A/N: Well, I got this one out a little faster. Thank you autumn-lee-chan, Moon ninja Luna, Mokki Takashi, Meta-Akira, Guest (Aw, thank you. I'm happy you enjoy it so much.), Bluebadger (I don't like rushed plots either. I'll work to keep my pacing steady. Thank you for the encouragement!), ForEVER n EVERs (Thank you, I will!), Luna Latanya, Pineapple (I think so. Things are definitely going somewhere. We'll see.), Alter Ego Bob (I'm glad; that's what I try to do.), and MoonlightDovakiin (Thank you! I'll keep at it.) for your reviews last chapter!

Chapter 21

The days fall into each other, one after the other.

We've scoured every book in his library. Just when we're flipping through the last few, however, he snaps his fingers and in pops a dozen more. They tumble down in a heap on the tea table which, luckily, didn't have any teacups to be knocked over.

"Where'd these come from?" I ask, aghast at the new book pile sprawled before us.

He rummages through them and picks out the ones most likely to yield results. "The library of course, you silly bird. Where do you think?"

"This…this isn't the library we're in?"

He regards me coolly. "How cute. No, darling, this is simply my private study. Perhaps I'll show you the real library sometime."

He never gets around to it, though. The search must go on. A search I'm not wholly invested in—something I can't let him know. So I act the part and dutifully, if slowly, wade through as many pages as I can.

But I am human and there always comes the time when I must break away. I return to my room to sleep at night. I eat the food Essil brings me in my room too, because I refuse to eat in front of Ghirahim for fear he'd find something to chastise me about. I use the bath every chance I get. Or I did, until Ghirahim started scolding me about my shoulder again and made me revert to sponge baths. The worst part: He tried to help me.

"No, nonono!" I backed up into the counter, clutching at the towel I had around myself, arching away from the wet cloth in his hand. "I can do it myself. S-seriously, I'm fine."

His glare was unimpressed. "Then I'll have Shii do it. I won't have you pulling your shoulder reaching."

"No, no," I insisted. "I won't pull anything. I can—"

"She'll be in shortly—and she better not find you submerged in that water!"

I had to wash myself down with Shii standing awkwardly in the corner.

"Really?" I said to her.

She let out a heavy sigh. "As my lord commands. He doesn't trust you with the water anymore, and that's your own fault, human, for staying in there for a whole hour."

I didn't get it. What was so concerning about water? I kept my shoulder out of it for the most part when I bathed, but he wasn't having any of my explanations. I didn't want to push it, since his mood has been all over the place, and I don't think he's slept since that one meager nap…

"Maybe it's time to turn in," I suggested once or twice, only to have him wave me off and say he'd see me in the morning—and to be sure not to sleep on my bad shoulder, of course. "What about you?" I had the audacity to ask once.

He glared and went straight back to combing books.

Workaholic, I thought bitterly, reminded of my parents. At least he's around, came another thought. I shut the door on it and crawled into bed, but I couldn't forget the notion. I didn't sleep well that night any better than I had in the rest of them. Something just didn't sit well with me. I knew what it was, but didn't know how to confront it.

I still don't know how to confront it, sitting here next to him, helping him look for a way to free a master I don't want freed.

I lose focus on my current book, letters fuzzing out on the parchment that's become my own personal Rosetta Stone. I wonder what he'd do to me if he knew…and suddenly I can't answer that as clearly as I could have before. He'd tear me to shreds for sure, but then there's a part of me that doubts. I must be careful of that side, must be careful not to let my guard down.

Which is why I let myself cling to the surreal air surrounding this whole arrangement. The nice room, the good food, the…carefulness...Ghirahim is regarding me with. The whole thing is like a frighteningly lucid dream. The constant ache running down my back from my wound is all that's giving testament to reality. The crescent marks he left on my face, reminiscent of the blemishes my former life's face had dealt with, had already healed save for the one little scab prick where he'd broken skin.

