Not long after breakfast, Link was climbing down the hole in the middle of the Sanctuary that used to be covered by the wooden statue of Eldin. The "hole" was something dug for the Sanctuary long ago, plans for a basement that ended once the builders found that there was a ruin under the building. They installed a metal ladder going down and hid the entrance underneath the statue, and then installed a mechanism to slide it back. In the end they decided that the ruins below could work as storage. Renado barely used them in his time as the Shaman of Eldin. After seeing them, Link understood why.
His lit lantern was hanging from his belt with a little metal clasp for that very purpose, given to him by Barnes. It was something that miners used all the time, and Link wished he had known about it sooner. Junior rode on his shoulder as he climbed down into the darkness, clinging to the green tunic with his little claws. Shad had gone first with Ooccoo in the satchel that dangled next to his hip, and Ilia followed Link. He hadn't asked her to come along, but he wasn't going to make her leave either. If she wanted to see how to activate the transporter, then that was fine. They were running out of time together before he'd have to leave again, so any moment he was with her was welcome.
Shad took a stub of a candle from what appeared to be a crate, and lit it with his own lantern. "Have you ever been down here?" he asked Link.
"Once, but it was dark and I had no light. Midna had to lead me out the back way." He didn't want to go into detail and mention being a wolf at the time, since that was yet another thing he still needed to tell Ilia about.
"That 'back way' is actually the entrance. Somebody at some point built a mausoleum around it so it looked like one of the graves in the cemetery, but it's the original way in." The other Hylian moved around the large chamber lighting hanging lanterns with his candle. "I believe that this place sunk into the ground thousands of years ago, back when there was still a river that ran through this canyon. It's pure coincidence that the Sanctuary was built right on top of it."
Link looked around the room. Now that things were a bit more lit, he could see that the walls weren't earthen, but were made of closely-fitting light gray stones. The worn stone floor was coated with the red dust of Kakariko, as was the bottom part of the walls. Here and there were fragments of blue and yellow tiles scattered around in the dust, as if there was once a mosaic covering the floor. The stone ceiling was held up by arched stone beams, and only the area surrounding the ladder was made of red dirt. There was the long hall that led down to the mean entrance that Shad had spoke of, and then another hall that looked like it had collapsed in on itself long ago. Near the collapsed hall were damp stones covered with pale green moss, signs that the river that once ran through the canyon above had since moved underground. Here and there were old crates and barrels, leftovers from previous shamans and priests of the Sanctuary above who decided to use the ruins as storage.
Shad blew out the candle and set it back on the crate. "It's a shame there's so little left of it. I would have loved to see what our ancestors built." He lifted his lantern to show them a mural on the wall next to the ladder. Link hadn't seen that when he had come in, having stepped towards the center of the room to look around without looking behind himself. There was an illustration of two Oocca facing a Hylian that was holding the Dominion Rod, and lines of strange squiggly writing underneath. Next to the mural was an archway, and tightly nestled within the archway was a black statue a bit taller than a man, made in the shape of an owl. Silvery lines covered its surface and glinted in the lantern light.
"Owl!" Junior exclaimed happily. He remembered it from the Gerudo book the day before.
"Here is the half of the incantation I had already found." the scholar said, looking up at the mural. "I tried it already, but nothing happened with this statue. At least now I understand it's only part of the spell, and now we have that book Impaz gave you."
"That's not why nothing happened." Link said, closely examining the owl statue. It was made of the same black stone as the golems in the Temple of Time. "Midna?"
The Twili formed out of shadows next to him. "I think I get what you're going to ask." She materialized the Dominion Rod in front of the two of him with a wave of her hand. Shad actually gasped in delight at seeing her to do, like a child seeing a new toy. It made Midna laugh. "Really, was it all that impressive?"
Shad watched Link take the Dominion Rod from the air. "I haven't seen you do anything other than appear from Link's shadow. Where did you keep that?"
The imp shrugged. "In shadows, of course."
"She's also carrying around a bunch of arrows, a suit of Zora armor, a ball and chain, and about a dozen books." Link told him.
"I'm Link's extra pocket." Midna said, rolling her eyes. He was about to say something in response to that same joke again, but Ilia laughed. Midna smiled smugly. "See? She appreciates the joke."
"Goodness! Do you really have Zora armor?" Ooccoo asked, leaning her odd bald head forward a bit to peer at Link with her red eyes. "Fascinating! Have you used it yet? I haven't actually seen a human use one before."
"I swam to the bottom of Lake Hylia with the king of the Zoras, so yes." And what a swim it was. He hoped he never had to do it again.
The bird-woman sighed. "I wish we had more time to talk, Link. You have done so much that would be interesting for us to learn about. I don't suppose you'd be willing to linger in our city after you retrieve the final mirror shard?"
"I can't. I need to go with Midna to the Twilight Realm as soon as possible. The sooner we get her human form and the Fused Shadows back, the better. However…" He raised his eyes to look at Shad. "I plan on giving the Dominion Rod to Shad so he can visit and exchange information with you."
The man's eyes went wide behind his glasses. "Me? You want me to be the Herald of the Heavens?"
"Why not? You're a scholar and in charge of the library at the castle, you're continuing your father's work with the Oocca, and you're friends with Princess Zelda. I don't think it would be a stretch to have you speak to the princess about what you learn." Link smirked. "Think about it, you've learned about so many other things that nobody else is allowed to know about: Midna, my piece of the Triforce, Zelda's piece, the fact that she's in hibernation, and you've met the Sages. You can add something else to that list, and I'm sure it'll keep growing."
"I certainly don't have a problem with it." Ooccoo said with a smile. "Not that you aren't smart, Link. Shad has fewer obligations than you do, and is a far better candidate. He can remain with us while you go to the Twilight Realm, and then Hyrule Castle."
Link wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't been looking at Shad's face at that exact moment, but when Ooccoo mentioned the castle, he suddenly had a disappointed look in his eyes, there ever briefly. Then he blinked and looked back at the Dominion Rod in Link's hands. Did that mean that Shad wanted to go to the castle with him? Shad wasn't a fighter, though. He'd let Ashei, Auru, Rusl or Auren come along, but he couldn't babysit Shad. He'd be too busy focusing on other things.
He couldn't worry about that now. For now, he had to get that final shard. "All right Shad, let me show you how this works." Link pointed at the stone owl. "I think that isn't just a wall decoration. It looks like it's made of the same materials as the golems I was able to control in the Temple of Time."
"Yes, it does appear that way, doesn't it?" Ooccoo said, looking the owl statue up and down from her spot in the satchel. "Good eye, my dear."
"Here, check this out." Link moved his grip lower on the Dominion Rod and held it up. There was no hum, no ball of light in the flanged end of the relic. He blinked in confusion, and held it sideways while peering at it.
"Check what out? Is something supposed to be happening?" Ilia asked while looking at the rod in his hands.
"I'm holding it right, I know I am." He shook it a little, and then banged the heel of his hand on the side of the rod. Why wasn't it working?
"Please don't hit the ancient relic, Link." the bird-woman chided. "I doubt it will do any good. I believe I understand what happened. If we had been able to go straight to the Sacred Realm like originally intended, the rod would still function. However, we passed through that portal in time you created. Going from the past into the present somehow made the rod lose its magic. I doubt that taking it from the Sacred Realm itself did it, since that is what is normally intended." She ruffled her feathers, puffing them up around her long neck. "This is a dilly of a pickle. That statue does look like some kind of golem. Of course, it could also be a door. Either way we can't use the rod to move it."
Link stared at the rod in his hands and felt disappointed. Not only did he need to move the statue somehow, but he was looking forward to showing Shad and Ilia what he had done with the golems. "Well, now what? Will this still work as a key even if it's out of power?"
"We won't know until we try, dear. Until then, why doesn't Shad try reciting both halves of the incantation? Maybe that will move the owl." She craned her head up to look at Shad. "Since you are a Hylian, I will assume you have some magical ability, yes?"
"Oh, um." The scholar awkwardly rubbed at his neck. "I suppose. I had family that was able to use magic, but after the king's purge, everyone was afraid to try to use it anymore. I had to be careful in my own research on the subject so I wouldn't get caught." His eyes grew distant as he remembered, and he stared at the ruined floor. "There were a number of books on magic in the royal library, and even a few relics there. The king ordered that some be locked up in the treasury, and the others destroyed. I was about Link's age when that happened. I knew it was a risk, but I couldn't bear to let that happen, so I hid many of them, mostly in the hidden passages in the castle walls. There are a few hidden in my room as well. At times I've been tempted to try some of the things I've learned, but…" He shrugged. "I never actually tried to cast any magic before."
He had no idea Shad had done that. Ashei had told him that Shad had done some things that would have put him in danger if his actions were discovered, but Link didn't realize the level of what the man had done. He would have been killed if the king had found out. Link assumed he was mostly a liaison between Telma's group and Zelda. He realized that there was far more to Shad than he knew.
