Winged Flight

Winged Flight
Type	Utility Technique
Fields	Lizalfos, Rito, Transform, Travel
Cost	High Cost C5: 55 rupees C4: 65 rupees C3: 75 rupees C2: 85 rupees C1: 95 rupees Rent: 15 rupees

Winged Flight is a utility technique, and an exclusive racial perk for Rito and Lizalfos. As such, a member of either race can choose to gain it as a perk upon character creation. Unlike most racial perks, gaining Winged Flight costs two racial perk "slots." Since this is an exclusive perk, other races cannot acquire it as a treasure.

Rito are a people who devote themselves to a dragon they revere as their sacred deity, Valoo, whom rests atop their homeland of Dragon Roost Isle. As a rite of adulthood, a young Rito will make a pilgrimage unto Valoo to receive the dragon's blessing. After this blessing has been received, only then will the Rito be able to sprout wings and fly as a bird through the air--a trait very characteristic of their race. These wings take the place of the user's arms while flying, so the user is rendered unable to use his or her hands mid-flight. The speed, endurance, and agility of any given Rito's flight varies, depending greatly on personal strength and skill.

By contrast, a Lizalfos usually only gains flight due to an unlikely mutation at birth, which grants him leathery bat-like wings. These mutants are known as Aeralfos, and usually have smaller bodies than other Lizalfos. Unlike soaring Rito, Aeralfos need to constantly and vigorously flap these wings to stay airborne. As such, they typically cannot fly as fast as a Rito, cannot fly as steadily, and rarely can stay airborne for more than a minute or two. Unlike a Rito, however, an Aeralfos' arms are separate from his wings, enabling him to take other actions in flight.

Trivia

• This treasure serves as the prerequisite for Shuttle Loop.
• Other races have yet to master true winged flight, but can gain something similar through the Hover spell.
• The Winged Flight treasure canonically appears in the Zelda series, initially in The Wind Waker. Flying Aeralfos first appeared in Twilight Princess.