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The thing about Musa and Riven was that they were immensely hard to understand. Seeing them together was like watching a moth to a flame.
You knew one was going to burn up and the other was going to burn out, but you never knew which one.
That was the conclusion that Flora had come to. Joining Alfea had been a last minute decision but so far she hadn’t regretted it. Well at least until this moment.
Riven and Musa were doing what they did best, their weird flirty arguing that always led to one of them storming off, and the other acting as if their ego wasn’t bruised.
By now - almost 3 months since she had joined Alfea and fought against the scrapers, she was well used to this song and dance. No matter how annoying it got.
They were at some small hippie-like cafe which Musa had invited Flora to, and Riven being… Riven had tagged along in their way outside Alfea, claiming Musa would need him for another save.
Now they were arguing about something to do with bo staffs and the concept of staffs in weapons - all that stuff that easily flew over Flora’s head.
“I’m just saying,” Musa explained and Riven raised an eyebrow at her as she moved her hands around in her explanation.
They were sitting side by side, with Flora on the bench opposite them. “I know more about this than you. I have significantly more experience with the bo staff. You just have your knives and sword.”
She pushed her bangs out her eyes and Riven snorted as he looked at her, his dirty blonde hair lit up by the sunlight from the window he was sitting beside. “Sure thing, love.”
Flora turned to look at Musa and mouthed the word, love, with a confused expression on her face.
Sure Riven gave people nicknames, like he called Sam the “inconvenient bastard”, which Flora had to admit was a little bit funny.
Look, Sam was her cousin and everything but he had his moments of assholery okay? But back to the point.
Riven gave people nicknames, almost everyone to be honest, Flora was still trying to convince that calling her and Terra thing 1 and thing 2 wasn’t as funny as he thought it was, but he had never called anyone love - especially not Musa.
And considering her friend’s reaction, Flora figured this was a new thing, something that potentially pointed to them actually getting their shit together.
“Don’t call me that.” Musa said, her bangs falling into her eyes as she stared Riven down. He smirked at her before leaning into her side and whispering something in her ear that made her smack his chest. “Shut your mouth Riv.” She said and he snickered.
“What’s so funny?” Flora asked, twirling a loose curl around her fingers. Both Riven and Musa froze like toddlers getting in trouble for something they knew they shouldn’t be doing.
Ah hah I caught you, Flora thought. They definitely had something going on, what exactly she was determined to know.
“Nothing.” Musa said, leaning away from Riven. He cleared his throat and nodded, his own cheeks heating up.
“Mmmhmm.” Flora hummed, taking a sip out of her green tea.
They were so not subtle. Like fucking insanely not subtle.
Musa fake coughed, looking down at her lap, and Flora noticed Riven’s fingers twitching as if he wanted to grab her hand or something.
God. She better be getting fucking paid to put up with this bullshit.
Now that the behaviour had been noticed, it was like Flora couldn’t not notice it.
Like the way Musa would grin when Riven was obviously showboating - usually to impress the first years in their fairy and specialist training class. Or the way Riven seemed to follow Musa around, as if he was her shadow most of the time these days.
And Flora wasn’t the only one who noticed it.
The girls were having a sleepover in the lounge area of their dorm when Aisha brought it up. “So when are you and Riven making it official Muse?”
Everyone stopped what they were doing, Stella holding a face mask halfway up to Terra’s face and Bloom holding her phone in her hands. Flora herself, choked on her smoothie and she patted herself on the chest to attempt to move the fluid around.
“Pardon?” Musa asked, her cheeks heating up exactly like they had in the cafe 3 days ago. Aisha fixed her with a look. “You aren’t very subtle about it.”
The Black girl explained, her bonnet flopping around her ears. “I swear if I walk in on the two of you basically eyefucking again I will get Dowling to change my room.”
“Hear! Hear!” Terra chorused and within seconds all of them minus Musa were snickering and giggling. “Shut up!” Musa cried, grabbing her lounge pillow and smacking Aisha in the face with it.
“She isn’t wrong.” Stella responded through giggles and everyone quieted down. Musa stammered as she attempted to defend herself. “What? No she’s wrong. Riven and I have nothing to make official.” Stella gave her a look and Musa groaned before replying. “I’m serious!”
