Chapter 20

"What do you mean now?" Catto asked for clarification.

"I mean, we are no longer safe here. We must leave now." Ghirahim's voice escalated in anxiety. He was holding the mug of warm soup to my face for me to drink quickly. Catto walked up and took it from him, then she pushed him away. She brought the mug to my mouth and helped me drink slowly.

"I'm weeks away from having a baby and she needs to take the rest of the day to warm up and recover or she might be at risk for many life-threatening symptoms." She argued.

"Well, we don't have a choice. I will carry her but we are going to have to leave." He began to walk to the closet and grabbed a large bag. He began to throw a lot of random items from the room into it.

"If she wanted us dead she would have already tried something by now," Catto explained.

"I'm well aware, sweetie." He answered sarcastically. "But I'm not willing to take the risk of waiting around for that." He walked back over and dug through some of the dressers. He opened Catto's and pulled out her two old journals. "Do you want these?" He asked. She nodded and he placed them into the bag. She gave me another sip of soup.

"I can't walk in the heat of the desert while I'm this pregnant." She insisted.

"Ok, then I'll carry you too. But we must leave regardless." He ran out of the room to grab some more things.

"I'm feeling a lot better" I spoke between sips and reassured her with a smile.

"You're not slurring anymore." She added. "But you're still at high risk for other side effects from your temperature being so low."

"Wouldn't I have been fine? My body would just break, I'd still have my other form." I clarified.

"Yes, but are you willing to go through the pain and suffering in hopes it'll shatter? Besides, demons need to stay warm. I don't know all the problems that can come from that, but there's a reason they try to keep away from the cold." I nodded. She placed her hand on my forehead and waited. She nodded and then took it off. "You're getting there."

"She's going to have to get there fast." Ghirahim came back in with his bag full of stuff. "I'm sure she'll warm up fine in the desert heat."

"That could hurt her." Catto objected.

"She will have to grow up then. A little pain will be fine. You, however," he walked up to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He took a deep breath and then didn't finish his sentence. "She gets ten more minutes." He instructed. Catto groaned and looked back towards me. Ghirahim walked back out of the room to do whatever else he needed to do. Catto stood up and went to the closet. She pulled out a large wicker basket and folded some small rags and placed them in there. She and put on a large blue cloak. It covered most of her face and completely engulfed her.

"You'll be hot," I told her. She shook her head and rolled the hood off her head.

"No, it'll protect me from the sun. I'll stay cooler this way. I would know since I lived there for so long." She explained. She grabbed another large cloak and set it on the bed next to me. I slowly sat up and reached for it. I pulled it over myself and stood up on my feet. My foot was still cut from the other night when I stepped on the glass. It stung as it hit the floor.

"I can wrap that," Catto said pushing me back to sit on the bed. She pulled out some gauze from a drawer in her dresser and began to wrap both my feet tightly. When she was done she left and came back with my clothes and boots. She turned her back for me to get changed and ready. I snapped my fingers and had my bow and arrows appear. We began to exit the room and I stopped and realized I left the cloak she gave me on the bed. I decided to leave it there, it was still going to be too hot for something like that. Ghirahim and Catto waited together for me.

"So where exactly are we going?" I inquired.

"We are going to have to appear a good distance away from the entrance. I don't want our teleportation to be tracked." He answered.

"You can do that?" I gasped in shock.

"Well... she can." Catto lamented. She reached out and took my hand. "Don't let go." I gave her an affirming nod. I took a glance throughout the hallway and in a blink, it was gone. We were in the middle of the desert heat in Lanayru. Ghirahim began to march us in a distinct direction. Catto pulled the hood of her cloak over her. I followed them closely. Sand filled my boots and the heat quickly began to bother me. I was already exhausted enough from being frozen to death, now I'm going to burn to death.

"Sand is the bane of my existence," Ghirahim muttered.

"I thought the demons like the heat?" I suggested echoing what Catto mentioned earlier.

"The heat, sure." he agreed. "Sand is just abhorrent. And in all honesty, a human form does not find the heat comfortable enough to make the sand tolerable." He wasn't wrong, I noticed that the desert still felt as terrible as normal, I've only been to it in a human form. "I moved to Faron for many reasons, one to get away from sand." He groaned.

We continued to walk in the heat for much longer than I was expecting. My head was getting fuzzy from the sweat and sun boiling down on me. It was exhausting. Walking never felt so excruciating. It was too hot to make conversation or to simply create some small talk. However, the facial expressions spoke a thousand words. Ghirahim seemed stress with a hint of paranoia peaking though anytime something got too loud or too suspicious. Catto's face seared with pain and also anger. She seemed genuinely pissed off, it did not seem that it was for anything, in particular, rather it was just her mood at that moment. I never saw her stay in such a state for so long, but then again, she hasn't had much to be angry about since I've known her.

Catto hissed through her teeth and stopped walking. I was next to her so I quickly noticed and halted my blind-follow of Ghirahim's footprints. He took a few moments to realize we had stopped and turned around. I stood close to Catto but kept my hands to myself. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she took quick shallow breaths. Ghirahim approached her and reached out to help her. She rejected him by holding her arm out as a barrier between them. She slowed her breathing down and began to walk slowly again, without looking at Ghirahim or saying a word.

