Copyright disclaimer: The probability of me owning the Legend of Zelda is about the same as Santa Claus existing. Meaning he doesn't exist. At all. Ahahahahahahaha...

CHAPTER 24: Nosebleeds

He'd known that I was sick.

There was a little potion bottle on my desk. I recognized that it was from a stand in the bazaar called Luv & Bertie's Potions, and next to it was a note:

If I catch whatever sickness you have, I will end you.

The bottle was unopened, so I decided to trust it. I used to run errands for Luv and Bertie, a married couple, when I was a trainee at SkyCorp. Luv was a domineering woman and Bertie was a submissive househusband with a penchant for collecting bugs. They were a very kind couple.

I chugged the bottle. It was small, and the cold, red liquid slid down my throat. It burned as it went down, but I felt better after I'd swallowed it all. The sensation reminded me of my dream, and I shuddered. I had an hour until I'd have to leave for work, so I sat on the edge of my bed in the dark, running my hands through my hair. The aspirin didn't work.

Two cracks of thunder echoed outside and heavy rain followed suit. My phone buzzed: "SEVERE WEATHER ADVISORY: FREEZING RAIN ALL DAY" it said in bold.

"Ugh," I groaned. Thursdays were so unnecessary.

I washed up in the bathroom and dressed myself warmly. I felt stifled in suits after being in light clothing back in Lanayru, but it was cold and I would have to get over it.

I left for work thirty minutes early. I felt out of place in my apartment.

The sidewalk was slick, and the rain rolled off of my umbrella in thick streams. It honestly wasn't as cold as it had been previously. Perhaps the city was finally thawing out.

In the office, I sat at my desk, my mind drifting. I wanted to visit Horwell, but I was sure that I was not welcome there. The group wanted to go drinking tonight but because I was underage, I had to be the killjoy and decline the offer.

"What are you sighing about?" Keet said from the doorway. "You have nothing to be unhappy about. We are finishing up the report and you get to sit there and look pretty for the rest of the day."

"I don't know. I feel restless."

"Why? Girl trouble?"

"That's you."

Keet flipped his middle finger out and walked away. I sat at my desk for about ten minutes, then stood and decided to walk around the building. I ran into Pipit on the secretary floor while I was on my way to see Fi.

"Hey, Link, how are you? Are you feeling better?"

"Yes, actually. A friend of mine gave me some medicine."

He smiled. "That's good." He paused. "Today's a crappy day."

"Yeah," I sighed. There was a feeling in my chest that I couldn't shake: something was wrong. "I'm really not feeling it today."

"I know what you mean. Wait, Link, are you sure you're feeling better? Crap, your nose is bleeding. Here." I hadn't noticed, but when I looked down, blood was flowing out of my nose and onto my white shirt. Pipit handed me a handkerchief and I put it to my nose, pinching the bridge. He rushed me to the bathroom.

"Shit, that came out of nowhere," Pipit said, turning on the water. I unbuttoned my shirt with one hand, still holding the bridge of my nose. I shoved twisted bits of toilet paper up my nostrils so I could try to wash the blood from my shirt. I forgot about the hickeys that Ghirahim had graced me with the night prior, though, and Pipit raised an eyebrow at the bruises and bite marks covering my neck and chest, though he didn't say anything.

"Do you have a sweater or anything that you can put on?" Pipit asked. "I think your shirt is done for."

"Yeah," I sighed. It had become a soaked pink mess.

"I can go get it, is it in your office?"

"Yes, on the back of my chair. Thanks." Pipit hurried out and I pulled out the toilet paper in my nose to replace it, though I couldn't plug it up fast enough and blood gushed through my fingers. I sealed it up quickly and washed the blood from my face. I looked at myself in the mirror.

"Fuck," I muttered. My eyes were sunken and I had very dark circles under them. My skin had lost some of its color, too. My headache was ever persistent.

What the hell happened to me? Maybe the bottle that Ghirahim had left on my desk had been something else after all.

