Chapter 22

The second dawn felt like daggers in my body. The sun and heat crept into the cave quickly. It made it difficult to relax. And all the night leading up to it was filled with cries and chaos. Catto was tried hard to keep everything under control and Ghirahim helped a bit here and there. It was their first time raising a baby, so I didn't blame them if it was a rocky start.

I was just very tired.

My stomach growled and I realized we were going to need food very soon, especially Catto. As my stomach grumbled louder, I looked toward Ghirahim who seemed to be stressing about everything and nothing at the same time.

"Do we have any food?" I asked him to interrupt his quiet mental breakdown. He had been sitting in the same spot for several minutes staring at the ground.

"There's a few rations in the bag. Please save some for Catto." He instructed.

"I know. I was just wondering where they were." I assured him. He pointed to the large bag of items he lugged from the house. I walked over to dig around in it and I found a jar of pickled carrots. I popped the lid off and pulled a couple at. I brought the jar carefully over to Catto. She looked at them with lust within her. She grabbed the jar and quickly stuffed her face with the rest of them.

"Is there any way we can contact the council again about letting us in sooner?" I asked. I could tell like today was going to be a long, hot, and miserable. I wanted to see if I could get out of as much as possible. Ghirahim shook his head. I let out a groan of irritation.

"We are all suffering together. We shall make it through this. But complaining will only make today worse." Ghirahim lectured. He was right. It just felt like the only conversations to be had were that of complaining. At that point I decided unless I had something nice to say, I was not going to say anything at all. This process only made me angrier as time went on.

Hours went by with me just sitting in my corner of the cave and fuming to myself. I couldn't stand that constant crying, the constant doting, and focusing on Donavan every second. It was hot, we were in danger, and the chance of potential safety was a few minutes walk away. We were in this mess because of a person that shouldn't even exist. Someone who plays a threat to not only us, but whoever else she decided to target next.

Every so often Catto would glance over to me and give me a reassuring smile. It helped subside some of the frustration, but I still wouldn't speak unless I had a positive thing to say.

"I know this sucks," Catto said. "But we can make it through. We've worked hard to be where we are now. Let's just keep our heads up." I knew she meant well, but I had little motivation.

"I have a question" I stated and they both looked at me with curiosity. "So, Gerudin... Does she have anyone else she's made deals with? Anyone else she targets? She seemed to hate a lot of people when I encountered her, so why is she only persistent in doing something to our family?"

"No, she has succeeded in harming others," Ghirahim responded. "Over the last half-century, she developed a bloodlust and hatred towards the humans."

"Yeah, she talked to me about how she's hated them, but I never heard-"

"She attacked and cursed them from afar while they attempted to colonize. She killed many of them, and I heard she even greatly weakened the Goddess." Ghirahim took the conversation seriously. I didn't realize she was the reason Link had sleepless nights and terrors.

When I was really young, Link, the old Headmaster, and Zelda would alternate between keeping care of me and trying to create a living space for the humans in Faron and other parts of the surface. I remember Link coming back looking extremely shaken and terrified of the things he witnessed. He was at his worst when he brought back Zelda without her leg. I never asked how it happened, I assumed it was monsters, I think that's what everyone assumed.

"She also made a deal with one of Faron's daughters in recent years. I heard Faron banished her to live on the outskirts of lake Floria by herself. I don't know what it entailed. I assume if she hasn't already paid for it, she will soon." He added.

"So she has ruined countless lives, if not destroyed prophecies and destinies?" I was astonished by how much she has been able to accomplish. She was much more than just some crazy lady after us.

"She is also said to be the one that infected Lanayru again after the Hero healed him. She also was rumored to have infected the great Levias with Bilocyte." The list continued to grow.

"Ok, so she is and has been a threat to everyone." How no one has stopped her before all this is beyond me. There had to have been at least one person capable of at least weakening her. "What made her act so insane?"

"She was fairly peaceful and kept to herself for most of the centuries leading up to now. She was already extremely demented during that time, however, she warned me that when she used her power for saving Catto that she would lose the last bit of control and sanity she had left. I had no clue that she would go quite as mad as she did."