"That's quite admirable." The bird-woman gently patted Shad's hip with one of her clawed hands. "You did the right thing by saving that information for future generations. What a brave young man you are." Ooccoo realized it as well. Shad must have told her all about the magic purge, a dark chapter in Hyrule's history where the king turned on his own people.
"Oh. Thank you." Shad said almost shyly. It seemed like he took praise about as well as Link did, although it was possible that he was simply humble. He reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out the moleskin book that Link had given him earlier. "Let me see here…" He thumbed through the pages until he came to the one with the bookmark, and his eyes darted back and forth as he read the Sky Writing script. Shad's lips moved faintly as he silently pronounced the words to himself, making sure he would do it correctly. While Link had a book on magic back in his home, it was fairly basic, and didn't go into detail on what kinds of spells could backfire if incantations were said incorrectly. It was unlikely that anything would go wrong if Shad mispronounced something, but it seemed that the scholar wished to get it right just in case.
"Right." The auburn-haired man turned to face the mural, holding his lantern aloft with his right hand, still holding the small book up in front of himself with his left. He took a deep breath, and then stared at the writing in front of him in concentration. It reminded Link of how he had prepared to sing the Song of Time in the ruins of the Temple of Time. Then the man began the incantation.
Shad's normally soft-spoken tone was gone, and his voice was clear as he carefully pronounced the syllables of the strange language. It didn't sound like Old Hylian, and it didn't sound like the strange Oocca tongue either; if anything, it sounded like a combination, a bridge between the two. It was a language created to connect the two races together.
The scholar finished reciting what was on the wall and began to read from the book. Motes of pale green light started to rise up from the floor around where Shad was standing, and then lines of the same colored light zigzagged away from his feet. They traced a pattern along the floor, then the walls and the ceiling, and even the owl itself. They hummed with a faint tone, a crystalline sound that reverberated through the chamber. Ilia looked around in wonder, since the only other magic she had ever seen was Midna's portal spell. Link was impressed too, despite traveling with a sorceress. This wasn't Twili magic; this was Hylian magic. This was the thing that Queen Lizbeth didn't want the people to have, the very thing that was their heritage.
Shad read the final words from the book and the green patterns flashed a brilliant blue with a rushing, bright sound, and then faded away. A few particles of the blue light hovered in the air for a moment, then vanished. The sound of the magic faded with its lights, but a constant humming replaced it. Link looked at what he held in his hands and saw that the sound was made by the Dominion Rod, which had activated from the magic. The orb of pale green light glowed at the wider end of it.
"Ah, I see!" Ooccoo exclaimed. "The spell isn't only to activate the transporter, but it's to power it and the Dominion Rod as well. Shad, we will be using your own magical energy to travel to my city!"
Junior laughed from his perch on Link's shoulder and raised his little wings. "Shad! Wow!"
"I just used magic…" Shad said faintly, a stunned look on his face. He turned to the others and his face broke into a broad grin, his eyes lighting up with excitement. "I just used magic! Did you see?" He reached out to grasp Ilia's hands, elated. "Ilia, did you see that?"
"I saw!" She was absolutely delighted. "That was amazing!" She flung herself at him and gave him a hug, and the two of them laughed together, both equally excited about the spell. Link had to smile; Ilia hadn't only made friends outside of Ordon, but she made some close ones as well. It was nice to see.
"That was nicely done, Shad." the Oocca said. "I didn't doubt that a Hylian had magic. If I had the time, I would see what what Auru or Telma could do."
She is incorrect with her assumption. the Master Sword said after playing its chime, breaking its lengthy silence. Most modern Hylians do not in fact have magic. Telma does not have any magical ability that I can detect, and Auru's is negligible. They are unlike you and Shad.
"Ooccoo?" He had to tell her what the sword said. "The Master Sword says that you're wrong. Most Hylians don't have magical abilities. I guess me and Shad are unusual."
"What? But you are the children of Hylia. Your pointed ears show that you are magical and slightly different from other humans. How can so few use magic?" The bird-woman was in denial, as if some fact that she had known had been proven wrong.
Please tell her this, Master: After encountering many Hylians on your travels, I have assessed them and determined that the vast majority have no magic. I have a hypothesis: Hylians have interbred with regular non-magical humans for generations, over the centuries that the Oocca have been out of contact with them. Due to this, many magical bloodlines have gone extinct. Half-Hylians born of these unions tend to not pass on magical abilities to their children, although there are exceptions such as Brent of Mabe. The only other exceptions I have noted are when a regular human has magic, such as a witch, or a Hylian that is part Sheikah, like you are. Between this and the genocide of magic users by King Adelbert, the chances of there being magic users among the population are small, although I would need to gather more data to have the proper statistics.
Link repeated this in bits and pieces to Ooccoo, not able to recite the entire monologue at once. The bird creature put her clawed hands to her mouth in alarm., and shook her head. "No. No, that theory can't be right. Hyrule is a place of magic."
It is the most logical theory. Regardless of this theory, the fact remains that hundreds of magic users were killed in the magic purge. Link dutifully relayed what the sword had said.
"Not hundreds. Thousands." Shad said grimly. "I have found the records and made new ones based off eye-witness accounts, including that of Princess Zelda. Thousands of people were killed due to Adelbert's madness."
It is worse than I had feared.
"This is very upsetting." The Oocca clutched her wing-hands in front of her strange breasts worriedly. "Does this mean that magic will die out among the Hylian population? Do we need to organize a breeding program?"
"Um. I think I would prefer not to be in a breeding program, if it's all the same to you." Shad said.
Link agreed with that statement, and nodded. He turned his head to look at Ilia. She was an ordinary Ordonian human, and had no magical abilities. He was Hylian and Sheikah, with considerable magic coming from both sides of his family. He and Ilia would most likely have children with little to no magic. He was an only child, with no relatives other than Max, who would probably have children with someone who was only one-quarter Hylian. Would that mean that both of their magical bloodlines would end?
Uncertain. The chances are high, but I would need to test Max and Ashei's own magical abilities before I could come to any conclusions. It would be ideal for you to have children with another Hylian with magical abilities, as it would be for Max. However, I cannot tell you what to do, or whom to love.
Did that make him wrong for loving Ilia? For wanting to spend his life with her? Was he being selfish, and somehow not fulfilling some unspoken duty to to pass on the Hylian blood of the Hero of Time, and his magic?
Negative. You are not morally wrong, nor selfish. Please do not let it trouble you, Master.
Ooccoo sighed wearily. "I need to consider this and consult my comrades back at the academy. We will need to devise a way to trace magical bloodlines and arrange marriages so they won't be bred out. I know you don't want to be part of it, but it would be a shame if neither one of you passed on your legacy." She cleared her throat. "We should focus on the task at hand." The bird creature pointed at the owl with one clawed digit. "Link, if you would?"
The Dominion Rod had been gently humming in his hand, still active since Shad cast his spell. Link hurled the ball of green light at the owl golem and it lit up with light, the silvery runes on its surface flashing green. Amusingly enough, the owl spun in place until it was facing the same direction he was, doing its best to mimic the way he was standing. He backed up and the stone owl hopped in reverse, backpedaling in the same manner he was. He moved it out of its alcove and off to the left some, and then held the rod in the manner that powered it down. The orb of light flew back to the Dominion Rod and vanished, and the glowing lines set into the stone of the statue went out.
Shad watched this with a smile that slowly grew into an excited grin. Once the owl was inactive and the Dominion Rod was silent, he clapped his hands in solo applause. "Bravo! What an amazing thing. I'm very curious about this type of magic. Did I hear it play a few little notes when you threw that light into the statue?"
"You can hear it?" Link asked, surprised. He thought only he could do that, since Midna didn't seem to have that ability, and Renado never commented on it either. "Just don't hum it. That can get you in trouble."
"I doubt he can use the same kinds of magic you can, Link." Midna told him. "He's not going to start singing magical songs to cause trouble."
"I don't sing until I have a few beers, anyway." the scholar said dryly. "Look, there's some light coming from the room past this doorway you've made. Shall we go in to see?"
The group walked through the archway into a spherical room. Unlike outside, the stone here looked far less worn. In fact, it looked almost pristine. The light gray stone was polished, and the mosaic on the floor was a repeating pattern of the sun and the moon. The light came from a flat circular panel in the center of the room, made of something that could have been glass, and it was shedding the blue-white light. Below that panel was a platform ringed in the same blue metal that the Dominion Rod was made of, the platform itself was black and glossy. Every once in a while, a ring of blue light would move across its surface from the center moving outward, like ripples on a glass of water. There was no writing, no instructions, only the platform and a small slot on one side of it. Upon closer inspection, Link could see that the slot had three protrusions, designed to fit the Dominion Rod.
"Our ancestors were able to build things like this?" he asked, his eyes taking it all in. It was quite alien.
"Ooccoo looked at the transporter. "Oh, yes. There was a time when magic helped Hylian technology advance. It was brief, and all progress was lost in an ancient war. It is the sad tale of this land; it starts to progress and life improves for the people, only to be set back by conflict and reset to a time of low technology such as this. My people have watched it do this for thousands of years."
