Rain poured from the clouds and many were convinced the sky cried. Cried just as they did. Tecna knew it couldn't be true but played with the thought anyway. Why not when the unbelievable had already happened?
Tecna sighed, deciding to grab a jacket. She'd be outside for hours, and fever wasn't something she could afford.
She found Bloom sitting alone in the staffroom, staring the photo on the wall. As much as anyone had tried, it couldn't be removed, even though the door had disappeared soon after everyone had left the hidden room.
How long had it been? Four, five, six days? Even Tecna couldn't say for sure. Time had stopped after the battle ended. The groups had disappeared suddenly when many soldiers looked like they were having seizures. Black, flame-like magic had flashed all over the school and its fields, then came the quiet. The following moment of glee had died down in a blink of an eye when the bad news had been told.
Tecna bit her lip and managed to encourage herself to lay a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Bloom?" There was no reaction, just as she had feared. Bloom had been in denial the whole time. Now that the day of Faragonda's memorial had come, she'd have to face reality. Maybe that was what she was doing.
What ever the case was, it couldn't continue for much longer. "Bloom?"
Bloom's head turned to her. "Oh, Tec. I'm sorry."
Tecna only shook her head silently. "Are you ready to go?"
"You know I'm not. But I'm coming." Bloom chewed her lip, looking a bit ashamed. "Though... Would you mind explaining how this whole thing works again? The last time you told about it I wasn't exactly... Present, if you understand."
Tecna chuckled weakly. "All right, one more time."
It had turned out that memorials were very different in Magix and Earth. Bloom had told about her uncle's funeral, where the family and close friends sat down to hear about the dead person and their life, and after that they'd watch the burial.
In Magix, they had a tradition to turn the corpse into a flower. Depending on the dead person, they'd be either brought to their home planet in all silence and buried there, or they'd have a bigger memorial and then a burial with only few people around the next day. The latter was what was going to happen soon.
The memorial was held at Red Fountain, since Alfea was still under reconstruction. And of course the seats parted to four sections were great for additional structures, like Timmy had told.
There was a narrow bridge coming from each grandstand, and they met in the middle, held by a pillar about six meters above the ground. Tecna watched from her seat as Griselda sauntered to the center and turned the flower from her hand back into the corpse it had been. A snap of fingers and Faragonda's body floated a meter above the center.
The guests were mostly Alfea students, but there were also some colleagues, friends and even few councilmen from the Fortress of Light. One after another they walked up to her to say their last farewells, to shed their last tears.
Tecna noticed a sniffing student sitting back in front of her. Her turn. She hadn't really waited for this moment. It would make everything so final, so permanent. So accepted.
The next moment Tecna found herself standing next to the former headmistress, who was dressed in a flowing white dress. Tecna winced as she looked down. This was one of the times when her photographic memory was more of a curse than a gift. The long scar that ran across Faragonda's neck brought back every bit of their discovery.
It was silent. Bloom's shaking hand reached to the door handle and the wall opened. None of the girls was sure how to process at first, though Tecna noted Flora sniffing the air and soon shrugging it off. Bloom was the first to step over the high doorstep to the small and dim room. The others followed, Stella letting a small sphere of light to fly above them. No shadow escaped its rays nor did the horrifying view in front of them. The headmistress lay lifelessly on the ground.
Bloom, who had been holding back all her emotions, burst into tears. She rushed to the corpse and desperately shook it by the shoulders.
Flora kneeled next to the redhead. "Bloom..." she uttered through strangled weeps and tears."Bloom, let go..."
"Open your eyes!" Bloom cried out. "Open them!" She held Faragonda's slowly paling face in her hands.
Tecna wiped her eye corners. Not many times she had found herself crying. She made her way to the other two and studied the deep, still heavily bleeding wound on Faragonda's neck. "Must have been a sword or something," she mumbled more to herself. Much more logical thoughts didn't pop to her mind at that moment. Not even something to make her move away from the growing blood pool. Is the wound really that fresh...?
Her gaze shot up in a flash, her eyes hollow. "We should have come earlier. We could... We could have prevented this..." The others didn't listen. Maybe it was for the best. What would they think if they realized how their one minute delay cost a life?
And so Tecna kept the guilt all to herself.
Tecna sighed, briefly squeezing Faragonda's hands that were laid on her abdomen. "I'm sorry. We were too late."
She heard someone clearing their throat behind her. "Tecna," Flora said softly.
"Oh. Pardon me." Tecna looked down. "I drifted off."
Flora smiled sadly, trying to pass her friend on the narrow fairway.
Who the hell decided not to have railings on these? Tecna wondered. "Careful now," she warned the split second too late. Flora's foot slipped on the wet surface and as the technology fairy tried to keep her from falling, they both bumped into the corpse, which then wasn't affected by the spell anymore. They both watched in horror as Faragonda's body fell. No one from the grandstands was fast enough to react. But luckily someone else was.
Hagen. Many had wondered if he was even going to attend the memorial. After Faragonda's death he had gone mad. Stella had told that Griselda had found him wrecking the last burnt pieces of furniture in Faragonda's office.
He caught the former headmistress without a problem, like he had waited for it. It was like when Mandracora had attacked. This time only it wouldn't make any difference. Faragonda wasn't going to wake up.
The two girls were silent as they watched Hagen carry the corpse up some stairs and to the center. He held the former headmistress as Tecna put the spell back on.
"I'm so sorry," the pink-haired fairy said, the words coming from the bottom of her heart.
Hagen only briefly glanced at her before turning away and wiping his eye corners. He left without a word.
Flora looked down on Faragonda, wiping a tear of her face. "It looks almost like she's crying too."
Tecna was silent for a moment. Could it really be that Hagen's tear managed to drop right under Faragonda's eye? She shook her head at the thought and tore her gaze from the corpse. "Dead people don't cry."