LOZ:Twilight Princess:Ch.36 Rev

----Chapter 36: Master of the Sky


The rush of air was constant, a panging annoyance against the white marble bricks … and his eardrums.  The size and sensitivity of Link's ears made the wind all the more discomforting.  He wondered for a moment, as he struggled behind the Oocca creature, why the proud sky beings seemed unaffected by the harsh conditions of the air, but the answer quickly came to him.  Their ears were fused to the sides of their head, no skin protruding outward like the ground-dwelling races of Hyrule.  It was no wonder the wind did not conduct as forcefully through their cavities.  Link realized now that this had been the first time in a while that he once more loathed the heightened hearing that his lupine essence had enhanced.

They came upon the entrance to the building ahead, its golden doors opening into the hollow of its frame to allow them access.  Their slow, heavy motion gave Link an ominous feeling about what lay ahead.  Nonetheless, he followed the ancient being into the building.

Once inside, Link's breath seemed to stop.  The sky city was a marvel to uphold, and he felt his insides almost squeal in a way that reminded him of Shad.  It would be an archaeologist's dream just to look upon the architecture of the Oocca.  It was almost cave-like in construction, a large hollow.  And though its configuration had been damaged in numerous places, he could still see the room as if it had never been touched by an invader's hand, decorated beyond imagination.  There were four tall pillars holding up the domed ceiling, all of the stones in perfect alignment with its neighbors.  A large golden orb hung down from the ceiling like a giant bauble, the light from the outside reflecting off its surface and filling the entire room with an ethereal glow.  The floor and walls so polished, so refined.  The sky nowhere in sight, the walls tightly pressed together and hung with ornaments of silk and stone.

However, no matter how much Link could stand there and imagine the room without its fractures, nothing could return it to its original glory.  As soon as he had been transported here he had felt the weight of the city's age, and now he saw it clearly.  The strong pillars now crawled with greenery, sections of the walls were torn away to reveal its hidden metal framework, and the large orb above now cast a rusted, dull gleam into the room.  It seemed that the touch of a single finger could break away its now brittle construction.

But the weight Link felt … it was not solely from the city's intimidating age.  There was a presence here, a force that had cast the pall of twilight even into these heavens and torn its halls and hanging ledges.  

A society's finest work … reduced to mere ruins.

Link turned to Ooccoo in that instant.  As Midna withdrew from his shadow, he realized she must have hidden in order to not be swept away within the harsh winds.

"Tell me, what happened here?" he asked the tiny creature as he squatted to one knee.

Now, instead of hovering as she normally did, Midna, too, floated down to the level of Ooccoo, standing alongside her partner.

As it spoke a celestial melody seemed to embody its voice, not as defined as the soothing voices of the Light Spirits, but now--within the skies of the creature's natural environment--he could hear a certain gentle femininity among its words.  "Some time ago our great city came under attack.  At first we could not understand how anything could reach us here.  We have lived in peace within the clouds for generations without disturbance.  Some of the Oocca had warned us all of the dangers they felt closing in.  They could feel an evil spreading across the lands of Hyrule below, but so few believed their tales.  I was one who believed.

"I remained in waiting for some time, waiting for the day to act.  Yet … I did not foresee the day of attack, when the beast came upon our city.  Then there was no question.  Something had to be done.  We are not warriors, young Hylian, therefore we had no means of combating such a foe.  I volunteered to return to the surface to wait for the Messenger to the Heavens.  We all believed in the Messenger, for it has been written time and again in history that the Messenger shall rise up in the time of great need and seek his destiny … perhaps even without truly knowing where it will ultimately lead him."

At that the small creature seemed to cast a knowing smile at Link.  Within an instant Link could see himself in his mind … at every instant he had doubted, at every instant he had been blind to the real dangers and the outcomes of his decisions and actions.

"But enough talk of this.  The danger has consumed this entire city, and the beast rages constantly.  Most of my people have been imprisoned at the center of the city.  Others have managed to have gone undiscovered … hiding, waiting for you."

"How do I reach them?" asked Link immediately, and Oocca seemed to be impressed by his selflessness, knowing how this trait was so uncommon amongst the lower beings.

But then a screech filled the air, echoing through the breaks in the walls.  Link was suddenly on his feet again, hand ready to dart for his sword.  "What--?"

Oocca took a few steps in front of Link and Midna toward the sound.  Her eyes narrowed.  "The beast has become aware of your presence.  The winds have carried your scent to it."

Another roar immersed the room, the sound of a low, angry howl.  Its voice died quickly, its roughness seemingly cutting short its vocal ability.

Link ran through the door straight ahead, Midna and Ooccoo following after him.  They remained in the doorway so that the wind did not affect them as harshly, while Link leaned out slightly to gain a better view of his surroundings.  He squinted against the blinding luminosity of the clouds.

Among the great buildings and towers of the sky city, there was a figure blanketed in white fluff in the distance.  And it was coming nearer with each second.

Blinking away the colliding winds, Link focused on the shape, trying to distinguish its identity.  It was a beast of the sky; that much he knew, but it seemed too large to be a kargorok, and its roar had not matched that of the shrill, ear piercing tones of the Hyrulean animal.

No, what flew toward them was otherworldly even to this majestic place, for as it approached, Link he could clearly identify its shape.  Out of all the tales, of all the stories that Link had delighted in as a young boy, this creature had flown out of his favorite myths.

A dragon.

Yet of all the times he had eagerly asked Rusl to tell him of the legends of dragons, he had also learned in those times that few had ever seen dragons up close.  Their nature was said to be vigilant and merciless, but he remembered arguing with Rusl many a time about their seemingly cruel and destructive temperament.  It had always seemed to him that the dragons in such tales were merely protecting themselves or their nesting grounds.

This dragon, however, had been tamed by evil; its mere existence serving that of a twisted nature.  Its black scales were polished yet dull through the fog, yet its wingspan and a few of its joints appeared as crimson smears against the blur of its motion.  Realizing that the black scales were actually armor, Link agreed completely with Midna's previous conclusion.  This was a monster either controlled or created by the twilight's power.

