Waking of Thursday, May 11, 2017 ~ 2
Fortunately the Katah Chuki Shrine—which
David kept calling the Cat-a-Chucky
Shrine—only contained a Minor Test of
Strength. And when I completed it, and collected the monk’s Spirit Orb, there
was no more fooling around.
It was time to head south.
It was time to follow the river.
“Ignore the bird—follow the river!” my Mother had quipped to me on
the occasions she’d seen me at it. I’d been following a lot of rivers lately.
But I had a good feeling about this one....
I wanted to warp to the shrine by
the Dueling Peaks Stable, but, at David’s insistence, I warped instead to the one
by Proxim Bridge. Better to be direct, I suppose.
It was raining when I got there.
I thought of Brigo, the first human
I had seen at the start of my travels long ago. And I did catch sight of him,
but he was running east toward the woods, trying to get out of the rain.
Oh well.
Presently the rain left off. I
started up the hill behind the shrine, and headed south along the west bank of
the river, playing with what Koroks were convenient to my path.
The land climbed quite steeply
about the river, especially on the west side. I hoofed it higher and higher
until I came to a small ruin at the top of a hill.
It was small, and quiet. Far
removed from much of anything else I could see.
I’m not even sure if it had a name.
[It did – it was called Scout’s Hill.]
But from the top of its crumbling
wall, I had an excellent view of the river’s course: There before me, spanned
by a mighty bridge of dark weathered stone, filling up a vast green bowl it
seemed, was an immense body of water.
Surely
this was the waterway I’d been seeking!
And something else I hadn’t noticed
from the lower elevations: a road seemed to come from the direction of the
Plateau, and for a time run somewhat parallel to the river, until it came to
one end of the dark bridge. Before it got there, however, it passed by an
absolutely riotous-looking treehouse
full of belligerent red-skinned creatures.
It looked.... like a delightful
challenge, and sweet good looting, no
doubt....
But I didn’t want to give time to it
just now. Surely I was closing in on
Mei.
I moved closer, and it was as I was
studying the steep incline down to the water’s edge, catching sight of a dock—and a raft—down there.... that I heard
it.
Something shifted in the wind. A
new sound came, seemed to coalesce on the air....
One of the Piano’s tricks, I was
sure, but what did it mean? It didn’t sound like anything bad was coming after me....
Actually it felt more like.... it wanted
to preface the leap I was supposed to
take from the high ground.... before I went gliding.... out over the water....
I shook my head and looked toward
the treehouse—were they doing
anything? No? It didn’t look like it. Why was this new music happening?
I turned back to the water.
“UH—DYIS—WHUH—TH—IDT—” I said, or
something like it.
Head, neck and shoulders out of the
water, the dragon Farosh was twining
up out of the lake before a few scattered islets.
I was much closer to him than I’d been back in the river north of Satori
Mountain. Now I could see his skin, his eye, his mouth, his limbs, his claws,
the great jutting horn upon his head, all so clearly. Truly an enormous creature....
And then I understood—his was the music. This new sound on the
air.... it belonged to Farosh.
And there was something else,
another element aside from the Piano and its usual contingent of other
shimmering sounds.... It moved as serenely as Farosh did, slowly clawing his
way into the heights, bending over the water to loom low across the bridge....
An erhu.... What a beautiful sound. Sublime.
He dipped down into the water on
the other side of the bridge.
David had asked me where I had
first seen Farosh, and I’d told him about that river round the back of Satori
Mountain, and looking up into the Gerudo Highlands. And I remembered he had looked
skeptical, his eyes narrowed....
Because this lake was where David
had first seen Farosh. Right over his head as he was crossing the bridge. He’d
been looking at something else entirely through his scope when the mighty
dragon had risen in the background—the
most majestic of photobombings....
Farosh’s head surfaced again a
great distance from where his midsection and hindquarters were still
disappearing into the water. I could only imagine the great arc his serpentine body
must have been carving deep beneath the lake’s surface.
And as he rose again into the air,
little ball-lightnings began to
manifest in his wake.
Heh, “little”.... They were still
so far away; up close they must have been quite sizeable. But compared to
Farosh they were tiny.
Maybe that was part of the danger
my Compendium had spoken of, regarding approaching close to this dragon.
He continued his graceful arcing
through the air, and in and out of the lake, beautiful creature.
Maybe this lake.... was Farosh’s
home.
It was . . . . joyous to behold.
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