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It was the third summer of their small Surface civilization when the fire happened. It had been a dry spring and even dryer in the last few months. The crops were already doing poorly - not failing, just stretching it a bit thin. The Surface held cycles of growth and decay the Skyloftians had not fathomed for many centuries.
The town had started small, barely a town, more of a village. But three years in, it had grown to about the same size as Skyloft. In the first year, the town Plaza had simply been a flat, grassy area with a pole in the middle. Only five or six houses had radiated from it in a circle. As the seasons changed - something that was significantly more severe here than it had been in the Sky - more houses started popping up. They continued to be built in rings around the Plaza; it was the second fall when they paved the roads in cobblestone and converted the original, centermost ring of houses into a market.
They had moved to the Surface at the tail end of the planting season, so their first harvest hadn’t been much. They had relied on donations ferried down from the Sky and generous contributions from the kikwis. The second harvest, however, had been a time for much celebration.
***
It was their first time of respite since they had moved to the surface. The wheat was thriving and the pumpkins were plentiful. The atmosphere was joyful. The official Harvest Festival was to be next week after the winter preparations were done, but there was an air of celebration even as they scythed the wheat and pickled the pumpkins.
Link and Ghirahim lived together in one of the houses in the third concentric ring of the town. It was modest: a kitchen, a couch, a bathroom. A small cellar. One bedroom, which had surprised some of the less… observant townsfolk when they realized Ghirahim wasn’t sleeping on the couch. Green and gray plaid curtains covered the window and a cozy - if ill-advised - red and yellow diamond patterned rug covered the floor. The table had stains on it and the couch was bleeding stuffing from at least three holes and they only had one real kitchen chair: it was a house with as much character as its occupants. Every inch of space not taken up by the stove or couch or other few pieces of furniture was lined with shelves and drawers, which held all Link’s “treasures” that neither Ghirahim nor Zelda could convince him to throw away. He wouldn’t even put them in the cellar. Ghirahim despaired.
A few days before the Harvest Festival was to officially begin, Link was teaching Ghirahim how to pickle pumpkins.
“It’s a time honoured Skyloft tradition !” Link was shouting.
“It’s disgusting !” Ghirahim shouted back. “There’s no need to pickle pumpkins! You make soup out of them! Pickle the carrots, for Hylia’s sake! ”
“Who in their right mind would enjoy pickled carrots? ”
Despite the argument, Ghirahim laughed delightedly. “Who in their right mind enjoys pickled anything?! ”
Link was laughing too now. “We’re all insane here, haven't you noticed? You better develop a taste for brine unless you want to survive on dried apples again this winter!”
Ghirahim huffed and crossed his arms. Link fell into him, leaning his full weight against the taller man until he was forced to uncross his arms and catch him. “Simpleton,” Ghirahim muttered, but he was smiling. Despite his complaints, Ghirahim was nothing if not efficient, and the cartload of pumpkins were cleaned, chopped, and packed into jars by the time the sun was setting. They went to bed that night smelling of pumpkin and each other.
The day the Harvest Festival was set to begin the town was resplendent in all the glory autumn on the Surface had to offer. Leaves in hues of red, orange, and yellow covered the cobblestones and made swishing sounds as small feet ran through them. Wreaths of green pine branches decorated doorways and shed their needles on visitors. The sky was pale blue and the water a dark indigo, a sign of the approaching chill. That night, the whole town was gathered in the Plaza. Small lights had been strung up between the shops and tied to the centre pole and torches glowed warmly from the edges; everything was lent a pleasing orange tint. There were huge vats of pumpkin soup and apple cider and mulled wine that made the air heady with the smell of both promise and rest. There was a band in the corner. Ghirahim and Link were in the middle of it all, wearing dead-leaf crowns and listening to a cheerful song led by the fiddler..
Link had spent a couple days working up a good argument - and the courage - to get Ghirahim to come to the Harvest Festival with him. He’d sat him down at the table and presented it business-style. He’d had notecards and everything.
“It’s fun!”
“Getting drunk with strangers because it’s about to get really cold is not fun.”
“They’re not strangers! Pipit will be there with Karane, and Groose with Peatrice… And Zelda! You know Zelda!”
“Ah yes. Zelda.”
“Aw, don’t be like that...”
“Like what exactly?” Ghirahim had expected Link to continue the argument but instead he just got quiet. “Like what?” he prodded.
“I just wish you two could get along…” he said softly. “You’re my two favourite people… I hate that I can’t make you understand each other.”
“It’s not your fault the goddess is about as likable as a swarm of keese,” Ghirahim said.
“You can hate the Goddess all you like! I sure do!” Link retorted. “But… Zelda isn’t the Goddess, and I wish you could see that! You’re both stubborn, and capable, and you have the same sense of humour - you’d get along like a house on fire if you just talked !”
Before he had lived with Link for over a year, Ghirahim wouldn’t have noticed how Link’s voice shook just a little bit despite his playful, exasperated words; he would have written off this Zelda business as the foolish whims of a bleeding heart. But he’d lived with Link long enough to know this truly meant a lot to him - and loved him sufficiently to care.
“Of course I’ll go with you, my love.”
The glowing torchlight smile Link was giving him now made it all worth it. They danced the night away, reveling in the fruits of their labours. Link threw his head back and laughed when Ghirahim spit out the special spiced pumpkin soup - he didn’t like pumpkin on a good day - and Ghirahim nearly fell over in mirth when Link tripped over his own feet during a square dance and took out at least three other couples with him.
That fall, Ghirahim learned how to pickle pumpkins and Link learned how to waltz.
… Even if neither would willingly use their newfound skills any time soon.
