Link looks at her in horror. "You cannot be serious."
Mipha bites her lip. Wrings her hands. "I could be wrong - "
"But why do I get the feeling you're exactly right?" Urbosa says, voice grim. "I swear to the Seven, he is getting plucked and roasted once I get my hands on him."
Link has started pacing back and forth now, kicking at the snow with angry footsteps. His fist is balled underneath his chin, his wide blue eyes staring intently at the ground.
"It's so off course it's not even funny," he exclaims. "For Hylia's sake, it's in completely the wrong direction!"
"It'll take him days to get back to us," says Urbosa, before lowering her voice. "If he does get back to us."
"He will." Mipha is trying desperately to hide her fear, but it slips out and betrays her nonetheless. She wants so badly to believe that she's wrong. "I'll make sure he will."
Link stops his frantic movement to turn and stare at her. "What are you saying?"
She lifts her chin. If she's going to convince this stubborn lot, she'll have to be confident about it. "I am saying that I shall go after him."
Link makes a huck noise from deep within his throat. "No. Absolutely not."
"Now, hang on a second - " Urbosa begins.
"Sorry, but it's not happening." Link's jaw is set, lips pursed. "At least Revali can fly. You can't, Mipha. That in itself would make the journey far too long and incredibly treacherous, and you'd be alone. If one of us goes with you, that leaves only two on the mission." He shakes his head, decided. "I'm sorry, but it's a risk we simply can't take."
Mipha takes a long, deep inhale. Steels herself. "With all due respect, Link," she says quietly, "you don't make my decisions for me."
Link's mouth goes a little slack at this. "I'm not - I'm - Mipha, I'm just trying to protect you."
"Yes, I know. But who protects Revali?"
He narrows his eyes. "Revali forfeited his right to protection when he decided his personal glory was more important than the mission that we, as a team, have been tasked with." He looks around at Urbosa and Daruk, as if expecting them to back him up, then raises his arms in mock helplessness. "You know that I have the utmost respect for you, Mipha, as a warrior and as a friend. But I honestly don't know why you're so set on defending him. He made his bed, now let him lie in it. If he's as great a warrior as he claims, he'll be just fine on his own." He shakes his head once more, then turns away, clearly done with the conversation.
Mipha feels her face go hot, feels her eyes sting with angry tears. She has never known Link to be so stiff in his judgment, so unsympathetic, so bitterly unfair.
She looks at the other two, both of whom are keeping unusually quiet. Daruk looks upset: head bowed, brow furrowed deeply. He leans on the Boulder Breaker, suddenly looking a lot older than his years.
Urbosa is harder to read. Her expressions are impenetrable at the best of times; but even now, with a face that looks like it could be carved from stone, Mipha can see the faint glimmer in her eye. She gives Mipha a slight, almost imperceptible nod, then turns on her heel, walking back into the lodge.
She emerges a few moments later with Mipha's things in one hand, and all the warmth elixirs she can hold in the other.
"It's a long way," she says, voice giving away nothing. "But you know that, don't you?"
Mipha nods.
"It'll be cold."
"I know," Mipha whispers, even though if Revali is to be believed, she actually hasn't the slightest idea.
Urbosa appraises her for a second, then clucks her tongue. "Well," she says. "I suppose we'd better get going. No doubt we'll have reached the village by the time you find him, so you might as well head straight there."
Mipha gives her the biggest smile she can muster, endlessly grateful. "Thank you."
"You can thank me by coming back alive. That goes for both of you, by the way. I have a feeling this Khara lady would be just as likely to have our heads on spikes as King Dorephan."
Mipha tries to ignore the mixed emotions the mention of Khara instills in her. "I'll keep that in mind."
She takes her things from Urbosa, who signals to the other two that they're ready to leave. They clear out the lodge, down some warmth elixir just in case, and journey on.
They breach the heart of Hebra as four. It feels strange, trudging along without Revali's incessant chatter as background noise. It also feels less safe, somehow, but Mipha supposes that makes sense. This land is Revali's; he knows every slope, every boulder, every crevice, river and cave. Without his guidance, they're nothing but blind stragglers in the snow, and they can do little but pray that they don't run into any falling scree, or avalanches.
