Verboten
Chapter 31

Wednesday, January 28, 2010

Disclaimer: I do not own the Winx Club.

Fore Note:
heliaxasta: Nice name…I said they were exes…I don't plan on Helia getting back together with her.

1346, winter in Europe.

"Is it 1347 now?"

"Well, this looks like New Years, right?" Sky looked at the recently-rained-upon town strung with various colourful decorations. In the windows, there were colour banners. In the piazza, it looked like a festive scene was about to take place but the weather and the tense politics was making it seem like a bad omen was coming upon the town.

Bloom was walking again, although at a slower pace. She gave a pointed look to Sky.

"What do you mean right?"

"I don't know. What does New Years look like on Earth?"

"Oh, nevermind."

They stood on the pier as ships were preparing to set sail in a few days. From what they could gather, fairies were killing guardians of something in Africa. The threat was annoyingly still nameless but it was selective.

"What about Gauntlos?"

"What about him?"

"I just can't stand seeing him there. It's wrong. We know he's evil!"

"It's a memory, Bloom. It happened in the past and can't be changed. I'm guessing that this was some sort of inside operation to destroy the magical population but I still don't see how this makes ends meet. Why did they do all this?"

"Isn't it power?"

"Yeah, but it can't be that simple. Power means a lot of things: economic power, political power, magical power, war. I guess it's magic but it can't be that simple either."

"What else is there to magic? Valtor did it. Stole magic in the universe, that is."

"Valtor stole knowledge and powerful tools of magic, not real magic. Books and enchanted boxes aren't magic because they have a tangible form. Magic isn't always constant or physically tangible like in the really old barriers that block non-believers from Magix."

"What else is there to magic? Valtor wanted all the magic in the universe so he could take it over. The Black Circle want to take away all the magic on Earth for…"

"See what I mean? Their Black Circle spell is supposed to be a spell that steals fairy magic but for what? So they could be the sole possessors of all the magic on Earth? It seems so…" All sorts of possibilities went through the king's mind. Most of them were pessimistic in nature. "It's, well, a possible plan."

"Sky?" Bloom looked at her fiancé's face for answers.

Billions of thoughts seem to collide in his eyes.

"I think I know why there's no magic on Earth now, even if there's no fairies."

She waited for him to explain.

"Bloom, they must have wiped out not only the fairies but witches too."

"Witches? But why their own kind?"

"Witches aren't held together by patriotism like nations. They have covens for that. Fairy magic is possible to transfer from person to person but it's extremely difficult; the owners can change because affinities might not find this person suitable for the job. Remember when Faragonda took away your powers for skipping school to visit Earth and made you clean Alfea by hand?" Really, there was a lot more times than Sky knew and she hadn't told him about every single time they had gotten that punishment. "Well, witch magic isn't transferable."

"Ms. F told me that once." She looked to him for clarification. She had asked Faragonda about how the witches never had their magic taken away every time they got captured.

"Magic isn't directly attached to the person, or that person's soul, unlike for fairies. It's why Icy, Darcy and Stormy always have their magic. Witch magic can't be diluted either because magic requires mastering like seventeen different dimensions and a lot of belief and understanding but you can mess with the psyche to make it seem like it's diluted. Any creature that's not a fairy can use magic but that only works if one can understand it. Understanding is key to using magic. If there's no understanding, there is no belief."

"God, Sky, I'm the fairy here. How is it that you know more about magic than me? It's not as if they threw witches into the Black Circle, too, is it?"

"I think it's a lot worst than that. What would they do with all that useless magic?"

"What? Kill them?"

Sky looked to the backed to the boats after someone started to beat a tune on a drum. "I think they killed them all. It's the only way to beat the belief out of Earth."

"You're not serious!"

"How, Bloom. How could all those people have been killed fast enough that a new generation was not capable of surviving?"

Bloom let it sink in for several long moments. "Ohmigod, Sky, no, stop it! Will you listen to yourself?!" Bloom backed away from him and turned.

"Bloom, tell me, is anything that I'm saying at all possible on Earth? Some type of giant mass killing?"

There were many kinds of mass killings that knew of including Rwandan Genocide, Japanese war crimes and the Holocaust. She got very scared. She didn't want to remember her Earth lessons from high school, she was past that. Plus, she hated high school, she had been so childish putting up with Mitzi and dating Andy. "What do you need to know this for?"

"What happens if the Black Circle comes to Eraklyon and they instigate the same Fairy Holocaust that destroyed magic on Earth? I'm not going to wait for it to happen. Bloom, tell me. We have an opportunity to find out about how Earth got to its unfortunate state and we can't pass this up. I need know how to kill them."

Bloom turned. "Unfortunate?! We're talking about the planet that I grew up on!"

Sky continued on. "It would never be the planet it is today if the Black Circle had never took all the magic! Mike and Vanessa could've had magic and you would have never been lost when they sent you to Alfea! For all I know, you could have been happier or Dafne would have never sent you to Earth because there was magic. She sent you to magicless planet in hopes that you would survive even if you didn't know who or what you were."

"She did it because she loved me!"

"But would she have chosen Earth if it had magic? In any case, they can travel planets, so they have legally embedded themselves in the galactic legal system and I want to bring them down before the situation gets worst. We have Roxy. There is still hope."

Sky started to walk down the pier, looking at boats. The place smelled horrible but she had figured out by herself how to down the importance of the smell in her mind and therefore its presence. Basically, the smell of brownish black water mixed with who knows what kind of human was not as present as it should have been.

