3205/Above the Clouds

Above the Clouds
Date of Scene:	13 October 2015
Location:	Aedan's Scene Box
Synopsis:	Skyloft Kngiht Aedan MacCarvill and his Sheikah associate, Yalai the Stave, do some scouting in the skies far distant from Skyloft.
Cast of Characters:	879, 891

---

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
The immense vastness of the sky stretches on for distances beyond imagining. Long before, with the warmth of the sun at her back, the Sheikah out of Skyloft had imagined that the last islands had looked familiar. Now, so far into the multiversal sky, nothing in this area looks alike or compares to the maps she keeps; her compass has also failed her, needle spinning uselessly.

They've passed from the familiar into uncharted territory.

Smaller islands are scattered throughout the wide sky here, and though many of them are suggestive of the fragments that litter the sky around Skyloft, these are not familiar in their placement. Some of them have strange features, too, like rivers that curl up and into the air, like serpentine tubes of water following their own rules. The Sheikah scout had even seen a great river of water stretching through the sky, with something like dolphins swimming through its length like a great tunnel.

Now, the red-eyed Sheikah has come to rest on a relatively stable sky island, sprawled on the sun-warmed turf and watching the clouds scud by in the blue sky. Her Loftwing stands beside her on its long stork legs, napping briefly with its broad bill tucked under a wing, bright eyes squinted closed.

Yalai herself finally flops over, bits of grass stuck in her white hair, and pulls from her belt the map she'd been using – and a loftwing's feather quill as wel, jotting down some of the new islands she's seen while she waits for her companion to catch up to her.

She's enjoying this 'scouting in completely foreign territory' thing way too much, grinning to herself as she jots down the bits and pieces of continent they've passed along the way.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
By comparison, Aedan MacCarvill has been lagging behind. The truth of it is that his Loftwing is enormous, he's enormous, and they just can't carry on all that quickly. They get tired a hell of a lot faster too, and besides that they've had another job to do along the way. Cylinders of leather with the cap popped off has been strapped to the gigantic bird, small flags emerging from within. They're colored green, yellow, and red and their purpose is to determine the borders of the sky islands. The green go in verified familiar territory, which he's already marked just fine.

The yellow is for uncertainty, and the Rescue Knight hasn't had to use these yet. The borders where things went from reasonably familiar to distinctly unfamiliar are fairly easy to define once you get there, but not really easy to describe. Aedan just doesn't have the brain for this, so when he tried to describe it last time he came scouting around it didn't really result in useful information. Hence, the flags.

The red flags is for verifiably unfamiliar territory, and Aedan is drifting about in the "background" for a small while, placing the flags on the weird assortment of sky islands that don't seem to be a part of known territories. It's a pretty sharp change, because physics seems to have taken a rollercoaster ride and dived off the deep end into loony town in a few of them. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to impact the flag placement too badly.

Aedan jumps off of his loftwing a couple of feet off the ground when he comes to Yalai's sky island, waving the bird away to do whatever it pleases until he needs it again. It'll probably involve fishing, or finding some water. Either way, the great beast takes off in fairly short order.

"Did you cut the grass before you rolled in it?" He asks Yalai, chucking the last spear like a dart into the earth a yard or so away. It's not thrown anywhere near Yalai, although he was briefly tempted to use it like a dart to spear a location on her map. It'd just ruin her work, though. There's no use in that.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
When the bigger of the two loftwings lands on the island, the smaller one cracks open one golden eye, fixing briefly on the big loftwing and the big knight jumping down from the harness; evidently deciding they're no threat, the eye slides closed again with a ruffle of displaced feathers.

Yalai, meanwhile, rolls over to fix her companion with a red-eyed look, neatly and quickly rolling up her map. Although the flags are a good visual marker, they aren't permanent, and maps are useful for the folk who can't afford time to scout. She'll return her map to Impa, and copies will be made and sent to the other Skyloft Knights, the Sheikah, and to Headmaster Gaepora at Skyloft Academy. A copy will also be bound for Link and Zelda, to help them in the planning of their settlement.

She might have set aside a copy or two for the Gorons, but they can't fly, so the sky-maps are useless to the rock-people.

"No," she replies, sitting up and plucking bits of grass from her hair. "Why would I be doing that? It is being more comfortable this way, and better than the islands we were finding that were having nothing but stone on them."

She points to the map with one long finger, tapping at a cluster of sky islands. "Those. And these, here, being next to them. I think they were being deserts, once. The island we are being on now, though, this is seeming more like something Her Grace had raised. Like Skyloft, and the islands being around it, yes? So some of these islands are still being familiar, but..."

Yalai gestures toward a distant river, which is noticeable because it's in direct defiance of things like 'gravity' and 'physics,' looping through the air like a water-dragon. "I... am being fairly certain that was not being raised up by Her Grace."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"It was a joke. Because of all of the grass in your hair. There would be—nevermind." Aedan decides that explaining the joke doesn't really matter very much. In retrospect, he wishes he'd left some of his gear behind. It doesn't look like there's anything particularly threatening out here, and he's sure his Loftwing would be doing a lot better without the added weight. Practical though his equipment is if he should need it, the overall weight of it is a lot for a Loftwing to deal with. Hell, he's sure it's no good on him, but he's young enough yet that he's not feeling it.

"What's the point of a bunch of flying sandboxes? I suppose glass is always useful, but moving it is always troublesome." He ponders aloud, disengaging some of his gear from his belt and setting it aside in the grass so he can flop down without cutting himself. The bow and quiver are kept close at hand, but the hatchets are a good bit away now.

A glance is cast towards the cylinder of water flowing upwards. Aedan gives a shake of his head, trying not to imagine what it's like to actually be in that. It looks unnatural, and what if you slipped out the side? Seems even more dangerous than the islands are to begin with. Magic's nothing new to him, and neither are mysterious water sources that really should drain off the side of whatever they're attached to. But that just makes him anxious.

"Probably not, she seemed to do her best to make certain as much as possible made some kind of sense, and that doesn't. I guess we should get a sample. Maybe a couple." Gravity-defying water would make a pretty good ingredient, actually, even if it's normal in every other possible way. Hm... the thing is, if you made yourself gravity-defying in that way...

