A/N: I feel bad that I've not added anything to my "Daughters of Hyrule" series in almost a year and half. With that being said, I hope that you'll enjoy Impa's story.

Daughter of Hyrule: Dances Through Shadow

By

"Miss Leanne"

Edited by

"Miss Takin"

I make no pretense to be anyone other than who I am. I am no queen, though I was the only woman in someone's life. I am no mother figure, though I was a mother once. I am neither patron saint nor guardian angel, though I have been a fighter guardian to one—that is all that I need.

The stories that I can tell…I hold more in my vast galaxy of memories than many other people have.

Wars, battles, deaths, births, love, new life.

I have seen wars, rumors of wars, and every manner of battle and combat. Indeed, I am called 'Fighting Mother' by the remnant race that is my people.

When I look back at my life, I am reminded that we are just part of a great cycle that began before we were born and will continue to spin long after we're gone.

My part of the cycle is that I played a part in the Hero of Time's tale. A small part, to be sure, but it was vital.

Perhaps one day, this world will not struggle like the world I have seen. Maybe, there will be a time of peace.

But, Goddesses be thanked, I have had the privilege and the joy of seeing more than simple bloodshed.

My dances through the shadows start in the town I was raised, Kakariko, just east of the Great Castle Town of Hyrule. It was the year before my coming of age rite, and my whole town was about to witness the beginning of the rite for a group of girls, soon to be made women.

That heady scent of Gerudo cinnamon and spice hung heavy on the air. The sun was setting, twilight's last fingers scraping across the sky in a final effort to hold the day to itself. The heat of the torches intensified the smell somehow, and the wind softly carried scents to my nostrils.

The holy Tent of Rites had already been erected. The cloth that draped over the elegant fairy-wood was centuries old, golden orange veins crawled across an almost violently purple ocean. Tassels woven of silver from the Goron City lined the entire piece of cloth. It was just a cloth, but it had more history behind it than nearly anything the Sheikah tribe owned as a community.

Just one-hundred and nine years after the Goddesses whirled into being the realm that is Hyrule, our first Mother Protector, the one we sing of at holy times such as these, brought this cloth back to her family. She had gone to war with the King of Hyrule at the time, and after five years, her family assumed she was dead.

She was, in fact, very much alive. Her family greeted her with wild joy, delighted that their eldest daughter was not only safe but carried many treasures from far-off lands they had never heard of into their home. One of the treasures she carried was that of the purple and orange cloth. At the time, there were none of the Goron silver tassels upon it, but it must have still been a sight to see.

Her family asked from which country this beauty came from, and her answer was not what they were expecting. Our community sings in the ballad that her eyes sparkled when she began to talk. Our first Mother Protector said that the noble cloth had come from the King of Hyrule himself. In fact, it was Hylian-spun, and was woven of the finest silken threads, and seemed to have a heavy glow of its own.

Her family asked why the King would give her such a gift of great worth, and she answered that the King had fallen in love with her as they had campaigned across foreign lands. The King's grandfather had had the length woven to celebrate the life of his first child, a tiny boy. Because he had been born far too early, the baby had been sickly in the first months of its life, but miraculously grew stronger and lived to see his first birthday.

Goddesses be praised, the boy continued to live and soon became the King to succeed his father. He also sired the son that our first Mother Protector fell passionately in love with.

During those days, the Sheikah tribe was not a secret. They had no stealth to accompany their style of fighting like our warriors have nearly millennia later. They held open arms to all visitors and fed them as though they were family. Everyone knew where to find our Sheikah town in cases of need for sanctuary.

But now, another link was to be established between the House of the Sheikah and the House of the Royals of Hyrule. Our Mother Protector begged her father to bless her marriage to the King. She said that she wanted to have the wedding ceremony under the very length of cloth that the King had given to her. Her father gave her blessing, and she began preparations for her wedding day.

But our Mother Protector's heart was broken too soon. Both she and the King were quite young, even after their five-year long journey. Their wisdom had not yet grown to maturity, so she and the King had trekked across many countries for years, standing on the offensive and inciting war wherever they had gone, making unwise decisions much of the time. Their campaign was more offensive than an older King would have advised, and thus made many countries angry. Just before her wedding day, the castle of Hyrule was attacked by the armies of the rulers who wanted revenge.

Our ballad tells that she tirelessly ran across plains, through forests, and swam across rivers when she had heard the news. When she got there, she saw that she was too late. Hyrule Castle had been completely ransacked and burned to the ground. It would take years to rebuild what had been so maliciously undone, but her mind was already searching and calling for the King that she had grown to love.

She found him with a broken sword in his hand, and more arrows than she could count through his heart, stomach, and arms.

A millennia later, our song echoed her mourning cries. Our Mother Protector held her dead lover for hours and could not move from the place. Hyrule's attackers were still on the rampage though, and she swore that she would fill the King's place in combat.

