Ten years after the guardian incident, storm clouds gathered over the council chambers. The unusual green tint in the sky matched the patina on the ancient dial-wood table where Skypien and Shandorian representatives faced each other like pieces on a game board.
Link stood behind Ganfar's chair, studying the room as his mentor had taught him. Each delegate's posture told a story - Skypien wings rustling with nerves, Shandorian hands deliberately open in peace. But it was Shura who drew his eye. The warrior's fingers drummed a battle-rhythm against his leg, his scarred face reflecting torchlight like old bronze. Above, his roc Fuza circled restlessly, dark wings casting prophet-shadows across the floor.
"The Upper Yard sustains us," Ganfar's voice carried the weight of leadership, "but it was their home first." His hand traced the table's weathered surface, mapped with three centuries of failed negotiations.
Shura's armor creaked as he leaned forward. "And how many more villages must burn while we debate ancient claims?" The scar across his left eye caught the light - a testament to prices already paid. "Show them your scars, brother. Show them what peace has cost us."
Link recognized the danger in Shura's tone - the same edge that crept in during training when memories of smoke-choked skies surfaced. His mentor had taught him to read deeper than wing-tells, and now he saw the signs: fingers straying to old wounds, eyes tracking exits, the subtle shift of weight toward weapon-hand.
Through the council chamber windows, Link watched storm clouds gather on the horizon. Their unusual green tint reminded him of the stories Shura used to tell during training – tales of the day everything changed, when strange lightning turned the sky the color of sea-stone and left half of Sky Knight Squadron dead in its wake.
Back then, Link had been too young to understand the haunted look in Shura's eyes when he spoke of it. Now, watching the warrior pace before the dial-wood table, Link recognized the signs of old wounds festering. Shura's fingers kept straying to the scar across his left eye – a nervous tell he only showed when memories of that day surfaced.
"Need any help with those forms?" Shura's voice startled Link from his thoughts. The older knight had paused his pacing to watch Link practice, something softening in his battle-hardened features. For a moment, Link glimpsed the mentor who had first taught him to compensate for his missing wings, who had shown him how to turn that difference into strength.
"Actually..." Link hesitated, then held out his practice sword. "The Shandorian balance patterns you showed me last year – I'm still struggling with the third sequence."
Shura's hands moved automatically to correct Link's grip, but froze at the sight of the newly carved Shandorian symbols alongside the traditional Skypien marks. His jaw tightened. "You're still training with them."
It wasn't a question. Link squared his shoulders, ready for the familiar argument. But Shura just looked tired, the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that came from fighting the same battle too long.
"I remember believing as you do," Shura said quietly, his gaze distant. "That we could find common ground. That peace was possible." His hand drifted to his scar again. "Then I watched them burn our villages. Watched good knights fall protecting people who spat on their sacrifices. The Shandorians claim they want peace, but their actions..." He shook his head. "Sometimes protection requires strength they're unwilling to use."
Before Link could respond, horns signaled the council's start. He watched Shura's expression harden as Shandorian representatives filed in, noting how the warrior's hand never strayed far from his weapon. The roc Fuza circled overhead, its agitation matching its master's.
When Shura spoke to the council, his voice carried the weight of too many losses.
"How many more must we lose before we take real action? We cannot build a future on the bones of our people." His eyes locked Ganfar's. "Sometimes peace comes at too high a price."
Link saw Ganfar flinch at those words–some old wound between them reopening.
"Ganfar, the Shandians want only to reclaim what we took from them. How long can we deny them their rightful land?" Shura's voice sliced through the tense atmosphere, his narrowed gaze piercing Ganfar.
His pencil-thin mustache quivered with intensity as he pressed on, "We've negotiated for years, Ganfar. The Shandians have shown remarkable patience. How much longer can we expect them to wait?"
Ganfar's weathered face betrayed the weight of their decisions. 'Shura, this isn't solely about land or wealth,' he insisted, his voice heavy with conviction. 'It's about honor, dignity, and the very essence of knighthood. To forsake them is to forsake ourselves."
Link stood at attention behind Ganfar's chair, his posture mirroring his mentor's calm strength. As accusations flew across the council chamber, his fingers didn't fidget with his sword hilt like they had in his first meetings. Instead, he watched, noting how each speaker's stance betrayed their true feelings - the way the Skypien elder's wings rustled when nervous, how the Shandorian representative's hands stayed deliberately open to show peaceful intent.
