Drizzle hung in the early-morning air, highlighting the erratic breeze as it blew in the faces of a group of young Zora rounding the final hill on the way to their archery practice field. A meadow emerged out of the heavily overcast distance, and the smallest among the group sighed in relief. Flat space was hard to come by in the mountainous Domain, and it had been a long walk away from the river in less than optimal conditions for the short-legged youngsters.
It was the beginning of their third week of target practice, and as Mipha scanned the wide open field, she silently agreed with their instructor's view of the weather. Joro had responded to his charges' muttered complaints of low visibility with an assertion that the haze was much more preferable to bright sunshine beaming into their faces when they tried to aim at their targets. The princess began to walk toward her friend Gaddison, hoping to start a conversation with her about some pretty flowers she had noticed on the way up, when a short, admonishing tweet from the instructor's whistle cut through the milling crowd of students.
"Time to begin! First group at the line, please, after you collect your supplies from the lockers!" Joro's voice was as sharp as a whistle blast, but even his authoritative command couldn't suppress some good-natured grumbling from a few of the more rowdy Zora.
Naturally, group number one included the princess, and after giving Gaddison an apologetic wave with the tips of her fingers, Mipha veered off in the direction of the storage area, where a set of metal cupboards nestled under the protective arch of a wizened, wind-blown pine tree. Her small silver bow and quiver full of arrows waited for her in the left-most locker. Each student was assigned a different color of arrow and each bow was fitted to their height. Bazz, towering over the petite princess, reached a heavily muscled arm into the locker they shared and drew out his equipment. All of Mipha's classmates had begun their adolescent growth spurt, and they were going through them with varying rates of completion. Ducking out of Bazz's way, Mipha strode over to the shooting line and set up for what was sure to be an exhausting morning of practice.
Although she'd only had two weeks of practice under her belt, Mipha somehow knew that she'd never be more than merely adequate at archery. It was a comforting thought that no matter her skill level, she could put up a good front and be a positive role model to her classmates. Very few Zora bothered to continue past the introductory level, and, owing to her royal title and skill with a trident, Mipha would be able to name herself among the lucky majority and go on to study more fruitful avenues of combat and defense. In the meantime, she had to try her best and show her classmates the importance of perseverance in the face of adversity. Or in the face of flapping body fins that made archery such a hazardous pursuit for Zora. She shook her head with enough force to resettle her head fins and raised her bow, then twisted her arm a little more, moving the fin that grew out from her forearm higher into the air and further away from the path of the bowstring.
Wooden targets lined up in an imposing row at the far end of the field, where the grass gave way to a thicket formed by coral-colored bushes and limber pine trees. Here at the edge of the Domain, aiming into the plant life was a sensible idea. It prevented arrows from soaring off the mountainside or dropping into the narrow stream that bordered the meadow's other side, but the thick undergrowth, combined with the gloomy atmosphere beneath the trees' drooping branches, made it difficult to see where their errant arrows had landed. This was the problem Mipha faced as she finished shooting and went to retrieve her arrows. Five of them had hit the target, two had fallen short of their mark, and the final three had sailed off into the backing shrubbery.
Farther down range than she expected to be, Mipha searched the foliage for the luminous yellow shaft and bright red fletching of her last arrow and made an unexpected discovery. A wood dove huddled beneath a bush, shivering in shock. It held its wing out from its body at an awkward angle, unable to move it past the arrow lodged firmly in its side. The cheerful yellow hue of the arrow made a gruesome contrast with the pitiful sight of the bird, and Mipha's heart lurched in recognition. She had injured an innocent bystander. Without a moment's hesitation, she picked it up, murmuring low words of comfort. The animal did not resist.
Shock numbed Mipha's limbs, and she stood frozen beside a tree, wondering what her next action should be. Was it kinder to remove the arrow from the bird and try to nurse it back to health, or should she simply put it back under the bush and let nature take its course? Her eyes pricked with tears at the thought of the bird dying slowly in the wilderness. A crackling in the leaves behind her startled her from her preoccupation, and she turned around to see Gaddison pushing her way through the undergrowth.
"Mipha! There you are!' she exclaimed. "Joro is waiting for you to come back to the line so the next group can shoot! Are you having trouble finding your arrows? Do you need help?"
Mipha opened her hands, uncovering the dove, and shook her head in a wordless plea for assistance. Gaddison gasped, then straightened up to her full height. "You should bring that to Joro. He'll know what to do."
In the center of a circle formed by her attentive classmates, Mipha showed the injured bird to her archery instructor. "Please, I want to help it," she said in a tremulous voice that barely covered the distance between them.
Joro hesitated before speaking, weighing the words he was about to say to the crown princess of the Zora. The young lady and her audience were about to have a practical lesson in mortality every Zora learned eventually. "Your soft heart won't serve you well on the battlefield. Put it out of its misery now. And if you can't, give it to me." There was no cruelty in the tone of his voice, and strict pragmatism shone in his eyes as he held out his hand expectantly for the wounded animal.
