The morning sun spilled through the high windows of Purah’s lab, lighting the dust and faint smoke drifting from whatever she’d detonated before breakfast. Her fifteen-year-old assistant moved quickly across the stone floor, arms full of notes, doing her best to keep ahead of Purah’s relentless pace. Half her job was recording data. The other half was not getting blown up.

Purah, goggles askew and hair in full chaos-mode, didn’t look up from her workbench. “Good timing, kiddo. We’ve got company today.”

Before the assistant could ask who, the door slid open with a soft mechanical hum.

“Purah? I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Princess Zelda stepped into the room.

The assistant froze. Every sheet of paper slipped from her arms and scattered across the floor, but she didn’t notice. Her brain stalled. Her breath forgot how to function. Purah sighed like she’d seen this exact meltdown coming.

“Oh great. Here we go again,” she muttered.

The assistant attempted speech, but it came out in frantic fragments. “P-Princess— I— You— Hi— I mean hello— I study— I work— I admire— Not weird admire— Normal admire— Professional—”

Zelda’s smile softened into gentle laughter, warm and steady. “It’s lovely to meet you. Purah speaks very highly of your work.”

The assistant’s soul nearly left her body.

Purah groaned. “Please don’t encourage the fan-girling. I need my assistant functioning for the calibration test.”

Zelda stepped further inside, examining one of Purah’s half-finished devices. She glanced at the assistant again with an easy, reassuring smile. “I’m looking forward to working with both of you while I’m here.”

The assistant nodded far too fast, trying to look composed and failing spectacularly. Purah patted her shoulder like comforting a rattled animal. “Relax. She’s just Zelda.”

But she wasn’t just Zelda. She was the princess she’d studied for years, the scholar she admired, the figure in every story she’d loved. And now she was here, in her lab, smiling like she genuinely wanted to be part of the work.