"Being here like this makes me so relaxed. I could do this forever."
"I feel more calm when I'm behind the wheel of a car."
"I wasn't talking about the fish, stupid."
- Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus visiting an aquarium
Mipha nervously approached the Divine Beast's altar. Zelda waited behind her with a mournful look washed over on her face.
The Zora princess reached out to the terminal and touched her palm to the pulsing stone. Concentrating, she cleansed the Beast of the dormant disease that still lingered in her veins. The ancient Sheikah pedestal began glowing the same color as Mipha's healing aura.
The water swirled in small waves around her ankles. The sound made her mind drift back to that hazy afternoon in the rain.
She was collapsed in the mud and crawling back up, pushing herself to fight the Waterblight and protect her princess to the bitter end. But then Zelda threw herself between the two combatants, screaming Mipha's name as if it was the only thing she knew. Mipha became blind for a second, and then Waterblight Ganon was simply gone. All that remained was steam in the rain.
Once Zelda understood how to channel her powers, they rounded up all the troops who could still fight and made a final desperate assault to win back the castle. Zelda called her most elite Sheikah scouts and her remaining Hylian knights to her aid, while Mipha requested her father's most skilled Zora marines to march straight through Central Hyrule. The battle was long and tragic, but the forces of Light barely managed to win. Calamity Ganon met his ultimate demise not by the edge of the blue Master Sword, but by the prongs of the silver Lightscale Trident.
The corrupted Divine Beasts and Guardians ceased their rampage the instant their master was no more. All that could be done then was clearing the rubble away and trying to give closure to all the souls who had been lost in the war. Mipha started with Vah Naboris for Zelda's sake. She left Vah Ruta for last, knowing she would be the most difficult.
A circle of transparent green flames flickered over the water near Mipha. Link's freed spirit finally appeared beside her. He didn't try to tell corny jokes like Daruk, or go into a hefty speech about honor and sacrifice like Urbosa. He only hovered above the ripples in his dim green aura, smiling and silently telling her, "Thank you."
As he departed, she felt a faint trickle on the back of her webbed hand. He was leaving her with one simple gift: Link's Courage. She had exhausted all of her own helping Zelda seal Calamity Ganon back into the abyss. Now she would have his to help her live on in this new world.
"That's the last of them," Mipha said with a heavy sigh, turning back toward Zelda. "Naboris, Rudania, Medoh, and now Ruta. Now they can be at peace."
Mipha knelt down to retrieve Link's former possessions that had been left abandoned in the shallows. The Master Sword and the Sheikah Slate could both be returned where they belonged now that the war was over. The Hylian Shield would join the others on the memorial.
She quietly waded through the water toward Zelda once she was finished.
"Mipha, I'm sorry I put you through all of this," the Hylian princess said with her head held low. When she raised her eyes, she saw Mipha offering her a small smile of forgiveness.
"I'm sorry I let you down the first time," said the Zora Champion.
Zelda and Mipha walked out of Ruta's temple entrance and back into the daylight. They looked over their wounded kingdom closely by each other's sides from the shrine's spillway. The sun was setting on the ruins, but a more peaceful future was just beginning to dawn.
The Divine Beasts were only the start of their work. They gazed into the horizon together as they thought about the long and arduous journey of healing the rest of the realm. They gave each other a nurturing glance before setting out, leaving the tragic past behind them and walking back into the living world hand in hand.
Author's note: I basically just wrote this second chapter because it popped in my head what Link's spirit power would be. And it's actually kind of sweet and subtle and not as OP as you'd think. I was debating whether I wanted to make this about Mipha getting ready to fight Ganon, or the aftermath to it. I decided this was a nice change of pace.
I'm pretty impressed with how this turned out considering the first draft I started working on was literally just the song from the Little Mermaid with the lyrics changed so it's about Waterblight Ganon expressing his joys of butchering Mipha.
