~Chapter 8: Stakeout Behaviour and Dim Promises~

The word normal prickled Darcy's intellect. The things and manners of living considered ordinary always fascinated her.

She shadowed the walls of the palace, noting the changing of the guard. The replacement numbers were greater than that of the current forces out on patrol.

Continuing to bolster the defending forces around the most outer part of the palace perimeters. A most definite show of force.

The same thing was also happening at Eraklyon. Had been for the last few days, she'd been going between both places for some time. Hoping to find some kind of weakness wherein she could slip completely unnoticed. Meanwhile, on both planets, everybody just kept on living like it was supposed to happen.

As though the increased mobilization of military strength was a completely average phenomenon in existence.

Except it wasn't average, or normal. What was happening? She clearly was missing something. It was hair-tearing infuriating.

Well it would be if she were not so…tired.

It was that sense which had been eating away at her for the last year or two. Despite her current situation, the feelings that she had with her sisters had not dissipated, they had become worse. The ones that made her itchy to get away; the sense of futility, of restlessness.

She wasn't doing enough, and at the same time, she didn't feel like she could anything at all.

Like an incurable disease.

It drove her to sleep.


Caught in the whirlpool of blackness. Caught in the sorrowing, accidental and deliberate misfortune.

The black birds thrashed about. Breaking and being broken. Flying against their hopelessness. An inescapable, dizzying vacuum.

Then it broke, like a cracked egg with its content seeping, through to the unaware lit world. So far from home.

But still the rent and looped ending did not end. And so the black birds flew thus so recklessly.

The black birds, gods of death and despair. Crying, screaming.

Circling, causing havoc and mayhem as they invaded. Everyone panicking, running, in utter confusion.

And in the blackened chaos, there was a small girl. A small girl who stood against the blackness.

The greatest of the black birds fell in front of her…


Darcy's eyes opened to the darkening world.

It was already well into the afternoon when she had begun stalking the perimeters of the palace of Sparks. And now the world was preparing to commit itself to a restful and temporary slumber.

If she didn't know any better as she observed the gentle scene, she would have described it as cute.

The perks of having a witch's sarcasm. Of course she hated cute.

But there was nothing else she could observe here, or do. It was boring now.

She moved away, from the hiding place she had made for herself near the palace walls, to a more inconspicuous place to vanish away, and she thought…

Almost instinctively, she looked up into the sky; a few birds were still flying high. But in the fading day rolling onto night, they looked quite black.

She was getting old.


Meanwhile in Gardenia…

"You shouldn't have been so nice to her." Mike said from behind his newspaper.

Vanessa paused washing the dishes. "Are we really going to talk about that, at this time in the morning? Honestly."

"I'm just saying, you could be giving her ideas about us."

"Like what? What's the worst that could happen to us? A few years ago, you never questioned this sort of thing at all." she snorted, opening the tap again.

"The world was in a completely different context a few years ago!" Mike raised his voice, as if to make a point.

His wife just shook her head. "Good grief."

"Well, ever since you demanded she display some sense of responsibility," he continued sarcastically "as if witches have any sense of responsibility, she keeps on checking in on us. And I'm just supposed to feel like it's normal that a killer crone is coming and going to and from my house!"

"Mike, the last time she 'checked in', was talking to us after the nightmare of those two Sparks men! Seeing her sneaking around Gardenia does not count!" she moaned, very vexed.

"Hmmm. I suppose you have a point there." Mike considered as he flipped a page.

"And why do you have to keep on buying newspapers? You're on your phone every other moment of your free time. You can check the news on that!" she then continued, quite happy to change the subject.

"Oh, I know! She's trying to gain our trust, and then stab us in the back when we least expect it! And all that running around Gardenia, she's probably putting a great hex on us all, so whatever dastardly plans she has don't backfire!" he said, quite excitedly ignoring her last statement.

Vanessa dropped the plate she was scrubbing in the sink, and looked at him. "Why are you becoming such a conspiracy theorist?" she complained. "When you met her all those years ago, before you knew she was a witch, you had absolutely nothing to say about her!"

"That was because I assumed she was like all those other people Bloom had to work with!" he retorted. "Not to mention Bloom just acted like she was a good workmate. And she never really said anything to us, so I wasn't interested to know. But then all of this fantasy nonsense happened, and being around those fairy friends Bloom made taught me one thing about magic…"

"And what was that?"

