A Hero's Choice : A Skyward Sword Fanfic

Lesson 10: Believe in the Boy

Each ripple of seismic quaking beneath your feet was nowhere near as lethal as the rumbling of insults that were currently cascading from your lips.

Your hand continued to jangle a knob that jutted out and was adorned with a grip of decorated grooves meant to fit your fingers. The more you tinkered with it, the more you felt anger laced with panic regurgitate in your throat. Were you wrong to assume this was the launch lever of this apparatus?

But you knew Groose; you had grown up with him after all. Whatever made sense to most likely be the launch lever was most definitely not the launch lever. When another minute went by without any result, you yelled into the empty chasm of spiraling hills. You stomped around and stuck your head into the machine's barrel, the wind from your own voice slapping you in the face as it echoed back at you. The heavy rock you had stuck into the barrel remained secure, nestled so tight that not even the force of the earth's crust convulsing was moving it.

"GRRR Groose! When I get my hands on you-"

But your screams of aggravation were subdued compared to the howling of the old pinecone.

Ugh. Impa. Link would want me to help her. But how?

Around you, cannons of wind spiraled upward from below, and with them, an idea was shot in your general direction. You slid off your Skyloftian tunic, standing in nothing but a billowy undershirt and your knight pants. You ran toward the precipice of the level you were on and jumped toward the air current, your hands gripping securely around each sleeve of your tunic.

The risk was great, but you couldn't stand idly by as the old hag continued to screech. You weren't a mighty hero, but you were still a knight. And even if Skyloft no longer had need of a knight, who was to say the surface didn't?

Did this evil, the imprisoned, somehow lead you to fall into your own destiny?

You slowly backed up until your back hit a mound of congealed soil, the plateau of the next tier. You took a deep breath and, with a calm mind and knees bent, blasted yourself into a running start and leapt into the closest gust of barreling air. The fury of the gale was something you had underestimated, as the air propelled you upward, but not without slicing up some of your flesh. You bit your bottom lip, relieved to see your tunic puff out, and it began to parasail you away from the current and toward the center of the chasm. As you descended downward, you frantically scanned each tier of spiraling land for any sight of Impa.

But it wasn't Impa you spotted first.

Beneath you, almost as inconspicuous as the soil, a gargantuan entity began to move.

And you were falling straight toward it.

Your mouth fell faster than your floating body as you looked at the monster that was sprouting through the ground. Layers of grimy scales coated its body, and the light reflecting off of them gave the illusion of movement, as if it were covered in millions of worms. This was nothing compared to the alarming number of teeth protruding from its gums. Its long-fossilized fingernails sprung from the pads of its colossal feet as it kneaded at the mess of decaying dirt encircling its body. From where it broke forth, the stone column that had been in that part of the ground now sat lodged at the top of its skull.

"EEEK! No, no, nooooo!" You began to flail your body, hoping to guide yourself toward another of the powerful and abundant zephyrs scattered about.

But as it goes, Hylia had other plans.

"EEEKKKK NOOO! I'm sorry I laughed at the remlit joke! I won't do it again- ahhh!"