Verboten
Chapter 30

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Disclaimer: I do not own the Winx Club. I do not profit from it.

"Bloom, calm down! I can see that it's Gauntlos but there's no point in getting angry at something that has already happened!" Sky grabbed Bloom by the waist before she went running after the memory.

"But what the hell is he doing here?! He shouldn't be here!" she screamed hoarsely.

"I don't know but if you don't calm down, we're just going to waste time. Roxy is our first priority! We can look at memories later and see how we can conserve them for later investigation."

"But—"

"Bloom, we're still inside Roxy who apparently wants to forget because these are obviously not her memories."

"Then what should we do?" Bloom leaned herself against the alley wall. Her eyes felt heavy like she wanted to sleep. It was all becoming too much. "And what about Asta?"

"She should be doing her job trying to find Roxy, too. Hey, hey, keep your eyes open, Bloom." Sky snapped his fingers in front of her. "You can't sleep here."

"I'm tired."

"Well, screaming like that drained you. Com'on, get on my back. I'm going to follow them since they are the center of the memory."

Bloom reluctantly hopped on to his back. Sky followed Shang and Kasimir intently.

What was she supposed to feel? The only thing that came to mind was absolute horror. What was he doing in Roxy's mind? Where had these memories come from? The White Circle.

Yes, that must have been it.

That screaming people, fire, medieval hell.

Ceasarina.

No, get the hell back. Bloom shoved the memory to the back of her mind, with behemoth ferocity.

"Bloom, we know that the Black Circle is immune to fairy magic."

"Yeah."

"They can convert your magic and use it against you."

"Yeah."

"Ever thought of sending a real witch up against them instead? Surely, that would surprise them."

"What—like Nabu?" she said incredulously as if she were being fired from her job. His suggestion jarred her as it changed the entire dynamics of their battle and destroying the comfortable environment of it all. Thinking back, has she ever seen a witch-on-witch fight? What would it look like? Oh, that sounded dangerous as a nuclear explosion.

"Yeah, and maybe some of my own…"

"Asta, too?"

"Well, there are more people than her but…are you offended by the idea?"

"Honestly, what is her problem, Sky? Why is she so mean to me?"

"Don't think it's natural enmity because you're a fairy and she's a witch. She doesn't hate you for that."

"Then why?"

"Not to brag or anything but Asta would have made a really good actress if she had went that way."

"Sky, she's like fifteen still!"

"She's pretty good-looking for someone who's twenty-one. Anyways, she wanted to go into the police force at home but first she needed extensive studying at a better school. She went to University of Magix to get a degree in applied sciences on military scholarship. Back then, she wasn't a citizen of Eraklyon."

"Where's she from?"

"I'm not allowed to disclose that out of migration policies. She transferred over to Eraklyon midway through your last year at Alfea when the Valtor conflict was rising to a dangerous peak—just after Valtor tricked the Faragonda, Griffin and Saladin into fighting each other."

"But what about school? How did she transfer to Eraklyon?"

"She dropped out—"

"What the hell, Sky?!" Oh, this Asta character was getting trickier and trickier. Was she freeloading off of Sky now?

"Just listen for a moment. Brandon and I had to personally go and pick her up from her apartment because the city was so crazy after the fight. It was so insane, Bloom. The day after, I get this phone call from her saying that she needs to get out of the city because some apartments caught on fire the night before and there are assholes standing in her apartment lobby harassing her and the neighbours. The place was like a bloody massacre waiting to happen. I know that we live outside of the city and therefore outside of city jurisdiction but I was really scared that she was going to get killed or that she was going to kill them herself."

"She's not that tough, Sky."

"Yes, she is, Bloom. Take the image of a cold-hearted calculative killer out of your mind. If people have to kill to survive, so be it. She's not afraid of killing, she's afraid of why she kills. She wants to kill for the right reasons."

Bloom raised her head, jarred by the idea. "Murder can't be justified."

"Bloom, sorry to burst your bubble, but it can in Magix. There expression is 'It's not the knife that kills but the hand who holds it.'"

The fire fairy's heart chilled at the idea. "So what happened after she called you?"

"We went to her place and got her but it just got worst. We found out that her neighbours had kids and we go 'Shit, we can't leave them.' She lived in a low-cost apartment with newer families. One of those really cheap crappy apartments that was just waiting to crumble." Bloom could hear Sky's voice rise dangerously. "Literally, it was in the witch ghettoes. It was a piece of crap that had been demolished last year to clear the land for newer construction. Riot police did shit until the third day when a lot of people were playing hooky in the witch district and the place had to be gassed," Sky gritted out.

Bloom was almost afraid to ask. "How come I never knew this?"

"Did you watch news often at Alfea?"

"No, there's like no TVs and I can't understand some of it."

"It was on local news only and being covered up anyways. We had to get in from the back of the building and pack Asta and some of the neighbours in the car. The only safe place I could put them was the Eraklyon embassy so that's where I put them. After that, Asta was like comatose for a week, like she was shock with pale skin and lots of fidgeting. It took a long time, Bloom, until she got out of it and even then, I don't think she's let go of it. I was horrified by what I saw in the complex. The people were nuts just because she was a witch.

