Chapter Four: The Sea Aflame

July 20, 2013

Disclaimer: I do not own or profit from the Winx Club properties by writing this story. This story is written for pleasure's sake. All rights reserved.

Thanks to everyone for reviewing: Lady Galadriel1996, Chibi Horsewoman, Ella Anders, Zadien, 12g637uioq (I'm sure that wasn't your name before) and sigourney.

Fore note: What I had originally envisioned to happen in this chapter made it too long. I decided to cut it into several parts so that they were much easier to organise.

Also, before anyone gets up in my grill about sailing terms, I researched as much as I could to integrate accurate sailing terms. I am by no means an expert in sailing.


The Torchbearer rocked gently on the calm waters of Andros' sea.

Oritel, the Sovereign King of Domino, brought up a beer as he ascended the ladder to the top of the pristine white yacht. The yacht was one among dozens anchored out in the cove below the royal home of the King Teredor and Queen Niobe. Oritel and his wife had changed out of their ceremonial dress not long ago after they had gotten away from the dozens of parties. They wore light and casual clothing appropriate for the humid air of the night and had sailed out far from the shore to watch the oncoming midnight fireworks on the ocean. In the distance, they could see King Teredor's flagship the Andromachus prepare to launch the fireworks from its main deck. He joined his wife on the plush couch on the foredeck as he opened a can of beer. He needed it to calm his nerves.

Marion folded and unfolded her hands nervously. "I never thought that this would happen," she said hoarsely. Ever since she had laid her hands on Dafne during Prince Nereus's coronation, she had been continually weeping and holding onto Dafne, fearing that she would fade away. Oritel had been guilty of doing the same thing, too.

Both of them had run the gamut with their emotions.

A few weeks ago, they had learnt that their only living daughter, who had grown up with strangers on a faraway planet, had undertaken the same quest that had destroyed their first daughter. To say that they were upset about Bloom's choice was a great understatement. At first, they had outright forbidden her to pursue the Sirenix quest and search for the Gems of Virtue, but by the time they had learnt about Bloom's decision, she had already accepted the consequences and had irrevocably set herself on the same path that had destroyed Dafne. They had been sure that Bloom would destroy herself and all they could do was support her in her decision. Marion had not slept well since then and it showed on her face.

Then this very morning, Prince Nereus had the nerve to unveil a startling joy and horror that had rocked both his and and his wife's lives: the curse on Dafne had been broken and she had been returned to them in front of thousands of witnesses.

Neither of them had been prepared for it, and now they had to face it. Dafne was back among them with a flesh and blood body.

Holding her in his arms, almost every regret the king ever had had melted away. All Oritel could do was cry and praise the Great Dragon and the other gods for showing him mercy and giving him this chance to fix his family.

Facing Dafne as a spirit had been impossible for Oritel. The constant reminder of her immaterialness was sign of the mistakes he had made in the past. Facing her now, perhaps he could start with a clean slate and be the father that she deserved, he thought to himself as he stared at the swelling waves.

"I never thought that Bloom would take on the same Sirenix quest and succeed," Marion continued. "I never thought I would be able to hold her again, or even both of them. I was so sure that Bloom couldn't do it by herself. I mean, with Dafne, we had taken away so much from her and she had never complained once. Somehow, Dafne had still managed to get Sirenix and fight the Ancestrresses in the Infinite Ocean."

"Bloom is lucky to have good friends," Oritel replied. Bloom is lucky to just be alive after sixteen years, he thought. "Dafne was always too busy…doing the things she did." The man contemplated wearily the distance he had to overcome between his two daughters.

"She's quieter than before," Marion added. "I know that there's something she's not telling us but I don't know how to ask her. She doesn't want to look us in the face. She doesn't want to be near us. I know we made mistakes with her but…." The woman sobbed, unable to finish her sentence. Shame and disgust left a horrible taste on her tongue. "Before Valtor came, I forced her to run away with Bloom and made her promise to raise Bloom on her own. What kind of mother does that?"

