Kara sat on one of the rooftops of Alfea, a cigarette in her hand and her eyes closed. For a moment she enjoyed the peace that never came during the day. In this short time that she had been in Alfea, so much had already happened that her cigarette consumption had grown rapidly. She couldn't cope with this stress. Although according to her magic she should have been an artist of thought, she was quickly overwhelmed with too many of them. At one part of the day, she needed peace and quiet to avoid going completely crazy. She couldn't imagine how Musa must have felt, her as an empath constantly at the mercy of everyone else's feelings.
While Kara wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet, she sensed the presence of another person near her, she heared the footsteps down on the floor. At first she wanted to ignore them, but then the sounds stopped.
"Oi!" someone called up to her. "Kara?"
Confused, she looked down and recogniseed a male figure she knows. Although she didn't want it, a small smile creeped onto her lips, which she tried to hide behind her raised hand. It wasdark anyway.
"Riven?" she called down. "What are you doing?"
"What are you doing I should probably ask!" he called back, "Wait I'm coming up!"
Then he said something else, but Kara couldn't understand it through the distance. She waited a moment and then heared him coming up to the roof. He sat down next to her and clapped his hands.
"So, Kara," he said, swinging his legs a little, "What are you doing up here at this time of night."
"I like being alone," Kara said, smiling sheepishly, "I like it when my head has a break, and at night the whole world seems to be asleep and just quiet. It's the only time of the day I can clear my head."
Riven smiled slightly and looked off into the distance, which couldn't really be seen through the darkness. Then he nodded slowly and looked back at the bleach blonde.
"I think I can understand that," he said, "I can leave too, if you'd rather be alone."
Kara considered for a moment. Yes, she would have liked to be alone, but maybe having company wasn't a bad change. So she shaked her head.
"No, don't worry, stay," she said, opening her pack of cigarettes in his direction. Smiling, he pulled one out and put it in his mouth. Kara shielded the cigarette with one hand and lit it with the other.
"Do you do this a lot?" he asked, blowing the smoke out.
"What?" she asked back.
"Go up on a roof to enjoy the peace and quiet there."
"Every night," she said, clearing her cigarette of the ash that had accumulated at the front. He raises his eyebrows in surprise.
"That's often," he said, watching her nod.
"I need it," she said, "There's so much going on in my head all day that I have to let it out once a day so my mind doesn't start to burn."
"Is that why you smoke?" he asked quietly, "Because you're so stressed?"
Again she nodded and let her gaze slide from the horizon to his eyes.
"I've done things in the past that have forced me to lock myself in my room. Since I've been here I have to step out of my comfort zone all the time, everything is so noisy here and I'm not used to it at all. But somehow I have managed to be myself again here. It sounds strange, but with all this pressure to be around people again, I had the chance to be Kara again before everything happened," she said, looking down at her hands.
"What happened?" asked Riven, looking at her closely. She looked back, biting her lower lip and shaking her head ever so slightly, but that was enough for Riven to drop the subject.
*
"Kara! Wake up!", Aisha yelled and shook the body of the teenage girl. "Something's wrong with Bloom!"
Kara slowly opened her eyes and quickly got up after seeing the fear in her friend's eyes, she hadn't been sleeping for too long she only got back from the rooftop. "Where is she?"
They ran to Bloom's room. She sat on her bed; her eyes had this milky white color. Kara has never seen anything like it. She laid her hands on Bloom's red hair and focused on her magic. The brown color of her eyes changed to purple.
Kara saw a bright light and a monitor with a heart rate on it, there were doctors, and she heard a baby screaming. She was in one of Bloom's memories. Her birth? A woman appeared but Kara couldn't see her very well, she focused more. She concentrated and gave everything she had, and the woman got clearer and clearer. She said something.
Kara didn't quite understand, so she used her powers to rewind and listened more carefully this time.
"When time comes, find me!"
The vision blurred more, and Kara lost it, she jumped a little back, and Bloom's eyes went back to their normal color. Kara's breath was heavy.
"What the fuck just happened?", Aisha asked and looked worried at Bloom and then at Kara who was still a little in shock.
"I think I just saw the fairy who left me in the human world.", Bloom answered. She looked at Kara, "Were you in my mind? Did you see it too?"
Kara nodded shortly.
"Yes", she answered quietly.
*
Kara, Bloom, and Aisha walked through the school on their way to their next lesson. The shock of last night was still visible, especially since Bloom was now determined to find the fairy she had seen in this sort of vision.
"Kara, you are good at memory manipulation, just show me again!", Bloom said, and Kara shared an annoyed glance with Aisha.
"I know, Bloom, that you want to find her, but it's really exhausting going in someone's memory and then I would have to search for it and I would surely find a memory that you wouldn-- "
"Look at this, maybe she's on one of these pictures!", Bloom said and looked closely at the black and white pictures on the walls in the hallway. Kara slightly threw her arms up in the air and searched for help in Aisha.
