Okay so here is the day when Musa meets Riven! Conflicted feelings…?
The Voice of Nature
I look like a park ranger. Musa thought as she looked herself over in the mirror in her new uniform for her field study. She was in a class taught by Professor Palladium and he said that the girls would be taking a 'field test' and that they needed to dress appropriately since the year before a girl slipped and the miniskirt she was wearing flew up while her halter top fell down. After that the school decided that it would be best if the girls had appropriate attire for these 'field studies'.
Musa really didn't care what she wore, but she knew that Leslie would probably rolling on the floor ready to bust with laughter if she ever saw her in something so well, ridiculous. Although, Musa did think her legs looked kinda nice in them, and she thought of how much Daniel loved it when she wore skirt. "Shit Daniel!" She yelled to herself.
Musa looked frantically around her room for her phone when she realized that it had been two days since she had talked to Daniel. After she talked to him before the dance, she had been preoccupied and completely forgot about calling him. Throwing around her bedding, Musa finally came across the phone and checked for missed calls.
None.
It had been two days and for as long as she could remember she and Daniel couldn't go more than 8 hours without talking to each other. Why hadn't he called? But of coarse, she could have asked the same question of herself. She wasn't so busy that she couldn't take 20 minutes out of her scheduled to call her boyfriend. But in all honesty, Musa hadn't even thought about him since the day of the dance. It was like she had forgotten that he existed after that night and it wasn't until just now that she remembered. Not even when she talked to Nate this morning, or Isabelle last night. Musa knew why she wasn't thinking of her boyfriend when she should have been, but she wasn't ready to admit the fact that she had let herself get swept away by something as little as a few glances and little moments she had with some Red Fountain guy.
Trying not to feel anymore guilty than she already did, Musa opened her phone and hit Daniel's number, hoping he wouldn't notice that they hadn't talked in a long time.
"Hello?"
"Hey" Musa said in a sweet voice feeling a sudden burst of excitement. Just hearing his voice was enough to make her feel a little better about what was going on.
"You sound familiar," Daniel joked. "But, I just can't seem to remember your name,"
"Funny," Musa said wryly. "What's up?"
"Not much, just getting to class," Daniel said and as Musa listened closer she could hear the hustle and bustle of her old prep school. "How was the dance?"
"Great!" Musa said excitedly trying to focus on the parts Daniel would want to know about. She didn't think she should tell him about the guy she couldn't stop thinking about. And then, feeling a stab of guilt in her gut, Musa felt as if she needed to apologize for not calling him "The dance went great, sorry for not calling,"
"It's okay baby," Daniel said knowing his girlfriend was probably feeling guilty for not calling. "Just glad to know that those Red Fountain guys only made you forget about me temporarily," Daniel finished in a joking manner. He truly meant that as a joke, even though he still felt insecure about the whole thing, he never expected that his words would get twisted into something ugly, and certainly didn't expect what came next.
"Well, you could have called," Musa demanded getting a bit angry for no reason.
"What?" Daniel questioned with obvious confusion in his voice. "I figured you were busy, I mean it's only been like a week since you've been there,"
"Well, don't blame me for not calling when you didn't make the effort yourself," She snapped becoming angry and not really knowing why. It was as if she were trying to pick a fight with him.
"I wasn't blaming you!" Daniel said finally giving up and letting his frustration become evident in his voice. "I was joking Musa,"
"It didn't sound like it," she mumbled into the phone, now clearly upset.
"Well it was and if I didn't know any better, it sounds like someone has a guilty conscious," Daniel stated. He knew Musa, probably better than anyone and he knew that she was not the type to get emotional or angry for no reason. Sure she did overreact now and then, but not about something as stupid as a phone call or a joke. That was why a red flag when off in his head. It was almost as if she was defending herself from something she felt guilty about, all he had implied was that she had forgotten him, but it was in a joking manner and it came from a loving place. So why did she get so defensive over nothing?
"Excuse me!" Musa yelled into her phone deeply offended not realizing that she did indeed have a guilty conscious. She didn't realize, but she was harboring some guilt for dreaming about the guy she saw at the dance a couple of nights ago. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"I was making a joke Musa, a joke," Daniel said to the comment he made earlier. "And not once since I've known you have you ever gotten so defensive about a joke. Well, not unless you felt you needed to defend yourself, almost as if you had something wrong,"
"Are you accusing me of –,"
"No," Daniel stated in a calmer voice. "But the fact that you feel the need to defend yourself when there was no accusation, says something. And the fact that you and I haven't talked in two days, when the longest we used to go was a couple of hours, says something else,"
Overcome with anger and guilt after hearing Daniel's testimony and the pain in his voice, Musa hung up on him and threw the phone to the other side of the room. What was going on? Was she really letting some random person mess up a lifelong relationship? She and Daniel had been in minor spats before, but Musa had never heard that tone in his voice. He seemed upset and hurt about the argument she clearly started, all she could hope was he didn't know why.
But one thing managed to stick in her mind about what he said. Musa knew that the reason that she picked that fight was because of her own issues, but it had only been a week since she got here and already she and Daniel were having problems. This whole long distance thing was not going to be easy by any means, but she needed to make sure that they didn't drift apart. And yet, I the back of her mind, she was thinking about him.
After a few minutes of sitting on her bed and recalling the argument point by point in her mind, Musa heard someone walk into her room. She looked up to see Techna grabbing some stuff in a hurry. "Musa, aren't you finished yet?" she said regarding her roommate's lack of readiness for the felid test that she and all of the other girls would be going on today. "We have to be down in the quad in like 5 minutes,"
"Oh yeah, let me just grab my phone," Musa said trying to shake off the emotions that were stirred up from her argument with Daniel.