Mipha pulled the dove away, curling her body protectively around it. "There must be another way! It doesn't deserve to die for my mistake!" Her heart bled for the poor creature. It probably had a family out in the forest— a mate, and a nest filled with eggs or babies waiting for their parent to come back to take care of them. Sympathy, concern, and guilt chased each other around in her mind and flowed through her like sorrowful rain. Gills burning with the effort not to cry in front of her friends and subjects, a trickle of power, no more than a mere buzzing in her limbs, pulled her to action. She could do something, she could help! Her decision made, with newfound confidence stabilizing the storm of emotion wracking her conscience, she raised her hands and the bird in them to the level of her heart. A peculiar cooling sensation came over her as she gathered her focus.
Joro frowned and took a step towards Mipha, then stopped when he noticed what the young princess was doing. The power she felt sprang from her heart and ran down her arms, manifesting as a blue light so bright it shone white where it pooled in her hands to surround the dove. The light grew in intensity, flickering, shimmering, and throwing off sparks as Mipha turned all her concentration to comforting—no, healing!—the bird. The light reflected off the stunned faces of the crowd who stared in rapt fascination at the miraculous scene. Her misguided arrow, now dislodged, dropped to the ground. The soothing light pulsed, then went out as swiftly as turning off a water tap. The bird cooed once, a trill that commanded the class's attentive silence. Mipha opened her hands, revealing the magically healed animal. It ruffled its feathers, testing its replenished health, then beat its wings and launched itself into the air.
She followed the bird's flight, deaf to the appreciative clamor of her fellow students, and once it was out of sight she dropped her gaze to meet the piercingly curious and reverent stare of the archery instructor. A momentary look of bewilderment crossed his face before he caught himself and quickly knelt. "My apologies, Your Highness. I was unaware of your healing powers. My suggestion was out of line." He remained low, eyes trained piously at the ground. Mipha raised her hand, clenching and releasing a fist in half-dazed wonder at the memory of the magic that had just flowed through it. Her emotional burden had been lifted, and she felt scrubbed clean, almost hollow inside. It had taken all of her concentration to perform her healing feat, which she was coming to realize as she struggled to pay attention to what her teacher was saying. She placed her hand on Joro's shoulder and murmured, "You had no way of knowing…" Taking a step back, she drew a deep breath. "That was the first time I ever did such a thing."
Joro rose from the grass, Mipha's arrow clutched in his grip, and spoke over the babble that echoed across the clearing. "I do believe… class is canceled for the remainder of the morning."
Riding a wave of jubilation down the mountain, Mipha chatted with and tried to explain the unexplainable to her curious classmates. Gaddison came up beside the princess and nudged her as they trekked downhill. 'I can't believe it!' she said, amusement coloring her astonishment. "Not only are you a princess, you're a healer. You're making me look pretty plain by comparison. Are you still going to want to be my friend after this?"
Mipha gave the other girl a demure smile. "You jest, but with the way you swing a sword around during sparring practice, I think you'll be seeing me more often than you will a satisfactory grade!"
Feigning shock, Gaddison pulled on the sides of her head fins and bared her sharp teeth in a grimace. "At least we'll still be seeing each other!" She continued, "Do you think it will work on Zora, too?"
"Hmm, yes," Mipha answered, a note of certainty in her voice. "But don't try me now! I doubt I could kiss a bruise better in the state I'm in." She held up her hand for inspection. "I think healing that dove used up every ounce of energy I had! My emotional energy, at least." Her arm flopped gracelessly against her side, and Gaddison gave her a quick look of concern. It wasn't like her to speak so candidly in public.
"You should rest then, when we get back to the palace. Take advantage of the morning off!"
A few hours of rest sounded perfect to Mipha, but she knew it was an unlikely prospect, even after this unprecedented occurrence. Her schedule was always so full. She wanted to talk to her mother, or her father. Someone who could explain what she had done for that animal, someone who knew what that light meant and where it had come from. She felt very tired all of a sudden, and she wished she was already soaking in her private pool in the palace instead of trudging her way there on her two small feet.
King Dorephan's reaction, when Mipha and Joro came to the throne room later that morning to joyfully inform him of the miracle she performed, was tempered by the wisdom of his many years of rule. He knew the legends; he had heard the songs and read the inscriptions of the murals carved into the palace walls. Gifts from the gods were not given freely, and the ability to heal mortal wounds was a skill that needed to be treated with the utmost seriousness.
Seeing the exhaustion behind his daughter's eyes, he dismissed her from her duties until midday, with the added promise of speaking with her after lunch, then called for the court historian. He wanted to hear in more detail about the last time the healing gift had been bestowed upon one of the Zora, and what, if anything, it portended for Mipha's future.
He came away from the hurried meeting more certain than ever of his initial hunch. The historian confirmed his memories; throughout history, during times of great upheaval and danger, Zora princesses and queens had been called upon by the gods to awaken as protective Sages. Promising to do sufficient research on the subject in order to present her findings to the royal family at the end of the day, the learned scholar bowed out of the room with a tentative agreement that Mipha's gift could indeed be related to the Sages of old, or it could be a complete coincidence.
"Remember," she said, before leaving the king to his thoughts, "Not much history has been recorded in times of peace. This could easily be one of those occasions."
The king sat back in his throne and nodded, hoping the historian was right, but he couldn't relax the knot that formed in his stomach when he recalled his daughter's smiling face and thought ahead to what her future would hold.