Chapter 3

The movie theatre was comfortably air conditioned and Bloom was settled in her seat with her snacks, watching the film unfold in front of her. Anne was on her right and Owen on her left. Bloom had originally planned to ask Mavis if she wanted to join, but then Owen had texted her and she'd just automatically invited him. Explicitly as a friend.

He was respecting that, thankfully, and was being good company. He'd been the one to suggest that they see this comedy and he'd made a good choice, plus he didn't mind that Bloom had to ask him about the context of lots of the jokes. Owen was very happy to give her explanations of all of the pop culture she wasn't aware of.

Next to her, Anne was cuddled up to Tristan. All things considered, Anne had been very understanding of the situation and wasn't holding Killian's matchmaking efforts against Bloom. Anne was an athletic girl with an auburn braid that reached her lower back and had hugged Bloom when Tristan had introduced them.

The credits began to roll and Tristan said something about not recognising an actor until their name came up.

Owen stood up and stretched.

"I'm gonna throw my shit away," he said, gesturing to his empty popcorn bucket and cup. "Want me to toss yours too?"

"Yeah, thanks." Bloom passed him her trash and he took it to the bin for her with a smile. Anne moved to stand close to her and watched him go.

"You want to come hang out at the juice bar down the road for a bit?" She asked, sliding the straps of her bag onto her shoulder.

Juice bars were more common on Magix than Bloom had realised. It wasn't just the one that Stella liked to frequent in uptown, there was at least one on every block. The one that Anne took them to was small and still hadn't replaced the smashed glass in the front window, but the chairs inside were new and plush and the woman behind the counter smiled at them when they walked in.

They ordered their drinks and Tristan entered an intense discussion with Owen over some of the finer points of the movie. Bloom quickly realised after a few minutes of this that her opinions on the film were much less intense. Anne caught her eye and laughed quietly.

"You're at Alfea right?" She asked Bloom. "Tristan didn't tell me all that much about you so all I know is from the news coverage."

"Yeah, I'm just going into my second year. I haven't watched much of what the news said about me, but from what I can tell it's pretty factual." Stella had watched the tv whenever Bloom had been mentioned so she'd been able to pass on what had been said. Bloom had taken to running out of the room in embarrassment whenever the morning shows started discussing the Trix's attack.

"I can't imagine that being the end of my first year," Anne said. "I guess my parents made the right decision to leave Magix for a quieter life."

"Are you originally from here then?"

"Yeah, I was born in the city hospital," she nodded. "But my dad's a diplomat so we've moved around all over the place. We were at the Andros royal court for the longest though, then they retired across the planet."

"Did you meet Tristan on Andros then?"

"Yeah, my school isn't too far from his… kind of like Alfea and Red Fountain." Anne took a long drink of her smoothie through her curly straw before continuing. "They always seem to separate the boys from the girls and then just twin the schools anyway."

"It's very weird," Bloom agreed. "We have some schools like that on Earth but it's hardly the norm."

"I'm pretty sure it started on Magix with the three schools and then just spread for some reason, still no idea why… I guess it's true that all fashions start and end on this planet."

The conversation shifted onto Earth and all the things that Anne wanted to know about it. After the fall of the last Earth fairies, an event that Anne summarised and brushed past so quickly that Bloom barely understood what she was talking about, it seemed that the rest of the magical universe had just lost interest in it.

Owen cut in at that point to inform them that on some planets travel to Earth was expressly forbidden because they considered it hostile. Eraklyon not only regarded it as dangerous but a political tinderbox because of all the different nations on one planet.

"Is that super weird for the rest of the magical universe?" Bloom said, feeling uncomfortable that she was from a place Sky was expressly forbidden from visiting. Had he known that he wasn't supposed to be there when he and the others had saved her from the troll?

"Usually a planet will have max two different countries," Tristan nodded. "I guess most people kind of view it as the barrier to pass before a planet is recognised as being developed enough to join the rest of the magical universe."

"Earth's kind of a special case though," Owen jumped in, noting the awkwardness on Bloom's face. "It's not like the complete removal of magic was ever going to help things."

"I still don't understand how that happened," she said, and the other three looked a little uneasy.

"It's complicated," Anne said eventually. "You'll probably cover it in Magical History this year or the next, but there were these four wizards who hunted fairies and it's all very gruesome."

Owen had to leave soon after Bloom got Tristan and Anne to explain exactly what the wizards did to the fairies they captured. He promised that he would come over later that evening to help her with her speech. Anne watched him go, a curious look in her eye before she turned to Bloom.

"What do you think of him?" She asked and Bloom stopped drinking up the last of her smoothie in surprise.

"What do you mean? He's just one of the other Domino people."

"There's something up with him," Anne decided. "I think he likes you."

"But he knows that I have a boyfriend!"

"That doesn't always stop some people," she pointed out. "Who knows, maybe he'll get over it."

