The terror he feels when he wakes up and finds that she's not there consumes him. His mind is blank, repeating to himself, she's not gone, she's not gone. He hopes that her father was merely unsure of her whereabouts, and that she had come home on her own.
Deep down he knows he's lying to himself, knows that she's gone, but he continues to anyway. Because facing the truth would hurt too much.
Even as he hears the musical tinkling, like bells and a sweet voice, he ambles around, nothing but a hallow shell. When he stumbles outside his room and sees the blue spirit, instead of jolting back in surprise, he merely stares, and as it flits away, he follows. The naïve part of him hopes the blue spirit is leading him to Zelda, and he optimistically, even by his own standards, tries to believe it.
He feels like a machine, running, climbing, trailing after the blue spirit, his only thoughts, she's not gone, she's not gone. I'll find her.
And then, as he enters the empty chamber inside the Goddess statue, I'm sorry Zelda. Because he knows she's gone, and he can't go on believing lies.
oOoOoOo
She wakes up to the melodious sound of a thousand birds chirping, and blinks her eyes at her new surroundings. Here the birds are miniscule, tiny, with their little feathers and beady eyes. As a particularly fluffy sky-blue one flits onto her shoulder, its feathers the same color as Link's eyes, she remembers what brought her there. Flying with Link, the tornado, being thrown off her bird and below the clouds. Somehow she's landed safely, but in lands she's never before known.
A land of rich earth, beautiful shrubs, huge trees that tower over her laden with huge golden fruits. She sees strange insects scuttling here and there, more birds darting daintily around the treetops, and she knows this is The Surface. The textbooks lied—this land is fertile and full of life, not the barren wastelands they always claimed.
She wonders how Link would react if he ever saw this. For a brief moment she's happy, giggling to herself as she imagines the dumbfounded face he would have.
But when something touches her shoulder she sobers up, remembering than in the land of the unknown, anything could happen, and reminds herself that she might have to fight for her safety. But when she whirls around she is faced with an old, frail woman, garbed in a pointed cloak, her eyes hidden by crinkles of old age.
Zelda knows immediately that she's no danger. And when the woman smiles gently and says, "Come, child," she follows, knowing instinctively that she's safe, or will be.
oOoOoOo
He looks at the column of emerald light, not with doubt, but contemplating what would happen. He decides that if a rogue tornado could suddenly carry off his best friend without a trace, anything is possible.
The wind whistles through his hair as he leaps off his crimson loftwing, arms spread wide as he hurtles towards the cloud barrier. He remembers how often he and Zelda used to sky-dive this way, high above Skyloft, laughing and yelling as they hurtled through the air, their hearts light and weightless with happiness.
But now he descends alone beneath the thick layer of clouds that always shrouded The Surface from sight, and free falls toward the green earth, his heart the heaviest it has ever been.
oOoOoOo
The place he lands in has a certain beauty, the beauty of something ancient and undisturbed for thousands of years. Moss coats a statue that he passes, the rails barring the edge of the path rusty. An archaic sensation it is to stand here, a place where time seems immobile.
His mind is washed with a gripping sense of terror of a greater evil than ever before as he gazes into the center of the strange spiral-like configuration that deeps lower from the temple in a helix road.
He turns away from the source of the aura, heading instead for the heavy, ivy-entwined doors whose symbols are glowing faintly. The cold, lifeless wood is surprisingly warm against his fingers, almost welcoming, and with little effort the door opens before him and he is met by a frail old, and obviously benevolent woman who wastes no time in informing him, however cryptic she is.
And upon learning that he must face great dangers if he wants to save Zelda, Link can only smile; after all, his decision was made long, long ago, when he and Zelda had first sworn their friendship to each other forever.
Wait for me, Zelda.
oOoOoOo
And miles away, Zelda stops running for a moment, smiling up at the clear blue sky.
I'm waiting.