Far into the sky, sheltered from view by the thick white of clouds, was a land scattered and broken in structure, but whole in it's people.
Skyloft was alive that day, more than most. Ribbons and banners had been strung along lightposts, their tassels and colors left to sway in the ever present breeze that cooled the city in the sky. It's people were out and about, some preparing for the ceremony to come, some going about the business they could hurry to get done before the majority left to watch the events unfold.
From her little cottage home set atop a small hill, Tya could see a glimpse of the grounds on which said ceremony would be held. It was, for the most part, blocked by the Light Tower that loomed over the "Town Square"- quoted, as she'd always thought it resembled more of a circle than a square, but Town Circle didn't have quite the same ring.
This view was one she settled for most days. There were occasions when she'd brave the outdoors for things other than work, to go for a short walk around town, but for the most part, she kept to herself if it was left up to her. It was socialization that she often found the most threatening part of leaving the house. Even now, she wasn't overly fond of the idea, yet there she was, smoothing down the velvety red of her calf-length dress in final preparation for leaving.
Had it been any other day, or even any other event, she likely wouldn't have attended. She wasn't much for social get-togethers. Or crowds. Or people in general. Most seemed to think it was a side-effect of loneliness born from her parents untimely deaths. But no, the truth was that she had only been social when she was younger because her father, may he rest in peace, was the happiest, nicest man to ever walk the face of Skyloft. She'd talk to every person in the town just to make him smile, and even now that point stood true.
A small twinge of mourning pierced her stomach as she thought over the sight of her father- of Cain Maraise smile. Toothy, just slightly crooked, aged at the corners of both his lips and his eyes. She missed him dearly, and she wouldn't deny that…
But today was a day of importance for a reason that did not in fact pertain to her deceased parents. Today was a day celebration was to be had, and while she had opted out of it every year prior to this one, she had preemptively guessed that it wouldn't be an option this time around for one reason, and one reason solely: Her best friend.
Her only friend, actually.
Things could be two things.
Zelda.
A bubbly personality so deceptively placed to cover bossiness that practically ran the youth of all of Skyloft. Possibly even some of the elderly too.
Zelda had "done her time" as she so called it. She was the daughter of importance, likely the highest position to be had in Skyloft, and she had worked quite hard to earn the respect she would have been so easily given simply because of her position. The Knight's Academy throughout the town was to be revered. It's headmaster, Zelda's father, the same. She'd 'done her time' studying, training, working, building herself, and now, today was her day. Not for competition, as there could only be one and she'd be goddess damned if she was going to choose to compete on a year where the graduate color would be green, but it was her time to shine in a whole different way. She had instead been chosen to play the part of the Goddess.
She'd spent the last few months thoroughly preparing herself for the act. She'd tailored a new dress all by hand. A sailcloth, perfected her make-up, memorized the song both in lyric and in chords as she was given a harp to do so, and so much more. Tya knew this because much of it had been done in her very home. Her room in the Academy was so small, she'd always complain, and Tya had a whole house to herself. Which wasn't to say the cottage was big, but it did have a little more space than the academy, so Tya let her get away with it even if she knew the truth of the matter was that Zelda was notoriously easy to distract. Being in Tya's home was far easier on her focus than it was in the academy where Zelda could hear all of her peers doing fun things that she very much wanted to be involved in.
Besides, Tya had enjoyed helping her with things, watching her sew, and listening to her ramble on about her day as she did so. Tya had even picked up a little bit of the harp as well. Not a lot. She could probably play the Ballad of the Goddess on the same level as a child, but it was something.
But narration has digressed.
Her reasoning for leaving the house today was for Zelda. She'd worked so hard and was so thrilled to play her part in this ceremony that Tya couldn't have missed it. Even if she tried, she knew damn well that Zelda would be by to drag her out unprepared just to watch, and while it was a nerve wracking thought, it was at the very least endearing.
Tya slipped on her boots then shuffled back to give herself one last look, more as a way to stall than anything. She was content enough in her appearance, so she grabbed a thick shawl-like cloth from the end of her bed and tossed it around herself, hooking one end over her shoulder to keep it in place. She nestled into the surprisingly soft fabric of her sailcloth as she headed out of her home, leaving all of her reluctance behind so she could instead cringe at the cool breeze that caressed her cheeks as she stepped out.
She swept some blonde strands out of her face and tucked them behind her ear to clear them out of the way for an icy glance upward toward the pale blue sky they lived in. Rain in Skyloft was admittedly hard to come by, but that didn't mean anything- no. She lingered on the ever mundane thought of the weather and the fact that it's compliance with an event was strange. It was even cloudless overhead. Not under, as usual, as the thick barrier never left, but it was more like the sky was saying it would let them have this one event without being a problem.
She wondered, as she made her way down and across a bridge, through a small flock of middle-aged women gossiping, when the fuck she'd gotten to be in her late fifties where her only interest was the weather. Shouldn't a girl that hadn't even broken eighteen yet be thinking about clothes or boys or something?
