Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/7370500. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Skyward_Sword, The_Legend_of_Zelda_&_Related_Fandoms Relationship: Link/??? Character: Link_(Legend_of_Zelda), Dark_Link, Pipit_(Legend_of_Zelda), Zelda_(Legend of_Zelda), Gaepora_(Legend_of_Zelda), Fledge_(Legend_of_Zelda), Fi_ (Legend_of_Zelda), Ghirahim_(Legend_of_Zelda) Additional Tags: Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence Stats: Published: 2016-07-02 Updated: 2016-07-27 Chapters: 17/? Words: 37655 ****** My Heart is Broken...and yet...it yearns for you. ****** by AprilLilypegasi Summary Skyward Sword with a twist. What would happen if it were Zelda/Hylia as the bad guy and the bad guys are good? ~Once I finish this: I will definitely re-write it using advice from my readers so please leave advice! :3~ Notes This is the start of a moderately long journey. Most of the ratings are for future chapters. I would like you all to tell me what you think of this, so that I may improve it (though I already have most of it planned out) I don't own the Legend of Zelda ***** Chapter 1 ***** ~Link’s Age: 6~ Link’s eyes fly open in excitement as he remembers what ceremony is going to happen tonight. He gets up and dresses quickly before running down to the kitchen, smiling when he sees his mother cooking breakfast. “Good morning, momma!” She turns and smiles softly at her son, “Good morning, sweetheart. Are you excited for the ceremony?” He nods his head exuberantly, causing her to chuckle. “Would you go get your father? Breakfast is almost ready.” “Okay, momma!” He runs outside, knowing his father likes to carve statues outside on their porch early in the morning. “Papa!” He calls, his father looking up at the sound and smiling. “Yes, son?” He asks, setting the statue and carving knife down before pulling his son into his lap. “Momma says that breakfast is almost ready!” Link says excitedly, causing his father to chuckle. “Well then, I guess we should go set the table.” Link nods and Robin picks up his son, carrying him to the dining room. He hands Link the silverware while he places the plates and glasses on the table. Link gives each plate a certain amount of silverware and very quickly the table is fully set. Link giggles as his father gives him a high five, saying, “Good job, son!” Feather comes to the room with the finished breakfast and serves the food before sitting down at eating with her family. The ceremony takes place around noon, so they need to be ready. After getting to talk with each other while they eat, Feather suggests, “Link, sweetheart, why don’t you go spend time with Pipit while you wait for the ceremony. We’ll come get you when it’s time.” “Okay, momma!” Link says, a bright smile on his face at the thought of seeing one of his closest friends. He runs outside and over to Pipit’s house, knocking on the door excitedly. Pipit’s mom opens the door and smiles when she sees Link, calling Pipit over, telling him that Link’s there. “Hey, Pipit! Wanna hang out?” Pipit nods happily at this and they go to the waterfall, which is their favorite area of Skyloft to hang out together. “So, you excited for the Loftwing Ceremony today, Link?” Pipit asks, remembering the ceremony from the previous year when he got his own forest green loftwing. Link nods his head, “Yeah! I can’t wait!” He is really excited and can’t stop thinking about finally getting his own loftwing like his parents have. It’s a really big deal for a young Skyloftian as it signifies that they’re growing up. The conversation dies quickly after that, both of them preferring to play instead of talk. They both find a large stick and start ‘fighting’ like they’ll get to do if they’re accepted into the Knight Academy when they’re older. Any adults who see this just chuckle softly, knowing how excitable the two boys are when it comes to fighting. They play the remaining hours away before Link’s parents come to get him right as he wins one of the fights against Pipit. They chuckle as he starts to cheer for himself and at how happy he is. They tell him that it’s time for the ceremony and he jumps up excitedly. Pipit says that he’ll be there since he doesn’t want to miss seeing his friend meet his loftwing. Link nods and leaves with his parents, heading to gather with the other children his age on the island. He smiles slightly when he sees his friend Zelda there, and she immediately approaches him, beginning to talk about how excited she is. He just chuckles softly and they go stand in line at the base of the Goddess Statue with the other children, who are also excited about getting their loftwings. After a bit, the ceremony ‘begins’ and the loftwings fly circles around the top of the statue, causing the children below to ooh and aah at the sight. Everyone’s eyes widen when they notice that there’s a crimson loftwing in the group, as that breed of loftwing was thought to be extinct. Then the time comes for the loftwings to fly to the ones that they’re meant for. A royal blue loftwing lands in front of Zelda and nuzzles her softly, causing the young blonde to giggle. To everyone’s shock, the crimson loftwing lands just in front of Link before cawing softly and nuzzling him. He tilts his head, feeling a bond form with the bird instantaneously. Normally, it takes some time for this bond to form, but for Link and his loftwing, it happened in an instant. He smiles softly and jumps up on the back of the loftwing, despite everyone’s protests that he doesn’t know how to fly the bird. Crimson, which he decides to nickname the bird, flies away, the boy having easy control on the steering of the bird. Everyone watches on in shock, and jealousy for most of the children, wanting to have that special connection with their own loftwings. Zelda’s more jealous than most and she wonders why her own friend is so special that he gets the connection and she doesn’t. After a bit of flying around lazily, Link has Crimson land and he jumps off his bird before stroking it softly on the neck. Everyone applauds, happy to see the boy already so acquainted with his loftwing. He walks over to his parents and Pipit, who runs up and hugs Link, spouting praise and shocked words. Link turns a bit and nods at Crimson, who flies away at the signal. Link turns back to his parents, who congratulate him for finding such a good match in his loftwing. Little did they know, jealousy had made a very horrible enemy out of a very dear friend of his. For she will never forget this incident, which may seem innocent at this time, but will cause darkness to spread in her heart. ~Age: 7~ Link wakes up in the middle of the night, hearing screams and cries of pain. He runs into his parents' room and takes a step back, his head reeling. ‘No...They can’t be…’ He runs out of the house and goes to find someone to help, quickly finding Gaepora. Gaepora takes one look at his face and enters the young boy’s house, while his daughter tries to comfort the obviously distraught seven-year-old. Gaepora comes back outside, his smirk fading as he pronounces, “Dead. No doubt killed by demons…” Link narrows his eyes, feeling an urge to gain vengeance for his parents’ death on the demon race, though he has no way to do so at this age. Gaepora takes him to the Academy and gives him an empty room across from his own daughter’s, one that’ll stay his until he graduates from the academy. Zelda just looks at him sadly before heading to her own room, leaving the young Skyloftian to adjust to this on his own. He curls up in the bed that’s far too big for just him and begins to cry, the weight of losing his parents crashing around him. He feels a comforting presence curl around him and he relaxes into it, his grief not letting him do much else. “Shh. Link, everything will be okay. I’m here.” He hears a soft voice, sounding like a slightly deeper version of his own, whisper into his ear. The voice continues to comfort him until he falls asleep, emotionally drained from the night’s occurrences. The shadow smiles at this, curling up against his lighter half. He stays awake as he’s capable of sleeping in Link’s shadow during the day, wanting to protect the boy. Link wakes up the next morning to find that the comforting weight is still curled around him. He turns around slightly and takes in the sight of the boy with black hair and red eyes, who is looking at him sympathetically. “I’m sorry that had to happen to you, Link.” He says, causing the memories to flood back into Link’s mind. He starts crying and the shadow pulls him closer, pressing him against his chest, telling him to let it all out. He’s rocked comfortingly, allowed to cry as much as he needs to to recover from the event. Eventually, Link’s tears dry up, though he feels that he should still be crying. The shadow pulls away slightly, “Now, why don’t you go eat? You need it…” “Where will you be?” Link asks, worried that he’ll have to leave the person, only to return to find that he’s gone as well. “I’ll be right with you.” The shadow says and they both stand up. The shadow smiles slightly at him before vanishing right in front of his eyes. Link panics immediately before he hears a soft chuckle, “I’m still here. I’m just in your shadow.” Link looks around confused, “I can talk to you since I’m part of you. Only you can hear me when I’m in your shadow.” Link nods his head and heads down to the kitchen, where Henya immediately feeds him, professing how sorry she is for the young boy. He eats slowly and Gaepora arrives, saying that he wants to talk to Link in his office. He allows Link to finish eating before they walk to his office together. “I must say, my boy, I’m so sorry for your loss. Robin and Feather were such wonderful people.” Link nods his head sadly before Gaepora continues, “The funeral shall be held at sunset tonight. Afterward, I’ll take you back to your house to get any belongings that you may want before we return to the academy. Okay, Link?” Link nods and says, “Okay, sir.” Gaepora chuckles softly before saying, “Now why don’t you go find that young friend of yours? Pipit, I believe his name was.” Link nods and runs out of the room excitedly, Gaepora chuckling at his energy. “I’m sorry that I had to do that to you, Link… But Hylia decreed it and I had to listen to her.” He says, a sad smirk on his face before he goes back to doing the paperwork for the academy. Link quickly meets up with Pipit and they head to the waterfall once again, but this time much more somber than before. “Link, I’m so sorry to hear about your parents.” “Yeah...But at least they can’t be hurt anymore where they’re at…” Link says sadly, causing Pipit to hug him tightly. “If you ever need anything, my mom and I are here for you.” Pipit promises, Link smiling as Pipit never breaks a promise if he can help it. “Thank you, Pipit.” Link says before looking at the boy, “Wanna fight?” Pipit nods and they both find sticks like they did when they were younger and they begin to play-fight again, both of them laughing and having fun. Zelda approaches them quietly and sits down, watching them fight playfully. Once they’re both drained of energy, they slump down and finally notice the blonde, who smiles at them. “Link, are you feeling okay?” She asks, scooting over to him and wrapping him in a hug. He nods and leans into the embrace, feeling that he can trust her for some reason. “Yeah, Zelly, I’m fine.” She smiles and starts humming a soft lullaby, causing him to smile and relax further into her. After a bit, they’re gathered up by Gaepora and taken to the Goddess Statue, which is where all funerals in Skyloft are held. The sun begins to set and Gaepora begins the funeral, saying a bunch of nice things about Link’s parents. A few other residents of Skyloft speak as well, especially the ones who were close friends of his parents. The funeral ends with a prayer to the goddess and then they head to the graveyard to pray there as well. Afterward, Gaepora takes Link to his old house as promised and gives him a bag that’ll hold as many things as he wants to take with him. Link goes inside and heads to his room, taking his practice sword his parents bought him on his birthday and a few other items important to him. He then heads to his parents' room to see about any keepsakes. He finds a picture of his family all together and packs it, taking one of his mother’s favorite necklaces as well as his father’s woodcarving set as well as his collection of statues that he made. He grabs his mother’s flute as well, glad that his mother had taught him how to play moderately well before she died. He looks around and finds nothing else that means that much to him, though he takes a look around his house, trying to make sure he’ll never forget what it looks like. He feels a comforting hand on his shoulder and turns, seeing his shadow looking at him sadly. He just nods and takes a deep breath before leaving the house, his darker half merging back into his shadow. Gaepora takes him back to the academy and tells him that dinner’s in an hour, Link nodding in response. Link takes the items that he brought and spreads them out in his room, trying to make the room more his own. He places the statues on a shelf above his desk, one that seemed to be there just for that purpose. He places the flute and wood-carving stuff on the desk itself. He takes the clothes that he packed and puts them in the wardrobe, the sword going in a stand close by. He places his favorite blanket on the bed and the picture on the nightstand before smiling slightly, the room looking perfect to him. He takes his mother’s necklace and puts it around his neck, slipping it under his shirt to hide it. One quick glance at the clock tells him that it’s roughly time for dinner so he heads to the dining hall, sitting down beside Zelda as she’s the only one he’s familiar with. They all eat together, no one really talking in memory of Link’s parents. After dinner, everyone splits up and heads to their respective rooms, Zelda nodding at him before they go in their rooms. Link picks up the flute and starts to play it softly, his shadow appearing beside him to listen to the music. He plays a few songs that his mother always loved before letting his fingers do as they wish, pouring his emotion into the music. His shadow leans against him and rests his head on the blond’s shoulder, just letting him vent however he needs to. Eventually, the song ends and Link puts the flute away before slipping into bed, snuggling into his shadow’s chest. He smiles slightly as the other wraps his arms around him, humming comfortingly into his ear. He looks at the shadow curiously, asking, “What’s your name?” The shadow stops humming to think for a second before saying, “Call me Dark.” Link smiles and nods, snuggling closer to Dark, resting his face in the crook of the other’s neck. Dark continues to hum, the soft, lilting melody drawing the young Link into dreamland. ***** Chapter 2 ***** Chapter Notes I don't own the Legend of Zelda Please comment, I want to know if I need to improve and what you think! :3 ~Age: 9~ Two years pass by and Link slowly got closer and closer to Zelda. She drew him in with kind words and a sweet, loving demeanor, but once he turned nine, she slowly became more and more hateful. Now she insults him whenever she sees him, causing his heart to break slightly every time. Over the course of the two years, her eyes have darkened slightly. Occasionally, though, Link will see her with her original light blue eyes and she’ll be nice to him while they’re that color. However, the minute that they shift back to the darker blue, she’s no longer nice to him and back to insulting him. He quickly figures out that he needs to avoid her whenever her eyes are this color, though it’s more often now that they will be than two years ago. He heads to the waterfall as it’s a day without any lessons, wanting to be alone, or with Pipit if not completely alone. He smiles as he sees Pipit waiting for him, going to sit beside the older boy. They start talking quietly, both of them happy to see each other. But unbeknownst to Link, a certain blonde followed him, planning on causing trouble for him and his friend. “Look who it is! The orphan and his protector~” A sickeningly sweet voice croons, causing Link to cringe at the sound. He looks up, not wanting to be anywhere near Zelda at this point. “Hello, Zelda…” They both say quietly, not wanting to anger her. She laughs softly, “Aw~ Are you uncomfortable with me being here? Well, too bad.” She says, sitting down beside them. Link scoots away slightly and she leans closer, whispering into his ear. “You can’t hide from me, Linky~” He shudders at the nickname, knowing she only calls him that when she’s annoyed at him. He feels a tongue trace his ear and tries not to shudder completely away from her, though a shiver goes through him at the disgusting feeling. She laughs and pulls back slightly, “Well, I guess I better be going… Sad I’m going to have to leave you. However, my mother needs me to help her.” Link frowns when she says that, knowing she’s taunting him for his parents dying two years ago. It’s one of her favorite ways to taunt him, the fact that she has parents alive and he doesn’t. She stands up and curtsies teasingly before skipping away, causing both boys to growl at her, allowed to show their hatred once she leaves. “She really shouldn’t treat you like that, Link.” Pipit’s voice rings in his ear, breaking him from his thoughts. “I know...But I can’t complain to the Headmaster, he’s her dad... “ Pipit nods, knowing the only one who’s really in charge of dealing with troublemakers would be biased towards her. Pipit wraps an arm around the smaller boy before announcing, “I’ll protect you, don’t worry.” Link nods and leans into him, accepting the comfort that the other is offering him. The rest of the day is spent together and, to their relief, Zelda doesn’t bother them for the rest of the day. They split up when it’s time for dinner, as Link has to go to the academy while Pipit gets to go home. He’ll start the academy officially the next year, so then they won’t have to separate anymore. Link eats dinner, getting taunted by Zelda some more whenever no one’s paying attention to them, his mood dropping. He returns to his room once dinner’s over and sits on his bed, bringing his legs up to his chest. He closes his eyes, tears beginning to drop from them from the feeling of betrayal. A soft melody floats through the air and he opens his eyes to see Dark playing the flute for him. He leans back on his bed and closes his eyes, allowing the melody to wash over him and comfort him. Dark is just like a brother at this point, one of the few people that he trusts implicitly. The other person is Pipit due to him always being there for him. The melody eventually fades away and he feels a familiar weight settle beside him, curling close to him. He snuggles into Dark’s chest, drawing in the comfort that the shadow typically gives him. ~Age: 12~ Link has been an official student of the Knight Academy for about a little over a year and Zelda continues to get crueler and crueler by the day. He has no idea what happened to the best friend that she used to be, but he no longer views her as such. She belittles him consistently every day now, especially whenever Pipit isn’t around to protect him, except for those rare days when her eyes are sky blue not dark blue like usual. Pipit has held true to the promise in that whenever he’s around, he returns insults to Zelda until she gets annoyed and leaves, making her not want to bother Link when he’s around. However, he’s a year older and so has a different class schedule than Link and Zelda, so he can’t be around to protect the boy all the time. Zelda smirks as she heads to where Link typically hides during the day when Pipit’s not around, grinning evilly when she notices that he’s alone. She enters the room quietly and approaches him, tapping him on the shoulder. He turns around and she grins, “Why are you hiding, Linky? I just want to play with you~” She makes her voice sound genuinely sad, but he scowls. “Go away, Zelda. I don’t want to deal with you today.” She growls at that and he turns, worriedly, at the sound. She slaps him immediately, a red hand-print on his face from the force. “How dare you treat me so rudely?! The next time you do that, it’ll be more than a slap.” She says, causing him to shake in fear. He sees Pipit walk into the doorway before his eyes narrow, “Oh yeah? Well, why shouldn’t I treat you like this? It’s not like you don’t treat me the same.” She narrows her eyes, and he could swear that her eyes flashed red before she punches him in the face. “Aagh! That does it, you miserable wimp!” He slumps to the floor, his hands up around his eyes, trying to protect them from any more injuries. Pipit stalks over to them and grabs Zelda by the hair, causing her to yelp. He turns her to face him and growls at her, “Don’t ever touch him like that again, or I will hurt you just as badly as you do to him.” He threatens, his voice low and dangerous. He drags her over to the door by her hair and tosses her outside the door, closing and locking the door behind her. He comes back to Link and kneels down beside his friend, practically brother, and removes his hands from his face. He hisses at the sight of the bruise that’s already forming, lightly touching the bruise, causing Link to hiss in pain. “Come on, Link. I’ll get you some bruise salve.” Link nods wearily, and Pipit throws him onto his back, feeling Link’s arms and legs wrap around him. He reaches back and holds onto Link to prevent him from falling off and he makes his way through the academy, feeling Link bury his face into his neck. He makes it to the bazaar without any problems and he sits Link down in the seating area while he goes over to Luv to buy some bruise salve for Link. She looks at him confused but gives him a jar of the salve, telling him that he doesn’t have to pay for it, it’s on the house. Pipit thanks her and heads back over to Link. He picks up the younger boy and carries him to the waterfall, knowing that no one will bother them there. They sit down and Pipit opens the salve, spreading it across the already purpling bruise. Link feels a comforting weight wrap around him and Pipit’s eyes widen at seeing the shadow hugging Link. Link notices this shock and smiles softly, “Pipit, meet Dark. Dark, Pipit.” He says, not wanting the only two people he trusts to be at odds with each other. Pipit nods, though he looks at them curiously, obviously wondering who this person is. He continues to rub the salve on the bruise until it fades slightly, no longer looking nearly as bad. It’ll be gone within the next few days instead of needing a week to heal due to the salve. He caps the salve and sits down beside Link and Dark, closing his eyes and relaxing. Link snuggles closer to Dark, easily accepting the comforting presence. Dark starts humming softly, causing Link to relax even further into him. They remain there for the remainder of the day, Pipit having no more classes to attend and same with Link. ***** Chapter 3 ***** Chapter Notes I'm glad that you all appear to be enjoying this! So here's another chapter with an even more evil Zelda :P I don't own the Legend of Zelda Please tell me what you think, I like hearing from you all! ~Age: 15~ There’s about one year left until the annual Wing Ceremony that Link’ll compete in and he’s super excited for the chance to become a knight early. That’s literally the only upside to his life right now as Zelda became even more abusive to him since that first punch three years ago. Pipit and Link have both learned to always carry around bruise salve and heart potions, since she attacks him whenever she can, meaning there’s no adults around. She’s not brave enough to attack him in front of someone who could get her in trouble. Her eyes have still darkened over the course of the last three years, now royal blue instead of the sky blue that they were before. The darker her eyes get, the more cruel she seems to be to Link. Very rarely, her eyes will be back to sky blue and Link knows that Zelda can be trusted whenever her eyes are that color. Though the days that that occurs are few and far between. She smirks as she manages to corner Link after one of their shared classes, wanting to put another plan into action for him. She drags him to her room and asks Karane to not go in her room until later. Karane giggles, thinking that Link’s there with her willingly and does as asked, heading out of the academy altogether. Zelda smirks darkly when she leaves and locks her door, making it so Link can’t escape. She walks over to the frightened teen and starts tugging on his clothes, causing his eyes to widen. She manages to get the top half of him undressed and she smirks. She takes some handcuffs and ties him to the bed, him trying to get away from the deranged woman. She crawls over him, pressing him down into the bed. She smirks before leaning forward and kissing him. He almost physically recoils from the action, if not for the fact that he can’t move much. She dominates the kiss, thrusting her tongue into his mouth. Link laments the fact that Dark said he can’t always be in his shadow, and that he’s not currently because he has no one to protect him now. She moves down his body and starts biting at his neck, not caring about causing him pain. Actually, she’d prefer it, even more, that way. She draws blood on one of the bites and he cries out at the pain. She pulls away and grins evilly at him before dragging her nails across his skin. He arches at the pain, crying out loudly and she’s glad that she put a sound ward on the door, so no one can hear them. She continues further down his body and takes off the remainder of his clothes. She starts stroking him and to his dismay, his body is responding quite well to her. He’s hardening in her hand and she looks at him as if to say, ‘what a naughty boy…’ He scowls and looks away, not wanting to see this happen. She reaches up and tugs on his hair, causing him to look back at her. “Don’t look away or you’ll get it worse.” He gulps and nods, causing a sinister smile to spread across her face. She snaps her fingers, summoning a bunch of various toys that she’s always wanted to try out. Looking at the toys, she reaches for a whip, feeling its weight settle into her hand. She flicks it out, drawing a sharp cry of pain from the man under her, she grins, liking the power she feels running through her. She smacks it down harder and Link gasps, the pain stinging through his entire body. She continues to whip him, enjoying drawing out moans and groans of pain. After a bit, she reaches for another toy, inserting one part of it inside her. She moans softly at the feeling before scowling at him. She lines up with his entrance and pushes the entire length of the dildo inside of him. He shrieks in pain, feeling his insides tearing at the lack of preparation. She starts thrusting immediately, the part of the toy inside her pleasuring her. She gasps and moans at the delicious feelings while Link is crying in pain, tears running down his face. Her thrusts become smoother as his blood lubricates the passage, giving her easier access. She reaches down and starts stroking him, and he moans despite the pain. She continues this for awhile, feeling herself slowly reaching her peak. She smirks before thrusting in hard, causing him to cry out in both pleasure and pain, spilling himself over her hand. She cums at the sight, her juices flowing through a hole in the dildo inside of him, causing him to cry out at the pain of the juices in the fresh cuts. She pulls out of him and looks at him derisively, snapping to teleport the toys away for now. She undoes the handcuffs and scowls at him. She makes herself presentable before saying, “You have an hour to get out of my room, have fun~” She then leaves the room, the door remaining unlocked so that Link can leave. Link rubs at his wrists, still crying from what just happened. He shifts slightly and cringes as pain shoots up his spine. He manages to shift enough to stand up off the bed but falls back when his legs buckle under him. He reaches for a bracelet that Zelda didn’t take off, pressing the jewel on it. Dark quickly arrives soon after and he gapes when he sees Link, still covered in blood and cum. “W-what happened, Link?!” He gasps, running over to his ‘brother.’ “Z-Zelda...r-raped...me…” Link pants out in between sobs. Dark’s face closes off all emotion, internally hating himself for not being there to protect Link. “Shh, I’ll take care of you… Everything will be alright.” He says, while knowing that everything will likely not be alright. It looks as though Zelda broke him when she committed the act, which was likely her intention in the first place. He cringes at the amount of blood from the other’s entrance, knowing that Link’ll need some heart potion soon or they’ll scar worse. He quickly dresses Link, doing so very carefully. He then carries the boy to his room and lays him out on the bed. He quickly runs to get Pipit, who is just getting out of class. Dark tells him to go get some bottles of heart potion and to get one that is at least double strength, and Pipit looks at him in shock and worry. Dark just shakes his head and tells him to hurry before running back to Link’s room. He undresses Link again, trying to catalogue each injury that the boy is bearing. Dark eyes each blemish, easily figuring out which ones are the worst and most important to heal. Pipit races into the room, handing the bottles to Dark. Dark nods and tells him to get out of his way while he heals Link, though he knows that the other boy’ll want an explanation from the expression currently on his face. Dark gets Link to drink the double strength health potion, seeing the smaller cuts heal instantaneously. Dark nods and tells Pipit to return with a towel, preferably one that is a dark red. Pipit pales before doing so and hands the towel to Dark once he returns. “Okay, Link, this might hurt, so I want you to bite down when it does, okay?” Dark says, placing his right hand in front of Link’s mouth, who nods warily. Dark starts cleaning the blood from the other’s entrance, wanting to get it off before it dries too much. Link yelps when the towel touches sensitive skin before biting down on Dark’s hand when the pain gets too much for him. Dark nods, a grimace on his face as he continues to mop up the blood. He eventually gets all the blood off of Link’s entrance and spreads the towel out under him to catch any fresh blood that might come out… Dark reaches for Link’s flute, playing it softly to coax the boy to sleep. He weaves the music with a magic spell that’ll prevent bad dreams, but allow good ones to remain. Dark does this whenever Link has nightmares, so he can still have enough sleep. Once the blue-eyed boy falls asleep, Dark turns to Pipit, explaining what Zelda did to Link. Pipit nods and narrows his eyes, thinking that this has gone too far. Dark agrees with him, but more people would prefer to listen to Zelda than to them, what with her position at the headmaster’s daughter and all. They remain there to watch Link for a while, feeling so sorry for who they consider a brother. Pipit eventually gets up and heads to bed as he still has classes the next day, but before he does, he gets Link out of classes to recover. He’ll tell them both the next morning, knowing Link’s likely to still be in an immense amount of pain. ***** Chapter 4 ***** Chapter Notes Now we're actually getting to the game portion of this story! : 3 Starting with the Wing Ceremony, so hope you enjoy! I don't own Legend of Zelda Please tell what you think of this story so far! ~Age: 16~ The year passes much like the others, though Zelda mainly goes back to physically beating Link, though, yes, she still does occasionally rape him, finding more and more painful ways to do so. Link is pretty much completely broken by now, unless around Pipit or Dark, who are the only one who can make him smile again after that. Zelda’s eyes are more of a navy blue now, nothing like the sky blue that they once were. There was only one day during the past year that her eyes were sky blue, so Link tried to stay away from her as often as he could. Link has been having a lot of nightmares recently, ones that Dark’s spell can’t counter, which means they’re magical in nature. He’s wary of what these nightmares mean as Link describes them as containing an evil monster ransacking an unknown land. He wakes up to one such nightmare on the morning of the Wing Ceremony, but this time, there’s a voice saying, “Rise, Link… the time has come for you to awaken…You are fated to have a hand in a great destiny, and it will soon find you…The time has come for you to awaken…Link…” right before he woke up. He tells Dark of that instantly, who looks at him confused. They’ll figure what it means after the Wing Ceremony as it also happens roughly at noon. He heads down and eats breakfast before going to find Pipit before the ceremony. He spends time with Pipit before he suggests that Link go practice a bit more, though Link’s basically got this easily with the connection with his bird. Link nods and heads over to one of the ledges, but freezes right before jumping off. He looks around worriedly. “What’s wrong, Link?” “I can’t sense Crimson out there…” Link says, still looking around. Pipit frowns at that, not liking the sound of it. “Okay, I’ll go get the Headmaster to see about delaying the ceremony. You go find Crimson.” Link nods and sends Dark out to help him look for his missing loftwing. They look all over the main part of Skyloft but don’t find any clues. Pipit runs up to Link suddenly. “They’re holding the ceremony until you find your bird, but I heard that Fledge knows something about where he is, come with me!” Pipit leads Link over to where he told Fledge to wait. “Hey, Fledge… So where is my loftwing?” Fledge smiles nervously before saying, “I overheard Groose and his buddies earlier when I was cleaning the dining hall. They mentioned something about hiding your loftwing near the waterfall. But please don’t let them know I told you...They caught me and promised that if I told they’d make sure I could never ride a loftwing again!” Link just smiles softly, “Your secret is safe with me… Thank you.” Fledge nods and Link runs over to the Sparring Hall so that he can get a sword since he’ll need one to go through the cave near the waterfall. He goes in and grabs the sword that he has stored there before trying to leave. After a quick conversation with Eagus, he leaves the building with a sword, running over towards the waterfall cave. He enters the cave and runs through it, easily killing the Keese and Green Chuchus inside. After that, he exits the cave and he runs around the path before finding his loftwing. He grins slightly when he sees Crimson and he runs up to his bird, freeing him from the ropes that’s holding him in the enclosure. Crimson nuzzles him and Link smiles, climbing on his bird. He flies to the main square where the ceremony will begin and land quietly, groaning when Groose approaches him. Groose taunts him a bit about his loftwing before revealing what the prize is for the ceremony. Link groans internally as he doesn’t want to be at the top of the Goddess Statue with Zelda, though he thinks having the sailcloth could be pretty cool. Owlan then describes how the contest will work as well as the part of getting to graduate from the current knight class to one higher, which means Link would be in the same class as Pipit, so that’s one incentive for him to win the contest. The contest begins and they all run off the ledge, calling their loftwings. They start chasing after the golden bird, though Link gets some altitude to make it easier on him, unlike the other competitors. This advantage makes it easier for him to get behind the bird and he reaches out for the statuette, though before he grabs it, Groose flies over and hits Link with his bird. Link growls softly and begins dodging the eggs that Groose and his friends somehow got ahold of and began throwing at him. He quickly gets behind the gold loftwing again and reaches for the statuette. He manages to grab it this time and grins, as this means that he won the contest. At this, Zelda jumps off the edge and calls her loftwing, landing on her and they both fly to the Goddess Statue to complete the ceremony. They land on the platform near the top and Zelda turns before saying, “Link, hand me the bird statuette you have.” He hands the little wooden bird to her and she places it in an alcove in the statue. She steps back and pulls out her harp, strumming the melody for the Ballad of the Goddess. Link notices her eyes flicker to a lighter blue, the color that they were when she was younger. They remain the color as she smiles at Link softly, the same type of smile as when they were younger, and she holds her hand out to him. He kneels to the ground, closing his eyes, knowing that this is part of the ceremony and that she’s trustworthy while her eyes are this color. Zelda begins to speak and her voice contains an actual sweetness that has been missing from it all these years except during those few days when her eyes were this color, “Great goddess, guiding light and protector of our people, grant us your blessing and mercy as I act in your stead during this ceremony.” Her voice deepens a bit with the next phrase as it’s the goddess’s words and not her own, “Valiant youth who grasped victory at the celebration of the bird folk...In accordance with the old ways...I now bestow the blessings of the goddess upon you.” Zelda reaches behind her and takes off the sailcloth she was using as a shawl, handing it to Link. Link takes the fabric carefully, running his hands over the soft cloth. Zelda smiles at him once again and closes her eyes, enjoying being there with him. She suddenly smirks before saying, “Let’s finish the ritual. You do know the ritual, right?” She opens her eyes again, to reveal that they’re the dark blue that they’ve changed into over the past few years, the ones that Link was used to seeing. Link nods, a bit warily and she grins, “You have to jump off of the statue.” She says, whirling him around. She gives him a push, causing him to lose balance and jump off of the statue. He waits until the ground is close before using the sailcloth to lighten his landing, touching his feet to the ground without any pain. She jumps down afterward, her loftwing catching her and taking her to the ground. She lightly strums her harp again in the same melody, her eyes turning sky blue once again. Link notices that in curiosity, it seems the melody has some kind of purification effect on her, causing her to be nice like she once was. She looks at him, her hands still absentmindedly strumming the melody, before grinning and saying, “Want to go fly with me like we used to?” Link nods and they call their loftwings, flying out over the clouds. Zelda grins at him and talks to him for a bit, him enjoying her being nice to him again. “Link, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.” She says, causing him to look at her. “Well, you see…” She begins before looking out, her eyes widening, “What is that?!” Link looks away from her and his eyes widen as well when he sees the dark tornado. Zelda’s loftwing gets pulled towards the tornado and she falls, falling straight through the clouds, “Link! Help!” She screams, her voice cracking slightly. Link flies forward into the tornado, only to be bounced away off of his loftwing. He falls down, his loftwing managing to catch him, but not before he passed out from the shock. ***** Chapter 5 ***** Chapter Notes Yay! Another chapter and we're starting to get to the good stuff :3 I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes “Link…?” The voice from his dreams asks. “I am waiting for you. The time has come for you to awaken. You are vital to a mission of great importance.” He sees a flying figure in his dreams, the one who is speaking. “Link…” The dream moves to him seeing Zelda falling beneath him. He reaches a hand out to grab hers but she falls into the mouth of the monster that he had been dreaming of. He suddenly sits up, the dream fading. Gaepora talks to him a little bit about the day before telling him to rest and that Zelda’s alive. He hears a voice talk to him through the door and stands up, walking over to the door. He exits his room and sees the figure from his dream to his right. Deciding to follow her, he heads over there and follows her up the stairs and out of the Knight Academy. She leads him throughout Skyloft and he grumbles slightly when he has to fight a Remlit, unable to avoid the fight. He’s pretty curious where they’ll end up and he climbs across the ledge on a cliff area of Skyloft where he’s never been. He continues to follow her, climbing the vines and he winces when he feels himself starting to get tired. Good thing is is that he only has to go a little further before they arrive at the Goddess Statue. The figure phases through one of the walls and opens up an entryway and Link follows her through it, intrigued at what’s going to be inside the statue. He looks around when he’s inside, only to discover that the girl has disappeared. He walks towards the sword in the middle of the room, and she appears again, bowing respectfully at him. She looks back up at him, allowing him to finally see her face up close, before speaking, “The one chosen by my creator. I have been waiting for you. You will play a role in a great destiny.” Link looks at her strangely, not liking her monotone way of speaking. She continues to speak, introducing herself as Fi. She explains that her role is to help him fulfill his destiny and he looks at her, still a bit confused about what’s going on. She tells him to take up the sword and he does so, though a bit warily. She looks at him before saying, “I was not expecting you to do that so easily, but I must tell you that Zelda is still alive.” Link nods at that, “In the name of my creator, raise the sword skyward.” Link does so and his sword gains a blue glow eventually completely shining and thrumming with energy. Fi begins to speak again, “Recognition complete, Master.” Link gives her an ‘are you kidding’ look and she continues, “Link...my master.” Link sighs quietly, knowing that she’s likely not going to agree with dropping the title. He hears his name spoken and turns around, seeing Gaepora walk into the room. Gaepora speaks to him for a little bit about the legend behind the destiny that he’s supposed to follow, though Fi continues it, saying that he was missing some critical information. Link learns that he’s going to be sent on a journey beneath the clouds and he gives her a disbelieving look, not believing there to be a world beneath the clouds. She eventually gives him a tablet that will pierce the cloud barrier and he puts it in the altar like she says. She explains how to do a Skyward Strike and that he must hit the Triforce crest with one and he does so. She tells him that it worked and now there’s a small hole in the barrier that he can travel through. Gaepora asks Link to bring his daughter back to him and Link nods, not wanting to let him down. He tells him that the uniform that they made for him since he won the race should be done by now and that he should change into the uniform before embarking on his journey. Link nods, getting tired of everyone telling him just what to do. Gaepora takes him back to the Knight Academy and Link changes into the Knight uniform, admiring the color. Green’s always been one of his favorite colors since it symbolizes life, so he won’t mind wearing the uniform after all. Gaepora tells him that he’s always welcome to stop by his office if he’s in need of information and Link nods. Gaepora leaves, but not before saying, “May the goddess watch over and guide you both.” Once outside Link’s room, a solemn look crosses his face and he sighs before muttering softly, “Once again, I’m so sorry for having to do this to you, my boy. But it was the Goddess’s orders and I couldn’t refuse…” Link heads out of his room and goes over to talk to Fledge, who gives him an adventure pouch to store items in. Link thanks him before exploring the Academy, wondering if anyone else will give him something useful. He ends up getting a wooden shield from Professor Owlan. He leaves the academy soon after and Fi tells him to get a shield and potions. He rolls his eyes and heads to the bazaar, greeting Luv like old friends, which technically they are. He buys two bottles of heart potion, knowing that it’ll likely be the one that he’ll need. She gives him a bottle and some stamina potion as well on the house and he thanks her. He leaves the bazaar once he bought the potions and ignores Fi’s calls to hurry and go to the ledge. He heads to where Pipit is, knowing that the boy is likely freaking out over what’s happened to his friend. He finds Pipit and calls his name, getting the boy’s attention and a relieved look. “Link! You’re alright!” Pipit says, pulling his brother in for a hug. Link smiles and returns the hug. “I am… But I’m going to be gone for a while, I have this huge destiny that I have to follow.” Link says before explaining the gist of what happened. “Wow.. That’s amazing, Link. Be sure to visit whenever you’re back on Skyloft and I’ll help you with anything that you need. Also, be safe, okay?” Link nods, smiling with the knowledge that his friend will be worrying for him and he says goodbye before leaving. This time he walks over to a ledge and jumps off, calling for his loftwing. He flies towards the green beam of light in the sky and jumps off of his loftwing when he gets right above the hole in the clouds. He feels a bit nervous about how far he’s falling but when he gets close to the ground, he uses the sailcloth, which softens his landing quite a bit. He sighs with relief the minute his feet touch solid ground again and Fi says that they’ve arrived at a place called the Sealed Grounds. Link walks forward and quickly figures out how to defeat the new enemy type, which Fi calls a Deku Baba. She looks at him in ‘annoyance’ when he ignores her instructions and figures out how to kill it himself. He heads down to the bottom of the area, Fi telling him to use a Skyward Strike on the spike in the ground once he gets there. He does so and the geysers in the area activate. Link nods at this, glad that he’ll have an easier time scaling the area back to the top. Using both his sailcloth and the geysers, he heads up to the building and enters it, looking around curiously. He approaches the old woman, who talks to him for a bit before marking his map with where he’s supposed to go and she tells him to head to the adjacent room. He does so and picks up a bottle of revitalizing potion from the chest, putting it in his pouch with the others. Luv gave him a special pouch for potions since he always had to use so many in the past, so he’s not using up spaces in his adventure pouch. He heads outside since there’s nothing left to do inside the building and his eyes narrow when he sees a bunch of enemies surrounding someone, making it a fairly unfair fight. Link jumps down and helps the guy defeat the enemies, which Fi calls Bokoblins, causing the person to thank him. He introduces himself as Gorko the Goron and they talk for a bit, eventually activating the bird statue, which Fi explains is a way to get back up to Skyloft if he wishes. He continues forward and arrives into the forest proper, exploring it at his own pace. He eventually makes it to the Kikwi Elder and sighs when he finds out that he has to find all of the Kikwis for the guy. Link explores the area, quickly finding the three missing Kikwi and he returns to the Elder for information. Bucha gives him the slingshot for finding the Kikwi and Link thanks him before going on his way. During the search for the Kikwi, he managed to find what appeared to be a heart shaped candy, which Fi said was a piece of heart. Link ate the candy, finding it to be delicious, and his body felt revitalized and full of energy. He also discovered that the injuries that he had had disappeared, so he’ll be watching out for more of these in the future. Now equipped with a slingshot, Link uses it to get to the Deep Woods, which he explores, the energy from the candy draining quickly. He kills any enemies that get in his way and he finds a large temple, which Fi says is their next destination. She warns him that she senses the presence of numerous monsters, which Link shrugs off, entering the temple anyway after using his new slingshot to open the door. He looks around the temple curiously before he hears a familiar chuckle. Fi warns him that it’s a ‘monster’ and Link shoots her a glare, causing her to back away. He embraces Dark warmly and they talk for a bit, Dark saying that he’s going to lead him through the temple and help with the enemies. Link accepts and Fi goes back into the sword, knowing that he won’t listen to her. Dark does as he promised and is a fairly good guide through the temple. He seems to know where all the secrets are so he helps Link get the dungeon map, the beetle, and a piece of heart with no trouble. Link stores the candy in his food pouch, not wanting it to go bad if he can help it. They continue to explore the dungeon together and get the golden carving, which Dark explains is a key to the boss door. They approach the boss door and Dark apologizes, saying that there’s an energy surrounding the room that won’t let him go in in this form. He says sorry one more time before merging with Link’s shadow, upset that he won’t be able to help Link fight the boss. Link pushes on and unlocks the door, despite his growing exhaustion. He stumbles into the room, barely able to stand on his feet. Suddenly, the room glows a bright gold and when the light fades, it reveals a man standing there facing away from Link, holding out a sword in front of him. He goes to hit the door in front of him with the blade before the sword disappears into a trail of diamonds. “Look who it is…” A voice sounding as smooth as satin emanates from the man in front of him. He turns around and looks like he wants to say more, but he’s shocked at Link’s exhausted appearance. “I was going to fight you, but it appears you can barely stand on your feet.” He snaps his fingers and a bed appears. The male looks at Link, “I promise not to fight you today, as it looks like too much for you. Go lay down.” The male makes a box appear, telling Link to put his things in that and he won’t touch any of them unless absolutely necessary. Link does so and goes to lay down, sighing contentedly at how soft the bed is. The man smiles slightly at this, “Comfortable, sky child?” Link nods, looking lazily over at the man. “Good.” The man makes a chair appear and sits in it, looking at Link before his eyes widen. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m being positively uncivil. