"So, if we simply continue southeast from here, we should reach the Zora Domain just before nightfall barring any unforeseen complications," Mipha said as she rolled up the map of Hyrule.
Link roared as he charged head first into a Lizalfos camp.
Mipha sighed. "Complications such as that."
Link kicked off the ground and flipped sideways, using his sword and his momentum to slash through two Lizalfos' skulls.
A Lizalfos jumped out of the water at Mipha, only for her to skewer it and toss it back in. The Zora princess ran forward and used her spear to vault towards another Lizalfos, kicking it to the ground before leaving three bloody holes in its skull.
Link slammed his foot down on a Lizal shield, causing it to flip into the air and bash into a Lizalfos's face. Link caught the shield and threw it at another group of three Lizalfos, causing it to ricochet off of each of their faces before it ricocheted back to him.
Mipha swung her trident upwards, cutting through the stomach of a Lizalfos before stabbing through its body and using it as a shield to catch two boomerangs that had been thrown at her.
Mipha dropped the body and the trident and slammed her hands together. A sudden rush of water slammed into the deck from both sides, so powerful that it knocked the dock supports out and dropped a group of what had to be at least ten Lizalfoss into the water below. Link jumped over the gap in the dock and shot down a shock arrow, killing them swiftly and soaking the air around with the scent of burnt lizard.
"Link, we must reach the Zora domain as quickly as possible; can we please avoid any more altercations such as this," Mipha begged.
A Lizalfos jumped out of the water at Link, and without taking his eyes off her, he swung his sword back and splayed open its neck.
Mipha just gave him a more pleading look. With a sigh, Link sheathed his sword and swiped up a Lizalfos shield and boomerang.
The two of them managed to avoid more conflict, but as they crossed into the Zora domain, they were met by an immediate downpour, one that all but blinded them from the path ahead.
After a few minutes, they reached a bridge made of elegant blue and white tiles. They were about to cross when Link held up a fist, signaling her to stop.
Out of the roaring rapids that the bridge crossed over, a red blur jumped out and landed on the bridge, its sharp teeth bared to them. At inhuman speeds, the creature rushed towards them and... pulled them into a bone-crushing hug?
"Oh Sidon, thank the goddess it's just you, you scared us," Mipha sighed, hugging her younger brother back.
Link pulled his hands free. 'To be clear, I wasn't scared.'
"Ha, of course you weren't! My brother-in-law is fearless after all, isn't he?" Sidon laughed.
'What are you talking about?'
Sidon gave a less hearty laugh as he set them down. "Oh come now; I know it's been a hundred years, but you two are still engaged."
'Again, what are you talking about?'
"Do you not want me to refer to you as my brother-in-law? I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable but—"
"Sidon, it's nothing you did. The shrine messed with Link's memory. He doesn't remember anything," Mipha explained.
Sidon looked at Link, who just gave him a confused look back.
"Sidon, what is happening? The rain is never this bad in the Zora domain. It's unnatural," Mipha said.
"Vah Ruta has gone mad...Come, we must speak with Father," Sidon said in a melancholic voice.
"Link, hold on," Mipha ordered. He hesitantly complied, placing his hands on her shoulders.
Without any further warning, the Zora dived into the water, taking Link under with them. The Hylian was tossed in and out of the raging rapids, intermittently gasping for breath when he was able to.
It took a few minutes, but eventually, Link spotted a castle. It looked much like the bridge from what he could tell, although admittedly that wasn't much considering he was forced back underwater.
After being above water for more than five seconds, Link pried his eyes open to find that he was indeed on land now, and immediately he let go and began to cough up globs of water.
Mipha was a little bit disappointed, admittedly, as Link's hands had moved from resting on her shoulders to being tightly wrapped around her midriff.
'I'm never doing that again,' Link signed, his face looking extremely annoyed.
"Come, Father is waiting," Sidon said. He may have put a smile on his face but even after a century Mipha could tell when his smiles were fake.
Link was stalling behind them to look at the Zora domain, so Mipha took the opportunity to lean in to her brother. "Are you all right?"
