A/N: Patience for just a little longer people - we're almost at the start of the adventure proper. It's a bit unusual to see so many lengthy cutscenes so early in a game, but it just wouldn't be right if I left them out.
The strange creature I'd followed to this clearly secret place was not visible at first. The hilt of the blade enshrined in stone glowed the same blue as she had though, drawing attention to it, and then when I approached it flashed blue and the creature emerged, flipping in the air to hover just before it, bowing deeply before she straightened.
She watched without concern or fear, or any other emotion playing over her blue features as I closed the distance further, then at last she spoke, a choral, melodic and oddly artificial sounding voice.
"The one chosen by my creator, I been waiting for you," she told me. "You have a role to play in a great destiny awaiting you."
"Link told me already," I said. "He's kinda the entire reason I'm here. And you are...?" I left it hanging.
"Yes, of course," she said as if answering a whole different question, nodding briefly. "It is the social custom to provide you with my personal designation. I am Fi, created for a single purpose long before the recorded history of your people or those with whom you share this place. That purpose is to aid you in the fulfilment of the great destiny that is your burden to bear."
"As if I didn't have enough burdens on my shoulders," I muttered, though Fi appeared not to notice. It always was hard to tell exactly how much she heard – or didn't hear.
"Come, Knuckles the Echidna, last descendant of the Knuckles Clan," she went on apparently heedlessly, surprising me with just how much she knew of me. Either Link, Fate or Hylia – or maybe even all three – knew more than most already.
"You must take up the this sword," Fi continued. "As the one chosen by my creator, it is your destiny. Without it, I project a minimal chance of success in the journey that awaits you."
Fi and her projecting of chances was something that frequently bothered me. Once and once only did she ever come up with an absolute certainty, and on that occasion I whole-heartedly agreed with her. The rest of the time it was always a minimal chance, or a high probability, sometimes even a rough percentage.
"In the name of my creator, draw the sword and raise it skyward," Fi told me, at last rising clear of me to allow me to reach the blade itself. The whole sword in a stone thing is kinda clichéd, but at least I knew what I was doing.
Typically, since I was the chosen bearer of this sword, there was little resistance. Anyone else could have struggled for hours trying to remove it, but in my hands it rose smoothly out of the pedestal. Slightly heavier than the sword I was used to practising with, much more ornate. Polished not to a mirror silver but to a bright blue, as bright as Fi was, a gem set in place where the blade met the handle – a gem identical to the one she also bore.
The statue of Hylia is hollow inside, with a central pillar above that domed chamber that reaches outside and allows the moonlight to stream in. By coincidence, it was not only a full moon, but the moon was directly overhead as I raised that sword toward it.
To my own surprise – swords don't generally light up on their own, after all – light built up at the tip, streaming down the blade until a flash occurred, leaving the entire blade glowing. It neither faded or changed, surrounding the blade simply awaiting use.
"Recognition complete," Fi remarked clinically. "Master Knuckles. My master."
"I'm not-" I started to object, but yet another voice interrupted – that of the one person who had noticed me leave the academy, had I paid enough attention to notice.
"Knuckles!" Gaepora boomed, his voice echoing loudly. He stood in the entrance of the cavern, clearly surprised. "I had suspicions when Link appeared to us of course, but now... here in the hidden Chamber of the Goddess' Sword, I can have no doubt. It was foretold long ago that a legend would one day be forged here."
He paused, looking up to Fi who regarded him with the same lack of emotion as she had me, then joined me and looked over the sword.
"It is said that this place was left to our people by the goddess Herself, the very knowledge of the room's existence a secret passed down only to a select few in each generation, along with a handful of words."
"Oral tradition," Fi noted. "One of the least reliable methods of information retention and transmission."
"Perhaps so," Gaepora said, a faint hint of rebuke in his tone. "We are told that when the light of the sword shines bright, a great apocalypse will awaken from its long slumber. The legends go on to say, 'Do not fear, for it is then that the monster who is no monster, guided by my hands, shall reveal himself in a place most sacred' – you, and this place, evidently."
"I wish people would stop calling me a monster," I complained. "Seriously, do I really look like a monster to you?"
Gaepora gave me an amused look, while Fi took up her own narrative. "It appears as expected the critical sections of the passage have been lost over the generations. It neglects to mention that Master Knuckles shall be known as the Goddesses Chosen Hero, and it is he who possesses an unbreakable spirit."
"Wait just a moment," I interrupted. "Link was the one who chose me for this, he came to my island and got me to come here."
"Perhaps he did so at the behest of Her Grace?" Gaepora suggested. "There must be some cooperation between them, otherwise you would not be able to take up Her sword."
Fi waited for us to fall silent, then without bothering to confirm or deny this, continued to relay the original. "He shall be burdened with the task of abolishing the shadow of the apocalypse from the land and the sky. Such is his destiny. With the spirit of the sword at his side, he shall soar over clouds and plummet below, and united with the spirit maiden shall bring forth a piercing light that resurrects the land."