It screeched again as it swooped overhead, and the threesome ducked back inside, watching from behind the doorframe.  The dragon reeled its mighty neck, and dove down to intersect the pathway leading to the next building.  As it soared over it, its talons crashed into the stone, tearing through it without even slowing.  The beast continued on its way, receding once more into the distance until it landed on the peak of the highest building.

"You must help us, brave adventurer!" called Ooccoo, and Link looked down to her.  "Argorok must be driven from this city before it is completely destroyed.  Before the other Oocca are killed!"

"You have my word," he offered resolutely.  "By the end of this night, the beast will be but a memory."

"I wish you the blessings of the Goddesses," said Ooccoo, and she whirled around and reentered the building behind them.

No time to waste then, Link thought as he took in his surroundings.  The inaccessible building ahead was exactly the place he needed to go.  With the main catwalk diminished to brick and dust, he would need to find another way to reach it.  There had been two other doors leading off from the building behind him, but as he looked to either side, it did not appear that either adjacent structure was connected to the one before him.  There seemed to be countless small and medium-sized buildings that floated by themselves, disjointed from the ensemble of the city.  Link surmised that these were likely the personal dwellings of the Oocca set aside from the main city.  The city itself was a place of many levels and extensive interconnectivity, all pathways leading to the center of town, as it were.  

Above him reigned another level to the building, and high, high above, a pathway that crossed over.  The only problem was that there was no apparent means of reaching the upper floor.  Link tossed his gaze about, searching.

Midna seemed to be in the same mindset, and she offered a suggestion.  "Maybe one of the other buildings has a way up."

But Link spotted an alternate route just as she finished speaking.  "Why waste time in looking?"

"Wha--?" her voice cut out as she watched Link climb onto the delicate archway leading up to the doorframe.  He balanced himself, clinging to the wall, before beginning his ascension, using the framework of the walls to propel him upward.

Midna sneered.  "Or you could climb the outside of a building of a sky city that's hovering who knows how high up in the clouds with gusty winds always threatening to blow you into oblivion.  Yes, that does seem the better choice."

Link ignored her sarcasm.  He could not afford to misuse his time in seeking a way up that could likely not exist within the other buildings.  Each second he spent fighting his way toward the dragon was a precious moment that could see the end of an Ooccan life.  Time was nothing to be taken for granted here.

He eased up the wall slowly, Midna now within his shadow to avoid the winds that continually ate into Link.  Had the gusts not progressively become stronger the higher he inched forward, he suspected that his end goal would have come much sooner.  Each time the current rushed against him, he had to latch onto the metalwork tighter and closer.  His muscles began aching terribly due to the pressure against him, but if he surrendered to the wind he would either be cast off into the void of the sky, or--at the luckiest--land broken on the floor below.

As another wind raged past him, he stopped momentarily.  He tried not to look downward, but the instinct was only human.  The ground below seemed so distant now.  He had made excellent progress despite the natural obstacles, and as he switched his gaze above, he saw that the higher pathway was not much farther away.

He took extra care as he came closer still, the wind blowing at him at an odd angle as the path above diverted its natural course.  Several vines flourished above, streaming down the sides of the building and the bridge.  As he switched from the grating to the greenery, the wind howled mightily, catching him off-guard blowing his body away from the wall.  He held on tightly to several of the vines, blinking back the harsh gust, his eyes watering from its contact.

Fortunately, the vines were incredibly strong, resistant to the atmosphere of its habitat, and the next moment Link had managed to pull himself to safety.  He stood on an open ledge, sheltered from the increased winds by walls erected on either side.  To Link's amazement, vines were not the only plants to populate the area.  There were sprouts of grass littered like patches of a quilt across the groundwork, stretching across the bridge as well.

Link flexed his shoulder, trying to ignore how the climb had revived a tenderness within his still healing wound.  Without further postponement he started across the catwalk, finding that sections of its sides had broken away some time ago.  He clutched tightly to the remaining bits, halting his struggle forward each time the wind surged anew.

After a time Link at last reached the other side and immediately plunged into the building.  It was in worse shape than the first room he had occupied.  All lively color seemed to have been stripped away.  Either the insides of the city had been drained by the wear of time, or the dragon had torched the color from the walls.  The same empty feeling had overcome Link at all the ruins he had been forced to visit during his travels.  And so the sky was hardly the limit to such evil.

As soon as he took one step into the room, a tremble vibrated through his foot.  With a swift glance down, he realized that the stones beneath him were breaking away, and he leapt back immediately, watchful for any indication that his new support would fall also.  After he was satisfied that his weight would hold, he looked on as the stones before him jostled free at the will of gravity and pulled downward.  He peered through the new hole to watch as the stones were shattered upon making contact with the floor of the room below--one, he noted, that also had a few stones shaken loose.  He could see the blinding whiteness below the city.

Disorientation overtook him momentarily, and he leaned back to balance himself against the wall, which he only hoped was still stable.

"Come come, now," teased Midna, "is our hero getting weak knees again?  I thought you didn't want to waste time."

Customarily ignoring his companion, Link took a moment to readjust himself, during which he surveyed the room more closely.  Much of the room had already broken apart, several pieces of the floor already having been stolen from their respective positions.  What was worse was that an entire line of stones had been displaced.  Crossing it would be risky, and he had to wonder if the dragon was intelligent enough to have intended Link to come into this room or if it had been a mere coincidence that destroying the bridge below had brought him here.

He did not intend to underestimate his foe; therefore, he chose the former.  Dragons were said to be crafty beasts anyway.  If the twilight controlled it, however, perhaps its intelligence would be clouded by the curse.  Yet these were thoughts for the future--for when he reached the beast and engaged it in battle.

