A/n: Again, sorry guys. You know the drill. Thank you so much for reading… especially after all this time. We promise our writing style is improving… at least we hope it is. Enjoy!

Chapter 41: Phantom Blade

Night had fallen on Lon Lon Ranch and Amy and Link had yet to return. Arian sat in an empty, lantern-lit cellar reading a book taken from the Castle library, partly for research but mostly for pleasure. A shuffle step at the door disrupted him. Aura bounded in absent-mindedly and scrounged for a cup to fill with milk straight from the tap.

"Oh." She stopped her doings upon noticing Arian sitting at the table. "Sorry, I'll be just a second. I didn't mean to interrupt you." She laughed at herself.

"No, it's not a problem. I was actually just stopping for the night." Arian put in his bookmark. "Getting a midnight snack?" Aura finished off filling her cup with foamy milk and nodded as she grabbed a biscuit.

"I always get hungry about this time."

"Yeah, me too." Arian grabbed a biscuit and poured himself a cup of milk as well. The two sat down at the small wooden table fit for no more than three.

"Where's Naomi?" Aura asked, not knowing how else to relate with him. She had never really bonded with Arian, and had only discovered a small bit about his past a few days ago—that he was a slave, and that she was the daughter of a slave owner. Looking at him, a man of boyish features only an inch or two shorter than herself, she couldn't imagine how anyone could have treated him as a slave.

"Upstairs, cleaning, organizing, planning." He grinned. "I'm going to say goodnight to her before bed and make her stop doing work."

"It's a good thing she has you." Aura laughed. Arian smiled and shrugged.

"Eh. I can be the same way when I have work to be done. We look out for each other."

A moment of nodding silence followed. Aura once again noted his innocent appearance, this time catching glimpses of the rigid scar on his arm from that night in Termina a long while ago. He had been afraid of her. She remembered, but even his history as a slave didn't quite clarify that.

"Arian…" Aura started into a question, taking a few breaths to contemplate how she would ask it. "The slave owners… like my dad…where they cruel to people like you?" Arian's face became solemn.

"You were sentenced to death if you didn't complete the work… and often the work itself was a death sentence. I don't know if they intended it to be cruel, but they just didn't care."

"Is that why you were afraid of me… did you know who I was?"

"Yes…" Arian said a bit sheepishly. "You see… before I left Minirith, I had caused… er—done some things I'm not very proud of… and may have ruined the businesses of several slave owners… including your father's." Arian flinched in anticipation of an angry response, but Aura merely nodded her head.

"I probably would've raised hell too… if I had been a slave for so long and then suddenly gained powers like yours."

"Heh… yeah… I just wish my intention had been to raise hell." Arian shuffled uncomfortably in his chair while a reminiscent grin bent his lips.

"Well, what were you trying to do?" Aura asked, this time truly intrigued. Arian averted his gaze, drifting into thought. He licked his lips before nodding with his decision to tell her.

"There was this girl…" He started kind of uncomfortably. "She was a slave too… and I wanted her to run away with me." Aura's eyes widened.

"Arian!" She started. "Does Naomi know about this little… uh… history?" Arian laughed.

"She doesn't need to. Nothing came of it, and now I see the only reason I liked the girl in the first place was because she was Minirith's closest thing to a Naomi… orderly, determined, independent… but at the same time, not even in Naomi's league. I could never get her to go, and she thought my dreams of being free were childish and unrealistic." Arian rolled his eyes. "I guess when I became the beast, it was sort of like a dream come true. I felt like I could do anything—I knew I looked pretty intimidating, but… I thought she really cared about me."

"Oh Arian… you scared her?" Aura's face was now sympathetic. She wasn't sure if she had any unrequited love stories of her own, but the depths of her lost memory left her knowing it was not a pleasant feeling. Arian nodded.

"I gave her a fair warning. Told her I was going to become a terrifying beast—apparently she thought I was kidding or something, because once I changed… she screamed." A blank stare masked his anger at the memory. "She called for help, and the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by guards. In my escape, I practically destroyed three stores of grain and blew up the bomb shop…"

"Wow…" Aura took a moment to digest his story. "Why would she think you were kidding? Who jokes like that?" An amused grimace came to Arian's face while he hesitated to respond.