"After that, we had to bring her to back her place. A few days later, she calls me saying that she wants a transfer to Eraklyon and that she's quit school because there are people stalking her."

"Couldn't she have done something? Like fight back?"

"And then get arrested, deported and court-martialed at home? She had less freedom than Brandon and Brandon was my paid stalker. Sure, we screwed up a little bit when we didn't tell you strongly enough to not come on the Day of the Royals but it was all out of our hands when security decided to take a break and watch the show in the stadium when they should been doing their jobs look for you girls in the school."

"What are you saying? Are you mad about that still?" Bloom said indignantly.

"Well, of course. For all I knew, you could have been a hitman trying to get close to me. You were a girl who came out of nowhere from some planet with barely any magic and you decide to by chance date the undercover prince of Eraklyon. Maybe Yoshinoya could have figured all the lies out and he had sent you to take me out."

"But I'm not any of that."

"We didn't know that."

A heavy cloud of suspicion hung in the air.

"And Asta, what about her?"

"She told me she wanted a clean slate when she transferred over and I gave it to her. She has no higher education than military high school and she's a second lieutenant in the air force."

"And people were harassing her because she was a witch in the city? Did she ever finish her degree?"

"She's never been given the opportunity yet. I know that she kinda wants to finish it but she doesn't want to go back to all of that."

"Is that all?"

"Of course it isn't but I'm not legally allowed to disclose more than that. You can't ask the rest from her or Helia."

"Helia?"

"Y'know…Flora's boyfriend."

"What does he have to do with anything?"

"I'm surprised you don't know this. I thought Stella might have tortured that out of him at some point. Helia was in the year above me and he dated her at school." Sky stopped for a moment and toss Bloom up his back to get a better hold. He looked up to Kasimir and Shang who were walking up a steep hill towards a cathedral.

Above them the clouds started to grey noticeably, signs that a wet winter was coming.

-

It had only been twenty minutes.

"The little freakin'—!" Artos shouted, "Are you going to die or not?! Pick already!" He was not quite sure who he was yelling at but the four unconscious bodies haphazardly laying about at the end of the MIR were driving him nuts as there heart-rates varied between clinically dead and comatose.

There was Roxy who was almost angelic in her sleep on her gurney. Her hair was slightly mussed and oily from the lack of a shower but that was normal. Then there was Asta who sat on a chair, lax like her body had been a puppet and all her strings were cut. She had one hand on Bloom, who sat on a chair beside her and another on Roxy's exposed arm. Sky sat on the other side of the Earth fairy's bed as if he were in deep contemplation with one hand on Asta's wrist. All of them were connected to heart monitors ever since Bloom and Sky had decided to go into a seizure-like fit with realistic varying heartbeats.

For almost a moment, someone had gone flatline and triggered the code blue alarm. The little man scrutinized all four them. Someone was going to get a crick in their neck if they stayed like that, he thought. Artos turned to be face with the Winx Club at the door of his MIR.

"And?" Stella said.

"They're not dead. Can you maybe clear out of here? Do something useful like make lunch?"

"Excuse me?!"

Chandra stepped out of her office frustrated. She wore a white coat. "Okay, this is getting ridiculous. You're getting in the way. Get out of here. Go do something useful like train or fix your shop or something."

"Our shop is closing because of you," Musa muttered.

Chandra ran her hands into her short hair and tossed her head back. She enunciated her words carefully, rising with every syllable. "I. Said. 'Get out!'"

Angry, the Winx Club dispersed back into the main part of the warehouse. There was nothing to do but wait it out. The Frutti Music Bar had closed temporarily and Klaus was in the MIR with Chandra discussing. Helia was conscious but he was resting in the MIR with some other fairy that had been under the same conditions as him. Brandon and Riven were also pretty much knocked out by painkillers and sleeping off their burns. Timmy and Nabu were the only ones perfectly healthy as one could be but they were busy as well.

The warehouse was full of restlessness. All of Sky's people were crowded in the warehouse waiting for something to happen. Love&Pet had finally closed its doors and the building was under the ownership of the King of Eraklyon. The girls had nothing to do but seethe about the turn of events.

The girls gathered around a collapsible steel table sad.

"What are we going to do?" Flora said. She had been effectively kicked out of the MIR, too, because it was not hospital with visiting hours.

Stella folded her arms beneath her head like a pillow. "I honestly don't know."

"And what about Roxy?" Musa said, twirling a strand of hair in her hand. "We can't just leave her here. Our mission is still to protect her and bring magic to Earth."

"But we still have lives to get on to. I can't stay here forever." Layla sat with her attention somewhere else.

"There is no doubt in my mind that we have other things to do but we have to keep Roxy in mind. We can't abandon her like this. Who knows what Sky and his people will choose. Roxy may be old enough to make her own decisions but as a fairy, she's only a baby discovering her wings. I don't know about you but we have to teach her everything we know so that she can defend herself as a fairy."

