomach against the floor. Held her there, bracing against her shuddering, the bubbling, searing burn of the malice under his palm slithering up between his fingers, the scales, the silver. 

The eye was hiding under the fin on her left hip. Cowardly keeping its eye shut. Squeezing tighter as Link lifted Mipha’s fin, guided the tip of the blade between the murky eyelids. 

Mipha twisted under his hand. Link shot back, ducking away–– but the damage was done. The eye burst into ash and smoke. Mipha cried out and the malice layered through her voice, curdling her scream into something furious, terrified. But it wasn’t her terror. Her good eye shone more steely than ever. Her mouth grit into a tight line. The pain remained, it could only remain–– but she lumbered after Link with a grim certainty.  

The eye perched in her socket quivered. Link could practically follow the command line of malice, trailing from Mipha’s face, down the gills of her throat, her ribs, her stomach–– a pulsing thread of dark goo that forced her ruined arms to rise. Forced her to take another stumbling, tottering step. 

Link barely bothered to raise his shield. She was done. They both knew she was done. If she took one more step, she was going to fall. She would fall, and she wouldn’t be able to get up no matter what Ganon tried to force from her, and Link would simply––

Mipha looked at Link. She nodded. 

She reared back as far as possible and plunged the hooked tip of the spear into her head. 

A garbled scream ripped from Link’s throat. He threw himself forward, hands fluttering over the spear–– yelping in pain as the Sheikah technology burned him. Mipha gurgled out a sob as he jostled the weapon. The smell of burning flesh and rot made him gag. She wouldn’t let go–– she couldn’t let go! The angle–– Link couldn’t pull it out. It was too long, Mipha’s arms so short–– he was more likely to tear her arms off before he managed to get the fucking spear out of her face.  

Mipha’s legs gave out from under her. They both went down. The back of Mipha’s head slammed wetly against the floor. Link’s weight tumbled on top of her. The hilt of the spear clipped his collarbone. Humming electricity arced off the weapon, slicing Link’s chin. Mipha writhed as his chest knocked the weapon sideways, shrieking so shrilly it whistled through her gills. 

Still. Still her eye met his. Wide. Glazed in agony. Her eyelid was crusted with tears and soupy malice, fluttering as her eye threatened to roll back up into her head. Yet she looked back at him with a feverish determination. 

Her voice was barely a whisper. “Hurr–- hurry,” she forced out between grit teeth. “One-- o-one-–” She couldn’t seem to do more with her fused hands than to press the backs of her knuckles to Link’s chest, a desperate bid to keep the spear as far from her as she could, or to push him away–– but when Link tried, he was forced back. Unable to push himself away, off of her, stop hurting her –– 

Between her knuckles, held with impossible strength, she gripped a shining white scale inlaid among the scales armoring his chest. 

Her face was a mess of gore. It grew worse with every moment. Impossibly worse. Not a single glimpse of the white scales of her cheeks was visible beneath the thick caking layer of malice. She stared out from it with unyielding defiance. With hope bordering relief.  

The bald remains of the fin on her elbow flexed, grazing his trembling wrist. “Do it,” she ordered. 

Link wanted to shut his eyes. He could not. did not. He met Mipha’s sole remaining eye with his and did not flinch or falter. 

He stabbed her. 

The scimitar slid into her stomach. Head steady in his hand. Hilt warm against his palm. The curve of the blade carefully angled away from the gaping wound carved into her. The wicked edge slid almost casually to the hilt within the eye bulging from her insides. 

Mipha was taut as a bow. Yet the sound she made, when Link gouged the eye from her body, was anything but pained. As Link pulled away she slumped. Twitching, so, so quiet. The malice ran off of her like water, thin and watery. It washed away from her dull scales and seemed to lap away into nothing. Not even soot. Not even ash. Just Mipha, alone, the spear dematerializing into a glittering array of sparks and releasing her hands to fall limp at her sides. Link caught one. Squeezed, so gentle he could barely tell he did so at all. He marveled at the feeling of her palms. The torn webbing between her fingers. Her nails, even broken, some ripped from the bed. Marveled at the feeling of her skin clean of the Calamity’s sludge. 

Her head lolled. Link gasped, shooting up to stop her. He cradled her cheek in his palm not still holding her hand. 