"You can judge a book by its cover! There is good, light, pretty magic. And then there's dark, evil, ugly magic. Fairies like to save things and help people. Then witches like to make living a hell, and have a tendency to kill. The end."

"You have got to be joking." Vanessa rubbed her face with the palm of her hand. "I don't know things Mike, but Bloom never talked about magic as if it was that simple. The intentions of the person using such powers also come into play, and I don't have to be a magician to know that."

"If you know that much, why are you so soft on her!"

"I am not soft on her! She hasn't done anything to us Mike, and–"

"Using us as bait to lure Bloom in and steal her magic wasn't doing anything to us?!" he yelled unbelieving. "The fact she did that, and that we don't know the first thing about her!"

"We didn't know anything about Bloom properly for years. We still don't, and look what happened!" she snapped back agitatedly.

Mike glared at her. "Don't you even compare. They're nothing alike!"

"Ugh! Honestly, don't make this a bigger, more awkward headache than it needs to be!"

Mike didn't drop his paper, but his stare became unrelenting.

"She beat Bloom in front of us, and then did nothing as she was iced to our wall. Just to sate her psycho sister's evil mastermind plans! Maybe even hers! And that is completely fine with you, is it?"

"No, I'm just saying that–"

"You saw and heard everything that happened eight years ago! She didn't even flinch as they ripped that magical stuff out of Bloom. Didn't you hear how she screamed like she was dying! And she was even laughing!"

"MIKE! J-j-just stop!" she shouted.

His expression stiffened as she yelled at him. The tone was incredibly desperate. He stopped dead in his tracks. The two people looked at each other for a few moments, and then resumed their previous activities in silence.

"I…" Mike sighed. "I'm sorry."

By that time Vanessa had already finished cleaning up. She was wiping her hands with a tea towel. "Oh Mike, we're getting on in years. I mean, I never thought we'd actually have such normal conversations like this."

The fireman finally put his paper down. "Vanessa, talking about killer witches and hexes is not normal."

"Don't be so insensitive Mike! You know exactly what I mean! Just don't."

No. He didn't want to see her like this again. He started getting up from his chair. "Vanessa." he began.

"Don't you remember when we couldn't even conceive what it meant to be normal?" her eyes began watering. "It was worlds away from the lives we had. And I never thought, never dreamed. You having an actual job, and that we'd settle down, a-an-and actually be parents."

"Shhh. Don't…don't cry over that honey." and he was by her side holding her. "It's already happened. It's already over."

"No it's not!" she began weeping openly. "I should have never let her go to Magix! I shouldn't have! She shouldn't have–"

"If she didn't, she wouldn't have saved all of those people. Look at all the good she's been able to do, beyond this place." Mike pointed out.

"And what's happening now? We don't hear anything from her! I just know she's in some kind of trouble. She always is. But this is a different kind of trouble…I-I don't know how to explain it."

He didn't know what to say. Again. It was all coming back to the way it was. And yet it wasn't. Mike breathed deeply. He and Vanessa were hardly anything extraordinary. Lucky maybe, but nothing past common.

Yet Bloom was so far beyond that.

Was she really their responsibility anymore? Was she ever theirs from the very beginning?

Maybe, it never should come to that.

"Did you ever think of how we were going to tell them? Of what actually happened." he said.

Vanessa sobered up a little. "Well, of course. At first, it seemed simple enough. They seemed simple enough, but they…I hoped that since being Bloom's actual parents, maybe they'd be better than the standard gentle royal couple. But…no I don't think they'll ever really know. They shouldn't know."

Mike looked at her, he could feel his wife was trying to go somewhere with what she was saying. "Vanessa?"

She nestled her head on his chest. "I-It was never as though I felt like I could direct the course of her life, or protect her. But as she and I grew older, I can't imagine my world without her anymore."

"Honey…"

"Mike, I…some days I just get this feeling."

"No, Vanessa."

"Sometimes I feel like she will never come back. I will never see her again." she said.

The silence was so loud. So dead and loud.

She stopped hugging him, and took him by the hands. His weathered hands, so worn at the wrist, she started tracing her fingers on the imprints. They had both come too far.

"Are you going to be okay?" he started saying.

She said nothing.

