SEASON THREE: EPISODE FOUR
*LOVE*
"Did you know that she transformed because of you?" Sky calls after Riven, as the brown haired boy starts walking away.
"What do you mean? She transformed during battle" he says with a confused look on his face.
"When you were bleeding out at the fight with the blood witches, she saw you dying and it triggered her powers. She can't shut up about you, like ever. She admitted that you are the love of her life for fucks sake" Sky continues, and tears cloud his eyesight. "She was heartbroken about Stella abdicating. She was crying all the time, because she could not be with you! Of course we did the one thing that could bring us comfort, you idiot!" he says, raising his vice, but quiets down once again. Riven stands in front of him like a rock, slowly letting the informations get to his head. "You of all people know how easy it is to love this girl, how easy it is to love Aurora. And again, you of all people know how comforting sex is. So yes. Maybe we have slept together a few times. And what?"
"And what? You slept with the love of my life, Sky" Riven shout at him. Sky is taken aback by his sudden outburst of emotions, but stays silent and lets Riven rage. "And then you tell me this long-ass speech about everything, when you know that if I heard it I could not stay mad at you two. I love you, you are my brother, you son of a bitch" he says, than hits the other boy in the face, but pulls him into a deep hug after helping the buy up from the ground.
"I guess this rounds our problems down a bit. So now what?" asks the blonde.
"What are you asking, Sky?"
"Are you willing to sacrifice your whole career for Aurora, or not? Are you willing to sacrifice your life, your everyday life, training, having an opinion? Because she will not only need her very own Riven, but also a king, Brother" he explains, and without a second of silence, the brown haired boy asks:
"What is love without sacrifice?"
When Sky gets back to his shared dorm with Aurora that evening, he finds the bathroom door open and the shower running. He slowly creeps towards the room, and when he sees Aurora, his legs grow roots into the ground. She is laying in the shower floor, the water hitting her unconcious body repeatedly. After the first few seconds of shock, he runs in and pulls her out. She is passed out, her body cold like ice. He cries for help, servants and soldiers breaking into the room immediately. A few servants throw a sheet at the girls body, and then they all follow the boy, as he runs through the deserted school with the princess's body. Professor Harvey immediately starts to warm the girl and heal her frostbites, but things don't look so good for a long a time. But after minutes of warming her up, minutes which feel like hours to everyone, Aurora slowly opens her eyes, just to close them again out of exhaustion.
"What the fuck did she mean by dying?" asks Stella, barging into Aurora's and Sky's dorm, not even noticing the state her cousin is. Aurora has been let back into her room after spending two days at the medical room. Sky hasn't left her side since. The girl is sitting on the couch, a few blankets wrapped around her, hot cocoa between her hands.
"Stella, please, Aurora is sick" says Sky in a quiet voice, but Stella walks past him, standing in front of the blonde girl.
"Answer me!" she screams at her, Aurora fliches at her voice. The both of them are crying, when Aurora starts coughing, and Sky rushes to her side, pulling her over to his body, hitting her back a few times, until she stops choking on thin air. "What happened to you?" the girl's cousin asks.
"Nothing important, Star" she says with a weak voice and continues talking to her cousin. "I am so sorry for not telling you, but your mom asked me not to, because she wanted to be the one. I am so sorry" she cries, her voice cracking after most of the words.
"Yeah, well, fuck you. My mother is dying!" Stella screams at her, then grabs the first thing she can reach, which is an empty mug on the coffee table, and throws it across the room to a white wall. The mug shatters easily, and so does Aurora's heart seeing her Star looking this broken. Aurora keeps motionless and silent, even after her cousin starts throwing and breaking more and more things in the room. After minutes of the blonde girl's rage, Sky has enough. He grabs her upper arm and walks, more like throws, her out of the suite. Hours pass by between the friends in silence, only the noises of the TV shows running in the backround giving some liveliness in their space. Then, Stella comes back and sits between her cousin's arms, both of the girls crying themselves to sleep.
"Stella, there are two girls looking for you at our suite" says Terra, barging into the shared suite of Aurora and Sky, waking the trio sleeping on the couch. The seem confused, so the girl repeat herself.
"What do they want?" asks Stella in a sleepy voice, her eyes red and puffy from all the crying.
"They say that you wrote to them a few months ago and you never replayed to their letters, so they had to find you" the girl only looks more confused at that, so the earth fairy adds a cruicial information, which to Stella jumps from the couch:" Their names are Isobel and D'arcy"
"Oh my god" the blonde says repeatedly, then runs through the school, the other three following her close behind.
"You must be Stella" says a blonde, almost white haired girl, as the four teenagers burst into the room, Stella on the lead, looking around the room immediately.