"Do you suppose it ever stops falling up?" He asks, not at all sarcastically now.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
The Sheikah continues to stare somewhat blankly as the joke unravels itself in record time, finally shkaing her head and plucking a few more blades of grass from her hair. Whatever it was, it doesn't really matter too much. One could always pass it off as cultural differences. The Hylian and the Sheikah may be close, but there is still a veritable chasm between their respective cultures.

Yalai looks up and over, towards where the desert islands had been. "Sandstone," she clarifies, looking back to Aedan. "They were being sandstone. Fused sand, but not being glass. Sand would not be holding together, I think, even in this place. Although those rivers..." She makes a helpless sound, gesturing with equal helplessness to the bendy floaty river a few islands over.

Stupid multiversal physics. Or lack thereof.

"It does not seem to be falling up." Leaning back, she settles herself against his side, resting her head on his chest so she can look up at the sky-river without having to crane her neck. "It is... flowing," she says, uncertainly. "Just not where we would be thinking it should be going. But I am thinking that it is being controlled, somehow, yes? Else it would have been falling up, and we would never have been seeing it here. I think." Her brow furrows. "...This place is being confusing."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"So what you're saying is, if we stick a hand in it to get a sample we're not really sure what might happen. I guess we may as well leave it alone. Too bad, I was hoping I could cook up a float potion or something with it." Aedan complains, curling an arm around Yalai as she lays against him. He decides to stop looking at the water and its strange movement paths, because it's actually making him a bit ill and anxious. It's not like there's anything he can do about it, and it sounds too dangerous to poke at too much. Might be if they do anything with it they'll get sucked in, themselves.

Wasn't something moving through it, a bit ago...?

He shuts his eyes and sighs in exasperation. "Either way, these borders don't make much sense. New sky islands don't just appear out of nowhere. Somebody's either putting them up, or... I don't know. Something else very strange has happened. I wish that river was just what it looks like, though."

"Pretty sure floaty water is a lot less dangerous than trying to pluck out a roc's feathers." He considers for a moment, and adds, "Probably tastes better, too. Oh well. What do you want to do from here? We can keep going, or we can turn back. We know where things get unfamiliar in this direction now, and we're not exactly cartographers... well, I'm not, anyway."

"Might be best to check each of the compass points across a day or so each, if it's going to get this weird at the edges. Didn't bring any gear for a long foray this time, though. Head back, change our loadout, then set out in another directon?" He continues to throw ideas at the wall, waiting for one to stick.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"Better to be leaving the sages and scholars to those," she murmurs, looking up to the aerial river one last time. She squints, before looking away; apparently it gives her the same inclination to cross her eyes at it. "They will be knowing how best to be testing them, I am thinking, yes?"

She lays her head back on his shoulder, eyes drifting closed. "I am thinking it is less being 'borders' and more being things... blending together. They are being scattered together sometimes. I am thinking there are not being hard borders."

"You can be plucking out a roc's feathers, if you are knowing how to do it." Yalai grins, showing teeth that... aren't really pointy, not really, but the expression is still reminiscent of the fox-form she assumes through his potions. "Of course, it is being easier to be finding a dead one." Even she isn't so foolhardy as to go baiting an angry roc over a few feathers.

She sighs a deep contented sigh, smoothing down some of her white hair and considering the options given to her. "We could be returning for more gear. Spending the night on one of these islands, maybe... going north, I think? I am not knowing why. A... how are you saying it? A 'hunch,' I think."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"I suppose." Aedan sighs, displeased not to have anything to tinker with from this little trip. He wonders if the matter of the island itself wouldn't serve to make an anti-gravity potion. They definitely have a maximum altitude, which is always breathable for humans, even if not always comfortable. He regards the surroundings with some interest. The best thing would be some kind of tea leaves, that way at least it wouldn't taste too bad. As things are, he'd have to take some grass, or leaves, or... or dirt. Grass and leaves are bad enough.

Dirt is atrocious.

The Knight starts picking at the grass on Yalai and placing the bits of them he grabs in a pouch at his belt. It's not really 'good', but it's not bad, either. It beats the dirt, and he's coming away with something.

"You know what I mean. Sky Islands drift, but there's still a general sense of... some navigable elements. We need something more reflective and less obtrusive than these flags, though..." He eyes the flags warily. "People tend to take a really specific message away from flags. Hmm... if Poes could glow in daylight, they'd be perfect..."

He cracks an eye, looking towards Yalai. "Well, the thing about dead roc is that it's not very sustainable... I guess the best-case scenario is finding loose feathers around a nest."

Aedan shivers a bit. "If we're heading north, we're definitely going back to re-supply. I need to ditch the heavy armor and get some cold-weather gear on. And extra firestarter kits. Do you know how cold plate-and-mail gets in northern climates this far up? My skin'll stick."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Although she can feel when he starts plucking grass from her hair and tunic, Yalai doesn't quite see what he's doing right away. She twists to watch, though it causes her to move in ways a Hylian ought not be able to move. Finally she shrugs one narrow shoulder, causing a few more blades to fall.

"Then be taking that back, but do not be touching the water. Not until we are knowing it is being safe," she cautions, with upraised forefinger. "Else I will be needing Cearul to be dragging you back down from the sky, yes? Be sitting on you, perhaps. And I am thinking he is being nearly as heavy as you are."

She herself might be able to grab him by the ankles as he floats away, but it would be like trying to use a tin can to anchor a ship.

"And flags are being impermanent, yes? Be exposing them to wind and weather, and they will be rotting. They will be fraying apart when it is being too windy. And if something is breaking their haft, they will not be flying any more." She points to the last one they'd planted, still waving cheerily in the high-altitude wind. "That will not be flying in a year's time, I am thinking, and then someone will be needing to weave another one."

She swivels around to look in the other direction, where other flags fly, more distant. It's a good idea, and they're definitely high-visibility. They aren't permanent, but they'll buy enough time until a more permanent mapping solution can be found.

