The infirmary he was taken to, not the one in the castle barracks he was accustomed, had an environment as foreign as it was luxurious. Odd enough as it was when a different set of soldiers, the penal squires of Valor island as evidenced by the dark green surcoat over their white robes, received Rowark from the city watch. These four, all shaved bald to symbolize their past crime, put Rowark onto a stretcher and carried him toward Valor Island until they reached the northern base of Castle City's unusual rock formation.

As they travelled up the lift, Rowark reflected on the stories he had heard about the island, and even then, he could not fathom its grandeur up close. Supposedly, when the Gorons carved into the plateau to lay the grounds for a new settlement next to the castle, they stumbled upon one stubborn piece of rock that refused to budge. Even all the explosives in the Goron arsenal could barely chip off more than a few pebbles, so they dug around the thin outcrop, leaving a thin plateau jutting out into the open sky. The first Queen then ordered a stone wall to be built around plateau and sand to be poured to fill in the space and reinforce natural structure. Once the massive monument was finished, the Queen declared it a royal landmark.

It was her successor, Queen Zelda June II, that built a stronghold on top of the island, and then her successor's successor, the current Queen Zelda IV of House Ingo, that remodeled the stronghold into an academy for knights, just before she had passed the law granting all royal sergeants full status as knights of the realm. The metallic red color of the fortress, from the base of the walls to the grand, multi-tiered fortifications on top, came from the abundant yet sturdy ironstone. Flags flying both the royal crest, bird shaped head in the center with wings sprouting from both sides and a triforce centered in between, and the knight's crest, also bird shaped, but with crescent moons for a head and talons.

Skyloft. Despite the towering presence of Valor Island, he had never seen the top before, only heard about it. His eyes widened as the stretcher carried him inside the grand stronghold, whose beautiful and spacious interior resembled nothing like its plain, single color exterior. But his wonderment soon turned to worry as he began to think about his companion Miro Miro. He thought about his last words to her and their argument, and as the four penal squires unloaded him onto an infirmary bed, there was no pain in his cuts, only the sting of regret.

Even as Rowark received a dose of red medicine and recovered in the well lit infirmary, his mind ignored the fine white drapes and white robed nurses tending him and instead could not stop worrying about his friend. Where was she? Was she okay? So engrossed was he at answering his nonstop questions with nonsensical answers that he failed to pay any attention to his surroundings.

"Oy, oy kiddo!" the gruff voice of his old commander snapped Rowark out of his thoughts. Rowark looked up to suddenly see a familiar black beard over a scarred, tanned face, but Sir Camelon was the last person he wanted to see.

Deep, disappointment was the only emotion that could be expressed through Rowark's mouth. He would almost rather worry about Miro Miro than talk to his old watch commander, "Hi."

"Hey there kid," the graying knight grabbed a stool and sat down, deforming the shape with the weight of his built body in addition to his steel armor and blue cape on top.

"I'm a Sir," Rowark corrected.

"HA!" Sir Camelon slapped his metal lap, "You're a squire kid, not a knight yet! Being knighted by the Queen means she's giving you go ahead to start training to be one. It's Skyloft that turns you into a knight, and it's leading men in battle and gaining their trust that earns you the right to be called a Sir."

Rowark could say nothing, yet. But even if Sir Camelon had indeed done all those things, Rowark was far from giving him any bit of respect, "Why are you here?" The chiseled man's haughty attitude turned Rowark's stomach worse than a food bug did.

Sir Camelon sheepishly put his gauntlet on his oily hair, "Maybe I started on the wrong foot. I came to apologize, to beg forgiveness."

Stunned by the response, the boy had no idea how answer his request. He thought about every single laugh, that was born from Sir Camelon's every jest, from every man in their company. He thought about never being called Queer as a page, but once he graduated as a full fledged soldier into Sir Camelon's command, all that changed. He thought about the nickname Sir Camelon gave him, Queerdo, and every single man who called him that as a result. For four years until his company was transferred to Sir Berlon's sortie, Rowark had to endure this, and now, now that Rowark had been promoted to knighthood, Sir Camelon wanted forgiveness?

"I-I don't understand," was all Rowark could muster.

"Er," Sir Camelon looked embarrassed, something Rowark had never seen in his entire life. He supposed it was a sign the veteran commander was trying his hardest to do something he was not good at doing, "sorry, I'm not very good at conveying this-"

Rowark raised his hand to politely cut him off, "I, get it, I get what you're trying to say. You're apologizing after four years of tormenting me. After four years of calling me Queer," his voice unintentionally intensified, "four years of enduring you and the rest of your worshippers calling me a Queerdo, four years of emptying your chamberpot and scrubbing latrines five times over…" When he heard his echo, Rowark paused to slow his aggressive breathing, "What I don't understand is, why? Why now?"