Pipit walked in, carrying the green sweater that Ghirahim had given me. I hadn't realized that was the one I'd worn in, but I took it since it was my only option.

"I think you should go home," Pipit said, concerned.

"I might leave for lunch. I..." suddenly, I faltered.

"Whoa!" Pipit caught me by the arm. "Isn't this the second time you've almost passed out in front of me? Do you have a medical condition?"

"No, I just get really bad headaches sometimes," I said. I sounded exhausted. I straightened up and slowly pulled the toilet paper from my nose. No more bleeding. "I'm fine now," I sighed.

We walked out into the office. Pipit seemed scared to leave me. I was grateful for his worry. He took me by Fi's cubicle, but she was on the phone.

"Yes," she said with a grave voice. "Yes. I understand. Thank you." She hung up and sighed, then sat back in her chair.

"Hey, Fi," Pipit said, "how are you?" she turned to us.

"I'm fine, thanks." She looked straight at me. "Go home."

"I am going to wait until lunch. There's one final meeting then, and I'll leave after." She sighed and turned back to her desk. Pipit watched over me in my office until noon. I nodded off to sleep, and when I awoke, Pipit was sitting cross-legged on my desk, staring at his phone with a bored expression.

"You ready?" He asked without looking up. I stood too quickly, sending a pulsing wave of pain to my head, and nodded slowly so as not to exacerbate anything else.

We took the elevator up to the boardroom and watched as our colleagues filed in. Impa and Zelda entered and sat at the back of the room instead of the head. Owlan stood in front of the wall and had the finished report projected onto the wall.

"I will read through this—I've also printed it out." He passed out the thick report and the sound of papers shuffling filled the air. Owlan began to read aloud. All of the information was accurate. It was eleven pages, and after the seventh page, Owlan's words ran together and the page blurred. No one had any questions about it, and after he finished reading, we all agreed. The group had spoken about it before, so all of us had come to a consensus on our conclusions.

Karane, Impa and Pipit would be the ones to go to the trials against the pirate crew, and though I would have to sit in, I wouldn't have to act as a witness. The trials could be months away, so I wouldn't have to think about it for quite some time.

"If any of you would like to take a break from work," Zelda began after the meeting was adjourned and we began to leave, "please let me know."

"I volunteer Link for at least two days off. Heck, I will even give him some of my leave so he can stay away," Pipit siad.

"I agree," Karane piped up. "I'll give him two of my days off as well."

"That is doable. Link, take four days off." I was rather surprised by how lenient she was being.

"No, it's fine, I can come in tomorrow—"

"Well, that's about it, everyone," Keet said, standing. "Who's up for lunch at Pumm's?" They all headed out, ignoring me. Pipit turned to me in the doorway and smiled, mouthing, 'See you next week.'

I sighed. Four whole days? I was grateful, but still. Four days?

I sent Ghirahim a long, angry text message when I got home. He had to have messed with the medicine, because I'd taken it countless times in the past and felt much better. Though I felt less sick, my head still felt as if it were a pressurized chamber and my body still ached.

I put my phone on silent, setting it so that Fi could be the only one to call me, and I slept. I slept a dark, motionless sleep, so still that I doubt even the Goddess herself could have tapped me on the shoulder and woke me. The darkness then was a plush blanket that enveloped me in warmth.

When I awoke, the sun had gone down, and my headache had left me. I felt much better, stretching my arms and yawning.

Then I ran to the bathroom and vomited.

Three loud bangs, and I heard the front door swing open.

"How dare you—" the intruder began, but stopped when he saw that I wasn't there. His footsteps echoed through my small apartment. He stood at the threshold of the bathroom door, seeing me leaning haplessly against the toilet.

"Ugh. You really do vomit too much," Ghirahim said, staring down at me in disgust.

"This is your fault," I choked out.

"I do not know why you think I would poison you," he said. He sounded like he was about to rant.