"Do you want me to take the day off? Help you with the shop maybe?" he asked.

"No." she sniffed turning away. "It's my day off remember? I'll just be at home. I'll be fine. I just need some quiet."

"Oh, okay." her way of saying she just wanted to be alone.

Mike got his things; he was probably already running late for work. But that didn't seem to matter at all. He didn't look around or try to speak. "Just get out of the house. Just go." he thought to himself.

He hurried outside. And took a few steps. No. She needed to know he would be back. He turned and saw his wife in the doorway.

"Bye."

"Bye."


Later that day…

She'd busied herself all day with doing little odd jobs around the house, reading a few out-dated magazines, even watching some mediocre television programme.

Vanessa decided it was time to take a walk. Just for the sake of it.

By this time it was 3 in the afternoon, as she made her meandering way to Gardenia's central park.

It was still school time; so she didn't expect to see any children running around. She found the odd couple here and there though. Mostly adolescents. Just going about their business, without any knowledge of the forces at play over their world and others. Nor was their desire needed.

Not even a decade ago the carefree youths were scarce. Even more so that these people actually had peace-ridden futures just waiting to happen. Just like her. Sometimes she couldn't help but marvel at the things that could change in such a span of time.

And yet the days were so long.

She almost smiled a little at the thought. Sometimes it was good to not be out of place.

But she wished that…

That's when she saw her sitting cross-legged by the pond. Strands of her brown hair flying in the air, looking absolutely inconspicuous, shed of that super-villain outfit. Engrossed with an object she appeared to be cleaning.

Vanessa sat on a bench near the pond, her eyes kept warily on the busied figure. She could be casting a hex for all she knew. Good grief, why should she care? It was not as though she could do anything about it. She sighed exasperatedly, magical things bothered her too much. It was never that she really trusted anyone that could as much wield a gun or a weapon with any kind. Or any stranger. She had never asked for reasons or logic with all the happenings she had lived though. Except the magical ones.

Beggars couldn't be choosers, she always used to tell herself. But maybe they could with magic…

The only reason she had come to think that way was because, all of the immensely magical creatures she had met since Stella were so, paper-cut. She almost felt she could be excused for being judgemental. What you saw was what you got. It was a ridiculously sound formula when it came to fairies, just as much as witches. There was too little evidence to the contrary. The only witches she had come into contact with were ones that hurt Bloom, and toyed too happily with those close to her. Such as this one. She hadn't really seen her do anything else.

Was this one really supposed to be an exception to such a rule? Magic appeared to have numerous rules, far removed from basic reality. And magic never wrong about itself. It seemed.

That was when Vanessa thought back to Bloom's first couple of years at Alfea. She had mentioned something about a witch school in Magix. As always she was excited about it, curious even. Yet, when the days wore on, the more she talked of their kind, the more…disappointed she was. Soon she mentioned less in detail the magic places beyond the Earth. Then nothing.

She looked at the average scene about her once more, and the so called witch who kept herself within it. And that was when she let the small doubt playing in her mind, be realised. That was when Vanessa decided the pre-conceptions she had made and was given, of the magical places beyond the earthy confines she lived in, was nothing but a painted distraction.

It just had to be.

She walked up near the edge of the pond. She knew the woman heard her approaching.

"Things must be interesting for you to come out of your shell, into the open air." she remarked with no qualms and no exchanged glances.

"And what would draw you out as well? Small metal things?" she returned.

"Nothing. It's just a small trinket…" Darcy's voice faltered. Vanessa watched the woman's expression turn distant. It was almost as though the object incited some kind of forlorn memory.

Did witches have feelings like that? Could they actually feel sad, after making other people's lives so miserable?

No. Enough of acting as if real rules didn't exist. She could afford to be blunt.

"You should know I've never trusted you. Mike's only really vocal about it but…"

"I wouldn't want you to. You never should."

She ignored that. "We're only talking to you like this because you know things. And been places where we couldn't have been. But if you ever hurt Bloom, like really hurt her…"

Darcy turned and looked at her, with strange unassuming composure.

"I'm not powerful enough to make you either suffer or pay for it, but you should know," Vanessa stared right down her eyes. "You will go on unforgiven, and I hope you carry the weight of it for the rest of your life."

The ordinary things and daily routines that always fascinated her.