Ariel doesn't know how much time has passed when her head stops swimming. She hardly gave any notice to her surrounds as Jim helped her along, briefly aware of entering a room at some point. Then she was slumped against a couch, and after that all was history. She didn't pass out – she could hear Jim pace around the room and couldn't seem to take her gaze off the picturesque window – but time seemed to blur together.
Thankfully they weren't interrupted, and Ariel needs no more than fifteen minutes to regain her strength. Still, thinking about it now, fifteen minutes is a long time, especially added to those scarce minutes she and Jim were fleeing for their lives. Everyone else must be worried sick by now, waiting for the pair to step out of the elevator almost half an hour ago. Aladdin's already probably devising some excuse to tell Eric when he returns home without her.
Suddenly frantic, she sits upright with a burst of energy, as sweating and panting as if she's just awoken from a nightmare. "The others!" She cries, hardly able to form words through her heavy breathing. "We have to get back to them! What if Scar's men were waiting in the next room? What if he has them? We have to get back to them now!" Horrific thoughts pound through her mind, of Scar torturing and taunting her new friends, flushing out information about her from them.
"How?" Jim responds with very little emotion. He stands with his back pressed against the wall, arms folded as if he doesn't have a care in the world. He's back to his closed-off personality.
Ariel huffs, shoving aside her frustration. Testing her strength, she rises to her feet, a little unsteady but able to stand. The blackouts are ending, at least. "We just have to find another way to meet up with them, if they're still in this level... If Scar hasn't caught them." She chews on her bottom lip. "If we can find our way around this level's shortcuts, we can maybe intercept them! We can find them in one of the rooms before they go to the next level. They wouldn't go to the next level without us. Right? Wouldn't they wait to go to the next level until we find them!?"
"They wouldn't go to the next level without us." Jim clarifies, quirking a brow at her ramble.
She can't help it, she rambles when she's scared.
"Okay...." She sighs, blowing the hair obscuring her eyes. "Where are we now?" She spins, absorbing the scenery around her. It appears to be another living room, but this one is less decorated; more like a shabby apartment with really bright walls and a giant window. She pauses, dropping back onto the couch and peering through the window stretched out above it. The landscape right outside is admittedly a bit breathtaking, even if it is animated. A giant, pristine lake is expanded as far as the eye can see, the beautiful colors of blue and green blending with popping reds, yellows, and oranges as the sun sets beyond the horizon line.
Maybe it's because she's part fish and she's bias, but this view is stunning. It eases a bit of the tension and stress that has been weighing her down since arriving at this house, kind of like the fish tank appeared to do with Hiro.
Just below the window on the outside is a balcony that lengthens over the lake, but instead of ending outside the window, it leads both up and down, two separate staircases exposing more to explore along this side of the building/house/whatever this place is.
Ariel taps her chin thoughtfully, strategizing. "The elevator took our friends down..." She observes, more to herself than to Jim. "So if there's a portal leading to the next level, it's probably on the bottom floor. We just have to find our way down and beat them there."
"How are do you know they aren't there already?" Jim speaks behind her, startling her. She hadn't heard him approach.
"It took a while to get past both those rooms we were all in." She sweeps the hair from her eyes again, searching the window for some kind of opening. "There's no way they could have gotten through every other room already." She herself doesn't entirely believe this, but it's better to be optimistic than to state they're all going to die.
