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His fist is flying towards her face, at the last minute she drops down, avoiding the attack. Before she can try to hit him back, he is already attacking her again. She stumbles while trying to get away. Riven takes measured steps towards her, his feet performing a well-practiced dance she is still unable to remember. Every movement is so fluent, so unexpected, that even after training with him for a few weeks, she still cannot predict what move comes next.
In moments like this, Musa can admit that she misses her powers. If she would still use them, she could feel him, anticipate his moves better. She would know which attacks are meant to distract her from the actual kicks. But with the pins stabbing her arms, the bracelets prevent her from doing so.
Which is a good thing, she reminds herself. Not feeling everyone is a new freedom she was dreaming of ever since she was a girl feeling her mother pass away. The prison on her arms are no prison for her, they are a salvation.
A foot kicks her in the stomach and she falls down. Her back hit the ground hard and the wind is knocked out of her. She sighs. No matter how hard she tries, this is where every training ends up, with her on the ground, loosing. She looks up at the figure blocking the summer sun shining in her eyes. Riven is grinning down at her while holding out his hand.
Reluctant she gives him hers to pull her up in one fluent move. His hand feels rough against her own. While his are scared and full of calluses of holding his twin swords for all these years, hers are still soft. Though after a few weeks, some calluses are also appearing on the palm of her hand and secretly she loves that it proves she is changing.
“You need to learn not to be distracted”, he tells her with a small smile. His amusement shining through his green eyes staring straight at her. Some curls hang over his forehead, almost hiding them from view. When he looks at her like that, she doesn’t mind loosing. “You are getting better, but your mind keeps wandering after a while.” Musa nods in agreement.
“Battles will likely take longer than these training sessions, you cannot afford to loose focus as it can lead to your death. Now, do you know how I was able to knock you down?”, Riven asks her. She sighs, trying to think about his fighting moves but with him still holding her hand, his thump making slow circles on her skin, she cannot think straight. He laughs at her silence and she feels warm inside at the sound. Letting go of her hand, he demonstrated how she should block his kicks.
It is later when they are sitting on a bench drinking their water, that he talks about it again. At first, she though Riven understood her decision, stood by it. But the longer she wears them, the more he talks about it. She hates when he does, hates that he might just be like all the others. “You should train with your powers active, now you are fighting with one arm behind your back”, he starts, “you are making it easy by denying yourself.”
She looks away. “No, you know I won’t do that.”, she argues back for the millionth time, “they will only take my focus away. I cannot fight you if I am already fighting all the emotions going on around me.” Putting down my water bottle, I look away from him, to the sun setting over the lake. It would have been peaceful if the conversation wasn’t winding her up. “I though you would understand but how could you, you don’t feel every single thing people feel all the time. And no, no matter what you think, I cannot just shut it out. My powers are always on, the only time I can block them is when I am asleep. And even then.”
“I am sharing a room with Terra, and her emotions are loud.”, Musa tries to explain, again. “Even when I am sleeping, her emotions are affecting my own dreams and I cannot take it anymore. I want to live my own live, without others affecting my every move.” He shakes his head, not listening. His hand going through his hair in frustration at my words. Maybe he is tired of this conversation as well, but he just won’t let it go. Musa doesn’t understand why he keeps pushing the subject.
“How can you be a fairy if you bind away half of who you are?”, he asks angry. She tries to not show it, but his words cut her deep. Because part of her knows he is right. And if she is no longer a fairy, who is she? She cannot keep fooling herself she can be a specialist, there is no changing her DNA. “It is taking the route of cowards, Musa”, he bits out in frustration. She jumps up at his words, anger running through her veins.
“Cowards?”, she yells at him, “Me being a coward? You are one to talk.” He narrows his eyes and stands up as well, towering over her. “What is that supposed to mean?”, he asks with dangerously calm voice while his eyes burn in fury.
“Like you don’t know! Did you or did you not follow Beatrix, knowing it was wrong because is was easier?” His fist ball up, as if he is preparing to hit her for real this time. He wants to fight? Well she is freaking ready. “Or was it because she kept your dick wet?”
“Don’t keep dragging that in, that was way back. Or are you forgetting I actually helped all of you fight Sebastian?” Stepping closer, he leans down to her, their foreheads almost touching. She feels his breath on her face as he whispers to her, “Oh right, we all forget it because everything people see when they look at me is an asshole with no right for redemption, isn’t it? You let those creatures attack you to take your powers, you let them win without a fight, and that is something I never did.” He grabs his bag off the ground, walking away from her. Not wanting him to have the last word, she runs after him, grabbing his arm to stop him from leaving. His skin warm under her cold fingers.
