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She’s such a pretty thing. A delicate thing. Bloom has come to find that this is common among ice fairies. There’s just something about them, something that makes them so precious. She runs her fingers through the fairy’s long white-blue locks. Brushes her thumb over those soft lips. Her breath is chilly as it slides over the back of Bloom’s hand. The fire witch shudders, she is supposed to be destroying this fairy, supposed to thaw at her until she is nothing at all.
And how easy it would be to burn her away before she can reawaken just as the coven had ordered her to do. And yet she can’t. She isn’t sure why, but she can’t. The woman gives a soft hum and stirs. Bloom goes tense, she can’t wake up yet. Not when she hasn’t figured out what to do with her!
Regardless, she blinks awake, immediately shielding her eyes against the sunlight she has awakened to. “Where am I?” She murmurs.
“Soon you won’t be anywhere at all.” Bloom assures her.
She sits up, her hair tumbles from its high ponytail and spills down her back over her slender, pale shoulders. Her lashes glitter with a fine diamond-like frost. Her skin shimmers with it. The princess of Dymond is beautiful. Bloom has been raised to despise beautiful. And she can’t resist, she reaches a hand out and touches the woman’s frigid cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re one of the Dragon Witches.” The woman comments plainly. Her voice is slick and smooth like the surface of an iced pond. It is much deeper than the fire witch had imagined it would be.
“I’m the dragon fire witch.”
The ice fairy nods. “What do you want with me?”
Bloom cups the woman’s chin and tilts her head up. “It’s simple. Sparks can’t be restored unless Dymond is sacrificed. All of it. Every last soul.” A wicked grin spreads across her face. “Look around you. You’re the last.”
“The last.” She repeats, her whisper like the rattle of pine needles caught in a winter breeze.
“The very last.” Bloom taps her pointer against the fairy’s cheek.
The woman swallows.
.oOo.
Icy’s body slackens, really what would be the point of resistance when there is nothing to stand her ground for. Her kingdom has fallen, her people have died, her friends, Sapphire…
Those big blue eyes and that cheerful, innocent grin.
And in those final moments those big blue filled with terror like Icy has never seen before on the girl. Her world had gone quite mercifully black as her sister was yanked screaming from her arms.
The sound echos in her ears, it might echo in them forever unless…
She closes her eyes.
She supposes that it won’t be so bad to let the fairy smolder her away and let her ashes rain down among everyone else’s.
“Go on then.”
“What?”
“Make your sacrifice.”
The heat rolls over her skin, she tastes ashes on her tongue. The air around her is so clogged with smoke that it could match the best of whiteouts. And yet no snow falls over Dymond, not anymore. Not again.
But the world around her grows no hotter. She wonders if the fire witch is playing games with her. It is no matter, she isn’t much of a player. She gives a harsh series of coughs as the smoke works its way to her lungs. Her eyes sting and water, clearing away the grime on her cheeks in twin trails. Ash and destruction dust her wings and paint her hair a shade of sooty grey. A smear or two of blood marrs her singed skirt and the hem of her shirt. Her entire body is sore, a soft shade of burnt red.
If the fire witch doesn’t kill her off then the world around her will cook her slowly. “What are you waiting for, do it.”
She is growing quite dizzy with the heat. Decidedly, this is a favorable alternative. She offers no resistance and lets the night descend upon her on dark wings. The wings fold around her both feathery and velvety and she goes serenely into the darkness.
She has a rather strange fondness for the dark...
.oOo.
Bloom watches the fairy slump to the ground, her face slick with sweat and blood and embers. They burn small marks upon her once immaculate complexion. And she hesitates. Why the hell is she hesitating? The coven, her ancestors, call for her to do just as the fairy had requested and yet, when she brings the flame to hover before the fairy’s limp body, she can’t bring it any closer.
She takes a deep breath, inhaling an exhilarating curtain of smoke and she lifts the fairy from the ground. Surely the coven will hex her into the next dimension or into oblivion for this, but she won’t kill the fairy. Neither will she let her die.
.oOo.
Icy doesn’t have a sense of where she is when she wakes. Though it is comfortable. She nuzzles her face against the pillow, its silk fabric is kind on her face at least for a moment. Until the stinging registers. And her body stings from head to toe.
She makes to shift positions but finds herself wincing and even the slightest movement. In the light of the room she can see that her skin is terribly red and blistering in spots. She could try for a healing spell but her magic is so weak. So weak that she can barely feel it at all. She wonders if the fire had burned it away entirely. She closes her eyes again as another wave of dizziness overtakes her. But the pain won’t let her retreat back into the kindness of night.
She feels the bed dip.
“You’re awake.” A voice remarks. “I thought that you’d went and died after all.”
Her brows furrow as it occurs to her that she shouldn’t be alive, much less awake. “Why didn’t you kill me?” She asks. Her voice is hoarse, throat scratchy and raw. It hurts rather terribly. And maybe that is the game; to make her suffer. To draw it out. Deplete her until she is entirely spent emotionally and physically and then if she is lucky she will get to join her people, her friends, her family.
“I tried, and I was going to.”
“But…”
The fire witch stares at her for the longest time. “There’s something about you.” She reaches out and her fingers graze over Icy’s upturned cheek. She flinches, the discomfort contorts her expression.
“I suggest that you retract your hand.”
“Or what?” Though she does pull her hand back.
“You should have killed me.” She mutters flatly.
“Why?”
“Because I am going to kill you. You and the rest of your coven.”
.oOo.
So the fairy has some bite. She can’t imagine that her rage will simmer for very long. It will give way to tears, as it always does with the soft fairy types.
She laughs. “You’re precious.”
The fairy snarls. Bloom supposes that if any fairy could have the capability to do evil it would be the ice fairies. And my, my, this one would make a perfect witch. “I couldn’t kill someone like you. That would be such a waste.”
“Then what will you do with me?” The fairy looks almost bored.
There are plenty of things that come to mind. Among them; ripping her wings off and burning them before her eyes, taunting her for her lost kingdom, hexing her in unthinkable ways. But mostly, almost inexplicably, she wants to caress the fairy’s cheek and warm her frosty lips. “I want to help you.” She decides.
“How do you think that you’re going to help me.”
The witch’s lips curl back into a smirk. “Vengeance.”
It will be a fun game, really; the fairy’s soul is as pristinely white as her snow. In one swoop she can corrupt it and take the rest of the coven down. She can take their power and the ice fairy’s for her own.
“What will that do?” The fairy asks. “It certainly won’t bring my kingdom back.”
“It can.” Bloom smiles. She reaches out and runs her fingers through the fairy’s long locks. She smells faintly of peppermint. She gives a soft shudder and Bloom withdraws her hand. “If I can syphon power from the coven, we will be strong enough to bring your realm back and then some.”
The fairy is quiet for a long time. “You think that I’m naïve.”
“Not at all.” Bloom insists. “I think that you’re too...passive. They killed your sister, don’t you think that you deserve to pay them back for it?”
The fairy seems to ponder it. “Perhaps I do.”
She trails her fingers along the fairy’s bicep and leans in closer so that her lips are level with the woman’s ear. “I think that you do. You deserve that and all of the power in the realms.”
The fairy lays back and stares off.
“Get some rest. I have a feeling that you’ll be more than ready to take what’s yours when the time comes.” And more than ready to have it yanked right back out of her. Until that time comes, it will be fun toying with her heart. “You might have lost your kingdom, but you don’t have to be alone.”