Sunlight Halation: I felt like the last name thing was kind of necessary since it seems really odd not for everyone to know everyone by just their names, even when it would have been more appropriate to be using last names. It gives the girls a more approachable feeling, sure, but it lacks realism, like, how do they know family? I've got different plans for Harmony, actually, but she'll have to come to terms with witchiness sometime. Since you asked, I included the segment at the end of the chapter which gives us all the last names of the girls. The names of the others will have to wait for another time.
Edit: 11/11/2018. Edited a mistake in Maho's last name, then edited again for formatting.
Enjoy the story.
After that eventful afternoon, Raven found dinner to be an almost peaceful affair. Well, as peaceful as it could get with the slight animosity between her and the petite girl on her high horse that didn't like her much at all. That suited the strawberry blonde just fine, though — the feeling was more than mutual from her too. Despite that, it was almost strange to witness the private dining room of the Eraklyonian royal family — which she found herself being forcefully dragged to more often than not when those two people found it prudent to bring her there — filled with people, the round oak table that normally just seated three magically elongated into an oblong shape to seat all eighteen people present, even if some didn't want to be present.
The six members of the Winx Club and their husbands sat together at one end of the long table, the king and queen of Eraklyon at the head of the table and leading a glad conversation about something political or other between the twelve over their meal. On the other end of the table were the six daughters of the famous fairies, having unconsciously arranged themselves in a manner so that they each faced someone else and none had taken the other end of the table. In stark contrast to their parents, the six, almost near strangers that had lived through a hectic day together, were eating silently as they stared at each other.
The atmosphere that hung around the girls' end of the table was almost stifling in the tension that had formed between them. Even so, no one spoke up to break the pregnant silence that hung around the six even when their parents were merrily talking away at the other end of the table. It was clearly making some of them uncomfortable, though, if Lilliana's anxious shifting and ducking her head, as well as Tiara's mute staring around the table indicated anything.
"I think I've had enough of this atmosphere," Naida finally said, the dark-skinned girl seated on Lilliana's right and opposite the Solarian princess. The declaration got Raven's attention well enough as the Androsi princess gently nudged her empty plate away from in front of her. Her voice was kept relatively gentle, but it was enough to draw attention from the other five girls while still being quiet enough to avoid alarming the adults. "The silence is killing me, girls," Naida pushed gently, "for the Dragon's sake, talk. Things won't get any worse if you do."
Yeah? Well, things won't get any better either. Raven placed down her fork, no longer having much of an appetite for the Earth food that had been prepared for dinner. "Hmm."
Lilliana, seated between Raven and Naida, looked up from a mouthful of spaghetti, hastily putting down her fork. She swallowed down her current mouthful, almost bashfully asking, "But isn't that considered bad manners?" The tanned girl blushed a little when every single one of the five girls turned their gazes — all various shades of blue — onto her. "Sorry," she squeaked out, her dark blue hair hanging in her face again as she ducked her head, turning back to her food meekly.
Maho delicately pushed her own empty plate away from in front of her and the silver-haired girl, seated next to Tiara, wiped the corners of her lips with a napkin. "Well, if we're all done, I can go ahead and ask our parents if it would be alright for us all to explore the castle, seeing as we wouldn't want to disrupt their dinner for a tour and we would be otherwise bored." The silver-haired princess looked down the table at the other girls expectantly for their approval of her idea.
There was a short series of nods from Tiara and Harmony on the latter's other side, as well as from Naida and Lilliana. Even Raven found herself nodding somewhat reluctantly — she supposed that she would rather spend her time with the group of girls and have that animosity dealt with than be stuck with the two people that had been responsible for destroying her life.
"Lovely," Maho commented with a smile that looked just too proper. "You might all want to finish up the rest of your food if you still feel hungry, then." She pulled out her sunglasses from where they were tucked in her pocket and placed them on her head, perching the silver-rimmed glasses with a practised move of her hands. It was a peculiar habit to have, Raven noted, especially since it was night already and not still daylight hours. "This shouldn't take longer than a few minutes, so wait for my good news." She stood from the table gracefully, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she walked from the end of the table to the head, where her mother was seated beside the redheaded queen of Eraklyon.
Raven sighed shortly, pushing aside her half-finished plate of rice — she doubted her appetite would return that night, and it wasn't like this was new for her either. Her refusal to remotely act civil with the king and queen had left her locked in her own room more than once, after all, and she wasn't denying that that was her fault and hers alone. She pursed her lips together thinly and tried to pull her hair aside from her face. The strawberry blonde locks were held back from the right side of her face with a bobby pin, still kind of wet from her shower earlier, and as much as she preferred keeping her bangs down, wet hair was not pleasant to have in her face.