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ghirahim, the Demon Lord who presides over this land you call the Surface. I much prefer to be indulged with my full title, Lord Ghirahim, but I’m not fussy.” He says, giving Link a haughty look. Link laughs softly at this, amused by this demon lord. Ghirahim gives a disgruntled look before looking proud like it was his intention to make Link laugh in the first place. Link laughs a bit more at this before settling down, his body too exhausted to laugh much more. Ghirahim frowns at this, “Sky child, do you have a stamina potion in that pouch of yours?” Link nods slightly, the motion barely a bob of his head. Ghirahim stands up and strolls over to the chest, quickly finding the potion and walking over to Link. He uncorks it and hands it to Link. “Drink. You’ll feel much better.” Link drinks the potion and sighs as he feels much of his fatigue leave his body. Ghirahim smirks at this, “Sky child, do you have a name?” Link blushes slightly and nods. “My name is Link.” He says simply, causing Ghirahim to hum in thought. “It suits you well.” Link smiles at this before he looks curiously at Ghirahim. “May I ask you for something?” Ghirahim tilts his head, appearing to think about it. “Sure. What is it, sky child?” “Would you remove whatever ward on this room that’s preventing my shadow from becoming corporeal?” Ghirahim’s eyes widen and he looks at the boy in shock, but snaps his fingers, the ward fading. Dark immediately comes out of Link’s shadow and freezes, looking on this situation in complete shock. He sits on the edge of the bed near Link and just watches Ghirahim warily, though he just heard everything through being in Link’s shadow. He can’t believe that the demon lord would be caring enough to not just kill the boy. Ghirahim looks over Link, healing any injuries that the boy had sustained, frowning at the amount of scars that the boy has that are visible. He doesn’t say anything, as it’s not his place to intrude, but he’s wondering where all those scars came from. He goes back to the chair and sits down, telling Link that he should go to sleep. Dark nods in agreement and Link closes his eyes, sleep finding him easily. Ghirahim and Dark keep an eye on him while he sleeps, talking quietly so as to not disturb the sleeping hero. Dark relaxes slightly as he talks to Ghirahim, figuring out soon that the demon lord is not as cruel as others make him out to be. Ghirahim admires the shadow, as he’s never seen a shadow become corporeal like this, but also able to protect and care for it’s lighter half. After several hours of a deep sleep, Link wakes up, feeling fully refreshed. He smiles at them both and thanks them for allowing him to sleep, both of them saying it was no problem. Dark gets some food out of Link’s pouch for him and Link eats, enjoying the company. Somehow, he trusts the demon lord already, despite him saying that he would fight him, he doesn’t seem to be cruel at all. He can tell that Dark also trusts him, which gives him confidence that trusting him is a good decision. Dark doesn’t trust many people easily, as he’s seen a lot of people hurt Link in the past. Ghirahim sighs after a little bit and says, “I have to go now… Hopefully, our paths will cross again.” Link looks a bit disappointed but nods, telling the demon lord goodbye. Ghirahim snaps, teleporting out of the room before he changes his mind, leaving a heart container behind for the boy. It’ll make him stronger and better able to stand the next temple, so he doesn’t mind helping the boy that he’s already starting to care for. Dark gives Link the candy and Link eats it, enjoying the sour flavor, feeling his body get a bit stronger. After eating the heart container, Link retrieves his items from the box before heading over to the other door. He enters the spring and looks around in awe as the place is really beautiful. He makes his way down the path until he reaches another triforce crest. He hits it with a Skyward Strike and Fi appears from his sword. “Master, I have a message written in the language of the gods of old. Allow me to translate for you.” Link gives a curt nod, signaling for her to do so, and she explains what the spring is for and where the next one is. When she’s done speaking, another tablet appears in the hands of the goddess statue and floats over to Link. Fi tells him to take the tablet to the altar in Skyloft and he rolls his eyes, already having figured that out for himself. He rolls his eyes again when she says that there’s a 97% chance that Zelda’s already heading to Eldin, that also being pretty obvious. He exits the temple and one of the Kikwi from earlier stops him and talks to him for a bit before he uses the bird statue to head back up to the sky. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you think of this story so far! :3 Also, what did you all think of this Ghirahim? ***** Chapter 6 ***** Chapter Notes Next chapter! I might start to post slower as I'm currently on vacation, so I don't know how often I'll be writing :P But still enjoy as this is the next area and there's some revelations in here, if I remember correctly :3 See the end of the chapter for more notes He sends Dark to the other islands, as his shadow can use his loftwing’s shadow to traverse the area, to get the items in the chests that the few goddess cubes he found activated. While he does this, Link flies to the main island of Skyloft and goes to put the Ruby Tablet in the altar in the Goddess Statue. When he leaves the statue after placing the tablet in the altar, Wryna tells him that Kukiel has gone missing. He nods, actually liking the little kid, so he’ll help her find her. He decides to go to the bazaar next as he’s fairly close to it. Since he has plenty of rupees due to Dark’s amazing knowledge of the temple, he’ll be able to buy whatever he needs. He exits the bazaar with a small seed satchel and an iron shield, his wooden shield being stored by Peatrice in the item check. Dark returns to him then with an extra adventure pouch bag that’ll hold an item and a piece of heart. Link chuckles and puts it with the other ones that he has, knowing he’ll need them later. He gets a few things from Beedle’s Air Shop before looking around to find Kukiel. Dark easily helps with that and they meet Batreaux, learning that he needs gratitude crystals to become human. Link sighs slightly but accepts to help him and he wanders Skyloft that night looking for the little crystals. With some help from Dark, he finds ten of them just laying around and he takes them back to Batreaux, getting the medium wallet and another piece of heart. He heads to bed since it’s still nighttime and he helps Parrow and Orielle, getting him ten more gratitude crystals. Now with all he needs for the next stage of his journey, he goes to spend some time with Pipit, as he doesn’t want to let one of his visits to Skyloft go without him seeing his friend. He talks with Pipit for roughly an hour before Fi tells him to move on and he smiles apologetically, heading to one of the ledges of Skyloft closer to the red beam of light. He jumps off and calls his loftwing, flying over to the beam and jumping in, landing on a platform near some lava. He looks around as Fi explains that this is Eldin Volcano and that there’s a lot of lava in the area, so he needs to be careful with fabric and wooden items. He’s glad that he switched shields and he’ll remain careful not to catch fire himself. He explores the area, meeting the Mogma and solving puzzles. He kills the enemies that he runs across, only suffering a few small scrapes when they get a lucky hit in. Unfortunately, one of the fire keese managed to catch him off guard, so he has a small burn from where it touched his skin. He manages to find another piece of heart and eats it, which heals the scrapes and makes the burn less prominent, but still there. He finds that he quite enjoys using the bombs to solve puzzles, as they are easy to use and very useful in most of the puzzles in this area. After a bit, one of the Mogma gives him a pair of digging mitts for saving him and Link puts them on immediately, knowing that they’ll likely be useful in this area. He goes and digs in the soft dirt behind the Mogma, using the gust of air to get up onto the higher platform. He sends Dark to the left to get any treasure that’s there and Dark confirms that it was a dead end and he hands Link a few rupees and pieces of eldin ore. Dark goes back into Link’s shadow and Link continues on, getting out of the underground area that he’s in. He continues to explore the area before arriving at the entrance to the next temple. He growls when he realizes that it’s locked and there’s no key to be found, so Fi allows him to dowse for the key pieces. He sends Dark inside to get a gist of the layout and where the chests are while he searches for the key pieces. ~Dark’s POV~ Dark explores the temple thoroughly, making sure to know where all the treasure chests and items are. He arrives at the boss room and nods, making his way back to the entrance. He suddenly hears voices and merges with the shadows, heading towards the sound.   “What is your plan after the boy defeats the Demon King, Your Grace?” Sharp laughter rings out after before a cold voice laced with darkness replies, “I’ll dispose of him, of course. I won’t need him after he gets rid of my enemy for me. He has nothing left anyway, I had his parents killed by someone that he would trust so that he’d be more willing to go on this journey of mine.” The other voice laughs at this, “Good thinking, Your Grace.” Dark scowls with this revelation before seeing Zelda, now with solid black eyes, and a person robed in black enter the room. He’ll tell Link this later, as it’s too important for him to leave off. He slinks back through the shadows to where Link wanted to meet him and he smiles slightly when he sees Link return with a fully put together key. They open the door of the temple and Dark starts leading Link through the temple, taking him to all the treasure chests that he had found during his exploration. Link quickly gets the bomb bag, which makes it so that he can store the bomb flowers that he had been using previously. He stores ten of the bombs into the bag and they continue on their traversing of the temple. Dark leads him to the dungeon map, using magic to prevent Link from falling off the ball that he’s using to ride through the lava. Dark then leads him throughout the dungeon until they get the Dragon Sculpture, heading back to the boss entrance. They see Ghirahim who just snaps and makes a few small enemies appear before disappearing. He doesn’t want to fight the sky child right now and will return after Link enters the spring and the spirit maiden leaves. Link kills the enemies and hears a faint snap, a heart container appearing on the ground in front of him. Link shrugs and eats the candy, feeling faintly stronger but still tired as this temple had a lot more moving around, plus the extremely hot temperature causing him to be tired. Link runs up the ramp and enters the door to the spring, freezing when he hears the Ballad of the Goddess. He looks up and sees Zelda and a person dressed in black and a golden pillar of light appear. Zelda walks towards it before hearing Link take a step forward and turns, smiling softly. Link’s just close enough to tell that his friend has light blue eyes, caused by the purifying effect of the melody she just played. Link runs a bit forward and Zelda smiles, “Link!” She runs forward as well before the woman holds out an arm to stop her. “You cannot go to him, Your Grace.” She says simply, curious about the change in eye color and personality. Zelda pouts but shrugs sadly, waving at Link before walking into the pillar of light. The woman scowls at Link before following after her, but not before taunting Link with some cruel words about him being late and not strong enough to help Zelda. Link slumps to the ground once they leave and hears a noise, turning slightly to see Ghirahim. Ghirahim walks over to Link and kneels down beside him, picking the boy up softly. He snaps once again and makes a bed appear, laying Link down on it so that he’s more comfortable. Link smiles at him and Ghirahim makes a cloth appear, dipping it in the healing waters of the spring. He cleans off Link’s wounds that he got during the dungeon and the burn, all of it healing quickly. “Sky child, do be more careful, would you?” He says, a wry smile on his face. Link nods slightly, relaxing now that he’s surrounded by friends. They all talk for a little bit before Link yawns, still tired from traversing the temple. Ghirahim chuckles softly, “Sleep, Link. We’ll keep you safe.” Dark nods at that and Link closes his eyes, allowing sleep to overtake him. Dark turns to Ghirahim then, “I don’t think we should trust the goddess.” He states, revealing what information he gleaned from the conversation he overheard earlier. Ghirahim raised an eyebrow before looking sadly at the sky child, “She is forcing him to do so much, using him as one of her pawns… If only he knew the true history… Master was never cruel like they raised him to think, he was a caring and benevolent king, only cruel to those who committed horrible crimes.” Dark thinks about that for a bit, “Well, we’ll continue his journey as long as it’s safe for him to do so, but the minute his life is completely on the line and I can’t help, we’ll stop.” Ghirahim smiles at that and nods. They continue to chat quietly while Link sleeps, enjoying the peaceful surroundings. Link wakes a few hours later and stretches, Dark getting him some food from his pouch once again. Link eats and they all talk, not telling Link of these new developments until it’s absolutely necessary. They don’t want him to feel abandoned even further, this time by the goddess that he’s been raised to worship. The sun slowly declines in the sky until it’s late afternoon, about an hour or so before nighttime. Ghirahim sighs again, saying that he must leave, though he’d rather stay. Link whines but Ghirahim chuckles softly and lightly pets the boy on the head, “Don’t worry, we’ll see each other in the next area.” Link nods, leaning into the petting before Ghirahim snaps, teleporting away. Link uses the Skyward Strike on the crest at the end of the path and gets the Amber Tablet after Fi talks some more. He uses a nearby bird statue and heads up to the sky, heading back to Skyloft as it’s getting dark. He sends Dark to collect the chests from the goddess cubes, as the shadow loftwing is capable of flying at night. Link takes the tablet to the altar of the Goddess Statue, placing the tablet in the remaining space. He heads to the bazaar and switches out his shield on a hunch, knowing that he likely won’t need to be protected from fire in the next area. He heads to Beedle’s shop and buys a few new items, including a small wallet and a heart medal. He puts the medal in his bag and feels a bit stronger with the addition. He heads back down to the main area of Skyloft, waiting for Dark to return. Dark eventually does, loaded with a small seed satchel, a treasure medal, and both a gold and silver rupee. Link takes the items and thanks him for it before heading back to the academy to get some more sleep, as it’s nighttime at this point. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you think of this! ***** Chapter 7 ***** Chapter Notes So here's the next chapter! It involves a lot about Zelda and Hylia, so I hope you're ready for some history :3 I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes He wakes up the next morning, and ignoring Fi’s instructions to go to the next area, seeks out Pipit and spends a few hours with his close friend. Once he’s done spending time with the boy, he listens to Fi and heads towards the yellow beam of light in the sky, curious what this next area will be. He lands on a platform overlooking the area and he looks at it curiously, not liking the dry heat creeping up over his skin. Fi explains that this is Lanayru Mine and explains that it was once a green and grassy area, now turned into a desert. He climbs down the ladder and curiously goes around the giant structure he was on, finding a goddess cube. He then proceeds onwards into the mine proper, pushing the minecart forward and dispatching some basic enemies. He quickly learns that the yellow chuchu generate electricity, though he discovered this by being shocked by one. He arrives in an area open to the sky and there’s a large blue stone in the middle of it. He runs up to the stone and hits it with his sword, his eyes widening when it glows brightly, levitating slightly, the world around him filled with lush green grass and the robots coming to life. He looks around, awestruck by how cool it is. He continues on once he’s done being distracted by the effects of the Timeshift Stone. He eventually gets out of the mine and into the actual desert area, not impressed by the dry feeling in the air. He definitely likes Faron the most of the three regions, as it was a normal climate, similar to the one of Skyloft. He continues to explore the area, at one point getting his Beetle upgraded to a Hook Beetle by one of the ancient robots. He finds another goddess cube and is getting tired of having to run through the sand so that he won’t sink. He sighs in relief when he reaches the next area as there’s no more patches of quicksand in this direction. After solving a few more puzzles, he arrives at the giant wall, which is crumbled. He talks to Gorko for a bit, getting an explanation of what happened to the wall. Link sighs as it looked to be the only way into the temple, but he ends up finding out that he can go through the mining facility to get there as well. After quite a bit of backtracking and new exploration, he finds himself at the beginning of the mining facility. He goes through the process of turning the generators on and grins to himself when he finds another piece of heart. Deciding that he can go back to the sky for any other treasures after the dungeon, he eats the heart piece to get some more energy before entering the Lanayru Mining Facility. Dark appears instantly when he arrives in the main room and they traverse the temple, slower this time as Dark doesn’t know it as well as he did the others. He couldn’t get in while the generators weren’t on, so he’ll try his best to make sure that Link finds every bit of treasure that he can in the temple. When they’re not busy fighting, they’re chatting amicably, both of them needing the company. After a bit of exploration that gives them two red rupees from chests, they get the gust bellows. They continue to explore the facility, using the gust bellows in most of the puzzles that follow. They eventually find the dungeon map and continue to explore. They find another couple of red rupees on their quest to find the carving for this dungeon’s boss door. They find the Ancient Circuit after a little more exploration, Link managing to get shocked a few more times by the enemies. He is really starting to hate this place, due to the feeling of the heat combined with the pain of being shocked over and over again. He then enters the boss room, Dark following right beside him. Together, they defeat Moldarach and get the heart container, Link eating it tiredly. He feels his strength increase, but it does nothing to increase his energy level, which is drained after defeating the boss. He rides the minecart to the exit of the dungeon and leaves, hearing Zelda’s singing voice faintly echo to him. He smiles slightly at the sound, always having loved hearing her sing as it was usually when her eyes were sky blue that she’d do so. She turns when the song is finished and grins at him, her eyes a bright sky blue from the song. They start to run towards each other before the crumbled part of the wall explodes. Ghirahim’s laughter echoes in the space surrounding them and he leaps forward, turning and smiling softly at Link before scowling at Zelda. She frowns slightly as her eyes fade to black, the effect from the song fading. She smirks cruelly at him and Ghirahim leaps forward, the blond coming to defend Zelda. She tells Zelda to go on and Zelda sends her harp over to Link, saying that he’ll need it in the future. Link grasps the harp, noticing a piece of paper wrapped around one of the strings. Deciding to look at it once Zelda and the woman leave, he tucks it into one of his pouches. Zelda heads to the gate as Ghirahim finally manages to break the woman’s defensive spell. Link runs forward and places a hand on Ghirahim’s shoulder, stopping him from attacking the woman. Zelda and the woman look on in shock but they escape through the gate, destroying it in the process. Ghirahim growls softly but shakes his head, looking softly at Link. He creates some chairs for him, Link, and Dark to all sit in and they do, looking at each other. Link remembers the note on the string and pulls the harp out of his pouch, unwrapping the paper from the string. His eyes widen as he reads the note before he hands it to Dark to read as well. “Link, I’m so sorry for everything that I’ve done to you in the past. I was not in control of my own body. Hylia has been controlling me and she’s a lot worse than we thought. The only times I’ve been in control of my body were when my eyes changed and I know that you figured that out. You have to figure out a way to stop her, any way that you can. And once again...I’m sorry.” Dark hands the note to Ghirahim, who nods as he reads that, deciding to go ahead and tell Link about the true history. Dark nods, knowing what the other has planned and Ghirahim snaps, turning the chair he’s sitting in into a couch before gesturing to Link to sit beside him. He pulls the smaller boy close and looking into the bright blue eyes of the hero, somehow so full of life despite everything that’s happened to him. And, yes, Ghirahim knows as that was one of the conversation topics between him and Dark whenever Link was sleeping. “Sky child, would you like to know the true history of the war between the demons and Hylia’s army?” Link nods quietly, snuggling a bit closer to the demon lord as he trusts the man already. Ghirahim smiles and allows Link to lay down, knowing that he’s tired, his head resting softly in the demon’s lap. Ghirahim starts to pet Link’s hair comfortingly, knowing that the boy will need the comfort during the history lesson. “It started a few thousand years ago, when the world was at peace. There were no wars back then, everything was happy and no one had reason to be angry. Hylia ruled the humans with love and grace while my master did the same with the demons. But one day, she started making claims that the demons were evil and that our hearts were filled with darkness just because we love to use dark magic. The humans slowly believed her and she led them into a war against their friends and sometimes even their loved ones, as before this war it was accepted for a demon and a human to be in love, no matter their status,” “The part about her sealing the remaining humans on Skyloft and sealing the Demon King away is true, as she did exactly that. She became dreadfully wounded from fighting with Demise and decided that she would need a hero and herself reincarnated to officially kill Demise, who she’d sworn as her enemy by that point. That’s where you and Zelda come in, she made it so that she would be able to control her reincarnated self’s body whenever she chose and jealousy made it easy to get into Zelda’s heart. She decided to weaken you by having your parents killed, and then your once close friend abuse you verbally, physically, and sexually. She knew that once you did your duty you would have no one else to go to so she’d be able to extinguish your life with your own permission,” Link’s eyes widen as Ghirahim continues, “Yes, Dark, here, overheard her confessing to her little servant that she has that her final plan was to kill you, as you were only a pawn in her game. She never expected, or cared really, that you had Dark and Pipit, as she believed them to be useless and that they wouldn’t give you a reason to live, but they have. You wouldn’t want to die because it would hurt them, would you?” Link shakes his head softly, tears streaming down his face in betrayal from the goddess that he had been raised to think was perfect and kind. “And there’s her fault. Now you’ll be able to save Zelda, though it’ll take some patience as you have to completely go through the mission that she created.” Link’s eyes light up softly at the realization that she could help Zelda go back to her old self. Link sits up and snuggles closer to Ghirahim, who wraps an arm around him. He nuzzles into the demon’s neck and closes his eyes again, trying to get a grip on his emotions. Ghirahim notices before saying, “If you feeling like crying, sky child, go ahead. Holding in your emotions won’t help you any, I would know…” He chuckles sheepishly, knowing that he always explodes whenever he holds back his emotions. Link nods and starts crying into Ghirahim’s neck, allowing the demon to comfort him softly. The demon just rocks him softly, Dark going into Link’s shadow to give them some privacy. He can ignore anything of the normal world when in the shadows, so he does so, knowing that he’ll be able to tell if Link falls asleep. Link just clings to Ghirahim, letting all of his emotions out with crying that slowly progresses to sobbing. Ghirahim holds him there, stroking his back softly, one hand going up and petting Link’s head softly. Soothed by the feelings, Link slowly calms down, his crying lessening at the comfort the demon’s giving him. After a bit, he stops crying completely and just waits for his breathing to settle on its own, rather than forcing it to. Ghirahim pulls away slightly and pecks Link on the forehead, causing the boy to blush and Ghirahim to chuckle softly. “Sleep, my sky child. I’ve got you.” Link lays down in Ghirahim’s lap again and closes his eyes, sleep quickly overtaking him. Dark exits his shadow at that time, wanting to keep Ghirahim company. He can see a change in their relationship immediately, despite Link not being awake. He justs ignores it, not really minding it as Ghirahim wouldn’t force Link into doing anything he doesn’t want to do. They chat for the hours that Link is asleep, neither of them needing much right now, as Dark sleeps when he’s in Link’s shadow and Ghirahim slept earlier. Link eventually wakes up and stretches before snuggling into Ghirahim. The demon lord chuckles but pulls the boy closer as he starts eating food from one of his pouches. Ghirahim swipes a piece before feeding it to Link, causing his face to flame a bright red. Dark laughs at this, not used to seeing his lighter half embarrassed. After he eats, Link stands up and assumes that Ghirahim is about to leave since he usually does once Link wakes up. Ghirahim stands up as well, however, he doesn’t leave. He looks at Link curiously before asking, “Mind if I come with you for a little bit? I have nothing else to do but look for clues for another Time Gate since the damn goddess’s servant blew this one up.” Link chuckles and nods, leading the demon over to a bird statue. He looks at him cheekily before saying, “Hold on.” Ghirahim looks at him confused but a gust of wind shoots Link upward, Ghirahim grabbing him at the last second. Link calls his loftwing once he’s up in the sky and Crimson allows Ghirahim on as well behind Link. Link flies them through the sky, Dark going to get the chests from the goddess cubes as he usually does. When he arrives on Skyloft, Link tells Ghirahim that he can explore while Link goes and helps people to get gratitude crystals. The demon nods, wide-eyed, and he sets off, looking around curiously. Link eventually gets thirty total crystals and heads to Batreaux, assuming that’d be an important number. He gives Link the big wallet and Link also gets a cursed medal, which he puts away in the item check as he doubts that he wants it in his pouch. Dark returns to him then, handing over a silver rupee, a heart medal, and a piece of heart. Link then goes to help Fledge, having heard from someone else that his friend needs some stamina potion. Link has Dark go find Ghirahim as there’s likely not that much left to do in Skyloft in the means of helping his friends. He buys two bottles of stamina potion, asking Luv to give him an extra bottle. She does so and he goes to find Fledge. “Hey, Fledge. I heard that you were looking for a potion that’ll help you when you work out to get more stamina, so here.” He hands the potion to Fledge, who blushes slightly but accepts it. He thanks Link and Link heads to Beedle’s Airshop to buy a few things. He decides that spending a whole day on Skyloft won’t impede his mission much, and ever since his last conversation with Ghirahim, Fi has been oddly quiet. He calls Dark to him, who brings Ghirahim and they spend the day on Skyloft together, Pipit even joining them at one point for a few hours. It slowly becomes nighttime and Link heads to his room at the academy, leading Ghirahim there. Dark goes inside Link’s shadow since he’s about to go to sleep, but Link blushes as he realizes that Ghirahim won’t have a place to sleep. Ghirahim chuckles softly and says, “I can summon a bed of my own if you’d like, sky child.” Link looks at him shyly before saying, “I...actually wouldn’t mind you sleeping in the same bed as me.” Ghirahim raises an eyebrow at that, but crawls into Link’s bed, scooting up against the wall. Link takes off his gear and grabs his flute, sitting up against the headboard before playing a few songs. Ghirahim listens happily, surprised at the sky child’s talent with the instrument, wondering precisely where he learned the music. Link puts the flute away once he’s tired and he lays down, snuggling into Ghirahim. Ghirahim looks at him with a sleepy, shocked expression, but wraps an arm around Link and they both fall asleep, comforted by the other’s warmth. