Horwell knew that when he woke up that morning with a slight headache and a horrible feeling in his stomach, it was not going to be a pleasant day. After getting dressed he left his room, quietly closing the door behind him. All the Academy seemed silent. While he crept down the hallway towards the classroom, he glanced up towards the top floor, where he knew Kespel's room was located.

The feeling grew worse.

When he entered the classroom, there were only a couple of students there, sleepily rubbing their eyes and chattering in subdued voices. Horwell nearly gave a start when he realized Headmaster Gaepora was at the head of the room, looking somber. Feeling a little suspicious, he sat down at his desk and waited while the few others gradually walked in, Owlan being the last. Horwell noted that the other boy seemed more reserved than usual. Owlan took his seat beside him, folding his hands on the top of the wood and gazing down at his lap, seemingly in deep thought about something. And Horwell knew just what that something was. Kespel.

Oh, Kespel usually wore her emotions like clothes, out around her for others to see. But when it came around to her crush on Owlan, she was, for some reason, immensely better at hiding her feelings. Except from himself. He had known from the start. It was rather easy to see, if one knew where to look. The slight red tinge on her cheeks when she gazed at him, the way she laughed at something witty he'd said, her eyes lighting up when they spent time together. Oh yes. It was there, for anyone bothering to look.

The only thing Horwell himself didn't know was how Owlan felt about Kespel in return. That boy was damn good at his poker face, he'd give him that. But sometimes, there were these little things Horwell saw that made him doubt himself, made him doubt writing off Owlan as a hopeless cause. Such as how he would become so worried whenever Kespel pulled that prank of hers, pretending to fall off Skyloft. Such as the seemingly ever-present smile he wore when she was around. Such as the times when she hugged him, and Horwell could swear he saw a blush form on Owlan's cheeks.

And such as now, when Owlan was gazing anxiously at Kespel's empty stool in the spot next to his.

Horwell frowned as Headmaster Gaepora began talking. Surely he knew that they still had to wait for one more student? Kespel wasn't here yet. It wouldn't make sense to have to repeat whatever important announcement he obviously had to make twice.

"Children," Gaepora began, frowning deeply. Horwell noticed he had dark bags forming beneath his eyes. "I have some very disturbing and shocking news to tell you. It seems your young classmate Kespel...fell from Skyloft last night."

Silence. That was all Horwell heard for a good amount of time.

Then, all at once, noise.

Wryna gasped, throwing her small dainty hands over her mouth in shock. Piper nearly fell off her stool from surprise. Even his own jaw nearly hit his desk from opening in astonishment. And beside him, Owlan made some sort of choked gurgle deep in his throat.

"...What?" Owlan managed to croak out. His voice sounded hoarse.

Gaepora's frown grew more pronounced beneath his mustache, if that was possible. "Indeed, it is true. It seems she was out and about for whatever reason late last night. One of the knights patrolling heard a shriek, and dove to investigate. What he found was...highly unexpected."

It was silent once again, before Horwell managed to speak up. "What was that?" On his left, Owlan was trembling slightly.

"...Small creatures were surrounding her, from what the knight could tell. He didn't get a very good look at them, because he was focused on saving her at the time. Only, in the confusion, he didn't account for his loftwing's reaction to the vile creatures...it was rather drastic, and he crash landed on the diving platform, breaking it." Gaepora's explanation left the class in silence for a third time.

The horrible feeling that had been in Horwell's stomach since earlier that morning solidified into a lump of guilt, horror, and shock. He might as well have swallowed a stone.

Gaepora was still speaking, but Horwell tuned him out. Instead, he watched Owlan, watched the terrible sadness settle into his features, watched his face pale in horror, watched as he struggled not to vomit in distress.

Horwell watched it all, and it was all he could do not to throw up himself.

"Hey... Cobal, check this out!"

Red.

Where...

"What is that thing? Hey you, can you hear us? Hey!"

Warm.

What...

"It's not sayin' anything. Maybe it's dead?"

All around, fire burned. A swirling vortex of flames surrounded her, encasing her in their bright light and their warmth. She reached out a hand to touch them, and was not hurt.

Where am...

"Naw, it's still alive. Look, you can see it breathin'. I'm gonna go get Guld. You watch it, make sure it isn't dangerous."

She gazed about, trying to find an inkling as to where she was, but nothing was familiar. There was just fire. Suddenly, two whips of flame floated around her, dancing and tickling her senses. She watched in wonder as they moved, hypnotized. They swirled around her, and she twirled with them, but when she stopped, she was looking into two, huge fiery eyes that were swallowing her.

Where am I?

"WAKE UP!"

Kespel groaned, feeling her entire body aching. She felt extremely warm and uncomfortable, and couldn't remember where she was. A bead of sweat rolled down her temple, sinking beneath her eyelid and stinging her eye. Her eyelids begin twitching, and she slowly blinked them open.

Disoriented, it took a while for her eyes to focus, but when they did, she couldn't believe them. Her eyes shot wide in astonishment as she looked all around her, turning on her side as she did so, splaying a hand beside her on the ground.