"Are you alright?" Asked Techna with a concerned look on her face, she looked a bit flustered for some reason.
"Yeah, fine"
"Okay, well than I will be in the quad, get down their ASAP," Techna instructed with some urgency. Musa nodded dutifully and got up off her bed and began to look for her phone that she had chucked into the corner. Finally, after a few moments of throwing around a couple of CD's and some other things, she found her cell phone lying on the ground. She picked it up and put it in her pocket.
There was no use in opening it, Daniel wasn't calling back anytime soon.
Black mud swamp was everything the name said it would be. It was damp and there were bugs flying around everywhere and the mud was a horrible dark color. And of coarse the unmistakable smell of methane and other swamp gasses that made the place even more repulsive. Not that Musa minded too much, she had always been a fan of the outdoor, not so much so that she spent her time camping, but she loved riding her thoroughbreds back at her castle, or going surfing or something fun like that. But, a swamp wasn't exactly her idea of fun. Not that she was going to be a complaining the whole time, but she had been at dance practice for hours the night before and now she was up early so she could hike around an swamp.
"Now this felid exercise is designed to test your natural ability to listen to the always present voice of nature, each group must navigate their way through black mud swamp and find the crystal clearing. And here is the catch, you may not use any magic, only the voice of nature will be your guide, and remember. It's not enough to hear the voice; you must listen to it as well." Explained professor Palladium. Then with a blink of an eye, he managed to transport himself away with a puff of magic.
"No reason to stand around her and gab, let's start looking," Flora suggested after all the girls exchanged bewildered glances. They all nodded and began on their way to finding the crystal clearing and finished the assignment, it was clear none of them wanted to be in the swamp.
Musa tried to clear her mind of the argument she just had with Daniel, but it was still so fresh in her mind, all she could think of was how much she wanted to call him back and apologize, but her pride wouldn't let her. Besides he did imply that she had done something to betray him, and technically, Musa didn't do anything, she simply looked at a person. She was certainly allowed to do that. (1)
Being so lost in her own thoughts, Musa hadn't realized that she was mindlessly following her friends into a gross mud filled swamp. Finally, when her feet trudged through the viscous mud, Musa snapped out of her previous thoughts and focused back on the problem at hand, getting out of this swamp and maybe getting some peace from Stella's complaining.
"What happened to 'Mud does such wonders to my compaction?' " Musa mocked after Stella finished her bitching and moaning. When she first met Stella, she honestly thought she would be the hardest to get along with, but now she was seeing that Stella was a really great person. Maybe a bit annoying and spoiled, but nothing she wasn't used to from back home. Stella simply gave her a hard look and they all continued on until something stopped them.
Musa stood and listened as she friends began to ponder what was beneath their feet and just as Techna was about to use her magic to Bloom was there, and she stopped her.
"Just use your senses" Bloom said in al calm voice telling the girls to use the voice of nature instead of their magic, and then all the girls took a deep breath.
"Smells like old socks" Stella said not concentrating on the surroundings.
That was when it came to Musa, the smell of the swamp had to be coming from somewhere, and in a swamp that was usually gas. "It's some kind of gas, let's go!" Musa said in a rush as all the girls tried to escape the thick mud as fast as they could. Finally, the entire group was out of the swamp.
Then, attempting to find out what was causing the interruption in their field study, Bloom threw a small part of a log at the large mud bubble and it popped releasing a gray gas that came shouting into the air ominously.
"It's medusal gas," Flora said after examining the look of the gas and it's effect on a neighboring tree. "It would have turned us to stone," Musa took a great big sigh of relief when she found out that they had escaped near tragedy. Not all the girls were taking the escape too well, Techna was being a bit hard on herself for not being on top of things, fortunately Bloom, who was shaping up to be the most empathetic of the group, next to Flora, comforted her.
"Look that tree turned to stone," Flora said and turned the girls' attention to a stone tree. It was crazy in Musa's mind since she had never been in a swamp before, let alone seeing mere gas turn a tree to stone.
"Talk about being statuesque" Stella joked as the girls continued on their way through the swamp.
"So you girls never dished about the guys you were with during the dance," Stella said as the girls walked through the growth of the forest.
"I danced with a prince," Flora said excitedly. "He was nice, but he comes from an industrial realm and something about him didn't seem quite right,"
"How about you Bloom," Stella continued. Musa had noticed that Stella spent most of the night flirting with Prince Sky and when she wasn't with him she was meeting up with her friends to fill them in on all the happenings of her relationship with Sky. Musa on the other hand spent most of the night with Flora, since after she danced with the prince; she decided to fly solo for the rest of the night. That night, it wasn't like Musa was pining away for Daniel, hell she couldn't stop thinking about the guy she kept seeing, but she was so excited about nailing both performances that she was on a high and it seemed like she had finally come off of it this morning.
"Well Sky and I were flirting for awhile," Stella said proudly as Musa zoned back into the conversation. "Oh and Musa you looked great up there dancing, I'm sure you caught a few Red Fountain eyes,"
"I doubt that," Musa said with a slight blush. "But thanks, but I never thought dance team would be so difficult," Musa said trying to covertly change the subject when she felt a stab of guilt when she thought about that guy and about the argument she had with Daniel.
"I wouldn't be so sure," Stella said changing the subject back to a conversation she wanted to have. "I mean come on, there had to be someone you liked at the dance,"
Musa, who was now only thinking about the guy, was trying to figure out how to answer. Telling the girls she had a boyfriend completely slipped her mind, like it had since she had met them.
