Disclaimer: I don't own Winx.
Preview: Set after season one. Musa and Riven have been sent to the Black Mud Swamp to search for the escaped Trix. The two are unlikely allies. Musa hasn't forgiven Riven for what he did pre-final battle and Riven doesn't think he did anything wrong to her. They found traces of the Trix in the heart of the Black Mud Swamp and so they entered the cold, forbidding area. After spotting Succubae Bats which are lethal to Fairies and which are also endangered, Musa realizes that they're very much in danger of not escaping this journey uninjured. Coming across Stormy, Musa uses an attack to beat back the psychotic witch and thus begins a chase scene. They're captured by the Trix and tied up to wait for the others, only for the duo to escape with revenge running hot through Riven's veins.
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Musa was beginning to hate the swamp. It was cold, it was damp and it was dark. More than that though, she couldn't shake the ominous feeling that things just weren't as they seemed. She had convinced Riven to give up his plan to ambush the Trix – though she was under no illusion that he had given it up completely – for the moment because she was low on Winx. So low in fact that she had transformed back into her khaki uniform which left her feeling at a slight disadvantage.
Maybe that was the reason that every sound she heard made her heart jolt, and her eyes kept picking out shapes within the dense darkness. Of course, she couldn't voice any of those fears to Riven, who was easily striding through the grim heart as if it were the corridors of Red Fountain, perfectly safe and harmless. Whether they were alone or not Riven was more than likely revving up for a confrontation with the witches, he just hadn't run off yet because it wouldn't be hero-like to leave her on her own. She was under no illusions, however, that when they came upon the witches, he would be launching his ambush.
Stupid, thickheaded idiot.
Still, if that did happen, she had a plan. It wasn't a great plan but it would suffice.
"Stop worrying." Riven growled; glancing at her over his shoulder before looking away again, his jaw clenched.
"I can't help it," she replied quietly, "I sense something ominous."
"This whole place is obvious." He bit out but still he felt compelled to ask: "Bats?"
"No, or not just them. There's something else." Her foot snapped a twig and she tensed as the sound seemed to echo around them. Riven glared at her and she snarled back, reaching down to grab the fragmented branch and leave it to the side. She heaved out a sigh and stopped, arching her back to stretch out the kinks. It felt as though they had been walking for hours but at a guess she'd say they had only been walking for fifty minutes at the most. "I wonder where the others are. They should be here by now, unless they encountered something and –"
"They'll get here when they –"
He broke off as Musa shivered, magic rushed over her skin and her head snapped to the sky. She couldn't see anything but thick shadows through the bare tree limbs but...
She rushed forward a few steps and spinning around she tried to spy what her senses were screaming at her. A barrier? But how?
"Hey, is it the bats?"
She shook her head, while her mind worked a mile a minute. Was she right? Had the Trix erected a barrier? What kind and why? Were they inside the barrier, outside the barrier? Where were the bats? She shivered, rubbing her hands over her bare arms that still tingled from the brush with dark magic. A barrier that caused such a reaction had to be one to rival one of Faragonda's and that certainly wasn't a mere physical protection field.
Riven's growl echoed in her ears as his hands closed over her shoulders, hot and rough. He yanked her round to face him and his violet eyes burnt into hers. "What. Is. It?"
Shock held her still in his grip; then she blinked. "I'm not sure."
"But you know something."
"I think..." She inhaled slowly, seeking inner calm. She couldn't hide things from Riven. If they were as stuck as she assumed they were, they would need to rely on each other more than before. That meant there could be no more secrets. "I think the Trix just used a level three barrier spell."
Riven closed his eyes then opened them again, his expression pointedly resigned. "Explain."
"I use a level one barrier spell when I'm walking through this place, just a nice shield to deflect any surprise attack. Your shields are level two barrier spells embedded into the crystal, tough to break but doable. Now think of how hard it would be to break a level three one."
He thought that through for a long moment and as he did she realized his thumb was stroking her skin through her sleeve, driving her slowly crazy from the sensations. She curbed the urge to shrug him off, though her shoulder flexed instinctively and his thumb stilled. For a moment she thought he would remove his hand but he didn't, too caught up in his thoughts.
"Hard," he replied, "but doable."
"If the others are there." She agreed, "If they were outside they could take down the barrier easily with a combined attack focused on one spot – well a weak spot would be preferable."
"But my shield – " he looked at it for a long moment, before glancing up at her. "It's pretty tough."
