Chapter 5. The Roosting Dragon

It was just before noon when we got to the island, and King said I'd have plenty of time.

"High atop this island's peak lives the spirit of the skies, a great dragon by the name of Valoo."

"A dragon? Like, a real dragon?"

"Yes, a real dragon." King rolled his eyes. "Look for yourself."

"Huh?"

"On top of the mountain."

I turned and peered upward. Far, far, upward. Something red, organic, moving above the crags. And then it bellowed, shaking the entire island.

"Holy crap!"

"You must go see this dragon-"

"See it?" I exclaimed. "That thing'll kill me!"

"Dragons are not like the stories Link. This one is a kind spirit, a guardian."

"You sure?"

"Yes. Link, you must see this dragon and request from him a jewel called Din's Pearl."

"Din's Pearl." I turned back to him. "Hey, isn't Din a goddess?"

"Very good. Yes. Ask the people of the Rito tribe who inhabit this island about how to see the dragon."

"Rito? Like Quill! Okay." I knew better than to judge an entire race by the actions of one man, but I figured Quill could vouch for me at least.

"Oh, I almost forgot! Wait just a moment!" I turned and saw something in the boat's mouth. He jerked his head and tossed the object at me.

It was slim and silver, looking a bit like a cross between a magic wand and a conductor's baton.

"That is the Wind Waker," King said. "It is a baton of sorts that was used long ago when people played music in prayer of the gods. In those days, simply using it allowed one to borrow the power of the gods, but I don't know if it still works. Even so, I thought it might be of some use to you."

"How do I use it?"

"You must conduct! Try to conduct in 3/4 time."

"3/4 time..." I looked at the wand. "Uh...how?"

"Three beats. Count off three beats."

"Okay, um..." I held up the wand and closed my eyes. Three beats. Three...heartbeats? I tapped the wand in the air three times.

"Very niceཀ" King exclaimed. "Now try 4/4 time."

"Four beats?"

"Of course."

I tapped the baton four times.

"Good! That was not bad for your fist time using the Wind Waker. There is also 6/4 time. Those three are the most commonly used in music."

"Just one question King."

"Yes?"

"Who am I conducting?"

The King was silent. His wooden face showed no emotion, but I could guess what he was feeling. He opened his mouth once, as though to say something, then closed it. Finally he said, "You should go speak with the Rito."

"Right-o." I saluted him with the baton and headed up the beach.

Dragon Roost was little more than a big mountain sticking out of the water, though technically underwater mountain is the definition of an island. It didn't even have a full beach around it. There was a little tunnel running underneath the mountain, but it didn't look like it led anywhere interesting. Up on a little cliff was what looked like an entrance, but the cliff was too high for me to climb up, and the path that led up to it had a big gap in it. There was a big rock that I thought I could use to bride the gap, or at least stand on so I could climb up, but it was firmly lodged in the mountain side.

I wandered around looking for a stick to pry it out with (rock-prying is not what swords or magic wands are for) but instead found a little patch of odd-looking plants. The sign nearby called them "bomb flowers" and warned me to be careful.

Explosive plants. Sounds good to me!

As soon as I picked one it started hissing, which I doubted was a good thing, so I ran up the path at top speed and chucked the thing at the rock in the mountain.

Word of advice kiddies; do not stand within ten yards of an explosion. Better advice; do not stand within a hundred yards of an explosion.

That sign wasn't kidding.

The good news was that the bomb flower had done its job, and I could now get across the gap. What I thought was an entrance just led to more path, but I followed that path and came around to the other side of the mountain. There were a few Rito flying around, and a few more standing at attention at various points. They were dressed in the simple style of all the other Rito I'd seen, and one of the ones near me even looked just like..

Wait.

"Quill!" I shouted.

He turned. "Link! Link is that you?"

"It's me Quill!" I ran up to him and resisted the urge to hug him. "Oh man, you will not believe what's happened!"

"I can imagine," he smiled warmly. "I'm so pleased you're all right. I must say, you've traveled far for one with no wings."

"We Hylians are adaptable."

"And your sister? Is she..."

I looked away.

"Is that so?" He sighed. "Well, don't worry too much. I'm sure she'll hang in there."

I shuffled my feet. I wasn't sure.

Quill patted me on the head. "I have an idea, Link. Would you like to meet our chieftain?"

I looked up at him. "Really?"

"Of course. I've told my people here about you, and all of us Rito are very concerned. I'm certain the chieftain will befriend you and lend you the aid of our aerie."

"Really? That's great!"

"It's settled, then! I'll fly on ahead and let everyone know you're coming. Come inside, Link! I'll be waiting!"

