Disclaimer: I don't own anything even remotely related to The Legend of Zelda. I've actually only played through Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, so I'm not even a true devotee. Don't sue.

First Impressions

by: thelittletree

(Thank you, Highwaywoman, for reviewing, even if this isn't about Vincent! Wow, I've really wandered away from the mould. And thank you, Larie-chan, for your review! I'm glad something I wrote could spark your interest. Hope the rest of this fic doesn't disappoint!)


Impa had never talked about it. Not once. Not that the princess had ever really thought to ask; her guardian had always let her understand the complete truth about everything that concerned her. Those things her guardian hadn't told her, Zelda had unquestioningly believed were non-issues.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Zelda asked, not exactly sure if she should be upset by the omission. Adults, she'd been learning of late from her father …oh father, where are you now?… had the tendency to think of childhood as a time of innocence to be preserved as long as possible. Zelda wasn't sure she agreed with that; and until this moment she'd been positive that Impa thought such precautions were redundant, even dangerous.

"Because, Princess, our village is hidden with magic." Impa swept a few strands of hair away from Zelda's temple with a deft finger and methodically continued with her brushing. "At all times, a guardian must value the responsibility of protecting his or her people as highly as they value the life of their charge."

"Their charge. You mean me?"

"Yes, Princess."

Zelda smiled to herself. "So you must value my life very highly to have kept the secret like you have."

"As you well know."

Zelda's smile widened and she automatically lifted her chin so Impa could work her hair into her coif.

The Sheikah, her guardian had told her one day, were not a people inclined to much emotion. They had a duty, dating back generations, to protect the royal family; they considered it their highest calling, and endeavoured to reflect such in their very way of life.

At the time, Zelda hadn't understood what Impa had been trying to tell her. She'd been young, she remembered, stifled by what had seemed like endless limitations, desperately missing the presence of a mother who had slipped away after her death a little bit at a time. Born into a position where even servants were silent and deferential, she had wanted, needed to know if her guardian loved her. Impa had never been affectionate; she had never been particularly sensitive. As a guardian, she had merely had a duty to be constantly in attendance, diligently protective, and, when necessary, understanding and diffusive about the mounting problems of a young princess.

After that day, however, things had changed a little. When her father had stressed the importance of eloquence, or of learning the correct use of eating utensils, or proper posture, Impa had sometimes disobeyed. Without a word of explanation, instead of taking the princess to her lessons, she had snuck her into the garden to play. Her duty, she'd evidently discovered, had evolved to include keeping her charge's trust, and her best interests in mind.

Zelda had never needed to ask a question about love again.

"Do I have to come with you, though?" Zelda wondered finally, and almost cringed when Impa stopped affixing her headdress to raise a surprised eyebrow.

"You don't have to, Princess. I cannot make you. But are you willing to let a fear of the unknown control you? Especially after I, a person you trust, have told you what to expect?"

She lowered her head miserably and sighed. "I guess not."

"Some things are going to change, Zelda." It wasn't often Impa used her given name; when she did, it always seemed to imply great importance on the words. "In the castle, your father did the ruling for you. But you remember how you felt the first time you saw Ganondorf. You knew action was required; you knew what your dream was telling you about the fairy boy, and what you had to do."

"His name is Link," Zelda interjected without much thought.

"Yes, Link." For a moment, the princess thought she detected a spark of warm humour in her guardian's tone, but it was gone as quickly as it had come and Zelda wasn't sure she hadn't imagined it. "You did those things, you set them in motion for change. And now you must continue to be responsible for the path you chose. I know you are still young, and it is natural to be afraid and to have doubts. But you must be true to the path, to your destiny, if you are going to save your kingdom."

"I know." Zelda sat up against the back of the chair and checked the position of her headdress with her hands. "And I put such a large task in front of Link. To help him I need to be ready to do my part, too, when the time comes." She stood and idly glanced a quick farewell around the small, spare cabin that had housed them before turning to her guardian and raising her hand to be taken.

