A/N: The flu and the stomach flu are not fun things to have. Especially not one right after the other.

Thank you Voidlash, Alter Ego Bob, Moon ninja Luna, Mokki Takashi, Branded Lunacy, Guest (And that's okay. I wrote her to be unlikable—maybe too unlikable, I admit—and too weak to overcome her grief. Reasons: realism and character development potential.), MayBeADragon12, FruityDragon, Pineapple (It's enough to know you like it. It means I'm still doing something right.), Kyoki no Megami (I'm glad you like it. Yes, it still gets updates...sometimes. ^_^' I welcome fanart. I'm actually still in awe anyone would want to draw for this story. O.O), ForEVER n EVERs (He is boss.), MoonlightDovakiin (Thank you. I hope you like this one too.), and Bluebadger (I understand completely. O_O Woo, do I.) for your feedback last chapter.

Grab a cookie. Snuggle down. We're going on a roller-coaster ride.

Chapter 22

I knew the curtain would have to rise eventually, knew the gentle touches and soft words would give way to something perhaps more horrifying than before. I knew and, secretly, maybe secret even to myself, I waited. In that time my nerves stretched thin and long, painful and raw. So, standing here now, being told that I must kill something—someone, comes with its own demented sense of relief.

"We'll fix that soft spot in your heart, darling."

I stare at the demon lord, aghast and barely believing. He stands not a foot from me, a figure of elegant white, casually straightening his gloves, as if he had told me to do something as mundane as taking out the garbage rather than what he has really asked of me. His black eyes meet mine expectantly.

My mouth works soundlessly.

"Well?" There is a grating hiss to his tone. He gestures to what I hold in hand. "You have your sword. Get to it."

I'm not given a chance to refute. Ghirahim speaks in the dark tongue and the Bokoblin charges.

I push backwards, legs straining, stumbling step by frantic step. I bring the sword up defensively, bracing my arm for impact.

The blue-skinned Bokoblin shoots towards me, surprisingly quick for such a clunky looking creature, and heaves his cleaver in a horizontal arc. It crashes into my blade. The loud clang of metal-on-metal rings in the air. The blades stay locked, and a battle of strength ensues.

My arm quivers under the strain, the muscles weak, and I know I won't be able to hold off much longer. I grit my teeth. "S-stop it, you—!"

The Bokoblin's beady eyes spark. He sees his chance and takes it. He shoves forward, and suddenly my own blade comes back to bite me.

A high-pitched keen smothers in my throat. Hot blood trickles from my collarbone—on the front of the very shoulder that was so badly wounded from Link's sword. Sirens of panic spike. I do what I must. I grab my blade near the tip with my left hand, using the leverage and strength of both arms to push back. Though I try my best to hold my sword by the flat sides, the edges cannot be completely avoided, and the sharp metal cuts into my lower palm. Pain jolts down my arm to meet the ache in my shoulder—both front and back.

The Bokoblin mimics me, placing his free hand on the flat of his cleaver—and I'm suddenly cursing myself for having a double-edged sword. He keeps the pressure on, angles it so that both my weapon and his might be forced into my neck.

The hisses and slithering jeers from the various monsters in the shadows reach my ears to join in with the rushing blood and rising panic. They're watching us as if this is some entertaining show.

Anger swells in me, gushes into the same stream as fear, and together they surge. I bare my teeth and snarl. "Bitch!" I shove the Bokoblin and then lunge with my head. The space between my brows crunches into the creature's nose.

The Bokoblin stumbles back, blinking repeatedly. Blood oozes from his nostrils.

"Piss—off!" I slam my foot into his gut, sending him sprawling.

The monsters gathered at the edges of the black chamber writhe and growl in anticipation.

The blue Bokoblin just lies there, almost as if he were waiting.

"Why are you delaying?" Ghirahim's voice whips into my skull. I startle, meeting his cold eyes. "You're not actually going to let him back up, are you?"

Just as Ghirahim finishes saying it, the Bokoblin slowly rises.

The demon lord sneers. "You've only created more work for yourself."

Back on his feet, the Bokoblin wastes no time. He brings up his cleaver to reengage me.

I leap back, not intent on letting him.

We dance around each other. The Bokoblin lashes out, only for me to jump away, skittering from the edges of blade. The buzzing growl of the demonic horde creeps in from the walls, and it is their collective voices that stay me every time I lift my blade. I won't kill the Bokoblin, am reluctant to even wound him. Each swipe and stab is halted halfway, malicious intent sprouted by fear and anger crumbling through.

I won't. And I don't have to. I know this, I tell myself. I've played this hundreds of times. The blue ones are more advanced, but still predictable, still—

My back hits something firm and cool, and when two pale arms wrap around me from behind I know who it is.

"Let me explain this in a manner in which you can understand." Ghirahim curls over me, rests his chin on my uninjured shoulder. "I don't know what kind of fantasyland you lived in up above the clouds, and I don't frankly care, but down here on the surface"—his grip tightens—"things are different. There are situations where either you kill, or you are killed."

