"My name is ASAC Schrader. And you can go fuck yourself."

- Breaking Bad

She was going to die. Nothing could change that now. Her wounds were too grave. Waterblight Ganon was just too powerful for her.

Mipha was lying near-motionlessly on her side in Ruta's shallow water. She could hear the tsunami of chaos and annihilation echoing around her as the Waterblight stole control of the poor Beast. The sky burned through the tall temple windows above her. It was a sunset fit for the end of the world.

The king was gone. The castle had been lost. The Champions had failed. The Divine Beasts and Guardians alike had become like rabid monsters. She didn't have time to ask why it had all gone so terribly wrong.

At least now she would be free. Her spirit would flow back to Zora's Domain and she would give her father the closure he would desperately need. She would watch over little Sidon as he grew up as his guardian angel, or an imaginary friend. She would be the first one there to comfort Link in the terrifying new world he found himself in. She would wait no matter how long it took him to wake up.

Mipha bitterly turned her head in the water to wash away her tears.

There was another choice. She could complete her bond as a Champion and tether her spirit to Ruta to make the Beast dormant again, or at least hold back her wave of destruction before she swept out of Lake Lanayru. Zelda had gone back to the castle to trap Calamity Ganon with her very life. Mipha would trap Waterblight Ganon in a net of her own in death. Ganon would learn to curse the day it had struck them down.

She would never see her father again. She would never see Sidon again. She would never have a future with Link, in this world or the next. But she would be there to keep poor Ruta calm, so she would never trample the people Mipha loved.

She painfully knew in her heart what she needed to do.

Waterblight Ganon hovered over her in the shallows, taunting her and making horrible snorting sounds as it raised its spear. Mipha closed her tear-soaked eyes and let go of her life.

Author's note: It's a tiny tweak but it gives her infinitely more agency.