At the moment he had a far less demanding task to tackle, but life-threatening nonetheless.  He stepped away from the wall carefully testing each step before he settled down his full weight.  Each time he felt the slightest jiggle, he moved onto to a different spot until he at last came to the edge of the floor.  The large cleft dividing the room was above another breakpoint, the section of the floor below having been stripped away completely.  A minor breeze played up through the openings, yet its current did not attack Link as fiercely as previous winds.

Link judged the distance.  It would be risky, but the walls were in no better shape than the tiles beneath his feet.  Where the stones had eroded, the metalwork beneath had been shredded, sticking out at angles that Link dared not to go near.  The option before him was the only route available … not that it made it any easier to contemplate.

Setting his misgivings aside, he aligned his body so that he was angled toward the closest and most stable of the stones on the opposite side.  He back-stepped as far as he dared until he was confident that he had enough space.  He gulped down the last of his hesitation and bolted for the gap, his momentum increasing every second until he reached the rim.  He pushed off from the ground and soared over the cavity, forbidding himself any glance downward.  In fact, for a fraction of an instant while he was airborne, his eyes refused to open.

As soon as his feet made contact with the other side of the room, his elation at having made it across was wiped almost immediately.  A rumble thundered through his feet, and just as he ran from the tile, it broke free from the rest of the floor and plummeted into the depths far below.

But Link did not stop running.

The stone that had fallen free had only been the initial result of his vault over the gap.  A chain reaction ensued, single stones and clusters ripping free from the structure and meeting the same freefall that the others had suffered.  Racing against time and gravity, Link sped toward the door on the far side, hoping to find some means of safety on the other side.  Each stone in his path seemed to fall just as his feet left it, a fortune he prayed would last until he reached his destination.

He was meters from the door now.  The stones began to fall more quickly, tearing away even before he reached them.  He was now using them as steppingstones, jumping up to the next, for as they fell faster, they seemed to create a floating staircase.  The sensation was less than pleasurable.  Death seemed all too real.

His bones ached.  The wind howled.  The stones groaned.

Yet he did not stop.  He struggled upward, straining his muscles with each leaping stride.

But the last stone had fallen too far by the time he had reached it, and it tumbled uncontrollably. In the last moment, Link jumped as far and high as he could.

But it was not enough.

There were a few seconds--within which the coldest fear entrapped Link--before he began his plummet back down.  As he registered the reality of what was happening, he found himself unable to breathe for the briefest instant.  The fear of impending doom seemed to paralyze him.

It had all happened within a split moment, the initial fall, the gripping fear, and now … the culminating fortitude of his resolve, his will to live.  Just as he spotted Midna's face above, floating at the door, jaw agape, he stretched out his arm.  One would think from a distance that he was reaching out to ask for aid or to say his final farewell, but neither was true of this hero.

Above, something shot past Midna's body and shattered the fright from her nerves.  Just as thoughts and solutions again raged within her mind, she spotted Link coming nearer.  The impossibility of this was soon cast from her mind as he came closer still, using an arm to shield against the small bits of stone and dust that fell in the wake of their larger siblings.  Link stopped rising when he came eyelevel to his companion, the both of them hanging suspended in the open air.  Midna had always been able to perform such a feat.  It was more uncommon to see her actually traveling by the strength of her own legs.  Link on the other hand grinned back into his partner's awestruck eyes.

"Weren't worried were you?" he asked, teasing her the way she customarily mocked him.

She shook loose of her state of shock and folded her arms, simultaneously sneering at the clawshot device that had saved his life, the claw connected to the dangling chain having gripped a part of the golden archway.

"First you blow up the Eldin Bridge--"

"That was an accident."

"--then you demolish the Temple of Time--"

"It was already falling apart."

"--and now this?"  She indicated the missing floor.  "Your heroic skills continue to amaze."

Though they were both trying to shield against their feelings--Link, his fright from nearly dying, and Midna, from actually caring--they exchanged smiles.

As Link began to reel himself upward, he cast another look toward Midna.  "Why didn't you just teleport me across?"  He had been wanting to ask such a question on many occasions, but now seemed like the best time to bring it up.  There had been so many times that Midna could have eased his workload, helped him much more than she did.

"Excuse me?" came her insulted reply.

"You've done it before.  The first time we met you teleported me to the top of the stairs in the castle sewer.  Why haven't you ever done it again?"  He had always been suspicious, had always tried to answer the question himself.  In the end he had always come up short of an answer.

Her reply came in a rather irate tone.  "If I helped you every single moment you were in trouble how would you ever learn to fend for yourself?"  It was a most logical answer.  "How refined would your skills be, do you think, if I leant a hand every single time a monster came pouncing at you or every time you needed to get over a tiny gap?  How long would you last against Zant--or Ganondorf for that matter--if you needed to rely on me to do everything?"

Everything she said--it made Link rethink their entire relationship.  Had that truly been her reasoning … even at the beginning … a time when she had seemed to hate him?  To think that all this time she had merely acted in his favor.  By not helping him all those times when he had needed her the most … that had been her way of assisting him, making him learn to break free of the chaos in which he had gotten himself tangled.

He had to admit that she was right.  He had devoted his life to saving others, so what kind of person would he have become had he never learned to save himself?

In that moment his perspective of Midna changed dramatically.  No longer did she seem like this unwilling, uninspiring companion with whom he had been forced to serve.  She was--in her own right--a very noble being.  He could not imagine his life without her, could not imagine the person he would have become had he never met her along his journey.

And it was the first moment that he thanked the gods for her.

Link was soon on the other side of the doorway, once more pelted by the swaying winds of the heavens.  The path before him, however, did not exist.  It was not as if the dragon had smashed this one to pieces as well, but the bridge that was surely supposed to be there had somehow vanished.  Link looked around for a clue as to how this could happen, how the road could just dead end.

He was beginning to think that perhaps it had been constructed in this manner, and that the Oocca--being creatures of the sky--simply flew the distance across to reach the next chain of buildings, much like they obviously had to do to reach their homes.  But just as he scanned the walls a second time, something drew his attention.