The Rospro Pass is also littered with monsters, but thankfully they tend to be lone lizalfos instead of larger groups, so they're able to dispatch of them without much fuss. These lizalfos are different to the ones back in Lanayru: instead of sizzling with electricity, they're slick with ice, and their attacks come in the form of frost clouds so viscous they're almost opaque. They hang in the air like murderous spectres, taking several seconds to dissipate. It's not hard to understand why Tito had seen fit to warn them.
Link doesn't look at her the whole time they're fighting their way up the hill. He travels up in front, like normal, but Mipha can see his discomfort in the way his head is bent to the ground, the way his shoulders bunch around his neck. She tries to imagine how she would feel if he said nothing to her when it came time for her to leave; if he didn't even say goodbye, or wish her good luck. She turns over the scenario in her mind, watches it play out every which way, imagines what she'd say, how she'd react. She's surprised to find that in every case, instead of feeling upset or angry, she simply feels hollowed out and resigned. And every time, like clockwork, her thoughts inevitably flit back to Revali.
They reach the base of the Hebra South Summit, where their paths split, quicker than she anticipated. The reality of what she's doing sets in, but she's careful to maintain her composure. The last thing she wants to do now is give them even more reason to doubt her.
Link stays silent as she says her goodbyes to Urbosa and Daruk, but when she turns to him, he doesn't turn and walk away. Nor does he try again to change her mind, or ignore her. Instead, he steps forward and wraps her up in a tight embrace.
"This is a surprise," Mipha says, muffled by his arm.
"Not for me," he murmurs. She can hear the smile in his voice.
When he pulls away, she sees that the warmth has begun to creep ever so slightly back into his eyes.
"Are you okay with this now?" she ventures to ask.
He shakes his head. "Not at all. But I trust you and your intentions. And I know that if there's anyone that can bring that arrogant bastard back, it's you."
Mipha laughs, but it's laced with sadness.
"Be safe, Mipha," Link says quietly.
She feels anything but hollow. She doesn't want to let go of him just yet. Beneath the veneer, she glimpses the boy she used to know. The old Link, who didn't have the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"Link," she says, taking his hand gently. "If I don't make it back - "
"I'll make sure no one reads your diary, I promise." He gives her hand a squeeze.
She lets go reluctantly, casting her gaze over to the valley where the path she needs to take lies. The rest of the champions are taking the road west, whilst she's heading east. The valley stretches out as far as the eye can see, thick with snow, lonely and oppressive.
Her legs move of their own accord, carrying her away from the champions before she can change her mind, but she can't help but look back at them once more. Daruk gives her a hearty thumbs up. Urbosa nods, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
Link has already turned away. She doesn't blame him.
Night has fallen by the time her tired legs carry her to Coldsnap Hollow. It's a huge, cavernous place, which would probably be completely bathed in darkness if it weren't for the light of the full moon.
The snow is so thick in some places that she needs to use her trident as both a shovel and a walking stick just so she can keep moving. She repeats the motion - scoop, pull, scoop, pull - until her exhausted muscles can aid her no further, and she collapses in a heap against a wall of rock.
There's an overhang above her, which shelters her somewhat from the relentless snowfall. The wind still screams, thick and stinging. Half-conscious already, she drinks another warmth elixir, and quickly slips down into sleep.
Mipha doesn't usually dream. On nights like tonight when she does, her dreams begin not in technicolour and vivacity but in a delicate caress of her senses, enough to feel real but not enough to pull her out of her reverie.
There is warm water underneath her feet, lapping around her ankles. It feels deep enough that if she could just lower her body a little further, she'd be able to completely submerge herself. She must have already made it to a hot spring; it's a shame that no matter how hard she tries to pull herself down, there seems to be some great opposing force that keeps pulling her back. Eventually, she gets frustrated and pulls herself out of the pool, but as soon as she does she's hit with a violent wave of bitter cold, and she can do nothing but watch in horror as her hands and feet turn to icicles and the skin on her chest cracks, deep purple and vermilion frostbite taking over her body.
