Hero of Sennohe 2

"Aren't you cold?" Sky asked. They had been walking up the mountain path in silence for almost an hour and the weather was taking a turn for the worse.
"Not really no-" Link's defence was cut off by a sneeze, "yeah, a little bit."
"I have some spare things in my bag... though my dress might not fit..."
"I have two other tunics with me" Link said, as if this had only just come to him.
"Put them on then!" Sky exclaimed "layer up if you're cold! Haha, didn't your mother ever drum that into your mind every winter?"
"Actually I never knew my mother..." Link broke to her, quietly.
"Oh.. oh I'm sorry" Sky kicked herself inwardly for how insensitive she had been. She'd been trying so hard to be friends too. The next few minutes dragged on in awkward silence until they reached a small steep ledge that had to be climbed.
"Up here" Sky showed the way, climbing carefully up the ledge.
Link just hoisted himself up, then helped her up after him.
"Show off" She smiled, letting him know she was joking with him, and got a smile in return.
As the day wore on, and they trekked through the mountainside wilderness towards the rising smoke, the air became heavy and warm. Soon, it felt like spring rather than autumn. As they approached the volcano, the surrounding rocks became hot to the touch and the ground warmed the soles of their feet through their boots.
"Uuwwaaa, it's so hot up here" Sky whined, pulling her outermost layer off, to be dressed in just her white undershirt and leggings.
"You're a mountain-girl through and through then? Can't take the heat?" Link teased her, although he too was flushed and looking warm.
"hey, feel this" he said, handing her the hilt of his sword.
She did, and quickly recoiled when the metal burned her hand.
"OW... what was that for?"
"Sorry... I don't know really. Just wanted to show you how hot it was."

The volcano was looming over them now, a small dusty trail lead off up to the right. The small clearing they were in was as far as Sky had been before, and suddenly the terror of having to let her dream-adventure end hit like a bolt of lightning.
"H..hey, it's pretty dangerous to go further, so maybe we should rest for the night here then we'll be good to go in the morning?"
Link paused to consider this, he seemed torn between wanting to continue, and being quite exhausted. Eventually he agreed to camp for the night and continue in the morning. This close to the volcano, even night wasn't too cold, despite the time of year. By the light of the fire the colossal mountain seemed more imposing than ever. Intimidating but impressive.
"Earlier, you said "we"..." Link spoke, and looked at his frail companion appraisingly. "I think, I think it would be best if I went into the volcano alone." He said.
"oh.." It made sense, and she knew that. She was no fighter, and had never been inside before and so couldn't help with directions. She also knew that he meant no insult to her, but it still stung a little to be pushed back like that.
"It's not like I won't come back though!" Link spouted quickly as Sky's face obviously fell, "I could use your help getting back to the village, but if you don't want to wait out here, I could meet you back there once you're home."
"Yeah... yes, that'd be nice" Sky smiled, trying to force more contentment to show on her face than she felt inside. "I don't mind waiting".
With that, the two heroes curled up to sleep.

It was black as pitch when Sky awoke. The fire had not long since burnt out, and the silence of the night surrounded her completely. It was also terribly, terribly lonely. She looked over to Link, and started. He was gone.
She looked wildly around, there was plenty sign he had been there, so she had not hallucinated the whole thing. There was his shape in the cracked ground where he had lain, and the obvious marks of sword and boots. Footprints too, leading up the path. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, they became more and more apparent. He had left for the volcano already.
Without thinking any further, she ran up the mountain side trail herself. In the back of her mind she knew it was stupid, that she should just stay by the fire and sleep until morning, but her legs were still running. The chisel she had in her bag from the two days ago at the stone mason's found its way into her hand, in absence of any other weapon, and she kept climbing and hoping not to run into anything dangerous.
She took to dodging monsters that were crawling around as it was safer, and faster than trying to fight them off with a chisel. Taking more than a few bites and scratches to the arms and legs from what felt like spiders and other things she couldn't identify in the dark, Sky made her way to a small hole in the mountainside that lead inwards.
Inside was blisteringly hot, and if not for the embers all around the place, as dark as the night outside. Sky shivered despite the heat. The oppressive atmosphere was frightening, and even more so were the bodies of the creatures that had once lived in this place lying around the floors. There were keese, there were rope, and other sliced bodies of things she had never seen before.
Climbing her way through the almost silent dungeon, the comfort of finding signs of Link started to wear off. These were the corpses of living things. True, they were all sliced by a sword, and that lead her to believe that Link was here somewhere. But on the other hand, she seemed to be alone in a volcano, surrounded by the bloody carcases of increasingly horrifying monsters... all alone... just her and the bodies. They were beginning to look more and more menacing, as if they might rise up again and attack her, despite being brutalized. Sky wielded her chisel at the bodies with an increasingly shaking hand and continued on through the dungeon.

