I've been trying to work through a block on my main story (which I think I finally have!) so I took a little break to write something kind of creepy. Credit goes to tumblr user sheikah-slate-memos for the original inspiration behind this.

Evening crept slowly over the dusty Gerudo desert, stars appearing one by one to watch as the hot sand cooled, and became frigid. Link had settled in for the night, spirits high. Mushrooms sizzled on a skewer over a small fire as he tapped away at his Sheikah Slate, stopping every now and then to take a bite from one of his last remaining rice balls. Absently, he raised a hand to check the bandaging on his arm. The gash he'd earned in the day's battle had been thankfully shallow—an inch's difference and his night would have been very different—but he'd wrapped it up carefully anyway, downing his mildest elixir to speed up healing. By the time he woke up in the morning, there would barely be a scar.

"I do not recommend… running around carelessly… if you suspect there may be one in the area," Link muttered aloud, finishing up his entry on Molduga and flicking across the screen to examine his painfully pieced together map. He'd finally activated the last of the towers only a week ago, though every now and then the completed map still updated itself with new information as he traveled. Now the words "Arbiter's Grounds" hovered over his location, and Link tilted his head thoughtfully. Arbiter—like a judge? If this place had been like a courthouse once, the few faded structures remaining gave no hint either way. Exploring the ruins themselves had been a waste of time, although the gem deposits had been profitable enough to make up for that.

Fishing through his pouches, Link withdrew one of the red gems he'd collected and examined it with satisfaction. Now he could finally commission one of those ruby circlets he'd been eyeing in town. No more nights trapped in the desert, confined to the warmth of his fire because his snowquill tunic had been too bulky to travel with.

Maybe he could consider storming the Yiga Clan's hideout by night now. The darkness would hide them as much as him, but it had to be better than approaching in broad daylight.

Silence blanketed the starlit desert, broken only by the crackling flames and the distant whine of cicadas, and Link's good mood dampened slightly. Solitude was nothing new—it had been his near constant companion since awakening in that pool of tepid liquid with nothing but a quickly vanishing voice in his head for direction—but some nights he thought it might be nice to have someone around to share in his good news, or his bad. He couldn't shake the thought that he was missing… somebody. Zelda maybe? From what little he remembered, they had rarely been apart, although the princess had seemed more resigned to that fact than anything.

Link still couldn't remember how he'd felt about it.

At least finding the sword that sealed the darkness had helped, a bit. Maybe a blade was poor excuse for company, but it had chosen him, and legend said that somewhere in that forged steel, an ancient voice resonated. In the end, it was all he had, and Link kept it close as he finally pocketed the Sheikah Slate, pulling his skewer from the fire and blowing on his charred golden mushrooms. Sunshrooms needed a more finessed preparation to unlock their full abilities, something he couldn't achieve with a simple campfire, but they would help to keep the worst of the chill away.

Yanking one off and juggling it in his hands a bit before popping it in his mouth, Link chewed carefully around its searing juices as his gaze strayed up to where three beams of red light pierced through the sky. Just one Divine Beast left. He hoped he'd be able to shake loose some memory of Urbosa before meeting her face to face. The other Champions had come in time—fragments of them, at least. Tiny pieces that formed an incomplete picture of who they were, and how he'd fit in among them.

Link had expected… more. There had to be more to him than what he remembered, the silent shadow who always observed, hiding every piece of himself away. His mind felt like the night sky above, each dim memory a tiny prick of light that did nothing to illuminate the enormous blackness containing it. Would he ever gather enough of those lights to form a clear picture of who he was, or—

Link froze, almost choking on his mushroom. His wandering gaze had fallen on the moon, rising unnoticed over the distant dunes.

Blood red.

All thoughts forgotten, Link clambered to his feet, counting back the days since the last blood moon and cursing his own inattentiveness. He should have seen this coming. The Molduga's carcass sat rotting not far off, close enough that he had to hold back a gag whenever the wind blew from that direction, but that wouldn't last for long. Soon it would be breathing again, parting the sand like water in search of new prey.

Link didn't intend to be that prey, tonight or ever, but a moonlit battle in the freezing desert made that scenario all too likely. Crossing the desert at night dressed as he was would be equally disastrous. He'd have to relocate to higher ground for now, and face the beast in the morning. Grimacing, he pulled the remaining mushrooms from their skewer with his teeth before tossing it aside to pack up camp. Just the thought of fighting that battle again left him exhausted. He knew better than to camp so close to fallen enemies!