I stare at the demon lord from the corner of my eye. Just this morning, when I had come out from my room, he was snapping at me about my wound. Be careful how you walk, be careful how you move, be careful—

"Geez, man!" I had snapped in exasperation. "I'm fine, I'm not gonna fall apart just 'cause I miss a step!"

He simmered me with a glare, his fingers drumming irritably on a hardcover. He returned to his tome with a silent huff, a muscle twitching in his clenched jaw. "Don't come crying to me," he said darkly.

He hadn't finished saying it before I froze on the steps, one foot down and one above, cringing as pain ripped through my shoulder and up my neck. I had craned my head and stretched it too far.

He caught sight of my scrunched face, slamming the tome shut and standing. "What did I tell you!"

"I-I'm…fi…ne." I said it through my teeth.

"If you are fine, come here to me." He reached out a hand.

He watched me walk like a flared cobra, with unblinking, piercing gaze. His hand closed around mine when I reached him. He was quiet, and then he murmured, "You are not fine. It's not healing, is it? It was that damnable brat's sword." He snapped the fingers of his free hand and in popped Shii in an array of gold and yellow diamonds. "I want that red potion, Shii, or something close to it, soon, or I'm going to start chopping off fingers for every day you make me wait. Is that understood?"

I sputtered objections.

Shii took his words with a calm bow and left.

He's still dangerous, I'm reminded. No matter how concerned and…and protective…he's been acting.

Before that he had come into the room he'd given me in the earliest hours of the morning to check on me. He physically turned me over so I wasn't on my bad side, huskily whispering if he caught me on that side again he'd tie me to the bedposts and make me sleep that way.

My heart stutters.

He's been acting like an angry mother hen, and it's scaring me. I don't know what to expect now more than ever. Is he going to tuck me in and spoon feed me next? Right after he cuts off body parts from his Lizalfos servants for failing to meet his expectations? I shudder at the dissimilarities. Soft and sharp. Blade and silk. Which is he? He can't be both.

The ewe and the she-wolf share a glance, but say nothing.

They scrape enough ingredients together for a red potion. It's thick and pasty and Essil had to mix it with her special herbs to fill it out, but, oh well. It's something, and I breathe a sigh of relief for her and Shii's intact fingers. She slathers it on for me and almost immediately the pain reduces from a deep ache to a gentle stinging.

"It's working," I whisper, like anything louder would break the miracle of it.

Essil smiles, relief evident in her amber stare.

Despite Essil's careful wrappings and her reports and my own insistence of well-being, Ghirahim checks on the wound every night before I go to bed. "Come here," he says, and I do because I must. Lack of sleep has caused an increase in violent outbursts. To disobey is out of the question.

I sit with my back to him and bear his ministrations; his hand pushing my hair away, his cold fingers stroking like winter-kissed feathers along the sutures.

After three nights: "Finally," he sighs, either in relief or with impatience satiated at last. I tell myself it's the latter because he cannot possibly care. Not truly. I am merely the book he cannot replace; one he would not dare throw into the fire until he was absolutely sure I had no more use. Though that wouldn't stop him from tearing out a page or two if I displeased him.

It's those thoughts that keep me still, even as his breath tickles the hairs on my nape or as his hands close around my arms, thumbs caressing.

His nose nudges just behind my ear. He sighs. "You smell sweet," he murmurs. "I never noticed before…"

"The wonders of bathing," I retort dryly.

His thumbs still and his grip tightens.

I resist the urge to tense, fight to draw in breath normally. I must appear calm.

"…You must think me horrid for leaving you up there so long with nothing," he says, and I know he's talking about the tower.

"I didn't say that. I've never said that."

"Oh, but you imply it." His fingers coil further, tightening to the point of pain. The sweet tone he continues with belies his nettling wrath. "Haven't I given you everything you need? Haven't I kept you safe and warm and dry?"

"Yes, Master." I keep my tone flat. "Thank you."

His thumbs resume their stroking, swiftly and irritably. Then, with a deflating sigh, he wilts around me, pressing his face into my neck. His mouth opens against my skin, warm tongue touching languidly.

I can't help it. I shiver. "W-what are you doing?" I whisper, afraid.