She had woken up after the long ride on Fidel to find herself tucked into a soft bed in a corner of a tiny rustic room. Ductile rushes had met her bare feet when she'd stepped down to the floor and a breath of fresh air had made her aware of the uncovered eastern window, already bursting with sunlight. It was a kind of a safe house, she'd found out from Impa, who had already prepared a meal and drawn a bath, built entirely out of white cedar wood and resting just inside the Sheikah border. Quaint and completely out of Ganondorf's reach; they had made it between what Zelda had realized was one Task and a series of others.

Impa took her hand and led her out of the house.

Fidel was grazing nearby, but raised his head as they approached, restless again for activity. Zelda had never been able to ride him at a gallop before and he was evidently pleased for the time being with the idea of repeating the unusual exercise.

Without the haste required in their escape, Impa let Zelda hoist herself into the saddle before she mounted behind her. And then, with a gentle whisk of the reins, they were off at a trot along a path that the princess thought surely should've been overgrown by now with under-use.

"You understand, Princess, that I also have a duty in this."

There were woods close to their left, and the sound of water running. Zelda raised herself, hoping to catch of glimpse of something between the trees. Who knew that uncultivated wildlife could be so beautiful, so thrilling?

"I…may not always be with you."

Zelda sat down heavily in surprise and turned in the saddle to look at her guardian. But Impa's attention was focused wholly on the path. "What do you mean? Isn't your duty to protect me?"

"And to help you, Princess. Your change in responsibility has predictably altered mine. In order to help you, I may have to leave you for a time."

"But…" Zelda was uncomfortably aware for a split second how much she wished she could take it all back, make everything the way it was again, pretend she hadn't had a dream about that boy and his fairy. "…to do what?"

"I don't know yet."

"Then how do you know you'll have to leave?"

"Princess, look at your right hand."

Zelda scoffed a little, faintly suspicious that Impa was trying to change the subject, but did as she was told. "I don't see anything."

"Look closer."

She did. And caught her breath. Invisible to anyone not looking for it, now shining fit to dim the sun, was a golden triangle within a triangle just above her wrist. Pulsing slightly with the flow of her blood, warm on her skin like a real presence, terrifying in meaning…

"It is the Triforce of Wisdom, hidden in your body. It tells us that Link has entered the Sacred Realm, and has, by no fault of his own, allowed Ganondorf to follow him. Ganondorf has tried to take the Triforce for himself, and it has split itself into three pieces to protect the world against his evil. He has probably taken the Triforce of Power into his own body. Link has likely been given the Triforce of Courage."

Zelda remained silent for a moment longer, digesting this, wondering how much harder the task she'd laid on Link, and herself, had now become. "Does that mean all is lost?" she asked, and heard her voice tremble in expectation of the answer.

"Would I have even bothered to get you ready for the council if it was?"

She settled a little and lowered her hand. The triangle faded out of sight and she wished she could be comforted by the knowledge that it was still there, hidden, an ancient power inside of her that she didn't understand. "How do you know all of this?"

"We Sheikah have ways."

Which, Zelda knew from experience, was all of the answer she was going to get on that subject. "So you're going to have to leave me?"

"Yes, Princess, I believe so. Your fairy boy is now going to need all of the help he can get. Ganondorf is going to want to put the pieces of the Triforce back together."

Zelda lay close against Fidel's mane and inhaled the lingering scent of the stables, his steady gait rocking her to and fro reassuringly.

"But I will return, if I can, before you are needed. I may not be gone more than a few months. And I will, of course, not leave you unprovided for."

Zelda made no reply. She was suddenly feeling cold and alone and afraid, overwhelmed by the responsibility of things she had no idea how to fulfill, and undeserving of the trust every man, woman, and child in Hyrule, in the world, had been forced to place on her, and her choice of heroes.


The council was made up primarily of older members of the Sheikah who seemed largely swayed by the voice of one particularly tall and voluble man. Impa stood before the table in the large stone building and did most of the talking. After presenting her sworn charge, the princess Zelda, possibly the Queen of Hyrule considering that her father may have been killed in Ganondorf's attack (here, Zelda made a brief obeisance), she went on to detail the exact specifications of her duty to the royal family, frequently citing the words 'protection' and 'safety'.

