Chapter 2: The Forest of Fairies
Swinging the telescope upwards, he honed the telescope on a huge bird heading towards the island from the north, with feathers of black, brown and maroon, and four tails of gold and green. In the clutches of its two monstrous claws, Link could see that the bird was carrying a dark-skinned girl with a head of light hair. Not even in stories had Link heard fearsome and dangerous looking animal, and he could hardly take his eyes away from the eyepiece even when Aryll started tapping his arm silently on his right.
He lowered the telescope and followed Aryll's gaze and outstretched finger to a ship larger than he had ever seen. It had a tall mast, held by lines form the stern and long bowsprit, and was pursuing the bird at some speed. Its large square canvas sail rippled in the westerly wind as it approached, and at the top of its mast, above the rounded crows nest, flew a large black flag with a white skull-and-crossed-bones motif emblazoned in its centre.
'P… P…Pir-r-rates…' Aryll stammered.
These pirates, however, were not approaching Outset under the cover of darkness, as pirates were expected to do, and normally did, but in broad daylight, and their main focus seemed to be not on loot, but on the bird in the sky.
'Link! Link! What do we do?' Aryll said, with panic in her voice.
'I… I don't know…' he answered, uncertainly. He raised the telescope once more to his eye, and looked at the pirate ship. Aryll moved around closely behind him, hiding as best she could from both the great bird in the sky, and the fast approaching boat. She was terrified, and put one arm around Link's waist, and placed the other hand in her mouth, and peered around him at where he was looking. A man in a green shirt and red bandanna was standing on deck by the catapult, and seemed to be directing an unseen crew in firing into the sky. His arm pointed repeatedly in the direction of the bird, as the ship fired volley after volley of boulders into the air, with so much force, that they cleared Outset by miles.
Suddenly there was an ear piercing screech from the air, and they looked into the sky to see the bird falter in its flight as it passed low over the westerly peak. One of the rocks from the ship had struck the great animal square on the beak. Aryll squeaked quietly, and Link trained the telescope on the girl that had just fallen several metres from the talons of the bird, and followed her to the trees of the peak, where with a distant rustle, she vanished.
'She fell! She fell into the forest!' Aryll cried, her voice filled now more with concern than with fear from either of the terrors around them. The bird had recovered briefly before hitting the sea, and was flying off into the distance. The pirate ship had ploughed rather quickly into a sand bank just offshore of Outset, and didn't seem to be moving any more. Link could just make out people running around on deck.
'Yes, we need to tell everyone' he said, slowly.
'But she needs help! She might be hurt! That big mean bird dropped her! We need to help her! Oh, Link! What do w-we d-do-o?' Her voice had dropped from concern, through anxious, to panic, and she sat down on her feet, and started to cry. Link knelt down beside her, and gave her a hug, and rubbed her on the back.
'Don't cry, Aryll. It'll be okay… we'll just go and tell Grandma, and Orca. They'll sort it out…'
Slowly, the sobbing subsided and was reduced to sniffs.
'Okay.' She said. She was shaking, and her face was pale. The past few minutes had been more than she was able to cope with. Link helped her wipe the tears from her cheeks.
They sat together for a few minutes, while Aryll became calmer.
'Link?' She asked, 'Will she be all right?'
'Yes,' Link told her more confidently than he felt he perhaps should have done, 'She'll be fine.' He wasn't sure if this was a lie or not. 'Come on, let's go and tell Grandma.'
Still sniffing, Aryll and Link descended the watchtower ladder, and in a few moments were running up the path to their house.
''Hoy! Link!' came a deep voice Orca's freshly opened door, 'What is the matter? You have an urgent look about you… Has something happened? What was that noise?'
The islanders were all out of their homes now, Abe armed with his hoe, and Rose her rolling pin. Link considered that any pirate wanting to raid Outset should need to be more worried of the formidable Rose than of Abe with his hoe, but he said nothing.
Link gestured to Aryll to keep going, and he recounted what he had seen for Orca, the bird, the pirates, and the girl on the cliff peak.
'I see,' he said, when Link had finished, 'from the look on your face, I suspect this is no laughing matter.' Through faded eyes, he regarded Link, thoughtfully, 'No, I must help this poor girl, but I need you to help me… will you help me Link?'
'Me?' Link asked, 'But what can I do?'
'It is unwise to enter the cliff woods, especially alone, and the path up the cliff is full of tall plants. We will need something for you to help cut our way through.'