Mipha’s eyes… eye met his. Where the malice had sprouted pustules across her face was barren. Utterly barren. The evil was gone, wiped clean from her body, but what it replaced was gone. He held her face, unable to force himself to let go, and the tip of his thumb barely missed the gorey crater that made up her right eye. 

The left looked up at him. Gold. Pure, untainted gold. Dim, dazed with pain, and exhaustion. But not a lingering speck of malice darkened it. It was only Mipha. Only his friend. Only what was left of her. 

Goddess. Fuck.  

“M-Miph,” Link stumbled over his words. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. Clumsy and strange. He swallowed dryly. For all the water around them, he felt as if he hadn’t a single drop left in him to wet his lips. His head ached, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. His eyes stung and nothing came out. “Mipha...” 

Mipha gave him a wobbly smile. Her hand managed a feeble squeeze back. “Knew,” she coughed. Quiet. So, so quiet. Quieter than she had ever been before. “You… could do it. Lin… k. I… I’m so… so…”

She trailed off with another cough, impossibly quieter. Her eye wavered, struggling to stay fixed on him. The delicate curl of her fingers in his loosened. As Link watched, frozen, her smile began to fade. 

“I… I’m…” 

Dying, Link realized. Dying, she’s dying, Goddess, no, she’s dying––

“Up,” Link garbled, pushing at her hands, her shoulders. She didn’t even react. Barely seemed to feel it. Link’s entire world was dissolving fast into static. “Up, UP!” 

No response. She wasn’t responding.  

Vah Ruta moaned beneath them, all around them. Its body shook with it. Link shook with it. The divine beast lurched , nearly sending them both skidding across the machine’s belly. Link threw himself over Mipha, shielding her body with his. Caging her between his arms and legs, ducked low and snarling like an animal–– Link blinked one moment to the next and Vah Ruta was moving. Water rushed in Link’s ears, nearly blocking out Mipha’s shallow gasps beneath him. Nearly. Only nearly. She was alive, still–– Mipha wasn’t dead, and Ruta was moving. 

The loping pace through the reservoir dragged Link to the side and back. He hissed in discomfort. His armor tugged and pulled. Open sores and slices ached beneath the cold metal. It was still a low pain, muted and far away–– Link blocked it out and cautiously scooped Mipha off the floor, bracing one hand under her head and another against her lower back. She twitched when he let go of her hand. He pressed his lips to her crest in lieu of words, his voice stuck in his throat. 

More crawling than walking, knees protesting, he moved them both back within the curved walls of the control room. Wet. Cold. But closed off, allowing him to anchor himself against the main control unit. His hip bumped up against the pedestal with a flash of Sheikah blue dutifully ignored as Ruta swayed and churned beneath him. This was better. Even if just a little. Less risk of sliding around until they banged into walls (or Goddess forbid, right out of Vah Ruta). 

Mipha even seemed to relax, a little, when he lowered her down into the shallow water. As if the sole touch of the water to her battered scales soothed them. He coaxed her to lie down more fully. Tugged, gentle, gentle, gentle, until her headfin laid out of the way, letting her rest her head against Link’s lap. Her eye slid shut. Link froze–– but her breathing continued, steady, slowly smoothing out as water dragged up into the gills fluttering along her ribs. Calm. Safe. Alive. 

Link idly brought up handfuls of water, cupping them to the gills along her ribs, her neck, hoping to help flush out any lingering smoke and slime. He kept watch. Eyes skirting from window to window, checking endlessly for threats, listening for Mipha’s breathing. It was maybe just his imagination, but he could swear she was breathing easier. Smoother. Lacking the hitching whistle she had before. Link hoped so. He could only–– only hope. He wasn’t the healer here. 

He needed to get her to a healer. Needed to now .  

But how was he supposed to move her? Even if Mipha was still her old size, in his memories, she was–– was far too delicate to move. He was going to hurt her. He was going to kill her. It would be just his fucking luck, to make it through all this and then lose her anyway. Would be just like Hylia, to make them go through all this. 

Vah Ruta slowed to a stop. 

Link swiveled to stare. He blinked rapidly at the entrance of the control room. At the opening carved into the divine beast’s side. Where had––? Where were they? He glanced back at the control unit. It blinked a calm blue. When had…? 

Ruta jerked, almost making Link yelp. He curled over Mipha’s head. She barely stirred, her corpse-like stillness broken only by the frail rise of her chest. Utterly unbeknownst to their changing situation, the possible danger. 

