Love Can Save {An Aphmau Fanfiction}

Zoey

It was several long moments of silence. Almost three hours later, Aphmau was breathing hard, hands trembling as they hovered in the air. I remembered the stress, the worry that no matter how hard I tried, the portal would remain shut. My heart ached for my dearest friend, one of the only family members I had left in the world, the mother of the children I loved so much. I willed my strength towards her, along with my faith and love.

This would work.

This had to work.

From across the clearing, Katelyn watched her friend with concern. Sometime within the past few minutes, she had reached out towards Travis. They were holding hands, united in their worry and hope. Laurance hovered behind Thalia, gaze constantly flicking between the woman before him and the woman kneeling in the dirt.

Lucinda began murmuring under her breath, and as I leaned closer, I heard her chant. "Irene, give her strength. Help her. Help him. Weaken the boundaries between our worlds. Irene, give her strength." Her mantra remained quiet enough to keep from distracting Aphmau, but her words made their way to me and Nana on either side of the witch. Nana took up the chant, and their words filled me with resolve. Aphmau could do this.

A breeze began to blow, lifting Aphmau's strands of hair and playing with them, trailing along her neck and face. I shivered, recognizing that this wind was not of natural origins. It blew stronger and stronger, whipping my hair around my face, and yet I felt no chill. In fact, the air in the clearing felt like it was growing warmer every passing moment.

The air left my lungs as I gasped, and yet the sound didn't reach my ears through the whipping of the wind. In the dirt before Aphmau, the moonflower's glow had increased tenfold. It was so bright that I could barely see her hands still above the flower, but I knew she was throwing all of her strength into holding her place even as the wind rocked her small frame and buffeted her from all sides.

Already there was a brilliant white light beginning to spread out in trails from the flower and from Aphmau's palms. The tendrils flowed in random motions before starting to form a recognizable shape: the basis of a wide doorway of pure light. It took my breath away, the simple beauty that was the start of this magical thing.

Aphmau cried out, her barely discernible outline beginning to become more and more visible. It was with horrified silence that I watched this spectacular light start to flicker and fade away. Aphmau yelled again, trying to channel all of her energy into keeping this power steady. And yet, it still started to trickle away, leaving the clearing darker and darker with every passing moment. The pit in my stomach grew heavy, tears burning tracks down my cheeks. All of our hopes and searching had led to this, to this flower that had done nothing but show us what we could have and then rip it away in an instant. Aphmau would never recover, she would never be the same again-

"Aphmau!" Thalia's voice cut through the wind, forcing my attention from the crumbling figure on the ground. Thalia's hair was flying as she pushed through the storm, the gale strongest around Aphmau and the moonflower. Her hand was outstretched, face hidden by brown locks and white light. Aphmau's face was upraised, one hand pulling away from above the flower to reach up...

I didn't see their hands connect, but the light flared up ten times as bright and I knew they had made contact. There was no more clear picture of what was happening, the brilliance so overwhelming that I had no choice but to throw my arm up over my face. The wind was fiercer and fiercer, pushing me backwards until I stumbled and hit the ground hard, grunting as all the breath left my lungs in a single second. For several seconds I lay on my side, barely able to breathe as the blinding light forced my eyes to remain tightly shut. Even through my eyelids, I felt the scorching heat, the magick energy so great that it took all I had to not curl up in a ball and cry out. As it were, I couldn't have moved that much anyway. So I settled with burying my face in the crook of my arm and waiting out the storm. We spent long minutes in the neverending white, the heat growing more and more intense until-

The light changed in an instant. The blazing heat switched to a gentle glow, bathing me in a warmness that made me content. The aches and bruises I had suffered when I had hit the ground began to melt away, my limbs filled with warmth and air. I dared to move my arm, the light no longer blinding. My eyes rushed to open, and after some amount of time, they were able to focus on the clearing I had spent the past several hours in.

Before the light completely faded, I was able to make out a scene. Kneeling on the ground were two figures, their hair flying above and around them as they remained at the center of the whirlwind. Black and brown intermixed, tan and pale hands still clasped tightly together and outstretched towards the glowing mass of light. Once again my breath was taken away, but this time by the sheer amount of magick power in the air. Laurance, Katelyn, and the others had been blown away like I had, or at least, I assumed that was the situation since I could no longer see them. All I could see was Thalia and Aphmau, the eye of the hurricane of power.

Even as I watched, one of the figures started to fade away. Brown hair and pale skin toppled over slowly, her light beginning to go out as she pulled away and hit the ground. Worry flashed through my mind, fear for what had happened to my friend and fear for what would happen to the portal. But I needn't have worried. This beautiful warm light strengthened, and the remaining figure sat up tall, shapes extending from her back and casting shadows on the ground, yet still maintaining the brilliant light I had come to associate with Lady Irene.