2 homesick

"Why were you even out there? Don't you know how dangerous that is?" Aisha asks Bloom as they are walking through the school heading back to their room.

"I was trying to get away from everyone to figure out how to control my powers." Bloom answers.

"And that worked just great." Aisha says sarcastically.

"I'm not like you. I don't have fairy parents. I have no idea how to use my powers. I used them once in my life and it was..." Bloom says, stopping herself from saying anymore.

"What terrible? I'm shocked. In my last school I flooded the entire building. Sprinklers, faucets, toilets. All because I failed on a math test. Sometimes things are just as they are, shit and you gotta deal with them." Aisha explains, stopping next to Bloom who's sitting down on a bench.

So, my mom and I don't really get along. She wants a cheerleader and I'm just... the opposite." Bloom explains, before telling Aisha her story of how she almost killed her parents because she was angry and didn't know what she's doing.

"After that, I snuck out every night. Scared I'd hurt them and I stayed in an empty warehouse. Until Miss Dowling found me." Bloom tells Aisha.

"Alright. Your story wins. And your parents have no idea it was you?" Aisha asks.

"No. I don't know how far back this fairy ancestry is but there is nothing magical about my parents." Bloom says sniffling a bit.

"That's weird. The power you showed earlier. That can't be from a dormant bloodline. Are you maybe adopted?" Aisha asks.

"No. I heard about my birth a million times. In the womb I had a heart defect but a day after I was born it wasn't there anymore. Miracle baby." Bloom explains.

"Oh my god. You're a changeling." Aisha realizes shocked.

"What's that?" Bloom asks.

"A changeling is a fairy baby that's switched with a human one at birth. It's babaric and unheard of in these times."

"It's not possible. I'd know if my parents weren't my parents." Bloom says in denial.

"I'm just trying to help. It's just with your power you have to be pure blooded." Aisha tells her.

"Well you're not helping." Bloom says hurt and leaves, going straight to her room, where she looks at a family photo and searches changeling in her phone, finding pictures of a dark creature holding a crying baby.

When she hears someone walk towards her, she sets down her phone upside down.

"Is that your family? I get homesick too sometimes." Stella says, looking at Bloom's picture.

"You know. If my mom didn't expect me to go here I'd much rather life a normal life at home. There is no shame in wanting to be home." Stella lies.

About 10 minutes later Aisha and Musa enter their apartment, seeing Stella on a couch with no sign of Bloom anywhere.

"Have you seen Bloom Stella?" Aisha asks.

"Not recently." She lies.

"You say that, yet you're wrecked with guilt." Musa says.

"You're a mind fairy? What connection?" Terra asks arriving in the room.

"Not a great time." Musa says, stopping her.

"As much as I don't want to I'll check if she's at our neighbors." Aisha says, walking to the door across from them and knocks, after a few seconds of nothing Garfield opens the door, looking at the three curious sets of fairy eyes.

"What? Never seen a guy eat meat before?" He asks, chomping on the bone of a chicken leg.

"Have you seen Bloom?" Aisha asks.

"She was talking with your blonde friend just a couple minutes ago. What's going on?" He asks, motioning at Stella through the opened door.

"Stella. Where is Bloom? I know what happens when someone talks to Sky and you find out." Terra demands to know from their blonde roommate.

"I gave her my ring so she could visit her family in the first world since she was feeling homesick." Stella answers.

"Doesn't your ring only work outside the barrier?" Terra asks.

"Yeah. There is a gateway at an old cemetery." Stella answers.

"That's deep in the forest Stella." Terra says.

"Man, not a single day of peace." Garfield grumbles, putting on his shoes.

"What's the big deal? So she's visiting her family." Stella says.

"There are burned ones out there." Garfield says and tells them to fetch the headmistress while rushing past them.

"And where are you going?" Musa asks.

"After Bloom." He says confidentially, jogging down the hallway.

Musa feels a strong urge to protect coming from the teen and tells her friends that they should get the headmistress and the three, besides Stella head to the headmistress's office.

"Leave out how she can use the portal." Stella insists, wanting to save her own skin.

