Mipha would not have been surprised if Link was shocked by her question, but even as she walked over to him, her request for him to help her being the first sentence out of her mouth, the giddy energy that filled her at the prospect of soon getting an answer making her unable to start with something casual, instead blurting out the question the moment she was sure that no one else would be able to hear her, he appeared to be remarkably calm about it all.

Maybe that was why she did not hesitate to lean in an ask the question she had spent the last hours trying to find an answer to.

"Link, if I—hypothetically speaking of course—were to have fallen in love with this person and wanted to tell them how I felt, what would you advise me to do?"

"Uh," Link blinked at her, a confused expression crossing his features, "I don't think I understand the question. Have you told this person how you are feeling or do they not know anything yet?"

"The latter. They know nothing."

"Okay." Link nodded. "Well, I can only speak for myself, but I think I would just sit them down someday and… tell them how I feel." the look that she sent him must have been enough to let him know that that was not exactly helpful for her, for continued, clarifying his piece of advice with a little smile. "I mean, I would absolutely make sure that I would have some kind of backup plan ready in advance so that if things went wrong, then I would be able to leave the person and have a couple of days where I would not have to see them so that I would have a chance of letting my pride heal."

But that was the thing. Mipha knew that she could not merely sit down next to Zelda and explain to her how much she meant to her. It was simply not possible that she would be able to properly put it into words. No, she wanted to show her. Zelda had taken her to the beach, allowed Mipha to see her special place and let her in on her secret, and although that had not been done with the same intentions as Mipha would have in mind when planning her own gesture, it still meant that she would have quite a lot to live up to that. Perhaps she could figure out where her father lived and convince him that he was missing out on the most amazing person in the world by not wanting to talk to her all because Zelda had dreams of her own.

She let herself entertain the idea for a second before realising the futility of it. Zelda had already told her about how she had tried her best to make him see reason, to make him realise that she had the right to choose her future for herself, and even that had not worked. He had been able to look at his daughter and tell her that she was wrong for not wanting to study theology and then ignore her when she refused to do as he ordered her to. How would Mipha ever be able to convince him after that? Besides, she was not even sure if Zelda would want to let him back into her life if Mipha did manage to convince him to let her make decisions for herself. No, it had to be something else.

But as much as Mipha used to take pride in the fact that she was good at guessing what the customers would order, the question of just what Zelda would love was a puzzle she could not solve, despite how she in no time had reached the point where she was wondering if perhaps Zelda had always wanted to see Termina. If she did, Mipha had a cousin there so it would not be that complicated to organise a trip.

"You are planning some grand gesture, aren't you?" Link asked, distracting Mipha from her thoughts. As she looked up at him, meeting his gaze, Link pointed at her. "I know that look in your eyes!" he exclaimed. "You are definitely planning something already."

"Maybe. Or, well, I would plan something, but I just can't seem to come up with any good ideas. Do you have any inspiration for me?" although she did her best to make her voice sound light and airy, like this was definitely not something that felt like a matter of life or death, Mipha could tell that Link knew how much it meant to her from the way he immediately tapped his chin, deep in thought, rather than first making some teasing remark about how she was never allowed to joke about how bad he and Revali had been at telling the other about their feelings.

"Mipha…" he spoke slowly, an unsure tone having suddenly made its way into his voice in a way Mipha was not used to hear from him, "can I ask… that person, it is Zelda, isn't it?"

Remembering the way Zelda's hair had looked when she had woken up to find her nestled against her chest, how she could smile in a way that felt like it should make the entire world just a little bit brighter, how she always seemed to be able to make her laugh, Mipha nodded. "Yes, it is her."

"Oh. I mean, I think you know that Revali and I had already kind of expected you to realise this yourself, but I have to say that I had thought it would take you another couple of weeks before you were ready to admit it to yourself, so, congratulations, I guess." Link barely managed to step to the side in time to avoid Mipha's punch directed at his shoulder. Grinning at her, he finally added something helpful. "From what I know, flowers always work," he stated, "as do chocolate. But that is probably a little too cliché for you tastes isn't it?" when she nodded, Link looked down towards the floor. "Yeah, I knew that you would say that. Which is a shame, because I don't really have any other suggestions. Oh!" he interrupted himself, and Mipha's heart skipped a beat at the prospect of soon getting an answer to her question about what to do. "Wait, didn't you say that the two of you went to the beach? You know, that day where Revali was two seconds away from calling the police because you had not remembered to place your note in a place where you could place something heavy on top of it. Because if you did, then that means that she likes the beach, so you could probably take her there to make her happy. And then you could tell her."