"How could he not remember me? More importantly, how could he not remember you?" Sidon whispered-shouted. "You two were basically already set to be wed, and now it's like you're complete strangers."
"How do you think I feel?" Mipha bit back.
The two bickering siblings entered the throne room and were immediately cast into a massive shadow, one that could only be cast by one Zora.
"Daddy!" Mipha cried as she launched herself at King Dorphane. She was dwarfed in size compared to the king, but she managed to hold on to his large white stomach. Dorphane was a whale-like Zora, who was white and blue and wore a massive silver crown.
"HAHA! After a century of waiting, I finally get to see my darling baby girl again!" Dorphane cheered.
"I'm ever so happy to see you again. But we need to focus on stopping Vah Ruta before she floods all of Hyrule," Mipha said.
"Ah, of course. I assume you have brought Link with you to help?" Dorphane asked, getting an awkward look from both his kids.
"What? What's wrong?"
"Father, Link has lost his memory. Mipha has told me that his Shrine of Resurrection malfunctioned," Sidon explained.
Link knocked on a pillar, earning the attention of everyone in the Throne room. 'Some place you got here.'
"Ah, Link my boy. Do you remember me?" Dorphane asked.
'I feel like I should but I don't, I'm sorry,' Link signed.
"Hmm, that is frustrating. At least you don't remember that embarrassing feast where—Oof!"
Dorphane recoiled where Mipha 'subtly' jabbed her elbow into his stomach. "I thought we agreed to never speak of that again?"
"Yes, you're correct Mipha," Dorphane groaned.
'So, where's this Divine Beast, and how do I kill it?'
"Slow down Link. We need a few things before we can get to calming Vah Ruta," Dorphane said, before turning to his children. "Mipha dear, will you take Link up to your room to retrieve the armor? And Sidon, I want you to go to where the Lynel hides and scout it out before they arrive to meet you."
"Yes, Father."
Link seemed to perk up at the mention of a Lynel, but he was quickly dragged off by Mipha. Her room was at the top of the castle, where the walls were deep blue and the floors felt like they were made of sand, but it didn't stick to their feet like sand would.
Mipha plopped down on her bed, the mattress wobbling as she did. "I had forgotten how heavenly this bed is," she sighed.
Link grinned as he ran forward and jumped on the bed, causing it to toss Mipha about a foot into the air.
The Zora princess let out a happy shriek as she landed back on the bed, flinging Link upwards in the process. Mipha was sent in the air once again when Link hit the bed again, but this time when she came back down, she landed on top of him.
Blushes graced both their faces, as they were only an inch apart. Link shot an awkward grin at Mipha, one that just... hurt, though she couldn't really explain why.
Mipha rolled off of him and stood up when she felt the tears prick at her eyes. She could hear Link sit up as well, but she didn't look back; she just bent down and pulled a wooden chest out from under a nightstand.
Link stood behind her to look into the chest, seeing the torso of an outfit. It was dark blue in color but with a different, brown material on the sides and small silver shoulder pads.
"This is Zora armor. It will allow you to swim just like us Zora, even up waterfalls. Unfortunately, it looks like the other two pieces have been lost," Mipha explained.
Link did away with his Champion's tunic, giving Mipha a show she both loved and hated in the process, and pulled on the Zora armor. It fit perfectly, weaving around every contour of Link's skin like it was made to do so.
Link ran his hands over the fabric for a second before snapping his eyes shut in pain, shouting as his hands flew up to his head.
"Are you ok?" Mipha asked panickedly.
With a grunt of pain, Link moved his hands from his face and signed, 'I'm fine, just a headache is all.'
"Good, you frightened me. Come along now, we shouldn't keep Sidon waiting," Mipha said.
'Or that Lynel.'
"Well you two certainly took your time," Sidon whispered as Link and Mipha joined him behind a massive rock.
'Sorry, we got caught up,' Link signed.
"He tried to fight an entire flock of Keese by himself," Mipha explained.
Link shrugged, placing a Zora sword behind his back, which then disappeared.
"Where are you keeping that?" Sidon asked.