“Don’t walk away from me!”, she mutters with venom in her tone, “you wanted to talk about is, so we will.” He laughs, no real humor in it. “Don’t pretend you suddenly want to hear what I have to say, Musa. But fine, you want to keep talking, let’s talk about how you are your powers and your powers are you and that hiding like a cowards doesn’t make the truth go away. You can never accomplish anything if you keep hiding from yourself and I am this close to giving up on you as you have given up on yourself.”, he spit out. Shaking himself loose, he leaves.
She doesn’t follow him again. Giving up on you. Route of cowards. “He doesn’t understand”, Musa mutters frustrated while walking back to campus. The summer sun is still burning bright even though it is already late as her practice with Riven ran out again. She isn’t sure she can call it running out as it seems to be the norm to be longer than planned. Too bad it always ends up in a fight. She wipes away some tears she finally allows to fall as he is out of sight. Why can’t he just accept her?
Almost every day she goes to him after classes and then they fight. She loves the freedom it brings her, loves how after all these years she can finally be the girl she was always meant to be, a fighter. She looks down at the bracelets that make it possible. When it is colder, she can hid them from all the curious glances, but now the sunlights reflects on them, drawing everyones attention. She calls them bracelets because while them might be used to punish fairies by binding their powers, they don’t have that negative connotation to her. For her, they represent the freedom of the constant emotions overflowing her mind.
He doesn’t understand what it is like. This is better, this is safer.
If she would be completely honest with herself, she can admit he might be a little right. Because when she is near him, she can admit that she misses his hurricane of emotions. Even when they weren’t talking and nowhere near friends like they are now, she can admit that she would search him with her powers. While Sam brought her some peace with the silence of his emotions, sometimes she would search out Riven with her mind because the silence drove her just as mad as the combinations of other people’s emotions. But if she focusses only on the specialist, felt his emotions fighting each other for dominance, let his hurricane roll over her, she would be able to breathe again.
Not that she would have told any of her friends this at the time, he was then still that asshole who often hooked-up with Beatrix and fought with Sky. She would look for him only with her powers, never in person, it was her little secret. But now that he is training her, making her stronger physically, she can admit that she wouldn’t mind his emotions bringing her peace again.
Musa is scared. If she admits to herself that she misses his emotions next to her already looking forward to training with him every day, she might needs to admit that she wants him more than a friend. And so close after the Sam fiasco, she cannot and doesn’t want to admit there might be something there. So she fights him with all she got, keeps her distance enough to not cross a line they are better off not crossing. If Riven would even want to cross it. She isn’t sure he even likes her like that. After all the mentally challenging things that happened over the last years, she cannot afford to have a broken heart in the mix.
Pushing open the door to her dorm, she sees Terra and Kat making out on the couch. She laughs silently, trying to sneak past them to their shared room, trying to ignore the silence coming from Bloom and Aisha’s room. She guesses it is just Aisha’s room now.
“Musa”, Terra shrieks, spotting her behind Kat. She jumps away from her girlfriend, as if burned. Kat turns around as well, amused at Terra’s reaction. “Why are you back yet? Aren’t you training?” Thinking about Riven makes her smile fall away. Her friend notices the change immediately. She sighs sadly, already knowing what happened. Turning towards the specialist, she whispers something in her ear. Musa cannot stand the jealousy she feels watching them being cute together. Terra deserves it. Kat stands up, giving the earth fairy a quick kiss before saying goodbye to Musa with a gentle smile, leaving the friends alone.
“What did he do this time?”, Terra asked, patting the now empty spot next to her. Following the silent instruction, she drops down next to her. “Nothing new, I just wish he would understand it, or let it go if he cannot.”
Terra embraces Musa, pulling her closer to her own body, almost crushing her against her chest. She loves the warmth the hug brings her, how much it calms her racing heart. No matter how difficult their relationship started out, the blond fairy became one of her rocks. “You know that is just the way specialist are”, she tells softly, “they are trained to be the strongest version of themselves. They fight all the time, cannot spend a day without physically being hurt somewhere. I think he just has trouble understanding why you would bind the thing that makes you more powerful away when he has been fighting his entire life to be recognized for his strength.”