He followed Orca inside.
When he entered, Orca was reaching for a small brown scabbard from one of the higher shelves. 'You have played combat with me many times, Link, with swords of wood, made by your own hand.'
Orca liked to play-fight with the children on Outset, Grandma disapproved of it, but she saw it was good for them, and they enjoyed it, so didn't stop them. Aryll had played the captured princess, and Link, a brave knight of the kingdom. Link had fought against Orca, who had played the evil king in their games. Zill and Joel had played brave knights too sometimes, waving some sticks against Link or Orca, often at random. Sometimes Link was forced back, and sometimes Orca let him win through.
Usually, no-one was hurt, except those times when Link had not won, and Aryll got upset with Orca for not letting her get rescued, and called him "a big meanie". Link was downheartedly quiet for an hour or so after he had lost a great battle between the army of the good king, and the evil king. Orca had told him once "you must know when you are beaten, Link, not all battles can be won."
Orca stood before Link, and unsheathed the sword.
'This is not such a sword, Link. This is a sword of steel, with a sharp, cutting blade. It is not a toy.'
'Yes, sir,' Link said, oddly formally.
Orca continued, 'Since the olden days,' he said, 'this sword has been used to fend off evil from our island, and it is written in some of the islands older records, which my brother has,' he indicated to Sturgeon's room above, 'that it's blade is infused with the desire to become strong and righteous.'
He performed a few cuts into the air, above Link's head, and turned to look at him.
'If you would accompany me up the cliff, you must have some serious instruction in the way of the sword.
'What say you, Link?'
Orca held the flat of the blade, and offered the hilt out for Link to take. Link moved his right hand towards it, and stopped.
Grandma wouldn't like him using a real sword, she liked him to think the ways of peace. On the other hand, it was only to cut plants as they climbed the cliff path, and he was going to help a person in trouble, as she had always taught him to do.
He moved his hand slowly and clasped the hilt. Orca released the blade.
It was lighter than Link had expected, and it seemed to be weighted more at the handle end than at the tip. Not entirely confident in what "serious instruction" actually meant, he looked confused, from the deadly weapon in his hand back into Orca's dark-tanned face.
Orca laughed out loud, his head tilted back in mirth.
'Today you are the same age as the hero of legend.' He told him, 'It is ironic, it is also said that this is the Hero's Sword.'
Link looked back at the sword.
'Of course, I do not know this to be true, but it is a good sword, nonetheless.' He reached for his old Deku fishing spear from its place on the wall, and provided Link with a scabbard, which he fitted over his shoulder. 'Now, come!'
'Yes, Orca.'
'Good lad.' Link wondered if they would really need these weapons… but then, that big bird didn't look friendly. He followed Orca to the door.
They walked quickly, side by side across the island, Orca, shirtless as he always was, using his spear shaft as a walking pole. They came to the sign on the cliff where the path split at the watchtower. It read, as it always had:
= Watchtower
Forest of Fairies =
Link glanced out over the cliff to the pirate ship was showing its bow on the white sand bank several hundred yards offshore. He took Aryll's telescope from his belt, and looked at it. On deck, he could see there were two pirates, who seemed to be arguing over something. Another pirate was lowering a boat over the side.
'We must not waste time, Link, this girl may be injured if she has fallen as you say, so we will leave the others to deal with our unfortunate guests. Quill is a good man, and even pirates know better than to cross the Rito.' Orca told him.
Link replaced the telescope in his belt and started to follow Orca up the rising semicircular path that led up to the face of the cliff. A natural wall of stone blocked his view of the pirate ship as he walked. There was no fence or wall on the inner side of the path here, and the drop down to Mesa's house was not one Link felt he would like to have taken, so he stuck close to the rock wall.
At the top, was the familiar faded 'No Entry' sign, which stated that that the forest paths were closed until the suspension bridge that spanned the gap between the two peaks had been repaired. This sign had been there ever since Link could remember. Behind it a row of thick bushes blocked their way.
'We shall have to cut our way through,' Orca told him, 'We never did find the time to repair the bridge.'
'Is it safe enough to cross?'
'Yes, I think it will be. Let us proceed.'
Link drew the sword, and swung it at the thick bushes on the path. Where they fell, Orca used his spear to lever the trunks out of the way to allow them to pass. The sword cut quickly through the undergrowth, and they made their way through, until it thinned out into long grass as they climbed into the wind and the weather. They circled the cliff top, and came presently to the damaged suspension bridge.