Quill leapt into the air and flapped off. I kept along the path, not like there was anywhere else for me to go. It was a sheer drop at the best of places, and I couldn't fly.

I chatted up one of the guard-looking guys, to give Quill more time to prepare, and he told me about a flight platform way out to sea. Sounded like fun, but I couldn't fly.

I was starting to feel inadequate.

With nothing else to do, I headed inside. The cavern was huge, or at least it seemed that way to me, and full of activity. I had forgotten that most Rito work as postmen. It seemed odd to me that an entire race had devoted itself to delivering mail, but hey, it was up to them. And they certainly seemed dutiful. Most of the people were rushing around holding clipboards, which gives you an air of industriousness no matter where you are.

There was a clump of Rito standing in the middle of the room, including Quill and a guy who had to be the chief. As I approached, he was speaking to another man.

"So have you discovered the cause of the great Valoo's anger?"

Quill saw me and cleared his throat. The chief turned.

"Ah. So, you are Link, are you?"

"Yes sir." I bobbed my head in a little half-bow.

"Quill has told me all about you. A troubling tale, indeed... I insist you let us know if there is anything we can do to help you. We shall do anything in our power to assist you."

"Thank you sir!" Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all!

"However," he sighed, "we have a problem of our own to deal with..."

"Oh?"

"When you arrived on the island, did you notice the raging dragon perched atop the mountain?"

"How could I not?"

"As you can see, we of the Rito tribe are profoundly connected to the sky. We make our livings on the airways. We do so by the graces of the sky spirit, Valoo. When a Rito reaches adulthood, he or she journeys to the top of Dragon Roost to receive a scale from the great dragon. It is this scale that enables the Rito to grow his or her wings. But recently the once-gentle Valoo has grown violent and unpredictable, and we can no longer approach him. If this continues, the fledglings who are of age will never be able to receive scales from Valoo on Dragon Roost. They will remain wingless, and in time, our very way of life will be threatened. As chieftain of the Rito, my first responsibility is to solve this problem. My apologies, but I must ask you to wait for our assistance until this is done. Will you do so?"

"Of course. You gotta do what you gotta do."

Quill turned to the chief. "What do you think of consulting Link with regards to your son, Prince Komali? As you can see, Link is a gallant young lad!" He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. "I feel certain that Prince Komali would open his heart and speak freely of his fears and worries."

"That may be..." the chief murmured. He turned back to me. "Link, let me be direct. My son, Komali, is of the age to earn his wings... Yet... he is weak, in some ways... and in light of the current situation, he may just give up on ever getting them... What say you? Will you share some of your courage with my son? Will you meet with my son?"

"Sure, okay." They were going to help me, I ought to help them. Giving a pep talk to a kid was getting off easy.

"I thank you! We shall do our best to solve our problem as quickly as possible, so that we may better help you with yours."

"Okay! Thanks!"

"I have something I wish of you to give to my son. A young girl named Medli is holding it for me. Will you find her and take it?"

"Sure thing." I wondered why he didn't have the thing, but it was none of my business.

"Here, Link," Quill handed me something. "Take this. Who knows? It might come in handy."

"Ooh." It was a delivery bag, like the one he had. "Thanks Quill! I think you're right."

"You should find Medli in one of the upper rooms," the chief said. "Leave the great Valoo to us. In the meanwhile, do your best to aid Prince Komali!"

"Yes sir!"

Up the ramp that wound along the wall of the cavern. There was more busyness on the upper floor, including the actual mail sorting place. I meant to ask the guy there where I could find this "Medli," but I wound up getting distracted by the actual sorting of the mail. By me.

Eventually though, I found her on a balcony outside. She had red hair and a harp on her back, and was only a little shorter than me.

"Oh!" she said when she saw me. "So you're the guy with the green clothes and the strange-shaped hat!"

"Am I?" I looked down at myself. "I am."

"You're Link, right?"

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"Oh, me? I'm an attendant of the great sky spirit, Valoo. My name is Medli. Well, to tell the truth, I'm not an attendant quite yet. I'm actually still studying to be one. Oh, what am I thinking?" She smacked herself in the forehead, then reached into her pocket and plled out a letter. "Here! This is from the chieftain. Link, he wants you to give this directly to Prince Komali."

"So I've heard." It was a fancy letter, closed with a wax seal and everything. Sheesh. What ever happened to parents talking to their kids?

"The room way in the back on the first floor is Prince Komali's room," Medli said, gesturing a bit the way people do when they give directions. "You have to go down a couple steps to get there."

"Okay."

"When you meet Prince Komali, please don't get offended by his manner."