I cut him off before he could get too heated. "Because you repeatedly threaten to torture me and take my life," I told him flatly. "Don't come here just to yell at me. The only rational assumption here is that you did something to that medicine—" I said half angrily, half resignedly before I turned to the toilet and emptied my stomach completely.

"Then stop being rational, and stop making assumptions," Ghirahim replied from behind me.

After I brushed my teeth for ten minutes and gurgled baking soda and salt for another ten, I faced Ghirahim, who had been sitting against my window as always.

"Why do you always sit there?"

"It reminds me of something." I tilted my head to the side in thought. Then go find another window.

"Well, it was great seeing you and all, but I have a lot of work to do," I lied.

He turned and gave me an icy glare. "No, you do not."

"I do."

"You've just finished a huge case. How would you have time to get deep enough into another case that you'd have 'a lot of work'? Honestly, you cannot lie at all."

"Then you should take offense that I want you out of my apartment so badly that I would give such an obvious lie," I replied.

"Your nose is bleeding," he said emotionlessly. I didn't believe him because it didn't spew out of my nose like it had at SkyCorp, but I felt a warm stream tickle down the space between my nose and lip.

"Oh," I gasped in half surprise, half exhaustion, covering my nose and rushing to the bathroom for tissues.

When the bleeding stopped, Ghirahim was still at my window. I denied his presence and sat at my desk, pulling out a blank piece of paper and an ink pen. I had no idea what I planned to do with it, but I had that feeling–that feeling when you need to know the weight of the pen of your hand, the ink gliding onto the surface of the paper.

It started as a to-do list, but I realized there wasn't much for me to take note of. Ghirahim sighed loudly. It was rather obvious that he wanted me to ask him about whatever worldly problem was plaguing his divine presence, but I didn't care. At all.

I started drawing whatever shapes came to mind.

He sighed again.

A triforce was forming under my pen. I made thick, straight lines that almost bled through the page.

He pushed his hair out of his face angrily and stood, stomping in front of my desk overdramatically. He looked like he had a great string of words stuck in his cheeks, but he looked down at my scribbles and stopped.

"Must you be such a choir boy at a time like this?" he said.

"Do you realize what this is?" I asked, too tired to feel angry but also too tired to not become irritated. "This represents wisdom, power, and courage. Yes, those might be the ideals of the Golden Goddesses, but those ideals transcend religion." He walked around the desk to where I sat.

"No, Link," he smiled slowly, sliding the pen out of my hands and leaning over me to write on the paper. He drew a triforce with perfect lines and filled the triangles in with words in all capital letters.

SEX, he wrote in the lower left triangle.

POWER, he wrote in the lower right.

CHAOS went into the apex.

"I'll have to disprove your statement, choir boy. Just as you may think that wisdom and courage combined make power, sex and power create chaos. Sex, power, and chaos are the true ideals of life, death, and time itself. There is no truth other than this." He set the pen down and leaned against my desk.

"It is sacrilegious just to be near you," I muttered.

"I thought we were disregarding religion for the sake of the argument," Ghirahim maintained.

"Then you can't call me a choir boy." I crumpled up the paper and threw it to the trash can. I missed.

"Of course, altar child."

"Why are you here?" I asked, standing quickly to show him the door. I faltered, and he caught me by the arm the same way Pipit did at the office. It was the arm Ghirahim had cut on the day that I'd met him. I'd long forgotten about it, but the scar was still there.

"Because my foresight told me that you were sick, and I wanted to know if it was worth getting on camera." There is an insane man in my apartment. He is violent, he is volatile. Someone please help me.

"Okay. Take your damn pictures or leave."

"Sorry, altar child, you are incredibly far from looking photogenic at the moment."

"Then you can take the second option I gave you and leave." he pulled my arm and pushed me onto the bed, pinning me down. His eyes trailed down my body, and I stared at him with a bored expression on my face. We made eye contact and he let me go, leaning against the headboard.

