Ears

Karane was always lucky that her tan skin prevented her from having a very visible blush. In fact, her face never really turned bright red unless it was a particularly embarrassing situation, or she was severely overheated.

But there was one place her blush always showed up. Her ears.

Like any other Skyloftian, she had long pointy ears, and like most of the Skyloftian girls, her hair covered many parts of those ears. In fact, Karane tended to TRY to make her ruddy locks overlap with her ears. She began to do this more and more the older she got, and the more embarrassing situations she found herself in.

When she became a teenager, awkward moments just seemed to stick to her, and so her ears would light up like red bazaar balloons more and more often. So, she started leaving locks of hair hanging down in from of her ears whenever she pulled her ginger hair back into pig-tails.

Luckily, nobody seemed to notice that she was having such a problem with her ears. While many of the other kids had blushes that were on their faces, Karane was lucky enough to pass through puberty with an unnoticed flush.

At least until Pipit commented at age 15, "Your ears look so funny when they get red like that."

And from then on out, Karane would never know if Pipit had figured her out, or if he just thought her ears looked weird.

Eyes

Karane had always known she had pretty eyes. It was probably the only thing about herself that she felt confident enough to consistently admit was pretty. Her eyes were a very pale blue that contrasted so nicely with her tan skin and her ruddy red hair. they just stood out.

And what accented them even better, were her dark eyelashes. They framed her eyes well, even if she didn't notice, and they made the ice blue of her eyes stand out that much more.

Sadly, though, Karane didn't exactly notice her eyelashes, nobody notices eyelashes!

But apparently, when they were teenagers, Pipit noticed them. She caught him staring at her in the oddest way. He looked confused as he stared at her face one day after class.

"What?" she blurted, bewildered and self-conscious.

"Oh… sorry, its just… Did you know you have really long eyelashes?" he mentioned. "I never really noticed before."

Karane began to like her eyelashes after that.

Concentration

"Give in yet?" Karane grunted with a smirk on her lips, her eyes narrowed at her freckled opponent.

"Never," Pipit declared, also smiling.

The two were locked in a combative concentration. They had been at it for a little while, before their third class of the day began. They were sophomores now, and had taken to occasionally getting into friendly competitions. This battle was no except.

Karane took a deep breathe and focused on her stance. A strong stance meant you could wait out your foe, she had been taught. You can't be felled if your stance was strong.

But she could see that Pipit was taking the same approach. Dammit, why did they have to share classes again?

Then he asked, "Come on, you know you want to surrender."

Karane frowned, "Do not."

"We're at a stale mate then."

Karane growled quietly under her breath. She knew he was right, but she refused to agree to it. There had to be something she could do.

She moved her feet, trying to adjust her stalwart stance and think, when her foot brushed against his leg on accident. "Sorry," she muttered.

But just when her foot hit his calf, he seemed to loose all tension in his arms, and Karane found herself easily slamming his hand to the other end of the table.

She blinked.

"I WON!" she whooped, pumping both fists in the air. She didn't notice how red Pipit's face had become at the contact between her foot and his leg under the dining hall table, but the accidental contact had won her the arm wrestling competition.

Guessing Game

They were like precise pin-pricks along her skin. They were just ever so slightly there, but they sent a powerful sensation coursing through her skin. Her breathing came uneven now, and her skin grew flushed and hot. He'd be able to tell that too.

"Stop it," she muttered, trying to make him quit.

"Why?" he asked, legitimately confused.

Karane snapped, "Please, just stop that!"

He complied and his hand removed itself from her arm. "Sorry…. I thought it would be a fun game to play…"

The two of them, juniors in the Academy, had been playing the perception test with one another. One person held out their arm and closed their eyes, the other tried to gradually creep their fingers up the first person's arm, and the first person would guess when the second person reached the half way mark.

The only problem with playing this game, was that having Pipit's finger tips gently tip-toing along the underside of her arm was very very distracting. It was way too much of a turn on.

Soothing Words

It was something her mother had always repeated in a gentle, loving manner whenever she cried as a small child. Her mother would just gather her up in her arms and coo and rub her back until the sobs subsided and only quiet calm was left over. It was soothing and had always made her feel better.