When she'd finished, the apparent spokesman, a man of perhaps fifty years with thin, sharp features and closely cropped white hair, raised his large voice to speak. Zelda made great effort not to hide from any part of the proceedings, though she knew she was visibly trembling. No one, she was sure, had ever spoken so severely within her hearing. No one who was not Ganondorf, at least.

"The royal family has been overthrown by Ganondorf, is this not so? Impa, daughter of Oprain, it appears you have failed in your duty to protect the king from his enemies. What say you to that? Do we still have a duty to protect the princess, or Queen, if you prefer, when neither she nor her father is sitting on the throne?"

"We do, Orator. As long as a member of the royal family lives, our duty is to protect them."

"Is that so?" There was no flicker of emotion from the council, but Zelda received an impression of precise amusement from them nonetheless. "What if I propose that this Gerudo man, who has taken the kingdom by force, is now in place of the royal family and now requires our 'protection'?"

Zelda couldn't help a small gasp at the idea and glanced quickly at Impa, wondering if they could be serious. The Sheikah, it was held through history, had always protected the royal family, the same bloodline for ages. There hadn't been a war in centuries; in point of fact, that last war had been the start of the treaty between the Sheikah and the Hylians. Could the duty of the Sheikah be so quickly transferred, attached only to the particular blood seated on the throne?

But Impa didn't seemed disturbed; Zelda wasn't sure whether or not to be comforted. Impa had a stone face at the best of times.

"Then I propose a scenario. You have had the title of Orator passed down to you, through your bloodline. Your son expects to inherit the position, with all of the respect and benefits it entails, when you die. You are older than myself; you have not had the same training; I propose that I could defeat you fairly in a challenge. Do you agree that this would make me Orator, and from that moment the position would be passed down through my bloodline?"

The Orator did not answer right away, his eyes steely and steady, seeming to bore into Impa. The contest of wills, for that's what it appeared to be, seemed to Zelda to last forever, until she almost wanted to yell out every terrible thing she knew of Ganondorf so they would know who they were thinking of protecting. And then the Orator spoke. "What would you have the council do for the princess of Hyrule?"

Zelda felt like sighing in relief, but kept the sentiment to herself.

"I propose the council let her stay within the community as long as is needful, providing food and shelter and clothing for her until the time is right for her to leave. I also propose that she be given a maidservant for the times when I am not in attendance…"

"No."

Zelda almost couldn't believe for a moment that she'd heard her own voice. But then she felt the eyes of everyone come to rest on her and knew she had to continue if she wanted this decision to reflect her own desires. She took a breath and, courage failing at the last moment as she glanced into the piercing grey eyes of the Orator, she turned to Impa.

"I don't need a maidservant. I can wash and dress myself."

"If you wish," Impa answered simply and she turned back to the council. "I also propose she be taught with the other children and treated with the same care and attention they receive."

"She is not Sheikah," the Orator observed flatly.

"I have had a hand in raising her. She is a swift learner and will know what to expect."

There was a long silence in the stone chamber as the council seemed to consider all of the requests together. And then the Orator raised his hand. "All in agreement?"

It was quickly decided. Every hand was raised.

"It will be done. You make take her where you wish for now, but we require that she be present for instruction with the other children tomorrow."

"It will be done."

Impa made a short bow and ushered Zelda back into the sunlight. To the princess, it felt like coming back to life out of a dank, echoing tomb.

"We are a people of custom," Impa said to the unspoken question. "You will be safe here, no one will harm you, but you may find it strange for awhile. I suggest you simply do as you are told for the time being; my people are not familiar with the habits of the rest of the world."

"Habits?"

"Such as free play, except for the very young, and time spent in idleness. If you are uncomfortable with our customs, you don't have to obey them; as they said, you are not Sheikah. But you may find it…lonely, that way."

Zelda silently wished that Impa hadn't felt it necessary to help Link, even though it was for the good of Hyrule, so that they could've stayed in the cabin by the woods and the running water. "You're not leaving right away, though, are you?"

"No, Princess. But soon." She held out her hand for Zelda to take. "Come, I have accommodations here. We can eat and rest before I show you any more of the village."

The princess raised her fingers into her guardian's larger ones, trying not to let her hesitation show, and let herself be led away from the stone structure at her back that she hoped never to have to enter again.