Maybe he had said he'd stay down on the Surface- certainly, he had said it, but it was only under the presumption that he'd have company- namely, Impa.
Yeah, the old woman might've held a little part of his heart, but so what? It wasn't like he was any different because of it. He'd just grown, and she had helped him realize he might not have been the hero that Zelda needed, the hero Link was, but he was still important.
And hell, Groose did feel important. Now, he could've said he'd always felt important back on Skyloft, but it was a different kind of important, now- more paramount, a necessity. Miraculously, he found he didn't have to be in the very front line of action to feel that way.
But enough about that emotional garbage, because the point was, he had changed, and the rest of his life was going to be different because of it.
That life, the different one, was going to have to be up on Skyloft, back with the Loftwings, the smaller trees, the Knight Academy, Cawlin and Strich, and everything else he had screwed up. Groose didn't feel much like picking on Fledge any more. (Not to mention, the kid had gotten really strong in the time that he'd been gone. Like visibly muscular through his shirt, and it was kind of uncomfortable to look at.) Pipit was quickly promoted to knight, and gone so often that Groose was neither in any position nor felt the need to pick on the freckled face that would stop by sometimes, but be off, soaring through the skies a minute later.
Okay, so maybe he had changed a little more than he'd care to admit.
He still had the slickest pompadour in town, still rough-and-tumble with muscles like an ox, still flew around on his Loftwing with graceful ease, and damn it all if he still didn't hopelessly pine for Zelda like a child after toys.
So life was relatively the same, run-of-the-mill kind of Knight training and spending nights out with Cawlin and Strich even when he was completely exhausted from a day of hard work, with the exception that Link and Zelda were on the Surface now, permanently. In his habits, Groose was fundamentally no different: he still chased skirts, following girls after class like bees after flowers and maintained a strict work-out routine for no other purpose than his own vanity. By no means, however, was he at all the garbage can of an asshole as which he had once graced Skyloft. Even if he tried- even when he tried- to speak in a voice reminiscent of the past, it never fit with the cogs of Skyloft's ever dependable routine.
It was hard to admit, but Skyloft no longer felt like a home to him- when he'd dismount his Loftwing at the end of the day, no relief would wash over him like it used to. His boyhood home became a place of indifference to him, where he suddenly did not fit in only because he knew more, had seen more. And how frustrating was that? With an entire world below him, enticing, beckoning, begging for him to return, for once in his life he had options. He wondered at night what people did before they knew of anything else besides an island in the sky, a single school, one place to shop. Even a year ago, not a soul knew of the vastness that lay below them, so what could anyone do, where could anyone go, if they didn't fit in?
Well, now he was getting ahead of himself. Of course he fit in; in fact, he fit in even more than before, what with the entire island pestering him for the details of a world of ancient greenery and beasts unknown.
Nonetheless, Groose thought that maybe, someday, if he played his cards right at the Academy and wrapped up all his business on Skyloft into a tight little package complete with a ribbon, maybe he'd join them down there.
Perhaps, then- and this was just an idea, just a suggestion that he told Cawlin the night before the Wing Ceremony- people didn't change, but places could.
Cawlin countered by asking Groose what he thought had changed about Skyloft since he'd been gone, and Groose could only answer with "the people."
"Well, then, Groose," Cawlin leaned against the doorframe of his room, stifling a yawn, "I guess you have to decide which person is the one who changed."
Sleep did not come easily that night, out of fear for the ceremony, or even for the fear of what he might convince himself in the dead of night when he only has himself with whom to converse. The Wing Ceremony was nothing he couldn't handle, and he even had an inkling that Cawlin, Strich, and Fledge were going to let him win. Ha! As if he wouldn't win anyway.
And what gave Cawlin any right, anyway, to talk as if he were some kind of philosopher and shoot down the first sensible sentence Groose had managed to utter in a year?
Cawlin was wrong, though, Groose told himself, because Skyloft itself was a different place without Link and Zelda, and- pathetically- they comprised a great deal of Groose's thoughts.
Oh, gods, he might as well just have admitted it then- the only person he was lying to any longer was himself.
They were white lies, and as they say, he wasn't hurting anyone, especially not himself. But lies were lies, and beneath all lies rested remote truth in a form or fashion that either begged for or hid from discovery. In this case, both begging and hiding for and from him.
Whatever. It didn't matter what kind of lie it was or whom it was for, because he'd made up his mind already.
Spring was always an unruly season in Skyloft, with blustering winds and unsteady warmth and it wasn't like he'd miss it terribly. The Wing Ceremony wasn't honestly of much interest, either, as was being a knight. It was too much responsibility, and Groose couldn't imagine spending his precious time preventing little kids from tumbling off the edges to their deaths. Maybe Strich would win this year, someone who could actually accomplish something when he put his mind to it. It seemed Groose had underestimated the kid; apparently- and Groose had only discovered this recently- Strich had been living a double life: student by day, bug-collector by night. Eugh.
As an afterthought, he'd miss Cawlin and Strich, too, but the pure notion that he'd miss them was evidence enough that whomever he was, and whatever Skyloft was, were both breaths of history's air. He and Skyloft were no longer compatible.
At daybreak, he would pack his things and fly to the surface. Simple enough- no note, notes were for permanence, and he knew he wouldn't be gone forever- but he knew with conviction that Cawlin and Strich wouldn't have any doubts about where he'd gone.
A/N: I had started this a while ago, but while I'm in the mood to write about Groose, I finished it. Anyway, what do you guys think about Groose? Is he a friend or foe? (I'm not going to lie, he's probably in my top three of favorite characters, but he does have his faults, as explained in this story.) And what do you think about this writing style? It's sort of a third-person thing with a first-person feel. For one-shots, I think it works nicely, but it's tricky to write.
As always, thank you for reading!