Another hour or so passed and a similar thing happened again. Catto stopped and her breathing began to become unsteady. She gripped her fists tight and her eyes squished shut again. She was holding in some sort of pain. Ghirahim noticed a lot more quickly this time and turned around.

"You have to let me help you." He commanded.

"No. I really don't." She barked at him. Once she caught her breath again she began to walk and brushed past him. Ghirahim shook with fury and rubbed his face from the sweat dripping down it.

"We are almost there. Please let me know if they get any worse." He spoked in her direction.

"Will do, captain." She responded sarcastically while giving a disrespectful salute.

It was getting quite uncomfortable by being a third party in this situation. I wasn't sure what exactly set them off but they were not happy with each other and I didn't want to be in the middle of it.

After about half an hour more of walking, we reached a great dry, desert mountain that was covered in sand. It cast a large shadow over us and Ghirahim reached out his hand and touched it. A loud zap sound was heard and he jerked his hand back in pain. He growled to himself and in anger he clenched his shocked hand and punched it at the wall again, leaving him to howler in pain again after being shocked a second time.

"They are not going to let us in until the day I told them we would be arriving... Next week." He sat down in the sand and held his head in his hands.

"You're shitting me, right?" Catto cursed, surprisingly, rolled her eyes in disgust. She doesn't normally act like this.

"You're talking as if you're annoyed to be here, despite having lived here for the past SEVENTEEN YEARS!" Ghirahim's voice escalated in volume quickly.

"I wasn't thirty-eight weeks pregnant and making a thrown-together plan on how to run away!" She yelled back.

"Your plan was running away!"

"Yeah, well, at least my way worked for seventeen years! This is just going to put a blanket over the problem, not solve anything! We will probably be dead by morning!" She pointed her finger accusingly at him. "If you just calmed down and tried to face the problem we wouldn't be here!"

"Am I not permitted to be concerned over your safety first?" He raised his hand in shock of what she was accusing him of.

"Not when you know that it puts the rest of our safety at risk!" She exclaimed. "None of that even matters anymore, because we are here now! But it looks like no one is going to help us because those assholes don't give a shit about me or that I am pregnant!"

"They will care if I command them too!"

"No, they won't. They do not think of you as any sort of authority anymore." Her face was turning red and she was getting out of breath. Ghirahim's face switched to concern.

"You need to relax." He slowly stood up and walked towards her. He was done arguing. She exhaled emphatically in response. "I'll get us somewhere safe." He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. He guided us along the side of the mountain away from the entrance. We kept close in the narrow path of shade to keep cool. We didn't go too far, we came to a concave part of the mountain and he used his powers to blow a hole into it. A small, dim cave was visible after the dust settled.

"Rest here, I'm going to gather some supplies for a fire." He said as he turned to walk away. I chuckled thinking he was being sarcastic.

"Yeah, as if we need any more heat." I fussed. He rolled his eyes and continued to walk away. I realized he was serious.

"It gets really cold at night in the desert." Catto corrected. She walked past me and into the cave. She tried to sit down but struggled to get to the floor. I rushed over and grabbed her arm to help lower her down. She pulled out one of the rags from her basket and wiped the sweat from her face. She lied down on the dirty floor and rolled onto her side she placed the rag over her head.

"Are you ok?" I asked her. She seemed exhausted, which is completely understandable, I just had no idea how to react.

"Yeah." She answered shortly. She wasn't ok. Was she upset with me now? I sat for a few minutes in the bitter silence between us.

"She's in a lot of pain." Ghirahim broke the silence as he walked into the cave carrying two large tumbleweeds. He held them by their base but he seemed a bit scratched up. A few drops of blood speckled his skin where he got poked. This was the first time I had ever seen him bleed. His human form probably can't take more damage than that without beginning to crack.

He broke off parts to separate the small, light kindling, from the large sticks and bases for the fire. He then started building the foundation for the fire itself. He seemed focused on Catto as he built it. She didn't move much while she lied there and kept the rag over herself. Every so often, Ghirahim would poke her foot with a stick and she would reflexively wiggle in response.

"She finds it difficult to express what she's feeling when she's in pain." He said to me as we sat around the unlit fire pit. I could feel the temperature drop as the sun slowly set, just as Catto said. "Whether it is mental or physical pain, she just doesn't quite understand how to talk about it. So instead she gets angry and takes it out in other ways to distract her."

"Do you know what might be wrong?-" before I got the last word completely from my mouth he answered.

"She's going into labor, but she's trying to keep it to herself." He said as he poked her foot again. I couldn't tell if she was awake or asleep with her face covered. I don't think Ghirahim cared either way. "The heat is inducing her early. Which isn't surprising. She knew this would probably happen." He pointed at the basket next to her. It made more sense why she brought it now.

"Is there anything we can do?" I asked him in a slightly hushed voice. He just shrugged.