When Shura's voice rose with barely contained rage, Link stepped forward, not back. "Perhaps," he said, voice steady despite the weight of all eyes turning to him, "we could examine the successful trade routes established in the eastern sectors?" His hand sketched a path through the air, tracing the routes where Skypien and Shandorian merchants had found common ground. "The cloud-berry exchange has benefited both peoples."
Shura's lip curled, but Link met his gaze without flinching. Three years ago, he would have wilted under that battle-hardened stare. Now he stood his ground, letting his actions speak: here was someone who had learned from both cultures, who could see beyond ancient grudges.
The tension eased fractionally as council members began discussing the trade proposal. Only Ganfar noticed how Link's boots had unconsciously shifted into the balanced stance of a Shandorian warrior, even as he used the diplomatic phrases of a Skypien knight.
But before his mentor could respond, the chamber plunged into unnatural silence. Static crackled through the air as a figure wreathed in lightning materialized.
"Well said, warrior." Eneru's voice held the purr of a predator recognizing wounded prey. "Such passion, such pain – wasted on those who will never understand the true cost of protection." His bare feet left scorch marks on marble as he approached Shura. "They call for peace while your people die. Call for patience while threats gather. How long since you've felt truly heard?"
Link's breath caught as he saw Shura's resistance waver. The warrior's face reflected years of frustration, of watching diplomacy fail while those he'd sworn to protect suffered. Eneru's words struck at fears Link had glimpsed in training sessions, in late-night talks about duty and sacrifice.
"I can give you the power to protect them properly," Eneru continued, electricity dancing between his fingers. "No more half-measures. No more watching good knights die while politicians' debate."
"Shura," Link stepped forward, recognizing the dangerous precipice. "Remember what you taught me–about finding strength in what makes us different? About protecting all Skypia's people?"
For a moment, Shura's eyes met his, full of conflicting emotions – pride, pain, desperate hope. Then Eneru's lightning filled the chamber, and Link saw his former mentor's choice written in the set of his shoulders. Not a sudden betrayal, but the final break of something long stressed to its limits.
When Eneru turned his power against the council, Shura didn't draw his weapon–his neutrality a deeper blow than any attack. Through the chaos of people scrambling for weapons, Link's voice cut clear: "The children - get them to the inner sanctum!" His words carried the ring of command, not panic. Two younger knights immediately broke off to escort the council's youngest members to safety.
Link's movements were deliberate as he positioned himself between Eneru and the retreating group. His shield didn't shake as electricity danced across its surface. The sea stone edge gleamed, a silent reminder that even gods could be challenged.
"Fascinating," Eneru drawled, electricity arcing between his fingers. "The wingless one presumes to direct others?" His power built like a gathering storm.
Link's response was action, not words. He caught a falling tapestry with his blade, the heavy fabric intercepting a bolt meant for a stumbling elder. In the same motion, he kicked a ceremonial spear to a disarmed guard, never taking his eyes off Eneru. The message was simple: he would protect everyone, regardless of their origin.
The copper taste of ozone flooded the air as Eneru raised his hand. Static crackled across skin and metal, making armor joints buzz and teeth ache. The very stones beneath their feet vibrated with contained power, dust dancing in patterns that defied gravity. Link's hair stood on end, every instinct screaming danger. Before anyone could move, lightning struck the council table, reducing the ancient shell to ash in an instant.
"A demonstration," Eneru purred, stepping through the smoke. Where his feet touched, marble bubbled and cracked. "Of what awaits those who resist their god."
Link's shield arm ached from deflecting the electrical backlash, but he forced himself to analyze rather than react. Eneru's power flowed like water - no, like storm winds, following paths of least resistance. Each blast left a millisecond of silence before the thunder. In that pattern lay possibility...
As if reading his thoughts, Eneru's next attack came faster, harder. Link dove into a roll. Centuries of Shandorian combat training guiding his movement. His borrowed knowledge might not match a god's power, but it could keep him alive long enough to protect others. The weight of both peoples' hopes pressed against his back like phantom wings.
"Your mixed loyalties make you weak," Eneru taunted, gesturing at Link's sword with its dual cultural markings. "What is a boy who belongs nowhere against a god?"
Link answered with action, not words. His feet found Groose's grounded stance while his blade rose in Ganfar's chief guard - a perfect fusion of both his peoples' arts. Let Eneru see what real unity looked like.
Eneru materialized behind Ganfar with a crackle of electricity, whispering sinister words. A shiver ran down Ganfar's spine, but he stood firm, his voice steady but strained. "Everyone, lower your weapons. For now, we'll concede," Ganfar declared, his eyes meeting Link's with a mixture of resolve and concern.