My heart pounds against my chest, so solidly I'm sure Ghirahim must feel it. My eyes are wide and fixed on the blue Bokoblin, who has lowered his blade, awaiting his lord's command. The monsters at the edge of the chamber have also quieted.

"Do you understand?" Ghirahim moves his lips to the shell of my ear, and the breath of fire and coal speaks into it. "Those who hesitate die. And you"—his arms tighten with each word—"are not—permitted—to die. Is that understood?"

I clench my teeth together.

He jerks me in his iron hold, voice becoming a shouting gale in the echoic chamber. "I said, 'Is that understood?'"

"Y—yes," I cry out, the pain in cuts both old and new weakening my resolve.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, Master!"

His vice-like grip loosens. I feel his smile at my ear. "Good. Good girl. My darling." His cold lips plant a kiss at my temple. He licks those lips when he pulls away, urges me forward with a hand at the small of my back. "Go on, my sweet. Show me you can. That's all I want for now."

That 'for now' does not bode well. I stagger stiffly, ice in my bones. "I don't…want to."

"It's not about what you want," he explains gently, as one would to a child. "It's about what must be done. No more games. The creature before you dies today. He knows it—they all do." Ghirahim indicates the monsters with a sweep of his arm.

Their hisses and growls acknowledge him.

"The only thing that's left to say is how. By your hand"—he reaches towards me, palm held out flat—"or by mine." His fingers curl into a fist, a malicious smirk quirking his mouth. "And let me assure you, my darling, if it's by my hand it will not be a quick death."

Something sick twists in my belly. I look at the Bokoblin, once again readying his cleaver.

I don't want—I can't—I—

Pressure builds behind my eyes, closes my throat. Suddenly it's hard to breathe. Why is he doing this to me?

Such a soft heart you have, I remember him saying in the desert. We'll have to do something about that. My nails dig into the hilt of my sword. Dammit, I didn't think he'd actually follow through. Why couldn't he forget? Why is this so important to him?

Ghirahim speaks the dark tongue. Once again the Bokoblin lurches at me. And once again I dodge and skirt around. I don't want—I can't— There has to be some way out of this! My thoughts race, uselessly end up on Link and how he protected me in Eldin. He isn't here to deliver the death blows for me this time.

Ghirahim stands with his fists on his hips, a frown cutting his expression. He speaks again in the demonic dialect, nothing I can decipher, but something sounding harsh and vicious. Immediately afterwards the Bokoblin increases his aggressiveness, beady eyes going wide, scrunched burly nose scrunching further, the blood that had dried there cracking and flaking. He swings rapidly, swipe after swipe coming closer to hitting me with each try.

"No more running, Kya!" Ghirahim shouts. "Fight!"

I don't want—I can't—

I stumble and the cleaver slices into my thigh—a shallow cut, but still. Again I stumble, again it cuts. Again and again, my arm, my shin, and for the latter I'm sure it hits bone. I shriek each time, and each time something dark builds in me. Rage. Fear. And something else I cannot identify until I'm on the floor, scrambling backwards.

Helplessness.

But that feeling is not unfamiliar… Go to sleep… Die… How…? No one answers… Wake up in a blue sky… Everything's perfect, but I'm not… I'm trapped here… No one answers…

The Bokoblin lifts his cleaver above his head to bring it down on me.

Everything's far from perfect now. At least in that regard I fit in. A smile spreads across my face. I look up at the cleaver with widened eyes. I begin to laugh, softly, wearily.

I'm not going to win, but neither will he.

A sliver of fear cracks the black wall of fury in Ghirahim's eyes. Shortly after, a red glowing dagger lodges into the Bokoblin's leg, and he screeches out, dropping his cleaver. Ghirahim shouts at him in words beyond my understanding.

My laughter disintegrates. I don't bother standing up. A part of me even dares to hope it's over.

But it's not.

Ghirahim grabs the back of my hair and yanks me to my feet. "Your blood is never to be spilt again," he hisses, a flash of fang punctuating his remark. "Not by you. Not by them. By no one. Except me. I expect you to make sure of it. This disinclination you have towards defending yourself will not be tolerated!"

I'm thrown back into the fight. Instinct wrestles for control, begs me not to lie down. I take on more shallow wounds. Pain crackles through every fiber of me. Ghirahim's voice becomes louder. The horde of monsters at the walls become deafening. The noise grows and grows until it becomes too much. I hate them. I hate that they cheer for the death of one of their own. I hate Ghirahim for forcing me into this situation. I hate myself most of all. It would serve us both right if I just threw down my sword and died. I should. The spiteful part of me wants to. A part of me says do it.

He won't win, but neither will I.

I can't—I don't want—

Blood stains my coral gown. My heart pounds, my blood rushes. Something in me snaps, and another voice joins the first.

Survive.

Stay…alive.

The she-wolf leaps in front of the ewe, fangs bared. My mind goes blank. Another entity seems to sneak control from me. Slashes and lunges weave in with my dodging leaps and side-steps. My eyes are wide, my teeth clenched.

