Thank you all so much! I'm really glad everyone seems to be liking what I'm doing with Impa. I feel like she has a really good reason to be kind of terse and sharp, not because she means anything by it, but just because she must live such a hard, deadly life. We know she must be the best of the Sheikah or they would send someone else (since I have assumed she didn't just spawn magically into existence! ;-) ), so I can only imagine she's also been out on other terrible tasks… And we also know she must be devoted and loyal, and I think that would really come out as she tries to help Zelda / her goddess in whatever ways she can.
Chapter 55: A Cloud on the Wind
Awakening the morning after losing Zelda to the Gate of Time, Link had hurried back to the levitrain and ridden it back to the silent, dead city of Cronellon, where he'd refilled his water and hastened towards the mines, heeding Fi's warning and his own concerns about asking his loftwing to fly for too long in the desert heat. He'd needed to sleep once during the journey, finding a sheltered room in a half-crumbled building on the edge of Cronellon and barricading himself inside, continuing on as soon as he woke.
Finally leaving the mine to see the giant statue he'd landed on – which he now recognised, seeing it again, as one of a robot much like Bead – Link saw with relief the two statues flanking it, their wings spread just as Link's own loftwing's might be even now, circling above. So very dimly, at the back of his mind, he could feel a distant fear-and-worry and nothing more. In all Link's life, since the moment his bird had come to him, they had never been apart so long: even when he was ill the red loftwing would appear at the window, squawking loudly and insistently, tipping his head this way and that to see Link through the small glass panes – and however bad he felt, Link had always forced himself to stand, to walk the few short paces to the window and open it to let the bird poke his head inside to be held, the contact soothing boy and bird alike.
"I'm coming," he whispered softly, walking to the leftward statue and kneeling before it. It was no effort at all to fling his call wide, caught up and amplified by its power, strengthening his link to the loyal, brave bird circling high above. At once a sense of inexpressible relief flooded through him, the red loftwing diving with a cry, arrowing down with the wind almost a solid thing against his extended head, his back-swept wings. Link looked up as his loftwing swept down, pulling up only at the very last minute to swoop overhead with a speed that sent sand skittering away from his path, the buffeting gust forcing Link to shut his eyes against the sand. The loftwing swooped in a circle once, shedding speed, then made a landing almost awkward in its hastiness.
Link ran to him before his wings were even folded, throwing reassuring arms about the bird's long neck. The sense of relief and joy he felt, the tension of days of worry finally melting away, was beyond description.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know I'd have to leave you this long. It's all right now. It's all right…"
The red loftwing cooed, a gentle sound at the back of his throat, head folded over Link's shoulder with the great beak just touching his back. He could feel the other query beginning to fade through the euphoria, and sighed, and moments later felt the loftwing all but sigh too in shared understanding. They still hadn't rescued their lost flockmate.
"We'll find her," Link said aloud. "She told me to talk to the Sheikah. They have to know something…"
Sensing the first stirrings of unease at being on the ground, Link released his bird, running a hand through his bright plumage as he walked around and clambered onto his back. It felt such a simple, natural move after all the long days of walking, just himself and Fi alone in the desert. Bracing themselves together, Link and his loftwing tensed, ran, and leapt into the sky, beating strongly up and away towards the floating island they called home.
. . .
By the time they reached Skyloft, it was well past noon, the sun slipping down from its zenith and inexorably towards night. Landing on one of the Academy platforms, Link dismounted quickly and hurried inside, silently grateful for the lessons he could hear fragments of drifting out from the classrooms.
"...tall, bluish-black cloud sighted to the northwest at a distance…"
"...multiplied by two point four eight…"
"...nature of the text is that…"
He clambered up the central staircase, and braced himself before knocking on the door to the headmaster's office. The response was immediate, and almost tense.
"Come in?"
Link opened the door and stepped inside, Headmaster Gaepora leaning forward over the top of the desk to peer at his visitor. Seeing Link, he got to his feet with quill still in hand, knocking a sheet of paper awry.
"Link!" Clear relief showed in his face and voice. "Thank the goddess you're safe! Are you hurt? And Zelda…?"
Link shook his head, confirming what the headmaster had already guessed when he began to shut the door behind himself. "I found her again, Headmaster, but…" He struggled for words. How could he explain what had happened, the incredible thing that he had seen Zelda destroy? How could he explain that she was, as far as Fi could tell, somewhere in the distant past? How could he even explain the days of travel across the arid desert, land without an end; or the corpse of poor Bead; or the vast mechanical building that had risen from beneath the sand?
