A/N: Thank you Mokki Takashi, Moon ninja Luna, Meta-Akira, Voidlash, Guest (Sorry about the cliffhangers, but I can't help myself! Muhaha. Just kidding, that's just how they play out in my head.), Alter Ego Bob, Pineapple (Yes, indeed. Very few of us are truly lucky.), Bluebadger (And more development coming! I hope you'll like it.), Ambiguous Cake, Maybe (Your reviews indeed fill my heart with rainbows! XD), and Guest (I'm very sorry for the wait. I'm fine, thank you. Life has been busy, is all).

Chapter 18

I'm falling asleep.

I'm waking up.

I can't tell.

I stand in a forest, in a clearing surrounded by trees and shrubs, all of which are engulfed in white fire. But there is no smoke, and there is no skin-searing heat—only warmth, only clear air.

Everything is washed in white light.

The leaves and branches sway in the breeze, as if it's a peaceful day, as if there is no fire. Is it fire at all? I wonder and walk up to it, to a sapling dancing with the flames. I touch it, and it wraps around my hand like grasping fingers. But it does not burn. It is only warm and somehow…familiar.

I reappear in the center of the clearing, the white fire reaching for me, whispering all round me. I cannot understand the hushed voice speaking to me, though I feel that I should.

Whispers, whispers like the sound of the rain. They come from fire that does not burn.

The feeling that I am forgetting something very important disturbs me, causes me to want to curl in on myself.

Has not…

…abandoned you.

I wake up. I wake to a dark, wide corridor. I am carried in tightly curled arms, am pressed into a velvet covered chest, rising and falling with deep, controlled breaths. Whoever carries me moves carefully, muscles taut.

"Get out of the way!" seethes a sharp voice above me, echoes slamming into the walls.

There is sound of small feet scurrying away, and then the gentle yet hurried gait resumes.

Blackness takes me once more. In the darkness I see Zelda, first in her raspberry-colored dress that she had been so proud of, and then in her white dress. A dress that weighs her down, pulls at her shoulders and her smile, and makes her droop with a world weariness I had never seen in her before. Those purplish shimmering bracelets and hair clasps seem there to fasten her to her role. Her eyes are sad, tired, and—looking at me—regretful. I don't understand why. What happened to the Zelda of Skyloft? What happened to the girl who chased me from lazy stupors and good-naturedly scolded me for daydreaming through my life?

I think of Skyloft. I think of how trapped I felt there. And then I think of how peaceful and safe it was. Was it a prison, or was it truly a sanctuary? But I felt so alone there. Though I wasn't. I wasn't alone. The people of Skyloft cared about me, they looked for me. Link and Zelda…

They fell while looking for you…fallen into the jaws of demons.

Blackness swallows Zelda and Skyloft whole.

My watery eyes peel open to the sting of bright halls, to stained glass and glowing etchings I cannot read. My eyelids fall like lead against the brightness. When they lift themselves once more, it is to a shadowed room of red curtains and rhombus patterned stone. There is a lump clogging my throat and water remains in my eyes. I am lying on my stomach, my cheek pressed into crimson sheets. I try to push myself up.

"Don't move," a sharp voice tells me, a cold hand on my burning shoulder. Then, louder, to the room, says, "Where the devil is that stupid lizard?!"

Pain suddenly erupts from my shoulder. I choke on a gurgled cry, and darkness closes in on my vision.

The world spins on a nighttime carousel with no lights. It wavers, and rises, and falls, and I fear I've dropped off the edge of the sky, into the murky clouds below, growling with static and thunder.

A loud crash brings me back, along with the sharp voice again. "Give me the damn gauze! Hurry, hurry, you wretched fool, before she bleeds out!"

When I wake up again, it is to ear-piercing screams. Slowly, with a burn forming in my throat, I realize the screams are mine. A freezing hand grips my shoulder, and hot liquid that can only be blood seeps from my wound in a wide, steady stream. I thrash and struggle, or try to. A heavy weight settles on me.

"Don't move," growls the voice. My mind clears briefly to realize who it is. Ghirahim.

"M-Master—no, I—ackngh!" My words become caught in my throat, in my screams, drowning in tears and saliva. Something stabs me, over and over, in my shoulder, and then there is a pulling sensation akin to string slithering through my wound. Another scream, sounding almost inhuman, tears through the room. I almost don't recognize it as mine, though my throat feels the scalding sting of it.

"It's almost over, hold still." Ghirahim's voice is strained and deep, sounding like he is speaking through clenched teeth.

The stabbing in my shoulder continues. It is halfway down, inching its way to my waist. My screams echo each bite of metal, profess agony at every burning pull of string.

