linphea

"Flora?"

Flora turned around, still kneeling in dirt. Today, as most days, she had been in the garden since morning, and there was mud on her knees and shirt. She had completely forgotten about—

"Julian," she said, straightening up and ineffectually brushing her hands on her skirt. "Is it four thirty already?"

"It is," said Julian, who had no dirt anywhere on him, and was dressed smart-casual in a collared shirt and trousers. He grinned. "It's okay if you need a minute."

"Thanks." She let him follow her back to the house.

When Flora had first arrived in Magix, it had taken some adjustment to be in a city that was so industrialized and sterile; her home planet was sprawling and green, even the cities—even the capital where she now made her home. She had lived with her family for a while on their farm farther west, but it was easier to keep an eye on her duties as guardian fairy here. Although since the Wizards of the Black Circle had been dealt with three years before, there had been little to deal with on that front; a cursed blight on a forest in the south last year, a cockatrice on the loose this winter. Nothing too important or worrisome.

As Julian followed her inside and watched her wash her hands, his gaze dropped to the kitchen table, which was currently covered in sprigs of various plants and pages of various notes. "How's that coming along?" He asked, gesturing to the mess.

"Oh—okay." She was putting together a book cataloguing plants from every planet and their magical uses. She planned to make it the most thorough one of its kind. It was progressing slowly, but if she ever finished it she hoped it would help people. It was her day to day project since more often than not she found herself without much to do. "Did you say where we were going before?" She asked as she shook water from her hands to dry them. She was almost sure he had.

"I thought we could go eat."

"Oh, right." She smiled. It was really nice of him to keep coming around. She liked Julian. He was from a lesser branch of the ruling family of Linphea—she had met his cousin Princess Crystal a few times in her capacity as guardian fairy. Guardian fairies and the royalty who ruled the planets they guarded rubbed elbows quite a bit. Julian was nice, earnest, enthusiastic. It was nice to be around him, so they had kept seeing each other on a casual basis. It was fine. He was nice.

They took his bike for the short drive into the city. Unlike Magix, there was plant life everywhere in Linphea; trees even lined the streets in the busiest areas. Flora considered asking Julian if he wanted to take their food and go into a greener part of the city where they could sit against the trunk of one of the large trees, but she didn't.

Julian was happy to talk when Flora didn't wish to, so she just let him do that for a bit while she ate.

"I've heard about that Omega Dimension thing," Julian said. He gave her a sympathetic smile. "Are you all right with everything?"

She blinked, for the barest moment confused—not about what he was speaking of. She had been thinking about that for days now. But it hadn't occurred to her that Julian would be asking about this as if they were very close. Were they very close?

"I—I am," she said, nodding. She didn't really want to tell Julian that whenever she thought about it too hard, a flash of every happy memory she had ever had with her friends played in her mind's eye, but they were all ruined now, because they just made her sad.

"Is it like an ending for you, or—?"

"Well, I don't really know." That was true, but it was also so that he would drop the subject. She reached out and took a sip of her drink. Violet lemonade. It tasted sour.

She tried to look for the good in things. And she supposed that there was some goodness in the fact that right now the body of one of her best friends was laying somewhere out on a cold and unforgiving planet where no one could find her, frozen and dead and alone, and soon the planet would be destroyed and Flora wouldn't have to think anymore about the fact that wherever Tecna had died, she was still there, and she was still alone. Flora and everyone else had failed, and her friend had died alone and scared. She thought about that a lot. Probably more often than she should. She should think happier thoughts.

"I was thinking we could go to Magix in a little bit," said Julian. "For that exhibition festival thing. It's supposed to be really big this year."

"The arts festival?" Though initially she had been grateful for his changing the subject, her spirits dropped again. She pressed her lips together. "The only thing with that is—" she stopped herself. She wasn't that kind of person. Was she?

"What?"

"Well, my, uh, ex-boyfriend will be there. Exhibiting his work, I mean."

Julian nodded. "I thought you said you guys were friends, though."