Marion covered her face with her hand before running it through her curled tresses. She wallowed in self-pity before taking a gulp from Oritel's beer. She felt like drinking herself into a stupor so that she would not have to think. The tragedy that had befallen their family was almost too much to bear for their minds.

"Let's send her back to school," Oritel suggested as he removed the can from her hands. "We made her drop her studies in that last year because of what was going on. We owe her that much."

As the king of a kingdom that had been frozen in ice for so long, the only thing he could do for his people was keep calm and carry on. He had to pretend as if twenty years had not passed by him and adjust to the changes of the future, or rather present.

"Do you still want her to succeed you?" Marion said.

"I will give her the choice," he promised. "If not, I could give her the duchy on the south end of the kingdom. The Yellow Reef should make her happy. I said things to her…" Oritel shared, cringing.

"What happened?"

"I think I said things to her that a father shouldn't say to a daughter," Oritel admitted. He crossed his arms defensively. In some ways, he had been comforted by the fact that everything he had done was justified. He had been a desperate man and even more desperate king doing terrible things. "I said horrible things and I regret them."

Marion scrutinised the man. She did not mean to sound vindictive, but the emotional of toll of the last few months were eroding at her self-restraint. "What did you say to her?"

"Mari, this was years ago—"

"That's nearly twenty for Dafne. We didn't know that time had passed by when we were in Obsidian, but Dafne did," she reminded viciously. "Dafne could have spent years hating us and she might still hate us."

"I'm not going to repeat it here and now!"

Oritel knew that his wife's nerves were frazzled by the day's events and that all he could do was support her. He knew he had to be patient with her. Marion, a great and powerful practitioner of the mystic arts, had berated herself the most for her inability to break Dafne's curse. She had raised Dafne during her most crucial years as a budding teenager while he had gone off to war with the Army of Decay for three years. To say he regretted leaving his first daughter during some of the most important years of her life would be a lie. He regretted not being there to teach Dafne about boys and how to not fall in love with them.

Oritel leant forward to reach for the beer on the table but Marion snatched it first and threw it down to the lower deck.

"Fine!" Oritel surrendered when he saw that there was no way of avoiding the direction of the conversation. "I told her once that she should devote her time to the war we were fighting in the Lemuries and not walking the bottom of the damn ocean floor looking for purportedly magical gems."

Oritel's knuckles began to whiten. "This was early in the morning when I had come back from a failed spec ops. I was tired and angry and I had made mistakes in my calls. I'm sorry if I took it out on her." The man's voice was thick and measured.

"How could you, Oritel!"

"Marion, you weren't any better than me! You razed the cities looking for witches. You sent away some of her friends, perfectly good-willed children, because they were witches who did not worship the same god as us. You're as much to blame as me!" the man said finally.

Marion crossed her arms and wrapped her shawl tightly around her as she leaned against the railings. She looked to the waves crushing against the Torchbearer's hull as she could not bear to look at her husband. She started to cry again, letting the tears fall freely. It seemed that all she ever did was cry. "We are horrible parents," she let out after a long sob.

"I know, but it's all over now. We have a chance to fix it," Oritel said, trying to find the glimmers of light in the situation.

They had never imagined a world where Dafne would come back to them in the material world, not after they had learnt about her twenty years spent at the bottom of Lake Roccaluce. They had come to terms with the permanency of Dafne's strange curse. Now that she was back, it horrified both of them that they had to face the mistakes they had made as parents.

As far as Marion and Oritel could tell, Dafne had never held any anger or sadness towards them for the ruined childhood they had given her. Every time she had spoken to them since Domino had thawed, she had always spoken gently and kindly, as if she had forgiven them and that she was happy that at least Bloom had come back to them.

How idiotic of them to be content with just having one daughter back.

"This is what we're going to do," Oritel started. "We're all going to go home—with Bloom, Mike and Vanessa, too—and we're going to figure this out. We're going to have a long talk and fix our family and the kingdom, Mari."

Oritel stood up to enclose his wife in his arms. Instinctively, she clamped her arms around his waist and held unto him tightly.

