Tourniquet is by Evanescence. I wrote this chapter in 10°C or 50F. Approximately. I dunno. But I can't feel my feet, and my fingers won't type as fast as usual. I. Am. Freezing my shapely ass off. I love autumn and spring, I just detest winter and summer. I like being comfortable. THIS IS NOT COMFORTABLE. Hmph. You guys owe me. But for the next week, I don't know how much updating and/or writing I will do. After my dentist appointment, I might not feel like doing too much. Here's to a speedy recovery! *sips homebrew scotch* And to Ghirahim's tongue! Sure, the Goddess might be good, but Ghirahim does that thing with his tongue... Mhhhm. Well, if I don't update for a week or so, you know what happened to me. And there will be a part 2 to this story... I call it: Ghirahim's Tongue. No, no, I'm kidding. It'll be called Edge of Heaven. There is a theme to the names, which I will touch on in the next story.. Stay tuned. Review and follow, guys. Xoxo Zero
The hero yawned and sat up, kicking his legs out from the tangled mess the blankets had become. He dressed quickly and ate the remaining fruits, savouring each bite. He was aware of the demon's eyes on him the whole time.
"Have you made up your mind, sky child? You planned on doing all this great adventuring, didn't you?" the demon asked after a while, obviously impatient with the boy's languid movements.
"I have. We're going to the demon realm." at the man's satisfied nod, he shook his head. "We're walking there. No teleporting unless we need to." he insisted. "And no flying, either."
Ghirahim sighed and stood up, his cape forming around his shoulders. "Fine. Let's go, boy." without waiting for an answer, the demon swept out of the cave.
The blonde muttered a few choice words about his companion and smiled to himself crookedly, belting on his sword. He didn't have a shield for once, and it felt strange not having the extra weight on his back. His new sword was lighter than the Master Sword – he could almost fool himself into thinking that he didn't even have the sword resting between his shoulderblades.
Once he was ready, he met the demon outside. His blue eyes studied the waterfall as he came to stand beside the sword spirit. "Are you going to walk with me, or stay in the sword?" he asked, looking sideways at him.
The Demon Lord slowly turned his gaze upon him, his lips curled disdainfully. "I'll walk with you. I need to guide you to the entrance, after all. Unless you think you can find it yourself?" he offered, folding his arms over his chest.
"Don't complain. You profess to be the Demon Lord of the surface; shouldn't you at least explore it a little on the way to the demon realm?" Link retorted, unimpressed by the demon's antics. "Can we just get there first? Then you can whine."
Ghirahim's eyes narrowed, but he gestured towards the trees. "We're going to have to do a lot of walking. Are you sure you're up for it? I'm not going to carry you if you get tired."
Link nodded. "I'm ready if you are. If anyone gets tired, it'll be you. At least I get exercise." he teased. At the demon's grumpy look, he shut up. Kinda. "Well someone doesn't like mornings." he muttered.
"Shut up and walk, sky child."
"Bite me."
The day wore on as the two travelled across the land, skirting monster lairs and fast-flowing rivers. Whenever the two found themselves isolated, Link would talk. Incessantly. About Skyloft, about his travels across Hyrule, about the friends he had made and the monsters he had fought.
Several times, the demon had threatened the boy. Each threat was more bloody and gruesome than the last, but it didn't faze the boy. He just happily continued his tale, much to the demon's annoyance.
"If you really don't want me to talk, you could always talk about your past." he offered eventually.
Ghirahim fixed his tawny eyes on the boy. "Compared to your impressive narrative, mine would scarcely suffice. It's not as riveting."
"Try me."
The demon sighed. "Let me rephrase: I don't want to talk about it. There was blood and pain, running from the true demons of that realms, fighting between families... It's not peaches and cream, sky child." he paused for a moment, looking pensive. "But I do miss the simplicity of that life. I didn't like having to leave."
"Huh. We're more alike than I thought." Link mused. At the demon's bemused look, he explained. "We both had a relatively unexciting life, but we both had to leave our homes. We learnt how to fight, and ended up in the service of someone else. Aside from your never-ending narcissism, we are almost the same."
Ghirahim hummed softly as he thought it over, his head tilted to the side as they walked. "I suppose you have a point. However, if our positions were reversed, I doubt you would survive in the demon realm. That kind of naivete gets people killed." he said shortly.
The hero frowned. He says that like he knows from experience... Maybe he used to be naïve, and it got people hurt. He wondered. "My naïveté?"
"You're too trusting. If someone wanted to harm you, they would just have to pretend to be friendly. You'd be dead before you knew what happened. You see the good in everyone, but not the bad." for some reason, the demon sounded a little angry as he gestured to the two of them. "You accepted my proposed truce without question; I could have killed you while you slept, if I wanted. And I used to be your enemy!" he exclaimed.
"It's not that I don't see the bad in people – it's more like I want to believe that the good outweighs the bad." he said quietly. "I knew that you might kill me. I just wanted to believe that you wouldn't."
The demon stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide. The boy almost stumbled into him, but lifted a hand at the last moment and touched his shoulder. "What? What is it?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.
After a moment, the man recovered. "I'm fine." he brushed his hand aside, beginning to walk again. "I just thought of something. It doesn't matter. If we want to get to the entrance to the demon realm before sundown, we had better keep moving."
Link held back a sigh and dropped his hand, nodding for him to continue. They began to walk in silence, each preoccupied with their thoughts.
Towards the end of the day, the ruin that the demon claimed held the entrance to the demon realm loomed into view. They decided that it would be best to wait until dawn to continue their journey, as monsters were bound to emerge after dark.