***
They built the mill that year, too. It was made of wood, on the riverside between the wheat fields and town, about one kilometre out. The mill enabled flour to be made, and winter that year was passed with much bread-baking and bread-breaking around the fire.
***
They didn’t have a fireplace, exactly, so Link and Ghirahim were huddled around the cooking stove. Link had brought every single blanket they owned - and some they didn’t - into the kitchen. Ghirahim preened in his nest before deigning to invite Link to cuddle into him. Snow had fallen earlier in the day but the air was clear now. Link was plucking absentmindedly at his harp and Ghirahim was reading a book when there was a knock on the door.
“We’re coming in! You better not be fucking!” a voice shouted from the front of the house as several sets of footsteps resounded. Pipit was the first to enter the kitchen, an embarrassed looking Karane behind him. He eyed the blankets on the floor suspiciously as if to say “you couldn’t make it to the bed?” Groose and Peatrice came in next, then Fledge and his boyfriend Parrow and Parrow’s sister Orielle, then finally Zelda. “We brought cards!” Pipit continued at a volume far too loud for the small space. “And wine!”
Ghirahim looked a bit put out, but Link looked delighted. “We weren’t fucking, Pipit, we were cuddling! ” he laughed.
Ghirahim stood up, a bit of the cheer in the air diffusing into him. He went about assigning each new arrival a blanket to sit on while saying daintily, “I will have you know we do not fuck , as you so crudely put it. We were making tender and passionate lov e here on these blankets.” He handed a white blanket with some orange stains on it - actually pumpkin soup - to Pipit with a saucy wink. Link made eye contact with Zelda and shook his head despairingly.
They played poker and black jack and eventually a game of go fish when they were all too tired - Fledge, Orielle, Zelda, Peatrice - or too drunk - Parrow, Groose, Pipit, Karane, Link, Ghirahim - to hold more than four cards. There was a bit of a scuffle when Zelda destroyed Ghirahim mercilessly in the last game that ended in Ghirahim accusing Zelda of eating the cards and Zelda yelling “Well then come at me! Fight me!” while being held back by Orielle. After that, Fledge and Peatrice corralled their tipsy significant others out the door. Pipit gave Ghirahim a double thumbs up and a wink as he was pulled outside rather urgently by Karane. Zelda hugged Link, then left as well - holding hands with Orielle.
Link attempted to fold the blankets once everyone left. Ghirahim sat on the floor counting and recounting the cards.
“She ate them! That’s why she won!” he kept exclaiming.
After giving up on the blankets, Link gently nudged Ghirahim’s hands away from the cards and pulled him to his feet. He wrapped his arms around the taller man’s waist. “Aw, forget about evil Zelda,” Link pouted, his chin resting on Ghirahim’s sternum. “Come to bed with me.”
Ghirahim immediately forgot about Zelda.
“To bed? Oh, darling, but all the blankets are out here,” he drawled innocently.
And in that way they passed the winter: in quiet nights around the fire, in card games with friends, and in many warm tangles under the blankets.
***
The sun had risen hot and dry that day towards the end of the third summer. Everyone was hoping the coming fall would come with more temperate temperatures, and hopefully more than a little rain. That summer, Ghirahim would have given anything for some of the snow he’d professed to hate to fall.
The heat made Ghirahim sleepy, and that’s why he’d only pulled himself from the empty bed at noon. He’d told Link last night that if he didn’t see him off in the morning, he’d be sure to bring him lunch at the mill. Link had kissed his pale cheek and said that was very domestic of him. Now, the sun was high in the pale blue sky and Ghirahim was making biscuits. It really was much too hot to have the fire on, but he figured biscuits cook fast and they had some fresh jam, even if it was Zelda’s jam. Besides, Link loved his biscuits.
Once they were finished and cool enough to pack without squishing, Ghirahim added the biscuits to his basket along with some dried apples and dekubaba jerky. Pretty much all their food was dried or cured, it being the only way to keep it from going bad in this horrible heat.
The walk to the mill wasn’t a long one, but it was a pretty one, so Ghirahim took his time. Link would wait for him. As the town faded away behind him, so did the hubbub of civilization until all Ghirahim could hear were the birds in the trees and the kikwis in the bushes. Ghirahim sped up a little when he reached the small patch of forest between the town and the mill. The kikwis weren’t his biggest fan, and he was apt to catch a few pellets to the head if he lingered too long.
It was only when he emerged from the copse of trees that he smelled the smoke. The mill wasn’t visible from town; hills and trees rose between the valley of the town and the valley of the fields. Once those obstacles were crossed, though, a clear view of the twirling blades could be seen, with the pale yellow wheat fields swaying behind them. What met Ghirahim on the other side of the trees was a sight he would never forget.
The mill was on fire.
There was not a single breeze of wind that day to ruffle Ghirahim’s white locks and the smoke hung unmoving in the air and obscured the roof of the mill. There were three sections to the mill: the storage shed, the grinder, and the bagging room. Of these, the grinder blazed the most fiercely with flames.
Ghirahim dropped his picnic basket.
He was frozen for a moment, undecided on whether to rush back to town for help or to rush into the flames. Because Link worked in the grinder. He only froze for a moment. Then, ignoring the biscuits and apple pieces spilled around his feet, he turned and sprinted back into the forest.
He used what Link called his “demon lord voice” and called loudly for the kikwis, it be damned if they didn’t like him. One intrepid plant-creature crawled out of the bushes, glaring daggers at him. Ghirahim shrieked at it to run back and bring back at least half the town with all the buckets of water they could carry. When the kikwi suspiciously asked why, Ghirahim nearly punched it. He forced out that the mill was on fire, panic gripping his chest, before turning once again on his heel and darting towards the burning building.