"His manner?"

"He has no bad intentions, I promise."

"That's not exactly reassuring."

She shuffled her feet and looked so miserable that I just sighed and said, "Okay, I promise not to let first impressions get the best of me."

"Thank you!" She smiled happily. "You really are nice. No wonder the chieftain trusts you."

"Yeah, well..." I felt myself blush.

"By the way, um... Listen, Link... I have a small favor I'd like to ask of you... Could you please come to the entrance of Dragon Roost Cavern later? ...I'll explain everything then."

"Well, okay, sure." Seemed like I was helping everyone lately. Of course, stopping Ganondorf and saving the world kind of qualified me as a hero, right?

Kind of.

I went back inside and down the ramp, avoiding the mail sorting booth. Sure enough, doorway in the back. The passageway was longer than I'd expected, but there was a door at the back. I knocked.

No answer.

Knocked again. "Prince Komali?"

"Go away!"

"Your father sent me."

"I don't care. Go away!"

"No." I opened the door.

The room was bigger than my entire house back on Outset, but most of that was empty floor space. There was a thing of shelves full of bones and skulls, and a bed with curtains and more shelves around it. Prince Komali was lying on his bed, holding a bright orange ball on his stomach.

"Hi there," I said.

Komali said nothing.

"I have a letter from your father."

"A letter?" he sat up. "From my father?"

"Yup. Here," I handed it to him.

He took it and started reading. As he did I looked at the ball in his lap. It wasn't just bright, it was glowing!

"Oh, sure," Komali said suddenly. "Telling me to be brave is easy enough for him, it's not like he's the one who went through that horrible experience. It's not like he still has to go get a scale from Valoo." He glared up at me. "You're in this letter, too, you know," he flapped it at me. "Poking your nose in other people's business. You're nosy, aren't you?"

"A bit, yeah."

He snorted. "Sorry, but I really don't feel like going to see Valoo right now. I mean, how am I suppose to get a scale from him when he's so upset?"

"Something's wrong with him, obviously. Someone just needs to figure out what it is and calm him down."

"What? You think you could do it?"

I shrugged. "I could try."

"Psssssh! That's just a big, fat lie! It's easy to say you can do anythingཀ Bragging doesn't cost a thing!" He pointed at me. "I'll tell you what, if you can find me someone who can get past all the obstacles on Dragon Roost to get to Valoo...then I'll listen to anything you say!"

"Fine! I will! I'll show you, you spoiled little brat! You can't accomplish anything lying in your room!" I spun on my heel and stomped out of the room.

The passage was long enough that by the time I reached the end of it I had calmed down. I'd also realized I'd forgotten to ask about hat glowing ball of his.And I had remembered my promise to Medli. Dragon Roost Cavern. Okay, I could find that.

There were signs, after all.

The wind was filled with grit and blew hotly across the pit in front of me. It shifted its direction on a whim, one moment threatening to snatch my hat off, the next blasting my eyes with ash. A broken bridge stood to my left, the ends hanging limply toward the ground. A patch of those weird bomb flowers grew near the fence at the edge of the cliff, but they were dried out and dead. This was not a happy place.

Medli was down in the pit, and the remains of the bridge served as a makeshift ladder to get down to her. She was standing on a rock, staring up at the cavern entrance on the opposite cliff, and didn't hear me come up behind her. I cleared my throat. She still didn't hear. I coughed, loudly, to be heard over the searing wind.

"Hey, you actually came!" She smiled happily down at me.

"I said I would didn't I?" I climbed up on the rock beside her.

"I'm really sorry for bringing you to such a dangerous place, but I had to! I wouldn't have asked if I didn't need help desperately."

"This place isn't so dangerous." I looked around. "Bit unpleasant, but not dangerous."

"When Valoo throws a fit, this is where the rocks usually land."

I looked at her. She looked back, face dead serious.

"You had better really need help."

"There used to be a spring here, surrounded by a beautiful pond... It was peaceful and lovely. But then the great Valoo... He became so angry, and... In his rage, he shook the mountain and that boulder crashed down, plugging the spring. You can see the result."

The boulder she was referring to was gigantic, maybe ten time taller than I was, and so big that it would take a dozen of me to reach around it. It was in a depression, that I'd mistaken at first for a crater, but I could see now that it had water in it.

"Death and decay," I said.

"Yes. Water is the source of all life. There are even stories that once, a long time ago, we Rito were water-dwellers. But when the water consumed most of the land, we took to the air."

"Why? Wouldn't it make more sense for water-dwellers to stay water-dwellers?"

