Chapter Text
Bloom was good to her word. Flora slept a dreamless, heavy sleep that night. She awoke curled on her side in a fetal position, knees tucked in close like she was a seed. And she was content to lay there, dormant until Spring. Let the soil and rot of leaves cover her in a comfortable blanket of darkness.
Beside her, Bloom splayed out on her stomach, filling all the space Flora abandoned. And as Flora rubbed the heel of her palm into her eyes, she thought Bloom looked peaceful for once, one cheek smooshed into the pillow. The worry and remorse that lived the corners of her mouth and brows were gone.
And the day that followed was… well, Flora wouldn't say good, but it was better. The colors of the world were still dulled, but they were there. She spent most of it with Aisha, who managed to coax a few smiles and a even a little laugh out of her.
But then the night comes again, and Flora finds herself staring at her bed with its inevitable betrayal. She draws in a shaky breath. "You can do this, Flora. They're just dreams."
That's what she had been telling herself before last night. So she makes herself herbal tea, as usual. The process is a comforting routine that's become ritual. It lets her mind turn off, and in the flow there's moments of peace. The usual chamomile, catnip, and root of valerian hadn't been working, so then came the poppy teas.
Sleep came readily enough with them, but so too did the dreams. Maybe she should offer some to Bloom. Bloom, who looked so sweet and secure while she slept. Bloom, calm, confident, like she was supposed to be with her raspberry lips slightly parted and body rising and falling in those slow, steady breaths. Flora didn't know how long she had watched Bloom sleep this morning. Long enough to memorize the folds of her ear, the little baby hairs that wisped at her temples, the two moles on the back of her shoulderblade just above her camisole.
Flora blinks abruptly, shaking her head to get free of the daydream, unexpected as it was. There isn't any reason to be stuck on those images. She just wants to help her friend sleep better. The thought of sleep drops her attention back to the freshly brewed tea in front of her.
Golden, faintly magical, it cast a strange radiance. Linphean Lotus tea. She brings it to the full pouty swell of her bottom lip and blows across it before taking a tentative sip. She's never tried it before. The Lotus flowers from back home known for their sometimes intense properties. But she was desperate. It tasted floral, light, though even with all the honey she added the bitterness was still there so she drank it in three long slurps.
Flora moves to the end of her bed and sits heavily on it, unwilling to let her head touch the pillows until she is sure the tea is working and she begins to relax.
The Linphean Lotus, with its shimmering goldenrod petals and glinting orange seeds like gems was known for its ability to ease the mind and body, help against anxiety and aid in sleep in low doses. In extreme doses, however, it was deadly. The heart would grow so calm it simply stopped. And in moderate doses…
Flora's mind trailed off as she looked up to see the branches that stretched across the ceiling above her bed begin to writhe, and not from her own doing. Her bed sinks into itself, lurching backward until she loses her balance and falls across it with a giant halo of hair framing her face and she can't stop the laugh that spills from her lips.
"I may have used too much," she hums, knowing she should be worried just how much was too much, but as the leaves above her fold open into a fractal kaleidoscope of vegetation, she laughs again. It feels good to be laugh. To be free. This isn't what dying feels like. She knows that now.
The memory brings a sharp pain to the scar on her side, but it is quickly washed away by the beautiful unfolding above her.
Time becomes an abstract thing as she's absorbed into the pure artistry of the branches, their mediative twists and bends. They flow as life grants them, undeterred. Like all living things, they adapt and grow. Even in the most inhospitable places there are the scant few that still blossom. Branches arch, letting strong winds mold them. Plants hung upside-down twist to be skyward, and even the simple sunflower rotates, following the path of golden light. She has to do that now. Just be like nature. Be resilient.
She could do that. She doesn't have to be perfect—no flower is, truly. She will just be good enough, wilted leaves, sooty mold, scarred trunk—all of it. She would be good enough to protect and cherish. She would be good enough to help her friends. They need her to be. They need her.
Flora's thoughts turn back to Bloom. She sighs.
Her eyes look through the branches, to the endless chasm between them and the ceiling that now seems worlds away. It reminds her of Bloom's ceiling. She had liked the stars on it. A smile tugs at her lips, imagining the constellations again. The Swan…
Don't worry, I won't let any swans get you, Bloom teased her.
But Bloom isn't here now, and the Swan is. It crashes through the branches, and Flora yelps in surprise. The long-necked bird rising back, wings half opened in a display of barely contained aggression.
"Shoo! Get!" Flora waves at it, and part of her knows its silly, ludicrous even that a Swan would be in her room. It must not be real. Yet everything in her body and mind is screaming that it is, and she should be scared.
The swan ignores her. Instead, it stalks forward. Stalks, yes, that's the word, she thinks. Predatory—more like a feline than a bird. It doesn't move directly toward Flora, but instead slowly circles around her bed, watching her with one eye. An eye that practically glowing. An eye that is an unnatural, haunting blue.
You brought me here.
"I did not. Go away!"
