Chapter 20: Waking to Another Reality

Arc 1 of 3

…

Darkness. It was all that the young man could see when he roused. At first, he thought it was because wherever he had ended up did not offer light, that light was a forbidden thing here. After some thought, though, he realized that it was simply because he did not have the strength to open his eyes. His whole body ached as if he had spent days being battered. Even now, whatever surface he laid on bounced his tortured frame about. What kind of sick creature would beat him like this when he could not even muster the will to defend himself? A moment felt like forever. He lived in a haze, the events of his life refusing to play out for his recollection. Had they been taken from him? Or… maybe he just did not want to remember. What did it matter to him now? He was here. Here was all he would ever know now, ever need to know.

But wait a moment. Pained as he was, he realized that his other senses still worked. He heard… crunching, an irregular noise which seemed to simply be without any particular purpose. A subtle groan mixed with it, the kind one found when nearby a wooden vessel on the brink of falling to pieces just from moving. His nose found the scent of burning oil: not quite fragrant, but not disgustingly scorched. And there was another sensation in the air which his exposed face felt, something which he had never encountered before. His skin felt moist. He did not perspire; if anything, he was rather cool and comfortable. Yet he had the sensation of water upon his face, much as if he had dipped his face into a cool pool and held it there. As he found that he could flex his hands, his fingers gripped a massive amount of straw. It felt as if he laid on it like a bed.

The color before his eyes then gained the flesh tone one sees before waking. He felt his eyelids loosen until they seemed to simply open themselves. They first met a dull, yellow blur. As his eyes adjusted, he found himself looking at a canvas stretched over a thick, wooden frame. For a moment, he thought it was a sail, but he had never seen such a structure before. The canvas ended just to his right, and the rocking of the bed beneath him caused his head to turn out towards the opening. Outside loomed a starless night sky the likes of which he had never seen before; his judgment that it was a night sky at all came from nothing but intuition. The overall sensation of moving finally reached him, and he found that a single plank of wood kept him from flopping out of whatever carried him.

Was it an hour or a year? How long had he lost consciousness? And how could he be sure he was conscious now? What about those lights that drifted past the opening? When did he start seeing them? His mind buzzed with questions as he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

Those surroundings jerked to a stop. Shouting sounded in deep tones of confusion; he could not understand what they said. His last sight before blacking out again was a man's bearded face entering his vision.

He woke again with much more clarity. Or, about as much clarity as can be afforded to someone who had just awoken in a strange place. He had been sleeping in a bed; this was the first on his mind. The feel of a stuffed mattress, the modest decoration and arrangement of bed sheets under a fine quilt, pillows which cradled his head rather than merely support it. It was unlike any other bed he had ever slept in. The comfort ended, however, when he tried to sit up. Just the smallest motion to rise set off a fire in his abdomen, and it took his breath for a second. Pulling away the sheets covering him, he found his upper body stripped of clothing and bound in a white bandage.

He had to wait for the pain to subside before he could move again. This gave him the opportunity to study the room around him. The first unusual thing to occur to him was that this room constructed of wood had only two walls: one curved wall against which the bed was set and one straight wall on the opposite side. A single, circular window just above the bed allowed light into the room. A table with a chair occupied the corner near the foot of the bed, while a chest of drawers topped with a wash basin sat in the opposite corner. A large, wooden trunk rested at the foot of the bed, and he saw that someone had laid out clothes on top. Judging from the fact that he was naked, those clothes were probably for him.

He reached up and put a hand on the window's frame. The pain threatened to overwhelm him, but he managed to sit upright. Although he was not tall enough to see the ground outside, he could still look up to find a dull gray haze dominating the sky above. Somehow, it triggered a vague memory of failure, and a wave of regret and despair washed over him.

After some moments of agony as he got to his feet, he limped over to the trunk. Putting the clothes on felt as if it took forever as each move he made brought a fresh spark to whatever wounds lay under the bandages. In the end, though, he pulled up and tightened the drawstring on a pair of white, cloth pants and put his arms through the sleeves of a blue, faded shirt. He was not sure how to close the shirt, so he left his chest and wrapped abdomen exposed as he walked out of the room through the doorway opposite the bed.