"Uh… I think she thought I was speaking metaphorically about becoming a beast… since I had asked to see her after hours, she may have thought I wanted to take our relationship to the next level… It was a very awkward meeting, now that I recall it…"

"I'm so sorry…" Aura said for lack of a better response.

"It's fine. It got me out of there, and at least now I know that girl took practically everything I said as one big joke… she refused to accept me for who I was... fur and all…" Arian laughed with his last thought. Aura also chuckled.

"Naomi, however, has a thing for fangs and fur I think." She added. "It's rather perfect actually… I think in your beast form, you are the only man as scary as she is." At this the two of them burst into laughter.

A third joined their merry party. Damien, once again shirtless, trounced in for a beer before bed. He grunted a greeting as he tapped into the keg to fill his cup. A long swig preceded a longer belch.

"Lovely." Aura noted. Damien nodded his head.

"It's been a long day. These soldiers are in such a dire shape, it's taking all I have to make them battle-ready. And then there's the trouble of making them ready for Devoren. I'm exhausted." He informed them. "You'd better not talk in your sleep tonight, Arian."

"I talk in my sleep?"

"Yes. A lot."

"Well I don't have to worry about anything tonight." Aura proudly announced. "I'm going to be in my own room."

"How'd you manage that?" Damien asked with an obvious bite of jealousy.

"She took Link's old room." Arian said.

"Dang. I wish I had thought about that." Damien replied as he scratched himself. Another belch followed. Arian stared at his friend with an amused smirk.

"Don't worry, Damien." Arian said in good spirits. "I have another place I can sleep tonight. I'm gonna go hit the hay now, actually. Good night guys." He picked up his book and started towards the cellar stairs.

"That other place isn't Naomi's bed, is it?" Damien stopped him with his usual hint of sly vulgarity. Aura coughed up some milk.

"Better not be." Aura finally gasped out.

"Don't worry—I'm just going to say goodnight to her. I'm sleeping somewhere else—by myself." He continued out of the cellar leaving just Aura and Damien to contend with each other.

"You shouldn't joke like that." Aura scolded him. Damien arched a brow.

"Guys joke like that all the time." He shrugged it off. Aura raised her brows.

"Well in case it's escaped your notice—I'm a girl!"

Damien remained calm as he continued to smirk at her. He leaned against the kegs and crossed one leg over the other.

"Oh, I've noticed, but trust me, you don't want me to treat you like a woman. At least not like the other women on this ranch." He enlightened her.

"At least treat me like a lady." Aura demanded. Damien stood up straighter and flourished his right arm into a graceful bow.

"My lady, if I may take your leave." He said with such sincere propriety that Aura remained speechless.

"My lady?" Damien cocked his head to the side.

"Okay… never mind." Aura shook her head.

"Thank the giants." Damien sighed as he headed up the stairs. "Good night." He shouted down after another belch. Aura laughed and shook her head before also heading to her bedchamber.

Naomi yawned, but could not sleep. She sat up and looked over the moonlit bedchamber. It was homey, but empty. Aura's former resting place had been the sofa where the blankets were now neatly folded and stacked. Naomi had taken the floor when Amy had been there to take the bed. She had much preferred a floor in a room filled with friends than a bed in solitary confinement. Naomi sighed.

"This will never do." She stood, lit a small candle, and grabbed a folded blanket and pillow before leaving the bedchamber. The firelight danced in the empty stairwell. Naomi was the only one stirring at this time, at least that's what she assumed.

The door creaked open as she reached the bottom of the stairs. An old man, strange to Naomi's eyes, hobbled inside. Jabono had only just made it to Lon Lon Ranch from the Lost Woods. The dim light and his wearied state hid his resemblance to Aura. He struggled with a heavy travel sack and Naomi was quick to set her things on the table and hurry to help him.

"Oh dear. I'm sorry the lady of the house isn't awake right now, but I can help you as best I can." She told him as she helped him to a seat.

