((I got a question about Tya's powers, but since I don't really know how to work this site well, I wasn't able to respond and tell you it would be addressed in this chapter. Hopefully your question is answered well! Please do continue to tell me your thoughts on what I've done so far- I know its a bit boring but soon enough there will be more action and plot stuff actually happening.))

"T-Tya.." Link started toward the path the beacon led them to, but he looked back at her as he tried to get her attention. She followed, and only gave a quiet hum in response to let him know she was listening. "S-so that thing you did earlier with your h-hands. The f-fire thing. Th-that didn't hurt?"

"No. The heat of fire has never bothered me much, especially my own." She knew these questions would have come sooner or later. But she honestly didn't mind sating his curiosity.

"W-where'd you learn to d-do it?" He looked down at her hands curiously as he asked, allowing a hand of his own lightly taking her wrist so he could look at her palms. She assumed he was going to look for some sort of sign as to how the magic happened, but instead he just saw the scratches she'd received when she'd fallen."Y-you got scraped up. How?"

"I believe it was something I was born with. My mother taught me how to better control it." She watched as he looked at her hands. His question about the scrapes on her palms brought them to her attention again, though. She'd forgotten about them until he brought them up, but she really shouldn't have. She didn't know what kind of things could possibly cause infections down on the surface, and she worried if she were to get one no one in Skyloft would no how to deal with it. How stupid that would be, to die of some scrapes on her hands and knees... She'd need to clean them as soon as she could.

"I need to work on my landings." She told him with a little bit of a chuckle.

"Th-that magic stuff is n-neat." He stated finally, nodding his head and letting her hand drop back to her side.

"Thank you, I thought so as well. Though I do wish I was able to learn more about it, it seems that not many others in Skyloft have the same ability."

"Did y-you ask?"

"Well- no. I assumed that wouldn't be the best idea. If no one else was able to do these things then I didn't want to draw attention to myself. But I suppose if I wanted to learn about it as much as I thought, I could have tried harder." She'd really only thought about it once or twice, going and talking to others about it. The first few months after losing her mother to sickness, she completely avoided using the magic at all, given that it was too much of a reminder. They used to go out onto a stray piece of land and practice with controlling the fire- it was something the two bonded over. It felt like it had been quite a while since those days, and of course the pain would occasionally creep back in, but Tya knew it was better to move on. She had the memories of her mother, and that would suffice.

Her mind couldn't help but wander back to the old woman in the temple. The simple magic she'd used to place the beacon and how she assumed Link would be able to do it. She wondered if perhaps Link shared these abilities in some manner, but he had not yet unlocked it. The old woman spoke as if Link and Zelda were two very important and mystical beings- that was a normal thing in stories about heros, wasn't it? To have unheard of powers?

But this wasn't a story, so she really shouldn't have begun to think that way. This was life, and things didn't often work like that, whether he was an extremely important person like that or not. Then again, black tornadoes didn't often sweep a young woman through the clouds so she could discover a paramount destiny. And spirits of swords didn't often wake young men up in the middle of the night to lure them to a world that, only a few hours prior, was believed to be a legend.

"Y-You alright there, Tya?" Link leaned over a bit, nudging her shoulder and pulling her attention from her wandering thoughts.

"Yes, sorry, sorry I got sidactred- Uh- Distracted."

What followed was a bit of idle conversation. Nothing of real importance, the two only enjoyed the scenery of the new world and the fact that they had someone by their side to make all of this less overwhelming. There was an occasion where Link drew his blade and pointed it outward but soon returned it to its sheath. A suspicious action in Tya's mind, but not so much that she felt the need to question it...

Tya's previous assumptions about the place not being lived in was somewhat silenced when they came across a rope that was tied to a branch over a small gorge. Evidently something else there had had trouble crossing the gap and therefore created the swing, though Tya was barely strong enough to use it. Link however did so without thought. Just ran, jumped, and swung to the other side rather excitedly.

Chat was soon stilled by a vaguely familiar screech… It was the same sound the two had heard moments before– the one those red 'pests', as Gorko so accurately described, made.

This time there was only two, and they... seemed to be...

Berating a bush...?

Tya didn't question it because the moment she and Link made themselves known the foes turned their hostility toward them. They were quickly slain, and Link and Tya started to continue off in the direction they'd first been going but they were both startled when they realized the bush was rustling.

It pulled itself upward, revealing itself from a camouflage that was actually rather poor- made Tya feel a bit stupid for not having realized what it truly was until that moment.

But the small creature held itself up on two twig-like arms and looked around for a moment, mumbling to itself about the sudden silence. It stood and the part of it that appeared as a plant retracted into something similar to a bulb on its back. At that moment, however, it turned to find Link and Tya both staring at it (with expressions constructed of pure confusion, she didn't doubt).

It squealed, its mumbling increasing as it looked over Link. The only thing Tya could make out was 'please don't hurt me!' before the thing waddled off as fast as it could manage. Which... wasn'tvery, given its portly appearance...

The plea struck guilt into Tya and without thinking, she hurried after it as it made its way up a particularly steep hill.

Link was soon to follow, catching up with a breathless Tya at the top of the hill. She'd never really regretted how little she exercised until a stabbing pain developed in her side...

Link also seemed a bit breathless, but the two of them were allowed to catch it when the sword spirit slithered from the Goddess Sword and took a place in front of them.