Then, as if saving her from answering the question, Bloom pointed to the sky and yelled. "Check it out!" Bloom said pointing up to the sky as the girls looked up. "A Red Fountain craft!" the girls watched in horror for a second as the spacecraft fell from the sky. It is smoking and falling to the ground with the heroes inside falling to their doom.
"Hurry they might need help," Bloom continued after a second of initial shock. They run over to the proximity in which they saw the ship fall. Finally when they got to the clearing where the ship landed, or crashed, the girls saw some figures get out of the ship.
"Look who it is!" Stella said happily when she caught to eye of the Prince of Eraklyon.
"You guys okay?" Flora asked sweetly, but by the looks of it all the guys were fine, just a little embarrassed.
"We saw your plane crash," Techna noted as she glanced over to Timmy.
"Hey girls," Brandon said nervously as he fidgeted with his fingers. "Guys, these are the girls from Alfea, Techna, Bloom, Stella, and Flora. Girls, this is –," Brandon said trying to maybe change the subject away from the fact that they had just majorly screwed up.
Musa looked over the guys and realized that they were the same ones that she had met at the dance. Sky, Brandon and Timmy and there was one more. "It wasn't a crash, it was an emergency landing," Interrupted the last specialist with magenta hair and what seemed like a perma-scowl on his face.
'Oh my god!' Musa thought to herself. 'It's him!' Musa looked over to Riven, even though he had yet to notice her presence in front of him, she felt completely different then she did all day. She felt her heart flutter and her palms get sweaty. This was the exact guy that was looking at her at the dance, and the one she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of. The thought of Daniel that he existed was completely wiped from Musa's memory. All she could think about was this guy, he was friends with Sky and Brandon and Musa felt herself get a bit excited at the possibility that she might be seeing him some more.
Finally, after he finished making an excuse as to why their ship had crashed, or made and emergency landing, he looked over to her. Musa caught his glance and the two seemed to stare at each other for a few seconds, and luckily for the both of them, none of their friends managed to catch them in the act. Riven, who was still sporting a scowl on his face managed to change it a bit and he looked more like he was intrigued and a bit taken a back at the same time. Musa on the other hand smiled a foolish smile and unconsciously bit down on her finger, not realizing how innocent and appealing she looked when she did it. She did however; notice the look on his face afterward.
Maybe she was wrong, but it looked like she wasn't the only one feeling an attraction. Musa was quickly snapped out of her thought about her hero when she heard a panicked outcry from Prince Sky.
"The troll got away," yelled Prince Sky as he looked over to the other end of the swamp and saw footprints leading into the swamp.
With that there was a sudden outburst of talking by the girls who all seemed pretty concerned with the fact that the heroes had let a troll escape into the relatively safe swamp. Well, not safe swamp, but it was a hell of a lot more dangerous now that there was a troll running around.
We didn't let anything escape," Riven excused again. "We had an accident. The ship malfunctioned."
"Mechanical failure," Timmy agreed. There was no need to go into finger pointing now.
And then, as if there situation couldn't get to worse, Musa and the rest of the girls heard Prince Sky yell that the shackles came loose.
"They came loose?" Al the girls nearly shouted in unison. Musa looked at the guys and it looked like they all felt a bit embarrassed since they crashed a ship and now the girls that they were courting were there. She couldn't help but feel bad for Brandon and Sky and even Timmy, since he was getting rather cozy with Techna at the dance.
"What are you girls doing here anyway?" Brandon asked the girls as if he was trying to change the subject. Musa felt bad for him, she really did, it was obvious at the dance that he was trying to impress Bloom and now he looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.
"A field exercise for nature class," Bloom answered almost flirtatiously.
"So then get back to your little exercise girl and leave this problem to the specialists," Said Musa's mystery man, who kind of put her off by the comment.
"And when are the specialists going to get here?" Stella asked Riven in response to his chauvinistic order. She said it in a mocking and sweet way to make sure that he knew that she was mocking him, and by the look on his face, her hit her mark.
"Oh snap!" Musa said out of the blue. He looked up at Musa and dropped the glare he had toward Stella and after a second her had his scowl back. Musa was a bit amused by him in his mysteriousness, he was new and unfamiliar. Not to mention he had the killer bad boy thing going on. Every good girls wants a bad boy, the saying never had more truth to it.
Musa wasn't sure if this guy was going to say anything back to Stella, but she had a feeling from the angered look on his face, that he wasn't going to let this one go. "Listen you privileged little princess –"
"What Riven wants to say is that it might be best if you just leave to troll to us and get back to your class assignment," Sky interrupted before Riven could finish the sentence. Musa could only guess that it was because what Riven was about to say was not exactly PG. But one thing she did pull from the comment was that his name was 'Riven' and if she remembered correctly, it was the guy that Brandon mentioned at the dance. It was crazy how things happened like that.
"I can tell her to bug off myself," Riven nearly snarled with obvious agitation etched all over his face.
"But what if the troll runs into the other girls from our class?" Techna asked all the specialists with a genuine look of concern on her face.
"Just stay out of our way so we can take care of it, you go it?" Riven said shortly answering for all of his friends. "Come on guys, let's go. Let's not waste any more time here."
With that, the specialists all shrugged and went along on their way, leaving the girls standing alone. Even though Riven acted like a royal ass in their first official encounter, Musa was still so enthralled by him. She could just tell that there was more to him than what met the eye. There was no way that he acted like an ass for the hell of it, if he did then he wouldn't have such great friends. Musa had only known the boys for a few days, but she did like them, they seemed like genuinely nice guys and if they were friends with Riven, then Riven had to have some good qualities. And the musical fairy was no determined to find them.
