"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Confucius.

"I would sacrifice her now, if I could."

Sweat drips down the slope of Link's forehead, wetting his furrowed eyebrows. His bottom lip has been split, dribbling blood down his chin, staining his clenched teeth. The Master Sword flashes silver in his hands.

"I won't let you."

He and Ghirahim circle one another, swords drawn, silver and black, flickering as the sunlight hits them. Ebony blood crusts along Ghirahim's thigh, but he is otherwise unscathed; Link is not so fortunate. His tunic has been rent in several places, stained with the blood from his split lip. A bruise welts up from his injured cheek where Ghirahim had backhanded him earlier.

Link watches Ghirahim circle him, around and around, dragging the ends of his blades against the stones. They shriek as the metal rakes across them. Link licks his bloodied lip.

"You haven't the slightest idea what I'm capable of, brat. I'll have her…"

Ghirahim lunges, stabbing forward; left, right, left – Link dodges each one, lurching this way and that, ducking, twisting and with each successful dodge Ghirahim becomes wilder, more crazed, less refined.

"I'll – get – what – I – want – you – whelp!"

Their swords crack together with a shivery hiss. Link bears down with all his strength; Ghirahim pushes back, neither gaining force over the other. They stare one another in the face, jaws clenched, ragged breath tangling together.

Blood bubbles down the side of Ghirahim's thigh - he winces in pain for one moment only, one moment enough – Link forces him backward into a wall as hard as he can. One of Ghirahim's ebony rapiers clatters across the floor. Link lunges, but Ghirahim catches the blow with the guard of his own sword, his free hand braced against the flat of the blade.

Link has the upper hand; though he trembles with the effort, he pushes the Master Sword closer, closer, staring hard at Ghirahim's paling face, feeling him shuddering against his blade, pushing the killing-edge nearer to his throat.

"You can't win, Skychild."

The blade draws closer, so that its silver surface reflects back on Ghirahim's ashen skin, lighting his angered – and fearful – face in white.

"You…can't…win!"

Ghirahim stares back at the reflection of his own eyes, chilly breath fogging the blade's glimmering surface. The first shard of fear stabs him, and stabs deep.

Ghirahim screams and lurches away. He disappears.

Link stumbles back, breathing heavily. He stands still, cautious, darting his gaze above and below, waiting for the inevitable reappearance -

Behind him.

He whirls away from a blow that would have otherwise decapitated him, the tip of Ghirahim's sword kissing the faintest edge of his throat. He dives away from another swing, parrying, retreating, ducking again.

Ghirahim's face has fallen into a frown of determination, moving with quick, impatient lethality. His airy demeanor has been peeled off as skin from a snake is, which makes him more terrifying, far more terrifying, than Link thought possible.

He's not paying attention - shlick!- Ghirahim's rapier cuts into his side, hewing along his ribs, splashing blood all along the floor, onto Link's own hands. He has no time to react – Ghirahim cracks a fist against his cheekbone and Link finds himself stumbling mindlessly backward, vision full of fireworks.

He avoids being spitted with just enough room to spare, blood pumping so furiously in his ears that he doesn't even hear the laughter echoing around him. Link slams into a wall with a none-too comforting smack. Lifelessly, he slumps down, legs out, gripping the Master Sword in a loose fist.

But his eyes never leave his adversary.

Ghirahim approaches closer. His laughter has stopped entirely; no smirk or triumphant sneer splits his pale face. The sunlight cuts deadly across the sheen of his arms and even deadlier weapons.

His footsteps echo across the empty temple walls.

"I tire of you and your impudence, boy. You were entertaining at first, I admit, and though I love to see you squirm…it's simply no longer worth the trouble."

Link raises the Master Sword before him, angled straight ahead. "Try it."

A smirk curls Ghirahim's white lips. "Oh? You have some fire in you, just like she does. But she has more, Skychild. So much more, a different kind that smolders inside you."

Ghirahim stops just before the end of the Master Sword. He slides his eyes across its shining blade, up the hilt, and finally onto Link's resolute face. Ghirahim frowns.

"My, how you've changed. It's almost a pity to kill something so pretty…" he slides his blade lecherously up Link's belly, pressing the tip in just enough to be painful. Link stands absolutely still.

"Die knowing your precious Zelda has been lost and stolen from you, Hero. I won't let her forget it."

The sword presses in his belly just hard enough to draw blood. Link breathes in shakily. His eyes dart to something to the right.

Ghirahim is thrown off his feet, past a pillar and onto the ground. A figure in black wrestles him down, knocking both swords from his hands.

Though she struggles to keep Ghirahim in place, Impa glares at Link from over one shoulder, spitting through clenched teeth: "Go!"

