Chapter 6

I woke up feeling refreshed, clean, and somewhat happy. It took me a moment to realize I still had to clean that dumb library, which in turn completely ruined my positive spirit. After I got out of the tub last night, I wrapped my hair up and got in my fancy nightgown. As promised, there were a couple of jars of pickled foods awaiting me with a fork on my nightstand. It was some of the best food I've eaten since getting down here. Come to think of it, it was the only food I had eaten since getting down here.

I stood up from my bed and stretched out every inch of my body. At the foot of my bed, my clothes sat washed and folded. My boots were on the floor below them. I slowly got dressed and I tucked my hair and ears up into my cap. I walked outside of my room and across the hall to the library. Ghirahim was way up on one of the ladders putting books back on the shelf. Most of the massive piles of books were gone and it looked like it was back to its original elegant state.

"There's a change in plans. I need you to do something." He said as he began to climb down. "You're going to Lanayru Desert. I will teleport you there, but I need you to grab a specific seedling. It's particularly for a Tree of Life. You will have to use some time-shift crystals to get it."

"You're letting me leave?" I asked confused.

"No, you're coming back." He snapped his fingers. I felt my body become covered in goosebumps and I got a cold chill. I quickly warmed back up. "I put an enchantment on you. I will be able to hear and see what you are doing. If you stray away, I'll know and I'll just pop you right back here and you'll never see your things again." He giggled. "Speaking of which, if you do this successfully, you will get all your stuff back and I will give you freedom." My face lit up. This was going to be easy.

"Why don't you do this yourself if it's so simple?" He got irritated by this question.

"Because I am..." He got nervous and looked like he was thinking of a story. "I have a lot of enemies over there. I'd rather not cause any conflict." I looked at him doubtfully. "Well, bye." He snapped his fingers and my vision flashed to a bright white. I squinted my eyes to focus and I made out a sandy yellow color around me. I felt the dry heat cover my body.

Once I got a hold on myself I looked around. I was on a large cliff. There was a huge abyss that went out for miles in front of me. There was a large mechanical circle with a cart that was filled with rocks and a small purple crystal peaking out. Behind that was a huge pile of dusty old bones and right by the pile of bones was an old rusty hut.

I walked around, Ghirahim said time-shift crystal. The only crystal I saw was the purple one. How would I use it? I stood there a pondered for a bit. Maybe there was something in the hut. I walked over and pulled the door open. Inside was a small bed, an old oven, and an old broken robot on the floor. One of the walls had scratches in it. It was tallying. The whole wall was covered from floor to ceiling. I decided to walk out before it got any weirder. But on the door on my way out was a schedule.

6 am: tap gem on, breakfast, bring water

8 am: tap gem off, check for eggs

10 pm: tap gem on and treat infections, bring water, make lunch

2 pm: tap gem off and go gather more crystals

5 pm: tap gem on, medicine, infections, water, dinner, go take care of the sapling

9 pm: tap gem off, start the fire, heat house, go to Bed

This was perfect. It was a bit after nine. It was only going to get more hot from here on out. I walked out to the cart that had the crystals. I took my nail and gave it a strong tap. The crystal glowed up to a bright cyan. The old mechanical cart sprung to life, and the surrounding area became lush with grass. The small hut was brand new. The skeleton morphed into a large majestic dragon. He looked over at me. I got scared and froze.

"A visitor?" He bellowed. He had a deep elderly voice. I stayed quiet and backed away, I saw that there was a bridge that went towards a ledge. If I followed the ledge around it would take me to an old tree.

"A quiet visitor... those are never exciting." The dragon huffed disappointed as I walked away. He began to have a coughing fit. The kind that resonated how truly sick the cougher was. I kept my head down and kept walking. There was a defined border where the crystal stopped working. I crossed it into warm sand again. I got to a sand-waterfall. I had to run through the loose sand and try not to sink in order to get to the tree. There was another crystal next to the tree. I kicked it with my toe. This one was a lot weaker. It only morphed the small island that I was on. The tree shrunk to a tiny sapling and there was a robot sitting next to it.

"Bleep. brrrr. You are not the misses. Zzrrtt! " It said to me as it looked up. I was confused, but he was cute.

"I'm not, but I'm here to help take care of the sapling," I reassured.

"You are not authorized. Master Thunder Dragon needs fruit from the Tree of Life to recover. Vrrm!" He recited.

"Yes, I know. I am taking it to a more suitable environment."

"Negative! This is the most suitable environment." He corrected. I looked around at the surrounding barren desert. This guy was a robot. He's not going to get it. I pulled up the sapling by its lower trunk. "What are you doing? Zrrk! We already lost the first sapling for the goddess' hero! This is the last one to help Master Thunder Dragon."

"Sorry, bud." I shrugged. I kicked the gem again and he immediately went back to a pile of parts. I started backtracking, the heat made it easy to space out so I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking until I slammed into something. I fell on my ass and looked up. It was a girl. She was maybe in her early twenties. I stared at her. She looked so familiar. She had orange hair, deep blue eyes, she was average height. She looked down at me. She was completely shocked.

"What are you doing here?" She gasped. She seemed very worried and stressed, but then looked at my face and immediately relaxed. I stood up and held the seedling tight in my hand.

"I had to get something..." I said. She grinned slightly.

"I can't let you take that." She said pointing to the sapling.

"Well, I need to." I started to walk off the bridge and pushed passed her.

"Would you at least stay for a talk?" She insisted. I heard that she was eager. I was confused.

"A talk?"

