Yay, Birdie! Glad to see you back! Huh, I guess I picked the right time to get super busy… Lucky me! I'm glad it was all working again by the time I started posting. So glad you liked Link and Fi, I've been waiting for that one for just chapters and chapters. And hah! Yes, the chainmail is written from actual experience. XD I've had a lot of fun with the windmills and all the rest of it, linking everything together and trying to figure out how it ought to all really work as a setting. And yeah, poor Link… These last few chapters, he's been just running around trying to avoid explaining what exactly just happened to him, poor kid. It's possible that this chapter happens in part because he's subconsciously desperately trying to put off writing his report…

And my regular guest reviewer, thank you! I'm always glad to hear you like it!

Chatper 71: Curiosity and Gratitude

Karane jumped off the ladder as it neared the ground, keeping her hands on it to hold it steady for Link as he began to climb down, leaping off still several rungs up.

"Thanks."

Karane released the ladder as Link spoke, and they both watched it sway out on the wind, retracting steadily back up into the Airshop.

"Don't mention it, Link. I'm sorry for bothering you up there. Are you heading back to the Academy?"

Link nodded, slightly reluctantly. He'd pick up the promised meal from Henya, and after that… After that, he would probably have to write his report. However much he wanted to, he wouldn't in good conscience leave Skyloft again without at least telling the Headmaster what had happened.

"I see." Karane hesitated, noticeably enough that Link waited instead of saying farewell. "Do you think… Listen, I was thinking I'd visit the 'Skyloft Monster.'" Again, she paused, looking at Link searchingly as if half expecting him to mock her, but all he did was look back. "You said he was lonely, and I'm so curious. But, well… isn't that strange? Just turning up? And when I asked him, the Headmaster said something about the graveyard. That can't be right. Can it?"

Link nodded. "There's a ladder in the back of the shed. I don't know how he managed to put it there. It goes down to a walkway under the waterfall…"

Karane's eyebrows seemed to lift with every word he spoke. "Really?"

"Uh-huh." Link glanced at the sun, aware of the faint sense of Fi's reserved disapproval, held in abeyance solely because he had asked her to give Batreaux a chance. There was still plenty of time to fly… and he had to admit, he wanted to check on the demon too. Even if all of the unease he felt had been Fi's alone, she knew far more than he did, and she intended nothing but the best, however unyielding her judgement. "I can show you the way and introduce you, if you want. I should probably check on him anyway."

"Are you sure?"

Link couldn't quite read the older student's expression, but he shrugged and answered anyway.

"Sure. I have to go, but… only after I've written my report, and where I'm going, it will take days to get back. And I really should check he's okay." And safe, he thought. Safe for others, and perhaps safe for himself now that his existence was known in at least some quarters of Skyloft.

"Well… all right, then!" Karane decided. "Let's go!"

. . .

The walk back down Market Hill and across the river was just as windy as the previous one had been, but otherwise uneventful, Karane trying and mostly succeeding to stick to innocuous topics of conversation and both loft wings flying ahead of their riders to roost and avoid the wind. Instead of heading up the hill as Link had not long before, they veered further south, around its base and into the graveyard, where the simple wooden marker still stood beneath the tree, and, rather incongruously, a uniformed Knight sat on a wooden chair in the sun just outside the door of the shed. Surprised, Link slowed as he approached.

"Hello, students," the Knight said. A middle-aged woman, dark brown hair cut sensibly short to fit under a hat, Link couldn't place her or even be sure if they had ever met before. "What are you two doing here? Aren't classes on today?"

"I'm off class at the moment," Link explained. "My name's Link. I'm here to check on Batreaux and introduce him to Karane."

"Link, is it? I'm pleased to meet you. You're quite the famous student! I'm Keiti. And you're welcome to go and see him." Her attention shifted to Karane as she spoke. "Just be careful on the ladder and the walkway. How either of them haven't fallen into the sky is beyond me."