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought. ***** Chapter 8 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! I hope you all enjoy it! :3 I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes Link wakes up first and lies contentedly in Ghirahim’s arms. He sighs quietly at the comforting feeling of the others arms around him and he shifts slightly, deciding to be lazy and not get up for once. He hears Ghirahim make a quiet noise, still asleep, and shift, causing Link to freeze when something brushes against him. He tries to shift away, but Ghirahim just pulls him closer, not letting him escape. Link shivers slightly, knowing what that is, but nerves spread out through him though he trusts Ghirahim. Ghirahim chooses that moment to wake up and he stiffens when he realizes what position they’re in. He lets go of Link, who is trembling slightly. Ghirahim starts humming quietly, petting Link’s hair softly, but not getting closer to prevent Link from fully panicking. Link slowly calms down and looks at Ghirahim still slightly nervous. “I’m not Hylia. I won’t force you into anything you don’t want to do.” Link nods, a relieved look spreading across his face. He nods and stands up, telling Ghirahim that he’ll bring food up from the kitchen. Ghirahim nods and Link leaves the room, quickly returning with some breakfast from the dining hall. They both eat together, chatting occasionally while doing so. After they finish eating, Ghirahim sighs and says, “I must get going, sky child. I have to find clues about the location of the other Time Gate because there must be more than one of them in existence. Otherwise, the goddess wouldn’t have destroyed the one in Lanayru.” Link nods, pouting at the thought of Ghirahim leaving him. “Don’t worry, sky child. I should be able to see you at the end of your next dungeon. Besides, I wouldn’t want you getting too tired and passing out and attacked by something.” Ghirahim says jokingly, causing Link to scowl slightly. “Oh, and if any bokoblins ever give you trouble, have that shadow of yours come get me, they’ll answer to me.” Link nods before suddenly getting hugged by the demon lord. “Stay safe, my sky child.” Ghirahim’s voice whispers, concern lacing it. “I will.” Link says and Ghirahim pulls back, looking at him and nodding. He suddenly leans forward and presses his lips against Link’s, causing the Hylian to blush to the tips of his ears. Ghirahim pulls away and chuckles softly before snapping his fingers, teleporting away. Link remains frozen from the kiss for a minute before heading outside of the academy. He asks Fi where to go and Fi suggests going to Faron Woods again and he does, excited to be back in the woods since they had been his favorite of the three areas. He jumps off his loftwing above the green pillar of light and he hears something, causing him to look up at the sky behind him. His eyes widen when he sees Groose falling after him and Groose lands on him, grabbing onto one of his feet. Link uses his sailcloth to soften their fall, though they still crash into the ground due to the added weight. Link starts to chuckle softly at Groose’s reaction to seeing the smaller birds down here on the surface, though his laughter fades when Groose gets up and starts shaking him, demanding answers to where they are. After a bit, Link pats his arm comfortingly, knowing he freaked out similarly when he first landed here. Link begins to answer all of Groose’s questions, Groose hanging onto his every word. When Link’s done explaining everything, Groose says that he slightly understands what’s going on, that’s Zelda’s on the surface somewhere and she’s okay. Link nods, causing Groose to react happily to Zelda being okay, before explaining the whole Hylia being evil thing, knowing that Groose will need some time to accept it for himself. Groose just stares at him before his eyes widen, “Oh! So that’s why she suddenly started bullying you, right?” Link nods, a bit shocked that Groose figured that out so quickly. Groose then looks around again before saying that it’s not so bad down here after all. Link smiles at that but the smile fades when Groose declares that it should be named ‘Grooseland.’ He frowns even further when Groose says that he can head home and that Groose has it from here. He then gets distracted with talking about spending quality time with Zelda once she’s been rescued before repeating that he has it covered. Link just stares at him flatly as Groose runs off to find the old lady in the temple that Link mentioned to him earlier. After rolling his eyes, Link runs after him and enters the Sealed Temple, hearing the old woman tell Groose that he is not the one that will save Zelda. Groose reacts angrily, not liking being told that he can’t help Zelda. After a bit more talking, Groose runs off, still not happy about not being the one to save Zelda. Link just stares in the direction he went blankly, slightly amused by his reaction. Link talks with the old woman, learning that the person who was with Zelda earlier is named Impa. Her role is to help Zelda during her part of the mission, though Link knows that Zelda’s been possessed by Hylia, so Impa most likely knows as well. She mentions that Link must use his harp in order to get to where Zelda and Impa ran off to before asking if Link has tried to play the instrument. He shakes his head and she says that she’ll teach him how to use it. Link pulls out his harp and she has him strums match the swaying of her braid. Once he does that, she comments on how quickly he’s picking this before having him strum to the speed of the pulsing light, telling him that once he has the right tempo, she’ll add her voice to the music. She tells him to listen well, as this song is going to be important for his journey. Link heads down to the circle once it glows and he starts strumming when the light begins to pulse. After a bit, he gets to the right tempo and she starts to hum along, causing small pillars of light to form a circle around him. Once they all form, he starts strumming the melody for the Ballad of the Goddess. The minute the song is complete, a large structure comes out of the ground, which the old woman explains that it is a Time Gate, though it’s not activated currently. She talks for a bit about it and the harp that Link carries before the ground begins to shake. Impa comments that the seal on Demise has broken and that he has to go check on the sealing spike. Link feels a flicker of doubt that strengthening the seal on Demise would be good, especially since Demise isn’t the bad guy. But he decides to play the ‘perfect hero’ and does exactly what is asked of him, pretending that he doesn’t know that Hylia is evil. Link fights the Imprisoned with some help from Dark. Dark would slash at the things toes and when it falls over, Link would drive the sealing spike into its head. This makes the battle a lot easier and the old woman comments on what a good job Link did. She then begins speaking on what a monster the thing he just sealed away was and Link refrains from frowning, trying to hide the fact that he knows that Demise was actually good. She explains that he must forge his sword in order to activate the Time Gate and that he needs a flame from each of the three regions. She tells him that the clues to finding the three flames are woven into the Ballad of the Goddess, so he must return to Skyloft to get more information, from someone who knows the song. Link gets a flashback to Zelda singing the song and assumes that going to Gaepora would be a good choice. Groose walks up behind Link and glares at him, though he’s more angry at himself than at Link. He starts talking about how useless he was in the fight against the imprisoned, but the old woman says that he’ll have a role to play in the future. He leaves anyway and the old woman tells Link to go now and he nods and leaves the temple, Fi coming out and giving a hint that he’ll have to visit someone related to the academy. Link sighs and nods and she goes back into the sword. He witnesses Groose having a breakdown about how ‘useless’ he is before running off and Link shrugs slightly, heading to a bird statue to return to the sky. Link flies over to the Knight Academy, going straight to Gaepora’s office. He opens the door and walks in, hearing Gaepora’s voice boom from over near the bookcases. “You’re back, Link! Glad to see you’re still in one piece. So how’s it going down there? Are you any closer to finding my Zelda?” Link shakes his head, giving a quick explanation of what’s been going on. Gaepora looks at him sadly before asking if there’s anything that he can do to make Link’s journey easier. Link tells him that he wants to know the lyrics to the Ballad of the Goddess and Gaepora nods. “Oh youth, guided by the servant of the goddess…unite earth and sky, and bring light to the land. That’s the first part, but as I recall, there’s a second verse to the song. Oh youth, show the two whirling sails the way to the Light Tower…and before you a path shall open, and a heavenly song you shall hear. I believe that’s the whole thing.” Gaepora says, and Link easily pieces it together. He thanks Gaepora before exiting the room, Dark sticking around to see if Gaepora says anything else, as he has a hunch that he will. His assumption is proven correct when Gaepora whispers, “I really am sorry that I had to do that to you all those years ago. Hopefully, you’ll realize that Hylia isn’t all we think that she is… She forced me to kill your parents and I’ll accept any punishment that you wish if you return my Zelda to me, unpossessed by that wretch of a goddess.” Dark’s eyes widen slightly at this new revelation before he slips back into the shadows before heading back to Link’s shadows. He’ll tell Link that the next time that they’re spending time with Ghirahim after the next boss. Link heads to the two windmills in town and sighs when he realizes that one of them is missing the propeller that he needs for the gust bellows. He has Dark get Ghirahim and he asks Ghirahim to get the propeller for him, as he remembers seeing it near the entrance to the earth temple. Ghirahim smiles at him softly and teleports, coming back a few minutes later with the propeller. Another snap of his fingers attaches the propeller to the windmill and Link thanks him softly. Ghirahim says that it was no problem and asks if he can stick with him for a little while as he never found a clue for the next Time Gate. Link starts laughing softly, causing Ghirahim to look at him curiously. “I know where the gate is. Though...it’s currently dormant.” Ghirahim’s look of excitement fades to disappointment at that. “Hey, think of it this way, I’ll take you to it when you need to go and you don’t have to rush all over the surface trying to find clues as to its existence.” “I didn’t think of that, thank you, sky child.” “Of course, Ghira.” Ghirahim blushes slightly at the nickname and Link just smiles before using the gust bellows on the propeller, facing it towards the Light Tower. The top of the tower extends when both windmills are facing it and Link runs on over, looking at the ladder unamused. Ghirahim teleports them up to the top, Dark going back into Link’s shadow. Link starts playing the harp again once he’s up there and Fi begins singing the Ballad of the Goddess. Once the song’s finished, a light shoots from the tower and pierces the wall of clouds that no one’s been able to pass through during their time on Skyloft. Link walks over to one of the ledges of Skyloft and whistles, Crimson flying over and landing in front of him. He climbs on his loftwing and has him lower to the ground so that Ghirahim can get on behind him. Once Ghirahim is on and holding onto Link, Link has Crimson begin to fly and has him go towards where the beam of light is pointing. He eventually lands on the island that the light leads to and he lands, looking at the puzzle curiously. After a bit, they figure it out and quickly solve the puzzle, allowing Link entrance into the building, though he complains about having to crawl into the building instead of walk in like a normal person. He hits the crest with a skyward strike and it shines before a goddess statue rises out of the void of the room, humming a faint melody. Fi appears from her sword and looks shocked at Ghirahim and Dark before floating in front of the statue, saying, “Master Link, I have important information. When you struck the crest with a Skyward Strike from your sword, a message from the gods awakened deep within my memory. The goddess intended this message for you, Master. These are her words.” Link scowls slightly at the mention of the goddess as Fi continues, “He who seeks the sacred flames, listen well, for I guide you from my place at the edge of time. The sacred flames are three in number. To obtain them, you must also earn relics known as the three sacred gifts. For each trial you overcome, you will be blessed with one of the gifts...Make use of the power of these gifts, and you will find your way to the purifying sacred flames. Now, I bestow unto you a melody. It will serve as a key, opening the first trial that awaits you deep within the wilds of the Faron Woods.” Fi starts dancing and singing the melody then, Link listening carefully to memorize it and playing it on his harp to get it under his fingers. While he plays the melody, visions of loftwings flying around him fill his sight until the song is finished. When Fi finishes singing, she states, “That song is called Farore’s Courage. Its rousing melody will guide you.” Link puts his harp away and Fi continues to talk to him for a bit, telling him that he can dowse for the location of the trial gate. She tells him to go to Faron whenever he’s ready and he nods, her returning back to his sword. Link heads out of the building and sends Dark to get any goddess chests he can find. Dark nods and Link and Ghirahim get on Crimson and head out of the thunderhead. Link flies around, trying to find more people to help. He eventually arrives at Fun Fun Island and, with help from Ghirahim, returns Dodoh’s party wheel to him. Link plays the game after getting the gratitude crystals and eventually wins five hundred rupees and a piece of heart. Link heads back to Skyloft where he meets Dark, who gives him a gold rupee from the chest. Link knows that he needs to upgrade some of his items, so he heads to the bazaar, just happening to have enough of each material to upgrade what he wants to upgrade. He also buys the sacred shield but puts it in item check as he just upgraded his wooden shield. Dark now mentioned that when he got the piece of heart a little while ago, he broke the chandelier in the Lumpy Pumpkin and Link tells him to go do whatever it takes to pay for it to be repaired. Dark nods and he goes and does the quest of delivering pumpkin soup to Eagus and helping Kina with the pumpkins. He sighs though once he realizes that he’ll need Link’s harp, so he gets the harp from Link and waits in the Lumpy Pumpkin until it’s time to do the harp performance, being equally as skilled at the instrument as Link is. While Dark is getting the chandelier fixed, Link and Ghirahim go find Pipit and just spend time relaxing and hanging out for the rest of the day, Link not in any hurry to continue the journey just yet. Link finds out that Pipit has a crush on Karane and teases the male for it relentlessly, causing Pipit to blush and become flustered. After a bit, Link says, “I’m just teasing you. I think she’s a good match for you, you should go for it.” Pipit nods, reinvigorated and decides that he’ll confess the next day. It eventually turns nighttime and Link and Ghirahim head back to the academy, Link heads to the bathroom due to a clue that he heard earlier in the day, and true enough, there’s a hand sticking out of the toilet asking for paper. He looks at it strangely before heading back to his room with Ghirahim, Link playing the flute for Ghirahim like he did before. To his surprise, though, once he finishes a song, Ghirahim takes the instrument right out of his hands and starts playing a hauntingly beautiful song. When he finishes, Link remarks, “I didn’t know you could play.” “Well, you never asked, sky child.” Ghirahim says cheekily, “No, really, my mother taught me that song and declared that it should be my theme, so I’ve always remembered how to play it and I know it on multiple instruments.” Link looks at him softly and tells him, “Well, I like it. You should play it more often.” Ghirahim smiles and puts the harp away, beckoning Link closer. He wraps his arm around the Hylian once he gets close enough and just pulls Link into his chest. “Thank you, my sky child.” Ghirahim leans forward and brushes his lips against Link’s once again, but this time, Link leans forwards and meets him in a proper kiss. They remain lip- locked for a few minutes before Link pulls away, a soft blush on his face. Ghirahim reaches out and lightly strokes Link’s cheeks, remarking, “You’re quite beautiful when you blush. Did you know that, sky child?” Link shakes his head, “No? Well, believe me when I say that it’s true.” Link just smiles softly and leans into Ghirahim, closing his eyes. Ghirahim starts humming a soft lullaby, lulling Link to sleep. Ghirahim pecks him softly on the forehead before falling asleep soon after. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought! :3 ***** Chapter 9 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! It encompasses the silent realm all the way to him arriving at Lake Floria for the first time :3 I don't own the Legend of Zelda :P See the end of the chapter for more notes Link stretches slightly when he wakes up and smiles before snuggling a bit closer to Ghirahim. He leans forward and kisses Ghirahim on the forehead before slipping out of bed. He heads downstairs and returns to the room with breakfast for the two of them. He smiles softly when Ghirahim’s still sleeping and starts eating, waiting patiently for the other to wake up. Eventually, the smell of the food wakes Ghirahim up and Link smiles at him softly as he hands him the food. Ghirahim begins eating just as Dark returns with a piece of heart and two spare gratitude crystals that he got while at the Lumpy Pumpkin. He says that the chandelier has been fully paid off and that it’ll be replaced soon. Link just smiles and pockets the prizes while Ghirahim finishes his food. Link ends up running into Cawlin on his way to take the empty dishes back to the dining hall and he gets a love note from the boy meant for Karane. Link shrugs and takes it to the girl like he asked, Dark back in his shadow and Ghirahim following this procession curiously. He walks up to Karane and hears her sigh quietly before saying, “Oh, Pipit...How can I get you to notice me?” Link tilts his head slightly at that, looks like Pipit has a chance after all. Link makes a small noise and she turns to him and asks if he needs anything. Link mentions that he has a letter for her, causing her to ask if it’s from Pipit. Link just hands it to her without saying anything and she thanks him. She remarks on how bad the handwriting is and Link stifles a chuckle with a cough, knowing exactly who it came from. She begins reading the letter aloud, not caring that Link is listening, “Greetings. My love for you is wider than the horizon and deeper than the clouds. I would like very much if you would go out with me. Your brave knight, Cawlin.” Karane reacts shocked but then comments on the fact that Cawlin is one of Groose’s friends. She doesn’t seem to mind that much since she says that it was really heartfelt and maybe she should consider going out with him anyway before laughing and saying that was more a joke. She then remarks on what Pipit would think of it, causing Link to think that going and telling Pipit of this would be a good idea. He easily finds Pipit as he knows his schedule and tells Pipit that Karane just received a love letter and that if he doesn’t act soon, then she might decide to go out with the other guy. Link hints heavily that she returns his feelings and Pipit’s eyes light up, deciding to go find Karane and confess to her before she ends up going out with the other person. Link follows behind him to see what happened and Pipit rushes into the room and begins to talk to Karane. “Karane, I have something I’d like to tell you.” “What is it, Pipit?” She asks, smiling softly and tilting her head. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me sometime? Maybe we could go flying together?” Pipit says, a soft blush on his face. Karane smiles widely and says, “That would be lovely, Pipit.” She leans in and lightly pecks him on the cheek, causing his blush to darken and her to giggle at his reaction. “Tell me whenever you’d like to do it. I’ll be waiting~” She says before leaving the room. She runs into Cawlin, and after telling him that his letter was beautifully heartfelt, she rejects him, saying that she’s going out with Pipit. Cawlin runs off crying and she just smiles sadly, upset that she had to break his heart. Pipit expresses his gratitude to Link for telling him and helping him get Karane and Link ends up receiving five gratitude crystals. Link decides to head to Batreaux to see if the other will give him a reward for forty crystals, and Batreaux looks at Link shocked when Ghirahim follows right behind Link into his room. He talks to Link for a bit, giving him a gold rupee for the number of crystals, but he expresses his shock that Link is close to the demon lord. Link just shrugs and smiles, not really knowing how best to explain their past. When he’s done talking to Batreaux, he heads back to the main area of Skyloft and nods, as it’s finally time to do the trial that’s next. He whistles for his loftwing and gets on, Ghirahim getting on behind him and Link flies to the green pillar of light that leads to Faron Woods. He tells Ghirahim to teleport himself to the ground as Link uses the sailcloth to land on the forest floor, having chosen the ‘In the Woods’ bird statue to land near. Fi mentions that she senses a trial gate nearby and Link looks around, grimacing slightly at the more powerful enemies teeming in the woods. Ghirahim just smiles slightly at him, knowing that the humanoid creatures won’t be attacking Link while he’s around, then Link only has to worry about the quadro-babas. Link notices a cracked wall and runs over, blowing it up with his bombs. He walks over to the piece of heart on the ground and stores it with his others, surprised at how many he’s gathered. He hasn’t been needing to eat them as often, so it’s good that his food pouch has a magic spell on it that prevents the food inside from spoiling. He starts to dowse for the trial gate, only having to fight a few quadro-babas, as Ghirahim’s presence keeps the Moblins and blue Bokoblins from attacking him. He arrives at the area right in front of the Viewing Platform and pulls out his harp. He plays Farore’s Courage and a beautiful blue symbol appears on the ground in the shape of a flower. Link thrusts his sword into the middle of the symbol and he glows brightly. The others watch as he remains in the position, as his spirit goes to the silent realm, wondering what is going on. Fi begins to speak, where both Link’s spirit and Dark and Ghirahim can hear it, so it calms their worry. “Master Link. As expected, I cannot follow into this realm, for this trial calls out to your mind alone. This is the nature of places known as Silent Realms. They are domains of the spirit, accessible only to the goddess’s chosen hero.” She continues to talk for a minute, explaining what’s going on to Link. Link looks around curiously while she explains what he’s supposed to be doing. He doesn’t think collecting fifteen of the tears seems that difficult, but Fi immediately explains that he’ll end up waking the Guardians and if they hit him, his spirit will shatter. Link runs forward out of the protective circle and gasps when the world becomes a harsh color instead of the peaceful green that it was before. He runs forward and grabs one of the tears, sighing in relief when that causes the world to go green again. A white flower appears on his right hand and he watches as the petals slowly burn away before figuring that this is a time limit of sorts for the effects of the tear. Link sees something else glowing on the ground and he picks it up, eating the fruit. His eyes widen as he is suddenly able to see the locations of the tears. He picks up a few dusk relics, thinking they might be useful for upgrading his items later. Link runs up to the top of the viewing platform, seeing a beam coming from a tear up there. He figures that if he lets all the petals burn away, then the guardians will awaken again, so he’s trying not to let that happen. After a bunch of running around, he finds all fifteen tears and makes it back to the safety of the entrance to the realm. When he gets inside the circle, a green fruit-like thing appears floating in front of him. He reaches for it and it opens and he gets the Water Dragon’s Scale that’ll let him swim underwater at a higher skill level. Link’s spirit returns to his body and he pulls his sword out of the ground and sheathes it. “How long was I gone?” He asks, curiously before showing them the new item. “Only about ten minutes or so... “ Dark replies, getting a nod of agreement from Ghirahim. Fi comes out of the sword and congratulates him for getting through the trial, to which he just nods his head. She explains that it allows him to swim freely and that he should start exploring areas he couldn’t access before. Bucha shows up and says pretty much the same thing, so Link nods, standing up. He sighs in spiritual exhaustion as that was pretty demanding of him. Ghirahim snaps his fingers and a gold fruit appears in his hand. “Here, eat this, Link. It’ll give you a lot more energy than a normal stamina fruit.” Link takes the fruit and eats it, smiling gratefully at Ghirahim as his body fills with energy. Ghirahim sighs slightly, “I guess I should go… I need to go do some things for Master’s revival, but let me warn you, I’m going to wound the water dragon. It’ll make her trust you more as she’ll then give you a test to heal her, and then I’ll meet you in the boss room of the next dungeon, okay, my sky child?” Link pouts but nods his head, making sure to keep what he said in mind, before looking at Dark. Dark returns to his shadow and Link smiles, pulling Ghirahim close to him. He kisses the demon softly, the other returning the kiss with equal sweetness and care. Link pulls away after a bit and smiles at the demon lord so sweetly that the demon almost changes his mind about leaving. He softly caresses Link’s face before snapping and teleporting away. Link notices a pool of water behind Bucha and walks over to it, diving into the water, avoiding the quadro-baba hanging from the ceiling. He swims forward and soon finds himself inside a large tree. He swims over to the vines and climbs out of the water and up onto the platform, looking around at the new enemies. He uses the gust bellows to move the floating platforms and explores the tree, even finding a gold rupee, eventually coming out outside on a higher platform. He sees a goddess cube and jumps down to it before going back through the inside of the tree to reach the platform once again. He starts climbing the edge of the tree and climbing the vines to get higher up on the tree, only after killing the walltulas waiting there. He goes back into the tree when he’s capable of doing so, easily avoiding the moblin due to Ghirahim’s telling them all to not attack Link, even if he’s not currently around. He exits the tree again and checks the bird statue to make it a viable landing location when he comes into the area. Link runs past the bokoblins, as they also fall under that ‘no attack’ rule that Ghirahim set. Link does have to kill the keese though, as they’re a more natural enemy unlike the humanoids that fall under Ghirahim’s control. He has Dark help him find the next goddess cube, having to jump off to get it before leaving the area, returning to it immediately after at the new bird statue. He continues to climb higher, Fi telling him that she hears a weird sound. He listens and he can hear something that sounds...almost like snoring? Link walks to the edge of the platform and Fi tells him that he’s reached the top of the tree. He nods slightly, not minding that bit of information, and he looks in the direction the noise is coming from, finding it to be from a sleeping Kikwi on a curled branch. Fi continues to tell him things that he figured out, like the fact that the snores they heard were coming from this particular Kikwi. He just ignores that and pulls out his hook beetle, making it fly over to the Kikwi and tap him lightly to wake him up. The Kikwi introduces himself as Yerbal before asking if Link can see him. Link nods, really confused why the Kikwi would ask him this, but the Kikwi just reacts happily, stating that some of his fellow Kikwi can’t even see him lately. He then asks Link what business he has in the woods, and Link explains about the flame that he has to find for his sword. Yerbal then has Link promise not to tell anybody what he’s about to say before talking about the flame being Farore’s Flame that’s been entrusted to the water dragon that guards Faron Woods. He gives Link a vague location of where she’s located, being a large lake in the south of the region. He explains that the gate leading to the lake has been blocked to all those considered unworthy, so Link will have to find a way to open it. Yerbal tells him that he’ll have to complete the symbol on the gate after finding the same symbol, this time completed, somewhere else in the woods. Link sighs slightly, but nods, deciding to go look at the uncompleted symbol first to see if he recognizes it. Yerbal marks Link’s map about where Link should search and Link changes his mind when he realizes how close it is to his location. It wouldn’t waste any time going to look for the symbol since it’s literally a few yards away from where he is. Link makes to leave after Yerbal wishes him luck, but the Kikwi stops him, saying that the water dragon is very picky about manners, so he’d better be on his best behavior around her. Link just smirks as she now sounds similar to Ghirahim, who he gets along with just fine. The Kikwi says that he’ll be going back to sleep now and Dark tells Link that he found another goddess cube at the base of the tree, only accessible from where Link is now. Dark leads him to the goddess cube and makes sure that Link drops down in the right spot and he does, easily getting the cube. Dark will end up getting the chests whenever they’re in the sky next, so it helps to actually find all of them. Link then heads to the spot on his map, looking at the fully complete symbol. He makes sure to memorize what it looks like before heading south to find the locked gate. He smiles slightly when he realizes that it was actually super easy to complete, drawing in the circle on the symbol with the light from his sword. The gate opens and he runs forward, diving off the ledge to enter the lake. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought! :3 ***** Chapter 10 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter and I'm back from vacation, so I'll be writing a lot more (mainly to just stock up on chapters :P) so be expecting that! Thank you all so much for your kind words and I'm glad you're enjoying this story so far! I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes He sighs contentedly at the temperature of the water surrounding him before following the current of the water, which leads him over a small waterfall. He notices a strange creature that he’s never seen before and it starts to swim away from him and he follows after it, wondering where it’ll take him. She mentions that she’ll tell the water dragon of his presence if he continues to follow him before swimming through a broken-down wooden gate. He uses a water spin attack to break through the gate, causing the creature to react in shock that he must have the water dragon’s scale. It then suggests that it can lead him to ‘Her Excellence’ so that he can help her, as she’s gotten injured due to a person with a bunch of monsters attacking her. Link accepts this offer and promises to help her, and the creature, which he soon learns is called a parella, starts leading him to where the water dragon is located. He kills a few of the enemies and ends up bombing one of the rocks to get a silver rupee, then blowing up the boulder near where the parella is floating. It continues to lead him, him having to dash over a gate blocking his path and dash up onto dry land. He finds another goddess cube and quickly grabs it, soon afterward checking the bird statue to make it a landing location. He finds a chest behind the bird statue and gets a goddess plume, putting it with the rest of the upgrade items that he’s collected. He then jumps back into the water and continues to follow the parella, dashing over a final barrier. He kills the new enemy, which Fi calls a cranioc. Once it’s dead, he continues to follow the parella, it leading him to a door that it unlocks. He follows it through the door and arrives in the water dragon’s chamber that she lives in. Link dashes up onto the platform and walks over to the large pot with a head sticking out of it. “Ah! You there, human! You have intruded into my home, a sacred place few are permitted to enter! This is no place for one such as you. And yet here you stand! You will explain how you got here, and quickly.” The creature speaks to him. He looks at her respectfully before asking if she is the water dragon. “I am.” She replies, “Those with manners address me as Faron, warden of the woods. I was appointed by the goddess herself.” Link scowls slightly at that, hoping that she’s not going to praise Hylia when he knows that she’s evil. “Though my current stature is less than, well, intimidating, shall we say, know that you stand in the presence of a loyal servant of the goddess!” Link’s scowl grows slightly and he really hopes that the dragon will not praise Hylia. “...Hmm?” She says, causing him to school his expression in case she saw the scowl, “I say, that’s one of MY scales you have there!” His shoulders lower slightly in relief that she didn’t see his disapproval of her loyalty to the goddess. “A sacred gift such as that could only be carried by the goddess’s chosen hero. But could you really be him? This raises questions. Even with that scale in your possession, finding my hall is no easy task...How did you find me?” He opens his mouth to speak, but she continues, “Ah, yes...That cackling, old hermit Kikwi told you where I live, didn’t he?” Link nods slightly at that, “Honestly, I can’t remember how many times I’ve told that scruffy thing to keep his mouth shut! That’s the last straw. The next time I see him, he’s dinner!” Link looks a bit worried at that, not liking the idea of her eating the Kikwi. “Oh, but I digress. You’ve come here seeking a sacred flame, have you?” Link nods and says, “I have.” “I knew it.” Link rolls his eyes, “But I’ll be straight with you. A shrimpy boy like you hardly looks the part of the goddess’s chosen hero. There’s no doubt about it. A test is in order to prove you’re everything you say you are.” Link scowls as she continues to doubt him and at the thought of a test, wondering precisely what it will be. “Shortly before your arrival, I was attacked by a pompous creature calling himself Ghirahim. I stood against this self-proclaimed Demon Lord, but I was wounded in the encounter. The wounds he’s given me are stubborn things. I have been forced to recuperate in this basin of sacred water. “ Link nods slightly, remembering Ghirahim’s warning that he was going to do this, though Link doesn’t quite like the way that she’s talking about the demon. “Unfortunately,” She continues, “the healing properties of the sacred water have diminished, and I am now in need of another dose to freshen up my healing bath. Bring me the container of fresh sacred water that I require. Do me this favor, and I’ll gladly show you where to find the sacred flame you desire. What say you?” She asks, looking at Link curiously. “I’ll do it.” Link says simply. Fi appears and analyzes the water remaining in the basin, allowing Link to dowse for the water that he’s looking for. She comments on the fact that he has an empty bottle and that he should use it to carry the water. He looks at her and rolls his eyes slightly, as that had been his plan all along. The water dragon tells him that if he continues along the way behind her, then he’ll find an exit back to the woods. She then tells him to run along as she doesn’t want to be kept waiting. Link nods and runs around the basin that she’s in, jumping into the water. He swims over to the land and dashes onto it, deciding to look around a bit before finding the exit. He finds a chest and opens it to get a silver rupee, finding one on the other side that gave him a piece of treasure which he put with the rest of the items he uses to upgrade his items. He then heads for the exit, now that he’s found everything in the chamber. He checks the bird statue when he gets outside, knowing that it’ll likely make getting back here a lot simpler. He takes a minute to admire the beauty of the waterfall before exiting the area containing the waterfall. Fi then tells him roughly where he is in Faron Woods and he nods, checking his map to get an exact location. He pushes the log off of the ledge and jumps down, running off in the direction that his dowsing is leading him. It seems to be taking him back to Skyview Temple, and he assumes that it’ll be to the spring at the back since that’s likely sacred water. He quickly arrives at the Skyview Temple and, after checking that it is absolutely where he’s supposed to go, heads inside. He goes through the temple, suddenly glad that Dark made him get all the shortcuts open, killing any enemies that he needs to. The humanoids ignore him since Ghirahim would be angry at them if they hurt his sky child. He makes it to the boss room and sighs slightly when he sees three stalfos and they amble over to him, raising their weapons. Dark appears and Link makes short work of the stalfos with him, quickly getting out to the sacred spring. He fills his empty bottle with some of the water that the dowsing leads him to and Fi takes him out of the spring to the outside of the temple. He heads over to the bird statue and goes to the sky before landing at the Floria Waterfall bird statue. He heads back inside and goes over to where Faron is, pulling out the bottle now full of water. “Hmm.” Faron begins, looking at the water, “Yes! Just look at that color. There’s no doubt this is the water I need. Quickly, boy, pour it into my basin!” Link uncaps the bottle and pours it into the basin as per her request. She dives underwater and the basin begins to shake slightly. It stops shaking and Link looks at it a bit worriedly before Faron bursts out of the basin, spraying water everywhere. Link takes a step back as he hadn’t been expecting that, not really minding getting wet. “Mmmmmm! Exquisite! I can feel its energy surging through me!” Faron announces, grinning at Link. “Behold the full majesty of Faron, Water Dragon and guardian of these lands! I stand tall - - healed and whole once again!” Link just smiles at her personality before she continues, “Human. You have done well to bring me the sacred water I asked you for.” She chuckles softly when Link scowls at the way that she addressed him, but she continues, “I see now it was no coincidence that you completed the goddess’s trial and obtained a Water Dragon’s Scale.” Link nods slightly as that was a fairly good compliment from someone like her. “In turn, I will grant you the favor you have asked of me and lead you to the sacred flame of my land. Come.” She says, causing Link to perk up and follow after her. She leads him outside to the waterfall and says, “Now...Behold.” She turns to the waterfall and hums a bit, holding her hands out in front of her. She grunts softly, throwing her hands forward, and the waterfall starts to rise from the bottom up. It reveals an elaborate entrance, to which Link assumes is the next dungeon he has to go through. “Go. The sacred flame you seek lies within this place.” Link nods and she warns him, “While the waterfall has barred entrance to this place for many years, monsters have still found a way in...and inside they flourish.” She then looks at him a bit wryly, “Ah, but you are the goddess’s chosen hero. Swatting a few monsters will be no trouble for you.” Link smiles at the compliment and thanks her for leading him here. She smiles softly and says, “I imagine you and I will cross paths again. Until then, do not lower your guard. Farewell, boy.” She then flies off and Link ponders over that last warning. Maybe...she was warning him that the goddess is not perfect like everyone thinks? He thinks that there could be a chance that she was just boasting loyalty, but does not contain as much loyalty to the goddess as she wants everyone to believe… Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought! ***** Chapter 11 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! It contains the Ancient Cistern and just afterward :3 Also, be warned there is slight yaoi in this chapter, so if you don't like, skip over it :P I don't own the Legend of Zelda :3 See the end of the chapter for more notes Link stretches and decides to go get some rest in Skyloft before going onto the next dungeon. He walks over to the bird statue and heads to the sky, sending Dark to get the goddess chests for him. Link heads to the item upgrade area while Dark does so, grinning when he has enough material to upgrade all of his items that can be currently upgraded. He upgrades his bug net into a large bug net, his slingshot into a scattershot, his iron shield into a fortified shield, and some other similar upgrades. He’s surprised that he managed to gather enough treasure to upgrade them all, but he knows that Dark will occasionally leave his shadow to go collect treasure and bugs. Dark returns once Link has finished with two silver rupees, two pieces of heart, and a rupee medal. Link puts them all away and goes to Beedle’s Airshop, buying the bug medal. He wants to make it easier for Dark to find the items, and as he’s Link’s shadows, the medals work with him as well, even if Link is the one carrying them. Link heads to his room at the Knight Academy, wanting to gather some energy before taking on the next dungeon. He takes off all his gear and crawls into bed, suddenly missing Ghirahim’s presence. His heart begins to beat faster at the demon lord and he falls asleep to soothing thoughts of the demon lord. Link wakes up the next morning and eats quickly before jumping on his loftwing and heading to the green beam of light. He lands at the Floria Waterfall bird statue and runs inside the Ancient Cistern, which is what Fi calls the place. Dark comes out of his shadow and they look around, beginning to solve the temple’s puzzles. Link starts to enjoy this temple as the water is really refreshing and he actually enjoys swimming to solve some of the puzzles. After a bit, maybe thirty minutes or so, and some lily pad flipping puzzles, Link finds himself at the mini-boss. He defeats the Stalmaster without too much trouble as it’s not that different from a normal stalfos battle. He then goes through the now unlocked door and gets the dungeon item: the whip. Link raises an eyebrow at the weapon, knowing that Ghirahim’s going to find it amusing that the ‘perfect Goddess’ gave her hero a whip to use. He heads back into the room that had housed the Stalmaster and he and Dark start solving more puzzles in the temple, now that he has the whip that’s needed for them. After an hour or so and after finding the dungeon map, he jumps down into a whirlpool and goes through the pipe to the basement below. He looks around nervously, the color change of the room disconcerting. He kills one of the skulltulas over a lily pad and it flips the lily pad revealing the entrance to the next room, which he could see through the bars. He progresses through this part of the dungeon, eventually getting to the main floor of the dungeon again. Relieved by going back to a normal part of the temple, he continues through it with Dark’s help on defeating enemies. He finds it interesting when the center structure of the room lowers a floor, but he’s a bit upset since he doesn’t want to go into the basement. He goes through the door despite his nerves and frowns at the purple skull that he sees on the wall. He runs forward, hitting the new bokoblin type, which are attacking him despite Ghirahim’s warning. One of them hits him and he grunts at the pain that he feels, it being stronger for some reason. He eventually kills the enemies and looks at the wound, it glowing a soft purple. He eats a heart piece, which heals it somewhat, before continuing on. They follow through the area, it giving Link the chills. He’s not exactly liking that Hylia would force her hero to go through this, but she’s not good like everyone says that she is. He manages to get to the giant rope that’ll help him exit the room, but he freaks when the cursed bokoblins start following him up the rope. He deals with them easily, but one of them manages to bite him, him hissing at the pain. He makes it back up to the main floor of the temple again, using the lever to change the altitude of the central structure again. He jumps down the rope that he just climbed and quickly finds the Blessed Idol that’ll get him into the boss room to see Ghirahim again. With Dark’s help, he navigates to the location where the door is that matches the idol and he uses it to unlock the door, the ceiling opening above him. He runs up the stairs and uses his whip on the levers, causing the statue in the center of the room to raise up to the ceiling of the temple. Link runs over to the stairs that this reveals and goes up them, excited to see Ghirahim again. He tilts his head at the robot looking creature before approaching Ghirahim, who snaps making the robot disappear and a heart container appear. He hands it to Link, which heals the wounds he got from the cursed bokoblins down in the basement. Ghirahim makes a bed appear as well and Dark goes back inside Link’s shadow to give the two some privacy. Both Link and Ghirahim sit down on the bed and Ghira massages Link’s shoulders, feeling the tension in them fade away. He glances at the scars formed from the bokoblins and scowls, feeling that they had a curse in them. He snaps his fingers and all effects of the curse disappears, him continuing to massage the Hylian’s shoulders. After a bit, Link slumps against Ghirahim, his muscles feeling boneless due to the massage. Ghirahim just smiles, carding his fingers through Link’s hair. Link relaxes further, his eyes dropping closed at the soothing feelings. Ghirahim takes Link’s gear off of him and sets it on a table that he makes appear, looking at some of the items curiously. One catches his eye and he teleports it over to him, turning the golden handle in his hand. “A whip, sky child? I didn’t know that you could be so naughty.” Link flushes brightly at the comment and turns his face, trying to hide his now dark red face. Ghirahim chuckles softly and experimentally snaps the whip forward, enjoying the cracking sound and the yelp that follows. He hadn’t hit Link, but the Hylian hadn’t been expecting the noise at all. “We definitely need to use this sometime, sky child.” Link whines slightly, the idea appealing to him, despite the fact that they haven’t done anything intimate together at all. Ghirahim chuckles at his reaction and puts the whip back in Link’s things. Dark appears before saying that he’s going to go swim in the main part of the temple, as he doesn’t want to listen to more of their conversation. Link nods and Dark disappears, causing Ghirahim to laugh softly, “We’re alone now, sky child ~ If you wanted to do anything, we could~” Link turns in Ghirahim’s embrace and nuzzles Ghirahim softly. “I wouldn’t mind... Just be careful with me, I don’t know if any memories will return…” He says, knowing that he might panic due to memories of Zelda or Hylia rather raping him. Ghirahim nods, a soft look appearing on his face, “Of course, my sky child. I won’t do anything that you’re uncomfortable with.” With that, Ghirahim leans forward and connects his lips to Link’s own, the Hylian male melting into the kiss. They kiss sweetly for a few minutes before Ghirahim swipes his tongue over Link’s bottom lips, causing the younger boy to gasp softly and Ghirahim to push his tongue into the boy’s mouth. Link moans softly at the feeling as Ghira begins to explore his mouth, groaning at the taste. Ghirahim pushes Link down on the bed and crawls over him, getting shoved off immediately. He looks over and frowns when he sees Link trembling and he sits down by the Hylian, pulling him closer to comfort him. Once Link stops trembling, Ghirahim gets an idea. He lays down on the bed before pulling the younger male over him. Link looks a bit shocked that Ghirahim would let him have control, but he knows that it’s to help get over his fear of this. Link leans down and kisses the demon once again, straddling the other’s hips. He grinds down and they both groan at the feeling, causing Link to do it again. Link creates a rhythm of grinding into the older and he continues the kiss until he needs to breathe. He pulls away from the kiss and tilts his head before uncovering Ghirahim’s round ear. He starts sucking on the earlobe, causing Ghirahim to cry out loudly. Link pulls away to smirk before he goes back to sucking on the ear, occasionally nipping at it, still rutting into the older demon. Link groans as he feels the other’s hands go into his hair again and he bites Ghirahim’s ear sharply before soothing the bite with kisses and licks. Ghirahim cries out much louder when it happens and he pants for a few seconds afterward, the pain transformed into delicious pleasure. Link continues to grind into Ghirahim, both of them feeling close to release. It only takes another sharp bite to Ghirahim’s ear and the demon lord