Musa nodded somberly. "She's right. Being a fairy isn't something genetic that you can learn all straight from a book. We're fairies because our affinities need us but…" She swallowed, as if unsure how to word her thoughts. "But it's so hard to know what we were born to do. I'm the fairy of music but what does music need me to do? I don't understand what I am supposed to do. I'm just going with the motions."

"What does the Great Book of Fairies say?" Stella asked.

"It said that affinities are like our own personal gods but we know that. The book won't go any farther than the believix chapters even when there are five hundred more pages."

"But they're blank and sometimes, in some pages, some sentences are deliberately gone."

The girls sighed dejectedly.

"What's Roxy's affinity?" Layla said. Her attention was really somewhere else.

The girls stared at each other's blank faces and thought seriously about the question.

"A-artu?" Stella said.

"The pets?"

"Animals?"

"Having a lot of pets does not mean that she's the fairy of animals or Earth creatures or whatever," Tecna reasoned. "Look at Bloom, she has Kiko."

Musa snickered lightly. "Can you imagine her the fairy of bunnies?" she quipped.

A demented image of Bloom wearing a powdery blue bunny getup complete with bunny ears and wiry fairy wings hung in their heads.

"No, but seriously, what is Roxy's affinity?" Tecna asked again.

"I'm sure in time that she'll figure it out on her own," Flora said. "We can't force her."

"She needs to hurry still. The quicker, the better. I don't wanna put pressure on her, but y'know time is of the essence," Musa said. The music fairy reflected for a moment. "Wow, that was something Tune would say… I wonder how are the pixies."

"I'm sure Chatta would have come up with some cheer to cheer us up by now. Look at the bright side of things," Flora said. There was a restless tone in her voice. She would have preferred to be sitting beside Helia but Chandra or Artos would not allow it. "I'm sorry. I can't just sit down while all of this is happening. I-I need to do something. Maybe I'll go help in the kitchen or something." The flower fairy stood up and walked away in the direction of the kitchen.

"Maybe I'll go with her too." Musa said. "What about you, guys?"

Layla tapped her foot, slightly stressed. "I'm going to see if I can get a try in the reality chamber." The sea princess stood up and walked pass the computer to the yellow dome.

"I'll go with you, too," Tecna said. Stella followed her as Musa went into the kitchen area.

-

Aurora sat solemnly on her ice throne, gazing into a reflective sheet of ice shiny as a mirror to her left. The mirror seemed fragile, as if it would break with a single touch. In it, she saw Mu Lan's interview of the chief Chikere. She was extremely troubled just as everyone was. The man was more than just troubled, he was broken. The damage was done and most likely irreversible. The supreme consciousnesses of the universe were at work on Earth.

She turned away from the mirror, waving her hand and letting the mirror melt into a puddle on the floor to freeze instantly.

It was more than coincidence that every decided to hope a boat or take wing all the way to Sicillia, all at the same time. It was not a planned congregation. Something, or some divine power that had long since left them, was subconsciously telling them to meet.

And that terrified her.

She, Aurora of the Eternal Winter, was terrified of this sudden appearance of the intuitive hive mind that had seemed to affect everyone who had otherworldly heritage. Born at the beginning of the first millennium, she had learned quickly to look at everything with an eagle's eye. She had learnt not to count for how many years she lived but for how old she looked like. She had observed the cycle of life, observed birth and death with the same indifference she used to hunt boar and moose, to birth reindeer and train hawks. She watched the life drain out of her prey's eyes with indifference, their eyes dilating and limbs thrashing; she broke the wills of animals and even people, subjecting them to hers.

She had watched the rise, division and fall of the Roman Empire; she had read the first copies of the gospels alleging the life of Jesus in the fourth century; she was the watchful spirit of Leif Erikson as he crossed the ocean to discover the inhospitable Helluland and she had witness the first of many autos-da-fé in Paris of 1249. She had watched as the Church organized itself over the centuries and branded her people as the demons of the Devil or the angels of God.

Her senses had been dulled after she had seen everything life had to offer. Battered on the inside by atrocities, her spirit was ready die unlike her immortal body. She had seldom taken to companionship for fear of growing too attached and watching the man die when she could not. She never risked children scared that she would outlive them and have to bury them herself.

However, if she could live through the fury of the Church and its systematic witch hunt unscathed and she could do it again. What worried her was that she had no idea who or what the enemy was except for the few suddenly entranced fairies. It was magical and it warranted the divine attention of whatever divinities chose her to be a fairy.

The ice fairy stood up and flexed her arms and wings, sore from sitting for such a long time. She crossed the chamber to the ice balcony where she got a rare view of under water. The Frost Tower had been submerged into the sea and a bubble had been conjured around the balcony. A dozen colourful mermen and mermaids stared back with abandoned curiosity, unable to resist seeing such a rare sight. (Well, a piece of ice was probably just as rare to them as seeing the majesty of a blinding white iceberg, let alone a habitable piece of ice.)

There was one merman whose colours dazzled her. He was a lionfish merman with an orange body and white stripes and dozens of venomous spines protruding from his waist, dorsal fin and arms.

