Wow, thank you so much for all the lovely reviews, Birdie! So glad to hear you enjoyed my little touches and additions! Thanks also to James Birdsong; glad you enjoyed it.

Chapter 13: Clouded Fates

"Here is the statue, chosen one." Ireya gestured, and Link stepped around the corner to join her. Perhaps once nestled in an alcove, most of the wall that had sheltered it had collapsed inward into the greenly hummocked mound they had walked around. Other than a few thin plants twined around it, it was a twin for any of the idols scattered around Skyloft. "Its power will waken when you approach it."

Link nodded, glancing up. Wherever they were clearly didn't have the right soil to support trees well, or maybe the layers of tumbled stone were just too thick. Whatever the reason, it was an open space of grass and scrubby bushes, more than wide enough for a Loftwing to land in.

"Thank you, Ireya. I know this is your duty, but… really, I can't thank you and your people enough."

Ireya smiled, her eyes crinkling behind her face-concealing wrap. The clothes she was wearing seemed designed to blend into the forest at almost any distance, and she moved so silently that Link found it hard to keep track of her. "Find your friend Zelda and reach your destiny; that will be thanks more than enough for us all."

"Our prayers will go with you into the sky above," Davar added quietly from behind him. The two Sheikah had escorted him from the camp as easily and strangely as they'd brought him to it, leaving Link none the wiser as to where it was or even where he was now. Link turned to him, smiling.

"Thank you."

"Should we leave?" Ireya asked. Link shrugged.

"I don't mind. I don't need to be alone or anything." He looked at them both, the strange, improbable thought hitting him all over again that these people had never even seen a Loftwing. What was life like for them, trapped on the ground the whole time? What did it feel like to be without a bird's presence in the back of their minds? He remembered what the new sensation had felt like a lot better than he remembered what it felt like to be without it. Even now, there was something, the uncomfortable emptiness of a bond stretched thread-thin by distance.

He hoped the statue was as simple to use as Fi had made it sound.

Taking a deep breath, he walked up to it. Just as the one Gorko had shown him had, it shimmered briefly with a faint golden light in the depths of its carvings, one that faded again. Link gazed at it, the carved stone looking blankly back.

Just concentrate… He closed his eyes and focused, thinking of the red bird no doubt still waiting for him in the skies high above, thinking of calling him as he had thousands of times before: here, here I am, come to me, let's fly. He felt something, some power from outside himself bind itself up with the thought, sending his call spinning out over a distance he could never have crossed alone – and he felt it, felt his Loftwing's worry-surprise-relief, felt the call be heard and the slightly weary bird begin to dive. Not daring to move, Link concentrated on the feeling, on staying part of the connection. The Loftwing was flying in the direction he felt Link was, sunward-south and down, for a time. Then there was an opening, cave-mouth strange; Link didn't even recognise it until the bird was through and he was under-and-in, wide-open-island-under-island, and he realised it was the gap in the clouds and for the first and maybe only time his bird hadn't felt a single trace of that unreasoning fear on diving towards it, even passing through it. Amazed, he kept concentrating, his Loftwing making a sharp turn and flying unerringly towards the source of the call.

"He's coming," Link said quietly, and behind him the two Sheikah looked up to the permanently clouded sky. Minutes passed, strong wings beating through strangely thick air, until at last a speck appeared against the clouds, grew to a shape, a red shape – a shape that sighted Link still not daring to move away from the statue, and rejoiced so utterly that he couldn't have stopped himself smiling had he tried.

Soon enough the red Loftwing had landed in a flurry of wingbeats, long legs finding firm footing in the thin grassy soil, and called to Link even as he turned from the statue and ran to him, the bird bowing low to let Link throw his arms around the feathery neck. The Loftwing squawked an anxious greeting, and Link smiled. He hadn't imagined just how relieved he would feel.

"I'm back, it's okay, yeah. It's all right. We're going to go home, just for a bit. I told you I'd be fine, didn't I? I'm fine. I even met some people who helped me." Link turned, keeping one hand on his Loftwing's neck, only to realise that the Sheikah were gone, or at least unseen.

"Uh… hello? Ireya, Davar? You can meet him if you want…"

The two melted back into view from behind a bush, both of them keeping a circumspect eye on the gigantic bird.

"That bird is a gift of the goddess…"

"I never thought I would see one. Even the legends…"

Link smiled, obscurely relieved that they hadn't vanished after all. "Do you want to say hello?"

Unaccountably, they hesitated, looking at one another. Link couldn't understand why: raised in a realm where the birds were as common and ubiquitous as the people they were bonded to, it had never even occurred to him to be afraid of one, or that the huge tip-hooked beak might look fearsome.

"Very well," Ireya said, after several long seconds. "But I… do not know how to approach."

Confused and uncertain, Link didn't really know what to tell her. "Just come over here. He knows you're a friend."

Ireya seemed very hesitant as she walked slowly towards the huge bird, his beak easily twice the size of her head. No more certain than Link was the problem was, the Loftwing cooed reassuringly, as if she was a very small child. She stopped a pace or so away, glancing from the bird to Link and back again.

"Is this… acceptable?"

Link nodded. Even his Loftwing nodded, head dipping in a mimic of the gesture all the humans used. "Yeah. See? And he'll remember you almost as well as I will. So if you see him again, he'll know you're a friend."

Ireya smiled faintly. "That's good. Thank you. Thank you very much."

Link smiled back. "You're welcome."

He glanced over his shoulder as the first stirrings of something began to make itself felt through their link, a tiny flicker of uncertainty and discomfort, as if the surroundings were somehow growing faintly threatening. Whatever the statue had done to bring his bird below the clouds, it didn't feel like it was going to last very long.

