✯𝔸𝕝𝕝 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕔𝕒𝕣𝕤 𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕪 𝔻𝕠𝕟'𝕥 𝕊𝕖𝕖✯

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕖, 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕆𝕔𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕒, 𝔸𝕟𝕕 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕀𝕥 ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕪𝕖𝕕 ~ ➋➌

Just After 𝕄𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕞 ℙ𝕒𝕪 ~ ②②

Ariana P.O.V

Falling.

Plummeting.

Dropping.

Collapsing.

Plunging.

Slipping.

Subsiding.

Toppling.

Descending,

Why were there so many words for this?

Having that many words for one meaning seemed pointless.

Especially when none of them truly captured what falling truly felt like.

Did toppling describe the empty thrill?

Did plunging describe the helplessness and inability to escape certain doom?

Did plummeting describe the terror of only having a few more moments before you would hit the ground, and it would all be over?

But suddenly, all of that was gone, and two sharp talons were digging into her back, and her decent slowed, along with the mortified beating of her heart. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a gust of wind catching Yona and Pelison, lowering them safely to the ground, and she felt her own body touching down on the soft grass of Hyrule.

She sighed, pushing herself to her feet as reality suddenly sunk in, she turned to the others. "What were you guys doing in there?"

"Bargaining. Apparently we're really important to the sages," Kheel smiled lightly.

Ariana smiled back, before averting her gaze towards the towering monument floating in the sky above them, Hyrule Castle. "I have to get up there."

Yona sighed, resting a webbed hand on Ariana's arm "you just escaped danger, can't you just stay safe, if only for a while?"

Ariana looked back at Yona sadly, "we both know that's not an option."

Yona's face fell, "it was worth a shot, I suppose."

Ariana pulled away from Yona, Turing towards Kheel. "Can you get me up there?"

Kheel nodded, flying up to grip onto Ariana's shoulders and Pelison hugged Ariana's legs. "Be safe...please." 

Ariana opened her mouth to reply, to lie and say that she was coming back to him, but Kheel had already lifted her up into the cold night sky towards Hyrule castle.

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It felt like a forever had passed when her feet finally touched down on the cold cobblestone of Hyrule Castle's courtyard.

Ariana turned back to Kheel with urgency in her voice "you have to go now. Go find Yona and Pelison, get as far away from here as you can. Don't stop until you make in back to Rito village or something. I don't care where you go, as long as it's far, far away from here." Kheel gave her a look that said, 'what about you?' and Ariana sighed. "We both know what happens to me."

Kheel nodded and threw her wings around Ariana in an embrace "please, please, please try your best not to die. I know you think you have to sacrifice yourself, but maybe you don't."

Ariana hugged back. "Maybe..." and then Kheel was gone.

Ariana drew a shaky, steadying breath before moving ahead through the main gates, towards her doom.

The thumping in her pocket reminded her that she still had the little diamond box. The last gift from her mother. And if this was really the end, now is the best time to open it. She pulled it out of her pocket and started prying it open with her nails, with no success. Maybe there's a password! "Secret stone! Gerudo! Glory! Sarisona! ...Death? Hyrule? Yiga? THE WORLD IS ENDING AAAHHHH!!! Ummm...?" She though for a moment when an idea occured to her, and her voice was barely a whisper when she said the last words her mother had spoken to her "I love you more than all of the sand and stars combined." It snapped open in an instant, making her jump.

Inside, was a glowing, white tear shaped stone that radiated with the purest energy Ariana had ever felt and she couldn't help but be drawn to it. Beside that, was a small, ornate clay ocarina with music sheets sitting underneath it. The ocarina was so familiar but Ariana couldn't quite place her finger on where it was from, and when it suddenly hit her, she gasped. This was the legendary ocarina of time.

Thessia had told her the box contained Sarisona and Vaba's memories in them, which must be what the ocarina of time would give her, and as much as she wanted to see her mother and grandmother again, time was short, and saving Hyrule was much more important. Her took the stone in her palm and stuffed the box, with the ocarina and music sheets inside of it, in her pocket. She couldn't wait to see the look on her father's face when she harnessed the power of the secret stone. Her secret stone.

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It took a lot of wondering around the Castle's winding halls before she made it to the grand hall, where Pamella, Keife, Thessia and Princess Zelda were restrained by...some sort of glowing red light??? Her father and a strange woman who looked strikingly like Keife we're preparing something sinister looking. And when the strange woman spoke, Ariana recognised her as the bodiless voice who had been speaking to her in the Yiga cell.

Ariana smirked a little. She was going to enjoy this. 

She gripped the secret stone tighter, letting its power course through her veins and take her over until all she felt was rage. And she loved the feeling.

Let's enter with a bang! Literally. It was as if the stone itself had spoken to her, and perhaps it had. Whether it was her own instruction, or the stones, she followed it obediently by making a lightning bolt strike whatever it was her father was working on, and destroy it. A hysterical laugh exited her lips and all of their heads turned in her direction, their expressions shocked. She saw why when she caught her reflection in one of the tall, extravagant windows. Her eyes glowed an electric yellow and her skin seemed to glow with a strange, unearthly luminescence. 

"Like my new look, father?"

He gritted his teeth in response "I think it's time we had a little heart to heart, what do you say, Ariana?"

Ariana grinned maliciously back at him, "I think that's a wondrous idea, father." She held up an arm, sending another lightning bolt to strike right behind her father, crumbling the Earth around them in a circle so that he would not escape.

She began walking forward and he did too, their steps in sinc. As she walked, the spirits of all of her loved ones appeared behind her at every step. 

Sarisona.

Buliara.

Essa.

Furosa.

Even some ancient ancestors she had never met. They were all there, though. With her. For her. Guiding her. 

Her father drew his sword and charged at Ariana with full force, but Ariana stayed where she was, a smirk playing at her lips. She opened her palm, revealing the secret stone, which was now glowing a bright greenish yellow and had an ancient rune engraved on its centre. It floated out of her palm and placed itself on her forehead. She felt tingly metal springing from the stone and fastening around her head. 

She held up a hand just as her father swung his sword at her heart. The moment his blade collided with her fingertip she felt the electricity get forced out of her body and move through his blade and into his body. And before she could even comprehend what she had done, her father was a pile of ash.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman from the Yiga cell try to escape and sent a lightning bolt toward her. The Hylian woman was sent flying backward across the room, knocked unconscious.

Ariana then turned her attention toward her father, now a pile of dust, his serrated blade laying beside it. She bent down and picked it up, examining it in her hands and smiled to herself.

For a moment, she was tempted to end it all. To end everything then and there.

But then she remembered something she had told her dearest friends.

Please, please, please try your best not to die. I know you think you have to sacrifice yourself, but maybe you don't.

Maybe...

As much as she wanted to end her life... she had to keep it. If not for her...for them. Always for them.

She sheathed the sword and turned to her friends. No, her family. They are why. They are worth living for.