In the meantime, her hand-drawn maps are a helpful tool.

"And this is why I am telling you, over and over, to not be wearing the heavy plate, yes? I am being perfectly fine in this." She plucks at her tunic, plain cloth with leather here and there, where the garment would wear through – reinforcement at the elbows, for example, or the thighs, where she would ride over her loftwing; and protective reinforced stitching over the shoulder. "I suppose it is being useful to you, though. We are fighting in different ways."

A loose gesture is made toward the sleeping loftwing nearby. "We are being made for scouting, we of the Shadow Folk, but not for fighting directly. The Beast, maybe, is being good at that. But he is being a rarity among my people. Although... I suppose you are being a rarity, too. I have not been seeing a Hylian half so tall as you are being," she adds, wrinkling her nose – not necessarily in disgust, but in thought. "Gaepora is being tall, yes, but not so tall as you, and I am being certain you are stronger than the Headmaster."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"I think he may still have trouble with that." Aedan remarks, though it's hardly true. He's not so strong a horse can't handle him reasonably well, if it is of a mind to do so. Though one suspects he would do surprisingly well if he had to wrangle an unruly horse, even so. With regards to the flags, he just issues a great sigh, "Impermanent, but they're just a part of the process. Surveying is tedious as well, and you have to do it again and again if you want to be current, but there you are. It's just a bigger pain in everybody's ass when it's all the way up here."

"Where did you learn to draw so accurately, anyway? I can never get the shapes quite right from my brain to the paper..."

With regards to his armor, the Knight gives a great clinking shrug. "It's standard-issue for Rescue Knights, and I'm not as good at getting out of the way of things as you are. I can go without it, but it's not like I expected to be in cold weather for this outing. Or to be out for very long, for that matter. I s'pose that the shield alone will do well enough for me, as long as nothing comes at my back."

"In the meantime, though." He grabs one of Yalai's hands, and slides it over some of the exposed chain, "I just want you to imagine this in cold weather. You could lick it and your tongue would stick to it. Frostbite's enough of a danger without it. I wonder if I could treat it with a potion made with cooled magma to make it stay warm for a while. Or maybe just warm water... never tried that, before."

"Probably just wind up making me sweat out all of my fluids." He concludes, aloud.

"You could try it, if you like. Pretty sure I could whip up a tallness potion." Aedan asides, grinning madly at Yalai. He can't imagine she'd like being too big to hide.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"When your taskmistress is being Loremaster Ikram, you are learning to be doing things with quickness and with correctness the first time," Yalai murmurs, looking up to see Aedan from a bit of a funny angle. "In more seriousness, I have long been scouting the surface, since before I was meeting you, and I was needing to know how to be mapping things with accuracy."

Yalai shifts to sit up, only to have her hand taken and run over cold metal. She yelps, cringes, and makes what's probably a rather amusing face, unable to really recoil because he has her hand caught fast.

She does snatch her hand away the instant she can, though. That's cold.

Settling back, she reaches over, staring at him with the intensity of a cat stalking a bird, reaches out towards him, and...

...ruffles his hair.

"Be trying it. If you could be thinking up something that would be keeping body temperature up, that would be useful, I am thinking." She gives him a flat look at the notion of a tallness potion. "No," she says simply. "No tallness. I like being the height that Farore was making me at. Thank you very much," she adds, but her grin takes the withering sting out of her words.

Settling on her haunches, she glances over the edge of the island, watching as Aedan's massive loftwing drifts nearby, probably in search of water. "He is being a big loftwing. Tell me again of your ceremony. You are... meeting your loftwings the first time under the Goddess Statue, yes? When you are being a child? We are having different ways; different places." Mostly because the Sheikah generally don't stick around Skyloft except in times of great need. They seldom associate with their Hylian bretheren. "There is still much of you Hylians' life in Skyloft I am not knowing of."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"Drawing correctly isn't something you can do right the first time, practice is necessary. Even Ikram isn't that strict." Aedan remarks, but he can't believe he didn't just puzzle out what really taught her well without needing an explanation. Shuffling around the surface, people would need maps. He glances towards where she keeps hers, idly considering the possibility of having her draw maps as potion ingredients. What, he wonders, would that yield? Some sort of guidance potion, maybe, or...

Aedan jumps a little when Yalai does, not having been expecting it. He didn't actually expect his armor to be uncomfortably cold now. This is just normal cold to him, which is bad enough he supposes. "Sorry." He says, through an apologetic grin.

"Body temperature is a little more dangerous, but it's doable. You need a really precise measuring tool and then you need to take the potion immediately. So for instance you need a pot of water at the desired body temperature, and then a few other ingredients ground up into it. If you get it too low, you get stuck being cold. If you get it too hot, you give yourself a fever until it wears off. It's pretty finicky." He reaches over to touch Yalai's face. "Oh... yeah, you have to measure the temperature of the person to make sure you've got a normal temperature for them. There's a 'safe' range, but some people are a little cooler than others, or a little hotter..."

"Sorry, what?" Aedan snaps out of his potions rambling at Yalai's questioning him about the loftwing ceremonies. "Oh... yeah, something like that. I guess you already know, but they have to imprint on you for you to be able to pair up effectively. So they kind of trot us out under the statue and figure out who gets along with who before they start teaching us how to ride. It's kind of a mess, really, with feathers everywhere. Bunch of kids running around with a bunch of baby birds."

"It's like a birthday party with way more people, I guess?" Aedan seems stumped about how to describe this event. What else would you get with a bunch of kids and baby birds?

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"Hush. I am needing to have some mystery about me. But the answer is being that I have been made to practise much to be having details right." Yalai tilts her head slightly, enough to set the white-gold chain in her ear to chiming softly. "We are scouting more than you Skyloft Knights are, so we are needing to know how to be directing our forces."

She shrugs, casually. "There are being better maps than mine. It is being only a rough sketch, something to be improving on later, for one better at this than I am."

Knowing the skill-oriented nature of the Sheikah, they probably have a dedicated cartographer.

