Blood Magic
A Season 5 Roxy Fic

Roxy Klaus, the fairy of animals, stared down from the top of the grand staircase that led up to the second story dormitories. Not for the first time, she wondered how on earth she ended up at Alfea. Sure, she had that huge minority scholarship and advantage, for being the first real Earth fairy in years, and yeah, she had written a brilliant essay on the subject of why blood magic was unethical despite its many advantages (with Bloom's help, of course. Roxy had no clue that there were three main types of magic until Bloom told her there were), but really, how? She was nobody special. She was less special, actually, than the hundred or so other girls studying here.

"Stressing?"

Roxy turned, and there stood Araña of Whisperia, the fairy of spiders and one of Roxy's suitemates. Araña was interesting- Roxy liked her a lot. She had soft black hair and grey eyes, enjoyed wearing beautiful and fashionable dresses, but though many initially thought she was a wimp, they were wrong. She had grown up on a planet that was dominated by witches as a fairy, and was street smart as could be.

"No," Roxy answered. "I just feel… um, I don't know… out of place. Why am I here?"

"You're here because you're the kick-butt fairy of animals and you're brilliant. I mean, you had to be… they grade the essays with an iron fist. It can make or break a girl. I don't know how I got in with my analysis of gang activity."

Roxy almost smiled. "I keep forgetting you're here for psychomagical analysis. I would have expected you to major in familiar magic, like me."

"But people would be expecting that," Araña said. "And where would the fun be in learning something that I'm already good at? College is for exploring yourself. Shadowhaunt, college is for exploring everything! That's why Redfountain is so close, y'know."

"I'll forget you said that."

Araña rolled her eyes. "Dragon, Rox, you're so high school. Live a little. I mean, didn't you say you worked in a bar on Earth? I would've expected a lot of…"

"Araña!"

"Fine. I won't say it. But you know you're thinking it."

"Not thinking it."

"Sex."

"Shut up."

Araña rolled her eyes. "You're so fidgety. Okay, I have homework for Magiphilosophy, so I have to bounce. But I wasn't kidding. Go. Live. Explore."

She started to walk down the grand staircase. "Where are you going?" Roxy asked. "Aren't you going to study in the apartment?"

"Nah. I've got some questions for Mirta, my tutor. I'm going down to the academics lab to ask her. Catch you later."

Roxy watched her go, then, more in a burst of boredom than anything, decided to take her advice and explore Alfea.

Alfea College was divided into two wings and one main area. Both wings were further divided into two smaller hallways with 3 stories each. It really was a small school, as far as colleges went, but due to the placement of classes, there were still a couple of hallways that Roxy had yet to explore. One, the social lab corridor, hosted a class that Roxy would take next semester, but as "next semester" wasn't now, Roxy hadn't even glanced down the hall. It was there she decided to begin.

The social lab hall was the uppermost floor of the Dragon's Flame wing. As Roxy peered into it, it seemed darker and longer than the other hallways in the school. Neater, too, more sterile. She took a look into the first classroom in the hall, a healer's lab. Nobody was there… it was after hours, and it didn't seem like it would be a place where people would want to hang out, anyway. Dried up pink wings were pinned to the back wall, a pixie skeleton stood on a desk, and everything was white and immaculately folded. Roxy shivered and moved on, without even trying the doorknob. She didn't want to go in there. The whole idea of the mounted wings gave her the creeps.

The next room seemed a little better. It was brightly lit, though nobody was inside. A large machine was the centerpiece of the yellow room, and it emitted a soft glow. If the school was nonmagical, Roxy would have suspected electricity, maybe radiation, but at Alfea, it could only be one thing- pure magical power.

There were many other rooms, and Roxy looked into quite a few of them before she saw a large, double-doored classroom at the very end of the hallway. She could faintly hear voices coming, and her natural curiosity sparked. Quietly walking to one of the doors, she peeked in through a small window and gasped in shock and horror.

Standing around a circle, eyes wide, were three girls. Two faced Roxy, and she recognized neither. But one, with beautiful black hair, was instantly familiar, and she was dripping her blood onto the circle on the floor.

Blood magic. Araña is doing blood magic.

Roxy didn't even think before she burst into the room, nearly knocking her head into the door. "Araña, what are you doing?" she cried.

One of the two girls that Roxy didn't recognize glared at her. "It's not any of your business. Get out and don't tell anyone what you've seen."

Roxy clenched her fists. "You really think I'm going to let myself be intimidated? What you're doing is wrong. And if you don't stop it, I'll get someone to stop you."