Outside, he found that he stood atop a landing with a short walk to another doorway just to his right. On his left, a flight of stairs curved against the round wall as they descended. He could smell something cooking now, so he decided to take the stairs down. He had to move slowly, as each step felt like it jolted his whole body. About halfway down, he gazed over a room dominated by a large, round table. He counted five chairs arranged around the table with two more set against the wall under the landing. One of them sat askew from the others, and he noticed that this particular spot sported a plate covered in crumbs. Another place, close to the foot of the table, also had a plate decorated with food. Near a doorway on the opposite side of the room from him, which appeared to lead out onto a dusty road, was a large fireplace made of stone with an oven and stove setup directly next to it. Along that same half of the wall was a large sink.

And in front of that sink was a girl. She looked to be about his age, with long, bright red hair tied into a single tail. She wore a green, one-piece dress with no sleeves, revealing her spindly arms. At first, she had been humming to herself while she scrubbed dirty dishes. But as he descended, an audible groan from one step gave away his presence to her, causing her to turn. Her dark eyes switched from curious to alarmed, and she quickly set down the plate she was scrubbing. She strode towards him with a frightening vigor while drying her hands on a white apron.

"Jus' wait a minute now," she told him in a peculiar accent. She reached out to him and pulled his left arm over her shoulder. Then she put her right arm around his back with her hand clamped under his right armpit. Her back stiffened, and she helped him down the rest of the stairs. With one foot, she pulled out the closest chair to the table and deposited him into it. "There," she said as he relaxed against the back of the chair. She leaned in closer to his face. "Are yeh feelin' better now?"

"Uh… y-yeah," he answered, feeling his face grow hot. "Th-thank you."

She smiled and stepped around him on her way back to the sink. "Breakfast has been waitin' for yeh," she told him. "Yeh might want ta eat an' get yer strength back."

"Right," he said, looking down at the plate. He froze in place when he saw it staring back at him. With two fried eggs for eyes, black berries shaped as a nose, and strips cooked meat arranged to be a smiling mouth against the edge of the plate, he found himself questioning his appetite, not to mention his willingness to eat a plate so carefully and… strangely laid out. Cautiously, he picked up a piece of the meat between his fingers.

"There was some concern about yeh las' night," the girl spoke up as he dared to bite off one end. "Yeh showed up here all sorts o' battered an' all."

"Really?" he asked after swallowing.

"Um-hmm," she answered. "But I wasn' worried. Yeh don' seem the type."

He looked up from his plate with a confused look on his face. "I-I don't?"

"Um-hmm. Yeh look ma age, so I can tell yeh've got the strength." He sighed and continued to eat. She must not have been very tolerant of silence because she asked only a moment later, "What's yer name?"

His response came out a little shy. "Link."

She looked over her shoulder at him with a smile. "Tha's a unique name. I've never heard it before. Yeh mus' really be from another land."

Link nodded. "Yeah," he replied as he finally started remembering events from before. "It sure feels like it…"

She read the depression forming on his face and walked back over to him. "I'm Meilont."

"Mei—" Link started to say.

But before he could get another word out, the girl calling herself Meilont carefully wrapped her arms around his head. "Yeh don' have to be so sad," she whispered to him. "It makes me sad." Link was unsure how to respond, simply sitting in the chair with a confused look on his face.

Heavy steps coaxed a groan out of the floor. "Meilont, what are yeh doin'?" a man's voice asked in an irritated tone.

Meilont jumped away from Link with a nervous laugh. Link saw a large man standing in the doorway, large enough that he had to turn his shoulders so he could enter. He wore a thin, blue, sweat-soaked shirt under a pair of leather overalls, the shirt tight enough to expose his barrel chest. His face sported a thick, red beard. He unloaded an axe from his shoulder and set it against the wall. Link found his attention locked to this tool, as the handle rivaled his height and the double-bit blade looked as large as his head and sharp enough to slice his neck in two with one stroke.

"I was jus' tryin' ta comfort him, Dad," she replied in an innocent tone.

"He looks scared if anythin'," he answered. He fell heavily into the askew chair near the door. "How're yeh feelin', son?"

"He's doin' a'right," Meilont replied before Link could get a word out.

The man gave his daughter an irritated glare. Then he asked, "What's yer name, son?"