"I would prefer not to be experimenting with a potion like that, yes? It is sounding like too much trouble, and too much risk." The Sheikah shakes her head at the idea of temperature-regulating potions. "I will be contenting myself with a blanket, or with rolling up my sleeves, yes?"

Leaning back against him again, she rests her head on his chest as she listens, though with her current position she can feel his voice as much as hear it. At mention of a bunch of kids running around with a bunch of baby birds, she grins, even laughing a little. "Hmmm. That is sounding like... chaos."

"The loftwings we are bonding with are already able to fly; as old as the child to whom they will be bonding. It is being only a matter of learning how to fly with them, but the loftwings are being smart." She lifts one hand, mimicing a bird in flight with a flat palm. "It is being instinct to them, both how to be flying with someone on their back..." The hand abruptly drops, as though the bird were diving. "And how to be catching someone if they fall."

"I should be lingering the next time we are being in Skyloft," she muses, looking up to the clear, blue sky. Small white clouds scud across it, pushed along by the incessant wind. "I am not having enough opportunities to be seeing the Goddess Statue."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"Still a good skill to have. Would it be too much trouble to make a copy of one of those maps? I, uh... want to try to use one as a potion ingredient." Aedan smiles, a little sheepishly. This is the sort of weird thing he asks that makes even the Sheikah look at him funny. The fact is though, that it works! Sometimes, anyway. He's not certain exactly what sort of properties he would get from a map... maybe spatial awareness of the area it's in? Or... he'd really just have to experiment to figure it out.

He considers Yalai's statement. "Is there someone with a title of 'Cartographer', or is that too focused even for the Shadow Folk?"

"Well, no, not really that much trouble. It just takes time. A lot like drawing a good map, actually. The idea behind it is pretty simple. Actually, I guess you could probably make a pretty good poison out of it if you make the water you used in the potion too hot. Bring up to a boil and... wow, nevermind, that'd just be kind of messed up." Internally, the Knight isn't sure the Sheikah mind the idea of poisoning somebody by making their own blood boil off inside of them.

But it's way too nasty for his tastes.

"Well, that's how I remember it. But, you know, festival things like that are always kind of chaotic. I think they used to be a bit more quiet and subdued." Aedan ponders, concerning the Loftwing ceremony. "I prefer it chaotic, though. It's more fun and memorable that way. People don't throw parties so they can be quiet."

With regards to the Goddess statue, the Knight makes a contemplative noise. "I'm surprised you don't have any of your own. Or do you? It seems like kind of a gaudy thing by your standards. I don't mean it's bad, but it doesn't really seem your 'style', I guess? Sheikah structures seem more subdued, where you put them up at all."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"A copy? I can be doing that." Yalai quirks a white brow, somewhat bemused at the request. Her expression suggests she's probably imagining Aedan rolling the map up and stuffing it into a bottle or something. Alchemy isn't one of her strong suits, at least beyond determining whether something is lethally poisonous or not. "I will be making copies anyway once we are returning to Skyloft. I am not minding making one more."

She blinks somewhat owlishly, one eye rapidly followed by the other, and tilts her head a little further, the chain in her ear chiming. "Cartographer? I am not knowing. But there are being a few of us skilled in such matters. Most of our second names are being the weapons we are using, like the Dirge, and the Scourge; the Spear, the Stave..." One shoulder rolls in a shrug. "I am not knowing all of my people. It is being possible, then, that there is one who is so skilled in map-making that they are being named for it."

Now she's curious about that, but she manages to set her curiosity aside; he's still talking to her, and there's nothing she can do about it now, in any case. Sitting up a little, she stretches, trembling as she reaches the limits of her narrow frame. Where Aedan is solid, she is willowy; almost fragile in her seeming delicacy, but the whipcord muscle on her frame suggests she isn't without her own sort of strength. Leaning back on him, she looks up to the clouds again.

"Maybe. It is being quiet when we are going, but that is being because we are in the loftwings' aerie. It would be bad manners to be carrying on loudly, yes?" She reaches up to clear some of her hair from her face, settling in more comfortably against his side and folding her arms over her stomach. "But we are not being as loud, either, most of the time, although we are having our loudness and our festivals, too."

She looks up to him, regarding him somewhat upside-down from her current angle. "Hn? We are having our own, but yours is being... different. I... hnn. I am not knowing how to be saying it. It is... feeling different. The gratitude, the love, the... thankfulness of your people, for what Her Grace was doing for you, in raising Skyloft." Her tone turns thoughtful. "That is why I am liking it, I think. It is being different from our own statue... but I should be taking you to be seeing ours, too."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"Ikram would probably know." Aedan chimes in, on the subject of the Cartographer. Or lack thereof. It's kind of an oddly specific question, though, and he can't easily gauge what kind of questions Ikram has time for. The Sheikah are all kind of dodgy, mostly to preserve their reputation he thinks, but Ikram isn't one to suffer fools lightly. Simultaneously, he's not certain – as Loremaster – that any question is necessarily stupid to her. Even if she personally finds it kind of wearing. It's really hard to tell with a lot of them.

The Beast, he reflects, is a lot easier to read. Or at least, his demeanor is a lot more like you'd expect out of another Hylian, and not too deliberately enigmatic. Sometimes, he wonders, if it isn't their goal to weave legends around themselves as much as mystery. Even if it proves to be untrue, the uncertainty of the matter can prove daunting.

"Are we staying here the night, or headed back?" He asks, implicitly deferring the decision to Yalai. It's just going to get colder out here tonight... though, he's not certain how he feels about being out on the edge like this and sleeping through it. There's nothing really dodgy out here to speak of.

It'd be a lot nicer if there was a cave or something, at least. Some sort of natural cover to work with.

With regards to the statue, Aedan perks up a bit and says, "Oh, yeah. I gotcha. I guess you don't really look at it that way when you hang around it so long, but there's a lot of that going around. I guess yours is somewhere on the surface? Or... do you even have settlements above the clouds?" It's something that has confused him for a while. They have Loftwings, but as far as he's aware most of them were on the surface in recent memory. Would they have been trapped beneath the cloud barrier, able to fly but not too far, or did they have some secret place adjacent to Skyloft itself as well?