Reaching down she took the little globe that held the crystal for his shield within and examined it. It pulsed thickly around her senses and she raised a brow, surprised. "Hmm, not one level two spell but three interwoven. I knew a plain level two sounded pretty cheap for a hero considering what it would have to endure."
He took it back from her and slipped it into the belt around his waist. "So a level three?"
"Hmm, usually it's not performed by one person because it requires a great deal of energy to create. That's where you get the levels from, you see. Level one is used by one person, a level two by two etc. Of course, a strong person such as Faragonda could quite easily form a level three barrier by herself. And Bloom has the potential to create a level two due to the excess amount of energy within her; in fact I think even Stella could create a level two with her sunstaff."
She bit her lip, and slipped her hands into the belt loops at the base of her spine, tilting her head to scan the empty canopy again. In doing so, she forced Riven to take a step back or their bodies would be touching intimately in a way neither of them would be comfortable with.
"So what level is the one surrounding Alfea?"
"Level five but five is the limit. After that every barrier is considered a level five since there's only so much power that can go into a barrier before you start locking the people inside and blocking out air."
He made a sound of acknowledgement then turned away, moving silently along the path. After one last glance towards the sky, she turned to follow him, blue eyes intent on the naked path. To the side, dry rushes lined the trail and curved around the base of the thin, almost rubbery trunks of the Hollowmen trees. They were called Hollowmen due to the fact that there were holes in the trunks that resembled faces, and the trunk was vacant inside. Just seeing them gave Musa the willies.
"So where would this weak spot be?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. It would depend on where the spell was cast and how far it spreads."
"So we find the Trix, eliminate them and take out the barrier."
Oh yes, that was the easiest way to do things. So utterly simple, why hadn't she thought of it? She clenched her fists and bit back the biting retort sitting on the tip of her tongue. "If we do that, we'll be imprisoned again or worse, be killed. Face it Riven, we're not nearly strong enough on our own to take on the Trix."
He shot her a cool scornful look that said that maybe she wasn't strong enough but he certainly believed he was.
Delusional.
A light up a head caught her attention. "Riven?"
"Relax; it's just more of those luminaire plants."
"Clever," Musa noted. When he glanced at her she added, "You said that if you were hiding in the black mud swamp, you'd choose the valley of the luminaire plants because it would hide a fire. Well this place is even better. You have Luminaire plants to keep away the bats, they disguise fires and being so far into the heart of the swamp, people would rarely trespass... except, this must have been a farm at some stage, or a ranch."
He stepped up behind her as she wandered along the lit up path. It was still creepy; the hollowmen looked suitably disturbing backlit by the glowing sparks of pollen from the flowering nocturnal blossoms. But there was a sense of homeliness from the wooden fencing that corralled the flowers and a sense of desolation from the broken posts and rotten strips of wood.
"Nobody must know about this place." She mused, laying a hand on the jagged fencing, noting the collapsed logs propped against the cracked earth.
"If this was a farm, then there's a possibility that there might be some kind of homestead or storage buildings, like barns."
Riven made a valid point. She knew little of farming and agriculture but it made sense that there would have had to be a place for the person who built these paddocks to stay and keep his tools. "You think the Trix have set up base there? How could they have known of this place?" And what happened to the farmer who had toiled here? Was he long gone? Had he given up on the infertile earth or had the loneliness driven him away?
"They probably studied this place and explored it. They were here before, remember?"
Right, back when they had tracked that Troll and had found the duckling's feathers. Her fingers trailed over the closed petals of a nearby flower. "You know, these flowers are different. Look, they don't unfurl when you come closer and their sparks are almost white, like moonlight."
"They're a breed of Luminaire," Riven replied softly, stroking the petals of another flower. "The ones outside thrive on light, they're called Pyre Luminaire and these are Luna Luminaire."
"Luna Luminaire," She repeated bemused, "kind of a mouthful."
"That's why people just call them luminaire plants regardless of what colour sparks they shoot."
Sometimes Riven disturbed her with the amount of stuff he seemed to know, especially when he had claimed to have no knowledge of the Quietus Carnivorous plants from before. Still, one of the boys had commented that Riven often knew more than he let on, as if to lure people into thinking he wasn't as smart as the rest. It was a clever plan that automatically had people dismissing him as nothing more than a hothead.
"So are they valuable? Was the farmer harvesting them?"
Riven shook his head. "No, I would guess that he used them to light his path. See how far apart they sit, no glow overlaps another and they follow the winding path... back to the homestead, I would guess."
