Polarity

Life went on. After the initial citywide cleanup effort, Skyloft resumed her natural paces as though the pirate attack had never happened. Reports of pirate strikes dried up like derelict wells, and the attack slowly faded into a solid but oft-forgotten fact in the minds of the citizens. They all knew about it, they kept talking about it, but the shock factor had worn off into something familiar.

Link slept through most of those two days, and managed not to get caught with Zelda in his room. They didn't repeat the stunt, nor did they mention it again.

When Link returned to the infirmary with Zelda two days after the attack he found the place in pristine condition, with not a feather nor nail out of place. A long line of customers waited outside the shop, their Loftwings dozing or squabbling with other birds on the line, for there weren't usually this many unfamiliar birds in close proximity. Surely most of the town were reeling from the attack and were utterly paranoid about their loved ones' injuries.

Aepon perked up immediately at the sight of Link and reached out his neck for him, rasping demandingly. Zelda wandered off toward the counter as Link chuckled and hugged his Loftwing. "Miss me, bud? Sorry I couldn't visit yesterday. Love what you've done with the place."

"Good!" a voice thundered behind him, and Link jumped away with a yelp. Shrike was standing behind him, a smirk on his smug face. "Took only a few hours. I managed to rope in fourteen Knights to clean it all up!"

"Great," Link said awkwardly, edging away. He wasn't sure of how to act around Shrike now. He didn't want to like the guy, but he'd nearly died trying to protect him. It just added a layer of complexity that confused him.

He looked around. Nandu was hanging out behind the counter as usual, giving a woman a jar of mushroom spores. Pelica was arguing loudly with another customer over whether her Loftwing was just fine or not and whether the owner was being paranoid about the pirate attack. Loriki, looking pathetic and miserable and shooting desperate looks at his brother, was currently being yelled at by the man who insisted that because his Loftwing was shedding a little more than usual, that meant the poor thing was surely dying. Unfortunately for him, Magpei was nodding off in a chair beside the Loftwing stalls, his ankle in a brace.

Link turned to Shrike. "You, uh, look better," he said, indicating the front of his shirt, which didn't look like it had a bandage underneath it.

Shrike waved a hand airily. "Oh, I'm fine. That was barely a scratch."

"You were covered in blood."

Shrike shrugged. "Just another day at my wacky infirmary, I suppose. Got to keep up with the place's tradition of bodily harm. You there, girl! Leave that woman alone, that Loftwing's got a genuine bona-fide sprain. And you, leave my thrall alone, he's only- boy, do not assault my client! Ugh, get to work," he muttered to Link, moving to separate the suddenly awake and extremely angry Magpei and the client who'd been yelling at the harried Loriki, who was now cowering behind his twin. Link rolled his eyes and braced himself for the busy day.

It went along quite quickly, though hectically. Most of the clients were just paranoid about their birds and their mental or physical state after the attack, and often nothing was wrong. Sometimes, however, a Loftwing truly did have a problem due to stress or injury, such as the male who was pulling out all of his chest feathers because he was worried the pirates would return and carry of his human, or the female who'd been beaten with clubs when she'd tried to defend her own person and now possessed a slightly misshapen and very sore beak.

Link just had to help move the customers along calmly and quickly, and it was leaving little time for any good hard thinking, and he was grateful for it. The past few days he'd been trying to think about the attack, to try to make sense of it, but he kept putting it off for the right time, though he had no idea when that might be. What better time was there to go through it all than when he'd been lying awake in bed all last night? What better time than when he'd been out walking with Zelda the day before, as they wandered in companionable silence between helping other people clean up after the raid?

Try as he might, he just couldn't stop thinking about it, but not in an all-encompassing way; it was more like something in the peripheral vision of his mind, something he was constantly aware of but couldn't quite grasp, a bug buzzing incessantly by a window that he couldn't swat or see or ignore. It bothered him relentlessly, like a cloud hanging over his head, and he felt lonely and full of ominous disquiet. Surely plowing right through the obstruction in his mind, throwing its contents into the air like leaves and letting them flutter and settle peacefully back to the flat plane of peace, would ease his bothersome apprehension. He just kept putting it off, as though gathering strength.

Of course, there was the other problem, and that was the local cripple. A glance in their direction told him Zelda had approached Magpei and was talking jovially with him. Link couldn't stop noticing everything: the way Zelda was smiling and touching her fingers to her cheek, the way Magpei was grinning and gazing up at her, the way she kept gesturing to his ankle, raising her voice, probably praising him on how brave and courageous he was.

Goddess, what was wrong with Link? He shook himself out of his thoughts. What he needed to focus on was working, not stalking his . . . his . . .

What was Zelda to him, anyway? She'd been his best friend for as long as he could remember. She was a constant, stable part of his day. He kept thinking about that comment she'd made that one time, the one where she told him he wasn't exactly a brother to her. What did that even mean? How did brothers and sisters even act?

Not many people on Skyloft had siblings, since it was commonly accepted that one kid was enough trouble for a couple; the only frames of reference Link had were a few kids in his class and, more immediately, Magpei and Loriki, and they had this weird one-looked-after-the-other dynamic going on and he didn't particularly like them anyway.

Did Link even look after Zelda? Not really - honestly he knew she could hold her own in any situation, save for really drastic ones. But the way his heart hammered when he thought about her in a dark pavilion with six or seven pirates . . .

No, that was getting too far into the I-don't-want-to-think-about-it territory, and he forced himself to pay attention to a client making small talk about his Loftwing's diet . . . for about forty seconds before a double-voiced laugh reached his ears, and he turned his head – oh, but he tried so hard not to, he truly did – to see Zelda and Magpei seated side by side, laughing gaily over a joke Magpei had clearly just told- I make her laugh more, Link thought savagely, and then wondered when this had become a contest. What did she see in him, anyway? He was just a rude, obnoxious, pompous idiot. A miniature Groose. The only thing he had going for him was that he had a nice face. Link had a nice face too. Right?

All day he watched them sullenly as they sat together, chatting and giggling like idiots over whatever quip Magpei made, and the more their voices reached him the more Link fumed. There's no reason for this, he kept trying to tell himself. What, are you jealous or something? Over Zelda getting cozy with some guy?

Soon the clients trickled up and came to a stop around dinnertime; most of them had been paranoia cases, but some of them had actually been serious, and those were promptly taken care of. A dark brown Loftwing was admitted to the third stall under the pavilion with Aepon and Cofana for a broken leg and was to stay there a few days. He was very friendly, nibbling on the shoulders and sleeves of anyone who passed by good-naturedly, and by the end of the day everyone loved him. Fortunately for his owner, who was an adult, Shrike displayed no interest in employing her like he did Link and the rest.

Link was looking around for a chair to relax in – his feet were sore enough to feel like falling off – but a commotion drew his attention, and he glanced outside. A woman towered over Magpei, ranting at him angrily; Zelda fidgeted to the side. Link crept a little closer, eager to see Magpei getting in trouble.

"I flew here," Magpei mumbled, looking resolutely away from the woman and at his own feet.

"That doesn't matter," she barked. "The doctor said to rest and not to strain that leg and I'm not paying any more Rupees for your stupid mistake. You're coming home. Now."

"I have to walk Loriki home."

"He's a big boy now, he knows the way," the woman, presumably his mother, said condescendingly, "and you don't help by treating him like a damn toddler. Goddess knows he doesn't leave the house without you. You're getting home and you're not leaving."

She reached fiercely for Magpei's arm and he recoiled, flinching, bracing himself. His eyes grew wide, desperate; his voice rose a scratchy octave. "He can't, not- he can't go b-"

"Well, he'd better learn," she snapped, grabbing for his arm again and catching it; her fingers dug into his skin, jerking him towards her. He whimpered in pain, stumbling over his bad leg, and he covered his face with his free arm, cowering. Link did not feel very happy anymore, watching this; his skin was starting to crawl. "Get on your bird and get home. Now."

Magpei wrenched his arm away from her grip and turned on Zelda, grabbing her and pulling her close; Link's eyes widened, alarmed. Magpei was whispering feverishly in her ear something too low for Link to hear, and when she nodded he gasped out a laugh and kissed her on the cheek. Link's jaw dropped.

Magpei's mom grabbed him again and dragged him away, yelling at him. Link could barely register it. He just stared at Zelda, who was waving halfheartedly to that stupid idiot, and blinked in disbelief. Magpei had just kissed her. Not on the lips, but still.

Shrike yelled that dinner was ready, and Link forced himself to turn away, walking as though underwater. Then the rage crashed upon him like a wave. What was Magpei thinking, kissing girls left and right? Who did he think he was, doing something like that to Link's best friend? What had he even whispered to Zelda, anyway? Asking her to see him again, he supposed. Had she even agreed to any of that?

He threw himself on the ground in front of Aepon's stall and sat there, stewing with anger, his face and arms hot. He didn't react except to hunch over and fold his arms when Aepon squatted down beside him and rubbed his beak against his shoulder, confused and upset by the hostility Link was displaying. Link sullenly nudged his beak, unable to find the energy to sort his thoughts into a coherent reassurance.

Link jumped violently as Zelda sat down next to him, humming erratically to herself and looking distracted. He stared at her for a few seconds, trying to gauge her expression, but she glanced at him so he had to hurriedly look away. "What's up?" she asked him, still sounding preoccupied. "You seem upset."

"'M not," he muttered, Magpei kissing her flashing through his head.

"Are you sure? You know you can talk to me, right?" she said, and the softness in her voice just made him that much more incensed.

"I said it was nothing," he snapped, and her eyes widened; some of the vitriol made way for a little shame. But before he could seize on this opportunity to apologize or explain she frowned and turned away. Fine, then! Link thought viciously, and not-so-casually dragged Aepon's confused head between them, petting his bird's head sullenly.

After a conspicuously silent dinner, for Magpei was not there to be obnoxious and Link and Zelda were in an awkwardly charged environment, Link was distracted by a few problematic clients, mostly paranoia cases who refused to take "Your bird is fine," as an answer. He never could have realized before working here just how worked up people got over their Loftwings, but the sore spot on the top of his head where an angry client had whacked him with a walking stick when he'd asked the guy to leave was sure to remind him for a while.

He straightened from his hunched position of picking and cleaning up a knocked-over rack and stretched, the buzz of annoyance at the day's events starting to make his temples pound again as distraction ceased, and he looked around for Zelda. The counter was unmanned, nothing moved among the workspace, and the only one there besides Link was Shrike, who was sitting in his chair with his feet up on a table, whittling a piece of wood in his hands idly with a knife. "Oh, thanks for picking that up," Shrike called distractedly, holding up his carving to the light and turning it over, inspecting it. Ebirda was crouched next to his chair, her head turned and buried in her wing, dozing.

"Where did everyone go?" Link asked.

"Left! Went and scampered on home," Shrike said, beginning to whittle again. He glanced over, looking (what if the knife slipped) around. "Goddess, boy, are you trying to get in my good graces or something?" he asked, indicating all around with his knife.

Link looked. In distraction, he'd gone around making the place spotless. Tools gleamed. "Whoops."

"Don't 'whoops' me! The more work the better, boy! Here, girl, what do you think of this one, up to par?" Shrike asked aside to Ebirda, holding out the carving of a miniature Loftwing to her. She cracked her eye open, blinked once, and then closed it again, burying her face further into her back. "Well, everyone's a critic," Shrike grumbled, returning to his task.

Link was stuck on what he'd said a few moment ago. "Wait a second, everyone left? Where's Zelda?"

Shrike opened his arms to the whole place and mimed looking all around. "Well, I don't know, is she here? Looks like she went home to me."

"She left without me," Link repeated to himself incredulously. "She left- why would she just leave without me?"

Whether he wanted to or not he found himself without an audience, for Shrike was yawning and chatting at the dozing Ebirda and not paying Link any attention. He took that as his cue to leave, even more perturbed than he was already. He felt like the entire situation was slipping out of his grasp in ways he didn't know how or want to entertain. Zelda would never leave without him. They walked to Link's workplace and back every day.

But who needs me these days anyway? Link thought scornfully. When there are suuuch better guys around, huh, Zelda?

He had half a mind to storm up to her room and demand to know what her problem was, but decided he wasn't even going to afford her the luxury of his company. He went straight to bed but didn't sleep for a long while, a confused cloud of images and memories and but I want and I hate this swirling around in his head, too flashy and poignant to be shut out. When sleep finally took him, it did so without him ever thinking that he'd forgotten to say good night to Aepon.

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The next day did not prove to be any more pleasing than the previous, as Zelda acted like nothing had happened when he met her for breakfast in the mess hall. She greeted him as casually as ever, and he felt a little cheated, for he'd expected an explanation or apology or something. Thus slighted, he decided he wouldn't deign to mention it either, since it was obviously such a small deal to her. He could swear he had a reason to be so offended, but he couldn't quite grasp it. When he thought of the perfect way to phrase it, then he would lay on the hurt.

Their interaction was thus rendered short and clipped, and they lapsed into silence more often than not until around three, which was when Link was expected to arrive at work. He went down to his room to dress himself and they walked to Shrike's in, for once, a tense soundlessness. Link pretended he was fine, that he was enjoying the scenery, but inside he fumed.

As if the universe wished to add to all of this, Link's current least favorite person was not at his house where he should have been and was instead hanging out once again with Loriki in the infirmary. Magpei looked over and waved when they approached, though it was obviously directed at Zelda instead of Link. Link allowed himself to walk up to Magpei with Zelda and, before either of them could say anything, demanded, "Aren't you not allowed to be here anymore?"

Magpei looked sullen. "I'm not, but from two to four my parents are both at work, so I can walk Loriki here and stay a little bit."

"Oh. Great." Link nodded, really trying to sound convincingly interested, but it did not work at all. He wandered away, growing even more annoyed when Zelda did not walk with him and stayed chatting with Magpei. He stomped around pointlessly for a few moments before making himself look busy, unable to be near them.

Magpei continued to come to the infirmary every day, there when they arrived and staying an hour or two before flying off on his black Loftwing, and Link was glad for him to be gone most of the time. Whenever he was there Zelda didn't leave his side. But the times Magpei wasn't there weren't as enriching as they should have been, either; Link felt like Zelda was avoiding him, and their conversations were growing listless and inanimate.

And then there was the troubling trend Zelda had adopted of not walking him home anymore. That wasn't even a spoken agreement to them; it was just a thing they did, and it was universal and constant and they both always did it no matter what. And now she was leaving without him. Sometimes she even left in the middle of his shift and disappeared for most of the day. Sometimes he looked around and she was gone already. Sometimes he was about to leave, but she made no effort to join him, and he was so proud and confused and embittered that he left her.

He began wondering idly if this was the end. Maybe he should have realized there was something seriously messed up and unhealthy about this train of thought, but in the aftermath of the attack and his refusal to seek catharsis his thoughts and feelings were becoming stunted and twisted even in the moment he conjured them. Was this the end of him and Zelda? Had she seriously found someone else and moved on? What if they never hung out again? What if they just drifted out of friendship? He'd never feared something like this before, but then, Zelda had never blown him off like this.

One day he was doing his new routine of systematic sulking and pouting while ignoring everyone when Shrike called him over. Shrike had been treating him a bit differently since the pirate raid, inching a bit toward human decency. He didn't creep up on Link to patronize him anymore, though he kept up the same when it came to the likes of Pelica. He spoke a little softer, walked a little less obnoxiously, and just generally became a little more . . . agreeable.

Link went over to him. Shrike sat knees-bent before Aepon's stall, holding the Loftwing's head up as he carefully prodded his chest. Link waited for him to be finished. Shrike put up his fingers and squinted at the ceiling, mumbling under his breath as he did some math, before nodding and standing up. "Well! Your bird's pretty much golden. I mean, he can't fly yet, sure, 'cause of his wings and all, and his chest isn't perfect yet. But it's good enough that he doesn't have to be cooped up here any longer."

"So Aepon is . . . discharged?" Link asked hopefully.

"Well, Goddess, don't seem to happy about it. Yup! Now, we have to set up appointments for checkups and all that fun stuff, but for now, he's free as a bird. As himself. He is a bird." He looked confused at his own analogy, then shook it off. "What I'm trying to say is that he doesn't have to stay here anymore."

