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Where is she?
Where the fuck is she?
WHERE IS SHE?
Is the only thought that runs through Sky’s head. The rest of the world is a blur, a slightly buzzing sound on his ears he does not care for. His only focus is on finding her. He needs to find her.
Where in the fucking hell is she?
There are people moving around him, celebrating, recollecting, or just simply breathing after hours and hours of the most intense fight they ever had to endure.
The majority of them are students. Teens barely into adulthood, humans who just wanted to study and live their lives and instead found themselves wrapped in a war that started years before they were born.
For the first time in a long while, Sky does not care for those around him, or the pain they’re feeling. He doesn’t care that he is their captain, that it is his responsibility to know how many of the specialists under his command stayed alive. Doesn’t care that people are hurting. The only thing he cares about is finding her.
He shoves people aside without a single care in the world. He doesn’t see anyone, doesn’t focus on anything.
Where is she?
The air smells of burning flesh and he knows that, had his mind not been driven by a single purpose than maybe he would feel nauseous, shaken even, by the bodies - human and burned ones alike - littering the floor.
Where is she?
He thinks he hears his name being called in the distance. Saul? Or maybe it’s Riven. Whoever it is though, is promptly ignored as he continues to make his way through Alfea’s grounds, which had, less than two hours ago, become battlegrounds.
He’s going crazy trying to spot her. Trying to see a wisp of burning red hair somewhere in the crazy mass of bodies. But he doesn’t…he doesn’t……he just…doesn’t.
He’s feeling faint. His blood is roaring in his ears and the smoke is getting on his nostrils and he still hasn’t found her.
Where is she?
His body is suddenly jerked to the side and through hazy eyes he finds himself looking into his best friend’s face, the concern evident in his green eyes.
Sky’s blood is pumping fast through his veins and his eyes are still not a hundred percent focused but Riven is shaking him gently and he finds himself slowly coming down from the high.
His ears are still throbbing and he still feels like he can’t breathe but little by little, the Eraklyon prince starts focusing on his surroundings. There’s destruction everywhere, bodies and blood splattered all around, Riven is caked in it and Sky thinks he probably is too. There is a burned spot on his best friend’s uniform and the small part of Sky’s brain that is still functional thinks that it does not look like a fire burn at all.
Fire…there’s fire burning all across the grounds.
Fire…fire……BLOOM.
Where.is.she?
Shaking himself off his best friend's grip - He would have hated himself in normal circumstances, for Riven limped and gripped his chest in a clear sign of pain as he was shoved aside - he starts spinning around once more, frenetically looking for her.
She has to be somewhere.
Why can’t he find her? She should be here.
WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?
“Sky…sky…mate…SKY!”
The blonde specialist turns to his brother ready to tell him to fuck off - The small rational part of Sky knows that Riven is worried, knows that they both just saw death in the eye, but right now he couldn’t think, care or listen to anyone. He had to find her. He just had - but stops short when he notices the petite fairy standing by Riven’s side, also caked in blood and with tear stains on her cheeks.
Musa.
Musa could help him.
Without thinking, without blinking he shoves past his friend and walks to the empath, grabbing her shoulders tightly and shaking her while frenetically questioning “Where is she? Tell me where she is!”
He sounds desperate, a mad guy, a lunatic.
That little rational voice in his head - That sounded suspiciously like Saul - told him that he really shouldn’t have been all that surprised when he was fiercely ripped away from the mind fairy by, a now very pissed, Riven.
He hated how he couldn’t feel anything, nor shame nor regret when he looked at his best mate’s girlfriend and saw two red marks on her arms from where he gripped them.
He was numb. Nothing mattered to him.
He wondered if this was how his dad felt.
Did that make him a monster too?
“Look Sky, I don’t know what the fuck ha gotten into you but you are going to have to calm down mate.” Sky hears the words but doesn’t really process them.
Where is she? He needs to find her. He promised he’d take her to the amusement park next week, he couldn’t break his promise. He couldn’t lose her.
Losing her.
The thought comes like a knife to his heart, making him double up in pain.
He couldn’t. That couldn’t happen.
Where the fuck is she?
“We won mate, it's over, snap out of this!” Riven’s voice is edgy, a little alarmed. “Mate you’re scaring me, what is wrong?! Pixie, what the fuck is wrong with him?!”
Sky needs to get away, he can’t deal with Riven’s concern right now. He needs to find her.
…where is she…
“Sky” The gentle tone startles him a little, and he spins to look at the tiny girl in front of him. His future sister in law looks worried, but not like Riven. It's different, more gentle. She understands. She understood who he was asking about.
The shame for hurting her starts to creep in and he’s slightly relieved that apparently he’s still human, that this war hasn’t fully broken him yet.
“Sky, I need you to breathe, you need to breathe. Do this for her okay? You need to breathe so you can find Bloom.” It’s the name. Her name, that has him snapping out of the trance he was still in.
“Where is she? Where is Bloom?!” He’s desperate, fear clawing at his chest.
Where’s his little fire fairy?
