Verboten
Chapter 42

Sunday, April 10, 2010; reposted Thursday, April 22, 2010

Disclaimer: I do not own the Winx Club.

Central Apennine Mountains.

"So…where are we?" Roxy said, shouldering a heavy backpack.

"Somewhere in Italy," Asta said, shouldering an equally large backpack. It was early morning and the sun had only begun to rise.

"So, magic lessons start in a forest?" Roxy said dubiously. She had her doubts that Asta would even answer what province they were in let alone how far Gardenia was. She was disconcerted by the fact that she did not know where she was in general. Roxy had woken up at four in the morning to a pushy Asta who was urging her to jump into a one-hour ride on a helicopter.

"Mmm-hmm. Don't worry. It's only for the weekend. You'll be home by Sunday night."

Behind them, the helicopter had landed and its rotating blades were coming to a halt. They were in the middle a small clearing that took no less than precise navigation for the pilot to land in the limited area. There was forest on all sides of them. Both girls wore jogging pants, sneakers and a jacket.

"What are we looking for?"

"You'll see. Which reminds me," Asta turned back to Roxy, "Give me your wristwatch."

Roxy slipped her watch off and gave it to the witch. Asta looked at the watch appreciatively before throwing it into the air. Roxy felt a shiver lick her spine with magic as the watch disintegrated into nothing.

"What the hell was that for?!" Roxy shouted.

"The sun, the stars and the moon are good indicators of time," Asta pointed to the sky that was slowly becoming orange-yellow. "If our ancestors could live like this for hundreds of years before the advent of a good reliable clock, we can live like this too. You'll get it back but if bother to ask me about time, I won't answer."

The Earth fairy looked at the witch incredulously. "You could have told me that you were going to do that still! Why can't I have a watch?"

"Numbering time is artificial. One o'clock, two o'clock, those concepts don't exist for like birds and dogs. There is night, day, spring, summer, winter, you get the point. Numbers are not good ways of understanding the magical reality of the world because they separate you from the world. Time is not cut in centuries and eras, we did that. Time is one long unending line. We try to find order in a world full of chaos by assigning a date to things but magic is all about chaos. You grew up sheltered from the world around you and it has dulled your instincts as an animal."

"You're going to turn me into an animal?!" Roxy partially understood Asta's concept of quantifying time but what the hell was she going on about instincts? Asta was not being necessarily mean about it but she was being blunt and probably hoping that Roxy was keeping up with everything that was being thrown at her—at least, that was what it felt like to Roxy.

"No, you're an animal already—Homo sapiens as you call yourself on Earth, right?" Asta said in a clinical tone that Roxy did not like. "In evolution, we evolved so that we could specifically survive the environment we had grown up in. For you Earthlings, you are a versatile race that can naturally live almost anywhere on this planet. You adapted to an environment and you are aware of your place in the ecosystem. This is the same thing for magic. The universe is like a closed system in a science experiment. (1) Whatever magic you throw into the system will always have an effect and that effect will always come back you to reach a state of equilibrium."

"Like karma?"

"Yes, like karma. In the study of magic, this is the law of return."

-

It felt like a good half-hour of intense hiking before Roxy heard the rush and gurgling of water. The trees were hard packed around them, requiring her to brush branches out of her way. As they had talked, Asta had pelted her with all sorts of scientific and philosophical questions that made Roxy wonder if she had returned to high school. Still, it had been light. The witch had explained to her that the universe was built on order and chaos which created a cyclical harmony.

Asta had also reminded her that 'God' as in the Great Dragon was a major player in the cosmos, most recently through Bloom and the people around her. Sky had been prophesied to be the catalyst of reviving Sparks and Stella had found Bloom while the Trix were chasing her for the rumoured spark of the Dragonfire in her scepter. Roxy was tempted to tell the witch about her strange dreams about accepting her change but she wondered if it would be of any help at all.