She was never going to live that down. From the way Link's eyes shone with glee at the prospect of her once again defending herself from the accusations of being unable to think things through when she was still halfway asleep, Mipha could say that, without a doubt, she would have to wait for several months before he would have forgotten. But she was not about to give him the joy of arguing, so she cut to the chase. "Yes, we did go to the beach, which means that I have to plan something else. I want to surprise her, to show her that I care about her and think about her enough to come up with some amazing idea." she had wanted to mention the fact that she had already spent so much time sitting at home, writing down the different ideas she could come up with onto a piece of paper. But each time she would end up staring at the last line for several minutes, trying to make up her mind about whether or not it was a horrible idea or if it might actually end up working, before inevitably bringing her pencil to the paper to cross out the words, pressing the tip of her pencil against the paper with so much strength that she had ended up tearing it apart in a couple of places. There simply was no need for Link to know how desperate she really was for him to come up with something she could do.

"Okay, so if the beach is not an option, then I guess that you could always… uh, I don't know, invite her to go eat dinner at a fancy restaurant or something—oh, no wait then neither of you would be able to leave. Yeah, forget about that, that wasn't a good idea." a lost look defined his expression as he looked at her, shrugging his shoulders. "I am sorry, but I don't think I am able to help you with that. Perhaps you could ask Revali."

And that just proved that she should never admit to herself that she was desperate. Although she could of course still ask Revali, with how often Mipha had had to listen to him tell her about how he wished he was brave enough to just talk with Link, to go over to him and tell him that he liked the conversations and discussions about the customers and how to best prepare their orders that had soon morphed into something more, Mipha was not exactly as confident as Link in his ability to help her.

But still, she could admit that Link really was doing his best, so she faked a smile that might have been enough to fool someone who did not know her as well as he did. "I will try that." she turned around to hang her apron up on the coat rack, but before she was able to take as much as a single step towards it, Link had reached out to grab her hand.

"Wait!" he waited for her to look back at him with a raised eyebrow before he continued. "I know that my suggestions were not the best, but I do still hope that you will be able to come up with something better. I really do want to see you happy, Mipha."

"I am happy. I just know that I will have to be honest and tell her how I fell."

But although Mipha was almost able to fool herself into thinking that her voice did not come dangerously close to breaking, Link still just looked at her with a sad expression on his face. And as he let go of her and she hurried over to hang up her apron, wanting to be sure that she would have left the room by the time she was no longer able to fight back the urge to cry, she could not help but wonder if there had been some degree of truth to the implication of how she had not been happy lately. She was happier than she had been in a long time when she was with Zelda. But even then, Mipha could not deny that, ever since Revali had invited her to come with him to that bar, her feelings had been a mess. And as she tried to recall how it had been between them before that point, Mipha was not sure if that was even the moment where it had changed between them. In hindsight, she could admit to herself that the little jab in her stomach of wanting to be able to ask Zelda to kiss her had perhaps been there for a longer time.

Well, that was only one more reason for wanting to do her best to make sure that, once she really did tell Zelda, everything would be perfect.

And although planning was not exactly one of her strong points, Mipha knew that she had to come up with something perfect.

"You want to do what?" Revali asked her, his voice rising even though they both knew that he had heard every word of what she had said.

Mipha bit back a sigh and prepared herself for the hug that would no doubt hit her once she had repeated herself. "I said that I had thought about inviting Zelda to celebrate the Festival of Hylia with us."

She was right, but even then, the sheer intensity of the hug still managed to catch her by surprise as Revali threw his arms around her and pulled her in for an embrace that felt like it should have dislocated a few ribs.

"I can't believe it!" Revali said, his voice slightly muffled by him speaking into her hair. "I will still have to deal with you teasing me about how I was the one of us who took the longest to admit our feelings to the people we are in love with! Couldn't you just have waited a few months more so that I would forever be able to counter any argument you might make about how long it took for me to finally tell Link with the fact that it took you even more time?"

Mipha laughed, hitting his shoulder. "Excuse me, I think you mean 'couldn't you wait about half a year more while continuing to look longingly at the person you are in love with every time you are at the café at the same time, completely failing to notice the fact that they might be doing the exact same thing, while continually talking to your best friend about how you are sure that the chance of them actually returning your feelings are as close to non-existent as they can get'."

