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It takes an hour longer than usual to cajole everyone down to the dining hall for dinner, but Flora is nothing if not persistent and eventually she gets her friends seated with actual food and lets herself relax for a heartbeat.
The scariest thing about it all, she thinks, is that none of them had noticed. Bloom’s been meeting up with witches and Flora hadn’t even clocked her frequent trips to Magix as anything weird. Or the solo study sessions. She’d just thought –
Bloom has not been noticeably withdrawn. She has not been noticeably hiding anything from them. There were no signs, she thinks, and then she recalls Bloom in those first few days of the semester, so loud and inquisitive and chattery and bright and how rarely she contributes in classes now and –
Flora cannot afford to take any time for herself right now, to work her shame out into something that might yet flourish for her mistakes. She’d been too relieved that Bloom’s questions had stopped to consider what that meant for Bloom. She’d been annoyed and thought them disrespectful and out-of-place.
She doesn’t know what makes her sicker; that Bloom had been right to quiet herself or that Flora had so readily believed she should.
She makes them all eat, even herself, and then fixes them all mugs of the most comforting herbal blend she can scrounge up and herds them all back upstairs. Musa is the only one to catch on, and they trade strained smiles as Musa helps bump Stella back into the little knot they’ve made up as they push their way back to the suite.
Musa is the one to propose the slumber party. Stella transforms the couch into a giant mattress. Bloom scavenges every pillow and blanket she can find; Flora helps Tecna rig up a crude canopy.
She’s glad of it. None of them would do well on their own tonight, she thinks. Not after Tecna told them what had happened with her predecessor, her Mother.
It’s not something Flora understands – not something she had understood. Zenith is – antithetical to everything she holds dear. But she’d heard the love in that computer’s voice, felt the emotion. More importantly – she’d seen the comfort it brought Tecna.
What she does understand is the gut-wrenching punch of loss. What she does understand is the way Stella’s eyes had gone supernova, how her lips had thinned to a mere wire of molten metal. What she does understand was the resigned fear in every single one of Bloom’s shaky exhales.
They’ve only just finished setting up their fort – thus ending a very opinionated tirade from Musa over correct pillow-fort architecture – when Stella’s phone chimes with an incoming call.
They all turn to stare at the device. A poorly taken photo of Timmy glows over its surface.
“Timmy is absolutely not calling you right now.” Musa says, and Flora – pauses.
“The boys went to…speak to the others.” She says slowly.
She’d been so fucking relieved over it. Everything is so tense and she’s so tired – oh she hopes this is just a continuation of that -
“Hello?” Stella’s voice is so bright and syrupy with such fake sugar-sweetness that Flora cringes a little. Bloom’s expression morphs into one of pure horror, and she whirls around to face the rest of them so quickly her hair slaps her in the face and she goes down by Musa’s legs with a wince.
“Oh, honey.” Flora can’t help her laugh, as short and quiet as it is.
“Well you’re not Timmy! In fact, who is this?”
“Is she really doing this in front of us?” Bloom hisses, and Flora picks her way across the room towards her friends. Tecna is sitting on a pile of pillows, head cocked as she watches Stella carefully.
“Is this some kind of…power move?” Tecna asks hesitantly.
“She probably doesn’t want to be alone right now.” Flora chides softly, and when Musa offers a hand she takes it and then settles in carefully beside Bloom.
“Oh it’s Brandon, is it. Do you hear that girls? His name’s Brand – don’t you fucking test me. You’re not on speaker now and that is a courtesy.”
Flora flinches at the heat in Stella’s voice, sharp and sudden and commanding.
“Stella, you’re upsetting Flora. Keep it civil and we’ll go help you ambush the fiancee.” Musa says suddenly.
Protests rise to her lips unbidden, but Stella – pauses. Goes still. And then flashes her such an apologetic look Flora forgets to breathe for an instant.
Musa catches her eye when she turns to the rest of them, settles down between Bloom and Tecna.
“What? Babe, I know we have to work on your stress tolerance or whatever, but you’re wilting again.”
“There’s a lot going on!” She protests, and she can feel her face growing hot, even as the ends of her hair curl into brittle, jagged little spirals.
“You’re blushing green.” Bloom says, awed.
“It’s the chlorophyll.” Tecna says automatically, and as if it could possibly get even worse, Flora feels her blush deepen because Bloom gets that look on her face like a child in a candy store.