Shura's expression as he watched Ganfar forced to surrender held no joy, only grim resignation. The look of a man who believed he was choosing the only path left to truly protect his people, no matter the cost to his soul.
Ganfar's words dropped like stones into the tense silence, their ripples unsettling the bedrock of Link's trust.
With a heavy sigh, Link reluctantly lowered his hand from his sword, his eyes never wavering from Ganfar's steady gaze. The chamber fell into a tense silence, broken only by the echoing laughter of Eneru, whose presence loomed like a dark cloud over their sanctuary.
Boots scraped against worn cobblestones as the crowd pressed back, carving an impromptu arena from the town square. The air hummed with static, making banners snap against their poles and loose hair stand on end. Metal clinked against metal as warriors adjusted their grips on ancient weapons. Cobblestones trembled beneath stamping hooves as the two warriors squared off, their shadows stretching like omens of ancient stones.
Ganfar, the legendary warrior, commanded respect as he sat astride his mighty steed Piere's wings outstretched over his pink body in defiance. Ancient scars mapped his face like prophecies. Across the arena, Shura's mount pawed the earth, each strike echoing through the sudden silence. When Ganfar finally raised his head, the crowd drew back - they had expected a warrior but found instead a legend preparing for his last stand.
Ganfar extended a hand in the old gesture of peace. "And what about justice for those we've lost? What protection for those who still live in fear?" The question hung on the battlefield; one last flag planted in the ground.
"'Justice?" Shura spat the word like poison. 'I've seen your justice burn with our villages.' His lance point traced battle formations in the dust, old habits surviving betrayal. "Every scar tells a story of your precious peace."
His voice dropped to a warrior's whisper; the kind used before ambush. "Some debts can only be paid in blood."
Across the arena, Shura's steed, Fuza, screeched in return, his own wings slapping over his curving beak. Shura adjusted his grip on the lance three times, matching the old pre-battle ritual he and Ganfar once shared. His scarred fingers found new positions instead of familiar ones, each shift erasing another fragment of brotherhood. When he spurred his mount forward, he charged with a warrior's precision but none of a friend's mercy.
"Start by teaching him a lesson," Eneru's mocking voice sliced through the tension like a razor's edge. The self-proclaimed "God" lounged indolently upon his throne, a cruel smirk playing across his features as he gestured for the deadly spectacle to begin.
For a tense moment, predator and prey locked eyes, two titans measuring the resolve in their opponent's gaze. Then, like an arrow from a bow, Shura surged forward, his steed's hooves thundering against the hard-packed earth.
Ganfar stood unmoving, an indomitable bastion carved from ancient stone. Shura's lance struck in a furious flurry, each blow brutal enough to fell lives, yet Ganfar refused to raise his weapon. Blood dripped from Ganfar's clenched jaw, each drop marking the rhythm of his measured breathing. His hands, scarred from decades of swordplay, pressed flat against the stones - not to surrender, but to push himself up once more. The ancient knight's medallion still hung straight despite his battered state, its polished surface catching light like a defiant star.
Steel found gaps in Ganfar's armor like rain finding cracks in old stone. Each strike stole another fraction of his strength until the proud knight folded like a war banner in a dead wind.
The crowd's silence weighed heavier than storm clouds. Veterans who had seen a thousand duels turned away, unable to watch as thirty years of brotherhood shattered beneath Shura's relentless strikes.
As Ganfar fell under Shura's relentless assault, Link's body reacted viscerally as clouds darkened overhead, their shadows painting the square in funeral grays. As Ganfar fell, the wind died, leaving an unnatural stillness broken only by Link's ragged breathing. Even the ever-present song of wind chimes fell silent, as if Skypia itself mourned. Link's boots scraped semicircles in the dust, marking defensive stances against an enemy he couldn't challenge. Each stance shifted to another before completing, his body cycling through years of training that offered no answer. Above, his crimson loftwing circled tighter and tighter, mirroring its partner's growing distress.
Link's mind raced like his first chaotic flight with Crimson - searching for stability in turbulent air, finding only more questions. Each solution dissolved like morning clouds, leaving him circling the same painful truth: his mentor had fallen.
