Not The Very Best Experience, Actually

So . . . let me explain before doing this.

I don't like self-inserts. They almost always take a nosedive into Mary-Sue territory. I always skip right over them when I see them. So I was browsing through the communities on and spotted one called "worst Zelda fanfiction." Now, since I'm a sucker for reducing my faith in humanity, I decided to check it out. And most of them involved OCs or self-inserts. So it got me thinking: is it possible to write a self-insert and meet Link without it becoming a Mary Sue fic, and therefore bad?

This is my attempt. I'm not aiming high. I'm not aiming for this to be good, or even average. It could be horrible for all I care. I'm just trying not to make it Mary Sue-ish. I don't know if that's possible, actually. Can you tell me if I succeeded?

Rated T for language. I curse a lot in my mind.

Middle Of Nowhere

Three things occurred to me when I woke up this morning.

One: When did it get so windy in my room?

Two: Where is my bed and why am I laying on the grass?

Three: Where did the world go?

So you can probably imagine the panic I was in when I woke up this morning to find myself on a tiny floating disk of compacted earth.

Floating. As in, in the sky.

In the middle of nowhere.

To say I had no clue as to what was going on would be an understatement. After I had a minor freak-out that basically consisted of Holygoddamnshit Iamstrandedonanaisland thatisfloating anditshouldnotbeabletofloat, I curled up in a fetal position and tried to search my memory for an answer. Last night I was playing Bioshock. I went to bed around eleven. I forgot to put Pia in her crate, but whatever, I'd done that before, and she wasn't going anywhere. I fed the cats and let them out. I turned out all the lights. Brushed my teeth. Forgot to put on my retainer, but screw my retainer. Climbed into bed. Fell asleep.

Did someone kidnap me and . . . just decide to randomly strand me here? Okay, if it was even possible that I could sleep through that, then why . . . just why? How was this tiny disk of land floating? It was probably ten feet across and circular, and covered in sparse green grass. It didn't look too strong. I sidled to the edge and beat the ground with the palm of my hand. Seemed sturdy enough, though I wasn't taking any chances. My curiosity got the better of me and I crumbled a little bit of dirt off the edge and let go of it. It fell. Huh. I guessed it was only the big mass of dirt that could float.

The sun was brighter and more intense up here. I was kind of thirsty, and hungry too. I supposed it was breakfast time right about now. What I wouldn't give for my normal bowl of cereal right about now.

I glanced around, squinting to get the annoying sunlight out of my eyes. There were specks in the distance, which I guessed were more floating islands. Above me was blue sky, interrupted by small wisps of thin cloud that floated along their merry way. Far below me was a solid cloud bank that stretched as far as the eye could see.

A blast of violent wind nearly knocked me over right then, and I grabbed at the grass and hunched over to avoid falling to my death. The wind was so much stronger up here than I was used to. It wasn't that cold, but I found myself shivering nonetheless. I didn't want to be up here. I wanted to go home. I wanted to give my mom and dad a hug and cuddle with Leo and wrestle with Pia. I wanted to go back to playing Xbox without having to worry about being knocked off the edge of this tiny world.

I've always wanted to fly. Who doesn't? People can't fly, so we always fantasize about it. You know, unless you're scared of heights. We always try to imagine what it's like to go from one place to the other whenever we want, and to be able to look down at the world below. If you had told me I would've been here a day ago, I would've been excited. Not now. I wanted my feet on solid ground. I wanted to go home.

My mom was probably freaking out right about now. She would see me gone and call me, and of course I wouldn't answer, then my dad, then my sisters, then my friends, then the police. Great. Why couldn't I have slept in the sweatpants that had pockets, and kept my phone in there? Then I could've called her. Though there was probably no reception up here. And that thought got me wondering how I was up here, and how I got up here, and my brain just turned into a confused and muddled mess again.

I tapped my toes, wrapped in my fuzzy socks, on the grass around me. I had to go to the bathroom. I was hungry. I was thirsty. And another horrifying thought occurred to me, one that probably should've occurred to me earlier: How was I going to get down? I couldn't exactly call for help. I hadn't seen any planes or blimps or whatever came flying up here. I hadn't even seen any birds.

Then it came clear to me, very clear, that I could die up here. I could starve to death or die of thirst, and no one would ever know where I was. I would show up on all those missing persons channels and websites, but no one would call. My parents . . . it would destroy them.

A lump rose in my throat. I wanted to go home. I didn't want to die up here. I wasn't even out of high school yet. I hadn't even kissed my boyfriend yet. I had just gotten five new Xbox games from my cousin and I wanted to play them all. I'm not going to achieve or fail at anything else in my life, ever again.

A shadow fell over me, but I didn't pay attention. It was just another cloud, floating across the sun. But when the shadow didn't go away and a faint beating sound met my ears, I looked up.

A shape floated over me, blocking the sun. It was hard to make out, but it looked like a bird. Maybe a hawk, searching for prey. Or a vulture, waiting for me to die.

Actually, it couldn't have been. The wings were too long and thin for a vulture or a hawk, and it flapped differently, a kind of lurching sort of thing. A huge seagull?