'I shall go first.' Orca instructed, 'keep to the centre of the boards to maintain your balance, as you are not tall enough to reach the handrails.'
Link followed silently behind as Orca moved onto the bridge, concentrating on where he was placing his footing. The bridge wobbled from side to side in the wind, and bounced up and down as they slowly crossed. At the centre of the bridge, a section of two board's width was missing, where a rope had snapped in the high wind of the great storm. The gap was perhaps just under a metre wide.
'It is not far, we can jump,' Orca increased his speed, and hopped lightly from one section of the bridge to the next, causing it to wobble uncertainly. He turned to Link, and held the shaft of his spear out for Link. 'Now you' he said.
Link glanced down through the gap in the boards at his feet. Below he could see the rocks in the channel.
'The bridge looks much higher from up here,' he said to himself, as much as to Orca.
'Do not lose faith, you must jump confidently. Should you hesitate, you may lessen the distance you may jump.'
Link took a step back, and made a short run to the gap, and cleared it easily. He turned to look at it. It didn't seem quite so far, now.
'Well done, Link.'
They trudged up the forest-side half of the bridge, and came up onto the rock outcropping to which the bridge was fixed. It was overgrown with grass and bushes, and they pushed their way through. They passed through a door sized opening in the rock, which had been cut through several feet of cliff to the woodland area within.
'Look there, Link!'
Link looked at where Orca was pointing. On the other side of a stone wall, there was a young woman dangling from a branch of a tree.
'I see her, that tree must have caught her when she fell.'
They moved through the thick grass. The area was densely forested, and fallen branches, and tangled bushes and brambles slowed their progress. The tree canopy above reduced the light from the sun to a dappling in the heather, and the air was heavy with the haze of summer pollen, and the damp smell of vegetation. The air was eerily still, only the rush of the breeze in the canopy. Link felt uncomfortable, but said nothing as they forced their way. As they reached the foot of the wall, Orca called out up the wall.
''Hoy there! Can you hear me?'
The girl in the tree was hanging from the branch by the back of her navy blue waistcoat, which had prevented her from plummeting to the ground. She had dark tanned skin, and white shorts, from which her sandaled feet were dangling limply. Her eyes were closed, and she said nothing, but she appeared to be breathing normally.
'Can we go round?' Link asked.
'I believe we can. But we cannot climb this wall.' Orca said. From their right, through a gap in the mossy rock, they heard a brief animal-like shriek over the wind in the trees.
'I do not like this, Link. I have heard that sound on several still nights recently, I do not want to see what it is. Let us go on.'
Climbing a lower section of the rock, they came out onto a small platform of moss. Orca, in the lead, dropped to the floor, and motioned for Link to do the same. In the open earthy area ahead of them, strewn with patches of grass and fallen logs, Link could see an animal of some kind sitting on the floor, sleeping. Orca pulled him back behind the mossy rock, where they could not be seen.
'It is as I feared,' Orca whispered.
'What is it?'
'It is what is called a Bokoblin.' Orca's face was stern, and his voice was worried and hushed, 'A creature with no regard for life of any kind. They are greedy, and are feared by even pirates.'
'Have you seen one?'
'I have. In my youth when my brother and I mapped the island of the Fortress, in the north, our small boat was attacked more than once by a raft of several of these monsters.' His face scowled with the memory, 'They are ruthless and uncaring, even for their own skins, and will attack us should we get close.'
'What'll we do?' Link whispered.
'We will have to confront it, if we are to help this girl,' he jerked his head in the direction of the tree behind him, 'They are not bright, but they are mean combatants.'
Link looked at the floor in front of him. He didn't feel ready to fight something that wanted to kill him.
'You fight skilfully, Link, just remember what I have taught you. Are you ready?' Orca stood up.
Link was about to mouth "Yes", but looked back at the floor, shook his head, and said, 'No'.
'That is admirable, Link, for you do well to be cautious.'
Link felt a little weight lift off of him for his honesty, but didn't feel any more ready. He placed the Aryll's telescope on the rock, he didn't want to break that.
They crept forwards, slipping down the other side of the rock without a sound. The sleeping creature was sat on the soft soil before a tree stump. Its eyes were closed, and it had a pig like snout in between two sharp, upward pointing tusks that protruded from its oversized jaw. This wasn't what was worrying Link the most, of course, nor was he particularly worried about the black forked tail that was resting on the floor behind it. No, Link was having trouble contemplating the pointed grey horn in the centre of its forehead.