Seeing the wolf, the ewe wakes. If I can only knock him down, and keep him down, without killing him…

I duck under the Bokoblin's swung cleaver and rush into him, ramming him with all my weight focused in my right shoulder. The creature falls back, skids across smooth stone.

He's down. I ready my sword.

I don't know what made me look past the blue Bokoblin and into the horde. I see a familiar face. A red-skinned Bokoblin with pale scar lines running across his face and body, his small eyes stretched open with fearfulness, his little paws clasped as if in prayer. The only one in the horde not crying viciously for blood.

I come back to myself. I stop. My blade clatters on the floor.

I feel Ghirahim's glare burning into my skin, but I won't do it. Please let it be over, I beg silently, swaying on my feet. I want out of here. The heat and acrid smell of the collective bodies closes in around me, it mixes with the sharp scent of steel and blood. A cold draft running down from the black throne does little to dispel it.

A clicking snap pierces through the clamor. Daggers appear in the air, point downwards to the blue-skinned Bokoblin.

This is what he would have done had I laid down my sword and tried to die…

My heart stops. I turn to Ghirahim, mouth open but nothing comes out. How can I make him understand? "M-Master, please, I—"

A dagger drops down, sinks into a leg muscle. Another swiftly follows, into the creature's arm. The Bokoblin screeches out in pain.

"Stop! Stop!"

Ghirahim doesn't. He holds up a hand, the tip of his index finger glows with red magic, and as he turns his wrist the daggers twist, boring into flesh and bone. The screams become louder, from both the Bokoblin and the gathered monsters. The sight of gushing blood sends them into an uproar, and it is not one of protest.

My stomach ties itself into wrenching knots. I want to blast them all away! How? The white light, my aura—how did I do it last time? Uncertainty clutters my head, screeches drown out thought. I don't have time to figure it out!

I fling myself at Ghirahim, clutch onto his outstretched arm. I pull down with all my weight, even lifting my feet and hanging off him. It does nothing. His arm is steel and it doesn't bend. "Please!" I gasp. "I—!" I cut myself off. I can think of nothing that will convince him. I drop from him and out of desperation run to the Bokoblin. I stand over the shrieking creature, arms and legs spread to take any incoming blades.

The monsters around us go quiet. It is a confused quiet; their hisses and murmurs of discontent attest to that. Something tells me they have never seen anything like this before—to take blows for another.

The daggers stop falling.

I cannot describe the glare Ghirahim strikes me with. It is more than burning. If he could set me ablaze in a bout of hellfire, I think that glare would have done it.

"You"—I scramble for something, anything to say—"You said it yourself! I mean, you did it yourself." My mind drudges up the first instance Ghirahim might have ever shown mercy. "You didn't kill Link that first time! You—you said it wouldn't be fair. This!" I throw an arm down to indicate the bleeding Bokoblin. "This isn't fair! This is sad. Please just stop, please."

The demon lord's glare does not change. It is like an ice that burns. Unfeeling, uncaring, not flickering with remorse for even a moment.

The growls from the perimeters clue me into why. His subordinates are watching. He's given me an order and I'm defying him in front of them all. It cannot look as if I am challenging him and his authority, or I'll get nowhere. Whatever scrap of pride I have left is folded. I fall to my knees, I plead. "Please, Master, please…!"

"Do you honestly think," he says so quietly I can barely hear him, "you are at a level where you can pick and choose?" His eyes rake my bleeding wounds.

With a sinking heart I watch him march to me, can do nothing as he grabs and tosses me aside. I land on my hip, and by the time I'm back to my feet the Bokoblin's screeches have turned to pure bestial cries of agony—nothing a human could recognize. Ghirahim has plucked one of the daggers from the air and is cutting strips of skin that was once blue. He's pulling and tearing, flecking red on himself and all that surrounds him, making the Bokoblin suffer as much as possible and I—

I do the only merciful thing I can.

I snatch up my sword and drive it into the Bokoblin's chest, where his heart would be.

I let go of the hilt and stagger back, leaving the sword sticking out of the creature's body. My eyes, wide and disbelieving, rest on that blade, perversely reminded of the Master Sword jutting from its pedestal.

All has gone still and all is quiet.

The blue Bokoblin isn't screaming anymore.

Ghirahim turns to me in surprise. And then he smiles. A slow smile of satisfied triumph.

And I hate him. In that moment I hate him. So. Much.

"You"—My English comes out on a breathless stutter—"You sick son of a bitch!"

A white gloved palm claps against my cheek. It stays on my face, thumb stroking irritably. It scarcely stings, and I realize he did not follow through with any real force. A glare clashes with his smile. "I'll forgive you this time, slave," he responds in English, "considering the circumstances. Though, truthfully, I can't imagine why you found this so hard."

I open and close my mouth several times before I can speak. "Forgive me? Forgive me?! You're the one that's— You motherfu—!" My eyes slip to the floor. The blood is everywhere, spreading out from the body, crawling towards me. I stagger away from it.

It is the last thing I see before darkness steals into my vision, the floor rushing to catch me.