Musa suppressed a shiver. "Ok, so let's go. The sooner we can figure out where the homestead is, the easier it will be to find the weak spot, supposing that the spell was cast at the homestead. It makes the most sense. Of course it would be handier if we could find out where the barrier ends too, that would give me a better idea of –" She broke off fishing through her pocket for her phone, dialling out and holding it to her ear.
Her face fell. "Well there goes that idea."
"What?"
"No reception. The barrier must be interfering with it."
Riven stared at her for one humming second before shaking his head. "That can't be right." At her incredulous, bordering on angry look – because he always criticised her? –, he explained himself with a hard sigh. "Look, you said that's a level three barrier and the one around Alfea is a level five? Well then how do you phone people when you're in Alfea? It's probably something simple like they're out of range or we're out of range. Not everything is to do with magic, you know."
She flushed. "Oh. Right. That could be it. I guess if I sent a message it would probably get through sooner or later."
"Just do it, already. I'm getting tired of just standing here doing nothing."
She bit her lip and began sending a group text to their friends – though why it was left to her, she didn't know, he could just as easily take the initiative and text their friends as well as she could. "Alright, it's beginning to send but it might take awhile for them to receive it. So let's go scout around and see where this path leads us."
"Finally."
She snorted. He was a real prince among men. Sometimes she wondered which higher power she had insulted so badly that she continuously got landed with him. It seemed to be that every time something to do with Red Fountain came up she was paired with Riven. It almost made her wish that Alfea and Red Fountain would suddenly become mortal enemies, because fighting him would be much more preferable to this forced charade of an alliance.
Her eyes flickered nervously to the treeline again. The bats were still out there too and goodness knows where the Trix were. Maybe they hadn't chosen to use the 'homestead' at all; they did have a camp set up. But maybe the camp was a decoy... It was the place that the troll had attacked and so it was the first place anyone searching for them would look; only someone who knew the Black Mud Swamp inside out would know of the farm, it had been sheer luck that Riven and Musa had stumbled upon it.
So it made sense that their true base would be the homestead. They probably even had traps and alarms set up to let them know when someone had come close to their 'camp' which would allow them to ambush their opponents. And should a bigger group come, they were hid snug in their homestead which was probably fortified in case of a siege. The Trix weren't stupid, they knew exactly what they were doing and that's what made them dangerous.
She shook her head at her own thoughts. A barrier, traps, fortified hide out? She made it sound as if the Trix were... her self-depreciating smile faded. She made it sound as though they were preparing for war.
"Riven?" She couldn't disguise the desperation in her tone.
"What now?" He growled under his breath and sweeping his hand over his head he stalked back to her. "You get bitten or something?"
"If they're at the homestead, we have to be careful. They don't want to go back to prison –"
Riven looked to the sky before sighing heavily. "Well of course they don't want to go to prison, that's why they ran away and that's why we're hunting them."
"No, listen to me. We have to contact Faragonda – "
His face closed down. "We said we'd wait."
She considered her words carefully knowing that Riven was going to stubbornly cling to the idea that they be the ones to track down the Trix. His personal vendetta. "Until we knew the Trix were here. Well now we know. We have to tell her."
"They might not be here."
She bit back a growl of frustration and slowly unclenched her hands. "Look, this is about more than your need for vengeance, Riven. So you made a mistake, big deal. You were where it counted at the final battle and you got everyone out of Cloud Tower so you more than made up for your transgression. Don't let your past control you."
"You have no idea what I went through!" He spat; turning so his back was to her, shoulders straight, clenching his fists at his sides. "What I'm still going through. You never betrayed your friends and you never had to see the looks in their eyes or listen to snide comments about your previous actions, as if everyone is looking for signs of your inherent evilness. Do you know what it's like to doubt yourself? Red Fountain is all I have and I'm on fucking probation because no one trusts me anymore. I went from general pain-in-the-ass, to that guy you don't cross in case he kills you!"
Stunned she stared at him. Was it really that bad? Did people really think that?
"So, Riven, crash any more ships lately? ... then again, how do we know it wasn't you that tampered with it?"
Oh Dragon, of course he had. If she could think it, then anyone who knew him vaguely could think much worse. A trembling hand lifted to her lips. "I'm –"
"Don't!" His voice hoarse, he looked over his shoulder to glare at her. "Don't say it, Musa. I don't want to hear it from you. I don't need your pity; I need your compliance. I have to do this. I have to prove to everyone that I am no longer working for... that bitch!"
"Witch," she correctly lamely.