"His name's Link," Meilont said.

"Thank you, Meilont," he told her with a tone meant to silence her. Then he addressed Link, "Yeh mus' be starved by now. Go on, eat." Link nodded and continued to eat as he talked more. "I'm Talein. As you can imagine, this is ma home. I brought yeh here after yer ship fell out o' the sky last night."

Link paused. "How bad is it?"

Talein gave him a reluctant look. "It's been demolished. Most o' it fell apart before it hit the ground. I imagine the Bulblins livin' out on the field pulled all the metal off it by now. Tha's what they use to put their tanks together. I saw them jus' as I left."

"Oh." Silence filled the house for a moment. Talein sat with a sober expression on his face, and Meilont showed concern for Link. Link sighed and ate another bite. "So… you're the one who found me?"

"Yeah. Thought yeh might've died on impact, but yeh were still breathin'. I found yeh in one of the upper rooms."

Link took in a sharp breath just as he recalled being in his cabin as the Island Sonata fell. "Was there anyone with me?" he asked with a tone of urgency.

Talein shook his head. "No, I didn' see anyone but yeh. Yeh were wrapped in a blanket on top a pile o' clothes."

"No… one?" Link fell against the back of his chair. Irleen… where had she gone?

"I don' know what yeh were doin' up there in a ship all by yerself, but it doesn' look like yeh faired too well. I know it isn' gonna do much good ta remind yeh, but it looks like yeh might be stranded down here. We haven' got any airships down here, and all the Architects've been… hey, are yeh a'right?"

Link's breathing had speed up as Talein's words brought about the memories of the past two days. Two days of command, two days of discovery, all smashed to pieces in a night of careless action. The Island Sonata was destroyed, and the Sorians had lost their own vessel as well. Princess Zelda was gone, and Line, along with the rest of his crew, were likely dead. His stomach tightened with the thought of how all of them met their fates thanks to him. If only he had gone in the Horizon's Eye's place… If only… he had told Captain Alfonzo no…

"I feel sick." The words fell out of his mouth like drool as he leaned forward, arms cradling his stomach.

"I didn' mean to upset yeh," Talein quickly told him, rising from his chair in concern. "If yeh—"

"No, I'm going to be sick!" Link managed to say before his gag reflex cut him off. Feeling a fresh wave of pain, he stood and pulled his hunched frame around the table as fast as he could. Talein scrambled out of his way, ramming his back into the wall.

"Link!" Meilont cried out as she followed him.

Link reached the doorway and clamped his hand on the frame. Leaning out, he spun so his head hung over the grass instead of the dirt path leading up to the door. The rancid taste of gastric juice spoiled his taste as he vomited his breakfast out. His face paled, and his knees grew shaky as he stood over the discarded food. He did not stand there for long; it was too much effort. He carefully slid until his knees dropped to the ground.

He felt a hand rubbing his back and glanced over his shoulder to find Meilont offering him compassion. "Thank you," he croaked before he retched.

"There, there," she told him. "Jus' let it all out."

She looked up at her father, who hovered near the doorway with an empathetic frown showing through his beard. "Look," he said, "the doctor said yeh'll need rest so yeh can heal. If yeh wan', yeh can stay with us."

"Yeh can use ma room," Meilont added. Link said something, but his voice was quickly broken by a fit of coughing. "What?"

"Did…" he managed between breaths. "Did… you… bring… any… thing… else?"

"Like what?" Talein asked.

"Log… my… log."

"Log?"

"Log… book."

Talein gave a depressed sigh. "I'm sorry, Link. The only thing I had time to get was you. Much as I don' wanna say it, the only thin's yeh have left now are the clothes off yer back."

The only things left… He had not even had the comfort of waking with those. His home was the sky above, his life the first vessel he commanded. Now he was stranded to the world underneath that home, and he lost his first airship to the ravages of war incarnate. No friends on the surface, nothing familiar to him at all. All that remained now were his memories of that life and the pain he had received when it all fell apart. He was not sure which hurt more. Before he knew it, he was practically screaming his tears out of his watery eyes. Others who would have walked past the house without concern stopped in their tracks as the young man wailed and blubbered.