That sounded horrible. The people could be far more advanced, and perhaps live in ways he couldn't even imagine, yet the endless wars that had plagued Hyrule since its inception kept it in its current age.
"That's depressing." Shad looked as if he was having the same thoughts as Link. "Here's hoping we can regain what we have lost at some point."
"It's time for us to say goodbye, Ilia." Ooccoo said sadly. "It was very nice to meet you. Be sure to take care of Link. He's a very important young man."
"That's what I've been doing so far, and I don't plan on stopping." She turned her head to smile at him, and then reached out to offer her hand to the female Oocca, who grasped at it with her clawed hands. "Goodbye, Ooccoo. I'm sure your husband will be very happy when you come home." Her green eyes fell on the little Oocca perched on Link's shoulder. Junior was sniveling, and the poor creature was holding the claws at the bend of his wings to his face. "Oh, Junior, it'll be all right." Ilia said soothingly.
"Ilia…" the little creature sobbed. "Nooo, Ilia..." He shed tears just like a human would from his tiny orange eyes.
Ilia carefully picked up the small Oocca in both of her hands to gently kiss him on his head, and then held him there close to her face. "It's okay. You'll be able to see your daddy again, and sleep in your own bed. It'll be nice for you to go home, you'll see."
The little boy sniffled and stood up on his toes to kiss Ilia's face. He looked up at one of her eyes and gently patted her cheek. "Pretty. So pretty. Green." He kissed her cheek again, and made a sound that was halfway between a sob and a hiccup. "Best eyes." Junior sighed and craned his head around to look at Link. "Link? Please...take care Ilia. Love Ilia. Be good, okay?" It was the longest thing he had ever said in Hylian.
"Don't worry, kiddo. I'll take good care of her." He watched as she carefully placed the little creature back on his shoulder. "I promise."
Junior nodded and clung to one of the longer locks of hair that hung next to Link's face. "Bye, Ilia. Link? Say bye."
That made Ilia laugh softly, and she moved her green eyes to look into his. "Will you be back tonight?"
"That's the plan, although I don't know if Shad will be or not. It depends on what the Oocca want to talk to him about. There are still a lot of things I want to tell you about, so I don't plan on skipping talking to you when I get back. Just don't fall asleep this time, all right?" He smirked at her, knowing that it was entirely possible that the two of them would fall asleep together again. There was a little tug on his hair from Junior.
"Say bye. Kiss." the boy commanded. Link heard the child's mother chuckle.
"I have to follow instructions." he said innocently, and then pulled her closer with the hand that wasn't holding on to the Dominion Rod. It wasn't a long kiss, since he didn't want to embarrass themselves in front of Shad. "Until later."
"Yeah, until later. Come back safe." Ilia laughed lightly. "I always say that. But I mean it...be careful, you two. Goodbye." She watched Link as he stepped up onto the platform where Shad, Ooccoo and Midna were waiting.
"Link, once we are standing away from the edge, you should put the Dominion Rod into that slot there." the bird-woman instructed. "Then turn it on. The transporter should then activate."
"All right. Everyone ready?" He slotted the Dominion rod in place with a solid clunk, and then put his hand on the end of it to turn it on. "Here we go." The machine hummed to life and the light above grew brighter, and filled the room with a bright white glow. Small sparks of green magic rose up like embers from around the edge of the teleporter, and then quite suddenly everything dissolved into pale green light.
It was worse than teleporting with Midna, if that was possible. He didn't know if it was due to the fact that he had the same kind of magic as her and was less bothered by it, or maybe it was due to the amount of people being teleported with him, but he felt woozy as the swirling green light faded. He gripped at Shad's arm and felt as if he was going to fall over. "Ugh...I thought I was getting used to this." He felt Shad reach out to grab onto him as he stumbled forward while letting go of the Dominion Rod, which was now in the slot on this particular platform.
"Goodness, you don't take to magical travel well, do you?" He helped Link stand up straight. Junior clung on to a lock of Link's hair for dear life, so Shad took the little Oocca and placed him on his own shoulder.
"Don't be sick." Midna warned him.
"You saying that isn't helping." he managed, leaning forward with his hands on his knees with his eyes shut. He took a few deep breaths and felt a cold wind on his face, which thankfully provided something of a distraction.
He heard Ooccoo's voice. "Interesting. Sometimes teleportation can affect the inner ear, but I have never seen it happen among my people. I suppose an Oocca head is designed much differently than a Hylian head."
His ears were making him dizzy? It was a strange idea, but so was the idea that air had weight at first. Hylian ears were supposed to be a sign of magic, so it could be related somehow. "Your ears don't stick out like mine, so I guess it doesn't affect you."
The adult Oocca laughed. "No, not your actual ears, you silly boy. Inside of your skull there's- oh, forget it. I doubt you have a reasonable understanding of human anatomy."
Link felt a little annoyed at that. There were plenty of books on human physiology, and doctors had a fair idea of what they were doing. "Just because I didn't know that there was a part of the ear inside the head that affected balance doesn't mean that I'm completely ignorant."
"Don't worry, Ooccoo. He's ignorant in a lot of other ways." Midna said, and he could hear the grin in her voice. He considered a retort, but thought that focusing on his feet on the ground was a better activity for his mind to be doing right now. Gods...if he got sick here, he'd never hear the end of it.
The others patiently waited for him to recover, and after a moment he opened his eyes and stood up straight. "All right, I think I'm fine now. Where are we headed?" He looked around, but visibility was poor. There was a misty fog surrounding them, billowing in the chilly breeze. It made his skin damp and cold, and he wished that he had gotten his cloak back from Auren. What he could see was the platform that they were standing on, which was situated at the end of a walkway in the middle of a shallow decorative pool. He was glad he hadn't fallen over, since he would have gotten far more wet than what the fog was currently doing to him. There were the ghostly forms of trees not too far out from the platform, but he couldn't see anything farther than that.
"The city itself, of course. Leave the Dominion Rod where it is. I doubt anyone will attempt to use it to travel to the surface. We should follow this paved path in front of us." Ooccoo said. "As a matter of fact, you should always follow the path. It's a bit cloudy today, and I wouldn't want one of you walking right off the edge. Not all areas are walled in."
"That might be difficult. My glasses are fogging up." Shad said, his eyes hidden behind said glasses. "I shouldn't take them off either, since I have no depth perception without them."
Midna took one of the man's hands in her own small ones. "I'll lead you along. Don't worry, I won't let either you or Link fall."
"Thank you, Midna." Shad let himself be pulled along by her, and Link followed them. Ooccoo said that it was cloudy, so did that mean that the mist surrounding them was actually clouds? How high up were they, anyway? The air felt thin, much how it had in the Snow Peaks. If he was going to get as winded here as he did there, he was not looking forward to fighting a dragon.
There was little to see at first since the cloud surrounded everything. The path was made of the same gray stone that was in the ruin below the Sanctuary, with an unknown yellow stone that lined the sides of it. There were knee-high grasses beyond the stone, but he was unable to see past that. After a moment they went over an arched path with raised sides, and Link realized that it was a bridge.
It was at that moment that the cloud finally moved on. They were indeed standing on a bridge, and there was nothing below them. Link had been looking to the right, and he saw the cloud retreat to reveal a patchwork of green fields, clusters of trees and a sparkling blue body of water. His heart dropped into his stomach at seeing how high up they were.
Shad was looking over the other side of the bridge. "Oh. Oh, dear." His voice trembled a bit. "This is quite the distance up, isn't it? All the landmarks look tiny. That looks like Lakeside over there, and there's Lakeside Tower a little past it. I can even see quite a ways into Gerudo lands, past the mesas and canyons. Isn't that East Oasis and the Colossus?
Link turned his head to look and saw that the dunes of sand in the desert were nothing more than little ripples at this distance. He could see a large chunk of stone jutting up from the sand, and the tiny statue of a woman carved into the side of it. Having been next to that statue and the temple beneath it, he knew how massive it was, and seeing it look so small felt odd. There was a lump of white ringed by green next to the Colossus, the buildings of East Oasis so far away that he couldn't see individual ones. He thought he could see the white walls of Gerudo City and the dark shape of the Arbiter's Grounds beyond, but the farther away things were, the more they faded out into a haze. It was interesting to see the world this way, not to mention a bit frightening.
"I think we should move on." Midna said. "Shad's shaking."
"Only a bit. Adrenaline, and all that. Man was not meant to fly in the heavens, so taking this in is quite a shock to the system." At least it seemed like his glasses weren't fogged up anymore. "It's quite fascinating, even if I'm a little weak in the knees right now." He let himself be led on by the Twili anyway.
"Man was in fact meant to fly in the heavens, and they did. This city was built by Hylians, and it was one of many. Since my people no longer have the ability to properly fly, we have not been able to travel to any of the other islands to see what else has survived from the time humans lived above the clouds." Ooccoo sounded proud, and perhaps a bit smug. "Our city is quite sufficient, so we have no need to leave."
Link tore his eyes away from the desert and followed, keeping his eyes on the ground in front of his feet until he was off the bridge. Then he raised his eyes to look ahead, and saw the city itself.
