Is This Courageous or Idiotic? (Post-Twili Curtain Event)

The thoughts within Oron's mind grew foggy. He... He wasn't useless. He wasn't weak... He will prove it... The power within felt cold and untamed. Nothing could seem to actually lessen its influence over him. His shadow seemed to wiggle as if it was trying to move independently of Oron. Almost like it wanted to stop him as well... He was starting to feel ill. Oron just had his sights set encroaching upon the Curtain around the Grounds. His rage grew as the thoughts of everything that has happened over the past two years flashed through his mind. His parents and uncle seemed rather approving of what he was trying to do.

However.

A familiar outside voice began to echo through the air. Quiet, but it grew louder. Oron felt a hand upon his clothes. Oron's head immediately turned back, a look of pure anger on his face as he believed some beast had tried to sneak up on him, but... That wasn't what he saw at all. His head began to hurt even more as he stopped in his tracks. Oron rested a hand on his head and began trembling. "Nnhh... H... Huh? Praxis... What are you doing here?" That unnerving tone in his voice appeared to be gone for now. The sight of an actual pleasant presence combined with the confusion of their presence in this very specific area seemed to snap him back to his normal mentality. Ugh. It felt like Oron's body had been moving on its own. No amount of logical thought capable of stopping a man hellbent on where the finale of this war may likely lead everyone...

Oron took a few breaths. Right... The Springs. There were multiple, weren't there...? He could feel his heart pounding in his ears. It nearly drowned out Praxis's voice. Ah, yes... So they easily noticed what he desired to do. Did he feel like he had something to prove to the universe as well? Was he still not good enough? Of course he wasn't... He wasn't Leon. He wasn't Marianne. Who was he?! If he could just... These troubling thoughts echoed through Oron's mind as Praxis kept questioning him. Well. That's quite embarrassing now that he was thinking a bit more clearly... Oron looked around. "... Sorry." The winds whisper in the air. Dusty and warm.

Oron had no intention of being bested again. Even though logically he would eventually be beaten down again. It's happened before. It likely would happen again... Marianne... Oron's eyes widened. Just thinking about her more directly made him snap back more into reality. He just... He just wanted all of this to be over... Or at least one huge step closer to it. Damn it all. "... Yes. It's not safe. They really made sure to let me know that... I wanted to see it with my own eyes... I don't know why." Oron's fist clenched. "The one behind all of this is beyond the Mirror... If only he could be drawn out of hiding like the coward he is..." Oron's not sure whether his logic was even sound. Would this Raalk even know what was happening and look to investigate? Over a bunch of mindless monsters...?

Well.

When it comes down to it, there are very few who understand the length of suffering that the prince experienced on the daily…

Far less considering that I have done all I can to encourage the repressing of those feelings.

It is hard to forgive murder, after all, when there was no power to forgive. Ours is a world wrought with the lingering, malignant stench of vengeance and malice. Monsters are not the only ones that manifested it—Hylia’s blessed could do so also.

To that end, could we not be considered the same?

Are we not too different if we let madness consume us?

Therefore, I charge you, O Roar of the Winds, to mind the young prince.

Defend him with everything you can. Be his strength where none can be found.

Whatever he does… wherever he goes… please be his shield.

---

“IT IS NOT OUR PLACE!”

The great boom of a strong voice echoed through the heat of the day. A large Gerudo man, clad in battered armor and a buckler, descended down a dune with the sun glistening upon his brow. His fiery, untamed hair flew in the wind as did his beard, and when he finally stood before the fairy and the prince, he knelt down in reverence.

“YOUR HIGHNESS, PRINCE ORON!”

He was quite loud back then, he was even louder now.

Very loud.

“Do not allow yourself to succumb to your vengeance!” The man rose to his full height and folded his sinuous arms, “His Highness’ father, the Valiant Prince Jonathan, would never have done so EITHER!”

Oron knew he wasn't thinking very logically... Why did this keep happening? His body felt like it was burning. Yet it was cold rather than hot. The damnable taint of Demise... Was there nothing he could do to reign it in...? No matter what he did. What Ursula did. What anyone did... It always kept roaring inside of him. Like a beast in a cage. Then the fact that... He thought his parents were overbearing sometimes when they were alive... Now they constantly keep echoing for him to avenge them. Even Uncle Daphnes chooses to assail him rather than his own children... What was he to even do? Yet no matter what, he always seemed to end up on death's door rather than actually triumphing... And he would be back to do it all over again. He didn't know what kept him coming back. Was it simply the one area where he felt useful despite his inferiority to Leon...? He wasn't even particularly worthwhile at what truly made Marianne herself special...