"Die!" I scream, slamming my face into the sheets. "Just let me die!"

"Be silent!" Ghirahim all but roars. His fist tightens at my neck, keeping me still. "Shii! That numbing potion better be ready!"

"Here, my lord." Shii rushes to the bedside, uncorking a bottle. She pushes it to my face. "Drink, you must drink."

The smell, acidic and sharp, hits me as soon as the bottle is opened. I cringe from it. But the pain searing in my back is greater, and I do as told. The putrid, burning taste makes my eyes well and I nearly choke. Pain forces me to swallow.

Shortly after, the world spins again, and darkness rises.

Disembodied voices rumble and fade, loud then quiet. I'm falling. I'm standing. I don't know. Where I am. When I am.

My heart quickens when I think I hear my mother's voice, moving away, her heels clicking down the hall. Every fiber of me wants to go after her, to reach and cry out to her, but it is with every fiber I find I am paralyzed. I am trapped, floating in a blackness I cannot escape. It is under me, around me, above me, with no end in sight—no sight at all. I cannot swim through it, cannot claw upwards for the surface; I cannot move, I cannot cry out. It hurts; pain ricochets through me. The distress is so acute, I stop breathing. Stop breathing, and wish for it all to go away.

A voice calls out to me, muffled and distant, so distant I almost cannot hear it. It is as if I am listening through a wall of water. "Breathe!" it says, coming into focus for but a moment, piercing like a blade through the deafening dark. "Breathe, damn you!"

I know the voice, but suddenly cannot place it. Only after I try do I realize I am breathing again, somehow, in this underwater abyss.

"Kya, you are not permitted to die. Do you hear me?!"

Who is Kya? I ask, but no answer comes. That's not me. That's not my name. My name is…

My name was…

Light flickers from above, filters down into the dark. The glow of it wavers in these hushing undercurrents. It carries with it blurred images and subdued sound. The soft pings of a piano. A pale haired man wearing a long white coat over a dark suit, slender fingers dancing across the ivory keys. My father. He comes home so late; he works so hard keeping his patients healthy. But every now and then he finds the time to play us a lullaby, to send us on our way to peaceful sleep. Everything goes quiet when he plays. The blare of the city streets down below is silenced. Even my little brother, shuffling through comics and blankets in the next room over, stills to listen.

Those melodious notes echoed softly to the dark of my room, as they echo softly now, in this strange dark that has me trapped.

I want to call out for my dad. I can't. I wanted to hug him before I left. I didn't. I didn't get to say goodbye, not to him, not to anyone.

Stop.

Stop. Stop. Stop.

More light, more images. Memories of a life that once was.

I stand with two other people in a barren hallway. The lights are dim and the floors are polished. It is after school, on the very last day. I smile viciously, pushing my crooked glasses up my nose. Blood runs down my temple from a cut above my brow, caused by the long nails of a high-leading girl. My dark hair is wild, flaring in my face.

My friend, the one who taught me to speak with my hands, stands in front of me. She is speaking with hers now. "Stop!" she signs, bringing her right hand down into her left palm in a chopping motion. "Stop! Stop!"

I wince, wiping the blood from my brow with the back of my hand. "Sorry, Lezzie. They were asking for it." And it was true. That entire clique of girls should have known not to make fun of Lezzie because she was hard of hearing. They should have known I wouldn't have stood for it. Though I was quiet and mostly kept to myself, I had a reputation for my angry impatience regarding bullshit. They had fair warning, and I wasn't sorry. Not for them. Only sorry that I had inadvertently upset Lezzie.

Lezzie keeps on signing, her face drawn into a troubled frown. Her dove brown eyes swim with distress, her thin lips quiver. Her shiny dark hair is pulled back into a smooth bun. Her faded purple blouse and long jean skirt have not a wrinkle in them. They clash so heavily with that agonizing expression.

A hand claps onto my shoulder, and I turn to find an equally vicious smile gleaming out of a dark face.

The friend I used to have…with a streak of maliciousness to match my own.

Her smile does not lessen, even as she regards Lezzie. "We did what we had to, dear. It wasn't just you they were bothering. Poke a sleeping bear one too many times, and, well…" She smiles, her white teeth a dazzling contrast to the warm brown of her skin. "You saw what happened. Come now, stop crying; it's over. Here, here's a tissue." She pulls a handkerchief out of her skinny designer purse.

I look down at her heels, wondering how in the heck she just fought in those. "Nikki…seriously? Would've been easier to kick 'em off."