He slowly twisted his arm around, careful but fast, and pressed at the slate. The scimitar vanished into light in the corner of his eye. For a moment, he hovered, unsure… and breathed out slowly, letting the master sword materialize in his hand. A spear might have been better. Longer reach. He could throw it one-handed. 

To stand would be to disturb her. To stay would be a death sentence. 

The master sword hummed. Link could almost swear he felt it, like electricity, power itself radiated from the blade into his fingertips, crawling up his arms. It settled the rabbit pace of his heart into something just a little steadier. Not confident, but certain. Whatever came for her, for them, this time… Link was going to show no mercy. 

A clamor rose from outside the divine beast. Link pinned his eyes to the entrance, to where metal clattered and voices echoed. He tilted his ears forward to catch water splashing loudly. He pressed his fingers tight until the blood bled from them. He curled his shield arm around Mipha’s shoulder, looped under his arm, and braced it, fingers splayed over a less-injured space on her chest. His legs tensed beneath him. He waited. 

“––ust have, there is no other reason for––”

“––rely there is another way, he––”

“––sense, far too dangerous to––”

“Wait! Please wait!” 

“My Prince!”

“Link!”  

Link startled. His grip spasmed. Mipha gasped awake. 

Sidon all but sprinted into Vah Ruta’s belly, Gaddison and Rivan hot on his heels, yelling his name. He went skidding through the water and nearly into the far wall. Several more Zora guards yelled from just outside, hovering anxiously around the Divine Beast’s entrance. Link could just make out the constipated expression on Rivan’s face as the Zora ducked around the door, hands clenched tight around his spear. Dunma peeked out from behind him, flanked by a mass of Zora, from warriors to sculptors to vendors––

Gaddison saw them first. Her spear dropped from her claws. Bazz hissed, darting for her fallen weapon. His eyes caught Link. He looked down at Mipha. His spear clattered down with a splash beside Gaddison’s. 

“Link!” Sidon cried, flailing a little as he pushed away from the wall. “Link, are you–– alright?! When Ruta approached, we feared the worst–– Where––” 

“M-my Liege,” Gaddison fumbled, eyes huge. Her hands were knitted together as if in prayer, fingers pressed to her mouth. Bazz gaped openly. 

Mipha’s eye fluttered open. Link jumped as she moved, head tilting in his lap. He rushed to steady her as she tried uselessly to sit up, to look. 

Sidon was a whirlwind, his spear tight in his hands. “What is it, Gaddison? Did you spot––” He turned. Followed Bazz’s finger as the soldier pointed, too frozen to speak. He looked. He saw. He stopped.  

Mipha took a rasping breath, “Sidon…?”

“Goddess,” Sidon breathed, his voice gone raw and thin as air itself. His knees shook. His spear,  so like Mipha’s own, fell with a deathly quiet splash. “Sister?”  

“H-help!” Bazz shouted, suddenly unstuck by his shock. He whipped around. Froze. Looked back, from the crowd to Mipha, again and again. He leaned one way and then the other but never managed to move. “HELP!”  he screamed, “PRINCESS–– PRINCESS MIPHA IS––!” 

“Goddess, Oh Goddess,” Sidon made a noise akin to a whimper, taking a trembling step closer. His entire fall crumpled into an expression Link had never seen before. A kind of grief swathed with fear old and familiar. “My sister–– my–– Mipha?” 

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE! WE NEED A HEALER! A HEALER! IMMEDIATELY!”

A shudder ran through Vah Ruta. Link tensed, hovering protectively over Mipha’s vulnerable body. She was barely even half-awake. Even as Link dragged the master sword across the stone with heavy arms, she only blink placid and slow up at her statuesque brother. Her hand raised. It barely lifted high enough to do much more than ripple the way, not even high enough to splash as it fell back down. She exhaled a little harsher. Link wasn’t sure if it was frustration or pain that colored her tone. He couldn’t look to check. His eyes were on the door. 

Shouting rose anew, sharp and alarmed. 

A large hand curled around the doorway into Ruta’s belly. 

Bazz jerked back, fins held high and stiff. “My King!” He sputtered, taken aback. “What are–– please, do not come closer! We have yet to secure the perimeter, this place is dangerous!” 