You opened your mind, like a city throwing open their gates, supplicant to their betters.
"I don't want you here! I just wanted the dreams to stop!" Flora pleads and the room buckles in response.
It's much too late for that. You saw him die. You saw him die and you liked it.
"Liar! It isn't me! It isn't!" Flora throws up her arm, shielding her head as with a deep groaning the wood bends and bows to life, encircling her in its oaken embrace.
Oh but it is. It's your mind, after all. Its not like I'm real.
Flora's eyes widen, her pupils so big they're almost pools of black at the scraping sounds. It isn't real. But it if isn't real, that means she can't stop it. There's a skittering scratch, the flutter of wings, and her nightmare is squeezing it's distorted form through the woven wall of wood.
But where there were white feathers there is now white hair. Those gleaming blue eyes perched with smug superiority now above sharp, angular features, long neck, lissome form as legs unfold, and then with a final yank, Icy pulls herself through the barrier.
Her left arm is left behind, merely a stump. The nightmare looks down at it in dismay, then back to Flora who now cowers at the head of her bed. "No, no… No. You're dead. Dead!"
Icy tips her head and steps up onto the bed, grin wolfish. Her mouth doesn't move from that dead, hungry grin, but Flora hears her voice all the same.
Why would I let that stop me?
And then fast as a spectre, Icy has thrown herself atop Flora. Straddling her, the single hand catching her by the throat. Fingers so cold they burn squeezing it as that vacant face with hateful eyes glare down at her.
Flora grabs at the arm. She bucks and thrashes to get Icy off. Red flashes and then swelling blackness fill her vision. She reaches, fingers finding Icy's face, and her only fleeting though is it feels so real before her hand drops and blackness consumes her…
She staggered through the snow among the Fearwood timbers. Awakening the trees that slept so deeply in the darkest days of winter was taxing. Pulling them from slumber through the snow took the last bit of her reserves.
If only it was enough.
The Roots of All Good shielded her from the onslaught of the blizzard's wrath, and in a moment of reprieve she lashed out with the Arms of the Earth, calling on the grasping ivy vines to snag and twist her assailant to the ground.
Icy's scream had filled the forest then, and the awful, wrenching sound as vines tore and bent. The wet snapping of bone and then ripping of sinew as she pulled free from Flora's magic.
Horrified, Flora hesitated too long. The massive chunk of ice-encrusted rock hit her squarely in the chest with a sickening crunch. Thrown back into a nearby tree's waiting arms, her vision blurred, reeling. She took a collecting breath and—and couldn't. Her body seized, searing white hot pain shooting through her and a feeble cough brought up bright red blood across her tongue and lips.
She could only take short, stilted breaths.
Turning away from the dripping mess of Icy's arm as vines constricted, and the woman marching towards her, Flora stumbled deeper into the forest—and felt the bubbling in her lungs, each draw of air less than the last. She was drowning in herself, she realized. Another wracking cough had her collapsing to her knees, freshly painting the virgin snow with another spray of scarlet.
She dragged herself on, desperately throwing up more tangles and briars to fend of Icy, but it was no use. Soon, she couldn't even crawl, and she rolled over onto her back to stare up at the branches above her. They swayed in time to her heart beat.
"I am not going to let you end my story, Fairy. This tale is not finished." Icy approached, and though Flora raised her hand to cast a spell at her, she never got the chance. The icicle fell from above her—through her.
Confusion turned to horror, and then a strange sense of relief as she stared at the glittering tooth that skewered her. She then look at Icy, who met her gaze. Those lips twitched into a bemused smirk, and Flora realized Icy was watching, waiting for her to die. Everything went dark…
Flora shudders, tugging on her hair as her back slams against the wall. Huddling more into the corner of her room, she slides down it. Knees pull into her chest and she stares past the destruction, eyes wide, vacant, reliving something that isn't there.
That's how the Winx find her. Musa's magic cracks through the door first, the others not far behind. The room now in tatters as great branches and vines tear through the space.
"Flora? Flora!" The room pulses with defensive magic at the ready. Musa rushes in and slides to her knees in front of Flora, first cupping her face, searching for wounds or trauma but finds nothing, only those vacant eyes and quick, desperate breathes. Warm hands clutch Flora's hands, cold as they are. "Hey. Hey, we're here. Everything's alright. Take my hands, Flora. Feel them?"
Musa's voice continues its soothing as the other girls scan the destruction, "Now take a breath, nice and deep and hold it for four… three.. two… one… and blow it out nice and slow."
"Do it again with me, Flora. Just like that," Musa went on. Bloom makes it to the room last, and by now Stella, Tecna, and Aisha stand together, necks craned upwards.
"Sh-sh-she…" It's all Flora can get out, flinching as the phantom hurt flairs up again. But she doesn't have to say anything more. The rest of the Winx all turn to watch Bloom, who looks around the room, and then to them. Her own eyes lift now, drawn up to the ceiling that is now thick in a glacier of dripping stalactites.