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"She is being the Loremaster. I would be much surprised if she were not knowing," Yalai admits, yawning and settling more comfortably against Aedan's armoured side. "If there are any of us who would be knowing with certainty, it would most probably be her. I am knowing many of our people, but I am not knowing if there are being any who are so specially skilled in mapmaking."

He asks her whether they're going to stay the night, and she shakes her head, picking herself up. The sun is still out, and it's still reasonably warm with the sun on them, now that they aren't flying. Inevitably the sun is going to set beyond wherever the horizon is in this place, though, and her instincts suggest it's going to be really uncomfortably cold when that happens.

"We should be going back to Skyloft, I am thinking. We can be sleeping there, and changing our supplies for another flight, too. I want to be returning here... to be seeing what else is being around here." She frowns slightly, scratching the back of her neck. "I am not knowing if this place is even connecting to some kind of surface. I am seeing nothing when I look down... it is being enough to make even me dizzy, truth be told."

In Skyloft, at least they could look down and see the distant form of the surface, hazy and indistinct as it was. The islands lay over something, now that the cloud barrier is gone; when the sun rose, it rose over the land that would someday become Hyrule. Here, though... it's just sky, sky, and more sky.

"It is hard to be knowing what direction we are flying in, sometimes. I am glad I was bringing a compass." She sighs, leaning against him. "We are having a settlement above the clouds, actually."

After a few minutes she hauls herself to her feet, plucking grass from her tunic. "We are living and training on the Shadowed Isle, but you may have been hearing it spoken of as Kasuto, I am thinking. Before the cloud barrier was being banished, we were staying on the surface; our loftwings were taking us only to different points there, and we were preferring cliffs and other high places. But it is being harder to work with you Hylians if we are not being reasonably close, yes?"

"I will have to be taking you there some time." She half-smiles. "I am thinking you might be liking it, yes?"

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"Sounds good to me. You already put this place on your map before I landed, or do we need to hold up before heading back?" Aedan glances towards the edge of the island. He'll wait to call his Loftwing until Yalai has given him an answer on her mapping project. With regards to what else is around here, the Knight finally decides to get up off of the grass and moves over to check the edge of the island. Sure enough, he can't really see anything below. Either she's right, or they're much, much higher than he expected. He wonders if they got disoriented in the clouds someplace.

"Can't be too high up, or we wouldn't be able to breathe so well. The clouds aren't that bad below us. That's just strange." He complains, not really wanting to know why. It's always been possible to see the surface from Skyloft, shrouded though it usually was by the clouds. Getting there used to be impossible, but ground colonization has been going on for a while.

They've even got a few fortified regions set up.

"Huh? Well... I guess so, but we started moving to the surface after we realized how much land is available down below. Living on floating islands is kind of cramped and dangerous, though I suppose until more monsters are cleared out a lot of people will still prefer it to trying to live down below. I suspect in a hundred years we'll have emptied out onto the surface anyway. Guess being a Rescue Knight will eventually go out of style." He grins, faintly. "No problems, there. Saving people from long falls is pretty dull work most of the time, or they'd need a lot more of us than there are."

"I'd like to visit the place sometime. Out of curiosity, what was it like, going from living down there to up here?"

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"It is already being added; I was making note of it while you were landing." Yalai makes a swipe for her unfinished map, rolling it up neatly in the same gesture and tucking it into her belt. Glancing towards the edge, she wrinkles her nose a little. "I am agreeing."

"If we were being so high, we would not be breathing so well, even you who are so used to being in the sky. But..." She gestures towards the aerial rivers. Physics aren't exactly dependable in this place, are they? "But... that," she finishes, somewhat helplessly. For all they know, they're in some region where physics have taken a turn for the bizarre. Again.

Dusting off her tunic, she pads over toward where her loftwing is – no longer sleeping, but watching both Aedan and Yalai with one slightly tilted golden eye, preening long flight feathers while waiting. Yalai murmurs something to the bird in the convoluted nuances of the shadow-tongue, gives one feathered shoulder a pat, and steps back for the bird to spread its wings.

Even as a small-sized loftwing, Neyir is enormous, and there's something handsome about the way the sun shines through her feathers, and the seeming sternness of her gaze for that feathered brow – though her beak is not hooked like a predator's, the loftwing's face is almost more reminiscent of a raptor, rather than the stork-like faces of the Skyloft strain.

Almost delicately, the loftwing takes precisely three steps toward the edge, and simply... falls off, spreading those wings further and catching the wind.

Yalai glances back to her companion, shrugging. "Spacious. I am enjoying my scouting work, if only because it is being enjoyable to me to be flying the wide-open skies." The Sheikah grins. "Almost like we are being free."

But they are not, because their very blood compels them to duty. Wherever servants of evil remain, it is the oathsworn and blood-bound duty of the Sheikah to stamp them out.

"I am understanding why your people would be moving to the surface, since that is being where they were originally coming from, once upon a time... but... well, it is being... novel, living in the sky. And it is being tactically sound, too. We can be seeing for a great many miles in any direction from on high, yes?"

There's a pause.

"Last one to Skyloft is being the one to purchase the wine!" Yalai issues, and with a laugh, she lunges for the edge and throws herself over – what would in any other culture be a suicidal move.

Her distant whistle can be heard far below, shrill and piercing, answered by the answering call of her loftwing; should Aedan look to the edge, he'll see her far below, arms and legs flung out, white hair and black cloak whipping in the wind behind her as she falls.

If he's still wanting to talk, she'll probably slow and wait for him while they're flying, despite her challenge.

...Maybe.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"Oh... hm. That's right, so it doesn't have to make sense. Maybe there's something farther down. We should check when we come back out this way." Aedan wonders if they're on some kind of Plane of Air, where the land is naturally sparse and floating to begin with. It would explain a few things. Although, it wouldn't really explain the odd water... or anything else. So that seems like an idea he can safely toss. Probably just someplace strange, like the realm of a Spirit, which is similar but not exactly the same as you might expect if you were in a proper place.