Retaliating by shoving her away from him, Revali lifted an eyebrow. "So you admit that there might be a chance of Zelda telling you that she feels the same way about you as you do about her?"

The question made Mipha paused, all of the teasing remarks dying in her throat. There was a chance was there not? After all, was that not the very reason she had even been able to gather the courage to begin to plan all of this, the fact that—as small as it probably was—Zelda might surprise her?

"I suppose there might be." Mipha admitted, trying to downplay the way the butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she imagined the possibility. "I mean, she will most likely tell me that she would prefer for us to stay friends, but, yes, I suppose that there is a small chance of her returning my feelings."

"Goddesses, did I hear correctly?" Revali asked, poking her in the side. "Did you actually finally admit that I might have been right along? No, I must not have heard correctly. Could I ask you to repeat yourself once again, just to be sure? I just want to know that I will be able to remind you of this again later without you denying the fact that I was right."

"Don't make me regret inviting her. If you are going to make fun of me like this when Zelda gets here, I think I would rather refrain from even asking her to join us."

Revali's teasing smile faltered a bit as he nodded at her. "Okay, I promise you that I won't mention any of this to Zelda. But I will still take every opportunity between now and the moment she steps through the door on the day to make fun of you."

"Hmm," Mipha huffed, "you are starting to make me think that I should have accepted my dad's invitation to pay for my train ticket home. At least I know that he and Sidon would not constantly rub in the fact that they might have been right all along."

"You know that Sidon would have spent every waking moment urging you to call Zelda to tell her how you feel, right?" Revali countered, the teasing smirk having appeared once more. Apparently she had failed to hide the fact that, no matter what he said, Mipha was not going to change her plans regarding the people she would celebrate the festival with. "Or at least that was what Link told me he acted like when he was trying to convince him to talk with me."

"Oh, I know that. And do you know why?" Mipha continued, not pausing for a moment. "Because he would call me to let me know that I could tell you that you could absolutely tell Link how you felt without any risk of him telling you that your feelings were unrequited, but did that help? No, you still continued to pine for him."

"Okay, okay," Revali said, holding up his hands, "I get it. I wasn't any better than you are now. I won't try to tease you about this anymore—or, well, any more than what is strictly necessary to remind you that you aren't any better at me when it comes to love." he blinked at her. "I can't have you thinking that I am totally hopeless when compared to you, now, can I?"

"You don't even have to compare yourself to me, you are hopeless anyway."

"You wound me. But you are still bringing Zelda along, right?"

"I haven't asked her yet," Mipha said, her words accompanied by a shrug, an attempt to not let it show how she had spent a good part of the last couple of days sitting with her phone, staring at the name in her contacts while trying to figure out how she could invite Zelda. It just seemed like it would be too casual to pretend that she had not wondered about it and simply mention that she and Revali were planning a little celebration and that she could come along if she wanted. But on the other hand, Mipha doubted that it would be smart to make any grand gestures while asking her if she wanted to come along. Besides, what if Zelda already had planned something? Or, even worse, what if she had actually meant to celebrate the festival with her father, only for the plans to have fallen apart now that they were no longer on speaking terms with each other, making it so that Mipha mentioning having plans would remind her of that? There were simply so many things she had to consider before she would be able to do anything.

"Well, you should probably hurry up and do it. If not, then there is always the risk that she has already made other plans."

She could hear the frustration at the reminder seeping into her voice. "I know. It just isn't that easy."

Revali sent her a long glance. "But maybe it could be." before Mipha got the chance to ask him what he meant by that, he had darted forward, grabbing her phone from her pocket. Too late, Mipha realised what he was about to do, and by then, he had already unlocked the phone, and, Hylia, why had she told him her password? Surely, not even the fact that he would be able to contact her family in an emergency could be worth how he now had direct access to Zelda's mobile number.

Mipha could hear how the phone beeped. That was her chance. She sprinted towards him, reaching for her phone, but Revali simply held it over his head, pushing her away with his shoulder. In his hand, the phone beeped again, and then Zelda's voice filled the room, immediately silencing both Revali and Mipha.

"Yes? Hello, this is Zelda."

With a smirk, Revali handed the phone back to Mipha, who was now unable to do anything but send him an icy glance as she pressed the phone to her ear, adopting a relaxed tone as she answered. "Hello, Zelda, this is Mipha."

"Oh, Mipha, it's good to hear from you." and it sounded like Zelda meant it a she continued. "Would you believe it, I was actually just about to go to grab my phone so that I could talk with you when you called. What a coincidence, don't you think?"