The other girls all shared a look before responding. “Sure, Jan.” Musa pouted but before she could continue complaining, her phone buzzed loudly.
One by one, the girls all began staring at her. “Who is it?” Bloom asked and Musa froze. “No one.” She said impatiently.
Flora was now the one to raise an eyebrow at her. “Are you sure about that?” She grabbed the phone out of Musa’s hand, grinning as she looked at the message on the screen.
“You up? From Riven with a heart emoji beside his name 2 minutes ago!” She said out loud and all the girls squealed beside Musa who looked immensely embarrassed. “I can’t believe Riven is a you up sender!”
Terra raised an eyebrow at her. “Of course he is. Have you met him? He’s literally a fuckboy.” Aisha snorted before responding, “Amen to that.”
Musa blushed, glaring at everyone. “Oh my god, it’s not like that.” Bloom looked at her, a small smirk forming on her face. “Oh come on. You don’t get a message like that unless it’s worked in the past Musa.”
Musa rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. “Again, it’s not like that. He’ll kill me if he knows I told you guys this, so keep it to yourselves.” They all shared a look before nodding.
Musa’s voice sounded quieter as she explained. “He’s been struggling with nightmares. He won’t tell me what they are about but he’ll text me and we’ll hang out until he can fall asleep.”
Flora felt her face flush as she realized what Musa was saying. “Oh my god. I totally wasn’t trying to insinuate that you guys were like fucking or something!”
Stella snorted. “I was.” Bloom reached over and gently smacked the older girl’s forehead. “That’s shockingly sweet.” Terra said and Aisha nodded. “Weird considering it’s Riven but sweet.”
Musa blushed even harder somehow. “There. You have your answer. I’m gonna call him. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”
And with that, the mind fairy walked away, her shoulder length hair flowing behind her. Flora watched her walk away before turning back to the others. “So we all agree there’s something more going on with those two right?”
Stella was the first to nod. “Oh definitely. If they aren’t hooking up, they definitely want to. Did you see them on Friday? They were so close to each other I thought they were going to make out in front of all of us!”
Everyone burst out laughing at that, mostly at Stella’s dramatics. “At least we all agree.” Bloom said, still giggling.
“We have to get them together or something!” Terra exclaimed, her curls falling around her cheeks. “I don’t know about that.” Flora said and the others turned to look at her, slightly confused. “I feel like we should let it happen organically.”
“Organically my ass.” Aisha retorted. “Those two idiots won’t do shit if we leave them to their own devices. I say we parent trap them!”
Bloom snorted, dropping her phone onto the coffee table. “Yeah no. I’m with Flora on this one.” And with that, the redhead and the black girl began bickering over it.
At this point, Flora had given up on dealing with Riven and Musa. If you asked her if she would change her mind about not parent trapping them, she would gladly say yes. Especially now.
“Musa calm down. Riven will be okay.” Terra said as she watched Musa who was pacing back and forth, her footsteps getting heavier and heavier as she kept pacing around. She was going to wear a fucking hole in the ground with her pacing at this point.
The specialists were on a mission in the small town of Aelius which had been attacked by Blood Witches in the past weeks. Riven, Sky and a new specialist named Nabu had been assigned to lead the mission and they had left the night before.
Flora didn’t know exactly what had happened between Musa and Riven but she knew it hadn’t been good - Musa had come back to the dorm in tears and cursing Riven out.
Now, the brunette girl was clearly distressed as they hadn’t heard anything about the mission in hours. No one knew if the mission was successful or if the guys were okay.
Bloom was also stressed but she had decided to put her nervous energy into something else and she had spent the last day working on the essay they had for Griselda’s Study of Ancient Runes class.
Musa on the other hand. Well. She was driving everyone else insane.
“I can’t keep watching her pace around.” Aisha said, getting up from the couch. Stella hummed in agreement. “This is agonizing. Musa for fucks sake. Riven is a perfectly trained specialist - as much as it pains me to say that. He can hold his own. When he’s done with this mission Silva sent him on, he will contact you for fucks sake.”
“And what if he doesn’t?” Musa asked. Aisha rolled her eyes. “He will be fine, Musa.”
The suite went silent for a moment before both Bloom and Musa’s phones buzzed.