Link shrugged again, 'Found a bag in the shrine I woke up in. Holds a lot of stuff,' Link said gesturing to the brown burlap sack on his back.
"Whatever, anyway, hopefully we won't have to fight this, because I assure you, it is nothing like a Keese," Sidon shuddered.
The three peeked out from behind the rock, catching a glimpse of a strange hybrid between a man, a horse, and a lion. Its body was black, and the upper part was covered by a dark red mane. It held a small sword in its right hand and a shield in its left, and Mipha thought she saw a bow strapped on its back.
"We need shock arrows if we want to knock out Vah Ruta's storm generators long enough for us to break in, and there's no bigger hoarder of shock arrows than this Lynel," Sidon said.
"Well, Lynels have amazing sight, but abysmal hearing. Link can sneak around him and collect these stray shock arrows and—Oh no."
Link roared as he threw the Lizal boomerang, missing the Lynel by a mile. With the beast's attention now on him, he pulled out a spiked club and silver shield and flashed a cocky smirk.
"Your boyfriend is an idiot," Sidon groaned.
"Yes I know," Mipha sighed as she grabbed her trident.
The Lynel charged at Link, wrapping its massive arms around him and pushing him towards a large boulder. Link began to bash his shield and club against its head, but to no avail; he was still thrown into a large flat boulder.
Even as the Lynel raised its blade above its head, Link smiled that same cocky smile as the Lizal boomerang came back and sliced out the Lynel's eyes.
Link stood up and swapped his club for a sword, forcing the Lynel back by making small slices against its chest. Mipha soon joined him, stabbing at the Lynel's hooves, which forced the beast to back up the cliff more.
When the Lynel's back legs went off the cliff edge, it made a last-ditch survival effort. Flailing its arms around wildly, it grabbed Link by the waist and pulled him down as well.
Link repeatedly punched the Lynel in its bleeding face, but to no avail; its iron grip was beginning to crush Link's waist. It wasn't until he took the Lynel's own sword and stabbed it in the face that he was freed. He yanked the sword to the right and ripped out a full third of the Lynel's face.
The Hylian kicked off the Lynel's body and pulled out his paraglider, watching as the beast's mangled body crashed into a shallow pond below, sprawling out against the sand.
Link landed on the ground and immediately plunged into the pond, taking the Lynel's sword, shield, and bow before snatching two bundles of twenty shock arrows and putting it all away.
It was a few minutes before Mipha and Sidon arrived down near the pond. The latter looked concerned, but the former looked absolutely furious.
'Took you long enough.'
"Are you out of your mind?" Mipha shouted over the rain.
Link raised an eyebrow at her.
"Why do you constantly insist on putting yourself in danger for what seems to be little more than cheap thrills?" Mipha stomped closer to him.
Link just scoffed and began to walk away, but he was stopped when Mipha grabbed him by the scruff of his armor.
"You will not walk away from me! What gives you the right to keep nearly getting yourself killed every five minutes?"
"Because this is all I know!"
Mipha's eyes went wide and she let go of Link. She hadn't heard him speak in years. His voice was deep and suave, but hoarse from unuse.
"When I woke up, I killed a Bokoblin and it felt good, so that's what I did for the next month. I killed anything in my path because it was all I knew how to do, and I'm gonna keep doing it until it kills me!"
"Um, if you would cease your bickering for one moment, I believe I have found something!" Sidon yelled over to them.
The two looked over to see him pull a chest from the mud. Sidon punched it open and Link plundered the contents.
It was a pair of greaves, similar to the armor that Link wore on his chest. The toes were webbed and the bottom of the feet were made of a thick leather.
Link shouted in pain as his fingers ran over the greaves, his head pounding harder than earlier. Mipha ran over to help steady him but he flashed a thumbs up to signal that he was fine now.
"Look, you two can settle your lovers' quarrel later, but this storm is getting worse. We need to stop Vah Ruta before it's too late!" Sidon shouted.
He was right; the rain was getting heavier, and the water level of the lake under the Zora palace had visibly risen.
"We need to hurry to the reservoir; if that dam goes, the whole palace does too!"