“Breathe Sky, breathe. I don’t know where she is, I can’t tell you that, I’m too weak to locate her.” He’s ready to run away and continue looking, panic still seizing his lungs. Musa can’t help him. He needs to find Bloom. “BUT” At that, the mind fairy - Showing a surprising amount of strength for someone so little - grabs his arms and forces him to look at her. The determined look in her eyes reminds him that she is not someone to be messed with. ‘I can tell you she’s alive. I don't know if she’s fine, actually scratch that, none of us are fine. But she’s alive Sky and that’s what matters. I didn’t lose my best friend and you didn’t lose your girlfriend. But you need to calm down and breathe blondie, otherwise you’ll be no good for anyone.”
Sky’s not sure how, but as the empath speaks, he starts calming down bit by bit. Starts breathing a little better. He honestly hadn’t thought he could, not with how he was feeling…until he takes a look at Musa’s face - Growing more tired and drained by the second - and realizes this is not his doing, its hers. She’s still holding onto his arms and she’s the one making him calm down.
Riven had once told him about how she could do that. About how sometimes, when his best friend was too wired up, too burdened by the demons of his past, she would soothe him, sending calming motions to his mind that, according to his brother, worked better than any booze.
It takes a few more seconds but he finally calms down enough that the fairy lets him go. His best friend is immediately right there by his side, holding onto him.
They were always stronger as a team.
“That’s it mate, breathe. Let’s find that ginger menace you call your girlfriend before I think better and remember just how much she annoys me.” Musa playfully slaps him and Sky wishes he could feel that carefree, but not now. Not yet. “Hey, stop hurting me woman! Guess this is what I get for dating her friend and letting red date you. Let's go.”
Musa turns to go look on one side of the school, while Riven follows Sky onto the other. Even limping and clearly in pain, his best friend still refuses to let him go and tries his best to give the blonde support, while at the same time scaring off anyone that tries to stop and talk to Sky.
They look and they look and they don’t find her and suddenly it doesn’t matter if Musa claims she’s alive. It doesn’t matter at all because he feels his heart squeezing and hurting and his lungs constricting.
He lost her.
He lost her. He lost her. He lost her.
Where is she?
If she’s alive then where is she?
It's too much.
Too fucking much and he can’t take it.
He is barely an adult and he just went through battle, just stared death in it’s face and the one thing, the only thing, that kept him going was knowing that he would see her at the end of this hell. That he would hug her, kiss her. It was knowing that they would go to that damn amusement park next week, knowing that he would get to see her smile.
He killed at least three burned ones just with the promise of that smile in his mind.
But now…
Now he couldn’t fucking find her and it didn’t matter how much Musa assured him that she was alive. He needed to see her. Hold her.
He just needed her and everything would be alright.
It was just too much. So he ran.
Away from Alfea, away from Riven’s shouts of protest - His best friend was too wounded to run after him - away from everyone’s concerned voices.
He ran and ran and didn’t look back.
He didn’t care where he was going, he just needed to get away. He only stopped when he noticed where his feet had taken him.
The stone circle. The same place where Bloom and him first kissed…..and then she drugged him - But that was a whole matter altogether that only came up nowadays when he was drunk and wanted to tease her.
He would have laughed at the memory but it hurt too much without her by his side.
Sky stood there. Away from everyone, from the battlegrounds, from all the death.
It should have felt peaceful, but the silence was slicing, a painful thing that reminded him she was not there. That he couldn’t find her.
“Where are you spitfire?”
Suddenly, the prince hears a little sound, like a tree branch snapping, and feels all the years of training to be a specialist kick in. He tenses, grips his sword and waits. He won’t give a burned one the chance to fight. - He sometimes wonders if his entire life will be like this, ready to fight, ready to battle, ready to die. A soldier who’s unable to ever leave the battlefield.
He’s ready to attack when suddenly…”Sky?”
And it feels like the air leaves his lungs, like his legs turn to jelly, and for one crazy second Sky thinks that this is how it feels to come back from being dead.
Bloom.
She’s here. She’s alive and she’s here.
He found her.
He was never losing her again.
There she is, standing on the other side of the clearing, staring at him with tear stained eyes, looking just as battle wrecked as he did.
She was never so beautiful.
He truly never stood a chance. She had him wrapped around her dainty fingers from the moment he saw her hauling up that suitcase in his second year.
“Sky?…how did you get…what are you…I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I just had to get away..” He doesn’t let her finish the sentence, before she can blink he has her encapsulated in his arms. Keeping her safe. Keeping all the horror and pain away.
“You’re okay. God, Bloom, you’re okay.” She squeezes him then, maybe noticing how wrecked he is, or maybe because she’s just as shaken. It doesn’t matter, she’s here and she’s okay. The world could burn for all he cares.
Eventually he lets her go, but just a little, he still keeps his arms at her waist. He’s going to hold onto her until he’s sure she’s not going to fade away like pixie dust.
“I’m sorry, I just…I had to get away from there. Too much blood, too much…death. It’s..it’s different to see it all, to actually be in the battle instead of just hearing about it. I just…had to breathe for a second.”
“It’s okay babe, it's okay.” And he holds her again, because he can, because in his arms she’ll never feel like she has to be this invincible fairy, this hero everyone expects her to be. He holds her because he loves her and because less than an hour ago he thought he lost her and he never wants to go through that again.
He holds her and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can keep the darkness away by hugging her forever.
He’s certainly going to try.