Chapter 7: The Love You Give (Comes Back to You)
Originally published on Ao3: Nov 2022
Published on Tumblr three years late?? From the bottom of my heart, my bad
In response to the prompt from @faytalepsy: But Farah being bored of being a Fern so her leaves drop and everybody thinks something is wrong and they try to "save" her ( like trying rhe most ridiculous things like giving her water, or fresh air or sunlight and even a strengthening poition) but she was just depressed and needed a reminder that they all care about her💕 also Saul reading books about old magic to her because he knows she enjoys those even though he doesn't understand a thing
Putting the ANGST in everything I touch. I struggled SO HARD with this one, considering it's been like what, a month? Since you sent this lovely ask, but here it is! I'm not altogether happy with the ending, but I've been staring at it too long and I can't think of anything else.
Farah the Fern Masterlist
“Whoops,” Becca, a third year air fairy, scoops the idle pot into her arms, nearly leaving it unattended in the emptying classroom. “Sorry Miss Dowling, almost forgot you.”
Farah says nothing, not because she doesn’t want to, but because she’s a fern.
It’s been happening a lot more lately, and Farah understands, really she does. Alfea moves on, heals from the traumas of the last few months, picks up the pieces and carries forward stronger than before. Her students take to their studies with increased vigor, determined to protect themselves and their peers and families from the threats bearing down on their doorstep, both known and unknown. The specialists double their trainings and add additional practice with the fairies to strengthen their bonds and their teamwork. The fairies pick up weapons training and hand-to-hand combat with none of the fear and worry of causing harm to their classmates, to fight to first blood. They knock each other down and get back up with laughter and smiles and words of encouragement. The specialists attend potions and herbology without complaint or insulting quips about “fairy nonsense” to increase their knowledge of magical reactions, how they can use potions to combine with their fairy’s magic and fortify their weapons against various threats. They strengthen as a school, as a student body and a community, so they’re far more prepared for the next threat they face, when they face it. They understand it’s not a matter of “if.” She’s so unbelievably, beyond proud of them.
But even still. Alfea moves on, without her. She knew one day it would, that she’d step down, be set aside, that her role as headmistress, teacher, mentor, would become obsolete…
She just didn’t think, truthfully, that she’d be alive to see it. She technically shouldn’t be, but here she is, trapped in the clay confines of her pot forced to see and observe but not interact. As though watching through a window, a doll left in the box to be admired but never touched.
It isn’t so bad, in the beginning. They make such an effort to include her, to speak with her as normal, interact with her, carry her with them like it’s second nature to have her near. She learns to communicate the best she can, first through the language of the flowers and then through plants like the flytrap with enough dexterity to make her feelings known without the meaning requiring research. And as her strength grows, so do her short stints within her human form, quick practice sessions that lengthen into meaningful, quality time spent with the people she loves…
But they drain her. The magic she borrows from the scraps of convergence crystals are only the jumper cables to a battery that takes three times that amount of magical energy to hold her human form: the crystals only kickstart it. Farah agrees with Saul, at first, to take things slow, but her impatience grows quickly not at the lack of progress on her part -though it’s certainly a factor- but at everyone else’s clear progress. They’re leaving her behind. Not intentionally, not maliciously, but they are. And it’s not fair to ask them to slow down, limit themselves and their magic, when it’s her responsibility to play catch up.
Her girls can fly. They’ve taken her teachings to heart and gained wings, unlocked ancient fairy magic her generation had only ever dreamed of and read about in the archaic texts but could never fully grasp. She’s so proud.
She’s jealous. She’s bitter and angry and terribly, terribly sad for missing these things, trapped in a fucking pot, and fighting against it every day.
“True recovery takes time,” Ben says.
“Have patience,” he adds.
“We’ll figure this out eventually,” Saul promises.
She doesn’t have time, she doesn’t have patience, and she can’t stand to wait for eventually.
So she practices. She waits until the late hours of the evening when Saul’s gone to sleep and she can gather her magic in peace, reach beyond her consciousness and seek what she needs, practicing control and testing the strength of her magic. She pushes those jaunts outside her pot to the limit, until she’s stretched her magic so thin she doesn’t have the energy to even walk but she must, because if Saul finds out what she’s doing he’ll stop it, claim she’s overexerting herself.
