Legal stuff: The Legend of Zelda and its characters belong to Nintendo, not to me. Self-made characters however, do belong to me, so no copying.
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Zyte felt her head throb, everything was still dark. Her body felt stiff and sore, whatever she was laying on didn't help, it was rigid and unyielding, quite unlike a cloud.
She cautiously opened her eyes a tiny bit, the bright light stung her eyes, everything was fuzzy. She blinked several times, trying to focus. A small dancing blue light started to come into focus. It looked so, familiar.
"Leyann?" she asked weakly, immediately wishing she hadn't said anything, the throbbing in her head increased painfully.
The blue light turned away from her.
"Link! She's waking up!"
A hurried sound of feet quickly came walking over.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" a kind voice asked.
Zyte blinked several more times and a face swam into view. It was clearly that of a young boy, no older than fifteen, his crystal blue eyes clearly showing concern.
Zyte pushed against whatever she was laying on with her good arm, raising herself up. The youth backed up slightly as she sat up. She gave a small cough, feeling water burn her lungs, she suddenly realized how damp she was.
"What happened?" she asked, massaging her throbbing forehead with a hand.
"I saw you fall out of the sky into the lake, and I swam out there and got you out. You managed to swallow a bit of water though."
She looked up at this statement, the pain in her head forgotten. "Lake? What's a Lake?"
The boy gave her a confused look, "What's a lake? You mean you've never seen a lake?" He gestured behind him, "This is Lake Hylia."
Zyte slowly turned her head, trying to ignore the increased throbbing as she moved it. Stretching out before her was the largest amount of water she had ever seen, she felt her jaw drop in shock. That wasn't all though, the trees that surrounded this lake had green leaves. She turned her eyes skyward, the horizon was dotted with clouds, clouds that she had been flying above not too long ago.
"Am I… on the ground?"
"Well where else would you be?"
"But we're not, I shouldn't be…" Zyte struggled to her feet, her body aching in protest. She started to spread her wings, ready to return to the air, but a sharp pain in her right wing forced her down to her knees.
"Hey! You shouldn't try standing, you might hurt yourself more!" The boy's face was lined with concern, but Zyte didn't know if she could trust him or not, if she was on the ground then this had to be some Light Soaran that had been banished down here. No Light Soaran would willingly go beneath the clouds, so he had to of been forced down like she was. But, if he had been forced why was he acting so odd? Looking at her like she was some strange being.
Another flash of pain shot through her wing, she gritted her teeth, trying to ignore it. Maybe he was just ignorant, or had he forgotten the stories, even though that seemed highly unlikely to her. "Light Soarans are not supposed to leave the clouds, it's practically forbidden."
"Light Soarans? Never heard of them, and I've been around quite a bit."
This statement came as quite a shock to Zyte. She looked at the boy, "what do you mean you've never heard of a Light Soaran? Who…"
She stopped, her eyes lingering on him for a moment, finally noticing the absence of wings. Who was this boy, or for that matter, what was he?
"What are you?"
The youth looked slightly offended at this, his eyes turning a shade darker with annoyance to her question. Zyte knew immediately she had said the wrong thing. At that moment he found herself going over the stories in her mind, one stuck out in particular. The one that told of a wingless race below the clouds.
Zyte lowered her head slightly, feeling shameful from her own ignorance and tactlessness, she was truly confused now, and it showed on her face. She could feel her heart start to quicken, what if this boy decided to kill her because of this? "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or anything, but I never believed the stories could be true, a wingless race that lived below the clouds."
He paused, his eyes continuing to show annoyance, but now also a look of confusion was apparent in their depths. He seemed to giving great thought as to how to reply to her confusion. "My name's Link, I'm a Hylian."
Zyte felt her heart slow down, she realized she had been thinking rather stupidly, this boy had just saved her out of a lake, he wasn't about to go and kill her. "Well, thank you for saving me, my name's Zyte, I'm a Light Soaran." She rose to give a slight bow, but just as she bent, the pain in her wing caused her to give a small gasp of pain. She sank back to her knees.
"Are you okay?" He hurried over to kneel beside her, the annoyance that had lined his face was gone, replaced with a look of concern.