Link nodded. "I remember. Thank you." Fi's words of that dark, eerie night came back to his mind, ladder and walkway infused with an amount of demonic power. Perhaps for the best, if it kept the whole arrangement and anyone on it from tumbling to the clouds below, and yet…

Internally shaking it off, he opened the door and stepped into the shed. The coffins had been moved since he'd last seen it, rotated and restacked so that there was a clear, if narrow, path to the trapdoor at the back. Karane walked in behind him, and the Knight, Keiti, held the door to let the sun shine in, making the dusty, slightly cobwebby shed seem little more than that, its former spookiness at least partially dismissed.

"Here we are," Link said quietly, looking for and finding the too-dark knothole; kneeling to pull the trapdoor open. Behind him, Karane gasped in surprise.

"I would never have noticed that!"

Link looked up at her with a half-smile. "I nearly didn't either. Be careful – it's a long way down."

He sat on the edge and slipped down onto the ladder, and once again Karane followed.

. . .

The climb was just as long and hard as he remembered, albeit significantly better-lit. Eventually giving way from Skyloft rock to a few rungs embedded in the stone of the island's side to nothing, wood rough and splintery with the gusting wind whipping around and threatening to pull him off, the ladder almost seemed to go on forever. Grimly determined, Link kept climbing: Karane was above him, so he couldn't go back up, and in any case, it wouldn't have felt right to just give up on checking on Batreaux once he'd started.

Suddenly, finally, his foot hit the rickety planks of the walkway, and Link backed up a step with a sigh of relief, leaving Karane space to climb down. She was there moments later, her boots quickly dropping into Link's field of vision, and she sounded as relieved as he felt when her boots finally touched the planks below.

"Whew!" Karane blew out a long breath. "Anyone living down here must really be fit… Link, is this really safe?" As she spoke, she'd started looking around, and the rickety walkway inspired no more confidence in the daylight than it had in the dark. "It looks ready to fall off the island!"

"It's sturdy enough." The fact that Fi didn't contradict him was confirmation in and of itself. "Fi said Batreaux can keep it that way. He lives further on, around there." Link pointed to where the walkway curved around the rock of the island and out of sight.

"This is really hidden away…"

"Yeah."

Karane walked past him, testing the boards ahead with a foot, her stance braced against the shifting, gusting wind. With their loftwings perched on the island above, neither student needed be too concerned about falling: in the light of day, it would take bare instants for either bird to launch themself into a dive from the island's edge and come to their rider's aid. Opting not to crowd Karane with the wind so strong and unpredictable, Link followed a couple of paces behind, letting her take the lead now that there was only one way they could go.

"Link…" Karane stopped, looking to her left. She'd seen the waterfall, spilling from the edge of Skyloft and falling past them in a curtain of wind-whipped spray down, down, down until, depending on the weather, it was either shredded to mist or fell into the clouds below. "Isn't that beautiful?"

"It is," Link agreed wholeheartedly. The shifting, rushing sound like the murmurs of a thousand distant voices was still there, half-lost in the howling of the wind around Skyloft, but in the daylight it held no fear: the waterfall was obvious, and spectacular. It made him realise why, perhaps, Batreaux might have put his home here, rather than somewhere else beneath the island. "We're close now. Look." He pointed ahead, and Karane turned to follow his finger, seeing the edge of Batreaux's ramshackle hut just coming into view around the rock of the island's underside.

"That's it?" She took several more careful steps onwards, peering ahead. "He really lives there?"

"Uh-huh," Link said.

"But it looks… well…" Karane was clearly struggling for a polite way to put it.

"I don't think he's much good at building things."

Looking at the ramshackle hut ahead, clinging to the island's side like a strange wooden wart, Karane continued slowly ahead, down the steepening slop of the walkway. As she finally reached the rickety platform around it and neared the crude door, she paused and looked around. Link did the same, realising for the first time that, from the door, he could just see the base of the Light Tower through the waterfall. When the beacon atop the tower was lit, the water would probably shimmer with its light. As well as hiding the hut from a casual flier, at dawn and dusk it would have to look utterly splendid.

No wonder Batreaux built his home here, he thought. The entirely understandable motivation once again brushed away some of his uncertainty and concern, enough that he walked up to the door and turned to Karane.