Leaving the fire to burn out on its own, Link shivered as the first tendrils of cold air wrapped around his bare torso, the voe armor that cooled him so efficiently during the day providing no protection at all against the night's chill. Maybe his cold weather clothing had been too much to pack, but he could have at least thought to bring a real shirt, or his hood.

Trudging through the sand was a joyless prospect, so instead he shrugged out of his shield and hopped on, surfing across the sandy dunes in search of a more secluded campsite outside of the Molduga's reach. A tall stone structure caught his eye, and he steered himself towards it, kicking his shield into the air as he arrived and catching it with a triumphant grin. He was getting better at that.

Link's smile faded quickly, though. His injured arm made climbing slow and uncomfortable, and the frigid air bit at his fingers until he could barely feel the stone beneath them. By the time he reached the top, heaving himself up and perching momentarily on the edge to catch his breath, the full red moon had cleared the upper edge of the sand dunes, lighting what remained of the Arbiter's Grounds in an eerie glow. Link took it all in with a somber expression. The sight of those fallen columns bathed in red made him shiver without knowing why.

...Or maybe it was the cold. Rubbing his arms vigorously, Link retreated as far from the stone's edge as he could, kicking at the sand that coated everything here to clear a space. His habitual frugality with his dwindling wood supply meant he had just enough left for a second fire. A small one.

Unexpectedly, his foot met the ground with a hollow thump, and he stopped in surprise. Kneeling to brush the sand aside with his hands, Link saw a square shape emerge with a metal ring attached, and realized with the familiar thrill of discovery that he'd uncovered a hidden doorway. Maybe some part of these ruins had survived, just buried beneath the sand. Glancing over his shoulder at the moon, Link considered his options. He had planned on sleeping out in the open tonight, but if there was even a chance at actual shelter… he would have to clear it out to be sure it was safe, but at least he'd sleep more soundly without the possibility of falling off. Nothing he found down there could compare to a Molduga.

Mind made up, Link grasped the metal ring and heaved, and the old door inched open with a groan, stale air wafting up to meet him. Another moment's investigation revealed a ladder that he descended cautiously, ears perked for the high-pitched squeak of Keese that liked to roost in dark places like this one. Maybe this place was too well hidden even for that, because he heard nothing but himself. After a much longer climb than he'd expected, his feet finally met stone, and he wasted no time in whipping out his Sheikah Slate to illuminate the room with its soft glow, prepared to draw his sword on the instant if anything moved.

Nothing did. Link stalked slowly forward, scanning his tiny bubble of sight before nodding abruptly. If he hadn't been attacked by now, he probably wouldn't be anytime soon, and he needed that fire. Stacking his wood beneath the trap door so smoke could escape, Link struck his flint with numb hands, nursing the spark it made with small bits of tinder and sighing in relief as it slowly gained strength, his huddled muscles unclenching in the welcome warmth. Only once the flames flickered to his satisfaction did he look around and realize where he'd ended up.

The door from above had placed him in a passageway that stretched out of sight to either side, but what made him grimace were the small rooms placed every few paces along the corridor, separated by bars. A prison, then. Link supposed a courthouse would need somewhere to hold its criminals before and after judging, though he could imagine many places he would have rather spent the night. No chests or discarded weapons were readily apparent, either. The only thing nearby of any substance was a stack of abandoned barrels, which Link rose reluctantly to examine. The odds of finding something useful might be slim, but he'd been pleasantly surprised before.

As it turned out, the barrels were useless, too rotten to use even for tinder, but fallen to the ground behind them was treasure of a different sort. Link's eyes lit up as he found an old, discarded torch, turning it over in his hands thoughtfully as he considered the unexplored passageway. With something to light his way and keep him warm, he could clear out the corridor more thoroughly… but beneath that practicality, he felt the familiar stirrings of curiosity. That was all he'd had to drive him back when he first woke up, before he'd had any memories of friends or duty to spur him on—the thrill of discovery as the unknown became known. He might never unearth all the secrets of this land, or even all the secrets of his mind, but forgotten things deserved to be remembered... and he was the only one around to do it.

