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1.
“It’s harder than I thought it would be” Bloom muttered as she ran her hands through the mottled grass on the lake shore. The sun was low in the sky, blurring top of the forest's leaves into the light, and casting deep shadows on the floor.
Her sister was slumped on the top of the lake, her arms resting on the earth whilst her body flowed back into the water. She reminded Bloom of watching swimming lessons in elementary school, where kids crossed their arms on the bumpy tiles at the side of the pool.
“It’s a school of magic, Bloom, and you’ve only known you can use it for bare months. What did you expect?” there was something small and sharp in her tone, and Bloom responded as though she was squirming away from a stray needle in a half-made dress.
“I dunno, maybe a bit of leeway from the teachers? Maybe some theoretical lessons so I understand how to use the magic without blowing up the classroom?” Bloom twisted the grass through her fingers. “Perhaps even to understand a single thing that happens in my life at the time it occurs and not having to ask Techna and Flora for a translation 3 hours after the fact.”
She exhaled loudly, “whatever though, it’s just petty quibbles, I guess.” and tore up the patch of grass,
The sisters sat in silence, neither wanting to speak frankly.
“I should go,” Daphne said as the sun dipped below the tree line. “I’ve drained my energy reserve”
A clammy guilt sat on Bloom’s shoulders. “And I better get back to Alfea before curfew. I’ll see you later then?”
Daphne was already below the surface of the water, a golden shimmer resting on the rippled water. Bloom knelt, carefully in the sand, and skimmed her hand on the water’s surface, feeling the residue of strong and sturdy magic that her sister left behind.
--
2.
“So, how have you been?”
“Are you seriously telling me,” Bloom ground out from the back of her throat, “that you broke into the highest security level museum this side of the magical dimension, created a time pocket around the building in order to slow down the guards, then yet another pocket to slow down time for us, exclusively, behind this marble statue, for the sole purpose of asking me how I am?”
“Did you expect anything less from the realm’s resident magical megalomaniac?”
Bloom glared at the smug grin sat upon his face. “I regret ever introducing you to the propaganda machine we call a newspaper” She could hear the humour warming through her voice.
“More than you regret kissing me?” he asked, his expression flashed to vacant and froze in place, but his eyes were glittering.
Bloom felt something burning and dense drop in the pit of her stomach. “You really want to do this, Baltor?” her hands curled up and her palms smarted in the strain. “Fine,” she spat, “let’s have this conversation.”
Baltor’s face was as still as the statue they sat behind. “Do you regret that night?”
“I regret you being a royal pain in my arse about it”
“Oh, I didn’t think Prince Sky was that kinky.”
“Fuck off, you entitled prick.”
The pair glared at separate spots on the tiled floor, anger draining out of their stature.
Softly, she muttered towards the third tile to the left of her shoe; “Can I ever repent the crime and keep my crown and queen?”
The wizard stifled a breath of laughter.
“I’ll only do drag on the third date, darling.”
Bloom’s laughter rang through the museum halls for days after, he swore.
---
3.
“We can’t do this again.”
The first hint of morning spilled across the blanket.
“Well, we shouldn’t have done it in the first place, if we’re going to throw grand absolutes around.” the voice was low and muttered into a large pillow.
Bloom was silent for a few seconds , staring up at the lightened window pane. “Do you regret it?”
He propped himself up on his elbow, body heavy with an air of incredulous.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answer for, darling.”
“Call me darling again, and i’ll punch your teeth in.”
---
4.
“Bring him back. Please, Bloom, just bring him back to me. Please. I won’t ask you for anything, not a thing, ever again. Just please, please give him back to me. Please.”
Aisha’s knees gave out and she sank to the graveled path, still gripping onto Musa’s hand, still sobbing.
“I -” Bloom felt her breath rush out her lungs to get lodged in her throat, pointed and smothering.
“I can’t, Aisha. I can’t do things like that. I can’t. I’m -” she gulped in air that ran like flame down her throat, “- God, I’m so sorry.”
“How do you know that?” Musa asked, her voice scratchy and desperate. “How do you know if you haven’t even tried?”
Like the dust of the broken buildings around them, silence fell on the group as they turned, with caution, to look at their leader.
Their leader looked away. The silence began to stir.
“Who was it?” Stella asked, hands shaking.
Another few beats of silence. “Who, Bloom?”
Bloom finally met her gaze, a heavy breath in her lungs and iron in her chest. “You shouldn’t ask questions that you really don’t want to hear the answer for, Stel. It - it was nobody you knew.”
--
5.
Flora woke up to the sight of her redheaded roommate retching up what little she’d eaten for supper into an empty plant pot.
“Bloom? Hey it’s ok -” she uncurled her legs from under her duvet and padded across to the small notch of space between Bloom’s nightstand and wardrobe, which the girl had managed to wedge herself into.
