Prompt: In videogames, you die a lot and respawn unaltered. Write about the entity that heals you completely before going back to your game.
Well, who else did you expect me to write about!?
Her name was Mipha.
Champion Mipha of the Zora. Pilot of Divine Beast Vah Ruta.
But I expect you already knew that. The Zora remember her the most, what with their lifespans of 500 years or more.
She's the most remembered out of the five champions. Even more than me. The Hero of Hyrule.
Some hero I was, when I couldn't even save the princess. Let alone her.
Mipha.
In the beginning I didn't remember her.
But now I do.
How could I not, when I finally looked closely enough at her statue?
Her memorial statue, that the Zora put in the center of their Domain as a memory of their princess, their Champion, their greatest and most skilled healer.
It was a perfect likeness.
And I recognized her.
I remembered her gentle smile, her warm topaz eyes, and the fluidity with which she moved.
She didn't laugh often, but when she did… Goddess, I could get drunk on that laugh alone.
The Zora tell me she meant to give me that armor, the blue scale armor I have now, as a marriage proposal.
The Zora tell me she loved me.
Which is good, because I loved her.
You knew that though, with the way I've been talking about her, didn't you?
Me loving her was also bad, because I couldn't save her.
Because she died in that Divine Beast one hundred years ago and I wasn't there.
Because that guilt should have eaten away at me and it didn't, because how could I feel guilt for someone I didn't remember?
Perhaps that was what drove me. Why I killed the Waterblight Ganon the fastest out of all the Blights.
It was her killer. The killer I should have wanted to destroy for a long time, but I didn't.
The Zora resented me for that, you know. For Mipha dying. I resented myself for it.
So I tore into the Waterblight with a vengeance.
As soon as it was dead, I heard her voice again.
I turned, and I saw her.
She again told me she loved me, and that her only wish had been to see me.
I wanted to tell her the same, but I could not. I could only give her the same silence as I had given Zelda all those years ago.
Her voice was sad, but she bestowed upon me her Grace anyways.
With it, I could come back from death, because she would always heal me.
"It was my pleasure," she whispers, as my wounds heal over and I can open my eyes again.
I was alright with dying, as long as I got to see her again.
As healthy as she had been the first time I saw her.
These days, I try to stay alive as much as possible. Because every time I die again, every time she heals me, I'm afraid that she'll use up all her power. And she'll be gone.
In fact, now, if it were possible. I would stay in my house in Hateno and never come out again. Master Sword and Divine Beasts be damned.
But I made her a promise. I made Mipha a promise.
Save her, Link. Save the princess.
So that's what I'll do.
I'm going to storm that castle, and I'm going to kill Calamity Ganon.
Ganon, who was the death of Urbosa and Daruk and Revali and Mipha, and who is the jailer of Princess Zelda.
I'm going to kill him.
If not for Zelda, who was my closest friend, then for Mipha. Beautiful, sweet Mipha, who I only get to see when I die, and whose Grace I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.
Mipha, who I loved.
And who loved me.