Link stumbles up but makes no move toward the doors. He raises the Master Sword high above his head, letting magic surge down the blade, rattling into the very bones of his arm. Impa dives away just before he fires it straight into Ghirahim, electrifying his whole body with holy magic.

He screams, but staggers impossibly upright, materializing another rapier into his hand.

It's not Link he goes after.

Link charges ahead. Impa's palm glows with molten yellow light. She looks not at Ghirahim, but at Link.

She fires the magic into his chest, his body breaking away into yellow balls of light, which whip up through the temple walls.

Ghirahim nears her.

Impa draws a dagger from beneath her cloak.

Zelda grasps a handful of dry dirt, letting it fall through her fingers before it's carried away by the wind.

She sits in the rubble where once stood the Knight Academy. The sky is still dark with roiling clouds, though now the ground stands still. Everything is quiet, quieter than if she's been trapped in a crypt.

She never thought she'd miss the castle's white walls and locked doors, but now she longs for them with a strange ache.

Zelda brings the hem of the black dress closer to her dirtied feet. Her hair is tangled, falling roughly down her back, her face gray and sunken.

"It's not real," she whispers. Her hands lie still in the dry dirt.

She rises. Around her are strewn chunks of rock and wood, dust and ash. She steps over them slowly, dry grass crunching beneath her toes.

A fragment of glass shimmers beneath the dirt. Carefully, Zelda picks it up, dusting it off. In its surface reflects the necklace, flashing wicked red against her skin. Zelda presses her lips together, shoulders tensing.

The necklace has to break, somehow, either by magic or by force. It's the only way she can escape.

Zelda sets her jaw.

She has to try.

She takes the necklace into her free hand, holding it away from her neck. With the other, she grips the glass shard in a tight fist, sawing it against the golden chain. The chain remains. She pushes harder, shaking, teeth creaking. The glass cuts into her palm, but she keeps sawing at the chain, over and over, until her entire hand is stained red and the glass drips of it. The chain is unmarred.

The glass becomes too slippery to grasp; screaming, Zelda flings it away, tears streaming down her ruddy cheeks. She kneels in the dirt and sobs, clutching her bleeding hand. The wind whips her dark dress around her like a debauched veil.

After a time, her sobs grow dry. Zelda kneels in the dirt, motionless.

Something sharp rings in her ears. She looks up, mouth open.

"Hello?"

On shaking legs she stands again, looking around the wasted land. The wind winds through her hair.

The feeling returns. Zelda stumbles back, arms wrapping around herself. She squeezes her eyes shut as hard as she can, biting her lips.

Something opens wide in her mind. Like so many dreams before she finds herself in a stranger's body, only she's not dreaming now, no matter how she wishes to be.

She's in the Sealed Temple, or a long-gone version of it, without weedy vines or a mossy coat or crumbling walls. Elaborate stained-glass windows let sunlight shimmer inside. The sounds of a harp trickle as silver into her ears, and Zelda realizes it's her playing, inside the body of her former self.

A figure in black kneels before her.

"Your Grace, two more villages have been left dead beyond the western border. The Gorons are regrouping and taking in the few remaining villagers. They don't know how far longer they can keep the demonic hoards at bay."

She keeps playing. The figure lifts its head – a regal dark face like that of a feline. A single red eye is emblazoned upon her brow. Her pale blonde hair has been hacked short, leaving only a thin dangling strand.

Zelda knows that face. She knows it better than her own heart.

"Your Grace?"

The music stops. The gilded lyre in her hands vanishes into bubbles of light.

"I know," she says, quietly.

The woman before her blinks, sanguine eyes splashed red. "Forgive me, Goddess, but - are we not going to aid them?"

"No."

A long and stale pause.

The woman lowers her head as if in shame. "Yes, Your Grace. Forgive me for questioning you. I only thought…" The words trail away.

"Go on."

Her dark shoulders tense, left bare from her robes. "I only thought we could help. My tribe is greater in number and this forest is blessed with your presence. We could keep the survivors here, rather than leave them to the Gorons. As strong a race as they are…they too will fall to the demonic forces."

There's something like remorse in her voice. Zelda rises from her seat – rather, Hylia does, she's not Hylia, not anymore – and walks toward the woman who remains kneeling. She rests one glowing hand upon the crown of her head.

"Oh, Impa. Your desire to protect the innocent is unlike that of any mortal I've seen. But you must put that aside for a time. The most difficult battle is yet to come. We must not waste our forces for the sake of a few, no matter how precious their lives."

The scene before her ripples like water.

"Yes, Your Grace…"

And it rains down into nothingness, as if only a dream.

Zelda sits heavily in the dirt, face ever paling. She lifts a hand to her parted lips.

"Impa. Her name is Impa. Impa."