Orca moved out to the left, and Link, to the right. If it was as bright as Orca had told him, it might get confused with two targets to choose from. Orca's spear was held aloft in his right hand. Link drew the sword from its sheath with his left. It made a slight metallic ring.
Suddenly, the Bokoblin awoke.
'Ehk?' it said as it sprung to its feet. Looking first at Orca, and then at Link with its narrow eyes, it selected Link as the smaller and weaker of the two foes, and charged at him with a deep throated gurgling screech.
Link raised the sword in front of him, and swung it across and back before the creatures face. It stopped, recognising the glint of a metal blade and lowered its head, forcing Link back with the threat of its horn.
Link hesitated, he'd never had to defend himself in this fashion, and the Bokoblin used the moment and leapt at him, bringing a clawed arm down towards his face. He raised his arm automatically in defence, and cried out in pain as the blow threw him back onto the soil, the sword falling with a thud, useless, on to the ground beside him. He scrambled backwards, not taking his eyes off of the advancing monster as it raised its claw to strike again, and raised his arm again, turning his head to the side protectively, his muscles tensed for the impending assault.
But it didn't come.
Looking back at the Bokoblin, it had paused, its arm raised above his head, ready to attack, its mouth open, and its eyes tight shut. It fell to its knees, and Link rolled to the side as it collapsed where he had been seconds before.
Orca removed his spear.
'Are you well, Link?' He asked, as calmly as he would ask the time of day.
Link nodded, although he was cradling his battered arm. 'I think it's just bruised.' He pulled up his sleeve and examined the knock. It wasn't cut, but it was painful, so he rubbed it. 'Thank you.' He added, as an afterthought.
'You must not hesitate in battle, Link. An enemy will use any advantage it can get. Your arm is not a good shield.'
Link nodded gravely.
'Yes, sir.'
'Now, pick up your sword'
Link did so, and was about to place it back into its sheath.
'You must always remember to clean your sword after battle, Link, so it will remember its edge.'
Obediently, Link wiped the mud from the blade in the grass, and put it away.
'Very good.' Orca said.
They looked at the fallen Bokoblin, who was beginning to emit dark purple smoke from where it was on the floor.
'What's happening?' Link asked anxiously as he took a step back.
'Watch,' Orca told him.
The smoke swirled contrary to the wind direction in the air in front of them, and seemed to glow with an unnatural darkness, before it dissipated, and vanished, leaving behind only a small, stiff canvas satchel, and a single green Rupee.
'Where is it?' Link said, his voice rising with panic as he looked around for it.
'I do not know,' Orca replied, 'You see, I am not sure that this creature was entirely real.' He held up the spearhead, which had been stained with sticky black blood, but which had now faded with the same purple-black dark smoke as the rest of the creature had, and was now clean.
'But it hit me!' Link exclaimed, 'And it hurt! How is it not real?'
'Again, I do not have such knowledge, Link. But it is gone, now. Had it been a real animal, it would have lain here for the worms, yet it has not. I fear it may be a creature of magic, and not a virtuous magic, at that.'
'Magic?'
'Yes, Link. Magic. It is not something that is the realm merely of tales for children at bedtime.'
'Really?'
'Yes. Will you not believe my word? I have seen many things, in my time.'
Link nodded, and looked back at the tiny canvas satchel on the ground. It was a faded military green, no bigger than two twenty Rupee pieces, and the strap was missing.
'What's this?' he asked.
'I do not know, but it doesn't seem to have disappeared with the Bokoblin, perhaps it was stolen?' Orca mused.
Opening it, Link looked inside. It contained several divisions in which to store numerous small items, much like his recently acquired bait bag, but there didn't appear to be anything spectacular about it. He picked up the Rupee from the ground, which was large enough to fill the palm of his hand, and dropped it into the satchel. As he watched, it seemed to shrink in size, and fell neatly into one of the compartments.
Link reeled, and looked back at it.
'What is it, Link?'
He held out the bag for Orca to see.
'By the Goddesses!' He exclaimed, as he examined it and handed it back to Link, 'It is a rare treasure you have there!'
Reaching in with his hand, towards the Rupee, he felt a tingling sensation as he watched his hand visibly shrink, and pulled it out again hurriedly. It felt like he'd sat on it.
'My hand got smaller, too!' He told Orca.
'I do not think you need fear it, Link. It appears to have some magical power about it. Did I not tell you of Magic? There, look at the back!'