It was the same thing she told Pipit, the night his bird forgot to catch him. He had come to her door and had tried to keep it together. But she knew him well, and he was clinging to her in tears within a minute.

Without hesitation, she had wrapped him in her arms and laid down with him, just allowing him to vent his panic. She rubbed his back and gently ran her fingers through his hair, communicating to him how much she cared.

And just like her mother had always done for her, Karane whispered softly in his ear, "Hush, my darling, it will be alright. Just breathe and know you're here with me."

Cheesecake

"Come on, missy!" Eagus shouted, "You wanted into the Academy, now you're in it!"

Karane huffed, pulling herself up from the ground. She was a freshman at the Knight Academy, and she was having problems keeping up with the physical demands. She wasn't as naturally strong as the boys, and it didn't help that she had put up a fight to get into the Academy in the first place.

"Come on, girl," Eagus taunted. it was his job to antagonize his students into finishing the obstacle courses and performing their drills. "Your classmate has already finished, and here you are, only half way through!"

Karane ground her teeth and ran on, despite her heaving lungs. She was at the obstacle wall, and she managed to pull herself up with struggling arms. She was panting and covered in sweat, making her grip slippery at best.

Just as she was hauling her legs over the other side of the wall, her palm slipped and she went crashing to the hard ground again. But this time, there was a sickening snap that sounded as she landed.

There was a moment of silence after the snap had sounded. The other students who had finished the course became alert again. Karane herself was in stunned silence.

Then she yelled, because the pain set in.

It was her first time ever having broken a bone, and her arm had snapped, literally, into a horrendous multiple fracture break. She clutched her broken arm against her chest and was wide-eyed in shock and pain and disappointment.

When Eagus tried to get her up and take her to the clinic, she refused.

"I have to finish the course!" she demanded, tears in her young eyes. "Everyone else finished, I will too!"

And she kept going. Her instructor followed, trying reason to convince her to simply back down. But she was more stubborn than he, and she repeatedly refused, despite how badly and how quickly her arm was swelling and bruising.

By now, the other students had come to watch as she tried to continue on. Eagus sighed in frustration, "If this is your decision, girl, then you dig your own grave. I certainly hope you don't permanently disable yourself."

"I won't!" Karane snapped, hoping it was true. But as she was trying to balance on the narrow plank which ran over a small dip in the ground, she was grabbed around the waist.

"LET ME GO!" she screamed, kicking her legs and using her good arm and hit the person who was picking her up of the plank and drag her inside.

"No!" Pipit shouted back, even though he was taking whacks to the arm and face. "You're hurting yourself!"

The rest of the student body was slack jawed and entertained as they watched the two freshmen fighting. Even though Pipit was only a little bit taller than her, he was managing to drag the little spitfire inside to the clinic. She protested greatly, shouting and yelling for him to stop. But Pipit was just as stubborn when it came to his friend's safety, apparently.

One he managed to get her inside the clinic, he huffed and frowned. His face had some pink splotches on it from her flailing and protesting. He said as sternly as a thirteen year old could, "You can't do stuff like that. Sir Eagus said you could permanently damage your arm!"

Karane scowled back at him, her broken arm now painfully swollen and the bone fractured and loose. It was of course incredibly painful, but she had been trying to prove herself. "I can't quit, Pipit!" she growled at him. "You saw me out there, I'm a wreck compared to you and the others!"

"But you're new," he tried to tell her, "Its ok!"

"You're new too, and you were twice as fast as me!" she reminded him. "I have more to prove, I can't let injuries stop me." She sniffed, using her good arm to wipe the tears of pain and frustration away from her eyes.

Pipit sighed and patted his friend's knee. "Rane… its ok. I know you have to prove yourself, but not like this ok? If you get yourself too hurt you'll have to drop out," he warned her. "And then what will I do?" he grinned. "It'll be so boring if I'm here by myself!"

Karane shook her head at his words. He was trying to cheer her up and it was obvious. But it was still working, even if only a little.

"You're so cheesy, Pipit," she sniffled. "But thanks. You're sweet."