"Master, I picked up a highly interesting spike in dowsing readings from the creature you just encountered."

"Really?" Link's brow furrowed a bit, and Fi first replied with a very small nod of her head.

"Yes, Master. Based on the creature's characteristics, I must conclude that it is a peaceful, forest-dwelling animal known as a Kikwi. Kikwis are intelligent beings, capable of speech. However such a creature could obviously not be confused with Zelda. It is unclear why such a creature would elicit a dowsing response attuned to Zelda. You should continue to follow the creature and investigate this phenomenon." She lingered only a second longer before returning back to Link's sword. And of course the confusion that painted Tya's visage hadn't faded in the least.

At first, Link didn't appear to understand why she was confused, and so Tya simply said "dowsing?", which effectively reminded him that Tya hadn't followed him down the spiral path and therefore hadn't been told what dowsing was when he had been.

"O-Oh, I f-forgot to tell you! I-Its a thing the s-sword can do- N-Not sure how it works. But it leads me i-in the direction of Zelda. Or... Its s-supposed to. It l-led us to that K-Kikwi thing, so I d-don't know how accurate it i-is." He reached back to draw the blade from its sheath once again, arching a brow and lightly tilting his head as he looked it over.

"Well Fi said we should follow, yes?" With that, the woman motioned forward as if to tell Link to lead. And he did, skipping a bit to get ahead of her and looking around to try and place where the shuddering little creature had escaped to.

It gave quite the chase, leading them through an area with mushrooms so large Tya at first thought they had to be fake. But they were not. Along with that, there was also quite a few of those plant creatures that had first attacked Tya...

The two of them continuously tried to convince the Kikwi that they meant no harm. It took a while for it to actually sink in that they were only chasing it because they wanted to talk, and that mixed with the fact that it had gotten worn out finally made it give up.

It finally just plopped over with a quiet squeal.

Crouching in front of it, Link said again what they'd been trying to tell it the entire time: "We a-aren't trying to h-hurt you, we just want to know if you've seen anything." By then, they were both equally out of breath, which Tya found strange. She was much less in shape than Link was, and yet running about like that to try and catch the thing had made him wary. But again, she didn't ask questions.

"You don't want to... Eat me? Kwee... And come to think of it, why did you fight off all those red monsters?" Slowly, the Kikwi pulled itself back up and looked Link over, then Tya. Another strange sound left it before it started again. "I'm Machi... You seem OK, even though you're scary... Thanks for helping me!"

"Are you alright then?" Tya could guess that from the amount of running the little plump thing had just done, that it was, but it was still safe to ask.

She moved to take a seat in the grass next to it, and Link watched her for a moment before smiling down at the Kikwi again.

It wasn't until then, until she was actually resting, that she realized she'd yet to really sleep... She'd gotten a small amount, maybe two hours at the most, in Link's room. But other than that, she hadn't gotten the chance to do so. It was her own fault really, and she wouldn't allow it to get in the way. She didn't doubt that Link would soon grow tired as well, and she'd just have to hope she could last until then.

The little sound it uttered in response to Tya's question sounded positive enough, and she assumed that meant Machi was fine. And then it paused, seeming to think for a second before starting again. "Its weird- kee-koo. A little while ago I ran into another funny animal like you, but that one was like this one. A girl, right?" Machi motioned to Tya before looking back up at Link.

"Was her name Zelda?" Tya had been relaxed, leaning back on her hands to try and catch her breath, but the moment the Kikwi mentioned seeing another of their kind she sat straight, and leaned a bit closer in a way that implied urgency.

"I don't know who this girl was, koo-kwee, but she was in a bunch of trouble when I saw her. A pack of those mean red guys were after her, kwee, but she escaped with the Kikwi elder."

The statement worried Tya greatly, but at the same time she was relieved to hear Zelda had escaped. Whether or not she had been found again by the creatures was yet to be determined, but as far as she knew Zelda was safe. Looking to Link, she could see what appeared to be the same mixture of feelings...

Upon hearing this, though, the spirit in Link's sword once again appeared. When she formed, another squeal left Machi and it plopped over to allow the plant in its back to pop out as its camouflage again.

"Master, we have obtained new information on Zelda's current status." Fi started as she turned to look down at the badly hidden Kikwi. "This information indicates that she was assailed by monsters but somehow evaded capture. However, I infer that she is still in significant danger. I recommend marking the position of the Kikwi known as Machi on your map so we may return to him. Furthermore, my analysis suggests that this kikwi most likely produces a false-positive dowsing reaction due to previous direct contact with Zelda. Using this hypothesis, I theorize there is an 85% chance that the Kikwi elder will also generate a dowsing reaction for the same reason. I propose you continue dowsing to search for Zelda." Before any questions could be asked about it, Fi returned to the sword, and the Kikwi slowly pulled itself up again.

"You really spooked me, kwee... You keep some very strange company, friend. It sounds like you're set on finding this friend and the elder. If you're heading that way anyway, kwee, would you mind telling our elder that I'm safe?" Machi paused to look over the two dour expressions Link and Tya held. After taking a second to think it happily popped up and continued with "cheer up, koo-weep! I bet your friend is safe with our elder!"

Link gave a smile, and nodded his head as he shifted to pull the map from his satchel. "We w-will let the e-elder know you're a-alright when we find him." He searched a second on the map before marking down a spot near Machi's location.