The guardian of the Dragonfire currently had her spine flush against the whitewashed plaster and was clutching a plant pot like it held the key to immortality, but it was refusing to tell her.
Flora sat down next to Bloom’s toes, and grabbed the knitted throw at the end of her roommate’s bed, draping it over their heads. Bloom continued to quake, so Flora looked at the shabby corner of the wooden nightstand instead.
“My sister always tells me that mock blanket forts are the best way to talk about worries.” Flora spoke slowly, her soft voice filling the small shelter with warmth. “When the conversation ends, we can ball up the blanket and hang it until it’s needed again.” Her eyes flicked over to Bloom. “I think it’s a good idea, sweetie.”
Bloom continued to shake and stare down into the plant pot. Flora looked away, but circled her gaze back around to her roommate.
Flora braced herself for the reaction, “Bloom, you have to talk about Shadowhaunt to somebody. Even if it’s me.” She blinked back water in her eyes “We can’t stand here whilst you suffer without at least trying to help you.”
Her friend’s shoulders started to heave, as heavy, stifled sobs began to finally fall. Flora rested her head on her drawn up knees, and felt something close to guilt peel away from her spine.
----
6.
“Earth has some weird customs, B.” the academy-renowned fairy of music held up the little green plastic bar up to the evening light, and stared at it with thinly veiled confusion. “But I gotta say, this one might bake the cake.”
“I belive the phrase is ‘to take the cake’ Musa,” Techna said, tracing her fingers over the small cream-coloured tiles that had fallen out their felt bag.
“Oh, it takes it, too” said Musa with a wide grin.
“It’s official,” Stella announced to the room at large, sprawled on the floor and leaning against Aisha’s legs, “I’ve never been more confused by Earth customs.”
Aisha herself leaned over the coffee table and mock whispered to Musa sat opposite “Shall I remind her of when Bloom last mentioned that algebra thing?”
“Oh bitch no, we agreed to leave that algy-shit where it lay” Stella bolted upright and slammed her hands on the game board, failing to stop the laughter in her voice. Flora shook on the beanbag in peels of laughter.
“Stel, I promise, I won’t make you do any maths in this game.” Bloom plumped down on the floor next to the still-indignant princess, and knelt up on her haunches to arrange the board. “This is called ‘Scrabble’ - you make words with the letter tiles you pick out from the bag, and you get points by placing them down on the coloured squares. It’s just got to be a word from the dictionary.”
Techna held up the glossy paper from the box “It says here that your word can’t be a name or slang or -” She broke off into a chuckle, looking up to see Bloom’s blank and deadpan expression light up with a hint of desperation. “Which are rules we’ll be ignoring, then?”
Flora relapsed into giggles at the fervent nodding that followed.
"When you get the bag, pick out 7 of the tiles and pass on the bag. we good so far?"
Bloom was met with various affirmations, and a sarcastic quip from Musa on the dictionary definition of good as she arranged the word ‘anise’ on the board.
Stella glared at the tiles before her eyes light up, and she scrambled back into a sitting position, wiggling in anticipation.
Aisha grinned and rolled her eyes “Good dragons, Stell, just take the turn.”
Stella leaned forward and placed her handful of letters down, flinging herself back to her cushion in triumph.
Musa had already started cackling with glee as the other girls leaned in to read the word, a range of consternation to delight on the friend’s faces.
“I feel like there’s something very important that I’m missing” Bloom said, all humour and mock apprehension.
Stella grinned and whispered in her friend’s ear.
Bloom’s expression sent the girls into brash laughter that filled their little dormitory room to the top with light and, for a while, the future battles were as far from them as the moon was to the lake.
---
7.
“You have your palm slammed into the self-destruct button, Bloom, and you can’t stop pushing it. I told you this would come to a head; are now here we are. Have you really the gall to grieve for the wizard, or just your own loss of innocence? What in Dragon’s name is going on with you, girl?” The woman said with the air of expected finality, slamming her palms into the hardwood desk.
Bloom strongly desired to set every last atomic structure of the headmistress’ office alight, using only her middle finger as a magical trigger.
She made the mental note to look up spontaneous combustion in the library again.
She looked at the wide windows behind her teacher, and wondered how much time it would take to heat the glass before it shattered into sand.
Her thoughts were cleaved by a shrill question she just managed to grab before it left her head.
“Answer me, you impertinent child.”
Bloom flicked her gaze onto the headmistress, to her clenched hands and flyaway hair, and let her gaze trail past to the thick glass panes, then further through to the rippling shield of energy that split the road to the school building in half, then out and up and higher and further and further and finally free into the morning air rising chilled from the forest floor, where she had left the ashes of the monster’s corpse to rest in the dirt.
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