Insurrection
"Throw caution to the wind and just do it."-Carrie Underwood
Nayru vanished, leaving a darkened crater behind her.
"Uhhh," came from the wall.
Two blackened human figures materialized from the soot and fell to the ground with twin thumps, leaving two human shaped, black free spaces a Neither one said anything for the moment, both silently blessing their Shiekah heritage. Shiekah blood granted it's descendants enhanced abilities and endurance, but it didn't prevent pain. It wasn't for at least another half hour before Leanne moaned again.
"That was something," she finally muttered, lying on her back looking up at the clouds moving across the sky. She winced as her body throbbed with pain.
"What did you do exactly?" Skye asked, trying to shake the soot from his clothing. "I need some new clothes. Seriously, I'm not mad, Nayru is. What did you do exactly? Those words, 'Leanne you f- screwed up' came from somewhere."
Leanne glanced over at her counterpart, scrutinizing his face. Fine, probably better he hears it from me rather than Nayru.
"So do I," muttered Leanne. "I just told Mallara about the Goddess mission. I'm sure she already knows a lot about it."
She looked in a nearby pool of water; her face was entirely covered with soot and her hair was completely destroyed from the small bun she had put it in. Great, talk about looking bad in fright of the guy I like. What could be better?
"Why did she have to get so angry? It makes no sense."
"Do you know Mallara, or more likely, who she lives next to?" Skye said, getting up and testing to see whether his feet would support him. Leaning against the wall of the crater, he steadied himself just in case his legs had other ideas.
"No," Leanne pointed out, still laying on her back. "I'm from the Sky Islands, remember? I didn't know anyone on Skyloft until Nayru plucked me from that pumpkin farm and introduced me to you."
"The biggest gossip in all of Skyloft. When Nayru said 'did you forget who was next to you?' probably meant her."
"Which means?"
"Everyone on Skyloft will know by nightfall. We have to go back now and protect Gaepora."
"Okay," Leanne conceded, stretching out into a bridge, cracking her back as she went. Skye couldn't help but suppress a hint of jealously at her flexibility; it wasn't something he was blessed with. "Wait, what does it mean?"
"Well, if Hylia's priests have anything to say about it, I can imagine a thousand different ways it could go."
"I'm still not following." Leanne admitted, now standing up and stretching out her arms.
"An uprising for example?"
"S****," Leanne cursed.
"So, where is this ship?" I asked gently, as Skipper cowered before me.
"You aren't going to dismember me, bzzt,?" Skipper wailed.
"No, why would I do that?"
"Be...you...aren't...oh, bzzt," he said. "It could be anywhere."
Suddenly he 'lit up' with a suggestion.
"My boat," he said, pointing to what looked like to us a derelict wreck. "We could use that."
I pulled Karane aside real quick.
"Are you sure we can trust him?" I asked. "My memories tell me I knew him, but I don't his reliability."
"We don't have a choice," Karane pointed out. "We only have some thirty hours left. We must move quickly to stop it. Check with Fi then."
At the mention of her name, Fi popped out of the sword.
"Her Grace, this Ancient Robot's name is LD-301N Skipper. It is the leadership model of this series of artificial life forms. The original purpose of this robot was mining. According to my data banks, Skipper was charged with protecting Nayru's flame. The pirate LD-002S Scervo mutinied from under Skipper's command and stole the Sandship from him. My caclucations indicate 60% you will find the Sandship if you follow Skipper."
She disappeared back into the swore hanging at my waste.
"Sixty percent, not good," I said skeptically. "That's Fi's stamp of approval."
"Do you have any better ideas?"
"No, I don't," I conceded.
"Fine Skipper, we need to take the Sandship back," I told him, kneeling to try and comfort the Ancient Robot. "Do you know where it is?"
Skipper looked out towards what we saw as a massive sand desert.
"Floating on the ocean, vrrmm, zzpt," he said.
"That is an ocean?" Karane asked.
"Yes that's an ocean," Skipper said as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "We'll use my boat. Who are you?"
"Mine name is..."
"Knight Rosalina," he said, recongition sparking in his eyes. "A pleasure to meet the esteemed knight of Hylia. Bzzt"
He looked towards the end of the pier; to us we saw derelict remains of but to him he probably he saw a full boat. But in our time, we saw a large Timeshift Stone in the middle of the boat. I raised the sword to the heavens feeling it pulsating with light and directed it at the stone. A small area instantly reverted back to who knows when; water flowed beneath the dock instead of sand and Skipper's boat looked brand new, complete with some weird mechanism at the back, rowboat like seats, and a weird object at the front.
"Hop on in Your Grace, vrrm, bzzt," Skipper said.
With no other choice, we both clambered into the small boat, barely bigger than the little rowboats on Skyloft and away we went. The boat could really move! The real clincher was when Karane asked what the strange, circular metal object protruding out of the front of the boat was. Somehow I knew the answer before he spoke.
"It's called a cannon Rosalina, verrm," Skipper informed Karane as casually as if we were dull schoolchildren as he gunned the motor and the boat started along as a tremendous amount of speed.