She appeared to be on a mountain, and there were rocks all around her. It was unbearably hot, stifling even, and she could see what looked to be magma everywhere.

But that wasn't what made her jaw nearly drop to the ground in amazement.

To her immediate right was one of the strangest creatures Kespel had ever seen.

It looked to be a mammal, as it had fur the color of cream, and it had large paws and sharp claws, though the fur all over its body didn't appear to extend to cover its hands. But it also appeared to have hair, too, the kind her people had and not animals. It was a dusty sort of red, and very messy. The animal had a blue mask surrounding its eyes, but the most amusing thing about the creature was its extremely long snout, as there was a nose that seemed to never stop twitching perched on the end of it. The creature itself was half submerged in the earth, its lower body obscured by dirt.

Then it did something that interrupted her staring, and Kespel's blatant astonishment ascended into the next level. Pure gaping.

"Hey, buddy, who're you?"

It could talk?!

What kind of backwards world had she fallen into?

Kespel barely had time to ponder that thought when something in the words grabbed her attention.

Fallen...

She scrambled to her feet, apparently startling the creature as it threw its hands out in front of itself and leaned backwards, as if trying not to catch a disease. She looked all around herself again, spinning in half circles to try and get a full picture, and nearly made herself dizzy.

She swallowed harshly, feeling as if she were about to faint. She wanted to faint, wanted it to all be a dream. "Where," she whispered quietly to herself, "am I?"

The creature heard her anyways, despite her hushed and strained voice, as it replied, "Where? Well, you're on Eldin Volcano. What I'd like to know is where you came from and who you are and...what you plan to do to us." The pitch of voice told her that it was a male that she was speaking to.

Kespel blinked. "There are...more of you?"

The creature snorted and waved a paw about dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, there are more of me. Well, more of my kind. Why wouldn't there be?"

"Well, um, it's just...I've never seen any of...whatever it is you are, before. Ever." Kespel paused to ponder just how odd this conversation was, her talking to an animal that was talking back. Whatever it was. She gathered enough courage to venture a question. "Just what...are you?"

The creature snorted again, then gave a laugh and crossed its arms. "What am I? I'm a mogma, o' course! What else would I be? The real question here is what're you?"

This was hardly what she was expecting, to be questioned on her species. But it seemed only fair to return the favor and answer the mogma, as it had answered her. She took a deep breath and said, "I'm a Skyloftian. I live in Skyloft. My name is Kespel." There, that was the basic information, wasn't it?

The mogma stared at her. "Never heard of it. The name's Ledd, by the way." There was an awkward pause as they both regarded each other in silence, before Ledd apparently deemed her safe and uncrossed his arms and rested them on the ground. "Well, if you live in this...Skyloft place or whatever, what're you doing here? Shouldn't you be there?"

Kespel's lower lip trembled as a wave of uncertainty washed over her. Yes, what was she doing here, at Eldin Volcano, with this mogma named Ledd? What was she doing here, when she should be safe at home? How had she even gotten here after falling off in the first place, wherever here was? She had a pretty good idea, but it seemed so impossible she wanted to throw it out the window at once. But it was the only explanation she could think of.

"I...fell off of Skyloft. I fell through the clouds, and I guess I landed here, wherever here is. Is this...the Surface? Because...that's not supposed to exist! At least, no one has ever proven it. Please, can you tell me where I am? How did I even survive that fall, I should have died for sure! This doesn't make any sense, and I don't want to be here! I want to go home!" Her explanation had at first been a little quiet, but Kespel soon dissolved into a full blown panic attack, chest heaving and tears stinging her eyes as she began to blubber and wail. The terror of being in an unknown place far from home was setting in, and she began to cry. "What am I going to do? How am I going to get home? I don't have Juncan or Horwell or Owlan or anyone! I'm all alone!"

Ledd's panic at having the child start to cry was ever increasing as he waved his hands about. "Hey, s-stop that! Don't cry, don't cry! Cut it out!" He didn't understand why the small child was crying or if he had said something wrong to upset her. The girl had just been talking and he had been listening and then out of nowhere she had started blubbering and crying for home!

Now he wasn't sure what he should be doing, so he began to flail about in distress until two familiar voices reached his ears and he nearly sighed with relief, a great contrast to the still crying child as she looked up through her tears.

"Now just what is going on here?"

"See Guld, I told you there was a weird- Sheesh, Ledd, I leave you alone for a few minutes with it and you go and make it cry. What is wrong with you?"

AN: Blah, I am such a hypocrite. I dislike when people don't update stories after a year, then I go and do it myself. Man, this sucks. Well, I'm here now, so I'm going to do my best to update from now on. It might be a while, it might not, but I won't give up! I'll finish this story even if it kills me. I didn't like the first part of this chapter, since I don't think I really caught the character's personalities, but they're also children and people change later in life, sooo...whatever. But I liked the mogma part, so it evened out for me. As for how Kespel survived, well, it should be pretty obvious, yeah? Maybe. Sorry if you find any mistakes in this chapter, but drop me a note and I'll try to fix it as soon as I can. Here's til next time!