It was massive, at least the size of Castle Town, if not larger. The city was built of the same light gray stone, smooth and tightly fit together, just as the transporter room had been. It was situated on a group of islands that were connected by bridges, and the bridges themselves had extra structures beneath them, most likely to hold the connected islands in place. The buildings of the city were rounded and tall, some as tall as Hyrule Castle, with multiple floors and towers ending in yellow-capped domes. He saw what he thought were dark ropes or perhaps some kind of wire going between the buildings, although he couldn't figure out what their purpose was. There was a proper city wall around most of it, and the wall surrounded the part of the city that was on the main, central island.
That island was where they found themselves after they followed the path. Link felt far less nervous about the height now that he couldn't easily see over the side. Shad appeared to feel the same, and he let go of Midna's hand. The path widened into a proper road, and there were poplars planted on either side of it at regular intervals. There were raised beds between the trees, although there wasn't anything growing in them other than grass and weeds. It looked like the Oocca weren't interested in maintaining things, or at least had no interest in gardening. It was probably difficult for them to do with their little clawed wing-hands.
They passed through the open archway that was where a city gate would normally be. There was little point in a gate, since there would have been no outside threats that could have hurt the city so high up in the sky. As they walked into the city and down the main street, the Oocca stopped what they were doing to turn and gawk in surprise at the sight of two Hylians in their city. There was excited babble between the bird people in their strange language, but it was easy for Link to guess what they were talking about. Not all of the bird creatures were golden-feathered like Ooccoo, and the Oocca came in various shades of yellow, green and brown. Once the Oocca had their eyes on the group, Midna decided to hide in Link's shadow. They would have no idea who or what she was, and the fewer explanations that Ooccoo had to make, the better.
Once they reached a central plaza with a fountain, Ooccoo directed them to turn left. The fountain itself was made of the golden stone, its water spilling over multiple tiers, and there was a broad-beaked bird made of stone perched at the top with its wings extended. It was strange, but Link could picture the ancient fountain belonging in an ordinary Hylian town. He didn't know much about architecture, but even he could see that there were some similarities between the construction of Hyrule Castle and the floating city. It seemed that Hylians were always skilled in building with stone.
"How old is this city?" he had to ask.
"A little over five thousand years old." the female Oocca told him.
Five thousand?! How could people have built something that could last so long? Was that about as old as Hyrule? Was that about as old as Hyrule? There were many chapters in its history that were lost to time, so there was only an estimate of how long it had been since the kingdom had been formed, but it was at least a few thousand years old. Ooccoo had told him that Hylia had brought the humans up into the sky from the surface in order to avoid some kind of danger. How long did they live here before they were brought back to the earth? He had questions, questions that the Oocca could possibly answer. Ooccoo was more than willing to tell him that Hylia was dead and gone. Link didn't doubt that they would share whatever information they had to offer if he simply asked, since he was the current Hero of Hyrule.
His thoughts were interrupted by a shattering cry that echoed through the city, and the Oocca cried out in fear and started to scatter and run into buildings. "We need to hide!" Ooccoo cried in alarm. Link agreed. Fighting the dragon in the city would be dangerous to its citizens, and could damage these buildings that had stood for thousands of years. He looked around and darted into the open doorway of a nearby building, with Shad close behind him.
There were several Oocca in the building, which turned out to be a bakery. The small bread was shaped in rounded lumps and contained some variety of nuts, but it was still bread, and he could smell the oven baking more in the back. He and Shad ducked down so they wouldn't be seen through the open window. The bird people stared at the two Hylians in surprise, not expecting two humans to suddenly appear. There was another roar outside, and the heavy sound of leathery wings flapping.
"Is...are…" One of the Oocca spoke up, and he struggled with the words of a language he knew only a little of. "Are you hero? You have sword."
Link turned his head to look at him. The male Oocca had glossy dark green feathers and was larger than Ooccoo, as were many of the others in the shop. He realized that Ooccoo was a rather small Oocca, much like how Ilia was a small woman. The Oocca man who spoke to him was the size of a turkey. Link noticed that his facial features were different than the others in the bakery, and that the others had different faces just like humans would. He decided to stop staring back at the Oocca and answer the question. "Do you mean the Master Sword? Yes, I'm the current Hero of Hyrule."
"You…" The bird-man frowned, blinking his red avian eyes in concentration as he tried to remember the right word. "You help?"
There was a loud, shuddering sound outside, as if something heavy had slammed into the ground. He heard a woman's scream, and he risked taking a look out the window. A dragon—more specifically a wyvern—had landed in the road not too far away from the central fountain, and was using its folded wings as front legs almost like a bat would. It had bright red scales with silvery horns and feet, and it was about the size of a bull, not counting the length of its barbed tail. It was much smaller than the skeletal dragon he had fought in the Arbiter's Grounds, although that one didn't have armor. This dragon was wearing segmented black plate all along its body, from its snout to the tip of its tail, with armor covering its legs and the part of its wings closest to its body. The style of the plate reminded him of the phantom Ganondorf had left for him in the Temple of Time. It made him wonder if Ganondorf had done something to put armor on this dragon.
Link couldn't see the mirror shard from where he was. He was about to use his spell to try to spot it, but then he noticed the little yellow bird creature wriggling beneath one of the dragon's clawed feet. The Oocca was shrieking in her own language frantically, and she sounded absolutely terrified. He wasn't sure what to do. Should he run out to rescue her? Was there room in the city for him to actually fight the dragon?
In the end, it didn't matter. The dragon looked down at the screaming Oocca in its talons, and quickly lifted the foot that held her to toss the poor creature into the air. It opened its fanged mouth wide and darted its head forward quickly to snap her up mid-air, and with one single gulp her cries were silenced.
Oh gods, it was eating them.
It craned its head around as it scanned the square for other prey, but did not see any. The rest of the bird people had managed to hide in time. The dragon raised its armored head to look up, and launched itself into the sky ponderously to fly back to wherever its lair was. He watched it fly out of sight, and then heard the frightened whispers of the Oocca in the shop with him.
The one who had spoke to him before did so again. Link turned towards him when the creature spoke in Hylian. "Hero? Save us. Please, save us."
All he could do was stare at the male Oocca that had begged for his help. While he did plan on dealing with the dragon, he still wasn't sure exactly how he would do that. It was far faster and more deadly than the other things he had fought, perhaps with the exception of Ganondorf's phantom. The armor that the dragon wore caused a problem as well. Armor was always held on by straps, but he hadn't been able to see any. Even if there were straps, he wasn't sure he'd be able to cut them away as he did before. Getting close to a man or a Bulblin was not the same as getting close to a wild beast like a dragon.
A dozen red and orange bird eyes stared up at him from human-looking faces. It was the same as when the Hylians had all turned their eyes on him outside of Castle Town, waiting, expecting him to do something to make it better somehow. Hero, save us. Hero, lead us to safety. Hero, make everything normal again. When it had happened after Castle Town had fallen, he questioned himself and was filled with existential dread. Now he knew that he could do it, even if he didn't understand quite how yet.
Link nodded to the Oocca. "I'll save you, don't worry. I don't know if I can stop the dragon without killing it, but I'll try."
"Argorok." Ooccoo said. "His name is Argorok."
Meanwhile, Shad was holding Junior in his hands while speaking soothingly to him, and he gently ran his fingertips down the creature's fluffy back. The child was crying, terrified of what had just happened. "It'll be all right. Link will help." the scholar said, and he lay a kiss on the little bald head. Even Shad kissed the little creature. Probably the only one who hadn't at this point was Ashei. Link couldn't picture Ashei kissing anyone or anything. Then again, there had been that awkward silence when he had overheard her talking with Max behind Impaz's house. He tried not to think about that.
The little boy sniffled and reached up to pat at the man's face. "Shad? You scared?"
"Yes, but I know that it will be all right. Link and Midna have fought so many things and saved so many people. I have faith in them." Even though he was saying it to calm the young Oocca, it was still nice to hear him speak that way. It was good to know that his friends believed in him.
"Okay." Junior said, satisfied with the answer. He reached up and tapped his little claws on Shad's glasses. "This thing. Move?"
"Oh, of course." Shad moved his glasses up to rest them on top of his head so the little Oocca could look at his eyes better.
Junior sighed, soothed by looking into what was a giant eye to him. "Blue. Pretty." Well, as long as he had human eyes to look at, he'd probably be all right.
"It's funny how much he likes eyes." Link commented. They were still crouched in the bakery, but nobody had dared move yet, just in case the dragon wasn't far. "I think he's interested in the color. He didn't seem to care about Telma's or Ashei's eyes, but he likes ours. I'm going to guess brown is too close to Oocca eye color."
"Some of our people have brown eyes." Ooccoo told him. "He does like the color of yours, and he's told me so. That was the first thing he noticed about you and Rusl, that you had blue eyes. He was absolutely tickled when he saw that Ilia's were green. Green's his favorite color."