Suddenly it got a whole lot bigger, and darted out of the sunlight. I jerked back; that thing was massive, as big as an airborne horse. It was dark blue-grey and had white wings streaked with red.

It was coming right for me.

I nearly threw myself off the island in surprise, it came so close. As it soared past, I saw the gleam of an amber eye, and a banana-shaped beak that ended with a dark hook.

A blue shoebill?

And then I saw the person on its back, staring right at me, wearing an odd maroon-colored costume, and my jaw dropped.

Either I was dreaming, hallucinating, high, or drunk . . . or this was the most fucked-up Zelda cosplay in the history of the world.

The bird swept around and landed on my island. I skittered away and crouched, not wanting to stand but not wanting to be rude or weird. The bird sheathed its wings and rasped at me, tilting its head. The person climbed down. She was a blonde woman in a dark red costume that looked a hell of a lot like a Skyloft Knight's costume from Skyward Sword. She had goggles that covered most of her face, and on the top of her goggles was the crest of the Knight's Academy. Any chance of this not having anything to do with Skyward Sword officially vanished then; I knew that symbol anywhere.

She took her goggles off and hung it on her belt, then looked up and smiled at me. She looked nice, I guessed. "Hi!" she said in a friendly way. "Where are you from, sweetie? You need any help? It's not safe to be alone all the way out here."

She had a British accent. Why do fantasy things always have a British accent?

"Uh, hi," I said back croakily.

It was silent for a bit, and I guessed she was waiting for me to answer. I said, "Um . . . where are we?"

"Well, we're halfway between the Lumpy Pumpkin and Star Village. Where're you from again?"

"Uh, I don't know," I answered honestly. "I just woke up here and I have no idea how I got here. What is that?" I pointed at her bird.

She gave me a look, like I was absolutely insane. "A Loftwing?"

Holy crap. Where am I?

"Where's your Loftwing?" the woman asked, looking around. "He desert you? They do that sometimes, if you tick them off. I don't know how many times this old girl has stranded me somewhere to punish me." She gave her bird a friendly shove.

"No, I don't have a Loftwing." The phrase feels weird coming from my mouth, talking about it so casually as if they existed. And apparently they did. And I couldn't stop looking at it. No offense to it, but it was cuter in the game. In real life its eyes were a little smaller and there were more feathers bunched over them, giving it a stern and surly look. Its beak was scuffed and dusty and its legs were thinner and muddier. Its neck was short and there were random feathers sticking out of its chest. It had a leather buckle collar around its neck. But it didn't matter. This was one big, beautiful bird.

The woman narrowed her eyes and stared at me. "How old are you, sweetie?"

"Fifteen."

A look of understanding crossed her face. She nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry."

". . . For what? I've never had a Loftwing."

Now she was looking down at me in shock. "Where are you from?"

I swallowed, about to start my incredibly long and probably crazy answer, but then my stomach decided to be an attention hog and growl loudly. I grimaced, and the woman chuckled. "Hungry, huh?"

I nodded silently.

"Want me to take you home?"

"Um, I live down there," I said, pointing down at the cloud layer, knowing the implications of what I said, since according to the game Skyloftians didn't know about the surface. But then again, I didn't exactly live on that surface, did I? Down there was Faron Woods and Lanayru Desert and Eldin Volcano, and I sure as hell knew I don't live near those.

And then the full force of all this hit me like a ten-ton wave of pure fuck-you-Taylor. If I'm not crazy or if this is not some elaborate prank, then I am in the Legend of Zelda. As in, in the Legend of Zelda. A game. Made by Japanese people. That's not possible.

People would kill for this chance. Right now I would kill to go the fuck home.

Did that mean Link and Zelda existed, too? And by extension, the Crimson Loftwing and Groose and Gaepora and Pipit and Fledge and all of them existed? Wait, that meant that monsters existed, and magic, and all this crazy stuff that existed but shouldn't. And – oh God – did that mean Ghirahim existed? Demise? I liked those guys . . . but as game villains that couldn't touch me. Now that I was apparently sharing a world with them they got a whole lot scarier. They were basically all-powerful all-evil mass murderers, the kind of people that commit genocide off-screen where you can't see it when you're actually playing the game. But I was in the game. I half expected the Imprisoned to rear its ugly head out of the clouds and spear me with its teeth.

I wondered where I was in the "game," or wherever the hell I was. Was this before, during, or after the events of Skyward Sword? Was Link born yet? Whatever happened, I wanted to find that guy and stick with him. According to the games, he was pretty much the only useful person in Hyrule. Or Skyloft. Or the sky. Wherever the fuck we were.

I snapped back to reality – a really screwed up reality – as the woman said, "I don't know any communities down there. What's the name?"

"No, I mean, I live on the surface. Uh . . . it's really hard to explain, and it'll take a while . . ."

"Oh! Sure. Let's go, you've been up here all morning, right?" she said, all friendly and unquestioning again. She walked over and offered me a hand.

I stared at it for a while, not really trusting my feet to keep me steady – what if I tripped? But then I saw her Loftwing – which should not exist, but the way – and felt a little bit reassured.

I let her help me up, trying to blink away frustrated tears.

I didn't want to be here.

I wanted to go home.

But I didn't know how, and I probably never would.

v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

I should probably abandon this.