The Vagaries of Fate

~~LoZ~~

Link sighed, shaking his head ruefully as he finally retreated to the mess tent that some of the women of Skyloft had set up to get something to eat and take a breather. What a day. He'd started in his own era, and now he was so far back in the past that the land in the sky was where he'd ended up. Skyloft. It was certainly an... interestingplace. The people here were definitely Hylian, but they were a bit... strange. They'd just jump off what they called docks into the air with a whistle, and fall towards the earth without a care, waiting for some huge bird to come and catch them.

He had to admit, however, that something inside him stirred at first sight of the place, and of the huge birds – called loftwings – that were such an intrinsic part of it. In fact, without them, the people would be stranded on a single floating island – and that most definitely would not do.

He grabbed himself some of the skewers of food that were slowly grilling over an open fire, and then found himself a quiet spot to get off his feet and recharge. His stomach felt hollow, and if he didn't fill it soon, it was going to make his life miserable.

For a few minutes he paid no attention to anything around him, determined to get his food down quickly so that he could rejoin the fracas. That weirdo, Ghirahim, was actually fairly easy to beat, but unfortunately he wasn't the only enemy here. Skyloft had been invaded and overrun quickly with Volga to push things along, and had suffered a lot of casualties for the sheer shock of the attack. They'd never had such a thing happen – not since the island's very beginning, apparently, and had been unprepared for a group of enemies of the size it had been hit with.

He was glad he and his forces had arrived when they had. They'd almost been too late.

The young, green-clad hero was pulled from his thoughts as one of the knights of Skyloft spoke to him. He indicated the seat across from him and asked, "Mind if I sit here?" softly.

Link shook his head with a smile. "Not at all – go right ahead... 's not like anyone else is sitting there."

The other man just nodded with a small, though earnest, return smile. "Thanks," he began. "Name's D'aylen. And yours?"

He was met with a shrugged, "Link," as the young man clad in the green tunic continued scarfing down his meal. "Nice to meet you," he added after swallowing. He gave a vague sweep of his hand to indicate the island, and continued, "Interesting place you have here."

The other man, a lithe knight in his apparent late twenties with various bandages wrapped around him in several places, chuckled a little. "You could call it that," he agreed while taking a nice large bite of his own food. "But this is where the goddess put us, and so here we'll stay, 'til she says otherwise."

Link just nodded and continued to eat, but after a few moments he looked up again, only to find D'aylen watching him with an odd, grateful sort of expression on his face. He blinked. "Wha-"

The young knight gritted his teeth for a moment, looking as though he were going to cry, and Link, worried, started to draw back, but D'aylen shook his head rapidly.

"I know what you're thinking, with that look on your face, but what I wanted to say to you isn't bad. Not at all," he grunted, and then seemed to take ahold of himself. Link was worried that perhaps D'aylen was injured more than he was letting on so as to speak to him, but there was little he could do other than lend the guy an ear if he was.

With another subdued shrug, Link indicated that the other man could go on, and, after a moment spent gathering himself, he did.

"I wanted to thank you. I owe you... everything. The pregnant woman you saved this morn'... well, that was my wife. She's carrying our first child. Not to mention the Headmaster's wife – she was the lady with my wife - and just found out she's pregnant with theirfirst child. If it weren't for you, we'd have lost both in one horrifying day. None of us will ever be able to repay you for what you've done, but if you don't mind, I'd like to name my firstborn son for you." By the time he was finished speaking, D'aylen's voice had gotten soft, and he'd pushed the small amount that remained of his dinner aside, temporarily struggling to contain his emotions. But he didn't speak again, just looked at Link with a little bit of pink in his cheeks.

The younger man blinked, a little taken aback at first, but then he reached a hand out and rested it tentatively against the other knight's shoulder. His eyes softened, and for some reason, he almost felt like crying at the sight of the man before him. There was a strange sort of echo in his ears whenever he spoke, and he felt a sudden sad kind of acceptance from deep within that didn't make any sense to him. But Link didn't want D'aylen to feel as though he were rejecting his request because he was hesitant to answer, so he pushed all that aside.

"I'm more honored than I could ever say. But I don't want you to think that you have to; for myself I'm just relieved that I could help, and that yours - and the Headmaster's - wives... and children-to-be-" he smiled a little, "are alright."