"Go to sleep," he said. I don't know if I pulled up the covers or if he did, but they wrapped around me regardless. I felt him brush my hair off of my forehead, tucking some behind my ear. He didn't speak any longer, didn't move. I curled up under the pile of blankets on the bed and felt my eyes become heavy.

I let sleep take me.

I didn't dream about anything special: only the sun turning red, turning black. Fading out. The world freezing over.

I awoke in a different position than I had fallen asleep in. My ear was pressed to something warm, and my body had been uncurled and pulled closer to the same source of warmth on my ear. Slowly, I lifted myself up, praying to all that was good and right in the world that I was not laying in the bed with him.

My eyes crawled up a black shirt clinging to a toned stomach, up a chest, over the sickly, grey-looking skin covering a pronounced collar bone, a long neck, a defined jawline. A plump bottom lip and a thinner top one, a long nose, a silver screen of hair covering half of the face, a dark circle under a darker eye that was staring into mine.

I went red immediately. I could barely think up the right words, let alone say them.

"Wh-why are we... you, but. But I was—oh, goddess..."

"Calm the fuck down. You said that you were cold while you were sleeping."

I let out a sigh of relief.

"Oh. I see: you were thinking of something indecent. If that is the case, I can do something indecent to you to alleviate your longing," he offered with a fictitiously soothing voice, running his fingers through my hair as if he was familiar with every strand on my head.

I threw the blankets over my head and curled back into a ball.

"My, Link, are you taking the initiative?"

I poked my head out of my blanket cave.

"What do you mean?"

"You were just about to perform a very poorly orchestrated fellatio," he told me.

I stared at him, blinked twice, and laughed.

"What time is it?"

"Four o'clock in the morning. The perfect time for you to place your Goddess-fearing lips around my unholy beast of a penis."

"That's disgusting," I said, and returned to my place under the covers with my back to him.

"Why do you want to go back to sleep?" he asked me.

"Because I feel better after sleeping. So perhaps if I continue to sleep, I will feel fantastic."

"You only feel better because I have graced you with my presence," he bragged.

"Right. Yes. Of course."

"I am your medicine," he announced.

"How is that possible when you're my sickness?" I asked, hoping to go back to sleep. I really did feel better. Aside from my vision being a little blurry and some slight nausea, I felt like I was nearly back on my feet again.

"Well, choir boy, when you ask a question like that, I ought to show you," he grinned out the words as he ripped the covers off of me, throwing them on the ground and looming over me.

"You ought to head home," I said, "four o'clock is when the monsters come out."

"Yes, and I am right here," he said, pulling my shirt up, just over my head so that it kept my elbows together.

He stared down at my chest and ran his fingers over my skin.

"Leave," I said very calmly. He didn't respond and lowered his lips to mine slowly, moving over my body. He used his weight to hold me down, to stop my struggling.

"You should know by now that I am not leaving." I opened my mouth to speak and he continued. "But perhaps I can show mercy," he said. He began to bite and suck on my neck, right under my jawline, a little below my ear. It seemed like I was the most sensitive there, and he knew. I struggled to push him off of me.

"You are the most inconsiderate—shit, stop it!'

He ran his hand down my bare chest and pinched my nipples without remorse.

"I may be inconsiderate, but this is only due to the fact that you give me very enticing things to be inconsiderate about."

"That isn't any justification," I said. He bit my lip and stuck his tongue in my mouth again and slid his hand to my crotch. I flinched.

"But it is, Link. Look, you've become all hot and bothered, and all I've done is sucked and bitten your neck, kissed you, and flicked your nipples. And right now you look like you're quite prepared to burst. This is reason to be very inconsiderate," he explained, kneading the heel of his hand into my groin.

I flinched.

"I thought you were going to show mercy," I said.

He feigned deep thought as he whipped out a switch blade and put it at my throat.