Shrike started a monologue about physical exercise and bone structure, but Link was only half paying attention. With Aepon loose, it was only a matter of time before Link was, too. That wasn't exactly reassuring, considering how Nandu's and Loriki's Loftwings hadn't been in the infirmary for weeks but their humans still worked off their debt to this day, but it was progress. Loriki was actually being weaned off of work; he'd been taking several days off as his debt came to an end, and Shrike often let him leave early.

". . . aaand you're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?" Shrike muttered. "Fine, fine. Go take a walk with him or something, clear up your little dejected head, and come back when you can hold a mature conversation for more than six seconds."

Link perked up. "Are you serious?"

"Eh, why not? Not like we're very busy, anyhow. Just take him out for an hour or two. He can do stairs and jumps, but no flying! Not even an attempt. You'll set him back weeks if he so much as lifts a wingtip!"

"All right, all right," Link muttered, trying to inch around him so he could get to Aepon's stall. Shrike wasn't very tall or imposing, but Link wasn't in the mood to nudge him and trigger a childish arm-flailing Remlit fight, which Shrike was fond of.

"Oh! Before I forget," Shrike said, and withdrew from out of literally nowhere a giant pair of pliers, with which he bent down and, with no hesitation, his arm swooping in one deft motion, plucked a large feather from Aepon's back. The Crimson Loftwing jerked and rasped shrilly in displeasure.

"Sorry there," Shrike chuckled, patting the Loftwing's head complacently and inspecting the two-foot-long feather – with a shaft as thick as Link's finger – he'd just wrested effortlessly from Aepon's back. "It's not just you. Whenever a bird stays and goes, they get added to my collection!"

He gestured with a sweeping arm to the overhanging roof. Link had noticed the string of feathers there before, but hadn't guessed their origin. Multicolored feathers shaped like the one he'd plucked from Aepon were hung from their shafts all around the edge of the roof, a gap of a few inches separating them all. "Those are all from Loftwings you've helped?"

"Yup! Every single one. And now I get to add this unique shade of lovely carmine to the menagerie! First one ever. Oh joyous day!"

"Right," Link muttered. "Can you, uh, stop messing with my bird's feathers anytime soon?"

"No."

Link made a face and glanced over his shoulder, almost about to call out to Zelda to ask her if she wanted to come, but then remembered his current situation. He curled his lip in irritation before turning back to Shrike, who had a weird expression on his face. "What?" Link demanded harshly.

Shrike shrugged giddily, skipping obnoxiously away, Aepon's feather in hand. Link made a face at the back of his head and knelt down the Aepon, who looked at him curiously. "Guess what, buddy?" Link asked, reaching forward to bat his head back and forth. "You're free! No more scratchy black uniforms! No more dumb old Shrike!"

Aepon, who had been getting very excited at how high-pitched Link's voice was (for surely this meant good things) deflated a little when this last thought of no more Shrike got through to him. Despite what Link felt, Aepon really liked his niceman.

He barely opened his beak to rasp in displeasure when Link felt a sharp knock on the back of his neck, and he yelped, falling forward onto Aepon's neck. He flopped onto his side, an arm around Aepon's shoulders, rubbing his neck as he stared up at his assailant. Ebirda was crouching right behind him, looking at him quite severely. Link's yell of protest died immediately in his throat; there was something about Ebirda that was a little bit . . . off.

If Link – and the entirety of Skyloft, really – was honest with himself, everyone knew Ebirda was kind of stupid. Her eyes were perpetually half-lidded, her feathers perpetually fluffed, and her movements slow and ungraceful. She didn't turn her head with the deliberate quickness and grace of other Loftwings; she just sort of swung her head around slowly and blinked in that listless way of hers. She never got the hint that people didn't want to scratch her head, and instead just nagged and nagged until the victim of her mindless affections gave in. She was useless.

So the slicked-down feathers she donned and the piercing glare she was giving Link right now were quite a bit off.

As quickly as it had happened Ebirda's eyelid drifted down lazily, the milky nictitating membrane sliding over the now-glassy surface of the edge of her eye, and the corners of her beak disappeared behind her white cheek puffs. She straightened up and wandered off, her tail swishing.

"She just pecked me," Link said in disbelief, and then turned and swatted Aepon on the neck. "And you didn't do a thing to help!"

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Ebirda followed them on their walk, strolling idly a couple of yards behind them, and Link kept shooting her venomous glares and covering the back of his neck. Aepon didn't look too concerned.

Aepon was too distracted being giddy and energetic at his newfound freedom. It had taken him a while to comprehend Link's effort to convey that he didn't have to stay cooped up in that stall all day and night anymore, and the result was hilarious to watch. He bounded all over as Link kept an eye on him, trotting in circles around trees and bushes, and hopping with his wings spread in a heart shape like he did when he felt clever. Every so often he looked over at Link and rasped happily, growing even more ebullient when Link waved back at him and teased him in that babying voice everyone hated to hear from others but used with their own birds anyway.

"You excited, boy?" Link called to him as Aepon bounced over a low stone wall before turning in a quick circle and dashing back over to him to rub his head in Link's chest. "You're a little punk, you know that?" Link cooed to him, shoving his head away playfully. "You're a troublemaker. You're bad." Aepon had no idea what Link was saying but he loved it anyway. He shoved his beak toward Link's scalp in an effort to effervescently preen his hair, but Link ducked away. "Yeah, okay, no."

Aepon spun in a circle again, hopping with both feet off the ground. "You're a pillar of the decay of society, Aepon," Link sighed. "I could write essays and give lectures about how dumb you are." He waited for the laughter, for the recent but constant joking admonishment that he if he wasn't careful he'd become such a sarcastic adult, but clucked his tongue moodily when he remembered he was alone. "Right. Forgot Zelda has a new and fantastic boyfriend," he muttered. He glanced over his shoulder. "Gold or not, Ebirda, you're a crappy substitute."

Ebirda responded by yawning hugely, a tiny squeak issuing from her gaping throat.

Link rolled his eyes and felt like sitting down. Looking around, he caught sight of and went to sit on a large rock, one he remembered as the sort he'd loved to climb on with Zelda as a kid. They used to vie for the glory of sitting at the highest surface of the boulder. They'd fight for it. Link distinctly remembered once when he shoved her off so hard that she toppled right off and landed in a flowerbed, popping back up again before he could panic, flowers in her hair and grass stains on her elbows and hands, laughing with her eyes squeezed shut.

Ebirda went to stand next to him, nudging his shoulder for a headscratch. Link obliged glumly, trying to hold onto that nice memory. With how muddled and confused his thoughts were lately, it was a bit of a feat, so he let it go reluctantly. "You know, Ebirda," he grumbled, "just because you saved my life doesn't mean you get to go and peck me on the head."

Aepon trotted up to him, rasping indignantly that Link dared to give headscratches to another bird and not his own. Link snorted and held out his free hand in invitation; Aepon took one look and turned snootily, staring deliberately away. "Wooow," Link drawled. "What a drama king."

Ebirda took her head out of Link's hands. He turned his head lazily to look at her. She was watching Aepon with her head canted, nictitating idly. Then her third eyelid disappeared, and her eye was revealed fully. Her golden iris glanced at Link, then she tilted her head back to the dramatic and haughty Aepon, then back at Link. Then her marble-round iris glided slightly forward, then slightly skyward, then the same backwards, and then returned to Link.

She rolled her eyes.

Aepon apparently got over his mood and nudged Link's hand, now actually wanting that offered headscratch. Link couldn't even think to move his hand. He stared, slack-jawed, as Ebirda turned and wandered away as if nothing had happened, toddling down the path.

"Aepon," Link managed once she was out of sight. "I think I'm having an out-of-body experience." He turned to his bird. "Please tell me you saw that too. Didn't you?"

Aepon, oblivious, rasped indignantly when it became obvious we wasn't getting any headscratches anytime soon. He turned away in another huff, and Link didn't even notice.

Did Loftwings even have the mobility range to roll their eyes? He hadn't thought so. She'd done it so shallowly, but it was distinct enough that it seemed deliberate. And what would ever prompt Ebirda to do such a thing? Was a bug circling her face or something?

She'd looked at Link, then back at Aepon, then back at Link, right after Link had made a comment about how dramatic Aepon was. As if they were sharing a private joke. But there was no way that could be possible.

"Saw what, huh?" a voice crowed forth, and Link recognized it immediately, cringing, the thoughts of Ebirda evaporating. Oh, just when I was in a good mood, he thought savagely, glaring over his shoulder. Groose was leaning against the balcony above his head, that smug smirk on his broad face, looking down at Link lazily. Stritch and Cawlin flanked him, trying and failing to mimic his intimidating mien (or at least Cawlin was; Stritch was soon distracted by a passing blessed butterfly).

Aepon whipped his head around and hissed savagely, glaring at the red-haired idiot. Link's hand reached up and gripped his collar; it wouldn't do if Aepon were to strain himself so soon after achieving freedom. "Groose. What do you want?"

Groose shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands innocently. "What? I can't say hi to a good friend?"

Link mimed looking all around. "Can I say hi to him too?"

Groose's lip curled, and Link beat down a swell of pride with the memories of Groose's reaction to such witticisms. One of the reasons Zelda jokingly told him to stop being so snarky was that Groose didn't take kindly to being made a fool of, and tended to take out his frustration with his fists. Or tried to, anyway. Aepon would never allow Link to be brought to harm while breath still filled his lungs.

"You talk real smart for someone I could crush with my pinkie finger," Groose said confidently, flexing, as if the tight shirt he was wearing didn't already highlight every muscle standing out on his ridiculous body.

"If I didn't talk 'smart' then we'd have entirely too much dumb in this conversation," Link muttered, half tempted to let go of Aepon's collar and see what kind of hilarious results it could produce. He refrained only on the grounds that Aepon might injure himself.

Groose went on, perhaps having not heard Link (Link felt a little put down that his rebuke had not been properly appreciated). He began walking down the stairs, watching Link, his two lackeys flanking him the whole time. "Look at you, flopping all over like you own the place. Baggy eyes and all. I bet I could throw you across Skyloft if I tried. You're skinny enough."

"Thanks, I guess."

Groose narrowed his eyes. "That wasn't supposed to be a compliment! But I can see why you would get confused, considering you're dumber than Ebirda. You and Ospren should switch Loftwings."

"Gold doesn't really suit me," Link said a little distractedly, thinking about Ebirda's recent behavior.

"I don't get why Zelda hangs out with you all the time," Groose muttered, reaching the bottom of the stairs and swaggering over, arms swinging obnoxiously, head lolling from side to side on his beefy neck with each step. Aepon's hissing turned into a raspy warble of warning. "I mean, you're asleep half the day, and when you wake up you've got to be the dullest guy ever. Look at you, you look like you're about to fall over right now!"

"Only 'cause of how mind-numbingly boring this conversation is," Link grumbled, but only because Aepon was there. Normally he would not be so bold, and so he relished the moments when Aepon could be present. He patted the boulder he sat upon invitingly. "You know, I'm starting to think you're jealous of my rock."

Groose ignored him, a enormous hand on his tiny hip, and began to circle Link, making sure to avoid the roiling Aepon. "Yeah, Zelda deserves a lot better. She should be spending some quality time with someone who can stay awake long enough to have a conversation, huh? A real quality talker! Someone she can connect with. . . ." Groose trailed off, sighing euphorically, his yellow eyes taking on that dreamy cast they did when he fantasized his fantasies. He snapped out of it after a second and looked disdainfully at Link again. "Not someone like you."

"Groose, it's a rock. You can just have it if you want."

"So where is Zelda, anyway?" Groose wondered aloud, rubbing his chin exaggeratedly. "I don't see her around! What, did she get bored of you?"

Link refrained from commenting on this one, his bitterness toward Zelda returning.

"Aww, did she ditch you? Did she ditch you for that kid?" Groose went on, his own voice growing growly and irritated. "That dumb kid she hangs out with all the time now?"

Link looked up, surprised at Groose's knowledge of Magpei. Then Groose's words registered to Link. So that was where Zelda went during the day when she ditched Link! She was with Magpei, who was supposed to be home! What, did she help him sneak out? Could there possibly be a way for Link to rat on Magpei?

Groose was too caught up grumbling about Magpei to notice Link being caught up in his own musings. "Dumb little kid. What is he, like, twelve? Not good enough for my Zelda, that's for sure."

That snapped Link out of it. "Your Zelda?" he demanded. "Your Ze- you've got to be kidding! She doesn't even give you the time of day!"

Groose snapped out of it too, with a much more vicious jerk of (if a sword split his arm what color would it be) his head and a glare. "She does so! She just doesn't get a chance with you hogging her all the time!"

"I don't hog her! She's my friend, not yours! She hangs out with me because she wants to!"

"She doesn't seem to want to lately!"

Link hopped off his rock, too incensed to trust himself to stay there and perhaps let Aepon do something stupid. "Come on," he growled, jerking a little fiercely on Aepon's collar to get him to follow.

"Aww, where you going?" Groose crowed after them. "Did I hurt your little feelings? Come back here!"

"Yeah, right," Link muttered, breaking into a jog toward the infirmary where he knew Groose wouldn't follow (Shrike, if he disliked Magpei, would probably try to kill Groose). He blocked out a parting shout from his least favorite person with a vigorous shake of his head, gritting his teeth.

His heart pounded in his ears, and stress made his limbs feel weak. Gone was the carefree atmosphere from before, with a happy friend and gentle teasing; now he kept glancing around for a colorful uniform, running a little faster when he couldn't see one. A shadow plunged darkness over him and he flinched violently, ducking to avoid he knew not what; a gasping glance over his shoulder told him it was a Loftwing and rider gliding lazily over the rooftops, and he felt restless relief.

The sun was bright and high in the sky, but that somehow didn't matter. That just made it worse, because he was visualizing terrible things just happening, right there in plain sight, right there where he could see it. No secrecy, no slinking, no shadows hiding hulking figures.

He only slowed when the infirmary was in sight, breathing hard through his nose, because it somehow mattered that he looked unafraid, even though walking among those shelves of instruments and hanging feathers was like a breath of fresh air. Aepon was unsettled by his disquiet, but pinned the blame on Groose and his needling, or Zelda's absence. He was mistaken.

I really need to think about this soon.

"That was quick," Shrike commented from (his chest all red) his chair when Link slunk back into the infirmary. Aepon followed him inside and curled up in his stall out of habit. "Yet just in time! Hark, a customer approaches."

Link ignored his peppiness and trudged up to the woman in question, not caring enough to look appreciative of her patronage. "What do you need?" he said a bit bluntly.

"Just a checkup!" the woman replied, with a cheeriness that was most undue. "My big girl here's been moaning and groaning lately about something or other. I think it's her ankles, but I'm not too sure."

"Prooobably ingrown nails," Shrike sighed from his seat in the back. "If she's unlucky, it's gout. Set 'er up, Link! I don't got all day!"

Link muttered something even he himself couldn't make out before gesturing vaguely for the woman to follow, which she did with utmost compliance. Link started cleaning the checkup area. He swept the floor hurriedly, his thoughts black as the pavilion when it was dark and his chest fiery red as blood. He burned with a frustrated anger directed at everyone and no one. He was mad at the customer for daring to be so cheery, at Shrike because he couldn't seem to do this simple preparation task, at himself because he was scared of nothing.

"Need any help with that?" the woman asked good-naturedly.

"I've got it," Link growled under his breath.

"Are you sure? I feel bad just standing h-"

"I've got it," Link snapped, much more loud and ferocious this time. The woman shrank back, looking (what did eyeless sockets look like) confused at the vitriol aimed her way.

A hand clamped down on the handle of Link's broom, and he (would those knuckles be warm if bloodied) whipped his head around, outraged, ready to rip it out of the other's grasp. Shrike looked down at him sternly. "You're done," he said shortly. He jerked his chin in the direction of a corner. "Go."

Link didn't need to be told twice. He stomped over to a chair and flung himself down upon it, slumping, his jaw clenched. He watched sullenly as Shrike gave the bird a once-over and diagnosed that its problem was indeed ingrown nails, which he remedied with a practiced hand, before sending the woman on her way with a wave. Link bit the side of his tongue hard enough to make it lance pain down his throat as Shrike then turned on his heel and marched over to him. "Stewed in your own misery long enough? I thought I said to come back when you can have a mature conversation."