That was most definitely what Zelda was interested in, but- and she had never, ever admitted this aloud- Tya had found herself far more enamoured with Zelda than any of the boys around Skyloft. Perhaps that was only out of pure attention starvation. Or maybe she was just wildly homoromantic, she wasn't sure and didn't care to find out.
Zelda had said she was going to meet with her other friend first, before coming down to the Town Circle, so Tya knew she had had time before coming down. But anxiety always pressed her to arrive early just in case. In case of what? She had no idea, especially given the fact that Zelda was the type of person to end up late to her own funeral in the name of conversation. But she would have to arrive today, Tya figured, because the friend she was going to see before her was Link. She had met him a few times here and there, and he was nice enough. But he was also someone that was to be participating today, meaning they would both have to be on time. Whatever conversation could have kept Zel lingering could be taken on the road, right?
She would find out in due time. Until then, she was left to idly wonder the edges of the land. One would think they'd rail off the majority of Skyloft to avoid anyone from falling off into the clouds below, but they hadn't, and Tya was allowed to walk dangerously close to the edge and peer over into the cushion of mist that obscured any view of what lay beneath.
Her conscious mind split soon, part monitoring her movements to make sure she wasn't sent over the edge by bad footing, and part calling back to stories she had read of what lay below.
She was always so curious. There was one in particular she had read quite recently that told of heat and monsters, a desolate land which a pair of skyloftians had found their way onto through an island portal. It had spilled them out into a journey to find their way home. She wondered if there was truth to it… If, on the scattered smaller lands in the distance, one might hold a way to whatever it was below. And she wondered what it would be like down there.
The daydreams of adventure were a wonderfully common thing in her mind, and she could have thought on them forever, but a cackle broke her away, much to her dismay. She knew the boy to whom such a sound belonged. The redhead had just trotted his way down and into the Town Oval as loudly as ever, his two friends following behind with similarly misplaced joy toward goddess knew what.
She really couldn't bring herself to care what might have Groose in such a fine mood, at least not at first. Not until she noticed reddened scratch marks and torn clothing on the two wildly different boys in tow, and not until Groose himself clarified the reason with too much zeal and pleasure: "that should get that little shit outta the way for the race. With his bird all penned up, it paves my way to an easy victory."
Even despite his scratches and soon-to-form bruises, Groose put a triumphant hand on his hip, the other slicking back the signature gravity defying pompadour of his.
"But shouldn't you have been able to win anyway?" Cawlin questioned, albeit rather absently as he massaged a beak-shaped red mark on his cheek. Tya would put rupees on the bet that he had been savagely and deservingly pecked.
His question was a very good one, and yet Groose ignored it altogether in favor of his own… Well, Tya wasn't even sure what to call this. The less articulate part of her mind said 'douche baggery', and the more articulate part couldn't have said it better itself.
Perching at the edge of Skyloft's whole, Groose let out a heavy sigh before continuing on to say "Jus' give it a little bit, and he'll be crawling over to us begging 'Oh, G-G-Groose, can you p-p-p-lease find it in your heart to l-l-let me win today? Please!' just so he can get a chance to be up there with Zelda," he scoffed, his half cocked smile widening as he so arrogantly shrugged his shoulders. "And after I tell him to get lost, I'll finally win her over."
Of course that was his master plan. It was no surprise that he'd been once again trying to win over Zelda's attention, and it was also no surprise that he had so willingly boasted this fact in the open. It was one of the things that kept actively driving Zelda away from him, and there was a spark of rage that made Tya want to inform him of this. Not on her friend's behalf- Goddess knew Zelda was more than capable of handling herself in that front with how often she'd put Groose in his place. But rather, justice for the poor creature that had had to suffer through all of this. Context clues made it easy to understand what they'd done to some extent, both in sentence and in their overall appearance, given the fact that there was a tuft of red fluff stuck in Stritch's hair.
And while the thought of socialization was a sickening one, it was one that caused a vomit of a whole new kind to spill out of Tya's face. She was horrified on two fronts, then. One, because of what he had done to an innocent creature. And two, because she had spoken to someone.
Aaaaaaand now she had to deal with the consequences of it.
She had only said "you're a despicable little oaf, aren't you?"
And Groose froze, looking at her like he hadn't even noticed her there initially. He likely hadn't, she realized. She was marginally shorter than the mass of a boy and he was another one that wasn't the greatest when it came to paying attention. While he did spend plenty of time looking down on others, that sentiment was purely metaphorically.
In the stunned silence of the moment, Tya found herself wondering something once again. Would he actually have any idea about who she was? Zelda wasn't secretive about most things, but in case the point hasn't gotten across thus far, Tya was antisocial as all hell. Lunch, walks, occasional loitering, she could do, but when it came to hanging out with Zelda in a crowd more than two, she generally opted out. There were occasions when she'd drag along the boy, Link, but even then, Tya wasn't too pleased to stick around and generally ended up weaseling her way out of it. She'd never truly spoken to Groose, but she had been a bystander in his fruitless flirtation on numerous occasions, and had also heard, rather endlessly, the myriad of reasons he was rejected.
