Disclaimer: Not my universe.
Author's Note: The first fic in which I've written Ariana truly crazy. Ignore the fact that Edgar Allen Poe most definetely wasn't alive during this time. Reviews are lovely.
Ariana stared up at the sky, which was pouring rain down on her face, splashing across her cheeks and clinging to her eyelashes. Thunder boomed across the the land, making the trees in the back garden shudder. An apple fell from a branch, dropping gracefully to the wet grass. She could feel her nightgown sticking to her body, and she shivered as the wind raced around her, drawing the rain off its course and splattering it onto the side of her body.
It's so beautiful.
The blackened clouds shuddered before dropping more water onto the world, onto her. The ribbon that Al had tied her curls back with that morning had come loose, so her hair whipped around her in time with the wind's dance. Ariana looked down, oddly surprised to find blood splattered across her hand and staining her white gown. The rain washed the blood over the fabric, swirling and twisting it in patterns across her stomach, where she held her hand.
It's so beautiful.
The clouds were moving fast across the sky, and she was suddenly bathed in darkness that utterly blocked out the moon's shining light. She could still see the red of blood that almost glowed across her body. It didn't seem to be stopping, and Ariana raised her bloodstained fingers to her eyes and held them there limply. The grass, forced to bend by the wind's command, was scratching at her ankles, which her gown had bared. Lightening cracked suddenly across the sky, blessing the ground with light for an instant before dousing it in blackness once more.
It's so beautiful.
"Ariana!" Someone's hand was upon her shoulder, gripping it and turning her around. She obliged the hand's wishes, and faced Al, who was sopping wet and angry looking. "What the sodding hell do you think you're doing?!" he yelled over the roaring wind and thunder, the shriek of lightening, the whoosh of leaves and plants. She didn't answer, instead looked back to the sky, where the clouds where moving themselves into strange patterns across the darkness, barely visible but there.
It's so beautiful.
"Come on!" Al bellowed, grabbing her bloody hand and making to pull her towards the house. He looks down at it strangely before jerking her towards him. "What did you do to yourself, Ariana?" he asked, raising his voice as high as he possible could over the cataclysmic noise that nature was making. She knew he was either very angry or very worried by the way he refused to call her Ari.
"It's so beautiful," she murmured, looking back towards the sky. Al frowned and leaned forward.
"What?"
"It's so beautiful," she repeated, waving her hand across the heavens from which rain fell, heavy and thick. Al coughed and grabbed her bloodstained hand once more.
"What's so beautiful about a sodding tornado?" he roared.
"Angels," she said softly. "Angels falling from their home. In the rain they come--"
"You're talking nonsense," Al said firmly. "Come on. We're going inside."
"In the rain they come," she repeated, falling over herself in an attempt to get away from her brother's grasp. "Angels, beautiful angels. In the rain, the sky..." She turned back to him, eyes wide and piercing blue. "Quoth the raven, nevermore, nevermore," she chimed, her voice taking on a strange singing tone. She was still staring at Al with her eyes looking straight through him. "Nevermore, nevermore. Forevermore, forevermore."
"Come on," he finally said, lifting her up with one hand and pulling her into the safety of his arms. He carried her back to the house, her hand stained with the blood of their mother, while she allowed her head to loll back to the sky.
"Nevermore, nevermore."