four years ago

As much as she was tempted to, Tecna did not dwell too long on her victory in obtaining food, because there were more pressing matters at hand—namely that of shelter. Once she had that, she would be able to focus on figuring out how to get off this planet.

But for now—the fact that she was in danger was not yet confirmed. She hadn't seen anyone, man or beast or in between, around yet, which she supposed was a blessing because she wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious upon her first arrival.

She wondered if it would be a good idea to stay close to where she was. After all, she had gone through the vortex on Andros and ended up here, which suggested that this location was the first place where Omega's magic ruptured when Valtor overpowered it. It was a hypothesis, anyway. And if correct, then whatever glitching effect Omega had might be mitigated here.

Cautiously, and keeping close to the sides, she flew out of the canyon in which she had spent her first few days and surveyed her surroundings. The area still appeared to be clear. She wondered how many other inhabitants of Omega there were at all. She recalled her research: there were 549 criminals sentenced to Omega before the breakout; she could count Valtor off the list, and the Trix sisters too, so 545. And grimly, she could not help but think that not all of them could have survived this long. They had to have turned on one another by now, not to mention the monsters which could have gotten them.

Everything was so monolithic here. There was nothing to distinguish the surface of the planet from the valley she had woken in; it was all snow and ice, the gray sky mixing with the grayish weather to make a long swath of nothingness.

The most defensible structure in the vicinity was a cave formed at the top of a nearby rocky hillside. Tecna liked the high ground, and the isolation, and the way the cave was formed: the entrance was small and narrow, but very quickly once inside, the floor sloped downwards and the cave opened into a larger, freer space which was not much smaller than her room at Alfea.

That was the only similarity, though. Not much light came from the narrow entrance, and so until Tecna made an illuminating cloud with a simple lighting spell the place was pitch dark, and the rounded walls and uneven floor were all covered in thick ice. When the chamber was lit, she could see that the space tapered to a jagged close so that she would only be able to stand up in the first half or so of the space before it began to narrow.

But it was unlikely anyone would stumble upon her by mistake here, which was good. She swallowed hard. If people were looking for her, there was a very real possibility they would not find her because she was hiding from those who belonged in the Omega Dimension. She had to face that. If she thought of everything calmly and rationally than none of it would hurt her, or something like that. She knew that was not actually true, but she guided her thoughts over all of the terrible possibilities carefully, like touching a bruise she knew would hurt. Assuming anyone would even come to the Omega Dimension was presumptuous; how would anyone even know she was here? And if they did come, they might end up on the other side of the planet entirely and not be able to navigate to her. And who were 'they'? Her friends? Why would they even look for her? What if they thought she was dead? If she had seen one of them fall through the Andros vortex, she would think they were dead. She had thought she was going to die. She still might—

Once again she was letting her feelings get the better of her. She did not need to be thinking of all of this right now, letting despair and hurt and hope and all of those emotions complicate and hinder her efforts. They were not important or necessary—and in fact, her survival depended on her ability to be calm and rational, evaluate all data and come to logical conclusions.

She gave herself two days to figure out some way to keep warm, to make the cave as habitable and safe as possible. It was likely she could do it in one, but she would go slowly to conserve her magic and her energy. She never knew when she would be called on to use her magic to defend herself. But two days would give her enough time to secure a way to maintain her life while she worked on what was most important: getting home.

Her mind leapt forward with ideas and worry but she forced herself to stay focused on the task at hand. For now she would worry about surviving through the night. Do not analyze. Act.

It did not take her long to figure out that the easiest way to keep warm was to enchant something for herself, and not waste magic and energy maintaining heat for the whole cave. She had never been particularly envious of Bloom's fire powers until now—even Stella's light magic would be warmer than anything that she specialized in.

The amount of magic and energy she was expending just keeping herself warm in her Enchantix was impractical when she wanted to conserve as much as possible. But the only heat spells she knew were no better than what her Enchantix was doing; they all required constant stoking and maintenance...

Hesitantly she thought about the research she had done after Valtor had first appeared on the scene.

She had discussed blood magic with Timmy. She had not planned to discuss it with anyone, but when they had met up all those weeks ago he had seen the notes she had taken on her display and she had explained it to him. Everyone knew that the Cloudtower witches did blood magic despite Magix making it practically illegal without a permit. There was nothing inherently dark about that magic, but fairies still shied away from it and there was practically no data on fairy practitioners of blood magic for non-medical reasons.

But Tecna had been wondering about it. The blood of a magic user carried magic properties itself. When used correctly it could strengthen spells, sometimes exponentially.

She wished she hadn't pulled up the memory of that moment, that day.

She missed him. She missed everyone.

Sitting and missing would not do her any good, though. She realized what she had to do.

It did not take long for her sharpening spell to take effect on the stone she had pried off of the back of the cave floor; she waited until it was totally ready to detransform. She knew, magic or no magic, she was about to be very cold and was not eager to prolong that experience.

As soon as her Enchantix was gone, leaving her colder than before, she pulled her top over her head and threw it on the icy cave floor next to her skirt. Immediately she used the sharpened rock to cut her thumb, and it began to bleed, but not nearly as much as she wanted and quickly she made a cut over her left palm too before pressing her bloody hand to her clothes.

She cast her heat spell to fuse with the blood magic. It would maintain itself without her expending energy from it for a long time, due to the magic in her blood. She had never done it before, but she was sure she was doing everything right, according to the research she had done before—

When her clothes began to change, she was sure she must be doing something correctly. The clothes turned orange-red now, the bloodstains fading into them, and more featureless than they had been, and they...glowed. That was fine, as long as they kept her warm without her having to constantly waste magic on it. She put them on as quickly as possible with her hands shaking from cold.

The orangey glow from the spell covered her whole self once the clothes were on, but she didn't mind. She would have to transform into her Enchantix for anything that might involve stealth anyway, and for now the light was somewhat comforting in the still-dim cave lit only by her spell. Her skin prickled in a nice way from the sudden warmth, which was more comfortable than she had been in days.

But she could not be too pleased. Her hand still hurt. Now that she was no longer cold it seemed a much more serious thing that she had done than she had thought. Blood magic...everything in her said it was a rational action to take, the most practical solution to one of her most pressing survival needs. It was not that she felt guilt over it, but she wondered if she should. Blood magic and light magic were not seen as something that should mix. People argued on both sides of the debate, but generally it was thought that because blood magic came from injury and pain, it bordered on dark magic if it was not that outright. But she had let logic guide her decision and had not cared.

If she returned home—when she returned home—would she be a different person because of how she had survived? She did not want to be different. She did not want to be ruined.

Tecna knew she had to start forumlating her plan, but for a moment she closed her eyes and acknowledged the fear that had invaded every part of her being. Then she opened them again and put that aside.