The biggest of which happened to be this exact thing- the fact that he would much rather lie and cheat his way to tricking Zelda into affection rather than truly earning it. Which was a shame, because Tya knew well the girl adored the fact that this idiot was a good foot and a half taller than her, and made purely of muscle, so if he would have only found an ounce of self awareness he might have had a chance.
Poor idiot.
Tya also found herself quite curious to know whether or not Groose actually knew what the word 'despicable' meant, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that, yes, actually, he did.
His expression twisted into something of amused disgust as he finally caught up. She wasn't shy, really. She hated confrontation and got so easily tired out when it came to prolonged conversation. She was only ever afraid to speak after the fact, hours later when she would be alone and thinking over every single wrong thing she had ever said. But this entire situation was a wrong thing to be said, so she figured she should at the very least be proud of herself when she looked back.
"Perhaps it should be you that's crudely locked away somewhere no one will find you," that sounded far more like a threat than she had anticipated but there was no going back now. "So we may avoid such a tragedy like having you as a defender of the people?"
Surprise caused his expression to falter, and as quickly as it came, it was washed aside by rage. "I ain't gonna hit a girl," he declared, and there was surely more to that, but in his pause, Tya raised a hand to shush him. She wasn't there for conversation, and if she was being entirely honest, she didn't mean for her next words to come out as rude as they did. She just wanted to save having to deal with the needless rage when he was clearly the one in the wrong.
"It's preferred you don't speak to one either." Well that wasn't entirely what she wanted. "-outside of telling me where the poor beast you're torturing is, I mean."
"I knew it!" The tension was cut in two so easy by the familiar melodic voice of Zelda, who she could not be happier to see in that moment. Call her selfish- no really, she deserves it- but she didn't want to finish what she'd started.
Groose winced at the sound, whipping back to face it's owner with an expression akin to a scolded puppy.
"You're lucky I don't tell Headmaster Geapora!" Once again, there was a very subtle admiration that Tya held for the fact that Zelda didn't hold her place over anyone. So easy to do and yet the girl was careful with her words…
"Zel-"
"Don't even start with me!" She demanded, one hand on her hip and the other with a stern finger pointed out toward him. "What did you do? You know, Groose, I'm getting really sick of the way you're treating your peers- you know we're all supposed to be in the academy together, right?"
Her words had melted the oaf down to the sad little child he was. Shoulders raised and eyes downcast, he cowered, muttering incoherent little bits Tya couldn't quite make out and, judging by the way she leaned forward, nor could Zelda.
"What was that?" She demanded rather than asked. Her harsh tone seemed to rip Groose from his unwarranted self-pity, and while his adoration for the girl was more than clear, those golden eyes of his only needed to flicker back toward the boy that had trailed her here. Immediately upon catching sight of Link, jealousy sparked him back to life and straightened his shoulders.
"Nothin'," he huffed in return, holding a hand up to his two companions. "I didn't say shit, right boys?" They didn't answer, but he took their silence as the back up he needed to 'win' this conversation and turn on his heel, waving for the pair to follow.
Stritch, running a hand through his blond hair and, in doing so, disentangling the red plume that had been poking out of it, glanced back at them once more before turning to follow.
Fuming, Zelda puffed out her cheeks, her breath held in them for a long moment before a groan burst from her finely glossed lips and her fury whipped her around to look at Tya.
She knew well that she'd done nothing wrong, and yet Tya still retracted some upon having her all too determined gaze directed toward her.
"Did they say anything about what they did with his Loftwing?" Her tone was still very sharp, and yet, Tya appreciated the attempt to sound a little softer. Zelda often took very blunt action with her it seemed, but there were small things she often did to try and ease anxiety that she couldn't help but be thankful for.
"No," Tya answered, looking back toward Link almost apologetically before focusing on Zel. "I had been trying to coax that out of him when you came up." Coax sounded a lot more skilled than what she had been doing, admittedly.
Another huff left her before she whipped to look back at Link. "Go see if you can find anything. I'll ask Father to hold off on the beginning of the race a little longer so you can search."
Link gave a single nod in reply to Zelda just before she darted off in the direction of the academy. He took a step, another nod of his head thanking her, or perhaps greeting her, she didn't really know, but she did know that they'd said a single thing that might help.
She held up a hand and caused him to stall, curiosity in his blue eyes.
Again, she realized that she had started a conversation, and almost immediately her desire to help the creature was choked up in her throat by the fact that Link looked at her. She struggled to swallow it down but the pressure of being seen and being known left her words stiff regardless. "He had said only something about having penned your bird up. That is all I heard from him and that is not helpful. I am sorry."