Chapter Text
The moon cast a silvery glow through the window, bathing the room in a serene light as the darkness of the night cast its spell once again across the world. Bobble sat on the windowsill, his thoughts racing as he watched the shadowed landscape outside He was alone. The house was quiet, the only sounds coming from the occasional creak of the wooden floorboards and the soft rustle of leaves outside. Below him, spread throughout Lizzie's room, his friends slept soundly, having finally ended their interrogations with enough answers to satisfy their irritations, with the intent of getting some well-needed rest.
Rest was thelastthing on Bobble's mind at that moment.
He traced the edge of the windowsill with his hands, his mind swirling with the events of the evening. His friends' words echoed in his ears, a mixture of understanding and frustration. He knew they were right; heshouldhave trusted them. But the weight of his secret, the darkness, the desire and the longing, made it hard to see clearly.
"You can't hide forever."
The voice in his head was growing stronger, more insistent. It had started as a faint whisper, but now it was a persistent murmur that he couldn't ignore. He tried to push it away, to focus on the here and now, but it clung to him like a shadow, following him from his dreams into his waking reality.
Sometimes...sometimes it felt close enough that it could have been standing next to him, whispering in his ear, hands wrapping around his throat.
He was running out of time.
"They don't understand you. They can't help you."
Bobble shook his head, trying to dispel the voice. He had to stay strong, had to remember that his friends were there for him. But the doubt, the fear, it was creeping in, gnawing at his resolve. He knew he needed to do something, and soon.
But he was scared.
"You'll never be whole again. You're broken."
Bobble clenched his fists, trying to block out the voice, but it persisted, echoing in the depths of his consciousness.
"You should have kept it. You should have never let it go."
It was gone. It was gone, stolen, and there was noo getting it back. Varnas had taken it. He had taken it toprotecthim. That's what Tink had said. Hanna and Hazeer had saved him...thepixieshad saved him. But there was something else, wasn't there? Something they had confided in the others that they wouldn't tell him. He'd asked, begged, pleaded, to be included on the secret but each time they had turned him down.
"It's nothing," Rosetta had assured him. "Nothin' that we can't handle later. Ya just focus on getting better, honey. Ya've been through the mud lately. Take some time to glide again. We're safe here now."
Well, that was a lie. It definitely wasn't nothing, not the way the others had acted. They were scared about something. But what? If it wasn't the pixies and Varnas wasn't coming back to kill them all just for stepping foot on the mainland, then what were they all so afraid of? Rosetta should have been right. Thereshouldhave been no more danger.
So why were they pretending everything was okay when clearly, something was wrong?
"So, they're keeping secrets from you now too? Some friends. Don't they trust you?"
No, no, no this wasnothappening. This...this wasn't right. This voice...it...wasn't him. This wasn't how he thought. This wasn'treal.
"Leave mealone," he pleaded to the unseen thoughts. "Please, I...I don't want todothis anymore..."
"This isn't your fate to choose, Phineas. It never was."
"No..." he whimpered, pressing his hands to his ears, desperate to silence the second consciousness. "I won'tdothis.I won't do this."
I just...he took a long shaky breath, drawing his knees closer to his chest and pulling his limp wings in as far as he could muster without pain.I just want things to...to go back to before...back to how it was before they knew who I was and what I could do.
I just...wanna gohome.
"You can't run from who you are. You were born with this darkness, don't try to fight it.Embraceit and perhaps you can save your friends from sharing your fate."
His breath hitched and he fell away from the glass, collapsing against the frame and scrambling backward as far as he could into the shadows, his lungs constricting and his heart hammering as the realization of the threat sunk in. "You...no...no, please...don't...don't hurt them...no..."
His vision blurred and he slumped, resting his head against the windowpane. He didn't know what Hanna and Hazeer were doing right now, and honestly he didn't understand why the others trusted them. He didn't know what had happened in the hours following the battle with Varnas. His body still felt half frozen from the ice...what had it even been? He'dneverseen a frost-fairy use their talent in such a offensive tactic.
Exhaustion crept over him once again and he sighed, fighting to remain concious as the world swirled to black around him.
"That's it,"the whispers coaxed, but he was too drained to fight them,"Give in...waste the precious hours you have left. In the end, you know your destiny will come for you, one way or another. And then they will see what kind of monster youreallyare. All because you wanted the one thing you couldn't have..."
And then everything faded to ruin as the dream once more took hold and he sunk into a light comatose.
This was not the first time he had been here, but it was different. Things were...not the same as he remembered. He turned, the fire scouring the landscape behind him, but instead of the Pixiedust tree, aflame and dying, he stood amid snowcapped mountains. He shivered, but he was not cold. Frozen wind tore at his face and he raised a hand to shield his eyes...
His hands were onfire.
The flames burned through his gloves but he did not try to stop them. He only stood, frozen, unable to move, unable to react as the cotton fell away in flaklets of cinder. Wait...no, this wasn't right. This wasn't Spring This was the Winter Woods! This had never been in winter before! Where...why was he here?
Panicked, the spell holding him broke and he stumbled, staggering forward and nearly faceplanting the snow, desperately scrambling to put out the flames. This wasn't right. This wasn't right atall.
"Bobble, look out!"
Something struck him from behind and he screamed, the force of the impact striking him in the back and knocking him into the snow.
And then the white swirled to nothingness and he found himself standing on a cliff, overlooking a frozen lake and miles upon miles of nothing but snowy wasteland.
"End of the line, Phineas."
A voice. A voice he had heard before.
He spun around, but the fairy was already on top of him, grabbing his coat collar and hoisting him over the ledge. Bobble cried out, his feet dangling helplessly in midair as he grasped for anything to cling to. The snow crumbled underneath his boots and he stumbled, gasping panicked breaths when he realized he was being held too far over the ledge...and the fairy, her face hidden by shadows, had no intent of letting him back onto the cliff.
"No, no, please, don't!" he shrieked. "Let me go, please! Let me down!"
And with a cruel smile, the fairy released him. He hit the ground and everything went dark...
It had been almost an hour since the rain let up and Scorpion wasofficiallytired of walking. "I just don't get it," he admitted to Willow, watching the younger girl skip ahead as he collapsed wearily on a fallen treetrunk to catch his breath, laying his walking stick gently at his side. "What happened to us and where are we?"
"I don't know," Willow admitted. "The last thing I remember is the invitation to train with Scarab. I don't remember ever getting to Fairy's Haven, though, do you?"
"No," Scorpion admitted. But I do remember Asha. The scout-talent. He remembered her, clearer than day. Where was she? And what had happened to all of them. "I don't remember much of anything, really. Starlight said it would be good for us to train with someone who knew more about...our special skill sets, but I don't think we made it."
"Huh, I wonder why?"
"It's a great question," the animal-talent agreed. And as he lifted his eyes, he traced the brilliant glow illuminating the trees ahead of them. They were almost home. "And Ithinkit's about time we regrouped with the others and got some answers."
