Chapter Text
In a far-away tower, there lived a girl.
Wasn’t that how the fairytales often began? A poor, innocent damsel who was locked away, wishing for a handsome young man to rescue her? It was enough to make the Trapped Woman laugh in spite. Sometimes there was a tower, and a woman stuck inside, but she knew better than to expect a heroic rescue. Not that she wanted a hero. They were overrated.
And yet, the library in her tower only supplied her more books of heroic victories. Fairies battling witches, or wizards, or ancestral beings. One particular group appeared over and over again, winning battle after battle. Six fairies led by a red-headed princess who went on to become a queen. Every so often, a new book would appear in the library to show the latest events the Trapped Woman was missing: marriages, children, music tours, nature expeditions, science patents, and so on until there was an entire thirty-foot shelf dedicated to this one group.
The Winx Club.
They weren’t just heroes, they were legends. Worse than that, they were living legends, and they were enjoying their happily ever after. Not a soul in the Magic Dimension was unaware of their stories. And what a number of tales there were to tell. The Trapped Woman knew it better than most, as her own tower reminded her every day.
She really hated this library.
But what made a hero into a legend? Was it their confidence? Their compassion? Perhaps their talent, or knowledge, or courage? Or, was it something bigger than all of those things combined? A fire that can’t be contained, transcending these stories into history?
There was a silver lining in all this, the Trapped Woman reminded herself as a new book magically appeared on the shelf. The thing about legends was that they were rare. They took up too much space on the shelf. They soaked up all the sunlight, preventing other seedlings reaching the same heights.
Which meant the shadows could spread, unnoticed. And no one would be ready for the dangers lurking within.