There, veiled by the dense overgrowth, was a lever hooked into the side of the wall.  Link stepped over to it and brushed away the vines and grasses as best he could, pulling grit out of the gear's niches.  Assuming that it would extend a bridge, he began to crank the lever, and sure enough, a roar bellowed underfoot.  The entire place seemed to tremble as the mechanisms within the stones beneath him began churning.  He watched the open space as the moments clicked by, and finally, a platform emerged from the rumbling, stretching outward farther and farther toward the other structure--a very large structure.

As the bridge extended, Link took notice that this one did not have sides that would protect him from the winds.  It would be a straight shot across.  If only I still had that ball and chain…. Link laughed to himself.  It would have been the perfect device.  Tie the chain round his waist and he would have been set for the adventure across, but he cast the amusing thought aside just as he heard a jolting thump.

The bridge had come to a halt.

He cast a sideways glance at Midna.  She looked back at him with an answer to his unvoiced question already smeared over her face.  No, she was not going to make it easier for him to cross.  He had not thought she would offer the assistance of her magicks, but it had been worth one last try.  He mentally checked through his entire arsenal for something that would aid him in negotiating the dangerous sky bridge.  Nothing came to mind.  It would be his wit and skill against a natural phenomenon.

He took a moment to ascertain which way the wind was blowing.  It was coming at him from the right, and he also discovered in those moments of observation that the winds also came in bursts, perhaps only a few seconds apart.  He did not know how long it would be until the currents changed, so he decided that it was time to start across.

He would have to run the distance--in bursts like the wind.

As Link waited for the right moment, Midna entrapped herself in his shadow once more so that she would be able to remain at his side.  And off Link went, racing as fast as he could across the bridge while the wind had died.  Yet, as if from some innate sense, Link dropped immediately into a crouch as the wind picked up again, grasping the edge of the platform to stay on its surface.  His body blew with the wind, but his fingers clutched tightly to the edge.  Once he knew it was safe to stand again, he bolted off.

Three sprinting bursts like this saw Link safely to the other side, and once there, he gazed back across the bridge.  He wondered why the platform had been withdrawn in the first place. Had the Oocca truly thought removing a bridge would hinder the dragon?  Surely, that had not been the reason.  Yet, whatever the reason may have been, Link saw no point in deducing the truth.  It did not matter.  He had crossed it, and he was once more on his way toward the dragon's roost.

Midna followed him into the next room, and though she had made it quite clear that she would never unnecessarily help him, he thought it amusing how close she stuck by his side.  It was not her own wellbeing she was concerned about anymore.

He could see that, due to the floor having been ripped through, the chamber inside was vast and multileveled.  There were hardly any spaces to move about on the floor, and each level had suffered the same destruction.  The entire bottommost floor had been torn away, and there were also several holes in the walls.  This was not a result of erosion from the ageless winds.  It was all as if the dragon had rammed through the structure several times … as if it had been after something….

And there he saw them.  About three levels down was a caged off area set into the wall itself, and inside were a vast number of Oocca.  Yet, something did not seem right about the whole thing.  How could a dragon lock them up?  He never wanted to underestimate his opponents, but it seemed so … impossible.

He scanned the chamber thoroughly before he made any movements.  There were no immediate threats save for the gusting winds coming in through the splits in the walls.  After concluding that there were no immediate dangers, Link crouched at the edge of his small section of the floor to ascertain a way down to the cage, and further, how to release its captives.  

There were several spots where the walls had not been completely pulled apart, the metal layer between the inside and outside still intact.  Convenient.  Link cocked a brow, thinking.  He could use the damages to his advantage.  It's about time I started using this dragon's wrath on the city against it.

Link cast a glance toward Midna as he stood.  As he aimed his arm at a grating one level below them on the adjacent wall, he said, "Stick close."

Midna grappled onto his shoulders just as he hit the trigger on the clawshot.  As soon as the claw snapped down on a beam of the grating, Link immediately hit another switch, and they were reeled in in less than a second.  He would have to continually hit the buttons quickly in order to avoid swinging down by the chain to hit the side of the walls.  An excellent arena in which to test his reflexes, for he was sure to be needing his dual clawshots throughout this mess of a grand city.

Pivoting his torso to face the room once more, he spotted another area he could reach via clawshot.  He aimed the device strapped to his other gauntlet, and they once more shot through the room with another jolting stop.  Link reassessed their position and found that there were two avenues from which to choose.  One sequence of jumps would lead to a dead end--with no flooring and nowhere else to cross to--whereas, their second route would lead them straight through several gusting winds.  If the chains failed to support the pull on their bodies, they would be blown into the white wasteland.

It did not appear as though they had much choice, however, and Link felt Midna wrap her skinny arms around his shoulders and torso even tighter, braiding her fingers together across his chest, affirming that she was not going anywhere.

Link, Midna, and claw then bounded through the chamber, ping-ponging back and forth from one place to the next as quickly as his fingers and the device would allow.  Out of the few currents through which they had passed, none had as yet swept against them harshly enough to dislodge them from their path.

In no time Link had made his way to the outside of the caged area.  A few of the Oocca inside flapped toward him.  "It is a land dweller," one whispered to another near the back of their group.  Link's pointed ears enabled him to hear the majority of their comments.  He found it a little ironic how Rusl's story of Hylians being able to hear the "gods" better was true in part, at least if such tales included the mythological races of the sky's heavenly beings.

"Who are you?" one of the Oocca asked at the front of the flock.  His eyes also darted to Midna, puzzled by her appearance.

"I'm here to get you out," returned Link, ignoring the stares given to his partner.

"How will you do this?"

Link pulled out a black orb from a pouch on his belt.  The sky beings eyed it curiously.  Midna, however, knew exactly what it was and how clumsy Link seemed to be with such explosives.  "You're really going to use that?" she asked, incredulous.