Medli shrugged. "Perhaps we were fresh water-dwellers, and the salt drowned our home." She started. "Oh, but where is my mind? How was Prince Komali?"

"Uh..." Think quickly Link! "He seemed...upset."

"Upset?"

"At the world."

"Oh... That doesn't sound right, not at all..." I let Medli fret for a minute or two, but she recovered herself before I had to poke her.

"I may be partially to blame for the bad turn that Prince Komali's taken," she said. "See, Prince Komali's grandmother was the great Valoo's former attendant. She was an amazing woman. I was honored to have her as my teacher. She was kind and brave and unsurpassed in her dealings with the great Valoo. I'm not yet worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as her. If only I'd possess some of her strength, I'm sure Prince Komali would have felt more secure."

"Uh, Medli? It sounds to me like you're not to blame at all for Prince Komali's behavior. It's not your fault you're not his grandmother. Also? You seem to have some self-esteem issues. Do you need a hug?"

Medli laughed. "All right, maybe I am a little hard on myself, but I still want to do what I can. Link, I'm sorry to ask this but I need your help! I want to go to the small shrine that's near the peak of Dragon Roost, but that ledge over there is so high... If I could get some wind under my wings, I'm sure I could get up there. So will you help me?"

"Um, sure, but I don't know what you want me to do."

"Pick me up."

"Pick you up."

"Yes. Then face that ledge and toss me!"

"Toss you?"

"Yes. The atmospheric currents are really messed up, so pay close attention to the direction of the wind."

"You want me to pick you up and toss you."

"Yes!"

I shook my head. "Okay, if you say so." I had the sinking feeling that this was not going to be the weirdest thing I was asked to do in the next few days.

Medli was very light. I thought I remembered hearing somewhere that birds could fly because they had hollow bones, so I guess it made sense.

"All right, I'm ready! Don't hold back, now! Throw me as hard as you can!"

I shook my head again. Why would that feeling not go away?

As soon as I felt the wind pushing at my back, I chucked Medli at the cliff. Light as she was, she was still too heavy for me to throw her that far, but she spread her wings and caught the draft, and made it up the cliff with no trouble.

"Oh, thank you!" Medli called down to me. "I think now I'll be able to climb Dragon Roost and meet with the great Valoo."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" I shouted. "I mean, isn't he all like pissed off and stuff?"

"Don't worry, I'll be fine! I may just be an apprentice attendant, but I can understand some of the great Valoo's language." She smiled sheepishly. "I'm not exactly bursting with confidence, but..."

"Should have taken me up on that hug!"

She laughed again, but the smile quickly died from her face. "Look, if anything happens to me... Please look after Prince Komali!

"Me?"

Medli ignored my protest. "This is all I have to give to you. I know it's not much, but please take it."

I caught the object she dropped, but watched her disappear into the cavern before examining it. It was a bottle, a nice one, pretty big and made of clear glass.

Hmm...

Medli would not be safe in there, that much was clear. She had no faith in herself, and no plan. I didn't have a plan either, but I did have a sword, which is better than a plan. Besides, if I hurried I could catch up with her, and then we could be planless together.

The part of the bridge hanging from the cliff below the cavern wasn't long enough for me to reach it, so that was a bust. But the bottle had given me an idea.

I scooped up some of the gritty water from beneath that giant boulder, then took it to the dried up bomb flowers on the other side. I didn't know how much good it would do, but those flowers seemed to have pretty fast regenerative powers. Good planning on Nature's part. What with the exploding and all.

I poured all the water on the plant closest to the fence, and the color returned to it almost instantly. I watched as a round bud formed among the leaves, swelling within moments to a normal-sized bomb. Sweet.

I figured it would take more than one hit to get rid of that boulder but, as I said, those bomb flowers were resilient. I chucked the first one at the top of the boulder, missed badly, and threw myself to the ground as it exploded against the near side of the rock. When I looked up, I saw a spiderweb of cracks where the bomb had hit. Progress!

Two more bombs and slightly improved aim and the gigantor-boulder shattered. Go me!

The spring had more power than I'd thought it would, and the entire pit filled with water. This was good, since it would be that much easier to swim across, but it was a surprise.

The water was already gray with ash, and oddly warm. When I climbed out on the other side my clothes were covered in grime. Urgh.

I forgot about my clothes when I saw inside the cavern though. Lava. Magma. Molten rock. Lava.

I had chosen to do this on my own. And I thought Medli had issues?

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I return! If anyone cares. Yeah, um, enjoy the chapter. Still trying to settle on a style for this one. Still trying to wean myself of game scripts. Sorry for being gone so long, but it really wasn't my fault. ;