She follows my gaze, and then shrugs, dusting off imaginary remnants of the fight from her sleek green dress and little black jacket. Her maroon dyed hair is as glossy as ever, but she runs a hand over it to smooth it anyway. "Well, girls, if we can make it to graduation without breaking anymore noses I'd be impressed."

Lezzie wipes under her eyes with the lace handkerchief. In the most gentle voice, Nikki tells her to keep it. How she can be a lady of class, yet still fight like that, I'll never know. I envy it, actually. She is a blend of the green valley and the cutting river, merged seamlessly together. Not jagged and unbalanced like mine. I want to be like her. I…wanted to be like her.

Yes, wanted. Past, not present. That didn't happen just now. When was that? So long ago…

Light sharp as a blade cuts down into the dark.

Skyloft floats on easy breezes, the people going about their day, meandering so slowly in comparison to the hustle and bustle of the world I had left.

"Would you like some tea, dear?" Batreaux's voice echoes from the dark waters, a flash of him holding out a saucer and cup disappears before I can open my eyes.

For a moment I see Zelda, in her Skyloft dress, her hands on her hips. "You need to wake up. You're letting your life pass you by! Again." And then she is gone too.

Garbled voices shake the darkness, shards of light tear through it, raining like stars from a black sky.

"Tha—ank you?" Beedle turns his red nose to me, not stopping his fierce pedaling for a second. "That sounds interesting. Does it mean something?"

Oh… That's right. I had climbed up to Beedle's air shop when it first opened. Was I fifteen or sixteen at the time? I can't remember. Neither can I remember the conversation leading up to me saying those English words.

I told him the meaning, hands clasped roughly at my waist, waiting for him to believe or disbelieve, to scold or ignore. He did none of those. He smiled through his sweat and said it had a nice ring to it, calling, "Thaaank you!" before I walked towards the door.

In the darkness a smile tugs at me. Hey…someone did ask, someone did care. Right before he tried to drop me through that trap door, the jerkass. But I had spread my legs out on either side of the sudden opening, throwing a sharp grin over my shoulder at him. "Heh! Knew you were gonna do that. Bye!" And then I jumped out the door, spread-eagle, into Turk's waiting… No, I belly flopped into the pond. Turk was busy stuffing his beak with berries from a stray akkaka bush. He didn't even bother looking over at the splash I made.

Pain cuts streaks of light, blowing the darkness away, bringing me back to air, to earth, to consciousness.

My eyes peel open to red silk, to a dark room, washed in the glow of firelight. I lie on my stomach, my left arm hanging haphazardly over the edge of the bed. Through dull eyes I see Ghirahim, standing to the side of me, still as a statue, staring at his blood-soaked gloves. He stares and stares. They are not white anymore. The rusting color bleeds down into the still-white of his forearms.

Suddenly he rips them off and throws them across the room. They hit the far wall with a slap. "Clean her," he says without looking at anyone, voice strangely rough.

Shii, Essil, and an unknown Lizalfos appear from the wall, standing unseen until moving into the center of the room. They converge on me, and a part of my mind says to be afraid, to stiffen. But I find I cannot. It is worse now that I am awake, now that I should be able to move. Tears well in my eyes, and my throat clenches painfully, allowing only a slight whine to rise.

Ghirahim pauses before the door, his red-stained hand on the knob. For a moment he seems to shake; subtly the knob rattles. Then in a flash he wrenches the door open and slams it shut behind him, without looking back.

"It will be all right, human." Shii runs a claw through my hair, in complete opposition to the sternness of her face. "The worst is over."

The unknown Lizalfos and Essil share a few rasped words in their native tongue. They both leave the room and then they come back. The nameless Lizalfos holds open the door for Essil, who comes bearing a pail of steaming water with small white towels thrown over the edges. She sets it beside the bed. Her watery eyes spill over, but she keeps moving, dipping a cloth into the water, wringing it out. "I—I will avoid it as best I can."

She speaks of the curving gash running from my shoulder to my waist. How did I get it again? I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember.

I jolt when the warm terry cloths touch me. The movement sends a wave of pain coursing through my entire body, starting from my back and spreading to my fingertips and toes. "Hnn—!"

Shii swiftly barks something at the other Lizalfos, who then shuts the door firmly.

"Do not cry out!" Shii pushes a scaly hand in my face, as if that would stop the sound. Her yellow eyes stretch wide, zipping once to the closed door Ghirahim had gone through. "He mustn't hear anymore. I fear what he would do. The last I saw such an expression on his face was when he nearly killed everyone in the throne room. We will try to get you clean as possible without hurting you, but if we do, please, for the love of your precious goddess, bite your tongue."