"Do you really think one more hole is going to matter?" he retorted, knowing that had Shad been with him, he would have screamed hysterical objections.  Link held the bomb up to her, and with a sigh she flicked her finger, igniting the fuse.  "Get back," he ordered the Oocca, as he placed the bomb in a gap in the wall.  Just as they scuttled away, Link shot out his clawshot, reeling himself up and away after disengaging the first.  

The ensuing blast knocked several slabs free and blew others into dust.

Link lowered himself back down in front of the cage to see the flabbergasted expressions on the Oocca's alien faces.  They shook free of the surprise of their sudden liberty and took to wing.  Hovering next to Link, the being that was their leader--or had become so during their captivity--asked him: "Are you here to banish the monster?"

The green clad youth nodded.

"You are not much farther from where it has made its perch.  You must climb up through this tower from the next room.  Once you reach the top, stairs will lead you to the next building.  At its highest peak is where Argorok roosts."

"Take your people to a safe place until I can rid you of this dragon," advised Link.  

"Goddesses bless you, adventurer."  And with that the Oocca flock fluttered away through one of the many holes dotting the side of the tower.

The dangling pair exchanged a glance.  Time to move on.

Heeding the directions of the Oocca leader, Link lowered them far enough to spy the door which led into the next room.  The tricky part would be to reach the door seeing as though there were no points to which he could grapple near enough, and there was barely any floor in front of it to land.  He solved the problem quickly, though.  Sizing the distance between him and the door, Link started to swing his body, building momentum.

As he rocked through the air, each swing took him a little higher and a little closer to the door.  But even with the chain fully extended, the door was still feet away at his farthest swing.  He would have to time this exactly.

Once the arc of his swing was lined up perfectly, Link released the hook and gravity took its place.  He sailed into the door as the chain retracted.  A thudding ache coursed through his body, but he had snatched handholds on the doorframe.  He lowered himself to the floor cautiously, weary that any added weight might pull what was left right out from under him.

His footing carefully aligned, he opened the door.  He inched his way in as he noticed that, though the floor remained intact for the most part, sections of it were in decay and threatened to fall through at any moment.  Lest his steps trigger a stone to break away, Link paused at the threshold.

Before he could search the room, however, a blast of wind stirred his cap.  His head jerked around at the feeling, but nothing greeted his vision save for stone and interior metalwork.  Another gust returned him to his former stance.  There before him in the tight yet high-ceilinged chamber flapped a large blue dragon-like creature.  It was not nearly comparable in size as the mighty Argorok Link had seen earlier, but with is armored arms wielding both shield and sword, it would make quite the opponent.

Link waited, taking a moment to study his opponent before grabbing for his weapons and launching an assault.  Without a moment's pause, the dragon brought up its guard and its wings flapped faster.  Next moment, it swooped down at him with lightning speed and precision, sword plunging directly for Link's heart.

The Hylian rolled free of the blow and jumped back to his feet in an instant.  As it took up position in the corner opposite him, Link took a closer look at its shield.  It consisted of red and gold metalwork, and its texture gave him an idea.  He held off, however, taking the time to study his prey's movements accurately.

It used the same maneuver repeatedly, shielding itself momentarily as its wings gained speed and then darting through the air like an arrow.

As it steadied itself in another corner, Link prepared for the counterattack.  In the quick moment between its rising shield and it swooping dive, he flung out his right arm and his clawshot snapped from its cradle at his fingertips.  The hook landed against the dragon's shield, but because its mass weighed far more than Link, it was the young green warrior who spiraled through the air to hang suspended right before the beast's nose.

The dragon flapped it wings harder in an attempt to compensate for the added burden, and Link put the moment of its distraction to good use, kicking up at its right hand and breaking its sword free from its clawed grip.  In the same instant, Link caught the blade with his sword arm and cast its glimmering surface through its neck.  Then, severed head and all, it and Link plummeted with a hard crash to the stone floor.

Feeling the vibrations in the floor, Link quickly dislodged his clawshot from the dragon's shield and rolled to the side.  Gravity sucked stone and dragon from the room.

Link looked after the falling corpse and cocked his head in surprise.  He had not expected to make such quick work of such a well-armored foe.  Perhaps it was himself that he had underestimated all this time.

Yet, he knocked the thought aside and peeled himself from the floor.

Midna had remained in his shadow through the confrontation, but Link was sure she could feel the soreness that throbbed through his back.  Ignoring the lingering pain of his shoulder wound, Link stepped lightly about the chamber, looking at every corner for some clue as to how to proceed onward.  The metal framework of the ceiling was too far out of reach even with the aid of his clawshots.  He turned his attention to the gaping holes set into two adjacent walls.  One was too high for him to even fathom climbing; the other, however, rose just above his head.

Carefully, he treaded the stone floor watching every footfall until he came to the wall.  A few stones had threatened to shift at his touch, but none jostled free from the collective.  Once at the boundary, Link looked for a safe route up to the opening.  Luckily, pieces of stone had been chipped away, and the metal grating that should have barred the hole was now barely recognizable, a chewed up mess jutting out at every odd angle.  All of these combined would provide the perfect ladder.

He clambered up, taking care not to cut his fingers on the rusted steel.  At the top a gust of wind slammed into him, and he immediately threw his torso over the opening's bottom edge to grab the outside for support.  After a few seconds, the wind died down, but Link did not release his tight grip.  He should have guessed with the other cavernous hole in the neighboring wall that a cross breeze would impede his journey.  Fortunately for him, the breezes came in bursts, and as long as he timed his movements with precision he would not spiral backward into the chamber--or, worse yet, down into the depths of the clouds.

Link saw his prize now looming closer, the largest building he had yet seen with four gigantic spires rising up to the edge of the heavens.  And circling those towers was the great dragon, Argorok.  

Link held fast to the opening as he kept his mind occupied with clocking the gusts as well as searching the outside for anything that would speed his crossing toward those spires.  Just above him loomed a great bridge equal to the distance of the Eldin Bridge, except … there was no way he would be able to reach the top of that bridge.