"This! Look." Junior patted near one of Shad's eyes. "Shad? Close eye." The scholar closed his eyes, and then the little Oocca reached out and grabbed a handful of his eyelashes. "Look, pretty!" Of course he would be interested in eyelashes. He had said that Ilia had the best eyes, and her eyelashes were quite long. So were Link's own, and the little Oocca wanted to look at his eyes more than anyone's.
Shad recoiled and rubbed at his eye with a grunt. "Junior, please don't touch someone's eyes like that. It hurts." He lowered his glasses to protect his now-watering eyes. "Why don't you sit on my shoulder and we'll go someplace else? Provided it's safe to go back outside."
"I believe so." Ooccoo turned to the others in the shop and spoke to them in their odd language. After a bit of back and forth, most of the other Oocca began to leave the bakery, and she raised her face to fix her red eyes on Link. "I believe it's best we take Junior home to see his father. He's most likely there right now."
The historian's home was on the second floor of a gray stone building a short walk from the central square of the city. The stairs were made of the same stone as much of the rest of the city, and they went up a few more floors. The hall of the floor they were on extended down a ways and had doors set at regular intervals, opposite of a wall that had the faded remnants of fabric wallpaper clinging to it in parts. Some of the doors had faded letters formed of metal bolted to them, and others simply had empty holes where the letters had been. The letters were runes like Hylian, but Link didn't recognize them at all. Perhaps they were Old Hylian.
They were led to the second door from the stairs by Ooccoo's instructions. The door itself was made of metal, with a few flakes of what looked like white paint clinging to it. This door was five thousand years old, yet it hadn't rusted. He wondered if Hylians could ever make anything like this again.
Amusingly enough, the bottom of the door had a smaller swinging flap cut into it, much like the little door that Sera had for her cat. It made sense, since using a human-sized doorknob would be difficult for the Oocca.
"Please set me down." Ooocco said, her avian eyes fixed on the door. Shad took her from the satchel she had riding in all day and gently set her down on the floor. Then he took Junior off his shoulder and carefully put him next to his mother. Ooccoo's eyes never left the door. "Please wait here until I come to get you. It may be a few minutes, so I'll ask you to be patient." She pushed the little door with a wing and went through while escorting her fluffy son inside.
Link thought he heard a bit of their language through the door, but it was muffled. He sighed and sat down while adjusting the long scabbard of the Master Sword, and crossed his legs at the ankles in front of him. "I honestly don't know what I was expecting." he told Shad. "Egg-shaped houses? Everything to be bird-themed?"
"There is a bird theme." Midna said from within his shadows. Even in this alien place, she chose to keep herself hidden from others. "Just like Castle Town has the Triforce for decoration, this place has a bird. I've seen the same type of bird with the fat beak and long tail here and there."
"I have too." Shad said, lowering himself down to sit next to Link. "I've seen quite a bit of writing, but there only have been a few things I've been able to read. Like that." He pointed up at the door. "That's Old Hylian." Link's suspicion turned out to be correct. "They're not letters, but numbers. It says '202'. The second floor, and the second door over. These are dormitories of some kind."
"Who knows, one of our ancestors could have lived in this very building." He looked up at what he now knew were Old Hylian numbers. They didn't look anything like modern numbers. "Now that we have a little downtime, do you two have any ideas on how to tackle that dragon?"
"Why do you think I'd know how to fight a dragon?" Shad asked while glancing over at him with one eyebrow raised.
"The two of you are a lot brighter than I am. When I come up with ideas, they're dangerous and kind of stupid." Although they did work, as off-the-wall as they were.
"I know I poke fun at you all the time, but your ideas are really creative because you're smart." Midna had told him he was intelligent before, and he believed her, but he never felt that way. "You always find ways to accomplish difficult things with what's around you, or with what you have on you. A dummy wouldn't do that."
"You say that, but most of the time I feel really damn stupid after I do things like that. I feel like I could have done them better." He put his hand up on the hilt of the Master Sword to adjust it again since the angle it sat at was tugging on his baldric. "Figuring out where the mirror shard is will be a starting point. I'll try to pinpoint where it is with my magic, but if I had to guess it's under the armor somewhere."
"I agree." Shad said, leaning back against the wall. "Getting that armor off is key to defeating the dragon whether we know where the shard is or not. I didn't get a very good look at it earlier, so I can't suggest the best method until I see it again."
"You're not going to see it again." Link told him. "I know I brought Ashei and Rusl with me to fight, but you're not a fighter. I don't want you getting hurt."
The other Hylian looked disappointed. "I understand, but I still feel like I could do something. I know I have zero combat experience, but there has to be some other way I can help." He tilted his head back to rest it against the gray stone of the wall and shut his eyes. "There have been times where I wanted to help you. I thought I could help evacuate Castle Town, or at least find my family." His voice grew quiet. "Maybe if I had a sword and a horse like you and Ashei, I could have done it. In the end, I was useless."
Link remembered the night he had found Shad in tears while talking to Ashei. She had told him he was upset because he was unable to find his mother and sister. That couldn't have been why he wanted to prove himself now, could it? "Shad…" he began, and the man opened his eyes to look over at him. "Not being able to physically fight doesn't make you useless. I had a lot of difficulty helping people escape, and Commander Petyr got pushed out of the town before he could get back to Shelly."
"I suppose we all regret not being able to do more in Castle Town. Even then, now that the group has relocated to Kakariko, everyone seems to have a purpose. Ashei and Rusl fight next to you, Telma and Ilia take care of the cooking and domestic things in the inn, even Auru and Auren have helped you out considerably. Meanwhile I'm that nerdy guy with glasses with his little notebook poking around ruins and not doing much else." Shad sighed. "I understand that my father's research is what got us here, but that was my father's work, not mine."
Link shook his head with a little smile. "And here I thought I doubted myself, but I guess my friends do that too. Look, you picked up where your father left off, and you're the one who was able to read the Sky Writing. You're the one who cast the spell to activate the transporter, so we wouldn't be here without you. Don't forget about how much you did to help Zelda over the past few years, and what you've done after Zant invaded and the castle grounds were crawling with Shadow Beasts. There's what you did in order to make records of things that happened during the magic purge that otherwise would have been covered up. And then there's how you went to hide those magic relics and books so King Adelbert wouldn't destroy them. If you think you're weak or useless, then you're wrong."
Shad turned his head away and stared at the door opposite of them as he considered what Link had said. "I suppose you're right, but it doesn't feel like it's enough. I'm not comparing myself to you and what you do, because there really is no comparison...but I am comparing myself to the others in our little group. While I admit I did have my moments, it feels like I spent most of my free time hanging around Telma's pub, sometimes finding a pretty face to bring back home with me for the night." That was an unexpected admission, but then again Shad was an attractive young man, even if he dressed a bit oddly at times. "Still...after I cast that spell today, I realized that I have potential to be something more. The Master Sword even said that both you and I have magical abilities. I have to wonder what mine are. How can I use them?"
"If we had more time, we could most likely figure it out." Midna said, her tone strangely formal. "You may specialize in one school of magic like I do, or more than one like Link. It may be something you need to investigate on your own, but remember that you have friends. Once things are over, you should try speaking to Princess Zelda. She may be busy with rebuilding, but if you're serious about learning about your own abilities, then speaking to the person who has Wisdom is a good idea." This wasn't the first time he had heard Midna drop the sassy attitude and speak like a knowledgeable magic user, but he was reminded that she had that side to her. There was the snarky young woman, and then there was the powerful sorceress.
He had to wonder if he had two sides to himself that other people could easily see, but never mentioned. He knew that he smiled and laughed a lot even though his childhood was difficult, and there was the way he strong when he needed to accomplish things, but he felt that there was more to himself that people would probably notice. Maybe. Or maybe he shouldn't worry about what others noticed, since his friends didn't care anyway.
The little door swung open and Ooccoo stepped out. "You're all right to come in, provided the door still works, that is. It is quite old, and while the metals the ancient Hylians used do not rust, this is a door that hasn't been opened in thousands of years."
The two of them stood up, and Link stepped up to the door and reached out to the knob. Would it even turn after so long? Would it break off in his hand? He tried a gentle turn, but it wouldn't budge. Frowning, he grunted and tried to force it, but the doorknob would not move. "I'm not using Courage on this thing. I'd probably rip the knob right off."
"It probably needs grease." Shad said.
"It probably needs to not be thousands of years old." He tried to give it one more turn, and only managed to painfully rub his fingers on the metal from the friction. Link sucked at his fingers and glared at the doorknob.
"You two are hopeless." Midna appeared and put her hands on her hips. "Didn't it ever occur to either of you that it's probably locked?"
"Oh." the two men said in unison.
"People who live in a city of this size would have locked their doors. Luckily, I have the key." She tapped at the door with her small fingers and it produced a grinding clunk, the metal protesting after not moving for ages. "Hmm." Midna reached out and tapped at the door again, the faintest crackle of shadow magic appearing around her fingertips, and she made the mechanism move. It sounded quite loud in the otherwise silent hallway. "Maybe it does need grease. Oh well. It works just fine now."