Link.
That’s all he could think about.
Link was in there.
As he got closer, Ghirahim could see that there was already a small group of people forming a line at the river. They wore wide-brimmed hats and were filling wheelbarrows with whatever water they could scrape from the riverbed. The farmers from the fields. Ghirahim couldn’t see anyone in the ballcaps of the millworkers.
He skidded to a stop, breathless, in front of a man who’s name he probably should have known. Enquiring feverishly if he knew where the survivors were, Ghirahim’s panic threatened to drown him more swiftly than any river when he heard the answer. His hands shook at the ends of wrists and his knees nearly gave out as he ran towards crackling flames. Someone grabbed at him, leather work gloves biting into his biceps, trying to hold him back, but it took next to no effort to break free. The farmers behind were shouting, telling him it wasn’t safe to go inside, the roof could fall at any moment.
Ghirahim didn’t care about the goddamned roof. If it wasn’t safe for him in there, it sure as hell wasn’t safe for- for-
Link.
When he shouldered his way through the rubble around the door, the choking black smoke only got thicker. The heat inside was worse than outside: omnipresent and all-consuming. Flames licked at his calves, his hair, his lungs. He didn’t feel the burns to his skin or the charring of his white clothes.
It only took a minute to shove his way through, coughing, to the room that housed the large grinding stones. They were big stone wheels, about as tall as Link was. There was bin the wheat was stored in until the trap door was opened and it was guided through the chute. Because of his unfortunate stature, Link’s job was to unload the bundled wheat from the storage shed and bring it to the bin. His arms were more strong and sunburnt now than they’d ever been.
It took more than an unsteady heartbeat but less than a moment - in other words: too long - for Ghirahim to find who he was looking for. He had passed a few bodies various steps down the path towards death, and while he knew Link would have stopped to help, Ghirahim only had it in himself to care about his -
It took three of the strongest men in the town to get Ghirahim out of the rubble. When the fire was finally out, the fragile structure was rushed with people trying to remove the bodies and hoping desperately for a survivor. The only one alive they found was Ghirahim, and he could barely be counted as that. Once his worst nightmare had been confirmed, he’d shut down. Tapped out. There were only a handful of people who knew this meant something was very, very wrong - but these were the same people who were also grieving deeply for Link.
Ghirahim woke up in Gaepora’s house. Gaepora was the unofficial mayor of their little town. He’d granted Ghirahim citizenship without second thought and without vote, something that was mildly controversial at the time. But Gaepora had defended his decision, and Ghirahim. Ever since then, Ghirahim had had quiet respect for the man who knew how to command power without force. Gaepora must have been torn up himself, but he was still there by Ghirahim’s side when he awoke, immediately offering condolences. Telling Ghirahim he had been so brave. But there was nothing he could have done. Ghirahim’s chest felt tight and empty at the same time, and he rolled over, curling in on himself.
The doctor visited to treat Ghirahim’s burns and tried to console him, telling Ghirahim it had been a quick death, a tap of the head and he was gone: Link hadn’t suffered at all. Ghirahim didn’t listen. He knew it was a lie: Link had burned. Meanwhile, he was too busy trying to reassemble himself into something that could walk around and present itself with dignity. It took three days.
In the time since Link had freed Ghirahim, fallen in love with him, and brought him home, the town had come to accept the exiled demon. No one crossed the street when they saw him or steered their children away from speaking with him. He had been prickly and wary of them at first, but gradually he had been folded into their mix - there were even a few other than Link he’d call acquaintances. In the week after the mill fire, however, Ghirahim and the townspeople realized neither of them knew how to interact with the other in the absence of Link. He’d been - pardon the pun - the link. The bridge. And now Ghirahim had fallen in the river while everyone else chucked sticks at his head, trying awkwardly to help. Yet they never left him alone. He spent the week at Gaepora’s house while funeral arrangements were made. There was always someone babysitting him.
After the three days it took for him to put himself back together, Ghirahim needed to get out of the stuffy house. The summer was still determined to liquify every living thing, and outside was at least marginally better than inside. He helped for a day with the cleanup of the mill, speaking to no one and offering only his physical strength. When going back to that horrible day every time he inhaled a whiff of smoke became too much, he left town. He spent two days and two nights that he didn’t remember out in the wild he had previously claimed to preside over. When he returned, he brought back enough meat to feed the whole town for two winters.
The funeral was held 8 days after the fire. No one spoke to Ghirahim except with their eyes as he mounted the steps to the small temple. There had been six deaths that horrible day; this funeral was for only one of them: Link. There would be a joint funeral for the other five the day after next, but Link was being given a hero’s burial. Gaepora spoke, Zelda spoke, some of Link’s old friends from his Academy days spoke. There was a small contingent of kikwis acting as the choir, and a couple of mogmas had even made the journey from the volcano. Ghirahim had written something to say, but standing there in the temple, dressed head to toe in black - including an elaborate black cloak despite the heat - he couldn’t bring himself to display his usual extravagance. Even as he said nothing, all eyes were on him. This familiar stranger in their midst, holding himself on an unreachable podium, experiencing the same heavy grief as the rest of them - and they didn’t know what to say.
At the end of the day, as the sun was going down and the air was cooling, Link’s body was carried up into the Sky by his crimson loftwing. He was to be the last to be buried in the old Skyloft cemetery. They were going to bury him in the town cemetery at first, with the reasoning that he should be lauded for his role in their move to the Surface. Ghirahim insisted they bury him on Skyloft. He may have made a home for them there on the Surface, but Ghirahim knew Link’s heart was always soaring in the clouds.