practically shrieks in pleasure, his hips bucking against the Hylian’s, the pleasure hitting him hard. Link groans loudly at the sight and sound and he bucks his hips forward one more time, moaning out Ghirahim’s name as he too releases. Link flops down beside Ghirahim and cuddles into the demon lord, smiling softly at the afterglow of the pleasure. Ghirahim smiles and wraps an arm around the Hylian, chuckling softly, “Did you enjoy that, my sky child?” Link nods before yawning, causing Ghira’s smile to soften, “Go to sleep, sky child. You deserve it.” Ghirahim says quietly, Link nodding and closing his eyes. Ghirahim starts humming quietly as Link falls asleep and Dark returns to the room once that happens, wrinkling his nose at what he can smell. He just sighs and sits in a chair that Ghirahim creates, telling the demon lord that he can sleep as well and that he’ll keep watch. Ghirahim nods and closes his eyes, falling asleep holding Link. Dark watches them fondly, knowing that the demon lord is someone who’ll be able to help Link recover from all the abuse the goddess forced upon him. His heart twangs, feeling a bit lonely as he’s the only one not finding someone for himself. Link has Ghirahim, Pipit has Karane, Groose might even have Zelda if they get her rescued properly. But Dark doesn’t have anyone yet and that makes him sad for some reason…It’s not like anyone would want to date the darker version of the hero, as he doesn’t exactly have the same morals that the hero does… Dark just sits there until the two wake up again and he goes into Link’s shadow quietly, still slightly depressed from his thoughts and also needing rest. Link notices that his shadow looked a bit sad, wondering what exactly caused that, but he shrugs, knowing that Dark will tell him eventually. Link heads to the next room with Ghirahim after putting all of his gear back on. Link runs up and uses a Skyward Strike on the crest. The symbol on the wall glows bright and a bright green fire bursts out of the pot-like structure the crest had been in. Link looks at it, holding his hand up to block the light slightly and he holds out his sword. Fi appears and stares at the flames for a bit before holding out her arms, four fireballs zooming out of the fire and into her. She glows brightly and smacks into a few of the walls, causing Ghirahim to muffle his laughter. She then hits the floor right in front of Link, causing the fire to spread out in front of him. “Raise your sword, Master.” She says, looking at him from within the flames. Link does so and fireballs start smacking at the sword, causing him to need to support it with two hands. The sword glows with green fire and Link raises it skyward, the sword tempering with the flames, turning it white. It also lengthens the sword and makes it a bit sharper, which Link grins at, liking that he’ll be able to do more damage if he needs to. He sheathes his sword and the back of his right hand begins to glow, an image of the Triforce appearing with the bottom right triangle glowing. Fi appears to tell Link that the sword has been tempered, though he could see that visibly. She tells him to head to the Isle of Songs to learn another melody for the next trial. He nods and she returns to his sword, him turning to Ghirahim. Ghirahim smiles and approaches Link, taking the boy’s hand before teleporting them to the area outside the cistern. Faron appears in front of them, scowling at the demon lord before commenting on how Link’s sword is different than when she last saw him. She then comments once again about him being a ‘mere boy’, causing Link to scowl as well. She tells him to train well to be able to use the full power of the blade before Ghirahim steps forward, “I apologize for wounding you earlier. I wanted to help Link have an easier test, as I knew that otherwise, you’d devise one of your own, which would be more difficult than merely collecting water.” She looks at him before saying, “Apology accepted. Farewell, both of you.” She leaves the area and Link and Ghirahim head to the bird statue, going up to the sky. They fly over to Skyloft, wanting to rest before continuing on with Link’s journey. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought! ***** Chapter 12 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! I'm a bit behind right now since I'm writing Hetalia stuff for France's birthday, but I'll try to get another out tomorrow :3 This chapter goes through Link's visiting of the next silent realm along with some actual yaoi, so be warned if you don't want to read male x male action :P I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes They spend the rest of the day on Skyloft together, Pipit and Karane joining them at one point. Link believes even more firmly that they’re a good couple and they smile when he says so. When night falls, Link and Ghirahim head to Link’s room at the academy, Dark deciding to wander Skyloft to give them privacy. Link flops onto his bed and Ghirahim chuckles slightly at him sprawled out like that. He walks over to the bed and nudges the male, causing Link to roll to make enough room for Ghirahim to lie down as well. Ghirahim lays down beside him and wraps an arm around the smaller male, relishing in the close proximity to the other. They both just smile softly at each other and snuggle up close, falling asleep in the other’s arms. They wake up the next morning and eat breakfast together, just relaxing in the peacefulness of the morning. They then leave the academy, Dark joining them once they’re outside. Ghirahim notices that he looks particularly lonely right now. He smirks slightly as an idea pops into his head, him planning on acting it out the next time they’re both protecting Link while he recovers from a temple. They fly over to the Isle of Songs, walking in quietly, wondering what the song will sound like. Link runs over to the crest and hits it with a Skyward Strike, Fi appearing from his sword much like she did last time, the goddess statue raising up out of the void. “Master Link, I have important information.” Fi speaks, repeating her words about a new memory being awakened within her. The message from the goddess is almost word-for-word the same, except for changing three flames to two. It mentions that the next trial is within the Lanayru Desert and Link nods, listening as Fi begins to sing the melody, pulling out his harp to practice it. Visions of loftwings once again fill his sight as he plays the song, enjoying the almost playfulness of it. Fi speaks once Link is certain that he has the song memorized, “The song you just heard is called Nayru’s Wisdom. Use this song of knowledge to find the next trial.” Link puts away his harp and nods, Fi returning to his sword. He walks over to Dark and Ghirahim, them commenting on how pretty the music was. Link just smiles and agrees with them, crawling out of the building and jumping onto his loftwing, who had been waiting for him. He flies Crimson over to the yellow beam of light, deciding to land at the North Desert bird statue. He uses his dowsing ability and finds that the trial gate is actually really close to this statue and he jumps off the ledge, running over to the area that the dowsing is leading him to. Dark leaves his shadow and he goes with Ghirahim to wait for Link to return from the silent realm. Link pulls out his harp and starts strumming, activating the area. He then plays Nayru’s Wisdom, once again enjoying its playfulness. Link then thrusts his sword into the center of the emblem, sending his spirit to the silent realm. Fi talks to him for a bit, reminding him of the rules of the Silent Realm. This trial is Nayru’s Silent Realm, which is meant to test his wisdom. Link looks around once she’s done, trying to decide which would be the best direction to set out in. After deciding, he runs out of the circle towards the nearest tear, his heart pounding at the sounds of the guardians awakening. He runs as fast as he can towards the tear and sighs in relief when he reaches it before the guardians get close. Link scowls as he realizes that the quicksand here is the same as in the main desert, so he’ll have to be careful. He starts wandering the desert, finding the tears and the little fruits that cause beacons to form over the tears. He picks up any dusk relic that he comes across and his eyes widen when he realizes that he’s not that close to a tear and his time is about to run out. He cringes when his time runs out and he sprints towards the next tear that he can see, his heart racing in fear that one of the guardians will catch him. He glances over his shoulder before reaching for the tear, one of the guardians right behind him. He sighs in relief when the world goes the calm blue again and the guardian freezes behind him. He continues to collect the tears, being a lot more careful not to run out of time again. He doesn’t need another close call like that again. While he progresses through the silent realm, Dark and Ghirahim talk to each other before Ghirahim says, “I noticed that you looked lonely earlier. Any reason for that?” Dark scowls when he realizes that the other saw him but he replies, “Well, you and Link are getting along amazing together and now Pipit has Karane. Even Groose might end up with Zelda if we rescue her properly...I don’t have anyone like that for me... No one would want to date the darker version of the hero and I’m always in his shadow anyway if they would consider it.” Ghirahim nods, that being what he thought the other was feeling. “I have an idea if you would listen to it.” Dark looks at him curiously and nods, “What is it?” Ghirahim snaps and says, “Shadow, you can come out now.” Dark tilts his head in confusion at that, but his eyes widen when a darker version of Ghirahim comes out of Ghirahim’s shadow. The darker Ghirahim, or Shadow as is apparently his name, looks at Dark curiously, grinning slightly before sauntering over to him. “Hello~ I am Shadow, and you are?” “I’m Dark…” Dark says a bit shyly, not used to attention like this. “It’s a very fitting name for you, my sweet~” Shadow says, smirking softly at the shy, but pleased, look on Dark’s face. He sits down beside Dark and they start talking quietly to each other, Ghirahim looking smug at them. Link manages to get the final tear and takes a deep breath before making his way back to the entrance to the silent realm. He finally makes it to the circle and steps in, feeling his relief crash down around him, filling his body with soothing waves. Link holds his arms out and a yellow fruit appears before opening up, revealing the Clawshots. He looks at the items curiously as his spirit returns to his body. Fi congratulates him again before explaining what the clawshots will allow him to do. He nods at the explanation and she returns to his sword. He heads over to Ghirahim and looks curiously at Dark and Shadow, quirking an eyebrow at Ghirahim. “Your little shadow over there was lonely since everyone was in a relationship and he wasn’t, so I allowed Shadow to come out to meet him.” Ghirahim says before looking at the clawshots curiously. “Very useful, my sky child. But first, why don’t we go look for everything you can do up in the sky with these before exploring down here?” Link nods, liking the idea as they’ll likely get finished soon up there and spend the rest of the day together. Link decides to just look in the nearby area first before heading up to the sky, as there could potentially be some good things here. He manages to find another dusk relic and two new goddess cubes before returning with Ghirahim back to Dark and Shadow, who had been talking the entire time, just getting to know each other. They get Dark and Shadow’s attention before all of them heading to the bird statue that’s nearby. Crimson flies down to meet him and Link climbs on, Ghirahim getting on behind him. They look over and Dark and Shadow are riding Crimson’s shadow so they all fly up to the sky, Dark and Shadow heading to get the goddess chests. Link decides that enough time has passed since he gave Fledge that stamina potion, so he might need another one. He goes to find Fledge, already having the potion in his pouch and Fledge thanks him and Link nods, leaving the academy. He heads to buy some more potions for himself and notices that Bertie’s looking super tired. He asks Bertie what’s wrong and apparently his child’s baby rattle disappeared. Link goes and looks for it, finding it through using his clawshots and he gets five gratitude crystals when he returns it to the tired father. Dark and Shadow return then with a gold rupee, a heart medal, and a life medal. Link thanks them before telling them that they can spend time together alone if they wish, and he chuckles when Shadow immediately drags Dark away at that. Link heads to item check to put away an item and Peatrice starts calling him darling, which confuses him. He talks to her dad who talks about an admirer. He heads back to her, saying that she’s only the item check lady, which causes her to start crying. He backs away a bit awkwardly, though he ends up getting five gratitude crystals from her father that night for helping get the admirer away When it becomes night, Link and Ghirahim explore looking for any single gratitude crystals they might be able to find. They manage to find three of them and a piece of heart, so Link goes to Batreaux, receiving a giant wallet for having fifty of the crystals. Link and Ghirahim head to Link’s room at the academy, not even questioning where Dark and Shadow are. They enter Link’s room and Ghirahim locks the door behind him, looking at Link curiously. He snaps his finger, casting a silencing ward on the room before smirking at the boy who’s already sprawled out on the bed. Link glances over and gulps softly when he sees the smirk and he spreads out a little more, knowing that the other is watching him. Ghirahim licks his lips before he makes his way to the bed, crawling on top of Link. Link grunts softly at the weight before gasping as Ghirahim kisses him suddenly. Ghirahim just kisses him softly before exploring his mouth slowly, his hands stroking Link’s sides soothingly. Link relaxes into the soft kiss before gasping and shivering as Ghirahim teleports his tunic off of him. He tenses slightly when Ghira’s hands begin to explore his chest before relaxing as the feelings are nothing like what Hylia caused. Ghirahim grins at this before nuzzling Link’s neck, beginning to suck and nip softly at the skin there. Link moans as Ghira finds a particularly sensitive spot, sucking on it gently. Ghirahim’s hands tweak one of Link’s nipples, massaging the bud softly. Link reaches up to the top of Ghirahim’s jumpsuit and, with some help from the demon, manages to get the top off of him. He lets his hands wander the other’s chest as well, feeling the muscles tremble under his fingertips. Eventually, Ghirahim gets tired of the slow pace and he snaps, teleporting Link’s leggings off and smirking at the look on the sky child’s face. He kisses down the boy’s body before stopping right in front of Link’s clothed member. He leans forward, sucking on it through the material, causing Link to moan quietly at the sensation. Ghirahim toys with the hem of the boxers and tugs the material down before dropping it on the floor beside the bed. He then takes all of Link into his mouth at once, Link crying out and arching at the sensations flowing through him. Ghira sucks on him gently before swiping his tongue along the Hylian’s tip. Link mewls sharply at that and Ghirahim swallows around Link, taking his entire length into his mouth and throat. He starts to bob his head, sending waves of pleasure crashing down on Link. Link bucks up suddenly and Ghira just purrs softly, the vibrations causing Link to moan in pleasure. Link begins to feel something growing in him, shuddering as memories seem to flood him of Hylia causing this exact sensation. He opens his eyes and looks down at Ghirahim, the vision of the demon causing this feeling causing the memories to fade quickly. He reaches down and grabs Ghira’s hair, causing the other to moan softly around his length. Link cries out as he suddenly reaches his peak, spilling himself into the other’s mouth. Ghirahim pulls off of him before looking Link in the eye, swallowing down Link’s release. Link moans softly at the sight before he glances down, seeing how affected the demon was by sucking him off. He smirks and pushes Ghirahim down on the bed before crawling in between his legs. He looks up pleadingly and Ghirahim snaps, teleporting the remainder of his clothes off. Link grins cheekily at him before taking him into his mouth a bit hesitantly, beginning to bob his head as he figures out what causes the most pleasure. Ghirahim groans softly at the sight, his fingers threading into Link’s hair. Link sticks his tongue in the slit, moaning at the taste of the demon. Ghirahim shudders as that causes vibrations to go through his length and therefore, sending pleasure shooting down his spine. Link takes a bit more into his mouth before swallowing around him. Ghirahim throws his head back at the sensation, Link’s throat massaging him tightly. Link swallows again and Ghira groans, his fingers tightening in Link’s hair, feeling himself get close. Link pulls back before tonguing at the tip again before deepthroating the demon, causing Ghirahim to release into his mouth and down his throat. Link pulls off of him and swallows what got in his mouth before cuddling up beside Ghirahim, pulling a blanket over the both of them. They both grin at each other exhausted and fall asleep in each other’s arms. ~With Dark and Shadow~ Dark and Shadow spent the remainder of the day on the island at the top of Skyloft that feeds into the waterfall, just getting to know each other. Dark quickly figures out that the other appeals to him both appearance-wise and personality-wise. They snuggle close as it gets late, the water causing a cool breeze to blow across them. Dark nuzzles Shadow’s neck, causing the other to smile softly, a genuine smile instead of all the smirks that Dark had received during the day. He leans down and pecks Dark’s head softly before combing his fingers through the black locks of hair. Dark relaxes at this action, eventually falling asleep against the other shadow, for the first time out of Link’s shadow. Shadow just smiles softly at this before getting comfortable, keeping the other in his arms, and falling asleep as well. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought of it! ***** Chapter 13 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! I have tomorrow's all ready, though I will be watching ZeldaDungeon's stream starting Saturday, so I apologize if updates are very sparse during the next week. (The stream starts Saturday and ends next Friday, so yeah...) I don't own the Legend of Zelda :P See the end of the chapter for more notes Ghirahim wakes up first the next morning and he pulls Link closer to him, kissing the male on the forehead. He smiles softly as the other’s eyes flutter softly at the gesture and a smile spreads across the other’s lips. “Good morning, my little sky child.” He says softly, causing the smile to widen. “Good morning, Ghira.” Ghirahim raises an eyebrow at the nickname, but accepts it, knowing that the other means well by it. They get up and Link puts his gear on before they head down to eat breakfast. They decide to grab some food for Dark and Shadow and look around the island for where the two are hiding. They find them easily enough and wake them after taking in the sight of them cuddled together like they are. The two shadows eat the food before returning to their originals’ shadows. Link and Ghirahim fly over to the yellow beam of light before landing near the southwest portion of the desert, as that was where Fi hinted that the next area could be at. Link heads to the southwest corner of the desert and opens a chest to get a monster horn. He then goes to talk to the goron who’s mining, receiving a key from him and a mention of the Lanayru Sand Sea. Link finds a door that the key belongs to and unlocks it, running through to the other side. Once he’s there, Fi comes out of his sword and says, “A report, Master. This is Lanayru Sand Sea. This whole area was once a vast ocean. But the water has all evaporated, and now the area is a sea of sand.” Link rolls his eyes slightly, that being obvious from the area’s name. “Signs indicate that this place functioned as a port, linking the land to the sea.” She then mentions that there is a high probability of the flame lying ahead. She then goes back into Link’s sword and Link starts forward, using his new clawshots to get from pillar to pillar. He then clawshots across the gap and begins exploring the surroundings, even finding another goddess cube in a cave filled with aracha. He then heads back near where he entered this part of the desert and walks out on the platform over the sand after checking with the bird statue. He hits the timeshift stone on the boat and boat and the nearby area shifts to the past. The timeshift stone sinks into the boat and the boat glows slightly. Link turns around and goes to talk to the ancient robot that’s been awakened. “Hmm… Who are you, bzzt? Some human, vrrrm?” Link asks who the creature is, quickly getting a reply. “Who am I, brrzrrt…? I am the proud skipper of the ship that protects Nayru’s Flame, phweep!” Link smiles slightly, already liking the personality of this robot. He asks about the flame, Ghirahim just watching this conversation occur. “... It was the day of the storm, phoo-weep...My crew and I were navigating the seas as usual, vrrm…And then those brutes, bzzt… the pirates, suddenly attacked us, brrzt. They were after Nayru’s Flame, zzpt. My crew was imprisoned...vrrrt...and I was thrown into the sea! I drifted on the current to this port, vrrrrm...After that, I took this boat and went searching for my ship and crew, but they were nowhere to be found, bzzt. It haunts me, wondering where my ship could be, phweep…” Link frowns, feeling sorry for the robot who’s lost its crew and its ship. “I’d bet my hat that they’ve turned the ship invisible and are hiding out somewhere, vrrm! You can’t see it.” Link just questions the word invisible and the skipper continues to talk, “In order to protect Nayru’s Flame, the ship has a function that allows it to become invisible, vweep… You say you’re searching for Nayru’s Flame, bzzt?” “I need it to help find my friend Zelda and to help save her…” Link says, betting that he can trust this robot. “Oh...So you need Nayru’s Flame to find someone important to you, vrrrm…? In that case, you should help me search for my ship and crew, phweep! If you’ll help me, vzzzt, then I guess I’ll let you on my boat.” Link grins at this and says that he’ll help the robot. “Really, vrrm? Well, in that case, bzzt...Hmm...There’s something weird about that map of yours...vrrm. If you’re going to navigate these treacherous waters, then you need a proper sea chart, doo-weep!” Link asks him where he’ll be able to find a sea chart, learning that Skipper has one in his shack at Skipper’s Retreat. He gets on the boat with the robot, Ghirahim managing to fit on the boat as well, which is one reason that their shadows aren’t out helping them just yet. Ghirahim doesn’t have anything to do in the desert region to help his master revive, so he’s capable of helping Link through the next dungeon. Link places a beacon where Skipper says his retreat is on the map and he has Ghirahim be the one to control the cannon that the ship has to defeat any monsters. Link starts steering the boat off in the direction of the beacon, Ghirahim killing any monsters that are in their way. After about maybe five minutes, they arrive at Skipper’s Retreat, both Link and Ghirahim getting off the boat. Skipper tells them that his shack is all the way at the top of the island and they nod. Link runs forward and checks the bird statue before continuing to follow the very linear pathway of the island. There’s not much of a chance that he could get lost here, but he does manage to find a red rupee and a goddess cube along the way. The moblin that was in their way just stepped out of the way the minute it noticed Ghirahim, making their journey a lot simpler. After about thirty minutes, Link makes it to the top of the area and enters Skipper’s Retreat. Link pulls out the gust bellows and starts getting rid of the dust in the room, killing any arachas that pop out of the dust. He ignores the chest and continues to clean the room, finding some treasures and rupees in the dust. Link then opens the chest and pulls out the sea chart, which updates his map to the past version. Fi appears and tells him that he should take it to Skipper before she comments on the all the pictures in the room. She talks about the ship and the pictures for a minute before going back into the sword. Link heads outside and catches the few cicadas that he can hear when he steps outside. Link heads over to the pulley system, using them to descend the retreat. He knows Ghirahim will be able to teleport to the bottom easily, so he doesn’t feel bad using them. He heads over to Skipper, who marks the Shipyard on his newly updated map. Link sets a beacon there as well and Skipper explains that the Shipyard may contain clues to where his ship is and they start sailing off once he says that. Link steers the boat in the direction of his new beacon and Ghirahim kills any enemies that they come across with the boat’s cannon. After about thirty minutes, they make it to the Shipyard and look around, Link looking excitedly at the minecart tracks. Ghirahim groans slightly, having bad memories of the cart rides here and so he asks Link if he would mind him waiting here by the locked door until Link’s finished on the carts. Link shakes his head, knowing that the excitement isn’t for everybody, checking the bird statue, and Ghirahim walks over to the door while Link kills the two lizalfos, wanting the treasures that they drop. He enters the minecart station and reads the instructions for riding them on the walls. He then jumps in, laughing as the minecart begins to move, controlling it with ease. He makes it to the first stop very quickly and gets out, running up the stairs in front of him. He turns to the right and finds another cart, getting in it and picking up speed instantly. He makes it through the maze of a track simply and laughing whenever he has to make a jump due to the lack of a track being there. He reaches the end of the ride and has Dark get Ghirahim to teleport in here. He smiles at Ghirahim before checking the bird statue, though it’s not one to be a landing spot for him. They enter the room and Fi talks to Link for a bit before they jump down into the sand, Link pulling out his gust bellows while Ghira kills the few arachas. Link uses the gust bellows and groans when Moldarach pops out of the sand. He tells Ghirahim to not help this battle as he’s done it before and Ghirahim teleports back up to the ledge, sitting on it to watch his sky child defeat the scorpion. Link defeats the creatures fairly easily, only getting pinched once. Ghirahim teleports back down and looks at the wound a bit worriedly, though Link just chuckles and eats a heart piece, the injury disappearing instantly. Link grins at Ghirahim, “Someone was worried about me~” Ghirahim huffs and crosses his arms, “Of course I was, sky child. I don’t want you getting hurt since I care for you…” Link smiles softly and says, “I care for you as well, Ghira.” Ghirahim smiles at that and they look around the room, Fi saying that there’s likely no chance of there being a clue here. The door unlocks with the scorpion’s death and they leave the building, heading back over to Skipper. Link pouts slightly when it’s starting to become nighttime, knowing that he’s not quite finished with the area. Ghirahim has them head over to the bird statue, wanting to get back on Skyloft before it completely turns dark. He knows that Skipper’s going to stay right where he is as well, so Link flies them both to Skyloft, them landing just as the sun goes down. They allow their shadows to come out to bond some more and Link leads Ghirahim to his room at the academy. They just snuggle together, Ghirahim singing them both to sleep. Dark and Shadow head to the same place they were yesterday, not needing as much sleep since they were in their originals’ shadows all day. They talk quietly, still getting to know the other as well as they can, though they’re both definitely interested and attracted to the other. Shadow listens as Dark talks about his times protecting and helping Link before telling his own tales of doing the same for Ghirahim. He was there to comfort Ghirahim all that time after Hylia defeated Demise, him having to wait the years alone if it weren’t for his shadow being there. Shadow was the one who suggested building a manor in the forest region and it still stands there, though Ghirahim hasn’t been there nearly as much in the last few weeks. After a bit, they just snuggle quietly, Shadow stroking Dark’s hair softly. He begins to hum quietly, soothing Dark, and they both just relax, not using too much energy in case they’re needed more the next day. At one point Dark says, “I’m beginning to like you, Shadow.” “Me too, my sweet. Me too.” Shadow says with a smile, his own feelings of loneliness disappearing whenever Dark is near. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought of it! :3 ***** Chapter 14 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! I hope you enjoy it! It's a bit different in style, but I enjoyed not following the game as much as I had been previously, so I hope you like it as well! I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes Link and Ghirahim wake up around the same time the next morning, both of them snuggling for a bit before going down to breakfast. After breakfast, they get Dark and Shadow from the island, both of them having fallen asleep at some point in the night. Link flies over to the desert beacon and he heads to the next area once landing at the Shipyard. They arrive at the Pirate Stronghold and Link looks to Ghirahim and the shadows once their out of Link and Ghirahim’s shadows. “Guys? Would you mind if I did this area alone? I need to get a bit stronger so I don’t have to be a burden and rely on you guys all the time…” Ghirahim walks over to Link, enfolding the boy in his arms. “Sky child, you are not a burden, but if you really wish to do this area alone, you can. Just if you really need one of us, call Dark and he’ll bring whichever one of us you need, okay?” Link nods into the embrace and Ghirahim pulls back a bit, kissing the boy sweetly before allowing him to do the Pirate Stronghold by himself. Ghirahim makes a chair and a book appear for him to spend time while Link is completing the mini-dungeon and the two shadows just go off a ways to not bother him so that they can spend more time together. They aren’t affected by the dry heat as much as their originals are so they’re content to just snuggle while talking to each other. After a little bit, Shadow snaps and a guitar appears in his hand. He starts playing peaceful melodies that fill the area that they’re in and Dark smiles, just snuggling closer while listening to the melodies. After a little bit of Link exploring the stronghold, Fi comes out of his sword. He looks at her curiously since he hadn’t done anything to necessitate her announcing anything. “Master, I have something to tell you.” He nods his head, signaling her to go on, “I’ve been analyzing your past interactions with the spirit maiden and have come to the conclusion that Hylia has been your enemy the entire time. I will support you over her if it comes to it as that is how she created me.” Link smiles softly and says, “Thank you, Fi. I have one question though, why do you think the Ballad of the Goddess makes Zelda herself for a little while after she plays or sings it?” Fi makes a noise of acknowledgement before saying, “It seems that the goddess can’t control her while the girl is either acting in her stead or calling out for her assistance. And since the Ballad of the Goddess is the words of the goddess, it frees her from Hylia’s control for a few minutes.” Link nods and Fi heads back into his sword as he continues to explore the Stronghold, enjoying being able to solve some of the puzzles for himself, as with the others it would take no time to get through some of the puzzles. He feels a bit stronger now that he’s connected to Fi as she’s able to add some of her strength to the sword to help aim his hits. After a few hours, Link returns from the Stronghold, a silver rupee and goddess cube richer. Ghirahim looks up and smiles at Link’s return, who doesn’t seem to be as tired as any of them were expecting him to be from completing it on his own. They allow Link to rest a little bit since he’s wanting to do the next temple by himself as well. Once Link is rested up, Ghirahim gives him an energy potion in case he needs it during the temple and Fi tells him that he can dowse for Skipper’s ship. Link thanks her, surprising the others. Fi turns to look at them before saying, “I have realized how dark Hylia is and I’m completely on Link’s side instead of hers, so you don’t have to worry about me telling her that he’s spending time with you.” Ghirahim nods, a relieved look crossing his face. She heads back into the sword and Link starts dowsing for the ship before finding and hitting it with the cannon a few times, the ship becomes visible. He looks at Ghirahim and the shadows before nodding and climbing up the ladder onto the ship. Ghirahim just sits on the boat they had been sailing on, while Dark and Shadow decide to jump into the ocean surrounding the ship to enjoy the water. They play around for a bit, just relaxing and enjoying not having to help their originals right now. After a bit, Shadow sneaks over to Dark and whispers in his ear, “How about we splash my original, my sweet?” Dark has to stop himself from bursting out into loud laughter as he nods and they both quietly swim over to the boat where Ghirahim is resting with his eyes closed. They nod and after counting to three, both of them raise their arms and splash Ghirahim with as much strength as they can. They quickly flee and the annoyed growl that they hear from the demon as he’s soaked with the salty water is worth the danger of him catching them. He looks around after shaking off some of the water and a sinister smirk appears on his face, no longer caring that his hair has been messed up. He jumps into the water quietly and swims towards them, following the sound of their laughter. When he arrives, he splashes them as well and soon it turns into a full-out water war, with them all laughing and splashing each other. They throw their magic into the mix as well, making small explosions of water and making splashes able to hit more than one person at once. After a while, they get tired so Ghirahim creates a platform on the surface of the water that they all crawl onto to dry off and relax. They all start talking and Ghirahim smiles smugly when Dark and Shadow curl up together as they talk, just enjoying being close to each other. Their relationship is progressing a bit faster than his did with Link, but their loneliness is causing them to bond quicker. After about three hours since Link entered the ship, the water begins to rumble. Ghirahim makes a platform higher up in the sky and teleports them all onto it so that anything that pops out of the water won’t attack them. They watch as tentacles rise up out of the water and start attacking the boat in front of them. Link eventually makes it outside and Dark and Shadow have to stop Ghirahim from teleporting over there to help him. They know that Link wants to be able to do battles on his own, so Ghirahim needs to live with watching and caring for him afterward. They watch him as he defeats Tentalus, which he does fairly successfully. He’s already mastered the bow he got in this dungeon and he uses it skillfully, managing to only get hit twice during the first phase, which were small injuries. During the final phase, he gets hit a bit more often since Tentalus’s hair turned into snakes that could fly towards him. Once Tentalus is dead, he eats the heart container, which heals the majority of the injuries he got in the battle and he eats the piece of heart he found in the dungeon to heal the rest. Once he’s done, they watch as his sword is upgraded by the flame much like it was after the Ancient Cistern. Link then motions Ghirahim and the shadows over, Ghirahim doing so very quickly. He checks Link over worriedly, sighing in relief as Link isn’t injured at all anymore. Link just smiles softly at the way that the demon cares for him and leans closer to the demon, enjoying his presence. Dark just smiles at his lighter half, knowing that the male is happy that he did the dungeon on his own. One of Link’s wishes when he was growing up was to get to explore a world that no one on Skyloft had explored, and now he gets his chance. Link shows off his new item and tells of his adventures in the dungeon. Ghirahim does enjoy the tales especially with how happy Link sounds at regaling them. Skipper thanks Link for helping find his ship and save his crew and Link looks a bit bashful as he says that it was no problem. Skipper says that he’s invited to come see him at any time and Link smiles and nods, knowing he’ll likely come visit the robot again at some point in the future. They then head to the bird statue and go to Skyloft, wanting to rest the remainder of the day before continuing on to the next silent realm. Dark and Shadow go get the goddess chests while Link and Ghirahim land on Skyloft. They start looking around for a place to relax, knowing that the island over the waterfall is Dark and Shadow’s place now pretty much. Suddenly, Link remembers one of his favorite islands on the island, though he hasn’t been there in a while. He smirks as he begins to lead Ghirahim there, knowing that they’ll have to vacate the island before it gets dark to prevent its inhabitants from attacking them. Ghirahim just raises an eyebrow but follows Link easily enough. After a bit, Link just walks off the edge of Skyloft, causing Ghirahim to freak out before he freezes due to hearing Link’s laughter coming from below him. He looks over the edge to see Link surrounded by Remlits on an island that’s covered in flowers. Link looks up at him and motions him down and Ghirahim jumps, landing softly on his feet. Link pats the spot next to him and Ghirahim walks over, sitting close to the boy. A Remlit paws at him, looking to be no older than a kitten. His heart melts slightly at the sight and he reaches a hand out to pet the small creature. It mews softly before jumping into his lap and snuggling up there, its eyes falling closed. He continues to pet it and looks up at Link, who is wearing the most loving, fond smile that Ghirahim’s ever seen. Ghirahim returns the smile and they spend the remainder of the day on the island, Dark dropping by with the goodies from the goddess cubes before he heads off to spend his time with Shadow above the waterfall. Once it gets to be dusk, Link has Ghirahim teleport them to the ledge above the island. Ghirahim questions him but Link just tells him to watch. The minute the sun goes down, the Remlits all turn feral and Ghirahim takes a step back. “Yeah...They’re good as pets during the daytime, but no one’s figured out how to tame them at night... “ Ghirahim starts humming softly, which gathers the attention of the Remlits. His hands begin to glow slightly as he uses magic to cause them to soothe easier. He easily figures out why they aren’t tame at night, they turn into a demon form and demons are a bit wary of humans since Hylia led them in an attack against them. Ghirahim jumps down despite Link’s protests and holds out a hand to the creatures. They sniff him before attacking him and jump on him, causing Link to gasp quietly, not wanting to annoy anyone else around them. His shoulders slump in relief when he sees the Remlits just snuggling him and Link jumps down as well, causing the creatures to look at him warily. He reaches a hand out much like Ghirahim did and they purr when they recognize his scent. He’s allowed to pet them before looking at them, they look fairly cool when in this form. After a bit, Ghirahim and Link head back to Link’s room at the academy and Link looks at him in shock, “How did you figure out they’d calm down like that?” “I scanned them and they just turn into a demonic form. That means they’re a bit more untrusting, but they won’t hurt someone they’re used to…” Ghirahim says, shrugging his shoulders. Link looks at him impressed before they lay down in Link’s bed together. They snuggle close and Link nuzzles into Ghirahim’s chest before asking, “Would you mind singing for me?” “Of course not, my sky child.” Ghirahim says before beginning to sing some relaxing melodies that he learned when he was younger. Link smiles softly and snuggles closer, his eyes drooping closed. After a bit, Link falls asleep to the soothing music and Ghirahim smiles, stopping his singing when Link falls asleep. He presses a kiss onto the male’s forehead before wrapping an arm around him, falling asleep as well. ~With Dark and Shadow~ Dark and Shadow spend the entire day up on the waterfall island, Dark only leaving occasionally to get them food. They talk about all kinds of things, interested in the life the other had been living before they met. They snuggle close to each other when it starts to get dark since the water cools the area very well. Shadow snuggles into Dark this time before asking, “Would you play the flute for me?” Dark just smiles and nods, pulling out his shadow flute and beginning to play. The melody fluctuates from calm and happy to sad to peaceful, never going too energetic due to how late it is. Shadow manages to stay awake for a while, but he eventually falls asleep due to the soothing qualities of the music. Dark just smiles and puts his instrument away when he does and looks around, checking to see if anyone would notice, before pressing a kiss onto the other shadow’s forehead. Content with them being together, he closes his eyes and snuggles closer, allowing himself to fall asleep. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought of it! Also, like I said yesterday, I might not update much in the next week as I'm watching a ZeldaDungeon stream that goes pretty much all week, I'll try to write when I'm not watching it (as there's certain games that I won't be watching/I'll wait until they're set as highlights to watch, so yeah) ***** Chapter 15 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! I really hope you like it! I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes Link stretches quietly as he wakes up, slipping out of Ghirahim’s hold. He trods downstairs to get breakfast and returns to his room, smiling softly at the still sleeping demon. He begins to eat, knowing that the scent of the food will soon wake up the other. He feels like he’s become attached to the other rather quickly, but he now knows that Ghirahim wouldn’t hurt him, at least not on purpose anyway… Link only hopes that they’ll be able to save Zelda from the clutches of Hylia without messing with her personality too much… Link watches as Ghirahim’s eyes flutter open, focusing on the boy still eating breakfast. Ghirahim stretches and gets out of bed, walking over to the boy and sitting close to him, beginning to eat his own food. Link finishes first, as to be expected, and while he waits for Ghirahim to finish eating, he lightly messes with the other’s hair, smiling when the demon just relaxes into his touch. He combs his fingers through the platinum blond hair, the demon lord almost purring at the soft touch. Ghirahim eats his food quickly before turning and facing Link, pulling him closer. He leans forward and connects his lips with the other’s own, both of them relaxing into the soothing embrace. They both long for the days that they’ll be able to spend every day together without having to worry about Link going out and risking his life, though he’s likely to do that anyway as the boy has found adventuring to be one of his favorite things to do. Ghirahim guesses that he doesn’t mind, as long as the boy will let him come with him to make sure he doesn’t get hurt too badly. The kiss eventually breaks apart and they leave the academy, heading to the island that the shadows hang out on. They really need to find a place for the shadows to stay for the time being that’s not outside… They wake the shadows, who return to their originals’ shadows, Link and Ghirahim then head to the Isle of Songs. Link grins as he crawls into the building, wondering what the next song is going to sound like. First, there was the happy, energetic sounding Farore’s Courage and then the more playful, mysterious Nayru’s Wisdom… Link is a bit more partial to the former and Dark has told him that he rather likes the latter… Maybe Ghirahim will like this next song? Link can play any of them at will, so he’d like them all to like at least one of the songs that he knows. They do the same ritual of Link learning the song and he plays it, noticing a look of approval on Ghirahim’s face at the regal, almost march-like tune that conveys its name of Din’s Power very well. Link smiles this time as he watches Fi dance to the music and the visions of loftwings fill his sight again. Once the song is finished, Fi says, “I suggest heading to Eldin Volcano…” She looks at him a bit softly before continuing, “But only after you feel properly rested, Master.” Link smiles and nods, knowing that was her way of telling him he could take the day off if he wanted. He might do that after he gets the next flame, as Zelda is safe enough in the past with Impa. Link heads over to Ghirahim, who is humming the song softly. Link just smiles and they head outside. Suddenly, a black loftwing lands in front of them, tilting its head and trilling curiously. It walks over to Ghirahim and nuzzles him slightly, causing him to look a bit shocked. “Ebony?” He asks and it trills in response. He throws his arms around the neck of the creature. “I had wondered where you went off to… Guess Hylia sent you up here went she created the cloud cover, huh?” It caws quietly in acknowledgement and he turns to Link and Dark, who are looking at him with confused and curious eyes. Shadow is just grinning as he also missed the loftwing, or rather its shadow version. “This was my loftwing when I was younger… One day, she suddenly disappeared and I couldn’t sense her anywhere.” Ghirahim says, a lost look in his eye, “I was distraught, of course, and I never thought that I’d be able to see her again, as it’s been awhile since we last saw each other. Wasn’t it, girl?” Ebony nuzzles him and he smiles softly. Link smiles at this reunion and whistles, calling Crimson to him. Crimson lands in front of him and looks at the black loftwing curiously before cawing softly to it. Ebony returns the gentle sound. They then walk over and nuzzle each other, looking at each other sweetly. Link almost melts at the sight, as when two loftwings like each other like this, it means that their owners are meant to be together. He grins and Ghirahim wraps an arm around him, knowing the significance of this moment as well. After a bit, they both climb on their loftwings and fly off to Skyloft, wanting to see if they can help anyone there before going on to the next area. Dark and Shadow are allowed to be alone during this as they’ve already done their job of getting the goddess chests. Link heads to talk to Fledge, who says that he’s been doing up to 4,000 pushups recently, thanking Link with five gratitude crystals. Link just replies that he was glad he could help a friend and he participates in Fledge’s shooting game, managing to win a piece of heart from his friend, though he doesn’t exactly know where the other boy found it… Link upgrades a few of his items and buys a few things at Beedle’s Airshop since he has the materials and the rupees to do so. He then tells Dark and Shadow that he’s heading to the next silent realm, but they should stay here as they can’t help him with the realm. They nod and he and Ghirahim head to Eldin Volcano for Link to do the next realm. Link gets a hunch and lands at the Volcano Ascent and he easily finds the trial gate. He nods at Ghirahim, hoping that it shouldn’t take him too long and he plays Din’s Power before thrusting his sword into the gate. He looks around and groans at the sheer amount of Guardians there are in the area, knowing that he’s going to have a hard time dodging them. He starts exploring the area, collecting tears as methodically as he can. He has a few minor close calls with the guardians, managing to get to another tear in time. However, one of the close calls was not so minor. On the way to collect on of the final tears, he runs of time and he cringes as he notices a Guardian extremely close to the tear that he wants to collect. He runs forward and grits his teeth at the angry sounds the Guardian is making. He reaches out at the last and just barely collects the tear before the guardian reaches him. His body is trembling at the aftershocks of the adrenaline and the fear that had been racing through his body as he collects the final few tears. He makes it back to the entrance of the area with no problems and before he can recover from the event earlier, he gets the next gift, a pair of fireshield earrings. He returns to his body and he’s still trembling, causing Ghirahim to notice that something’s wrong immediately. Fi comes out of his sword and she watches as Ghirahim pulls the boy into his arms, “What’s wrong, my sky child?” He starts to rock Link softly, trying to soothe the poor hero. “O-one...of the G-guardians...got a bit too close…” Link says shivering. “Was afraid I wouldn’t make it…” Ghirahim just pulls him closer, humming softly to soothe the boy. Eventually, Link falls asleep, his body doing its best to recover from the encounter. Ghirahim looks at Fi, “Guardian?” He asks, not being familiar with the term. “The Guardians of the Silent Realms are there to prevent others from taking the tears and completing the trial. If they land a hit on you, it shatters your soul.” Ghirahim pales instantly. “I’ve heard that the hero has an unbreakable soul, which is the reason Hylia chose him, but there’s still a chance that his soul would break...A chance I wish he didn’t have to take…” Fi continues, a solemn look on her face. Ever since her swearing her loyalty to Link, she’s been a bit more emotive, though she retains most of her original personality. Ghirahim just nods, pulling the sleeping boy closer to him. Fi heads back into Link’s sword and Ghirahim carries him over to the bird statue, calling down Ebony. He climbs onto Ebony, knowing that he can trust his bird to take them to Skyloft safely. “Take us to Skyloft, girl. And be careful.” She nods and flaps her wings, the powerful thrusts leading them into the sky. She starts flying towards Skyloft, careful to keep both of her passengers on board as neither of them is holding onto her particularly well. After a bit, she lands on Skyloft and Ghirahim gets off, making sure that his hold on the boy is secure. He thanks her and she trills before flying off. He carries Link to his room at the academy…more like their room with how much they’ve been sharing it recently. He lays the boy on the bed and teleports the gear off of him, sitting down in one of the chairs that decorate the boy’s previously empty room. Dark and Shadow come into the room then and look at Link alarmed, wondering if the male is alright. They look at Ghirahim, “What happened to him?” Dark asks, concerned that his lighter half is alright. “He should be fine, one of the guardians of his trial got way too close to him and it frightened him a bit…” Dark and Shadow nod, a bit relieved. Dark knows what the Guardians could do, so he’s glad that Link managed to escape it without getting hurt. They start talking, not really wanting Link to wake up alone. After about thirty minutes, Link wakes up and looks around. “Ghira?” He asks and Ghirahim comes over to him. Link has him sit down beside him on the edge of the bed and he grabs his hand. “Thank you for comforting me, Ghira…” He says, looking a bit bashful. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble to get me up here…” “It was no trouble at all, my little sky child.” Ghira says softly, rubbing a finger on Link’s hand. “Do you feel up to getting up now?” “Yeah...I wanted to talk to Gaepora about something anyway…” Dark’s eyes widen at this, realizing that he forgot to tell Link what he learned about the man. “Um, Link?” Link looks at him and motions him to go on. “I have something to tell you about him that you might not like…” Link tilts his head, “Well, you know how he said that your parents were killed by demons?” “Yeah and after Hylia was found to be evil, I figured that wasn’t the case and he lied since Hylia told him to tell me that… But what did you find out?” “Hylia forced him to kill your parents…” Link takes a deep breath and nods. He’d never really been too close to the Headmaster, so it doesn’t really hit him too hard, and he can easily see that as something that Hylia would force him to do. “How did you find this out?” Link asks, surprisingly calm about something like this. “I stuck around after your last meeting with him, he mentioned that she forced him to do this and that he’d accept any punishment for his actions as long as Zelda was returned safely and without the goddess controlling her.” Link nods at this. “Well, I don’t blame him, she probably said that she’d kill Zelda at some point. That would convince a parent to do pretty much anything for the person to prevent it happening… I’ll tell him I forgive him when I meet with him in a few minutes.” The others nod and smile slightly, glad that Link doesn’t seem to be too upset by this new revelation. Link stretches and gets out of his bed, telling them that he’ll return soon and that they should stay there. He then leaves his room and heads to Gaepora’s office. He smiles slightly at the man when he enters the room and says, “I have a favor I’d like to ask of you.” “What is it, my boy?” Gaepora asks, curious what the boy wants. “I was wondering if you had a spare room for two of my friends to stay in. They wouldn’t mind sharing a room, so we only need one.” Gaepora thinks a bit before nodding. “There’s one not too far from your room. Should I mark it as taken then?” Link nods and grins. “That’d be great, sir. That’s all I wanted to ask, but I want to say something. I forgive you for what Hylia forced you to do… I’m guessing she threatened to harm Zelda in some fashion?” Gaepora nods, a few tears streaming down his face. “Yeah....She did, I really am sorry for doing it though, I was really close to your parents…” Link looks at him sympathetically, “It must have been hard, but I still forgive you. Any parent would do the same if their child were in danger. And don’t worry, I plan on getting Zelda back to you free of the goddess.” Gaepora starts crying harder, “Thank you, dear boy. If there’s anything else I can do to help you on your journey at any point, just let me know, okay?” Link nods before leaving the room, hearing the man say, “You were always a good boy and I view you as my own son. May the Goddesses bless your journey.” Link smiles as he heads back to his room, grabbing some food on the way there. He enters the room and they all eat before Link looks at them happily, “Dark and Shadow, I know how cold it can get up on the island waterfall, so I’ve secured you a room here in the academy for the both of you to share.” “Thank you, Link.” They both say, not too shocked as the boy cares for them both. “I’ll take you there if you want…” They both nod and Link leads them to the room, which is fairly close to Link’s own room. They look around it curiously and smile, liking the room already. “I’m going to take the rest of the day off, so you can stay here if you wish.” Link says and they nod, letting him head back to his room. He sits in his bed and Ghirahim comes to sit beside him. “That was sweet of you, sky child. Is there anything that you’d like to do today?” “I’d like to just relax with you and mainly cuddle.” Ghirahim smiles and opens his arms, Link scooting over to him and snuggling in his arms. They cuddle the rest of the day, Link needing the comfort from the close call with the Guardian. They talk about random things, mainly just enjoying each other’s company. When it’s dinner time, Ghirahim heads downstairs, everyone on Skyloft already used to seeing him around Link. He returns with the food and they eat, cuddling when they’re finished. Ghirahim looks at him quietly before kissing him softly, just enjoying being close to each other. They kiss sweetly for a little while before Ghira pulls away before asking, “Would you mind playing the harp for me?” Link nods, pulling out his harp. He starts to play the various melodies that he knows, smiling softly at how happy Ghirahim is when he plays Din’s Power. After he plays the melodies that he knows, he starts experimenting, just playing notes that sound pretty together. Ghirahim smiles and relaxes into the music and after a bit, Link puts the harp away. They snuggle close before falling asleep, wrapped close together. ~With Dark and Shadow~ They spend the rest of the day together in their new room, Dark heading to get dinner for them when it’s time. They do snuggle together, similar to Link and Ghirahim, and they talk to each other as they’re still sharing stories. After a little while of talking, Shadow grins before leaning forward and kissing Dark softly. Dark stiffens slightly at the gesture before melting into the kiss, wrapping his arms around the other shadow’s neck. He returns the kiss and they just lay there for a while enjoying the kiss. After a bit, they have to pull apart to breathe and Dark just smiles at Shadow. “That was nice…” He says a bit shyly. “I agree, my sweet. Would you mind if I sang for you?” Dark shakes his head and Shadow begins singing for the other, knowing a lot of the same melodies that Ghirahim does. He also noticed that Dark seems to like whenever Link absentmindedly played Nayru’s Wisdom, so he sings the song as well, knowing the words easily. Dark smiles at this and he relaxes as the other sings, closing his eyes and letting the music wash over him in waves. He snuggles closer and he feels the call of sleep and he allows sleep to take him. Shadow smiles and wraps an arm around Dark when he notices the other fall asleep and he closes his eyes as well. He doesn’t fall asleep as quickly, but he does fall asleep happily, glad that he’s in the other’s arms. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought! The next update will be Wednesday (unless I'm able to write another chapter then it'll change) ***** Chapter 16 ***** Chapter Notes Here's the next chapter! The next one should be Saturday, but it'll be a bit shorter as I didn't have as much time to write it :P I really hope you enjoy this! I don't own the Legend of Zelda See the end of the chapter for more notes Ghirahim stretches quietly as he wakes up, smiling at the sight of his sky child still asleep. He notices new earrings and recognizes what they do. He’s just glad that demons are more resistant to fire than humans are, so he’ll be able to follow the boy through the next area. He’ll allow Link to fight a bit more on his own, but he’ll still be there to help when the boy really needs it. He heads downstairs to get some breakfast for both himself and Link, being greeted cheerfully by Gaepora. He returns the greetings and heads back to Link’s room, sitting down and placing the food on a table. He begins to eat just as Link wakes, who walks over and sits in Ghirahim’s lap, despite the man’s protests. He starts eating as well and Ghirahim allows him to do pretty much anything that he wants, it not really troubling him too badly. After they’re done eating, they leave the room, going to check on their shadows. They shrug when they notice that the two are still asleep and they leave a note, explaining that they’re heading to the next area. The two will easily be able to find them wherever they are, as the shadows have an ability to be able to find their original no matter where they are. Link gets on Crimson and Ghirahim on Ebony both of them flying to the red beam of light. They both smile as their loftwings dance around each other on the way there, not minding the playfulness in place of the usual serious flying. They arrive at the area and together explore it, easily finding where Link has to go. Link walks into the inner part of the volcano, the place that the fireshield earrings were made to protect him from. He then turns around to tell Ghirahim to just wait until their shadows appear, only to witness the demon follow him into the summit. He looks at Ghirahim a bit worriedly, who just chuckles in response. “What? Didn’t expect me to be able to stand the heat, my little sky child? Demons have a higher tolerance to heat.” Link just smiles and nods and together they explore the area, getting joined by Dark and Shadow somewhere around noon. Link enjoys this area a bit more now that the heat isn’t bothering him as badly, the earrings allowing him to feel as cool as he did when exploring Lake Floria for the first time, no hint of being in a volcano at all. He’ll have to take them off when he doesn’t need them, as it’d be weird to not feel the heat of a normal day up on Skyloft like he’s used to. When they find a water spring, Ghirahim suggests filling up more than one bottle as it’ll either be used somehow or used to hydrate themselves. Link nods and fills three bottles before they continue on. They joke around while they explore the area, all just telling stories or jokes to make the journey easier. Link sings a silly triumphant tune when he finds a goddess cube that has them all bursting into laughter. “Sky child, where did you get the idea for that tune?” “I dunno! It just came to me, sort of felt right.” Link says, still chuckling softly. He starts laughing more when Fi comes out just to tell him that he can dowse for goddess cubes, the idea being silly to him since he’s fairly good at finding them. Link gets another goddess cube before Ghirahim teleports them both to Floria Waterfall as they need a large amount of water to dowse the next flame that’s blocking their path. Link explores a bit and finds another goddess cube, making the same melody as before. He dowses and can feel another one further away in the forest that he’ll get if Ghirahim will teleport him closer. “Ghira? Would you mind teleporting me to a different spot in the forest for a moment, there’s another goddess cube I’d like to get.” Ghirahim chuckles and nods, teleporting both himself and Link closer, allowing Link to find the cube. Once that’s finished, he teleports them back and they talk to Faron. After a quick conversation, they teleport back to where the shadows are waiting with her basin of water. They use it to dowse the flames and continue onwards, a bit shocked that they’re already at the entrance to the next dungeon after what felt like only an hour or two of exploring. They decide to head back to Skyloft to rest before the dungeon, Link and Ghirahim going through this one alone. They both know that the two shadows want a bit more time to bond, and traversing a temple is not exactly the best place to do that. The two couples head to their usual places, those being the waterfall island for the shadows and the Remlit island for their originals. Ghirahim and Link pet and play with the Remlits, enjoying just being together. After a few hours of this, they decide to just explore Skyloft together, though it’s more like Link giving Ghirahim a tour. The tour is mostly happy until they reach the graveyard, where Link freezes, Ghirahim looking at him in concern. Link just leads the man over to his parents’ graves and they both kneel down by the graves, tears beginning to stream down Link’s face. They sit in silence for awhile before Link startles Ghirahim by talking. “Hi momma, hi papa. I know it’s been a little while since I’ve last talked to you. I’ve started a crazy journey recently and I feel like we’re finally getting somewhere. You remember Zelda, the sweet little girl who I would spend a lot of time with. She got possessed by Hylia, who is far worse than any of us would’ve thought before. Don’t worry, though, Ghirahim, here, and I are going to save her and then I’ll have my best friend back… Ghirahim has helped me a lot and I really think that you’d like him… He’d give his own life before he’d let anything hurt me, so I’ll be safe from now on…” Link looks at Ghirahim, who pulls him closer to comfort the male. Ghirahim looks at the two graves and frowns, feeling so sad that Link lost his parents so early. “I hope you’ll accept me being with your son, I promise that I’ll protect him with my life.” Ghirahim says, feeling a soft breeze blow through his hair. He smiles slightly and Link does as well, knowing that it’s his parents’ way of showing their acceptance. They remain there for a little bit longer before getting up and leaving, Link still crying softly. Once they’re far enough away, Ghirahim turns Link towards him and wipes his tears away, getting the hero to smile softly at him. “Shh, my sweet little sky child. I meant what I said and I’ll be with you as long as you love me… I know that it could be considered a little too soon, but I love you, Link.” Ghirahim says, his eyes radiating with honesty. Link smiles wider at this and he looks away a bit shyly. He motions Ghirahim to follow him and he leads them back to his room at the academy. Once they arrive, he turns to look at the demon. “Sorry, I just wanted a bit more privacy for what I’m about to say.” Ghirahim nods and looks at Link a bit curiously. “The last few weeks that you’ve been with me have been so amazing to me and though my heart was broken by what Hylia did to me when I was younger, my heart still has the ability to love and yearn for someone. That someone is you. You’re one of the few people that I absolutely know I can trust to never hurt me and I know that you’ll always be there for me when I need you. Yes, you’re a bit over-protective sometimes, but I’m fine with that. I’m glad that you return my feelings since I never believed that I would be able to find someone that loves me as purely and as wholly as you do, so thank you, Ghira. Thank you for finding me.” Ghirahim smiles softly at the boy before pulling him in for a kiss. They kiss for a little while, both of them just accepting the love and comfort that the other one is offering. They spend the remainder of the evening talking together, enjoying the other’s company and basking in the feelings of being truly in love with someone. When they fall asleep, they fall asleep perfectly entwined, as if their bodies were made to fit with each other, as they fit perfectly together. ~With Dark and Shadow~ When the two shadows arrive at “their” island, they just relax for a little while. After a bit of just relaxing on the land part of the island, they decide to swim around in the pool of water that’s up here. They start splashing each other, causing the other to laugh and try to dodge the torrent of water. Once they’re tired of the water, they get out and lay on the grass together, just looking up at the loftwings flying overhead. Dark curls into Shadow and rests his head in the crook of the other’s neck. He lays there for awhile before getting an idea. He leans forward and connects his lips to the other’s neck. Shadow stiffens as he hadn’t been expecting that action though he quickly relaxes when the other starts to suck softly at the skin of his neck. Dark nibbles and kisses along the shadow’s neck, enjoying the few sounds that this is causing the prideful shadow to make. After a bit, not wanting to start something he shouldn’t at this point, he stops and just nuzzles into the other male’s neck. Shadow smiles softly, still faintly trembling from the other’s actions, reaching a hand up to gently pet Dark’s hair. Dark makes a noise of content, snuggling closer to the other shadow. They remain like this until it begins to get cold and then they head down to the academy to spend the remainder of the evening in their new room. Shadow decorates it with his magic, giving it more furniture like Ghirahim did with Link’s room. They sit down on the couch and snuggle close to each other, talking quietly as they usually do. Shadow grins at Dark softly before leaning in and nibbling at the other’s earlobe, causing Dark to melt against him. He continues for a few minutes before pulling away, smirking softly at having found a sensitive spot on the other. Dark rolls his eyes before kissing the other shadow, which catches Shadow off guard. When Dark pulls away, he’s smirking as well and they both just look at each other before laughing, enjoying being together like this. They talk for the remainder of the evening before falling asleep curled in each other’s on the bed, happy that Ghirahim introduced them to each other. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought! :3 ***** Chapter 17 ***** Chapter Notes Sorry this is later than I promised! I've been focused on re-writing this story as I just am not happy with the way that I was writing before. So if you want to critique my older chapters and tell me how to improve them, it would be much appreciated. I don't own the Legend of Zelda. See the end of the chapter for more notes Link stretches and his eyes flutter gently as he wakes up, he decides that he doesn’t quite want to get up yet, so he snuggles into Ghirahim. Ghirahim wakes up a bit later and smiles, returning the cuddle for a bit before they get up to have breakfast. After eating breakfast together, they head to the next temple, Dark and Shadow already knowing that they’ll be gone. They explore the temple for a few hours, getting treasures and an upgraded version of the digging mitts. Working together like this, it doesn’t take as long, even with Link doing most of the battling and puzzle-solving. They quickly find their way into what was supposed to be the boss room, but it’s...empty. They look around confused before Ghirahim finds something on the walls that make him burst into laughter. Link comes over to see what’s so funny and on the wall, there are diagrams that tell of the existence of another gate of time. Link looks at Ghirahim, still confused as the drawings aren’t particularly funny. “Hylia thought...that I’d be the boss in this room... I was supposed to find these drawings...before fighting you if you wouldn’t tell me where the next Gate of Time was.” Ghirahim says in between bursts of laughter. Link starts laughing softly at that, amused that Hylia actually got this wrong. Suddenly, Ghirahim looks at him solemnly and he calms down, concerned for the demon lord. “What’s wrong, Ghira?” “I need to tell you something. I don’t think you’ll care much, but you need to know anyway.” Link nods, letting him go on. “I’m Demise’s sword spirit, just like Fi is for you. However, I’m different in that I’m usually a demon rather than a sword, though, I can turn into a sword whenever he needs me to.” Link nods and smiles, it not being as bad as he thought it was. “That’s fine with me since I know I’ll never have to fight him and therefore fight you.” Link says, a bit relieved that it wasn’t that big of a deal. “Why were you worried, that’s not a big enough reason for me to leave you…” Link says confused about why the other would think that way. Ghirahim sighs before replying, “It’s just whenever I go into my sword spirit form, I can be a bit...flamboyant.” Link snorts at that. “More than I usually am.” Ghira replies, rolling his eyes at the other, “I become more battle-hungry and almost bloodthirsty, as since I’m the sword I want to be fought with. Does that make sense?” He asks, causing Link to nod. “It does, but have you ever acted that way towards an ally or is it just with enemies.” “Enemies…” Link smiles at this, “See. That means that you don’t have to worry about hurting someone that you care for, especially if you can help influence the sword like Fi can.” Ghirahim nods at that, feeling a bit better. If Demise wielded the sword against Link or his friends, Ghirahim would be able to stop him from attacking them, though he sincerely doubts that the demon king would do such a thing unless possessed. Ghirahim smiles at Link before asking, “Want to train a bit since there’s no boss here? I can make some stronger enemies appear for you to fight.” Link nods and they train for the next few hours before Ghirahim gives Link a heart container for his hard work. Link smiles tiredly and they relax for a bit more before Link gets his sword upgraded a final time, turning it into the Master Sword. He looks at the design and smiles as it’s very reminiscent of what Fi looks like and it seems super powerful now. Fi tells him that he can now awaken the gate of time in the sealed grounds but that he should also rest as he just finished a long dungeon. Link nods and both he and Ghirahim head back up to the sky. When they arrive on Skyloft, Link takes off the fireshield earrings, sighing in content as he feels the comforting warmth of a day on Skyloft again. He looks at Ghirahim, “If we ever have to go back in the volcano, would you remind me to put these back on?” Ghirahim nods and Link stows them in the pouch that he has his water dragon’s scale in so that they don’t get damaged or lost. They go to find the two shadows, who had been wandering around Skyloft while they were doing the temple and eventually ended up on their usual island. Ghirahim teleports them up there and Link goes over to them, “Hey, we did it. Look.” He says, pulling out the Master Sword. The two look at it appreciatively before Link says, “Would you two mind gathering the goddess chests? I’m tired and I want to take a nap now.” Dark smiles softly at him and they both nod, Link and Ghirahim heading back to Link’s room at the academy to nap. Dark and Shadow go exploring around various places in the sky to find the goddess cubes, it becoming a game of who can find more chests than the other. They tie, both of them finding two of the chests that have been activated. They return to Skyloft and drop off the goodies on a table in Link’s room, smiling at the sight of the two snuggled up together sleeping. They return to their island on Skyloft, wondering if there’s any way that they can help their two originals. Dark has access to all the same items that Link does, they’re just shadow versions of them but they work identically to their original counterparts. Every time that Link gets a new item that Dark would be able to use, a shadow version appears in his own pouch, letting him be able to help his lighter half. They decide to go explore the last two areas to see if there’s anything that Ghirahim and Link missed or forgot to get while they were there. They find a piece of heart in the Volcano Summit and then they head to the desert. They get another piece of heart with a game of riding on the minecart tracks, which turns into them racing to see who can get a better time. Once that’s finished, they head back to Skyloft, deciding to just walk around. They see Ghirahim and Link, now awake, and give them the heart pieces before continuing to explore the island. Dark ends up giving Shadow a tour much like Link did for Ghirahim, though theirs doesn’t end as sadly as their originals’ did. They don’t really tour near the other residents’ houses, preferring to go closer to the waterfall and the cave that leads to the area behind it. Once they finish, it’s roughly nighttime so they head back to their new room at the academy, ready to just spend the evening together. They snuggle on the bed, both of them enjoying the other’s company. They don’t talk much this time, though at one point, neither of them knowing who started it, they both start to kiss each other. They quickly get lost in the feelings of the other’s lips on their own and they melt into each other. They kiss for quite a while before pulling awake. They smile breathlessly at each other before Dark says, “I know it might be too soon, but I already thinking I’m falling for you.” Shadow grins and nods his head, “Same here, my sweet. I just didn’t want to pressure you into saying it as well.” They smile at each other tenderly and they snuggle closer, Shadow placing his head on Dark’s chest. He smiles at the heartbeat that he hears there and they both fall asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms. ~With Link and Ghira~ Once they wake up again, they leave the academy to just walk around, Ghirahim telling stories of what it was like to be Demise’s sword spirit. Link laughs at quite a few of them, getting the feeling that he’ll get along quite well with the demon king. They continue to just hang out, enjoying the other’s company. When it gets late, they head back to the academy, ready to spend the evening alone together. They lay in bed for a while talking quietly to each other before it morphs into them kissing each other. They do this for a little bit before their hands begin to wander and eventually Ghirahim just crawls on top of Link, both of them too absorbed into the feelings to care. They both remove the top half of the other’s clothing, their hands wandering and tracing patterns along the other’s skin. Ghirahim breaks the kiss first and moves to Link’s neck, sucking at a spot that he knows is sensitive. Link arches at the contact, moving his head to give the demon better access. Ghirahim nips at the spot and continuing to suck on it, until a dark purple bruise has formed, marking the blond as his own. Ghirahim starts to grind against Link, both of them too impatient to wait any longer. Gasps and moans fill the room as they get closer and closer and soon both of them are arching against each other, crying out each other’s names as they tip over the edge. Ghirahim then snaps his fingers, making them both clean, though he’s a bit embarrassed at the fact that they never removed the bottom half of their clothing. Link just smiles at him, pulling him down to cuddle. He nuzzles his face into the crook of Ghirahim’s neck and closes his eyes, both of them falling asleep quickly to the comforting warmth of the other. Chapter End Notes Please tell me what you thought! Also, please tell me how I could improve this story (though I'm already much happier with how I've re- written the first six chapters :3) Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!