Zyte gritted her teeth again before answering, her wing was really hurting. "My wing, I think something's wrong with it."
Link seemed to be his weighing options. "Maybe I can help, could you try and stretch it out while I feel if there's anything wrong with the bone?"
Zyte nodded, she was finally starting to relax, and felt she could trust him. She carefully spread out the throbbing wing, being careful not to jar it too badly. Link began to gently pass his hands over it, feeling for any odd places. A sharp intake of breath told him that he had found the source, the bone felt together, but cracked.
Link went over the possibilities in his head, it didn't feel like anything too serious. "I think you might have a fracture, probably from hitting the water, it doesn't feel too bad though." He shifted his gaze over to his other companion, "Navi, could you get me a few of the bandages from my pack?"
Navi quickly complied, floating over to his pack and disappearing into the depths. Link noticed the girl watching Navi, confusion lined her face. Maybe she didn't have fairies where she was from.
"That's Navi, she's my guardian fairy."
Zyte lowered her head, staring at the ground. "She looks a lot like Leyann. Leyann's my guardian, she's a fairy too," she bit her lip, "she's probably worried sick about me right now," she added.
This statement surprised Link a bit. "You have a fairy guardian? If you hadn't told me I'd of sworn you were almost a Kokiri, they all have fairy guardians, they all wear green for that matter too."
"I'm the only one with a fairy guardian, the only Light Soaran to ever have one," she said, a tinge of bitterness in her voice.
An awkward silence followed this, but at that moment Navi floated gracefully over, or as gracefully as she could, being weighed down by the bandages.
Link unraveled a stretch of the bandage. "Okay, this may hurt a bit." That being said he proceeded to wrap the bit of wing that had fractured, Zyte took it very well, biting her lip to keep from crying out.
"There we go," he said after finishing. Getting back to his feet he walked over to his pack and fished around in it for a second. "I know it's in here somewhere, aha!" From one of the side pockets he pulled out a small glass bottle full of red liquid. "Here," he said, handing her the bottle, "drink this, it should make you feel better, and help those cuts on your shoulder heal faster."
"Thanks," she gave a slight smile, showing she really was feeling better about not only the wound, but also about him and the fact that due to forces beyond her control, she was suddenly on the ground.
Link walked a short distance away and sat down on a small knoll facing the lake. When Zyte failed to follow him he turned his head slightly to look back at her and patted the ground invitingly.
"Come on, I don't bite," he said, smiling good naturedly.
Zyte smiled in return and walked over to sit down next to him. Uncorking the bottle of red potion she took a tentative sip. It took all of Link's self control not to burst out laughing at the face she made.
"Yeah, it takes a little while to get use to the rather unique taste of red potion."
"You've obviously never had something with Danaric sap in it."
Link laughed at this, "can't say I have." He turned his gaze back to the lake. "So why'd you fall out of the sky anyway?"
The smile quickly vanished from her face. "Some Dark Soarans attacked me."
"Dark Soarans? Those some kind of monster?"
"Not exactly…"
"What then?"
Zyte thought about this for a second, this explanation would no doubt lead to many more questions, some she'd rather not answer, but she felt like she could trust Link, she could just leave out a few of the more sensitive details. She opened her mouth her tell him, but then she heard the screech.
Zyte's eye widened in alarm, they both jumped to their feet and whirled to face the noise. A pair of Dark Soarans were coming at them from across the ground, their taloned feet kicking up clods of dirt each time they stepped.
"Those would be Dark Soarans."
Link quickly turned and snatched a sword and shield that had been lying near his pack.
Zyte didn't have time to tell him that it probably wasn't a good idea to fight them. A prickle of alarm went off, and she quickly dodged to the side, a beam barely missed her. Another one was flying in from behind them.
His sword at ready, Link charged.
*Link doesn't know what he's getting himself into, there's only one thing left to do, no matter the risk.*
Zyte summoned the power within her, hoping that when it was over, she'd still be able to call this youth a friend.
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Questions? Comments? Ideas? Criticisms?
Post them in a review or an e-mail to me and I'll see what I can do.