"That must mean Zelda," Gaepora breathed. "My own daughter... I knew her to be special but this..."
"Indeed. She has her part to play in this great undertaking even as Master Knuckles does."
"Do you really have to call me that?" I asked plaintively. I didn't try objecting again, not now she'd told me she was to go with me – the 'spirit of the sword' she'd spoken of. Her appearance alone confirmed that.
"You are my Master," she shrugged. "And you must embark on your journey to the surface beneath the clouds. It is only there that you can fulfil the mission set before you by my creator, the Goddess."
"And by Link too," Gaepora added. "But this is no easy undertaking you ask. The world below is a forsaken place, and to reach it you must pierce the cloud barrier below."
"I don't think so," I put in. "I saw gaps in it along the way here. I just have to find the nearest one and go beneath."
"Your Loftwing would not fly beneath the clouds however, Master," Fi told me. "And you have no knowledge of the realm below. There is however a course of action you may take that will guide you."
Fi held forth her cloak – which had no arms beneath it, I could see clearly now – and with another flash of blue light, a stone tablet appeared in the air with a green stone set in place. It looked to be only a fragment of a whole, part of a map engraved into it. At an imperious gesture, it floated for me, the light fading only when I took it in my free hand.
"This tablet is the first of several that will illuminate a beacon in the skies, visible only to you Master Knuckles. It will guide you in your travels, should it be placed within the altar behind me. In order to reveal it, you must strike the crest of the Loftwing with the power residing in your blade, in the form of a Skyward Strike. Will it to depart your sword as you strike, and it will do as you command, Master."
Fi moved aside once again, simply awaiting my actions. Later she'd often disappear back into the sword, but for now she just watched impassively.
Since my sword was already charged when I'd taken it up and had continued to hold the charge, I just followed Fi's advice – I rarely considered it instruction, only advice – and made a downward strike, just as Pipit had taught me. Only this time with my will commanding that charge, it leapt off the sword, a bright curve of light that echoed my strike and impacted a hovering Loftwing crest beyond.
It was a useful little thing that. It's power's been diminished over the years, making it now the simple sword beam others have made use of, and instead of being charged from the sky as I did, it uses the current Hero's own strength to work instead – which is why it only works when uninjured.
The Loftwing crest had been hovering above a squat cylinder pillar, which now proved not to be so squat as it rumbled up out of the ground, shedding the accumulated dirt and dust of the ages to reveal a rough, rectangular impression in the side.
The piece Fi had given me was a corner piece, and not hard to orient correctly. Stylized trees were drawn, just as you'd see on any map, but few people draw them sideways. This was the lower right piece of a larger map – likely I'd come across similar stone tablets to finish the map and open up further areas, or maybe Fi had them and had been told to give them to me on a schedule of sorts. I'd find out in due course.
The little emerald set in the map lit up brightly – but from our perspective, nothing else happened.
"That's it?" I asked. "That's all I had to do?"
"Only you could do so, Master," Fi assured me. "And now it is done. As my Master, I will accompany you in the travels ahead, and will reside within your sword. Should you require my presence simply speak my name and I will hear. Should further information become available, I shall make it known to you. Now I await such a time," she concluded. Without waiting for a response, and to Gaepora's clear surprise, Fi turned back into a small flash of light that circled in the air gracefully, landing within the gemstone set into the Goddess Sword still in my hand.
"We will have to see about a new sheath for that blade," Gaepora said, though still awed. "Your sword has been serviceable during your novitiate, but as a full knight and a Hero besides... we will keep it safe for you, Knuckles – along with the Master Emerald, of course."
"I should hope so, if anything happens to it..."
"Or to you," he suggested.
"I'm a Hero, I'll be fine," I said dismissively.
"Knuckles, not even I know what you may encounter beneath the clouds. Fi is not wrong – we have lost much of the original prophecy to time, and as such it is all a complete mystery, even to me. But at least we know Zelda is alive – and not merely alive, but with her own part to play. Look out for her, Knuckles."
"Don't worry. I'll find her and see her back here safely just as soon as she's done whatever she has to do," I assured him. I don't do assurance all that well, but I'm not completely inept at it. "Now it's kinda been a long night, and I could do with some sleep."
"We both could," Gaepora laughed. "I followed you when I saw you leave tonight. Normally I would have thought nothing of it, not given your wish to continue your duties, but something told me to come – and I am glad that I did. I'll speak with the tailor come morning – the uniform of a Knight of Skyloft will surely be more suitable in your travels, more so for you than any other Knight. Personally I have my doubts about the colour," he confided as we left. "But again I have one of those inexplicable feelings about it, and Zelda... it was she who persuaded me to relent. I wonder if there might be some significance to it that we are not yet aware..."
None of us had any idea just how significant it would come to be. Not just the mark of the Hero, but a lasting legacy – all started by me.
It's the sort of thing that can go to your head if you're not careful.