(Sparx, Bloom's map room)
Bloom picked up what must've been the 500th map she'd looked at that day, glanced at the name engraved into the outside… ERAKLYON, is what it said; she gave a very nasty curse and threw it across the room… It landed with a thud followed by a few family heirlooms shattering on the floor…
"Ugh! I've looked through all of these damned things and there is absolutely nothing on Vitalion!" She snorted at her luck… "What happened? Did it disappear off of the face of the cosmos or something?" Bloom shrieked. "I mean, come on! I'm betrothed to this dude," Did I really admit that? "Wouldn't you think we'd have at least one map of Vitalion! How dimwitted can you get!"
With that she picked up the remaining three maps and tossed them at a wall… In mid-air they burst into flames… Just in time for Bloom to notice the map that hung on that wall…
She burst into an all out sprint as she noticed what was going to happen… "No, No, No, No, NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…" She screamed as she jumped in front of the flaming maps and felt them hit her chest, disintegrating the tight red leather tank she'd had on… With the burning maps in tow, Bloom smacked into the wall with the long lost map on it and slumped to the ground.
She lay in a heap for a moment, the Dragon Fire infused maps continuously trying to consume her body to no avail… Bloom finally moved a bit, the remaining portion of her shirt tacked to the wall by a stray nail; the Queen finally gave up and just tore the leather even further, and let the wall have it's prize of a rather nice sized piece of material.
Bloom discarded the flaming maps she'd been holding, into a puddle of green colored water next to the door… They emitted a nasty hissing noise as the fire burned and died; she watched as all this happened and then slowly got to her feet and turned round to look at the map that had caused all of the trouble…
She grinned ferociously as she saw what it was, but her anger still needed some venting so she decided the wall needed to be yelled at once more. "Aw! COME ON! I've been in and out of this room for three days trying to find that thing! And it was right behind me this entire time! Maybe I should just snuff this whole adventure and pretend I never found that stinking document…"
Ach, but then I'd just be called a coward for that too… And I've already gone and swore I was going to prove everyone wrong on that account… I'm just gonna have to deal with this Prince the only way I know how… She laughed at this and continued… And if I'm gonna have to break a heart to do it… At least it's not my own…
With that thought, she walked up to the map, her crimson red heels clicking angrily with each step… Ripped it off the wall and plopped it down onto the huge oval table in the middle of the room.
Here eyes scanned over it a few times before she finally said, "Let's see here," and let out a low whistle. "By the looks of it… This Vitalion is at least 1,000,000 light years away… I wonder why my parents wanted an alliance with such a distant kingdom. They must've been friends with the king and queen or something." For all that the thing did say, 'This bond is to insure the safety of the two planets…' She snorted again and returned to the present… " I at least know my parents wouldn't marry me off to their enemy." Or at least I hope they wouldn't…
Even in the four years Bloom had known about her heritage her parents had still remained a well-kept mystery… Bloom had hoped that once she let the surviving Sparians return to the planet, she would be able to find out what had happened to her parents, and what they were like… From them…
For a few moments her finger trailed along the paths and roads that ran along every square inch of the map; until it finally stopped on a square patch that was labeled THE GRAND PALACE OF VITALION… "Well, I guess the next thing I need to do is plot my P.L.S. (Portal Landing Spot) I don't want my portal dropping me off in another swamp," Bloom gave a low chuckle at the memory, then stopped abruptly, remembering how Sky had always made her laugh…
…When she was younger, and still trying to master her transportation skills, she had dropped herself, and all of her friends into the Black Mud Swamp, (Including Stella, much to the blonde haired fairy's dismay) when her original destination had been the Black Mud Café…
Bloom was still smiling a little as she remembered Stella's reaction to the predicament, but it soon faded as she remarked to absolutely no one… "Those times are over now. I'm never going see them again…" She groaned… "I might as well go and get dressed…"
Bloom walked up the steps, still being generally careful of fallen debris and what-not… During the three days she'd been looking for the map, she had used all of her extra time fixing the palace's surrounding grounds… Trying to save the palace for last… All the same, her room had been the first one she'd fixed, even before the rest of Sparx (unknown to everyone else), and she absolutely adored it.
She made her way up to her room, and about fifty paces from it she took out the key she always kept on her person and unlocked the door once she reached it. The door slowly creaked open to reveal her room; it was painted a beautiful blue and the wall right above her bed had the Dragon Insignia painted upon it in a shimmering gold-silver.
She stopped to stare at its beauty before she finally moved on and over to her walk-in-closet… The red haired fairy then stepped inside and was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of gowns, slacks, shirts, skirts, tiaras; and hundreds of other things that whirled around her, wanting to be picked… The closet had been enchanted long ago, and was always trying to please its owner.
"Stella would be so proud that I have such a large closet, why; I'll bet that it's larger then hers… Ha, like that'll ever happen…" She muttered, remembering her friend's three story closet back in Solaria.