"She used me and I let her."
Her eyes leapt to his, startled by his words. "What?" She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed, trying to gain some measure of composure. "What do you mean let her? Why would you do that?"
"Because, I recognized something in her that I had in me."
Oh so they had a connection, it wasn't just a spell but something more. She suddenly felt the need to go hurl in the bushes, as if her stomach wanted to physically and violently repel everything he said.
"What? An innate sense of right and wrong?!" Why did she feel like crying?
"We were alone."
"Alone? Neither of you were alone. You had the Specialists; she had her sisters."
"They're not her sisters." Riven muttered, clearing his throat.
"Yes they –"
"They aren't sisters by blood."
"Oh." Right, sister witches. "But still how could she be lonely when she has them?"
"How can you be lonely when you have the girls?" He countered.
Her mouth fell open to tell him that she wasn't lonely but all that came out was a helpless sigh. Fact was, she understood. Sometimes the loneliest place was a crowded room. She loved her friends, loved them dearly but they hadn't lost their mother nor lived with a shell of a man they'd once known as their father. They had their own problems that she couldn't share. Life was like that.
"I still don't like her and I still don't like what she did to you." Musa confessed, wrapping an arm around her waist.
"Trust me, neither do I. That's why I have to do this. I have to prove where my loyalties lie."
"You could do that by reporting them to Saladin."
"And have him call me out in case I succumb again? No thanks."
"What if you do? She got pretty far into your mind. What if prolonged contact does make you succumb?"
His head whipped to her and the horror in his eyes made her realize she'd said the wrong thing. "You really think I'd –"
She shook her head, hands coming up to placate him. "No! But I do understand a bit about magic and –"
"Well you obviously know nothing about me. I wouldn't hurt you!"
Her whole body clenched in reaction to the fierce declaration. It felt as though she'd been sucker punched, the breath whooshed out of her, carrying away her words and leaving her surprisingly speechless, lightheaded. What did he mean by that? Did he mean in general that he wouldn't hurt her because they were on the same side or was it something more? Something directed solely at her?
"Tha –" She paused to wet her lips and gather her thoughts. "I wasn't thinking you would hurt me." At least, not intentionally. "But magic such as Darcy's is complicated and dangerous. She had you under that spell a long time and there could still be threads of it within your consciousness, rooted down. You can't know for certain that she couldn't just capture them again."
"Then why didn't she use it earlier if these threads exist?"
She opened her mouth to retort then thought better of it. Shaking her head, she walked past him. "I don't know, Riven. I'm just telling you to be careful. Run head long into danger and you're likely to end up hurt."
"Don't worry about me," Riven stated curtly as he overtook her to lead the way, "I'm a hero."
So? She was a fairy. That didn't make her invincible. She had to be just as cautious as any person, perhaps more so. Sometimes she wished Riven would stop being so arrogant.
"Why is he so arrogant?!" Aisha demanded stalking up and down the barrier outside the heart of the black Mud Swamp. "What makes him think that it's ok for him to dictate that Musa goes with him and she'll just follow? And why did she follow? She always complains about him and he's always horrible to her. I don't understand this one bit!"
Brandon tucked his tongue in his cheek and wisely kept quiet. Since meeting the headstrong water fairy he had developed a tactic of just letting Aisha calm herself down when she was angry. She had a certain disdain for male chivalry and so he chivalrously allowed her to say what she wanted – no way was he ending up on the other end of her fists by trying to defend Riven. Who knew what went on in his friends' head? Riven was a lone wolf, he probably just felt that he could deal with Musa better.
"I mean anyone would have been better than Musa. Tecna could have used her computers to track down the Trix if they were there – and you know what, they probably wouldn't have been there if anyone else went to look. Riven just attracts danger and then he yanks Musa into it."
Not like Bloom had ever dragged anyone into danger, or Layla or Stella, Brandon mused philosophically. He loved his girlfriend but the girl could find a cat fight in any fashion store and was likely to draw her companions into it. The search for the perfect outfit was a dangerous one.
"- not to mention the fact that Stella could have been really useful or Bloom or myself. Flora! Flora would have been better, she's a nature fairy! You can't get anyone more adapted to suit this place. But, no, he chooses Musa who he knows has a serious thing for him and why? So he can flaunt how great he is and how much he doesn't need her. Oh I have his number alright. Self obsessed, ego-maniac –"
Brandon swallowed a sigh and mentally picked out the flaws in her ideas. Stella, though he loved her dearly, would only alert the Trix to her presence over her whining about how dirty the swamp was and squealing over bugs; not to mention the fact that Riven would probably kill her and hide the body.