We sing that she slayed thousands single-handedly, whether by her own power or by the Goddesses', but every woman knows that the power of the heart overcomes and inspires every physical power. Our Mother Protector's family and entire community had heard and answered her calls to battle, and one day they came together as one to help her fight the armies that had attacked the City of Hyrule.

She and our race had victory that day, but her infinite pain caused her to withdraw from all but her own world. She could fight anywhere with any weapon, she could travel across terrains without rest or sleep, and she loved greater than anyone else, but her love lay dead, and his death dealt an cut into her heart that never healed.

In response to her withdrawal, her entire community followed suit. Travelers were not allowed through the village and were forced to find another path if they desired to pray at the temple upon Death Mountain. No longer did trade occur between the Sheikah town and others, and Sheikah and outsider communication came to a standstill. It was as if they had crawled deep under a giant boulder and had decided to never come out.

Our first Mother Protector took the cloth that already symbolized much to her, and hung it at every wedding that took place in her community. She hung it at rites of passage for males and females alike. But she never raised it for her own wedding or for her own children's rite of passage, for she had neither. She remained devoted to her people and simply watched their joy, but had no real joy of her own in her heart. We sing that her heart died with the King of Hyrule.

Even though another King was raised up to take the place of the former and Hyrule City was slowly rebuilt, communications never occurred as they had before.

So the great cloth that hung where the rite of passage would soon take place carries joy and tears in its weaving. A thousand years later, on that night, our community would usher in a new group of girls who would become adults. They would complete the ritual that has been performed since the first Mother Protector made it tradition.

I sat in the area designated for the Mother Protector under the great cloth. I was the daughter of the Mother Protector who led at the time. The sight of the girls dressed in light armor with their weapons on their back thrilled me, but I was just seven that day, and my rites were far off.

The girls who were to be made women that night lined the platform in front of my mamelah, awaiting her blessing and the signal to begin. They knew exactly what would happen as the ritual begins to start its course: they would run along the same paths that our tribe believes the first Mother Protector ran across to reach her lover King.

It sounds simple, but it is not. Even at a run from start to finish, the journey is difficult and takes a full night to complete. This is no competition between the girls, but they must all complete it within the given time. Twelve hours is all they have. Their time begins when the sun completely sets.

The girls would be completely initiated the night after they ran the course, but they trained for years in preparation for that day. They all looked so fleet-footed, and they swing their arms excitedly and jump in place in front of my mamelah's platform. Some look as though the fairies that are in their stomach will come out of their throat.

The sun is just a hairline from setting, and an old tradition is about to begin anew.

We sing to encourage the girls:

Run, run, run across fen and fern

Dash lightly over sands and winds

Part the waters you swim through

Hold the heart of a King with just a glance

Bring back treasures from your own heart

And become the blessed woman you were born to be

The sun set during our song, and the girls turned towards the farthest horizon and got ready to run as fast as they could.

My mother stood and lifted her arm kerchief, and held it in the air for a moment. Then she dropped her arm suddenly, and the girls dug the toes of their boots into the dirt and dash off towards the destination they will reach in the morning.

They would run all night to the sacred place on the other side of Hyrule, and then they would be considered women—eligible for marriage and handed the responsibility of keeping our tribe strong with children of their own.

We shouted our usual cheer for girls coming of age as they ran past us into the great Hyrule plains. Our cries are particularly distinctive, with the tongue batting from the roof of the mouth to the floor while giving our throats full throttle. It's a sound that isn't easily imitated, which is why ours is set apart so well.

As the girls left the village, the excitement died down. The mothers and fathers of the girls climbed into their horse-drawn carts to go to the altar where the girls' rite would be completed. The parents would sleep there at the temple until the girls started arriving.

My mamelah took my hand and we walked back into our house, the one that overlooks the entrance to Kakariko. We were silent on the walk back, but it was not a painful or unhappy silence. It was a silence that was full of the joy of our Mother Protector, who knew that her daughter would one day be among those blessed girls. It was a silence that carried the desire of the daughter to race the sacred race.

Once we were in our house, my mother spoke to me.

"The day you will run the Path is coming soon, little one." That was all she said, but her face was radiant.

I looked up at her and smiled.

"You'll be there to see me at the altar," I answered.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, filling her nostrils with the scent of our new wooden floor. I knew, because she remarked on its scent quite often.

"I will see you at the altar, to be sure. And your father will see you there, even though he is not with us," she said.

My smile faltered a little, and I hung my head. Mamelah saw my action and picked me up and held me close to her neck while she carried me to the fire. Our "fire time" was our hour to relax and talk over the days' events. That night, the excitement had worn me down, and I was nodding in my chair before I had been seated for half a moment.

I finally closed my eyes and allowed sleep to take me over. My dreams were filled with running legs, pounding on the ground. Only the legs were all mine, somehow attached to my small body. Chants filled my head, and the dream slipped away.