There were fewer people at Link’s burial than at his funeral. Only close family and friends. Gaepora, Zelda. Fledge, Pipit, Karane. Groose’s widow Peatrice came alone, her husband having perished in the fire as well. Professors Owlan and Horwell. Platts the mogma dug the grave, laying a large green gem in the bottom. To begin his collection in the caves of the afterlife, he had insisted.
That night was the only time they had ever seen Ghirahim cry. He had kept it together, his insides burning and his teeth digging into his lip, as they lowered Link’s body down into the earth. But when the last shovel-full of dirt had fallen in front of the newly erected headstone, he had collapsed to his knees, burying his hands in the fresh dirt that covered the only person he’d ever loved. Who would save him now? Ghirahim remembered crying “ Darling , I am down ,” to Link as he swooned into suntanned arms. Now, he would drown.
As he kneeled there, black-gloved hands gripping the grave marker and knees becoming smeared with dirt, choking out painful sobs, rain started to pour from the sky. It had been weeks since the last rainfall but there were no celebrations in the Skyloft cemetery.
Gradually, each guest said their final goodbyes and left the cemetery. Fledge put a hand hesitantly on Ghirahim’s shoulder where he remained kneeled in the mud shaking as if to fall apart. He muttered something unintelligible, and left. Gaepora and Zelda were the last to leave. Zelda had her own tears dripping down her face as she tenderly layed a bouquet of wildflowers on the side of the headstone Ghirahim wasn’t already occupying. Then she left, with only a forlorn glance over her shoulder. Gaepora spoke in a watery, hoarse voice, saying Ghirahim was welcome at his house for however long he wanted. Then he, too, left.
Eventually, Ghirahim wore himself out to exhaustion and fell asleep there in the mud, collapsed next to Link’s stone. His had rested on the epitaph that read “You Were Bigger Than The Whole Sky / You Were More Than Just A Short Time.” Ghirahim had picked it out, and no had objected.
The fever that had plagued them for so long this third summer broke the next morning, and the breeze blowing through Ghirahim’s hair was actually a bit chilly. He awoke still curled on Link’s grave, not even graced with a moment of unremembering. But keeping the novel morning chill off his shoulders was a green patchwork blanket. He didn’t know how it got there, but he was grateful for it all the same.
Soon he became too desperate to bathe and find a clean change of clothes, and Ghirahim stood up, wrapped in that green blanket. It smelled like Link, he registered. After a moment’s hesitation, he cast off the blanket and left it folded neatly on top of the headstone. Making his way into Skyloft, he garnered many disturbed looks. His black suit was muddy and wrinkled, his eyes swollen and red. He didn’t like it here on this island in the Sky. It may have been Link’s home, but it had never been his. Even less so now.
He was pondering how exactly to get back down to the surface when a large red bird landed in front of him. Link’s crimson loftwing. Ghirahim stared at it and supposed it was just as lost as he was, now. The bird lowered itself to a kneel and extended one wing towards Ghirahim. Suddenly he had a sensation in his mind, wind in his feathers and his weight on his back, the radiating circle of town visible below them. The message was all too clear yet Ghirahim did a double-take. Link had talked about how he and his bird communicated, mind to mind, none of the barriers of speech. Was Ghirahim now bonded to the loftwing?
Ghirahim had flown with Link a handful of times. Then it had been exhilarating; he had whooped out loud as they did loops in the air. Now he held tightly to the harness as he descended. The loftwing dropped him off just outside town, pausing a moment to nuzzle his hand affectionately before taking off again. Ghirahim began a slow walk down the road. He ended up back at Gaepora’s house, sipping the milky tea the man poured for him. They sat in companionable silence.
A few days passed like that: Ghirahim slept on Gaepora’s couch and Gaepora brought him milky tea in the evening. While Gaepora was out and about, Ghirahim cleaned his house and made him food as payment for the generosity. Soon though, he grew sick of the same four walls, of endless time left alone with nothing but his memories. He had tried on blame for size, blaming the townsfolk and even himself in turn, but he’d lived long enough and knew the politics of the Surface too well to convince himself Link’s death was anything more than a natural course. He ventured out one day to the marketplace and secured a job at the meatshop from the bearded butcher who was all too glad to have Ghirahim’s skill with a knife. Thus his days became near normal again: awake, eat breakfast with Gaepora - usually silently, but lately with some discussion of weather and other menial topics - go to work, come home, drink tea, sleep. Dream about Link.
He visited Link on the weekends. He only had to whistle and Link’s large red bird would land before him. He only had to picture the Skyloft cemetery in his mind and he would find his feet landing there. Ghirahim would spend hours seated on grass that grew and turned green, then yellow and brown, and was then covered in a thin layer of frost. Sometimes he would talk to Link, if he knew no one was nearby. He told him about his days at the butcher’s, that he finally had the respectable job Link had always wanted for him. He told Link how he had regulars that knew him; he told Link people looked him in the eye when he talked to them. Ghirahim had found it nagging before, when Link told him how he wished Ghirahim would put himself out there and make the town his home. Ghirahim had always replied that Link was his home. Now, with his home burnt down, he was actually settling into the town’s ecosystem. When he first realized this, he had felt like he was betraying Link. It only took a few days next to Link’s grave for him to realize it’s what Link would have wanted.
At first he despaired at the thought of seeing Zelda - he could avoid her in town but it was her father’s house he lived in, after all, but she had her own home down the road and almost never visited. She came over a few times in the evening, and Ghirahim always made some excuse to leave. The nights Zelda visited her father, Ghirahim went for long, long walks until his legs ached. He passed her on the way to the cemetery sometimes, but they never spoke. There was no animosity between them. Ghirahim left his roses next to Zelda’s wildflowers.