"Did I say that?" She almost laughed, but that wouldn't be appropriate. "I just meant that we didn't have a bad breakup. It was...amicable." Or at least there hadn't been a screaming fight to end it all. But that never would have happened anyway. That wasn't the two of them. Instead it was painful death by degrees, drifting apart and being unsure if she could have held on and didn't or if he was just too far away to come back to. And then suddenly the person who once told you that your hearts had grown into one like intertwined vines is a stranger. And you don't know how you let this happen (but part of you knows you did).

"That's good. It wouldn't be weird to go, then, right?" He raised his eyebrows.

She didn't want to be in the same city as him. "No, sorry. It's fine. I mean—it's fine." She did not want to have to see him because she didn't like how it felt to look at him. "When were you thinking of going?" Please let it not be soon.

"Maybe the weekend after next. Or possibly the one after that. I'd have to see if I have anything else going on but I should be free then."

She nodded. "Okay, let me know." She could just say she didn't want to go. But then she would have to say it was because she didn't want even the possibility of running into her ex-boyfriend, and she would feel obliged to explain why, and she didn't even really know why except that it still hurt.

She had been in Magix visiting him three years ago. They were supposed to be celebrating the fact that the Wizards were gone, but it was a rather hollow celebration, quiet and bitter—they had lost Queen Morgana, and poor Roxy was a mess over it. She had been persuaded out of the Alfea infirmary and to Musa and Riven's place, but the younger girl was just sitting on the couch silently, eyes staring at nothing, holding an untouched plate on her knee. Her eyes had black rings around them.

She had been sitting at the kitchen table with Helia. They were the only ones there. Musa was talking to Aisha and Nabu over by the window, Bloom and Sky had ducked out before Brandon could get there, and she was pretty sure Riven was outside smoking. Flora looked dully around the apartment. Timmy and Stella were missing too, of course, but that was to be expected. They didn't have anything to do with the Wizards and never came to stuff anymore anyway. Not that Helia had had much to do with the Wizards either.

Her gaze fell to their hands on the kitchen table, just a few inches apart but not touching, and travelled up to his face. He was looking out at the scene too, the emotion in his eyes familiar but unreachable.

He caught her looking and smiled slightly. "This is nice," he said, and it felt perfunctory in a way that jarred her.

She loved him. With her whole heart, with love that was unshakable and soul-shaping. And they were hardly ever around each other, with Helia's career being in Magix and hers on Linphea, so she missed him when he wasn't around. Now, sitting at Musa's kitchen table with their hands not touching, listening to the subdued hum of quiet, flat conversation around them, Flora ached with missing someone who was sitting right next to her, and she knew.

Things had just kind of fallen apart soon after that, helped along by the distance and their busy schedules, like they were running in opposite directions. Of course, it was impossible not to hear anything about him; they nominally shared most of their friends. At least, she knew that he was having a lot of gallery shows, getting a lot of buzz—but the cool kind of not-mainstream buzz that makes intellectuals feel accomplished for knowing about you. She knew it kept him busy enough that everyone else rarely saw him, too.

She was happy for him. She was really, really happy for him. Genuinely. She just didn't want to think about it too much, or look at him.

Julian dropped her off back at her house after dinner. He kissed her. It felt obligatory. She didn't invite him in. He didn't ask.

It was dark inside the house, and empty. Always empty and silent. Flora went to go sit at the kitchen table but at the last moment as she turned on the lights she realized it was still covered in stems and leaves and notes, so she just leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms, and stared up at the ceiling for what felt like a very long time.

For a second a crazy idea came to her. I should move back to Magix.

That was where she had been the happiest, wasn't it? And Musa was there, and Riven and Brandon—the friends she saw the most anyway, with Aisha and Bloom and Sky busy with their royal duties and Stella busy with her everything. And Timmy was there, too, and she knew she should see him more often. She worried about him a lot. She worried about everybody a lot. Probably more than she should—or maybe not, if they felt the same way she did most of the time. She should think happier thoughts, shouldn't she.

She could bring her work with her to Magix. Musa was guardian of Melody and didn't live there. With portals and airships there was really no need to live full-time on Linphea, and—

As quickly as the idea came it was extinguished with a snap, so sudden that she stood up straight, still alone in the middle of her kitchen. No. Of course not. She had just been thinking about how she didn't want to go to Magix for the weekend because Helia was there, and now she wanted to move? And she liked living in Linphea. This had been what she wanted. She didn't love the expanses of pavement in the city with no foliage in sight, she had sworn to all her (disbelieving) friends that the air was noticeably worse than here, the attitude and the noise and everything was different, and she preferred here. This was her home.

