The Scales That Bind

Chapter 8: Bare

Mipha's hand grabbed ahold of a block of stone, running it down the length of her trident's speared ends, sharpening its edges, her eyes narrowed as she concentrated on what she'd been taught by Dento, the Lightscale Trident's builder, on how to care for the weapon, even leaning forward on occasion to peer down its length, measuring it with her eyes before returning to grinding the stone against its sharper edges. She admired how elegant it always appeared, remembering how she would stop in the middle of training as a child, simply eyeing the weapon's end, usually accompanied by one of the Demon Sergeant's hopeful tirades to get her back on track. Even now, she couldn't help but smirk at her teacher's wavering voice, knowing he needed to shout, yet still unsure of the procedure, seeing as though his student was the King's very daughter.

Segguin would run her through drills during the mid-day sun, ensuring her young body was capable of harnessing the energy required to jump from one riverbed stone to the next, or jabbing her trident at targets of stuffed grass, again and again, until the various vital points of all of Hyrule's classifications of walking creatures were ingrained in her head, some more confusing than others. Gorons were left off the list entirely, though Segguin often remarked, appreciatively, how thankful he was that they never appeared hostile.

Thinking back on her teacher when it came to her skills with weaponry, Mipha couldn't help but recall her own tutelage under Muzu, her father's learned advisor, where she'd go after combat training, when her body was tired, but her mind prepared to learn. Muzu had come to the latter end of his life, and after serving many Zora king's, interacting with many visitors, and traveling a bit himself, he had come to learn a great deal, and saw Mipha, the King's own daughter, to be a worthy recipient of all he'd known, having no children of his own.

Indeed, Muzu had come to love Mipha as his own, and was known to partake in bouts of anger whenever some troublesome little thing of her's would be brought to the King's attention, often claiming it the fault of those who Mipha had so tactfully attempted to escape from punishment. On one occasion, Mipha had gone along with her trip of friends and pilfered some of the lightning arrows to examine the forbidden ammunition, seeing what was so "dangerous" about the things, leading only to two of her friend's losing a fin or two for a few months. When brought to the King, Muzu spattered the walls with phlegm, shouting at the shop owner's negligence in allowing the arrows to be stolen in the first place.

Mipha paused her sharpening, staring into space with a lost look on her face, a shivering cold coming across her as she bent into herself again, shutting her eyes, thinking of the event that her memory of Muzu's teaching would conjure up like clockwork. It always sent shivers up her spine, compelling her to force it out of her mind whenever she returned to them; those memories that nagged at the back of her mind from time to time. A vision of a Hylian, among a band of others, whose face she'd so feverishly scratched out of her mind, a name that-

"Going somewhere?"

Mipha jumped only slightly, taking a reserved breath as she lowered her head in a pensive reflection on her lack of awareness, speaking up quietly, "You really shouldn't sneak up on people."

Standing in her curtain-drawn doorway, Link only shrugged as he replied, "I believe, last time I visited, you chastised me for making so much noise."

Mipha sighed helplessly, turning her head over her shoulder to see her knight, "Let me guess-"

"Sidon." "Sidon." the two replied in sync.

Shaking her head, Mipha began putting away her sharpening tools, sighing with displeasure, "I guess he is still too young to act princely."

"I mean, I do appreciate it regardless," Link retorted, "May I?"

She waved at him in invitation, allowing him to step into her room, still eyeing her trident as he stood alongside the same cabinet that held her trinkets from earlier, "I didn't know he could talk already. If he's doing that this early, he'll no doubt be massive in maturity."