Link turned it around. A sewn in loop that would allow it to fit to his belt, had a faded symbol of three triangles, arranged together to form a larger triangle with a gap in between. The symbol was the same as that which was patterned onto the doors of the islands home, except that it was the other way up.
'That is a good symbol, Link, I think you may trust it.' Orca told him.
Reaching into the bag again, he clasped his hand around the Rupee that he felt was somewhere below the bottom of the bag, and pulled it out. It was the same Rupee he had dropped in, and his hand was the same one that had retrieved it. He placed the green glass piece back into the bag, and with it placed a yellow one from his tunic pocket. He took also the telescope from the rock on which he had located it, and put it in the bag as well. It didn't get any heavier, either; it was as light as it had been when it was empty.
'My word, Link! That will serve you well! Now, attach it to your belt, and let us go on.'
He looked up at the rocks that they would now have to climb. They were overgrown with grass, and bushes, and they would need to cut their way through them.
After Link had reset his belt clasp, he climbed upon the tree stump, and jumped across to the plants, and tried to push his way through. They were so tangled with bindweed that he had to use his sword once again to cut through the thin branches, moving slowly up a damp earthy slope as he did so. Orca followed behind, having to part more of the undergrowth with his larger size.
The vegetation thinned and a rotted wooden sign was standing by a wide circular hollow. He clambered up the ledge, and read it.
It said, "Fairy Fountain Site"
'Orca!' He called back, 'I found a fairy fountain!'
Orca emerged from the bushes, 'Do you see any fairies?'
Link looked. In the centre of the hollow, which looked like it may once have been a pool, stood a large cracked boulder, of a different, lighter grey rock from the surrounding cliff.
'No, just grass', he said disappointedly.
Orca was now stood beside him. 'Ill fortune for the fortune seeker.' he said, smiling, 'but I think you've had enough fortune for ten minutes. Come.'
They used a fallen tree trunk to climb over a lower section of the natural rocky barrier that walled in a forested clearing, the sunlight falling strongly through the canopy. Link was grateful for the light and the warmth that came.
Once down the other side, they were about towards the tree on the far side in which the fallen girl was hanging, but not before they heard a low moaning call from the sky above.
Looking up they saw two wildly flapping birds above the trees, and they seemed to be carrying something. Link and Orca didn't have much time to determine what they were before the payload was dropped on top of them. Rolling to his left, Link turned to face the attack with the sword drawn in his hand before he knew he was doing so.
Orca wasn't quite so quick, he had jumped to the right just as two Bokoblins had landed in the space where he and Link had been standing, and seeing Link with his sword out and ready, and Orca sprawled on the floor with his spear beneath him, getting to his feet, they set upon Orca.
This time, Link didn't hesitate; he darted to Orca, and thrust his sword into the back of one of the Bokoblins. He struck a bone, and the monster turned in anger and pain and flailed his claws at Link, knocking Link's hat from his head as he ducked and thrust the sword up towards it, like a dart.
For Link, time seemed to stop in that moment. He saw his sword impaled in the monster's chest, purple black ooze starting to trickle from its front, and he realised, that for the past twenty seconds or so, he had been acting entirely out of concern for his mentor. He hadn't been thinking about what he was doing, nor how he was going to get out of this without being injured, or even where he was going swing the sword. He thought now, and was set upon by beasts of evil magic.
He saw Orca, still on the floor but now on his back, his spear held across his front to fend off the oncoming creature, a shallow gash in his upper arm, across the image of an anchor he had had tattooed there.
He felt his sword arm grow heavy as the Bokoblin began to sink to the floor, and he pulled the blade back with a shout he hadn't meant to utter. It was then that the realisation hit him. He'd killed it, actually extinguished its life. It was a monster no more, and it faded slowly into dark purple smoke. The shock of this made him stop, and it took his attention from the second creature, which had not retained the upper hand over Orca.
With a blow from the shaft of his spear, Orca had sent it flying through the air, straight into Link, who was knocked to the ground. With a dexterity even Link hadn't expected, he rolled quickly to his feet, and readied again with his sword, brought it down point first at the sprawled creature.
'EKH!' it shouted, remaining on the ground beneath the sword's tip. Link was thinking now, no longer acting on impulse, and didn't want to kill anything. He held his sword uncertainly over the creature while Orca drove his spear into the creature's chest.
As it evaporated, Link realised he was holding his breath, so released it.