She wondered if something was at work for her. Until recently, Roxy's dreams had been normal but suddenly the spectre Nebula appeared in her dreams, the weird woman with a veil who defended her Nebula and then the Lioness who had apparently given her a kitten. Was any of it connected? She felt like she had all the pieces but no idea what the picture was supposed to be.

By the end of the hike, Roxy's hands were raw from pushing branches out of the way and Asta had found a suitable place to set up camp just uphill to a stream.

"Why this place?"

"Because it's fairly level, in case it rains. The water will just go downhill instead of making a puddle and inundating our site. Right now, I'm just going to teach you camping basics before we get to magic. Now, clear the ground and pull out all the rocks you can from the ground. Asta used the side of her foot to push away dead leaves and vegetation to reveal wet earth beneath.

"Why the rocks?" Roxy dropped her heavy bag on top of a boulder.

"You want to use a rock for a pillow?"

"Right…I'm still pissed about the watch."

"Was it that important? I was going to give it back to you anyways."

As they worked, Asta spoke giving pointers about choosing a site: "Always try to camp near running water. Try not to set up camp in area with too many trees overhead because if it rains, the branches just gather the water and it starts raining buckets on you and that can destroy your shelter."

They cleared away the area of forest debris. Their camp site was at the top of a small hill and when Roxy looked down one side, she could see the gurgling stream of water.

It was full sun out now. Roxy sat on a rock that she deemed worthy as a seat. Her stomached rumbled remembering that she had not eaten breakfast.

"I heard that," Asta said from across the small camping area. She was rummaging through her bag for something. She had pulled out some things before giving up and looking to the sky for an answer. "We must have gotten the hatchet in the chopper. Crap!" she mumbled. "You stomach is awfully loud."

"I'm starving! I can't help it," Roxy said. She wished she had hand cream for her dry hands.

An ax went flying past Roxy's face and digging itself into the bark of a tree with a thunk. Roxy screamed in shock.

"Don't ever say that you're 'starving,'" Roxy heard someone say with searing disdain. "I hate people who say that without meaning it." Riven stepped out of the brush

"For the love of God, are all of you this freakin' insane?!"

There was the crackling of wood and Roxy turned to see sapling trees be pushed out of the way.

"You forgot some things in the chopper, Stryker." Riven stepped over a log and pushed a branch away as he threw a shovel to Asta's half-turned back. She caught it with one hand. (Wait a minute, people in the real world can't catch things behind their back.)

"What the hell was that for?!" Roxy screamed at the redhead specialist.

"Starving is not a word that you should take lightly ever." Riven scowled and it would have intimidated Roxy down to her bones had she not been equally angry with the circumstances. She guessed that he had experienced a lot of things before coming to Earth, but of what, she was not sure. She did not know him well enough. "Starvation is when you die from the lack of food. Last time I checked, you're not dying so used the appropriate wording," he said darkly, "You are hungry."

"Oh, screw you! I'll say whatever the hell I want! What the hell is your deal?!" Roxy said angrily.

Riven shrugged, having dropped the subject quickly. He had said what he needed. It was not as if he was going to change her.

"I can so see why Musa likes you, Riven, ever so sensitive and understanding." Helia followed up after Riven, carrying another shovel. Both men wore regular clothing, as if they were ready to go work at the bar. Since autumn was starting to come in, they both wore long jeans and a sweater. Helia, whose hair was tied back in an efficient ponytail, was also holding a shovel and a couple of blue jerrycans and he let them lean against a tree.

"Ignore him. He's being crabby because Musa isn't here."

"What are you doing here?" Roxy turned away from the moody redhead to the longhaired artist.

"We were your pilots on the helicopter. We had helmets on so you can't really tell that it was us in the front. By the way, good morning!"

"How are you this happy this early in the morning?"

"Simple: coffee. I like mine with a hint of mint. Although, I'm still amazed that mint even exists on this planet…"

Roxy tried to ignore him. It was like torture to her stomach.