The fields around him smell of fire and smoke, slick with the stench of rotted bodies and desecrated homes. The river which was once fertile and flowed freely across the field lies barren. With each step he takes, the soil squelches beneath his feet, bleeding red as if the ground itself has been wounded; but the blood does not belong to the soil.

Ghirahim breathes deeply of it, letting the smells and sounds of death seep into every sinew. In his hands he clutches two rapiers which drip thickly with blood, a few spots marking his equally red cloak. Its singed edges flutter in a draft of fetid wind.

He stops. Ahead of him, something moves, seeming to crawl beneath the very shadows. He approaches it, casually slinging the filth from his swords. The shadow shifts, but remains where it is. He comes closer.

It's not a shadow, he discovers, but a Sheikah man dressed all in black, his robes trimmed in gold. A single red eye stares up at him from a fall of silvery-blonde hair, the lower half of his dark face concealed by wrappings. He bleeds profusely onto the earth, slicking the entire front of his clothes with blood.

The Sheikah spits something in a language so old it smells of it, of sand and shadows and starless nights. From his robes he withdraws a single silver dagger, shaking in unstable hands; hands that are wrinkled and spotted with age.

Ghirahim smiles sweetly.

"Poor Sheikah wretch, abandoned by the very Goddess who swore to protect you. Where was she when my hoards set flame to your home? Where was she when my Master slew your family? From the looks of it, she was certainly not here. You swore allegiance to a false keeper."

The Sheikah spits more ancient words, one visible eye growing wide and shining in the burning light. He holds the dagger out before him.

Ghirahim slices both his hands off, cleanly just below the wrists, so quickly the man has no time to scream in agony before his own blood showers him in sickly warmth.

He tries to crawl away on his elbows, pushing across the dirt with legs bereft of their strength. Ghirahim follows, two steps, four, eight, before the man stops; lies still on the ground, the wind whipping his robes.

Ghirahim raises one flashing blade, the thick tendons in his arms jutting out beneath pale skin - and swoops it down like a farmer scything wheat, only it's not wheat which cleaves from the ground, and not water which wets it.

The Sheikah's disembodied head rolls with a fleshy thud into the sandy riverbank.

Ghirahim raises the stained edge of his rapier to his lips and drags the flat of it against his mouth, letting it scrape against his pointed teeth, dripping blood all down his chin. His whole body shudders in delight.

His shadow grows beneath his feet.

Her light boils across his skin as he turns, momentarily blinded by the intensity of it.

Hylia steps from that light, bare feet unsoiled, the Goddess Sword clutched in one hand. Her golden hair and armor shine as if imbued with suns of their own, the white hem of her dress billowing across her ankles. She is taller than he by a few heads, limbs lithe, though her form betrays the power which leaks from her very pores.

Ghirahim backs away. She stops, an arm's length before him, her glow diminishing by shades, until he can look her in the face.

She gazes solemnly down at him.

"Ghirahim. I come to beseech you; join me once more as you did before this. Cease plundering and killing for a lost cause; your new Master has no chance of winning."

He seethes, spits a foul mixture of blood and his own saliva onto the dirt at her feet.

"Away from me. You've already sent your servant to do your bidding, and you will be as unsuccessful as she. I no longer serve you…only my Master matters now."

Hylia shakes her golden head. "Your Master is a fool."

Ghirahim growls, shoulders tensing. He slings blood from his rapiers. "I would kill you had I the power for insulting him!"

Hylia gazes out beyond the horizon; she drinks in the destruction with her far-seeing gaze. She levels that gaze, once more, upon Ghirahim.

"Do you truly derive such satisfaction from this," she sweeps her arm out, across the poisoned earth, the man he's slain, "are you truly satisfied with dealing such death?"

He glares like pricking needles. "Did you not make me to be so?"

Hylia drops her head. "I made you for a much different purpose than this."

Ghirahim laughs, breath reeking of smoke and malice. He laughs until the air is rent with it.

"A different purpose? You knew of the choice I would face before my feet touched mortal ground. This is your doing."

Her gaze drifts to the body lying behind him, freshly bleeding. The wind blows her hair into long tendrils which weave across her body.

She lifts one hand, palm-up. Her voice echoes, smothers the sounds of fire and death.

In that hand appears an apple; it glows with the intensity of a star captured beneath its flesh.

"I gave you a choice then, and again I give it to you now: Join me. Leave this. Fight the armies of Demise by my side. Do so, and your reward will be of much greater being and satisfaction than he could ever give you. Take this token and all your malice will be forgot."

There is no hesitation: Ghirahim lops the apple out of her hand, slicing it neatly in two, its juice running thick down her wrist. It shrivels into a black husk before dropping to her feet.

The sword which came so close to her skin whittles away into fairy-gold dust. He watches its remnants blow away into the smoke-riddled sky. His gaze lingers upon it for long moments as he speaks.