Skipper couldn't see it, but it was a surreal experience. We were seeing desert suddenly be converted to water on a small circle around our little boat, a process which I never dreamed I'd ever see, even with Hylia's memories.
"Um Skipper," I asked, tying my hair back into a messy bun to prevent it from whipping my face anymore. "How will we find this boat out in this great sea?"
Skipper didn't say anything.
"Skipper, do you really have a plan?" Karane prodded.
Skipper eyed both of us warily.
"How about a map, maybe?" I suggested out of the blue.
"Let's go to my quarters," Skipper offered, full of new life and relief. Karane and I exchanged knowing glances; Skipper was exhibiting the same signs Link, Karane, and I had done once when my father Gaepora discovered us sneaking pumpkin juice from the kitchens.
"Let's go."
Skipper turned the boat around nearly one hundred and eighty degrees. As we jetted along, I laid down, looking at the sun in the sky. When we had descended to the Surface it had been near noon, now by it's position it was high afternoon and the sun's full glare was upon us. Karane and I pulled hoods over our heads; even with the Timestone's creating the water below us and lowering the temperature by a few degrees, it was still very hot.
Eventually a high plateau emerged from out of the sandy mists (Skipper probably was seeing water mists) upon which was a house. A three leveled circular hovel, it looked quite homely, it's exterior faded with time, blasted by sand, and situated on top of a massive stone formation.
"The map is in there, bzzt," Skipper informed us. A ladder lead to a dock at the base of the spire that the house was sitting on.
"We'll go get it," Karane cut in. I could see her point; if Skipper went outside the small bit of time illuminated by the stone, we'd lose our navigator. And we couldn't see a Goddess Statue around here for miles, so Skyloft was also out of the question.
Karane and I clambered up the ladder to the top of the spire. What few monsters were there we easily disposed of and we stepped into Skipper's humble abode for the first time. Entering the hovel, it was quite the house. Paintings of a sea now non-existant looked as though they had just been painted yesterday, but blemished by a dense layer of sand. Images of some sort of a hook-like symbol decorated the walls on top of the paintings. It was a nicely decorated home for a robot, but something else drew me in. A huge monster, with multiple limbs with spots on them, a single eye on it's bulbous head. The illustration made it look fearsome, but I breathed a sigh of relief that whatever it was long since dead.
"So, where is it?" Karane asked.
"He didn't say where I take it," I deadpanned, resigning myself to yet more time wasting.
"Let me clean up," I said, feeling power rise in my hands at my command. Surrounding Karane and I with one of my golden shields (we had to keep our appearances up even in a desert), I blew the sand that had collected over millenia out the nearby windows. Several chests were exposed that had been buried in feet deep sand drifts.
Karane and I eagerly opened them, finding old charts, swords (heavily rusted), compasses, old trinkets with no known usage (though Hylia's memories were trying to tell me differently) until...
"I found it!" Karane shrieked.
From a chest just outside of Skipper's shack, a map of the sea. Expertly choerographed, it triggered a memory from a distant corner of my brain.
"Skipper, this is beyond anything I asked of you," Hylia said, the faint white light she gave off all the time softly illuminating Skipper's humble abode.
"Her Grace, bzzzt," Skipper said. "It's an honor to have you here you, beep, bzzt."
The excitment in his circuits began to fuzz up his memory. Hylia placed a gently hand on the Ancient Robot's forehad and drew the electricity in her own body.
"There, there," she said sweetly. "Now this chart you have for me."
Several other Ancient Robots entered the shack, shouting things like 'Her Grace', 'Hylia', and other sayings entered to Skipper's annoyance.
"Amazing, even I don't know the full extent of this sea," Hylia said, regretting that this may be the last time she would her trusted friend again. She traced the map, expertly done with coordinates of the massive sea that covered nearly a third of the land of Hylia.
"Skipper, may I speak with you alone?" Hylia asked.
"You heard, bzzt, her," Skipper said to the other robots. "Out."
One by one, with furious looks at their captain, they left one by one. With a wave of her hand, Hylia shut the door, puts the blinders down, and soundproofed the walls until only the white light she emitted was all that remained.
"Bzzt, Your Grace?" Skipper questioned.
She waved her hand again and a flame appeared in it.
"This Skipper is Nayru's Flame," she said. "I'm entrusting it to you."
"No Her Grace," Skipper protested. "This...bzzzt...is a gift of a Goddess. I cannot...bzzt..take it."
"Skipper, I'm giving up my immortality," she said, nearly causing the robot to short-circuit. Gently absorbing the extra current from the robot again, she placed the flame's canister down on the floor. "I don't have much time. I need you to gather every Ancient Robot you can find and meet us a the castle. When the battle is finished, return here and guard the flame."
"Till when...bzzzt...Her Grace," Skipper could barely get out.
"Till my Chosen comes.."
"Poor Skipper," I said, pushing the memory to the back of my mind.
"Remember something?" Karane asked.
"Yes, about Hylia and Skipper," I said. "Apparantly they were close friends. They fought together during the final battle."
"Well, use it for all that's worth, because whether we like it or not, Skipper's our only way of finding this ship and the flame. Remember, we have barely a day and a half left."