She waved at them and they all either swam away or continued to stare.

Meadhbh fluttered down from one of the numerous tunnels that led outside. "The meeting is over, Aurora. Mu Lan wants you to come with her to meet Ekene."

Aurora turned. "Ekene?"

"The man who killed Chikere's father."

"What does she want me for?"

"Well, she thinks that some of the more experienced members should meet him, seeing as you're, um, older. You're more experienced with dealing with emotion, I suppose. Mu Lan may be great but I think that she thinks that her animal instincts might get the best of her. She said she is still a dragon in her mind. That Parisian mindreader with that all-seeing eye of hers is going too."

"The red one with the wedjat painted on her left eye?" The ice fairy remembered seeing a redhead sitting beside Mu Lan in her mirror. The strange thing about her was that she had her left eye painted like the Egyptian Eye of Horus.

"I don't think it's makeup," the fae queen said.

Aurora was led to a room, furnished with a table, chairs and ragged bed in the corner with thin sheets. Something to be expected from a simple peasant's room. It was devoid of colour but it was in the details that she could see a sense of opulence or wealth. The table had carved details and despite the dust, a nice finish; the two chairs had very simple and plain cushions on the seat and the bed's headboard had intricate patterns carved onto it. There was a musty smell that pervaded meaning that the room had not been used often until recently.

In the corner sat a bundle of a man wrapped in a grey blanket. His position reminded her of a child or a man who did not want to die. She could see the outline of a head but his face was covered with the blanket.

Aurora closed the door behind her. She had taken off her fur cloak a long time ago, as it was inappropriate for the climate. She had been given a precious light blue gown threaded with silver by some Rom girl accompanied with a Muslim woman at the behest of Meadhbh. They had also applied some makeup on her to give some colour to her otherwise colourless face. "Ekene."

The bundle stiffened.

"Let me see your face, Ekene."

The man's voice was strained but had once been beautiful enough for singing. "Are you here to kill me?"

"Don't be absurd, Ekene," Aurora pulled a chair, brushed off the dust and sat. "You are far more valuable than you think you are."

Ekene keep silent.

"Would you like to know why, Ekene? Why you are so valuable? Far more important than your friend Chikere who brought news of the…massacres…in Africa, some of which we had no knowledge of; far more important than the dragon-born Lady Mu Lan who commands us all with objectiveness of a wolf protecting her pack; far more important than any king or queen, human or otherwise, holdings small or significant? Ekene, you are more important than the King of England!"

"I'm not stupid!" Ekene exploded from his corner like a wraith revealing itself, throwing the blanket at his feet. "YOUR OWN FRIEND'S FATHER IS NOT A GLORIOUS THING!"

Ekene was a surprisingly well-dressed man, although his clothes were tattered and stained with dirt and blood. He wore a once fine but now torn linen shirt over a vest and brown pants. He was bald with hallowed cheeks and haunted eyes. By smell alone, he had not bathed in a long time.

Aurora remained unmoved by the sudden emotion. "It is not in the fact that you killed someone is what makes you important. You did something much deeper, as a fairy, you've completed your purpose—something that every fairy dreams of."

"No, I'm not a monster like you, you despicable thing!" He pointed an angry finger at her, reviled at the idea. "You things think you're better than us humans because you have magic and wings and can see things that we cannot see! You have all the powers to kill us off so you can live happily without the trouble of petty humans but instead you just watch us and let us squirm, waiting for the day you rise up and turn us into your own pets and slaves, to be our gods! You call yourselves part of nature when you work in everyway against it. You bring back the dead with your black magic; you heal wounds that would have otherwise killed men with a touch; you invoke even the elements themselves and claim to be wrath of nature incarnate! You are against the very essence of life, you monsters!!! You are God's outcast creations, his unwelcomed creatures in the Eden!!! You all belong in hell!!!"

"You're educated, very educated," Aurora said after a long time. "And most likely with some Catholic teachings, too. Rare." Cool as ever, she ignored the insults. Anger was a natural thing. There was no arguing what Ekene saw as the truth. She would not force impose what she saw as the truth on him, not after what she had seen in humanity. "Am I to assume that you are human, no magic? That you didn't even realize that your friend was one of these monsters? Chikere, a sorcerer and his father, too? Or did you think they were simple pagan practitioners, shamans and witch doctors?

"Do you even know what it means to be 'human?'"

Ekene was surprised by her calmness. He had expected her to react to his powerful accusations, maybe use magic on him in some way that would end his life in an instant. Now he was truly afraid. Unfortunately in the corner of the room, he felt trapped. He looked at the door cautiously.

Aurora stood up and stared Ekene down with chilling blue eyes. She stepped up to him and stood so close that he could feel the winter's chill on her breath and fallaciousness of her makeup that attempted to hide her unnatural whiteness.