"We could have brought her to safety in the city, but your mishap with the most unstable person in existence messed that up." He grumbled.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know-"

"I know you didn't. She planned it all... Gerudin She knew how this would play out the moment you set foot on the surface. We imprisoned you in hope that if she had some sort of fixation on you that we could keep her at bay until we figured out something else. It was clear she predicted that when she refroze the room after we put you inside" He took a deep breath. It is my fault she is after us in the first place." I was shocked he was opening up about this so easily right now, however, his defeated tone was a downer on the conversation. Even still, I was almost anxious with anticipation for some answers. "I sold her my bond with my master in exchange for a bond with Catto after she died." It began to get colder and darker, so Ghirahim snapped his fingers and lit the fire. "I had to complete the deal during my ritual when I captured the Goddess, but my plan was soiled and the bond with my master completely dissolved before I could transfer it. So I am still indebted to her."

"That's all? She just wants something from us? Why don't we give her something of equal value?" I suggested. "Then she'd leave us alone right?" Ghirahim looked guiltily at the ground. He shook his head in response.

"The bond was invaluable. There's nothing she would take instead." He forced his words out and seemed to be lying. He wasn't making much effort to cover it up the dishonesty. "Besides, I wouldn't be so desperate again to hand over that power to a loon like her."

"So, we just keep running?" I asked.

"Until she shrivels up and dies she will be after us. She is completely driven by her madness. She lived in the forest, alone, as long as the islands have been in the sky. If she ever got her hands on power such as I promised her, she may become equal or stronger than the Goddess or my master. She alone would overtake the balance of this world, destroying who knows how much." When he spoke about her, I could tell he was truly concerned. She seemed terrifying, even more than when I encountered her.

"Is there any way we can kill her or trap her? Maybe we could get the upper-hand." I suggested. He shook his head.

"She is far more powerful than she lets us believe that she is. She truly is capable of destroying us." He poked Catto again in the foot. She lazily kicked her leg to try and get him to stop. He easily took her blow, catching her foot and rubbing it slightly to ease her.

"She knows this is a weak time for me." Catto sighed from the floor.

"Understandably." I agreed. She was about to have a baby, what is a more vulnerable time?

"She attacked us the day you were born. So out of a desperate need for a plan, I tried to do what I could to keep us safe for the time being. She was the reason I had to give you up." She confessed as she explained. A lot of things were making sense now.

"I'm sure if we get into the city we will be safe," I reassure. I seemed to be the only positive voice here right now.

"Only because of the numbers. She could easily get into the city whenever she wanted. I am just hoping by having the masses of demonfolk surrounding us that it'll be a deterrent for a while longer." Ghirahim slowly lied down on the ground and covered his face with his arms. "We just have to get in there for this to work."

"What can we do to get in there faster?" I asked.

"I can send an update message to them in hopes we can move up our entry time." He sighed. He began to mouth some words under his breath and then exhaled profoundly as if blowing a bubble. "I sent an urgent message, hopefully, someone in the Parlament will hear it and decide what to do."

"Why didn't you do that sooner?" I growled.

"Because regardless they weren't going to let us in today," Catto answered. "Their schedule is what matters most, once Ghirahim enters again he technically will throw all of their authority out of the window, which they don't want. They don't want to deal with our problems and shit so they don't care if a dumb human is in labor and a crazy lady is after us. They approved us to come when they wanted us to come."

"Do they have no sympathy?" I interjected. Catto sat up, ready to answer.

"Imagine you were running an elite and progressive society, given the circumstances that you're people are banished from living above and about the surface. The majority of the world despises the demons for their power, they would do anything to get into your sanctuary and burn it down. You need to have a strong barrier between your people and the rest of the world. Now, imagine that a long lost prince shows up and he's married to a frog and the frog is having babies soon. It is your obligation to serve the prince and his frog as proper rulers because of divine power bestowed on him by the founder of the society. You'd have to sacrifice the security of your people for the prince and his dumb frog to let them in and hope the attacker doesn't follow. How would you react to the frog prince showing up earlier than you originally established?" Catto rolled her eyes when I didn't answer her. "Exactly. I wouldn't blame you either."

"But you're not a frog, you're a person!" I chided.

Ghirahim let out a couple of chuckles to himself. "A frog compared to a demon... indeed."

"Is that how demons see humans?" I barked.

"Yes." They both answered together.

A short moment of silence fell over us. Before Ghirahim sat up again and seemed focused on something. He nodded to himself.

"Three days." He spoke aloud. "They will let us come in on the dawn of the third sunrise." He slowly went back to lie on the ground where he was comfortable. "If we survive until then." He mumbled sarcastically to himself.

"I wish there was some wood I could knock on in hopes not to jinx us." Catto huffed. "I'm in the early stages of labor, so let's pray we can make until then."

"We will," I assured.

*sigh* Another lengthy chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. Trying to keep these chapters coming atcha every weekend. Thank you for the continuous support! Please continue to favorite, follow, review, and read! They are great ways to show that you enjoy my work and they cost $0 and most take 2 seconds to do!

-Iris

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