“All it takes is that first step. Sitting there atop the high ropes, and a first step. Then you jump forward, somersaulting through the air like it’s nothing. That feeling of vertigo, where you fall but the feeling of control is still there.”

“But it culminates in the same crashing end. You reached forward, tried your best, and found yourself buried into the ground you started at. Pain takes over, overwhelms as the wind slowly comes back to you. The reality of what has happens sinks in as you lay there. Left with a single choice: stay there and wallow, or get back up and try again.”

“Certain in the risks it brings, but to live that high life you always have to risk falling down to the ground below.”

“Didn’t stop you from keeping on through it all did it Aurora? A high flying star that made a splash in the debut, you soon found yourself fallen into a strange rough crowd down into the matt. You reached out a hand to form a bond, and find it slapped away. So you climb that rope again, and fly once more.”

“Undaunted, you reached higher, trying to touch into the heart of Raven and resonate with him. You had that feeling of falling again, swinging in to help him when the cards weren’t in his favor. And then you felt the ground, betrayed by one who you used to idolize as he broke you down again.”

“So here you are, face down into the mat once more. Stuck at that choice again to stay down, or to get back up again.”

“Trust me, I know what that’s like. Faced again and again with threats that felt unsurmountable that kept trying to push me down. Tell me that I wasn’t worth it, that everything I had done wasn’t for the reasons that I thought it was. I was broken down on that mat again and again and again.”

“Each time though, I made the same choice. I got back up on my feet, brushed off the dust that had gotten on me, and faced the challenges again. Even when I was told a horrific truth, I got back up. I left behind what had been broken to me, and I chose to move forward.”

“For every time you get knocked down, you get back up again. They can’t ever keep you down.”

“So you have to make the choice for yourself. Do you stay down, take the defeat after defeat to heart? Lay down and let the choices you’ve made come to a head? Or do you stand back up on your own two feet, face Arcadia again, and show them what you’re made of?”

“At the end of the day though, no one else can make that call for you. You just have to find that right reason to pull yourself back up out of the mat and go again.

“Me personally?”

“I do it for the people of Arcadia.”