Link shot into the air upon exiting the waterfall raging down Vah Ruta's front left leg, narrowly avoiding a large hunk of ice the Divine Beast hurled at his head and firing a shock arrow to shut down the last storm generator.
Using his paraglider, Link landed safely on a ledge protruding from Vah Ruta's left side. Soon, Mipha rocketed out of the water and landed next to him.
"You two get control of Vah Ruta; I'll stay out here in case it becomes active again!" Sidon yelled from below the behemoth, elephant-like machine.
Link flashed him a thumbs up before turning to Mipha, nodding, and placing the Sheikah Slate against a stone terminal. The door opened with a groan, retreating upwards until they couldn't see it any more.
"There are five smaller terminals in Vah Ruta; we need to activate them all before we can activate the master terminal," Mipha explained.
'Right, let's get moving then,' Link nodded as his eyebrows furrowed.
"I have a question?"
'What is it?'
"If you could speak all this time, why do you use sign language?"
'I don't like speaking unless I have to, it makes me feel uncomfortable.'
"...Link? I feel we should talk about what happened earlier."
'What's there to talk about?'
"I didn't mean to push you so hard; I just…"
Four terminals left.
'You love me.'
Link unsheathed his sword for just a second to slash at an eye made of Malice, killing it quickly.
"W-what?"
'I'm not stupid; I've been able to tell for a while now'
"Oh Jabu-Jabu, this is embarrassing."
Three terminals left.
Mipha batted a few floating skulls out of the air with her trident.
'Look I get it. It must be hard; I don't remember you, or loving you, and that has to suck.'
"...I can't say it doesn't."
'But right now, stopping the Divine Beast from flooding Zora's Domain is what matters. So let's put a pin in this and come back to it later.'
Two terminals left.
'If it makes you feel any better, there are blips, little pieces of my memory that don't have much context, and you're in a lot of them.'
Mipha couldn't help but blush. "It does, thanks."
One terminal left.
"Nearly there now, Link, we must keep pressing forward."
Link slapped his Sheikah Slate against the final terminal, the one at the top of the trunk, causing the Divine Beast to groan and shudder. On the back of the Beast were two massive, square-shaped holes, the back of which now had a massive pillar of blue light shooting from it.
'You want to take a shortcut?' Link grinned mischievously.
"Always."
Link picked her up and forced her to wrap her arms and legs around him before jumping off and pulling his paraglider, allowing them to gently glide down.
The two landed down in front of the master terminal. It was in a large room, shaped half like a rectangle, half like a circle with a shallow layer of water covering the floo, and four small islands barely rising above the water level. The master terminal itself was made of three large, orange, pear-shaped structures leaning back to back, and a small stone pedestal.
Before Link could activate the master terminal however, it began to bleed Malice. The purple and black sludge leaked out of the console and pooled in front of Link's feet.
The Hylian jumped back and took up the Lynel sword and shield. With his hands full, he couldn't do anything but shoot Mipha a questioning gaze.
"That is the beast that I nearly fell to a century ago—"
A gangly arm and clawed hand shot up from the pool of Malice, seemingly made of the substance.
"—the scourge of Divine Beast Vah Ruta—"
The arm began to pull its body out of the puddle, and the hole the two had glided in on shut tight, leaving the only light in the room to filter in through the portholes around the room.
"—Waterblight Ganon," Mipha scowled.
Waterblight was skinny and agile, standing at what couldn't be less than eleven feet tall. It had a head full of red hair, a stone mask shaped vaguely like a boomerang, no legs, and in place of a left hand was a massive blue spear made of energy, one that was definitely taller than Link.
When its pulsating blue eye locked on to them, it let out a horrid screech and dashed towards them; thankfully, Link managed to jump back just in time to avoid a spear strike.
Mipha bounced off the spear and slashed out a hunk of Malice from Waterblight's neck, while Link took a sizable chunk from its stomach, causing it to screech once more.
Link quickly dragged Mipha behind his shield when Waterblight began to visibly gather energy around itself, and he knew he was right to do so when a beam of blue light erupted from its eye.
