What the Flora?!
Masterlist
Taglist: @setsuna1415
A/N: Alma Anon, phase one is complete, XD. 🍓, I truly hope to finish yours later today.
An urgent text from Terra alarmed the crap out of Freyja. The timid brunette never ordered her friends around. She didn’t have the spine yet she commanded the redhead to the greenhouse. Said location was a wreck when the ginger arrived. She instantly made for the pair of cousins, one plainly injured, near the front door.
Terra was applying pressure to Flora’s abdomen with a not-lightly bloodied hand towel.
The older girl knelt beside her former suitemate. “Alright,” she greeted the stressed girls. She pulled on some latex gloves, talking slowly and calmly. “Flora, I’m something of a healer where I come from. Would you let me see your injury?”
Flora nodded shakily. She sat against one of the many cabinets lining the front of the Greenhouse. “Terra- Terra said. She trusts you.”
“How nice,” Freyja commented inanely. She half-turned to Terra, kind small a touch too tight. “Mind?” she asked gently, hand hovering over Terra’s. The teen in shock practically dropped the towel. Freyja slipped in and examined the wound. She had no idea what kind of weapon made this wound, a trowel? Oh, she did have an idea, but she held her palm out. Her new usual dark grey was punched through with a pure silver. The light energy overtook her entire manner and both Earth fairies calmed way down.
The bleeding was stopped, temporarily, and Freyja went to about cleaning the wound. “What happened?” she finally asked, once the tensions were down.
Flora eyed her cousin over the redhead’s shoulder. “I was just trying to help,” was all she said at first. Terra wisely kept quiet. Her story first.
Freyja got the feeling she needed a response, clarification that no one would be mad. “Yea, I get that feeling about you.”
“That seemed to reassure her, and so she continued her story. “W-well, I had really high hopes for Edlyn Amalgam.” Wary steel eyes rose to meet Flora’s soil-brown ones. “It was actually really easy to make.” She laughed a bit and Freyja almost hoped it was at her own stupidity. “He woke up.”
Freyja’s heart stopped. She prayed to whoever that Devin was physically healed enough to deal with all that had happened to him. That was a very rough solution to such a harsh trauma. “Did you make the antidote?” she asked, needing to bring Devin back down, fast and in a way that wouldn’t cause a violent reaction.
“I didn’t know there was one.”
She looked over her shoulder at Terra.
Terra leapt into action. She picked a book from an educational shelf for them.
“Is there any chance your dad made some?” Freyja asked, focused on the wound now. Flora winced; the only girl apologized once.
“Not really,” Terra laughed out, borderline hysterical. She plucked it from the shelf and went to work.
“Did you message your dad?” Freyja asked as she stitched what she could. She hoped these questions were helping Terra cuz they were all she had. She grabbed several packs of gauze, pretty much every packet within reach, and tore them all open with a well placed, conjured shard. She discarded the filthy hand towel and applied pressure.
Terra found the antidote and started gathering ingredients. “I sent him what I sent you. I didn’t get a response,” Terra confessed.
“Ok, try again. This time with details.” Freyja was out of ideas to help. She was pretty sure this wound was too massive to stitch. She kept pressure, noticing how saturated the gauze were becoming. “He woke up. Next?” she prompted, half to keep the Earth Fairy awake.
“He attacked me,” Flora deadpanned.
The redhead kept the girl talking, looking around without taking her eyes off Flora. Terra watched as her wind blew open the cabinets and brought her anything she needed: more gauze, one small potion, some liquor.
Ben, Farah, and Silva all came in together. Ben took over for Freyja who went to Terra. Saul knelt by his niece, via Ben’s marriage, but still his niece. Farah felt the very strong urge to hold her girlfriend, but they had too many witnesses.
“Done?” Freyja asked the baby botanist.
“Times three,” she answered, holding up three needles.
Freyja took one, kissing her forehead as she pocketed it. “You’re with me,” she told the teen.
“The girl’s’ve already searched-” Terra started eagerly.
“This isn’t hide ‘n seek and he isn't a lost cell phone. He’ll be moving. Is there any way to keep him on the grounds if he hasn’t already left?”
“Yes,” Farah and Saul answered at the same time. Ben was focused. “Silva, do it. Then text Dowling; get clarity. Dowling, find Bloom. Don’t let her roast him,” she nearly pleaded with her love.