"Go away," was all Link trusted himself to say. Aepon, poking his head out from his stall, rasped in concern.

"You're in my house, Link. What do you want me to do, leave you the keys? Here, I'll let you do something relatively harmless, yeah? Go find something to clean. Try not to stab anyone."

Link heaved himself out of his chair, avoiding eye contact with Shrike until the older man walked (would he hobble if his hamstring was severed) away. He trudged over to a bench piled with tools a little less sparkling clean than the others and decided he might as well make himself look busy.

He was stowing them all in a metal tub when Loriki slunk into view, this clearly being a day when he wasn't let home early. Link didn't pay him any outward mind, though internally he railed at the other boy just for being related to Magpei.

Loriki, as though sensing Link's anger, angled himself a little (did the arm stop moving if the neck was slit) away and closer to the Loftwing stalls as he passed. With a friendly warble, the brown Loftwing poked his head out of his stall and stretched forth his beak to nibble on the boy's passing sleeve. Before he could grasp it Loriki turned white as bone and, gulping down a rattling gasp, flung himself sideways and out of reach, crashing right into Link.

The tub went flying out of his hands, the tools clattering around as one before spilling around all over the floor. Link whirled on Loriki. "Way to go," he snarled. "What the hell was that for?"

Loriki looked like he wanted to evaporate, or like Link was going to hit him. "L-Link. I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean- let me help, let me do that-"

He knelt down and started gathering the instruments in his arms, still stumbling over apologies, and he was so pathetic that Link beat down the angry speech he'd been preparing and just opted to stay silent, letting Loriki pick up his stuff and timidly hand the tub back to him. "I'm sorry," he whispered earnestly again. "I really didn't mean to do that, I swear-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Link interrupted, sick of Loriki's whiny rambling. "Just watch out next time, goddess." He turned away before Loriki could start up his woeful monologue again. He was sick to death of those two morons.

Link filled up a bucket with water and soap, aware of Loriki hovering around awkwardly. Oh, go away already, he thought venomously, just wanting to be alone. He didn't like being (blade to the gut) watched unnecessarily and he especially didn't like the fact that Loriki was here, doing nothing, when his shifts were obviously winding down, and Link couldn't fathom why he was hanging around in this particular spot right now.

Something occurred to him, and he wondered aloud whether Loriki was doing anything. Loriki blinked at him in surprise before confirming that he wasn't busy, and Link put on his most innocent face and said, "Want to help me with this? I'll dry, you'll wash?"

Loriki, eager to make up for his blunder, agreed readily, and followed Link to a sunlit grassy area a little away from the infirmary, toward the cliff. Link couldn't help but recognize that this place had been splattered with bloodstains when last he walked upon it.

Loriki looked like he was going to set about his task in silence, but Link wasn't having any of that. "Sooo, Loriki," he began, waiting for the other boy to be done scrubbing the metal parts of a beak speculum. "How are you? Good?"

Loriki glanced up at him, surprised, before looking down shyly. "G-Good."

Link stared at Loriki's soapy hands and wondered how soap and blood mixed. "That's good. Hey, how's Magpei? How's, like, his foot?"

"He's better," replied Loriki a little awkwardly.

"Good, good." Link nodded, like this was all really interesting to him. He accepted the beak speculum Loriki shyly offered and started drying it absentmindedly. "So, uh, what does he do all day?" That probably sounded weird, so Link backtracked. "I mean, like, when he's not here, where does he go? He said he gets bored without you or whatever. I was just wondering."

"Um," Loriki said contemplatively, frowning at the forceps he held. "He . . . stays at home, I guess? Or, I guess, walks around or something. I don't know. I'm usually there too, so. . . ."

"But who does he hang out with? Like, who are his friends? Besides you, I mean."

"Everyone, pretty much. Everyone in our grade. We're not a big class, though, so . . ."

Everyone's an idiot, then. "So does he have, like, a posse? Wait, your class is huge. He has that many friends? Who has that many friends?"

Loriki looked confused. "There are only fifteen of us . . ."

"You-" Link stared at him, confused, quite sure that the grade below him had upwards of thirty kids. "Wait, how old are you?"

"We're turning fourteen next month."

Wow, Zelda likes younger guys, popped into his head before he forcibly banished it. "Oh. I thought you guys were a grade below me, not two- Never mind, just . . ." He let the sentence die, feeling like he was making Loriki uncomfortable, and he didn't really want that; he needed the kid around to drill him on his brother's antics. It was a dumb conversation, anyway. For a while they sat in silence, doing their work.

Aepon kept placing his heavy head on Link's knee, which Link kept shoving off, distracted. Aepon did it gradually, inching his beak closer and closer, as though trying to be stealthy, somehow failing to realize that there was nothing stealthy about a bright red bird head slowly gliding its way under Link's arms. "Get out of here, moron," Link sighed, elbowing him away once again.

Loriki giggled at Aepon, then froze when Link looked up at him, unamused. "Sorry," he breathed.

"Whatever, relax, I'm not going to eat you. So . . . does Ma- . . . hey, shouldn't you roll your sleeves up or something?" he asked, indicating Loriki's arms; they were still down at his wrists, and they were heavy and dark from the soapy water he was working with.

Loriki looked down slowly at his sleeves, then up at Link. "Oh," he said dumbly, and nudged them up his arms. "Sorry."

"Anyway, uh, does Magpei hang out with Zelda at all?" Link asked bluntly, and then realized this was a little too blunt, and probably made him look like a desperate loser.

Loriki didn't seem to notice. "They hang out a lot."

"Oh, so he d- he does?" Link repeated dumbly, his worst fears confirmed. "Like, every day?"

"Mm-hmm. She's really nice. I really like Zelda," Loriki said, smiling.

"Yeah, she's really nice," Link agreed sullenly, stewing on this information. So Groose had been talking about Magpei. Fantastic. Link was being replaced by a thirteen-year-old.

Loriki sat back, giving the last tool to Link to dry. He started wiping soapsuds off his arms absentmindedly. "She really likes Magpei. They talk a lot, and I'm glad because honestly Magpei doesn't talk much. About important stuff, I mean. Zelda's really nice to him. She actually agreed to walk me-"

But Link interrupted, for he'd caught sight of something that slowly dawned on him as noteworthy, and he couldn't stop staring. "Whoa, what happened to your arms?"

Loriki froze, eyes wide, and recoiled as though struck, but he couldn't erase what Link saw. Crisscrossing his skin were a myriad of white scars, stacked haphazardly atop each other all over his arms, making the surface bumpy and pink and weak-looking. Some were just nicks, but there were some long, ropy marks that ran along the whole length of his forearm. Most of them were clustered on the soft undersides of his arms.

Loriki tugged down his sleeves immediately before holding his arms to his chest, as if trying to hide them. "I-I'm sorry," he squeaked, standing unsteadily. "I'm just- I'm just going to-" He didn't finish his sentence, just ducked his head and rushed back to the infirmary.

Link sat there like a lump, mouth agape, trying to process what he'd just seen. Whatever that was, it was some serious scarring, and Loriki hadn't looked too eager to let Link see. Every one of those white lines had once been red and weeping.

He almost thought it was self-harm, and was about to run after Loriki and apologize profusely for being an idiot and drawing attention to it like that, but he never thought cutting looked so . . . sloppy. And some of them had looked way too thick to be dealt from a knife. Link didn't think it was that at all.

Most of them had been on the undersides of his arms. It was almost like . . .

Experimentally, Link raised his arms in front of his face so that his forearms were vertical to the ground. The undersides of his arms were automatically facing away from him, facing anyone who would have stood in front of him. Like an adversary. Like someone who had to be fended off.

There was a really bad idea forming in his head, and before he could question it and attempt to rationalize it like a normal human being, it took root and blocked everything else out. Magpei isn't just annoying – he's freaking abusive!

And once it took root it held fast, refusing to let go. In this new light everything Link had seen Magpei do became tainted; every smile of his became perfidious, every look a mockery, every whispered word overly surreptitious. His seemingly happy interactions with his brother turned sour as Link reasoned that he was lying, that Magpei was the reason Loriki was so terrified of everything. He'd heard that abused people became scared of everything. He read it in a book once, so it had to be true.

Aepon nudged Link, confused (would his beak crumple or dent and would it bleed) at his white horror. Link didn't even bother trying to translate anything for him; no doubt the intricacies of what he was thinking would be too much for his bird to handle.

Aepon grew anxious when Link refused to tell him what was going on, and then even more so when Link stood stiffly, hauling up the tub and stumbling back to the infirmary. But Link didn't focus on him. He needed to find Zelda. He needed to tell her about this.

Unfortunately, predictably, she was nowhere to be seen. Link let out a frustrated groan and flopped into a chair. The day was slow, and no patients were sighted on the horizon. Pelica was snoring behind the counter, her freckled face buried in her similarly spotted arms, as her Lofting dozed in her stall. Nandu wasn't here (limp in the road) today; like Loriki, he was also being phased out. Shrike was in his corner again, holding a one-sided conversation with the sleepy Ebirda curled (how far did you have to cut to make a wing bleed) up by his side as he painted the tiny black claws of the Loftwing figurine he'd been whittling earlier. And Loriki was nowhere to be seen.

When Link asked, Shrike took an extra second to respond, and Link was sure it meant something. But Shrike then shrugged and said, "He went home," with enough finality to make Link doubt himself, and went back to panting the nails on the still-mostly-wooden bird.

When Link went back to his chair, Pelica was blinking groggily at him from the counter. "Hey, 're youuu . . ." She yawned hugely before slurring, "Aren' you havin' a fight with your girlfriendorsomethin'?"

"Who even knows," Link muttered, not looking at her. Pelica nodded as though this explained everything and plunked her face back into (what color would her hair turn if a blade rent her skull) her arms, and Link realized belatedly that she'd called Zelda his girlfriend. Judging by the renewed chorus of snoring to his right, it was too late to correct her.

Only two clients stopped by for the rest of the day, and after that no one came. Shrike stood, yawning, and Link looked over to see him slipping on a coat. "Where're you going?" Link asked.

"Restaurant," Shrike said absentmindedly. "I'm taking my dad out to dinner. I haven't seen him in a week."

"Wow, a week," Link muttered dramatically, but it was quiet enough that Shrike couldn't hear. It was odd, the thought of Shrike having a life outside of the infirmary. He'd been entertaining the thought that Shrike just sprouted in the clinic one day and took it over.

Shrike trotted by and out, hands in his pockets. "Go home, girl," he called toward Pelica at the counter. "Link, close the place up in a little bit, will you?"

Pelica vaulted over the counter and galloped out of there, sleepiness forgotten, whooping loudly. Link would have snorted at her antics had he been of better mood.

He glanced around at the darkening sky a little anxiously, trying to count the flying shapes, trying to see if there was structure in them. He looked away when he realized how lowly and pathetic this was. Somehow, even though he knew it didn't make any sense, he felt like the attack had done all of this to him. The pirates had come, they'd pillaged, they'd raided the city and Link and left them both feeling desolated. Link would've given anything to go back to that one night Zelda had slept over. They had both been just grateful and alive and together. He wanted to go back to a time when he didn't look at a person and wonder just how their flesh cleaved.

He hadn't risen from his chair, feeling either too tired or too unmotivated to do so. It was then that he caught sight of Zelda strolling into the infirmary, humming distractedly. Link stared at her for a long moment, unsure of what to even say to her. Hey, Zel, you've been ignoring me for weeks. Let's have a chat. She saved him the trouble by walking right up to him and smiling faintly. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Busy today?"

"Nah. Not really."

Zelda nodded, balancing her weight on one hip, her gaze flitting (Nandu sent a woman sprawling by hitting her hip; did she bleed or bruise; Link recoiled – Not Zelda, he thought) over the wall above Link's head. Oh goddess, this is so awkward, he thought, somber. It didn't used to be like this. "So . . . what were you up to today?"

Zelda shrugged, looking at him again. "Stuff. Just walked around town."

"With Magpei," Link muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Just wondering if Magpei was with you."

"He was."

Link nodded, widening his eyes for a second as he hummed in confirmation. Shadows fluctuated on the curves of her face, and her normally bright hair was dark. "Of course."

Zelda sucked on her lower lip, nodding as well. "Yup."

"So where is he now?" Link blurted out nosily.

She glanced at him suspiciously. "Home. Why?"

He shrugged, trying to look dismissive. "Just wondering."

"You've never wondered that before."

"I thought it was weird that you weren't with him."

Zelda didn't say anything to that, and Link waited for her reply with increasing frustration. He wanted to spark that powder keg. He wanted to shake the lesser of his two demons off his back.

"So . . ." he said vaguely, hoping his ensuing silence would prompt a response out of her.

But all she replied with was, "So."

"Why are you here now, then?" he asked slowly, staring at an irregularity in the grain of the shiny surface of the counter.

Zelda took a step to the left and leaned against a roof-supporting beam, her arms folded to her chest. She shrugged, watching Link. "He went home."

Link scoffed. "After sneaking out, obviously."

"What does that mean?"

Oh, good, he was starting to get her attention. "Nothing," he sighed, hoping it sounded pointedly loaded.

It must have, for she said slowly, "Link."

He looked over at her, wide-eyed and innocent. "I'm just saying. He can't get caught when he, like, blatantly disobeys his mom, right?"

"No, he can't," Zelda said firmly.

"I mean, it's not like he can respect her wishes or anything. She's just worried about his health. He can go running around with you, probably screwing up his ankle, as long as she doesn't know." Link thought about fingers digging into Magpei's arm and shoved it down just as fast. Somehow he didn't think concern for Magpei's health figured into there much, but he wasn't about to admit he suspected that. Not when he was so sure Magpei did the same exact thing to a different victim.

Zelda was now staring at him hard. "Right. Of course."

"I'm just, like," he mused, pausing to shrug and smirk (Zelda hated snide smirks), "surprised at you."

"At me?"

"Yup. I mean, you're . . . you," Link sighed, gesturing at her. "Kind of like a goody-two-shoes. Helping this guy sneak out. Laughing when he gives Shrike a hard time." He shrugged again. "It just surprises me."

He drummed his fingertips against his leg, feeling awfully smug at his apparent upper hand in this one-sided battle. If he was lucky she'd be absolutely stewing right now. Skewered on the lance of his superiority. Squirming in the spotlight of her wrongdoings.

When he risked a glance over she was doing none of these things. She leaned against that beam with her head tilted and eyebrows raised, staring at him. He shrugged at her, staring right back.

"Are you okay, Link?" she asked slowly. "Or do you want to tell me something?"

"Tell you something?" he repeated. "What? No, of course not. I don't have anything to say. Nothing at all."

Zelda just kept on giving him that look, and it gave Link the very first inklings of apprehension. "What?" he demanded harshly.

She shook her head. "Nothing. I guess I was just waiting for this conversation to happen."

Oh. So she was aware of what she was doing. Aware that she'd stood Link up, shut him out, and replaced him. Link had been operating under the assumption that she was just either unaware or ignoring him or simply just too vapid to know she was hurting him.

He'd been playing it cool, playing it vague and subtle and safe, but now he was angry. Now he was pissed. "You know what I'm waiting for?" he demanded loudly, sitting up in his chair and glowering at his best friend. "I'm waiting for the reason why you're ignoring me and blowing me off for no reason. Did you just- I don't know, not care? That you've been leaving me alone for weeks and just not talking to me? What did I ever do to you?"

Zelda's expression didn't waver a single bit. "Link," she said quietly.

"No no, I'm waiting for more," Link interrupted, plowing right ahead. "I want to know why Magpei's so special that you help him sneak out and laugh when he makes fun of people. Goddess, Zelda, I thought you were nice. Like a- like an angel or something." He shrugged slowly again, but his set jaw and hard glare erased all casualness the previous shrugs had. "You know?"

"Link."

"Oh, and one more thing," Link cut in, his voice saccharine, sickeningly innocent and polite. "Can you tell me why Loriki has scars all over his arms?"

With no one else to bear witness to this, silence reigned as a smirk crawled its way across Link's face. He'd delivered the blow he knew she could not dispute, the one that would send her running for cover, scrambling for purchase. If she didn't know what he was talking about, he'd be more than delighted to explain and watch the disillusionment unfold.

But she just stared. And he stared back, getting more confused by the second. "What?" he demanded for the second time that night.