"Not again Bloom!", she said.
"I know, I know!", Bloom exclaimed, "It's hard to see what someone's gonna look like when they're old, but- "
"There are a lot of fairies in the other world Bloom", Kara said.
"Well, you said the most powerful ones come through Alfea, right?", Bloom said.
"I mean, yeah, technically, Alfea looks for magical potential when they admit fairies, but, yes, powerful fairies come through the school," Kara explained.
"This woman embedded a memory in my head 16 years ago. That seems pretty powerful!"
"If that is what happened," Aisha said and looked her seriously in her eyes.
"What else could it be?", she asked, then she looked to Kara, "What else could it be?"
"Look, Bloom, we just don't want to get your hopes up."
"The night I opened myself up to magic, I got a memory. She said "find me", Aisha. She put me there for a reason, right Kara?", Bloom asked and looked her in the eyes. Kara nodded a little. "I know she is too old to be my mom, but one of them at least has to know who she is."
"Maybe Terra's dad has some old yearbooks we can look through and when you ask Kara nicely she'll maybe look through your memories to see what else there is.", Aisha said, "But after the class, we are now officially late for!"
Kara chuckled a little bit and then followed her friends in the direction of their next class.
*
"So, it's like the perfect pear, right?", Terra asked, "What you want me to do. You know how if you ever wanna eat a pear, it's always rock solid, and you wait and you wait, and it's still a rock and then you touch it one second later, and it's all rotten mush." Terra ended her dialogue and let Kara laugh a little. They were sitting in a class room while Miss Dowling taught them about magic control.
"Your magic connects you to living things. Feel how they communicate with you. The subtle signals of nature- Pheromones, vibrations. You can give life, but there is such thing of giving too much!", Miss Dowling responded.
"Too much is kind of her thing," Musa stated.
"Which you can feel cause you're an exposed microphone on a windy peak. Think of focusing on one emotion, in one direction.", Miss Dowling looked at Musa. Kara stretched slightly to see better. "Narrow the field."
Musa's eyes turned pink and then a satisfied look appeared on her face and the same look appeared on Dowling's face. Jealousy rushed through Kara. And both, Musa and Miss Dowling turned their heads abruptly to the bleached blonde, which looked embarrassed and focused on her own magic.
Miss Dowling moved to Kara.
"And you Kara?", she asked her student. "What are you doing?"
"Actually, I wanted to focus on memory manipulation or even mind reading." She stated and looked in the face of the headmistress. Miss Dowling nodded.
"Okay, do it on me", she said calmly, "I am going to visibly think about a memory and you have to tell me what you see, is that okay with you?", she asked.
Kara was nervous. She had done it before, only last night she had done it, but now she was terribly scared. She focused and channeled her magic, a flash of purple. And there she was, in Miss Dowling's mind.
"Tell me what you are seeing!", Dowling said.
"It's blurry", she said, "I can see a blue sky, the sun is shining."
"Focus more!", Miss Dowling said, she felt Kara's presence in her head. "I don't want to feel your presence!"
Kara focused and concentrated and channeled her magic better, more precisely.
"It got clearer, I see a lake, it's beautiful, it has clear blue water, I see a lot of mountains in the back and a forest. It's an idyllic picture. It feels like peace. I feel the grass between my toes and the air smells fresh. It's warm, the sun is shining." Kara explained smiling at what she saw.
A smile appeared on Miss Dowling's face and Kara got out of her head.
"Very good." Miss Dowling said and got going. "That's all for today!"
"Miss Dowling", Kara said and put her bag on her shoulders, Musa waved shortly and signalised that she'd go already, "I have a few questions."
Miss Dowling nodded and signalised the girl to follow her into her office.
"Yes?", she asked and waited patiently behind her desk.
"You're a mind fairy," Kara said, looking at the headmistress, "You must know what happens when memories are erased."
Miss Dowling directed Kara to sit down on the chair in front of her desk. She herself also sat down on a chair and rested her arms on her desk, with a nod she indicated Kara to continue.
"How can you bring them back?" said Kara, looking down at her hands that were nervously playing with themselves in her lap, "Can you even do that?"
"That is a very interesting question, Kara," the headmistress said, looking calmly into her student's eyes, "As a mind fairy, you have the power to see into the minds of those who let you, or if you are very strong, you can even see into any mind. That's a very powerful gift, isn't it?"
Kara nodded a little and looked from her hands back up to the woman.
"You are very gifted Kara, I have already noticed that. There are many mind fairies who can't erase or change a memory their whole life, or they can't control it. But you, you Kara, and I am sure of it, if you practise, you will be able to do it very soon. Your question is very simple on the one hand, but very difficult to answer on the other; yes, you can bring back memories. But it is really a very difficult procedure. You have to know the memories, otherwise you can replant them in a distorted way. It's very taxing on your own body and on the person you're trying to replant the memories into."