With the map in hand, we leapt into the boat and went off in search of the Sandship, the ever sinking sun increasing our anxiety the lower it went down in the sky.
(Out of Zelda POV)
Up on Skyloft, mayhem was brewing in the Temple of Hylia. As Skye and Leanne had discovered upon their return, that gossipy nieghbor had overhead everything and had ran to the man they least liked and who many Shiekah dearly wanted hated with all their hearts; Eldon, leader of the religion of Hylia on Skyloft. A bloated, arrogant (in their opinion) man who was the head of the religion of Hylia, the organization that planned such events as the Wing Ceremony and the processions at the statue of Hylia. Immediately, he summoned a council of all the secular and religious leaders on Skyloft, something that struck many as odd for a mere rumor about what many of them considered to be the clumsiest girl at the Knights Academy.
Gaepora though, stopped in the Bazaar and Skye's Shop for All Occasions on his way.
"Gaepora," Skye said in his shop, in the middle of tailoring a shirt, surprised at the headmaster's visit. "What's going on?"
"Eldon..."
"Oh. You do know those are false rumors right?" Leanne chimed in before Skye could stop her.
"I know what you call him," Gaepora interrupted. "I also know you and (Leanne entered the shop holding some dresses) that girl are Shiekah. Eldon is on the warpath and my daughter is caught in the middle."
"The Shiekah tribe need to be represented right?" Leanne deduced. She was working on a dress, emboidering the edges with sky blue thread.
Skye sighed; this really was a job for Impa, but she was thousands of years in the past with a comatose Link.
"Fine, I'll be there in fifteen."
The council meeting took place in the shadow of Hylia's statue where Zelda and Link had held the Wing Ceremony just a month prior. The council, made of six members, was evenly divided. Gaepora, Skye, and Eagus (representing the Academy and the villagers) against Eldon his two high priests. The priests of Hylia, dressed in white robes that made them really look like white fluffy clouds (in Leanne's mind) were all furious.
"If Zelda harbors Hylia's spirit," Eldon insisted, his white hair fluttering in the small breeze that kept them warm despite the chilliness of the season. "She should be here, with us in the temple. She should grace us with her presence, not on the Surface somewhere. Hylia need to give guidance to her people where she is safe, under my care."
"Who said she was Hylia?" Eagus lied through his teeth. "Where is your proof? Why are we even here? Out of sight, close to the public. Believing a report of a neighborhood gossip."
"She is very trustworthy," Eldon insisted.
Skye giggled; everyone knew better. He locked eyes with someone behind a nearby tree; he knew instantly it was Leanne. Of course she'd be listening in.
"You," Eldon said, haughtily to the Shiekah. "What does the Shiekah have to say about this?! Nothing as usual."
Skye's temper rose, but he didn't take the bait.
"Yes, nothing as usual because that's our job," he retorted. "Let me make one thing clear to you Eldon. If Hylia was here, we'd know. We've been her devoted servants for millenia."
Eldon was taken aback.
"So have we!" he defended, taking it as a personal attack.
"You're talking about my daughter," Gaepora sternly reminded Eldon, who's priestly buddies remained quiet through all of this. "I won't confine her to a monastary for the rest of her life."
"Neither will I," Skye retorted.
"Eldon, enough," Eagus added.
"If my Goddess..."
"Your Goddess!" Gaepora said, not believing what he was hearing. "Hylia belongs to no one. She gave up her immortality so that we might live. Don't forget that Eldon! You claim to represent her, but it seems to me all you're interested in is..."
"...your own self-interest," Eagus and Skye finished together.
Eldon was infuriated even more; not only was the greatest discovery of his-any priest's life-in front of him, he was watching it being snatched away.
"I haven't, why do you think this temple exists? Gaepora, she might be your daughter, but Hylia is my perogative."
"Enough Eldon," Skye reprimanded him. "Watch your tongue."
"Don't lecture me Shiekah."
Ahead of them, invisible to all but Leanne and Skye, was Nayru. She watched with growing concern and gave Skye a look that simply said, Give him hell. Skye looked the middle-aged priest straight in the eye.
"Eldon, unlike you, the Shiekah have undeniable proof we've been sworn to serve Hylia ever since the Golden Goddesses descended on the world. And that protection includes anyone with even a remote tie to Hylia, including Zelda. One wrong move..."
"How dare you!"
"How dare, I...or we...know full well your connections to the shady aspects of Skyloft Eldon. You should know I have the service of dozens of silent warriors at my disposal. Every tree in Skyloft will be plastered with a poster about this business. Then we'll see who's popular."
Eldon gulped, defeated. Unlike everyone else in front of him, his occupation depended on the devotion of the people of Skyloft to Hylia. Any loss of credibility on his part would a complete disaster.
"Eldon, for once, hold your tongue," Eagus bluntly told him. "No one touches Zelda or Karane. Besides, that authority lies with Gaepora."
With that, Gaepora, Eagus, and Skye (as well as Leanne discretely) all left the informal meeting, leaving a digruntled and infuriated Eldon behind. When they had both left, a man appeared next to him.
"It's time," Eldon told him. "Bring me the girl and her appointed knight to the temple alive. I don't care how you do it."