Perhaps it was. Mipha could not exactly deny it, but even then, she knew that she had to cut in soon if she wanted to be able to say her reasons for calling—or, well, technically, she supposed it was Revali's reasons for calling—so she hummed faintly before cutting through, keeping her voice down and turning away from Revali in the process. At the very least, she could try to make it so that he would not also be rewarded for betraying her like that by also gaining the knowledge of what Zelda had said.

"Yes, that is quite the coincidence," she agreed, "but I actually wanted to ask you about something."

"Okay, what did you want to ask me about?"

"Well," Mipha said, pausing as she tried her best to focus, ignoring the flutter in her chest. She had to make sure that this would be perfect, "I was thinking, since it will be time to celebrate the Festival of Hylia in just a few days… Revali, Link, and I have already agreed to have a little get-together in my flat." at that, she could see how Revali stared at her, no doubt having to fight the urge to correct her and note that was also his flat, and Mipha sent a sarcastic smile in his direction before once more focusing on the conversation. "I was just thinking, uh, you haven't already planned to do something that day have you?" she might as well make sure that she was not risking embarrassing herself for nothing.

The answer came promptly, almost like Zelda wasn't able to keep it back any longer, and although she knew that she was most likely getting her hopes up for something that would never be able to lead to anything but her becoming disappointed in the end, Mipha could not help but hope that maybe Zelda was as happy about the chance of spending the day of the festival with her as Mipha was. "No, no, I am not doing anything that day. Why?" Zelda said, and was it just something Mipha was imagining, or did she sound slightly breathless?

No matter what the answer to that question would have been, Mipha swallowed, using the second it gave her to make sure that she would have her voice under control and that she would not have to worry about making a high-pitched sound or her voice breaking. "Uh, I am happy to hear that—not because I wouldn't want you to get the chance to do something fun during that day, but because I was actually thinking if perhaps you would be interested in… spending the day with us. We aren't going to do a lot, just sit here at home, make a nice meal and maybe sit down to play a couple of board games or something like that, so it would not be like we would go out into the town all day and—" she was rambling, Mipha could hear it, but even then she could not make herself stop. It felt so incredibly important to let Zelda know how their evening would most likely end up being quite boring, both so that Zelda would not worry about them deciding to out and make new memories by doing all kinds of hazardous things, but also so that she would not later wonder why she had decided to waste her time by going to join them only to end up sitting around their coffee table with a dice in her hand. The risk of that happening was low, Mipha could admit that much, but it still felt like it was worth mentioning.

"I would love to!" the amount of excitement present in Zelda's answer was not quite what Mipha had expected, and it managed to render her speechless for a second. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw how Revali mouthed a silent question at her, no doubt asking her what Zelda had answered, but she really could not begin to pay attention to him and attempt to figure out what he was saying, not when it would also mean risking missing a single word of what Zelda was saying. And as Zelda continued, it meant that Mipha suddenly became quite busy with readjusting the phone, straining her ears to catch exactly what Zelda was saying.

"Do I need to bring anything? I have been told that I am pretty good at preparing snacks, so maybe I could do that, since I doubt you would want me to subject you to another result of my experiments in the kitchen, but if you need me to make anything, don't hesitate to say so," the words came rushing at her, Zelda barely pausing to breathe, "because I promise that I would be more than happy to help you prepare for the day—wait, do you need help with decorations? I don't think I saw anything the last time you invited me over."

"Don't worry," Mipha said, deciding that if she didn't want for Zelda to accidentally pass out as a result of not taking a moment to breathe, she would probably have to interrupt her, as rude as it felt, "I have already organised it all. We are going to help each other with preparing the dinner so we have already agreed to meet here in our flat at five. Does that work for you?"

"It does."

"Good. So we are going to do that here, and you don't have to help with the food if you know already that you would most likely end up creating something like those pancakes," the sound of muffled laughter told Mipha that Zelda had not taken it as an insult and her stomach felt a little bit lighter as she continued, "as for the decorations, Revali and I were actually just talking about how we were going to head out to figure out if we need to buy something since Revali has volunteered to be responsible for that."

"What? No, I haven't agreed to be in charge of the decorations—" Revali began, but Mipha silenced him with a single glance, and he bit back any more objections he might have had, seemingly realising that this was her way of getting revenge on him for having forced her to tell Zelda about the invitation.

"Oh, okay, so I just have to be there at five and then we will figure the rest out from there?"