"Hmm." He breathes in. His smile feels jagged. "Kissing my favorite servant goodnight. Go on."

He lets me go, pushes me to stand.

I walk stiffly, fighting against every fiber of my being that wants to run. Fighting harder still against the part of me that wants to run back into his choking embrace. I must be insane.

"Darling…"

I stop just before my door, peer cautiously over my shoulder.

He smiles innocently, lashes lowered over his dark eyes. "Sweet dreams."

I click the door shut behind me. Shadows skitter to the corners of the room, driven there by yellow candles that have suddenly come to light. The little flames tremble in their shelters carved from the stone walls.

I stand shaking.

With all my foreknowledge I still can't figure him out.

The air is cold and smells of steel.

Or perhaps it is blood I smell.

I peel the wrappings and the gauze away. Picking up the silver backed hand mirror, I use it to gaze at the full-length mirror behind me. My wound grins at me with red lips and black teeth.

I quickly cover it back up.

The room is quiet before me, the windows dark with night. The bed lies neat with not a wrinkle in its coverlet, as if I had never lain in it before, offering no condolences but the tempting retreat of sleep. I oblige and burrow under the sheets. It doesn't stop the trembling, from me or from the light swaying against the walls.

In my journey to sleep, I find the subtle embroidery on the coverlet is of tiny feathers. I trace them with my finger.

The sun pushes its rays through the veil of clouds without my eyes having closed once. The candles taper out, leaving the milky glow of yet another hazy morning.

He's no better off than when I left him.

I didn't think his ashen skin could get paler. The warming firelight of the hearth does little to disguise the opaque sheen running down his arms and peeking through the diamond holes lining his gloves. His face is shadowed, his eyes glazed, but he keeps reading, keeps looking for a way.

I stand at the top of the steps leading down into the center room's indent, something twisting in my chest. My fists ball into my night gown and I think of what I'll have to do to make this stop.

I can't tell him, not yet.

There must be something else.

"Master…fight me."

He glances up like he didn't hear. "Hm?"

"I'm bored. Fight me."

His eyes sharpen, his brow furrows.

I descend the steps. "Throw knives at me. You love doing that."

The ewe gawks in terrified silence. Are you insane, are you insane? The she-wolf teeters anxiously. Can I really, can I really?

Ghirahim glares fully. "I knew you were dull-witted but I never thought you were outright stupid. That wound is still healing, Kya."

When I push the issue, he hits me with a glower that slices me to the bone. I can almost feel it—the blade cutting in. So I draw back and let it drop. But not for good. I haven't seen him truly smile in… Weeks? Days? Well, whichever, it seems like a long time. When was it last?

…Oh yes, when he was about to run Impa through with his sword. He was grinning like a psycho.

Nowadays the air about him is always charged with irritable static and dark melancholy. It shouldn't bother me. I shouldn't want to see him smile—especially for what makes him smile, but…

There is a part of me that does. There is a part of me restless and pawing that hates this state he's in.

I'm surprised that it's the ewe.

The wolf has her hackles raised, but also wants to play; the ewe sees it as a job that must be done. He's angry, she baes. And he's dangerous when he's angry. He is hurt, and it hurts when he is sad.

So let's cheer him, growls the she-wolf. But, dammit, don't get too close.

Their warnings echo clear, one of must-do compassion and one of playfully lined pragmatism.

"Master…"

He glances up tiredly…and warily. "What." It wasn't a question, and I can tell he'd rather I didn't speak. There is a warning glinting in his eyes.

I twist my lips and weigh my options. What's the fastest way to get him to kick my ass? "…Your make-up's smudged."

He snaps his fingers and in appears a round mirror fitting neatly in his palm. He observes himself sternly, turning his face left and right. "It is not. I don't know what it is you're trying to pull, but be careful darling." His black eyes burn into me. "I wouldn't want to have to do anything…drastic."

"Do it," I whisper in English.

"What was that?" He responds in kind.

The venom in his tone is enough to make me falter. "N-nothing, Master. I just…wanted you to play with me, like you did in the tower."