She collapses, one night, after a day in her human form, spending it with the people she loves and all the while ignoring her magical limits, as her control slips away like grains of sand in an hourglass. She promises Saul to meet him in their suite but the second he’s left her office she’s supporting herself against the desk, her legs too weak to hold her weight so she drops to the floor, weak and lightheaded and gasping for breath, trying and failing to cling to her humanity because she can’t fucking live like this-!
Saul finds her returned to that damned pot an hour later. He tuts and smiles softly, scoops her into his arms and comments on “great progress” like it’s not a big deal that she’s made virtually no progress these last few hours, nor in as many weeks. They’re coming up on months now.
Farah droops the next morning, from all manners of fatigue. Saul waters her a little extra, which worsens her mood. She’s not a fucking house plant.
She hasn’t improved by lunch. Saul worries her leaves between his fingers, frowning at the discoloration on the ends, and calls for Ben. The herbalist suggests sunlight and fresh air, like she’s a fucking house plant. Farah can’t even muster the energy to become a cactus or a thistle to show her displeasure. She finds comfort being carried by Saul through the grounds, but not much else. She stares forlornly at the potted ferns that flank the garden hedges leading to the fountain. She looks just like them.
Maybe she is one of them. Maybe she’s not Farah Dowling at all, but only her essence, her memory. Maybe what she was is gone and what remains is a shadow and she isn’t meant to improve.
Nothing like a crisis of identity on a brisk Tuesday afternoon, she thinks bitterly.
Farah drifts through the afternoon in a fog nothing can shake her from. Flora’s strengthening potion drips uselessly from her leaves and turns a very confused pill bug into a small wrecking ball Terra spirits away before Ben can see. She doesn’t bother to ask her “Auntie Farah” not to say anything, because how is Farah going to tell him anyway? She’s a plant.
She watches dully as Saul completes her paperwork without direction or assistance. She listens barely when he reads to her from the old magical tomes on her shelves despite not understanding a thing. She exists separate from the bustle of the Winx suite as the girls prepare for various evening activities, Bloom off on a date with Sky, Terra meeting Kat, the others debating between a movie and sneaking off to Blackbridge.
“Maybe ixnay on the rule breaking,” Musa muses with a meaningful nod to Farah, but Beatrix purses her lips.
“It’s not like she’ll snitch. Miss D is cool.”
Maybe that’s all she ever was. Maybe that’s all she’ll ever be.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” Hannah sniffles, and Ben heaves a sigh. He understands her frustration and upset: unfortunately, he’s just as lost on how to fix it.
“You leave it to me,” he tells the teary second year, “It’s nothing you’re doing wrong it’s-” He musters up an apologetic smile, “It’s complicated. I’m afraid it goes beyond the parameters of the herbalogic.”
He waits for the girl to leave before turning to the drooping, dreary fern on the desk. Her leaves are brittle and browning, stems weak and crimped where they can’t hold their own weight. Anyone else might think the poor thing is dehydrated, but the soil is sufficiently damp and even Saul had admitted not wanting to water her anymore than necessary, worried about drowning her. Ben has a feeling their friend is drowning alright, just not in the usual way.
“If you don’t want us to worry, I’m afraid you’re not succeeding,” he informs her. Farah remains still and silent; she hasn’t been anything other than a fern in over a week, and a rapidly deteriorating one at that.
“I don’t know what to say,” he admits, crouching to lean his arms on the table, “I don’t know what’s wrong, but I don’t know that you’d tell me even if you could. I wouldn’t like to think you’ve given up, Farah. I’m not the only one who couldn’t stand it if you have.”
“Come back to us Farah,” he sighs, scooping up the pot gently so as not to jostle the leaves too violently, “You don’t know how much you’re missed.”
And maybe, he muses, that’s the problem.
Bloom lifts one of Farah’s brittle leaves with the tip of her pen, slumping dejectedly against the lunch table. Musa’s eyes pulse with purple light and she sighs, shaking her head.