Bloom would probably end up stuck in the swamp because Riven and she had no time for each other due to their hot headedness and her nice personality, which would only grate on Riven's nerves. Aisha would probably bury Riven for being a chauvinist. And Flora, while an excellent choice for himself or Sky or any of the boys in red fountain who may have decided to go on a foray into the dark swamp, would probably shrivel up and die under Riven's withering looks and caustic words.
There was a sudden pop!, a metallic bang as the barrier shuddered and then a familiar screech. Aisha jumped back and Brandon darted forward as the Princess of Solaria dropped onto the mossy banks of the river.
"OW!"
"Stella?"
Another thud and Sky plummeted to the ground only to catch himself with his hands and spring onto his feet.
"Sky!"
"Hey guys." The prince of Eraklyon mused as he dusted himself off and moved to Brandon's side. "When did that barrier appear?"
"Must be a recent event. Musa wouldn't have told us to teleport to an area with a barrier enclosing it."
"The Trix!" Stella hissed, using Brandon's offered hand to scramble to her feet. "I know they're behind this!"
"Well Musa's inside so we have to get inside somehow." Aisha growled and Brandon quietly bit his tongue, as he wondered just what she was more worried about. The fact that Musa was in there with the Trix, or the fact that she was with Riven. Honestly the guy got too much hate. Sure he was a jackass at times but he had his reasons and his issues. No one was perfect, after all.
"Well, let's blast it!"
Aisha shot Stella a dark look. "That won't work, Stella. You know that you can't just blast a barrier and expect it to shatter. Not one of that level anyway."
"Pfft, I'll just use my sun staff! It'll go poof in a jiffy!"
"Or reflect your attack back at you. Do you ever listen in class?!"
"Girls!"
Another pop, another bang and another thud as yet another figure hit the ground. This time it was Timmy followed by a hovering Bloom who had managed to catch herself mid flight.
"Whoa! That's new."
"You ok Timmy?" Brandon asked as he leaned over to help the guy up, while the blond quickly fixed his glasses upon the bridge of his nose. Sky immediately went to Bloom's side, the perfect royal couple.
"Of course, I just wasn't expecting a barrier. Hey, where's Tecna? Did she get your memo?"
"I'm sure she did, man. Now Aisha, how do we take down this barrier?"
"It's a level three barrier, we need to find its weak spot and hit it with everything we've got. Right Bloom?"
"Right! Anywhere else will either reflect the attack or absorb it so we need to find the exact spot where the spell is at its weakest."
"And where would that be?"
"Well, it depends on where the barrier was cast and how far it spreads – "
Yet again, another pop, a bang and three more bodies hit the earth.
"Tecna!"
"You ok Flora?"
"Hey Helia, is she ok?"
Helia looked up from the girl held tightly in his arms, his body having cushioned her fall and nodded. "She's fine."
Flora blinked, disorientated for a moment, before her wide green eyes locked on Helia's face and she flushed, dropping her gaze. "Are you ok?"
"I'm fine."
"What on earth is a level three barrier doing over the heart of the Black Mud Swamp?" Tecna wondered as she brushed Timmy's hand away to get to her feet, then pulling out a small digital analyser, she began to study the barrier. "How long has it been here?"
"We estimate sometime between Musa's last message and Brandon and Aisha's arrival."
"That's long enough for it to have solidified." Tecna grumbled.
Beep!
All nine of them pulled out their phones as they went off in quick succession.
"It's Musa! She's... letting us know there's a barrier. Thanks for the heads up Musa." Aisha shook her head.
"She wants to know where it ends."
"I know; I got the same message!" Stella growled, shoving her communicator into her pocket and stomping over to the barrier to hammer her fists against it. "Let me in! I have some serious Trix bootie to kick, so I want in now!"
"Stella!"
"Let me in!" This time accompanied with kicking, Brandon noted with amusement.
"Stel-la!"
"We need to find the weak spot." Tecna spoke over Bloom who was trying to calm the irate fairy down. "Aisha, Flora, do a fly over and see if you can sense anything. Bloom, Stella, I need you to go in that direction and Sky, Brandon in the opposite to see how far it stretches. Helia, contact Musa and let her know we're here; Timmy, you're helping me."
"Hey Bloom?" Flora called out as she hovered in the air behind Aisha, "Do you think it's time to call Mrs. Faragonda yet?"