The laser deflected just right to bounce off of Link's shield and blast the right horn off of Waterblight's mask.
The beast roared again, causing the water level to rise, along with the big platforms. Waterblight then attached itself to the ceiling, swaying around like it was trying to taunt the champions.
Waterblight summoned a rectangular prism of ice and chucked it at them, but it collided with Link's own ice wall before it could hit.
Mipha then flipped her grip on her trident and chucked it at Waterblight, stabbing it directly in the eye. With its aim non-existent, it began to chuck blocks of ice around the room at random.
Mipha dove underwater for cover as Link jumped on and off an ice block before it hit the ground. He continued to jump from block to block until he was able to plant his feet into Waterblight's face and kick off it.
With a grin, Link tossed his bundle of thirty-six shock arrows at Waterblight, striking it in the chest. The Malice beast began to jerk and shudder, letting out one last horrid screech before it exploded, leaving nothing but a piece of blue cloth in its wake.
The water quickly drained, letting Link land on the ground in front of the blue cloth. It looked like a hood of some kind, with a triangular tip pointed downwards, coated in a silver metal. The same headache he'd been having all day overtook him, this time so strong that it forced Link down on all fours.
"We did it! We have full control of Vah Ruta now!" Mipha cheered, "Oh this is tremendous. We're one step closer to stopping Ganon now and—"
Mipha whirled around to see Link standing just a few inches in front of her, in full Zora gear and with a smirk on his face.
"Link what are you—"
Mipha was interrupted when Link placed his hands on the back of her waist and pulled their bodies together.
Before Mipha could say anything, Link mashed their lips together, Mipha melted into the hot and heavy kiss that lasted a full minute. She even whined when Link pulled away.
"You didn't think I'd forget you for long, did you, my love?" Link whispered.
This time it was Mipha that initiated the kiss. Physically unable to hold herself back any more, she launched herself at Link and wrapped her whole body around him.
Their kiss probably would have lasted longer than their first if not for Sidon walking in and shouting, "Did you do it? I watched Vah Ruta turn blue from the outside and... I am going to guess that you did judging by the fact you're making out on the floor."
Mipha stood on her feet and brushed herself off, blushing. She walked over to the master terminal, but stopped before her hand touched it.
"You know, Sidon, I don't think I have recovered enough strength to control the Divine Beast on my own," she said, shooting a glance behind her.
Sidon was beside his sister in a second flat, and he slammed his hand down on the terminal with a massive grin. Mipha gently placed her hand down as well. The pear-shaped structures turned from orange to blue, and the massive beast grumbled to life.
All entrances to the outside world closed off as Vah Ruta began to descend below the water. Sidon grunted and placed two hands on the terminal as the Divine Beast appeared out of the other side of the reservoir and began to scale a nearby mountain.
At the top of the mountain and with a clear view of Hyrule Castle, Vah Ruta's tusks extended and fired a beam of red light into the central tower of the castle.
"We did it!" Sidon panted loudly.
"Actually Sidon, you did it," Mipha smiled, showing that her hand was no longer on the pedestal.
"Wait—do you mean—we talked about it when I was a child, but," Sidon began to trail off, clearly too shocked for words.
"I think it's time I give someone else the reins to Vah Ruta."
Link cleared his throat, getting their attention. 'Not to break up this heartfelt moment, but when I give you the signal, you need to be ready to fire the beam at Ganon. So gather some supplies; you're gonna be here for a bit.'
"And what's the signal?" Sidon asked.
Link grinned. 'You'll know when you see it. Mipha, we need to head back to Kakariko Village to meet with the others; there, you can prepare with the others for when it comes time to fight.'
"What about you?" Mipha asked.
'Me and Urbosa are gonna take back Naboris.'
Hi! it's been a while I know. I took some creative liberties with the story but I hope that you enjoyed said liberties. This was a fun chapter to write. Discord links:
Epsi's Hoard: https/discord.gg/2Nw3AjvDK6
LoM: https/discord.gg/a26mhzhsHf
That's it for now, Peace.