Rowark took a deep breath and was ready to say something when suddenly…

"My champion…"

…

His mind was not speaking to him with a woman's voice, was it? Rowark's anxious heart jolted him. He looked around to see if anyone was hiding somewhere in the darkness. He hoped Skyloft's chapel did not also come with a ghost.

"Rise…"

The voice did not seem to come from his head, but somehow it came from within the shrine, echoing from somewhere above. "Where are you?" he said as he stood up and continuously swiveled his head, searching through the darkness. "Who are you? Show yourself!"

A soft light sparked in the middle of the room, illuminating the chapel brightly, before growing in size and finally taking a Hylian form. Long hairs of blue tinted light flowed down its back, a pair of breasts formed over the torso, and hips began fill in its feminine body. Though specific features were difficult to distinguish, he couldn't help but imagine a beautiful face hiding behind the intense light.

"This is the most I can do, for I was sworn by my sisters to never hold a physical form upon the land which we created-" though her lips did not move, her otherworldly voice sounded motherly, yet disappointed.

"Land you created, what do you mean? Who are you?" Rowark tried fish an answer before she continued.

But she went on uninterrupted, "... many thousands of years ago. Before the world had taken any form, my sisters and I collaboratively brought life and civilization to this land."

"Thousands of years ago? You're not an ancient spirit or something, are you?" The last thing he needed was a spirit to haunt him for the rest of his life.

"I am Goddess of Wisdom, Nayru, she who granted the gift of free will to the people." At the sound of the name, Rowark fell to his knee in shock. He did not know what kind of holy magic was occurring at the moment, but there was no point in taking the chance that she WASN'T a Goddess. Was this the answer to all his prayers? "Rise, my champion."

My champion!? His newfound title immediately spread shock through his body, "I don't understand. I-I'm a sinner. I'm no champion."

Nayru cocked her head sideways, "Decreed by whom?"

Rowark was dumbfounded. Was it not her Golden Laws that decreed that being Queer was sinful? "Well," he answered with great fear in his chest, unsure if challenging the wisdom of the very Goddess of Wisdom herself would lead to his undoing, "the Temple that worships in your name decreed that my wants and desires are sinful."

"Do you worship a Temple? Or do you worship the Goddesses?" the rhetorical question still did not put Rowark at ease. "The Temple of Hylia is made of mortal men and women," responded Nayru, "and over the years, they have crafted many laws and sins in my name to suit their mortal purposes."

Truth be told, there was only one thing Rowark ever wanted to ask the Goddess Wisdom since he confessed to being Queer, so he swallowed loudly to gather the courage needed, "S-so, being Queer i-isn't, a sin?"

"An attraction to men is an attraction to men. Whatever conclusion makes that concept queer or sinful comes from the opinions of mortals, just as whatever deems the deed of charity as righteous or sinful comes from the opinions of mortals as well."

Rowark was relieved, and yet dissatisfied. He did not know how to respond to her own blasphemy. If righteousness was not derived from the Golden Laws, then what was? "But, then how do you know what is right and wrong?"

"Nothing is innately right or wrong. These two categories are only simplified judgements for every possible action so that mortals may better rationalize and conceptualize the consequences of their decisions."

It still didn't make sense to Rowark, though, "Then, how does one determine morality? If not you?"

"If I struck you down at this moment," Rowark's body hairs froze, "would I suffer the consequences of your death?"

Before a Goddess, he knew his life was insignificant, and so too were all mortals placed on their earth. "No," answered Rowark unsurely.

"Then who am I to judge your death to be just or unjust? If your so called 'Golden Laws' preach defending every life and yet justify the deaths of others, can the 'Golden Laws' be considered just? Even if it came from the word of a Goddess?"

Rowark had to ponder upon her questions a bit before he could conclude with one final answer, "No?"

"Precisely. Morality is not derived from the authority of power, but rather through the consensus of those affected by immorality." She paused and then spoke disappointingly, "That was a lesson too complex for the first mortals to grasp. A primitive sense of awareness only brought about a primitive rationalization of free will. It was only natural when I first bestowed the gift of awareness upon the many peoples of Hyrule. My sisters and I knew the great difficulties of cooperating with each others' great pride and power, so we had even decided to leave guidelines, hard lessons we had learned from our many eras of conflicts, so that mortals would not make the same mistakes as we did. To make sure that the most capable individual of out all the beings could translate and interpret our guidelines, we placed our monument on the highest peak of the mountain before I left the land for good with my sisters.