There was honking from a car horn outside in the street and Tristan got up with a sigh, wrapping an arm around Anne's shoulder and kissing her temple.

"That'll be my dad to take us home," Tristan said to Bloom as Anne hugged him back, and then kissed his girlfriend's head. "I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure," Anne said. "I'll probably be in town for a while. It was good to see you too." She hugged Bloom before then two of them left her in the juice bar and walked out to where Killian was waiting for them.

Tristan opened the door for her and she climbed onto the backseat, unsteady from the surprise of his gesture. It shouldn't have shocked her, she would bet that Killian had made sure that his son would act like that, but she hadn't been expecting it and Bloom had to take some deep breaths to calm down. The last thing she wanted was to set the car on fire. Killian had just spent a lot of money paying to be able to drive his car for personal reasons, he didn't need the added expense of having to reupholster the whole vehicle too.

"I would have got out, of course," the man insisted. "But I am waiting in a no-park zone."

"It's fine," Bloom said as she put her seatbelt on.

"You are so patient with me, Your Highness, it truly is an honour."

"You don't have to call me that," she insisted. "Just 'Bloom' is fine."

Killian almost crashed the car into a lamppost when she said that. Bloom grabbed the handle on her car door as he swerved out of the way just in time. She shot Tristan a concerned look, but for the first time he wasn't disdainful of his father's actions. He was also shocked and confused.

"I- I'm not sure I can do that," Killian managed to choke out once he had the car under control again.

"Oh, okay." Bloom didn't know what she had done wrong.

Killian pulled up onto the pavement by Brighid's house and rushed over so that he could open the door for her. Bloom got out shakily and found her hand seized so that he could kiss it again. This whole situation was incredibly bizarre, but since neither father nor son were inclined to explain she was going to have to ask someone else.

That someone turned out to be Mavis, who was making herself a bowl of Cap'n Flakeo in the kitchen. She blinked when she saw Bloom's expression and loaded a spoon of cereal and milk into her mouth.

"What's up with you?" She asked with her mouth full.

"Killian almost crashed his car."

"Shit, 'you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine…" Bloom frowned and shook her head. "I just corrected him on my name and then he almost hit a lamppost."

"What did you ask him to call you?" Mavis asked.

"My name?"

"Which is?" Mavis was trying to suppress a smile and Bloom stared at her in confusion. Mavis knew her name, why was she asking?

"…Bloom?"

"Nah, that's a family nickname. Your full name is something long and a complete mouthful, do you not know it?"

"No!" She exclaimed, horrified. "Your grandma referred to me as 'Rose' before she knew I was me, is that my name?"

"I think it's Alexandrina something-something Rosemary," Mavis shrugged and kept eating her cereal. "Either way, you skipped over asking to be referred to as any of your names, I think your family called you Rose? And jumped straight to asking him to use a very personal nickname."

"Oh… oh no." Bloom definitely didn't have that kind of a relationship with the guy.

"Yeah, I bet he thinks you must really fucking like him," Mavis grinned. "Eh, who knows? Maybe it's a good thing and you'll have a loyal subject for life."

"Maybe…"

"Your social faux pas aside, you wanna see what arrived already?" Mavis went over to the corner of the kitchen and brought out a large cardboard box that held something heavy. She grinned and pulled a fire extinguisher out. "It's a carbon dioxide one so I won't have to get foam everywhere."

"Great. I suppose it's time I keep working on my speech then." Bloom reluctantly went back upstairs to finish writing it and practice her delivery with Mavis. Vanessa was out with Mike, being shown around the city by Effie so it was just the two of them in the living room.

Mavis was actually quite a good assistant when it came to the writing. She knew enough of what the society was looking for to make sure that Bloom covered her bases and it was a lot easier to recite her speech to someone who wasn't staring intently at her. Mavis fidgeted a lot which made it feel like Bloom didn't have an audience.

By the time they'd finished writing it out and Bloom was confident just reading it aloud, Owen turned up at the house as he'd promised. Now that he was here she really was speaking in front of others and she instinctively set the cushions on fire as she opened her mouth to start.

"Sorry," she said as Owen made sure that it really was out.

"So we've got to work on you being able to speak in front of people then, huh?" Mavis observed. "You know, if you had told me that you didn't want to do this I could have come up with an excuse for you."

"I don't want to do this, I want to have done this… does that make any sense?"

"Sure it does,'' Owen nodded. "It can be important and still terrifying - I'm not sure I'd want to give a speech; you're braver than me."

"What is it that you're afraid of?" Mavis cut in.

"I don't want to get it wrong and make a fool of myself and set everything on fire."

"So I guess we've just got to keep practising then," Owen said. "We can keep doing that for as long as you want to."

"Thanks," she said in relief.

"And if you do set anything on fire I've got you." Mavis waved her fire extinguisher in the air.

Bloom could do this. It would take some time and effort, but she could do this.