Zelda sucked on her bottom lip for a second, nodding slightly, before clicking her tongue. "Are you done?"

"Wh-" The apprehension was growing steadily. "Done with what?"

"With your little rant, Link," replied Zelda matter-of-factly. "Finally got that off your chest? Took you long enough. Do you feel better now?"

Link had a feeling something had gone right over his head. "What? Did you not just hear me before?"

"Oh, I heard you," Zelda said, and her voice was forceful, her stoic countenance twisting into one of open hostility. Link's eyes widened at the change. I messed up.

"First of all, Link, I'm not really sure what you mean by abandoning you. What, making new friends? Talking to them? I hadn't known Magpei for two seconds and you were sulking like a jealous ex. Oh, yeah, Link. I saw you, even on the first day. I'm not an idiot."

"I never said you were-"

"Secondly, what the hell makes you think I would want to hang out with you when you're acting like that?" she demanded next, and Link shrank back a little, his mouth open but no words coming out. "You're pouting and moaning and making me feel guilty for daring to laugh at someone else's joke? Are you kidding me?"

Link hunched down in his seat, opening and closing his mouth like a breathless fish and trying to form words.

"You can't even begin to blame me," Zelda went on, "for wanting to avoid you if being around you makes me feel bad for having friends."

"Friends," Link blurted out snidely, finding his voice. "He kissed you."

Her eyes widened, then she laughed. "Wow. I should have known you'd have seen that. Yeah, he did. You want to know why? Because he asked me to walk Loriki home and I agreed, and he was thankful. I've been walking Loriki home every day, but I guess you didn't notice. I guess you were just so wrapped up in blaming Magpei for everything that you figured it couldn't be anyone but him taking up my time, right?"

And there went the main body of Link's vices, devoured and digested and turned into something that made much more sense than what he'd been thinking.

Zelda's hands were manic, wringing, her fingers pinching each other, her knuckles clashing. She turned to Link, mouth open, as though struck by an afterthought. "And one more thing, Link," she said with the most venom thus far. "Don't you dare imply Magpei hurts Loriki. Those marks on his arms did not come from him."

"You've seen them?" Link asked dumbly.

"No, but I know about them," Zelda snarled, "and I have the good tact not to see them, confront poor Loriki about them – are you serious? – and then somehow jump to the conclusion that . . . what? Magpei's cutting him? Have you even seen- they adore each other, and that's what comes to mind first?"

Link swallowed jerkily, unable to answer her. There were few things he would not sacrifice to turn back time and never initiate this conversation. "Then what are they?" he demanded before he can stop himself.

Zelda laughed again. "You really think that's your business? All you need to know is that Magpei has got nothing to do with them, and you should feel ashamed for assuming that."

Link could do nothing but stare in horror as everything he'd said, everything he'd done, all of his arguments, the foundations upon which he'd built his hostilities, crumbled before his very eyes after weeks of construction. Now he was forced to see just how weak the supports had been in the first place, and it burned beyond belief.

Then Zelda moved, and Link uttered a wordless protestation. She whirled on him immediately. "Don't even start. I'm leaving. Come talk to me when you're ready to act like my friend again."

"Zelda," he said helplessly, watching her stride away. "Zelda!"

She didn't look back. Link couldn't even get out of his chair, couldn't do anything but watch her leave. And then he was alone.

Aepon crept up behind him, rasping quietly, cautiously. The Crimson Loftwing understood little of what had just transpired, and he was torn between confusion and ill feelings toward Zelda for yelling at his human.

Link paid him no mind; he'd been squeezed dry, desiccated, wrung of all defense like water from a sponge, and his body felt drained just as his mind was simultaneously clogged. He ran through their fight fuzzily, like running his fingers through knotted threads in an attempt to straighten them out, and it was unsurprisingly not working. His memory omitted sentences, placed emphasis upon expressions, and reminded him of things he hadn't noticed in the heat of the moment.

He searched feverishly for a defense, a recourse, anything to convince himself he was still right in his outrage at Zelda. Nothing solid presented itself to him. He just had to think it through.

But then he wasn't very good at thinking things through, was he? No, not when he kept thinking – fantasizing – about all the ways things with flesh could split, not when he sat in that chair under Shrike's feather-lined roof and stared at the sky and struggled to see if the birds surrounding his island had a structure. How could he try and think about something as mundane as a relationship issue when his heart skipped a beat whenever someone's voice was raised an octave above normal?

Eventually he stood, his head in a daze, and hunched his shoulders and trudged to the Academy, still stewing pointlessly. Aepon followed him closely, unsettled by Link's conflict. It wasn't dark out yet to trigger the changed Remlits and other creatures of the night, but it was getting dangerously close to that time, and Link's skin had started to tingle in dreadful anticipation by the time he vaulted up the wooden stairs and up to the Academy doors.

Aepon reached forth and tugged his sleeve, rasping worriedly. Link didn't know what to tell him. "Go find a place to sleep, buddy," he said softly, knowing the Crimson Loftwing was safe on the ground even if Link was not. It didn't stop him from desperately wanting to pull him inside so he could have a warm body to sleep next to.

When he went inside and closed the door behind him, Instructor Horwell was just passing by. "Link," he said in surprise. "It's very late. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Link said, not wanting to talk, not wanting to explain anything at all right now. He pretended not to hear whatever Instructor Horwell said to that and dragged his feet to his room, where he didn't bother changing and just flopped on his bed, staring at the wall.

He didn't sleep that night. But that was okay, because he hadn't really slept in a while.

Zelda wasn't in the mess hall the next morning, and whatever small measure of hope Link had held that maybe a night of mutual stewing would obligate them both to talk it out again was snuffed instantly. Link barely ate, didn't fully respond to any of his other friends' questions, and wondered how the whole room could seem so quiet when only one person was absent.

His hope was reignited a little bit when it was time for his first class, which he shared with Zelda, but she wasn't at their usual pair of seat by the door (they'd kept these seats out of humorous remembrance for when Aepon had broken into the Academy and dragged Link out). His eyes scanned the room and found her sitting in the back, deep in conversation with another friend. Dejected, Link sat heavily at his desk and ignored Fledge's timid attempts to get his attention.

Zelda avoided him thus throughout the day, and by the time Link had to go and change into his black uniform for Shrike's he wasn't speaking to or making eye contact with anyone. Bitterness and confusion simmered under his skin, emotions he was becoming all too familiar with.

He waited until a Knight was walking by to leave the Academy.

He stood paralyzed when that Knight turned and walked up to the Statue of the Goddess instead of toward the infirmary.

His relief was immeasurable when another Knight walked by, and he resumed tailing until she too wandered away, and the process resumed.

He reached the infirmary late due to his little fits-and-spurts method of getting there, and his rotten mood must have been showing on his face, for Pelica yawned, grinned at him, and said, "Have an actual fight with your girlfriend this time?"

"She's not my girlfriend," Link grunted, sitting down far away from the counter where Pelica was reclining. To his surprise, Aepon was curled up in his old stall, crunching down some strange treat. The Crimson Loftwing perked up upon seeing Link and rasped eagerly past his full bill. "Why are you here?" Link muttered, feeling too devoid of energy to make the effort to crouch down to his bird's level. "You're not supposed to be here anymore."

Aepon slowed his energetic movements, seemingly cowed. Link was too tired to care enough to reassure him. It wasn't his fault he was in a bad mood. Aepon didn't have a reason to be so overly enthusiastic about everything. It was grating. He supposed it was just because Aepon was stupid.

Link resigned himself to waiting. Zelda had to show up eventually. She was apparently walking Loriki home, after all, and he was going to force himself to notice this time. To see if she'd been lying to spite him.

She never showed, and neither did Loriki. When he asked, Shrike said matter-of-factly, "Loriki's done. He paid up his debt."

"Well, good," grumbled Pelica from the counter. "Frickin' crybaby." She yelped as an entire hurled bucket of mushroom spores collided with her head, and she and it went down with a crash.

Shrike turned to Link, beaming. "Much better," he sighed as Pelica immediately began howling with rage. He then looked a little put out when Link turned away in discomfort. "By the way, Link," he called after him, "after tomorrow you're done too."

Pelica jumped up from her mushroom-cleaning stooped over position to shriek, "What? I was here first!"

"His Loftwing is much more pleasant than yours is," Shrike drawled. "Plus he himself is much more pleasant than you are. His time was cut down."

As they began a yelling match, Link idly wondered if rallying the others to defend Shrike during the attack – Don't think about it, don't think about it – had anything to do with his early dismissal. He didn't really care either way.

And this news that his departure was imminent just made things more complicated, he decided sullenly as he sat down, waiting for a client or a task to distract him. His initial reaction was to rejoice, for now he didn't have to put on the scratchy uniform every day and suffer through dealing with countless citizens who were convinced their Loftwings were Hylia come again. But this job had taken up over two months of his time, every day after school, and he had forgotten what he even did with his life.

Hanging out with Zelda, obviously. Which was off the table, now that they were no longer on speaking terms.

Goddess, he needed more friends.

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Link trudged over to the corner and put his broom away, the excess dirt swept from the smooth floor. The sun wasn't even close to setting, but there hadn't been any clients for over an hour. Pelica was sleeping again and Shrike was whittling at his table, Ebirda curled up at his feet.

Link huffed something unintelligible and made to walk home, but Shrike called, "Come over here," so Link stomped and stumbled his way to Shrike's side, clamping his teeth down on an extremely justified rant that he was tired and sore and just wanted to go sleep for a thousand years or cry his eyes out or something.

On the table before Shrike was a tiny set of colorful wooden Loftwings, their wings all similarly raised, from blue to white to green to orange, clearly brothers and sisters of the one Shrike currently worked on. Shrike didn't say anything for over twenty seconds, ignoring Link in favor of dabbing tiny white circles to the cheeks of his miniature Loftwing, and that was the very end of Link's span of patience. "What?" he demanded.

Shrike didn't even look up at him. "You all right?" he muttered to his hands.

"Am I- Am I all right?" Link repeated. "Wh- I don't know, yeah, I guess. What do you care?"

Shrike shrugged. "You've been acting strange. Plus I haven't seen your lovely friend here lately, unless she's picking up Loriki. She have anything to do with it?"

"I'm not acting strange," Link snapped. "I'm acting normal."

"Unless you're normally snippy and angry at everyone, no, you're not. What, did she replace you or something? Is that what this is?"

Link winced, remembering her anger at the subject. "No, she didn't. And you can butt out, okay? It's none of your business."

Shrike grimaced at that, glancing up at him. "Ergh, that was insensitive, wasn't it? I'm not good at talking to people, in case you haven't noticed."

"I noticed," Link growled, turning to walk home.

"Ah-ah-ah," Shrike chided, and Link turned back to him with clenched fists. "I'm not done. If this affects your work performance I have a right to know, you know."

"I have literally one more day," Link said, half hoping Shrike would rise to his vitriol, would respond in kind. "One more day and I'm free from this stupid place. Happy? Then I won't have to be all 'snippy and angry,' all right?"

"Every day counts," Shrike said with a surprising amount of calmness, and that just frustrated Link even more. For once Shrike was being more rational than Link was. "Even the last one."

"Not to me," Link muttered. "I just want to go home and forget this place ever happened. Is that too much to ask?"

Shrike didn't respond to that; Ebirda did. With a lurch of her knees she rose, shaking out her tail and tilting her head at Link. Link remembered how she'd oddly pecked him yesterday, how she'd put her head close to his and rolled her eyes, and he stepped back a little, wondering what weird thing the stupid Loftwing was about to do next.

She yawned, circling the table until she was level with the finished miniature Loftwings. Her head dipped down and her beak clamped shut on the body of a white Loftwing, its wooden torso caught between her hook and lower mandible, and Link opened his mouth to say something; he knew from experience the kind of devastation a Loftwing could wreak on tiny wooden toys. One tensed movement could cleave that little body in two (what color would it make if that body was flesh and not wood)-

No demolition, no devastation occurred. Ebirda's feathers ruffled as her neck rose, figurine in her gentle grasp, and extended toward Shrike enough to drop the miniature on his lap. "Now, now, Ebirda," he chided, pausing in his painting to lift the white Loftwing haphazardly by the tail. "This is hardly the time and place and person. We don't give peoples' business out like that."

A reedy warble issued from Ebirda's partially-opened beak. "Don't you give me that tone."

Link scoffed; Shrike's eyes flitted to him, then back to his less than able-minded conversation partner. "We keep this among ourselves; you know this."

"Why do you even bother?" Link wondered tiredly, exhausted at Shrike's obliviousness; did he not understand he was talking to a wall? That his words fell upon empty feathered ears? Even Aepon couldn't understand his monotone chastising, not without a bond, and Shrike's bird was long dead and Ebirda's partner was someone else. There was no point to his monologue. "She can't understand you."

Shrike responded only with a hum, to Link's surprise; normally such backtalk would've landed him a lecture on how he was wrong and how amazing Loftwings were compared to people, obviously. But his attention was diverted to the golden Loftwing, whose eyes grew sharp and feathers slick and at attention. Her gaze locked upon Link; Shrike emitted a surprised noise as Ebirda rose tall and strode up to Link, her gaze penetrating, her massive size suddenly apparent. Link had never noticed, but he was now quite sure she was even taller than Aepon, and he was no small bird.

"Uh," he grunted cluelessly, edging away from her advance; when a vertical beam harshly interrupted his backtracking he froze in place as Ebirda lowered her beak to Link's eye level, her own golden eye boring right through him. Silence hung between them for a long moment; then, slowly but definitely surely, Ebirda wagged her head from side to side at the end of her stiff neck.

She shook her head. No.

Link's eyes, wide with confusion, flitted to Shrike, who was reclining back in his chair with a curious expression. "Oh, are you telling him?" he demanded. Link's jaw dropped as Ebirda turned to face the doctor, head held high, and nodded. It could not be mistaken for an excited bird's head-bob, for a rigid, animalistic expression of silliness; the end of her beak arced up and down as her neck remained stationary, a deliberate nod of affirmation.

No way.

"No way," Link choked out.

"Yes way," Shrike intoned. He stood, setting his finished Loftwing figurine on the table alongside the white one Ebirda had given to him. Its feathers were deepest crimson; no other Loftwing in his lineup possessed those colors. "Well, since she's all right with it, I suppose I'm all right as well. I guess." Ebirda cawed, sharp and demanding. "I know, I know, I'm about to tell him!"

"Tell me wha?" Link breathed, staring between the two of them. His head felt detached from his shoulders; something like that would've been more rational, even. A gust of wind could've blown him over.

Shrike sighed, wandering up to them. He reached up with a callused hand to give Ebirda a familiar scratch on the back of her head; Link almost warned him against it, confusion and bizarre trust in the bird doctor's intuition with the golden Loftwing warring within his vocal chords. "Shrike?"

"Ebirda, is this the first time he's seen you speak?" Shrike said aloud, with no pause, no tilt to his inflection to make it more easily heard, as though for a pet or a child. He spoke like his companion was another person. "Before just now?"

Ebirda shook her head again. Link just about swallowed his own tongue.

"How many times?"

Ebirda's great beak opened, stiff, deliberate; twice she clacked it shut, easily heard. "Twice, eh?" Shrike confirmed. "I suppose he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. Thought the sun was gettin' to him, making his head all wonky."

"C-Can someone say something that makes sense," Link blurted out, his words forceful and shaky from a confusion that now bordered on fear. Too many things at once, too much going on, and no one was able to give him a little explanation? Did they not see his agonizing?

Shrike finally, blessedly, turned toward him. "What'd you just see, there, boy?"

Link didn't even know how to answer that. "D-Didn't you see? She- She just- She nodded! A-A-And she shook her head no! What the h-hell, did you- did you teach her that or something- she's doing it again," Link wheezed, pointing with a trembling finger at the offending bird, whose head was lowered and once again shaking in negation.

"No, Link. I didn't teach her any of that. All of that is what she taught herself. Isn't she remarkable?" Ebirda turned toward him and nudged his shoulder with a little rasp; Shrike swatted her away. "Don't be humble, now, you really are. I've said it once and I'll say it again."

"B-But what? How?"

"Use your head, boy! How's the only way a creature in this Goddess-given sky's able to learn like that? To understand like that? It's not hard, now!"