When I wake, it is in bed. For a blissful few seconds I think it was all a nightmare. Until I crack open my eyes. Hope is crushed when I see Ghirahim, sitting on the edge of my bed, the evidence of the blood that had splattered him washed away, told by the sheen of moisture on his skin, its erasure as damning as if it still stained him. He is as untouched snow now, but I can still smell traces of the metallic tang riding off him. He leans over me, one hand planted into the bed at my side, the other stroking my hair. He's smiling that pleased smile.

My throat feels raw from pleas that were screamed, grates like sandpaper as I swallow. A chill washes over me. The various wounds I got tingle under their bandages. Shii and Essil move as shadows at the corner of the room, carrying bottles of make-shift red potion and wrappings. They exit quietly, Essil glancing back with one final look of worry.

"I can't say you did well," Ghirahim says. "I had almost thought you wouldn't pull through, but you did…by the skin of your teeth. It was a start, at the very least."

"Stop touching me," I rasp.

He ignores me. "I've heard it's painful for some the first time." He hums a short laugh, like he finds even the notion of the thought ridiculous. "Don't fret. It will become easier."

Fear stabs my heart. I squeeze my eyes shut.

His palm cups my cheek. "Shh, darling. I…" In a moment of rarity he looks at a loss for words. "I got carried away, I know. We'll wait until you're fully healed before any more training. You have my word." His smile falls from his face. "You're shaking."

He adjusts the sheets and tightens them around me. The entire time I can think of nothing more than to slap him away. But I don't move. There are so many things I want to call him. But I don't say a word. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep. I wait for him to leave. After an eternity, he does.

I lie in the quiet. It's late; no light streams through the stained-glass windows. The candles cover the room in a glowing hush.

In the dead of night I finally allow tears to bubble over and spill. The sobs are strangled; I don't want to risk him hearing. By some act of instinctive mercy my mind blanks on those final moments in the black chamber. I can picture very little. Red on a blade. A sword sticking up from a creature my mind has transfigured into stone to protect itself from the realities of flesh.

I'll be good, I promised. I'll love like He did, like He does.

How am I supposed to do that with a demon breathing down my neck?

I turn over and curl in on myself. It didn't happen, I want to say. But I know it did happen. It was a bad dream, I want to tell myself. But I know it was real.

The black river running through my heart tears at the grassy banks with frothing rage.

Ghirahim won. He forced my hand and I couldn't do a thing about it. The worst part is he'll do it again.

I don't sleep. I lie the whole night shivering, wishing I could just disappear.

At one point in the night, I feel like I do.

The door blasts open, squeaks on its hinges and slams into the wall behind it. The last person—demon—I want to see rushes into the room. He flashes through, a flare of white in the dark, and comes at me, wrapping his hand around my neck, squeezing just above the golden collar.

So this is it, I think.

But then his hand stills. It rests there, my heart drumming against his fingers. "Little bird," he whispers roughly. "Kya."

Reluctantly I meet his eyes. I show no emotion through them.

He shows all emotion through his. Confusion and fear are at the topmost, anger and revulsion following too late to cover the formers.

I can take the tense silence no more. "What," I hiss.

Ghirahim looks me over, eyes darting. "Your aura…"

"What," I repeat.

He finally catches my hard tone. He glowers. "…It has gone down to nothing. Nothing, do you understand?"

"So what? It's done that befor—"

"No," he says. "Not down to a speck, not like an insect's. I mean it has disappeared. Completely. To nothingness."

My blank stare translates my lack of understanding.

"Little fool," he whispers. "Stupid little fool. There's only one type of human with not a spark of aura."

"And what's that?"

His fingers twitch at my pulse, eyes glinting in the candlelight. "A dead one."

Ghirahim stays seated beside me, his hand remaining at my neck, feeling the steady rhythm of my pulse, until dawn breaks through the window. My aura returns, the barest hints of it, and he leaves me to 'recuperate,' as he said.

"I wouldn't want to lose my favorite servant, now, would I?" He smiles, but I don't miss the nervous twitching of his fingers, or the trace of doubt faltering his expression. He stares at me a moment longer, almost like he's waiting for me to affirm that I'll keeping breathing.

I let the door click shut without responding.

Servant, he says. Servant… But I know what he really means. Slave.

He called me slave right before I passed out. He had called me servant when we first met, but that was just a nicety, wasn't it?

I lie in bed like a vegetable. I don't move, and I don't speak, not even to Essil when she brings me food. I let the uncovered dishes sit untouched at my bedside to grow cold and stale. I sleep. I wake. I force myself to sleep again. In sleep I dream. Bits and pieces of different images and happenings show themselves behind my closed eyes. Some are of things I know will happen, others are impossible, and then there are those in between blurring the lines and blending them all together. Until impossible and possible are one and the same.

A boy clad in green enters a watery temple. Rocks fall from the sky. A girl in white screams in agony. A creature of black metal laughs manically.

The clouds sail backwards through time.

Castles are torn apart, structural stones flying like splintered glass, and left to rot, overtaken by the moss and vines of centuries.

