Chapter 16: Irleen

…

When Link first stirred, he found that whatever he was laying on was far too comfortable to get up from. He could not even conceive of waking up without wanting to punch himself in anger for it. His body sank into what a cloud must feel like if only people could touch them. It was the first bed in which he did not even need a pillow; the material simply molded itself to his body. And the sheet lying over him felt softer than any fabric he had ever worn, slept in, or shipped. Who in their right mind would want to wake from that? Thinking so, he rolled onto his back to feel the full comfort across his whole body.

But something felt wrong, felt… weird. As much as he hated to do it, he opened his eyes. It was quite the chore; between his exhaustion and the comfort of the bed, he found he contributed more power to keeping his eyes shut rather than opening them.

A pair of bright, green eyes stared back at him.

"Wah!" Link suddenly shouted, scrambling for the side of the bed away from the figure standing above him. He hauled himself over the edge and—

"Omph!"

—flopped hard and head-first onto a bare wood floor. His body slumped onto the floor a second later, and he rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up.

A young, short Sorian stood on the other side of the bed. Link figured that this was a girl from the style of clothing she wore. Similar to Rireen's clothes yesterday, she wore a white, sleeveless top held tight against her, decorated with a single word in the Sorian language, and blue slacks buttoned at her ankles. She had a slightly tan complexion compared to Rireen, and the feathers visible on her arms were a kind of dirty white, not quite white, but not strong enough to call it brown. The plumage growing from her head sported a green color made almost blinding by the light entering from the window above the head of the bed. Unlike Rireen's "hair", however, this Sorian's head plumage reached for an incredible length and fanned out from behind her. She looked to be closer to Link's age (if height was any judge).

She giggled at him. "Good morning, Captain," she told him.

"Uh… g-good—" Link quickly cut off his reply after getting to his feet. Just as he remembered that he had undressed before bed because it was too warm for him to sleep in his clothes, he snatched up the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around his waist. "G-good morning. Uh… who-who are you?"

"Irleen," she answered. "Elder Ukhool asked me to show you to the library."

"H-how'd you get in here?"

Irleen put on a confused face. "Through the door."

Link glanced over at the door just as it opened. "Is everything all…?" Princess Zelda trailed off as her eyes fell onto Link's almost bare form. Then she looked to the Sorian girl standing on the opposite side of the bed. For a moment, she appeared to be in shock at the scene, and her cheeks flushed. "I-I hope I am not disturbing anything, Skipper."

"Skipper?" Irleen asked, tilting her head to one side. "Is that what they call captains who are as young as you?"

"Ah-wah—" Link stuttered, not sure whether his embarrassment or his frustration should be expressed first. "Wha-what do you mean 'as young as me'!"

"Nothing in particular," Irleen replied with a dismissive wave. "After all, it makes sense to refer to a juvenile commanding officer with a diminutive title."

Juvenile. Diminutive. Link could feel the words slap him across the face. Up until now, he had taken being a fourteen-year-old ship master as a compliment. So when he snapped, "Who are you calling 'juvenile'?" with an accusing finger pointed across the bed at this new girl, it was directly after the fact had lost its flattering nature.

"I didn't mean anything by it," Irleen replied with a confused look on her face. "And it wasn't like I intended to insult you. I was merely making an observation."

"I have to admit that it makes sense," Zelda confessed, crossing her arms as she thought. "Up until now, I have always known that ship masters are regularly referred to as 'Captain'. It never occurred to me that the term 'Skipper' would be applied to those of Link's age."

"Lots of people go by 'skipper'!" Link defended. "And what do you mean 'of Link's age'? Aren't we the same age? Aren't we all the same age?"

"Well, if many people go by 'skipper', would Captain Alfonzo allow any of his crew to refer to him as such?" Zelda asked.

Flower, who was about to walk by the door looking cleaner than he had last night, brought himself to a halt and answered, "Only if they want to be chucked overboard, Your Highness."

Zelda turned to him with a grin decorating her face. "Good morning, Mister Flower."

Flower saluted with a half-grin of his own after looking in on his commander's predicament. "Good morning, Your Highness, Lieutenant." Link dismissed the salute. "Sir, care if I ask what's happening today?"

Link faltered for a moment as his mind changed back to his job. "I, uh… it's-it's all up to Princess Zelda at the moment," he answered, indicating her with a hand. "We're dependent on her itinerary."

The princess nodded in agreement. "Indeed, that appears to be the case, Lieutenant. I find that I have a number of different engagements at the moment, but I intend to depart perhaps mid-afternoon?"