"Be human."

"No. Be smart. And Ebirda, oh, is she smart." Shrike's hand was on Ebirda's head again, scratching and rubbing in rewarding little circles. "Link, you look ready to drop. Come have a seat, you."

He hesitated, and Shrike clearly saw. "Relax, boy, neither of us will bite. We just want to talk."

Link looked at Ebirda and understood that "we" meant the both of them, however that could be achieved. He slunk toward the offered seat next to Shrike's as the older man collapsed into his; Ebirda settled down on her stomach between them, but not before snatching up four different-colored Loftwing figurines in her beak and dumping them between her feet below her. "Ebirda, sweetheart, you'd better return those when you're done playing with them," Shrike whined, and she nodded. Link decided he was never going to get used to that.

"Sooo, uh," Link began uncertainly, staring down at her. "What exactly is going on here?"

"What's going on, Link, is that Ebirda's letting you in on her great secret. And that secret is that, as you can see, she is not nearly as stupid as she presents herself. Not even close."

"H-How smart is she? How can she be?"

Shrike shrugged, leaning forward to squint at his latest crimson creation. "Needs a while to dry, but I rather think I've improved. Right, Ebirda?"

The golden Loftwing dipped her head to the ground, and at first Link thought she was dipping her head in agreement, but then she lifted her head again and turned toward Link, depositing one of the miniatures she'd snatched into his lap. It was a black Loftwing, wings spread to the sky and tail curled up over its back like all the others, but its whittle-work was markedly bulky and rougher in detail. The paint looked old and faded, and white and black overlapped and formed gray in certain places around what should have been a clearly-defined ovular stomach. "Agh, she never lets me live that down, no she doesn't," Shrike griped. "That was the first one I ever did. Clearly you can see my improvement, eh?"

Link looked up at the little crimson Loftwing. Sure enough, its red and white patterns were clearly defined at their boundaries, even down to the blue and yellow stripes on the ends of his flight feathers, and the golden eyes were wrought with such detail that they looked real. Good enough to be sold in any reputable toy shop. "Yeah," Link agreed timidly.

"I'm glad I could've sharpened my painting skills up before attempting your bird, Link. He's a unique beauty; it's only right I could do him justice."

Link stared at the set. It looked like every color was represented, including the gold, white, and blue Ebirda was currently toying with in the grass. She had the gold in her beak, swooping it around like a child with a toy in their arm, arcing slow figure eights in dramatic motions; Link imagined a little voice saying, "Whooosh," with every turn of her head as she flew her own miniature around.

He couldn't stand the silence any longer. "So-"

"I don't know how she got so smart, Link," Shrike cut in immediately. "Truly, I don't. She's always been like that, and from what she's mimed to me it appears she's been a genius ever since she descended to Ospren when he received her in his Loftwing Ceremony. It's just how she is. Smart enough to watch us and listen, to learn our language and customs and interpret it as she will. You don't need a bond to communicate with her; she just- she understands what you say, understands our speech. She's a marvel."

"B-But how come no one knows?" Link demanded. "Why's it like some big secret? She acts so . . . so . . ."

"Stupid," Shrike finished for him. "Yes, I know, and I don't know why she does it either. I've tried asking her, but she just whacks me with her tail. Maybe it's fun for her, to pretend to be of below average intelligence. You've seen her, haven't you? Running around the plaza, climbing all over everyone to get them to scratch her? Maybe she divines some amusement from it. I have no idea. She has ways of talking to me, but maybe that one's a little too complex even for her to convey with no voice of her own. Oh, to get into that head of hers! Ospren doesn't know the true treasure he has."

"Ospren . . . doesn't know?"

Shrike shook his head grimly. "He thinks she's dumb, just like everyone else did. And I think it's a crying shame, keeping such a secret like that from him, but clearly on that we disagree. Still, it's her secret and hers alone, and I respect what she wants, so I tell no one."

Link heard rustling that was not from Ebirda; he looked over his shoulder and saw Aepon in his stall, standing on one leg and drowsily preening. His beak clacked against his feather shafts as he rearranged and straightened them with methodical purpose. He was paying no attention to the events unfolding; if anything he was paying more attention to the thundercloud they shared, ready to intervene if Link grew any more alarmed. The hairs on the back of Link's neck stood up. "Are other Loftwings like this?"

Ebirda dropped her figurine to shake her head. "Just her, Link, just her," Shrike refuted. "Aepon, he's not deceiving you. Ebirda is an outlier; her intelligence is not normal for Loftwings. Our Loftwings are smart, yes, but they're true animals. Ebirda is . . . well, not."

Oddly relieved, Link looked out past Shrike's table, over the distant edge of Skyloft and the approaching sunset. The cloud layer stretched out over the endless horizon, shot through with purple and orange as the sky began its transition from day to night. Stars were appearing overhead, little pinpricks of hot white. "Who else knows?"

"No one except you and me. It took me a long time to figure out, too, but I know Loftwings. And Ebirda's a good actress, but I know Loftwings. Something about her was always so off to me, especially since she took a liking to me and started hanging around. Eventually I . . . well, I asked her, I said to her, 'Ebirda, what's going on in that head of yours?' and she tilted her head at me, and I could've sworn she was smiling." Shrike laughed, shaking his head and reaching down to pat Ebirda's back between her shoulder blades. "Wasn't long after that she knocked over a set of wooden letters- a kid's set, you know. One of my workers was a young father, and he brought his daughter with him here to play, and she left it here on accident. I pop inside for one minute and the next I come out to see the letters on my desk spelling, 'More mushrooms please,' and this meddlesome bird standing there with a twinkle in her eye. So not only can she understand us when we speak, but she can read and write as well - and knows common courtesy, to boot. A wicked little thing, she is."

By the end of this story Link was gaping, eyes wide and shoulders limp in disbelief. Link could barely ask a question and tack on a "please" at the end; a bird had him beat. "That's impossible," he breathed, as though his insistence might alter this strange new reality.

"Quite possible, quite possible indeed," Shrike hummed. "There's not a bird like her anywhere." Shrike leaned forward to drink from a mug on his table. "Your bird, he's a deep bloody crimson, and the fastest flier this island's seen in generations. My Delta, she was strikingly overlarge, strangely so, yet gentler than a newborn Remlit. Giusto's all muscle, same as Banon, and no more agreeable bird I've ever met than Nohan. Cofana's a feisty sort, and Cigi's personality mirrors Nandu's so closely it shocks me. Do you see what I'm getting at here?"

Link's head, muddled down by so many things, could barely keep track of all the different names listed. "I . . . I think."

"Give it a shot then."

"Every bird is different."

"Exactly. Every bird has his or her little thing. No bird is the same, just as no person is the same; every single one is an outlier in their own little way. Loftwings can be proud and generous and hateful and loving, just as we can. When these angels descend from the heavens in each of our Ceremonies, when the Goddess sends them to us, we're matched with an entirely different, distinct personality, and our minds meld with theirs. No bond in heaven nor earth is such as this." He shrugged, as though agreeing with any doubt that could be slung his way, thought Link offered none; had Link ever really listened to him talk about Loftwings like this? "So who's to say a Loftwing could come down that isn't fast, nor strong, nor red as the sunset, but a genius - a creature as intelligent as you or I. What's so impossible about that?"

Ebirda lifted her head and watched Link with a steady eye, appearing to gauge his reaction. Link held her unnatural gaze for a long moment before agreeing, "I guess it's not."

Ebirda's bottom eyelids fluttered up to cover the lower halves of her eyes; she couldn't move her beak or her cheeks in the manner humans could, but Link knew she was smiling at him. She nodded contentedly, turning to rest her head on his lap; Link hesitated before her obvious plea. Somehow this was different, as he wasn't just indulging the wants of an animal and was now being sought for a specific task by an intelligent person. "Ebirda," he cautiously began, "is it all right if I scratch you?"

Ebirda wiggled her head up and down in a nod, restricted by her own weight on his lap but clear nonetheless. With a smile Link rubbed her gray cheeks around her earholes, knowing it to be a prime scratching spot and noting the familiar blissful expression the golden Loftwing adopted at his ministrations. "Ebirda, you are one excellent actress." She whistled appreciatively.

"Being smart doesn't mean you can't appreciate a good scratching," Shrike observed with amusement.

"Ebirda, do you . . . do you remember when I had to give Aepon that bath, and I rode on your back to the Academy? To lure him?" Link asked her, with every word getting more and more used to speaking to a Loftwing with expectation for a response, feeling less foolish all the while. Ebirda suddenly tipped her head back, open beak pointed skyward, and let loose a jumpy, raspy croon, her wings spread out and shaking; with a start Link realized she was laughing, or at least imitating a laugh. "So you do remember, huh?" he chuckled with her. "You- You know what, I wouldn't be surprised if you knew what my plan was all along!"

Ebirda nodded with eagerness, eyes alight. "You did know all along, didn't you?" Another victorious nod. "H-Hey, Ebirda, do Loftwings have a-a . . . a language you all speak with each other? Like, do your cries mean words to each other?" A shake of her head. "So it's all body language and stuff?" A nod. "Do pumpkins really taste that good?" Head shake. "Oh, I guess you don't like them as much as Aepon does, right?" Nod. "Do headscratches really feel that good?" A vigorous nod. "What's talking to Aepon like? Wait, don't answer that, that's probably too complicated, uh . . ."

"Amazing, isn't it?" Shrike asked. "Speaking to one of them and getting answers. She's half the reason I'm so good at what I do. Now, don't you be modest," he protested as Ebirda turned to him with an indignant rasp. "You've helped me enormously, don't deny it, telling me what remedy works and what specific motions calm Loftwings. I was good before, but I was no bird whisperer. Not until I met you, of course."

She nipped his gray hair and tugged on it playfully; Shrike let loose a giggle in return. "Stop that, you."

"What I wouldn't give to talk to Aepon like this," Link murmured with wonder. "I-I mean, I feel him all the time, but, you know, he's an animal. Sometimes he makes me feel like an animal, through our bond."

Shrike looked at him with some confusion. "That so? How severely?"

Link quieted, realizing he'd said something of interest. "Oh, well, sort of. Like, I remember, around when he first came to me, I suddenly got a lot more focused on . . . I don't know, brushing my hair, I guess? It's weird."

"Because you knew he'd try to preen it when you saw him, or?"

"No, like, it was me. Innately, I was like- I couldn't leave my room without fixing my hair first; it's kind of the same feeling I get from him when he preens, like an itch I have to scratch. It was like a need I-I couldn't really place . . . ? I'm probably making no sense."

Ebirda rasped quietly and tilted her head. "Yeah, that is very curious," Shrike agreed with her. "Loftwings can influence our behavior in times of dire need, but the need to preen isn't exactly life-threatening. You can feel him when he preens? Just preening?"

"Well, not just preening. All the time." Shrike's eyebrows shot up into his hair. "Yeah, I know, everyone's always surprised to hear it. I can feel Aepon in my head constantly. Like, imagine how it's like to feel your Loftwing in your head when something urgent's happening, now imagine that just . . . there. All the time."

"How long has that been going on?" Shrike wondered.

"Ever since we got each other. I haven't had my head to myself since I was ten."

Shrike sat back in his chair, rubbing his chin contemplatively. "Now that really is remarkable. A constant bond between a boy and his Loftwing. No wonder he's such a fast flier; you must be tapping into each other's heads for coordination. Synchronization and such. Amazing."

Link shrugged, looking down with a pleased grin; he never could pass up compliments on Aepon's flying prowess. "I guess. I guess we're another set of outliers, huh?"

"Indeed."

"I saw you two, you know. When the attack happened, I saw you speaking to her."

"Ah, we didn't exactly have time to be covert. I asked her to keep an eye out, to protect you kids should anything happen to me. Lucky for us she got the both of us covered, eh?" Shrike reached over and whacked Link's shoulder companionably. "Eh?"

"I can't believe she saved both of our lives- oh my god! Holy- Ebirda! You can understand me! Thank you!" Link exclaimed, gazing at her in earnest. "Ebirda, you were amazing, you really were! You kicked ass!"

Ebirda perked up in delight at Link's praise, and reached forward with her neck to give him an affectionate nudge with her beak. "I'll give you headscratches anytime you ask," Link declared. "I-I could be sleeping or something, and you can poke your head in my window and peck me awake and I'll scratch you, 'kay? You deserve it. Agreed?"

Ebirda lurched out of his lap as she stood, and at first Link was afraid he'd done something wrong; when she faced him and stood on one leg to offer her massive, scaly foot, he burst into hysterical giggles and shook it firmly. Her raspy laughter joined his, one voice human and one Loftwing, different in throat but equal in their delight.

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It was with a lightened heart that Link waved Shrike goodnight and strolled out of the infirmary with his hands in his pockets, Aepon at his side and demanding walking scratches to make up for the long massage he'd witnessed Link giving Ebirda. The golden Loftwing was aloft; she swooped over them once, cawing, and Link waved as she disappeared into the dusk. The sun was just touching the horizon, and they were safe for a few more hours yet from the savagery of the Skyloftian night, affording Link plenty of time to get some of his ragged thoughts together.

Ebirda's mystery was unraveled, for one, but it also came with more complications. After asking Ebirda the details of who could know about her, she'd given him permission to tell no one but Zelda, as she trusted the both of them to keep secrets between themselves (Link learned she used Shrike's Loftwing set to communicate more complicated concepts than yes-or-no questions; she grabbed a purple figurine and pressed it into Link's hand until he got the picture, no Shrike intervention required). The obvious problem with this was that as of now, he and Zelda were not on speaking terms, and oh how he wished that was not the truth.

He wanted to share this amazing discovery with her. He could imagine perfectly the look of wonder that would cross her countenance, the delighted smile that would grace her lips, the light that would bloom in her blue eyes. Between Link's snark and Zelda's wisdom, the conversations the three of them could have!

Link didn't deserve her.

He didn't know how he could have been so blind. Such vitriol he'd harbored, such venom he'd spat at his best and oldest friend, and for what? For what? Jealousy over a new face? Zelda was not his to covet or claim; she could go where she wished, speak to whom she wished, and Link could shut up and tag along for the ride as she deserved him to do. And if they hit trouble, if they hurt one another, there would be no sullen silence, no embittered resentment; they would talk it out like the best friends they were, like the adults they were becoming, like the Knights they had to be, wanted to be.

For now, all there was to do was fix it. He'd created this rift; he would be the one to nail it shut, to stitch closed the wound that had divided Zelda and him, no matter how much his needle hurt. He needed her; he knew that on every level imaginable. He wasn't about to let his dearest friendship slip through his fingers because of some dumb mistake he'd made.

But first, he had to find her, and that was surprisingly difficult when his bird couldn't just fly and look for her. Of course it occurred to him that a flying Loftwing would prove useful for finding Zelda after Ebirda had become a speck overhead, and he had no way to call her back. His best guess was that Zelda was either at the Academy or somewhere with Magpei, and Link had no idea where he lived. Somewhere in the residential district, to be sure, but it also housed most of Skyloft's population, so he couldn't exactly go knocking on every door unless he wanted a sleep-deprived mob after him.

With a sigh, he beckoned to Aepon, projecting the current objective into the thundercloud: find Zelda. "Come on, bud. We can't fly, but we can at least walk together."

Aepon rasped in agreement, curious yet disinterested in a flighty, birdlike way about what had transpired with Ebirda. "I'll tell you later," Link chuckled, reaching up to trace Aepon's feathered wrist down to where his white flight feathers stuck out from his crimson coverts. Aepon turned to nudge Link's chest with his massive head, then feinted above Link's reaching arms to sift his hook through his hair. "Ugh, cut it out," Link snorted. "I'll let you preen me all you want if you help me find Zelda."

Aepon's nails scratched against the cobblestones of the little bridge connecting the financial and residential districts, and Link sighed again, watching the steppes and cliffs of houses rise before him. Sleepy citizens trailed between houses and up and down backstreets, yawning and wishing each other a good night before turning in. Farmstands were being dismantled; wares were being hauled through doors. Loftwings were following their partners to their homes and roosting up on the roof, or even entering the houses with them; many felt safer with their birds nearby after the attack, and it would be a long while before Skyloftians trusted their city again. Scars took a long time to fade. Some never did.