The clouds again drift in reverse.

Dark creatures crawl up from a crack in the earth, chase after humanoid figures of gentle light. They scream, they flee. The dark creatures scorch the earth black and taint the waters red as they pass. Of those light figures that were caught—so many, tripping, stumbling, or being outrun—had their lights extinguished like candles doused under water. They went out, nonexistent, as if they had never been at all. Screaming cut short. The sight boils anger deep in my gut. Suddenly I am there, weapon in hand. It is long and made of steel, and though it is not sharp, it is deadlier than all their swords. Its battle cry is the shout of thunder, its bite of lightning. It is not a weapon of their realm. I cradle it in a hold I know well, stare down its metallic length.

From the corner of my eye I see the woman—not the girl—in white.

Hylia is as tall as she is imperious, golden hair falling down to her ankles. She watches me afar. When our eyes meet, she nods, lifting an elegant finger towards the creatures of the dark.

I was going to do it anyway. My hand squeezes around my weapon, and it rends the air with thunder. The lead it shoots scatters, punches deep into multiple dark creatures at once. When their bodies hit the ground they turn to stone.

Black clouds swirl violently in the sky. The air is silent and oddly still, ruptured only by the booms of the Knowing Realm's weapon.

Hylia watches with serene impassiveness, while I grow colder and sicker at the core of me.

It's fine, I tell myself. Sometimes you have no choice.

Then he is there, parting the throng of darkness and stone through its middle. I stare, shocked, into those blank white eyes, glowing bright as the diamond shapes scattered across his dark skin. The clank of his metallic footsteps grow louder the closer he comes.

The woman in white somehow recaptures my attention without moving. She lifts her regal robed arm, points. I follow her gesture, stare once more into the white eyes of…him.

With a strange sort of dissociation, I raise my weapon, take aim. Hesitation wrenches to an abrupt end when an image of a sword jutting from a skinned creature's body rips through my head. I squeeze the trigger. The clank of his steps is drowned by thunder and lead. The bits of metal strike him, flash in sparks, keen in ricochets—some come back to hit me. It doesn't stop me. He keeps walking; I keep firing. A steady stream: footsteps and thunder blasts. It does not stop until he is but an arm's length away, towering five heads above me. The barrel of my weapon points at his chest.

Then there is silence, so profound everything seems to have stopped in time. I turn my head to Hylia. Her hair flows about her, and her light shines bright. She nods to me. I look back to Ghirahim in time to see him raise his fists and, in disbelief, I watch as he pries his fingers into the metal diamond situated on his chest. He wretches it open, bit by bit, pieces of him cracking and fissuring at the area. A red diamond in the center of him is revealed to me, pulsing and glowing with heat.

I look to Hylia one more time.

She looks to my weapon, then to the red diamond in Ghirahim's chest. She inclines her head.

I raise my weapon and aim at the core he has so foolishly bared to me. When I pull the trigger everything shatters, and the scene, with its black sky and rotted earth, falls away.

White static. It crackles and buzzes—is all I can see or hear or feel crawling all over me.

The next instance I open my watery eyes, it is to the warm wood of an aisle cut between rows and rows of wooden pews. I walk slowly, trance-like, veer off to one of those pews, pull a thick book from a rack built into the back of the bench. I open it. The words blur and jumble on the white page, but I know them. Half-remembered, dulled by time and distance, but known.

I come out of the dream lying on a wet pillow, scalding tears still leaking. Out of all the pages in that book, out of all the words on that page… Slaves, be good to your non-Christian masters, be kind to them and respect them, so that through you they might see the love of Christ. So clearly I see the words. So loudly it thrums in my head. It can't be a coincidence.

Sometimes you have no choice, and sometimes…

I never thought I'd prefer not to have one, but in this instance…

I turn away from it. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to be told to be kind to one who is so cruel. But the words stay in my head like a nail to a board. The golden collar fastened round my neck feels heavy suddenly. Its smooth metal finish burns at my throat.

I slam my eyes shut, barricade the tears inside. No. No, no, no.

The verse from a Holy Book I had long forgotten, or thought I had forgotten, remains. Gently urging. Softly guiding. But not forcing me. He would never force me, unlike my earthly master.

I grip the collar around my neck, pull. It won't come loose.

Never have I heard Your voice, I say in bitter prayer. Never have I seen Your face. Where are You? I can't see. I can't hear. Why didn't You bring me home? Why have I been left here? I have the faith of a mustard seed—that tiny, miniscule thing—that's all I have to know You're there.

Sometimes it isn't enough.

Sometimes it's just too much.

No one answers…

I could scream my throat bloody and I wouldn't hear an answer from Him. I've already done it. Out on the farthest edges of that world in the sky, in the depths of night and on an isolated island where only the stars and my Loftwing could hear.

I can't hear. I can't see. What choice do I have?

Slamming my eyes shut, I see Hylia. Pointing. Nodding her head. Mouthing words I cannot hear. Yet I know what she wants.

And I know what my God would want.

What do I want?