Link fell onto his seat and leaned against the doorframe, hands pressed into his face as his agony continued. He was not sure when he stopped, whether it had been minutes or hours, but when he did, he felt exhausted and hungry. He fell into a gradual silence.

"Feel better?" Meilont asked.

Link sniffed and shook his head. "No," he groaned.

Talein offered him a cup from behind. "Yeh might wanna wash yer mouth out." Link nodded and took the cup. Talein then used a hand to wave off the onlookers in front of his house. "Yer logbook… did yeh need it?"

Link spat out the water in his mouth to one side, feeling better now that his tongue was clean. "No," he replied in almost a whisper. "Not anymore, I guess."

"Well, when yeh feel like it, yeh've still got a hot meal waitin' for yeh." With that, he stepped past Link and disappeared down the road.

Meilont still hovered in front of him, crouched so that she could still look him in the eyes. "What will yeh do now?" she asked.

"I don't know," he confessed, wiping a stray tear away. "Without my ship…"

Meilont's expression changed to a shy smile. "If it comes to it, yeh can always stay here with us."

Unfortunately, the offer did nothing to alleviate Link's melancholy. He merely nodded and slowly got to his feet. Meilont led him back into the house, where she deposited him in the closest chair. She rounded the table to retrieve his plate.

"So… where am I?" he asked as she set it down in front of him.

"Small town we call Whittleton," she answered. "It isn' much, but we're a close folk. Mos' o' the men here work as lumberjacks, so everythin' yeh see is probably made o' wood."

"What… h-how did your father find me?" Link asked, pressing his fingers into his tired eyes.

"He was out lookin' about the plains," Meilont told him as she walked back to the sink. "The forest hasn' been feeling too well lately; a lot o' the trees have been sick. He was lookin' t' see if other areas were also dyin'. Yer lucky he found yeh; if it had been the Bulblins… well…" She spun to him with a bright look on her face. "No need to think about it, right?"

"Yeah…" Link sighed as he picked up a fork to start eating his eggs. Meilont decided to let him be for the moment and returned to washing dishes.

Link had his opportunity to eat in silence. Through all of the chaos and emotion of the day, he had developed an appetite that he had not even noticed until the scene outside. After she finished the dishes, Meilont disappeared upstairs for a moment. Link could hear her moving around and wondered what she was doing as he finished his plate.

"Hey, Link," Talein's voice sounded from behind, startling Link. He turned in his chair as Talein entered. Following him was a smaller man (still quite large compared to Link) wearing a white longcoat. This man's beard, longer than Talein's, was almost snow-white and seemed to compensate for the lack of grown atop his head. "This is Doctor Beld. He's the one who patched yeh up."

"An' no' a momen' t' soon, ah think," Beld said as he stepped forward and dropped a bag heavy with metal utensils on the table next to Link's plate. The sound prompted a worried look from Link. "Ah see yeh've go' yerself an 'ealtha appetite. Tha's good. Kicks the 'ealin' process oot o' bed." Link blinked in confusion, wondering if half the words coming from the doctor's mouth were even proper Hylian.

Meilont jogged into view from the stairs. "Oh, Doctor Beld!" she greeted him.

"Hallooooo, Meilon'," he bellowed at her with his arms wide, almost smacking Talein in the face. "An' how're yeh this good mornin'?"

"Good," she answered as she leapt over the final step. "How does Link look?"

"Eh, who? Link?" Talein tapped the doctor on the shoulder and pointed down at Link. "Oh, ho ho. Tha' Link! Well, ah was jus' beginnin' my examination o' 'im. Well, c'mon then, son, take the shirt off."

Link's face grew red. "Wha-what?"

"The shirt, son, the shirt!" Beld replied as he wrenched open the bag. "Din' yeh 'ave yer senses, boe?" Link gulped, slowly peeling away the shirt from his shoulders.

Meilont quickly rounded the table and strode past her father in a rush for the door. "LoveyehDadbebacksoon byeeeeeee," she blurted as she disappeared from sight.

"What was tha' about?" Talein wondered aloud.

"Kids these days," Beld moaned as he pulled a glove of thin leather out of the bag. "C'mon now, i's no' the time t' beh shy."