Link lit the old torch with a single swipe, holding it close as he abandoned the warmth of his fire. It would still be burning by the time he returned. The first direction he chose ended quickly in rubble, so he walked down the other, free hand hovering near the hilt of his sword just in case. After a few tense minutes of thrusting a torch into each tiny room, the cells eventually came to an end, though the corridor only continued for a few more paces before it, too, ended in piles of broken stone.

Link stopped, caught between relief and disappointment. As reassuring as it was to know he would not be disturbed down here, he'd still been hoping for something a little more interesting than rocks, or at the very least, more useful. Walking forward to examine the cave-in—Link thought it looked old, but it was best to know for certain whether the ceiling might come crashing down around him as he slept—he heard a familiar, hollow thump beneath his feet and froze. In an instant he was on the ground, sweeping back the grit to reveal another door, this one more cleverly hidden than the last. There was no metal rung for ease of access, and even the patterning across the top matched that of the surrounding corridor, as if whoever had built it in had hoped for it to go unnoticed.

He didn't hesitate. Digging his fingers into the sides of it to wrench it open, Link followed the new ladder down, juggling the rungs and his torch with only a bit of difficulty. This had to lead to something interesting.

Sure enough, he found himself in a second passageway that was rougher and less rigidly straight than the first, meandering its way even deeper into the earth. Link's excitement at his discovery ebbed a little as he remembered the caved in corridors above, and wondered whether a smaller tunnel like this would be more or less stable. If he got himself killed or buried beneath stone, the outside world would not survive his absence long. Zelda couldn't hold out against Ganon forever.

"Ten minutes," Link muttered, his words echoing faintly. "Then I'll turn back." He knew he shouldn't risk himself over so little, but there must be something at the end of such an old tunnel. Why else would someone have gone to such lengths to hide it?

In the end, it only took a few more minutes of wandering before the passageway ended abruptly, the uncarved door at the end so nondescript that Link almost mistook it for a dead end. Setting his torch aside carefully to ensure it stayed lit, he heaved against the stone with all his strength, injured arm throbbing at the effort. Gradually, the door slid upwards with a deep, grating sound, until an ancient mechanism finally activated with a 'click', holding it in place.

Retrieving the torch once more, Link thrust it forward—and bit back a gasp.

Diamond patterned tiles spiraled across the floor in a complex pattern much more ornate than the tunnel leading up to it. Words in an unfamiliar language had been painted in red across the mosaic's surface, but none of that was what Link noticed. Thrust upright into the circular chamber's center, ropes branching from the hilt in all directions as if to contain it, there stood an enormous black sword about as long as he was tall, its serrated blade glinting dully in the firelight.

Fascinated, Link stepped forward, mounting his torch absently in a niche beside the door. Tiny slips of fabric fluttered from the ropes upon his entry, each one printed with a more familiar text than what was scrawled across the floor. Sheikah work, it looked like—or Yiga. The two were difficult to tell apart.

Link dismissed the strips of fabric for the moment in favor of examining the sword itself. He couldn't shake the familiar sensation that he knew this weapon, though he couldn't remember where or how. The small ruby just below the hilt glowed in the flickering fire, and something about the crossguard spreading out like wings around it tugged at his memory. Then his gaze traveled down to the three triangles emblazoned at the base of the blade, and realization hit. Drawing the darkness-sealing sword from his back, Link held it up to compare. The gem on his own sword gleamed gold instead of red, and the wings on his hilt were less jagged, but the similarities between the blades still startled him. Even those three triangles on his blade were the same, only inverted from the sword in front of him. Had the two swords been forged together in the long distant past, or had one weapon served as a template for the other? Why did his sword have a place in the legends, while this other stood buried and forgotten?

More importantly, what was he going to do with it? He knew instinctively that this sword was different from the many weapons he'd scavenged in the past. If the Sheikah had been the ones to hide it here then they'd probably had their reasons… but the Sheikah did not live in the desert. This was the Yiga's domain.

Link thought he remembered those triangles on the blade as the mark of the ancient goddesses. As dark and foreboding as the sword looked, it still might have been forged with some holy purpose. Either way, Link decided that whatever the Yiga wanted, he should probably oppose. He wasn't even sure that he could drag this massive blade up the ladder with him, much less all the way to Gerudo Town, but Link set his sword against a rope anyway to cut it through—and almost dropped the weapon at the urgent sense of wrong flooding up his arm.