The tome he holds groans under the ferocity of his grasp. He pointedly says nothing, and returns to his search.

You're poking a sleeping cobra, my good sense tells me.

Really, it was only a matter of time before I got bitten.

But what should have frightened me more was that I wanted to be bit.

I don't know what pushed him over the edge.

It wasn't while I was ramming him for a fight, which was why it blindsided me. It's hard to imagine it was because I picked up too many books and cried out from the pain of my strained wound.

He shot up from his seat and screamed at me. "What in the damned hells do you think you're doing? Drop them, you fool!"

I did so in an instant, the tomes hitting the floor with clapping thunks! I gawked while he seethed. That was the most I'd ever heard him curse.

If he isn't sitting there, depressingly shifting through ancient tomes, he's watching me.

I wince, he snaps. I yelp, he shouts.

And now he's glaring at me while I tip-toe about the towers of books like a lost creature looking for shelter among the trees.

"Master…" I start uncertainly, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

There's something unhinged about the way he's staring at me. "Don't you ever think before you act?" he hisses. "It's because of you we're in this mess."

His fingers curl and uncurl, and the darkness on the walls closes in and out. His aura or his magic is causing it. It's buzzing in the air around us, angry black wasps swarming before a storm, and even someone as unattuned as I can feel it.

I blink and he's gone.

I blink again and he's in front of me, his pale face eclipsing my view of anything else. His breath is hot and cold all at the same time, smelling of steel and burning coals and icy bullets. And a coppery hint of…something far more sinister. "You should have known it was coming. If you weren't fooling around it wouldn't have happened!"

I keep the tremors inside me, standing still and tall and blank. I knew he might blame me—was actually surprised he hadn't done so sooner.

"Your hesitation and your wretched bumbling led to this. If you hadn't tried interfering with the Sheikah dog, if you had done as I said and taken care of the spirit maiden, she wouldn't have gotten away and you—you wouldn't have…!" He glances over my shoulder, gaze clouding. "It won't happen again…" he murmurs, and the flailing darkness settles back into the shadows.

He sends me to have my bandages changed. And that night, like every night, he checks the wound.

I don't feel the need to rile him, or to provoke him anymore. Something tells me I've done enough, and the ewe shivers in regret. The she-wolf, on the other hand, grumbles in dissatisfaction.

But she doesn't grumble long.

My wound finally starts mending, the torn flesh which refused to heal on its own coming together.

And that's when he takes me from the rooms I've grown so accustomed to.

He leads me down halls of beige stone and colored glass to corridors of black stone and twisted metal. His pace is brisk. He glances only a few times to make sure I've kept up. We take a final turn and come to a door of burnt iron. The snap of his fingers loosens the locks and slides them out of place. It opens with a shriek. We enter a domed room, the walls lined to the teeth with swords and daggers and other weapons of all shapes and sizes. The floor is wide and bare. Stone tiles of faded gray and green with a burst of yellow in the center are all that lends the flat space dimension.

The swords and daggers on the walls quiver when Ghirahim steps into the center, magnetically pulled by an energy I can't see.

He swirls to face me, holding out his arms in gesture to all that surrounds him. "Pick one."

I hesitate, eyes darting to all the blades. "What…exactly's going on?"

"You wanted to play, did you not? Well, now we are to play. Pick one." His smile is strained, impatience brimming in his cold stare.

I don't dawdle. I go for the familiar—a jagged dagger as long as my forearm, the steel of it dark and cool, the hilt a night green. I return to the center of the room to stand before Ghirahim.

He eyes the dagger with cool indifference. I think he'd rather I chose a sword. "Just one? Very well, I suppose that's for the best considering your condition. We'll focus on your right arm only." He holds out his hand, his black sabre materializing in his grip in a spurt of black fractals. "But you've put yourself at a disadvantage lengthwise."

We stand staring at each other.

A glint, like the turning of a blade, sparks in his eye. "You want me to make the first move? And you were so eager. Very well."

He disappears in an array of gold diamonds, magic ringing clear as glass beads on metal.