'Do you hesitate, Link? You should not, a Bokoblin will show you none,'
Link held the sword in his hand and watched the purple ooze of Bokoblin evaporate from it's surface, leaving only the shine of the blade. For a moment, link felt that he could see the sword glowing, radiating a gentle righteousness for the magic it had vanquished. Link stared at it, and suddenly he knew that what he had done was not an unforgivable thing, but something worthy of the Hero's clothes he was wearing. All this came in an instant, and then it was gone, and he was left with the sick feeling that he had killed something he shouldn't have done.
Orca looked up into the tree, where the female pirate had just woken up and had started to struggle in the air. The branch she was on gave way, and she fell to the ground.
She stood up to see Link climbing the grass covered rock. Looking him and his green tunic up and down for a moment, and glancing at Orca behind him, she straightened her expression.
'Wow. What's with that get-up?'
'Uh… It's my birthday,' Link managed.
The pirate stared at him a little longer. 'Well, whatever. So, where am I?'
'You're on the first peak of Outset Island, Miss', Orca explained
'Oh, that's right! That giant bird came and…'
'Miss! Miss Tetra!' A burly pirate in scruffy dark green was waving and shouting frantically from the entranceway into the forest. Tetra jumped down from the rock on which she was standing, followed by Link and Orca.
'Oh! Oh, thank… Thank goodness! You're safe!' The pirate panted and mopped his brow on his arm, 'When I saw you get dropped on this summit, I thought for sure you'd…'
'Summit?' Tetra queried, 'So that bird dropped me on the top of a mountain?'
'On the first peak of Outset Island, Miss' Orca repeated. She showed no sign that she'd even heard him speak, and her face contorted with anger, her blue eyes frowning at the thought.
'Well wasn't that nice of it!' she started moving towards the gap in the cliff. 'Well don't just stand there,' she gestured to the pirate with one arm, 'Let's go! It's time to repay our debt to that bird in full!'
'But, Miss…' the pirate pointed an arm at Link and Orca, 'What about this boy?'
'Don't worry about him, come on!'
With a quick glance at Link, the burly pirate ran after Tetra, and Link and Orca followed behind, emerging from the entrance to the mountaintop forest in close pursuit, and stopped with them on the grass outside. As his eyes adjusted for the light he heard Aryll shout from the other side of the bridge.
''Hoy! Big Brother!'
She was standing between the two large posts that supported the ropes for the high bridge, with a cluster of seagulls flying around her head. With one arm shielding his eyes from the sun, Link smiled and waved back.
'Stay there, Aryll,' Orca called from behind him.
Appearing not to hear, Aryll started to cross the rope bridge, giggling as she did so, seemingly unaware of the gap in the middle. Link was suddenly aware of a dark shape covering the sunlight. Before he could react, a low eagle-like screech filled his eardrums, causing him to flinch.
The great black bird swooped out of the sky with unfaltering accuracy, and snatched Aryll from the centre of the bridge in its talons. Its vast wings spanned much greater a gap than the length of the bridge, which swung wildly from the force of the impact, and he, Orca and the two pirates were bowled over by the blast of air that followed.
In mere seconds the bird was over a hundred feet away, Orca's speedily thrown spear falling well short of its mark, landing harmlessly in the sea.
'BROTHER!!!' Aryll shrieked, her voice growing distant in the wind.
At the definite sound of a determined steel on steel ring of a sword loosed from its scabbard, Tetra looked round to see Link charge through the long grass towards the edge of the cliff, his eyes fixed only on the bird ahead of him in the sky.
He glanced only too late at the sea and rocks below which told him too late what was about to happen, and a tight grip on his wrist nearly pulled his arm out of its socket. His back slammed into the rock behind him, and he waved his sword in the air in front of him, willing it to reach the shrinking wings.
'Stupid kid!' Tetra shouted down from above him, the burly pirate pulling her back from the edge.
Link struggled and shouted, kicking his dangling feet in the air.
'Get a hold on yourself! She's gone. There's nothing you can do.'
With one more shout of anguish, Link stopped squirming, and simply stared as his sister floated away on the breeze. Two seagulls abandoned their island home and followed. For Link, this act was a tiny pinpoint of hope in all that was lost. He knew what he had to do, but for now, tears escaped his eyes, rolled down his cheek, and fell into the sea below.
Orca helped Tetra and the burly pirate haul Link back onto the cliff, who made no attempt to do anything other than flop onto the ground and stare into the sky, tears welling in his eyes.
- 22 -
