Dear FatGuy OnFire with the guest review,

Since I can't PM you my response, I have to respond here...

Now, if I put Ghirahim in the character tags, wouldn't that spoil it for all the new readers? Admittedly, it might pique some interest in a reader who would ordinarily just read the summary and be done with it, but I'd rather keep his presence as a pleasant surprise than use it as a selling factor.

Also, I congratulate you on attaining a new tablet.

And I'm glad you love this. ^-^

Thank you for reviewing!


I stepped back and wrinkled my nose.

"Did you have to take off your cape-thing for this?" I asked.

"Yes. I don't want it to get singed. Now, whenever you're ready, Mistress." Ghirahim bowed, then assumed a defensive stance.

My stomach flopped and growled.

"I don't want to fight you," I said.

"It's important," he said. "I must know what your talents are. If I do not, then I will be unable to effectively teach you."

"But you..." I already knew he was more powerful than me. "I've never battled someone before."

He laughed, "Don't think of this as a battle. Just think of it as a preliminary sparring. No one wins, no one loses; I'm just going to test a few things."

"I'm out of practice."

"You come here every day, do you not? Yes, you didn't come yesterday, but each day before that you were successful." He folded his arms and looked at me with an even smile. "Come, Mistress, I suspect your caretaker wants you back before breakfast gets cold."

"But..."

"It won't take long." He reassumed his defensive stance. "Whenever you're ready, Mistress."

For a few moments, I just stared at him. Then, with a wave, I ripped clumps of earth from the ground and whipped them at him. He put up a shield and they bounced off ineffectively, and immediately four throwing knives, glowing with purple light, appeared and swirled around in the air in front of him, and he flicked them at me one at a time. Unprepared for this, I jumped out of the way of the first, then summoned my own defensive barrier. The remaining three knives embedded themselves in its invisible surface. I began conjuring a tornado to twirl him around and make him dizzy, but already he prepared his next attack. A black cloud formed over my head with a massive overhang of static that caused my hair to lift from my back.

Crap...

An intense white light flashed and the lightning bolt crashed into me. Barely shielded from the full force of the blow, I fell to the ground, stunned, and the barrier crumbled. My vision collided with itself as I pushed myself up and looked around. Ghirahim snapped his fingers and the tree behind me burst into flame. Unsure of how this constitued as a threat unless I backed into it, I looked up. One of the limbs of the tree drooped over my head. I looked back at him quickly, pulling myself uneasily to my feet. A small gathering of bushes lay behind his feet, and some of the branches of trees that wove together to form the forest wall behind him protruded from the mass and reached out like wobbly arms. He raised his arms forward and pulled them in, and a shower of sparks clouded around me. I jumped and stumbled forward and swung my arm out in front of me, hitting him with a short blast of wind that sent him teetering backwards, and he tripped over the bushes at his feet and at my bidding four of the limbs wrapped around his wrists and ankles, and two more cross over his torso, forming a wooden X across his chest. He struggled with the trees, and found movements impossible. I grinned. He saw this and with an enraged growl he tore his left wrist from its shackle and swung it forward, palm facing me, sending forth a wave of force that slammed into me, and I flew backward into the burning mess with a shriek, and something in my arm cracked and pain shot up through me until it dominated my mind and refused to allow any other thought to pass through, and I bit my lip to keep from screaming.

With my concentration no longer focused on keeping him immobile, the trees slowly withdrew their arms, and when he stepped forward as I leaped from the fires and landed at his feet, hair singed, tunic burned, and skin flushed red, he leered down at me and I cowered, hugging my broken arm to myself. He reached down and pulled me up. I jumped at his touch, but when I looked back up at him, his face was less terrifying and in fact almost sympathetic.

"Well done, Mistress," he said. He looked me over with a faint expression of distaste, and took some charred strands of hair in between his fingers. "I apologize for the damage I have caused. Your master will be displeased with me."

He rubbed his fingers together, and the burned strands crumpled and fell off in little clumps of black dust.

I just stared at his hands, one of which rested on my shoulder, the other of which poked and prodded my arm.

"Let me see," he said.

Those hands...those hands that had so easily moved to harm me, were now suddenly moved to help me? It couldn't be. How was I to know that he didn't plan on taking my arm and twisting it the other way?

"Come, Mistress, let me see." He tugged a little and shoots of pain sprang up from the point of fracture. I shook my head and backed away from him.