"I am human. I was born in the year 29. That is one thousand, three hundred and seventeen years ago. I was born in an inn, late spring, months and days unknown but in the morning like the goddess Aurora, outside of the kingdom of Norðweg," she said in a harsh but true accent. "My father was Aulus Hortensius Paterculus," her accent had changed instantaneously, "a Roman soldier and human. His legion was Legio quarta Macedonica in castum Moguntiacum—that is Mainz, Germany now. My mother was Sigurfinna Biorndottir, a smith's second daughter from Norðweg in what is now the Kingdom of Agder. Human too."

Ekene backed away, terrified. She spoke with unheard of accents, dead accents, dead tongues. Something in his gut told him that she was not making up those words on the spot, they were real words. Her words made him shiver. This woman had been born in the lifetime of Jesus Christ!

"Take a seat, Ekene." Aurora said gently, softly but with all the ferocity of a lioness. A chair suddenly appeared and hit the back of his knees. He fell into the seat. The ice fairy opened a hand behind her and then a second chair came sliding across the floor, the back of it hitting her palm. Dust flew and settled. Annoyed, Aurora waved a hand and all the dust vanished. She swung the chair around and sat on it. There was something of a mother who was not going to be put off by one person's accusations in the set of her jaw, in the thin line of her lips. "You are going to listen to my story and then you're going to tell me if I am human or not since you are so knowledgeable in what is human and what is monster.

"My mother died in her sleep one day in the summer in 34. I was five so what did I know of death? I keep shaking and shaking her, kept screaming and screaming hoping that she was just in a deep sleep. You see, my father was still in service at the time and my mother was more of an illicit affaire and he visited her every noon about since I was born. We were guarded, since he of course was an officer, but we never actually talked to the guards. What did I know? Father had a job and he kept us safe and fed. At the time that I was shaking her, I didn't know frost was forming on the windows and water was freezing to make snow everywhere.

"The guards saw this around the house and ran away to my father who came on his fastest horse and found me trying to wake up my mother. He took me away from her thinking that something was at work. I later found out that the entire room was covered in thick snow and houses above were covered with the signs of a blizzard.

"Back then, Catholicism wasn't popular because Jesus was still in Bethsaida walking on water and feeding the people with his bread and fish, saving the Jews and whatnot. So my father took the snow as a symbolic sign of death as winter is the death in the cycle of seasons.

"My father tried to explain my mother's stillness, her death. I never understood but I obviously refused to accept it. I asked where she was and he would not tell me. It was at some point just before we were going to bury her, I found the room where her body was. This time, I was quieter and asked her to wake up and she didn't. She didn't answer and naturally, I screamed in anger at being ignored. The next thing I know, she's frozen in a block of ice and my father is locking me in a room for later interrogation.

"I didn't understand what was going on until another fairy heard what had happened and came to visit me by breaking into the fort one night. He, Elius, asked me what had happened and he showed me how to make ice by magic. He was the preholder of my title, Elius of the Eternal Winter. He told me he had been looking for me for two hundred years, saying that he had suffered his fill of life. He told me I was to replace him, become the Queen of Eternal Winter, Fairy of the Frozen North. And then he left me saying that he would return when I was older to take his legacy.

"In the years after that, I tried to understand my talents. For all I knew, I was Libitina incarnate—that is, the goddess of death—and the legion started adorning me as their goddess: daughter of Honos, the god of military justice or the sister of Bellona, the first goddess of war. I experimented with ice, water, the wind. My father let me go as I pleased. He realized that the ice and snow was my nature and I was happiest during winter. Winters never affected me, I never got sick, I never got burned. I still didn't know that I was a fairy yet but I benefited from an education as a means of appeasing the child-goddess.

"Elius came back when I was ten and presented himself as Apollo! The very god himself! Even I believed that he was Apollo! He was beautiful, he cured even the most fatal of wounds, he was a master archer, he played the lute and harp! He tore the fort to pieces looking for me after the legion refused to give me up. He said that he was here to take away Aurora, bring her back to her brother and sister, Sol and Luna. He said, 'Her sojourn on Earth is over, it is time to return to the heavens.'

"He summoned storms to emphasize his point and I was terrified. Elius wasn't terribly patient, I learned over time. At the fort, he started to disease the crops, rust the weapons and bring winter closer and closer by the hour unless they gave him Aurora.

"Out of fear for the men's lives, my father gave me away to him but I saw it differently. I thought that no one loved me. My mother left me; my father was giving me away. Elius left with me and brought me to his fortress in the north across the ocean on a continent that you humans have yet to even imagine possible. On that continent, I stayed for ten years. I lived with the ancestors of the Thule and the skrælingar.

"I discovered the beauty of primeval society, a society in which women were equal to men, a society in which we were closer to nature, to God in the simplicity of being alive and taking what was only necessary! I had actually found Utopia! A place that does not exist! I saw forests unlike the ones in Europe, untainted by the civilisations of humanity. I saw sights that no one would ever see for a very long time. This continent was a place in which Nature ruled, humans were no better than the deer they ate or the bears and wolves who shared their forest.