She'd been told before by her adoptive parents — her real parents to her — that the right side of her face was her tell, being the brow she arched when questioning, the eye she squinted at when focusing and so on. It was a big part of why she liked keeping it hidden — no one could read her with half her face and half her expression hidden.
"That was quick," Tiara piped up as she snuck one last piece of fruit from Harmony's salad, the brunette seeing the Solarian princess return to the group from the head of the table already. "Good news, then?" she asked the Fairy of the Moon hopefully, her cyan eyes peering at the older girl with a slight squint, only to have Maho flip her shoulder-length hair with a victorious smirk — at least, that was what it looked like with her sunglasses on.
Raven took it as the fairy asking if the girls were ready to go, only moments before the silver-haired girl actually asked. "As ready as I'll never be," the strawberry blonde uttered sarcastically as she got up from her seat, itching to remove the metal hairpin that was keeping half of her face from being covered — her hair was going to take the shape of the pin if she kept it up for long enough. Following behind Lilliana, who had just managed to finish her food, the Eraklyonian girl joined the rest of the girls as they left the dining room into a hallway inside the family wing of Eraklyon's palace.
The private family wing was secluded away from all the other areas of the palace, guarded by a security detail that answered to only the royal family, first and foremost to the king and queen. The wing was not too large, but the opulence about the whole thing was undeniable, especially when one saw the marble statues, tapestries woven in fibres of precious metals, and the gold leaf that gilded pillars and arches. Raven found it ostentatious and ridiculously extravagant, but it wasn't like she cared to speak to anyone about it, much less deal with it herself. That was pretty much like the rest of her problems with the palace, she dimly recognized, but then again, she didn't have people to complain to either.
"Well, you're the host," Tiara piped up when all the girls were outside the dining room and in the hallway. "Take us on the official tour?" the brunette said, smiling brightly at the blonde despite her magenta-haired best friend's indignant look.
"You're out of luck. I'm just as much of a stranger here as you are," the strawberry blonde informed dully, turning to walk down the hall with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jeans. The ruling family lived on both Domino and Eraklyon frequently, but even though the king and queen would go from one kingdom to the other on a regular basis, Raven had found herself inexplicably drawn to the palace of Domino. Perhaps it was the fact that it was quieter — only a dead aunt in a lake who would actually care more than just a superficial amount for her person, after all — in comparison to the busyness of Erakylon, where most of the king and queen's political business was conducted.
But aside from all that, she still felt an odd little pull towards the Palace of Domino for a reason she couldn't place.
"Come— me — search for— find me."
Raven stilled in her tracks halfway out of the hallway to the exit, causing a chain reaction as first Naida, then Lilliana crashed straight into her back. The strawberry blonde staggered forward to keep herself on her feet, but she still scanned her surroundings warily as she shot an annoyed glare at the two. Was she the only one who had heard the voice? It seemed as much, as no one else made any indication that they had heard anything. The girl frowned, bracing a hand on her head gently with a grimace. Was she hallucinating?
"Find me— come to— bearer— my flame!"
The booming roar of the voice, a low and husky male tone, startled Ravne enough that she physically jumped, turning around with her eyes wide in paranoia. "Where are you?" she yelled, ignoring the concerned looks she was getting from most of the other girls for her sudden outburst. "Come out and face me, coward!" Her hands clenched tightly into fists as she tried to look for the person that had been trying to speak to her.
"Who are you talking to?" Harmony snapped, waving her hands in the air as the petite girl suddenly appeared up and in Raven's face — no easy feat as she was nearly an entire head shorter. Her pale hands were gripping the front of Raven's black jacket to pull her down slightly so the angry glare would be easier to deliver. "No one's here! Or are you going insane?" She snapped her fingers in front of the taller girl's eyes for extra emphasis, gesturing down the empty hall. "Take another look!"
"Come to me..."
A faint whisper reached Raven's ears, but the strawberry blonde couldn't tell if it was real or just a figment of her imagination as the other girls seemed to think it was. She inhaled sharply and took a step back from Harmony after roughly yanking her jacket free from the petite girl's grip, resisting the urge to bury her own face in her hands and declare herself a mental case. "I'm hearing things," she grumbled to herself, pulling her pin out of her hair and letting her fringe fall free over her eye. "It's nothing... it's nothing."
She wasn't sure if that was just her trying to be comforting this time.
"Are you alright, Raven?" Lilliana asked softly, a hand resting on the strawberry blonde's shoulder, making the girl in question grimace and flinch away. The blue-haired girl withdrew her hand with a quick and soft apology, proceeding to step away from Raven.
"I'm fine," Raven said quietly, zipping up her open black jacket fully. She jabbed the pin into her sleeve to keep it safe and ran a hand through her bangs to push her hair back in front of the right half of her face. Her lips pursed into a thin line. "It's nothing... but thanks for caring, anyway," she added in a soft voice, the faintest indication of a smile present on her face.
