A/N: This chapter gets a little heavy into the headcanon, if you know what I mean. Nothing explicit, but there are more shounen ai references... I promise this really is a Minish Cap story and not a Skyward Sword one... orz


"...I don't like it when people criticize me," Ghirahim started, having carried Link back to bed. He properly bandaged her palm, relieved that it was only a shallow cut. "I think it comes from the time I spent with my Master. He would always put me down, even though he valued my assistance. Granted, I would do anything for him, but there were times when he was vicious. Too vicious..."

Link sat and stared at him, her dream coming back to her. The man, was that the same one from her first nightmare? If so, was he lamenting over Ghirahim behind that statue?

"Someone I deeply cared for called me that name once," he continued, "on the very same day he cast me aside. So it felt like history was repeating itself... I lost my temper, and I have a hard time controlling my body when I do. That's why my skin blackened, and I didn't realize I had hurt you until I saw you convulsing on the floor after Ezla shouted at me. After that, I was too afraid to see you again."

Ghirahim looked like he wanted to flee, and didn't make eye contact with Link. So she grabbed his head and forced it up, giving him a small smile. She then looked around the room, and pointed when she found what she was looking for, her belt. He got up and brought it to her, and she pulled out a small bundle for him. Inside was an old, well handled rupee.

"You... you kept this?" he mumbled with a grin, recognizing the red stone he had given to the four year old Link. She nodded, but then cast her own eyes downward. Sensing that she had something to say, Ghirahim handed her a pen.

'I'm so sorry for saying that to you,' she wrote. 'I guess I panicked when I realized I was injured. I always wanted to see you again, and to thank you for being kind to me. But in my injured haze, I mistook you for Vaati, and assumed that my voice was taken as punishment. He told me several times that I was poison to his ears... And then I said those things to you... When Ezla told me how you felt, I wanted to die. Even more so after I saw him regret what happened between you two..."

Ghirahim stopped Link from writing. "Wait, what do you mean, 'saw him regret'? Who are you talking about, skychild?"

'I saw it in a dream. A man, older than me but similar in looks. He was apologizing to someone for wronging them, and he was heartbroken that he damned this person for doing the same thing he was doing. He said they were only showing the same loyalty to their master as he was to her...'

Her... her... Ghirahim's eyes grew wide when he figured it out. "This man, did he have sharp, nearly square blue eyes, golden brown hair, small pointy ears?"

'He was worn out, so it was hard to tell. But he kept stating at his right palm, and there was a scar poking out from his gauntlet.'

"That's because I drove a dagger through it on the day we parted." Ghirahim smiled sadly, remembering their last moment. "You are reliving his memories through your dreams. He was your ancestor."

Link sat in Ghirahim's lap as he explained his life to her, from the war that imprisoned his master, to the tornado he summoned to rip Hylia's reincarnation from the sky. "I did expect to encounter resistance when I chased the girl, but not in the form it took. We met for the first time in the room above, and I was quite taken with his beauty. I let him know as much, and he surprised me by saying I was 'strangely attractive' in my own right. Fate decreed that we battle, and so we did. But not before he let me taste his kiss.

"We met a few times after that, each time beginning with love and ending with pain. I suspect he never knew how I kept his body safe as he grew his spirit, or how I kept creatures at bay when he was vulnerable. But all the same, that damned day came where he impaled me and spit such poison into my ears... In my rage I drove a dagger into his palm, cursing the hand that had raised a sword against me. After that, I began to think that the times we held each other were bluffs to distract me from my goals. So, when my master was defeated and I was free, I chose to keep away. I was damaged, and thus I became a sword in repose, waiting for the master that I knew would never come claim me."

Link broke down crying at the sad tale, hugging Ghirahim tightly and trying to shake the words from her ears. "Don't cry, Link," he whispered, smoothing her hair. "I'm glad it ended up this way. Because I found a new master, one that I know would never cast me aside."

The two looked at each other and smiled, and Ghirahim wiped away Link's remaining tears. She responded by brushing his fringe behind his ear and running her thumb along his diamond tattoo, smiling as she remembered comparing his eyeliner to fingerpaint.

"...pre...tty..."

Ghirahim pulled the skychild to his lips, and with a snap of his fingers, the candles in the room went out.


A/N: And that's how Link went back to being a leftie. ;)