"By the way, we brought breakfast too," Helia continued. "Yeah, we decided we're just gonna eat breakfast with you instead of going back to Gardenia. It's been awhile since we ate ration packs and we're doing this for old time's sake."

Roxy's stomach sang. At this point, she did not care what it was as long as it was edible (Whatever a ration pack was anyways…). She had been working nonstop for what seemed like two hours. Her hands were dry and she was annoyed by the fact that she had not bothered to bring an elastic for her hair.

"You don't have a fire pit going," Riven noted.

"Or have even started collecting wood," Helia said craning his head for any evident stockpile of wood.

"Well, I guess breakfast is gonna have to be reconstituted with cold water."

"Or we could pitch in and help them make a quick fire now. It's not as if we're going to do anything 'til noon," Helia suggest. "I'm not waiting another hour just to get back to Gardenia for breakfast. I woke up at three in the morning just to give you a lift and—"

"Been there, done that, Helia," Riven interrupted, not wanting to hear a rant. "We're eating breakfast here."

In less than two minutes, Riven and Asta were digging a fire pit with the recently brought shovels and Helia and Roxy were out around the forest collecting wood. The fairy tried to ignore her stomach but the prospect of food was becoming overwhelming. Since she had found out that she was a fairy, she had been doing a lot of things that she had never expected and this was one of them. The entire situation was totally absurd by any normal standard. Helia and Riven were these macho paracommandos that acted like normal people, Asta was somewhat this anti-mainstream person…well, she could not label everyone else properly yet until she got to know them more but the concept was there.

Roxy had a pile of dead branches in her arms and she turned to return to the camp site, unable to pick up more branches.

"Helia, what are you doing?" Roxy reprimanded. The longhaired man stood still in front of a dead tree that was black from being struck by lightning and was partially split in half. He tossed the hatchet in his hand dangerously like a juggler would, contemplating the tree. The tree was about the thickness of her leg.

"Just keep going, Roxy," he advised.

"Uh, okay." Roxy continued dubious but hungry.

She dropped her pile of wood to the side of the camp beside where the pit had been dug when all of a sudden, there was the sound of something tight tensioning and finally snapping in release. The sound of a tree hitting the forest floor reverberated throughout the forest.

"Oh, for the love of…" Riven swore, squinting his eyes in scrutiny in the direction of the sound.

"I've learned over the years that as long as you don't question his methods, everything will always turn out right," Asta suggested, dunking her shovel into the ground.

"I've been doing that for the last three years."

"And it's worked, right?"

"Yeah…I still don't like it."

"Asta," Roxy cut in, "He just chopped an entire tree down." She had every reason to be concerned. If what she was thinking was right, Helia had tried to chop down an entire tree seeing at the way he had been looking at it.

"It was probably dead, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then there's no problem. Come with me to the river to collect some water." Asta heaved herself out of the pit to leave Riven to dig out the last few feet. They picked up the jerrycans and filled them with water from the stream. A few minutes later, they found Riven clanging his shovel against something solid in the earth.

"A rock?" Roxy asked.

"Two of them cornered together. You need to take it out." Riven climbed out of the pit, his jeans a dirty.

Asta and Roxy looked in.

"Yeah, that's a problem," the witch concluded.

"What do we do?"

"We can cheat and use magic. Let's see what you can do, Roxy."

The fairy's eyes widened in embarrassment.

"Well, this trip is all about you, right? Might as well see how well your magic is now." Asta sat on a large flat stone and motioned for Roxy to join her. "How would you solve this problem using magic?"

Riven walked out of the site, apparently collecting wood and bark.

Roxy drew a blank at the rocks in the pit. Her stomach was rumbling like a beast in her ears and she was faced with a simple task of moving rocks with magic. Was there a spell for this kind of situation?

"Here, use this." Asta tossed her Flora's old magic book.

Roxy caught it with trembling hands.