I spin to intercept him from behind me. I've played this game. I know what to do.

My heart stops cold when his magic rings once more…from my back.

"We've done this before, darling—don't count on your foe to repeat mistakes!"

I roll to the side, the black blade whizzing by my ear. My heart kicks into gear, my mind froths into overdrive. He knew. He knew I'd spin to look behind me because that's—that's what I've always done. Because that's where he'd always reappear.

And he'd caught that. He learned.

Not a game anymore. Not a game.

As we fight he makes that clear again and again. Ghirahim takes everything I learned from the game and twists it on its head. I scramble to dodge, I jerk up a quivering blade to block his. My swipes are short and quick, but never quick enough.

"Did they teach you anything up in those clouds? Or did you all fly around merrily like mindless little insects?"

I grind my teeth. "I wouldn't suck so bad if—if I could use both arms."

He circles me, pacing as a hungry wolf would. "It makes little difference with your skillset as it is. Come at me again."

I don't know how long we go on. He makes me sweat, makes me huff. The coral-colored gown I wear is shorter than the rest, brushing at my knees, its straps thicker, and now I understand why he made me change before we left the study. It tapers in at the waist and clings at the shoulders gently, keeping on me no matter how I move, while the skirt of it flares and allows easy movement.

"Get back up."

I do as told, stumbling to my feet from my knees.

This isn't normal, I think while he struts backwards, getting ready to summon his daggers. This isn't playing like we did in the tower.

No. This is…teaching. He's teaching me.

His daggers spring into existence.

"You won't block any of them, understood? You will show me how you dodge and we'll go from there."

Well, he doesn't give me much of a choice. This isn't what I had in mind, but…I'll take it. If it stalls him from searching for his master's freedom. If it keeps that despondent air off him…if only for a little while.

I weave and jump and roll, my bare feet pushing off rough, cold stone, while coral fabric whispers about my legs. The daggers clink into the stone where they land. He's sending them at a slower pace; I realize it and bristle at the implications. I must look so weak to him. He must think I'm stupid, and frail, and—and worthless. Red-hot anger flashes behind my eyes. With all my might I chuck my dagger at him.

It flies past his head, too far to the left, bouncing off the far wall behind him.

He stares at me contemptuously. "You've made yourself weaponless." He tsks, eyes sliding to regard the fallen dagger. "And that throw must have been the most pathetic I've ever witnessed."

I sigh and wilt. Because he's right. The only reason I've ever kept up with him was due to my foreknowledge, and even I should have known that would have run out eventually.

He lifts his hand above his head and with a click of his fingers targets appear in the room. Another click and his daggers appear at my sides.

"Very well, then. We'll work on your aim."

I eye the things distrustfully. These blades have only ever cut me, now I must use them? The last time I tried didn't end well. Hesitantly, I grasp a floating dagger from the air. Just as hesitantly, I aim and fling. The blades fly harmlessly past, and over, and under the targets. My heart thuds in shame, but no matter how I try I can't get it. Silently I curse Eagus for never teaching anything like this in the Academy.

Ghirahim's face falls from incredulity to exasperation faster than a stone. "We're going to be here a while…" A velvet lined chair appears in an eruption of magic, and he sits himself in it, reclining with a hand held to his forehead.

Out of all the daggers I throw, only one hits the target—the very edge. They vanish in spritz, reappear at my sides just as they were, and I begin all over again. With a rapidly tiring right arm, I don't do any better.

Ghirahim's patience dries up. "Enough." He stands and the chair sinks into the floor in a puddle of dissolving black. A snap of his fingers and a sword flies from the wall and into his hand. He tosses it to me. "Catch."

I startle, lurching out my arm, my fingers closing around a faded hilt of blue and gray. It is a straight sword, long and thin.

He is beside me suddenly, the coolness of his skin brushing against the heat flushing mine. He adjusts my grip. "Do not be lackadaisical in your hold. Your grip will be firm." He closes his hand over mine, giving impression to his instructions. "Too loose and you lose your blade—a death sentence in your case. Too hard and you will tire your arm and inhibit the fluidity of your movements."