Inhaling sharply, Link looked down at his sword in confusion. Nothing about it seemed different now, but…

Experimentally, he held it to the rope again, and felt that same urgent feeling of wrong, don't, shouldn't as the blade fell from his hand entirely. Stunned, Link could only stare. Was there some sort of magic in those little scraps of cloth that prevented his interference, or was it his sword? …The voice of the sword?

"Look who it is…"

Link fell backwards with a startled yell, fingers scrabbling for the hilt of his fallen weapon. Where the bound sword had been he now saw—but no. Link shook his head, confused. Why had he thought—

In an instant, it shifted again.

"That voice… I had almost forgotten…" Dry laughter echoed through the small room, then vanished abruptly. "Have you come to rescue me, hero?"

Link's eyes flickered, not sure where to focus as words failed him. Where one moment he saw a sword, the next he saw a kneeling man bound at the neck, his unkempt hair as pearly white as the moon should have been, his skin as black as the sword. The two images shifted back and forth in his mind, but before he could say a word, the battle was over, the man's head lifting slightly to meet Link's shocked gaze.

"Speechless as usual," he said, dark eyes dancing. "But then, you never were one for words, were you, Link?"

"Do I… know you?" Link asked warily, his hand finally finding its grip around his own sword's hilt, and the man's face brightened with anticipation. Unlike the rest of him, that face was pale, though marred along the edges by angular black cracks.

"Know me?" He laughed again softly, a too-long tongue slipping out to run across his white lips. Link watched it move in fascinated horror. "Intimately. In fact, I may know you better than anyone now living. Don't tell me you've forgotten?"

Irritation cracked through Link's surprise, and he gritted his teeth. Something in the man's mocking tone made it clear that he already knew the answer to his own question.

"I guess I have," he said carefully. No matter how many people Link said it to, the admission still hurt, although for once he wasn't sure that he wanted to remember this man. That feeling of wrong was stronger than ever now. "It wasn't personal. I lost all of my memories from before the Calamity, though they've been coming back… slowly." The man said nothing, staring intently at him through cavernous eyes, and Link's gaze slid sideways to avoid his. "Since you seem to know my name, maybe you can tell me yours?"

"That's only fair," he mused, though for a moment Link thought he would refuse. "You may call me Ghirahim. In truth," he added, smiling as if at a private joke, "I very much prefer to be indulged with my full title, Lord Ghirahim… but I'm not fussy."

Link inclined his head.

"Lord Ghirahim," he murmured, and saw the other man's nonexistent brows lift a fraction as if he hadn't expected the concession. He supposed this Ghirahim might have been a noble in the king's court, although his strangely cut, form-fitting outfit looked more like something an entertainer would wear. Maybe that was the joke, and he was not a lord at all.

Then again, Link wasn't convinced he was even human.

Either way, it didn't explain how Ghirahim had managed to survive so long, or who had trapped him here in the first place, or what had happened to the sword.

"How did you—" Link started to ask, but a sharp motion from Ghirahim cut him off.

"You have questions," he said, examining his own hands in a bored sort of way. "They are not nearly as interesting or relevant as my own, and I haven't the time to humor them. You do not know enough right now to know what should interest you."

Link frowned, more certain than ever that he didn't like this man.

"Tell me, then," he said shortly. "What interesting questions should I ask instead?"

"That is a good start," Ghirahim said approvingly, as if he hadn't caught Link's sarcasm. Those sharp black cracks had retreated from his face, hovering now around his collarbone. "I will tell you—but first," he added, eyes glittering as he flicked a wrist in Link's direction, "I would prefer that you sheath that sword of yours. You can hardly consider me a threat to you, bound as I am."

Eying the many ropes tied to his neck, Link had to admit that he had a point. He sheathed his blade reluctantly, and found as he released the hilt that a portion of his unease melted away.

"Much better," Ghirahim sighed. "I find that the only worthwhile discussions involve some level of trust, don't you? Don't be such a stranger, Link. Come closer." He crooked a finger, and Link's breath caught. "I can hardly see you over there."