"D-do we have to do this… in front of the door?" Link asked as he hesitantly pulled one arm out of his sleeve.

"Look, son, ah 'ave five broken fingers, twenty seven broken toes, an' sixteen puss-filled bandages t' change in the nex' few hours b'fore lunch," Beld told him. He stopped to fit his hand into the leather glove, which gave an audible groan as he forced his palm inside. When he was satisfied, he held his hand up to show Link what looked like a petrified claw. "Ah don' 'ave the time to beh treatin' yeh like a babeh." Link gave a slow nod as he finished pulling the shirt off. The doctor gave a huff as he fit a finger underneath Link's wrap. "Bruisin' gone down qui' a bit. Either o' yer arms in pain?"

Link shook his head. "N-no…"

"Good," the doctor said as he stepped behind Link. "Ah don' wanna 'ave t' wrap yeh anymore than necessareh. Yeh've a'readeh 'ad enough bad luck up t' now anyway." Link jumped in surprise when the doctor prodded his back. "Tha' hurt?"

"A lit—Yipe!" Link replied when the doctor pressed a hand hard against Link's side.

"Well, yeh don' 'ave any broken bones," Beld told him. "Skin's still tender an' slightleh bruised, bu' ah be' i'll 'eal soon enough. Yeh don' wanna beh movin' aroun', so yeh bes' beh stayin' in bed fer a' leas' t'night."

"Thank yeh, Doctor," Talein told him.

"No' a prob'm a' all," the doctor said reaching around Link to grab his bag. "Jus' see 'e gets res'; tha's all there's t' it."

"Understood," Talein said as the doctor left. Then he looked down at Link as the young man put the borrowed shirt back on. "Yeh can use the bed we put yeh in. If yeh need anythin', jus' tell me or Meilont." Link nodded his understanding and stood to walk upstairs.

From there, Link spent the rest of the day in bed. It eased his sore body being in a bed that did not swing nor had a wooden plank making up part of the cushion. He only wished his mind fared so well. For hours, he spent agonizing upon the failures that came about thanks to dereliction of his duty to both the princess and the Skyriders. What would Captain Alfonzo have to say when he realized that the Island Sonata had disappeared from the skies? And what would become of the kingdom itself with the last member of the royal family gone? He could only imagine, but imagining was all it took to bring a fresh tear to his eye time and again. Then, there was the question of the Sorians. What would they do when the Horizon's Eye did not return? What happened to the crew? Could they abandon ship and just ride the Sky Line to the nearest island? Would they be able to save Princess Zelda?

As for his own situation, he wondered what would become of his new life on the surface. The only thing he really knew was how to run an airship. Maybe he would try to find work on a sailing vessel. Yeah, that might have to be it; without any other talents, he would quickly find his life progressing far worse than now. This meant that he would have to look for work once he was up.

Meilont visited him twice during the afternoon to bring him a fresh meal. She also had to point out the small shack in the back of the house where the toilets were. It brought up an interesting point about the houses in Whittleton, at least what Link saw. They were all trees. The trunks, some of which could easily rival the Grand Sails in thickness, were hollowed out for families to live in. He could not help seeing the similarity between Whittleton and Kuruuk Nehai while, at the same time, finding delight in the vast differences between how these people lived compared to the Sorians. Maybe… he could get used to this.

He was sitting up in bed with his eyes cast out the window when Meilont came up the stairs again. She knocked on the doorframe to get his attention. "Can I come in?"

Link nodded. "Sure."

She approached him with a mischievous step, her hands behind her back. "How're yeh feelin'?"

Link sighed. "Better," he told her. He looked down at the sheets covering his legs. "I'm… sorry you had to see me crying earlier."

She shook her head. "It's no' so often a boy cries," she reassured him. "Besides, after what yeh've been through, I think yeh earned it."

"Yeah, but…" Link sighed and looked back out the window. "I don't know what to do now. I… never expected anything like this to happen."

"Well, maybe this will help." Link turned back to her as she offered something to him. He found it to be a book, barely larger than her hand with a leather cover. He took and opened it, finding the pages inside to be blank. "Yer new logbook." His gaze fell upon her again, and she blushed. "I mean… if yeh want it."

Much to his own surprise, Link found himself smiling. "Thank you."