Just then, fireworks began to light up the sky in bright hues of red, orange, blue and green. Marion and Oritel were deafened by the successive sounds of explosions speeding towards the stars. The fireworks took on the form of fantastical creatures and came to life in the sky. Shimmering blue lights became pegasi and raced each other across the sky while a great red dragon breathed fire and created the first creatures of the universe. Nine different coloured fireworks sped up into the sky and became winged figures with their arms raised to the red dragon's fire. These fireworks were tableaux of the universe's moments of creation.

Without warning, the yacht churned violently as it was hit by a particularly large wave. Not wanting to go overboard, Oritel held unto the railing and his wife for dear life as they let the succession of furious waves pass.

"What was that?" Marion asked incredulously, looking what had caused the waves. She looked over to the distance saw that the frigate Andromachus had become a blazing pyre upon the sea as an impossibly huge dragon's head rose from the depths and assaulted the ship.


In the darkness, the triple deck Thunder Spirit began to struggle against its anchors as tsunami waves threatened to capsize the ship. It was the traditional luxury cruiser personally owned by King Erendor of Eraklyon. It was manned by a crew of ten that also included the king, his son Prince Sky and the prince's personal protector known as Brandon. The remainder of the crew consisted of the various royal guards and trusted navy officers of the imperial army.

Diaspro cursed herself for wearing heels and found herself flying across the posh interior of the second deck. Her bottled pink cider flew out of her hand and splashed across the tinted windows. Her head smashed against the indestructible glass causing her to yelp in pain.

She looked across and saw that Sky had hit the window as well and had fallen to the floor.

"What was that?" the blonde princess moaned.

"Tsunami?" the prince said as tried to recompose himself. He tried to sit up and only found himself bracing for another wave.

Diaspro found herself holding on to the wraparound couch as she felt herself leave the floor from the force of the oncoming wave.

Above deck, Erendor and Samara had hit the deck hard.

"Weigh anchors!" Brandon yelled into the radio. The squire clambered into the upper deck's pilot's seat and tossed brightly coloured life jackets to his liege lord and lady. He started the engine as soon as he heard that the anchors were out of the way of the propulsion.

Without a second thought, he began to shift the wheel to the left as fast he could so that the Thunder Spirit would cut through the waves and not crash into the approaching perilously jagged rocks. Soon, the ship began to fly over the waves, but that was not any better. The crew and passengers rode the ship like a daredevil's rollercoaster.

Heading for sea and hopefully calmer waters, Brandon strapped on a life jacket. He blared the sirens, warning any sea creatures to stay out of the way of the luxury ship.

Inside, Sky and Diaspro huddled under the bolted down table. Knickknacks rolled across the floor.

"Who in the frozen hells of Omega would dare attack now?" Diaspro screamed in desperation.

"What makes you think this is an attack?"

"When is it not an attack, Sky? There's powerful magic in the—" Diaspro interrupted herself as she came to a horrible realisation. She could feel the old magic ride atop the waves assaulting the Thunder Spirit.

"Diaspro?" Sky said.

Diaspro climbed to the top of a couch and looked out the porthole. She held on as she rode another brutal wave. Sky joined her and they looked over the ocean.

No words came out of their mouths. The sea was on fire from one end of the cove to the other trapping the dozens of yachts including the Thunder Spirit within. The fires and the wild fireworks from the sinking Andromachus lit the ocean bright as day. They saw an enormous long-necked creature rise from the depths and spit thunder unto the Androsian flagship. The vessel ignited into explosions of colour as crewman began to abandon ship. The horrible creature was equal in size to the Andromachus and began to slam its body into the ship.

"We're trapped," Sky said eyeing the fire that was eagerly spreading across the water. The waterproof materials used to make the fireworks had gotten into the water and caught fire. Just like Brandon and the rest of the crew, Sky knew that they needed to get to the open sea to avoid further bombardments from rampant waves.

Their eyes widened as they saw another brutal wave headed them. This one was impossibly high, at least ten meters tall and teeming with force. The Thunder Spirit cut through the wave and rode down its steep back.

Without warning, they saw Erendor fly through the air from the upper deck unto the wraparound deck around their compartment. The large man hit the deck hard with his back, making Sky and Diaspro cringe. Their stomach churned as they watched him slide across the floor unmoving.