A hush of silence went over us. The conversation ended and I had no more positive words to speak on the matter. I relaxed and lied down on the ground to try and just continue with this never-ending day. Being drenched in sweat seemed to be my new norm. I felt like I had jumped into a lake and just climbed out. I daydreamed of iced water and cool air. Perhaps in the city, there were fans or drinks for us to partake it. At the very least, we could change clothes and take a bath. It was a city after all, and from what they talked about, it seems very advanced compared to what the humans have done. I suppose having a large population all crammed together in one area leads to innovation and intelligent minds.

The sun was finally making its fall down the horizon and the sky turned a deep orange. I could feel a difference in temperature. Ghirahim was lying on his back and held his arms in the air, hypnotized by the movements of his hands in the setting sunlight. I was jealous he found something to entertain himself with. I was still quite bored.

"Akomin." Catto chirped from across the cave. I looked up in response. She patted the ground next to her. I shook my head with a smile to politely respond. She was still holding Donavan and I didn't want her to try and force me to hold him as she did for Ghirahim. I think she understood that. She then placed him in the basket again and carried the basket and placed him next to Ghirahim. Ghirahim dropped a hand and let a finger fall into the palm of the infant for him to grip and shake. Ghirahim continued to watch his other hand dance in the dimming light. I looked back at Catto who patted the ground next to her again. I slowly stood up and made my way to her portion of the cave. I kneeled next to her.

"I know a lot is happening. I'm sorry we drug you into this." She apologized.

"No one is really at fault here. Honestly, you have nothing to apologize for." I responded.

"I know, I just feel like you shouldn't be where we are now. I wanted us to grow up together and for you to have as normal of a life as possible." She was getting a bit emotional, she must have been overthinking a lot of this by herself today.

"Really, I'm fine." I eased

"I know you are. And I'm very proud of you." She smiled wide like she always did. I smiled back. She reached up and caressed my cheek with her hand. She always did this for Ghirahim, who always seemed so comforted by it, and now I understood why. The warmth of her hand, the warmth of her heart, her love, everything about who she was, it all felt so close and it just made me want to smile and radiate her kindness back.

She held her hand there and stared at me quietly. I just accepted everything she was giving me. But after a bit, her hand froze and slightly relaxed. And her eyes stopped blinking. Her body began to lean backward and her hand left my face. She fell back and her head cracked against the ground.

"Catto?" I shook her in hopes she would respond. "Catto?!" I was in shock. "CATTO!" I screamed. I grabbed her wrist to feel a pulse but I felt nothing. Ghirahim shot up and clenched his chest panting. He quickly grabbed the basket with Donavan and dove towards me. I wasn't quick enough to get out of the way, but he wasn't diving to hurt me. Donavan began to cry loudly. Ghirahim rolled onto his side and reached a hand up to create a protective shield around the three of us, Catto outside of it.

"What-what about Catto?!" I screeched looking back to try and reach for her body. He used his other hand to snatch me before I could reach outside the barrier.

"She's dead." He panted. I didn't believe him. He was looking towards the entrance of the cave defensively. I looked at Catto, her smile still sat plainly on her face.

"No-no. She was fine just-" my voice was cracking as I held back my tears. But I felt the cries bubbling up in the back of my throat. Ghirahim could tell and he kept one hand up towards the entrance as she turned around to look at me.

"Listen to me-" he began but my tears were creeping their way up to escape me. He tried to interrupt them. "Listen to me!" He shouted. "I felt our bond snap. She's dead." He wasn't crying or angry. He was stressed. He looked into my eyes and I stared back into his. I could see the pain he was hiding. The flame he had even back when I first came to his house, the flame that burned when he found out I was his daughter, and the one that held on to Catto when his master was condemning him, it was burnt out. It vanished from his face, all that was left was a small spark.

"She was always so chatty-chatty." A cackle echoed in front of us. Ghirahim slowly turned his head and refused to give a response, and just as the last time I spoke with her, she never needed one. "With her kiss-ass words and big cliche smile, she was the loveliest Mary Sue." Gerudin's figure was silhouetted by the low, fading sunlight but our eyes were adjusting quickly enough to still make out her disgusting features. "And even in death, she was able to keep that grin of hers."