"I'm not looking for perfection. If you can just even think of a way to move the rocks, it would be fine. You don't even need to do it yourself if you're not confident."

Roxy looked at the worn book and then at the pit. The hole was a foot and a half deep and the two rocks were the size of her backpack. Her concentration had left her a long time ago. She took a deep breath and sat on the ground, leafing through the book for the magical answer, words blurring in her sight.

She had to move rocks. First, what the hell? Two, how?

"What if we clear the top of dirt and then lifted them out?"

"Lift them how?"

"Just float them out or something. Like use the word 'moven' or whatever—" Roxy felt something tingle in her spine and her shoulders.

"I heard the fluttering of wings," Asta said.

Roxy whipped her head to the dark-haired girl. "What?"

"Fairy magic sounds like tinkling bells to me."

"Magic has a sound?"

"It's not a sound per se. Some people feel as waves and some hear it as a sound, that's all. Fairy magic sounds like a tinkling of bells. So would you like to try and lift them out on your own?"

"Is that it?"

Asta gave her a look looking for clarification.

"I mean, was that all you wanted from me? What about those thirteen lessons?"

"You still have to learn those but the point of me asking you to do this yourself is to see how you approached a problem."

Roxy nodded, understanding the sudden evaluation. She turned back to the stones in the pit and took a shovel to loosen the earth. After a few moments, she pointed to the stones in her most commanding voice. "Moven."

The ground below it shook as the two stones shot straight up into the air in front of her. Surprised, she let go of the stones and they fell back down into the pit with a heavy thud.

"Try that again but direct them out to the side."

Roxy did that and let the rocks settle near Asta's stone seat. One of them suddenly started rolling down the hill to the creek.

"And now we can start a fire to purify the water." Asta pulled out several pots and some clothes.

Roxy's stomach groaned. Of course, they could not use water from the creek without cleansing it of bacteria and debris. Twenty minutes later, they were all seated around a small fire eating reconstituted food. They ate in silence, the crackling of burning wood and birds singing breaking the monotony.

Ration packs were boxes of prepackaged meals, usually two, for soldiers out in the field and they usually had enough food in them for twenty-four hours. Like on Earth, rations packs differed by country and were tailored to fit the nation's cultural tastes. The ones that Asta had brought were no different…Roxy really had no idea what she was eating and wondered if she really wanted to know. She stared at the opened can of food in her hand. It was like a wet salad that was as pink as her hair with smoked salmon-like bits of meat and some type of green spice. The taste was tart and strong but sort of sweet. One could not imagine how relieved she was when she finally started eating.

"I don't think you're quite ready to know what's inside this," Asta answered the unspoken question. Her eyes had sharply turned grey for a moment before becoming their normal black brown.

"Well, what is it?"

"I'm warning you, you're not going to like it. Don't you dare say it to her!" Asta said to the two specialists. "You've been desensitized at Red Fountain for this, you're different from her."

"This…this is extremely…" Helia said in a non-Earth language, placing his chin on his hand. "I'm curious to see what her reaction is." To Roxy, it had sounded like a bunch of melodious gibberish.

"Don't," Riven said, effectively leaving Roxy out. "Thank the gods that she can't read the box. I did not stay here for a puke fest."

"Ugh, you're impossible!" Asta said.

"Uh, hello?! Speak Italian here!" the pink-haired girl shouted. "What were you speaking anyways?"

"Standard Zenite, the language of business for Magix. It comes from Tecna's planet because they built the bureaucracy," Helia said.

"But when you learn magic, you use Dominoan or Neicheusian. Dominoan is the language from Bloom's planet and Neicheusian is ours." Asta pointed to herself and Helia.

"Do I have to learn one of them?"

"The book, Flora's book, is written with Neicheusian spells. For some odd reason, half of Earth's languages are very similar to ours. One of your languages, Greek, sounds alarmingly like one of our languages. Personally, I find this intriguing but we don't have time to start caring. What's important is that you can learn easier because of the similarity."