CRASH

Something nearby smashed loudly, startling her further. She ran towards the noise, despite her rational mind telling her to leave it well alone.
"LINK!" She cried out, spotting the man in green at the other side of a long hall from where she was. The floor tiles themselves were raising out of the ground and shrieking through the air at his head. Her cry caught his attention, and in the split second he looked to her, a stone tile cracked him fully on the head and knocked him unconscious.
Sky's wits just about left her when she saw Link crumple to the floor, bleeding from one side of his face. At the same time, she became prime target for the deadly flooring, and tile after tile came whistling down the hall at her. She dodged them, it was all there was to do, a small chisel was never going to smash them or protect her from them. As the flurry slowed, she saw Link start to sit up. Her heart lifted with him, until he doubled back over, holding his head, and she saw the thing behind him.
"LINK... LINK... BEHIND YOU"
A huge wobbling maggot-like...thing... was oozing its way up Link's legs. Soon, it had all but swallowed him whole. He seemed to be doing his best to fight it from the inside, but the thing wasn't giving him up. Sky ran over and tried to pull Link out. Of course he was too heavy for her, and the monster was much too strong. Panic set in and she snapped. She was barely aware of hearing Link's voice speak to her as she grabbed her chisel and started hacking away at the monster. Hack, hack, hack. It didn't respond much at first, but soon she was under the first layer of thick skin and it was pouring slime and blood onto the floor. Hack, hack, hack. She had to get him out of this thing, if she hadn't distracted him, if she hadn't got him knocked out, if she had just stayed at the camp... hack, hack, hack.
Sky felt no more resistance from the LikeLike she was now mindlessly mauling, but couldn't stop. She felt two strong arms under hers lift her away from the unrecognizable pile of flesh. The panic subsided and her head began to clear as the scene around her came into focus. She moved to get out of the iron grip that was holding her. Link didn't let go.
"Calmed down yet?" he asked, after she stopped struggling.
"yes, yes. I'm sorry! I shouldn't have, I mean, if I had just stayed... oh god..." she looked at the mess around them "oh god I'm so sorry", Link put one arm around her waist and helped her sit down to catch her breath.
"What are you doing here?" He asked her, a little more sharply than he had intended.
She explained how she had woken up to find him gone, and come looking for him, following the trail of monsterous cadavers.
"I TOLD you to wait didn't I? If you hadn't distracted me I would have been fine"
"I know! I'm sorry, I really am".
"What a mess..." Link said, looking around them, and feeling the damage he'd taken from the flying floor tile. Luckily it hadn't hit him as badly as it had appeared from far away, it had only knocked his ear, but there was still a nasty looking wound up the inside from it. Still looking at the remnants around them, he gently prized the chisel out of Sky's desperate clutch and slid it across the floor away from them.
"Come on", he said gently, and lead her by the hand deeper into the volcano.
There wasn't far to go before the heat became unbearable and they stood on the very top edge, looking down into the chasm of molten rock. Sky had been bidden to stay back from fights and keep herself safe, since the incident with the LikeLike she had taken to doing as she was told.