"Pretty much. We do need to decide what we want to make since I will need to have all the ingredients for the recipe, but, other than that, yes, we will just figure things out as we go along. It isn't like there are a lot of things for us to decide, seeing as it will just be you, Revali, Link, and I, so we don't have to make too many plans in advance. That isn't a problem, is it?"

"No, not at all," Zelda replied, and Mipha was happy to hear that there was no trace of Zelda faking the cheerful tone present in her voice, "in fact, I think I prefer that to anything that is too planned. I have kind of gotten sick of attending events where it feels like someone has already planned how every single second of the evening is going to be, you know?"

Mipha wasn't sure if she really knew that feeling. Maybe it was just because she could not remember ever having been to such a celebration, but she could not imagine actually having to be present at an event like what Zelda was talking about. But with the way Zelda had told her about her father, Mipha could easily imagine how it must have felt, so she hummed in agreement. "Yeah, that doesn't sound like any of us would have been a fan of it either, so that is definitely not the way this is going to be."

"Well, in that case, I will be looking forward to the day."

It should not feel as good as it did to hear Zelda say that. After all, it was not like Zelda had said that she was looking forward to seeing Mipha or that she could not wait for another opportunity to spend more time together with her than the couple of minutes they could make time for at the café the way Mipha could barely wait to see her, but she had still admitted that she was going to at the very least think about the celebration in between the moment she would end the call and the moment she would step through the door, the same way Mipha was sure that she would not be able to sleep properly once the date of the festival neared and that had to count for something, didn't it?

Mipha did not get a chance to consider the answer to the question for any longer as Zelda soon cut through her thoughts. "I am sorry, but I was actually meaning to sit down and work for a bit, you know, before my phone managed to distract me, so I should probably get back to doing that now."

"Oh," Mipha said, and she hated the way she knew she was not able to hide the disappointment in her voice, "Yeah, you probably should. I certainly don't want to be the one who distracts you from your work if it means you won't get to finish it." she tried her best to add a chuckle, but it sounded weirdly shrill even to her, and from the way Revali cringed, sending her a pitying look, Mipha knew that she was not the only who had noticed it.

"No, it isn't your fault," Zelda said, and at least it did not sound like she had been able to guess the reasons for what had caused the sudden shift in Mipha's voice, "It just goes to show that I should really have known better than to think I could just look at my phone for a moment to make sure that I had not missed any important messages."

"Yeah, you should probably try turning it off," Mipha joked.

"I probably should… well, I am grateful that you wanted to invite me, I promise you that you aren't going to regret it."

How would that ever have been an issue? Mipha could not imagine how Zelda would ever have managed to make her regret inviting her, not with how much time she had spent trying to both figure out what tactic she could use to tell Zelda that she was definitely in love with her and how she could invite her to spend the festival with her. Her, Revali and Link, of course. It wasn't like it would only be the two of them, after all. No, if that had been the case, Mipha was quite sure she would never have dared to ask her. That would have felt a little too much like a romantic situation to put them in, even though Zelda would most likely also have ended up declining if it had just been her and Mipha.

The sound of the phone beeping right next to her ear was what made her aware of the fact that Zelda had ended the call, and slowly, almost like she could will the phone to start ringing once more and for Zelda to tell her that she had actually just then realised that she was in love with her if she kept it pressed against her ear for long enough, Mipha lowered the phone, letting her arm hang by her side, a relaxed grip around her phone. It felt unreal, but she had actually invited her. It simply should not have been possible for her to do that, she had to be dreaming, and in just a moment, she would wake up to find out that, no, she was indeed still trying to figure out what words she could use to let Zelda know that they, no, that Mipha would love spending time with her during the Festival of Hylia without also giving away the fact that Mipha would simply love spending time with her no matter the date.

"What did she say?" Revali asked, and as Mipha looked up at him, she couldn't help but notice how he looked like he was barely able to contain his excitement, rolling back and forth over the soles of his feet.

And even though he had put her on the spot like that by calling Zelda for her, Mipha was not able to stay angry, not when he was also such a big part of the reason for why she could now go out and buy food for four people instead of three, so, rather than waiting, taking her time to tell him what she had said, she joined him in his excitable movement, the joy seeping into her voice as she answered. "She said yes."

"She did?" Revali made a little jump, and although his tone of voice had just enough surprise hidden in it for Mipha to wonder if she should feel insulted, she did not even try to fight back the smile.

"Yeah. She did."