Stormy Skies: Part 1 Chapter 5

PART 1 - CHAPTER 5

“Place your vote! Prince or princess, place your vote!”

Two civilians stood in the plaza, watching the scene in front of them. Queen Zelda had gone into labor, and there was a merchant running a lottery involving the gender of the child. It costed ten rupees to vote, and everyone who ended up guessing correctly got a share of the money pot.

The man shook his head and turned to his sister. “Crazy, right?”

The woman nodded. “But that’s Gondo for you. He always comes up with wild ideas like this.”

“Parrow! Orielle! You guys gonna vote?” One of the knights came running after he had placed his bet.

“You just wasted ten rupees.” Parrow said.

Orielle shrugged. “Maybe. There’s just as much of a chance that he guessed right. So...what’d you vote for and why?”

“Heh...”  The knight, whose name was Brandon, half smiled and put a hand on the back of his head. “I just voted for what was losing, that way if I’m right, I’ll be more likely to make a profit. Boy is winning by like twelve.”

“Most logic I’ve heard all day.” Cass had heard the entire conversation from one of the benches. “People are saying that the baby bump wasn’t that big, and boys are carried further back, so they’re voting boy. The people voting girl say that less morning sickness and a father with a busy job means girl. Pretty stupid if you ask me.”

“Did you see Link?” Talor walked up with a grin on his face. “He’s pacing back and forth on the castle lawn like a caged animal. I told him he was going to kill the grass, and I think he gave me the middle finger!”

Before anyone could respond, an alarm sounded from the guard tower. Two flags raised from the tower, one plain yellow, and the other with an arrow pointing to the northeast. These were the crisis flags, the colored one was to signal what was happening, and the arrow one showed where it was happening. Since the colored flag was yellow, that meant the colony was under attack. Red was for a fire, blue signified tornado or other severe storm, and black meant to come to the castle gates for further instructions because it was a more complicated disaster. The black flag was always flown by itself, without an arrow flag.

“Shit...worst possible time...” Brandon clenched his fists, then grabbed a sword from a passing guard who was handing the knights their weapons. Orielle and Parrow helped Gondo pack up his voting booth and retreat to safety.

“You sure you want to fight on foot?” Talor blinked. “Or have you found Rob?”

“I can handle it!” Brandon snapped. His loftwing had disappeared a month ago. He didn’t like to be reminded of it.

“Suit yourself.” Talor replied, climbing onto Frostbite and taking off toward the woods with Cass and Blaze behind him.

The invading force had some bokoblins, but a lot of demons as well, and some loftwing sized birds with flame colored feathers and tails like peacocks. They were called furnixes, and their ability to spit fire made them very dangerous. Some of the knights had fought them before, they sometimes made their nests in the area around Skyloft. They weren’t known to try to catch and eat small children like kargaroks, another species of monster bird. But they were extremely territorial, known to attack on sight.

Usually however, they weren’t found roaming the woods. The only place in Faron Province they were normally found was in the monster infested Ancient Cistern by the lake. But there was no time to wonder why they were here now.

“This is our forest!” Grenn plowed through one of the demons on his way to attack an approaching furnix. The furnix unfurled its long tail feathers and hovered in place, then it opened its beak, and a ball of flames whizzed through the air, smacking Grenn on the side of the face.

“Dude!” Cass pulled on Blaze’s reins, whipping around and slashing at the furnix, which plummeted to the ground after having its wings cut off. “You okay?”

Grenn didn’t respond, he only flew past her toward the medic.

---

Melantha looked around, snarling. The humans had sprang into action a little faster than she would have liked. Because of that, her troops seemed to be distracted. Instead of pushing through to get to the human colony, a few of them were flying in completely different directions to pursue their enemies. Their main targets...were nowhere to be seen.

Or were they? A flash of red entered her field of vision and left it again just as quickly. The humans who also noticed it made saluting gestures, then went back to fighting. Didn’t the human king ride a red bird?

She whipped around and grabbed the nearest demon. “Why is he here?” She asked, growling and pointing at the red streak that was darting around. “He’s supposed to be wherever his mate is!”

Draknor blinked. “My guess is that he-” And then his eyes glazed over and he fell out of the sky, a massive bleeding gash in his chest.

The human king, although he had to be concerned about his mate and offspring, wasn’t showing it. He was glaring at Melantha fiercely, his eyes like two blue flames, burning with anger and a hint of confusion.