Sir Camelon looked him in the eye without shame, "You're right. They worshipped me. I did it so they would worship me, pick on a common enemy, and fight together in unity! I've been leading this watch company for years like this even before you were even pissing green! But you know what I also learned from my experience leading men?"

Rowark beheld death behind the glare in his eyes in response to his former commander's question.

Commander Camelon leaned in to deliver his answer quietly, "That person at the bottom of the pecking order gets a choice. He can either wallow in misery, take insults everyday, and continue doing the dirty work no one wants to do. Normally these guys try to find others to take their place in the hierarchy, and they neither rise in rank nor above themselves." He sharply pointed at Rowark, "Or that person takes to heart the extra time spent in the armory and the stables, and hardens his heart against the cruelest of names because you're gonna find out soon enough, once you have men's lives under your care, that the cruelest names to hear come from the loved ones of those men you've lost." He took a deep breath to shift the tone of his conclusion, "Why now? Now that you will be a knight that'll be fighting side-by-side with me, I need to be able to trust you. I have no doubt Skyloft'll make you as capable as any, but all that training ain't gonna erase bad blood between you and me. So, I wanna settle this here and now."

So far, everything Sir Camelon made sense. "All right," Rowark conceded, "But first, I need to tell you something, and I can't let any of the nurses hear," Rowark beckoned Camelon to lean in closer, and when he did, Rowark waited for the perfect moment, which was once the hairy black sideburns were turned fully toward him.

And then Rowark unleashed a punch, one that he promised for his comrades who had defended him repeatedly from their watch commander's abuse, straight into the man's face and connected perfectly with the cheekbone. The veteran knight commander stood and beheld the expression of an offended executioner.

But he suddenly burst out into loud laughter, "HAhaha! Good one! I'll let you get away with that one cuz you still hit like a girl! But don't worry, Skyloft is going to grind you down to bone powder harder than I've ever done to you before, and then you'll think twice about pulling a childish move like that again." As he turned to leave, he patted Rowark on the leg, "I look forward to serving side-by-side with ya."

Sir Camelon's last words was a truth that hit Rowark back in the face equally as hard. Difficult as it was for Rowark to fathom fighting next to Sir Camelon, he would no longer be serving under him at the very least. Nonetheless, the soreness on his knuckles after punching his tormentor felt satisfying. He laid there until the sun was soon approaching the western, when he received another visitor.

Her visit was also surprisingly coincidental, since he had already planned on seeing her. She waltzed in wearing her doublet with tall poise fitting for a capitan of her experience. The great Sir Berlon, a great giantess who led Rowark's last sortie, was capable of cutting two heads off at once with her bastard sword, as told by many in her company. She was as frightening as she was giant, but the moment she met eyes with him, she exposed her crooked teeth to express her great relief that Rowark was still alive and breathing.

"Thank the Goddesses!" she knelt over and embraced him as happily as his sister did when Rowark first turned up, "I regretted my decision to pull you from your company the instant I received news that you were lost to us. I should have never put you in the scout's company!"

Rowark responded, "It's quite okay! I am well, am I not?"

"Quite well," Sir Berlon wiped her eye, "But even though I had heard you were alive, the great weight upon my soul would not be lifted until I saw you in person. Even now, I regret transferring you to the scouts."

"Who knows," Rowark shrugged off her heavy words, "if you had not, I may never have gotten knighted!"

"Ha ha!" her habitually loud laugh turned her guilty tears into happy ones. "That's also why I came here. I was first surprised to find out that you had survived, then I found out you were recovering in Skyloft's infirmary!" the capitan laughed off a tear, "Let me extend you my warmest congratulations!"

"Thank you very much!" responded Rowark warmly and genuinely. "That means very much coming from you." After Sir Camelon had destroyed most of Rowark's respect for army authority, Sir Berlon had restored all of it when she took him under her wing.

"I knew you were better suited to lead from the first day I inspected your company, though I compared you against most of your boys who couldn't organize their equipment or handle a horse worth a dung. And after hearing what those boys were saying to you, I also thought I was doing you a favor by separating you from them and my husband's terrible drunken foolishness."

Embarrassed, Rowark put his hand behind his head, "That you most certainly did."

