The Last River

Waking of Thursday, April 6, 2017 ~ 3

The Last River

You know those Stables really are amazing. I’d registered Thrice and boarded him there at the Woodland Stable, but when I went to take him out again, the man said, “Okay, so you want us to take Brown into our care?”

o__o They could do that?

Well.... I answered in the affirmative, and he said, “All right, wait just a moment,” the screen went black, and then I had Thrice and I guess.... they had Brown.

(Though how they fetched him all the way from Kakariko, I dunno. Are they packin’ their own Sheikah Slates....?)

I spoke to the man again, and asked to take out Brown this time.

And a similar scene ensued, and then Thrice was gone and Brown was there.

He looked at me like he knew something.... like I’d been out riding other horses....

“Oh, buddy....” I soothed him. He’s my boy; I still loved him.

But I boarded him again. Kakariko’s a nice place, but maybe it’d be nice in a proper stable too. Besides, the way I was headed, there was definitely no room for horsing around.

I warped back to the Lanayru Tower. There was just one more river to sweep—the long river that curved back east toward the Reservoir.

I clambered over the mountains along the north bank for a time, but the river was so far below me I couldn’t see it. The air seemed too fogged by distance and moisture.

Across the canyon, on the south bank, the mountains seemed almost as high—you know, maybe I shouldn’t even call it a bank; the river was flanked on both sides by sheer cliff walls in a deep ravine.

At any rate the southern cliffs seemed high, but it looked like there was a little grassy shelf a bit closer to the water that I might reach by paraglider. Maybe I’d be able to see more from there. I made sure to get plenty of altitude before I made the attempt to cross. If I came up short and ended up in the drink, I doubted I’d be able to do much besides warp back to the tower and start all over again.

But I made the crossing without a hitch and with a good two feet of landing-zone to spare. Steadying myself on the new surface, I turned around and peered back down into the ravine.

I was still quite high up.

But the river seemed to be empty.

There was nowhere to go but on toward the Reservoir. If Mei wasn’t here.... I scrambled up the cliff face, startling a few herons, and it started to rain. It was a slick run to get to the top but I made it all right—and immediately wondered if I had come up on the clifftop near some kind of settlement, for I heard music. An accordion. Was there some kind of carnival going on? I looked around wildly for some sign—

And I saw, some distance away, near a great jutting crag over the water, a figure standing on a little hump of grass, swaying gently, his arms full of something. That seemed to be the source of the music.

He wasn’t a bokoblin or any other kind of monster. I approached.

But as I came near, I saw through the haze of rain and gasped—there were feathers—blue feathers—cresting from this person’s head; the arms, the forearms were too broad, because they were wings, also blue—and a great grey parrot’s beak so prominent on the front of the face—

(“Rito?” I whispered.)

I approached him slowly—it was a him, right?—and only stood beside him for a moment as he played on. I watched his colorfully striped feather-fingers as they pressed the keys.... This was so weird....

And then I engaged his attention and he startled slightly, blustering something about having thought he was all alone up here—

And then, as so many seem to have done all along my road, he sputtered out, “Wait.... that thing there on you waist!”

My Sheikah Slate.

“No, but it couldn’t be....” And then he caught himself and apologized, “I’m sorry, it’s nothing, I don’t mean to pry.”

It was my turn to say something.

And I wanted so badly to ask him, Are you a... bird?

But....

He had been kind enough to stop himself, to calm down, to try and be polite. I thought.... I would give him the same courtesy.

I only smiled and said, “No worries.”

He introduced himself as Kass—just Kass—and told me about the song he had been playing.

Oh but I sort of wished I’d asked him about his race....

But I did listen to his song. It was a lovely tune, really. Plaintive, melancholy chords; it was just really wonderful. But the lyrics were somewhat cryptic. It spoke of a beast with a crown of bone, running through the lush green, and if you mounted it on its throne, then the shrine could be seen.

The actual rhyme was smoother than that, but that’s something how it went.

Hm, I wondered what kind of “beast” could be roaming around these parts—for it was very green here. Kass and I both wondered, really. And what kind of shrine could be revealed by one mounting a beast on its throne? It all reminded me of Doctor Calip’s research, actually.... hidden shrines....

But perhaps it was a mystery for another day, for I was very near the end of combing through every single waterway of Zora’s Domain.

I bade Kass goodbye, and he played on as I trekked ahead through the rain. The southern cliff-bank gradually began to roll lower and lower toward the water level, until the land became quite flattened out in a little sunken dell and I saw something I’d completely forgotten about: a shrine I had marked!

There was a shrine, just outside the Eastern Reservoir.

There it was, at the water’s end.

And it was surrounded by lizalfos.