Neither of us spoke. Ghirahim held his protection barrier strong and reached back his other hand to grab mine. He held it tight, it was an out of character gesture, but I could tell he wasn't trying to feel my hand.

"You can give me the silent treatment and hold your little fort as long as you want, but your soul is severed and your body is weakening. You'll only keep me out a few hours at best." She swayed to herself. It almost looked as if she were drunk. "And I've been patient this long, a few more hours is nothing." Ghirahim still kept his mouth shut. He turned to look at me.

"What to do we do?" I whispered to him. He clenched his eyes shut and took some deep breathes.

"I'm thinking." He whispered back.

"If I wanted to make this a bit more fun, I could certainly add some flare." She snapped her fingers and some flaming balls rushed towards us, I reflexively ducked and flinched, but they went out as soon as they hit the barrier.

"You know, your kid there is still pretty strong like I said before, she would be a good equivalent." She giggled.

"Shut up!" Ghirahim sneered. My eyes widened and I looked at him. He held my hand tighter.

"What does she mean?" I asked him. He shook his head in response.

"You keep so many secrets, I'm giving you this time to be open- family bonding if you will. Why don't you just tell her what she should know." Gerudin jeered. "I already tried to get her to come with me willingly, but she had too much of her mother in her to listen. All you need to do is hand her over now and you could keep the little one and be on your way."

"You're the only thing that could be traded to finish the deal," Ghirahim whispered to me. I was still confused. I began to pull my hand away from his but he held it tighter to keep me from letting go.

"I can do it, I'll be fine," I assured him but he still didn't let go.

"You look just like her." He whispered. "I noticed the first time we met but I thought it was just a coincidence. Seeing you both side-by-side made me feel like a fool." He refused to turn back and look and me now. He just held my hand and stayed in his defensive position. What was he doing?

"Ghirahim, let me out," I instructed. He let out a small chuckle.

"You have her voice too." He was going to go crazy.

"He won't let you out, he knows you'll try to fight." She hummed. She sat down on the ground and held her feet together with her hands while she laughed to herself.

"Yeah, well- I'd do a damn good job too! I'd send you back to the hell you crawled out of." I yelled at her. She just laughed some more.

"Oh, and you think you have the capability to do that? You're powerful, yes, coordinated, no." She seemed entertained by my argument.

"I destroyed Demise! I'm an akomus, I could tear your wrinkly-ass off any day!" It was frustrating that none of my words hurt her as much as hers did to me.

"You dim-witted dillweed. I am an akomus!" Her voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I didn't know how to respond. I wasn't expecting that to be her response. I thought me and Demise were the only ones.

"There's no point bickering with her. She is more powerful than either of us." Ghirahim hushed. "You're an akomus, she knows the power you hold, she was going to take you for collateral if your mother hadn't left with you first."

"Ok, so we can't fight her, and all she wants is to kill us or take me?" I repeated to him. "Then I'll completely surrender and you two can live," I stated. I didn't see what the issue was. If I did what she said then there wouldn't be any issues, both of them could live and grow up.

"You're not going out there." He took a deep breath. "I have a plan by you need to put the shield up after I drop it." He muttered to me. I nodded. I hope whatever this was worked. He seemed confident. He dropped my hand and snapped a finger. A small dagger was held in his free hand. He twirled it in his fingers and I didn't notice him reach back and slice my arm. I hissed in pain and he grabbed the slice with his hand, leaving it covered in blood. He dropped his shield shortly after he sprinted out. I quickly raised them again but he didn't say when to pull them back down so he could come back in. With a quick shot, Gerudin fired some sort of spell at his chest and he fumbled forward. He grabbed her left hand and pushed his dagger all the way through, her hand was oozing a black tar substance. While she was distracted by her hand he reached up and ripped the necklace off her neck. He turned to look at me and had a slight smile on his face. I was beginning to think I should put down the shields but when I released it they were still up. Donavan's screaming stopped, and Gerudin wasn't moving from her position.