"Thank you my dear." The old man mumbled. "I don't mean to be a bother. I've just come to rest my old bones by the fire." Naomi threw another log onto the burning embers in an attempt to rekindle the day's fire.

"It's rather late for a person to be traveling alone. What brings you here at this hour?" Naomi asked.

"I merely misjudged the time." He said tiredly. Naomi smiled kindly.

"You must be hungry." She turned to head for the cellar. "Let me get you some milk and something to eat."

"Oh, bless you." Jabono whispered. Naomi returned a short moment later with a glass of milk and one of the muffins Malon had made for tomorrow's breakfast. "You are so very kind." Jabono took the food and ate heartily.

"It's nothing, really." Naomi answered considerately. "There is also a spare bed for you. If you walk up these stairs, it's the open door on your right. Feel free to make yourself at home." Jabono thanked her again with a fatherly twinkle in his eye.

"You know. You remind me of my own daughter." He told her. "Well, if only she were a bit less unruly and a bit more… hospitable."

"Thank you." Naomi laughed, taking it as a compliment. "I would love to hear about her, tomorrow. For now I think I shall head to my… bedchamber." She said with a wry grin, since she didn't really know where her bedchamber would be at the moment. She had given hers up to the old man. Naomi then yawned and gathered her blanket and pillow.

"Good night, child."

The door shut behind Naomi. Jabono turned to his heavy pack and undid the drawstring. Nit the dark fairy and skull kid stumbled out onto the floor only to be shushed by the old man.

"Quick, we must find my Laura." He grabbed his lighter travel sack and headed towards the staircase. Nit and skull kid passed him by and began traversing through the upper rooms of the Lon Lon ranch house.

"This is like an adventure!" The little dark fairy whispered to her companion.

"Yeah, but we still need to be quiet." Skull kid shushed Nit. They passed through the corridor as quietly as they could. A couple of the doors had light spilling out from underneath them. Skull kid pointed towards the first light door and Nit silently flew under the crack into the room. As soon as the dark fairy was in the room, she hid in the first shadowy corner she saw. The occupant of the room was not Jabono's daughter, however.

Damien sat on his bed, reading a small book with a genuine, albeit small smile on his face. He seemed completely transfixed by the book and didn't notice the small shadowy fairy move towards the door and leave his room.

"Negatory." She murmured to her friend. "Next door!"

After stealthily slipping underneath all of the doors and checking the rooms' occupants, Nit found that none of them fit the description of Laura.

Meanwhile, Jabono had gone outdoors to the center field. The moon was bright and stars were shining, and he knew his daughter wouldn't sleep well without a breath of the warm night air. He wasn't certain she would be out there, but he had a faint hope and that faint hope paid off. His little girl was leaning on the fence in her nightgown, staring up at the stars. After searching for so long and always being just a few moments too late, he could now finally be with his daughter again. His smile deepened, though he knew he would have to approach her carefully. Devoren had warned him of her condition—saying she had been brainwashed by her captors and may not remember her own father.

"Beautiful night, isn't it?" Jabono broke the silence. Aura was startled, but something about him put her at ease. It was a strange familiarity currently unremembered. She welcomed him with a smile and a nod. Jabono approached the fence next to her and stared out in the same direction.

"The sky stretches for miles back home. It's very flat on the other side of the mountains—you can see across a great distance." Jabono started up conversation.

"It's also much warmer." Aura noted. It took her a moment to realize she had remembered something from her past. She turned to the familiar stranger at her side with a look of suspicion. "You—you're from Minirith." She inquired. Jabono replied with a smiling nod.

"As are you, Laura."

Aura stared at the man who knew her former name. The first memory to return was of the recent adventure in the caverns. She knew he had called her once before when she and Damien were escaping from the caverns in Ikana. Upon staring at him, she realized he had called her by name many more times before that.

"Wait… are you… dad?" She said with a brush of excitement at recalling another piece of her past. He laughed and opened his arms just as she began laughing and returned his embrace. He hadn't expected his daughter to remember him so quickly, and her joy at seeing him brought tears to his eyes.