"It was always my most optimistic assumption that mortals could live peaceably with the knowledge that their existence upon this land would be short and temporary. However, leave the land for not even one full year, and the mortal who discovered our guidelines had already found unlimited clever methods to twist our words into his language for committing harm against others. These silly mortals kill, they enslave, and worse…

"They rape…" her energy suddenly turned blood red as she seethed, and for a heartbeat, Rowark was afraid for his life. "Then at the end of the day, they return to their families to justify all their sins in our names. Having witnessed our failure, we forsook any further interference in the land we created. However, our deity daughter, Hylia, chose to put her faith in the righteousness of the innocent, so she remained behind and reincarnated as a mortal with my blessing to watch over the realm and protect Farore's creations, enforce my guidelines, and preserve Din's earth. I chose to bless Hylia's reincarnation with my wisdom because of her innate connection to us, and because she always reincarnated into leadership. But alas, we returned to a distressed world in which Hylian kind had perverted all three."

The Goddess spoke with a difficult style of prose, but in Rowark's opinion, it was much easier to digest her philosophy than it was to listen to Sir Mawar explain politics and lying. Rowark suddenly realized when he compared the sound of her voice to the one he heard ten years ago that she could have been the one who told him to confess in the beginning. "So," he had to be sure though, "were, you the one who spoke to me in my head ten years ago?"

Nayru quickly returned to her light blue color, "Yes, that was I."

"Why?" Rowark would never forget the sound of her voice during his most trying time. "Why did you want me to confess to being a sinner?"

"I desired a true confession to the self of your own nature. Wisdom is only attainable through awareness."

Rowark looked down, "I have never liked admitting to myself that I was… me. Growing up, I was taught to grow up to be like Father, like a Forester."

"Nobody with free will wants to confront the fundamental fact that they are different from everybody else. While your peers hid amongst each others' company to avoid alienation, you were thrust into alienation from the beginning. I chose you ten years ago because you had suffered through a traumatic moment that forced you to reconcile with the nature of your true self as an entity separate from the land you live on and the people you live with. As a result of that very experience, you began to question the nature of the law."

Tears began to well behind Rowark's eyes as he contemplated asking her the next most important question. "Why now?" he angrily sniffed. If he were truly the Goddess of Wisdom's chosen champion, "Why reveal yourself to me now?"

"There is an evil agent born from malice and hatred lurking about Hyrule attempting to break the seal that keeps Ganondorf from returning to this realm."

"So, if I am your champion, does that make me the chosen hero?"

"No. The hero was reincarnated a few years prior to your birth," that sounded relieving, but then the Goddess turned bright red, "but he committed an evil so great that we Goddesses needed to intervene and choose new champions."

"If I am not your hero, then why did you pick me? Didn't Hylia's reincarnation always possess the Triforce of Wisdom?"

"Hylia's current incarnation had an upbringing that has directed her away from the path of Wisdom and also brought the current predicament to the kingdom. I chose you because you understand yourself better than anyone else who does, and because fate has set you onto a path of considerable influence."

"So what do you ask of me, as your champion?"

"Rowark Forester, as the Champion of Wisdom, you must find and destroy the evil agent and unite the people of Hyrule under your leadership. Your Goddess commands you."

Rowark kneeled and bowed his head, "Your champion obeys." After all those years of keeping faith with the Goddesses, despite his Queer nature going against the Temple's laws, Rowark's faith had been rewarded. His path was righteous. The very Goddess of Wisdom herself spoke to him and said so. He was supposed to feel ecstatic for accepting the great honor, and yet, anxiety was spreading throughout his body instead.

Nayru cocked her head sideways, "You are unsure."

He was as afraid of lifting his head as he was failing his Goddess, "I… I cannot disobey my Goddess, b-but what if your champion isn't strong enough to fulfill his mission? What if… he cannot overcome the hatred dwelling inside men's hearts?"

"Just as the many Heroes of ages past had assistance along the way, so too will you. From now on, you will be given access to the special abilities inherited through the direct descendants of our daughter Hylia."

The good news renewed his sense of hope, "Wait, what kinds of abilities?"

"That is for you to discover and make your own, not for me to tell."

Great, thought Rowark. With only unproven powers and a mountain range of trials before him, he was once again beginning to doubt his prospects. "Who will aid me on your divine mission?" he asked, hoping she could shed her light on good news once again.

The sound of footsteps whipped Rowark's head around. A lantern light was approaching from the entrance. As soon as an old scribe wearing a light gray robe poked his head around the corner, Rowark looked back and saw no light. The Goddess had vanished before Rowark could get his answer or begin asking the other myriad of questions swarming in his head.

"Were you speaking to someone just now?" asked the scribe.

"Oh, um," Rowark took one last good glance at the lifeless statue towering before him, "just talking to the Goddesses."

The old man nodded, "Carry on." Rowark nodded back. What in the world was going on?

He retired back to his room and climbed into his bed while trying to piece together both Nayru's words and his sanity. He wasn't sure if he was able to fall asleep inside his cozy new room. But when he awoke to the sound of tolling bells from the castle, his heart froze when he received the message of the mournful ringing: someone important in the castle just passed away.