"But how can I read this book though?"

"It's spelled to be written in a language that you would understand it."

"But how would they know…?"

"Don't think deeply about it. It's an abstract concept of magic."

Roxy spooned in another bite of the salad and looked at the spoon. "What's in here?"

"Well, you're going to learn anyways…" Riven said.

"Don't!" Asta said.

"Helia?" Roxy turned to him for answers.

"Um, well," Helia said. "For argument's sake, I'm agreeing with Riven. She will learn eventually, Asta. We might as well get it out now. Let me try to say this in a way that is not meant to be mean or cruel. I'm not doing this to gross you out or whatever. You have to understand in the universe, we're very open about things. You Earthlings can accept skin-colour racism and difference of religion but, I don't want to sound like the vainglorious alien invader who thinks your kind scum, because I don't, but what your people have achieved an equilibrium that is very fragile. If you ever come to Magix, you will without a doubt suffer from extreme culture shock. Magic is hard enough but the political dynamics of everything is much more…I have no word for it, I'm sorry.

"Homo sapiens are the dominant race on Earth. You've studied your own planetary ecosystem and understand your place but sometimes, you are restrained or encouraged by certain things. Judaism, if I'm right, prevents you from eating pork but in Asia, you hunt down sharks for their fins to make shark fin soup. The fin gives you absolutely no nutritional value for the soup; it's just a decoration."

"You mean the Chinese?"

"Yes, the shark is an empowering symbol to them so they hunt them despite what they already know about the fins."

Roxy nodded. She had already read about this before and found the practice of shark finning detestable.

"Let's think of merfolk though. They live underwater so digital technology and everything we're used to is absolutely useless to them. They're usually not ever concerned with the things that happen outside of water. They don't have an established writing system. They're like us but at the same time, they aren't. It's very hard to explain. They have the same mental capacity for math and philosophy but evolution has made them the way they are. They are much more primal, more direct about things. What they see as good and bad is not the same as you do."

"What are you trying to get at already?!" Roxy said frustrated. "Asta?" Roxy was sure that she was not going to get a straight answer out of Helia and she was almost afraid to ask Riven because he might be too blunt about it. Helia's long homily was starting to worry her. What did this have to do with a can of food?

"Well, she is going to learn one day how to read the box, right?" Riven said.

Asta swallowed hard, as if hesitating on a momentous decision. She looked to Roxy, concerned for the girl-almost-woman. "Look, I'm going to tell you what's in this but don't get upset, please."

Roxy nodded. Whatever they were talking could not be as bad.

Asta handled her opened can and read from the label to avoid Roxy's gaze. "Snapdragon salad with sautéed merfolk fry."

-

Roxy dropped the can and pushed it away from her, horrified. "There's mermaids in there?!" she screeched. She spat out her food and suddenly wanted to wretch.

They nodded expectantly.

"There's fucking mermaids in this?!"

This was not right! Mermaids were not supposed to be packed into cans for human consumption! They supposed to be beautiful magical creatures traveling any and all waters without fear of being caught.

"Ohmigod, that's not right!" Roxy's hands flew to her mouth. She got up and ran from the camp.

-

It was a very long time before Asta came to fetch Roxy and return her to the camp. She had heard the helicopter fly off in the distance to Gardenia.

"What the fucking hell is wrong with you people?!" Roxy screamed with a tear-drenched face. Asta sat a good distance away from Roxy, at least beyond arm's length. Roxy had been sitting in the same spot for a very long time, just crying.

"Monsters, monsters, monsters! All of you are monsters!" Roxy sobbed. "What is wrong with you people?!" She screamed profanities at the witch but Asta took them all in without fighting. Roxy's reaction was natural and her statements were very true. There was no arguing any of it.

"How can you people do any of this?! How can you stand yourselves?!" She broke off into sobbing. Roxy wiped her tears with her sleeves and Asta took this chance to hand Roxy a water bottle.