The wave of regret passed quickly this time and she said; "What should I wear?" This made the closet extremely happy and the clothing all whirled around her as she inspected her clandestine. The clothing finally stopped whirring as Bloom pointed at two dresses, "Maybe blue would be the best," she pondered, then decided against it… "No I'm probably going to be anticipated to wear Sparx's colors."
The Queen then shooed away the blue dress and pulled the beautiful crimson red silk and taffeta gown, down off of its hanger… That hanger then seemed to smile proudly and went shooting off down the rack…
After the hanger was gone, Bloom finally noticed how beautiful the dress was… It was sleeveless… And it had a piece of red silk fabric that attached to one side of the collar and rapped around her neck to attach to the opposite side; to hold the bodice up… The waist of the dress was corseted and the bottom rolled down her legs in mesmerizing spiral plaits… "Well I do have to admit, it does make me look appealing…" She smiled weakly and then walked over to the shoe section of her closet, where the matching shoes immediately jumped into her hand; they were the same color as the dress and they had two leather straps, each, that wound up her entire leg, like ballet slippers, to be tied at the back of her thighs with a beautiful silk ribbon.
She was about to walk out of the enchanted closet when she remembered the final two pieces of her outfit, just in time for them to race out the door and conk her on the head… Her ember tiara and the gold band that rapped around her upper right arm, it held a copy of the Dragon Insignia and had the orange stones of Sparx for use of eyes.
She rubbed the top of her head to emphasize to the closet that she might just disenchant it the next time it pulled such a stunt… "Almost forgot the most important parts. Might not of been recognized without them. Oh," she said, considering the possibilities. "Closet! Hop to and bring out my cloak!" The thing whizzed around for a second and then produced a midnight black cloak… Then again, if I arrive like this… It might scare them out of letting me marry their son… At the very least, I can surprise them…
Bloom smiled at that and walked over to the precise middle of her bedroom, snapped her fingers and watched the blazing orange portal appear in front of her… As soon as it was fully formed, she stepped through and into the other realm…
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(At Vitalion, the palace's garden)
The young man sat unnoticed in the garden…
…Prince Julian was extremely handsome… His hazel brown hair flowed down his back where it stopped about a foot above his bottom, and he kept it neatly tied in the middle; like Helia did… His eyes were an interesting shade of brown, they looked as if they had a tinge of green to them some days, and others it looked like they were gray… (It drove the ladies nuts when they were trying to write him love poems about his eyes… They'd get half way through one day, and notice the next day that they were the wrong color) His height was rather disturbing for most people, he always tended to tower over the ladies when they wanted to be danced with or something at parties…
To tell the truth, Julian was rather relieved about that; for it meant less time talking to the fly-brained ninnies, then most Prince's had to. So, it came that he was very happy with his height of 6'8"…
His favorite place to spend his time was in the garden, so today he was dressed a bit less formally then he was expected to… He was wearing black pants and a white shirt with baggy sleeves, and a plain pair of brown boots that came up to the point right below his knees.
The Prince knew he was supposed to be out courting some pig-headed woman today, but he didn't rightly care… Seeing that he'd already told his parents his feelings about the woman; and they'd finally relented and replied… Fine, we'll wait another month to see if the Princess is alive… They'd been having the same argument and the same agreement for years…
Julian sometime blessed the fairy that had supposedly disappeared eighteen years before, on her, and his, first birthday. She'd saved him from so many un-wanted marriages that he could've been stuck with, that he started thanking her daily.
And so today, having been saved from the twittery blonde, he'd come and sat under the shade of a large oak tree… And was reading one of the books he'd randomly picked up at the royal library, hoping for peace… When a large portal ripped open in front of him and a roaring began that made his ears ring, just as a figure clad in a black cloak that covered its entire body stepped out of it… The only thing he could see of the person/thing underneath it was a pleat of red fabric that had struggled out of the confines of the cloak itself.
His mouth hung open for what seemed like hours before he could finally speak and say, "What in Vitalion?" In a husky voice, that had a rather large twang of kindness underneath it.
"Well…" the person in the cloak whispered, and seemed to turn its head toward him.
The Prince realized it was a woman then and there… A freakishly tall woman, but a woman none the less… And even though the voice didn't sound evil, he still chose to stay in the shadow of the tree.
"…This isn't where I expected to end up." The woman went on after a moment… "But by the looks of it I'm pretty close to the palace." Bloom's skin tingled as she sensed another's energy coming from the dimness of the oak tree. Ever since the witches, even being that they were long dead, Bloom had been very safeguarded against everything.
The Queen looked over to the oak tree and saw a form in the shadows. The second she saw it she froze instantaneously and said calmly as if she were the bravest person in the universe, which by most people's standards she was.
She laughed, trying to make herself sound harmless… "I know you're there, you can come out now, who-ever you are." She then said under her breath.
Julian started at her words, though the laugh made him feel a little better, and thought to himself, who is that? Is she an assassin come to kill me… He shook his head, thinking that the owner of a laugh like that wouldn't be an assassin… I guess I'll just have to go and find out… His conscience then muttered, Idiot!