Pulling her head back, her gentle eyes meet the mind fairy. “You know he is not a bad guy”, she whispers, “he only wants you to be the strongest version of yourself for when the time comes that you need to save yourself. Though you can always count on him trying to protect you to try to stop that situation from ever happening. Kat is exactly the same.” That is another thing she likes about Terra, she knows there is more to Riven than what meets the eye, she has always known.
“Thank you, Terra.”
—-
She wakes up disoriented. She cannot recognize the dark room she is in. What happened last night? She remembers going to her own bed, but this is not her room. The hard wood below her is not her soft bed either. Trying not to panic, she looks for clues where she might be, like Riven told her to do that one time. There is no window to tell her what time of the day it is, nor is there any furniture. Except a bed in the far corner of the room. The tries to move towards it, but both her feet ad her hands are bind together, keeping her in one place. Something moves on the bed, she hears someone breathing roughly. She is not alone.
Setting to work, she tries to get her hands free without making too much noice and alerting the other person she is awake. It ends up not making a difference. Footsteps sound right before the door is pushed open. A guy she has never seen before in her life walks in, followed by some other people.
“Look who is awake”, the guy smiles at her, showing too much teeth which makes his smile creepy-looking. The light switches on and she can see him better in the bright light. His dark hair is tied behind his back, going over his shoulders. With a jeans and a blue shirt, she would not think him to be a villain, but appearances can be misleading. With the other people behind him, dressed casually as well, they give the impression of being a group of teenage bullies instead.
“We can make it easy for you, you take on all his pain, heal him and we let you go with no issue.” The leader points to the bed, she can now make out a person lying on the bed, twisting around as if in a nightmare.
“I cannot do that, I don’t have my powers.”, Musa tells him with an even voice, trying to keep the fear at bay. He merely smiles while waking closer, grabbing her bind arms. His hand moves up her arm, pressing down on her prison. Pain shoots through her arm as the pins get pushed down deeper in her skin. “Oh, but I think you can.”
She shakes her head, panic setting in as he started to loosen the binds. Some of their emotions hit her with full force as the prison is loosened. “We know you are one of the most talented mind fairy at the school. We need a strong fairy to save him, so unless you want to get hurt badly, you will do just that.”
Musa can find him, Riven taught her enough to defend herself. But she has never fought five people at once. She is at a disadvantage. To make matters worse, she suddenly has trouble breathing, something is forcing her to stop taking a breath. She tries to fight it but she is powerless, black spots appear in her vision before she is let go. Gulping for air, she looks at his smiling face. Blood witches. “You see you have no choice?”
He is right, fighting five people was already pushing it, fighting five blood witches is suicide. Seeing her loosing her will to fight, he unlocks the bracelets completely, freeing her from her prison after weeks.
It is hard to breath again, only this time the blood witch has nothing to do with it. The emotions of every person in the room are hitting her all at once. The anger, the sadness, the fury, but most pressing, the pain of the person in the bed. He is dying, she can feel it. She can feel his pain, can feel him close to slipping away. It hurts more than she remembers. Bringing her bound hands to her head, she presses down, trying to keep out everything around her. She screams. The group laughs. Grabbing her arms, they pull her up and move her to the bed. She struggles, but it is hard when her mind is not really her own anymore. This is why she wanted her powers locked away, this is why she would rather ignore them than embrace them. Musa knows she was never strong enough to handle them.
“Now, save our friend and we let you go”, the leader speaks close to her ear, his warm breath going over her face. “What will it be?” Being close enough, she can see the person on the bed. She hides her gasp, noticing it is Grey. His eyes are closed and his teeth clenched to keep the pain at bay. She can see a wound on his side. He should have lost too much blood to even be alive still, but she guesses the others must have used their powers to stop the bleeding. Why they cannot heal his internal wounds, she doesn’t know. Blood magic is a forbidden form of magic no-one is allowed to study.
Grey hurt Aisha and lied to all of them. Hell, she even set him up with her friend. She wants him to rot. But she cannot do it, because no matter how much her friend denies it, she did love him and still cares for him. And she could feel that at the time, he likes her back. Some emotions you can never hide from a mind fairy and that is one he couldn’t hide away. How he would feel better, lighter every time the water fairy was near. It was enough to know not all was a lie.