"Neither you nor your precious servant Fi can sway me from my desires, nor my newfound loyalty. My Master has already given me more than you could possibly satiate me with. Your idea of choice is a false one. I had no choice but to fall."

She stares at him but is silent.

A smile splits his face, dagger-tipped eyes widening to their full breadth, the whites of his eyes shining madly.

"But when you fall, Your Grace…when you fall, I'll have you again. I'll make you know what it is to be without choice."

She shakes her head. "You deluded soul. Neither you nor your Master will win."

He takes a step backward as she raises the Goddess Sword above her head, its edges pulsing blue.

Just like that, she vanishes as she arrived, fading back into darkness until there's nothing left.

The fires around him continue to blaze.

Twigs snap wildly beneath her feet as she runs, faster than she's ever run before.

Impa darts between tree after tree, ducking beneath branches and vaulting over shrubs. She delves into the wildest depths of Faron Woods, far past the Sealed Temple. The woods are so deep hardly any sunlight reaches through the trees, the undergrowth beneath her feet tangled with vines and fallen branches.

He's not far behind. Should she lose her footing or hesitate for more than a moment, he'll be on her, so close does he trail behind. The smell of him permeates even the leaves, turning the vivid green smells of the forest sour black.

Impa leaps onto a high branch, feeling the bark by her ear explode as one of his black daggers imbeds itself into the tree. She surges downward again and into the undergrowth, by just enough time to dodge another dagger which would have surely split her throat.

She darts over a fallen log and lands uneasily onto the moss-covered ground, slipping on loosened pebbles.

A great ravine gapes out scant few steps from where she has landed. It's too wide to cross and too deep to consider plunging into, no matter how able-bodied she is. Sweat pours down her tawny back.

She's trapped.

Another dagger screams by her head, opening a thin red line along her cheek. Impa leaps into the trees, crawling hand over hand up its highest branches, one more branch to the top, one more –

Ghirahim flashes into being above her head, pummeling down, taking her with him. Her back smashes into the branches, cracking the smaller ones as she falls, twigs and leaves and pine needles tearing beneath her grasping hands.

She catches a branch and swings her full weight into it, dislodging him. When she lands unsteadily, he disappears again. Pain jags a staggering path up her right arm, exploding red down her injured back. Her side aches as if she's cracked several ribs.

Impa drops to one knee, materializing uncovering another dagger from her robes. She looks all around her, into the earthy green shadows. The forest is silent.

She catches another ebony dagger with her free hand, just beyond her own startled face. Blood runs in streams down her clenched palm. She throws it aside, smearing her blood onto the leafy earth.

Ghirahim appears once more before her, out of breath, silver hair disheveled. His white leotard has been stained with dirt and the blackness of his own blood. He glares murder at her from where he stands, backdropped by virulent greens so ill-fitting against the blackness of his metallic skin. His pale face has cracked in several places as porcelain, revealing more black veins of metal beneath it.

Impa hobbles to stand, leaning against the tree behind her. She licks her dry lips.

"She'll escape again. No spell or magical trinket can keep her from her destiny as the Goddess Reborn."

Sunlight trickles weakly onto his frowning face. "That girl lost her destiny the moment I laid hands on her, Sheikah wench. Give up. I might consider easing your death if you do."

She tastes the lie in the air he breathes. Impa stands taller, blonde head tipping up, proud and regal.

"You were a fool to refuse Hylia's offer. I sicken to think of the blasphemies you have laid upon her name."

"Be silent. Her name in my ears makes me ill."

He shapes two onyx rapiers in his hands, expanding them from thin air. Impa flips her dagger into a defensive pose, widening her stance.

She attacks first. Her dagger veers off his sword as he blocks her jab, slicing the air by her neck. She darts away and lunges again, stabbing wildly from side to side, nicking his shoulder, opening another scrape on his side, but her dagger neither cuts nor stabs any deeper; he dodges each of her attempts with grace despite his injured leg. The twigs beneath them crack beneath their quick feet.

Ghirahim whirls into a roundhouse kick which surges above her head – Impa ducks, stabs again, but her blade meets empty air.

In less than a breath he reappears above her, swords pointed down toward her head, but she's quicker than any cat and lunges away with ease. His blade becomes lodged in the ground, and she takes that chance to flee back into the forest.

Even a Sheikah knows when to retreat.

She runs back through the forest, winding around trees and over logs, whole body filled with fiery ache; she knows she will not run far, nor with great speed. His footsteps follow ever closer behind her heels.

Her vision topples to one side and it's all it takes for her to trip, landing dizzily onto the earth. Her heartbeat floods red into her eyes as she turns onto her back, chest heaving, limbs splayed. Her dagger rests just out of reach.

The last thing she sees before the world tips into darkness is Ghirahim appearing above her.