“It’s so sad,” Flora pouts, “She’s all droopy.”
“She’s depressed,” Musa elaborates, “She’s frustrated at the lack of progress and herself. She’s basically given up.”
“She can’t give up,” Bloom snaps, “Do you hear me? You can’t give up Miss Dowling. If you give up, Rosalind wins. You’ve got to keep fighting to prove her wrong. Isn’t that the purest of all reasons?”
“She’s probably wondering ‘what’s the point?’” Beatrix plops into the seat beside Stella, “She’s a plant. We aren’t. She can’t communicate, we can’t understand. If she doesn’t change back, who’s to say what’ll happen? We could forget her, or she’ll wither away into nothing.”
“Don’t be rude,” Aisha snaps and Stella placates the air fairy with a hand on her arm before she can snap back.
“She isn’t,” she defends, “At least not intentionally. But she’s right: if Miss Dowling doesn’t change back, what does that mean for us? For her? Silva will take over permanently and they’ll have to hire someone else for magical theory.”
“Stop it!” Bloom snarls, “You’re talking about her like she’s dead and she’s right here. She’s not going anywhere and she hasn’t given up, because we’re never going to give up on her.”
“But see I think that’s just it,” Terra pipes up, and her voice is thick with emotion for her pseudo-aunt’s state, “I think she has given up and if she has there’s- well there’s really nothing we can do.”
The admission plunges them into silence. It’s only broken when a fourth year fairy approaches, waving tentatively at the melancholy group.
“Um hiya, sorry, it’s just, we-” she motions to her table of friends “-sort of overheard and it’s just- well we wanted to say to Miss Dowling that we’ve always really appreciated her.”
“She’s the best,” another fairy pipes up.
“I thought she’d be a total hardass -no offense- but she’s seriously chill,” another adds.
“Her classes are so much fun,” the fourth year continues, “My friends back home, well, they never got my fascination with ancient runes but she was always so encouraging about it. I wrote a paper on translations just for a but of fun and she read the whole thing, like, she said she would but I didn’t think she actually would.”
The fourth year shares a look with her friends, taking a shaky breath, “See, thing is… if Miss Dowling’s given up we just- well we- we didn’t get to say… a proper goodbye… before. And so if she is, you know, um. We just thought we’d like to tell her how much she means to us, and how much we’ll miss her.”
“Miss who?” A passing third year asks, which catches the attention of the nearby table of second year specialists and fairies.
“Dowling,” a specialist boy pipes up, “She’s kicking the bucket, or pot, as it were.”
“She’s dying?” The third year gasps and Terra waves her hands for attention.
“No, no she’s fine! Well not fine but she’s holding on, she’s just feeling a bit-”
“Depressed,” Musa supplies.
“Miss Dowling’s depressed?” And the third year’s voice carries through the canteen; a hush falls and all eyes turn to the Winx and their droopy herbalogic headmistress, who gives no indication -positive or otherwise- that’s she’s heard the spreading wool-gathering going on around her mental state.
“We talking about Dowling?”
“You mean she’s given up?” Someone calls above the murmuring and the Winx girls share looks.
“Um, yeah, we think,” Stella answers, and the murmuring increases, several cries ranging from disbelief to upset to outrage. A fairy breaks out into a broken sob, and several others follow suit.
“Miss Dowling can’t leave us!”
“Look what happened the last time!”
“There’s no Alfea without Dowling!”
“She’s the beating heart of this school,” and Silva’s voice cuts above the din, reinstituting the hush from before. He folds his arms. Slowly, then with increased vigor, the rest of the student body agrees, a cacophony of praise and support from the fairies and specialists, all directed at the derelict Miss Dowling.
“You don’t believe me?” Silva calls, addressing the drooping fern. “Believe them. Listen to them Farah.”
It’s Bloom that notices first, the brown of a leaf rapidly giving way to green, crumpled fronds unfurling and lengthening back to health. The more the students rally for their headmistress, the more she perks up, and in a burst of sparkling magic, there she sits, radiant and lively once more.
“There she is,” Saul grins. It radiates pride but it’s tinged with relief, and Farah’s sorry she ever caused him any pain on her behalf.