"I saw Onghiara. Onghiara is a river and waterfall, marvelously beautiful and big, as if created by a joyous God! A sight that I cannot even begin to describe! I made my pilgrimage to Ongtupqa, a canyon so great as if the gods had ripped the Earth's canvas apart in their anger, unable to decide what should have been painted there. I climbed Jomeokee and screamed my heart out like an eagle who was king of the sky at its pinnacle.

"I learnt my place in nature, learned that I was apart of it, unlike where the rest of humanity who considered themselves above it. I craved this knowledge, loved every single person I met. Apollo, I still believed he was still a god, was my teacher and I was still young. I didn't understand what I was still but I didn't think I was anything more than that. I thought that this is what he had meant by 'heaven,' for surely it was!

"At sixteen, we had moved the Frost Tower to a land where human sacrifice was unquestionably and absolutely necessary. It was the belief that their gods had died so that humans could live, could prosper on the Earth for a little longer for fear of Judgment Day. They believed that the universe would end one day, that it would die because nothing was forever. The universe went through a cycle of birth, death and rebirth just like everything on this planet.

"They believed that there would only be five ages, five suns. The first sun was called Four Water. In this age, the gods created humans from ashes and gave them acorns for food. This age was ruled by Chalchiuhtlicue but it came to an end when the world was engulfed by floods. Some people were turned into fish to be saved.

"The second sun was Four Jaguar. The people of this age looked like monsters like giants. It was ruled by Tezcatlipoca and came to an end when the sun fell from the sky and set the world on fire. With sun in the sky, the remaining people were eaten by jaguars—big wildcats.

"The third age was Four Rain and was ruled by Tlaloc. This age came to an end when fire and rocks rained down from the sky and set the land ablaze again. Some people were saved by being changed into birds.

"The forth sun was known as Four Wind and was ruled by Quetzalcoatl. This age came to an end when a great storm raged across the land and blew the people off the face of the world. Some people survived by being changed into monkeys.

"The fifth and final sun is known as Four Movement and is ruled by Nanahuatzin. This age came into being when he threw himself into a fire to become the sun. Other gods sacrificed themselves to feed the sun so it would move across the sky. People were created when Quetzalcoatl journeyed to the underworld to recover the remains of humans from the previous suns.

"On his way back, he was forced into a battle with the god of death, and the bones broke. When he returned, he had the earth goddess Cihuacoatl grind the bones into meal. He sprinkled the remains with blood from his manhood to create a new race of humans. The fifth sun will come to an end when the sun no longer receives enough blood to continue his course, and the world will be destroyed by earthquakes.

"In this society, this was why they sacrificed humans so that the sun would stay in the sky. These were humans, no magic, saved for the secret kingdom of the goddess Diana. She was real, she had come from Africa and had been found by her predecessor. She was the Fairy of Nature. Back to the humans, they had showed their greatest love by sacrificing themselves for the good of others. Some of the sacrifices were crueler than others, there were some who had their hearts pulled out and some who simply gave blood.

"I thought surely this was not heaven at all! I cannot describe how cruel but loving these people were. Cannibalism, homosexuality, temples made from the skulls of their sacrifices.

"We returned to the north, away from all of that. All along our travels, I met all sorts of beings, shades, vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves, nymphs, oceanids, naiads… I discovered what I was truly after I deliberately thrown off the Onghiara!

"He. Threw. A. Child. Off. A. WATERFALL!

"You cannot imagine what I felt. The water roars so loud that you cannot hear yourself think. The water is so white it's blinding and so runs so fast that you do not even dare think about simply dipping your hand in it. At the bottom of the falls are sharp rocks. I was standing on a rock and he pushed me. He pushed me!

"I grew these," Aurora pointed to the icy shards on her back, "just before I hit the bottom and froze the falls. My tale doesn't end there though. From then on, I was never the same person. I no longer pretended to be a god incarnate, a happy child or whatever I wanted to be, I realized that was on level with being a god incarnate.

"All fairies are born with a purpose or are expected to perform a task in their lifetime. The natures of our powers reflect what our affinity, or personal god, is. I cannot give you precise answers so bear with me. Sometimes, there's a definitive voice and sometimes, we have to figure it out for ourselves. A fairy may not refuse their task or else their affinity will just kill them off and move on to the next potential man or woman.

"My duties as Queen of Eternal Winter was to be the protector of the north, to make sure that things like the path of the wind, the amount of water in the air, concepts that we humans cannot even begin to imagine, are followed. I am here to balance the repercussions of all living beings on Earth. My powers are beyond your comprehension and even beyond mine sometimes. I am far reaching, a vital part of the cycle of life that if I were to die, the world would fall off its axis and send it hurdling into the darkness between the stars literally and figuratively.

"Like right now, the continent is coming to the end of a period of warmth and my coldness is reaching itself from the north and gradually and slowly making its way down to the south. Don't be excessive! I'm not going to submerge the planet in ice! It's just going to be a little more noticeably colder during winter.

"Fairyhood in not written in blood, Ekene. It doesn't matter who your father or who your mother is, or when you were born and under what banner. People born of vampire blood can be fairies just as much as humans but I know for sure, for myself, that I am human, Ekene. No matter how delusional I was at the time, I am human.