"D-don't say such things to her."

"Essil?"

"It will be all right." Essil's voice becomes forceful for the first time since I've known her. "We will be careful; we will not hurt her. She has hurt enough." And then, after a moment's hesitation, she says, "…Give her more potion."

The acidic smell and foul taste quell the rising pain, and once again I drift off to sleep.

Dull, throbbing pain pulls me from dreamless sleep. Hushed voices filter to my ears.

"We need more red potion," rasps the tell-tale voice of Shii.

Essil's gentle tenor follows. "Th-that was the last bottle."

"What? You cannot be serious!"

"L-Lord Ghirahim used most of it during…during the sewing."

"Then more must be made."

Essil's scaled feet scuff on the hard floor. "Ingredients are lacking, I'm afraid. The scouts have reported some maniac in green traipsing through the land, d-devouring all the red flowers. Their rarity—"

"I know about their rarity." Shii's voice strains. I think I hear her teeth grind. "We will have to come up with something, then. Anything."

Their footsteps recede along with their voices, a door softly clicks, and I am left alone.

I want to laugh, knowing exactly who's been eating the red petals, but the weight of heavy daze keeps me from doing so.

I fall back into sleep, and this time dreams of green clothes and flashing white blade flicker in my mind's eye. I shudder, causing the distant throbbing in my shoulder to become stronger. The pain threatens to bring me back, but I will myself to stay under sleep's saving escape, if only for a bit longer. That's how I always tried to escape pain, wasn't it? Sleep, sleep… Look up at the sky and sleep.

I see behind my eyelids a boy with dark blond hair, tousled by the wind, smiling a lazy smile. Clouds drift by his head. He was almost as lost in dreams as me.

That image is replaced by a man in green tunic worn over rough chainmail, his blond hair hidden by a tapering cap. He looks over his shoulder, the red sun blazing behind his head. His blue, blue eyes are shadowed and narrowed into a glare. He reaches for the hilt of his sword. Gone is the smile of carefree days. No, those days were taken from him just as surely as they were taken from me. Forced into being a hero. Forced to shoulder a burden no one should ever have to take on alone.

My shoulder stings, and it tugs at me, tries to bring me to the surface of wakefulness. With the added consciousness, my thoughts grow sharper. Link, Link… He hadn't meant to cut me. No, it wasn't meant for me. Poor Link. I heard his blade drop. I hope he doesn't think he killed me.

Poor Link, my mind echoes. Dancing on the goddess's strings. Does he know he's her puppet yet? The first of so many incarnations, so many more to come…

The image of Link flickers, his appearance differentiating, but still retaining some likeness. Some will have darker hair, some lighter. Some more angular in the face, some softer…but all with the same unbreakable spirit of the hero.

Unbreakable… I frown into the darkness. Are you truly unbreakable, Link? Doesn't it hurt, shouldering it all alone? With not a human companion to share your pains? Being used in a plan you know nothing about? A puppet on a goddess's string…

Something tickles in the back of my mind. Goddess. Plan. The goddess's plan. What had Zelda said at the bridge…? It wasn't about me, was it?

I just about grasp it, just about have a hold on some idea when it slips through my fingers. A noise drifts into the quiet. Is that piano music I hear? It sounds in the distance, muffled through the walls. It is fast and sharp, almost angry. It fades away. I strain to listen for it to no avail. When I go to lift my head, I find I cannot move. The effects of pain and potion once again leave me paralyzed. With great effort I crack open my eyes, but that is all. My brain sends out commands, only for them to go unheeded.

Panic builds, my breath hitches. Screams come out little more than high-pitched whimpers. I'm trapped in my own body.

I don't know anyone has heard me until the door slowly creaks open. The snap of fingers startle me. Low burning fire flares bright and hot, and I squint from the sudden intensity. Just as suddenly, cold fingers trail lightly down my back. From that cool touch comes a wave of calm, as if someone has transferred tranquility through contact alone. I catch the tail end of a murmured chant, spoken in a tongue I can't understand. Muscles relax, movement returns, and panic dies as if it had never been at all.

"Wassit?" My tongue feels thick and dry, my words slur. I peer at the pale figure standing over me, recognition slow occurring. "…Ghir—Masser?"

There is no response but a weight settling next to me. The bed gives and my hip slides into Ghirahim's. His fingers resume their trail along my back, making their way onto the ridges of sutures.

"S-stop," I whisper, tensing from pain.

To my surprise, he does. And then he speaks, his tone oddly subdued. "How can you be so utterly stupid? You almost died, little fool."

