Category: Winx Club
Rating: M
Couples: Faragonda/Baltor, Winx/respective-Specialist, Griffin/Codatorta
Warnings: AU, hints of torture, Character Death, hints of lemon
Chapter: 14
Copyright: © characters and places by Iginio; © Plot and OC by me
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"Life continues." Griffin mused. "It is a circle that never ends."
"Are you hinting at your wedding or this one?" Saladin smiled when she growled softly.
"I will not marry, Saladin. It is for fairy's to do something like that."
"Say you, but you know he wishes for your hand." Saladin countered. "For all your magic, you are weak, Griffin."
She snorted, turning her attention to the ceremony taking place in front of them.
"Miriam told me Bloom is suffering from nightmares."
"About?"
"Faragonda. She is being consumed by guilt."
"I'm not surprised." Griffin answered. "Faragonda was always kind to her. Many are dealing with guilt." She fell silent.
"She never would have allowed you to sacrifice yourself like that." Saladin laid his hand on the arm resting next to his. "She cared too much for you to allow that. You were like a daughter to her at times."
"Dragon knows she was more motherly than any other woman I knew."
Saladin smiled. "You liked her."
"Maybe."
Cheers interrupted their soft conversation. Layla and Nabu turned to the crowd, now officially wed.
"I'm worried." Griffin said during the following assembly. "What shall we do?"
"I suppose you're referring to Alfea's state of Unbondness?"
"It has been six months, Saladin, six months! I went through the Archives; the previous record was eleven days!"
"We cannot force the Bond, Griffin. It would end in disaster."
"Lightrock will not be happy if she remains like this for much longer." Griffin shuddered. "She feels…"
"Death?" Saladin supplied. "I know, but she lives. Deep down she lives."
"Very deep down then…"
"Part of her died, Griffin. I already explained it to you; a bond, no matter how young, runs soul-deep. It merely grows with age."
"'And Faragonda's was ancient' I know, I know."
"We can do no more than wait, Griffin. This matter is out of our hands." Saladin sighed. "Let it rest. It is all you can do."
"Easier said than done." She frowned. "Cloudtower is starting to feel the lack of Alfea and through him, so do I. I am growing weaker."
"So do I." He admitted. "The daily ritual to keep Red Fountain afloat is more tiring then it was."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"I have been meaning to ask you something for quite a while now." Faragonda looked up from her book. Baltor stood in the doorway, a now almost familiar warmth in his eyes.
"Yes?"
He sat down in his favorite chair, smiling gently. "Why were you the one to come to me? Why not send Griffin or some one else?"
"You truly believe I could send some one to certain doom? For all I knew, death meant death. And death the one with you would have been." She smiled when he snorted. "Baltor, how great were the chances for you to actually fall in love?"
"I know, I know. But why agree at all?"
"For peace." She put down her book. "And to prevent more destruction."
"I never understood your protectiveness." He mused. "I thought it a weakness."
"But?" She prompted, looking at him expectantly.
"The desire is strong." He laughed. "Self-preservation is reduced to a minimum. It is dangerous, and yet…" His hand came to rest on his heart. "it feels right."
"And that was where you were weak." Faragonda rose from her seat. "You did not understand that desire and misjudged it. To your own doom."
"One-way ticket Omega Dimension." He chuckled, following her into the kitchen. "Did you ever do something like that?"
Since their kitchen was invisible from the street, opening to the small garden, she used magic to prepare dinner. It still unsettled him to see pure black weave its' way around the small room.
"Once; when Saladin's wife, Helixa, fell to the army of the Coven. It was before your time. They had ambushed us and killed her. I was raging mad, nearly incinerating my Bond with Alfea to the point where Saladin and the then-Headmaster of Cloudtower, Ragon, thought it had been I who had died." She grew sad. "They found me not soon after. The army was death, Helixa was death and only I remained, standing in the middle of it all. They later told me that they had been terrified of me then."
"You destroyed an army!" He was shell-shocked. Warm, gentle Faragonda, epitome of Good, had slaughtered an army!
"In one attack. This is why the Coven probably warned you to kill me first. They knew what had happened; how could they not? And they feared me for it." She smiled weakly. "Why do you think their every effort towards Miriam and the others was capture and towards me death? They wanted to get me out of the way. They feared the power I commanded."
"This is entirely too much for me." He rubbed his temple. "Was it the Bond that allowed you to do that?"
"No, my power-source before Alfea became it. That was the reason why Alfea choose me before I even gained my Charmix. My power is dangerous, Baltor. By all accounts, I should have been a witch more evil than the Coven."
"Great Lord, how old were you?" Baltor had the feeling he would need a lot of anti-headache stuff once this conversation was over.
"Sixteen, not a month ago having transformed for the first time." She directed some more knives to cut the vegetables, unwilling to look at him. It took a lot to answer his questions.
"And Alfea choose you? At age sixteen with barely any control over your powers?"
"She did, deeming it safer if I learned to control magic without having to use my own." Faragonda rested her hand on the cool surface of the counter. "It merely deepened our bond; both my Charmix and my Enchantix were based on the power of Alfea, not my own. I don't even know whether I could use them now."
"You speak of danger, but you never told me what was that dangerous." He moved closer, seeing her tense. Somehow he was sure it was not because of his closeness, but because of his question. "Faragonda, we live together and Dragon knows whether it might grow into something more… I have a right to know; why are you that dangerous? Why did Alfea deem it safer to bond to an un-experienced fairy that had yet to finish puberty than to wait until she was older? What power can destroy an army in one attack?"
"I never told any one." She whispered, trying to move away from him. He stopped her, holding her arm firmly. "Don't ask this of me, Baltor. You might not like the answer."
"Tell me anyway." He demanded. "You cannot stop half-way, Faragonda. Tell me."
She did not. She lifted her hand, bringing it between their faces. A small ball of energy formed on her fingertip, the size of a pearl. She brought it down, brushing the plant standing next to them on her way.
Baltor's eyes widened as he watched it happen. The moment the ball touched it, it seemed as if the plant withered away. In seconds it was death, as if it had gone for months without water.