Fairies of The Black Circle

5

Musa bit hungrily into a peach, barely chewing its sweet flesh before gulping it down. Within seconds she had devoured the whole thing and dropped the stone onto the plate of food on the counter. She grabbed the buttered crumpets and began wolfing them down too.

"So, where is everyone else?" She asked, the words barely finding their way past the food in her mouth.

"Mike's brother has an empty apartment in Gardenia and offered us a reduced rent to stay there, seeing as we could be here a while." Flora explained. "The others are there with the specialists. They've been furnishing it all day while we were here." 

Musa nodded, washing her breakfast down with a glass of orange juice, and wiped her mouth with her forearm. 

"I forgot to ask, is your leg okay?" Musa remembered how Flora had favoured her left leg when walking.

"Oh, yeah it's alright now." Flora assured her, "I just landed badly protecting Roxy from the blast, that's all." 

Musa smiled apologetically; if she had just kept her emotions in check, she wouldn't have caused so much damage.

"And how is Roxy?" 

Flora sighed but didn't answer immediately.

Musa paused, her arm suspended above her next victim to be devoured (an apple from the fruit bowl), and finally looked at Flora properly. 

She looked completely drained, her usually sparkling eyes, dull and encased by thick, dark circles. 

"She was so exhausted after the fight, we let her go straight home. Bloom figured the wizards wouldn't be too hasty to show up again; after all, it was a pretty big explosion." 

Musa cringed at herself. 

"We haven't seen her since but Bloom wants to speak with Rick as soon as we find out what's going on." Flora finished, cupping her hand over her mouth and yawning.

"Flora, you're exhausted. You need to sleep." Musa insisted but Flora shook her head even as her eyes fluttered dangerously close to shutting.

"No, no I'm fine. I didn't really do anything anyway. It was lucky Helia showed up when he did, otherwise I would have left Roxy completely defenceless." 

Musa frowned but didn't persist. 

"Oh shoot!" Flora exclaimed, making her jump, "We're supposed to be getting in touch with Faragonda any minute now. Come on let's go!" 

She started to usher Musa out of her chair and towards the door, who turned, grabbing desperately for one more crumpet before shoving it in her mouth and disappearing into the streets of Gardenia.

~

The apartment was only a five minute walk from Mike and Vanessa's and as they rounded the corner, the tall tower block loomed into view. 

Their place was right at the top, apparently, and Musa had to shelter her eyes from the sun with her hand as she craned her neck to see.

There was a balcony leaning over the street below, and rusted metal steps leading up to the roof but Musa did remark that there were no plants to be seen- so clearly Flora hadn't got to it yet. 

The grey concrete was cracked in places and most of the windows were unwashed. Musa sighed; it appeared they had their work cut out.

On their way up, she also made a mental note to always take the stairs after the elevator shuddered all the way to the top, creaking and screeching threateningly. On the bright side, the apartment wasn't too shabby, granted two days worth of work had already been done to it.