Link walked in a circle three times before figuring he'd start to the right, following the river and watching it sparkle and gurgle in the late evening sun. Aepon waded in to swallow a few beaks' worth of water, then dipped his head under to splash it over his back. Link waited for him to return to land with his hands on his hips and an indignant gape. "Aepon, you terrible bird. Are you bathing yourself? Like, of your own free will?" The thundercloud turned a coy yellow. "You are, aren't you? Why do you even give me such a hard time when I have to bathe you, you moron?"

Link chased Aepon a good half mile down the river for that transgression, and by the time he thought to look around to see where he was they were approaching the graveyard. Link sighed yet again as the houses grew sparse, then nonexistent, with no Zelda to be seen. For all he knew, she was within a house, or even back at the Academy all along. He'd find her for sure tomorrow; it was late enough that she'd be in her room. "Come on, Aepon. Let's go home," Link called quietly, but Aepon wasn't looking at him. He was by the water again, his head tilted so that his eye beheld a bench across the graveyard, under a tree facing the near edge of Skyloft. It looked inhabited.

"Just some late-night people, Aepon," Link soothed, but Aepon rasped a familiar call, looking up; Link followed his gaze to behold a familiar Loftwing circling the bench high above. It grew darker every minute, but Link could still see Nohan's lilac feathers.

Link squinted harder at the shape on the bench. He couldn't pick out many features, but he could tell it was two figures, with one leaning heavily into the shoulder of the other. The one being leaned on was Zelda, he realized; he could see her long ears sticking out from her hair, even from here.

He was halfway across the graveyard when his steps faltered and slowed, dragged to a stop by blessed butterflies in his gut. His heart beat hard with shame and nervousness. He had to think of what to say. What could he say? He supposed it was better that he could apologize to both Zelda and Magpei in one, but some part of him had hoped to catch Zelda alone all the same.

Aepon shifted restlessly at his side, not understanding the tension at hand. Link filled his lungs with a great breath, gathering courage, and spurred himself into motion.

Well, here goes, he thought bracingly, and with dragging feet he trudged over to the bench, Aepon following close behind.

He kept his gaze on the ground until he was next to them and turned around to face them, his mouth open but silent; he had no idea how to phrase this apology. But it turned out he didn't have to. Zelda glanced up at him, wide-eyed, but the boy leaning against her wasn't Magpei.

"Loriki?" Link blurted out, confused, and then his eyes widened. Loriki was crying. His eyes were red and puffy, his face was pale, and he didn't look like he was able to speak. At the sight of Link he ducked his head as though ashamed, whimpering and burying his face in Zelda's shoulder.

"No, shh, it's all right, sweetheart," Zelda crooned to him. "Link's nice. We can tell him."

"Tell me what?"

Loriki whimpered again and shook his head, not looking up. Zelda's eyes met Link's. He couldn't read her expression; it was caught somewhere between sad and fierce, her eyes large and shining and her jaw set. She went back to murmuring to Loriki, saying consoling things.

Link wasn't really sure what to do with himself. He almost felt like plowing ahead and just going through with his apology, but he had no idea what was going on, and he thought it might be inappropriate. "What happened?"

Zelda managed to get Loriki to sit up again. He was hunched over, his arms clutched to his stomach, sniffling and staring at the ground. At an encouraging one-armed hug from Zelda he cleared his throat shakily and attempted to speak. "I- . . . um," he whispered tremulously. "I . . . C-Colpa bit me."

"Colpa . . . your Loftwing?" Link asked, remembering the name Loriki had called during the attack when the white Loftwing had shown up. Link couldn't hold back a scoff that he tried to make sound reassuring; he'd been expecting something much worse. "Well, that's not so bad. I mean, Aepon bites me all the time, you know? When I irritate him and stuff. It's not a big deal."

Far from being reassured, Loriki let out a sob at his words and buried his face in his lap, his shoulders shaking as he started to cry. Link winced. "Wait! Crap, I'm sorry. Loftwings just do that sometimes; come on, you know that. You just have to avoid annoying them! They're just . . ."

He trailed off when he saw the look Zelda was giving him. She was glaring murderously up at him, shaking her head. Link started getting a sick feeling in his stomach. "What?" he asked weakly. "What is it?"

He had a feeling he was missing something very, very big.

Zelda turned to Loriki again, speaking softly to him and tugging gently at one of his sleeves. He shook his head feverishly, but she said, "No, he's my friend. He'll understand," and he covered his face with his right hand as Zelda took his left, stretching out his arm for Link to see. He didn't really get what she was doing. Lofting bites were just nips at worst. They didn't leave marks. They didn't . . .

. . . Loriki's outstretched arm was very dark and shiny.

Link's skin turned cold. Colpa hadn't bitten Loriki; she'd mauled him. A great tear rent Loriki's sleeve and, through it, flesh, a bloody red trough that ran from elbow to wrist. Split, veiny pink muscle gleamed wetly along the edges, and Link's gorge rose when he realized he could see a bit of white bone beneath all that sluggishly overflowing blood. Loriki's shirt was plastered slickly to his skin from all the wetness, and there was a dark stain in his lap where he'd been cradling his arm.

"It hurts," Loriki whimpered. "It hurts."

"Oh, Goddess," Link breathed, covering his mouth with his hand in revulsion. "Oh, my- what happened?" he demanded. "What did you do to her to make her do this?"

Behind him Aepon cawed lowly, staring at the wound, uncomprehending. Link tried to imagine his Loftwing as a scary presence and couldn't. There had to be some kind of mistake. Loftwings just didn't do that. They protected their partners; that was the whole point of them. Loriki had to have attacked her first or something. Offended her. Belittled her. Something.

Loriki shook his head weakly at Link's words, a whine slipping out of his throat as he tore his arm out of Zelda's grip to press it back into his stomach. "I-I- . . . nothing," he gasped. "I d-didn't do anything, she- I didn't do anything," he repeated, shaking his head in denial. "I didn't. I didn't. I didn't do anything!"

"Okay, okay," Link gasped, swallowing, "you need to get to the hospital. Now. That is bad. We need to get your parents, okay?"

"No!" Loriki nearly screamed at him, looking suddenly terrified. "Not them, they think it's my fault, they'll-" He cut himself off with a choking sound and lowered his head as he started to sob brokenly again. "I don't know where to go," he wailed.

Link tore his eyes away to stare at Zelda. She'd dropped the sternness and now just looked anguished, wrapping her arm around Loriki's shoulders. "He won't move," she said quietly. "I tried to get him up, but . . ."

"I want my Maggie," Loriki moaned into his hands. "I-I want Magpei."

Zelda whipped her head around. "Link, find Magpei."

"Wh- I don't know where he is!"

"The purple house two levels down from Gonzo's," Zelda said immediately, "the one with the door facing the little wooded area. It's big, you'll see it."

Link nodded shakily, straightening up. "Hurry!" Zelda barked at him, and he took off, his heart hammering in his chest. Aepon trotted after him, rasping in distress and confusion.

Loriki's Loftwing attacked him, he thought dumbly as he ran, his mind unconsciously translating the sentence into pictures and colors for his bird to look over. Aepon's thundercloud bled confusion like the black tentacles of a blot of ink upon paper. He rebuked Link, called him confused, called him stupid, called him a liar. He took the thought as an insult. He was unable to reconcile the image of a Loftwing with the notion of harming a person. Link couldn't blame him. Neither could he.

Link was panting and gasping by the time he neared the eccentric blacksmith's home, stomping, arms swinging heavily as he slowed himself down enough to look around. The woods were to his right, and before it lay the only house that could match Zelda's description. It was bigger than a lot of other houses he'd seen, and he had a vague recollection of someone pointing out that someone well known lived in this area.

He vaulted up the steps and knocked on the door, trying to regain his breath. Aepon danced in place and swished his tail in agitation, still crying out in protest over what Link had tried to tell him. Link glanced at him and wondered if all this running would hurt his chest.

He heard heavy, irregular footsteps before the door opened. Magpei stood in the doorway, staring at him. "Hey, Link," he greeted with a cheeriness that seemed way too forced. "What's up? You okay?"

"You," Link gasped, unable to get out a full sentence. "Loriki. Agh. Hurt."

Any enthusiasm, forced or no, drained immediately from Magpei's face. He lurched forward suddenly, catching Link off guard and making him stumble back. "Whoa, hey-"

"Where?" Magpei demanded, voice strained, his eyes wide as dinner plates.

"Uh. . ." Link hesitated a bit too long.

Magpei's hands shook as they grabbed Link's shirt and hauled him close. "I said where?"

"The- ah," Link gasped, trying to wriggle free. "The bench by the cemetery-"

Magpei released Link so fast he almost fell right over. He straightened back up only to see Magpei launching himself off the steps, busted ankle forgotten, and charge down the path toward the graveyard. "Crap," Link wheezed, and ran after him, Aepon following.

He had a lot of trouble keeping up, and only could because Magpei was using sheer body mass to forge a path when people blocked his way. He barreled right through them, knocking some folks over without a backward glance, leaving Link to shoot a "sorry!" over his shoulder because he couldn't slow down.

As he drew level with Magpei at one point he heard him speak.

"I hate her," he was spitting under his breath. "I'll fucking kill that bird. I will kill her."

Link was too confused and, if he was honest, frightened to respond.

Magpei picked up the pace when he caught sight of the bench by the graveyard and skidded to a thudding halt against it, breathing hard, before sitting heavily on Loriki's other side. Link and Aepon stopped beside him, also panting laboriously from their back-and-forth trip. At the sight of him Loriki wailed, "Maggie," and, detaching himself from Zelda, collapsed against his brother, burying his face in his shoulder and sobbing. Magpei wrapped his arms around him immediately, his fierce expression turning to one of wretched sorrow.

"Show me," he said, and Loriki shakily held out his maimed limb. Magpei put his hand under it, supporting it, and Link saw he was trembling. Magpei swallowed hard, pale as bone. "It's okay, Iki. We'll fix it up, okay?"

"Can we please get to a hospital or something now?" Link said pleadingly, staring at Loriki's arm, unable to look away. "Like, now?"

Loriki mumbled something into Magpei's shoulder, who shook his head grimly. "No . . . we're fine."

Link giggled disbelievingly, no amusement present anywhere in his voice. He shifted back and forth, unable to keep still. "You're fine? Look at his arm! It looks like it needs to be amputated or something!"

"Shut up," Magpei spat, glaring at him. "We're not going to a hospital."

"Why the hell not?"

"We . . ." Magpei started to speak, then trailed off weakly. "We, uh. We're not allowed."

"Not allowed? W-Who, like, disallows you?"

Magpei said, "No one," at the same time Loriki whispered, "Our parents," and Magpei's voice was so loud and Loriki's so soft that Link almost hadn't heard the younger.

It was Zelda who quietly broke the silence that ensued after that. "Your parents don't let you go to the hospital?" she asked softly.

Magpei looked like he wanted to tell her, but kept glancing up nervously at Link. At a nod from Zelda he grudgingly murmured, "No. At least, not over something like this."

"This has happened before," Link realized, staring at Loriki's arm. "Colpa has . . . attacked Loriki before."

Loriki shuddered, and Magpei paused to murmur gently in his ear. Finally he quietly said, "Yeah. Lots of times . . . every time."

"Every time what?" Link asked, a little bit blunt.

"Every time he's alone. Every time he's outside. She just follows him around and just- just waits, and if she can catch him alone she just-"

Link remembered Magpei's mother come to force him home, remembered Magpei's desperation to stay with Loriki, remembered, "I've been walking Loriki home every day, but I guess you didn't notice." Then he remembered Loriki's marred arms, the ropy scars on the soft flesh that would be exposed had Loriki raised his arms to defend himself, and how pale Loriki had gotten when that brown Loftwing in the infirmary had grabbed for his sleeve.

"But why? What did you do to make her attack you like this?"

Magpei looked ready to kill him. "Nothing."

"It can't be nothing."

"Well, it is," Magpei snarled. "If you've got an explanation I'd love to hear it. Ever since we were ten and Loriki got Colpa, she's taken every fucking opportunity she can to kill him. The only time Loriki has ever touched her is when they first bonded under the Goddess. After that? She avoided us for weeks, until one day Loriki went outside without me for, what, a minute? I walked out and found her on top of him, tearing him apart."

Link was shaking his head before Magpei had even finished. "That- that's-" But what that was couldn't come to mind. He couldn't think of an adjective to express his confusion, his disbelief, his disgust. He wanted to call them liars, like Aepon did – he wanted to so badly. Because birds just didn't do that. Birds were protectors, mentors, partners, friends – the entirety of society revolved around these creatures and their bonds with people.

"But Loriki, that's just silly," Magpei drawled in a mocking rendition of a random voice. "Your Lofting is your best friend! She'll alllwaaays protect you!" Magpei growled wordlessly. "That's what everyone says. That's what everyone says every single time this happens. And that's why we're not allowed to go to the hospital anymore. Because- because they all think he's just trying to get . . . to get attention, or something, and deliberately provoking that bitch- As if he wants to get his throat torn out every time he steps outside."

Unbidden, Link's gaze flitted to the side, to his bird's hovering bill, the bill that was longer than Link's legs, the bill that could probably crunch through bone like it was nothing. The hook upon its end was razor sharp and made for tearing flesh. Link's eyes went to his Loftwing's talons. He saw curved black nails, each over six inches long. How deep they could pervade, how silently they could rend, how devastating they could be on the paper-and-silk body of a small human.

"How many times has this . . . happened?" Zelda asked quietly.

"Thirteen," Loriki mumbled against Magpei's shoulder. "This makes thirteen."

"You've never . . . touched her?" Link asked, trying to imagine something like that. He spent literally every waking hour with Aepon, absentmindedly touching him, playing with him, and talking to him. He was having trouble imagining a life without that sudden luxury. Aepon was his other half, his personal thundercloud, the opposite hemisphere of his brain, his and his alone.

Magpei started to say something, but Loriki interrupted. "I tried," he breathed shakily into his brother's neck, his eyes squeezed shut, not looking at anybody. He was ashamed. His maimed arm was still dripping, dropping red stains onto Magpei's lap. "I tried. But she's always away. O-Or hiding. And if she's not- if she's on the ground, a-and I go up to her . . ." He took a breath, his jaw trembling. "She just-"

With a whimper he started to cry again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She hates me and I d-don't know what I did. I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

Link had no idea what to say to that, and from the look of it neither did Zelda. Thankfully, it seemed Magpei did. He immediately tugged Loriki closer to him, shaking his head. "There's nothing wrong with you," he crooned. "Come on, you know this. You're amazing. You didn't do anything wrong. It's all her. It's her problem and her loss."

"I'm sorry," Loriki sobbed again. "I'm sorry, Maggie, I thought- I thought since . . . since she showed up when I called her, during the attack, I thought . . . I thought she might've stopped, so I saw her today and I-I went up to her-"

"I know," Magpei sighed, and he sounded so sad, so wretched. "I know, and it's okay. I don't blame you. But listen, Iki, you don't need her. You've got me. I'm your Loftwing. Me and Giusto, we're all you need. Right?"

"Mm-hm," Loriki hummed shakily, sniffling, and suddenly Link felt shame like he'd never felt it before. Here was Magpei reassuring his little brother after something more horrible than Link could imagine had happened, here was Magpei looking like he was about to cry, and for the past month Link had been literally stewing with unjustified hatred for him.

"What can we do?" Zelda asked Magpei. "We have to take care of his arm."

Magpei looked at her wearily. "We're fine. I know you want to help, but we've done this before. I'll take care of him."

"You know how to stitch that?" Link asked numbly.

"No, but . . . I know someone who does. Seriously, guys. It'll be easier if you leave us. I don't want him to get any more stressed out."

Zelda chewed her lip for a long moment. "Are you sure?" she asked quietly.

He nodded. "Z-Zel . . . thank you. Thank you for finding him. And Link," Magpei said, turning to Link with earnest, honest gratitude that struck Link dumb with guilt, "thank you. Thank you both so much. If he'd been alone . . ."

Zelda smiled, strained. "Of course." She stood, looking wobbly, and gestured to Link. "Let's go."

"But-"

"Come on," she murmured, catching hold of his sleeve. "I trust them."

Numb, Link allowed himself to be led away from the graveyard, shuffling along in Zelda's wake. Aepon trod behind them. He glanced back, watching as Magpei and Loriki became nothing more than two dark shapes intertwined on the bench, feeling like he should've said something more to them.