"Tch," the capitan turned her head away in disappointment, "tell that to the missing in action report I filed for you."

"As I said before, I'm here, so let's put that all behind us."

She returned his boyish grin with one of her own and offered her hand, "So, if you are done resting up here, I can take you on a grand tour of Skyloft."

Which Rowark clasped to help him up off the soft bed, "Yes! I'm ready. I didn't know that's what you also came here to do."

"I was asked by headmaster of Skyloft, Sir Pieliz, to show you around since I had a day off, otherwise I'd be at the tavern wasting away, which I shall do anyway once we are finished." The capitan led Rowark out the infirmary into an immense room with stairs criss crossing all over, leading up to a library or diving further into the fort. The walls on the interior were "The infirmary is set up in south wing will do well to remember that. Here we are in the main foyer, which connects to the dormitories, mess hall, and library. That hallway will lead you to the other half of the stronghold where the academy is. Those stairs up will take you to the observatory, and those stairs down will take to the armory." The woman's long arms stretched toward door leading outside. "Just outside is the front court where you will meet for the initiation ceremony at seventh hour of the day tomorrow," she glared at him, "Sir Pieliz, Sir Mawar, and I will all be there, so don't miss it!"

He gulped nervously to digest the gravity of her demand. "Yes Sir!" he saluted her as if he were a mere grunt in her sortie once again.

"At ease, soldier," she grinned when she was confident Rowark got the message. "Let me show you the mess hall." She opened one of two reinforced doors and walked through into a hallway adjacent to the dormitory, where Rowark followed her into a hallspace as large as the foyer without the great height.

Between him and the stone counters on the opposite side were limestone benches with all sorts of folklore sculpted underneath and granite table tops lined from one end of the mess hall to the other. Behind the counters were busy penal squires bringing food, from green salads to from a ordinary door in the back, presumably the kitchen. Separate counters divided the types of sustenance, with one containing greens and fruits, another with three meat carvers roasting three different cut of meat. "Here is where you will eat your meals. However, you are free to have a penal squire bring your meal to your quarters. Are you hungry?"

Rowark examined the painful void inside his stomach, "Kind of, I haven't eaten much all day."

Sir Berlon responded to his modest description of his hunger with a forceful slap on the back, "Perfect! I'm starving! Let us grab some food, and then tell me all about how you came to survive your first mission!"

The brass chafers filled Rowark's nose with the sweet aroma of roasted root vegetables, pumpkin soup, and melted cheese, while the butchers on the other side of the mess hall were preparing juicy cuts of duck, cucco, and goat. Do they truly serve meat here everyday? Having three choices of meat per day felt like a luxury compared to enjoying the delicacy of cucco twice a tendo.

After stacking his plate with a little bit of every single food item that was offered, Rowark recanted the horrors he faced, humbly at first, but as Sir Berlon ate every word of his story as voraciously as she ate her supper, he began to tell his story with pride to a commander laughing out compliments in return. Until then, Rowark had felt like his accomplishment of survival in the Lost Woods was all attributed to luck, but his former sortie leader regarded all of his humble details as if they were the most daring feats of valor. "The greatest victory in battle," she explained as they cleaned up after themselves, "is survival. Next, let's check the armory."

With full bellies to keep their mood up, They exited the room to the reinforced door on the other side of the foyer. This entrance led to a tunnel that sank into the ground beneath, where another door awaited them at the bottom of a short stairwell. Behind that door was a room separated into two by a row of thick metal bars. Behind the bars were racks full a wide variety of weapons, from all kinds of axes to all kinds of swords to all kinds of only gaps through the barrier were a metal door and a single opening, where an old, bald knight stood in service to those before him. "Here, you will check out equipment from Skyloft's own arsenal of weaponry. Let me introduce you to Sir Lockett Butcher, one of our great quartermasters. Locket, this here's a new squire, Rowark Forester. He's here to put his name on the armory's registry."

"A pleasure," Sir Lockett extended his hand through the window, which Rowark gripped for a quick shake. The quartermaster then opened a drawer beneath his desk and withdrew a form of paper, placing it on the wooden counter next to ink and quill. "Print your name here and the date you were knighted by Her Majesty here."

Rowark looked at the piece of paper before him and found the blank spaces asking for his name and the date of the day before yesterday, along with many other details such as his height, weight, and measurements around his body, "Are you sure I don't need to fill out the rest of this information?"

Sir Lockett was satisfied with simply the name Rowark Forester and the date 64th of Summer, 100, "I'll find the rest of your information from your military records, and we will take your measurements on a later day to be determined."