The quiet, scolding way he speaks stirs shame more than any shout could have. I hide my face in red sheets.

"Tell me, what were you thinking when you did it? Did you think me so weak I couldn't take one strike from that wretched boy? Did you think I wouldn't have moved out of the way had you not intervened?" He leans close to my ear, voice dropping to a rough whisper. "What was it, little bird? What went through your mind?"

I show my face reluctantly, struggle to make my tongue work. "Nothing…" is all I manage to get out, a dying word escaping only on a breath.

Pleasantly cool fingers sweep my forehead, shift lightly through my hair. The motions repeat. I don't know how long he does it. Long enough for the fire in the stone holders lining the walls to dim to their usual glare. I don't know when he stops, or when he leaves. Sleep blackens the time in-between.

But when I briefly wake, I swear I hear my father playing the piano, somewhere very far away.

It doesn't seem like much time passes, but then, how could I tell? Through drugged sleep, I keep waking to darkness, penetrated only by the dim of fire. Shii or Essil periodically come in with water and broth, and to make me sip that disgusting potion. I find the effects are worth it though, because if I don't drink it…

My shoulder hurts. Less so with the numbing potion, but still. It aches and throbs and burns. I can feel it sting, can feel every stitch pull when I move. More than that, I am miserable all the way around. All other parts of me soon join in the aching.

I can no longer lie here, though the plush mattress tries to lull me back to sleep. Daring to lift my head a fraction, I look around the room that isn't mine. Red draperies spill like waterfalls at the stained-glass windows, framing bright blue, yellow, scarlet, and purple geometric designs. How pretty that glass would look if only there were brilliant streams of sunlight to shine through. But in all the time I've been here, I have only seen one instance of true sunlight in this dark world.

I push my face through the silky bedsheets, resurface to view the other side of the room. Mirrors, mirrors, and wardrobes, and a vanity, and carvings of mighty beasts I cannot identify. Columns built into the walls arch up into a ridiculously high ceiling. Gingerly I turn from my stomach to my side, wincing from both a stab of pain from my shoulder and from the stiffness settled in my joints—a stiffness that lets me know I've been lying here far too long. More red silk falls from an expansive canopy, pours into the overly large, circular bed I rest in. I glance from one end to the other. This could easily fit more than five full-grown Skyloftians—with space in between.

The draperies, the sheets, even the pillows (save for a few raven-purple decorative ones pushed up against the headboard) are red. Red, red, red like blood all around. I think I know someone's favorite color. Only gold accents, scattered diamond trimmings, the dark wood of the furniture, and the gray of the stone walls break the red monochrome.

Not my room, I remind myself. This must be…his room. His bed.

Why am I in it?

My legs slide off the side, I sit up with the gusto of a ninety-year-old woman, and with a jolt through my heart I realize I am not in my clothes. Not my clothes, but instead in a gown of loose white silk, with little straps about as thick as my finger over my shoulders.

Where are my pants? My tunic? My underwear.

I sit there, my mouth drawn into a severe line. Okay. I look gross, I feel gross, and now I know someone's seen me in all my gross glory. How nice.

And white. I mean, it's standard sleeping gown color, but I'm sure— No, I know I was a bloody mess earlier.

I look over myself, not seeing red but knowing by the sticky feel that Essil and Shii didn't get it all. And how could they? I wouldn't want them to. Save us all the indignity.

Ugh, I desperately need a bath, a shower, something.

Pulling myself straight sends a spike of pain down my back. Carefully craning my neck to look over my shoulder, I freeze when I catch what little sight of the sutures I can. What appears to be black wire ties down puffy, angrily reddened skin. With the stiff mechanical slowness of a doll, I return my gaze forward.

Okay, best pretend I didn't see that…monstrosity…back there. Were those even real stitches?

The stone floor has a stately rhombus pattern about it, and it is cold against the pads of my feet. My shoulder cries as I stand, and I stutter on my first few steps.

The door is not locked.

I expect a never-ending hallway to be on the other side. I am greeted instead by a short hall leading into a huge, circular room of beige stone. Much like the room I just left, columns protrude from the walls, curving up to a domed ceiling. Tapestries embroidered with the dark emblem of an upside-down Triforce decorate what little free space there is up on the high walls. Lower, walls that do not house mysterious doors and other branching hallways instead hold built-in shelves lined to the brim with withered-looking books and scrolls. More scrolls and books litter the floor, strewn across the flat and wide steps that lead down into the center floor's subtle indention.

It is there I see the demon lord, sitting on one of three cream-colored lounges. He is bent over a book open in his lap, his chin propped up in his left palm, while his right splays on a page, moving along the words. Fire crackles in a wide hearth, casting flickering shadows over his white and red visage.