Even as Raven continued to walk, leading the girls out of the private wing and into the empty gardens that were positioned to the side of the royal wing — somewhere outside and a place where she was sure that she could think clearly — she couldn't shake a feeling of deep unease that had settled over her. A burning question blazed through her mind, going unanswered for the rest of her night, no matter how hard she was thinking.
Who was that voice?
The adults' dinner had carried on for quite a while, so when they were finally done and walking out of the palace to collect the six girls, the night sky was a deep velvety blue and the stars were out, blanketing the night sky and twinkling innocently in the moonless sky. The girls had ended up getting closer together towards the entrance of the gardens as the night chill settled over the gardens, seated together on the three benches at the gardens to draw some more heat, though they were choosing to sit with some distance between them nevertheless.
Harmony yawned a little, seated back to back with Tiara as the two girls used their backs to keep them up, for they were both getting rather tired. Seated towards the rightmost side of the entrance, the magenta-haired girl beamed as she pointed to a set of stars high above them. "That's Einer!" she said about the constellation, her navy eyes bright. "Pretty, huh, Tia?" she asked with a mildly sleepy grin. "I know that Zenith doesn't have much in the way of stars, but Melody has lots of them. You really should come to visit me sometime."
"I'm sure we can get that arranged, girls." Uncle Timmy chuckled as his voice came up from behind the girls, startling the two enough for them to stumble a little off the bench. The brunette man smiled at them, adjusting his orange-framed glasses that were just a few shades brighter than the hair that Tiara had inherited from him. "But right now, it's time to go home for all of us."
"Aww," Tiara groaned, huffing as she turned around to see him. "But dad..."
"No 'but's today, Tiara," Harmony's own mother said with a gentle laugh as she strolled up, arm-in-arm with Aunt Tecna. The Melodese queen smiled gently as the two Winx Club fairies walked over to their respective children. "It's getting late, Harmony," she said gently, handing over a red and magenta jacket that Harmony recognized as belonging to her father. "It's a long trip back to Melody and you still have school tomorrow."
Or what passed as school for the commoner girl-turned-princess, anyway. Private tutors and lessons with the Melodese nobility were as close to normal schooling as far as the lords and ladies of her parents' court were concerned, and while her parents had initially wanted to just put her in a public school like they'd both been to before they went to Magix, they had been later convinced otherwise for her safety as the heir to the throne. Luckily for Harmony, her private tutor Miss Blair was in her early twenties and was really nice, always willing to help her out with her 'projects'.
"Alright," Harmony grumbled, taking the proffered jacket with a small smile of gratitude and putting it on, sighing in relief at the warmth it was providing her. "Thanks, mum. Do we really have to go so soon?" she asked, frowning as she puffed out her cheeks in indignation.
"Afraid so," Aunt Tecna said emphatically, "but I'm sure we can get at least a few visits arranged before summer's over, right, Musa?" The pink-haired woman smiled at her best friend, a similar glint in her eyes that Harmony could recall always seeing in Tiara's identical cyan eyes when they were younger, right before the two of them caused a major scene of chaos.
The girls had grown out of the pranking phase when they finally hit ten, so their parents said, but Harmony, on the other hand, wasn't so convinced. She was still pranking people, just setting them up herself.
Despite how little the magenta-haired girl wanted to leave, her mother did have a point, unfortunately enough. Plus, she privately added in her mind, her father got seriously cranky when he didn't clock in his full six hours of sleep each night, and even when he did, he wasn't a morning person in the slightest. The palace had even installed a coffee machine right outside the royal suite just to curb his grumblings in the morning. So, as reluctant as she was, Harmony let her mother usher her out of the gardens towards the courtyard.
Maho and Raven were standing in the centre of the courtyard near a marble fountain when she arrived, and a quick look from the oldest of the six daughters of the Winx slowed Harmony down in her tracks for long enough that Raven could reach out and pull her towards them. The actions proceeded to repeat for Tiara as the brunette walked past them with her mother, and Lilliana and Naida joined them to make six soon, though this time without a need to be pulled into the group.
For a moment, no one said anything as the six daughters of the Winx Club stared at each other in silence, silent, grim expressions unfurling on each of their faces. The tension that hung over them was thick and oppressive as the six girls glanced among each other, and finally, after what seemed like forever, Maho spoke up, shattering the silence.
"Someone's after us, girls," the Solarian princess stated bluntly, earning subtle expressions of surprise from the five other girls.
Somehow, it remained just subtle — none of them was shocked. As the children of the six most powerful fairies in existence, heirs to a great legacy of heroism and apparently bearers of some kind of immense power stemming back to the creation of the entire Magix Dimension. If someone wasn't targeting them at some point — be it the enemies of their parents looking for easy revenge or people trying to extricate their powers — then something was wrong, even if it felt like a leap in logic to come to that conclusion after just one attack.