I listen and mimic his hold, all while trying to tunnel my thoughts into this. Pay attention, my good sense whispers. But it is difficult. Something doesn't feel right. I eye him warily. Why teach me? What are you getting out of this?

He steps back, holding up his own blade, the red cape dispersing from around his shoulders. "Come, darling. Try to hit me."

I waver.

Ghirahim arches a brow.

I read the silent command behind the action. I lunge forward, jabbing.

He sidesteps me easily.

After the first move, it becomes easier. I continue on, going as if we were still in the tower and he has me cornered, has given me no choice. The she-wolf comes alive.

But then there is the ewe, shivering behind the wolf's happy fangs. She notices the glint in Ghirahim's eye. She knows this isn't a simple game to him, a way to pass the time, as it had been in the tower. No, he's watching my every movement, my every pull, my every push, my every step and bound.

His eyes grow darker. "You should have hit me by now. Why are you hesitating?"

"I'm not!" I snap breathlessly. "I'm still wounded, that might have something to do with it."

"No." He frowns. "It isn't that. Hit me!" He stills, spreading his arms out in welcome.

I skid to a stop, expression freezing over. "Wh…what?"

"Strike me. Run me through with your sword."

I look at him like he's crazy. "I…can't do that."

"You can. I command it."

With every second I let pass without striking him, his scowl grows deeper, his glare burning colder.

There's something bubbling up beneath the surface of him.

His chest begins heaving with emotion. The large diamond cut-out in the center of his chest bares him, imploring me to sink my sword into it, but I…

Ghirahim drops his arms. His hands shake. "Do you have any idea how close you came to dying?" His words are spoken on a whispered breath. "Do you have a clue, or are you doddering about in ignorant bliss? You cannot stand there and let an enemy slice you to pieces. Hesitate to kill them and they'll surely kill you. Is that what you want?"

I say nothing. I only stare, comprehension slowly peaking.

He snarls. "When I tell you to hit me, you hit me!"

I don't move.

Darkness pulls in from the walls, falling like mist from the domed ceiling. It washes around him, his ghostly white figure stark against it. "Very well." His glare burns me. "We shall do this the hard way."

The chime of his teleportation shatters the silence, and then he's next to me, pulling me close. The room vanishes and we fall into blackness. My body feels the twist and yank of the traversing magic, and the steadily growing ache in my shoulder, dulled from potion after potion, comes growling to life. My breath leaves me.

We resurface, the dim light prompting me to refill my lungs with air. Then I stand, silent, the beat of my heart running up into my head.

The room surrounding me is of solid black stone, smooth and continuous, without tile or scratch. It is a long room, with a ceiling that cannot be seen. The walls are segmented with jutting sections spaced evenly, coming out like teeth. Flames erupt, roaring sight into places that were pitch black.

We are in the center of the castle, in the deepest part.

I know it because at the very end of the room is a dais carpeted with crimson. A black throne sits on it.

"Why are we—? What are you planning?" My voice escalates with my alarm.

Ghirahim smiles. A dark, mad grin, the likes of which I haven't seen in days.

I take a step back from him. Why did you want him to smile again?

From the blackest corners of the room, monsters creep forward. They are of all kinds, some with scales and some with bare skin and others covered in fur. There are claws and fangs and horns abound. Some of the monsters I know, and others I cannot identify.

My hand goes tight around the sword still in my grasp, my eyes jumping to all the beady eyes and fangs.

Ghirahim snaps his fingers, the sound echoing in this expansive space like a cracked whip.

A specific monster appears before us.

Ghirahim comes up behind me; I feel his hot breath pass over the shell of my ear, imparted by cold white lips. "Do you see that blue Bokoblin?" His fingers curl over my shoulders. He leans into my neck and smiles. "You're going to kill him."

A/N: Shout out to Alter Ego Bob for giving me a suggestion back before... Was it before chapter 16? ^_^' Anyway, I thought it was a good idea so I said I'd put it in the outlines when it'd make sense in the story. And now here it is! Thanks again Alter Ego Bob!