"But?" Headmaster Gaepora asked anxiously, rounding the desk to approach him.
"She… she gave me her harp, and promised I'd see her again, and…" The look on the headmaster's face forced Link to keep talking, unbelievable as he knew it had to sound. "She was at the Gate of Time like she said, and I found it, but she… She went through it, and she broke it, we think so Ghirahim couldn't go after her. Fi says she should be safe, but she's… in the past now. Fi says the Gate let her go back in time, but she didn't know when to."
Unprompted, Fi vaulted from the sword with a soft chime, perfect and expressionless, and a note of surprise and awe filtered into the headmaster's worried, dismayed, even afraid expression. "I am able to confirm Master Link's statement. The Gate of Time was constructed in honour of the Goddess of Time, and permitted travel to any other moment in time in which it existed. I was unable to determine the time to which it was attuned when it was broken. Despite the breaking of the Gate of Time in Lanayru Desert, there is an unknown probability that it will be possible to reunite with her. Her final instruction was to seek out the Sheikah and ask for their assistance."
"The old lady at the temple I went to first is a Sheikah." Link added. "I'm going to go back there first thing… after I've resupplied."
Gaepora looked him over, eyes lingering on the bloodstains, the rips and scorchmarks marring his increasingly ragged uniform.
"That's wise, Link," he said quietly. "I cannot hide how much I want you to find her, but you will not succeed if you are not prepared. You have already faced more danger in these past nine days than I expect most of my students to in their lifetimes. I do not know why the goddess has chosen you for this fate, but if her trust is placed in you, then I can do no less." His eyes slid briefly to Fi, and Link thought he saw an echo of pleading in the usually unflappable headmaster's expression. "But if there is anything that we are able to do to aid you…?"
Link glanced to Fi, who watched, impassive.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "The surface is… Without Fi, I'd have got into a lot of trouble." Images flashed through his mind of all the things she'd warned him about, all the things she'd told him of, confirmed were safe or explained how to deal with. "I don't even know if the statues that let me call my loftwing will work for anyone else. Or what would happen if anyone else tried to follow me through the clouds. I think it's just an opening, but…"
"Additionally," Fi said, her voice quietly musical in the book-lined office, "greater numbers present upon the surface have a high probability of drawing demonic attention. Observations of the way of life that the Sheikah have adopted suggest that the danger to large groups that are unable to conceal their presence is sufficient to outweigh even exceptional martial training. Further observation of the demonic forces present on the surface confirms that the probability of increased numbers drawing an increased threat is almost 100%."
"Yeah… that, too." The thought of danger to the Sheikah left another hollow feeling in Link's stomach. When he returned, would he learn that Davar was still alive… or dead? "I told you what – what happened on the volcano. I…" The worst of it was that he did want help. If he could have the fearless Knight Commander with him, at the head of a wing of fully trained and long since graduated Knights of Skyloft, able to guard and protect him… But he knew, just as Fi had said, that it was only a fantasy. Armed with her sword, he alone had the guidance each of them would need just to survive, and unlike the subtle Sheikah, they would be as obvious down there as a new island suddenly appearing would be in the sky. "…I wish it would help. I don't want the two of us to have to do everything alone. But… Fi's right, Headmaster. I don't know what anyone else could do down there."
Gaepora sighed. "I fear you are correct. Well… See Eagus for any new equipment or repairs… and I'll ask Kakara for some extra changes of uniform. And, if you need to buy anything from the market, take this." He fished around in his belt pouch before extracting a handful of rupees, at least one silver glinting amongst the reds. Link's eyes widened, but the headmaster caught his hand and pressed them into it before he could do more than begin to shake his head. "No, don't protest, just take them. Rupin flaps up enough of a fuss about the Academy's account as it is; if you want anything from him, you'll do better to have crystal in hand, never mind if you get up to the Airshop. Besides, you won't waste them. Think of it as official funding for your mission."
Link closed his fingers slowly, half reluctantly. The headmaster was right, of course. All the students knew about the standing arrangement the Academy had with some of the shops, and every now and again someone would get caught trying to claim their own purchases against it. Five or six years ago, Link had actually seen someone expelled over it. He'd have a hard time convincing anyone that he, as a student only just into the upper class, really had been given Academy permission.