There was one mishap when Ghirahim had the day off from work, lounging alone at home - Gaepora’s house - when Zelda came, presumably looking for her father. Ghirahim had answered the door upon hearing the knock. Zelda had stood with her mouth opening and closing, eyes wide with the look of malice Ghirahim was giving her. She had turned and fled. After that day, however, when they passed each other at the cemetery, Zelda gave him a little wave. Ghirahim glared. They were the only two who still visited Link regularly.
Not a word was spoken between the two of them until the day Ghirahim found Zelda asleep next to Link’s grave. It had been about six months, then, since Link had been put to rest. The winter snow had all but melted. Ghirahim had flown to Skyloft early in the morning and entered the cemetery to see a purple bundle curled against the already weathered stone. He hesitated for a moment, gripping the unseasonable roses he held a little bit tighter, but ultimately continued forward.
Zelda was fast asleep and didn’t stir at his quiet footsteps. More than Ghirahim coming back with him, more than Ghirahim making a home in his town, Link had wanted him and Zelda to get along. Ghirahim had always denied him vehemently, saying how could he get along with the one person who tried so hard to orchestrate his downfall? She was everything Ghirahim hated: lofty, know-it-all, wielding her goddess-power with no consideration to those who worshipped her. Now, somehow, without him noticing, Ghirahim found himself swayed at the sight of her curled against Link’s grave the way he himself so often had. She looked small and powerless with tear-stained cheeks and scraggly wildflowers clutched in her hand. Not the goddess. Zelda. He didn’t think for a second about harming her. Although he did think that if he told Link that, he would have felt Link’s happy embrace.
As he drew closer to his destination, Ghirahim felt a chilly breeze rifle through his hair. Spring was coming, but it hadn’t yet arrived. The air felt heavy with the coming rain and there was already a light mist in the air. Half disgusted with himself and half proud, Ghirahim found himself removing his heavy red cloak and draping it over the sleeping girl. Then, after setting down his roses, he left. He didn’t go far though. It was cold, afterall, and he was without a coat. He walked to the Bazaar where he had a cup of warm tea - with no milk. No one talked to him. That suited him well enough. Ghirahim wanted to be alone. Well- what Ghirahim really wanted was the company of one whose company he would never partake in again.
The sun set slowly, and when it had finally slipped below the horizon, Ghirahim left the Bazaar. It was fully raining when he walked to the Skyloft cemetery. It smelled like wet cobblestone and things growing. He expected to find his red cloak left on Link’s gravestone, bright and colourful against the gray. When he arrived, it was nowhere in sight. Water dripped from the ends of his hair. Ghirahim sighed. Then, figuring he was already wet, he sat right down in the mud in front of Link. He talked to him for a bit then bribed a night watchman to take him back to the Surface. Ghirahim looked forward to getting warm and dry again but he had to admit, sitting in the mud talking to Link was the closest he’d felt to him in a long time.
The next morning, Ghirahim awoke feeling none of the calm he had felt when he went to sleep the night before. It was raining again as he left early for work. He still didn’t have his cloak. He spent the day snapping irritably at customers until eventually the owner put him in the back, where he hacked heartlessly at the hunks of meat.
It was still raining when Ghirahim walked back to Gaepora’s house. When he arrived, the old man wasn’t home yet. This was rare, but not unusual. Ghirahim set about preparing food. He was nearly done - the spicy stew was bubbling merrily and fresh bread was baking in the oven - when there was a knock at the door. Gaepora, probably, he figured. Did the daft old man forget his keys again? Ghirahim was pretty sure he hadn’t relocked the door after he got home in preparation for this exact circumstance.
“Come in, it’s open!” he shouted over his shoulder.
The knock came again.
Sighing irritably, Ghirahim shuffled to the door. “I swear, next time you forget your keys, old man, I’m not letting you back-” Ghirahim froze mid rant.
It was not Gaepora at the door.
“H-hi…” It was Zelda. She was wearing a heavy purple coat over brown trousers but her blonde hair - so similar to Link’s - was dripping. She was a foot and a half shorter than Ghirahim and looked like she was prepared for him to bite her head off. She carried a bulky leather bag.
“Gaepora is not home yet,” Ghirahim said, clipped. “Come back later. Or better yet, not at all.” He went to close the door.
“Wait!” Zelda exclaimed. Then, “ow!” Ghirahim had closed the door on the foot she had thrusted into the entryway. By accident. Totally. “I brought you back your cloak.”
At this, Ghirahim opened the door. “Finally deigned to return it, did you? I got positively soaked on the way to work this morning,” he grumbled darkly. Maybe he would bite her head off.
Zelda glared at him. “Well, I washed and dried it and fixed the hole where the hood was separating, but if you’d rather I get it all wet again and undo the stitching…” She made to open the bag.
“Oh, for the goddess’s sake, give that to me!” he griped, snatching the bag from her hands. He pulled the cloak from the bag - clean, dry, and mended, just as the girl had promised - and hung it on the coat stand Gaepora kept by the door. He felt wind on the back of his head and realized Zelda was still standing in the doorway. She was shuffling her feet and the glare was gone from her face, replaced with - to Ghirahim’s surprise - tears in her eyes. He stood there looking down at her and all of sudden she threw her arms around Ghirahim’s waist.
“I miss him…” she choked. Rage the like of which he hadn’t felt in a long time roared abruptly through Ghirahim’s veins.