Aura shut her eyes, and in her father's embrace recounted all of her lost memories. A gasp pulled them apart. Aura had remembered everything, her past and her original purpose.

"I found him… I'm friends with him… but he…" Aura gripped her head. "No, it can't be him… but it is, isn't it?"

"You've been brainwashed, Laura. The creature worked some sort of magic on you while you were in the desert. Here, I think this may help relieve his spell." Jabono reached into his pack and withdrew his gift, wrapped in woven cloth.

"No, Arian wouldn't. He doesn't know magic. He doesn't even know how to make a sandwich! How could he know magic?" Aura argued deliriously. Jabono thrust his gift into her hands.

"Take it, my daughter. Release yourself from their spell and you will understand." He whispered to her. Her hands accepted it, finding the hilt beneath the wrappings, which fell to the ground to reveal the red, shimmering blade.

"It's the Phantom Blade from the Lost Woods. It's strong enough to break their spell on you, and powerful enough to destroy the beast."

"What? Kill Arian?" Aura asked with a slight shudder. "But he's not… Although he did—why did he? Why would he have done that? He killed." Laura looked up to her father with a wounded expression. She gripped the hilt of the shining blade as the wound deepened from the memories.

"Yes. He killed him. He killed Orick, and several of our workers. He nearly ruined us… and he ruined you. That's why you went after him. Do you remember everything now?" Jabono placed a hand on her shoulder now seized with anger. His brow narrowed with deep pain and concern for his daughter.

She remembered everything, though their coinciding emotions felt stronger. The anger surged through her, and the painful sorrow ripped her heart in two. It was as though she had lost her love for a second time. Laura gripped the sword even tighter, showing the whites of her knuckles.

"Where is he?" Was all Laura could whisper in her incensed fury.

"I'm not sure, though it's possible he is here somewhere but I have not seen him." Her father replied sternly but sympathetically.

"I will hunt him down." She said mechanically with a voice uncharacteristic to her nature.

"I don't blame you. I couldn't stop you before, and I know I can't now." Jabono permitted her with the bow of his head. "Meet me outside the walls once the deed is done. I will wait for you and take you home."

Laura nodded and headed back to the ranch house to collect her things and hunt the beast with the Phantom Blade in hand.

Before Jabono had thought to search outside, Naomi had found a suitable resting place—the barn floor. She had stepped through the doors and latched them behind her, sighing happily after hearing the deep, snoring breaths of the animals within the stalls. These noises brought her comfort. Whenever thrown into solitary confinement at the Pirate Fortress, she could hear no breathing but her own and could never sleep.

Naomi tiredly curled up on the floor between the stalls. While the smell was atrocious, it could never be worse than the acrid smells that blew into the fortress on the warm spring days after the eels battled for the best mating burrows, leaving the weakest to die upon the merciless sea and rot in the warm saltwater. In fact, the smell of a barn floor was much preferred to that.

She had fallen into sleep the moment her head met the pillow, not realizing that the creaking of the barn doors had awoken someone from a nightmare. Arian had been tossing and turning in the loft above her, dreaming of things that had been that haunted him still. The loud thud of the wooden latch had woken him from these nightmares, and since a loud thud in a barn filled with large animals wasn't of much concern, Arian had merely found himself distressed from the dreams, and only the dreams.

He rolled to his knees from his straw bed and wiped his face, deciding a walk might steady his racing heart. It was then that he noticed her, by scent first. While the smell of barn assailed the senses, Arian could also faintly smell the fresh rain and sweet coffee smells that constituted his opinion of Naomi's scent. He looked down and saw a curious lump of a white blanket in the middle of the stalls, and while he was confused, he knew it would be her.

"Naomi?" He called gently after quietly descending from the hayloft. A tired moan answered him followed by a fleeting, sleepy glance before Naomi curled up tighter and tried to return to her dreams. He laughed before nudging her shoulder and calling her name again to reawaken her. A frustrated groan replied and she drew the sheet up over her head.

"Naomi. What are you doing here?"

"Sleep." Her strained voice sounded from under the sheet.

"I can see that, but why?"