The scream she lets out wakes her up. She hurries to down some more warmth elixir, bleary eyed. How could she have been so stupid as to fall asleep without building a fire? No wonder she is literally dreaming about the cold.
It takes her a few tries to light the small fire she builds. The wind is just too strong, but on the fourth try she finally manages to get a flame burning steadily, and soon enough, she's slipping under again. This time, she dreams not of the white-hot burn of ice encasing her skin, but of feathers, light and airy and soft. Thousands and thousands of feathers, a rich cobalt blue in colour, cradle her shivering body with warmth and tenderness. As she sinks down into them, deeper and deeper, they part around her, enveloping her with the fluidity of water. She lies like that, impossibly comfortable, until the risen sun beats down on the hollow, and melted frost from the rock overhang drips down on to her cheeks.
Mipha moves faster when she's alone. The anxiety she has bottled up within her, the tension that sits deep in her stomach, heavier than ever before as subconscious worry about Revali gnaws at the back of her brain - she can transfer it into energy, and use it to her advantage. She has always found the vagaries of the mind rather simple to understand. She acknowledges her disquiet, accepts it, then molds it and makes it hers.
The other champions are aware of the extent of her abilities, of course. They've seen her whip through the air like an arrow before, on other missions. But that's only when there's hundreds, thousands, of monsters to dispatch, and normal movement doesn't cut it. When they travel together she moves at their pace, because she sees no point in intimidation and showing off for the sake of it. She wouldn't want people to be intimidated by her.
She cuts a sharp arc through the Kopeeki Drifts in half a day flat. It's the long way round, perhaps, but for her it's a great deal easier. The terrain is mostly smooth and rounded here, which means she can worry less about having to do much climbing, which due to the shortness of her limbs is not one of her strong suits. She can instead occupy her mind with generating a plan for when she finds Revali. Not that she has any idea what she'll be walking into, of course. The only thing she knows for sure is that Hylia herself will have to channel all of her divine strength into preventing Mipha from driving her trident into Revali's chest herself for the pain he's caused her.
Her exhaustion is both physical and mental. Everything feels heavy. Her eyes ache. The air, which only a few hours ago she carved a path through like a river on a still day, now feels thick like honey. Against all better ideas, she keeps pushing herself. She can rest once she's found Revali.
The wind rushes past her eyes, but she barely registers it any more. The Hebra mountains are eerily quiet most of the time, so when she suddenly hears what sounds like a faint giggle, she's pulled from her trance with a jolt.
Her feet come to rest on the ground. She glances around warily.
From behind a pine tree a few hundred yards back, glowing pinprick eyes and a horrible smile stare straight back at her.
She curses under her breath, feeling her stomach lurch and the back of her neck prickle. Mipha hates these fucking things with all her being.
The wizzrobe giggles again, then disappears. Mipha blinks against the pale glare of the sun at the spot it had just occupied. Before she can ascertain why exactly it had felt so wrong, despite obviously being a nauseating creature in all aspects, it appears again with a shing. This time, it's directly in front of her face. She jabs at it aggressively with her trident, but it doesn't quite reach, which makes the wizzrobe positively bounce with joy.
"I don't have time to play with you right now," Mipha growls, making sure her teeth are bared.
The monster doesn't like this one bit. It raises its wand high above its head, and it's in that split second that Mipha realises exactly what had felt so off it about. She's in Hebra, and this is an electric wizzrobe.
The realisation comes a fraction too late. She drops her trident and dives out of the way, putting all of her power into the movement, calf muscles straining exponentially. It's futile. The pain tears through her mercilessly, hot and searing. Her blood goes from being ice cold to on fire in the blink of an eye.
Mipha lies there and waits for the final blow to come and finish her off, but a few moments go by, and nothing happens. Cautiously, and minutely, she deigns to lift her head. There's no sign of the wizzrobe. She holds her breath, listening for its sadistic giggles, but finds only the wind, whistling through the trees. She supposes that what she's heard about them becoming easily bored with their victims must be the truth.