Bloom looked at her phone before jumping up. “Musa we have to go. They are in the infirmary!” Musa turned to look at her, her eyes going wide.
“What do you mean they are in the infirmary?” She asked and Bloom shook her head, equally panicked. “I-I don’t know. Fucking hell! Sky isn’t responding to my texts anymore.”
Flora shared a look with Terra before getting up as well and going into Musa and Terra’s room, grabbing the navy blue Alfea specialist hoodie Riven had apparently borrowed to Musa months ago.
Musa had been seen wearing it on a regular basis since then, and more than once, Flora had caught her sniffing the hoodie, as if she wanted to savour the smell of Riven’s cologne.
“Here.” She said when she came back out of the room, handing it over to Musa who was now clearly freaking out. “Go find them. We’ll hold the fort down here.”
Bloom looked at her before nodding, grabbing Musa’s arm and pulling her out of the suite and into the hallway. Flora could hear faint whispers outside the door as the two girls made their way to the infirmary.
She turned to look at the others. They all stared back. “What the fuck just happened?” Terra asked and no one answered.
“I don’t know.” Stella began, “but I think this might be a game changer for them. I don’t think it’s Sky who was injured. Bloom would be a lot more panicked if it was him.”
Aisha groaned. “Oh we’re fucked then.” Flora turned to glare at her. “What? I’m not wrong. If they were impossible before, what are they gonna be like now? Especially if she ends up taking care of him like we all know she will.”
Aisha had a point. Fuck. For all of their sake, Flora hoped for two things: for Riven to be okay and alive, and for this to not fuck Riven and Musa’s relationship up.
She wasn’t sure if she could handle it if they were wrecked by this.
It had been two days since the disaster at Aelius, and Musa had spent most of the time at Riven’s side in the infirmary. He was slightly better now, the gash on his right shoulder was healing remarkably well but Musa was still worried due to the stab wound in his torso.
He had lost a lot of blood before the specialists arrived back at Alfea. Even Sky had been worried about him.
All of this was to say that Flora knew that Musa had been overworking herself taking care of him and she figured the mind fairy needed a break.
Humming quietly to herself, she made her way down the hallway from the girls dorm and into the infirmary. She heard a soft sigh and the sound of sheets rustling but she didn’t think anything of it.
On second thought, maybe she should have, she realized when she walked into the infirmary and saw Musa straddling Riven, his hands wound up in her hair and a thin hospital blanket covering the two of them.
Their lips were connected in a kiss that made Flora flush immediately as she bumped into a desk in her attempt to leave the room.
“Fuck! Fuck!” She hissed and within seconds, the couple had disengaged, both of them looking mortified. Flora looked up from her painful hip, and she smiled sheepishly at them.
“I was uh… gonna relieve you of duty Musa but obviously you are um… busy right now so I’m just gonna-I’m gonna go!” She turned on her heel towards the door and in a split second, Musa was standing beside her, her skirt still flipped from her position on top of Riven and her cheeks flushed red.
“You can’t tell the others!” Musa said, her voice cracking in embarrassment. “They don’t know yet and uh… I’d like to keep it that way.” Flora bit down on her bottom lip. “Yeah. Sure. I won’t tell a soul.” She looked over Musa’s shoulder at Riven. “Glad you are uh, feeling better Riven.”
He snorted before waving at her and Musa rolled her eyes at the two of them. “I mean it Flora. You can’t tell anyone. We’re… we’re trying to stay lowkey.”
If that was lowkey, Flora thought, she didn’t want to know what highkey would be. “Scouts honour!” She said instead, saluting her friend and hurriedly rushing out of the room.
As soon as she was back on the girls side of the dormitories, she quickly got out her phone and sent a message to the second group chat - the Aisha had started after the sleepover.
I just won £40. She smirked to herself as she sent the message, her eyes scanning the replies the others sent.
No fucking way, Sky replied and Flora giggled to herself.
Yes, fucking way. Caught them making out in the infirmary. Apparently that’s them keeping things lowkey.
Stella’s response made her snort out loud.
@briannaquartz u owe me £50 and a back massage now.
Musa was so going to kill them when she found out. But hey. They had been dealing with this shit for nearly a year. Betting on it seemed like a fair game.
Right?