With regards to the freedom of flying, Aedan just shrugs. "It's a pretty unique feeling, but a lot of it has to do with adrenaline rush and instincts, I think. We're not really supposed to be in the air, so being there gives us a kick in the ass like we think we're going to die. Turns out, your body really wants you to feel great when it's on the edge." He glances down, issuing a quick and sharp whistle.

"Well, you'd think so," Aedan continues while waiting for his Loftwing to arrive, "but think about it a little bit. If anything serious really happens there's not many places to go, because the sky islands aren't that big. If you have enemy who can reach you, then there's not really much in the way of a concrete defense. Hell, the castles they're building below wouldn't stand up to Loftwings without dedicated archers keeping their eye skyward."

"And then there's food. There's a lot more space to grow food down below. For some people Skyloft will always be home, but I guess what I'm getting at is that a small cage is still a small cage, even if it's pretty nice. It's more about practicality than sentimentality, rea—"

Yalai jumps off the island.

"Ugh."

Aedan patiently waits for his Loftwing to arrive at the edge of the island, and then jumps on. In a pinch it can be pretty speedy, but he has two distinct calls to it for a reason. With his weight, it's just not good for him to do the mid-air catches like Yalai and a lot of regular Rescue Knights can. It's possible, but it's very wearing.

Fortunately, she does wait for him. Or at least enough for him to call up to her:

"IT'S NOT A REAL CONTEST IF ONE OF THE RACERS CAN'T POSSIBLY WIN!"

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
Having found their way to some bizarre elemental plane probably isn't out of the question, given the equally bizarre nature of the multiverse. There are places where things just don't function as they should. This corridor of sky islands, bereft of any visible ground, seems to be one of them. A mystery to keep the sages and the scholars busy, maybe.

Grinning like a fool, Yalai leans over the shoulder of her Loftwing as it banks into a slow wheeling turn, hair whipping around her face as she watches her companion.

"Perhaps I should be thinking of some other challenge!" she retorts cheerfully, leaning far enough over her loftwing's shoulder to cause alarm.

...Well, not for her, maybe. Like most Sheikah, she can do all sorts of acrobatics while in the proverbial saddle – like most Hylians, her Loftwing's trappings are little more than a simple, single-banded harness around the bird's upper torso; almost like a collar, settled above the shoulders and chest. It's more of a convenient hand-hold to grip than an actual harness.

Slowing the bird and letting it descend until they can fly side-by-side, she pulls her Loftwing's speed back a bit to match the pace of Aedan's much larger bird. "As for that, we are not residing primarily in the sky, but much of our scouts are being up there. It is being faster to be going where we are needing to go, and it is being good to be watching the movements of the things being below us."

She gestures, one arm flung out toward the distinct lack of a surface below. "That is why this place is being so strange. I am seeing nothing. It will be good to be returning to Skyloft, where the sky is making sense."

It also has none of this aerial river nonsense.

"It is being more practical for most of us to be staying on the surface, and guarding the strongholds we have been building. But we are having a presence in the sky, too, now that we can, because it is being more tactically sound to be knowing of both areas." Reaching up, she pats the ruff of fine, almost fur-like feathers around her Loftwing's neck, watching Aedan as she does. "And our Loftwings are letting us be reaching areas faster, now that we are being able to fly so very high. It is good for the scouting of these places. The demons will not be resting, and so neither shall we."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
Ordinarily it would cause alarm, but Aedan isn't actually concerned by it. Setting aside the fact that Yalai is a perfectly competent rider in her own right, he's a rescue knight. While he hasn't got the speed to outrace Yalai in main speed by far, if he had to swoop in across a relatively short distance and snatch her up, he could do so quite easily. It's the long haul that would really be the problem, and he doesn't want to stress his Loftwing. At this range though, a Rescue would quite literally be his specialty. He wonders, idly, if she might not lean on that a little.

"Right! When we get back I'll line up potions in shot glasses and you see if you can guess what it is before you drink it. If you're lucky, you won't end up tall!"

Aedan wouldn't mind if she did, although he really can't wrap his head around her objection to being tall in the first place. He should ask about that in more detail later on. He ponders subjecting himself to a height-lowering potion. Couldn't be too bad, could it?

"Putting all your scouts in the sky makes sense," He calls, "for pretty much all the reasons I just said our fortifications are no good against Loftwings. What're they going to do? Get high enough up and even arrows won't reach, you'd need a hell of a sorcerer just to get the aim right."

"Assuming they even had the eyes for it. Most of those types seem to have lost their eyesight!"

At mention of demons, Aedan looks ponderous. "Wouldn't think they don't rest. Even Moblins and the like have to hunt, eat, sleep. Frankly I don't see why they're such disagreeable bastards to start with, it's not like they can't talk if they're of a mind to. But nooo, all torches and pitchforks. I suppose we just look like a new kind of food to try. What do you think? You've been down with them for longer."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"What?" The Sheikah turns to regard Aedan over her shoulder, and her expression suggests she either bit into something sour or he said something dumb. "You are wanting me to drink a series of potions, not knowing what is being in them, and then be deciding what they are? That is sounding... unwise. And perhaps being inconveniencing, too. But I can be seeing how it would also be useful." Heaving a sigh, she straightens to correct her Loftwing's heading, easing the bird a little closer to Aedan's. The enormous flight feathers tremble against the stiff breeze, spread out to their fullest to take advantage of the wind. "Very well. But do not be giving me anything too unpleasant, yes?"

"In return," she counters, leaning over the side of her Loftwing and grinning that feral grin again, "I will be teaching you how to be avoiding throwing knives, yes?"

Whether or not she's actually serious about that, it's hard to say.

"I was being more... what is being the word?" Metaphoric, but she doesn't seem to know it, so she lets it go with a shake of the head. "Some are resting, but some of them are not. Some of them are just moving faster than we are. Others are just wanting to be burning and destroying everything that is not being made of their own hand." She looks thoughtful; even a little somber. "How am I to be knowing? Nayru has not been blessing me with insight in this, or I think perhaps we would not be having a war against them, yes?"