Uncertainly, Link stepped forward until he stood within arm's reach, looking back to reassure himself of the open doorway behind him. The sword that sealed the darkness held no trust for Lord Ghirahim, which meant he shouldn't either. Maybe he should just leave now, and forget this place ever existed... but not yet.

Even kneeling, the bound man was tall enough to meet Link's eyes.

"Warm in here, isn't it?" Ghirahim murmured, wiping nonexistent sweat from his smooth brow, and Link realized with a start that he was right. He hadn't noticed the temperature before as he'd entered, too distracted by the strangeness of the sword, but now sweat beaded across his forehead and slipped between his shoulders. Despite his cooling armor, he felt light headed. "Sweltering, even. No helping it, I suppose. Stand there and let me look at you."

Link stood, swaying slightly as Ghirahim's shining eyes raked him over, taking in the map of faded scars that had killed him once, overlaid with every scar he had gathered since.

"You are certainly a reckless child," he said at last, and Link flinched, first at his choice of words, then again as Ghirahim raised a black finger to his bare chest. Stomach clenching beneath his touch, Link watched breathlessly as he traced along the longest of his scars, too shocked to consider pulling free. "No companion this time, either. What a lonely little journey you must be leading… and no green tunic to mark you? That alone would make me doubt who you are, if I did not know you and that sword so well."

"Don't touch me," Link said, but Ghirahim ignored him. His words made no sense to Link. The Champion's tunic was blue.

"This clothing suits you better," Ghirahim decided with a grin. "You were always wild at heart, whatever thin veneer of culture the goddess managed to paint over you. Oh, if you insist," he added impatiently as Link opened his mouth to speak again, finally withdrawing his hand, and Link relaxed. That finger had felt sharp somehow, though a quick glance confirmed that it had left no mark. "Always so stuffy, you Hylians. Tell me, wild one, what do you remember of your past?"

"I…" Ghirahim's fingers moved constantly in strange, nonsensical patterns, and Link watched them distractedly. Thick indents encircled his black wrists as if something had bound them recently, and looking down, Link noticed a discarded scrap of rope. He wondered why that detail should stick out to him. "Not much. I remember the Champions… some of them. Revali and Mipha, and Daruk. Just… just a few conversations. And… it's the same with Zelda." He grimaced, remembering Zelda's disdain for him in his most recent memory of her. "Not much."

"Fascinating," Ghirahim said dryly, though Link was sure he didn't imagine the malice that flickered through his eyes at Zelda's name. "And you consider it a tragedy to have lost the events of a single life, do you?"

Link stiffened at the realization that Ghirahim was amused by his loss.

"I never said it was," Link growled, glancing back at the doorway again. He didn't need to stand here and be mocked… but still he didn't leave.

"You wouldn't," Ghirahim said, rolling his eyes. "You were always the type to suffer in silence, biting your tongue to hide what you truly thought. People called you brave for that, but it always looked like hiding to me."

Link's eyes narrowed. It didn't help that he agreed.

"If forgetting my life isn't tragic enough for you, then what is?" he asked irritably, wiping sweat from his brow, and Ghirahim's eyes glowed as if he'd anticipated the question.

"Forgetting a hundred lives," he said, his voice echoing faintly. "Living and fighting and dying, again and again and again, never knowing why you fight or that you have fought that battle before. When you defeat Ganon in this lifetime, do you think that will be the end? Was it the end for the last hero who defeated him? Do you even remember the last hero? I do." Ghirahim's lips split into a grin, revealing sharpened teeth. "The battle you fought with my master was not nearly as easy as the legends would have you believe, though the stories written of your accomplishments do tend to leave the juicy bits out. You knew Ganon well in that lifetime, a fact that was never recorded, and you watched him become the monstrosity that you were always fated to defeat. The Guardians and Divine Beasts may have been on your side, but I assure you that you wept as you dealt the sealing blow."

"I…" Link felt dazed. That was not the story Kass had always told. "That's not… that was somebody else."

Unbidden, Zelda's words from a hundred years back resurfaced. "Whether skyward bound, adrift in time, or steeped in the glowing embers of twilight…"

"Wolfling," Ghirahim said relentlessly. "Fairy boy. Sky child." That last name he spoke with particular relish. "You are all of these and more. You could think of them as different people, I suppose, inasmuch as we are all formed by our memories and experiences… but then, that would make the 'you' standing before me a completely different person from the 'you' whose lost memories you mourn. Why should he seem like such a great loss, when your other lives do not?"