"I warned you he looks… well, like a monster, right?"

Karane nodded. "Don't worry, Link. I promise I'll be kind!"

At her reassurance, Link raised his hand and knocked firmly on the door.

"Oh! A visitor! Do come in!" Batreaux's voice called hopefully from the other side, and Link pushed the door open.

Batreaux was sitting on his stool towards the back of his hut, his bony bat-like wings folded, His clawed hands clearly held something, but he seemed to have forgotten whatever he had been doing with it in favour of looking at the door and his unexpected guests.

"Oh, Link! I am so happy to see you once again." Batreaux stood up as he spoke, turning towards them, which did nothing to help his imposing appearance. "And who is this delightful stranger behind you? Please do come in. I assure you, though I know I look positively monstrous to you, I truly feel nothing but goodwill towards you."

Link took several paces inside, listening to Karane's boots on the floor behind him; the sound of the door closing. The wind whipping around inside the hovel instantly dropped, though Link could still feel a draught blowing in through the many chinks in the walls.

"This is Karane. She's a student in the Knight Academy, in the class above me. Karane, this is Batreaux."

"Um…" Karane swallowed audibly, but her next words came out in a slightly forced rush. "I'm pleased to meet you, Batreaux."

"And I am so very pleased to meet you, Karane! Oh, this is quite beyond my wildest dreams! To think that another young human would come all the way down here just to meet me…" The demon wiped at his eyes with the back of a bent finger, long red claws turned delicately outwards to avoid snagging his own face. "First Kukiel's dear kind parents and their Knight friend, and now this… I'm quite overcome!" He sniffled, expression somewhere between a smile and almost crying, and to Link's surprise Karane was abruptly marching past him, her hand held out to Batreaux with a scrap of white in it.

"Here, don't cry!"

Link only realised what she was holding out was a handkerchief as Batreaux plucked it delicately from her hand and blew his nose with a fastidious delicacy, then used it to wipe his eyes.

"Oh goodness… I don't know what to say. I simply cannot express how truly grateful I am to you for coming here." He dabbed at his eyes with the handkerchief again, and gestured to the two stools that made up most of his furniture. "Please, please! Have a seat! I do wish I could offer you a better welcome, but I am afraid my poor home has little to offer."

The trainee Knights glanced at one another, then sat, Link on the small stool and Karane on the larger one that Batreaux had vacated when they entered. She still seemed slightly tense, but the demon almost bursting into tears over something as simple as being visited had clearly disarmed most of her fears despite his monstrous appearance.

"I'm sure we can do something about that," Karane said bracingly. "Maybe a couple of cushions, and…" She trailed off, looking around the one-roomed hut. "Are those your paintings? I really like them!" She stood up, crossing to one wall to take a closer look at one of the crowd scenes: a group of people clustered at the lakeshore with a few more swimming in the water beyond them.

"Oh, you do? I do so love to paint!"

"I paint too, sometimes," Karane said with a smile, and Link relaxed a little more as she began to tell Batreaux about the elective art classes at the Academy, the big demon hanging on her every word.

Sorry this is a couple of hours late! A good chunk of it was written at night in a cold bus shelter, as well, so I also apologise if any parts don't seem quite up to my usual standard. (I've been on the road to see a friend!) I have looked over it, of course, but I find it quite difficult to spot things that I myself have missed a lot of the time. (Chapter written on the go at all courtesy of Ellipsus, with thanks to Teorwyn who told me about it!)

I actually never noticed this in the game because it's tiny and incredibly easy to miss, but the Internet pointed out to me that it appears that Karane does in fact paint (or otherwise draw in colour, which she probably only has a very small number of ways of doing considering the limited resources available in Skyloft). If you go into her room and take a look at her desk (you will need to go into first-person to do this at close enough range), she has an open book containing some evidence!

Patch Notes
- "Borrowed" gratitude with no connection to the being in question replaced with actual gratitude and/or actual friends (or at least new friendly acquaintances).
- Mysterious metaphysical object no-one has ever been able to see before and no-one will ever be able to see again removed in favour of reasonable sapient interaction with greater relevance.