She glared right back at him and opened her mouth to speak, but in that instant, something flew over her head, and a bomb exploded on one of her wings. “Ack!” Melantha spat and clawed her way onto a tree branch. Her wing was too injured to fly with. She sent a dark blast upward to get the demons’ attention. “Retreat! As for you...” She snarled and turned to the human king. “Hylia heathens! We’ll be back!”

---

“Yeah you better fly away!” Groose yelled, landing. “I have plenty of bombs, and you hardly scratched us!”

“Are you blind?!” Karane walked up to him, rolling her eyes. “Liam’s bleeding out of holes he didn’t know he had, and Grenn’s got a scorched eye!”

“Oh.” Groose frowned. “The medics are treating them, right?”

“Tragic news...” Pipit announced. “Liam was pronounced dead on arrival...” Behind them, a green loftwing named Verdis was pecking at the lifeless remains of his master, chirping sadly. The medic patted Verdis’ head and removed the leather straps and reins. “You’re free now...I’m afraid I can’t bring him back. I’m very sorry.”

The knights began following their king back to the colony as the now riderless loftwing retreated deep into the woods.

---

Link hopped off of Firebolt’s back and ran straight to the building where he had left Zelda and the midwife, huffing and puffing.

The midwife was waiting for him outside the door. “Settle down, boy.” She then chuckled. “No need to look worried, both Zelda and the baby are perfectly fine.” Link breathed a sigh of relief. The midwife smiled warmly. “Course, I shouldn’t expect any less. Go on in.”

He walked in, dropping his sword and bloodstained chainmail at the door. Zelda was sitting up on the bed, holding the heir to the throne they had both been so anxious to meet. She turned the bundle around, smiling. “He’s perfect, isn’t he?”

The newborn’s eyes were blue like that of both his parents, but a lighter shade; more of an ice blue. He also had a fuzz of dark blond hair on top of his tiny head. Link couldn’t control himself, he was at Zelda’s side smothering her with kisses in a flash. “Stop it.” She laughed and pushed his face away. “I’ll take that as a yes?

“He’s...amazing. And look at his eyes! I’ve never seen eyes that shade of blue before!”

“Oh, they’re not the same as ours?” Zelda turned the newborn prince to face herself. “Guess I didn’t notice...you’re right, they are a different blue.” Link was sitting beside her on the bed now, so she placed the baby in his lap. He flinched slightly, then looked down and smiled. His son was looking right at him...he could get used to this.

“Well hello there. Welcome to the world...” He then turned to Zelda. “Did you name him yet?”

Zelda shook her head. “No. We should pick a name together. When you were running around the surface back then, did you find any names that were used before people had to move to the sky?”

“I didn’t. There was no sign of any of our ancestors’ names.”

“I see.” Zelda sighed. “So much for that idea.”

“But I do have a name that I think would work. Found it on a headstone in the Skyloft graveyard...all I know is it was the name of a knight who got killed in battle. I liked the sound of it.” Link paused for a second. “If you aren’t wierded out by that...”

“Not at all.”

“Good.” Link stroked the newborn’s forehead with one finger. “The name I saw was Fletcher.”

Zelda’s face lit up at the sound of the name. “That was the knight commander when my dad was in school! He apparently died trying to get rid of a swarm of skytails, he fought right until he drew his last breath. From what I heard, he was very brave and noble. That’s a great name! Perfect for a prince!” She rested her head on Link’s shoulder, a soft grin across her face. “What do you think of your name, Fletcher?”

Fletcher heard his mother, but he was too young to understand any words, and too young to comment on his name. His tiny pointed ears twitched, he already knew the sound of his parents’ voices. But now he was hungry. He needed his first meal, and he was going to get it in the only way he knew how: by squealing and pawing at his father’s lower belly.

Link just sat there with a dumb look on his face, but Zelda knew what it meant. “I believe that means he’s hungry.”

“For a second I thought he was trying to tell us he didn’t like his name.” Link picked Fletcher up and handed him to Zelda. “Oh.” He had remembered what the demon woman had said. “After you’re done...we need to address the colony. Those weren’t ordinary bokoblins, they were demons, and the leader said they’d be back.”

Zelda frowned. “Well, let me finish here, then we can introduce our little prince to his kingdom, and deal with that...We’ll need to tread lightly with that subject, we don’t want people to feel unsafe.”

Link nodded in agreement.