Oron felt like he was about to start tearing up again. Though, the loathing of his mere existence was startled by a booming voice suddenly shouting to the skies above in the distance... As an utterly gargantuan Gerudo man started running over towards where him and Praxis stood and kneeled. Oron's sadness seemed to be replaced with a... Comical looking confusion. Has Oron met this man before...? He seemed to know who Oron himself was and... He even invoked the name of his father. Oron's eyes widened slightly. No... But his father... This is what he wants... This is...! Oron trembled and held his head with one hand, shaking it. Goddess, his head felt like it was being skewered by pins and needles...

Oron glanced at Praxis again. A person of his character...? Was this NOT his character, though? Praxis hasn't truly witnessed it with their own eyes, but this is what he is deep down... A beast. Ever since that night when he saw bodies litter the ground. Monsters slaughtering everyone and Oron unable to truly stop it. Then what he saw in the castle... His parents... His uncle... Then all he saw was red before waking up in an infirmary the next day covered in wounds and barely able to move... Oron then shook his head again. "... You're not wrong... It would be foolish to go in there anyways... If I stand little chance now, I certainly wouldn't in the form of a damn cat who can barely harness any magic... That was why that monster would have to come to us instead..." Oron looked down. His heart pounded in his ears. Oron then took a step forward. Two. Three. Oron then looked back at Theo. "Oh. Mister... Uh... Have we met before? Or is it only my father you are acquainted with...?" Oron certainly believed he'd remember someone who stood out like Theo did... They may as well get that out of the way.

In the distant, the group could likely faintly hear... What sounded like trumpets? Roaring, distorted trumpets... Getting closer. Some distance away, the group could also make out what seemed to be... A giant sword stuck in the ground?

The Gerudo's bushy brows raised at the realization of the proximity to Arbiter's Grounds. Chasing after them had rendered him closer than he'd like to this hot bed of enemy activity. "Right," he bowed with a whisper (a poor attempt at one at best), "Forgive me! I surely wish not for us to be assailed so unnecessarily...!"

The man's head raised at the unnerving, unearthly noises that echoed from afar, and in his caution, he unsheathed his blade.

"Hark!" he murmured raspily, "There is evil afoot. Prepare for the wake of battle!"

Oron looked around in a somewhat startled way. What... What was that noise?! It sounded horrid. Like music from a trumpet that has been corrupted into only being barely recognizable... Theo immediately seemed to notice there was danger as the gargantuan Gerudo man readied himself. Oron then glanced back and it turned out there was another who had followed after Oron to his mindless death march... Dragelion. Oron actually looked surprised to see him. It had been some time since Oron had seen the big, famous knight himself... Oron couldn't really question it with Praxis as they always seemed to have a knack for running into him at odd times, but Theo, who apparently knew his father in some capacity, and now Sir Josh... "Don't we all, Sir Knight...?"

Avenge us...! Destroy them all...!

Oron held a hand against his head. So much pressure... His hand twitched, the combination of strange feelings growing more inside of him... Two completely conflicting powers... Oron glanced back at Praxis. He wasn't entirely sure what exactly they wanted an explanation for, but. "... Very well... Hrrk...!" Oron hunched over as a burst of dark, magical energy briefly exited out of his body. He suddenly began to feel a bit nauseous, but he's fought through worse before... Oron reached for his back and grabbed Solaris, pulling the mighty, white and golden sword from its sheath.

In the distance from beyond the Curtain, the group would finally start to see where the strange, trumpet-like noises were coming from... They began growing louder as the sources came from out from the Grounds and began flying towards where the 'intruders' were at. They appeared to be oddly black colored Kagarocs, but those with a good eye would notice something was... Very wrong with them as their details became more apparent.

The Gerudo man, pushed by the gust emitted by the prince, flipped through the air and landed on his feet and clenched fist.

"HMPH!" Theo grunted and lifted his saber into the sky, "GODDESS OF THE WINDS! BLESS US AS WE BATTLE EVIL!"

In an instant, with the boom of gratuitous thunder, power filled his body with pure electrical charge. His hair glowed with a greenish light and flew through the air with the whip of the wind.

"FORSOOTH!"

The man knelt low, then leapt from the sand to meet the trumpeting monsters in the sky. With his shield-arm, he caught one by its feet and sent a surge of electricity through its body, and whilst whipping it through the air, slammed it into another to disrupt its flight.