Link tried the doorknob again and it turned. He felt a little foolish, not realizing that it was locked. At least Shad hadn't thought of that either. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
It was as Shad predicted, and the place was either a dorm or an apartment, although it wasn't very much like the ones in Hyrule Castle or the Gerudo fortress. There were the remnants of human-sized furniture laying here and there on the floor, bits of wood and faded cloth that still survived thousands of years later. There was most of what appeared to be a counter beyond the fragments of furniture, and set into it with a sink with a tap. The most interesting thing in the room was the rounded light fixture above, which had a similar blue-white glow as the one above the teleporter.
Other than Ooccoo, there were two adult Oocca seated on small cushions next to an Oocca-sized table. It looked like a metal drawer turned upside-down, with rudimentary legs attached to even it out. In fact, most of the things that survived in the room were made of metal, stone and a white material that Link didn't recognize.
One of the seated Oocca looked up at them, this one larger than Oocco with brown feathers and eyes, and it spoke with a male voice. "So you're the ones who brought my wife and son home. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart." How could the creature be so small yet sound like a man? His voice was deeper than both Link's and Shad's. How did the bodies of these weird creatures work?
"Oh, no problem." Link said, trying not to think of how bizarre the Oocca were. "She helped me out quite a bit too."
"Yes, the ordeal to get the Dominion Rod. She was able to enter the Sacred Realm because of your magic and your sword." the brown Oocca said. Link wondered what he should call this bird-man...Mr. Ooccoo? "I would offer you a seat, but as you can see Hylian furniture does not last for thousands of years."
"Don't worry about hospitality." Shad said. "It isn't as if you have the resources to provide for human guests, anyway."
"Ah, that is quite true." He held out a clawed wing towards the other Oocca seated at the table. "This is my eldest daughter...erm…I suppose you can call her 'Sis'."
"Hello." the female Oocca said politely. "I speak a little Hylian. Not as good as mother and father." Like her mother, she had golden feathers and a pair of bare breasts that had green feathers over where the nipples would be. Once again, he had to wonder why these birds had breasts. Did they nurse? Did they lay eggs like a bird and nurse like a human? Who designed these damn things, anyway?
"She doesn't work at the academy like my wife or the observation station like I do. Most Oocca learn a smattering of modern Hylian, and while our children have learned a bit more than the average person, only a few of us are actually fluent in the language." The male Oocca shifted and moved Junior a bit, who was seated on his father's back. "I had quite the scare, watching my son blow over the edge. My wife had brought him to the observation station to visit me at work." He shook his odd head, which was less bald than that of the female Oocca in the room. "I don't know what she was thinking when she let go of me and went over the edge after him."
"I was thinking I could catch our son and find a safe place to glide to. And I did." Ooccoo said, reaching out to put her clawed hand on her husband's wing. "I didn't mean to frighten you."
"While you did catch him and landed safely in the end, how could I know at the time? We had a funeral for you and our son." His brown bird eyes looked pained and his human face took on a saddened expression. "That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do." Ooccoo's husband blinked and raised his face to look at the two humans and one imp in front of him. "Enjoy the time you have with your loved ones, because they can be gone in a flash. Are you married? I doubt you have kids."
The three of them shook their heads, all assuming he meant a collective 'you' when addressing them. Minda spoke first. "I'll probably have some stupid arranged marriage, as is tradition for my family. I wouldn't get married at all if given a choice."
"I'm married to my work." Shad said. Considering how hard the man worked, it wasn't surprising that he didn't have the time for relationships.
"I guess I have a girlfriend now." Link admitted. It felt strange to say, even though he was quite happy with how things with Ilia had turned out.
"What do you mean, you guess?" Midna moved to hover in front of his face, and put her hands on her hips. "After all that trouble you went through trying to figure out what was wrong with her, and to get her to remember you, all you can say is 'I guess'?" She poked him on the end of his nose with one little finger. "You do have a girlfriend, Link. You don't have to dance around the subject anymore."
He sighed. "Fine. I have a girlfriend."
Mr. Ooccoo nodded. "Yes, I've seen her. She isn't Hylian, but an Ordonian with hair lighter than yours. You've spent the past few years with her, almost constantly at her side. The two of you were there for one another when your mothers died."
Link stared at the male Oocca in surprise. While he may have heard about Ilia from his wife, she couldn't have told him about Sami and Marnie passing away. "How did you know that?"
Mr. Ooccoo laughed. When he did so, his mouth opened wide enough to show that his teeth were very much like a human's, molars and all. Freaky. "This may as come as a surprise, but I am one of the technicians assigned to observing you. We've been watching your life since you were a boy." He took in Link's flabbergasted expression and laughed again. "You're the Hero of Hyrule, of course we watch you! We've been looking for you for centuries, in fact. We keep tabs on every Hylian boy that has blonde hair and blue eyes, just in case. The hero almost always has that coloration, and has the same face every time. And now, we have a new means to detect the hero: the Triforce of Courage. In fact, I was the one who made the discovery that you had the mark of the Triforce on your hand. Oh, we were besides ourselves with joy that day! It was expected, of course. The current Zelda had her mark already, so we knew you were out there somewhere."
They had been watching him for almost his whole life. The Oocca knew everything about him. Everything. "Uh, look. I know you've been watching me for a while, but can you not tell my friends about what happened right before I went to Ordon? Some of those things I'd like to keep to myself until I'm ready to tell them." Neither Shad nor Midna needed to accidentally learn the details of how he fled Kasuto. After his reactions from telling both Ilia and Renado, he didn't want to discuss it with his friends while in this floating city.
"Yes, that's completely understandable." the Oocca said while blinking his avian eyes. "My lips are sealed. Forgive the idiom, but it's a habit I picked up from my wife. She adores how many idioms and analogies your language has."
"Hylian is such a wonderful language simply because it's so flexible. You don't even gender your nouns or conjugate some of your verbs!" It sounded like Ooccoo knew more about Link's language than he did. While he knew what nouns and verbs were, he had no clue how words could have gender outside of "he", "she", or "they".
The male Oocca continued. "At some point, I would love to interview you. Most of the time we can only look, since our long-range microphones don't work as well as they used to. Not only that, but you have a habit of going into places that our cameras can't follow. It's always quite frustrating when you're beneath trees, or inside buildings. There is quite a bit my colleagues and I don't understand, and it all happened in the past month. You are quite the busy young man, you know."
He wasn't sure what the Oocca meant by "cameras" or "microphones", but they were probably ancient devices or relics used to observe the people living on the ground. "I'd be happy to, but not anytime soon. What I'm doing is fairly important, and since you know who I am you can understand why. The barrier around the castle has been made by Ganondorf. He escaped from the Twilight Realm, and is hoping to gain all three pieces of the Triforce himself. Right now we're trying to get the pieces of the Mirror of Twilight so we go into the Twilight Realm and regain the Fused Shadows from one of his lackeys, and then turn Midna back into her human form. Then she'll be strong enough to destroy the barrier, and I can get in to take care of Ganondorf."
"What of Princess Zelda? She was still in the castle, the last her observational group knew." Mr. Ooccoo asked.
"Yes. She's in a magical sleep right now, and it was self-imposed. She used her power to save Midna's life, but she fell unconscious and won't wake up." Link told him grimly.
The Oocca put a clawed hand to his chin. "That is quite concerning. That means Ganondorf has two pieces, then. We had best hope that you are successful." He smiled up at Link. "But if course you will be. I have seen you fight. Your skill is incredible, and I believe that it outclasses Ganondorf's, from what we have on record from two hundred years ago."
That should have filled him with confidence, but it didn't. Instead he thought realistically, and about the truth. "He's spent that time growing stronger than he was before. I haven't actually seen him in person yet, so I can't say how strong he is right now. I only know what the Sages told me."
"I have a question." Shad spoke up. "If you really have been observing Link for all this time, does that mean you were able to see when he met your wife and son?"
Mr. Ooccoo smiled. "Yes. Guessed that, did you? I actually was making my way to my station, since I'm part of the evening shift. The man from the previous shift was very excited, and he told me what happened. My heart soared higher than this city, let me tell you. I looked at my console and there they were, alive and well. We had attempted to find them, but to no avail. You cannot imagine my relief upon seeing them."
"Um, Mr. Ooccoo-" Link began.
"'Mister' will suffice."
It was silly, but no less silly than "Sis" or "Junior.". "Mister, the last fragment of the Mirror of Twilight is here. The dragon that's been attacking you has it, I'm sure of it. I need to get to that dragon."
Mister held out one clawed hand imploringly. "You do, but there is something else I would ask of you first. There were some of those black monsters with the masks that came here with some Aeralfos. I believe that the Aeralfos have all left, but the other monsters are still here. Can you take care of them? We managed to seal them off at the academy. We found out that they can open doors and gates, so the best course of action was to lock them within the campus walls. Unfortunately, they have transformed some of our people. I had hoped that we would not be susceptible due to our rapid rate of evolution, but it happened anyway."
"Evolution?" Shad interjected to ask the question. "The Oocca are evolving?"