"…Should you really be up?" His sudden voice startles me. He doesn't look up from the book.

"Uh…" I squirm, feeling self-conscious in the shimmery gown. "I—I need to use the…bathroom?"

Either he doesn't catch the uncertainness in my tone or he doesn't care. He still doesn't look up from the book. He lazily lifts a hand and points to a door.

I am quick to retreat to it, if only to get out of his presence.

The door clicks shut, and my back leans against it—only for me to flinch and lean off my left side. It doesn't stop me from wondering what in the world is up with Ghirahim. I've never seen him so…down. Irritated, yes. Angry, heck yes. But never have I seen him so…dejected. What the heck caused…

Oh, wait. The Gate of Time exploded. With his precious spirit maiden on the other side.

The soft echo of trickling water brings the contents of the room to the forefront of my mind. With gawking, hungry eyes I stare at the bathtub. It is bigger than the one in Skyloft, taking up a third of the room. It is all white marble stone lined with veins of greenish gray. Nearly everything in the room is of the same stone, except the dark wood cabinets, but even those are polished to a shiny veneer. Water flows over a speckled black and gray granite slab into the giant tub, spanning proudly over raised steps.

I approach the water, holding out a trembling arm. I don't realize how cold I am, or how chilly the air of this castle is, until the water's wafting steam hits my palm. Unable to resist, I stick my hand in, and am immediately tantalized by the warmth seeping into my skin. I…I haven't had a proper bath in weeks. Maybe months. If I could just slip in for a few minutes…

I snatch back my hand. Yeah, I think sarcastically. Yeah, good thinking, Kya. Use the pissy demon lord's bath without permission. Because he totally wouldn't drag your naked butt out by your hair, kicking and screaming. Pink creeps up to my face and ears just thinking about the humiliation such a scene would cause. Without intending, my nose crinkles in preparation for the baring of teeth, rage pricking in my pounding chest. Dammit. One bath. I just want One. Lousy. Freaking. Bath. Is that so wrong? Why should I be punished for something like that? If anything, I should be punished for smelling bad! He should want me to be clean. That stupid, arrogant, demonic prick! I took a sword for him!

Before I can put a rein on my temper, I've stomped out into the central room. "I smell like a dead rat!"

Ghirahim looks up from his book, brows raised, frown pulling at his mouth. "Did you not just come from the bathing room?"

I falter. I don't know what response I was expecting, but it wasn't that. Confusion smothers anger. "Uh…"

"Are you incapable of washing yourself?"

I stagger back. "No! I mean, yes! I mean, I'm…allowed?"

His attention returns to the pages. "Go take a bath, little bird. I can smell you from here."

Hesitance does not leave my stride, and I stumble back into the bathroom, unbelieving of Ghirahim's sudden…benevolence.

A spike of need sends me to the toilet, which is just as fancy as the rest of this room. I actually feel awkward using it. I grit my teeth. Tch. Not even in the same room and he's making me feel weird.

But all that is forgotten when I slide into the embrace of warm water, gown left in a crumpled heap at the steps. Blessed heat envelops me, soaks down into my very bones, soothes stiff joints and tense muscles. At first I am so overwhelmed by the wonderfulness I do not move. But then, I attack my skin and hair with zest…well, with as much zest as my wound will allow. Curling my left arm and holding it still so as not to aggravate my stitched shoulder, I grab at glass bottles of gels and ivory containers of soap, all found in neatly carved crevices around the perimeter of the tub. They have no labels, or any indications of their fillings, and I identify what I can on scent alone. In the midst of indecision, I shrug, and end up using a bit of each. They smell good, so in the end what does it matter?

Although, there are more than a few that smell oddly of silver polish.

Skin scrubbed and hair squeaked clean the best I can, I wade to a corner of the bath and curl up, my right shoulder pressed into a crook, my forehead planting on the side of the tub, nose just over the water's surface. And then I just sit there, basking in a comfort I have been denied for weeks. Fully clean. Finally cleared of sweat and grim. The soapy buckets can't compare—though that doesn't negate my gratitude to Shii. She did what she could, did what she didn't have to do.

I don't know how long I stay wrapped in my liquid cocoon.

Apparently too long.

The door slams open, and I jerk upright, the sudden movement eliciting a stab of pain throughout my back. And then there is the demon in the doorway, a look of panic—wait, what? No, that can't be right. I blink and it is gone, and I wonder if it was ever there. All too familiar rage settles in its place now. Ghirahim clenches his teeth and brings up a fist, throwing it down as if casting down an imaginary object. "Your aura deflated to nothing. Nothing! Do you know how long you've been in here? You're ruining your skin! And your wound!"