“Why didn’t you save him, then?!” he roared, pushing her away roughly. Zelda flinched. “Some goddess you are! Some friend! Where were you while his body burned? He moved to the Surface for you! You got him that job at the mill!” All the grief that he thought had weakened its hold on him burned through Ghirahim like fire. He couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to; he needed to expel it from his body like food poisoning. “You used your powers to put him through hell and then you learned restraint and he went there! ”
Aside from the initial flinch, Zelda appeared unafraid of his dark, violent anger. She stepped closer, a fierce look on her face. She pushed him and he didn’t stumble. “ You let him go to work that day! You slept in and let them all burn! Don’t think I don’t know exactly what happened that day! Link-” her voice broke. “ Link burned as much because of you as because of me! ”
She might have kept talking after that but Ghirahim couldn’t hear her. You slept in and let them all burn!
The thought had never crossed his mind. Sure, he’d brooded over how different things would have been if Link hadn’t worked at the mill or if Ghirahim had convinced him to stay in bed that day. He’d even entertained fantasies of swooping in and saving Link, and the whole mill too, had the fire been a little less severe. But it had never occurred to him that if he- if he-
If he’d been early - or, fuck, even on time - to lunch with Link, Link wouldn’t have died in the fire. This knowledge ripped through him ruthlessly, rewiring his memories and wreaking havoc on his gut. He fell to his knees and when they hit the ground he was back at the Skyloft cemetery as they threw dirt onto the love of his life, onto his life . Well, goddamn , he’d finally succeeded in killing Link, hadn’t he? Who would have guessed it would feel so fucking horrible?
His hearing was fading back in. The wet concrete radiated a chill up his knees. Zelda was still there.
“-sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, Ghirahim!” Zelda was still there, and abruptly inconsolable.
“No. You’re right.” He said it with none of the emotion he felt.
Again, it was like a switch flipped in the girl and she went from sobbing to in his face and furious. “No! I am not right! I am angry! Link loved you! The others might not understand that, but I do! And you’re the only one who could understand me! That’s why I came here today, Ghirahim! I see the way they look at you, the way they always looked at you. They don’t understand you and they don’t understand me, either! They think I should be over it by now. But when Link died, I lost my best friend, my brother even if we didn’t share blood. And you, you lost just as much, if not more! We should- we shouldn’t be fighting! Link…” she trailed off, anger spent.
“Link wanted us to get along.”
“Yeah,” she sniffed. “He wanted us to be friends.”
“Or at least not out for each others’ blood,” Ghirahim amended.
“Hey, I never had anything against you ,” Zelda said hotly. “You’re practically my brother-in-law.”
Ghirahim’s heart stopped for a minute. To have… married Link… To have walked towards a life with Link forever in it…
Ghirahim snorted. “You would be no sister of mine , goddess . But…” he stood up and offered her a hand. “I suppose it would not be too much to ask for me to feed you right now, with the state you’re in. For Link’s sake, of course,” he added.
Zelda gave him a small smile. “Yeah. For Link’s sake.”
That’s how Gaepora found them when he got home: Zelda and Ghirahim seated at his table, no evidence of the great war that may or may not have happened. Zelda’s hair was wrapped up in a red towel. Ghirahim was gesturing emphatically with a spoon.
“-and that was the last time I ever let him participate in square dancing,” he was saying. After he finished, Ghirahim turned around and said, as if this were the most normal occurrence ever, “Sorry, Gaepora, Zelda ate your stew. There’s plenty of bread though. And pickled pumpkin-” he broke off laughing. “Did I tell you about his never-ending campaign to convert me to the cult of pickled pumpkin?” he said to Zelda. And off they went again. Gaepora loaded his plate with fresh bread and left them be, smiling quietly to himself.
Maybe it was because they had already had their final battle on the doorstep of Gaepora’s house, but talking with Zelda had not made Ghirahim sad or angry. It had been… cathartic. Eventually Zelda left and went back to the house she now shared with Orielle. As Ghirahim was falling asleep that night, he remembered something Link had said to him once.
“You’re both stubborn, and capable, and you have the same sense of humour - you’d get along like a house on fire if you just talked !”
And he just had to shake his head. Oh, Link, he thought with longing.
The next morning, he went immediately to Link’s grave and told him about the confrontation with Zelda. But he didn’t stop there. He told Link about inviting Zelda in for supper. How they talked about him. And when Ghirahim had finished recounting the evening, he got quiet. He layed a gloved hand on Link’s smooth stone and said in a voice so quiet the wind couldn’t have picked it out, “I’m sorry.” He didn’t elaborate or shed any tears.
On the way out he crossed paths with Zelda. She gave him a small smile. Ghirahim stopped, wanting to say something but not knowing what. Zelda spoke instead.
“Brother,” she said simply. And Ghirahim pulled himself out of his introspection long enough to glare playfully at her.
“Goddess,” he retorted. And they went on their ways.
Spring came after that. The winter chill in the air faded. The rains still came, but they were warm, almost comforting. Flowers bloomed in the window boxes Ghirahim had planted when he and Link had first moved into their house. Ghirahim went to look at the house sometimes, but he never went inside. He just looked, admiring the same perennials that had pushed their way from the dirt as he and Link lay tangled under the blankets or having dinner together.
Ghirahim and Zelda never made plans, but they always ended up at Gaepora’s table gossiping once a week or so. Sometimes about Link, or sometimes just about the town or the weather. He never went to Zelda when he found himself missing Link terribly and she never came to him if she ever felt the same. They were not exactly friends and certainly not lovers. They were simply two people with someone in common. The arrangement suited both of them fine.
It was a temperate spring. Not too hot and not too cold. The days got longer and the temperate spring turned into a pleasant summer. Rains came regularly and watered the crops. Nothing burned.
