Impa had never struggled with the outdoors. Traversing the empty wilderness of Hyrule was a light task to her; muscular in stature, with callused skin and steely eyes that had seen many wars, Impa slipped from one end of Hyrule to the other as quietly and effortlessly as if she were a wisp of wind.

The same could not be said for Hyrule's princess.

"I'm tired," the girl lamented over and over. When Impa led her through a sea of grass tumbling beneath a white sky, she complained of the itch and the bugs. When the grass led into marshes, the princess lamented that the mud was swallowing her feet and splattering across her skirts. A rainstorm made her clothes stick icily to her clammy skin, and when thunder and lightning drove them into the shelter of a cave, Princess Zelda feared that bats might nest in her hair.

Through all of this, Impa was her regular stoic self. She allowed the princess to wail in unending discontent, but she had yet to say a word in response.

Sometimes, the girl cried.

"I want to go home," she sobbed one evening, her back pressed against a tree trunk. They were on the banks of Zora's River, its waters extending either way as far as the eye could see. Red sunlight sprayed across the river's surface until night fell, and over the sound of crickets and cackling of the campfire, Impa could just make out Zelda's occasional sniff.

"Calm yourself, Zelda. You're behaving like a child." she commanded after awhile. She was roasting a rabbit over the open flames, and its aroma filled the air as it became crisp.

The princess didn't respond. She was laying out her bedroll methodically, her limbs heavy and tired. Instead of looking at Impa like she probably should have, she curled up on the mat and brought her knees up to her chest.

Her shoulders were shaking. She was crying.

"Zelda-"

"Stop it, Impa," the princess whimpered. "You're being awfully cruel."

Impa's expression hardened. "The world is cruel, Zelda. Exposure will help you grow accustomed to that cruelty."

The princess rocketed into a sitting position. Her eyes were pink. "I wasn't meant for this, Impa! You say you want to turn me into a Sheikah-"

"I say that because of your request!" Impa snapped, and Zelda bit her lip. Whatever comeback she'd had planned, the princess suppressed furiously. "Your kingdom has fallen into the hands of a tyrant, Zelda. You told me prior to his ascension that you would have me train you as a Sheikah warrior so that you could win back your throne."

Zelda was quiet. "Why haven't we started, then?!" she finally asked, and her tone was accusing. "When do we practice those skills? When do we don Sheikah garb?!" She had risen to her knees. In Zelda's eyes, Impa saw betrayal. "When do we start?!"

"I would argue that we've already begun," Impa replied. "Sheikah understand the harshness of the world, and they accommodate for it. You have done nothing but cry for want of your castle. Your castle is gone, Zelda. Your father has been murdered, your castle burned. You cry, Zelda, but these are the truths of the world that only a child would deny."

The girl had been reduced to tears, her face an awful, crumpled mess of red and pink.

"STOP, IMPA!"

"No. You stop." Impa had risen to her feet, and she paced around the princess. "You are spoiled."

"Impa-"

"You have been waited on your whole life. You were taught manners. You were taught politics. You were taught how the world should be, not how it is. Now you must forget what you were taught. Stand."

"Impa, please-"

"STAND!"

Zelda stumbled to her feet and hiccuped. She's only twelve, Impa thought, and for a moment, she was hit by a pang of guilt. She suppressed it.

"Discipline yourself. Stop crying."

The princess took long, ragged breaths, but she could not stop. When her eyes lowered, Impa grasped her jaw and forced her to hold her gaze.

"The Sheikah know that what is ideal is also impossible. You must reverse everything that society has taught you to desire. Return to the roots of your very being- look around you. Observe nature. What do you see?"

Through her tears, Zelda allowed her eyes to wander the scene before her.

"A river."

"What else?"

"Trees. Fog. The moon."

"What else?"

"I see Death Mountain in the distance."

Impa stepped back and released Zelda's jaw. The skin was crimson where Impa had grasped it, but when Zelda made to rub it, Impa slapped her hand away.

"Discipline yourself. You're giving into distractions. What do you see?"

Zelda gazed at Death Mountain again. "I see- I see the clouds around the rim of the volcano. And I see little lights- no, fires- in some of the crags."

"What does that tell you?"

"That somebody's up there. Gorons, probably, since- since they live in the mountain. And they're trying to keep warm."

Impa gazed at the princess for a long time. Her massive blue eyes were still wandering the mountain.

"It's a start," she finally said. "If you are prudent, you will continue to learn. Now, pack up your things."

"What?!"

"We cannot stay here. The light of our fire has doubtless attracted unwanted guests. Listen, and you will hear."