"I stopped our current flow of time." Ghirahim smiled at me. "I needed to use your blood to stop yours as well, otherwise I would have been in this state by myself."

"Why would you do that?" I asked him. I stood up and he walked close to the shield that was between us.

"She hit me with a powerful spell that was greater than any magic I'm capable of dealing with. It penetrated my human flesh and damaged the rest of my soul." He explained. "I will be dead within a few moments after I finish using this chamber."

"No, I mean, there has to be a way to stop that," I argued. He shook his head. He seemed very unbothered.

"I'm using the last bit of power I have left to hold us in here right now. It still would not have been enough to help me."

"But why? Why would you risk all that for a stupid necklace? We could have just talked after, or while you were holding up the shield."

"I wanted to have this conversation with you without her snarky remarks." He shrugged. "I didn't just do it for the necklace, I got a fairly critical hit on her soul as well. She still is too powerful than anything I could muster anymore." He laughed and looked back at her. She had the dagger through her hand and clenched in pain. "You can finish her off once I'm gone. It should not be an issue for you."

"You just said she was still incredibly powerful! She's an akomus and she's-"

"Not more powerful than you." He finished. I was shocked by this. Until now he said she was so powerful. That nothing could stop her. "You lack the competency at this point to control your full potential, however you perform well under fits of emotion. I am confident that when we are done here, you'll be upset enough to take her out once and for all."

"Yeah, of course! But why didn't you tell me sooner I was this powerful?" I asked.

"Because you possess a lot of courage." He explained. "If you knew you stood a chance you would have put yourself at risk to go after her. I could not see that happen." He choked on those last words. "As I have admitted before, I have not been the best parent to you. However I have truly grown to see you as-" he stopped himself and took a deep breath. "You emulate the best qualities of your mother. Which is something that made me grow to care for over the past year or so being around you." He couldn't possibly be confessing this now? This made me realize how serious he was being. He truly was going to die.

"I mean, that means you'll have to hang on! You can't abandon me, you never would have abandoned, Catto." I barked at him. Tears escaped my eyes and my cries from before finally erupted. "Don't you see her? She's dead, I'm all you have left of her now! Me and Donovan- we both need you!" My hideous sobs made it hard for me to breathe.

"You're right, if I hadn't had the two of you with me at the moment when I felt our bond shatter I would have surrendered there. But I could only hope to protect what I had left of her. I felt with you that she was still alive next to me."

"We still are alive next to you!" I screamed at him.

"Yes, but I know that you will be able to take care of this mission and bring your brother to safety." He smiled sadly at me. I shook my head.

"No! I'm not a parent! I'm just-"

"You're a hero. A real hero. And I know that you are capable of finishing this." He motivated. But I wasn't feeling any motivation.

"What about Catto-"

"My power is fading Akomin, you will have to prepare to finish her off when your shield drops. You have to protect Donovan." He wasn't listening.

"Why can't we stay in here longer?" I begged.

"This necklace contains time-shifting abilities. It is said to be able to halt time or travel along a specific person's timeline. It's very dangerous in the wrong hands. It was always rumored to be a crystal, however, gold is a mineral as well." He inspected the jewelry in his hand thoroughly. "It takes a massive amount of energy to use. So, I am too weak to hold us in here any longer." This was what Catto talked about with me months ago, a stone to alter time. "If I'm not mistaken it also has the ability to prevent the fading of power over time. So, she very likely used this to slow her powers from leaving her with age. Perhaps she is much weaker now than we expected. Still, too late for me." He shrugged as if it was not an issue.

"You can't act like that! Catto died for-"

"I will see her again in another life." He smiled like Catto always did. Filled with understanding and confidence. "Akomin," he began. The baby cries filled my ear again and I stood there with my eyes flooded with tears, realizing our time was up. "I am proud to have been your father." He took a deep breath, but before it was finished his body fell to the ground lifeless. Gerudin was beginning to recover from her injury and noticed Ghirahim in a different spot than before and her necklace was gone.