And she –
Tecna enjoys the challenge of explaining everything to Bloom. Flora knows Musa doesn’t mind – she’s traveled a lot, she says, and she’s been the one asking questions more often than naught. And Stella loves to share anything and everything she possibly can. But it’s – it’s different for her. She’s not sure how to put it into words.
It’s flattering, kind of. Bloom looks at everything like it’s wonderful and new, because for her it is, but she just – she asks things.
“I read somewhere, when I was little, that Linpheans don’t like change. And I hated that.” She says softly.
Stella casts her a concerned look, though she doesn’t pull away from her phone, and the other three are looking at her so intently, and – and, she realizes, she’s crying.
“I’m not trying to be difficult or mean about it.”
Linphea is about growth and change and adaption and flourishing where one’s seed falls, and she’s always believed that. Always hated the idea of her home and her people as some stagnant, hostile little garden. Plants don’t live like that. That was why she’d been so sure that Alfea had been the right choice for her; out of her comfort zone, sure, but – she’d thought herself capable of adapting to it.
And then Bloom had – not even intentionally – asked all of those silly questions and at first Flora hadn’t been able to figure out why even knowing she was from Earth, and then Bloom had pressed, and.
It isn’t as if Bloom had asked things that challenged anything Alfea taught, not really. But there’d been that undercurrent of skepticism, and it had rankled. The questions had been uncomfortable and the but whys that followed even more so, and now that Bloom’s found something substantial that Alfea has actively hidden from them, not just held until they are senior students…now that there is a woman dead and buried and an entire planet attacked…
Flora does not understand Zenith. She and Tecna are the most diametrically opposed of the group; the natural and unnatural, the made and the built. But if someone came to Linphea and set fire to the roots of the Yggdrasil…
Bloom’s talked a little bit about the religious groups on her homeworld. The magical dimensions don’t have that, not really – but there would be nothing else Flora could so clearly consider sacrilege as that. So – she hurts for Tecna.
“You’re not.”
That – snaps her out of her thoughts. She looks up, and Blooms warm hands fold over hers. The Earth fairy smiles at her, soft and gentle and maybe a little sad but genuine, and Flora’s vision blurs again.
“I get it, Flor.”
“It wasn’t right of me to ignore you like that, or to put you down, just because I was – uncomfortable.”
“It was wrong of me to make you uncomfortable.” Bloom says softly, and Flora shakes her head, feels the plants in her room shudder as she draws in a deep breath and tries to calm herself down.
She doesn’t think Bloom realizes how warm she is – a different kind of warmth than Stella. Stella is bright-hot and blinding, like the sun on the brightest day of summer. Searing, almost.
Bloom’s heat is – softer. It doesn’t ebb or flow. If Stella’s is arid and dry like a desert – Flora would say Bloom’s heat is humid like a jungles’ but that sounds so stupid even in her own head that she blushes again.
“It shouldn’t have made me uncomfortable.”
“That is categorically false.” Tecna’s voice is quiet but no less firm for it, and Flora can’t help her surprise.
“Yours is the only other homeworld to hold trust and good faith in its governing body as closely as Zenith does. I was under the impression figures of authority would never lie to me, and would merely refrain from teaching dangerous material. You were under the impression that figures of authority would only lie or hide that material for legitimate and genuinely compelling reasons.”
“…Yeah. We should be able to hold Alfea and Magix to the same sorts of standards we would our own governments. It’s – it really sucks that we can’t.” Musa says. Her voice is rough. Flora reaches out without thinking, and takes one of Musa’s hands in her own.
Musa’s been the most collected of all of them about this. Flora had thought maybe it was because she didn’t care, but –
“I don’t know about you, but I chose Alfea because it was supposed to be independent from all this homeworld politic bullshit. And it’s even worse here than back home!”
“Don’t worry, girls. If it gets that bad we can transfer to Cloud Tower.”
Stella’s voice startles Flora badly enough that she jumps, feels her plants jerk a little in their pots. And then her words catch up to her and she whips her head around to find Stella, phone still pressed against her face, settling in against her side.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” Stella sniffs, before Flora can respond, and – ah.
“Still talking to S—Brandon?” She asks. Stella reaches up with her free hand and catches her cheek; by the time Flora has processed what Stella is doing, she’s wiping Flora’s tears away with her thumb and Flora starts crying again, harder.