"Because…" Link licked his lips. It was almost too hot for thought now. "Because I can still do something to bring him back. The others… they're beyond my reach." He felt it now, though, the distant pang of forgotten knowledge. Who was he? Would he ever know the answer, with more of himself missing than he could have guessed?

"Beyond your reach? Perhaps." Ghirahim pinned him with an intense stare, his gesturing fingers coming suddenly to a halt as if pulling a thread tight. "Beyond my reach? Not at all."

He let the implication hover in the air as Link's eyes slowly widened.

"You would…" Link breathed. "You could…?"

"For a price, my wild one," he said, smirking. Link had thought his hair unkempt before, though now he couldn't imagine why. It hung to the side of his smoothly pale face in a shining curtain, sleek and strangely beautiful. "All things come at a price, though on a night like tonight…" He breathed in deeply, and the blackness that had faded to the tops of his arms retreated further, like ink withdrawing along angular cracks. "My master is restless… his power envelops us both. I think I could do anything, on a night like tonight."

Link stared, a sliver of apprehension finally slipping through his hazy thoughts. He could feel it, too, that dark, unsettled energy that accompanied every blood moon, and he wondered suddenly how close that moon had come to its peak in the unseen sky above.

On instinct, Link reached for his sword, and inhaled sharply as his fingers touched the hilt. The air around him grew frigid, and he stepped back in horror.

"Ghirahim," he said, voice shaking as his mind became suddenly, painfully clear. "Who is your master?"

Ghirahim looked at him for a long moment, expressionless. Then his face split into a wide, malicious grin.

"Let go of your sword, Link," he said softly. "Do not touch it again."

He gestured, and Link gritted his teeth as, finger by finger, his hand peeled away from the hilt to fall uselessly beside him. His breath came too fast as Ghirahim straightened in his bonds, considering him thoughtfully.

"I had thought to do this gently, but I think I prefer you like this," he said, reaching out to brush a thumb along Link's cheek. Link considered biting it. "Uncertain and angry, like the first time we met. So many memories between us… oh, but perhaps you cannot relate." He laughed as Link growled low in his throat.

"What do you want?" Link asked roughly, anger tightening his voice, but Ghirahim hushed him.

"Enough," he said, running a finger across his throat, and Link felt his words dry up. "Focus only on my eyes and move quickly. Our time is running out, and I can no longer tolerate your peculiar brand of defiance, however amusing I might find it otherwise."

Link saw Ghirahim's hands moving again out of the corner of his eyes, and felt his own hands move in response, but awareness of such things faded quickly. Ghirahim's dark eyes caught and held him, like twin caverns consuming him.

"I do not intend to hurt you," Ghirahim said, his voice strangely soothing. "Nor should you fear that I will run to my master's aid. He lost all need of my services when he abandoned hope and became that… abomination." Ghirahim scowled furiously at something Link didn't understand, though the expression softened as he heard something snap. "Yes, just like that. Quickly now, onto the next."

It was the blood moon, Link thought. That must be the source of his power, and the reason for his urgency, which meant this would all be over soon. Already, he could see the first red motes of light floating between them as the darkness stirred, and awakened.

Ghirahim hissed. He could see it, too.

"I should never have been imprisoned in the Arbiter's Grounds," he muttered. "A sword held captive for its master's crimes, can you imagine? Can a sword wield itself?" Another snap of rope, and he felt himself move on. "All those who once judged me are now dead, and incapable of providing release. How much longer should I be expected to rot here alone, even had I deserved my imprisonment? It stretches the bounds of justice, much less mercy."

Link glared, the only thing he was able to do. It sounded as if Ghirahim wanted Link's compassion, something he didn't feel much like granting at the moment. Anger boiled inside him as his movements continued, not his own.

A third rope rebounded with another snap, but the motes of light were coming faster now, the blood moon's peak mere moments away. Ghirahim held his gaze through narrowed eyes. He would not be free of his restraints in time.

"It seems that you are now the arbiter of my fate," Ghirahim said, bitterly amused. "And so I must appeal to you. I have not harmed you in all this, nor will I if you grant my freedom willingly. Surely you of all people can understand the desire to be free?"

