Sitting across from Ghirahim cross-legged, I found myself listening to the tale of his life.

"To spare boring you with minor details, I'll just give it to you short and to the point," he said and his black eyes softened as he began, "I wasn't always an evil humanoid, you know. I was once a creature like you. I was good-natured and many trusted me. At one point, I was even a chieftain and was thought wise by many. Then one day, I found a broken sword upon the ground. Being curious and ignoring caution, I picked it up and thought to have it reforged. After it had been reforged, I took it by the handle and held it up toward the sky and looked at it in awe. Little did I know, I had actually reforged the sword of Demise the Demon King. Upon holding it, the power of Demise took hold of me and he bound me to the sword. No longer a free creature, I was at the every whim of his power. I struggled against him but the harder I struggled the more he hurt my village. So I gave up attempting to free myself and did his bidding; he wanted me to free him from imprisonment. To do this, I need Zelda, Princess of Hyrule and a Hero named Link. You both came into my grasp today and when Demise learns that I failed to capture both of you, his anger against me will be eternal."

He stopped talking and looked sadly down at his hands in his lap, his hair fanning downward. A moment later he spoke again, "Evil has brought me only pain and betterment. What can I do against such pure evil?"

I looked at him sadly, reached out my hand to him, and placed it gently on his knee. He froze for a second but then relaxed and placed his hand over mine.

"I want to trust you, Ghirahim," I quietly replied, knowing that saying so could cost me my life down the road. "But I can't yet. Tell me, is there any way to free you?"

"Only one," he darkly said. "Destroy Demise's sword. His sword resides with him in his imprisonment."

"I will free you," I promised him. "But you must swear to me that you will not harm me or Link."

He thought for a moment and finally spoke, "I swear that no harm will come to you or Link by my hand. However, I cannot control what happens when Demise takes control of me. The only reason he hasn't forced me to kill you yet is because he doesn't know what I am doing. You see, having the sword doesn't mean he can see me or know where I am. But when you encounter him, he will use the sword and me to kill you. I cannot promise your safety then but I can swear protection as long as he is blind to my whereabouts."

I looked into his eyes for a moment. He held my gaze and what I saw in them made me trust him just a little. I stood up and dusted myself off. Ghirahim stretched and looked around without really seeing anything and spoke to me, "Now then, where can we find this Link of yours?"

"I can answer that," came Fi's metallic voice as she appeared from the sword and hovered between Ghirahim and I. "He has gone to the Earth Temple."

Fi looked hard at Ghirahim then and warned, "If you dare trick any of us, especially my Master, you will find yourself wishing you were dead."

I looked surprised at her, my mouth dropping open. Those were the first nonstatistical and nonfactual words I had ever heard her speak. Fi did not notice as she turned to me and cited the statistic of Ghirahim betraying me. I waved her away and she went back into the sword.

Ghirahim looked at me funny and said, "Is she always like that?"

"More or less," I replied. "She hasn't defended me like that before, though."

"Do you suppose she is like me? Not saying that that goddess of yours forced her to but maybe she chose it?"

"It's a possibility," I mused and thought that perhaps the emotion she displayed could be a part of her former self.

Shaking the thought off, I summarized that we were no longer needed in the place we were in. Taking the lead, we exited through the Skyview Spring and went the direction Fi had told us to go.

On our way, Ghirahim turned to me and asked, "Does this Link know you?"

I blushed tomato red and tried to hide it but failed as I answered, "He and I have been friends since childhood."

"I see right through you, Heroine. I know love when I see it. Don't look at me like that! I'm only stating what I see. Does he return your affection?"

"I wouldn't know, since a tornado took him away before I could tell him," I said to him with a snarky tone.

"My, such bad timing on my part!" he replied, clucking his teeth together in dismay.

I snorted in amusement at his mock exasperation and stepped onto the soil of the Eldin Province with Ghirahim one step behind. We both looked around and all was bare rock. Looking farther ahead, there seemed to be many Bokoblin outposts.

Ghirahim unsheathed his sword as I unsheathed mine and he gleefully cried, "Let the uphill battle begin!"