"Take good care of my daughter."

- Chidori 1, Ayashi no Ceres: Episode of Miku

"Somebody get me the Ghostbusters."

- Mayor Lenny, Ghostbusters II

The moon was rising in an ominous purple haze. The Yiga were on the verge of completing their terrible ritual. Link was by himself in the basement aqueducts of the cult's shrine, collapsed against stone masonry with a red pool growing around him, cast down as a broken hero.

Torches crackled across the wall behind him. The sound of gently tricking water ran under his feet. Pounding war drums and tribal dancing echoed from the distant floor above.

The water sloshed in the darkness below. A sleek shadow rose out of the black ripples and climbed on to the dry cement where Link had been defeated. She loomed toward the helpless old knight like a shark closing on her prey.

The shade reached her pale pink hand over Link's heart. Just when it seemed like she was going to clench her fingers and rip the dwindling life out of him, she began restoring him with a healing aura.

Exhausted from his beating and delirious from blood loss, Link could only make out a few of her features. A long red blur dangled from the sides of her head. Her eyes were like two beams of sunlight shining through the ocean surface.

"Mi…pha…" he said in a weak and shallow breath. "I'm ready… to go with you…"

He grit his teeth as sensation returned to his mending ribs. A fraction of his strength returned, clearing his vision. The foggy visage of the deceased Zora Champion turned into the worried face of her daughter.

Pearl was wearing a common Hylian dress with a low collar that kept her gills uncovered. Vah Ruta's mantle was tied around her waist, adding an extra layer to her Hylian skirt and creating the appearance of light blue fins flaring from the sides of her legs. It had been 17 years since her mother gave up her life so her daughter could live on.

Pearl had followed her father's trail into the shrine, determined to help him even if she wasn't sure how. Her natural affinity for swimming had allowed her to slip under the Yiga patrols and breach the shrine completely undetected. After all, they were expecting their enemy to be a land dweller.

She very gently pulled away the polished Zora Shield pinning down his left arm. Her fingers crept under his right arm and carefully retrieved the Master Sword with its scabbard.

"Pearl… you can't…" Link struggled to warn her, barely keeping his eyes open, each breath creating more agony for his lungs. "I promised you wouldn't get hurt…"

The torches above them suddenly flickered. The flames mysteriously changed from bright red to dim green. The air flowing through the aqueducts turned musty and thick, like the inside of an ancient tomb. An eerie chill crawled up both of their backs.

They had never felt more at peace.

Pearl remembered the frightening times when she was a child, when her father was busy fighting off another Yiga attack, when Uncle Daruk wasn't there to let her ride on his shoulders and Auntie Urbosa couldn't tell her a story about a fearless warrior slaying a giant desert monster. When she was truly scared and she was completely alone, her invisible friend Mimi would always come to keep her company. Pearl couldn't remember how young she had been the last time she felt that strange but comforting presence brushing her head and singing her a lullaby as gentle as rippling water, but now the same feeling came rushing back.

At the same time, Link heard the green flames whisper through their crackles. A silent voice told him he had done more than any father possibly could. He had protected Pearl when she was small and helpless. He had helped her grow strong and now she could protect herself.

"Thanks, Mipha…" Link uttered in a weak sigh. His head lowered as he drifted to sleep. The flames returned to normal as the air grew warm again.

Pearl moved her palm away from her father's wounds. Her powers had rescued him from the brink of death, but his body still needed time to recover on its own.

She'd have to come back for him once the Yiga had been dealt with. If another patrol happened to find him now, his breathing was so weak that they'd easily mistake him for dead and leave him to rot. Death was the safest place for him right now.

"Rest easy, papa. I won't let everything you taught me go to waste," Pearl whispered to his peacefully sleeping form.

She stood up armed with her father's sword and shield and tied in her mother's robe. The distant stomping over her head grew louder and more urgent. She followed the stone vaults until they lead to a spillway, making her way upstream toward the Yiga ceremony.

Author's note: And so ends this weird gender flipped version of Wolf Children.