He walks purposely towards me.

My eyes widen. "No, no, no!" I hunker closer to the edge of the tub, hiding my bare body behind the stone. "Whoa, just—just back off! Don't look at me!" My voice climbs to a breathless shriek.

Ghirahim stops, giving me a look torn between irritation and incredulity. "…Who do you think dressed you? Who do you think sewed your shoulder back together? Who do you think? I've seen all of you, Kya. There's nothing for you to hide from me."

My mouth drops with every word out of his. "You—you?"

He crosses his arms, and speaks slowly. "Undressed you. Sewed you. Dressed you. Yes."

"But Essil, and Shii…"

"Helped."

My jaw clamps back together, my mind spins. I shake my head, trying to clear the fog still present from the numbing potion. A memory, like a spark blowing at the back of my brain, shoves forth the recollection of blood and pain and ripping cloth. "I…I'm never seeing my tunic again, am I?"

Ghirahim provides a flat look. "You can see its ashes in the hearth. Now"—he yanks open a cabinet under the sink, pulls out a thick, cream-colored towel—"Get out."

And then he just stands there, towel in hand.

I hold out my hand with expectance.

He stares back at me wholly unimpressed, as if I'm the biggest child in the world.

"Oh, come on!" I snap in half accusation, half plea. "Just let me hide my shame!"

He glares, tossing the towel to me. "The only thing you have to be ashamed of is that hideous wound on your back." And then he turns around in a flourish, leaving me to gawk in stunned silence. He turns his head slightly. "Are you out yet?!"

Knowing his lack of care for personal boundaries, I unfold the towel and hold it out like a screen before even daring to stand. Once standing, I wrap it securely around me. Trying to be fast, wobbly legs take me out of warm water, my prickling skin bemoaning the loss, and I stumble that first step. My knee gives out and hits stone, I lurch forward.

Ghirahim whirls around and is there before I can so much as blink, catching me before I can catch myself. He hisses through his teeth as if he's the one who just slammed his kneecap on the side of the tub. "Little…!"

I sag in his hold. "Just say it…"

"Fool!"

I sigh.

He readjusts his grip, helps me to stand. Before I can process it, he's at my back, pulling at the towel. I clutch the thick fabric at my chest, preventing it from falling too far. His fingers ghost over the sutures—or maybe I should call them train tracks—lining me from my shoulder blade to the curve of my waist. I hear his breath hitch. "You've ruined it!"

"What?" My face twists. "No, I didn't. It's not—"

"You've softened it! Your skin's swelling!" His voice bounces off the marble walls, and his fingers, with surprising gentleness, curl around the torn, puckered flesh.

"Ack!" I flinch away, spinning so my front faces him.

His glower burns with a dark fire. "I thought I told you to mind your shoulder!"

I cannot blink; my shock freezes me. The anger he's showing is not one I'm used to dealing with. Not from him. This anger…this anger is one I usually got from Zelda, scolding me for not doing my best, or for not taking care of myself. "Um, I—um, no, you didn't. You just asked if—"

"Well, it was implied!"

"—I was capable of washing myself."

"To which you've proven you can't, little fool!"

My lips press into a tight but unsure line, indignation sparking but not catching fire. "Yeah, well," I mutter next in English, "sue me."

He pauses, head tilting in confusion and eyes narrowing. "What does that mean?" he asks, curiosity dampening his ire, if only slightly.

"Uh," I struggle, "that…that actually doesn't have a Hylian equivalent." With the flare of anger relighting in his dark eyes, I scramble to think of a way to translate the Knowing Realm's court of law, but my mind is not fast enough, and I blurt out, "Uh, I guess the closest meaning would be 'bite me.'"

I immediately do an inward cringe. Yeah. That's good. Take a sarcastic, indifferent comment and turn it to one more insulting. That's sure to stub the flow of his wrath.

But, to my surprise, he does not react with rage, but with a mingled inquisitiveness. "Why would I want to bite you?" he asks, as if he hasn't before.

"…Because I'm clean now and don't taste as bad?" I answer slowly, unsurely. Disturbance over the thoughtless response blooms a little too late. Would have helped it if occurred before the words left my mouth. Thanks brain. No more potion for you.

The quiet huff of laughter is not what I expect, and inexplicitly soothes my frazzled nerves. Without me knowing my shoulders relax, and the sting in the left one lessens.

"Go back to the room, little bird." He gestures towards the door. "I'll get Shii to see to your bandages."

