Work Text:
As soon as the phone call came through, Riven knew he should never have come into work today. He’d had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right and the call all but confirmed it.
A group of teenage girls had called into the station to report finding a dead body. None of them would leave their names but we remaining at the scene to be interviewed, something that confused Riven, why not give your names when they’re going to be written in the police files after being questioned.
Grabbing his keys, he jumped in his car and drove to the scene. Nothing could have prepared him for what he would find.
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20 minutes later and Riven finally pulled up at the crime scene. Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself out of the car and walked towards the officers stood by the crime scene tape.
“It’s a bad one” they warned him as the lifted the tape for him to walk under.
Ahead of him 1 of his fellow detectives stood around a white sheet with the medical examiner and to his right the group of 4 girls stood huddled around 2 other police officers.
Riven thought he saw a familiar wave of ginger hair but the officers were obscuring him from getting a good look. Instead he kept walking towards where the body lay.
“Nice of you to finally join us Riven”
“It’s 6am and the whole squads here, thought you wouldn’t miss me too much” Riven grumbled wishing he’d remembered to grab a coffee before he left the office. “What’s so special about this one?”
With a deep sigh the detective held out an evidence bag with a necklace inside it. “We found it clutched in the body’s hand, it’s one of the only things we have to identify the victim.”
“What do you mean, I thought this was just a murder?”
“Riven, the body was burned. We have no fingerprints, no identifiable markers, she’s of average height and build. The only things we have are this necklace and what looks like wires around her neck that could be from headphones.”
That’s when it hit Riven like a tonne of bricks, that unsettling feeling inside him was growing with each word that was spoken. Without asking he snatched the evidence bag out of the detective’s hands and pulled out the necklace, paying no attention to the detective’s shouts about mishandling evidence.
The necklace itself was a thin silver chain with 2 pendants on it. The first was of a little silver charm carved into the shape of a sword, like the ones he used to play with Sky when they were younger. The second charm was a gold outline of half a heart with the word “RIVEN” engraved on the inside.
Instantly Riven’s other hand reached to his neck pulling out a similar necklace with a silver music symbol charm and a gold outline of half a heart with “MUSA” engraved on it and fitting it together perfectly with its other half.
Without looking up from the two pendants, Riven uttered the words he so desperately didn’t want to confirm his worst fears. “Show me the body”
“Riven I don’t think that’s a good idea”
“Show me now!”
“Riven”
“SHOW ME”
The medical examiner looked to the other detective who let out a sigh and nodded confirmation of the order. Slowly she pulled the white sheets away from the body so Riven could get a look. The body was charred from the burning, with flecks of skin that looked like should it be touched it would disintegrate. Any hair had been burnt off from the heat and any clothes that the girl had been wearing had melted into a black clump on her chest. He could just make out the thin copper wires that they’d assumed were headphone wires but with their casing all burnt it was only a guess. His fellow detective had been right about no distinguishing features to the body and he knew it would take time for the medical examiner to pull a sample of DNA from beneath all the char before he would get a definitive answer to whether this was the girl he loved’s body.
Riven couldn’t bare to look at the body any longer and turned away, trying to find something to focus on to stop himself from letting out the tears he was trying so desperately to hold back. It was then that he spotted the group of girls still huddled together talking to officers.
“Do we know who they are yet?”
“They only gave us first names and what we assumed are fake last names, so we’re running them through the system to try and find out who they really are. They all said their last name was Winx” At this Riven snapped his head up to look at the detective “Bloom, Stella, Ai…..”
“Aisha and Terra” Riven cut off and received a strange look from the two people in front of him.
“How do you know that?”
“They were Musa’s closest friends. She was with them last night. She should be stood there with them and instead she’s laid here burnt to a crisp” Before anyone could stop him, he walked straight over to the group ignoring the protests of the detective.
“Officers I need to ask these girls a few questions” Riven dismissed the two officers would just looked at each other before walking away clearly not wanting to argue with a command.
“What the hell happened? Lost control of your powers again fairy?” He hissed at them.
“It’s not what you think Riven” Terra tried to take his attention away from the death glare he was giving Bloom, who wasn’t backing down from the full force of his glare and just stood staring back at him.
“Not what I think?! I think fiery lost control of her powers again and killed my fiancé. And what’s worse is that none of you look the least bit upset that your childhood best friend is laid over there dead under a white sheet. She shouldn’t be there, not after everything she did for you”.