"I'd better go – I don't think he can stay down here for long. I hope your people stay safe."

"We will," Ireya said with a nod, backing off a few paces. Link's Loftwing bent slightly for his rider to mount, the subtle low-level anxiety pushing him to get them both into the air, and Link climbed on. The Loftwing straightened, turned, seeking a clear-ish runway to get airborne: it was much easier to dive from the side of an island than to leap into the air, though the birds all could if they had to. Settling on one, he ran; leapt; wings completed the all-important first downstroke – and they were in the air, flapping madly to gain altitude before reaching the trees.

Link looked back once, but the Sheikah were already gone.

The Loftwing made a beeline for the gap in the clouds, flying so fast Link had to urge him to slow down a little. Only when they rose up into the clear skies did his growing anxiety finally abate, replaced by a familiar thrill: they had done something risky and it had gone well. Though Link hadn't found Zelda, the knowledge that she wasn't far ahead of him, and probably had the Sheikah's help, gave him hope that perhaps, when he descended again, he would – and that she would be all right.

. . .

Link landed on Skyloft to a gathering crowd, his red Loftwing suddenly far more recognisable than he really wanted. A hundred questions seemed to assail him from all sides as he dismounted, and it seemed as though more people were arriving every moment, trying to greet him, to ask him so many questions he could barely separate out the words. He'd never been so grateful for Headmaster Gaepora's sudden appearance, his usually softly-spoken voice raised to cut through the chaos of words.

"Please, everyone, stand back. I'm sure we'll all hear Link's story, but not right now. Let him sit down and explain, and I promise you all, you will hear it."

Mayor Herrene must have arrived at the back of the crowd, as her higher-pitched voice took advantage of the sudden silence to call into it. Link always forgot just how well the short, stockily-built woman could project her voice when she needed to.

"Listen to the Headmaster and stand back, please. We don't need to delay the search for one of our own by crowding our best seeker. Link, won't you accompany myself and Headmaster Gaepora back to the Knight Academy?" She made her way to the front of the crowd, people standing back slightly shamefacedly to let her pass, and looked up at the rather taller headmaster. "If you don't mind my commandeering your library again, Gaepora?"

Gaepora looked relieved. "Of course not, Herrene. Please, Link, walk with us."

"Thank you," Link managed gratefully. The crowd parted for them, though not without whispering and murmuring from all directions, and the short walk from the landing stage to the Academy felt like one of the longest of his life.

It was a relief to enter the headmaster's familiar study, even with Mayor Herrene there as well. Gaepora pulled out chairs for them both and invited them to sit.

"So, Link," he asked anxiously, "how has your search gone? Have you found any sign of my daughter?"

Link nodded, and before he could do more than open his mouth to speak, the headmaster was talking again, desperate relief in his voice as he clung to the hope that answer offered.

"Thank the goddess. When they found her bird, I…"

"You've found her Loftwing?! Was she all right?"

Gaepora shrugged glumly. "She was found on one of the little islands nearby, flightless. She's badly strained her wing muscles and she's lucky it's not worse, but she… she was showing the same kind of seeking behaviour you usually see in a bird who's lost her rider. We have her caged in one of the recovery pens to stop her trying to fly off."

Link cringed, looking down. It was rare that a Loftwing lost its rider, but it happened. The wide skies were more than big enough to lose oneself in, and if something happened on a solo flight, there would be no-one there to know. All anyone might ever learn would be if they found the Loftwing, sometimes perching listlessly as if they'd lost the will to live; sometimes ceaselessly quartering the skies in a futile search pattern. Some Loftwings wasted away and died after the loss of their rider; others eventually became feral, rejoining the half-wild colonies on the rockier small islands where the birds lived, bred, and spent much of their time when they weren't around their humans.

"She was okay yesterday evening. I… I almost caught up with her. Fi could tell she was on the other side of a door, but – there was…" How could he phrase it? How could he say anything other than the increasingly ridiculous-sounding truth? "There was a demon trying to get through the same door. He called himself Ghirahim. We fought him, and… Zelda had left by the time the battle was over." His eyes met the headmaster's suddenly, recollection jolting through him: he had proof! "But she left this, under a stone tablet." His left hand darted into a pouch; drew out Zelda's bleached handkerchief and offered it to Gaepora, who took it in a shaking hand and gazed at it much as Link had, searching for and finding the embroidered initial and Loftwing in one corner. The relief that washed over the older man's face was like sunlight after a heavy storm.

"That is a good sign," Mayor Herrene agreed, seeing Gaepora struck almost speechless and smoothly taking charge. "It seems our good headmaster was right to let you go flying off as he did." She directed a slightly pointed smile at him, which the headmaster completely ignored. It was an interaction that had the ease of long familiarity – between them, they were the two most powerful figures of authority on Skyloft – and Link didn't think there was any harm or malice in it. "Now, is there anything I can have brought for you? We'll need a full report."

Other than water, of which there was a jug on the headmaster's desk, Link couldn't think of anything. He shook his head. "I don't think so." She looked at him expectantly, and he took a deep breath, trying to set everything in order from the very beginning...

Apologies for the slightly late-to-upload chapter; very mundane reasoning - an electrical appliance has developed a fault and so I've been dealing with that as well as writing this chapter!

Patch Notes
- Skyloft system of governance now exists.
- Zelda's Loftwing no longer completely forgotten by the plot.
- "Mass confusion" removed as (terrible) excuse for not explaining the community tragedy.