"Pick a place, sky child. I'll set up a barrier." Ghirahim looked at him sideways, his tawny eyes distant. It was the first time either of them had spoken since their earlier fight. "It will be cold tonight, but we cannot risk lighting a fire. It would alert every monster in the area to our presence."
The hero sighed again. He gestured towards the roots of a tree, where a dense patch of grass grew. "That will be fine. I'm not used to spending the night on the surface, but I'll manage." he murmured, slipping off his belts and setting them over one of the gnarled roots.
"You sound tired." the demon remarked off-handedly, watching him as he formed a protective diamond barrier around the tree. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were completely exhausted. If I recall correctly, you looked much like this in our last fight; ready to give up and fall, but still pushing yourself onwards."
As Link looked up at him, already starting to shiver, the Demon Lord gestured at him, a crimson blanket appearing on the grass. "Knowing you and your increasingly annoying habit of not giving up, you would have kept walking had I not been here. And you would have become an appetizing dinner for a roaming monster."
The blonde chuckled and sat down on the blanket, kicking his boots off. "You're right. I chased Zelda from dawn to dusk, every day. After a few days of that... my mind started to wander, I became distracted whenever I fought... Sleep is good." he yawned.
Ghirahim rolled his eyes but moved over to the boy, wrapping the blanket around the other's shoulders. "Go to sleep, sky child. I've had to put up with your incessant babbling for most of the day; if you don't be quiet, I'll give your mouth something better to do." he said, his voice sickeningly sweet.
Link – being Link – blushed bright red, from his cheeks to the tips of his pointed ears. "I'll be quiet." he said meekly. "Shutting up now."
"You're still talking~."
The rising sun woke the hero, the golden rays blinding even with his eyes closed. Nothing had disturbed them throughout the night, allowing them to rest properly. He noted sleepily that his mouth tasted funny...
"Morning, sky child." the demon hummed, his back against the tree and the blanket-wrapped boy between his legs, with his head on the man's chest. "I didn't want to wake you – you looked so content, snoring softly."
Link sat up and ran his fingers through his hair, yawning quietly. "I haven't slept so well in a long time." he admitted. "That's one of the few times I haven't had nightmares."
At this, the Demon Lord seemed intrigued. "You have nightmares? What of, if you don't mind my asking?" he tilted his head, gazing at the boy kneeling between his legs. Despite the light fog and cool air that surrounded them, the demon didn't seem cold in the slightest. In fact, his skin was quite warm.
The hero shrugged non-committally. "The usual things, I guess. Death, pain, losing my friends, that sort of thing. Why do you ask, anyway? To use your own words, I didn't think you cared about my mental well-being." he rose a brow.
"I have nightmares, whenever I sleep. But luckily for me, sleep is not a necessity. I believe I can go infinitely without sleeping. Or eating, for that matter." he mused, leaning his head back against the tree. "While I wouldn't call it dying, per se, I mostly dream of ceasing to exist. Not being, to put it simply. As you might imagine, that is not a pleasant thing."
"My feet are cold." remarked the blonde. He held his gloved hands up, the bare tips of his fingers pink. "My hands too."
The demon took the boy's hands between his own, massaging and kneading the flesh between his long fingers to warm them up. "It should only take an hour or two to get to the ruin." he murmured, watching the boy.
Link nodded and pulled his hands away, able to feel his fingers now. He quickly pulled on his boots and belts again, noting how relaxed he felt in the demon's presence. How far we have come... if I was told a few days ago that my enemy would become my friend... I would have laughed. Now.. well, I trust him. Somehow.
Once dressed, the Demon Lord lowered the barrier and they began to walk again. The fog had begun to recede already, and the rising sun was starting to warm the cool air up. The hero had stopped shivering already.
They were closer than the demon had said, the walk only taking them half of an hour. The ruin loomed above them, the stonework crumbled and worn. Faint black designs could still be seen etched into the stone, lining what remained of windows and doors. The ruined building didn't seem particularly ominous, Link realized.
With the Demon Lord leading the way, the two entered the ruin. A faint breeze whistled through the twisting corridors, ruffling through the boy's hair. Despite the confusing walkways that all looked the same, the demon seemed to know exactly where to go, which path to take. As they walked, Link found that he was able to sense a change in the air.
The demon seemed to be affected by it, his eyes narrowed slightly. The blonde concentrated for a moment and let his thoughts be drawn towards the sword spirit's mind, absent-mindedly wandering behind him.
Ghirahim's mind was convoluted. His thoughts didn't follow any set pattern; instead, they flickered back and forth. One recurring thought was that he was coming home. Even if he didn't consider that realm his home, he was still from there. That was the only thought that kept surfacing – the hero could only catch glimpses of thoughts. He thought he saw his own face in one of them, flashing past his mind before he could catch it.
Pulling his thoughts away from the demon, he looked past the man's shoulder. A black design was carved onto a wall, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. It was one of the few designs that hadn't faded over time.
"That's it, sky child. Once we enter the demon realm, there's no going back." The demon murmured. "That sounded incredibly dull, but that's how it is. This realm will change you, possibly beyond repair."
Link nodded slowly, one of his hands lifting up to wrap his fingers around the hilt of his sword. "I know." He said simply. "But I've made up my mind. Let's go."
The Demon Lord stepped forwards and touched his index finger to the center of the design, the black lines seeming impossibly dark against his pale glove. The lines slowly began to move, contorting and wrapping around each other. Finally, the black lines seemed to split, a dim grey light seeping through the gaps. They opened wider, soon large enough for the two to walk through. With a shared look, the two entered the portal.
The black lines sealed behind them.
THANK YOU ALL OF YOU AMAZING READERS. Part two will be up… soon. Hopefully.