In the meantime, Bloom visited her parents, having stood outside and watched them through a window while she calls them, unsure if she wants to stay in school but her parents encourage her and she heads back. When she enters the warehouse, which acts as a bridge she goes to the corner she previously stayed in at night and looks through her old notebook. While she's reading her notes on her powers she hears something weird from behind her. She stands ip from her couch and peers through the blinds of the former office, seeing two bony coal black, seemingly burned human being standing about 30 meters away. She dives down scared, hoping they didn't see her, but much to her horror one of the creatures crashes through the window above her, trying to grab her, making Bloom loose the ring to open the portal.

She escapes the hand and dives into a small crawlspace, spotting the ring through a grit in front of her.

She reaches through, panicking because of the evil snarling these creatures emit but before she can grab the ring one of the two creatures grabs it. The other throwing itself violently against the grit she's hiding behind. Bloom gets caught by her jacket and freaks out when a hand reaches around her, snapping the arm of the burned one in two, before pulling her out of the crawlspace, coming out in the room leading back into the fairy world and Alfea.

"Go on, I got it." Garfield tells her, the two of them hearing a loud boom when the burned ones broke through the grid.

Bloom looks at him for a moment before taking off towards the outside, with the headmistress letting her pass, before she enters the building and shuts the door behind her, trapping herself and Garfield in the building with the two burned ones.

"About time you showed up." Garfield says, his body shifting, increasing in stature, until in his place stands a large being with a bear's body, lion's paws and a scorpion's tail.

"Let me handle the first one." Garfield says, clawing the floor once, before the two demon like creatures shoot out and towards them, the one with only one arm headed for him, while the other attacks the headmistress, who lifts it up in the air, suspended against a pillar.

Garfield in the other hand, lets the creature close in and then raises both front paws, stomping it dead, getting a cut on his arm in the process.

"How dead do you want it?" He asks, stomping over to the headmistress who glances at his form uneasy.

"I need to find out if their appearance was random or if there's something going on." Farah says.

"Got it." Garfield says and tackles the elevated burned one against the pillar, knocking it out.

"There. One unconscious burned one. Where do you want it?" He asks, lifting the creature up with his large scorpion's tail.

"Just let me handle this. You go on ahead and get rid of the girls. They don't need to see this." Farah says.

"Fine. But don't get used to ordering me around." He scoffs, turning back to his normal form, a black colored scratch on his left forearm.

"Well, time to clean out ladies." Garfield says, stepping through the cemeteries door, shutting it behind him.

"Where is the headmistress?" Aisha asks.

"She's Fine. She's trying to find out more about the burned one."

"So it were burned ones." Bloom says shaken up by being chased moments ago.

"Yup." Garfield says, ushering the girls back to the academy.

"You're bleeding. We need to bring you to my dad." Terra says freaking out.

"Oh this? Don't worry. It's nothing." He says and Musa notices the sad emotions rolling off him.

"Burned one's wounds are poisonous." Terra disagrees.

"Not if you kill it." He informs them while they wander through the woods.

"How did you know where I am?" Bloom asks all of them.

"Stella." Aisha answers.

"And why were you there before everyone else?" Bloom asks the male of the group.

"I ran ahead while your roommates fetched the headmistress." He explains.

"But how did you beat the burned one? It was so fast and scary strong." Bloom questions.

"I'm stronger and faster." He answers with a shrug.

"You can show us you know... everyone already knows about you anyways." Musa tells him, looking at him curiously.

"Fine." He huffs and gets on all fours, taking on the same form as before, making the girls other than Musa who can feel his emotions in this form too jump back.

"Mind fairy huh?" He asks, raking his enormous lions paws down a tree's bark to stretch.

"Yeah." Musa answers calmly while the rest of them rejoin the two.

"When you said you turn into animals I was imagining things like a dog or a rabbit." Bloom chuckles embarrassedly.

"Maybe I can, I never tried it. I was only taught these forms." He replies, turning back to his normal form.

"Taught? I thought you're the only one with that ability." Aisha asks.

"I am. Let's not get into my past too much alright." He says in a fake chuckle, only Musa feeling that he's terrified of the question.

"Yeah, come on everyone. I'm sure Stella will be ecstatic to hear that Bloom is fine." Musa tells them sarcastically, leading them back to the school.

"You noticed it huh?" Garfield asks, quickening his step, walking next to her while the others are chatting behind the two.

"What if I did?" She asks mirthfully.