The echos of crying that I heard all day and all night was the only thing I held on to. It was my anchor. I stood there staring blankly into the deep, dark, desert night sky that was outside this stupid cave. The cave that I wanted so desperately the leave. And now, I feel as though it was my home. It felt as comforting as waking up in a big bed after a night of hard training, or after a 3-month coma, or after finding my parents, or after being almost killed by a stranger. It felt as comforting as a loft in a small house, that I got too tall for too quickly, that had a bed that gave me back cramps, and a window for me to sneak out of late at night. As uncomfortable it could have been, it was still comforting because it was home; because home was where the people who cared about me were. Link cared about me, Zelda cared about me, Mable cared about me. Catto cared about me... Ghirahim cared about me. And right now, this cave, it had my parents, and it had my little brother, who all care about me.

"That stupid bast-" I held my hand out towards her as I continued to stare at the stars. The tears that continued to roll down my cheeks left a chill from the cool air. The screams of my baby brother kept me present to the moment I was in, as much as I didn't want to be there. I snapped my fingers and the arrows from my sheath from the ground all flew quickly into her body. Her black tar began to excrete from every opening, but she was still alive. I snapped my fingers again and I lit her on fire. She screamed in pain and seemed to be begging for mercy, but of course, she wasn't.

"You fool, this isn't going to kill me. You're just torturing me, you know this!" She screeched through her pain. I didn't respond. She was right. I needed to stop with the physical attacks and destroy her, but my goddess did it feel good to see her suffer. While she continued to squirm in pain she fired a few shots of magic at me. I stood there and they deflected away from me and Donovan. I held out my fingers again, ready for the kill, but my eyes still focused on the stars in the background.

"You fucking coward." Her voice was raspy as her flesh melted off her body and the flames start to go dim. Her human body truly did go through a lot before it shattered. "You won't even look at me when you kill me." My lips pierced together in disgust by her words. I was no coward. I shifted my eyes and made direct contact with hers. She was the coward now. My left hand began to glow brightly and I had to avoid looking at it or it was slightly blinding. I honestly don't know how I summoned it. I was acting purely on emotion, just as Ghirahim said. I continued my eye contact with her, I wanted her to see my face as her last image. With a snap of my right fingers, a strong beam blasted from my hand and engulfed her body. When the light finally faded her body was gone but her many cloaks and clothes remained in a pile on the floor. Once I finished my blast of power I felt my body clench in a weird sensation, like bugs crawling up my limbs, it was familiar. I noticed my hand was back to a dark metallic color. I had shattered my human form with my power. I didn't know that it was possible.

My eyes finally relaxed and I looked around the cave. Loud screaming still filled my ears. I walked up to Ghirahim's body and took the bloody necklace from his hand. I put it around my neck, for now, I didn't want to forget that for the wrong someone to find.

I walked up to the pile of robes on the ground and shook them out. They smelled like decay and death. Several journals fell out. I opened them, she had messy handwriting, but it still looked familiar. It discussed the foundation of completely female society. I suppose she wasn't pulling my leg with that shit. I didn't bother reading or go through any of them. She probably just kept tabs on people all day.

The infant crying finally got to me. I knew I couldn't take it much longer. I walked over to Donovan and lifted the basket gently to rock him in hopes he would calm down. It didn't work. So, I gave in and sat down next to him. I reluctantly held out my arms and carefully lifted him. I tried to shush him and calm him as best I could. I knew that all he probably wanted was food, but Catto wasn't here for that anymore.

"Please, I know-" I choked on my own words and began to sob with him. I just wanted my mom too. I wanted my mom, my dad, my best friend. I wanted to be in Skyloft again. I held Donovan close while I cried. He was so small and fragile. And just like me, he was a kid without a mom.

I sat on the floor and rested him on my legs while I cried some more and wiped the flood of tears on my face away. I was so caught up in my crying I almost didn't realize he stopped. I caught my breath and tried to stop my heaving. I looked at him. He stared back at me, he wasn't sad anymore. He just lied on my legs, studying me. It was easy to calm myself down when he wasn't crying anymore. I was a bigger baby at this moment than he was. His eyes slowly relaxed and closed shut. His quick breathing assured me he was alright.

He was all I had left. Less than a year ago I would have never believed what days lied ahead of me. These were the days that came; the days of an akomus and her human.

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