"Maybe we should go along with them," Bloom suggested.
"You mean after the crummy tude Riven gave us?" Stella questioned
"Yeah he was rude, I say we get back to our assignment and let Riven deal with it," Flora said getting a bit of attitude, more so than Musa had ever heard come from her mouth.
"Flora's right Bloom, if Riven wants to get eaten. I say bon appetite, right?" Stella said with a bit iciness in her voice. Musa said nothing during their rag session on Riven because she felt like she wanted to defend him, not that he deserved it, but still.
"That's not quite what I said, but –," Flora said trying to correct herself for her uncharacteristically cold comment.
"Something strange here, did you guys notice the hole in the ship," Techna said changing to subject, much to Musa's relief since she didn't want to hear he friends talk about Riven anymore. "The burn marks outlining the perimeter indicated that the hole was created outside the ship while it was still in flight."
"So you mean somebody shot down the ship?" Flora inquired.
"Yes, it looks that way." Techna continued as they looked at the ship after the guys left.
"If that's so I guess we should investigate," Flora suggested. Right after she finished Musa let out a loud groan of frustration.
"If I ever say, hey lets go hang out in a swamp, remind me that I really hate swamps," Musa said sarcastically as she lagged a bit behind from the group. She swung her arms in front of her and walked like a child that was just denied candy.
The girls continued on their way following the footprints that the troll left when all of the sudden, they stopped. At first Bloom and Musa looked around the swamp to see if maybe the ogre jumped, but no such luck. "They totally disappeared up ahead, he found a way to level walk to shake up our follow," Musa said as she knelt down to look at the footprint closely, while Stella yammered on and on about the most random things, like what size shoes a troll would have. Bloom nodded and Flora thought about what could have happened.
"The troll must have cast a spell," She reasoned logically, thinking
"Except trolls can't do that," Techna pointed out
"Which means someone else is in the swamp," Bloom finished.
"Some who might be watching us," Techna pointed out in a cautious tone. As if this day hadn't been weird enough, Musa had to skulk through a swamp, then she saw Riven again and now she was searching for a troll and whoever let him loose.
"How are we supposed to find him with out the foot prints?" Flora pointed out
"Yeah, we can't just call out here trolly trolly trolly," Musa said as she made her way through the thick mud. It seemed like a day wasn't a day without having to find some source of evil or wrongdoing, not that she minded, it was pretty exciting.
"Maybe the voice of nature can give us a clue," Bloom said excitedly. It was clear that she was excited to be using her powers.
"Yeah, the voice of nature," Flora agreed confident with that they could figure this out.
"What do you mean voice, I can't hear a thing," Techna pointed out a little frustrated with herself for not being able to hear this voice of nature. She wasn't the only one though, Musa who was supposed to have super hearing because she was the princess of a musical realm, wasn't able to hear the voice either. As she and the girls looked around the swamp and concentrated on nature, they all tried to hear some type of signal from nature. Unfortunately, most of the girls came up short.
"He went that way through the thicket," Bloom said confidently pointing to an ominous part of the swamp that, by the look on everyone's face, nobody wanted to go in.
"Are you sure about that," Stella asked in a very skeptical and scared tone.
"I know it looks all creepy in there, but something is telling me that's the right way," Bloom insisted. But, Musa and the rest of the girls still weren't convinced.
"Yeah" Flora said in agreement. "I feel it too, I'm getting a strong vibe," Finally, the other three gave into Bloom and Flora and reluctantly agreed.
"Okay, let's go guys," Bloom encouraged as the girls began to follow her. Musa then groaned loudly and continued to follow her friends. She began to think about everything was going on, she began to realize that Daniel seemed to slip her mind every time she saw Riven, or he was brought up. She had known him, officially anyway, for about a couple hours, and already she getting giddy whenever she caught a glance of him. And when he looked at her, it was even better. She was supposed to be having these kinds of feelings for Daniel and now she was feeling something weird for Riven. She hated today.
And what made it worse was she was trudging through mud and what looked like animal crap. The swamp was really beginning to get on her nerves, if it wasn't the smell that was getting annoying it was the fact that every couple of seconds something new was trying to kill her. She had never been the type of girl to freak out when there was a bug on her, but having mud between your toes was a little unsettling for her and a bath seemed like heaven at this point. But, it wasn't all bad, she was having a little fun since she was around her new friends and even though she was denying it to herself, Musa was excited about the possibility of seeing Riven again.
Musa, who was no longer trailing behind, had managed to get her spirits up. She had decided that looking at the negatives, it was better not to think about her argument with Daniel. Then as if the universe was trying to make her feel bad again, Musa felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and she opened it to see a text message from Leslie. 'Daniel's a bit angry, you okay?' Musa prompt shut the phone. She was not in the mood to deal with that now.
The swamp was filled with creatures Musa had never even heard of. Musa had never gone camping or anything like that before so she thought it might have been because she was never really exposed to that kind of thing. But that was when she saw flowers that looked kind of like tulips. The girls continued to follow Bloom's lead when they all fell silent at Flora's command. "Be very quiet, I know these plants, they are quietus carnivourus," Flora said putting her finger in front of her mouth. "They hate noise,"
These were the same ones that Musa saw earlier. Good thing she didn't go and try to pick one like she had thought of doing.
"Really?" Stella asked a bit challengingly with a look of mischief. "Let's see," With that Stella blew a loud whistle with her fingers and noticed that nothing happened. "See nothing happened."
Musa couldn't help but laugh at what happened next. Stella was then pulled up by the agitated plant and swung back and forth. As Bloom tried to quiet the screaming princess, the rest of the girls stood completely still to not further annoy the already agitated plants.
