The sensation of falling was a familiar and not all-together unpleasant feeling.
The sensation of rapidly approaching ground was.
There is no such thing as surface, Link desperately tried to reassure himself. My loftwing will catch me.
"But birds cannot travel in the land of dreams," said a low, whispery monotone.
Her face was everywhere. It's face. His face. The floating spirit who whispered notions of destiny and journeys in his ear when he dared to close his eyes. It surrounded him as he fell, offering no assistance, only watching.
Like it always did.
This time, however, he was not rescued by the light of daybreak. He continued to fall, his mouth open in some kind of silent howl of terror. He could no longer distinguish things such as up, or idiotic thoughts of a thing called surface. He knew only falling, and the terrible, terrible fear that froze his blood as he realized nothing was ever going to catch him.
"Chosen hero," whispered the voice, soothing Link enough to catch his attention. The voice sounded like the rustle of sheets, or the giggle of sunshine- but even it could not save Link from this fall. It knew it.
"Your destiny awaits."
And then the whole world exploded.
The air around Link echoed with a sharp cry of terror and pain. Swirls and twirls of information rushed into his brain all at once, his eyes wide with blindness as the black faded into white, a constant, pained scream erupting from his mouth unstoppably.
His mind saw things he did not know. A small village girl, walking away with a horse.
A moon, hurtling toward the ground at an unstoppable speed.
The pained cry of a wolf.
A child being snatched up by a bird.
The enticing hum of the shadows.
An imp on his back.
And an impossibly familiar, yet unrecognizable princess who stands in the tower shrouded in darkness.
Link tried to shake his head, to clear the confusion, but the images stayed, burned into his mind. He heard himself grunting and the shout of troll-like creatures. He tasted the bittersweet flavor of health potions, heard the buzzing of bees, smelled the sharp pink aroma of a girl lost into shadows.
All at once, it poured over into his mind, the replay of a thousand lives over doing things he'd never dreamed, all of them missing a little piece of sky.
"And so it shall be," hummed the voice.
And in a dramatic wrench of agony, the pictures were stripped away, leaving deep blackness again to cover him, to terrify him. He continued to fall, mouth screaming and arms flailing desperately, but he could do nothing to stop the rapidly approaching surface beneath him.
And as he plummeted, he heard the long, lonely howl of a blue-eyed beast.