The Prince slowly got up and started to pull his sword out of its sheath, once it was fully out he ran forward like a mad man, his sword pointed directly at her throat and plowed on…
Bloom rolled her eyes and put up a fire wall, her assumption having been correct…
His sword ricocheted off the wall a second before he did and he fell back about three feet before she finally felt safe and put the wall down… "Humph, I expected that." She said and looked down at the nineteen year old man that had tried to spike her. My god he is tall. She thought to herself… She then laughed in her mind and thought that even though he was tall for a man, she was as tall, and that, in her heels, she towered over him.
"Who are you?" He gasped as he slowly pushed his aching body up from the ground and to a standing position… He groaned and then spat out… "And what are you doing here? You've got no right to be coming into this palace!"
"Well, I think the question is who are you? And should I really care…" The figure said from underneath the hood.
"That's a first," Julian muttered, "Most everybody knows who I am on this planet." He paused then and looked up at the shaded face, then thought: Is she really that tall? He came back to himself and replied. "I am Prince Julian."
"Oh, yeah, that's my top priority" Bloom scoffed and began walking in the general direction of the palace. "Besides, I'm not from here. You probably have no clue what or to whom you are speaking to, do you?" She said mockingly.
Julian had been left far behind when she began striding toward the palace, but those words intrigued him and he sprinted to catch up…
"Should I?" He questioned, as he got within range.
She looked down at him as he reached her side and replied, exasperatedly… "Probably, but that's not the point right now…" She sighed again and went on to say. "I guess I'll just have to introduce myself."
A single red tipped hand snaked out from the cloak's confines, and as it did so a few more pleats of red fabric escaped as well, and billowed out of the cloak's bottom…
"My name's Bloom, sound familiar?" She said, teasing him… Because how could he remember someone he'd met once? And that, once, when he was six months old?
"Not really," he said… Finding her voice irresistible… But took the hand anyway and kissed it, somehow guessing that she was an important person.
A gentlemen, Bloom thought to herself as he did so, and suddenly got a wild desire to curtsy, as is expected, but instead decided to hold onto her dignity… After all, she was higher in rank then him anyway.
"Emm… Yes, you were probably only a couple of days old the last time we saw each other, as was I." Bloom replied, disgusting herself at the informality…
Julian blinked up at her and said; "What's that supposed to mean?" He looked down a second, becoming apprehensive himself, seeing that he couldn't see her face…
With that Bloom took her hand out of his, which had lingered there after he had kissed it… And slowly removed the other hand from the disguise, she stopped for a second as her hands fingers touched the hood, but she knew she had to do it if she were to get this over with… So, she quickly brushed the hood back and off…
The Prince gasped as a sea of fiery red hair cascaded down her shoulders, ending about a foot above the ground… Her creamy milk-white skin blazed against the blackness of the cape, but through all that; the thing he noticed most was her striking sapphire eyes that seemed to soak up the sun and use it for their own brilliance.
"Yeah, I have that effect on people." She laughed and said her name again, except this time it was the full version… "As I've said before, my name is Bloom Ambrosius-Regina… And I am the crowned Queen of Sparx…" She held out the anticipation… "Oh… And Prince… Betrothed to you."
His mouth sagged open a couple more inches and he stared at her as if she were a goddess… "But, you were supposed to be dead," he stuttered.
"Dead, missing, misplaced… Whatever you want to call it. But either way, I am standing right here." She chuckled and went on moving forward.
He sprinted to catch up with her again… When he caught up he was out of breath, but still managed to say… "But, what happened to you, you know, when your planet was destroyed?" He asked.
"Lets just say; that even I am not that sure. All I know is I have the Dragon Fire, and I've been the Queen of Sparx for four years."
"You're, you, you're the Queen?" It took him a minute to get it fully out…
She laughed at his troubles and just replied… "Yep, full blooded queen of Sparx, whether or not I want to be." She brushed the crown on top of her head sardonically.
A few moments before they reached the palace's doors she stopped and just stood their looking down at him so he could get his full of gawping…
"It's so nice to meet you." He said, still flabbergasted, and thinking that this could not in any possible way be the Queen of Sparx, yet…
"I am sure that it's nice to meet you too." Bloom said, still somewhat disgusted at the informality.
Bloom pushed the door to the castle open… a look of irony still on her face … and was about to walk inside the palace when he stopped her with his words.
"Ya know, you're beautiful."
Bloom winked at him… "Well, Prince you are obviously well trained in the art of flattery." And walked through the door…
His gaze followed after her as she walked up to his parents. So, she's the one that saved me from all those arranged marriages? He grinned.
Wow, she is so beautiful, he thought to himself, but there's something about her. Something that makes me think she's just been through a horrible experience. His gaze flicked back to the door… I can't wait to find out more about her… He let out a sigh and went on… I've never believed in love at first sight. But for some reason, I am pretty sure that just changed.
I'm glad it was her I was waiting for… And no one else…
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Please R&R, I look forward to hearing what everybody thinks. I like to know that my story is good and worth writing, I've got self-doubts...
-Winged Rose