Link felt his throat finally loosen, and laughed in Ghirahim's face.

"You should have asked for mercy before taking advantage," he snapped. The small voice in his head advising caution was lost in the strength of his fury. "It's not going to work now."

For a moment, Link thought Ghirahim might reach out and strangle him, but then the corners of his eyes crinkled.

"So be it."

The blood moon hit its zenith, every dark thing gaining power at once, and Ghirahim vanished in a flurry of diamonds with a single snap of his fingers. Startled, Link stumbled backwards—right into Ghirahim's waiting arms.

"Listen well, wild one," he whispered in Link's ear as the room glowed red around them. "We have fought each other many times, you and I, but I always tell the truth. What I promised you, what you want, I can give you that and more."

Link grunted, unable even to move as Ghirahim grasped his hand and lifted it to his lips, biting down carefully on his smallest finger until blood welled at the tip. Interlocking his own finger with Link's, the two of them watched as the blood dripped down them both.

"After all these years, that thread of fate still binds us," Ghirahim said, something dark in his voice. "You would not have stumbled down here otherwise. I call on the strength of it now. When the moon bleeds red, you will return to me once more."

"I won't," Link said, struggling, and Ghirahim's grip on him tightened.

"You will."

"I won't."

Sweat dripped down Link's face. Ghirahim's fingers moved back and forth, tying them together.

"You will."

"I WILL!"

Link's shout filled the room, crashing in around him until even its echoes faded away to nothing. Red motes vanished into the sudden silence.

Ghirahim was gone. In his place stood an enormous black sword, almost as long as Link was tall, its serrated blade glinting dully in the orange light. For a wild moment, Link thought it had all been a dream or hallucination, only…

Three of the ropes securing it had been sliced clean through, with another fraying tenuously. As Link watched, the cut ropes shriveled and faded away, their tiny slips of fabric vanishing into smoke.

"I won't—" Link looked down at his hands. One of them throbbed, a drop of blood falling from his smallest finger to splatter onto the tiled floor. His other hand clutched a black dagger he had never seen before, a tiny red ruby embedded just below the hilt. He dropped it, and watched it disappear in a soft flurry of diamonds.

"I won't be back here!" he yelled at the sword. "Are you listening? Keep your memories to yourself! I won't—"

Fumbling over his shoulder, Link drew his sword, holding it out in front of him, and felt nothing. No warning voice, no feeling of unease. The danger, as far as the sword knew, had passed.

Abruptly, Link shivered, every bead of sweat against his overheated skin freezing him at once.

"I won't be coming back here," Link promised, backing away from the room's center and grabbing the torch from its place in the wall, brandishing it along with his sword. "I'm serious. You can take your thread of fate and hang yourself with it, because I—won't—come!"

Link's back hit the wall, and with a start, he realized that he'd backed right out of the room into the tunnel outside. With a last, furious glare, Link ran, and didn't stop running until he reached the ladder. Only then did he sheath his sword, though he climbed it just to start running once more.

His fire had burned down to coals by the time he returned, and Link stoked it to life with his torch, pacing and rubbing his hands in agitation, each heartbeat pulsing through his finger a reminder of what he had almost done. The Molduga rumbling around outside felt inconsequential in comparison.

He had to get out of the desert. He couldn't chance being here the next… the next time… Only he had nowhere else to go. Every Divine Beast was free now except Naboris. He needed to get the Thunder Helm back from the Yiga Clan so Riju could help him board it, and… and he wasn't going to run from this.

Link flushed, realizing he had literally just fled the buried room below, but his resolve stayed the same. He shouldn't have to distance himself from this place just to be safe. The next blood moon would meet him in the desert, and he just wouldn't go, and that was that. If he had his way, he would never return to the Arbiter's Grounds again.

Finger throbbing, Link curled up on the ground beside the fire, refusing to question his deep relief at deciding to remain. Tendrils of exhaustion enveloped him, and he found himself falling into sleep's embrace despite his racing mind. Who had he been in all those lifetimes Ghirahim claimed to have known him through? Who would he be now, if he could remember?

"I won't go," Link muttered again, before drifting off into dreams that he would forget upon waking.

In the darkness far beneath him, the fraying rope stretched and snapped, and soft laughter echoed, unheard.