He walked with her in silence, his sleeve still caught in her grasp. Several times he tried to speak, but his voice kept dying away in his throat.

They slowed and stopped near a shadowed copse by the bridge over the river, leaning against a tree with downcast eyes and bowed shoulders. They stared at the grass instead of each other.

Link listened to the gurgle and tinkle of the sunset-spotted water to his left and tried to focus on what he wanted to say. His chest felt full of mire, sluggish and congealed; as if he needed to have another terrible truth thrust upon him to stall contemplation. He didn't want to know all of this. Even if it was all true, if he actually lived in a place where Loftwings could attack their people for no reason, where it was sunny and bright all the time so you could see all the burned buildings in vivid clarity, where thugs could attack in broad daylight and no one could do a thing about it, Link would have preferred his view of his pristine, peaceful, perfect home from a month ago, even if it was just a fantasy.

He was fifteen. He didn't want to deal with all of this.

Zelda broke the silence first. "I found him hiding under the bridge. I guess he got away from, um . . . his Loftwing, and hid." She started chewing her lip. "It took me a while to coax him out of there."

"I didn't know Loftwings could do that," Link murmured, and his voice was jumpy and kept giving way. He swallowed hard. "I didn't know any of them could just . . . hate their person like that. For no reason."

"I didn't either."

Link swallowed again, forcing himself to look at her. He was only able to hold it for a second before focusing instead on her knee. "Zelda," he said weakly. "I'm-"

But he couldn't force out the words. Hours of rumination bled out of his brain like they'd never been spent. "I'm-"

And just like that, he was crying. A whimper escaped him before he could stop it, and his face crumpled; Zelda started toward him in alarm and he turned away, mortified. "N-No, no, I didn't mean to- I'm not- I'm not trying to- to guilt-trip you into being nice to me again, I swear-" He covered his face in his hands, shaking his head, trying to regain control of himself. What was wrong with him?

His breath was starting to come quick and shallow. He felt Zelda touch him, try to put her arms around him, and he leaned away. "Oh, Goddess, I'm so pathetic," he moaned, his voice shuddering and breaking. "I-I'm so sorry, Z-Zelda, I'm sorry, I was such an idiot an-and I acted so bad and I've b-been l-lashing out at everyone."

"It's okay," she whispered immediately, and he withered to know his friend was so damn forgiving, and it wasn't okay; it most definitely wasn't okay.

"No it's not," he breathed, his palms sticky and wet against his eyes, his eyelashes stuck together. "'S n-not, 'cause I was weird and stupid and all controlling and- and who even does that? Who- and I-I c-can't sleep and when I do I get all these bad dreams, and I can't w-walk anywhere 'cause I'm scared, I'm so scared of nothing, and I keep imagining everyone all- all cut up and bloody, like, Shrike and you and Aepon, I keep imagining what it's like to stab people because- because I almost did, and I'm not sure i-if I w-want to b-be a Knight-t anym-more-"

He was all-out sobbing now, pitiful as a child, tasting salt on his tongue, and finally he let Zelda embrace him. She rocked him back and forth, murmuring sweet nothings as he pressed his covered face into her shoulder, the noises whimpering out of his throat embarrassingly loud and contemptible. "I took it out on you," he choked. "I took it all out on you and Aepon."

And they – they – were goons, nothing but stuffed-straw enemies, just ragged people in ragged clothes on ragged birds. But they'd arrived on Skyloft and pillaged and burned, and Link hadn't even seen a fraction of it, hadn't even seen much of anything. But they'd just done it. None of them had stopped.

He was weak and pathetic to be messed up so badly from not even three hours of mostly silence and laughing pirates who had quickly been taken down anyway.

"It's okay," Zelda whispered in his ear, holding him impossibly tighter, and he knew he didn't deserve this girl one bit. "It's okay, I know. I got a little messed up, too. I did too."

Aepon crept close and pressed his forehead against Link's side, crooning quietly. Link swallowed messily and freed his hands from his face, the air cool on his wet fingers and cheeks, and wrapped one arm around Zelda and the other around Aepon's head. He'd called these two stupid, he had. He'd called them vapid and grating and oblivious and spiteful liars, these two people he loved more than anything. They were too good for him.

His breathing began to even out, which foretold the return of Link's terrible personality. "Well, this was gross," he croaked against Zelda's shoulder, and she chuckled breathlessly. "No . . . seriously. There's a stain right here. Not sure if it's tears or snot. You better wash this."

"Big dumb dork," she muttered, lightly knocking her head against his. She leaned back a little, looking at him; Link couldn't meet her gaze, and he stared at the ground. She leaned forward and gently wiped the wetness from his face before kissing his cheek. "I accept your apology."

"Good. Thanks," he mumbled, still hugely ashamed. He forced his lips to quirk up in a smile. "Thanks for . . . for being an angel."

Zelda snorted lightly, taking his hands in hers. "Come on, you. It's late. We'd better be getting back home."

Home sounded wonderful.

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

Zelda spent the night in Link's room again. They would've switched it up and sneaked up to Zelda's room, but apparently girls just barged in on each other all the time up there, and it wouldn't do for one of them to stumble in and see Zelda and Link cuddled up together in one bed.

They stayed awake for a very long while in mutual rumination. Finally feeling the tiniest bit lighter than ten tons, Link slowly, haltingly, struggled to rake through his mountain of metaphorical trauma-leaves, with Zelda there as the most supporting guide he could ask for. He stuttered through confessing that his jealousy had been quite irrational, and let his intense guilt be known; her response was not as clipped as he expected, but soft and yielding, yet she apologized not at all for her behavior and he was fine with that.

"I was hurt too," she whispered. "I wasn't normal for a while either." She hadn't done anything wrong, though she refuted him, insisting she should have stuck by him because he was so messed up. They spoke seriously of their futures, of their commitments to their causes of knighthood and whether they were cut out for it; after almost an hour of debate, they agreed to ride out their post-stress anxiety together and see if their will would waver, and consult with other Knights to verify whether this fragility was common.

Zelda confessed in turn that she'd had a bit of a midlife crisis. She'd seen her best friend thrown off the edge of Skyloft with no bird to catch him and had truly felt despair and horror and loss for the first time in her life, even if it was just for a few seconds. Every time she'd looked at him afterwards she felt a cross between anxious and numb, she said, and it scared her to leave him alone, but she timidly admitted that Link's frostiness when it came to the twins had pushed the numb part into the forefront.

By the time their eyelids were drooping and yawns interrupted their sluggish words, they'd managed to laugh a good amount of times, and Link had made at least four and a half jokes about falling off of Skyloft. They considered it a good conversation. They considered it an even better night when they fell asleep curled in each other's arms.

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

Nothing sounded less inviting than work the next day, but there was no avoiding his obligations. Besides, there was something final and poetic in ending the epic struggle that was employment under Shrike. What kind of Knight would shrink away from the very last day of his first job? Ignoring the fact that he was not paid or thanked for his work.

It was a Sunday, so he had the whole morning and early afternoon to putter around with Zelda. This mostly consisted of them lying in bed until around two, drifting between croaky conversation and gentle napping, until, using each other as steadfast support, they both rolled out of bed and devoured a late breakfast. They could not be blamed for the late hour of their rising; neither had to admit to the other that last night was the first time in a long time they hadn't dreamed or slept fitfully. They sat opposite each other, hair scruffy and unkempt and plastered to their faces, clad in baggy pajamas, legs stretched out to intersect those of the other as they ate. Neither was willing to be separated from the other for a while.

Neither said aloud the question on both their minds; neither had to voice their mutually grim curiosity and concern over where Magpei and Loriki had spent the night.

By the time they finished eating and sitting with slouched backs, conversing in tired voices, it was time for Link to get dressed in his black uniform for the last time and seize the day. Zelda accompanied him to his room (ignoring his tiredly playful invitations to come in and watch him undress) and waited outside until Link was ready. Their walk to Shrike's was quiet, but companionable. Link was grateful for it. It was a welcome respite to their tenseness and bitter silence.

Another welcome respite was the sunshine. It no longer felt fake and dim, but as warm and inviting as it always should have been. It was easier to look upon the grass and see it as it was, not as it had been when everything was wrong; since last night gaps had appeared in Link's memory, preventing obtrusive thought into the pirate attack from occurring, but it wasn't the constraining fashion of the earlier month. It seemed to be giving Link ample time to rest and recover. He looked to the side at Zelda and found her flesh live and whole, unmarred by his memory or imagination.

"Are you still walking Loriki around town?" Link asked her as they drew near to the pavilion. With his newfound knowledge he felt excessively generous, both out of sympathy for the twins and guilt for his earlier actions, and decided he would accompany Zelda around, if she would have him.

"I would, if I knew where he was," Zelda says softly. "They said they weren't going to the hospital, and they definitely won't be at their own house . . ."

Link cleared his throat anxiously. "Their, uh . . . I get the impression their parents aren't all that great to them."

Zelda did not respond.

Pelica was snoozing with her forehead plastered to the counter when Link and Zelda walked in, and the door to Shrike's home was ajar, indicating that the doctor was somewhere within. Aepon was nestled in his stall; he appeared too used to the space by now to go anywhere else, at least until his flight feathers grew back. He rasped in greeting. Zelda turned to Link.

"Would you be angry with me if I left?"

"Wh- no! Goddess no!" Link gasped. "Go ahead, just . . . I don't know, whatever you're doing, be safe."

Zelda, tense until his quick answer, relaxed with a grateful smile. "I want to go look around for the twins . . . I don't know where they are, but I want to make sure they're okay."

"I'd help you look, but . . ."

"Don't worry about it, Link. It's fine. Focus on your last day. And hey," she said with sudden inspiration, "maybe you could see if Shrike knows what to do about Colpa. He is a Loftwing expert."

"Was planning on it," Link reassured her, for the same inspiration had swept over him moments before she spoke.

Zelda swept him up in a gentle hug, which Link returned with restrained enthusiasm, before waving him and Aepon goodbye and heading up toward the Bazaar.

Link placed his hands upon his hips and considered the workspace around him. With only two kids left to complete work that had kept six kids busy, and the only remaining helper being useless at best and detrimental at worst, Link clearly had his day cut out for him. Tools had gathered a thin layer of dust in the night; they would need to be washed and disinfected. Aepon's and Cofana's stalls were in need of some serious and attentive sweeping; the brown Loftwing was impossibly tidy, despite being an enormous bird, and required much less maintenance than his messier compatriots, with whom he'd already made friends, even the irritable Cofana.

Bobbing lightly in the breeze, turned dusky by sunlight shining through the barbs on its vane, Aepon's crimson feather stood out from its place among its drabber fellows hung among the rafters. Link smiled when he saw it.

Shrike emerged from his home, slipping through the dark doorway with uncharacteristically careful movements; at the sight of Link standing before the infirmary, feet planted wide apart, hands on his hips in sure preparedness to tackle this day, Shrike shut the door securely and nodded at him.

"Full of sorrow, aren't you? Beset with grief at leaving this place?"

Link placed his hands over his heart, feeling oddly hyper. "I just don't know how I'll go on."

"Well, wipe your tears, my little troll; you could always orchestrate a fake injury for your bird if you want to stay that bad."

"You know, I think I can manage. Hey, where's that bucket with the dent in it, the one we use for washing things?"

Shrike shrugged. "Beats me. It's not like I do grunt work. I need more kids with sick and easily-remedied Loftwings to trap here! Soon it'll be just that ogre over there and no one else to do anything. At least Nandu knew how to handle Rupees; I don't think she can count up to four."

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," Link snorted, sidestepping the doctor's erratic pacing, "without Octoroks maiming anyone else. Would you get out of my way? I'm trying to work."

"Don't be so snippy," Shrike whined. "I own this place."

"Yeah, and I run it. Look, a customer. Go torment them," Link shooed, gesturing to an approaching old woman with a similarly creaky gray Loftwing.

As Shrike dealt with an intestinal infection, Link busied himself with dust and finance (after he shoved Pelica off the counter and out of his way, of course) and intrusive thought, cautious with these broken boundaries that used to creakily stem the flood of memories and fantasies that had tried to slip through the cracks ever since the attack. He was more than comfortable with his and Zelda's promise to ask around and think about whether they wanted to seriously be Knights, and his heart warmed with the knowledge that they would stick together through it all. The fact that he'd been so wrong humbled him. He was only fifteen; he could afford to make mistakes as long as he repaired them.

He got sidetracked as he was polishing some shears about what kind of gifts he could shower Zelda with as a sort of homecoming gift (friend-coming gift?), but when he nearly sliced his thumb open he opted for concentration to avoid distracted bleeding fingers.

Before he abandoned that train of thought, he contemplated what they might do with the twins. There was nothing in him that was willing to abandon them to their current situation; he even found himself wondering if he could tell his Instructors or the Headmaster about their parents, or anyone else who could do some digging. He fervently hoped Zelda had found them by now.

It was almost too much for one boy to handle. He felt years older in just a month; he could not imagine how he was before this.

There were a couple of times where the opportunity to bring up the twins' situation arose, when clients lulled and Shrike was loitering around the inside of the infirmary instead of out buying things or tiptoeing in and out of his own home, and when Link's tasks required him to stay in one place sorting or dusting. Yet every time Link made to open his mouth and give voice to his fears they converged on his heart and choked it, swirling icy blessed butterflies around his chest and making his hands shake. He couldn't talk about it without being confident he wouldn't cry, and that apprehension kept him quiet until a sick Loftwing approached, or Shrike wandered away, and Link felt both relief and disappointment.

Before he knew it, twilight was upon them. He had to interrupt his thoughts several times to help Shrike with customers, including one scary instance involving a broken leg and a fiercely reactive blue Loftwing, but between Shrike's skill and Link's calmness the situation was more under control than not. As the shadows lengthened Link was quickly running out of things to do.

"Hey, Shrike," Link called from behind the counter, counting the day's haul, more to release some nervous energy than anything, "have you, uh, have you seen Loriki around anywhere? Or Magpei?"

Shrike didn't look up from what he was doing to reply, "The twins? Hmmm . . ."

Link waited for his answer, but when the pause stretched on too long he blurted out, "I heard they had some trouble last night. S-So I was wondering where they went after that, if you've seen them around town, or . . ."

Shrike turned away from a paper he'd been reading over, watching Link with an unreadable expression. His eyes flicked to the side, to the chair Pelica was sprawled in and snoring, oblivious to the world. Only after seeing her asleep did he shrug at Link and say, "They're crashing on my couch."

"They . . . what?"

Shrike jerked his chin toward the door of his home. "They're both in there. Didn't get much sleep last night, you see, so I let them stay as long as they needed . . ."

Link stared at Shrike's door, relieved to realize the twins had been here the entire time, and he was more than sure of their safety. At their mental state, he could only guess. "So-So you know what's going on . . . ?" He paused, wondering what Shrike was allowed to know.

Shrike sighed, a weary, aged sound. He gestured Link forward. "Come on, boy, help me close up and sit down with me. I know you want to pick my brain about this particular sad topic. Let's try to end your last day here on a more knowledgeable note."

Dread and curiosity reigned as Link obeyed, along with a twist of melancholy that rendered his movements deliberate and slow as he packed items away, sorted Rupees, and drew shut the light curtains around the edge of the overhang they used to keep the nighttime terrors out of the workspace. This is the last time I'm going to be doing this, he realized. He idly wondered if Shrike accepted paid work. This job had consumed all of his attention the past few months; it would be tough to acclimatize himself to all this free time. Despite the grit and grime and bad-tempered birds, there was little that compared to the feeling of watching a Loftwing on the road to recovery. He supposed that sense of accomplishment was akin to Knighthood.

When nothing else was to be done (and Pelica had scampered off sometime when they weren't looking; Shrike shook a fist in all general directions at her laziness) Link hovered around Shrike, unsure of where to go. The doctor gestured to the chairs he and Link had occupied the previous night and Link sat, ribs shaking from the chill and the anticipation. He waited for Shrike to sit and speak.

"Loriki's arm was badly cut, likely by the hook on his Loftwing's beak. It didn't tear any major nerves or blood vessels, but it'll take an awful long time to heal and he likely will lose feeling in his arm and hand . . . well, more feeling, as he doesn't have much feeling left in them to begin with, there's so much scar tissue . . ."