Zelda tried to listen, but the only sounds she could make out belonged to Impa, who had filled up a wineskin with river water and was emptying its contents out on the fire. Smoke hissed as the fire disappeared, and Impa crushed the remaining sparks with her foot.

"I just hear you, Impa."

"Distractions. Listen harder."

The wind breathed through the trees, and something very faint caught Zelda's ears. A twig snapped, and her ears pricked up.

"Who-"

"Who do you think? Who goes out this time of night?"

"I-"

"Think."

"Stalchildren!" she gasped. "Stalchildren- I read it in a book once- and they- they come out of the ground-"

"Pack up." A pause. "NOW!"

Zelda scrambled for her things. She didn't have much, just a bedroll and a small sack of personal belongings that she'd saved from the fire.

"Let's move."

They set off down the banks of the river until they'd reached a bend. The snapping and shuffling behind them had gotten louder… were the stalchildren getting closer?

"Into the trees," Impa whispered, and dragged Zelda to the edge of the forest. She tore through the undergrowth, Zelda stumbling behind her. Her heel caught on a root and she went flying forward. The hard ground knocked the air from her lungs, and she let out a long sob, rolling onto her side.

Impa turned and eyed her harshly. "Stand up!"

Glaring at her childhood nanny through her bangs, Zelda grabbed a loose vine and dragged herself up, leaning against a mottled tree trunk and pressing her face against the bark. A a long line of blood was spreading across her cheek.

"Take off your shoes," Impa commanded.

"I can't!"

"Take them off."

Jaw agape, Zelda freed her feet from her favorite pair of slippers.

"And the stockings."

The stockings followed suit, draped over tree roots. The muddy ground was cold as Zelda's toes drowned in it.

"Now walk."

Every step resulted in a sound like a suction cup, and Zelda reached down to carry the shoes, but at Impa's request, she left them.

"Sheikah don't wear shoes. We allow our feet to turn to leather until something as simple as the ground can overpower us."

"Is that why Sheikah don't wear armor?"

"Sheikah don't wear armor because we don't need to. First we learn how the world works. Then we conform until we are stronger than it. Hylians seek strength by prying away from nature, forging weapons and steel plates to cut themselves off from the world. Distancing yourself from the elements will not protect you, Zelda. It will only make you weaker.

"Unlearn everything you thought you knew about life and death. Go back in time- go back one year, five years, ten. See the world as you saw it before your tutors and your parents told you otherwise.

"The Hyrule you grew up in was an illusion, Zelda, and what is made by human hands can be just as easily unmade. Here is the true Hyrule. Come and see."

They had reached the edge of a bluff, and the tree line ended as Zelda took her spot beside Impa at the edge of the cliff. The princess was still trembling, and she could have snapped at any moment. Now, as she stood at the top of the world, she swallowed every nervous breath and forced her heart to slow down.

The land unfurled before her, bathed in white fog and silver moonlight. A wolfos howled somewhere in the distance, and the snapping and cracking of stalchildren as they dug their way out of the ground echoed prominently across the glade. Zelda shuddered in the cold, and regretted it immediately.

I must do as Impa says, she thought adamantly. Everything is an illusion.

"How will I know," Zelda asked, "when I am seeing Hyrule at its core?" There was a tremor still to her voice.

"When you stop asking yourself that question, then you will know," Impa answered. The obscurity of the statement was frustrating to the princess, but she pinched her mouth shut and eyed Hyrule once more.

Discipline yourself.

Her self-control buckled slightly when she saw smoke bellowing up from the place where Castle Town had once been. It had been mere days since she and Impa made her escape, but her throat still tightened at the realization that her home was truly gone.

Discipline yourself.

And where was Link? Had he carried out his task as she had requested it of him? Was he all right? If he was hurt, then it would all be her doing…

Discipline yourself.

"Impa? Do Sheikah feel?"

"Not if we can help it."

"So I have to suppress everything- fear, love, anger-"

"If you seek wisdom, then you will choose what you feel, and from there you will control it."

"...Wisdom?"

Impa's crimson eyes glinted in the moonlight. "Yes, Zelda. Wisdom."

Discipline yourself.

Zelda had never thought herself wise, and certainly had never expected that Impa might expect wisdom from her…

"We should keep moving," Zelda said quietly. "I can hear rustling in the woods." She swallowed heavily. "I'm tired, but we… we can rest in the morning."

The hint of a smile touched Impa's features.

"It's a start," she said for the second time that night. She turned and began scaling the edge of the cliff.

Zelda hiked up her skirts and followed after Impa in silence.

Somewhere in those seven years, Zelda took Badass Lessons. Let's not deny it.

Thanks for reading!