“Timmy can tell you if he thinks you should know.” Stella’s expression is soft and gentle and a little amused but her voice is so cool and dismissive that Flora can’t help but flinch a little.
“Of course not. I can forgive you, but I won’t ever forget this. You used me. You lied to me. And you made me the other woman. And you made Bloom the other woman! But I’m angry, Brandon. Not cruel. I can compartmentalize my problems with you from my problems with your idiot prince.”
“Oh hell, we’re going to have to do this again?” Bloom wheezes, and lets go of Flora’s hands to start flailing at Stella.
“What - hold on. No, honey, you get first dibs. But you best believe I have a thing or two to say before this is all over!” Stella hisses, and prods Bloom’s leg with her foot, and then rolls her eyes and peels the phone away from her face to scowl at it.
This close, Flora can make out the tinny quality of S - of Brandon’s voice. He doesn’t sound very apologetic, but Flora’s unsure if that’s because Stella is threatening revenge against his lord or if that’s because the call has already covered his groveling.
She’s not quite so conflict-adverse as to let the boys get away with what they’ve done; she would just prefer everyone handled it as soon as possible and avoid all the tense energy they’ve been putting off.
At least Brandon is trying, she supposes. Sky’s behavior has been less than stellar.
“Not to be rude, but I’m done with this conversation. Tell Timmy the next time he calls it’d better be him on the other end!”
“Stella!”
“I mean, you gotta agree that some rudeness is deserved here, Flora.” Musa laughs, even as Stella tosses her phone across the room. The sound it makes when it hits - something - makes Tecna wince, but Stella seems so unconcerned that Flora can’t bring herself to worry over it.
“It’s not the rudeness that I’m objecting to!”
“Anyway! Flora’s right, I think. We all owe you an apology, Bloom.” Stella cuts in, and for all the dismissal she’d shown to Brandon, she’s the picture of decorum as she turns her gaze to Bloom. Even her aura’s shifted, so completely and so effortlessly -
Flora narrows her eyes at her. That is suspicious, and if Stella’s been able to do that this whole time then that bodes poorly for her innocence. So does the way Stella refuses to meet Flora’s glare.
“I’m not mad, I don’t mind, I understand, and if we have to talk about it again I think I’m going to cry so can we consider this handled?”
“Depends on if the boys are joining our coven or not.”
“Jury’s still out on Sky and Brandon, but I think we’re like legally obligated to let Timmy and Riven in at this point.”
And that - that is something she can latch onto, focus on, pour herself into while she tucks away all her shame and hurt and pain for some later time.
“I know we’ll be recording sensitive information down, and what with - well. With what Tecna’s Mother told us? I think discretion would be a wise idea.” She lets go of Bloom’s hands and settles hers in her lap.
“…Yes?”
“I can make some special inks and tailor them to our magical signatures. As magical beings, the boys have one too - and it’s not impossible to forge one, but I think it’d be better than nothing. And maybe better than casting visible wards on it - if anyone comes looking for it, that’s what they’ll go for first.”
Bloom’s eyes turn starry again, and Flora feels her ears burn.
“That is so cool! How’d you learn about that?”
“My cousins taught me. We still write each other with it now; we’ll write something silly or draw a picture in regular ink or graphite over it so it isn’t so obvious.” It’s a good memory, and she smiles as she says so. Bloom looks - concerned, for a moment. But the girls let it pass, and Flora feels something in her ease.
“Sounds absolutely brill to me!” Stella chirps, and claps her hands, and there’s a flash of light and -
“Did you just use magic to put on your pajamas?”
“That’s unnecessary and blinded us.” Flora protests, even as she hears Stella giggle and Musa cackle and there’s a soft little thrum as she blinks the spots out of her vision. When it’s cleared, Musa too has changed.
“Teach me that spell.” Tecna requests, already crawling off her pile to harass Musa, and -
“Come on, Bloom. We’ll go change like adults.” Flora teases, and she offers Bloom a hand amidst their friends ooing and laughing and teasing, and Bloom smiles at her bright as ever, and -
And Flora thinks that everything is going to be okay. Even hours later, when Bloom wakes them with a strangled cry and near-hysterical tears and thrashing the likes of which Flora has never seen from someone uninjured, even after they calm her and get her to lay back down and Flora can feel her trembling against her arms like a leaf in a gale -
Everything will be okay. Even if she must make it okay herself – they will be fine.