Good to see you back, Birdie! Thank you all as always (especially glad you like how I write Zelda's viewpoint, Mimi; thank you!) - I hope you continue to enjoy this next one as well!

Chapter 65: Flood

The red loftwing landed lightly on one of the landing platforms beside the Academy, and Link slid wearily from his back. He stood for a moment before walking around in front of the bird, wrapping his arms around his neck and simply leaning against him. With a soft, concerned crooning sound, the loftwing bent his head to lay his beak along Link's back, a loftwing reflection of the human gesture.

With a long, shuddering breath, Link slowly drew away, petting his bird one last time before heading for the Academy doors. The loftwing watched in silent concern until he vanished inside, shutting the door gently behind himself.

As Link had feared, it was too late in the day for class. While a lot of the students were out and about in Skyloft proper, taking advantage of the remaining daylight, the halls were still busy, and he was noticed almost as soon as he'd stepped inside.

"Whoa, what happened to you?"

"That's Link, isn't it? Is he okay?"

"Link, are you all right? What happened?"

"Link's back? Oh goddess, what happened to his leg?!"

His fellow students crowded around him as Link set his back to the wall, their well-meaning questions, shock, sympathies, explanations to each other all building into an indecipherable babble of sound. Too overwhelmed to work out any way to escape them short of pushing through them, he just gritted his teeth, head bowed, trying to outwait the assault, shaking his head to whatever questions he managed to catch, pushing away the couple of people who reached out to touch or inspect him or take his arm.

"Silence in the hall! Everybody stand back!" Instructor Owlan's raised voice cut through the commotion like a knife, and Link had never in his entire life been so glad to hear one of the instructors shouting.

"What in the name of the goddess is this?" Owlan demanded rhetorically, the crowd parting rather shamefacedly ahead of him. "Knight Academy students should show discipline and restraint, as I know" – he pivoted, singling out Sperah, who had the grace to look embarrassed – "you all well know. Now, if none of you have anything better to do, there are kitchen chores to be done; the classrooms need a full cleaning; there's at least one delivery still not fully carried down to the cellars…"

The crowd dissolved as Owlan started enumerating the Academy chores, fleeing to their bedrooms, outside, or else to the main isle of Skyloft before he could actually assign anyone one of the many tasks, and by the time he'd reached "...the training weapons and armour haven't been checked for rust and cleaned yet this week…" the hall was empty, a last couple of pairs of feet vanishing up the stairs.

"There," he said, with a kind of calm satisfaction. "That about deals with that. Sorry for the trouble, Link. You looked rather mobbed."

Link nodded, relaxing a little as he looked at the kindly, if strict, instructor. "Thank you," he managed quietly.

"You're welcome. Now…" He looked Link up and down, and Link bore the scrutiny quietly. "You're standing, so I assume you've taken a healing elixir since you did… whatever you did to get that."

Appreciating the lack of questioning more than anything else in the world, Link nodded.

"Was there anything it couldn't heal, or that healed wrong?"

"I don't think so," he replied, softly. He hadn't really looked – or wanted to look – but Fi would doubtless have contradicted him if there had been something, and she remained silent.

"In that case, let me take you up to the baths. I know you must have a report for the Headmaster, but frankly, you do yourself and him no favours if you don't take a little time to restore yourself. Unless you have news that can't wait even half an hour?" The question was nothing but serious and well-meant, and Link thought for a moment before shaking his head, reluctantly.

"It's… things are even more urgent now." If that thing escapes again… It all but made him shudder just to think of it, and Instructor Owlan's keen eyes caught the slight reaction, looking at him with concern. "But, no. The reason I came back so soon is because there's supposed to be a clue of some sort hidden in the oldest songs of worship…" It sounded far more ridiculous to say to the instructor here in the peaceful Knight Academy than it had to hear from Mahra Impa after that horrifying battle. "Until I figure out what that is, I can't…"

Owlan's eyebrows lifted, but all he said was "Well, then we can catch two birds with one lure. Gaepora will probably want to ask Kaeber about something like that, so I'll escort you up to the baths, then give him your message. That should give him some time to fetch Father Kaeber, and you'll be able to speak to both of them when you're done. Does that sound reasonable?"

Link nodded, feeling almost unreasonably grateful for Instructor Owlan's straightforward, sensible solution. "It does. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Owlan said with a small smile. "Now, let's get you upstairs." He turned, glancing at Link briefly to match his weary pace, and walked beside him to the nearest staircase, subtly extending an elbow just enough that Link could have leant on his arm if he'd wanted to; making no comment when he didn't. Together, instructor and student walked through the upstairs halls to the baths, a handful of other students scattering out of their way… whether because word of Owlan's rebuke had got around, or whether because a voice trained to be heard shouting between loftwings in a gale could as easily be heard directly through half the Academy, Link wasn't entirely sure.

At the baths, Owlan opened the door to the boys' side and gestured for Link to wait in the changing area before striding through to the bath proper. Capable of shouting through the building or not, he could equally well be quiet as a zephyr when he wanted to be, and Link didn't overhear whatever it was he said that soon had a double handful of dripping, towel-clad boys filing out and getting dressed, casting surreptitious, wide-eyed glances at Link, but not a single one daring to question him. Uncomfortable under the weight of their unasked questions, Link did his best to ignore them, but it was still a noticeable relief when the last one left, closing the door quietly behind him.