"At the same time though, I know I live beyond the realms of what is human. I have lived for an unnaturally long time, not because I am some sort of good doctor, but because my affinity does not permit me to die. Can you imagine not being allowed to feel whispery embrace of death? Can you imagine watching everyone and anyone you love die when you can't?

"Can you imagine what I could do with my powers? What unity and peace I could bring if I simply invaded the entire continent with the one threat of simple never having winter end? I could do that. My affinity won't stop me from that but I would never permit myself to do that because I know what is truly right. I am part of the cycle, not above it or separate from it. I am no better than the smallest ant who obeys his queen than the omega wolf who is last in line and accepts his faith or the horse who agrees with his herd. I know my place because if I were to do that, not only would humans be incapable of surviving my winters but neither would the dog, the cat, the mouse, the eagle, the fox, even the white bear and fish. I need to eat, too.

"Don't think that because I'm woman that I'm soft and feminine either. If you or some other person gets in my way to fulfill my purpose, I will kill you or that other person without second thought. Now, you tell me, am I monster or am I human?"

Ekene shook. His entire body was alive with jolts, as if he had been hit by lightning. His hands were curled at his knees. His face was unreadable. He did not know what emotion to mold on his face. Monster or human?

Every word invoked images in his head. He saw the room in which her dead mother had been prepared for burial, the legion fort as it was torn asunder by the false Apollo, the majestic falls of which she had been pushed off to grow her wings, stone pyramid temples with steps adorned with human skulls, fantastic forests untouched by humans, a plant toothy that ate insects and flowers of never before seen colours.

Monsters were evil things that wanted to eat humans, to kill them. Monsters were supposed to be evil, relishing pain. They're supposed to be inhumane, unkind and vicious, the stuff of nightmares.

"If you can't answer the question, Ekene, it's fine. Now, I want to hear your story. Don't lie because I will know."

Ekene hunched himself over his lap, unsure of how to start. He spoke haltingly, "I-I was told that if I killed Chikere's father, I would save a lot of people. It told me that it was for the greater good…that in time, I would know why and understand. It said that the fountain must be protected but…I-I don't…I don't know anything about a fountain and it laughed at me, the voice, it laughed saying that it would not matter to me…"

"A fountain?"

Ekene nodded. Aurora stared off into a corner, thinking heavily. An epiphany came upon her.

"Ekene, Chikere's father was the guardian of a fountain of youth. Did you know that?"

"What? No, but what fountain of youth?" he asked incredulously.

"Fountains that grant the drinker a form of immortality with one sip, Ekene and most of them are in Africa. I'm sorry but this is way too important now. I am going to put you to sleep. Sleep!"

Ekene slumped in his seat and started to breathe heavily. Aurora waved a hand and he floated into the air and settled reclined on the bed.

"Bernadette!" Aurora roared.

The door shot opened and a young girl with red hair and a yellow dress sauntered in breathless but timid. Her left eye was rimmed black like a wedjat.

"I heard. I saw his thoughts when he mentioned the fountains. Is there really an undiscovered continent across the ocean?"

The door slammed shut with just Aurora's gaze and room chilled noticeably.

"Madame Aurora?" Bernadette squealed as the walls iced and her breathe became white mists. She looked at the ice fairy and saw a beast in the blond woman's eyes. She was undergoing the same transformation Ekene had undergone and killed Chikere's father.

Aurora's voice was a celestial choir of melodic voices, as if more than one person, a multitude of divine beings were speaking through her. The voices were soft and soothing, like the voice of an angel. Aurora seemed to pour magic from every pore, every particle shown with a blinding light from her being. Was she possessed? Was she going to kill her? What had she done to deserve this?! The ice fairy shown like God at the end of the dark tunnel. Bernadette was overwhelmed by the superior fairy's presence and crumbled to her knees. She felt herself want to cry.

"Mon dieu! No, don't kill me!"

The light diminished slightly so that Bernadette could see again. Aurora reached for her with a hand and Bernadette recoiled. Aurora stopped for a moment in an alien fashion, as if perplexed and reached again. She caught Bernadette's sleeve and pulled her up with some invisible strength. The girl stood on her toes and was forced to look into Aurora's face.

"Little girl, what you heard, what you will hear, what you will see, what you will learn in this man's mind," Aurora brought a hand to the girl's mouth and the girl flinched as the touch burned. It was so cold it burned. "Will never leave these lips. If they do, Aurora will cut your tongue, take away your voice, sew your mouth shut. If your hands can't be silent, Aurora will kill you. Do we have your word?"

Bernadette nodded vehemently and fainted. The light, the godliness, faded from Aurora's being. She placed Bernadette on a chair and went to the door where she ordered for dinner to be delivered, for three. She also asked for more comfortable chairs as an after thought. They were possible going to spend a long time.

Asta watched with mute fascination as Aurora circled the room. The woman scared the crap out of her. The ice fairy had undergone a divine fairy possession by her own personal affinity. This woman was possibly the most powerful and potent being on the planet (at the time) by the way she had described her powers.