Pushing all the others out of her mind, solely focussing on Grey, she nods hesitantly. The leader grins satisfied while unknotting the robe on her hands, freeing her to take Grey’s hand. He keeps standing close enough behind her, his hands raised to stop her from doing anything. Ignoring the others is harder than she thought, but she doesn't feel she has a choice in this scenario. Try to help or get hurt in the process. She has no choice but to accept the first option. Grey is only aware of her presence when she holds his hand, too far gone from this realm to be present. His pain, the stillness of his mind, the guilt, it is all going to her as she sucks the emotions out of him. She drops down next to the bed from the force of it, her knees hurting from the fall, but it cannot compare to the pain in her side that she is carrying for him. Tears stream over her cheeks, but she hold on, unable to distract herself from the pain being transferred. The more the pain leaves him, the more she can feel he is able to heal himself with his own powers. As Grey is healing slowly, the less it starts to hurt for her as well. She isn’t sure she has ever felt this much pain. Maybe when Sam was hurt by the burned one. But with her mother, while it was the hardest thing she has ever felt, it never hurt physically. Her mother was already so far gone, there was no pain to take away. She felt her go without the pain killing her now.
Then she feels it somewhere outside of the cocon she and Grey are sharing in this moment. Her storm, he is coming. She doesn’t know how much time passed but suddenly the door bust open again and Riven runs in, swords raised high in the air, anger on his face. He is followed by Terra and Kat, both ready for battle. While the specialist don't hesitate attacking the witches closest to them, Terra's plants shot out of the floorboards, dragging her away from Grey, breaking the connection in the process. The blood witches react just as fast. There is barely a battle before her friends are struggling against themselves, unable to fight the real enemy. Musa tries to get up, tries to help them. Trying to set up shields against all the fear and anger in the room, she tries to fight like he taught her, but the leader, still by her side, reacts immediately. She can feel Riven still fighting their influence, can feel his fear while trying to get to her as the blood witch attacks her again.
He is stopping her from breathing, while others are manipulating Riven, Terra and Kat. But the witches are forgetting a crucial part of mind fairies. They don’t need their hands to make their powers work. Focussing on all the pain she has ever felt in her live, of her mother dying, of Sam dying of the burned one, of the pain of loosing Bloom, the fear she felt from Saul after the burned one attack, and she pushed all of tit out to the witches. All at once, they get distracted while fear and pain overwhelm their minds. Their focus dropping as they can barely think straight of the emotions going through them. She smiles through the black spots on her vision. Let them know what it is like to be her, let them feel it all and let them not being able to handle it like she can. Because there is no denying it anymore.
She is a mind fairy, there is nothing she hasn’t felt before, nothing that can stop her from saving her friends. So she saves them. She hears Riven yelling in outrages, sees him cutting down people with his swords and she smiles at him before it all goes black.
“Should this be the last thing I see?
I want you to know it's enough for me
'Cause all that you are is all that I'll ever need”
---
When she wakes up again, she is in the hospital wing. Again. She might have visited this place too much in the last years, but at least now, she can see Riven sitting next to her bed, holding her hand. He is sleeping with his head resting on the bed near her thigh. His emotions are hitting her at full force, but she isn’t trying to keep them out, not anymore. Instead, she lets them overwhelm her, lets them all in. And within his hurricane of emotions, she can finally be at peace. She is home. No more hiding, it is time she admits to herself and him what her heart already knows.
“I love you”, she whispers, knowing he can hear, having felt him waking up slowly at her movements. He sits up suddenly, staring at her in shock. A wide range of emotions go through his green eyes before finally setting on one. She cannot immediately place it, have never felt it from him before. He smiles, leaning closer. He hesitates for a moment, his lips close to hers, their breaths mixing in the small space he leaves. But Musa does not move back. His lips softly press into hers. For a moment it felt like nothing she ever felt before, like sunshine warming her from the inside. His emotions wrap around her like a soft blanket, shielding her from the world, allowing her enough space just to feel, without others interfering how she should be. She never needed the prison bracelets from him, she knows that now.
With Sam, she was hiding in his silence just as much as the bracelets where holding her powers at bay. She knows things are different with Riven, they always were. There is no need from hiding if you are already found.
He pulls back way too fast, still tasting the new sensation on her lips she is not ready to let go. Musa grabs his hair and pulls him back down, kissing him with force. He smiles in the kiss and she smiles back, not willing to break their connection just yet.
She understand now what that emotion Riven feels is, it is love. For her.
"no more fighting with an arm behind my back", she whispers, her lips brushing his. His fingers caress her cheeks softly, pulling back a little to gaze into her eyes. "Prepare to loose all the time now", she grins. He laughs, kissing her forehead while sitting up a bit more.
"I cannot wait."