And yes, she had been happy in Magix, but—

It hadn't been Magix, it had been her friends. It was all of them, together, whether they were laughing or crying or feeling invincible or invisible. They were what had made that time so great that she felt like she'd spend the rest of her life wishing for it back. But it was never coming back. It could never come back.

After everything that had happened, it would just be coming home to another empty house, wouldn't it?

alfea

magix

She could feel her hands starting to shake before she even heard Palladium call her name. "You're up next, Miss Roxy. Step into the chamber."

Roxy forced her legs to move, focused on the fact that Aspicia's gifted canned spell was in her pocket. For this remedial exam they were meant to be defending a castle, and specifically a pearl inside the castle, from a shapeshifting creature which at turns used force and magic against the fairy student. Roxy had practiced for hours last night to cast the perfect shielding spell, the perfect long-range attack spell, and a very impressive looking spell that blasted a wave of magic on all sides as the grand finale. She knew the teachers were looking for more than three good spells. This wouldn't get her an A. But if these three canned spells went as well as she knew they would, she would pass even if (when) she failed everything else.

"Starting in three—" The world around her began to dissolve and she never heard the end of the countdown as everything faded away except the surroundings of the reality chamber. Suddenly she was hovering in the sky, wings flapping mindlessly, unseeingly scanning the barren horizon where the beast would probably come from.

They had explained everything extensively to them in class but she hadn't realized it would be so dark here. The world around them was slipping into evening, a green-tinged sun ducking behind the decrepit stone castle Roxy was meant to be protecting. Everything in the air crackled with dread, with fear. She couldn't do this. She couldn't do this.

Why was it so dark in here?

She caught her breath as a movement in the distance signaled the beginning of the whole ordeal. She couldn't do this. She couldn't do this. The beast came first with brute force, its legs pounding the ground as aggressively as an angry bull, though this creature moved upright, arms only propelling it faster across the ground. She couldn't do this.

Breathe, she admonished herself, but her breaths would only come through her mouth in shallow gulps, and a quavering, shaky energy was flooding through her limbs, and—

And—

She didn't remember falling, didn't remember hitting the ground or losing her transformation but suddenly she was on the ground, kneeling in the mud, and she couldn't get out. She was trapped and she couldn't get out. Everything was dark around her and everything was panic and dread and she couldn't get out—

No. No. No. This wasn't working. She didn't want to do this. She couldn't do this. She realized her whole body was shaking—distantly she remembered the canned spell that Aspacia had given her but she didn't even trust herself to pull it out—and—and—and—

"Roxy!" The voice was Palladium's, and his tone was such that she realized he must have been repeating her name for who knew long before now. Where was she? She looked up, and though the room swayed slightly, she realized that she was on the back in the reality chamber. Palladium was out on the bridge, the doors to the chamber open, the other girls waiting to go staring through the glass with concerned faces and wide eyes...

"Roxy, are you alright?" Palladium asked. He reached her and made as though to help her up, and then seemed to think better of it, and watched her stand on her own. She felt as though she was not here. She did not know where she was, but she was not here.

"I—" her voice came out a whisper. "I have go—I have to—go—I'm gonna—I'm sorry—" she spoke as she half stumbled out of the room and then into the hallway. The only thing on her mind was returning to her room. She could barely care about anything else. From wherever she was, very far away from here, she heard Palladium calling out that he had asked Ofelia to come down, and she should stay and wait for her, that they needed to talk about her performance, this was important—

Roxy's throat hurt from trying not to cry by the time she stepped into her room. The other girls were still in class, so she was alone, but even though she had been so upset the whole flight back here, when she closed the door behind her, for a moment she was still and almost calm, and she wondered if everything was going to go away now.