I still owe the Lumpy Pumpkin… he thought guiltily, almost absurdly. It felt like a whole life and half the sky away.
"In fact," Gaepora said, striding back to his desk, "let's just make it official…" He looked ruefully at the quill he'd dropped onto the desk, ink splattered beneath it, and picked it up, dipping it quickly in the inkwell before scribbling quickly onto a fresh sheet of paper and signing at the bottom, signature all loops and whirls. "There," he said, already crossing back to Link. "Go get Knight Commander Eagus to countersign this: it's your official orders to expend that on equipping yourself for your mission as you see fit."
"…Yes, Headmaster," Link said slightly numbly, accepting the sheet of still-wet paper with his free hand and passing it to the other, further hiding the handful of rupees with it. "Er… now?"
"Yes, I think that's best," the headmaster replied. "I'd like to hear your report, but… perhaps it would be best if you write it up. At least the key points."
Relieved, Link nodded sharply. "Of course, Headmaster." He hesitated. "When I saw Zelda…"
"Yes?"
"She gave me her harp – the one from the Wing Ceremony, I mean. She said I'd need it if she wasn't with me. Fi says it's been imbued with the goddess' power." Link struggled to swing the strap over his head with his free hand, got it stuck on his shield, and grimaced as the taller man reached over his shoulders with a kind of desperate care, unhooking it easily and cradling the harp in his arms. Link stepped back a pace, allowing him to. It was the closest either of them could get to Zelda, and he'd sat up with it in his lap when he made camp in his journey back through the desert.
"Zelda…" murmured Gaepora, and Link flinched inwardly. He couldn't even imagine how much harder it had to be for her father, able only to stay on Skyloft and wait anxiously for news like a nesting loftwing bound to its eggs.
"I can come back…" he ventured.
Gaepora took a deep breath, and Link could hear the heaviness in his voice. "No… no, Link, if she said you will need this, then I must be sure that you keep it." He paused for a moment, reluctant to relinquish it. "She didn't give you its storage pouch, so… let me think. Yes – the case for the one she had when she was younger should still be in storage." Turning back to his desk, he set the harp gently down on it, the faintest shiver of sound struck from the strings as he did. Moments later he was stepping around, sitting back in his seat, looking in the drawers for something. "Hmm… no, here – I have it."
Link watched as the headmaster wrote another, hastier note, once again finished with his familiar looping signature, then folded it around something small and flat. He stood once more, offering this new token to Link.
"This is… is Zelda's storage token at the Baggage Check, and a note asking young Peatrice to fetch you Zelda's old harp. In the circumstances… well, even if she does mind, if it would only bring her back here to berate me herself I will be content. Bring me Zelda's old harp, I'll set that one up in its case, and… well, perhaps I will keep the old harp out. Until you and she have completed this destiny that the goddess has set before you…"
His eyes flickered to Fi, just for a heartbeat, but she said nothing.
"… and you both come home."
The uncertainty of the headmaster's hope struck a chord with Link's own, wavering as it was. Every time they reached for Zelda she receded, like the promise of an island ahead that was only in truth a cloud driven on the same wind they rode.
"We'll do it, Headmaster," he said quietly, the words as much or more a promise to himself.
"Yes… I have faith that you will."
Ughhh, I said I was back and I am, but I have been fighting this blasted chapter! I didn't know who to write it about, then it refused to get started, then I had to backtrack and triple-check events of earlier chapters... Anyway, here we are, and maybe soon we will see some more of the people of Skyloft. Peatrice is up soon – I mostly just find her in-game slightly annoying (what do you mean literally the only way not to date this woman is to either be outright rude to her or never use one of the game's actual mechanics and be unable to complete the Batreaux quest?), but based on everything she says, I'm kind of fond of the version I've extrapolated. So I'm looking forward to that.
The big thing I'm looking forward to in the long-term, though (other than various Zelda bits and pieces), is the part where Eldin Volcano erupts literally while we're descending on it. Poor Fi is going to have an interesting (to the author/reader, anyway!) time on her own, given all the events we've already established…
Patch Notes
- Loftwings remain important, emotionally, socially, and culturally.
- Headmaster continues to actually worry about, I don't know, his daughter and also her best friend trying to find her, especially after he vanishes for multiple days.
- Headmaster reacts to each surface event instead of only rarely.