"Dad!" Sky roared. He climbed to the forward hatch and opened it, letting a spray of seawater come in.

"He's not moving," Diaspro shouted.

The prince rushed to his father, urging him to get up. In an instant, the prince's face fell. Without delay, the blond knelt at the older man's head and began to drag him across the wet deck. Diaspro kicked off her heels and ran to help Sky bring in the king.

"Please, sir, don't close your eyes," Diaspro urged the king as they tucked him under the safety of the table.

Sky began to rip out couch cushions and nestle his father in a cocoon of pillows. "Dad, where does it hurt?" he said desperately.

The king mumbled about his pain.

"I need a crystal or a stone," Diaspro asked hurriedly. She eyed all the rolling objects in the room. Sky undid a black stone pendant from his neck and tossed it to the princess.

Diaspro placed the stone on Erendor's chest and concentrated. "Elixir waves," Diaspro chanted as she covered the black crystal with her hands and fed her power into it. Rays of powerful light radiated from between her fingers. She exchanged her magical energy and took on the king's pain, hopefully staving off the worst of his injury.

Samara, drenched in sea water, arrived coming down the ladder from the upper deck. Brandon climbed down to the main deck and made for the wheelhouse below.

The enormous creature attacking the Andromachus was causing tsunami-size waves in the cove and pushing all the ships to the rocky shores. Effectively, most of dignitaries and members of high society that were on the yachts littering the cove were trapped between self-immolation and a watery grave.

Diaspro groaned, biting her lip before she would scream in pain. The king's pain was unimaginable as she poured her magic into the injured man. She put the pain in the back of her mind as she chanted the ancient words of healing. She had spent years studying the healing nature of stones and crystals alongside the young Princess Krystal of Linphea at the Royal University of Samarion.

Samara knelt beside Diaspro before the blonde girl could faint.

"You did well. I can watch him from here on," the queen said. The tall woman was shivering and freezing from her torrential shower in sea water, but nonetheless, it did not stop her from seeing to her king.

Samara put a hand to Erendor's face, coming to a grim decision. She had seen the fires and the monster outside. Thinking of the severity of the situation, she turned to the prince and princess. "Sky, Diaspro, I need you two to get back to the shore now. If your father doesn't—"

"Understood," Sky said quickly. He refused to let his mother finish her sentence. They shared a wordless exchange with their eyes.

Diaspro looked on, swallowing hard. For the first time in a long time, Sky obeyed his parents. This did not mean that the blond prince was a disobedient son. Inwardly, his heart raged against the decision he had reached. The man did not want to leave his mother and father, but he knew he had no choice. The last time he had disobeyed his parents was in Magix when the Army of Decay had attacked and he had refused to leave his post at Red Fountain. A little wiser and tempered with restraint, he would not make the same mistake again. This time, he would leave on his parents's wishes.

"I'll be back, Mom. Count on it. Just take care of Dad," Sky said as he slid towards the aft hatch. He caught Diaspro as the Thunder Spirit rode another vicious wave.

"Remember, duty above all," Samara said.

Diaspro and Sky looked to the wet queen huddled over her injured king, something they had never wished to see.

They lowered their heads before descending down the ladder towards the wheelhouse where Brandon and the several other crewmen managed the ship. Without a word, Brandon left the wheelhouse and joined the other princelings. He knew that something was up.

"What's going on?" Brandon said. One look at Sky's face told him all he needed to know about the severity of the situation.

The three of them brace themselves against the stairs and emergency ladder.

"We're going back to shore," Sky said. The prince struggled to pronounce his words with determination. Brandon did not need the horrible truth to be spelt out for them.

They were leaving to assure the line of succession of the throne of Eraklyon and continue the thousand year reign of the royal family. Erendor was in bad shape and the circumstances—tsunami conditions and raging fires that trapped the boats in the cove—only worsened his chances of surviving.

Exiting through the aft hatch, the three of them were instantly drenched in ice cold water.