"Stop screaming Stella," Bloom said quietly hoping the princess would mimic her tone. Finally after a couple more seconds of seeing Stella flailing around on the vine, she was dropped and landed on her ass.
"You okay?" Musa whispered feeling bad for laughing when Stella was grabbed by the plant. Btu she did feel better when Stella let out a giggle and nodded.
"No sudden noise okay," Flora reminded in a stricter tone, this time looking straight at Stella, who nodded dutifully.
"Help!" Flora cringed when the girls all turned when they heard a familiar voice yell.
"Need a hand?" Stella asked as if seeing them tied up against the vines was the most normal thing in the world.
"Stay way. These vines belong to incredibly dangerous, blood thirsty man eating plants!" Riven warned as he moved around a bit trying to get loose, sounding like a bad actor on a trashy soap opera. The girls looked at him with raised eyebrows, he was making it seem like they were all going to get killed and never seen again.
"They only eat loud mouths so you should pipe down," Musa ordered in a harsh tone, she didn't know why but a part of her blamed Riven for how she was feeling. And at the same time she was really happy to see him again and if someone had asked her just then what was the name of her boyfriend, she would have blanked. Or worse she would have said Riven's name. Musa didn't know how else to say it, but she was very physically attracted to him, but it was just a physical attraction, she pushed away the thought and smiled at him. She didn't want him to think she was a bitch, for some reason she really cared about what he thought about her.
"Everything's okay, little plants. Just relax," Flora cooed to the plants as they slowly loosened their grip around the boys and they were all very happy when they all managed to get free, although they all had very embarrassed looks on their faces.
"Quick. Let's get away from these things," Bloom whispered to the entire group. They all walked out to a clearing where all there were no quietus carnivorous in sight. Musa and the rest of the girls looked away from the predicament that they were in and saw Bloom and Brandon whispering to each other. They all stared for a second when Stella decided to speak up and tell them that there was no need to be so hush hush, and in doing so, break up whatever was going on with them.
"Hello! No need to whisper any more. We got away remember?" Stella said in a matter a fact tone. The two then looked back and saw the rest of the group stifling laughs.
Bloom paused for a second and then made a suggestion. "I think we should all look for the troll together from now on. Safety in numbers and all," Bloom said and looked over to the girls, who all knew why she wanted to team up with the guys, but it seemed like a good idea, and Musa wasn't against the idea either, Riven might have been a jackass, but there was something about him that made Musa really want to know him better. Not to mention they could use the help if they ever wanted to get out of the swamp.
"Sounds good to me." Flora agreed and Musa nodded in agreement as well.
"Me too." Sky said excitedly, again everyone knew why.
Musa was beginning to think that this would make their field study a lot more fun when Riven decided to say something that really got under her skin. She was trying desperately to overlook what he had said earlier, but this was not helping. "No way I'm teaming up with these girls." He spat out sounding like a five year old that didn't want to get coodies from a bunch of girls. Musa was starting to feel embarrassed about the attraction she felt towards him, and yet she wanted to give him a chance to redeem himself.
"You're on your own then, buddy," Sky smirked as he threw a hard look over to his friends, almost as if he were begging him to cooperate. "And if you find the troll just give us a shout." He joked as the group turned around and began to walk away.
Riven then joined the group reluctantly and looked over to Musa, still scowling as if he were being dragged against his will. Musa then walked up to him and said something in a conversational tone. "Glad to see you're perking up sunshine," she said smiling at him. She figured that he was the type of guy that was not quick to open up, which made her like him more, she was far too used to the kind of guy that acted like he cared about you and smooth talked his way in and out of trouble. And then there was that aire about him, like he didn't care about anything, adding to the bad boy thing Musa was feeling so pulled to.
"Don't worry, we don't have coodies, by the way, I'm Musa. " She said with a sly smile feeling her pulse quicken when she gently brushed pass him to catch up to Flora. She wasn't sure if she should try to talk to him or not, but for now she was going to just let things sit. She had a quick flashback to the way he was looking at her at the dance and suddenly felt some confidence on where she stood with him, it was nice to know that she may not have been the only one with these feelings. Musa didn't know this, but she left him looking at her with a sense of wonder and a deeply rooted attraction.
"You seem happy," Flora pointed out to Musa with a knowing look on her face. Even though Flora and Musa didn't share a room, they had become really good friends over the last week or so and it looked like it was probably because she and Flora had a lot of classes together.
"Who doesn't want to kick some troll butt?" Musa asked even though she had a feeling that Flora was referring to something else. Flora nodded when she figured out that Musa didn't want to admit there was something else going on. She let it go an decided to humor Musa for now. But, it was going to become hard for Musa to deny since she and Riven kept looking at each other.
We'll have to hop our way across." Techna said as the group arrived at a pond that would take way to long to walk around. "We will have to hop on these clumpatures,"
"Good Luck," Musa said staring at the clumaptures, she was not familiar with these specific types of plants that were floating along the water's edge. They didn't look very stable, but Musa was a pretty good swimmer, so if worse came to worse, she could probably swim across if she did happen to fall, but she did have an issue with the murkiness of the water. It would be scary not being able to see what you're swimming in. Or Riven could jump in and save me She thought to herself and smiled at the ridiculous notion, one of his friends would jump in after her way before he did.
"Thanks," Techna said in almost a whisper as if one extra sound wave would have made the clumpatures fall in to the lake and drag her down along with it. After Techna got her balance, she jumped to another and smiled.
"Come on guys. It's fun!" Techna shouted to the rest of the group that was still on dry land.