Nothing burned except Ghirahim’s heart. Because as the days got longer, the time remaining until the one year anniversary of the mill fire - Link’s death - shrank. He found himself listless, unsure of himself. He called in sick to work one morning and spent the whole day on Skyloft with his back against Link’s sun-warmed stone. He told Zelda to go away when she knocked on the door in the evenings. Gaepora let her in anyway and Ghirahim once again went on long walks.
Now, a year after the fire, some things had changed and some hadn’t. He still lived with Gaepora. He still visited Link’s grave religiously. But the townsfolk weren’t afraid to look him in the eye, now. They stopped him on the street and offered their condolences. They bought his skillful cuts of meat at the butcher’s and invited him to their houses for tea - though he kept declining. They told him about the candlelight remembrance service they were holding. Ghirahim thought about going but decided against it. If they held it next year, maybe he would go. This year, it was still too raw. Ghirahim knew the saying “time heals everything” and, hell, he’d experienced its gentle anaesthetic himself. And while the forest fire of his grief had dwindled down to gentle coals, the memory of that day was still sharp in his mind, bleached yet unfaded.
Ghirahim was up before the sun rose on the day exactly one year after the mill and Ghirahim’s life had burnt down. He spent the morning making biscuits. Zelda dropped by with Orielle mid-morning to give him a crate of their homemade jam and Ghirahim added it to his basket. He pulled some pickled pumpkin from its home in the basement. He collected crystal clear water from the river in glass bottles. When he was finished preparing, it was just about dinner time. The remembrance service was set to begin at sunset. Ghirahim lay down for a quick nap. He dreamed of swimming in the river with Link during their first summer together.
He woke as the sky was beginning to shade red with the coming sunset. He put on his best suit: white, with red diamond embroidery, paired with the ugly black and yellow tie Link had given him as a joke but he actually loved. He looked in the mirror in the entryway one more time, fixing a stray strand of silver hair. Then he picked up his loaded-down picnic basket and headed for the centre of town. The sun was kissing the horizon when he arrived. The service hadn’t begun yet and he found Zelda on a ladder struggling to fix a wreath onto the centre pole. He reached up past her and slipped it onto its hook. In the absence of any greeting he said curtly, “Where should I put this?” nodding to his basket.
“Over with the rest of the food.” Zelda nodded to a table that had been set up next to the town hall. Ghirahim unloaded his contribution carefully, then found Zelda again. She had changed, dressed now in a purple sundress with the same wildflowers she placed at Link’s grave in her hair. She had a stoic look on her face, standing there holding hands with Orielle.
“Light a candle from me for him, will you, goddess?” he asked.
“You’re not staying?” she asked him.
“I have… other business to attend to,” Ghirahim replied, and continued on.
His first order of business having been the delivery of his picnic basket, Ghirahim went on to the second. With barely a whistle, Link’s - his - crimson loftwing landed and took him upon its back. It was a short yet beautiful flight up to Skyloft at the very borderline of when it was safe to fly. They rose through pink and purple clouds to the green glow that was Link’s childhood home and final resting place. The bird set him down just outside the cemetery, where it tucked in its wings and appeared to go to sleep after giving Ghirahim a soft caw of support. Ghirahim walked a path he had never expected to walk, yet had now walked times untold.
Ghirahim walked to his late love’s grave, where he lowered himself carefully to his knees. Then, for the first time, lacing his hands together, he prayed. He didn’t know exactly who he was praying to , not the Goddess and certainly not his old creator, Demise; but he prayed that in whoever’s hands Link was now in, they were holding him gently.
He stayed there for an hour or so. He had brought Link a single red rose and he left it where stone met earth. The sun had fully set when Ghirahim walked out of the cemetery. It took no convincing for a night watchman to ferry him down to the surface. With his feet once again on solid ground, Ghirahim turned not to Gaepora’s home but toward his own.
It had been a year since he’d crossed this threshold.
But his hand turned the knob just as easily as it always had.
Inside, the house was dusty. The furniture was unmoved. Trinkets spilled from the cupboards and drawers, winking in the moonlight coming in through the open windows. The house was quiet. Ghirahim spent his time walking throughout, brushing a hand over the back of the couch with its ratty blanket, the stove in front of which he and Link had spent many a winter night. Finally, Ghirahim stepped into what had been their bedroom. It was a mixture of clutter and order, the bed perfectly made but clothes thrown haphazardly across the floor.
Seized by a sudden desire, Ghirahim picked his way across the strewn floor to the nightstand on Link’s side of the bed. On top was a lantern, a dish with a half-melted candle, a carving knife, and a few blank sheets of paper. On the bottom was a stack of unread books. Between the bottom shelf and the top was a single drawer. In it, Ghirahim knew, Link had kept his most precious trinkets. Ghirahim had always liked going through the drawer, mentally cataloguing the things Link considered the most special. He opened the nightstand drawer now, hoping only to find something small to take back with him, something that had once felt Link’s touch and love.
The first thing he saw was the small leather bag. Dark brown, uncracked, with a red thread laced through the drawstring mouth.
The second thing he saw was the curl of parchment attached to the red thread. Lifting the bag out - it wasn't heavy but there was clearly something in it - Ghirahim plucked the paper from the string with careful fingers. It read: He sure ain’t my first choice, but for your sake, I hope his ugly mug says yes , and was signed Platts . Ghirahim’s hands started to shake.
The third thing he saw, when he opened the bag, was the small, polished wood box. The wood was so dark it was almost black, the grain barely visible and polished to a high shine.