"I couldn't sleep in the house. The room was too quiet." Naomi replied as Arian pulled down the sheet to better hear her. He smiled and shook his head.

"Too quiet? Really?"

"Aura and Amy are gone and I need to hear someone breathing. I just… it helps me sleep…" Naomi rubbed her eyes and turned to face Arian, giving up on sleeping until he went away.

"Okay." Arian laughed, accepting her strange preference. "But I don't want you lying on the barn floor." He scooped her into his arms. She groaned again. "There's some hay up there. It's much softer, and I made a nice bed of it."

"Thanks." Naomi mumbled, drifting off to sleep in his embrace as he scaled the ladder to the loft.

He laid her down in the soft hay, looking fondly at the moonlit contours of her chin and neck. His fingers delicately brushed a strand of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. Naomi's eyes blinked open into a half-lidded gaze.

"Thank you." She said again in a hoarse sigh. He replied with a kiss while his hand rested in the crook of her neck, entangled in her hair. They continued to kiss under moonlight and in the hay until a strange noise caught both of their attentions. The two of them, now relatively awake, could hear the door sliding open, just far enough for someone to come through.

Arian picked up his head up and cocked it to the side. Naomi remained silent for a moment as well.

"I'll go see what that is." Arian decided in a whisper, keeping his voice quiet in keeping with their current tone of intimacy. "Stay here and get some sleep." He kissed her again before sliding away from the hay, causing a light rustling of the loose straws. Naomi nodded, but her eyes watched him walk to the ladder. She wanted him to come back. Her cheeks were flushed and heart pounded, as it did every time his lips touched hers. She waited until his head disappeared to stir, using her pirate's training to silently step out of the straw bed and to the edge of the loft.

Naomi didn't want to take her eyes from him for one minute. She watched him descend the ladder. He jumped the last three rungs before walking with that scuffle step of his. When Arian was tired he hunched forward in his walk, creating a slight swagger.

He checked the stalls to make sure the animals were all still present and sleeping. Naomi watched him and all his subconscious mannerisms with a warm smile.

After seeing all was well and quiet in the barn, Arian casually headed towards the open door. He judged it just large enough for maybe a dog to squeeze through. 'Naomi must have forgotten to latch the door,' he thought to himself, looking around for one of the small scruffy dogs he presumed had nosed its way inside. He looked outside just to be sure no animals or persons were skulking about, and when he saw that no one or thing was in sight, pulled his head back in and pushed the doors closed. He swung the wood block back into place before sensing something strange.

A horse whinnied, Naomi screamed, Arian turned, and a crystal blade skimmed his chest and sliced into the wooden door now at his side. Laura quickly withdrew the blade to stab at his heart again, but Arian fell to the ground and hunched over his wound.

Naomi, having jumped from the loft, rolled to her feet and quickly approached the shadowy aggressor. She could barely see the sword save for the dim reflections of moonlight, but the sword was not her target. Naomi reached the assailant's arm that bore this invisible weapon, and with a quick twisting motion, redirected Laura's attack away from Arian.

The two girls struggled. Naomi slammed Laura into a stall door, spooking the horse inside. Laura thrashed with inhuman strength, but Naomi was finally able to pry the weapon away from her. It clattered on the floor just as the barn doors flew open. Malon and her father had been awoken by the screaming animals, and now stood before them with lanterns lit.

Malon screamed as Naomi's fist slammed into Laura's face with an audible crack. Laura went rigid for a moment before falling to the floor. The lantern light revealed her identity and Naomi froze. Anger and shock mingled with grief from the betrayal of a friend, and it momentarily kept her from action, but Arian's call pulled her back to reality.

She ran to his side and looked up to the others.

"Help me get him inside. Hurry!" She ordered them. Talon ran to help her lift Arian as Malon looked mournfully upon Aura.

"And what about, Aura?" She asked. Naomi shuddered.

"I don't care…" She replied coldly with a hint of a sob.

A/n: Cliff Hanger :O please review and let us know you are still out there. We took another long planning period, so chappy 42 is all laid out. We get back to you soon :D