Stella and Musa were the next two to follow Techna. They exchanged looked before venturing onto their clumpatures. And as Musa had expected, they were really unstable, but not too bad. They seemed steady for a couples of seconds but then they began to sway from side to side dangerously. But, if she could do a 4 minute dance routine in heels, she could do this.
"My clumpatures wobbly," Flora said as she tried to steady herself and tired not fall into the mud filled water.
"Mine too!" Stella complained with a shriek.
"Same here. They're really unsteady," Bloom agreed. Musa was about to agree but there was no need to say the same thing four times, plus she was a little scared since she could feel herself sinking as the clumpature went down into the water.
"I believe the key to this whole enterprise is that you must keep moving. You must not stay still," Techna deduced after she jumped and found that it was a lot easier to jump around on the clumpatures then stand on one too long.
"Alright," Stella said with some enthusiasm and began to follow in Techna's example. The rest of the girls nodded and began to move quickly from one clumapture to the other, and the boys followed. Every now and again Musa would turn ever so slightly to see that it wasn't just the clumpatures that Riven was looking at. She couldn't help but blush, luckily nobody was able to see that on her face and if they did she could pass it off as being tired and out of breath.
Musa continued to hop along when she and Brandon found themselves in a bit of a predicament. "Hey, there's no clumpatures near by," Brandon said to Musa who was standing a few feet behind him. "I guess this calls for a double jump."
Musa then jumped onto the clumapture that Brandon just leapt off of and watched as he successfully landed on one that was really far away. "Nice one!" Musa said as she looked at the distance he managed to cover and got a little scared knowing she could not possibly jump as far as he just did.
"It's jump or swim (2) ," Brandon called when he realized that Musa hadn't followed him after he had completed his jump and judging by the terrified look on her face, she didn't want to either. "Not as hard as it looks," he called out in encouragement as he continued on his way, since the clumpatures on that side of the pond were becoming increasingly
unstable. Musa nodded and rallied up all her courage to jump across the divide that seemed to have gotten bigger since she had taken so long on deciding on whether she would jump or not. She landed perfectly and heard Bloom and Brandon say "Nice one!" at the same time. She smiled at the encouragement and hopped on a few more clumpatures and made her way to the other end and finally got back on land.
Musa smiled gleefully at her accomplishment let out a relived sign. Just then she heard a splash and looked back to the pond and saw that Riven was in the water. Suddenly her smile faded and she only became more worried when she heard Brandon say. "No!" With extreme worry in his voice and eyes.
While hopping along the clumpatures, it was easy to tell that the current was a lot stronger than it seemed. They pushed the clumpatures around so quickly that it was very necessity to move quickly. If Musa hadn't made that long jump, then it would have been her going under. Musa looked at the whole scene completely terrified. She did however feel a lot better when she saw Riven resurface and attempt to swim, but it was evident that he was being pulled back into the current.
Techna, who had fallen behind so that she could be in Timmy's proximity while they were hopping around on the clumpatures, quickly grabbed hold of Riven's hands and tried to pull him out of the water. He may have been a jerk, but he was still a part of their group. "Gotcha! Hold on Riven!"
Timmy, who was now on land as well, turned to see Techna grabbing Riven trying to pull him out of the water and it looked like she wasn't able to. "Don't let go of me." Riven managed to say as the current pull on him.
"She's slipping!" Stella cried out with terror when Techna slipped into the water and began to lose her footing on the slipper bed of the pond. Luckily for her and Riven, Timmy managed to get a hold of Techna's ankles and pulled her back with all of his strength.
"Gotcha!" Timmy yelled to her. "Don't worry. I'll get you out of here Techna," he told her and by the look on Techna's face, she believed him, but when he felt himself slipping, the rest of the group began to pull on Timmy.
"Heave! Heave!" yelled Stella to cheer on the group and finally Riven was pulled from the muddy current. Once on land Brandon, Sky, Bloom, Techna, Timmy, and Riven collapsed onto the ground happily and tried to catch their breath.
Musa gave a sigh of relief when she saw that all of her friends were okay, and she went to Techna to make sure she was alright, since going to Riven was out of the question.
"Bet you're glad you teamed up with us girls now, aren't you Riven?" Stella teased with a smug smile on her face. And judging by the look on Riven's face, he was not amused.
"Yeah, whatever," he grumbled as he stood up and really hoped that he wouldn't fall over, he was still a little dazed from everything that happened. And he was not going to let that comment go. "I would have gotten out. Come on, get up. Let's go already." He spat out and skulked away just as he had done earlier.
Musa was now very irritated by him. In the length of one day he had managed to snipe and bitch at them a million times when all the girls did then entire time was help him. Frustrated by the unwanted feelings she was having and by the fact that he had been an ungrateful ass all seemed to add up into one big ball, that and the combination of anger she had towards herself that day, made her want to just yell and rip into Riven. Who the hell did he think he was? Musa walked in the direction where Riven was when Timmy stopped her. "I know he's hard to deal with, but he's just a little rough around the edges," Timmy excused as he fixed his glasses and Brandon and Bloom walked up to them as well.
"Yeah, what Timmy said," Brandon said with some disappointment in his voice, be would have continued, but he was cut off by a loud roar that was coming from a clearing up ahead.
"That's our boy!" Sky yelled to the rest of the group. The guys gave a sigh of relief when they found out that they knew where the troll was, now they could at east lessen their punishment to just being punished for crashing a ship. It would have been a great moment if another scream didn't follow the first one. Instantly, the heroes ran to where they heard the scream and a few seconds after it processed in their minds, the girls followed.
"That's Amaryl!" Bloom said with terror in her voice.
"Don't worry! We'll get her out of there!" Sky assured her right before they got a good vantage point of the situation.
