The switch had been more than jarring and even with it corrected, she still isn't right. She reaches up and touches Bloom's cheek. Rubs her thumb over it and tells herself that it is only residue. The feelings will fade in time.
It is hardly the first night she has spent with Bloom. She wonders if the fairy has residue of her own. Lingering inclinations to cast dark spells and taunt the other fairies on this campus. The fairy-turned-witch had been quite a force. A nearly unstoppable one. One that Icy hadn't particularly wanted to stop at the time.
She could do it rather easily, it was as easy as speaking a simple spell. A simple spell that would harness the evil and dark energy that had been laced into the former fairy's soul. The very dark energy that had been torn from her in the first place. All she had to do was take it back.
At the time she hadn't wanted it back.
At the time she had acquired an insticutal aversion to an evil so potent and sinister.
At the time she had enough good in her soul to give in and let the evil back in. And in a flash of bright orange, so it was. She now longs for it to fester and grow, to reclaim her in full. To encompass her entirely as it had before it had been forced out of her. But it refuses her. For some reason, it refuses her. She thinks that her body has become incompatible with the darkness.
And so she remains at Alfea and in the company of Bloom, confined to a hospital bed and condemned to magical therapy. Her powers aren't right either, she hasn't recovered them in full and the magic therapy makes for such a slow recovery.
A slow, strange recovery.
.oOo.
Bloom stares down at Icy, for everything that she has gone through, she seems to sleepy rather easy. She isn't quite the same as she was before it is both comforting and unsettling all at once. It is petrubing in that it confirms what she has been thinking-that there is still darkness in her soul and comforting in that she isn't alone.
The both of them are oddities, anomalies. Both witches and fairies all at once. Tecna is almost certain that, that is why her magic has been so weak lately. Why she hasn't been quite able to muster up the full power of the dragon flame.
The dark and the light are at odds in her soul and the sooner she lets herself fully embrace being a fairy again, the sooner she will get her strength back. And yet there is something so enthralling about the witch magic she harbors. Something deliciously alluring about tossing reservations and moral comasses aside.
It is powerful.
It raises adrenaline in the way her fire craves.
She can't sleep.
She tries to sleep but how can she when there is so much at work in her mind and soul?
The former witch could probably use some rest, but Bloom could use the company, so she shakes Icy awake.
.oOo.
She lets Bloom toy with her hair for hours. Occasionally running her own fingers though strands of orange hair. This is rather routine. It is almost a habit now. Every now and then she will let the fairy lay next to her and rub circles on her back. Every now and then she lets the fire fairy hold her.
She swears that it is just the residue.
That the darkness will overtake it soon and she will break the fairy's heart with a swiftness that even Darcy would envy.
It can only be the residue, she wouldn't let the fairy take control otherwise. The fairy wouldn't take control if she hadn't any witch left in her. She knows it because as the darkness begins to leave Bloom, she grows far less domineering.
But Icy herself grows no more so.
For a change, she does the holding. She wraps her arms around the fairy and rests her head upon the fairy's.
"Ya know, I'm going to be really upset when you go full on witch again." Bloom mutters.
She is torn between agreeing and vowing that she can't wait for it to happen. She doesn't think that it will. She thinks that she has exposed herself to too much light. Her surprise is almost laughable when the dark slams back into her with a vengeful force. And with it comes her confidence and her boldness. With it comes her wit and sarcasm. How she had missed those.
She leaves Alfea that night without a word to anyone. With luck Bloom will be as upset as she had promised.
.oOo.
There is a comfort in the normalcy. In fending off Icy in bursts of fire and showers of brilliant orange sparks. A comfort in seeing the witch grit her teeth and scowl at her. A comfort in listening to her vow payback as she always had.
There is a woefully depressing edge with all of it. A sense of yearning that comes with remembering how kindly cold her touches had been on those nights in the hospital. A longingness that accompanies those memories.
She misses the ice fairy the way she misses the calm of winter on a hectic summer day. She has only the ice witch now and the woman hurts like ice closing in around her as she sinks beneath the surface of a pond.
"You know, I'm glad that you defeated me, Bloom!" She calls. "Nothing rekindles hatred like a good defeat."
She hadn't exactly meant to say it out loud, but she does. "Then maybe I should let you win."
"Where's the fun in that?" Icy asks.
Bloom shrugs. And she gives it her all. She fights to the best of her ability but today it just isn't good enough. Or maybe it is that Icy is simply fighting with more hatred and force than before. The ice witch looms in front of her, just as she had the day that she had stolen her powers.
She crinkles her nose, "I told you not to hold back, Bloom."
"I'm not." Bloom scowls. And as the witch summons her crystal, Bloom grabs her collar and pulls her forward. She presses her lips against Icy's. A shiver runs through her body at the frostiness. She gives a second shiver when the witch doesn't pull back and a third when she returns the kiss.
.oOo.
She is panting slightly when she does pull back, first her lips and then her whole body. The fairy doesn't make a move. She can't seem to either. It comes back to her in a steady flow; how well those nights in the hospital had been.
She remembers them in shades of orange; the orange of Bloom's hair. The orange of her warmth. And a vivid red-orange of passion. She hasn't been able to shake these things since they happened. Not entirely.
She thinks that the harder she works to suppress the touch of light that remains in her soul, the brighter it shines. And perhaps it is time to give in. Perhaps she should just take the light and roll with it. With care and effort, she supposes that she can be a fairy and still be the biggest asshole in Magix at the same time.
She curls her fingers in Bloom's hair. "I truly hate you."
"That sure is a funny way of saying that you want to kiss me again."
"Witches aren't exactly poetic." She grumbles before pressing her lips to the fairy's once more. She supposes that there's no harm in keeping her enemy close. The return of her kiss is it's own shade of orange. It is a hot breeze in mid-July. It is the merging of dark and light. It is a strange awakening of a magic somewhere between witch and fairy. It is a magic of her own. She lets the light back in.