"I'll fetch you some spare clothes, as well," Owlan said. It was another thing that Link hadn't even yet thought of and felt inexpressibly grateful for. "They'll be through here by the time you're ready. Now, is there anything else I can do?"

"I don't think so, sir. Thank you."

"It's really the least I can do, Link. I have to agree with the reasoning, but I don't like that all of this is resting on you. I can see quite clearly that you're doing far more than we have any right to ask of you."

Link glanced down, unsure of what to say, and as he did, Owlan let himself out. Whatever the instructors, or the Knight Commander himself, said, he wouldn't have been able to turn away… but at the same time, Owlan's sympathy, understanding, and concern were more welcome than he could possibly say.

Slowly, wincing a little at the various lingering aches that had only stiffened during his flight, Link stripped, dithering briefly over what to do with his ruined trousers before dropping them next to, rather than in, a laundry basket. There wasn't going to be any salvaging those. Still avoiding looking too closely at himself, he turned towards the curtain and hesitated, glancing back at the sword, propped safely in a corner.

Fi…

Shaking his head, Link forced himself to turn away, stepping through into the bathroom itself, warm and somewhat steamy and thankfully empty of its former occupants. Without the Goddess Sword close to hand, he felt almost bereft, strangely vulnerable. If he couldn't reach her at a moment's notice, then…

"It's the Academy. It's safe," he muttered to himself, climbing gingerly into the bath. Warm water swirled around him as he slowly sat down, a relaxing antidote to tired muscles. Still-wet bars of soap lay in various places on the side of the bath, and he picked one up, starting to slowly wash his face and hair. Every motion seemed to bring back a little normality to his life, making all his years in the Academy feel a little more real, drawing the thinnest of veils across the horror he and Fi had faced, and a tension he couldn't have described and hadn't entirely realised he was feeling began to abate.

Only when he'd scrubbed every part of himself other then his right leg did Link reluctantly lift it to inspect it, propping it on his raised left knee. Although his skin was whole, it was only after a fashion: almost burn-like marks, strangely faintly greyish, wreathed his leg where the tendrils of darkness had touched, broken by a single sword-straight pale line where he'd held the Goddess Sword to it. He ran a finger across one of the marks gingerly: it felt very slightly different to the rest of his skin, and he wasn't entirely sure he could feel the touch of his fingertip quite as well as he should have been able to. It was all wrong, utterly wrong; it didn't fit with the peaceful life at the Academy he had so tenuously recovered – and all at once the horror of it all crashed in on him, stronger than ever after the hours he'd half-unconsciously held it off: the sheer yawning hunger that would have consumed him and all the world beside, the sucking shadow, the towering half-formed void with feet of unnatural bone, the impossible sight of it splitting itself into nothing but gaping maw, and always clawing at his every sense the sheer unnatural unstoppable devouring hunger. Dropping his foot back into the bath with a splash, Link curled forwards, pressing his hands to his face, tears escaping through tight-closed eyelids, even his very thoughts inarticulate in the face of the horror in his memory.

In the anteroom, the spirit of the sword felt his incoherent and wordless thoughts, something akin to an unending mental scream. Despite an unsubstantiated sense that assessing the subject too closely would risk inducing a processing error in herself simultaneously, Fi analysed possible courses of action at lightning speed. Her master had indicated that social customs surrounding bathing applied to her. One of her earliest instructions had been to choose freely whether to appear outside the sword, with an implied suggestion that she choose to do so at least semi-frequently. Her master had repeatedly indicated, the words confirmed by the changes in his emotional state, that he found her visible presence comforting. Additionally, he had considered taking the sword with him into the bathroom despite the multiple injunctions of both social custom and standard weapons care forbidding it.

There was a probability that her visible presence would not be welcome, but Fi calculated it to be below thirty percent with the admittedly incomplete information that she possessed. Projecting herself from the sword, she drifted intangibly through the curtain separating the two rooms, floating to her master's side and adopting a kneeling position just above the surface of the water.

Eyes screwed shut, Link didn't see her.

"Master Link."

The words didn't startle him as much as they should have, Fi's musical voice, half-heard, half-felt, slipping into his mind as much as a sense of safety, protection, and companionship as they did as actual words.

"Master Link, I detect that my presence may be of assistance." She paused for a fraction of a second, searching her database for an appropriate phrase.

"I am here."

A little late to post, but not bad considering I was away for effectively four days last week over New Year! I had the image of everything just collapsing on poor Link in the bath all week, but didn't have time to write it up until, well, pretty much today. (I hear where I should give myself both a bit more buffer and a bit more time to actually revise, but at least I have a Floor Owl to beta-read for me? That's like having drafting time, right?)

Patch Notes
- Injuries continue to have consequences, like half your stuff being ripped and covered in blood. People now notice this.
- Responsible adults continue to at least try to be helpful.
- Trauma.