With a grimace, she very slowly and carefully lifts her abdomen, propping herself up on her forearms. The pain in her body sings.
She takes a deep inhale, then pushes herself to her feet, immediately wincing as the blisters that have formed on her extremities make themselves apparent. One thing after another. She looks down at her palms, and they're more or less destroyed. Sore, bubbling, weeping. Almost the same bright red as her outer skin. What if Revali is injured when she finds him? Would these destroyed hands still be able to do their healing?
She grits her teeth and bends down to pick up her abandoned trident. She's so close; just a little further, and she'll be there. Pikida Stonegrove, where even the sturdiest of Rito have perished. Maybe if they'd had help from a half-dead Zora, things would have gone differently.
When Mipha was a child, her father would delight in telling her stories of the monsters that haunted their realm. The Zora have always a had a penchant for scaring the living daylights out of their children, and the royal family is no different from the rest in that regard. In a city where the glowing souls of the departed are woven into its very fabric, folklore and horror are intrinsically linked. One cannot exist without the other.
King Dorephan's favourite story to tell his young daughter was that of the stone talus that lived below the south Tal Tal peak, in the Great Spring area, a day or so's journey from Zora's Domain. He had spun her the tale of a great hulking boulder with arms and legs that would prey on unsuspecting travellers who had come to enjoy the scenic landscape. They would come in spring to bird watch, to view the cherry blossoms in bloom, to dip their feet in the shallow lake that sits in the shadow of the peak. Only then would they come to realise what they had awakened, and by that point the unlucky ones were either crushed to death or pulverised against the nearby cliffs.
According to the legend, her father would tell her, the stone talus had once been a Zora prince who had become obsessed with the finer things in life. His lust for jewels had driven him to establish a mine in Lanayru, where the workers were underpaid and quickly became riddled with diseases that not even the local healers could cure completely. The final straw came when part of the mine collapsed, killing several of the miners, and the prince, unperturbed, ordered operations to continue as normal. When it came time for him to be reincarnated, Hylia cursed his soul to be trapped inside a mammoth piece of rock, a slab of the precious gems he loved so much attached to his back as a reminder of his greed.
It had sounded implausible to Mipha even as a child. But it resonated with her still: she had sworn that if she ever became Queen, she would never ask anything of her people beyond what was necessary.
It's this story that echoes in her head, seventy or so years later, as she stares up at the frost talus in Pikida Stonegrove. It, too, has a black slab of gems on its back which shines slick and metallic underneath the sinking sun. What did this one do to deserve its fate?
If the rock on its back is facing her, that means that the talus is facing away from her. She sees it swing at something - or someone - on the other side of the snowdrift. Before she even has chance to get her hopes up, a massive draft of wind nearly knocks her from her feet, obscuring the talus in a cyclone of snowflakes.
Neither Revali, nor the talus, have noticed her yet. She darts forward, lightning quick, taking advantage of the distraction, making sure to keep out of the talus' field of vision. She waits until she's right behind it to conjure and leap up into a spinning wheel of water. The fountain carries her up, up into the air until she's level with the top of the talus, and then she jumps. The talus roars as she makes her landing on its jagged, inhospitable surface. Its erratic movement tells her that it's in a weakened state. Now she's closer, she can see that there are gems littering the ground around the talus' feet. Revali has clearly done some damage already.
The ice that encases its body has her almost slipping off, but she digs her claws in and hangs on, legs dangling over the edge. The talus bucks and lurches ferociously, trying to shake her off, but Mipha is steadfast. She finds purchase with the barbs of her feet, stabbing into the ice like tiny knives. Then she stands up, and begins to move. The slab, she knows, is its weak spot. She drives her trident forward. All she has to do is make a flurry attack -
The spear doesn't connect with its target, because suddenly she's been pushed to the ground. No, not pushed. She's been hit.
Everything is white, blindingly white. The snow courses around her, caught in a raging blizzard. The iridescence of the talus' shimmering surface, reflecting the sun, sears her eyeballs. There is a sharp, shooting pain in her shoulder.