"Can you teach me?" Kara asked softly. Miss Dowling smiled slightly.
"I like that you're curious," she said, "Like I said it's a very difficult procedure, you really need to put a lot of effort into it!"
"I will," Kara said, "I promise!"
"Okay," said Miss Dowling, "I will help you if you want."
*
"So, I heard there is a party tonight and I just want to tell you that I'm going... So, if anybody wants to jump on the party train, I'll be here for you!", Kara stated while sitting down to her friends in the cafeteria.
"Wow, how generous of you!", Musa said and continued eating her food.
"I know, I know, call me Mother Teresa or what her name was."
"It's kind of strange not seeing Aisha get something right", Bloom said talking about the lesson the girls had earlier. Aisha the wonder child didn't get something on the first try.
"Was it because of this she went swimming immediately after?", Kara asked and started eating. Bloom nodded.
"Agreed. Not sure why that makes you feel so obnoxiously guilty though." Musa said.
"I know that you have to feel everyone's emotions, but you don't have to broadcast them!" Bloom said, "Aisha's tired. Yeah, my parents think that Alfea's in Switzerland, so... they Skype me at 9.00 a.m. Switzerland time every morning—"
"Which is 2.00 a.m. our time. Yes, we can all hear you." Kara interrupted.
"Am I being loud? I am trying to be quiet!", Bloom said and looked at both of her friends.
"Like an old lady unwrapping sweets in the cinema!", Musa smiled, "But you Kara are not better, you always sneak out and then come back an hour later. Why?"
"I go smoking, it's the best vibe at night. When I go destroy my lungs, I'm gonna do it when the vibe's right!", she exclaimed. "And how do you even know it's me?"
"I have felt that feeling only once and that is when you came from the party to go search for Bloom, and every night you sneak out I can feel it. So, I knew it must be you, you're the only one feeling like this sometimes! And I couldn't imagine anyone else going out at this time." Musa's smile grew even brighter, then her eyes changed pink.
She looked to her left, so that was what Bloom and Kara did automatically. And what was there: Sam. Terra's brother. He had the same brown hair, brown eyes and loving smile as husband sister. And he was hot. Kara has only seen him a few times.
"Now, is it my turn to broadcast your emotions?", Kara asked while flashing her eyes purple. A grin appeared on her face.
"They're still developing, plus there are complications. Do me a favor. Don't broadcast them in front of Ter—"
Speak of the devil.
"I have a question," Terra stated while sitting down at the table. "Since when was it cool to be a nerd? I mean, don't get me wrong. It's great. Amazing. Power to the nerds. But like, now it's cool to talk about fairy history?"
"What?", Bloom asked.
"Well, like, you know, I ... I like school. I like getting good grades and reading alone with a cup of chamomile, but you don't see anyone sharing a frickin' apple with me, even though... gross."
"We're gonna need so much more context." Musa chuckled.
"Beatrix. I don't get what the difference is between her and me. Why's it working for her?"
"Whom is Beatrix an apple sharing with?", Kara asked confused.
"Riven", Terra said.
Again. Jealousy rushed through Kara. She looked at Musa, who looked at her back. With pink eyes.
"Riven?", she mouthed. And Kara slightly shook her head. Musa just smiled without another word. Then she looked further away again. Sam.
"Uh, actually, I have to go!", she stated, giving Kara one last knowing look, which the blonde denied shaking her head, and then left. "Sorry."
Terra looked a little uncomfortable.
"It's okay. I know why, really. It's 'cause she drinks and smokes and looks like her, and I'm..." She stopped, "Sorry. Sorry. How are you? How is the search for the memory lady?"
But Karas mind was still circling around Beatrix. Terra was right, she was hot and she drank and she smoked and this was what made Kara kind of worried. She had seen Riven with her before. And still he hung out with Kara and flirted with her. Maybe she shouldn't have thought so much into their conversations and text messages, it seemed like she was more into him than he was into her. Welp. She couldn't change that now and Riven was a good friend to her, so she wasn't going to change anything about it.
"Stalling", Bloom said, "Does your dad happen to have any old yearbooks?"
"Oh, maybe!" Terra said, "I think I would have to get them myself though because he's been so busy with Silva. I don't wanna bother him."
"How is Silva?", Kara asked.
"I don't know. Dad's been quite down, so I think maybe not... good."
"I can't imagine how hard that must be for Sky, I know they're close", Bloom said. "Have you seen him today?"
"Silva or Sky?" Kara asked.
"Sky"
"Bloom, Sky's such a great guy like legit one of the best, but it's just..." Terra said and couldn't really finish.
"It's Stella." Kara finished for Terra.
"No, I'm... I'm just... I'm worried about him, Terra." Bloom said.
"Okay."