Brandon and Sky raised their hands to the sky. Ancient runes glowed in their hands as they summoned their dragons. Two portals appeared in the sky and silvery green and blue warm-blooded creatures let out hisses and searched for their riders. The dragons were thin and wiry, much like snakes, with colourfully large wings meant to distract and terrify its prey. Their claws and tails were sharp as swords and their jaws had the strength to maul a small car.

They rode another rough wave on the Thunder Spirit before signalling their dragons to fly by. With courage and good timing, they jumped off the deck on the ship and unto the back of their mounts.

Diaspro eyed the distance between the ship and the dragon. Sky extended a hand to her. The blonde princess jumped unto the back of the beast. Sky pulled her up and Diaspro found herself sitting between Sky's legs holding onto the dragon's neck.

"This is awful. Who could possibly be doing this?" Diaspro said.

"Who knows," Sky said.

They circled around the cove and saw that the carnage extended into the town. The capital had been built high enough from the shore to avoid most of the devastating blows of the sea, but it had never been built in mind that a sea dragon would be capsizing a ship right in the cove and generate waves that would easily go over the sea walls. The city-wide sirens blared tsunami and storm warnings shrilly.

"Dear gods, the thing is going into the cove!" Diaspro screamed. She eyed the Thunder Spirit that was helplessly close to the attacking sea creature.

Sky's eyes widened in horror. The prince almost turned his dragon back to return to the Thunder Spirit, but he knew better than to return. Ashamed, he urged on his dragon forward toward the political capital. Diaspro struggled to dislodge herself from Sky's grip. He knew what she wanted to do.

"Diaspro, you're going to fall!" the prince reprimanded as he kept a tight grip on the princess.

"But your dad, Sky! The king!"

"We can't go back now."

"We can't let him die! Let me go, Sky!"

Sky's dragon let out a hiss as its riders began to struggle on its back.

"I know he's my father! And he's my king, too! We have to get back to the embassy and rally the remaining guards," Sky shouted over the still exploding fireworks to the struggling princess. Like her, he struggled to not fly back to his father's ship. However, he knew that his duty now was to stay alive and assure the line of succession, even if that meant abandoning his mother and father.


It had been too late before Dafne could notice the unusual receding surf and than the sudden influx of rough water that nearly smashed her and her sister Bloom to bits against the rocks.

"Hallowed shield," Dafne quickly shouted, cradling her little sister tightly.

A shining bubble of golden light appeared around the older blonde and younger red-haired sister that cushioned them from their crash into the rock shelf behind them. The sea knocked them into the seawall for what seemed like hours, keeping them trapped underwater.

Bloom watched her older sister's hair change in colour. The powers of Sirenix did extremely odd things to a fairy's appearance. Not only did it strengthen their bodies to withstand the tremendous forces of the ocean, it gave them colourful scales, fins and strange wispy wings that had initially made Bloom uncomfortable. Sirenix had completely changed her physical body and how she felt in it. Her body flowed easier in water and eliminated the need to breathe oxygen. The scaled clothing was far from her usual idea of what a classical fairy should look like. Instead, Sirenix had given her scale-covered suits that stuck to her skin uncomfortably and hair that changed colour in water.

Out of water, Dafne's golden blond hair only had streaks of ivory. In the water, Dafne's hair faded to deep crimson, darker than Bloom's natural colour, and with creamy white streaks.

Then the black sickness started to appear. It originated from Dafne's blue and gold wings. The dark sludge crept up from over her shoulders and under her arms, claiming her limbs. Obsidian streaks started to appear alongside the white ones in her hair.

Bloom felt a stain of sludge appear under her hand and shivered in terror. It was alive and moved with the leisure of a snake.

"Dafne, you can let me go," Bloom urged as she eyed the black curse of Dark Sirenix coming over her sister with great alarm. Sickeningly, she could not help but think about how she wanted nothing to do with the black curse overcoming her sister. "Let me transform into Sirenix."

Dafne recoiled her arms when she realised how tightly she was holding Bloom. Seeing Bloom eye her curse in terror, Dafne pushed her away. She stared at her hands seeing the black sickness spread to her knuckles.