My panicked breaths come shorter and shorter, heart stabbing into its cage of bones. Black skirts the edges of my eyes, whispers out the dim of candles.

I don't know…

I fall back into my dreams. It takes up where I left, standing before Ghirahim, his chest open and bared to me, his oddly stoic face one of resignation.

Hylia flares her golden light, points to his core and wordlessly nods her order.

I look down the shotgun barrel. I cannot deny the part of me that wants so badly to open fire, to make him feel the pain he's caused so many others. My fingers curl around the trigger, weapon aimed.

And then I lower it.

Hylia's impassive expression turns to one of troubled consternation. She tries again, motions, forms soundless words with her mouth.

I hold her stare and shake my head, the weapon gripped but hanging limp at my side.

Neither can I deny the part of me that does not want to hurt. For once, it is louder.

The dream blares out in white.

These dreams can't be normal…or maybe I'm just crazy.

Fine, I think upon waking. Though I can't see how it'll do a damn bit of good, especially on someone like Ghirahim, I'll do it.

Because it was done for me.

I know humans of the Knowing Realm have a sin nature. I've seen it, I've felt it. The Hylians don't seem to have it. Not to the extent my people do, anyway. Not a single prison stands on Skyloft, or on any of its neighboring islands. There are disagreements, sure. There are skirmishes. But nothing like I've known. Prisons dot every country in the Knowing Realm. Pain, and greed, and wrath splinter every heart. And yet He reached out to that broken world. He reached out, had that hand struck back with a nail, but still He reached. Knowing that His children could slap His hand away and carelessly jump off into the dark below.

If I had been the only person on Earth… If there had only been a sliver of a chance I'd take Your offered hand… You would have gone through it all anyway, just for that little bit of chance…

How can I not do the same?

Fine! I toss in bed, declaration not spoken aloud. Fine! It won't do a bit of good, but I'll do it, for that next to nonexistent chance, for the hope that something good will come of it. I'll obey. Because I choose to. But I can only obey so far. If he wants me to kill again, we're going to have some problems.

I scoff. I don't think that's something my God would want obeyed anyway.

Respect I can do, I suppose. I'll respect Ghirahim enough not to claw his eyes out the next time I see him.

Yet I can't help but think: Is he any more of a demon than the worst people of the Knowing Realm? In this world so far and separate from the one I knew, what constitutes a demon? If there's any chance he'll see the light…

I'll do my best to show him.

But I won't go down with him.

I'll show him, but just like those in the Knowing Realm, it's his choice to make. I can't make it for him.

My thoughts race through the night, down a highway littered with speeding lights.

And I can't help but shudder when I find, deep inside me, I truly don't want that scary bastard to die…despite all he's done to deserve it.

Morning's light comes. I drag myself out of bed, exhausted from vivid dreams and soul searching of the night. I pad to the door and crack it open, peeking out. Drawing in a breath, I prepare myself.

"Little bird," Ghirahim says when he sees me walking down the hall. "You're up. Are you…?"

I wait, I listen.

He doesn't finish, and there's something odd flashing behind his shadowed gaze. "I was…" He trails off again. Then, with a grin that sweeps away any trace of uncertainty, he stands in a flourish and beckons me closer. "Now that you're up, it's the perfect time! You wanted to see the library, didn't you? Come, come! I have a surprise for you there as well."

He takes me down beige halls and past glimmering glass. We walk in silence for most of the way, until he grabs my bandaged hand and inspects it.

"Healing nicely, I hope?"

I say nothing.

"It was for your own good." He speaks in light conversational tones. "One day you will be able to attest to that." His voice lowers to solemnity. "You will be alive to do so."

We walk in silence after that. The halls stretch on and on, mapping like a maze in my head. I lose hope of keeping details for self-navigation. After many twists and turns we end up in a tunnel-like hall bearing no windows or ornaments. At the end is a plain wooden wall—or so I assume until Ghirahim pushes on it and reveals it to be a hidden door. To my surprise we come out of a bookcase; it slides back into place and clicks shut after we've passed through.

Ghirahim turns to me and smiles. "Welcome to the library."

My wide eyes drift up. Walls and walls—all lined with books, some faded and ancient, some vibrant and newer—climb into the massive vaulted ceiling. Columns bearing multiple floors scale those walls, their arches conjoining in the center ceiling where a gargantuan round skylight sits, piercing the room with fractal golden light through its diamond beveled glass.

"I've…" I take it all in. "I don't think I've seen so many in one place. Not even in the Knowing Realm."

His smile broadens. "You can read all you like—but you'll find not many are in the human languages. You forgot your parchment. Ah, but I'm forgetting your surprise. It's over by those lounges."

He points me to a cluster to evergreen sofas, the warm wood frames and upholstery glistening in spades of rare sunlight. I go with trepidatious feet, my eyes darting around for any sort of trap or trick. But all I see, once I get closer, is a Bokoblin with scarred, red skin standing behind one of the sofas. His hands are clasped together, his face is drained of color, and he is hunched, looking for all the world at his feet, as if he could melt through the floor if he stares long enough.