They could have clapped and shouted ‘break!’. But they just went to their tasks.
Freyja was always shocked that everyone obeyed her when she gave commands. “Think you can use your new psychic eyes to find Devin?” Terra asked once they were alone. She had lots to ask, but he took priority.
Freyja didn’t bother looking confused. Her aeromancy was getting crazy strong. She almost wanted to learn another element to mute her original. “I’ll try.”
*
Devin was in the Stone Circle when they found him. He was pacing madly, babbling so fast it wasn’t even English, and he perked up at their incoming footsteps. He took their continued pace forward as a threat and moved to charge them, but stopped before he could exit the outer circle of stones.
Light and dark grey pushed and pulled as Freyja’s eyes lit up. “Devin, do you know my name?” she started, trying to locate his state of mind.
“Give it!” the boy shouted before growling out, “I can’t feel-” He beat on the air not letting him through. He growled like a dog before trying to hit the air again. It cracked before sealing itself back up. “Where’s my magic?” he squeaked.
“Inside the monster that attacked you,” Freyja answered.
Devin looked up, suddenly focused. “Back?” he asked brokenly.
“We’re working on it. For now, you need to heal. Please, let us put you back under.” Freyja’s face crumbled from desperation.
Devin nodded and Freyja approached him. He saw her eyes revert and charged. His hands fit a little too well around Freyja’s throat and he squeezed. Before any real damage was done, a syringe poked his throat and inserted. Bloom and Terra encircled the coughing ginger.
Once again, Farah was barred from her lover, just not only by witnesses, but physically too. “Who is responsible for this?” she asked, immediately the revered Headmistress.
Freyja stepped forward. “I was trying to help him.”
Brown eyes pierced the girl and they both knew it couldn’t have been here, but the damage was done. “My office.”
“Our offices,” Freyja corrected with a mumbled, headed off.
Farah broke away from the group once Terra and Musa had Devin’s arms slung over their shoulders.
*
“Now, I know what you were doing when the Eldwyn Amalgam was administered. I’m assuming that was your text,” Farah immediately let into her.
Freyja held up a finger. “I didn’t have any details, then,” she had to tell her boss.
“Freyja, who was it?” she demanded in a firmer tone.
“Don’t be mad,” Freyja mediated in a squeak.
The taller woman took several deep breaths so as not to frighten the girl, but she was getting stressed. “Alright.”
Freyja approached her love and gently took her hands. “Don’t be angry… with your niece by marriage.”
The responsible adult clenched her jaw, but let the anger go. What was done was done. “She was reckless.”
A ginger head bobbed. “She was enthusiastic. Luckily, we are used to enthusiastic, reckless fairies going their own way.”
Fara kissed the hands holding hers. “I just wish their ways didn’t keep putting you in danger.”
Freya’s thumb ran over Farah’s put. “Puts us in danger. But we’ve got each other, right,” she informed her love.
That wasn’t enough. She and Freyja were both very capable of defending themselves and each other, but that didn’t warrant any life threatening dangers being tossed their way without care. As if on cue, Farah’s phone buzzed. She checked it and smiled. “Perfect timing. Flora’s wound is healed.”
That ginger head backed up quickly. “Damn,” Freyja commented. She knew magic was magic, but she was still sure injuries like that would take time. She was quick to follow Farah, likely to the greenhouse.
Lo and behold, they went directly to Flora’s bedside. She looked a mess, but the picture of health. If anything, her skin glowed. That glow faded when she saw the stern set of Farah’s face.
And validation came when the worried sick woman now let into her niece. “I understand you are worldly and experienced and you think you know better than your war-torn administrators, but we teachers had considered everything you did and more.”
Flora held back tears as she admitted, "I just wanted to help. It's the whole reason I'm here," Flora confessed.
The height difference served little problem as the taller woman still looked down at a wayward student. "We work as a team," Farah corrected.
Flora stood up defensively. "You took orders from a student!"
"A student slash aid slash warrior slash healer slash careful student who gets all of the facts before running off half cocked."
Freyja was a little embarrassed to admit she was turned on by the display. Farah, all assertive and stern, made her more than a little hot under the collar. "Farah," she interjected softly. Flora really was trying to help and Freyja had made mistakes resulting in one of her patient's deaths before too. They all started at the bottom.
The woman looked down admittedly. Even she had made lethal mistakes before. Scarred the love of her life for their lives.
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