"Thank you." He only says, before continuing to walk next to her quietly, Musa still feeling his nervousness though.

"I feel that you're nervous you know. I can't turn this off, that's why I'm trying to drown it out with music from time to time." Musa tells him quietly, shaking her headphones.

"Sorry. Must be rough. I know I wouldn't want to feel everything everyone else is feeling. I'm already not liking what I feel most of the time." He chuckles.

"Well to be fair at least your thoughts and emotions seem true. It's especially annoying if I'm hearing thoughts of an indecisive person." Musa says, her eyes straying back to her roommate.

"I see. I'd offer to switch rooms if that wouldn't make both our lives so much more complicated." He says with her feeling his concern for her.

"Thanks." She says, smiling quickly, before both fall into silence.

A few minutes later the group arrives in their apartment with Garfield waiting outside their door.

"Bloom, you can relax now you know. Your parents are safe. The burned ones won't get to the human world." Garfield tells her when the redhead is tiredly dragging her feet as she walks.

"Thanks Gar. For everything." She says with a small smile, before disappearing in her room with Aisha, leaving Terra and Musa in their room which second half also acts as the communal space.

"Well, I guess I should let you get to sleep. If you need something you know where to find me." He says, waving at the two fairies before closing the door.

"He seems nice. Despite what people are saying." Terra says.

"He is." Musa agrees, before minding her own business again, getting ready for bed quickly.

When she returns from the bathroom, having changed into a simple T-shirt and shorts Terra is already in her pajama, watering her flowers.

"You know, I borrowed this speaker off my brother. So you can listen to your music, but still talk to us. But it's fine you don't have to." Terra offers.

"Could you stop with the pretending? I'm an empath I feel what you feel, I feel your insecurities with Stella, your annoyance with me. I put on these headphones so I can try to feel my own emotions for once. But if you want to know how I feel." Musa says, connecting her phone to the speakers and a sad song plays through the apartment.

"Sorry. I just wanted you to feel welcome." Terra says, turning off the speakers after a bit and sits down next to Musa, putting the girl's headphones back around her neck with a supportive smile.

The two girls then go to bed, or at least Terra does. Musa, being surrounded by so many new people can't shut them out, Bloom's emotional roller coaster taking the most out of her.

She continues to try to sleep for a little over half an hour, before sneaking out of her room and quietly knocking on Garfield's door.

"Huh?" He asks, sticking his head through the door with half opened eyes.

"Can I stay here tonight? It... It's just too much over there." Musa asks surprisingly timidly for her usual straight forward character.

"Sure. Just give..." he says but Musa already pushes open his door, stepping into the room.

"Why are you freaking out? You said it's OK." She asks confused, feeling his anxiety increase dramatically.

"Hah, fine. Just don't make it a big deal OK?" He asks, pushing away the door which he covered himself with and closes it, revealing his muscular torso to her, only wearing jogging pants. His upper body has multiple scars scattered around it. He has two large scars, one running down sideways on his abdomen, the other going diagonally across his chest to the beginning of his abs.

He also has a couple smaller scars which don't attract that much attention however.

On his back he also has one large scar, going horizontally across his lower back while most of the rest of the back is surprisingly unblemished, given how overrun his front looks.

"What happened?" She asks sympathetically.

"You don't want to know. And you definitely don't want to feel it." He says, with a fake smile, dropping it soon after when he realizes that it won't reassure her anyways.

"Just take the bed. I'm good on the floor for tonight." He says, pointing to the bed in the rather small room.

He then puts on a shirt and lies down next to the bed.

"I feel that you're still scared." Musa tells him.

"Sorry. I never met an empath before. Just tell me how I can make things easier for you." He says, sitting up and looks at the girl having his cover up to her chin.

"Just relax. Be yourself. Don't think about me being here." She says, her eyes lighting up purple when she feels his desire to help her.

"Alright. Good night then. Hmm." He says irritated.

"What?" She asks.

"I never got your name." He laughs softly.

"I'm Musa." She says before turning on the bed.

"Good night Musa." He says and lies back down, falling asleep soon after with Musa also finally getting some sleep in the much quieter apartment, Garfield only giving of a slight feeling of fear and anger in his sleep, much less than the emotional roller coaster that are Bloom and Terra.