The witch watched as the memory destabilized and fade away. She panicked as she saw the familiar thoughtless blackness come over. This was not supposed to happen! This kind of darkness only meant that someone had recognised her presence.

Aurora maintained her being as the room faded. She radiated the same godly light from when she had threatened Bernadette. Light poured from her eyes and mouth. Aurora's body was going to rip at her atomic seams from the power she was overflowing with. The being, the affinity was still here! Its mere presence suffocated her consciousness and she readied herself to go back to her body before she died.

Asta slingshot her mind but crashed into a painful but powerful wall. Her mind was jarred, dizzy and disorientated. Shit! She was trapped! She pounded at the barrier fiercely and a little terrified.

"Astrid Stryker…Diana…do you think we would harm you?"

Asta turned and cowered as Bernadetta had. Around her, she could feel the familiar dimension of physical void shake, tremble and threaten to fall apart as she ascended to a higher place full of joyous singing, like choirs of the most beautiful voices in nature, something like heaven. She could hear the songs of making play at full crescendo and then stop.

"Faithful one," the celestial choir sang through Aurora.

"What's going on?!" Asta shouted. Her eyes were contracted in fear and her head felt like it was going to explode with the unbearable noise from the chorus. The music was so beautiful, it was unbearable. The witch had been used to all sorts of mental noise: dark thoughts, forbidden thoughts, illicit thoughts but beautiful thoughts and happy thoughts, they were either bounties of white silence that had her in awe or overwhelming screechy choirs of sirens that had her recoiling in pain at such perfection. She wanted to foam at the mouth, heave the contents of her stomach and simply kill herself.

"Stop this searching, Diana. Roxy is in the church." The heavenly chorus stopped dead as Aurora spoke.

Asta's sickness abated and she looked up in drunken stupor at Aurora who shone as if a sun shone behind her, like the images of Jesus Christ with the halos behind his head. It took her several moments to regain her bearings. What church? It was a whole fortress of magical creatures and they had a church still? She thought that the Church on Earth despised the pagan and magical.

"She finds solace in the church."

"My name is Dijana. I am Eraklyonite, immigrated!" Asta shouted. "Who are you?"

"That does not matter, Di…Dijana. Is that how you prefer it?" The voice sounded strange.

"Yes."

"Dijana, I have a test for you."

"What?" the witch shouted.

"NOW, DIJANA."

Asta felt like she was hit by a brick wall. She quieted and let the divinity speak.

"Do you believe in protection of the innocent?"

She answered yes without even a second thought.

"Do you believe in King Sky's innocence?"

"No!" she screamed. "He's a twisted murderer who lets others be martyred for his mistakes!"

"That is all I need. Thank you."

The memory of Aurora into the darkness. She felt herself descend down the dimensions back to the physical void and another memory started.

Terminology: (because God knows that we really need one for this chapter; in order of appearance)
'intuitive hive mind': Akin to group mind, groupthink and or collective consciousness. Or you can imagine a colony of ants with a non-existent queen (which wouldn't work).
Leif Erikson: For anyone one who is not American in its broadest sense, Erikson Norse explorer who discovered N. America/Canada first (after the Aboriginals and before Columbus) and didn't really tell anyone about it.
Helluland: Where Erikson landed first in Canada, possibly Baffin Bay.
Auto-da-fé: 'Act of faith' in Spanish. A sentence of death pronounced on a heretic/condemned by a court of the Spanish/Portuguese/etc. Inquisition and carried out by the civil authorities. Usually burning at the stake. First one was in Paris in 1242.
Wedjat/Eye of Horus: A symbol associated with Egyptian gods Ra or Horus. Symbolised as 'all-seeing.' Why a French girl would have this on her eye, I have no idea.
Skrælingar and Thule: Proto-inuits and Norse Greenlanders respectively. At this point, you know she's talking about America, right?
Utopia: By translation, it means 'a place that does not exist,' not 'paradise.'
Onghiara: Aboriginal name for Niagara Falls.
Ongtupqa: Aboriginal name for Grand Canyon.
Jomeokee: Alleged aboriginal name for Pilot Mountain, North Carolina.
Legend of the Five Suns: This is Aztec mythology.
Little Ice Age: A period of global cooling after a period of warmth. When it started is debated, around as early as turn of the millenium.

Latter Note: I cannot imagine what anyone must be feeling after this. If you're feeling weird, that's fine. I remember reading an old WC fic where Faragonda said it was Jesus who drove away all the magical creatures from Earth. Also, I'm feeling Anne Rice-esque after finishing Memnoch the Devil.

Aurora's character, the one I developed, is really interesting because to me, she seems to be the model fairy in contrast to the Winx Club who have a long way to go. She might have been Earthbound unlike the Winx who had boys with intergalactic fightercrafts to go cruising anywhere they wanted as well as the money (let's not forget battling evil incarnate) but Aurora knows her duties and powers. The real Aurora from the show has only about seven speaking lines that show that she's very loyal. I took it from there that she would be this kind of person.