One-Eyed Fairy

Chapter 7: I Reject All You Stand For

With the Others

"Stella," Bloom mumbled as she stared into the abyss below.

"Bloom, it's okay," Sky murmured as he knelt next to her and put his hands on her shoulders but received no acknowledgement from her. She didn't even react when he helped her feet. Upset, Sky began to shake her, trying to snap her out of her stupor. "Bloom? Bloom, we don't have time for this. We need to help Aisha."

But Bloom stared blankly ahead as if she couldn't hear him.

As Sky continued to tend to Bloom, Aisha struggled hard to free herself from the wall, but as time went on, the bile began to harden and rubberise, cementing her in place until she could no longer wiggle her fingers. Despite this, Aisha continued to pull but had to give up when pain in her wings grew too much for her to bear. There's no way she can free herself from the wall all by herself. She needs help. 

"Bloom, you don't need to worry about the others. We can go after them."

"What?" Aisha's words are what got through to Bloom who turned her head in Aisha's direction, which allowed her to finally notice Aisha's predicament. Eyes widening, Bloom leapt to her feet and rushed over to Aisha, almost stumbling over her feet a couple of times, and tugged at the bile, but her attempts were futile "I can't get her out. What do we do, Sky?"

Sky studied the bile carefully before coming to the conclusion that if they can't break her free, then they can melt her free. "Bloom, you need to use your fire to heat the tar."

"Won't that hurt Aisha?" Bloom nervously rubbed her hands at the thought of hurting Aisha even accidentally. 

 "Not if you're careful." Sky then realised just how much pressure his words would put Bloom in and tried to correct himself, but Aisha beat him him to the punch.

"Don't worry about that, Bloom. I just want to get down."

Bloom and Sky worked in tandem with Bloom heating the bile and Sky cutting it away, they started from Aisha's feet and gradually worked their way up until they could no longer reach since her body was pinned a few feet above theirs so Sky had Bloom on his shoulders. He passed her the knife, so she was in charge of both heating the bile and cutting it away.

Unfortunately, this took far too long for Bloom's liking, and her mind began to wonder to Stella, Brandon, and Kaneki and what happened to them. What if they're injured? She has to hurry. That way, they can go down and find them-

"-Ow!" Bloom is snapped back to reality upon hearing Aisha's cry and instinctively jerked away, the unexpected movement caused Sky to stagger, and Bloom had to grab Aisha to steady herself. It is then that she got a good look at what she's done. In her frightful daze, she ended up slicing through the thin membrane of Aisha's wing.

Did she do that? Bloom dropped the knife and buried her face in her hands while apologising profusely. What's wrong with her? 

"It's fine." Aisha tried to grin, but it just came out as a grimace, which just made Bloom feel worse. "Just be more careful."

Eventually, Bloom managed to remove enough of the bile that Aisha dropped straight to the ground, with Sky catching her by her waist.  "Thanks," Aisha said as she plucked the remaining clumps of bile from her wings before giving them a test drive. They flittered much slower than before. Looks like there's no way she'll be using them anytime soon.

"So how are we going to get down?" Bloom asked as he peered over the edge into the ominous darkness.

"I can get us down." Bloom and Sky turned to Aisha quizzically, who summoned a large blob of morphix, which she morphed into a crane pulley. She created 3 loops in the rope adequately spaced apart before hardening the rope. Aisha's skill in magic left something to be desired by Bloom, who couldn't help but compare the two of them.