She leans forward to let her Loftwing dip down a little, taking advantage of a little tailwind, picking up some speed. Fortunately, she remembers to raise her voice over the wind. "Perhaps it was being their following of the King of Evil, yes? The Demon King? Perhaps that association has been irrevocably tainting them? I am not knowing." A bit of a touch to her Loftwing's harness brings the bird up short, flapping in place to wait for Aedan's to catch up. "Whatever it is being, it is wearying, sometimes... and it is being disheartening, to be seeing the damage they are doing to some places. There are being temples my people were building on the surface, many generations ago, before even Skyloft was being raised. Few of those have been surviving."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"They're not large doses, that's why you put them in shot glasses. They last a few seconds and then you're back to normal. And no, you don't guess first, you guess before you drink. That's how you know if you were right or not. So we'd line them up, shuffle them around so I don't know which is which at a glance, and then you'd take a guess at one before you try it." Aedan explains to Yalai, grinning at the sour face that she makes. "Anyway, I won't put anything in it that I wouldn't drink, so don't worry about it too much."

You should worry about it. Aedan is willing to try way worse shit than you just to see what happens.

"Uh... sure, I guess? Just don't use real knives, I'm too big to bend out of the way like you are."

Aedan doesn't actually mind that kind of exercise. Bruises are fine, but actually getting knifed a bunch is a pretty big pain in the ass, and he'd rather not spend the rest of the night chugging healing potions.

"Well... I guess, but that doesn't make a hell of a lot of rational sense." He responds, concerning the Moblins. "It's not like they don't have a lot of space of their own, and it's plenty easy for them to hunt. I guess rationally we're a pretty big threat to their long-term dominance of the region though, which is enough for them to not want us around. I bet they've never gotten along with Sheikah, huh?"

"Tainted? I guess that might be one thing, but it's kind of hard to believe. They have kids, the kids grow up, and so on. They're not that different, even though they don't even try to parley. Maybe you're right, and it all comes down to just being emanations of Demise. Who knows." Aedan shrugs loosely, his Loftwing dipping after Yalai's, careful not to collide at any point in so doing.

"... Heyyy, I could mix the potions with some wine so even I can't distinguish one from the next!" He calls back to the topic of his stupid potion game, abruptly.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"That is not saying much." The statement is grumbled somewhat under Yalai's breath. In her somewhat biased opinion, Hylians are willing to eat or drink some very questionable things, to go by some of the cooking she's seen. Maybe her lover might be a Hylian, but that doesn't mean she's any less biased against some of the things she regards as strange and unusual that she's seen Hylians do. Hopefully, her companion has more restraint than all that. Maybe. Otherwise she's in for a very... interesting... evening. "Very well," she relents, although she sounds a little bit sulky and uncertain about it.

Very uncertain.

"I could be using my quarterstaff, if you are preferring that." The Sheikah shows her teeth in a grin again, the kind of grin that suggests she's just toying with him. Maybe. Sometimes it's a little difficult to say whether she's pulling his leg or actually being serious with him, and being as mischevious as she is, she likes it that way. "I cannot be guaranteeing that I would not be leaving bruises, though. That would be depending entirely on how quickly you could be dodging."

Sure, it's a blatantly one-sided contest! But so are the potions, really. He's a whiz with brewing up potions on the fly like she's never seen before. She sobers as the conversation turns back to the surface creatures.

"We have not been getting along with a good many people," she corrects him. "Being friends with the Moblins is being one of the least of our concerns. They are being large, and loud, and not altogether very smart, so it is not being difficult for us to be avoiding them. Or killing them, if they are proving intractable. Sometimes we are preferring to simply be scaring them away from a place we are not wanting them, but sometimes... they are not listening to the cues that we are giving them. And when they are not listening to the cues—"

Yalai crouches down over her Loftwing as the bird abruptly tilts a wing and dips, taking advantage of a current of air. When the bird lifts back up again, she continues as though she hadn't even paused.

"—Then we are dispatching them, with quickness and with quietness."

It seems like a pretty grim way to handle things, but if it's an enemy that can't be reasoned with, one aggressive and prone to violence, than they probably don't have too much choice.

"Tainted," she agrees, still sober. "But that taint is being carried through the generations. They are remembering, and they are hating the surface peoples for the things that they are not having. The Demon King was seeking one the Power of Gold, which Her Grace was protecting and safekeeping. And she was using her people to be helping her safeguard and be hiding it. The Demon King and his minions have not been forgetting this," she points out. "They are not being so different from him, in the end, even if they are having different forms and different tribes. Maybe some of them can be reasoned with, I am hoping, but most of them..." She shakes her head.

Blinking, she swivels around to look at him again, somewhat flatly. Mix with wine? "So long as that is not causing some of them to explode," she finally says, cautiously.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"Hmm... well, if you think my potions would be about as fun as having knives thrown at you, I guess we don't have to do either of those things. It's pretty entertaining though, even on the receiving end. Like passing around some food that's mixed in with something ultra-spicy. Though, I like ultra spicy." Aedan meanders thoughtfully. He has a tendency to blast his food with hot peppers, because most of his food that isn't personally caught is military rations, and they're poor-tasting at best. Perfectly good at keeping you going, though sometimes he wonders about the rationale behind certain items.

"What's so strange about turning into a bunch of things that isn't so strange about turning into a fox? Or a dog." He wonders aloud.

Yalai dips briefly, in the middle of a sentence, and returns just a little while later to continue.

"Hmm... honestly, doesn't seem very fair to me. They're thinking and feeling, but don't have a choice to be anything but what they are? Maybe it's their own fault, but that's awfully cruel. Especially with Demise... gone, I suppose?" He sounds uncertain. The stories are vague, even though they didn't occur that long ago. Can you really kill a deity for good? Usually these stories resolve quite ambiguously.

Like being locked up in masks, or sealed in a jug, or something equally temporally inconvenient for somebody who doesn't happen to be alive at the time.

"Explode? None of the potions I use in these games have that kind of attribute! I have to drink a lot of foul-tasting stuff, but potion-makers do work on making things not taste like rot and death. Honey is pretty common for health potions. Either that, or a shot of something really hard to knock you out." He grins, faintly. "I know my potions are usually lacking in taste, but they're not dangerous unless you do something really dumb."