Bloom considered it for a moment, the nodded her head. "Yes, I think so."
Brandon sighed. Well then, he thought casting a look at his friends, they had better get to the Trix quickly if they wanted to see a piece of the action. And with that thought, the group split up to attend to Tecna's orders.
The homestead wasn't anything like Musa had expected. Instead of a grotty old hovel with worn stone work, it was a half storey house with white washed walls and a long slanted roof of red reeds bound together. The windows, while shattered and dirty were fringed with green shutters, some of which hung limply from their hinges and while the door had obviously rotted away leaving a gaping mouth in the middle of the wall; still, there was a certain charm to the building.
From her position standing behind a cluster of trees she could discern that it had probably been a nice home once upon a time. The house, surrounded by tall thin trees that stretched to the sky, had been raised off the swampy ground with small columns of bricks, though the steps that had probably led to the river's shore had now rotted away to nothing but shards on the bank. The muddy water of the river meandered under a corroded metal bridge that arched over it and separated the homesteads' island from the rest of the swamp. It was pretty and tranquil and probably would have been picturesque had it been built somewhere else in the swamp but the darkness of the heart seemed to devour it.
So far though, there was no sign of the Trix.
Riven shifted beside her and sighed loudly. "This waiting around is driving me nuts. We should go in and look around. They might have my weapon in there."
"And what happens when they come back and find us inside?"
"They won't. Come on." He cajoled; getting to his feet and stretching. "I'm tired of sitting around."
She rolled her eyes. It was this stubbornness that was going to get them both killed. "Fine, but if we die, I will haunt you!"
His hand appeared in her face and she blinked, jerking backwards. Surprised she stared up at him and watched irritation flicker over his face.
"Do you want a hand up or not?"
She nodded dumbly, taking the offered hand and allowing him to yank her to her feet. She honestly wasn't sure what she was supposed to make of him. On one hand he spoke brusquely as if she was nothing but a burden to him but his actions always seemed to belie his words. She really couldn't understand him.
"Let's go."
She brushed down her shorts and followed Riven as he pushed through the brittle limbs of the trees they'd been hiding behind. Her ears were alive for any sounds or pulses of energy that would alert her to the Trix's return but so far she could sense nothing. Bar the bubbling, the place was disturbing in its quietness.
"You know," she mused, "This isn't what I was expecting. Why would someone build a home here? It's not exactly prime real estate."
Riven jerked a shoulder. "I like it. It's away from everyone else and it's quiet."
"You'd bring up a family here?" She questioned without thinking, for a moment forgetting who she was with as she snuck towards the dilapidated home.
The look he gave her made her flinch and blush. Yeah, somehow she didn't think Riven would be raising a family anywhere at all.
"Well," She mused, "It's not bad place but it's so far from civilisation. I wonder where they got their groceries. It's not like there's a shop just around the corner."
"They probably lived off the farm."
"How quaint." She could just imagine Stella's reaction to such a life but she wouldn't mind it too much, for a holiday.
"Yeah," Riven snorted, "Quaint."
"What? It is quaint." She muttered, stopping behind him as he came to halt before the door.
"Can you sense anything inside?"
Musa shook her head. "No, it's all clear."
"Traps?"
"If there is, I probably won't sense them but there is residual dark energy in the air and there was definitely a spell cast here recently."
Carefully creeping up to the front door, Riven braced his hand on the doorframe and peered inside allowing his eyes to adapt to the darkness. Musa shifted herself so that she was peering over his shoulders. While the outside had retained some of its shape, the inside couldn't boast the same. Not only was the front door rotted and propped against a mouldy, damp wall, the paint was cracked and peeling, covered with patches of black fur.
Musa shuddered as they stepped inside and a floor board creaked. The place smelt of must and decay, a heady scent that went straight to her head and churned her stomach. She could almost feel the motes and spores seeping into her skin and travelling through her airways – it was almost enough to make her choke.
"You ok?" His voice echoed as he stepped inside and bounced back to her with a shocking resonance.
"Hmm," She rubbed her arms as they wandered down the dank hallway, peering into a small lavatory that had certainly seen better days since the toilet seat had fallen to the side and the shower curtain lay in the bath. Rust spotted the faucet and a crumpled black rag lay to the side.
"Look around, see what you can find." Riven ordered, branching off to head to another room while Musa wandered into the kitchen or what she imagined had once been the kitchen. The windows were smeared with dirt and the furniture had been upended except for a few buckets which had been overturned in a circle.