"Cheesy and sweet huh?" he agreed triumphantly. "I guess you can just call me cheesecake."

Through the Clouds

The first time she had descended through the clouds, she had forgotten to breathe. To begin with, the thick layer of clouds had always felt like an ominous barrier between life and death. It had been the boundary between safety and doom for Skyloft her entire life.

But now, it was apparently opened and safe. She had seen Link go through the cloud barrier both ways many times, and Hylia's Temple had fallen through the very same fog of clouds, laying the path that would lead the sky people back to the Earth.

It didn't feel hopeful, though, when you had to fly through the thick clouds. It would blind you for the few minutes it took to sift your way through them, and when Karane did it for the first time, she panicked. All she could see was the fog and mist before her, she couldn't even make out Hatchet's beak in the thick gathering of clouds.

This brought into question, what was she NOT seeing?

The fog was frightening that first time, because it left so much unknown. What if those who tried to reach the surface wouldn't make it? What if, because Hylia had not blessed them for the journey, they would fall into the fog and never come out?

What if it wasn't as safe as Link thought it was?

The fog left questions lingering in her mind. But after the two minutes of chocking suspense, the fog was gone, and all she could see below was the vast world below. The surface.

The first time she had descended through the clouds, she had forgotten to breathe.

Precision

While Karane was the faster and the more flexible, she was not the most precise when it came to the sword. She was a great dodger and was very good at not getting hit, but she tended to make broad, sweeping strokes with her blade rather than the lethal and pin-pointed strikes that won battles quickly.

Pipit, on the other hand, was much more suited for precision. Maybe it was because he was slower and he had time to focus and find the specific point he wanted to hit, but he was much better at precision.

Karane really noticed this when they were seniors, sparring during their day for training, like usual. It was before the Wing Ceremony for the incoming class, and they were going through their usual routine of fighting with their steel swords.

By now, both were skilled enough to use the real swords rather than the fake ones. They both knew how to block and how to pull their punches so injuries never occurred between them.

But this afternoon, as Karane was moving her left foot close behind the right to spin herself to the side and dodge Pipit's slower, better aimed hit, she made a mistake.

It rarely happened, but Karane was far from perfect, so her misstep was not considered out of the realm of possibility. She failed in her dodge, taking both herself and her opponent by surprise.

Yelping, she quickly tried to lean back and avoid the cold steel that was thrusting right at her left cheek. She managed to dodge most of the blow, but there was the thinnest, shallowest or cuts that just nicked her face.

She hadn't even noticed it had happened until Pipit dropped his sword and began to shout in concern. "Are you ok? I'm so sorry!"

"Huh?" she questioned. "Nah, its fine, I dodged."

"But you're bleeding!" Pipit continued, worry written all over his face.

Karane touched her cheek and felt the blood moisten her palm. Well that was surprising.

She chuckled, shrugging it off, "Eh, I don't feel it, nothing to worry about."

But, knowing Pipit, he was not going to let this go easily. He was a worrier, always concerned about everyone. That was expected, and it was how Karane knew that she wasn't a special case with Pipit. They were friends, ever only friends, and his concern did not stretch further than it did for any other classmate.

She reassured him, "I'll be fine, I'll just go clean it up."

Walking inside to get a bandage, she passed by a few underclassmen on her way. The chubby one with the blue hair seemed particularly perturbed at the sight of her bleeding and actually asked, "are you ok? Did he hurt you!"

Karane was confused by his concern. Groose's little lackeys barely showed interest in anyone other than Groose himself, so this was… odd.

"No," she waved, continuing on. "Its just a paper cut, calm down."

But that evening she thought about the reactions she had gotten. Pipit's had been predictable and normal. She met the par for his friendly worry. The other boy's was out of the ordinary. She had not expected the second one.

It made her wonder if she shouldn't give up hope on Pipit. After all, she had spent four years trying to get him to notice her, and by now she was tired of trying so hard. She shouldn't have to try if it was love, right?

She rubbed her cheek where the cut had been and sighed. Maybe she should take this "paper cut" as a sign and move on.