The final thing he saw, before he felt some great, evil creature rip something sharp and important from his chest, was the ring. His fingers slid over the smooth band of gold; he lifted it from its long slumber inside the box and held it up to the light. The band was a paler gold than he'd thought before; it was nearly white in the light.
Catching the moonlight and throwing rainbow patterns over the room and his soul, were the infinite facets of three small jewels arranged in a triangle. Two crimson stones were set to either side of a perfect, tiny, clear diamond.
It was perfect.
Ghirahim ran his thumb gently over the sharp corners of the mounted jewels. He sat numbly on the dusty bed.
He would never see Link down on one knee in the most virtuous of ways. He would never feel Link slip this gorgeous, delicate ring onto his finger. He would never walk towards Link, towards a life where, if nothing else was guaranteed, Link would be there. He would never get to finish growing up - something he had neglected for centuries - with Link. Never grow old with him. Never sit on the porch in the dying sun with him. Never get to remember all those happy years with him.
Because there would be no more happy years with Link.
And… he would never feel Link’s calloused hand in his again. Never run his fingers through blonde hair. No more late morning breakfasts or long-day suppers. He would never get to call Link darling or my love again and see his face light up. Link would never drag him to another town festival. Never convince him to eat pickled pumpkin. Ever the hero, Link would never save him again.
They would never see another harvest together. Never huddle in the warmth of the cookstove on a cold winter’s evening. Never go on another spring walk, Link stopping every three feet to point to a flower or a bird or a kikwi. There would be no more lazy summer mornings or lunch dates to plan.
Maybe in another lifetime, finding this ring would have made Ghirahim happy. Or at least… grateful. In another life, maybe he would wear this ring always, go about his life with Link forever in his thoughts, and his heart. Maybe he would find the family he’d never had in Gaepora and Zelda. Maybe, in that life, he’d spend the remainder of his life proudly watching the future Link had built that he never got to see.
But in this life, oh, this cursed life… Ghirahim heard a high, keening sound and realized it was himself. He cradled the ring in both hands, box fallen to the floor, Platt’s message lost under the bed. His stomach hurt and Ghirahim wrapped one arm around his middle, rocking back and forth. He was in the middle of a three-way tug of war between the visceral past, the uninhabited future, and his own hulking grief.
Link was gone.
Link was gone.
He was gone yesterday, and he’d be gone tomorrow.
And he’d wanted to give Ghirahim this ring and all that it stood for.
It was too much, too much. With fumbling hands and blurry vision, Ghirahim put the ring back in its box and the box back into its bag. Then he left the house and entered the dark, clear night.
He didn’t wonder if she would be home. He didn’t care. He would knock on that door until she answered.
In reality, she answered on the third knock.
“Ghirahim?” Zelda said, rubbing her eyes and clutching a purple robe around herself. Orielle called something out from further inside the house, but Ghirahim couldn’t tell what she said. Seeing Ghirahim’s twisted, distraught expression, she joined him on the porch, shutting the door softly behind her. “What’s wrong?”
In response, Ghirahim held out his hand, small leather bag resting on his palm.
Zelda gasped.
“Is that… Can I?” she breathed.
She pulled out the box, the red thread holding the bag closed slipping to the floor among all the sudden handling.
“I found it… in Link’s drawer…” Ghirahim croaked.
“Oh, Ghirahim…” Zelda whispered. “It’s beautiful… He loved you so much….”
Ghirahim reached out a hand and settled it on her shoulder, which had started to shake. “Sister,” he said, and it reverberated out through a thousand lifetimes. In the wake of this discovery, they stood for a minute in the warm summer’s night air. Then Ghirahim spoke again.
“Zelda… Sister… Goddess …” his voice broke. “Could you… put me back in my… in my sword… until…” Talking was hard.
Understanding seeped into Zelda’s eyes. “Until he’s reborn…”
Ghirahim nodded, pained and hopeful.
“Demise's curse…” she continued. “It might actually turn out to be a blessing.” She gave him a watery smile. “I’ll see him again… and so will you. Only, you won’t have to wait,” she finished.
Again, Ghirahim nodded, overcome.
“But… are you sure? You won’t wake up until Link is reborn and you wouldn’t be released until Link finds your sword-”
“He’ll find it.”
“You’d… you’d be leaving us all, too… will you say goodbye…?”
Ghirahim sighed. “I would only be saying goodbye to you, and maybe Gaepora.”
“Well… if you’re sure… I have one condition,” she said. “You let Dad be there. Just me and him, to send you off. Your family, after all.”
Ghirahim agreed to that, feeling impossibly tired. For once in his long, long life: he didn’t want to fight or be stubborn. Zelda ducked back into the house to fill Orielle in. She came out carrying a green bundle.
“I think you should have this,” she told him. It was the green patchwork blanket he’d found covering him when he fell asleep in the cemetery.
Ghirahim accepted the gift. It still, miraculously, smelled like Link.
They walked a short ways from town, Ghirahim, Zelda, and Gaepora - whom Zelda had roused from a deep sleep - to a small copse of trees. Ghirahim produced his sword. It was matte and lifeless in the moonlight.
“We’ll miss you, son,” Gaepora said in a gravelly voice. “I enjoyed your company this past year. It was a joy to get to know the man Link had given his heart to.”
“I second that,” Zelda said. “Thank you for giving me a chance. The same chance,” she smirked, “that Link gave you!”
Ghirahim actually laughed at that. “You’re welcome, little goddess,” he said.
And so, still dressed in his elaborate suit, wrapped in the old green blanket and wearing Link’s ring, Ghirahim was sealed back into his sword. He followed Link, ever his white rabbit, down, down, down, into yet another life he knew nothing of.
Except that Link would be there.