Curious she trailed her fingers over the surface, making furrows in the layer of dirt and causing a nearby spider to scuttle off. Rubbing her fingers, she frowned. If she Trix were living here, why had they left the place in such a mess? It was in their power and their personality to use spells to clean the place up... unless they were pouring their magic into something else. She could see Icy being that single minded.
Her eyes drifted over the rotten cupboards, the mildew covered counter tops and the scent of dust lying thickly in the air. "Whoever lived here before left abruptly."
"Yeah, what makes you sa- Score! Found my sword."
"Well put it away and don't lose it again." She chuckled, moving to the drawers and beginning to pull them out, having to use excessive force to bring them from their holes. "This place looks abandoned. It wasn't packed up before the person left."
Riven came into the kitchen brushing cobwebs and dust from his hair. "Yeah, so it seems. Hell, this place looks like a dump."
"Well as long as I don't come across any dead bodies I'll be fine."
"Your imagination is pretty morbid, no wonder that nightmare beast fed so fully on you."
"Ha. You know, it's as if the Trix aren't even living here. Are there any rooms upstairs?"
He pulled his head out of a nearby cupboard and nodded. "The stairs are rotted away though."
"They'd be up there." She decided. An extra level of security. "I'll go check it out."
As she brushed past him his hand latched around her wrist causing her to halt abruptly. "Be careful."
"I will." She told him, mustering up a reassuring smile as she strode out of the room and frowned. The stairs were completely rotted through; there were no railings, just a sheer drop from the first storey to the ground floor. She could change to her Winx form but that would be a waste of energy and she wasn't exactly full to the brim as it was. She sighed. "Riven?"
"What?" His answer was muffled as if he'd stuck his head in yet another cupboard. He probably had. No one could say the Specialists weren't thorough when they were on the hunt.
"Can you give me a leg up?"
"What?" She heard his footsteps stomp to the entrance and she glanced over as he appeared in the doorway. "Why don't you just fly up? I thought that's why you said you'd go check?"
"Because I don't want to waste energy transforming and then transforming back."
"Then don't transform back." He replied brusquely as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.
She levelled him with a dark look. "Help me up."
He scowled but came over and crouched before her, lacing his fingers to form a foothold which she stepped into, wondering for a moment if she weighed much. She needn't have worried since as soon as her foot was cradled in his palms he boosted her up and her fingers latched onto the landing. With deft ease, Riven shifted so that her feet were on his shoulders and with that extra lift, she was able to scrabble onto the floor.
"Thanks," She huffed out, grimacing as she caught sight of her dust smeared palms and shirt. Ick.
Not much point wasting energy on spelling them clean either, she decided, getting to her feet. She heard Riven walk back into the kitchen and she closed her eyes, casting out her senses in the hopes of finding something. Immediately she was hit with echoes and shadows of sounds; phantasms of the previous owners. Laughter, masculine and female and the sound of a baby crying; shouting and crashing crockery followed by whispered voices and broken sobs.
For a moment she let the sounds and emotions wash through her and her fingers curled around the banister to keep her balanced. As they did, she began to sense something else; a pulse of energy, like a heartbeat in the emotional fog. She locked onto it and let it draw her forward. She opened her eyes, not letting go of that pulse and located the closed door at the end of the hallway. This had to be where they were staying.
As she approached the door her skin began to prickle and she closed her eyes once more. A pink, transparent veil was draped over the door and she sighed. A lock spell coupled with a repulsion barrier. Yes the Trix were here alright. The room behind this door was probably their little base where they would sleep, probably in four poster beds with thick carpet and feather pillows. It wouldn't be very different to their dorm in Cloud Tower, she mused, as she continued to feel the veil. It wasn't thick, probably the consistency of a piece of gauze but if this had been cast by Icy, there was a very good chance Musa wouldn't be able to remove it without triggering the alarm.
She pressed a fist to her chest and stepped back, flinching where she heard the audible 'crack' of glass breaking under foot. Kneeling down, she shifted her foot and peeled back the threadbare flooring to reveal what had been half hidden underneath the rumpled carpet. Surprised, she pulled out the small gold foil photo frame and lightly brushed away the jagged shards of glass. It was a picture – an old one judging by its 2-D quality – of a family, probably the one that had lived there before; a mother, father and a baby nestled quietly in the fathers' arms as the duo gazed out from the picture. The man was beaming widely and the mother was smiling but as Musa looked closer she could see that the eyes were strained, almost annoyed. Maybe she was one of those people who didn't like photo's – she, Musa, wasn't too fond of them herself and yet, the mother's eyes had a familiar look of agitation to them.