"Oh, goodness. I never told you that, did I?" Ooccoo said, clasping her clawed hands in front of her. "Yes, we were blessed with the gods' power once the humans were brought down to the ground again, so that we may evolve and remain here to watch over the islands in case they are ever needed again. Of course, magical evolution can be a fickle thing, and we are what you see before you, instead of something like the Rito...which is undoubtedly what was intended."
"No offense, but it looks like the Oocca got the short end of the stick." Midna smirked. "You guys can't even evolve hands right."
"Alas, it's true. We manage and keep hoping that we will turn into something more practical, but all that we've managed to do over the past thousand years is get smaller." The bird-woman shook her head. "That is neither here nor there. I have no doubt that you and Link will come help here as you two have in so many other places."
Link nodded once, inclining his head to her. "Of course. You can't have Shadow Beasts loose in your city. I can't make any promises about saving the transformed Oocca, since I don't even know how to save my own people yet." Hopefully the Fused Shadows would have a way to reverse it. He certainly didn't have any other ideas. "Tell me which way to the academy. I might as well go do that right now."
"Let me show you." Ooccoo said, standing up from her cushion. "Shad can come, and I'll ride in the book satchel again. Now young man, I can see you're about to argue, but don't you dare!" Her tone was stern, and Link shut his mouth and dropped the protest he was about to make. "We won't actually go in to where the Shadow Beasts are. We'll leave that you and Midna. The two of us will remain safely outside. As safe as it can be with a dragon on the loose, that is."
"That sounds reasonable." Shad said to him. "And perhaps afterwards she can show us where Argorok is."
Link turned to him and frowned. "I told you that I don't want to put you in danger, and I certainly don't want to do the same to her."
The scholar pushed his glasses back up his nose. They had slid a little from him looking down at the Oocca for so long. "Relax, I don't plan on getting close. I'll keep Ooccoo and myself safe and out of sight. I might have some ideas once I watch you start to fight it. Another two pairs of eyes won't hurt, right?"
"It will probably be fine, Link." Midna shrugged. "After all, dragons aren't stupid. If it looks at you, and it looks at Shad, which one of you do you think it'll see as a bigger threat? You know it's going to go after the guy with the sword."
"Or if it's hungry it'll go after the guy who is defenseless. But all right, fine. You'll be there to protect him if anything goes wrong. Watch his back, not mine." He looked down at the male Oocca. "I'll try to make it back here before I leave, but I'm not so sure I'll be able to. No promises." Link knelt down to get closer to Junior. "I don't know if we'll be able to see each other again, little guy. This is probably goodbye."
The little Oocca boy hopped off his father's back and shook his head. "Nooo! Link! Don't go!" Tears started in his little orange eyes. "Link!"
He gently picked up the young Oocca and held him in the palm of his hand. "I'm sorry, kiddo. I have important things to do." He gently touched the child's little face with a fingertip. "Here now, no tears. We might see each other again sometime. I won't need to do hero things forever. Until then, you be a good boy, all right?"
Junior sniffled and rubbed at his nose with a wing. "Yes...good boy." He looked up and reached his clawed hands up. "Link, eye? See blue?"
"All right, but don't touch my eyelashes. Remember what Shad said." He moved the Oocca closer to his face, and Junior peered up into his left eye, once again out of focus due to being so close. Link could still see the tears shining on the little boy's face. The young Oocca gently patted Link's cheek with a soft sigh. "Still so blue. So pretty. Best, like Ilia. Blue and green. Like sky and earth." It was strangely poetic, coming from this young little creature. He kissed the young man's cheek. "I love you, Link."
He was genuinely touched by the sweetness and innocence of this little boy. "I know, buddy. Love you too." He gently kissed the top of the bald head. "If I become a father, I hope I can have a kid like you." Link carefully set the young Oocca down next to Mister. "Goodbye."
Junior clung to his father while new tears started from his little eyes, and looked up at the hero sadly. "Link...goodbye."
It wasn't too far of a walk for Hylian legs, perhaps about twenty minutes. It probably was twice as long for the little bird legs of an Oocca. The humans still got plenty of stares from the natives as they walked, being the first humans to have visited the city in centuries. Link wondered how many of them recognized him. One random Oocca in the bakery had known who he was, but that didn't mean all of them did. There was no way for him to know what they talked about when they saw him, either. It wasn't like the Hylians, where he could understand the things they muttered to one another.
The academy was not a round building, but instead was one of the few rectangular ones in town. It still had a domed yellow roof like everything else, but here and there were slanted sections made of the same yellow material. Unlike many of the other buildings, the glass of of the windows was intact. Link had seen pieces of glass stuck in a metal frame back in Ooccoo's building, but that was all that was left in most places. Glass did not stand up to the test of time as well as stone did.
There was a gray-stoned fence about ten feet high that went around the building and its grounds. In the wall directly in front of the building was a sliding gate made of sturdy metal bars, and it was locked up tightly with a chain and a fat lock that the Oocca had put there. At first there were no signs of anything on the other side of the wall, but when Link approached the gate, a few Shadow Beasts galloped forward on all fours and grasped at the bars. They shook it with a steely rattle, and one stuck out its long arms to try to grab at the humans just out of reach.
There was no sign of the transformed Oocca. Looking at the size of the bars, it was possible that they had simply stepped out in between them and escaped. He hoped that wasn't the case, since he didn't know if transformed Oocca had the power to transform others. At least there were no regular Oocca nearby; they were avoiding the area.
Link examined the smooth gray wall, and the bars of the gate that were nearly as tall. "I don't think I can climb this. There's nothing for me to grab onto with the clawshot, either."
Midna appeared next to him. "I'll have to give you a lift. You ready to go?"
"Hang on a second." He set his shield on his right arm and drew his sword, and then turned to Shad. "We shouldn't be long. Be sure to stay back from the gate where they can't touch you."
"Of course, Link. I'll be careful." Shad said patiently. He was probably getting a little tired of Link's over-protective attitude. "We'll be fine."
Link nodded to him and then looked at the gate and the Shadow Beasts that were trying in vain to get through it. "All right, Midna. Let's go."
She carefully picked him up with the strange hand she sometimes formed at the end of her orange hair, and floated up into the air. Midna had only picked him up like this a few times, but every time she did it, he felt weird. It was strange to be carried around without any control over where he was going, and to be up in the air at the same time. She at least had the sense to pick him up from the chest down in order to leave his arms free, so he could hold his sword and shield properly.
A few of the Shadow Beasts watched them, but the rest kept reaching through the bars to try to get to Shad, one of the precious Hylians they were supposed to infect with their dark magic. The scholar kept his eyes on the monsters, his face unreadable. His family had most likely become these things, and it was more than likely he still felt guilty about not being able to rescue them.
As they went over the wall, Link did a quick count: eight Shadow Beasts. That was a manageable number. There was a group of three of them that were pacing back and forth directly below him, their stone masks tilted up as if they could see through them somehow. Midna tried to move to the side but the Shadow Beasts paced them, like a group of cats following around a treat in their owner's hands.
"I think I'm just going to drop you." she informed him. "They're going to be under you no matter what we do."
He didn't like the idea, but they were only about eleven feet up and just out of the range of the long limbs of the black monsters below. He reversed the Master Sword in his hand so the point was down. "Fine. On the count of three. One—"
"Three!" Midna let go of him.
Link made a wordless, angry vocalization as he fell, but was unable to tell Midna what a bitch she was being since he was quite literally dropped into a fight. He managed to recover quickly enough to impale one of the Shadow Beasts through its stone mask, and he innately used Courage to have the strength to do so without thinking about it. He kicked off the dying monster's shoulders and landed a few feet away, and reversed the sword in his grip as the other two turned to charge at him.
One tried to grab him, but he dodged to the side and stabbed it beneath its arm before turning with a backhanded swing to the one on his left, decapitating it. The three Shadow Beasts vanished in a flurry of squares while the others turned to look at him for a split second before howling and charging. He met their charge and easily ran one through, and pulled the Master Sword free in order to kill another in a similar fashion. None of them lay on the ground as they died; every single one was originally a Twili. He dodged to the side and slid the Master Sword between the ribs of another, and then had something solid smack into his back from above, causing him to stumble. He looked up.
There were about a dozen black creatures about the size of eagles circling above him on black wings like a flock of ravens. Like all Shadow Beasts, they had stone masks and purple runes on their chests, but these had feathers as well as the black scaled skin, and large ugly claws at the top part of their wings. A Shadow Beast on the ground grabbed at his shield and tried to tear it away from him while he was distracted, and he knocked it back with a kick before slaying it. The remaining human Shadow Beast was relatively easy to handle, and he had started the familiar action of drawing it into a lunge so he could counterattack when Shad shouted from the other side of the gate.
"Behind you!" the man shouted a warning.
Link turned in time to deflect the dive-bombing Shadow Ooccas with his shield, and the metal clanged loudly as a group of them pelted it one by one with their thick stone masks and sharp talons. Not all of them had attacked, only four. The rest were flying towards Shad and Ooccoo. He was unsure if the new kind of Shadow Beasts could transform others, and if either Shad or Ooccoo turned into one, he would never forgive himself. "Midna! Protect them!"