"They're trapped!" Bloom exclaimed, pushing a bush aside. "That's the same troll that was working with Knut. We've got to do something before he turns those girls into fairy dust!" The heroes kept a brave face, but it was a sticky situation since the three girls were trapped and there was no easy way of getting them to safely without having to deal with the troll.
"Alright everybody. I've got a plan. Phase one; the girls distract the troll!" Sky said bringing the group together.
The girls all stared at Sky like he had to be kiddig, there was no way that they were going to be casually used as distractions for a troll! It was bigger than all of them, he couldn't have been serious. "I hope that the troll eats the girls isn't phase two."
"No way because Brandon and Timmy will pin him down," Sky explained. "Then Riven and I jump in and slip the shackles on him." Sky finished, even thought it didn't make any of the girls seem at ease. They still had be distraction for a crazy troll.
"Sound like a plan," Techna said a bit reluctantly with skepticism, but it's not like she had a better idea.
"Hey there umm big guy, remember us?" Bloom said nervously as they approached the toll.
"Long time no see," Stella began. "Well don't be a stranger, come her and pass out hugs," Stella blurt out nervously. Musa stood there wide eyed and scared half to death. She trusted that the guys would get in there and restrain the beast, but staring at a 10 foot troll and not being able to use your magic was daunting. After a second, the troll came after them.
When they were a safe distance away, the girls turned around and witnessed the heroes at work. Musa couldn't help but worry when she watched the guys try to take down the troll. They were obviously trying hard, but the troll was winning hands down. For a second they had the troll pinned, but the next second the troll threw them off of it. All the guys seemed to land safely except for Riven whose head was squeezed in the palm of the troll's hand. Musa watched in horror hoping that they would all come out of this okay. Finally, after a few seconds, Riven was freed from the troll's grasp, but all the guys were thrown again and the troll was free once again.
"Oh no!" Stella screamed and pointed at the troll as he began to run back into the cover of the swamp. "He's getting away,"
"I thought you went to school for bravery, not botchery," Amaryl said in the bitchiest tone they had ever heard and then giggled and ran away. And her comment didn't only upset the guys, who put themselves on the line to save them, but the girls were pretty upset by it too. Brandon and Timmy walked off on their own, while Riven sat down and Sky went to Stella.
Musa stood with Techna and Flora not sure if she should see if Riven was alright, he hit the ground pretty hard and at the same time she was rather annoyed with him, but his friends were noble and he had been out there fighting as well, he had to covering up a personality that he didn't want to reveal. Musa decided to walk away and leave him alone since she really didn't have anything to say to him.
A few minutes later the girls could hear them arguing, and even though it was getting a bit annoying, there was some humor in it. It was because it had been a long day and tensions were high. In addition to that they hadn't completed the mission they were told to do so it made sense that they were arguing. Finally after a few more minutes of bickering, they managed to get over it and focus on the task at hand.
"Come on," Riven said after he and Sky had finished arguing. "We have a troll to catch,"
"I think we should listen to the voice of nature," Flora suggested. The girls nodded and the guys simply followed along since they had no other choice or plan and it was getting kind of late.
"What do you hear now, Bloom?" Brandon asked a few minutes later when they were even deeper into the swamp.
"Well, it's not really a sound," Bloom said still concentrating on the surroundings. Musa stood trying to help, but she still couldn't manage to hear anything except distant voices of her classmates. She could lock onto sounds hundreds of feet away, but the voice of nature was too elusive for her.
"Yeah Brandon. The voice of nature is something that you feel inside," Flora said trying to better explain Bloom's explanation.
"Huh? Well I've been trying and I can't feel anything at all," Sky said with a confused look on his face.
"I can't feel this voice of nature either," Techna said "I'm from a wired realm, but believe me; we can trust Bloom and Flora on this."
"Yeah, Techna's right, Bloom and Flora have been pretty dead on about this today," Musa agreed.
"What?" Riven asked in an almost irritated tone, but it was as if he stopped himself. He then looked over to Musa and didn't acknowledged her at all, but for a second they locked eyes, but they were immediately pulled from the staring contest they were having when Bloom spoke up.
"The feeling stops here." She said in an almost confused voice. It didn't make much sense, where could the troll possibly have gone.
"So where's the troll?" Sky asked as he and the rest of the guys looked around the dense vegetation of the swamp.
"Gone, but I sense something else, something cold." Bloom said trying to figure out what nature was telling her.
"There's really negative energy in the air here," Stella agreed.
"Yeah and it feels like something happened here," Musa added finally being able to sense something, it wasn't much but there was a definite bad vibe coming from the whole area.
"I feel it too, singed ions indicate dark magic," Techna informed the group implying that there were singed ions in the vicinity.
"So someone used dark magic to make the troll vanish," Sky question still a bit confused as to where this was going.
"But who?" Timmy questioned aloud to the group.
"Well, we know the troll works for Knut and we know that Knut is the grunt for the three witches," Musa said beginning to put together the pieces of information that they had collected about the witches over the last couple of days and over their encounters with them.
"Yeah. You think those three are the ones that shot us down?" Brandon asked her, and Riven suddenly had an overwhelming desire to hit his friend for so much as directing a question to the fairy.
"Look!" Bloom said as she bent down and picked up something from the swamp floor. While the boys looked as confused as they did as when they started talking about the voice of nature, Musa and the rest of the girls knew exactly what Bloom was getting at.
"Those look like duck feathers," Techna said with a knowing tone.
"And isn't someone we know being stalked by a duck because of a spell we put on her?" Bloom said referring to the night of the dance.