"Like Shadowhaunt you will, you…"

The last girl held out her hand in a "stop" motion. She had red hair with beads and ribbons weaved into it prettily, a soft face covered in freckles, and a waifish form. "No, Callosity," she said, and her voice was a raspy soprano that seemed perfect for a rock band. "She's right, but we have a reason. And none of us can afford to get caught for this. We have to make her understand."

Callosity glared. "I don't like this girl."

"You don't like anyone," the redhead said again. Then she turned to Roxy. "I'm Mirta of Illusis, fairy of illusions, Alfea senior. Callosity is a sophomore from Delona and is the fairy of touch, and you seemed like you know Araña."

"I do. She's my suitemate."

"Cool," Mirta said. "And you are…?"

"Roxy of Earth, freshman, fairy of animals."

Mirta smiled kindly. "All right, Roxy of Earth. What do you think we're doing?"

"I know you're doing blood magic! That's what my application essay was on. You are all deliberately harnessing the magic that runs in your own veins to try to create a physical manifestation of your magic- an imp- that can perform spells at no initial loss of power to your own person besides the initial blood sacrifice. It's the newest discovered form of magic, as well as the one that is most looked down on and forbidden. Even at the Cloudtower School, where dark magic is encouraged, it's a forbidden art!"

"I know; I went there for a semester." Mirta smiled. "You know what you're talking about, Roxy. Except for the fact that you really, really misunderstood what's going on here. We aren't working blood magic."

"I have eyes, Mirta."

Mirta smiled wryly. "I know what it looks like. Believe me. How about I start from the beginning? I'm a tutor."

"Yeah… Araña told me."

"Okay. So I'm supposed to be down in the academics center with Araña, helping her with magiphilosophy. But then Callosity came down and asked me for some help with her healing homework. So I asked Araña if she would mind coming up here and meeting us in the spell lab, and she was fine with it. It was going to be like a little study group. So, I drew a circle and…"

"Wait… you what? Why?"

"It makes me more comfortable when I'm doing magic. It's more of a witch tradition, and some things from Cloudtower really stuck with me."

"Oh," Roxy said. She hadn't considered that. "Makes a certain sense."

"So, I've got a circle going, power flowing, ready to help Callosity with her healing stuff. Then we realize. There's nothing to heal. She couldn't heal herself, and she couldn't heal me, because I was going to be helping her. So then Araña comes traipsing up here and comes into the room and we have to beg her to cut herself, just a little, so we can heal it. So she grabs a scalpel and was making a shallow but long cut across her hand- those are the easiest to heal- when you come bursting in."

Roxy blushed. "It was… the opposite of blood magic. You were practicing healing, which is spirit magic."

"Yep," Araña said with a relieved grin. "I was so worried that you wouldn't listen and you would draw conclusions."

"But… then why did you all act so guilty when I came in?"

"We're not supposed to be here." Now Araña was the one blushing. "We haven't asked to use the room. And Cally has already gotten in trouble twice this school year."

Roxy finally had to laugh. "Don't worry. I won't tell. I'm really sorry I assumed the worst."

"No worries," Mirta said. "It looked bad, I know."

"Well, I'll get out of your hair. Sorry to bust in on you."

She left the room, and she could hear the laughter of the three girls as she walked down the hallway. Roxy was still totally embarrassed, but a little bit of humiliation was worth the knowledge that her suitemate and possible future best friend was walking on the side of good.

When they were done laughing at the sheer humor of the situation, they had to address it. "Oh my Dragon, she comes in here and she actually wrote about blood magic for her entrance essay. That's just too much." Mirta wiped a tear from her eye.

"I so thought we were caught," Callosity said.

Only Araña was quiet. "I kind of hoped she could stay."

"But Mirta's only certified by the school to tutor two people at a time!" Callosity giggled.

Mirta sobered. "That was a close call, girls. Seriously, the moment she said that she wrote about blood magic on her essay, I was worried. And she obviously held a strong opinion on the use of it- that you never should. She seemed smart, she seemed dedicated, and I could smell the power. A Roxy-imp would be wonderful. And what was she, a familiar magic major? Can you imagine if we had someone with that kind of training? I wonder if there's a way to… decondition her. Araña, any idea on if it'll work?"

"I'll try," Araña promised.

Mirta nodded approval. "Good. Show her that this isn't evil. This is bringing fairy magic into the twenty first century. Witches fight fire with fire, but they don't have the organization or guts to do it well. They can't stop bickering among themselves for long enough to realize what they need to do. But us fairies can start a revolution. We can change the universe."

Slowly, she dragged a knife across her hand. "After all," she said as blood dripped into the circle, "it's in our blood."

Author's Note: Well this plot bunny dropped into my mind and demanded to be written. Don't get me wrong, I love Mirta, but it was fun to write her dark. So, this is currently a one-shot, but I may write more on it if I feel inspiration. Hope you enjoyed!