"To the victor go the spoils" –William L. Marcy, 1832
"OMG! You're Bloom, from the Winx Club! I can't believe it's really you!"
Not this again…
The temptation to roll her eyes is great, but instead Bloom steels herself and turns around to see a petite young girl with honey-gold curls and big blue eyes staring expectantly at her. "It's really me," she says, hoping to strike the right balance of grace and modesty. "Hello. What's your name?"
The girl looks like she's about to hyperventilate. "K-Kayla," she stutters out, practically throwing out her hand to shake the one that Bloom extends as courtesy. Two seconds later, she yelps in pain; the textbooks she was holding have fallen onto her toes, forgotten in her haste to shake hands with her idol.
"Here, let me help you with that." Kayla's eyes light up as the redhead bends over and starts to retrieve some of the fallen tomes.
"Thank you so much," the younger girl gushes. "I'm such a spaz, it's ridiculous. My dad always used to say it was a good thing my head's attached to my shoulders." She giggles self-consciously, and Bloom smiles tightly, trying not to think about all the things she could and should be doing now, instead of listening to this girl ramble.
However much she wishes otherwise, though, encounters like this one have become a part of her daily life now. Their escapades over the past few years had made them something of minor celebrities at Alfea, and there was never any shortage of squealing freshmen wanting to congratulate them on their feats or hear stories or – and Bloom got a real kick out of this one – get autographs signed. Some of her friends (ahem, Stella) reveled in the attention, but personally, Bloom longed for the comfort of anonymity again. There was certainly something to be said for being able to walk through the halls without everyone knowing your name, your story, wanting to thank you for defending them from evil; and like most things in life, she hadn't realized just how much she'd taken it for granted it until it was no longer there.
But something about this particular girl softens her steely anti-fangirl exterior. "Are you a freshman?" she asks, beckoning Kayla over towards a bench nearby. The blond teeters slightly, looking like she might faint, but then quickly regains her composure and perches on the other end of the bench.
"No, I'm a sophomore." Kayla hesitates, then asks, "Can I tell you something?"
Bemused, she answers, "Of course."
"I remember watching you last year. When Baltor attacked the school, you didn't hesitate for a second to jump into battle. And then when Ms F went missing, you immediately led the search party for her, even marched right into Cloud Tower regardless of the danger. All six of you were brave, but you…" She blushes. "I thought you were incredible. Fearless. When I found out you were teaching a class here, I nearly passed out. You're my inspiration, my role model of the kind of fairy I want to be when I'm older." As if finally realizing the depth of her hero-worship speech, Kayla averts her eyes and adds in a small voice, "I-I'm sorry to go on like that."
"It's alright," Bloom says automatically, trying not to feel the pang in her heart at Kayla's words. The girl couldn't have had any idea, after all. Even her friends don't know why thinking of last year makes her inexplicably sad.
Kayla's face breaks into a smile, her eyes practically sparkling. "What was it like, facing Baltor?" she asks, leaning in close. Her earlier self-consciousness seems a thing of the past. "I only saw glimpses of him a couple times, but even those were enough to make me basically wet my pants; he was so intimidating. You really never got scared?"
Her heart clenches. Of course, she wants to talk about this. "It really wasn't that big of a deal…" she starts, trying to play it off.
"How did you deal with the fact that he was responsible for what happened to your planet and your parents? You always seemed so composed, but did you ever want to just explode? What about when all the parents thought you were in league with him after the Millennium Ball and tried to get you kicked out?" Kayla's lips keep moving – keep spewing questions at lightning speed – but all Bloom can hear is the sound of her heartbeat, loud and fast in her eardrums, until she thinks she really might explode.
"I have to go," she blurts out of the blue, jumping to her feet. Kayla looks crestfallen. "I'm sorry, I just… forgot I had a meeting right now. With another student. For my class." She's grasping at straws here, anything to make this pretty sophomore feel better. Because it's not at all her fault that this conversation is making her ten different kinds of uncomfortable. "I'm really sorry," she says again.
"No, I totally understand." Kayla's smile is so wide, so trusting, so eager to please that it almost hurts Bloom to look at it. It makes her feel dirty, undeserving of this younger girl's admiration and idolatry.
Because the girl Kayla thinks she wants to be isn't real. And the real Bloom is no one any underclassman would aspire to become.
After all, she thinks to herself, walking briskly away from Kayla in the direction of the wing where her classroom is, wanting to somewhat alleviate the sick feeling in her chest at the lie, real heroines don't have affairs with the bad guy.
She hates the way it sounds to say that; detached, almost emotionless, when the reality was anything but. I had an affair. It makes her chest tighten.
Bad enough that she'd cheated on Sky, who somehow remained entirely ignorant of his girlfriend's indiscretions – fiance, she reminds herself, thinking of the diamond ring lying in her jewelry box that she can never quite bring herself to wear. She'd never wanted to hurt him, which was a large part of why she accepted said ring even though the idea of marrying Sky seems as appealing as one of Ms Griselda's infamous magic-free punishments. But what makes her offense ten times greater in the eyes of the rest of the magical dimension is who she chose as her partner in crime.
It doesn't even make sense on paper. The Princess and the Criminal? Sounds like a fairytale gone awry. There was no way a couple like that could actually exist outside of the plot of a stupid romance novel.
And yet here she is, mourning while the rest of Magix is celebrating.
Four months have passed and it still feels like a knife to the chest, the pain fresh and hot and sharp every time she thinks about what she's lost, what she's done. Some nights she wakes up, heart hammering against her chest, and cries for hours, incredibly realistic dreams fresh in her mind like the worst kind of torture. She's losing her appetite, clothes that used to fit perfectly now hanging loosely off her figure, and the dark circles under her eyes are now permanent fixtures, startling against the paleness of her skin in a way that's becoming harder and harder to disguise.
If she could, would she trade the wonderful memories she had, for the ability to relieve herself of the crushing guilt and loss? Wave a magic wand over her head, do some spell, wipe the slate clean; no more pain and memory, but no more happiness and love as well?
Because it had been love, she knows. Even if neither of them ever said the words out loud, what they'd shared was so much more than just some trivial fling or 'scratching an itch'.
And that makes what she did so much worse – that she killed the man she loved.
She's never felt less like a hero in her life, and yet now she's being extolled as one. The constant veneration of the underclassmen only serves to make her feel worse about herself, and the other girls have definitely started to notice the change in their once-bubbly redheaded best friend. But how is she supposed to tell them the truth at this point?
Bloom sighs, staring up into the sky. It might be masochistic, but that's life – you have to take the good with the bad. And the good was worth all this, she reminds herself. She'd never felt more beautiful, more loved, than when she was in Baltor's arms, no matter how long it lasted.
Still, it's not healthy to keep going on like this. There's definitely a line between not forgetting and letting it consume you, and she's balanced precariously on the edge. She'd had high hopes that teaching would take her mind off of it, but that only backfired spectacularly.
And if something doesn't change soon, there is a very real possibility that she will break irreparably.
Author's Note: So I've had this idea for a while, ever since I saw the first episode of Season 4 (which, by the way, I have way too many complaints about to even get into, so I'm just not going to touch that) with all the freshmen squealing over the Winx. I'd never thought of doing an after-the-fact type fic before, and this was surprisingly harder to write than I thought it would be. (I don't even want to think about how long it took to write, even though it ended up being pretty short.)
Thoughts? Please, don't be shy - drop me a line or two. Pretty please?
That's all for now, folks!
- Authoress