"Mercy, hm?" he pulled me up rather gently for someone with a knife at my jugular. He pulled the shirt around my arms the rest of the way off and threw it on the floor.

"Ghirahim, let's be rational..." I said.

"Oh, I am thinking just fine. I am wondering how to show mercy. Ah! I've got it." He flipped his knife shut and put it in his pocket. I couldn't be sure if he'd pull it out again.

Ghirahim put his lips to my ear.

"Take off your pants," he whispered lustily. "Slowly."

Of course "mercy" to him meant mortifying me. What did I expect?

I stood and faced him, putting my thumbs under the waistband of my sweatpants. I looked at him with a plea in my eyes, and he only smirked.

So I stepped out of my sweatpants and was now only in my Tingle-patterned underwear. Great. His eyes combed over my body, and when he told me to come to him, I went to him.

"Sit on the bed. Lean against the wall." I did as I was told, making sure not to make eye contact with him. I was sure that I would pass out if I saw the judgement in his eyes.

"Spread your legs." I gulped and obeyed his command. "Look at me, Link," he said sweetly. I brought my eyes to his with reluctance.

"Touch yourself like how I touch you," he said with a smile.

"N-no, that's not something I..."

"You asked for mercy. Either you fuck yourself, or I do." I let out a trembling sigh. Maybe I could run away and let him cut me. Anything other than this. "Well?"

I pushed my underwear lower on my hips so that my member was exposed and wrapped my fingers around it loosely.

"You won't finish if you have such a loose grip," Ghirahim commented. I tightened my fingers and slowly pumped my hand up and down, a shudder overtaking me. His gaze tore through my body. Lit it on fire.

"Faster." The word echoed through me, and like a machine, I followed the order. It felt like I was burning from the inside out. I let out quiet gasps and moans, otherwise biting my lip to stay silent.

"When I touch you, is it really ever this simple? Use your other hand, fool." I looked at him with disdain, and in the second that our eyes met, a little bolt of electricity shot up my back. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall, rolling the ball of my index finger over my nipple. I knew that he was going to tell me to do it more. This was some sort of psychological massacre; I would never do enough to please him, and the more I tried to push myself, the closer I got to the edge.

I let out my first loud moan—a disheartening Nnn, which was so ungodly that I stopped completely.

"Perhaps you are enjoying being watched too much," Ghirahim teased with a smirk.

"No, it's not that," I protested, shivering.

"Of course. Tell yourself that." He paused. "Suck on your fingers. Soak them in your saliva and continue as you were." I had no idea what he was going on about then, but I found that alternative to be much less indecent than what he'd had me doing prior. I put my pointer and middle fingers in my mouth, almost drooling over them.

"Now finger yourself," he said.

"I can't. I can't. Please," I pleaded. He pulled out his switchblade and licked it.

"Ah, but you will." He curled his tongue over the edge, closing his lips over it and sliding it out slowly. "Unless you'd like this inside you instead," he added.

I trembled before him. Warily, I poked the tip of my finger into my entrance and blanched. I had no idea what I was doing, but I gritted my teeth and shoved my finger in up to the knuckle.

I was panting and my eyes were watering, but I continued. I was liable to explode at any moment. My body was begging for release, but I couldn't keep my grip on my penis very tight because of how violently I shook. I glided my finger in and out, adding another one when he commanded as such. A strand of heat ran up my skin, wrapped itself around my crotch—I came, letting out yet another unholy moan.

Ghirahim said nothing. I stood and wiped the semen from my hands on a paper towel in the kitchen, and when I returned, pulling on a pair of pants, Ghirahim was frowning and pulling on his coat.

"Link, you are quite lewd," he told me, and a second later, "perhaps I should take my leave now."

I was confused, but I went with it. The sooner he left, the better.

A few days passed, and I'd heard nothing from him. This was of no issue to me, especially because my Friday night 'playdate' with the Imprisoned was coming.