"B-Bob," I say with shaking voice. "Bob-o-kin."

His head rises at the sound. His eyes enlarge on me, and then he is signing one word over and over. "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."

When I realize what he's saying my heart clenches. I go to him, hands up and signing. "OK, B. Yes. OK. Thank you, OK."

Bob calms, but still swivels his fist over his heart. Sorry.

I don't know what he's sorry for. For me, and for what I had to go though, or if he is simply afraid he was brought here to meet a similar fate as the blue Bokoblin. My heart quickens at the thought. I look around for Ghirahim, not seeing him where I left him. I find him high above us, straddling the banister of the second to top floor, his back set against a bulk of column. A heavy tome lies spread in his lap, his free leg swinging slowly to and fro. He's not paying a bit of attention to the tome. He watches me, the intent look in his eyes a complete contrast to his playfully swinging foot.

I tear my gaze away from him.

I sit down with Bob and go over more signs with him. Book. Table. Seat. It calms him down and gives him—both of us—something else to think about. Something that isn't horrible or frightening.

Even so, I keep Ghirahim's position in the back of my mind. He hasn't moved at all. I catch him staring still, watching as I teach Bob sign. Glints of curiosity and longing show through the stone in his eyes. He wants something, something only I can give him but for the life of me I can't think what.

He does not glare. There is no malicious quirk of his lip. No hatred on a face so accustomed to it. He watches in what almost seems like apprehension.

I don't understand.

I lower my head and remember pieces of a night my mind has blocked from me.

The Bokoblin laid bleeding before me. He had not been allowed to fatally wound me.

You will not bleed again.

In the black chamber I had squeezed my eyes shut and lowered my blade. Here, in the now, I squeeze shut my eyes and lower my hands.

By no one. Except me.

I look up to where the demon is seated high on the balustrades. What kind of twisted affection were you trying to show me? Or was it affection at all?

Its possibility scares me more than his cruel ambition ever could. No, I can't accept it. It's a trick. It always has to be a trick. He's pretending. He's trying to fool me. A snake trying to lure me in a hypnotic trance of compliance.

Whatever love I may have been developing astray from the straight and narrow commandment of 'Love Thy Enemy' drops and settles into the bottom of my heart like a cold pit. There it stays, as a dead and lifeless weight. A reminder of what I can never allow myself to fall into.

You are my enemy, but I will try to offer you a way to keep your life, but should you choose death…

I hold his unblinking stare with one of my own.

I've made my choice.

All that's left is for him to make his.

It's a day later when Essil almost gets impaled, for the simple mistake of brewing the wrong tea. She ducked and slammed into the wall in avoidance, but still a chip of webbing was sliced from the top of her head.

Fear trickles down my spine like a never-ending stream. A demon with shifting emotions of rage and despair unleashes violence on those around him. I'm no longer the only one involved and, like that blue Bokoblin, others will fall given enough time. I know it, know with a constant certainty. And by that knowledge I know I must tell him. To give him something to focus on. To put purpose back in his stride. To give direction to a blade so its point doesn't aim at us.

I think and think on it, pondering for another way, grasping for a little more time. I can only hope Link has gotten ahead.

But maybe, just maybe…there is another way after all…

After pacing and wringing my hands, I come to my decision. I can't stall here anymore. The sake of others is what finally tips the scales.

And so, in the dead of night, while the demon lies in hopelessness filled with a thousand pages, I stumble out to him, stuttering of a vision of twin Gates.

His eyes opened impossibly wide and his lips spread in a smile of genuine joy. He picked me up by the arms and spun until I was dizzy. The reaction was so…human…for a split second I forgot he wasn't. I gaped at him, all thoughts coming to a halt.

What choice did your creator give you? Had you no choice but to be what you are?

And then I wondered, not for the first time: Who made you?

Afterwards he bombarded me with questions desperate for insights. How many did you say? Where? What exactly did you see?

I told him what I had rehearsed in my head prior: A vision of the Gate of Time, spinning, faster and faster, until it lit up and split into two. One was beheld with a yellow light shining behind it, the other in a bed of green.

He collapsed in a sofa chair I swear wasn't there before, staring off at the far wall.

"What does it mean?" he now asks, brow drawn, eyes searching as if through me.

"Well, one Gate was in green and one was in yellow." I make an unsure face and hold up my hands like weighing scales. "Sand is yellow. And the first Gate was in the desert, so it could stand to reason the green could be…" I press my lips together before taking an unsure, squeaky 'guess.' "…grassland…?"

I can buy time, I can still buy time…

"How utterly rudimentary," he says dryly. "How stupidly…" His eyes open wider, a light of misfit realization growing. "…feasible." He springs up from his laid-back position, pulling at scrolls and spreading down maps.

He wants to narrow down the search field, wants to get to his goal as quickly and as unfettered as he can.

It doesn't go as he hopes.