The ground shudders. There is a massive fissure that is working its way up the surface of the talus, wrenching it apart. Then it erupts. A thousand glittering pieces of rock break away before her eyes, falling into the snow like a star shower. She passes out.
Revali is calling her name, over and over again. Mipha. Mipha. Mipha. Mipha!
Her eyes flit open. "What?" she says, mildly perturbed. She still needs more rest. Her body aches like sin.
His face draws back from hers. His expression spells worry, which immediately gives her cause for concern, and he's clinging to her biceps in a desperate way that is very unlike him. She tilts her head, blinking down at the talons, puzzled.
"Oh, thank Hylia," Revali breathes. "Mipha, listen to me. You need to heal yourself. Can you do that for me, Mipha?"
She follows the line of his trembling gaze.
"Revali," she says, quietly, calmly. Politely. "Would you like to explain why there is an arrow in my shoulder?"
Revali blanches. "Why don't you explain what you were doing on top of that frost talus? Well, Princess? You can't wander into the line of fire then be surprised when you get hit. It's ludicrous!"
She stares back at him with derision until his face shifts back into something that's close enough to shame.
"I didn't know you were there," he says, voice faltering, barely above a whisper. "I was high up, and the snow - I knew where my mark was, and I let loose. How could I have - "
Mipha sighs and shakes her head. She glances down again at her shoulder, examining her wound. The arrow is buried deep within her flesh. Removing it is going to take some effort. "It doesn't matter. But I can't heal myself." She looks up at him, expression washed of colour. "You'll have to pull it out of me."
A beat. "What."
"I'm sorry, Revali - "
"Absolutely not," he says, then cringes. "Firstly, don't you dare apologise to me, Mipha. I won't have it. Secondly, please tell me it's not true that you can't heal yourself."
She shrugs, then winces in pain as the arrowhead shifts inside her. "I thought it was common knowledge. That would be too good to be true, don't you think?"
Revali covers his face with his wing. "I'm not doing it."
Mipha places a gentle hand on his chest. "Grant me a quick death. Please."
The wing drops to the ground. He looks like he's going to be sick, until he registers the look of mirth that crosses her features.
He stands up, sharp. Backs away from her. "You are an evil woman."
Mipha's body is shaking with silent laughter.
"I mean it. I don't care if you're a princess. From this day forward, we are no longer companions."
There are tears in her eyes. "I simply thought you deserved to have your feathers ruffled," she tells him, and before he can retort, she reaches up to her shoulder, and with gentle force, tugs the arrow from her flesh. Then she clasps a hand over the wound, eyes sliding shut. She ignores the pain thrumming throughout the rest of her battered and bruised body, focusing all her energy on this one area. Light pools underneath her palm and spills through her fingers. She keeps her hand there, feeling as her flesh knits itself back together. Revali says nothing throughout the whole long process, just watches with wide eyes until eventually, the only evidence of her injury that remains is a soft pink welt, crusted over with dried blood.
Mipha makes a crochety little noise. It's not her best work; but then again, healing oneself is never easy. "That's the most I can do," she tells him. "There's still a risk it might get infected whilst we're travelling back."
Revali hums with agreement. "It's impressive all the same. I wouldn't want an infection to undo your hard work." He looks like he's considering something. Then he says, "You should use my scarf."
Now it's her turn to look shocked. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. Use the scarf as a tourniquet of sorts. Protect your wound from the elements, at least until we can get you some proper medical attention."
He helps her knot the fabric loosely over the affected area, careful not to pull it too tight. She tries not to think too hard on what this means. This sacrifice, his most treasured possession. Most likely ruined now by her blood and gunk.
"I got here quicker than I expected," Mipha says. "We might be able to catch the rest up, if we're fast."
Revali nods, then crouches down next to her. "Well, then. Best get on."
They soar over the snowfields, her arms looped around his neck. His eyes scan the landscape below, looking for three familiar dots.
He has to yell over the wind to be heard. "I suppose you have questions."
"Later," she shouts back. For now, she simply wants to revel in the fact that they're both alive, and the feeling of being able to fly without wings or water, kept adrift by a thousand soft blue feathers.