"Old Smokey" may have been thousands of years old, but she was still a dragon, young for a dragon, and angry, even for a dragon. Like all dragons with treasures to protect, she wasn't giving up the crystal without a fight.
Sky kept her head down while Link fought the beast face to face. He didn't seem bothered at all by the situation, not even worried. That was the most impressive thing to her. Link ran around the edge of the mountaintop until stopping to aim a shot from his bow. Old Smokey reared her head and was about to let loose a fireball on him when the tiniest distraction moved her. A rock, thrown at her eye, she was distracted and took Link's arrow straight into the roof of her mouth. With a tooth-rattling roar, the dragon turned on Sky and slashed with her front claws. Not intended to be a deadly attack, just a small bat by dragon standards, but she ripped open the soft flesh of Sky's thigh. Link had run round to defend Sky, just too late to prevent the damage, and just in time to take the brunt of Smokey's other claw across his back. He stayed crouched over Sky to protect her from further harm and fired another arrow into the dragon's soft palette. After another few shots, Old Smokey sank back down beneath the lava, leaving her treasure for the taking. It wasn't an impressive thing, in honestly it could have been any lump of blackened glass. But there was a shine to it, inside, that gave away its real value.

Link carried Sky down off the volcano. She couldn't stand with her leg in such a state, and was delirious from blood loss. He knew how to fix it though, all they needed was a faerie fountain. He also knew that there was always one nearby, one could rely on that sort of thing. Sure enough, just beyond the mountain was a secret entrance to an underground fountain, full of the light and magic of the fae.
Link walked into the water carrying Sky. Feeling his wounds heal, he let her go so that she might stand on her own again. But she just floated on the surface of the water. His wounds healed, hers did not. The faeries around them whispered to him;
"not this one, not this one. We cannot do anything for this one"
"Why?" he asked, not expecting an answer. No answer came. He checked her breathing to make sure she was alive, and cleaned the wound as best he could despite there being no magic in it for her before lifting her over one shoulder and carrying her back out of the underground cave.

They were back at their camping spot, and evening was approaching by the time Sky started to wake. She asked what had happened, and he gave her the gist of it, tactfully leaving out the rejection of the faeries.
"So we came back here, and then the owl came and saw I had the Smoke Crystal. He told me it will not work on its own, there are three other things needed to make the immortality charm"
Sky raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly, "an owl?"
He nodded as if this was normal, and continued, "There's a Glass Claw that holds the crystal, somewhere under the ocean, and a Glass Hand that holds it on the other side... see?" Link held the crystal up to show her the indentations on it, it did indeed have marks for what looked like a claw and a hand to hold it from either side.
"Then what? You said three more things"
"This is the part I don't get, the owl said something about the whole of the triforce being needed to activate it. But we don't need to do that, we need to make sure that doesn't happen, I think."
"So an Owl came and told you all of this?"
"Yes."
"You're a little crazy you know that?" She grinned at Link. He didn't return her good cheer, instead commenting "what about you? Earlier, with the LikeLike... that was more than a little crazy".
Sky's face fell and she couldn't keep eye contact with Link after he'd mentioned that.
"That was... I don't know, I was just frightened".
Seeing how it troubled her prevented him from pressing the subject and he let it go.

The next morning they woke early and set off for the village. Sky broke a sturdy fallen branch to the right size to use as a walking stick, as her leg was far from healed. It was a slow process, getting back through the wilderness, especially with the ever gathering chill closing in on their heels. A stark awakening after the dry heat of the volcano.
"Do you want me to carry you?" Link offered to Sky, as she limped along very slowly, "hop up on my back, or we might not get you home before NEXT winter!" he teased.
"Don't be cheeky!" she retorted, giving him a playful slap with her stick "I'm doing my best here". Despite the cold, and injuries, the rush of having simply survived kicked in and made the otherwise painful walk home very enjoyable.
"come here" Link offered again to carry her, and she took him up on the offer this time,
"Giddy up!" Sky laughed, from her seat perched on her Heroes back. He just laughed and carried on walking down the trail at a now normal pace.