King Dorephan pushed, insurmountable, through the tiny entranceway. He unfolded to his massive height. Even dwarfed by the Divine Beast’s size, he loomed. “I will not stand idle as threat encroaches our home,” he rumbled. “Furthermore…” He turned, slowly, wizened eyes tracing over Ruta’s interior. “...I swore, I heard you say…”

Mipha’s eye opened further. She coughed weakly. Link had to press her down as she made another attempt to rise. She would only hurt herself trying. She could not afford to be any more hurt. The sooner she understood that–– “F-father?” 

Dorephan’s eyes filled with tears. 

He barely had turned to look upon them before he was moving, falling with a splashing thud to his knees before Link–– “Oh, my sweet Mipha,” Dorephan crooned, voice collapsing like rubble–– he leaned forward and delicately, delicately scooped his fallen daughter off the floor. “My kind, radiant little guppy… oh, you’re alive… ”

He reached out. Link flinched, ducking down–– but no, Dorephan wasn’t moving at or towards him at all. His sweeping hand caught Sidon, instead, the prince choking on a gasp as his father tugged him from his trance into an embrace. Sidon’s eyes were huge. Link could trace the whites all around the gold of his irises as he stared, looking down at his sister. He could catch the utter agony that knifed sharply through them as he cataloged every scrape and slice. Even as Dorephan openly wept, his head bowed, Sidon traced his sibling’s hurts with an attentive eye. 

Link could see the way his throat bobbed at the sight of Mipha’s face. He could also see the way Mipha’s fins tried to tuck closer to her body. 

Still, she raised a hand to him. Her fingertips barely managed to graze his chin. Sidon caught her hand as it fell. It looked… terrifyingly small, in his. “Sidon,” she whispered. Even exhausted, so utterly beyond her limits, she tried to comfort him. It made the Prince’s eyes go dark with pain. “’s a-alright. You… Proud of…” 

“F-Father,” Sidon said when Mipha failed to speak again, “my… sister. We–– We must, she,” his teeth bit into his lip. A stuttering glow came from his hands, where he cradled Mipha’s in his. It flickered out, not a single wound healed. “Father…!”  

“Shh, guppy,” Dorephan soothed. “I have you.” He stood, both his children easily held in his broad arms. Sidon blinked rapidly, taken aback, but Mipha only sighed quietly as she settled better against her father’s chest. 

Link jumped a little as the king met his eyes. 

“Thank you, Link,” Dorephan said. His solemn face was alight with a joy Link hadn’t seen in… had he ever? “I… I cannot thank you enough for this chance. I am eternally in your debt. The entire Domain is in your debt.” He shifted Mipha and Sidon in his arms, humming to them until even Sidon relaxed, pressed against his scales like a baby. “My guards will see to you. I must be with my family, now.” 

His voice cracked on his last words. 

Link watched his eyes glitter as he turned away, practically charging out of the Divine Beast. Gasping cries followed his wake until Link was unable to hear them anymore. 

He huffed in surprise as an arm twined under his, hefting him up. Bazz shot him a strained smile. He tried for joking even as his voice fell a little flat.“What a situation we’re in, huh, fellow brigadier?” 

Garrison carried a similar expression as she settled in on his other side, evening his weight between them. She did not try to be lighthearted. “What a world,” she said simply. “For what it’s worth… thank you. We would never have…” 

She set her jaw. Turned her eyes forward and carried on, one foot in front of the other. Slowly but steadily dragging Link's beaten and battered body out from what was supposed to be his childhood friend’s grave.   Bazz had no such limitations. His eyes were unashamedly bright. “Our Princess is going to live,” Bazz said, voice low and awed as if he could never have considered the concept himself. “Lady Mipha–– you brought our Champion home.”

Saved her. I saved her. 

It dragged the last of the fight out of Link’s bones. He slumped in the two Zora’s arms, barely hearing their yelps. His eyelids were so heavy . Everything was heavy. Never before had the master sword been such a weight on his arching back, too cold and yet too hot through the torn scales of his armor. 

Mipha’s alive. She was alive the whole time. She’s going to be okay.  

Eventually, at least. Her eye was gone. Several of her fingers. The fins along her arms, lining her shoulders, her hips. Her body had been eaten away by malice over the long years. What was left would… take a long time to get used to. 

But she was alive. She was alive to get used to it . 

What a concept, that was. 

Link’s body gave out. His eyes rolled up into his head. 

Are the others alive, too?