She tapped her fingers against her lips and took the photo from the shattered frame. She doubted the family would need it anymore since they were long gone, but it might be an interesting project to discover who they were.
"Hey Muse, you find anything?"
Why did he keep calling her Muse? Didn't he realize the affect it had on her?
"Musa?"
"Yes, I found something."
She rose to her feet pocketing the folded up picture and looked over the banister to the impatient Hero beneath. "I've found their room but I'm not going to be able to break the lock on it. It's senior level magic and if the girls were here I'd have a shot at it but, on my own, I'm not strong enough."
Riven sighed heavily and raked a hand through his hair, still clutching the hilt of his sword as if he were afraid to lose it again. "Fine. You can come back down. We're obviously not going to get anything out of here."
She rolled her eyes. Fine, they couldn't get into the Trix's bedroom but they knew where their base was and if they went to Faragonda now, they could direct her, Saladin and Gryffin to the Trix's hideout and all would be well again. Riven was trying to do too much on his own and it was likely going to get them both hurt.
She walked back to the empty stair case and sat down, flinching as rotten wood crumbled under her fingertips. This place wasn't safe. "Give me a hand down."
He reached up and she dropped her hands to his shoulders, taking in the heat of his skin under the thinness of his outfit. She gulped as she slid off the floor and placed all her weight onto him, trusting him to keep her safe. He waited till her feet hit the ground and then released her abruptly, spinning round and stalking towards the front door.
"Come on. They must be somewhere else."
"Hold on," Musa snapped. "I'm supposed to figure out where the weak spot in the barrier is and we should really tell Headmistress Faragonda –"
"No!"
She approached him carefully, rising on her tiptoes to lay a hand on his shoulder; it was tense and rock hard beneath her palm, vibrating with his bottled up emotions. "Yes. Riven, you're going to get hurt. We can't fight them on our own."
He shrugged her off, snarling as he rounded on her. "We don't have to. You can just leave!"
She closed her eyes, her face stoning over. Egotistical male! "I can't just leave you. We're a team and we're supposed to stick together but our mission is to find out where the Trix are hiding and we did that. You're pushing things now and you won't be satisfied until one of us is hurt and guess who that someone will probably be!"
Riven opened his mouth, probably to say something hurtful and unnecessary, when something popped and fizzled around them; the hairs on her arms and neck stood on end in that one instant and then the pressure was gone.
"What was that?"
Musa's lips curled in a satisfied, almost exultant smile. "The barrier's down."
"But how? The others." He answered himself before she could reply.
She nodded. Her friends were here, somewhere, and now they weren't alone anymore. Surely Riven wouldn't run off now, he'd wait for their friends, right?
"Let's go, then."
"Where?"
"Where do you think?!"
"If you go after the Trix, you're going on your own. I'm going to find the others."
"Musa, you don't know where they are." He snapped, exasperated. "The Trix will probably capture you before you even reach them."
"All the more reason for you to come with me and keep that from happening." She quickly pointed out, jumping on his words with a feeling of anticipation curling in her stomach.
His expression faltered for a moment, his fingers reached for the hilt of his sword only to slowly drift away as he sighed heavily. "Fine." He ground out. "Let's go!"
Biting back the urge to cheer, Musa closed her eyes and cast out her senses seeking the voices she'd come to know so well.
"...was easy."
"Stella!"
"...find Musa... Riven..."
All but dancing with excitement, Musa spun on her heel and pointed. "That way!"
Riven huffed out a breath and grabbing her by the elbow, he began to stalk in the direction she had pointed, his now activated sword swinging by his side.
AN. I'm sorry for the late update. Things just got away from me and I was really beginning to wonder if I had the characters in character at all. Also with my creative writing class, I've found myself becoming more and more annoyed with my writing. But I thought I'd post this anyway and see if I can get some feedback on it while I spend the weekend studying for my Literary Criticism Exam. Hopefully you enjoyed it and I'll get the rest of it updated soon-ish. I just need inspiration for Winx again.
No Trix this time but we did get an insight into the others little escapade. I love Stella, she's so much fun to write and we also get to see how Aisha views things. Remember this is set around the season two timeline so Aisha is fairly new to everything and while the girls have their enchantix, they don't have all the experience that came with it hence Musa wasn't strong enough to break Icy's spell. Personally I think Icy would be stronger than Musa at this moment in time anyway.