"Then what are we going to do about it?" Harmony asked, the petite girl bracing her hands on her hips. "We're just kids, you know. Most of us aren't even fairies yet—" and some of them might never be if they were going to continue at this rate, "— and we're in hot water! We should be leaving this to our parents. They'll know what to do, right?"
Raven folded her arms over her chest, a frown on her face as usual. "What happens if they can't resolve it, then?" She tossed her head, pushing her bangs out of the way so both her eyes were in full view, the blue irises deeply narrowed. "If Maho is right, and I do have a feeling that she is, then this matter is likely political in nature. Remember this afternoon? If it was something Whisperia did, making a wrong move would mean trouble."
"War, at the very worst," Naida couldn't help adding in a low tone, a grim look on her face.
Raven hummed, nodding briskly. "A false accusation would be even worse. That means that this has to be dealt with delicately and in some other way."
"By us?" Tiara voiced warily, her brow pinching together with a frown on her face. "Is that right? But Harmy has a point. We're just kids... What can we really do in this case?" Her body language gave away her uncertainty. The shifting of her feet and lowering of her head said more than enough. but the older girls didn't seem to share that sentiment.
"Yeah, we may be kids, but we're only two years away from being fairies, right?" Naida asked, pursing her full lips together in thought. The dark-skinned girl looked more confident in their abilities than any of the girls themselves had been. "Our mothers were saving the world at sixteen, you know. Two years away from us at most and one or less for us at the least. I guess you could say we're kind already qualified to save our own behinds. A little investigative work never hurt anyone."
Lilliana sighed softly, lowering her head. "Well..." she breathed softly in her quiet voice, "maybe starting all over is a good idea. Let's not have today colour our perceptions of each other, alright? If we want to do this, we need to learn to work together, as friends and a team. We can't let prejudices slow us down and make us fight among ourselves." Her suggestion hung in the air, but no one said anything in protest.
Maho smiled, raising her sunglasses — which she was still wearing, even as late as it was — from her sapphire blue eyes as she tossed her silver hair over her shoulders. She extended a hand gracefully into the centre of the circle the six girls had fallen into while speaking, the palm faced down to the ground. "I am Maho Celeste Solaria," she introduced firmly and formally, but it didn't carry the weight of an official introduction, as she had clearly dropped her title.
"Naida Andros," the Androsi princess joined in with a beaming expression. Her bright blue eyes twinkled as Naida placed her hand into the circle, just above Maho's own, and with her other hand, she smoothed her wavy bangs out from her eyes. Her contented expression mirrored the smirk Maho was wearing very confidently.
"My name's Tiara Zenith-Digit," Tiara added to the chain of re-introductions, the brunette running a hand through her fiery hair as she too placed her hand in the pile, over Naida's and Maho's hands. Her best friend glanced over at Harmony with a gentle smile, urging the petite girl to do as she did and make nice with everyone else.
"I'm Lilliana Lisandre," the tanned girl said softly, hesitating only a moment to push her pastel blue bangs out of her green eyes and back into her deep blue hair before she too let her hand fall into the pile. Her smile was soft, but it was clear that she was glad they were taking her suggestion to heart and that everyone was willing to let the events of the day between them, misgivings and all, go.
Harmony hesitated, but there was something about it that pushed her to join in, and she did. "The name's Harmony Melody-Song," she announced cleanly, smoothing a hand through her low magenta pigtails as she pressed her other down palm flat onto the pile, a confident smile on her face despite her worries that this could possibly go terribly south. She glanced over at Raven with a questioning raise of the brow.
Raven glanced at them for a moment longer but after a short pause, her hand was laid on top of Harmony's own as she let her strawberry blonde bangs fall over her blue eyes again, determination burning in her irises like a veritable fire, though one that burned silently and chillingly. "Raven Qui—" she paused, frowning, "—Raven Eraklyon-Domino," she finished with a scowl.
The six girls let their hands drop to their sides in unison and they shared a glance with each other, six pairs of eyes narrowed and focused on their self-assigned mission. They might not have known anything concrete, but if they did know anything, it was that one thing was true — this wasn't over just yet.
They'd get to the bottom of this one way or another.
Read, review, and—
And actually, before you go, here's me trying something new. I've heard that asking questions at the end helps with the reviews, and I've been feeling like asking some questions anyway:
1) What are you guys' opinions regarding the last names? Would you rather I stick to the first name formula only or would you all prefer for last names? (This actually has much less impact because of a rule I've made up for the show, but it's something I'd like to know anyway)
2) What do you guys think is going on with the girls? Or, more specifically, who is after them?
3) Who do you think could be the mysterious voice talking to Raven?
So with your answers, review and give me your thoughts, and some constructive criticism, if you have any.