"My measurements? What for?"

"We need to tailor a gambeson to fit your body as well as find out which set of plates will fit your suit of mail," Sir Lockett took the form and set it on top of a neat stack of papers and then opened another drawer.

"W-wait, my very own, suit of mail?" Rowark was too busy wrapping his head around what he would look like fully armed as a knight to pay attention to Sir Nathe placing a circular locket with a long chain attached onto the counter.

"Each knight gets one," answered Sir Berlon as she retrieved the locket and presented it to him, "but more importantly, one pocket clock." With a click, she opened the cover and revealed a miniature clock inside. "This will be very important, for your schedule starting from tomorrow morning will be most rigid."

Rowark held the bronze disc in his hands and instantly looked at the time. Just like the clock in the barracks commons, it had two hands to tell the hour and the minute, but somehow its mechanisms were reduced to fit perfectly in the palm of his hand. Twenty zero seven hours.

"Let me take you upstairs. Here we have the observatory as well as the library. All sorts of books written by many of Hyrule's greatest warriors and strategists. Many great minds from the castle's magic academy come to this library to check out books on potion making and history. The stairs leading up from the library lead to the temple shrine for worship and prayer." Rowark took special note of the last item, for he needed make a trip there before he went to sleep and pray. It had felt like forever since the last time he did. "Lastly, let me take you to your new room."

"M-my, very own?" Since his childhood days sharing the wooden floor with his brothers to his soldier days bunking with three others, Rowark had never once slept by himself. He was both excited at the idea of retreating into solitude at his own discretion, instead of volunteering with strangers to attain peace, yet terrified simultaneously of the very idea of solitude and hearing nothing but the thoughts of his past.

The burly woman frowned and nodded, "'Tis a bit small, but that's because you are newer, so you get the most recently constructed rooms, which were smaller by design to accommodate the record number of promotions as of late. But don't worry, as the older knights die out or retire, the older, larger rooms become vacant for the next person by seniority to take. Of course, you always have the choice to defer the opportunity." But her words were lost on Rowark, who was in the midst of gaping in disbelief at his new, personal bedchamber.

Comparatively, it was about the size of his old room underneath the castle, but he no longer had to share it three other fellows. The commodious bedchamber, furnished with a small bed, a wire mannequin to hang his armor, a desk and a chair, and a wall mount for a torch, felt like the largest room he had ever walked through, and that included the castle's throne room. Only one slit through the wall permitted natural light into the space, and when Rowark peeked through, the view revealed the eastern wing of Skyloft and her many towers jutting into the blue sky. "I don't mind deferring forever!"

"Ha! We'll see if that attitude changes after you've had a few years of leading soldiers under your belt! Once you command the respect of your men, you'll be wanting a bedchamber deserving of your respect. I'll leave you to it."

"Um, Sir, permission to ask a question?"

"Granted."

"What do I wear for tomorrow morning?"

"Good question because I almost forgot. Report to the quartermaster before the ceremony to receive your new uniform."

He thanked her, and she bid him a good night before parting. A beige nightgown was neatly folded on his pillow. Removing his army issue clothing like shedding his past as a humble soldier and slipping on his new knight wear like donning a new title, he took the deepest breath of free, fresh air he could. This was his life.

To complete his day, all Rowark needed was prayer. Without it, he would fall asleep with an uneasy mind. As he walked up the bright marble steps covered in blue carpet leading to the library, he wondered about Miro Miro's fate. He had to endure the guilt for arguing with her when that was last chance he might have ever spoken to her. Perhaps he would pray for her and try to find her tomorrow.

Rowark only glanced leftward to see if anyone was there to stop him from entering the shrine. Only an elder librarian dressed in his white, academic robe sat behind the reception desk of the otherwise vacant twenty four hour library. Empty tables organized in rows sprawled across the wide room, while the opposite end of the room contained shelves upon shelves filled with Hyrule's compended knowledge. Since the librarian paid him no mind, Rowark continued up the next flight of stairs.

Entering an open space that made him feel as small as a mouse, he humbly walked before the great statue of Hylia exhibiting front and center before him. Along both sides, niches carved into the walls of the shrine displayed various shrines in worship of past Princess Zeldas, the Goddess Hylia's many reincarnations. Separating the stone representation of Hylia from the laity was a gilded fence stretching across the room and a dais. Rowark stepped up to the altar in front of the dais and pressed both knees onto the pillow on the ground.

Just as he clasped his hands and began to speak to Hylia…