Though I'll admit that I did feel in much higher health around the time that Ghirahim was in my apartment, my health took a steep decline to the point where I couldn't stand for very long without becoming incredibly dizzy. My head hurt enough that I could scarcely see, and my entire body ached as if I'd been run over. I had enough nosebleeds to begin hallucinating. Worst of all, I couldn't hold any food down.

All in all, a fantastic day to have a playdate with a group of men that all had no qualms with killing me.

When seven thirty came, I dragged myself from the bed and took twice as much anti-nausea medicine than prescribed, bundled on all of the warm clothes that would fit under my coat, and trudged to the train station. It had been sunny all day, and even though it was pitch dark when I left the house, it took some time to adjust.

I arrived at the station at seven-fifty and all but collapsed on a bench next to the entrance, right under a streetlight. In ten minutes, only two cars passed by. No people had passed by. The temperature dropped.

And when the big analog clock that glowed in front of the station hit 8:00 exactly, someone walked by and dropped a piece of paper in my lap. I looked down at the paper.

Run.

Looking up, I saw that the person that had given me the paper had disappeared. Was this a game that the Imprisoned were pulling me into?

I glanced at the paper once more and dashed in the direction that the stranger had dropped into my lap. Of course, even these few moments counted as overexertion. I was running down the street as fast I could, but as fast as I could was not fast at all at that point. I ran out of breath almost immediately, and I had no strength left.

Falling to my knees, I saw a white mask and a flash of black.

With my conscious fading in and out like a failing radio signal, I couldn't fight back as he hoisted me over his shoulder. He walked for about ten minutes before I was bound and thrown into the back of a truck, then sped off somewhere. It was only about a five minute drive, but I was feeling quite motion sick by the time someone yanked me from the backseat of the black car and dragged me into a warehouse. It was too dark to see where I was, but when we passed the threshold and the blaring lights hit me, I knew I was back in the warehouse where they'd taken me when I was first abducted.

"Great to see you again, Mr. Link," said a voice I only vaguely remembered. He stood over me, and the glare of the lights high above his head cast a shadow over his mask, making it impossible for me to see it clearly.

"Yes, I'm glad to see you all again," I replied weakly, hoping to sound genuine.

"You look rather under the weather," the man said, crouching down. I knew from that very action that he was Five. He'd crouched down to speak to me in the same manner when I was abducted the first time.

"He was much lighter when I carried him this time," said someone behind me. His voice was quiet. I struggled to recall it.

Five nudged my shoulder. "Mr. Link, haven't you been eating?"

"Can't hold it down."

"My, what a shame. Perhaps we'll feed you later," he said, turning his head to someone out of my line of vision. "Anyhow, we don't have much to ask you. Moreover, we have things to tell you."

My ears perked up at this. I knew that whatever they would have to tell me could be life-threatening.

"You see, Mr. Link," Five said, standing and gesturing to the people behind me, "you are much more interesting than we thought you were. We had assumed that you were just another toy of Two's, but we know now," he said as someone yanked me up to my feet and put something over my eyes, "you have a value that extends even what that greedy bastard could steal."

The blindfold was secured, and the rope around my wrists and ankles was removed.

"Okay, boys, here are the rules. I want a fair fight, no dirty tricks, and, if you really must surrender, Mr. Link, you'll have to lure Two here. Understand?"

"Wait, wait, what are you—" my sentence was cut short with a swift kick to the chest. I stumbled backwards and heard a fist whistling through the air, dodging it before it could slam into my shoulder.

"Mr. Link, you're going to have to fight if you want to survive this," Five called. From the sounds surrounding my opponent and I, it seemed like there was a wide circle of men around us. They spoke in hushed whispers, surely betting on the contender of this battle.

Their voices drowned out my only chance at winning: hearing. He was behind me, I thought, just as he punched me in the eye. He was behind me, I thought. He kicked me in the back. He beat me down, each blow creating a flare of anger. I was beyond exhausted, but the adrenaline kept me conscious.