He would need to cross via its underbelly.

Though he knew that he would be able to utilize his clawshot devices to tow him across its massive length, there was still the question on how to reach the patchwork of exposed grates.  The chain of his hook would never reach that far, for it was twice the distance the ceiling had been of the chamber from which he now plotted his escape.

Then he noticed the lattice of vines to his left, twisted and dangling greenery that laced the entire side of the building.  Mindful of the wind's current, Link moved over to the left edge and, after another wind died down, hoisted himself up and onto the face of the vines.  He clung as closely to the wall as he could, especially when each successive gust blew against him, threatening to cleave him from the building and toss him into a whirlwind of cloud.  He ascended the greenery as fast as the ominous winds would allow, making headway only in between the bursts.  He did not dare climb while the wind pelted against him; he needed the security of both hands grasping the vines to assure that he would not fall from its onslaught.  

Once the significant distance between he and the bridge had dwindled, Link shot out his arm between winds and triggered the firing mechanism in his clawshot.  At once he was hooked to the closest patch of metal.  He gave the chain a slight tug, reassuring himself that the claw would not jostle free, and once he was clear of any winds, he pulled himself in and began the rigorous route across the underbelly, with one arm dangling and one stretching out for the next target at each juncture.

He reeled himself in only about halfway each time, not that he wanted to leave room for the wind to swing him, but he needed the angle to be able to hook onto the next patch of exposed framework.  Even with how precise he needed his aim, he went through this routine at a constant speed.  Firing off, a quick tug for security, reeling in, and setting up for the next shot.

When coming to one of his last stops, however, he saw a grotesque plant formation dangling down from the stones and framework.  He was forced to stop, and because of the threatening winds and his need to evaluate the new obstacle, he reeled himself in all the way, sticking his feet up through the gaps of the metal for extra support against the elemental threats.

Link squinted, trying to make out the bends in the grass, and just as his face inched closer to the greenery, which was a good seven meters away, a bulging oval shape dropped down to hang before him.  A slimy blue vine slithered from between ashen lips of a red head.  A baba serpent.  How the carnivorous plant could survive the thin atmosphere of this place, Link did not know, and it was not particularly relevant.  He needed to sever it from his path and Link worked quickly to devise a means of doing just that.  

As if sniffing the promise of a meal, the baba lurched its head, stretching its long neck as its jaws flexed and its tongue whipped about.  This offered Link the perfect opportunity and he jumped into action.  In one moment he took aim, and, in the next, the hook of his opposite clawshot grappled the baba's long vine of a neck.  Link jerked the device downward and in one satisfying snap, the serpent fell to the winds' mercy.

Link pulled his hook back to him and then continued on his journey across the underbelly.  

Once at the end of the bridge, there was no way to go but straight through the building, through the broken wall that he had spied earlier from the mouth of the armed dragon warrior's den.

He shot inside the walls and was at once confronted with a maze.  No floors had been left intact and some of the inner borders were even cracked beyond repair.  Due to the lack of floors or ceilings, Link knew that he would have to navigate the rooms--or passages as they now seemed to be--by clawshot still.

Into a long hallway he sprang, and within minutes of bouncing back and forth between walls, he realized that somewhere he had taken a wrong turn.  There were no more walls or pillars to which he could cling.  He made his way backwards along his route, until he happened upon a path he had not before noticed due to his previous angle.  Flying into this room, he was faced with yet another dead end … or so it had seemed.

The answer to his journey hovered above, where a small break in the massive ceiling that hung above all the broken rooms beckoned.  Link had noticed this area before in previous halls and chambers and presumed it to be an inaccessible upper level.  He aimed for the hard to reach metalwork covering the wall along the break, and reeled himself in slowly so as not to hit the edges of the ceiling.

Once he entered the room above, Link threw a foot out to the side to catch onto the stone floor, which had remained intact for the most part.  He disengaged his clawshot after he had settled back on solid--or so he hoped--ground.  He had arrived at the last leg in his skyward journey; all he need do was find a way up and out of this chamber and he would reach the dragon's roost.  

In taking a look about the room, he discovered that his clawshots would surely see their full use by the time he descended into Hyrule again.  He found himself imagining the look of shock on Shad's face when he suddenly reappeared in the cavern.  Now, however, was not the time to humor himself, and he set about searching the vast chamber.

The tall room had suffered severe structural damage.  Link reimagined what he best thought the original construction had been: eight long pillars interconnecting at least four different levels of interior wraparound balconies.  Now, there was barely any trace of those balconies, and he blamed their dislocation for creating the holes in the outer circle of the bottommost floor upon which he currently stood.  Those eight domineering columns now stretched different lengths of the walls, the bases of all but one having broken away into the vast nothingness below.  Most of them retained their elegant capitals, but the shafts of each were now different designs and none of them symmetrical in their fragmented states.

Yet, it was to these fractured columns connected to the walls and the remnants of the balconies that he would have to traverse if he was to reach the top of the chamber, which owned one large gap through which he would find his freedom and his prey.  His target in sight, he calculated the safest route up, and began the long journey through the echoing cavern.

Clawshots bouncing him about the chamber, Link had managed to reach a rather precarious ledge where there were the smallest remains of a balcony's stonework.  The walkways invented by the damage were only one foot wide and they intersected several times across the path.  Covering the gaping holes between the stone catwalks were spots of the metal framework, but it was so corroded and sharp that even a fall into their webs would prove as harmful, if not fatal, to Link as a tumble over the outer edge ending in a splat on the stone floor below.

Balancing himself carefully, Link stepped, and often tippy-toed, along the twisting paths, putting one foot slowly in front of the other.  His progress was slow and he was already sweating enough without the startling, angry bellow of the beast above him.  He took a moment to readjust his weight after that and continued, putting aside every thought but the need to cross these dangerous balconies-turned-bridges.