D'aylen smiled in return, then, and to Link it was like the sun coming up. There was something so familiarabout him, but after a few moments, he set it aside once again to ponder over after they'd completed the cleanup of the last remaining holdouts from the battle for Skyloft. For now...

He stood and began to ready himself to head back out into the fray, and D'aylen stood with him. But with that the Hero frowned; the other man was not really in the best shape to be sent back into immediate battle. He bit his lip and narrowed his eyes in thought. What would the best thing to say here be?

"D'aylen... shouldn't you be resting? You've been in the middle of the fighting pretty much the entire time, if the way you look is any indication, and you've got to be tired. No one will think the lesser of you for retreating to get the medical attention – and rest - you need. Besides... most of the battle is over – it's just cleanup, now."

"I'm not injured that ba-" he began with a grin, but Link gave him a deadpan expression, and his grin sort of petered out. "Okay, fine, yes, I'm tired and sore, but everyone else is, too," he almost pouted, to the Hero's eternal – and silent – amusement.

Link just continued to stare at him pointedly, and D'aylen finally gave in. "Fine, fine. I'll go to the healer's tent before returning to my duties, is that good enough for you?"

The young Hero eyed him sideways, but after considering it a moment, he smiled. "Sure. You've got to pay attention to yourself and take care now, since you have a wife and a young one on the way. You can't just go throwing yourself into every battle so... hmm... enthusiastically? You don't want to lose them, and they need you to protect them. You can't do that if you jump carelessly into fights."

D'aylen shrugged, a sheepish smile crossing his face. "I know." But then his expression darkened. "Of course, there's not much you can do when a bunch of weird monsters just seemingly fall out of a hole in the sky and start attacking you. I'm rather confused about where they all came from, anyway, and what they were after. It's not like we've got a bunch of treasure sitting around up here that they just wanted to steal, so I can't think of what else they could be wanting so badly they'd invade us for it."

Link cleared his throat a little awkwardly, uncertain what he could say. The truth of the matter was a long, long story, and who would even believe such a tale? Then again... the attack itself was proof enough that something extraordinary was going on, but Link didn't feel like trying to figure out how to make the tale short, yet coherent.

So he just shrugged. "We're not really sure what they're after, either. But those guys aren't the sort you just let wander through time destroying whatever they feel like and changing the future irreparably, know what I mean? So... we follow behind them, kill them all, and then close the timegate they were using to get here. And then we go home, all so we can chase down the next wave of goblin-folk and whatever else is running with them."

D'aylen winced sympathetically, then patted Link on the shoulder and made his farewells, even though he seemed quite curious about what was really going on. "Yeah... If that's the case, then I probably won't see you again. So let me thank you once more... and just in case Gaepora feels the same as I about what you did for our wives and unborn children, what name do you favor for a second boy... or a girl?"

It didn't take Link more than a moment to come to a conclusion, and he grinned shyly as a bit of pink crossed the ridge of his nose, and said, "For a girl... Zelda, for a boy... how about Orville?"

A blink, and then the older man grinned widely. "Zelda... I like that... it's pretty. Well, if his child is a girl, Zelda it will be, and if a boy, Orville - Gaepora will most certainly agree with me."

Link couldn't help the odd feeling that sent a shiver down his back as he heard that; for some reason, he almost felt excited, like something entirely world-changing was about to happen on this island in the sky. Suddenly, he knew with that complete certainty that people sometimes get that it would be Zelda, and that when this man's son, Link, and Zelda were older, they would change the world. He smiled.

That smile dimmed a little as D'aylen took his leave, however, and for some reason, he couldn't look away until the older man was out of sight. Somehow... seeing him makes me sad... he clutched his tunic where it lay over his heart and looked down, almost feeling the urge to cry. A hot knot choked off his breath in his chest, and he had to fight off the stinging of those tears in his eyes.

Finally, after a few minutes spent calming himself, Link straightened his tunic and forced his confused emotions to the back of his mind. Right now was definitely notthe time to be thinking about such things – there was still much work to be done here before they could go home.

Link cast one last glance in the direction of the healer's tents, and then with renewed purpose, strode out to assist in finishing the cleanup so he could close the gate and send this pretty little island in the sky back to its usual peaceful sleepiness.

May you all be blessed by the Goddess and protected always by Her Grace.