I concentrated on his movements, and he kneed me in the in the stomach just after. When I pitched forward, letting out a cough, I reached out for where I assumed the collar of his shirt was and grabbed the cotton material. I tackled him to the ground, straddled him, and unleashed a rain of angry punches on his face, his mask long ripped off. My fists became wet with his blood, and I was vaguely aware that my nose was bleeding. I became tired, and black spots formed in my vision. I stood, wavered, removed my blindfold, dropping it on the motionless body of my foe. Summoning all of the power left in my body, I spoke.

"I won." My voice was not weak, and I looked around at the circle of masks around me with an unwavering glare. "And now what?"

The men dispersed. One brought me a wooden chair to sit in, and another brought a table. I didn't trust them, but I was so spent that I all but fell into the chair.

I could see a few of them gather around me. The familiar ones. I remembered the mask with the mocking, crescent-shaped eyes, and the one with the red tear drop. Six and Four, as well as a few others as well. Five stood opposite to me at the table. Someone tapped my shoulder and handed me a tissue. I wiped my bloody nose and patted the tissue around my surely blackened eye.

"Well, Mr. Link, we were not expecting you to beat our dear brother 1K—that would be, our one-thousandth ranked man. But perhaps it is better that you did not surrender and call Two, because we wanted to give you some information on him—perhaps to change your mind on the way you see him."

"And were you planning to share this information after your fucking lackey knocked me out?"

"We were planning on letting you regain consciousness first. But that won't be necessary. Now, Mr. Link, do you remember last time you were here?"

"Mildly."

"You were unconscious for the majority of it, so that is understandable. After you went completely unconscious, we gave you a truth serum. I'm sure you remember the scrapbooking materials we sent you," he said, referring to the sheaf of photographs that they'd sent me.

"Yes, I do." I tried to keep calm, but I was positive that any one of the men in the vast warehouse would soon come at me with a meat cleaver.

"Ah, fantastic. Do you know what you told us?"

"No."

"You told us three things. But Two knows about all of these things, so we won't waste time telling you. Just ask him about the hourglass."

"Five, that's not going to help us," Six said quietly. "He won't—"

"Shut your fucking mouth, I know what I'm doing," he said calmly, with venom dripping from each syllable. "Anyway, Link, because you shared such insight with us, we will share some with you on Two, or Gear."

He had a serious look on his face, like I really needed to hear what he was going to say.

"Your mentor that was in the hospital. Horwell, I believe?" It felt like cotton was filling my ears. Everything was fading out. No. No. No. Not Horwell. Please, dear Goddess...

"He is dead."

Time stopped.

"And Two killed him."

A/N: OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHHHHHMYGOSH.

I am sorry. Soooo so sorry that this is late. And also, happy holidays...

This time I actually need to give you my excuse (it is long and if you don't care, you can just skip to the end of this A/N where I tell you what porn site Ghirahim posted his somnophilian endeavors with Link.

WHY HASN'T THIS PIECE OF SHIT UPDATED IN LIKE EIGHT MILLION LIGHT YEARS?

Schoolwork. So much. Literally every professor loves piling on work at the beginning of the trimester so I was really busy.

Schoolwork (continued). It is required for us to do a 'creative' service project in our third year and I was helping one of my seniors with a short documentary on social anxiety.

This is the biggest reason: I was really, really sick. I have no idea what the issue was, but I was so nauseous that I couldn't move. There was a lot of vomiting, and I couldn't hold any food down for an entire week and a half... But I'm better now!

And so, without further ado, the porn site answers I would have taken were Pornhub, Redtube, or Gaytube. I think Ghirahim would have given it a hideous title like "Mildly Attractive Amateur Blond Hylian Moaning in His Sleep Whilst He is Ravaged By A Sex God". We had one winner!

Christmas was Aphelion's one year anniversary... That's rather disheartening, I must say...

Thanks for reading, salutations to new followers of Aphelion, and cheers to you all!