Stepping forward Bloom pushed Riven backwards only serving to piss him off more “It was self-defence, Musa was out of control.”
Shaking his head Riven refused to believed what the girls were telling him. He knew Musa better than anyone, he had seen her at her best when he’d proposed to her and at her worst, the day she got her wings after a gang had attacked him left him bleeding out in the street. Musa had never told him about her powers until he witnessed her use them to overpower them, knocking them out and scrambling their minds into handing themselves into the police. In the 7 years they’d been together that was the only time she’d lost
control of her powers, sure she got overwhelmed by them but he would always answer the phone when she rang needed an outlet to grab hold of to refocus her mind. He knew if Musa was losing control, she’d have tried to get hold of him but he’d heard nothing since she left their house the night before to meet the Winx girls.
“Self-defence? What Bullshit? The four of you couldn’t think of a better lie for what you did? There’s four of you and only 1 of her, and if people find out that you all have powers there’s no way that’ll stand up in court”
“Riven you can’t tell anyone about our powers. You know Musa wouldn’t want you to do it” Terra was once again trying to play peace maker but bringing up Musa’s name just made him angrier.
“Don’t you dare tell me what Musa would want. She’s dead and I’m going to make sure that you all go down for it” Riven took a deep breath before stepping back and shouting at the officers “Boys, we need to take these 4 back to the station for more questioning. Someone doesn’t end up burnt in self-defence.” Turning back to the girls he left them with his parting words “Musa wouldn’t want me to arrest you but she always told me protect her and I failed, the least I can do is get her justice.” With that he walked away from the girls, blocking out their shouts at his back.
Upon returning back to the detective, he just had to look and know exactly what he was going to say. “Riven you need to step back from this case, it’s a conflict of interests. I promise I’ll keep you updated on every detail but you need to go home.”
Any other time he would have argued his case, that he should be here and that he needed answers but it was like Musa was controlling him from behind the grave and he did the one thing she would have told him to do, He nodded and walked away from the scene, letting the tears finally run down his cheeks.
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Riven didn’t know how he made it home safely, his vision had been swimming with tears the whole drive back home. When he’d finally parked his car outside their house, he just stayed sat in the seat for a minute before he started slamming his fists against the steering wheel in a fit of rage. “I’m sorry Musa. I’m so sorry. I should have protected you.” He kept muttering the same words over and over until his anger subsided.
Eventually he managed to pull himself out of the car and towards the front door. Each movement seemed to take too much energy and he couldn’t wait to finally crash onto his sofa. Opening the front door, he spotted a light from the living room, thinking he must have just forgotten to turn it off before heading to work, he walked into the room but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw.
Musa curled up asleep on the sofa lit up by the glow from the television. Riven raced to her side and started frantically shaking her shoulder to pull her out of her slumber.
“R..Riven?” Riven pulled her into a kiss full of all the emotions that had been brewing inside his mind all morning.
“I thought you were dead”.
“You were supposed to” The words hit him like a truck. Never had he imagined the love of his life wanting him to believe she was dead. “It had to look real”
“What the fuck Pixie?” He saw he visibly flinch from the nickname he only used when they were having an argument.
“If we’d have told you before you went into work, we couldn’t make it look believable.” At the look of shock Riven was giving her, she made to sit up on the sofa and pulled Riven into sitting next to her and laced their fingers together. “I know Sky told you that Bloom is undercover working to try and take down Rosalind and her underground covens. Well this was the finally piece to get Rosalind to put all her trust into Bloom. She told Rosalind I was working to find intelligence to get her arrested. Rosalind bought it hook, line and sinker, so she tasked Bloom with silencing me. We thought if we did something so extreme it would prove the measures that Bloom would go to for the cause. The other girls used their powers to create like a scarecrow that with Stella’s illusions and Bloom’s fire would burn to look like a body. We needed you to be called into the case so that if Rosalind sent spies to the scene then your emotions would be the turning point in proving that I truly was dead. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you but this way it keeps you safe from Rosalind and I don’t have to go into hiding, I just have to stay in the house until Bloom’s finished her job.”
“I really thought you were dead. Don’t ever leave me like that again.”
“I’m staying right here.”
Riven pulled her into a hug and told himself that he was never letting go of her ever again.