Once, he stepped onto solid stone again, Link breathed easier.  But with having been looking at his feet for the majority of his crossing, he had not noticed the gathering of vines at the very spot where he now stood.  When he noticed the baba head lashing out at him it was almost too late to react.  In the split second that he had to relocate, he could only think of one direction to go…. Backwards.

Link leapt up onto the miniscule catwalk, and fighting for balance and trying to fend off an opponent with legs crisscrossed, he nearly collapsed over the edge.  He held his ground, though, and without the proper footing to reach a hand back for his sword--because his splayed arms helped to steady his body--he fired off his claw and yanked the baba free of its home.  That action alone unbalanced him, and both the serpent and he toppled over.  Link, however, had fingers, and he was able to latch them onto the edge before his descent carried him all the way down.  Unwilling to test the stability of the stones if he were to apply more pressure to them in pulling himself up, he instead opted to shimmy across until he reached the empty nest of the baba plant.

Once he again settled onto the unbroken stones, he took a moment to plot his next move.  His only option left was to traverse the many torn up pillars, which thankfully owned several spots where their frames hung exposed.  The tear in the wall lay opposite his current position.  He planned out each trajectory that would lead him to the other side carefully, and once his course was locked in, he shot up to the first pillar.

It was only then that he realized he had made a grave mistake.  His support shook, and with any moment, it would break away from the whole and take him down into the depths with it.  He could not revert back to his original platform either, for it was now too far below him to manage a safe jump.  He had to move onward, and fast, and shoot for each of his successive targets in mere seconds.  Link managed to line himself up with impressive accuracy for each jump, but when he reached his fourth mark and shot for the next, his clawshot could no longer reach, for his sudden weight pulling at the column had yanked it free of its crumbling parent, and stone and all, Link tumbled through the air.

He pushed panic aside and put his faith in his instincts.  Attached to the ceiling, he spotted a central pillar, which dead ended at least ten meters straight down due to the damage wrought against it.  He reached out an arm, timed it carefully and quickly, and prayed.

The next thing he knew he was dangling from the pillar's broken edges and the stone below him crashed into the floor, crumbling like dry cheese.

"Like I said," came the voice of Midna.  "The luckiest clumsy hero."  Her tooth punctuated her last breath: "Ever."

When Link looked up, Midna hovered at eye-level, though it seemed that more magic bubbled around her than usual.  Perhaps the gravity of the city had put more strain on her ability to stay afloat.  She was smiling, though, teasing Link warmly.

Link cleared his throat as he reeled himself in to latch his other hand onto the pillar as well.  "Yeah, well.  What's a journey without some adventure?"  he tossed back, and the companions shared a smile as Link searched the wall near the gap; it was still too far away and there did not seem to be any more safe--or somewhat safe--areas to hook onto.

In order to survey the landscape further, Link worked to climb up the pillar to stand, with one set of fingers clinging to a crack, on a short ledge a few meters up.  Still, tossing his search about the room and along the walls yielded no answer to Link's call for aid.  His mind did not stop working, however, and perhaps that was the very reason that Midna then intervened.

"I can give you a boost," she said plainly, looking at the opening in the distance instead of him, and when she noticed his expression in her peripheral, she made no retort against his observation, one that knew from earlier predicaments in the sky city that Midna did not just hand out magical help.  From this he knew that she, too, had realized that there was no way forward by means of his devices and there could be no turning back into the crumbling chamber.  The place was a deathtrap.

Link nodded, and she returned the gesture.  "When you're ready, just jump … and I'll do the rest."  Leaving no room for debate or further instruction, Midna at once shot through the air toward the opening.  As soon as she landed within its maw, she turned back to wave Link on.

He did not fear the leap of faith.  No matter how he had felt toward her in the past it was just that … the past.  He trusted his companion, trusted her with his life.

It would have to be a simple jump, for he had no room to perform a running, flying leap.  He set his stance, and without a moment of indecision, he dove toward the opening.

Almost instantly, the magic of Midna's twilit fingers swooped in and caught him.  The bubbles felt like the wafting clouds of dry ice, cool and misty.  Weightlessly, Link hovered, and he wondered for that instant if this was the constant sensation Midna felt whenever she floated alongside him.  The moment faded, though, and the imp yanked on the magic with a heavy grunt, and in another snap of a second, the magic plunked Link down.  There beside Midna's hovering frame, Link stood in the mouth of the chamber.

He nodded his thanks, and Midna just casually ran a thumb over her fingertips as if her feat had been godlike and worthy of the worship he failed to bestow, but Link knew that she was joking and he chuckled.

They broke free of their moment of levity and Midna followed Link's gaze upward.  "So, this dragon roosts just above, huh?" came the imp's casual remark.  "Well, then we best get going.  Wouldn't want any of these Oocca to die while we lick our wounds."  Her voice had been thick with sarcasm, and Link knew that, as always, it was her way of hiding her true fears for the sky race.

Retreating into his shadow, she left Link to tackle the climb up the curtain of interwoven vines that plagued the outside of the building.  The winds were becoming stronger and more constant the higher Link went.  He hugged the wall as closely as he could, and when he heard the loud roar of the beast, he only partly rotated his neck to see the dragon coming at him from behind.

A spray of blue and orange billowed from its growling mouth and the vines beneath Link immediately caught fire, smoke rising to choke the young hero.  The dragon tilted up and soared over the building to circle about the roost.  The howling winds did nothing to quench the flames now dancing below Link, strengthening its life instead.  Link sped his course, yanking himself up one vine after the other and trying desperately to outrace the rising tide of embers.

As soon as Link came to the edge of the roost, he dragged himself up and over onto the flat surface.  However, his troubles had just begun.  Instead of escaping the clutches of the fire, he had only sealed his fate by stumbling straight into its nest; tall grasses littered the large rectangular space, and the fire behind him simply spread and jumped to their wavering stalks.

Link pulled himself to his feet, watching in horror as the blazes surrounded him.  He ran straight ahead, away from the thickest flares, but the fires simply followed after him, and just as he reached the center, waves of fire already encompassed all edges of the platform.  He was left with no escape … until the dragon swooped overhead to spit a final ray of orange upon him.