The Twili had been hovering near the gate ready to aid either Hylian, and she shot towards Shad in a streak of shadow and wrapped him up entirely in her prehensile hair. She got there just in time, and the flying Shadow Beasts slammed into the orange hair in an attempt to reach the man inside. Good. She would keep them safe until he either got out there or she brought them to him.
The final Shadow Beast on the ground made a grab at him again, and he sidestepped and ran it through. It vanished just like the others did, and he noted that there was no portal nearby for the monster's particles to go through. Mister had said that the Shadow Beasts had arrived with some Aeralfos, so it was possible that the flying creatures had carried them. A portal might not be effective hovering above a floating island anyway, since the sky islands were known to drift around.
He heard Midna grunt in pain and spun around to see what was happening to her. The Shadow Oocca were no longer going for the two protected within her hair, and in a strange show of intelligence, were now attacking her directly in an attempt to make her let go of their original target. They battered her as they hit her with their stone masks and talons, leaving the poor Twili unable to do anything but try to curl into a ball defensively. She couldn't use her hair, and she had been unable to use magic while being attacked before, so she couldn't fight back. If she attempted anything, then Shad would be left unprotected.
The remaining Shadow Beasts flying above Link abandoned him and went for Midna instead. He shouted and banged his sword and shield together in an attempt to get the attention of the monsters, but they ignored him. It was as if they all knew that he could not be transformed. They had behaved in a similar fashion before in Old Kakariko, when they tried to get past him to get to the Gerudo and Gorons he was protecting.
Link swore under his breath and looked around for an alternative way out of the walled-in academy grounds, but there was nothing. The ten foot tall stone fence went around the entirety of the green lawn, and the building and trees were situated far enough back from said wall so he couldn't use them to climb and escape. How was he going to get out?
He then realized what he needed to do. It was slightly different than what he had been using Courage for so far, but he had to try. Link took some steps back from the wall while sizing it up, and to give himself ample room. If he did this wrong, he'd smack into the wall and hurt himself; he had to get it right the first time. He breathed a deep breath, and then took several running steps to pick up speed before heavily pushing off his left leg with the strength of Courage. The triangles on his hand flared, shining bright as he tucked in his limbs and sword close to his body, and he titled his weight forward. He had only done backflips so far, just as the Hero of Time had shown him, but he had never attempted a forward flip. With any luck, he wouldn't smash his head into the stone wall.
He didn't realize that he had made it up and over until he landed heavily on his feet in a less than graceful landing, and he took a few staggering steps before recovering. It had worked. Muscles were muscles, and whether he was using extra strength in his arm or extra strength in his legs, Courage enhanced it either way. He had to admit he was feeling a little impressed with himself, even if his landing wasn't perfect.
Link sprinted towards Midna and swung his shield arm wide to knock back a Shadow Oocca that was in the middle of a dive bomb. "Here!" He held out his shield to her and she grabbed it immediately, and held it up to hide behind it. That left him open to the Shadow Beasts, but he didn't care. Protecting Midna was far more important. He patiently waited for them to swoop down at him and cut them out of the air. Sometimes more than one came at him, usually from different directions, and he grunted in pain as they hit him. Link ignored them, gritting his teeth every time they slammed into him, and focused on killing them one at a time. He could hear the sounds of them hitting the shield Midna held, so it was far better that he had given it to her.
Before long there were only five more monsters circling above in hesitation, loathe to attack. He sheathed the Master Sword after it had seared off the blood and drew his bow. The Shadow Beasts changed their behavior as soon as he put his sword away, and began to circle lower. He hastily pulled out an arrow as one started to swoop towards him, set it and fired. It hit the Shadow Oocca in a burst of flames, and the bird creature dropped. He hadn't meant to waste a fire arrow, but he didn't have the time to carefully select a regular one. This time when he reached back for another arrow he grabbed what felt like a normal one and fired again, and the ordinary arrow hit the monster and dropped it from the sky. He pulled, drew and fired again in repetition until the last of the poor transformed Oocca fell dead to the ground.
Link shouldered his bow and took his shield from Midna, and hung it from his back. The Twili released Shad from her hair, and the man gawked at the bodies and splatters of blood on the ground all around him. Ooccoo did as well, and put her clawed hands to her mouth in shock.
Midna sighed and stopped hovering to sit on the ground. "I'm glad that's over. That sucked." She had a bloody gash on her face, and a few more smaller scratches on her arms and legs. She couldn't eat or sleep, but she could still bleed. He knew that she was flesh and blood since her little hands were warm when she reached out to touch his face, but it was still strange and unsettling to see her injured.
He knelt and picked her up. "You're bleeding."
"I'm fine." she protested while looking up at him with her red eye. "They hit you a bunch too."
"Yeah, but I'm the swordsman. I'm supposed to get hit; the sorceress isn't." He stood and held her small body in his arms. It was like holding a child. "Let me take a good look at you." He examined her face, and then her arms and legs. Midna averted her eyes and he could see a small amount of color in her gray cheeks. Yes, it would be rather awkward if the person you were in love with held you and started looking all over your body, wouldn't it? He needed to make sure that she wasn't hurt too badly, no matter how she felt. The Shadow Oocca weren't very large, but neither was she. The scratches on her arms and body were superficial, but the one on her face was still bleeding, and he could see that another on her knee was as well.
Shad stepped up to them and pulled out a clean, folded handkerchief from one of the pouches on his belt. "Thank you for protecting us, Midna. I understand you can't exactly fight when you can't use your hair." He gently dabbed at the cut on her cheek.
Midna let out a short little sigh and looked back and forth between the two of them. "I don't know if I should feel really happy, or really uncomfortable. I have two very handsome men fussing over me, which is the fantasy of a lot of women." That made the two Hylians laugh, and it also made Link think back to the harem joke she had made in the Kokiri ruins.
"The question is, is that your fantasy?" Link asked with a smile.
She returned his smile. "Nope. My ideal fantasy is a bottle of wine and a good book. Although I can't have that right now, so I suppose I should pretend to enjoy all the attention I'm getting."
He continued to smile at her as Shad cleaned her up. Liar. I know how you feel. She wasn't flustered about Shad, even though the man was handsome. "We all have our vices." he said.
"Yes, and mine might be getting carried everywhere, now that you've so kindly picked me up." Her regular dry tone had returned, and the blush was gone from her face. Whenever she did react and ever so slightly let her feelings show, it was brief and then it was gone.
"Hey, I'm not a wolf anymore. No more free rides." He stopped smiling, remembering how she had decided to get him over the wall. "By the way, Midna. I didn't appreciate you dropping me like that back there."
"I thought it would be funny. You started to count so I thought it would be fine." She managed to look guilty instead of simply brushing him off like usual. "I didn't hear any swearing, but I made you mad, didn't I?"
"Just a bit. Please avoid being funny when we're fighting things, all right?" It was a strange conversation that he could have pictured them having a month ago, not now. Even though they had grown close, she could still be a bit of a bully. He hoped that she wasn't reverting to her old ways.
"Link?" Shad said while folding the now-bloodied handkerchief and putting it away. "May I ask how you got out of the fence, if Midna was here with us?"
"Courage. I've used it to increase my strength when using my sword before, so I figured I could use it to enhance the strength in my legs and jump over the wall." He shrugged, trying to look humble when he still was pleased about what he had done. "It worked. Which was good, because I'd be in a lot of pain right now if I had launched myself at a stone wall with enhanced strength."
"Amazing…" the librarian breathed, impressed. He turned and looked up at the tall stone wall. "You really jumped over this? I wish I had seen it."
"I didn't quite have the best landing, but I got over and still landed on my feet, which was the important part. I couldn't let the Shadow Beasts beat on Midna." Link did feel guilty about killing them, however. They were innocents, just like all the other Shadow Beasts he had been forced to kill. "I wish I didn't have to kill them."
"You did what you needed to do." Oooccoo told him kindly. "There are people who likely know who they were, so their families can be notified. The other Shadow Beasts you've fought don't even get that, do they?"
"No." Link said grimly. "All they can have is death, and even though I tell myself it's merciful, it doesn't feel that way. I want to help them, but I have no idea how to change them back. Here's hoping Midna has some ideas once she has access to more power."
"I'll see what I can do, but no promises. I don't actually know everything the complete Fused Shadows can do, since I only had it for less than an hour." She floated up and out of his arms, now with a red cut slashed across her cheek. The only other time he had seen her bleed was when she was badly burned by Lanayru. If she hadn't gotten hurt very much so far, he probably was doing a good job at making sure she stayed safe. The Twili sighed and patted at one of his arms. "Well, as nice as it is to be babied, I think it's time to move on. We should figure out where this dragon likes to hang out."
Author's note: I only have three and a half more chapters of buffer, and now have issues with my eyes (I'm old and need glasses that aren't cheap reading glasses from Walgreens), so I keep getting eyestrain when I try to read or write. If book three is delayed a bit, I'm sorry...but over the past month, sick kids/bad eyes/family stuff have made it so I'm not able to work as well as I have in the past.
