I was going to update tomorrow, but then I remembered that I'm going on a road trip today and it'll be a lot easier to post before I go... so here it is early! Despite early appearances, this story should not be misconstrued as having a "regular update schedule."

By the time the sun rose the next day, the green light illuminating the mountain had vanished, and Ghirahim had something to say—something very important, Link could only assume from the way that the side of Ghirahim's boot nudged him insistently from sleep.

"I've been doing some—oh, knock that off!" he snapped as Link shot up from his blanket, swinging his fists and blinking. "I've been doing some thinking, and we simply cannot go on like this. You've had your turn being in charge, and have failed spectacularly at getting anything accomplished. I think it's for the best that I take over this little partnership of ours, so from here on out, I expect you to do what I say."

Looking up at him, Link rubbed his eyes in sleepy confusion. Had he been in charge all this time? He certainly hadn't told or expected Ghirahim to do anything—just carried that sword around for him like he'd asked.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked, and Ghirahim's supercilious smirk faltered slightly.

"Well… no, but I would like to know, and that makes a world of difference."

"Oh." Link would have liked to know, too. It was just that the directions he'd had from the last stable hadn't accounted for all the detours he would take, and approaching the nearest tower was a… challenging prospect. "So… what do you want me to do?"

"Now, don't give me that—" Ghirahim stopped short, glaring at him suspiciously. "You're not going to argue?"

"No, it makes sense," Link said, nodding. It might even be nice to let somebody else make the decisions for a change. Ghirahim wouldn't have been his first choice, necessarily, but it wasn't like there was anyone else around offering.

"Well… good, then." Ghirahim smiled exultantly. " Good! That's the first reasonable thing you've said since we met. Now, pack up your things. I want to get an early start."

"Do I get to eat breakfast before we leave?" Link asked, hearing his stomach complain as he started to rise, and Ghirahim hummed in thought.

"Oh, why not?" he decided good-naturedly. He seemed in a chipper mood now, practically waltzing along the edge of their campsite as he surveyed the land sloping away beyond. "I can be magnanimous when I want to be. One thing I must insist on, though," he added, his nose wrinkling as he glanced at the burnt-out campfire from the night before. "No more eggs."

Link thought he could live with that.

Luckily, a sweep of the nearby area revealed a hidden feast of food that he'd missed the night before under the lesser light of the stars, with enough roots and herbs and mushrooms to last him at least all day. Munching happily on a carrot, Link watched Ghirahim pace and plan.

"So where are we going?" he asked, when Ghirahim had still said nothing else. Rito Village would be ideal, of course, but with four Divine Beasts in trouble, he figured that almost any direction would bring him towards someone who needed his help. Then again, he was curious to know what could make a stone bird float like that… but that kind of curiosity was why Ghirahim was in charge now in the first place.

Ghirahim glanced back at him.

"You really have landed us in the middle of nowhere," he muttered, though he sounded more focused than irritated. "What do you know about that castle in the distance?"

"The one with the swirling vortex of darkness around it?" Link asked, and Ghirahim rolled his eyes.

"No, the other one."

"I wouldn't go there," Link said, taking another loud crunch out of his carrot for emphasis. Ghirahim twitched a bit, but nodded.

"Fair enough," he mused. "And you don't know of any other towns nearby? Anything at all resembling civilization?"

Link shook his head. Somewhere like Kakariko or Hateno Village was probably what Ghirahim had in mind, and though the Sheikah Slate could take them straight to either one in seconds, neither town was technically nearby.

"I see." Sighing, Ghirahim turned to the north. "We might as well press on towards Rito Village, then. You should know that I care not a whit for whatever heroic quest you've embarked on, but I'm eager to speak to somebody who is not a simpleton or a bird. It could be that the goddess owes me a debt of gratitude for keeping her chosen hero on track." He laughed as if at a private joke, swiveling on his heel and swirling his cloak decisively. "Now follow me."

Nodding, Link fell obediently into step behind him. He would have liked to explore the mountain a bit more—he'd never seen anywhere with so much food, and there was always the off chance that it might start glowing again—but Ghirahim was in charge now, so he bid the place a wistful farewell. Maybe when it was Link's turn to be in charge again they could find their way back.

Link learned something new about Ghirahim as they angled down the mountain towards the stone rings they had passed before, which was this: in a good mood, Ghirahim was quite talkative, with a tendency to reminisce (as opposed to Ghirahim in a bad mood, who was just as talkative but with the tendency to complain). The demonic sword took up a retrospective monologue the moment they started walking that Link only half-listened to, with a quarter of his attention reserved for eating another carrot and the rest of his mind occupied with not falling flat on his face.

"Demise would have slaughtered you in a second, you know," Ghirahim told him dreamily—impolite, Link thought, but much of what Ghirahim said was. "Though perhaps you stand some chance against this… what foe does the goddess mean you to face?"

"Calamity Ganon," Link said, and Ghirahim scoffed.

"Calamity Ganon," he repeated, high-pitched and mocking. "The true calamity is how far the forces of darkness have fallen if the two of you are truly a match for each other. Did Calamity Ganon even plunder? Because we plundered. Why, when Demise led the demonic forces up out of the earth…"

Ghirahim's animated tales of destruction and petty theft should probably have interested Link, or at the very least disturbed him. Instead he felt his mind start to wander again, his pensive gaze falling down towards the wide field spread out beneath them. He thought that Calamity Ganon had done a pretty good job of destroying the world as far as such things went, even if he hadn't quite finished the job yet. Demise must not have managed it either if the world still existed, so Link didn't see what made him so much better than—

He stopped, the remaining stub of carrot falling from his mouth as his attention focused laserlike on the newest thing to cross his field of vision. Horses.