Then the full force of everything that had happened hit her again, and she remembered how scared she had been just now—how scared she had been that night—the Bad Night—

She was only dimly aware of herself sliding to the floor of her room, but she wasn't in her room, she was kneeling in the dirt that was rapidly becoming mud from the rain, and she was crying so hard she was about to throw up, and Morgana was just lying there, she was just lying there, so still that she wasn't even a person anymore, she wasn't even herself, and—that was her mom! Of course she was! Of course she was! As soon as she had said it Roxy had known it was the truth, and yet before she had even been able to say anything, her eyes had shifted, glazed over, and she didn't look at Roxy anymore, and then she was—

—dead. And it was all Roxy's fault. Died to save the Earth fairies, died to save Roxy, because Roxy was her daughter. She was her daughter and she didn't even know—and she never got to— All her fault! Her fault, her fault, her fault, her fault.

It was as dark as it had been when they had held her in the circle—but even that had been worse, a place without walls or feeling, where there was nothing, and she could barely breathe, and the air was thin or not enough or something, the feeling of being exposed on every side—let me out please please please I don't understand I can't breathe I don't know where I am I don't know where I am I don't know where I am please please I can't breathe I'm going to choke

Roxy did not know how long she lay curled in a ball on the carpet between the two beds in the room.

When it had first happened, and everything seemed to be going on around her and she was back in those places again, and everything was falling down on her, she had thought over time it would get easier. Eventually it would go away, or at least, it would get easier.

It did not get easier. And it never went away.

Roxy let herself slump onto her side but did not get up from the carpet. One of the fibers was sticking out higher than the others, and she stared at it for a long time.

Something inside me is still in the Black Circle even though it is gone. She had had that thought the other day when she spoke to Timmy. Now it beat like a drum in her head. Something inside of him was in the Omega Dimension, too, and would be even when it was gone.

And there was a girl there, too, and she was dead. Wasn't she?

Maybe it was for the best that she was. To be alive for four years in some horrible place...to have something so terrible happen to you, and then what would happen? You go on and on anyway? After the worst thing has happened?

It wasn't like Roxy had never thought that maybe she just should have died at the hands of the Wizards. It wasn't exactly like this was worth it.

Timmy really thought she was alive. She had seen it in his eyes when she spoke to him. She wondered if it would be sadder to be right or wrong.

There was a knock on the door, which told her that everyone already knew what had happened. The same thing was reflected in Indigo's cautious expression as she opened it slowly. "Hey, Roxy, are you in there?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm here." Roxy scrambled to her feet by the time Indie entered, running her hands through her hair to make it more presentable. But it didn't really matter what she looked like. Everyone already knew she was crazy.

"So, um—"

She cut off Indie's hesitant attempt to reach out. Nice of her, but it wouldn't really matter in the long run. "Uh, Indie, what time does the next bus come?" What time was it now? She had long since lost track of how long she had been drifting and afraid in this room.

"I know one comes at five thirty, and that's just in a couple of minutes, but—"

"Okay, great. Thank you. I'll see you later." Roxy dashed forward, remembered that she couldn't just run into the world with nothing, found her purse underneath the clothes on her bed, and hurried out again, Indie's concerned gaze on her the whole way out.

She made the bus just in time, which was the first thing to go right that day. Then again, she might be—definitely was—doing something completely stupid, so maybe this bus was just her enabler. But the ride into the city was short enough that she didn't start second guessing herself, and instead she retraced the steps she and Brandon had taken two days before, found the right apartment complex, and knocked on the door. Just as she did that she wondered if he would even be home from work yet, but then she heard the sound of the handle rattling.

Timmy had probably peered through the peephole at her, because he opened the door already looking surprised. "Um. Roxy. Hi. Is Brandon..." he could see perfectly well that she was alone and trailed off.

"No. Hi." She wondered if she looked crazy. She should have checked before she had left, but too late now. "I'm sorry to bother you. I just..." it might go badly but it was now or never. She probably wasn't graduating. She probably was going to wreck her relationship over this. She couldn't bring herself to care anymore. "I know Brandon and Bloom and Musa and everyone were helping you look for Tecna when she first disappeared, before they all gave up." He nodded, frowning, but she didn't give him a chance to talk. "And now there's only six months until they get rid of the planet—less, actually. Brandon thinks you're going to do something crazy."

"I'm sure he does." He said dryly.

Roxy looked him in the eye. "Well, I want to help."