"I am" she says with a shaky voice, unsure even about her own name.
"We are Isobel and D'arcy. We are Beatrix's blood sisters" says the other girl with a soft voice, pulling the girl into a friendly hug. "We were looking for her after she dissapeared, but we were just children then too, so we gave up over time" she starts, then her sister picks up the other part of her speech.
"When you wrote us, we were happy at first, but then you wrote, that she is dead and it felt like a part of us died too at that moment" says Isobel with tears in her eyes, and every single suitemate of Stella's have their eyes turned away, so their own tears might go unnoticed.
"I am so sorry, that I couldn't save her. I could walk you over to her grave sometime tomorrow, if you'd like" the blonde offers with a sad voice.
"We would like that very much, thank you."
"Hey, so, umm" Bloom starts, stepping in front of the others, her fingers playing with her bracelet, which she got from her mother. "I have something to tell you all" she says, and Aurora can already tell, that she kept something huge from them. She now remember why she never liked the redhead. "After Sky told me this morning, that Aurora is sick and we have to wait until she gets better, until we can get rid of those shadow-things, I think it is for the best if I tell you all... I brought back her" she says, her shoulders visibly dropping, getting the huge weight of her secret. Everyone is silent, nobody daring to say a word, until Aurora breaks the silence.
"Brought back who?"
"Beatrix" the redhead says, and everybody around them gasps. " I tried bringing back more people, like all of you guys' parents, but they did not want to come back. Back to Bea,she is at a house, which I made a barrier around" she finishes.
"Why would you need a barrier?" asks D'arcy from her, and Bloom hangs her head down, looking at her shoes when answering.
"Because the shadow-things know, that she does not belong her, only to their world, so they attacked us. But we escaped and she is safe, for now. I made the barrier while scared, I am not sure how it works" she says with a huge sigh, looking around, her eyes settling on Stella. "I am sorry, for not telling you, but I promised her. I promised, that I would only tell you, Stella, when she could come out and see you" she whispers, but you could hear a pin dropped in the silence. The two sisters and Stella hug each other while crying, their sobs echoing around the suite for minutes.
Then, aall of them gather around their coffee table, some on the couch and armchairs, some on pillows on the floor and they talk through the night. Nobody, other than Sky, notices Aurora slipping away from the group. He on the other hand knows, that he can no longer give the girl enough help, so he does what every person knowing Aurora would, and texts Riven.
"What are you doing here?" asks the boy, walking out from the shadows.
"Sitting" she answers. She is indeed sitting, out in the courtyard in only her pijamas, shivering from the cold, swaying around from how much alcohol she drank already.
"Go back to your room, please" he says, but she only looks up at him, and takes another of the one-too-many shots she had taken in the last hour. That is how much time it took Riven to find her. First, he checked their favourite places around the gardens, even went over to Silva's room, but she was nowhere to be found. And then, just as he passed by the windows of the courtyard, he saw her. "Aurora, please, you are sick and drunk. Your body has to heal, please, go inside" he begs the blonde.
"What is the point, Riv?"
"The point is you not getting sicker, than you already are. Sky told me everything" he says, getting angry at the girl for not listening to him, but he calms himself and sits down beside her. "Look, Aurora, I care about you" he says, taking the alcohol out of her hands. "More, than I should and more than I want, but I do it nonetheless. Please just get inside from the cold" he begs her once again.
"I love you" she says, looking up at his eyes, and he freezes in place. She has never said that, well, she implield and messaged it, but this is the first time her telling him it straight up. "I have never told you these three little words, but I've loved for years and it's killing me, Riv. I love you, and I want to spent the rest of my sunrises with you" she cries, and the boy's heart aches for her. Her name means dawn, so her wanting to spend her time of the day with him forever is a big thing.
"But?" he asks, knowing that the is always a but after this kind of statements.
"But I don't want to see you suffer from all the things that would fall on your shoulders by being with me" she answers, and he knows, that now, more than ever, Sky was right. She needs a king, not a boyfriend. So, he says the first thing he can, just so he could change the topic of the converstation.
"You are drunk."
"That, I am. But I love you even when I'm sober" she answers with a sad voice and lets her head rest on his shoulder. He pulls her closer.
"Alright, tell me that in the morning, okay?" she only hums at that, the boy slowling standing up from the bench. He grabs a hold of her hands, then squats down in front of her, once again, begging her to go to her room. "Now please, let me walk you back to your dorm" he says.
"Okay" answers Aurora, then the two of them start walking back towards her suite, as she stumbles left and right. Riven gets tired of that in about half a minute and grabs her bridal style, carrying the drunk princess to her room. She only snuggles closer to his body after she makes sure, that she is not dreaming.