Link had caught a horse once out past Dueling Peaks—a spotted pink one he'd named Radish who liked apples, and had nearly kicked out half his teeth the first time he tried to mount her. He still liked to think that she might have survived that Guardian's blast, even if he hadn't seen her since their frantic dash out of Hyrule Field… but no matter how he'd looked since then, Link had never managed to find another herd.

Until now. Narrowing his eyes, Link picked out a bluish-gray horse grazing peacefully in the grass below. Maybe if he—

"Are you falling behind already, boy?" Ghirahim demanded from up ahead of him, and Link returned to himself with a start. "Keep up! We've no time for you to dawdle."

Of course. Ghirahim was in charge now, which meant no more getting sidetracked. Determinedly, he turned away from the horses, only to stop again in thought. Unless…

"You… want me to go faster?" he called back to Ghirahim, biting his lip.

Ghirahim graced him with his first incredulous glare of the day.

"Is that a trick question?"

"I was just wondering," Link said carefully. "Would you, being in charge and all, prefer it if I went faster?"

"What sort of—yes, you dunderhead, " Ghirahim growled. "I, Ghirahim, the person in charge, would vastly prefer it if you went faster. Now come—"

It was permission enough for Link, who jumped off the edge of the mountain. He thought he heard Ghirahim yelling something behind him, but it cut off soon enough as he whipped the paraglider from his pack. Link grinned as he floated down, thrilled by the compromise they'd reached. Ghirahim wanted to travel fast, and what could be faster than a horse?

His theory on the approach was that if he aimed his descent with perfect precision, he could mount the horse before it knew what had happened and… well, cling on for dear life, basically. Even though it made sense in his mind, he was still astonished when it actually worked. The horse bucked in surprise as he landed, trying desperately to throw him off while Link tried just as desperately to soothe it, but in the end Link managed to calm his trembling mount. Patting its neck and hushing it, he resolving to feed it a carrot from his pocket just as soon as he met back up with Ghira—

"What sort of stunt was that?" Ghirahim demanded, appearing in front of them in a furious flurry of diamonds, and that was where the trouble started. The horse, who had not expected Ghirahim to come popping out of midair in front of it, bucked wildly into the air with a startled scream. Link, who had not expected Ghirahim to appear or the horse's reaction, went tumbling off the back of it—and Ghirahim, who had not expected to appear beneath a frightened, kicking horse, was caught beneath it as it bolted, running him over in its mad gallop for safety.

Even that situation might have been salvageable if the horse's hoof hadn't caught onto the clasp of Ghirahim's cloak as it made its escape. Instead, Link sat up in the grass, dazed and sore, to see a shrieking horse dragging a shrieking demon lord frantically across the field, his red cape flapping cheerfully behind him.

Tempted to stare at the oddly captivating sight, Link instead shook himself into action. Shock alone must have kept Ghirahim from vanishing into midair—or worse, summoning his knives—and once that wore off, the horse would be lucky to survive his wrath unless Link acted fast. Fumbling the Sheikah Slate from his belt, he pulled up the Stasis Rune and aimed, managing (on his second attempt) to catch the frantic horse in its beam. Scrambling up towards the horse while Ghirahim scrambled away, Link managed a running mount onto its back just as the chains of time snapped, and its frenzied bucking resumed.

With enough patting and soothing and clinging he finally managed to calm the horse a second time, though it tossed its head as Link wheeled to face the Ghirahim-sized lump of red and white in the grass. Slowly, the Ghiralump unfurled, sitting up and arranging the points of his cloak into something resembling its usual fashion, and Link sighed in relief.

"You're okay," he said, smiling, though it struck him that maybe his assessment was premature. Ghirahim didn't look injured, but he was certainly shaking. "We can travel faster now. That's a good thing, right?"

Ghirahim said nothing, pulling himself to standing, and Link started to feel the tiniest bit nervous. He had never seen the pristine sword look quite so disheveled. His normally silky hair was a dirty, tangled mess, and long green streaks stained the white outfit beneath his cloak. Still, he could have looked far worse after being dragged like that by a horse.

"I, uh, think that thing with the diamonds spooked the horse," Link said, patting its side absently. "Maybe don't do that again?"

That earned him no response other than Ghirahim peeling a long, grass-stained glove from his arm, and Link wondered if he should take a more encouraging approach.

"You're doing really great for your first day in charge," he offered, giving Ghirahim a thumbs up. "Much better than I did on my first day in charge. It was, uh… I mean, you should have seen…"

Link learned something new about Ghirahim that day, which was this: in a good mood, Ghirahim liked to talk and reminisce, and in a bad mood, Ghirahim liked to talk and complain.

In a terrible mood, Ghirahim didn't speak at all—and somehow, as Ghirahim ran a finger up and down the mud and grass that marred his white outfit, dissolving it slowly away into tiny diamond flecks while Link fed his new horse 'Lucky' carrots from his hand, the silence between them was more unnerving than a thousand floating knives.