"Icy," Musa said in an almost ominous voice.
"It looks like we got the proof we need," Flora pointed out.
"But what are they up to? We've got to find out!" Bloom said getting a second wind ready to work all night if it came down to that.
"How about we work on this tomorrow," Musa suggested feeling the ache in her feet. "We still have a long walk ahead of us,"
"No you don't," Timmy said as he pointed up to the sky. He was looking up at a brand knew Red Fountain craft ready to land right below them. "I put out a signal when our ship crashed and explained to Saladin what happened when I sent it out. He put a ship on autopilot to the coordinates in my hero's personal assistant," Timmy explained with some confidence. (3)
The group looked at Timmy with great relief. Musa wanted to run up and hug the specialist, but that probably wouldn't have been the best idea. She was just so happy to have a ride back to the crystal clearing instead of having to navigate all the way back.
"So you girls wanna ride back with us?" Sky said flashing his best smile at Stella.
The girls didn't say anything, they simply followed the guys back aboard the ship and look their seats. Musa closed her eyes for a second and felt like she could fall asleep right there. A small patch of turbulent air however, cause the fairy to wake from her quick nap. She looked around to see Bloom with Brandon, Timmy, Techna and Flora talking and Stella practically sitting on Sky's lap and helping him with a few cuts and scrapes he got. She then looked over to Riven who was sitting in the corner with the scowl that Musa was now coming to love. Saw he was cut up a bit on his arm, and decided this might be a nice time to talk to him,
Musa walked up to him with the disinfectant spray that was sitting on the empty chair next to Stella, not that the princess of solairia noticed, she was too busy with Sky.
"I don't need your he –," Riven said before he was cut off by the severe sting of the disinfectant seeping into his cut.
"Oh it might sting," Musa said innocently after she noticed the quick grimace on Riven's face. He was quick to change it back to his normal look of indifference, but she caught it. He remained silent while Musa put a bandage on the cut and felt the ship land. It was clear that neither of them wanted to bring up how they had seen each other at the dance, or the fat that they kept staring at each other, but neither of them could deny the attraction that they felt. Musa would not have normally been so forward with someone, but she had never felt like this before and it was becoming clear to her, even though she didn't want to admit it, that this was becoming more than a physical attraction. "You don't need my help, but you never said you didn't want it," Musa pointed out as soon as she was finished. Riven didn't reply but Musa could tell that he wanted to say something remotely nice, but something was holding him back.
"Here you are girls," Sky said as he landed the ship. Musa then stood up and walked out of the ship.
The guys stood in the entrance of the doorway to the ship and said their goodbyes to the girls. Riven however leaned against the wall of the ship with his arms crossed. He felt the bandage that Musa put on his arm and looked over to Musa. She looked down and gave a shy smile, that she was sure looked goofy and then turned around and walked away.
Back at the dorm, the first thing Musa did was hop in the shower. It felt so good to wash off the mud and everything else that managed to get all over her that day. When she inished her shower she saw her phone sitting on her bed and thought of the boyfriend she had completely forgotten about that day.
On some level she knew she should have been thinking about Daniel instead of Riven, but it was so weird when she was around him. Musa wanted to call and apologize and get the guilt off her chest, but she was pretty sure it wouldn't. The guilt was being caused by her feelings for Riven and she wasn't going to confess that to her boyfriend. It will pass. Musa told herself. It was some stupid crush and like all crushes she would be over it soon enough. She was too scared to call Daniel right now, he might pick up on something in her voice and he would know that she was lying when she said there was nothing going on.
After deciding to call Daniel the next day, Musa walked into Bloom's room where all the girls were congregated. She leaned against the wall since her feet still ached from the long day and talked to her friends. "I've been thinking," Bloom said after they had finished talking about the ridiculous test they were going to have in potions the next day. "We're a really awesome group and we should have an awesome name," Bloom began. "What do you think?"
"Actually, it sounds like a good idea," Techna said thinking about the positives of having a team name. "A name is good for quick reference,"
"A name would give us that certain something," Stella pointed out. "We could be the wonder five or the Stella five," she continued, her eyes going starry when she thought of their group being named after her. "Or B.S.M.T.F!" she finished the most excitedly.
"B.S.M.T.F?" Musa questioned softly from against the wall. She didn't really get the letters, but it was probably because she was tired and it was probably affecting her thinking.
"Check it, Beauty, Style, Magic, Taste, and Flare," Stella said counting with her fingers. "And those are all the first initials of out names,"
"Nah, that's way too cheesy," Musa said brushing away the idea.
"I say Bloom picks it," Flora suggested. All the girls agreed and eventually Stella was on board.
"Really?" Bloom asked excitedly and she went into her drawer in her nightstand. "Cause I did come up with a little something, and I even made a logo, check it out," She pulled out a cloth with the word 'Winx' written on it. Musa was a little confused by this since winx was the power fairies drew from.
"We're the Winx Club," Bloom said excitedly and the girls agreed that it was the perfect name.
After a few more minutes of talking, all the girls decided to head off to bed. Musa lay in her bed with a million things running through her mind, the primary one being Riven. She smiled at the thought of him and decided that she would let this crush take it's course and not let it affect her relationship with Daniel, and until then she didn't mind letting her mind drift to him.
1.Umm can you say denial? She has it bad for Riven...how cute!
2. I never understood why the guys were only close to their crushes. Like there was a rule that you couldn't be close to your crush's friend. I mean it would make sense that the guys would try to get on the good side of the friends of the girl they are trying to impress. So I figured I would throw this in to add some lines of communication to all of the characters, not just the pairings.
Next chapter - A Date with Destiny
xoxo
princessm