Rage of the Rathalos (Saga)

[Illidan Stormrage]

Link sat up, the base of his skull throbbing. What happened? The last thing he remembered, he attacked Ganondorf head-on and pierced his stomach with the Master Sword. Yet somehow the Gerudo thief found the strength to punch him ... and launch him into the ceiling of the cave. Groaning, Link spotted his blade a short distance away. As he resheathed the Master Sword, he noticed the commotion was over. The adventurers moved on, leaving him lying unconscious in a dragon infested den.

Except there were no dragons. Two corpses, one greener than the other, rotted openly on the ground.

At least the threat is over, Link thought. Even if I didn't help much in the end.

He felt a weak pang of guilt in his stomach, but dulled due to the truth of the matter. The dragons were certainly a threat, but Ganondorf was the apocalypse in Gerudo form; he had seen it. When it came down to the crunch, the danger of two dragons paled in comparison to a man that already conquered a realm, and no doubt had aspirations to do so again. Of course, the others didn't know that. They saw a fifteen foot lizard that belched fire and decided it needed to die before a six foot tall man. In their place, Link knew he would make the same decision. He couldn't blame them.

Yet Ganondorf was nowhere to be seen. The injury he gave him mustn't have been fatal. A trail of blood painted his likely path, but there was so much dragon blood it was hard to be sure. If he wasn't dead, he was still weak. He must have lost a lot of blood, and his transformation drained him visibly. For now, he only needed to recuperate. With few allies and a bad headache, Link decided he should do the same.

The Hylian warrior sat down and willed Omnilium through his body, reforming the pegasus that brought him here. He closed his eyes and shaped the being that would take him away from the smoke filled cavern.

A wolf howled.

Link's eyes snapped open. To his left, a white wolf stared at him with one red eye. A golden sheen clung to its ethereal fur. Its body was translucent and insubstantial. It looked like the ghost of a wolf.

"What ... what are you? I didn't make you," Link said. He looked at the pegasus he brought to life, and realised it wasn't a pegasus at all. A colourful bird the size of a small horse, stood before him, with bright red plumage and a hooked bill. It eyed him inquisitively. If it could see the wolf, it wasn't perturbed by it.

"How did I make a bird I've never seen before when I pictured a pegasus?" Link asked the wolf. It tilted its head, howled, and bounded up the steep incline of the cavern towards the exit. Link shouted after it, but the ghost ignored him. The Hero of Time didn't know what was going on, but that wolf was an unusual visitor. He had to follow it.

Link mounted the bird, unsure of what to expect. Strangely, it welcomed him on its back, craning its head to look at the Hylian. Link grasped the smooth feathers at the base of its neck and wondered how to command such a creature without reins. The bird squawked and flapped its wings until it became airborne, and shot out of the cave. The familiar queasiness came to his stomach again; flight just wasn't his thing.

The wolf stood at the lip of the cavern. The bird chased after it, but the ghost managed to stay ahead. When Link caught it, he ... well, he couldn't question it, but this spirit knew something about him and he was determined to find out what it was.