"Mid-afternoon?" Link asked.

She shrugged. "Perhaps later. It depends on the amount of progress I can make this morning."

"Skipper, it'll take just a few minutes to set out once we get back to the ship," Flower pointed out. "We can get underway as soon as everyone boards."

"I am sure that I will not take long," Zelda assured him.

Link gave a minute to think. Then he replied, "Take what time you need, Your Highness. As soon as you're through, we'll depart."

"Thank you, Link," Zelda said with a nod and a smile. She spun and disappeared into the hall.

Flower stared after with one eyebrow raised until she left his sight. Then he turned to Link with a large smile plastered to his face. "Permission to enjoy a few hours of shore leave, sir?"

"You'll have to wait," Link replied, readjusting the grip on the bedsheet. "When you guys showed up last night, the only thing left of Airman Leonard was his pants."

Flower, upon summoning the memory, squeezed his eyes shut. "Oh, right," he mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"As soon as Line and Albert are awake, all three of you need to go out and look for him," Link ordered. "After that, you guys can do anything you want as long as you're ready to leave this afternoon. If you can, I'd like one of you to remain with Princess Zelda so we can be ready to leave as soon as possible."

"Line'll probably take that job," Flower grinned. "He expressed some interest in her last night."

Somehow, the way Flower twitched his eyebrows sickened Link. He sighed and said, "At least remember that you four are supposed to be professionals. I don't need any trouble just because we're out of contact with the company. Make sure the other three know that."

"Oh, of course, sir," Flower replied with a salute. "I didn't mean anything by it."

Link returned the salute. "Dismissed."

"Yes, sir." Flower turned. But before he left, he froze mid-step and glanced back into the room. "Skipper, what's your position on souvenirs?"

Link sighed. "Something small."

Flower shot him a thumbs-up. "Got it, sir."

"Wow," Irleen, whose voice reminded Link that she was still standing in his room, uttered with an air of awe. "For a young captain, you sure know how to take charge."

Link, remembering his original predicament, turned to her with an irritated glare in his eyes. "Could you wait outside, please?"

"Huh?" She looked him up and down as if realizing that he stood before her half-naked. "Oh, sorry."

Link dressed and partook of some of the breakfast that had been left for him on the table in his room. Then he followed Irleen outside. The morning on Forelight Island turned out to be much brighter than Link had expected. Granted, the storm looming on the horizon gave the visible sky around the island a bleak appearance, but bright colors filled the air directly under the great tree. By that much, he concluded that there might have been a break in the storm at higher altitudes, although there was no way to use such an opening since airships would not be able to reach the required altitude as they were. Still, there was some comfort in knowing that the island was not completely surrounded.

For the first time, Link had a genuine fondness for Forelight Island. Seeing Kuruuk Nehai in natural light lent more to the innate beauty of the Sorian dwellings. The nightlights had highlighted bare branches the previous evening, but now that the daylight had the opportunity to look down on the secret island, Link could see that the trees bore leaves and flowers befitting the middle of spring. The wild colors had thrown him off last night, and the natural blend of greens and browns with an assortment of pinks, yellows, reds, and any other possible color left him speechless. Somehow, simply strolling through the trees felt… peaceful. Of course, the quiet ambiance about the air above may have also contributed to this feeling; whereas Sorians had darted about during their party, now they sailed through the air with grace and serenity. Irleen seemed to be caught up in the feeling as well. Instead of walking beside Link, she had elected to fly from one tree to another, occasionally stopping until Link caught up.

Judging from the large tree above the city, Link saw that they were heading back toward the massive trunk. The paths near its base still bore the various tables and booths of individual trades, but the shopping crowd had waned quite a bit since the previous evening. Older-looking Sorians manned most of the tables, although they did not seem very concerned for their wares because a considerable number of them were asleep in their seats.

Suddenly, in flight, Irleen took a sharp turn to the right. She disappeared behind a nearby house, and Link, worried he might not find her again, mentally marked her position before breaking into a light run to catch up with her. After jumping clear over a table bearing a number of glass trinkets which two Sorians crossing his path were carrying across the road, he found that he had to cut under a few trees to locate the librarian. Irleen had landed on the ground near a large, bare root of the massive tree. When he caught up, he doubled over while he caught his breath.

"Are you okay?" Irleen asked him, leaning over to look at his face.

"Hahh… just…" Link huffed. "Just… a little… out of breath."

"Really?" she asked. "That didn't look too hard."

Link leaned back and took in a deep breath to calm himself down. "I… I'm just… out of shape…. Don't do… much running… on a ship."