"Like... I don't know, take a fish transformation potion before getting in the water."

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
"You are liking spicy things, maybe. I am not, although I am knowing that the Scourge is being fond of overly spicy foods." Yalai makes a face, which says just about all she needs to say about how she likes her food prepared. That is to say, with plenty of seasoning, but not any heat. The hotter varieties of pepper are right out. "I have never been liking them."

She shakes her head. "Because I am being used to those, that is what," she retorts. "You have been brewing those for me long enough for me to be knowing what to be expecting, yes?" Turning into a fox is something she's gotten used to, enough so that she can function quite well in that form. Although it isn't very useful for combat, it's very good for scouting an area, and also for getting into places that she probably ought not be. Being able to see in darkness, smell, and hear expotentially better than her own form can be incredibly useful in a pinch. It also makes her a much smaller target, foxes being generally the same size or not much bigger than a common housecat... or remlit.

She clutches to one side of her Loftwing's harness as the bird tilts to take advantage of a wind current, tilting her head to keep listening to Aedan as she does. Wind whips her white hair behind her, eyes blood-red when they settle sidelong on the Skyloft Knight.

"They were accepting the Demon King's corruption many generations ago," Yalai points out. "They are accepting it now still. I am not having much sympathy, because my people are remembering what was done by them before Her Grace was intervening to be saving your people. I am suspecting that some of you have been forgetting... but we have not been." As for Demise, she only shakes her head, but doesn't elabourate. Not gone. How do you destroy evil itself? As much as it would be nice to unmake such a thing, it is a cornerstone of the world itself. One cannot have good without evil to contrast it; there must be light to cast a shadow, and the light cannot be seen without the shadow to compare it to.

She snorts at the matter of his potions. "Yes, well, that is being all well and good. I will be sticking with Loremaster Ikram's herbal remedies, thank you very much. They are tasting a little less foul, I am thinking... in most cases. Not all of them." The Sheikah flashes a grin. "And yes. That is sounding a very unwise thing to be doing."

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"I only like spicy things because otherwise my rations don't taste like anything else at all. Rather cook something from the end of my arrow, if it comes down to that. Salted fish is nice enough." Aedan answers, with a shrug. He can only imagine that the Sheikah have better standards of trail food than the Rescue Knights typically have, although no one ever objected to them catching their own food given the opportunity. He's acquired food from the oddest places, sometimes. Including little crustaceans that live in muddy, moist areas.

"I s'pose that's true, but you have to admit it's still odd. Anyway, that particular potion works a little bit different than most." He adjusts his flight path, his gaze turning towards pinpricks of lights in the distance. Not much longer, now, until they're back. A nice straw bed sounds better by far than grass on a dubious island of strange physics. Unless those lights aren't their lights.

He hopes they haven't crossed into Faerie country anywhere in here.

"We've been a long, long away from the demons of the surface. It is pretty easy to forget. Until not that long ago, it was all just stories. Well-remembered stories, but still, just stories. Perspective is a hell of a thing.

"Anyway, about the transformation potion. The thing about its taste is that it's a bit personalized. More advanced transformation potions go a great deal deeper than that, but I haven't the skill to brew one. To explain what I mean," Aedan reaches up and points at his hair, "You'd get a bit of something – a specific something, not just a feather from a breed of bird, so for instance my hair – and use it in the recipe. It's more concentrated, has some more ingredients, and brews longer by far."

"And the thing about it is that it tastes a lot like the personality of the thing that contributed. So if you wanted to turn into me, you'd get some composite flavor of 'Aedan', and the same goes for anything." He makes a face. "Bet Moblins taste like pig vomit. Anyway, that's why the taste isn't so bad. It's the same idea, only diluted. So I suppose you're tasting a little bit of yourself mixed with an animal."

"... Actually, I suppose that's kind of creepy." He realizes, too late.

Yalai the Stave (879) has posed:
The distant lights of Skyloft are a welcome sight, especially considering how the sunlight is slowly beginning to dim. They've reached familiar ground again, and now one can see the surface world below, although the exact transition is unclear. Wisps and great lumbering leviathans of clouds have hidden the boundary point. Regardless, the sun is starting to set behind proper earth, and Loftwings don't see well in the dark. It's just as well they're getting close to home.

Yalai squints to regard the distant lights. "Maybe so. You have been telling yourselves these stories for many generations, but you have never been seeing the reality of them for yourselves." Her voice is a little quiet, although she still keeps it raised to be heard over the wind.

To the matter of transformation potions, she listens intently. She's no potion-brewer, but she enjoys knowing how things work in theory, even if they aren't things she might necessarily do in practise. "Maybe, but it is being practical," she comments, with a faint grin. "It is working, and that is what is mattering to me."

Skyloft's lights draw closer, and she banks Neyir in a turn, the Loftwing screeching as though in anticipation of going home. Or a place close enough to home to make little difference, anyway. "To your quarters?" she asks, glancing back to the Skyloft Knight.

She miiiight be looking forward to a chance at weirding out his associate knights by her very presence.

Aedan MacCarvill (891) has posed:
"First the grocer, then to my quarters. We'll need to hurry, they'll be putting out the lights and closing up shortly. You can come with me or you can just meet me there. We'll swap our equipment out in the morning and get out by early afternoon at latest." Aedan guides his Loftwing into a steady dive. There's no sense in making a proper landing when he's in a rush. He'll just bail off once they're close enough to the ground that he can handle it. Yalai will reach that point quicker, light as she is, but he's not to worried about actually racing.

He'd already conceded, after all.

It's not long before the Rescue Knight slips deliberately from the side of his Loftwing and vanishes into the twinkling lights of Skyloft. Doubtless, Yalai is close behind him – or ahead, as the case may be. He wouldn't put it past her to land on a chimney somewhere and go bounding into the streets before he touches down. It doesn't matter too much, though.

They'll end up in the same space sooner or later. The only real difference in the matter is how they get there, and how many people are startled by their hooliganism along the way.