Sky's determination scared her. He was quieter and more regal about it but his determination overshadowed hers by a mile. She was brave and righteous, having grown up on Earth but Sky was a whole different matter. While she stood for good and fought evil, he fought what was kind of good and kind of evil and chose sides in unfair and complicated battles that did not always involve swords or dragons.

'They must be killed,' he pretty much said when he said, "I need know how to kill them." He might as well had just said, "I will kill them myself."

The idea of Sky and killing was foreign in her mind. She had never heard him act like that before in Red Fountain. Was it policy? It sounded like something Red Fountain would teach. Did Sky believe in the death penalty? Bloom had never been one for it even if it had been abolished recently in Italy but taking another life? That seemed totally unfair.

But killing one to save a billion seemed just as valid. Especially for someone who was a king. And had the threat of planetary magical annihilation over his head.

If only things would return to normal for one day.

Sky returned. "I'm sorry," he said apologetically. Bloom was surprised by the sudden turnaround. "I could name you a number of logical reasons why I'm so hard to deal with but let's go with the fact that I'm a jackass low on patience." Bloom was taken back by his self-proclaimed status and sudden apology. A jackass? "Do you have any ideas on how to find Roxy?"

Bloom shook her head, clueless still. "We know that these aren't Roxy's memories, right? Then whose memories are these?"

"A good question. We know that this person has to have been trapped in the White Circle, maybe even more people if possible. There is no doubt in my mind that this person lived in the era you called the Middle Ages. That's at least five hundred years ago from Earth's current date, give or take a century. Specifically, it's 13—" Sky had a vacant look on his face for a moment, "—47 now. Do you know anything that happened during these years?"

"No idea. A lot of things happened. There were the Crusades for the Holy Land but that's a little too early."

"The 'Crusades?'"

"Um, people died for, um, a piece of very sacred land in the Middle East in like the twelfth century."

"How many people died?"

Bloom was unnerved by how he could openly talk about this and he was taking the subject seriously too. She herself would have never. History was history and it seemed like it happened liked such a long time ago. "Not a lot, I think. Catholics were killing a lot of Muslims and heretics but it still wasn't a lot. I would think that there were a lot more fairies and witches if they were able to kill all of them." Bloom found herself reflecting. What a morbid subject. "I would guess that they had hid themselves away because of the Church."

"One fairy, the fairy of whatever Roxy is, must have survived though," Sky said. "Any other important events that include a high death count?"

"Well, there is the Plague if that means anything to you but that's a sickness."

-

"So this plague, it killed a lot of people?"

"Sky, don't say it like that." After trying to explain the complexities of eleventh to sixteenth century Earth, she was just about frustrated with Sky's way of seeing things. Couldn't he be a little sympathetic to the plight of Earth? It wasn't hard.

Sky let out a deep breathe. Femininity at its best. "I've seen and studied many plagues and famines, Bloom. I'm not about to break down now for this one. So how many people died of this bubonic plague?"

She gave him a blank look. "Well, a lot."

He looked at her for clarification but he knew from her face that she did not know.

"Like enough to be noticeable. Like just below half of the population."

"Any numbers?"

"I don't know." Bloom seemed to be wracking her mind for answers, intensely nervous under his gaze.

"Then it's fine. Let's keep moving. We need to find Roxy soon."

Both of them were like in a sense of timelessness, like nothing was moving forward. They turned around towards what looked like the main road up into the town. The strange magical settlement still confused them, Bloom especially, but they had other pressing things to answer. They walked up the road as if walking away from a once in a lifetime opportunity. The street was empty save for the occasional person rushing. A tall hooded man wearing a grey cloak rushed passed them, also in a hurry and muttering something about delayed plans. Bloom did not notice the man but Sky did.

"Who was that?" Sky narrowed his eyes on the receding grey silhouette.

Bloom turned too. She said the first word that came to mind. "Cipriano? A priest? Well, you don't see that everyday."

The man, Cirpriano, stopped just three meters away from them in front of a shop door. The door opened and a smiling woman in a green dress and fur cloak stepped out. She had glistening black hair and small green leaf-like wings. She wore a smile on her face, happy despite the grim mood of the entire town.

The man pulled down his hood, showing his red hair and pale thin face. He was also smiling.

Bloom's blood stopped in their veins. The face of a mass murdering fairynapper was smiling. Smiling! He was acting friendly and cordially. He spoke to the woman reverendly. She caught the word 'Morgana' in there. "Ogron?!" Bloom screamed.

Morgana slipped her arm into Cirpriano's offered one and they walked away.

Bloom's legs turned to water and Sky caught her before she fell.

"No, no way…" Bloom repeated, shocked by the dark wizard's appearance. Who was she kidding? She was horrified!

The fire princess resisted in Sky's hands as he tried to turn her around and walk away from the couple.

"Bloom, walk away. We can't do anything about it now," Sky said.

"Ogron? Here?" she whispered. "Now?"

A third voice broke her trance. "Sky, Bloom."

Sky turned to see his second lieutenant standing up the street. Asta seemed noticeably paler than usual and her eyes wide. It looked like she had found or seen something terrible or incredibly wonderful.

Merciful Dragon, was everyone having divine epiphanies except for him?

Asta spoke with a hesitant voice. "I know where Roxy is."

Latter Note: IB PERSONAL PROJECT IS OVER!!! D-Day's passed! Now to cegep!

Oh yeah, now that Cipriano's been revealed as a Ogron who posed as a Catholic priest and Kasimir/Gauntlos as a Teutonic Knight (religion has nothing to do with it)...on to the present!