Link felt queasy and suspected Shrike did too. He'd started out with his technical doctor tone and trailed off into a more strained human one. Link decided to get right to the point. "Why does his Loftwing do that?"

"I don't know."

"There has to be some explanation. Can't you think of anything?"

"I'm a Loftwing specialist, not a miracle worker. The best I could do is guesswork." He heaved a heavy sigh, tapping his feet in the dirt. His collection of Loftwing figures was gone, probably stowed in his house somewhere. "Loftwings are-" He cut himself off, as though gathering his thoughts. "I told you yesterday, boy. Loftwings are as varied as the colors they sport on their feathers."

"So his Loftwing being some . . . some murderous psychopath is just a personality trait?"

"No, nothing so mundane. An anomaly. A . . . mistake. Tell me, boy, do you remember what I told you last night? About what Loftwings are?"

"You told me that they're . . . they're all unique, right? And they all have a different something that makes them stand out."

Shrike glanced over his shoulder, at his house; Link followed his gaze out of reflex. All of Shrike's windows were closed. "Yes, and?"

Link wished Shrike wouldn't be so didactic about it. This felt too urgent, too serious to ask Link to figure out on his own. "They're unique individuals who all have different personality traits that get sent down to us . . . ?"

"Yes!" Shrike said. "They get sent down to us, and paired for life with a child they must protect. Their minds and souls become one, sharing separate bodies. Two distinct personalities are meshed together forever. Link, if every person gets a bird, and every bird gets a person . . . what do you think the odds are of two personalities matching up badly? What are the odds, do you think?"

Link squirmed; Shrike's voice was earnest, like this was a secret spoken too little of. ". . . Big?"

"Think of any two random people in this city, Link," Shrike intoned, "and mash them together for life. Make them share minds. Can you picture strife arising? Can you picture friction?"

Link thought of Groose. "Oh. Definitely."

"Then how is our ritual any different?" Link took issue with the word ritual, like their sacred traditions were backwater practices. "Down comes a black Loftwing, who swears her life to her boy. Down comes a Crimson Loftwing, who becomes his boy's best friend." Shrike tipped his head back, staring up at the purpling sky above. "Down comes a white Loftwing, who can't stand the boy she's stuck with. She hates the bond. She hates the obligation to protect someone she doesn't like. So she tries to get rid of it. Tries to get rid of that nagging presence at the recesses of her mind. Now, no one asked her to be so drastic as to try to kill her charge, but . . ."

"So Loriki had nothing to do with it?" Link asked. "It's just a freak chance that his Loftwing . . . what, just decided to hate him?"

"No, Loriki had nothing to do with it, and certainly has done nothing to earn it. Never a sweeter boy has ever crossed under this tent. But you thought so, didn't you?" Shrike asked, turning to Link. "You thought Loriki must have done something wrong. Something to earn Colpa's ire. Didn't you?"

Link felt guilty, and not for the first time. He remembered the wild, terrified, anguished look in Loriki's eyes, and knew that nothing Loriki had done could've justified such a mauling. "I did at first. I just didn't understand, because I guess . . . all I've ever known is Aepon being protective over me. Sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for." Shrike touched his fingertips together, tapping the nails of his pointer fingers against his grim mouth. "This is just how our society works. Everything we do revolves around our bond with Loftwings. They're how we get around, he we stay safe, how we stay sane. They float down on divine wings from a deity in our most important ceremony. We burn offerings to them at the hundreds of statues all over Skyloft dedicated to them. We love them, and they love us.

"Of course no one takes Loriki seriously. Of course no one believes him when he says he's innocent and Colpa attacks unprovoked- and if they do, they accept any reason to discredit him. Ignore him. No one wants to face this particular monster. Not when it's staring them in the face from the eyes of a lifelong companion."

Shrike swallowed, and cleared his throat. "And Link, boy, I cannot stress the toll it has taken on Loriki. To know that his life's partner, the one who shares his mind, the one literally created to protect him, hates him enough to try to end him . . . why, it can be too much to bear. What would you think of yourself, if someone took a look in your head and turned around and tried to kill you? It's a perversion, it is, such an intimate betrayal. It's like . . ."

Link thought about Magpei flinching away from his mother. He thought about their fear that they be found out last night, as if they'd done something wrong. "Like a parent hitting their own child."

Shrike looked at him carefully. "Exactly."

Link tried to think of it in his own terms, in his own head. He thought of Aepon, strong and loyal and fierce Aepon, turning his many weapons on his boy. Clumsy, blurry images of black talons curling into his flesh, and a menacing beak closing on his face, were enough to upset Aepon enough into rising. He trotted from his stall, head and body low to the ground in urgency, and stood next to Link to stare. His red-tipped tail swished anxiously, and his feathers clung close to his body. He rasped, harsh.

"I know, buddy," Link said softly, Aepon's presence erasing his forced fantasies with comfortable routine. Aepon lowered himself beside Link, resting his enormous head on Link's lap and closing his eyes. The thundercloud throbbed like a headache, or like a heartbeat.

I'd never hurt you.

"I'd never hurt you," Link whispered back, leaning down to kiss the the crown of his bird's head.

Shrike gazed on with an indiscernible look in his eyes. "Never waste what you have," he said sternly. "There are precious few things like this. And now you know how rare you have it."

Link's fingers sifted through Aepon's red nape. He glanced at Shrike. The leather cord around the doctor's neck that held Delta's feather ran down under his shirt. "Shrike," Link asked, "what happened to Delta?"

"I killed her."

Silence reigned for a slow, creeping moment, like a drop of molasses oozing from a spoon. Link opened his mouth and tried to speak, but nothing came out.

Shrike did something Link had never seen before. He crossed his arms over his chest, tucked his chin down, and truly showed his age. His hollowed eyes were lined with wrinkles; the mustache bristling under his hooked nose was mostly gray. He looked small.

"I killed Delta," Shrike said, louder, "because once upon a time . . . when I was your age, or even younger than you, I was not like you. I was, fortunately, not like anybody . . . I was terrible. I was intolerable. I thought I was untouchable. When I received my black beauty during my ceremony, my perfect Delta, all I could see were flaws.

"I hated her. I hated her from the moment she appeared over me, under that Goddess's shadow. I hated the bond, I hated the sudden company in my head. As the days stretched on, I hated how she hovered around me. I hated the obligation of it all. So I ignored her. I was the Colpa to her Loriki, and I treated her wrong."

Link listened as though ensorcelled, at the horror of it all and at the bizarre thought of Shrike ever treating a bird wrong. He always spoke so highly of Delta, and now . . .

"When I was . . . barely your age, I think, I had completely shut her out. I didn't notice her waste away, alone and without any help. I didn't notice and if I had, I surely wouldn't have cared. But when she, alone on some island somewhere, passed away, then I felt it. Then I felt it. Do you realize how busy your head is, sharing it with someone else? And then . . . the silence?

"I went mad. I went well and truly insane. The quiet in my head was unbearable. I could barely eat, barely sleep, barely breathe. My poor father nursed me like I was an elderly man. For years I rotted in my bed, unable to summon the energy to move, or care about anything. All I did was lie there and regret; all I did was cry out for Delta. The worst part just won't leave me. The worst part is that, even just before she died, she loved me. She loved me with all of her heart."

Shrike's voice was mechanical, his preaching tone with all the life sucked out of it. A desiccated log instead of living bark. Link was not sure what he would do if Shrike cried — Link thought he himself might start crying — and watched his face carefully. Shrike only stared dead-eyed ahead.

"Well, that tale ends happily . . . mostly. Somehow, as I learned to walk again, my father got me into this place. Got me into an apprenticeship with the doctor who preceded me. I became enamored with the care of birds. It's interesting work, and I'm very good at it. Maybe, I thought, I could save more. Maybe, no other bird would have to suffer like Delta did. I could do good in the world. I could undo my own mistakes." Shrike chuckled humorlessly, shaking his head. "I know better now. All these birds I've saved . . . and I'd trade every single one to have Delta again."

As Shrike fell silent, Link stared at him. He felt like he needed to say something to fill the quiet. "I'm sorry," he said croakily.

Shrike shook his head, eyes closed and brow furrowed. "I'm not the one who needs the sorry. That Colpa, oh . . ." Shrike's eyes grew mean. "That Colpa has no idea what she's doing to herself."

Link wished Zelda were here. She always knew just what to say, and this wasn't a situation Link felt he could be clumsy with. He felt both tired at this new sad story added to his life, and humbled. He wanted to ask Shrike how many people know this particular tale, but guessed the number was low. "I never thought . . . wow. I don't really know what to say."

"If you don't trust me with Aepon anymore, I don't blame you," Shrike said, far too easily. Link had never heard him discredit himself thusly. "A decent chunk of people who remember who I used to be don't. I don't blame them either. Who can trust someone who can't care for his own Loftwing, with theirs? It makes sense."

Link felt details missing in how Shrike used to be, but from what he discerned, who Shrike was sounded familiar. "Is this why you hate Magpei so much?" Link asked. "That, and he's got a black Loftwing?"

Shrike scoffed, a wry grin tugging at his mouth. "I am a very petty man," he sighed, "and that's a quality I could never quash. Magpei is everything I used to be, but with one crucial difference. I was full of hate, and that boy is full of love. Love for only two things in his life, sure. But one of those two things is his bird. A black bird, at that. He bests me, in every way. It's maddening." Shrike quieted, then added spitefully, "He's also ugly."

Link snorted, his smile stretched wide after hearing so much tragedy. "Oh, sure." He slumped further down in his chair, arms around Aepon's huge head. He thought about it, then said, "I still trust you with Aepon. I mean, it would be stupid not to, since you healed him so well. It's obvious you care about all of these Loftwings. I think you just . . . you know, made a bad mistake when you were young and stupid. I'm young and stupid. I've been making tons of mistakes recently. And you literally, like, devoted your life to changing. That's so good."

He felt lame, and ashamed, wondering if it was even his place to express a conclusion Shrike might not have asked for. He barely even knew the situation, anyway.

"That is very nice of you to say, Link," Shrike said. "But there are 'making my girlfriend mad' mistakes, and mistakes with more tragic consequences. You don't have to try and make me feel better. Years and years of coming around have taken place long before I just told you my sorry tale. Still . . . I appreciate it."

Embarrassed, Link winced. He opened his mouth to apologize.

Shrike said, "I suppose you aren't such a troll after all."

What came out of Link's mouth was not an apology. "Oh, come on!" he exclaimed. "After all this time, you still call me a troll?"

"Hah! Maybe you've earned the right to escape that particular title. Maybe I've gone soft. Tell me, was it so bad here? Did it truly give you a taste of hell, or have you gained a new appreciation for how the world works?"

Link glared jokingly at Shrike. "Both."

"Then that's all I could ask for," Shrike chuckled. "A most torturous lesson." He sighed, tipping his old head back until his gaze was leveled on the overhang. The string of feathers lacing the edge of the roof danced in the light evening breeze. "I think I may offer Loriki a job here," he said thoughtfully. "Loriki is very good at this, though he doesn't believe it. He has respect for the birds, and not just a fearful respect from Colpa. I've not met a boy with a gentler soul. And someone has to take over for me eventually."

"That's a really good idea," Link replied. "Plus, uh, it might be good to get him out of the house."

Shrike's neutral frown turned angry. "That is right as well."

"You're gonna have to get used to Magpei, though."

Shrike rolled his eyes like the world was ending. "I suppose I'll manage," he groaned. His gaze flicked down to the distant horizon, orange fading fast on the edge of the cloud layer. "Ahh, Link, you're officially free. Don't let me keep you home. Drop off the uniform sometime, so I can pass it on to my next victim."

Link made to stand, then hesitated. "Is there, like . . . anything I can do to help about them?"

Shrike waved a hand. "Let me take care of it. I don't say that just as an adult who wants a kid to get his nose out of some business. I say that meaning I will take care of it."

Link's guts still squirmed in dissatisfaction. "I'm a Knight. I should be doing something."

"You are also a 15-year-old who has had a very long and draining couple of weeks. Go and sleep. You've got a nice, free day tomorrow." Shrike looked at him sternly. "You don't want your ankles bitten clean through by a Remlit, do you?"

"Thanks for the visual." Link stood, leaning up on his tiptoes to stretch. Aepon rose with him, head dipped close to Link's shoulder, greedy for touch.

Link held his bird's head as he looked down at Shrike, sitting alone. The finality of tonight surrounded him all at once. Coming here every day has taken up so much of his life, he barely has any idea what to do tomorrow.

Maybe he'll spend it walking around Skyloft. Maybe he'll look for Magpei and Loriki. Maybe he'll stop by the infirmary to chat. He will probably spend the whole day with Zelda, and he will look at her and love her every time.

"Thanks," he said, and cleared his throat to say a stronger, "Thank you."

Shrike wrinkled his nose and grinned at Link boyishly. "Thank you. You're the one who so viciously cleaned my shears."

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

It was dark by the time Link and Aepon got to the Academy doors. Night descended like a shroud, emptying the world of sound and color. Aepon's red feathers turned dark and nondescript, a shifting maroon mass under white moonlight.

Link paused by the doors. Something about this night made him want to stop and look and listen. Crickets sang from clumps of grass down the stairs; flags stretched across rooftops fluttered tiredly on a breeze barely there. The air was warm enough to keep Link comfortable. He felt alive in his own skin; he felt unbearably, and wonderfully, present.

Aepon opened his beak and uttered a low keen, lowering his head until his great glittering eye hovered before Link. Link reached forward to hold him. The feathers beneath his palms were familiar and relaxed, warmed with Aepon's fiery life. His golden gaze was piercing. And from him exuded an irreplaceable presence, an assurance, a promise.

Link wanted to commit every part of him to memory. He leaned forward until his forehead rested on Aepon's, breathing as one with his partner. "I love you," he whispered, stroking over Aepon's white cheek. Link felt his bird's reply, love returned tenfold, blooming from the thundercloud they share, washing through every one of his veins, pooling warm in his heart.

For a while they stood there, leaning on each other. Link had so much to say, and too few ways with which to say it. He had to rely on fleeting images, and on steadfast feelings. Words were too limited. Nothing he could say would do it all justice.

Eventually, Link settled on, "Good night, Aepon." Through and through Aepon's feathers did his fingers stroke. Every time he thought it was the last one, he drew his hand back for another.

"Good night."

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

Guess who!

Didn't expect another chapter, did you? After four years, I wouldn't blame you! Want to know the worst part? All this time, this chapter was sitting in my computer with only one scene left! As Breath of the Wild came out, I got nostalgic and went searching for Polarity and finished it right up. I'm very happy about exploring the darker sides of a lifelong bond, and I hope I didn't disappoint! Even if most of this is four-year-old writing.

Ebirda's intelligence or apparent lack thereof was an unintended development. At first she was just genuinely dumb, but then I wrote Matchmakers and made her smart, and the idea of her faking it kind of took root. At this point in time, Ospren doesn't know Ebirda is so intelligent, but he finds out at some point during the events of Skyward Sword, so his torment ends soon.

And here ends the infirmary arc, and this is probably the last you'll see of Shrike, Magpei, Loriki, and the other guys. Honestly, this is probably the last you'll see of any chapters. I am a notoriously slow writer, if you haven't guessed already. In the four years since you've last seen me update TCL, I've gotten into Attack on Titan, started a fic called Dichotomy about naga!Marco, entered college, got a girlfriend. I got into Pokemon recently as well, and it made me start Silver Bird, which centers around Gladion and his Type: Null — another "boy and his bird" fic, in fact. I always come back to the same things, it seems!

I rarely touch FFnet anymore, but you can find me on Tumblr, Twitter, and AO3, all under the name "Saphruikan." If you're into Pokemon or SNK, give my newer fics a bite! My writing has changed for the better in these long four years.

This fic has been an absolute blast, and brought me a lot of happiness. I'm very proud of it, and I'm proud of all the wonderful comments people have left over the years. I'll never forget the impact it had on me and my future writing. It's a little sad to admit there will probably never be more, but who knows? Maybe someday I'll open up TCL and jot some words down, when I'm not busy procrastinating on higher-priority fics.

Good night, Link. Good night, Aepon. It's been a life.