"I am making lunch in a second before I sit inside during the hottest part of the day. You probably don't want that sapling dying in the heat, and you won't make it far anyway before getting a heat stroke." I took a deep breath and thought. I was really hoping Ghirahim would teleport me back now, things were getting awkward. But if he doesn't do it soon, I really don't want to end up stuck out in the heat.

"Sure," I answered.

"I'm Catherine." She smiled and walked with me towards the hut. The big dragon was still there and coughing. I chose not to look at him while holding the sapling.

"I'm-"

"You don't have to tell me." She interrupted. She was strange, but she carried herself well. I got a lot of comforting feelings from her. "I was making a cold mushroom chowder with chilled boiled eggs." She explained. She got a small empty vase and put some dirt from the floor into it. She then pulled a large pitcher of water and poured it in the dirt. She handed me the vase to put the sapling in. I planted it nicely.

"Come on outside for a second. It won't be too long." She assured. She smiled wide, but it felt forced. She grabbed a cloth and a bottle of whiskey. I carried the vase and walked with her. She walked towards the dragon. "Good morning, Lanayru. It's that time."

"Oh, goodness! You are the only young lady who can make such a dreadful experience so tolerable."

"Oh, hush." She laughed. She went up to him. Being closer, I noticed he has large welts and old cracked skin that has gotten infected all over his body. She took the bottle and poured it on the cloth to dab on the wounds. I cringed at the sight. The dragon took it like a champ.

"Catto, I hope you realized that your new friend is heavily covered in an enchantment." My head shot up to look at them.

"...She's not exactly like the rest of us, Catto." A voice spoke in my head. Why was I recalling this? Where have I heard this before?

"Oh, I am well aware. It was one of the first things I noticed when I saw her." She laughed. I felt my face go red in embarrassment. They both knew I was enchanted? How much did they know? Who was this Catto person? Why do I know her? I tried to wrap my head around it.

"All done!" She chirped and walked over to me. "Let's get in the shade!" She smiled at me and we walked inside her house.

"Have a seat!" She insisted, gesturing towards the bed. I sat on the edge.

"I thought you said your name was Catherine?" I asked.

"Yeah, Catherine is my name, I just also go by Catto to those I am close with." She talked as she began cooking.

"How long have you lived here?"

"The hut is a little bit of a newer edition. I had those cute little robots you saw help me put this together. I used to just go hide in nearby caves when it would get hotter." She explained. She chopped some mushrooms. I realized she dodged my question though. "Because we built it while the gem was on, we were able to make it so it would last through time."

"Yeah, but how long since you first got here?"

"I forget." She laughed a little nervous.

"What do you do around here then?"

"I'm a healer. I love to help people any way I can. I mainly try to help Lanayru get better. He's getting closer and closer to his time. The crystals still have a continuous timeline. So I have to be careful how long I leave it activated. There's a method to it." She turned around and handed me a bowl of a thick liquid with chopped mushroom. I sipped on it from the bowl.

"I've been trying to get the bots to mine more. The goddess was said to have hidden two gems in the world. They have the power to alter time without capacity. They are rumored to be able to time travel entire people. We could use it to keep helping Lanyard until he's back to health." She finished her folktale and started to sip on her chowder. She kept looking at me. She looked so content and I wasn't sure why.

"Patience is a virtue for a reason." She told me. I got confused, I didn't think I was being impatient.

"Sorry?" I asked her.

"I think it might be time for you to leave." She put her bowl down. She was still smiling, but I was concerned.

"I thought you said it was too hot outside?" I asked scared, I didn't want to get fried.

"You won't need to go outside if you just teleport back." My eyes widened. How did she know?

"I would have learned more about her before sending her my way, Ghirahim."

"How did you-" I was at a loss for words.

"He didn't need that sapling. He just wanted an excuse to see where I was." She explained. Her smile fell off her face. She seemed irritated. It was frightening to see her be so considerate for so long and now... this. She grabbed the sapling from my hand and with a snap of her fingers I was back in the house. I was in Ghirahim's bedroom. He was angrily looking into his spell bowl. He looked up at me.

"That bitch." He spat. He was infuriated. He started to walk towards me, but I took a step out of his way. He walked past me and to one of the dressers. He ripped the drawers out and began chucking them across the room. Once all the drawers were out he picked up the dresser frame and threw it across the room. I had to dodge it and jump out of the way. The dresser broke into several pieces. I realized how this house became such a mess. His head snapped to look at me on the ground. I scrambled to my feet.

"I'm tired of lies." He gritted through his teeth. He walked up to me and I closed my eyes in anticipation for a punch. Instead, I felt my hat rip off my head and my hair fell out of the bun. I kept my eyes closed but nothing was happening. I slowly opened them. Ghirahim held my had but he looked terrified.

"No." He quietly gasped to himself. He looked at me like a monster. I felt as if I were back in Skyloft. The demon lord himself couldn't even hold himself together in front of a freak. He took a step towards me. He reached out his hand slowly and pushed my hair behind my ears to look at them. As soon as he saw their rounded tops he jerked away. I didn't know what to do. I just stood there. After a bit, he stood up straight and took a deep breath and snapped his fingers. All of my stuff appeared at my feet. All of it.

"What is your name?" He asked, he was trying to keep himself calm but I could see him shaking.

"I-I-" I tried to get some words out.

"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" He screamed at me. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

"I-I don't have one." I quivered. He shook his head frustrated.

"Leave. Never come back here." He spat. I was still frozen. "You have thirty-seconds, otherwise I promise I will kill you." I could see in his eyes that he meant it.

I grabbed my stuff quickly and ran out of the room, down the hallway, and to the front door. I quickly tried to get as far away as I could from the house. I found a low tree that I climbed and sat on a sturdy limb. I continued to replay everything that just happened over and over in my head, crying harder each time.