Hours later he's lying on the lounge, once again bemoaning his luck. Books and scrolls lined with maps and ancient documents are scattered all around. He's been through them all, stripped each and every line of each and every page. What he finds doesn't amount to much. Nothing, he says. It might as well be nothing! With an entire world to scour, he has found next to nothing that would lessen the search, nothing that could help his master be free sooner rather than later.

But there is hope now that he knows of the second Gate of Time.

That doesn't stop the dramatics.

He's thrown himself on the sofa like a woman fainted, stretches and moans.

I'm flipping through an antiquated geographical tome I can barely read, hoping—or acting like I hope—something will jump off the page at me. I may be his slave and he may win most of the time but I'm still one step ahead.

I'll always be one step ahead. And you'll never know it.

At the behest of another moan, I toss Ghirahim a side-long glance. He's posing now like he's having a portrait painted, his arm curled above his head, playing with his hair. He's eyeing me.

I blink at him. And then I return my attention to the book.

With a sharp frown, he picks up a book and chucks it at me. It sails through the air and audibly smacks off my face.

"What was that for?!" I hold my nose, speaking nasally.

"I've already looked in that book, you nitwit."

"Well, I'm looking again!"

"You can't even read it." He shifts his hips and eyes me further. "Come here…comfort me."

Panic revs my heart into overdrive. I stop breathing. No. No, I…not after…

"Kya." There is no question in his tone—only demand.

Steadily I rise from my seat, the dream I had, and the realization that it brought, replaying in my head. I walk to him with displaced serenity. Whatever he has planned, whatever it is he wants from me…it can't be worse than what was already done, right?

He grabs me and pulls me on top of him.

His chest hits my cheek like a rock. I lie there, sprawled, feeling every crest of muscle beneath me.

"To think you'd become more valuable than all of these books combined." He seems to muse more to himself rather than me.

I lift my head, knitting my brow. Draining lucidity emboldens me. "Was that supposed to be a compliment? Thanks. I'm an object worth more than these other objects."

Suddenly his hand comes to the back of my head, pushing me down to his chest. "An object," he says, voice quiet and rough, "does not bleed the way you bled."

I tremble, frozen, petrified. I do not know what to make of what he just said. He's talking of my shoulder; of the hit I took for him. Yet the recent cuts, though now dwindled to nothing more than scratches thanks to improved red potion, still question why.

His grip loosens. "…Did I hurt you?" His fingers trail through my hair, and down the ridges of my sutured shoulder. "At times I forget how fragile you really are. So unlike myself. Forgive me."

You're more fragile than you think, is my first thought. But then I gape at him. What did he just…? Forgive me? Like he's actually sorry? Am I supposed to believe it? And why apologize for something so insignificant after he…

He's watching me, intently, like he did in the library.

What are you really sorry for…?

Confused and frightened, I don't know what to say, so I settle for a lamely squeaked, "Okay."

It's not okay. It's really not.

I lay my head back down. I can't look him in the eye anymore tonight.

But I can't kill you. And I don't want you to die.

We lay there like that, my cheek resting on his steadily rising and falling chest, his hand stroking up and down my back. It unnerves me, this closeness, this…strange intimacy that shouldn't be happening, but is.

I squirm, unable to bear the oddness any longer. "Um, we—we have a gate to find."

At first he does not respond, and the silence drags until I expect he won't. But then, a whispered, "Just a few minutes…" and he sounds so tired when he says it.

I don't deny him the rest. I bear his ministrations, no matter how…strange. After all, why should I be in a hurry to find a Time Gate I technically don't want to find? Not yet, anyway. Not yet. I can buy us a little more time.

The seconds pass by quietly, the only sounds coming from the softly ticking clock, the occasional pop and crackle from the hearth, and the slow, rhythmic breaths from the demon lord.

"Little bird," he whispers on a weary breath, his eyes closed, "sing for me."

I duck my head and attempt to curl inward. Straining my high-pitched voice isn't what I want to do, but I don't deny him. I pass the words of Come Thou Fount through my lips as gently as I can, to keep him soothed. He's learned enough English—faster than any human could learn—to know most of what I'm saying. To my surprise, he doesn't stop me or ask me to sing something else. He listens quietly, with the visage of one who is finally falling asleep.

And sleep he does. Or I think he does. I can't trust a thing about him. I lie there, not daring to move or else 'wake' him, listening to the exchange of air to and from his chest. Faintly, so faint I think I imagine it, flutters a tiny pulse, flickering in and out just beneath my ear, deep down inside him. It cannot be a heartbeat, because he has no heart. What does a being of metal and magic need with one of those? I'm tired, and I imagine. It is gone when I try to concentrate on it. Maybe it was just my heart echoing through him.

Tomorrow will dawn a new day. A day of exploration.

I've made my choice.

I'll take him along on this journey then. I'll pitter after him, not leading, but most definitely directing. I'll show him a winding trail that leads exactly to where he wants to go, that takes him to what he wants most of all. Something that he's meant to get to eventually.

…And, despite what you've done, despite what you are, I can only hope and pray that when you go through it you don't choose to find death on the other side…

The Gate of Time.

A/N: Thank you for reading. As always, feedback is most appreciated.