Irleen frowned for a moment, and then she shrugged her acceptance of the explanation as she turned to the tree. Link had not noticed until he calmed a bit that there were two regular-sized doors set inside the tree trunk just past the exposed root. As with everything else about this place, the doors did not sport the aftermath of tool marks. The exterior had simply retracted back into the trunk, and the gap between the doors and the surrounding frame looked as if they had split along the cracks in the bark. Irleen pulled one open soundlessly, showing Link that where the hinge would be looked more like rotten wood holding the door to the tree. Inside was a spiral staircase leading down, its path lighted by a white line in the ceiling. Irleen led him down these stairs. At the bottom, the stairway opened up into what Link first thought was a cavern.

But the light inside quickly dismissed his thought. Instead, he gazed upon a room whose size was beyond any other room he had been in before. They stood on the highest level overlooking three different tiers of bookshelves, the lowest level a full floor. Here, the Sorians wore blue robes over their whole bodies, seemingly at the expense of their ability to fly. It did not seem to be a concern, as most of the Sorians were sitting at any one of a number of tables or desks organized about the room. A central globe of light peeked out from the ceiling, surrounded by a number of concentric rings sporting symbols of one kind or another. In places where the light could not reach from this main source, numerous, smaller lines of illumination crawled about in a very straight, square pattern. Dotted about the ceiling were vents from the surface, which seemed to allow a soft breeze circulate about the library. Link saw that some of the bookcases in the walls had actually been made out of the roots of the great tree above.

"This is amazing," Link awed as he strode to the rail. Looking over, he saw that the room had been formed into almost a perfect square.

"This library has been here ever since we decided to make our home here," Irleen replied. Link turned to look at her as she received a blue robe from an elderly Sorian sitting at a long desk just next to the entrance. "Most of these texts are written in Sorian script, although I think some may be in Hylian. It would take a person five lifetimes over to read everything in this place if they started the moment they learned to read."

"Wow…" Link remarked as his eyes passed over the room again.

Irleen pulled the robe over her head. Then she clapped her hands, stealing back Link's attention. "Now, where would you like to start?"

"I… I don't know," Link confessed with a shrug, his mouth pulling itself into an embarrassed smile. "I've never seen a library like this before."

Irleen nodded her understanding. She pursed her lips as she thought. "The Elder said that you like to read personal journals. And you're an airship captain, so how about some logbooks?"

Link could feel excitement building as he gave an enthusiastic nod. "Yeah."

Irleen picked up a board sitting on the big desk and glanced at it. Then, dropping it, she said, "This way." and started across the floor.

Link followed her down to the second tier and around to the opposite side of the library. Guided by the Sorian writing on the shelves, she eventually selected a place and wandered down the bookcases. Link lingered near the tables overlooking the rest of the library for a moment, feeling somewhat nervous as his presence seemed to attract the attention of the scholars around him.

Irleen returned a moment later with a pair of large tomes under one arm. "I wasn't sure what to start with, so I just grabbed these," she told him as she dropped them onto a nearby table with a slam that caused the Sorians within earshot to jump in surprise. "These are logbooks from Sorian sea vessels before airships were conceived."

Her words alleviated Link's anxiety from being stared at, and he stepped closer and pulled open the cover of the top book. "Really?" he asked. "I've always wondered what it was like to sail in one of those."

"Here, sit down," she said as she sat on the bench just in front of her. Link sat on the corner and watched as she gently opened the top book. She frowned a moment. "You're going to have to bear with me; the language in this book is kind of old." Link nodded, hunched forward as he listened to her read.

"'Captain's log of the Dragon Tamer, a vessel of the Sorian. Set out on…' I, uh… I can't read the date, so we'll just skip it. Eh-hmm. 'Vessel sailed under Captain Namuli.

"'Set out from Dragon Island, bound for Outset Island. Carrying passengers: two scholars and…' Met… Meddi… Oh, Medli. Okay. 'The reasons for this journey are not entirely clear to me. The young girl Medli has indicated the interest of the scholars in the other islands of this region as the cause, but I suspect an ulterior motive from her. Being too young to fly, I think that she is attempting to find the Hylian boy this way.'

"Next entry. 'The wind has not been with us this day, instead forcing us east towards Eastern Triangle Island. The lookouts reported a tower in the distance, but the wind prevents the ship from approaching. We are pressing on towards Forest Haven with the hopes that tomorrow's wind will allow us to go west.'"

She paused to turn the page. "'Medli has asked us to turn the ship to the tower we saw yesterday…