"Mistress Autumn, where are you going?"

I broke through a cluster of bushes and ran away, away from him, away from his two-faced demeanor. One minute he wants to teach me swordfighting and the next he wants to put me in an unevenly matched magical duel against himself.

He appeared suddenly in front of me, having redonned his red cloak, with his fists on his hips, and he looked through narrowed eyes at me.

"Don't run away from me, Mistress, you won't be able to get far," he said, then reached out and deliberately took me by the broken arm, and I gasped and squirmed a little in his grip, but I couldn't go anywhere. "All I want to do is fix your arm, I'm not going to bite." His tone dripped with a condescending disgust. I looked away from him as he fiddled with the break, and slowly the pain faded away.

We walked slowly back to the house in silence. When we arrived, I opened the door quietly and tiptoed up to the bedroom that Link and I share to change into an unburned tunic. Gramps' voice wafted up from the lower floor as he realized Ghirahim's presence as asked him where I went. Link still lay sleeping. I walked up to his bed and loomed over him with a demonic smile and poked his face. He opened an eye briefly, then shut it again. Then he suddenly opened it again and saw me, and he jerked away from me and fell out of the bed, and I burst out laughing.

"Autumn! That's not funny!" He picked himself up off of the ground and glared at me.

"What?" I grinned. "Sleepyhead, Gramps probably made breakfast and ate it by himself."

"Where were you?"

"Elsewhere."

"Where's that?"

"Elsewhere."

He scowled, rubbing his head. "Yeah, okay." He frowned as I turned to leave. "What happened to your hair?"

"Huh?"

"Your hair. It looks shorter."

"Oh...I dunno, it's always been that length." I grinned again and hoped he would accept the excuse. "Maybe you're making things up in your head."

"Hm...I'm pretty sure it was longer last night."

"You're imagining things." I shook my head at him and trotted down the stairs.

Ghirahim stood conversing with Gramps, and I gave him a wide berth as I went to see what food lay waiting for me on the stove.

"So I'll come get her every morning then," he said. I regarded the eggs in the pan with a grimace at the thought.

"Alright, I guess." Gramps' voice betrayed his unease at this arrangement. "Autumn, how'd it go?"

"Pretty well." I helped myself to food as Link tramped down the stairs.

"Morning, Grampa," he said cheerily, then froze at the sight of Ghirahim, who also stiffened. "Who's that?"

"This is Ghirahim, Link," Gramps said, gesturing. "He's here to train Autumn in swordfighting."

Link's face fell. "But I wanna be trained in swordfighting too!"

"Well...he said Autumn is the only one he'll train."

"Lucky." Link elbowed me as he passed.

"Don't worry, I'll teach you some stuff as I learn it," I said, glancing at Ghirahim, who practically seethed at the kid's presence.

"Really?" Link sat down next to me with his plate.

"Sure."

"I...I should go," Ghirahim said stiffly.

"You're welcome to join us for breakfast, if you like," Gramps said. Curse that undying hospitality of his!

"No, I don't think I should." Ghirahim backed up to the doorway. "I will see you tomorrow Mist- Autumn."

"Uh-huh." I waved at him. Get out of here already!

He closed the door behind him.

"So where'd he come from and how come he can only teach you?" Link asked immediately.

"Uh...I dunno where he came from; I've never seen him before. I don't know why he won't teach you." And judging by today, I don't think I want him teaching you anything...


Haha yeah, right...she's totally NEVER seen him before.

Oh, the secrets, the lies! I can't wait for the end of this.

Yeah, the magic dual wound up a lot less awesome than it was in my head X.X...But I did get to add in the trauma that Ghirahim would inflict on someone her age :D ...unless I flopped THAT too...

Not one of my favorite chapters, but it's ok.

I hope you like it; please review!

(P.S.-the next long period of time will probably be kinda timelapsed. Why? Because let's face it: life in MinishCapLand probably isn't that exciting, and if I went over every daily sword training with Ghirahim, this story would just get monotonous and boring if it isn't already. I might go over a trip to the Picori Festival once, but since that's what happens at the beginning of the Minish Cap plotline, that'll probably be just a brief summary too. Sorry if you want more detail, but Link and his grandfather lead a pretty normal life up until Vaati comes in, and the addition of the OC doesn't really change that. I'm not trying to burn your eyes here, I'm trying to tell a story that I find interesting X.X...)