The Hylian rolled out of the attack and looked up to see its black armor ending in a golden ball at the tip of its tail.  This piece of armor seemed a different design than the rest of its shell, golden claw-like wires intersecting to create the orb.  Upon instinct, Link aimed his hook and triggered its release.  In the next instant, he sailed along behind the dragon.  The beast staggered at the added weight, but flapped its mighty wings harder and remained afloat, tossing its body in an attempt to dislocate its unwelcome passenger.

Link managed to reel himself in and latch his other hand onto the scales of its dark armor.  There, dangling from the side of its tail as it flailed madly, Link could see its underbelly, and what he saw made his struggle worthwhile.  Attached as a breastplate among its armor rested the Mirror Shard, and, by the size of it, this piece would certainly be their last to collect.

His resolve renewed, Link released his left hand from the armor, though sustaining his hold on its tail.  He reached to his belt to grab a dagger; jostling about at this height--clouds now below them--he would not risk losing the Master Sword to the skies.  With his blade he hacked at the lacings he could find exposed, and the dragon's armor began to fall free.  If he could remove enough of its protective casing, he would be able to kill the beast and claim his prize.

The dragon, however, put up quite the fight, and in another few flicks of its hindquarters, Link's clawshot wriggled loose and he plummeted through the skies.  Luckily for the Hylian, the beast had not gone far from its nest, and Link was close enough to reel himself onto the side of one of the metal spires at the last second.

The fingers of the fire licked at him from below, purred to coax him down, but Link remained where he was near the base of the spire, taking the moment to really breathe in the situation in which he now found himself.  The fire below made the ground untouchable, the dragon above made the skies a blanket of death, and now that the air darkened and lightning boomed, his last supports--the spires--promised electrocution at any moment.  He had no safe haven.

He had no choice in the matter, though.  The dragon had retreated to higher skies, which only the peaks of the spires could reach.  The decision had been made for him, and though the onslaught of rain now turned the fires below to ash, the dragon's evil breath continually rekindled their waves.  Each blast of fire had been aimed at Link, however, and the embers only caught the ground ablaze because the small Hylian was in constant motion, ping-ponging back and forth between the spires to both dodge these deadly assaults and to gain altitude.

Something that Link had not expected, however, was that the dragon had become disoriented.  The flashes of lightning, the downpour which reflected each flicker, and the endless movement of its prey confused it, and it lost sight of the little man from Faron.

Its stupefaction was Link's only advantage, and as it was momentary, he put an attack into motion.  While the beast bellowed orange gases, Link snuck around to its backside via the spires.  He aimed for its tail once more and zoomed across the open fields of air and faux sky to catch onto its armor.  Instantly, the dragon rocked, fury sweeping its wings into exaggerated gestures, spiraling the pair into a sort of dance as one struggled to toss its partner away while the other tried everything to remain in the whirlwind of their music.

Link had already unsheathed his dagger again, and as soon as he had some idea of what body part was what as he sailed through the dark and wet sky, he began cutting away more and more armor.  He could barely tell which way was up now, for the dragon continued its struggle, writhing and twisting.  As soon as Link had managed to clear away a large patch of its protection, he rammed the point of his blade into what he thought were the scales of the side of its tail.  The dragon shrieked at the wound and its tail flapped insanely, twisting Link up above its mass.  Taking this opportunity, Link released his hook and removed his dagger at the same moment and sailed straight onto the back of the beast.

The dragon tried to shake Link loose at this juncture, knowing that the frail, fleshy animal did not yet have a good hold of it yet.  Just as it jerked its body, however, Link smashed his dagger straight through the folds of its armor and clung with all his might to another.  A screech just as earsplitting as its last thundered into Link's ears, but he did not let go.  Its scales and armor were course and sharp and they cut into his fingers, but he would not release his grip.  To do so would be to forfeit his life … and forfeit the fate of Hyrule.

Link set to work, trying to move around the dragon's armor as it reeled and zigzagged through the sky.  He needed to reach the mirror at its chest, but he still wasn't quite sure how he would remove the shard and kill the dragon, all ending in a safe landing for the piece and him.  By the time he reached its underbelly, however, Link had no time to work out the happy ending.  He had to work one moment at a time and just pray that while he wrestled the mirror free the dragon would keep to its course, which would send them over the roost.  He had only minutes to cut the piece away from the rest of the armor before his safe window closed.

That was when he made his fatal error.

Due to the jostling of the dragon and Link's precarious position--legs wrapped around its torso, one hand clutching the armor, and the other stabbing at the lacings--his dagger accidentally jammed straight through the leather and steel to meet the soft underbelly … and the dragon's lung inside.

Its breath stolen, the dragon had not the strength left to flap its wings, and even if it did, every pull of its muscles made the pain in its chest radiate.  It bellowed a last gust of fire and screeched a last wail and rained down through the stormy sky like the other droplets surrounding it.

The momentum of the dragon allowed it to sail sideways through the air, however, and its speed carried it toward its roost.

But its arc waned after its wings stopped beating, and it failed to reach its target.

"Oh, not good," said Link, and though his situation seemed completely inescapable, he kept the panic from his voice.  

The body of the dragon had then become like a dead cannon ball, ramming headlong through the central chamber where Link had traversed balconies and pillars.  He held on tight to the dragon, and spread his torso over the Mirror Shard so that it was not damaged in the crash.  He could have taken his chance to let go then, to fall to the far ground of that decaying chamber and hope to survive the fall … but the shard had not yet been freed and he desperately needed it.

Once they cleared the building, Link looked back to realize that Midna grasped its tail with her tiny fingers.  He thought, perhaps, that she had emerged to use her magic to stop the dragon's descent.

He saw a flicker of her magic, but in the next moment, her grip failed.

"Midna!" screamed Link, but she was falling, too.  

There was only so much power her magicks had over something so natural as the laws that governed gravity.