Link's sword-callused fingers traced the Shandorian symbols on his hilt - once, twice, three times, an anxious ritual learned from Groose. His breath caught in the same three-beat rhythm Ganfar had taught him for sword strikes. Link's fingers found the worn groove on his sword hilt, the same spot where Ganfar's hands had guided his first practice swings. His stance shifted automatically into the defensive form his mentor had drilled into him countless dawns. Even now, facing betrayal, his body remembered every lesson, every shared moment of pride, every quiet word of encouragement.
When his mentor fell, Link's blade slipped from nerveless fingers, striking stone with the hollow ring of broken faith.
Link launched himself like a diving loftwing, each step carrying the precise fury of his aerial training. His sword traced the same arc as Crimson's wings cut through clouds, seeking purchase against divine lightning. But where sky currents yielded to his blade, Eneru's power stood immovable as the ancient beanstalk itself.
Lightning struck. Again. Again. Link's shield arm burned. His sword fell. Above him, Eneru's power built like a storm tide, each wave brighter than the last. When it finally broke, the young knight's defiance vanished beneath divine fury, swallowed by light that turned the very air to thunder.
Link's scream of agony was cut short as the searing lightning scorched his lungs, stealing his breath, his voice, and his consciousness.
"As agreed, I will restrain myself..." Eneru's voice, rich with mockery, cut through the air as his piercing gaze fell upon the broken forms of Ganfar and Link.
As Ganfar's broken form hit the ground, a stunned silence fell over the square. Then, like a dam bursting, the crowd erupted into chaos. Some screamed for justice, others for mercy.
Through the tumult, Eneru's voice rang out, cold and clear as a knife's edge. 'Behold the price of defiance.' He gestured to Link and Ganfar's crumpled bodies. 'These traitors dared to challenge the will of your god. Now, they shall bear the brand of the outcast.'
Two guards hauled Link to his feet, their grip bruising. Another wrenched Ganfar upright, the old warrior's head lolling. Eneru traced a finger in the air, and tendrils of electricity snaked out, searing identical marks into Link and Ganfar's flesh. The smell of charred skin mingled with the tang of ozone.
Link bit back a scream as white-hot agony lanced through him. Beside him, Ganfar shuddered, his jaw clenched so tight Link feared his teeth might shatter.
'Cast them out,' Eneru commanded, his lips curling in a vicious smile. 'Let them wander the unforgiving skies, shunned by all who once called them friend or family.'
As the guards dragged them away, Link sought Ganfar's eyes, desperate for guidance, for reassurance, for anything. But in his mentor's gaze, he found only a grim resignation, an acceptance of their shared fate.
In that moment, Link realized their old lives had crumbled to dust. All that remained was the uncharted expanse of the clouds and the hollow ache of a future ripped away.
The town square's cataclysmic events radiated outward, shockwaves of disbelief and horror sweeping through the crowd. On the edge of the chaos, Groose stood frozen, a petrified witness to his friends' systematic destruction. Each jeer from the crowd struck him like a physical blow, a sickening kaleidoscope of emotions ricocheting through his mind.
A tide of jeers rose from the throngs, their once-adoring voices now a grotesque chorus. "Cast them from the clouds! Rid us of this unwanted trash!" they howled, like jackals scenting blood.
Each jeer struck Groose like a physical blow, a sickening kaleidoscope of emotions ricocheting through his mind. His fists clenched involuntarily, tendons straining as raw fury battled against a tide of icy fear.
Groose's emotions tangled like his untamed hair, each strand a different shade of fury. His wild mane writhed with static charge, catching fragments of sunlight like the metallic glint of Shandorian armor. Pride and fear twisted together, forming knots as stubborn as his warrior's heart.
Groose stood alone. The square emptied. His friends were gone.
In the hollow silence that followed, he traced the patterns his wild hair had carved in the dust, each line a testament to promises made and broken beneath Skypia's endless blue. The weight of leadership settled across his shoulders like an ill-fitting cloak, heavy with expectations he had never wanted to bear.
Ganfar rose like an old war dial finding true north, his warrior's instincts grinding against pain. Each movement carried the deliberate precision of three decades of knights' drills, his body remembering what pride demanded. Though lightning had grounded him, he gathered himself like a storm preparing to rise. Inch by agonizing inch; he battled against the relentless pull of gravity. As long as the breath still stirred in his lungs, he would fight towards the light above.
A whistle pierced the clouds. Pink wings flashed. Pierre dove.
As his faithful mount spiraled down through layers of golden light, Ganfar remembered every dawn patrol they had shared, every storm they had weathered, every moment of trust built between knight and steed across years of unwavering loyalty. He would not give up. Not yet.