I am apprehensive to return to a room that is in all technicalities his, but I do so anyway as not to spoil the sudden gentleness I'm in disbelief at seeing. I blame my slow steps on my wound, and he does not bark at me to hurry. In fact, scarcely heard is the soft hum of approval directed at my carefulness. 'Scarcely heard,' and so I convince myself I didn't hear it.

I stand in the red room awkwardly in nothing but a towel, mind still processing the turn of events when Shii raps lightly and enters with white strips of cloth draped on her arm and a bottle of green numbing potion tucked in the other. She says nothing, only motions for me to lower the towel, which I do but keep the front gripped tightly for modesty, and begins swabbing the swollen aching slash with the potion before wrapping it with steady, cautious movements.

When it is halfway wrapped, she speaks. "Stanger things have not happened here, human, since you came to us."

I turn my ear towards her. "What?"

She sighs, and then grumbles, "My lord is not a lenient being. Not usually." She sees my confusion in one of the many golden framed mirrors and points to a bare spot on the wall. "You see that wall, human? A mirror was once there. Was. In the chaos following your wound, Essil rushed in here with the healing supplies my lord commanded of her, and in her haste she knocked it over and it smashed to smithereens. My lord likes his mirrors…" I go to scoff and roll my eyes at this, but then Shii continues with: "…and he has killed over less severe infractions."

The little smile that was forming over the silliness of Ghirahim's vanity quickly wipes away, and I go stiff with fear. "Essil…?!" I ask, forgetting when I had last seen her.

"Is all right," Shii answers before I can freak out fully. She smooths a gentle palm over the wrappings, mindful of her claws. "No harm was done to her. He… My lord was too busy tending to you. And…and I admit I was fearful too; my lord has stabbed a Bokoblin clean through over a broken vase. I expected worse for the mirror, but…" Shii's reflection shows the deep furrows in her brow, casts her confusion for me to see. "He was completely dismissive of it. He was more irritated Essil hadn't handed him the supplies yet. 'Never mind that!' he said. 'Give me the damn gauze! Hurry, hurry, you wretched fool, before she bleeds out!'"

I blink rapidly at Shii's hushed descriptions, trying to process them. He had cursed? I almost don't believe it, but then the echo of a memory proves it to be true. I heard him say it.

Shii huffs irritably, nodding in acquiesce. "I don't understand it either, human. …But that does not make me any less grateful."

"Sorry," I mumble.

"For what?"

"Because, uh… If…if I hadn't gotten hurt, it wouldn't have happened. It's my fault the mirror was broken."

Shii scoffs deep in her throat. "Yet it is because of you Essil was spared."

"But I shouldn't have been injured in the first place. I shouldn't have jumped in front of that blade—it wouldn't have hurt him like it hurt me. But I just—" I grimace as I try to shrug, and Shii puts a hand on my shoulder to still it, glaring at me for the movement. "—I don't know. I just reacted."

"And he knows it."

I shoot her a questioning look through the reflections.

Shii's yellow eyes dart from me to the work of the bandages. Her voice is distant as she says, "No one has ever taken a blow for my lord. From him. Never for him."

"Because he's a sword; he can't be hurt. They don't need to."

"Yes, true. But that is not anyone else's reasoning. He is the strongest; it is why they follow him. If he can be felled, they would move onto someone stronger. They wait, they see. My lord has never been defeated and they obey because he is strongest. It is the reasoning of Bokoblin and Moblin and Lizalfos and many others.

"But you," she continues, "You, you stupid human, did not think of such things. You did not think at all; you reacted. My lord, or any of us for that matter, has never known such…" Shii pauses, grasping for a word. "…Loyalty."

I gawk at her reflection. "Loyal—! No I just didn't want him to die, I mean—! I'm not his underling!"

"Of course not. An underling would not be recuperating in his bed."

I let out an indignant squawk. "But—"

"The point is: it happened, human. You happened." A ghost of a smirk pulls at her snout. "And now we know if Essil ever breaks a vase, all she need do is hide behind you."

A hard smile jerks at the corner of my mouth. "Then he'll stab me, and we'll be in this mess all over again."

Shii turns solemn, quietly says, "Not so. My lord is…" She huffs. "For all your knowledge you do not know the things I know. You cannot fathom how he is now…because you do not know how he was."

"I didn't change anything," I protest, suddenly uneasy.

Shii's somber yellow eyes gleam in the mirror as she pats my finished wrappings. "Whatever it is that helps you sleep at night, human. Tell it to yourself."

A/N: Conscientious of your feedback, I attempted to make this chapter a little more concise. Thank you all again!