"Just drink, please."

Roxy drank, finding her throat parch from yelling, and eventually fell into silence, unable to say more. Asta took this as a chance to speak.

"Look, I understand everything. I don't need to read minds to know what you're feeling. You feel that we should not be eating things that can be just as intelligent and talented as us. Yes, it's wrong to us but you have to understand that even fish on Earth eat their own fry. Sometimes, you have to see the mermaids as not only people but animals too. It's not uncommon for a parent fish, or merman, to eat his own…fry. Look, I can't imagine what someone feels when they eat their own child. I can't all and I would not want to read the mind of someone who did. I think it's an abomination if you did. I would kill them myself, if I could.

"Children are precious. They are the culmination of our hopes and dreams but…this is the merman's nature to eat his own fry.

"You have to understand that it's food. You need food to survive. You're not immortal. When someone is desperate enough…it happens. The merfolk don't see it as wrong. It's a natural part of the cycle. The bigger fish always eats the smaller fish. That meal is no different from eating a can of caviar that you can get in the supermarket. I'm sorry and I'm sad about these things but there's no helping it at times. Please, don't be mad at me or Helia or Riven."

"I…" Roxy looked up, unsure of what to feel towards the situation. "I'm not mad at you, it's just…how?"

"We're desensitized by this. Helia and Riven especially because of Red Fountain. I don't know how else I can explain this to you. Can I sit beside you?"

Roxy nodded and Asta moved so that she was sitting closer.

The witch looked to the treetops for answers. "To put it simply, they are insensitive, which is their strength. Specialists don't do what a regular soldier does and it requires a much more complex but simpler mind to handle it. Insensitivity is also their weakness because they forget that the way they act is not how normal people act. Helia doesn't see the 'salad' as cannibalizing their friend, it's just food that feeds and keeps them going. They look at it for the absolute value of it. Get it?"

"Yes, but if mermaids are just as equal to us, like you said, why would they…?"

"Let us eat their eggs? A mermaid lays about two hundred eggs. I don't like it but it's impractical to raise all of them. You and me, we can have one, two or maybe three babies on our own but imagine trying to raise six or eight. It's not easy without help."

"I'm starting to understand." It was not rare for fish on Earth to eat their own eggs or fry. It was just hard to associate such a primal and sickening behavior to a mermaid that was equally smart as her. In her mind, mermaids were different from fish but the way they lived as Asta said suggested otherwise. Who was she to compare a land-loving human to a mermaid? Obviously, evolution went their separate ways and each evolved in a way that best fitted them for assured survival in their respective environments.

"We're here for a reason," Asta continued. "I chose this place so you can learn magic. We need to start. This might be the one and only time that you ever eat that, okay? We need to work, Roxy.

"The first principle in magic is to know yourself. (2) You are always learning about yourself and your world, changing and reevaluating everything. From this, you have to decide where your place in the world is. You've chosen to stand against eating the merfolk. You decided that you can't eat their fry because you mourn the lost of something intelligent that is equal to yours. I didn't do this purposely to you, to eat that but this somewhat encompasses what the first principle is."

"That's it?"

"There's a lot more but you understand what you believe in and what you think is right and wrong. It's also about knowing what your purpose as a fairy is but I'm told that it comes to you in time. The second principle is to know your craft."

Latter Note:

1) Closed system: I realise that some of my readers have not completed high school yet. "A system which is isolated so that it cannot exchange matter or energy with its surroundings and can therefore attain a state of thermodynamic equilibrium. Also known as isolated system." Used in thermodynamics (usually in chemistry class).

2) The principle is to know yourself. To me, this can be interpreted as integrity and principled. Understanding and adherence to an ethic are important to being successful in today's world and the one to come.

I hope this sounds better. I knew the first version was off and that I was probably venting some anger at the world around me. I apologize for the first version.