Summary: It was just a crush, right? It was just a temporary thing, wasn't it? It was never meant to be… and it wasn't supposed to hurt this much.

Author's Note: I think I'm becoming… notorious (or perhaps, merely obsessed) for making Flora into an inveterate Lesbian. But honestly, she's the easiest for me to imagine liking girls, probably because she's frankly just that sweet (and not nearly as boy crazy as her friends, Helia arc notwithstanding). And Mirta, bless her heart, probably latched on just a little, being that she was so affection starved. Catch the literary reference!

Just a Crush

Though technically she was part of the Alfea program, she used a very different magic than the fairies, so she was prone to being tutored on her own by the teachers. She would have felt resentful (didn't she come here on a transfer program?) but she only felt resigned. Still, she got to see the girls who were- well, sort of her friends.

Mirta had never had many friends, much less been in love before. She had never known a crush. Sure, she looked at pretty boys in the magazines and she did toss around a fantasy of the front cover of Dark Magic Weekly when the Wizard Jenkins was featured (in all his glorious, gold-haired and blue-eyed and leather-pants-wearing glory). But she never realized what it was like to want someone in a way that it both thrilled and hurt.

She tried to be an optimist but… there was that quietly resigned part of her, deep inside of her and its voice was stronger than expected. Nonetheless, she stubbornly resisted the grim and wearing burden of accepting status quo and she found herself quietly gazing at one particular person who suddenly took over her thoughts and fantasies.

Flora.

Every time the flower fairy entered her thoughts or came into view, she felt her heart flutter and her mouth grow dry. Her cheeks flushed and she could feel her palms grow sticky with sweat. However, the few times that the other girl deigned to speak with her, she hastily wiped her palms on her denim skirt and pretended that she wasn't used to sunlight. To make things worse, the fairy would kindly offer an herbal remedy to treat sensitive skin, making Mirta blush even more and rather self-consciously refuse.

Dreams were no refuge for her and her mind wandered, worrying over the image, the memory, of the other girl like a bruise. She had already memorized those features so much better than her own: tawny skin that was the color of well-creamed coffee and occasionally touched with rose pink blushes, brilliantly amber-green eyes that had warmth that rivaled sunlight and held nothing but innocent joy, long and luxurious golden-brown hair that seemed finer than silk and surrounded her in an aura. Her hands were expressive and elegant, tender and deft and she walked like a goddess of dance, seeming more to float than to walk. She had a tendency of nibbling on her pouty, rosy lower lip when she was thinking, a most distracting but delightful habit. The fairy never seemed to use perfume; instead, a most delicious smell surrounded her at all times, like vanilla, roses, peony, cinnamon and sugar, all the warm, comfortable, feminine smells of the world.

Mirta vaguely wondered if this was jealousy or aspiration, for the other girl was her complete opposite. No one could ever say that Mirta was beautiful. "Cute" perhaps, in her own way; but who would want a stick-skinny, pale-skinned and freckled, far too boyish and awkward girl? She didn't cultivate any sort of beauty either, not with her comfortable yet unstylish clothes and t-shirts with pumpkins on them…

She tried to justify the feelings to herself but she may as well have tried to bail out a river with a sieve. Delusion was safer, for the moment. Nonetheless, she watched as what she never had slowly fade away from her grasp. First, a lively pixie companion who offered support that Mirta could never have mustered in her entire life, next, a growing friendship with the lively, even more exotically lovely new Princess, then… a crush…

But Flora and her hero danced circles around each other, too shy to say anything. As long as they remained that way, Mirta could pretend. She could imagine "what-could-be" as much as she wanted without feeling guilt.

Despite the worldly and Gothic halls of Cloud Tower, Mirta was relatively innocent. She thought of kisses and carnal things but couldn't really think about them. Even her dreams of the Wizard Jenkins were limited to hugs and holding hands. So she blushed in her sleep as she thought of touching Flora's lovely honey and agate hair, tracing pallid fingers along a warm cinnamon colored cheek, and eventually, shyly touching those rosebud lips with her own. Her cheeks flushed and her body heated on those nights, a delicious but frightening tension filling her completely.

It was just a crush. It wasn't supposed to go this far, she thought frantically to herself. This was a dream that shouldn't happen, that she shouldn't dare want. Why was she breaking her own heart over this? Mirta cursed herself for a fool but that silly side of her still wished, still wanted, and still made her entire body ache in an unnamed, unfamiliar, but primitive feeling. It became quiescent for a while and she thought she'd forgotten, that she finally could let that dream go.

Forget about blue roses; they are dreams unfulfilled.

Finally, the showdown… Challenging the very form of darkness, the Dark Fire that opposed the Bright Fire of Life; she feared but she never let herself think that they would lose. They would never, ever lose.

And she was right.

She ran to greet them, her heart in her throat. Then she saw the two joined hands, the eyes exchanging tender gazes. A beautiful couple: A tall and impossibly beautiful young man with ivory features and ebony hair and a slender and exquisitely lovely young woman with a delicately tawny-and-gold face and form. And Mirta felt something crumple in her chest, creating an emptiness that would never end.