My eyes opened into a dream. It took me too long to realize I was awake.
His hand rubbed gently against my breast. He touched me like I was so small, so delicate. As I awoke further, his hand brushed against my cheek, and I nuzzled him in return. A smile came so easily.
"You're too beautiful to go." He sat next to the bed, shyly watching me with eyes that comforted my soul, a gaze that filled me with warmth. "I could marry you right now, and you'd never have to leave. We could do this every day."
"Marry?" At first, the word didn't come out of my throat correctly. I swallowed the dryness in my mouth, and attempted to sit up. What at first felt like bliss now began to ache. It all rushed back to me, harder than I expected. What we had done last night was extreme. And he had just said the word 'marriage.'
"I can't marry you," I stammered. His eyes widened.
"Why not?" Panic was rising in his voice.
"What would your elders think of me? They wouldn't allow that to happen."
"It doesn't matter what they say, Amon. My father would always side with me. He sided with my sister when she fell in love with a Hylian one hundred years ago."
I couldn't think straight. Everything was whirling around me. "I can't marry you. I can't."
"You don't need to worry about them, they always learn with time."
"Sidon—"
"The rest of the Zora adore you, I know they do, love—"
"I can't marry you!"
He stared at me, shocked to silence. For the first time, I heard my own voice. It echoed off the walls and right back to me.
"I can't marry anybody. I especially can't marry you, not as a failure."
"None of that matters, though," he murmured in disbelief. "I love you, Amon. You can't leave. You don't have to go anymore."
"I can't stay here." My throat tightened, cutting off my air.
"Of course you can. You can stay as—"
"Sidon."
His eyes looked at me like those of a child. Suddenly, I wanted to cry. Even more, I wanted to flee.
"I'm not marrying you."
Slow, painful dejection spread across his face.
"I'm going to your father, and I'm telling him the truth."
"No," he murmured, pleaded.
"I have to."
"Please don't go."
"I can't stay here and just bask in my own failure! I can't gloat in your people's tragedy and take what shouldn't have been my business in the first place as a prize!"
"I'm not a prize!"
I had never heard him yell. I'd never seen him so angry. His face was red, his eyes welling over, his cheeks wet with tears. My own vision became blurry in a blink.
"And you know what they'll think?" I shouted, gesturing up. "They'll think I saw you that way! They'll condemn everything I do."
"They don't matter." His voice broke. "They don't matter!"
"They're part of your kingdom! They're your advisors! Of course they matter."
He fell to his knees. "Amon." He wailed my name. "Don't go. Please don't go."
The great Prince of the Zora was reduced to a mess at my feet. He was sobbing. He was a child. It seemed to shock even him.
I stared at him, my head soberingly clear.
"I have to."