Both of them were afraid of the same thing: if Bloom touched Dafne while she was in the throes of the Sirenix sickness, would it infect Bloom too? The revolting thought made Dafne's stomach turn.

Crossing her arms, Bloom gathered the magic in her and left it rush through her body. "Magic Sirenix!"

Bloom was overcome in a cocoon of fire that blinded the older sister. Bloom radiated the creative fire of their dragon god brightly. The flames disappeared in an instant and Bloom reappeared in her hot blue scales and delicate pink wings. Her hair, currently bright orange with teal stripes, was gathered in a crown of blue coral.

Calming their racing hearts, both sisters swam up to the surface. They braved a wild wave that sent them back underwater before propelling themselves out of the sea and into the air. The dark curse retreated on Dafne's skin.

Both of them saw the chaos on the sea's surface. The water was illuminated blood red from the bright fires.

"What's happening?" Bloom said.

Dafne eyed the massive blaze of fire on the horizon. It bellowed smoke into the air that obscured the moons. "We have to get to Mom and Dad," Dafne said. She began to speed off above the waves.

Bloom wiped her face of the trail of sea spray Dafne left behind and said, "But what about the other people?" Bloom's heart knotted as she watched her sister ignore several ships in distress.

"The Crown on our House comes first, Bloom," Dafne said unyieldingly. Her tongue had felt thick and fuzzy when she had said that. A nymph would have never said anything so insensitive and single-minded, but a princess from the Ruling House Draco of Domino would have.

"But, Dafne! We can't just ignore the other people," she objected, speeding after her sister. Bloom passed by a ship brutally battered by the rogue waters. Bloom caught her sister by her wrist and slowed her to a stop.

"And if we lose Mom and Dad?" Dafne said, wide-eyed and almost screaming desperately. "I'm not losing them again!"

Bloom felt her sister's word burn her like hot iron on her skin. Nothing would budge Dafne from her course. In Dafne's words, Bloom heard all of twenty years worth of pain, sadness and lost come to the surface. Dafne knew first hand the pain of watching her family die. She had seen first hand their parents Marion and Oritel be sent to the stone hell of Obsidian to die while she herself had sent her baby sister Bloom to an ambiguous fate on Earth. Dafne alone had bore the pain of mourning them all while she had been cursed to a bodiless form and passed many long and lonely years at the bottom of Lake Roccaluce thinking on her mistakes. Bloom could see the result of what all this pain had caused and feel the desperation that Dafne felt.

Terrified, Bloom let her sister go and followed after her looking for the Torchbearer, their family's royal yacht.

"There!" Dafne said.

Blue fire in the shape of a serpentine dragon danced in the air. The blue fire was a symbol of their mother Marion's magic. Converging on the blue dragon, Bloom and Dafne fluttered around the Torchbearer that was trying to stay afloat. Marion and Oritel clung to the railings of the deck as they rode another wave that drenched them from head to toe.

"We can't dislodge the anchor from the seabed," Oritel explained in the chaos. "I need you two to cut us loose."

"When we're free, I want you to help me lift the boat out of the sea," Marion shouted.

"Lift a boat?" Bloom said incredulously.

"It's okay. I got it," Dafne said. "Take care of the anchors, Bloom. I'll help Mom." The older sister looked meaningfully to her younger sister.

"Right!" Bloom answered. She looked to her sister worriedly. Hesitating, she climbed steeply in the air before gaining enough momentum to pierce the sea with a nose dive.

She was disoriented by the chaos that was below the surface. It was just as bad as it was above. Merfolk swam about crazily like schools of frenzied fish looking for a safe place to escape the brewing storm as ships capsized and sunk left and right and their contents littered the seafloor everywhere.

Bloom swam under and far from the Torchbearers propellers and followed the chain that led to the troublesome anchor. The anchor was hidden in a forest of dark seaweed and stuck in fissure of stone. She tested the anchor to see if it could give way and found that it was good and stuck in the ground. Without hesitation, she cut the chain.

"Fire blade!"

A well-aimed shot of red lightning cut the anchor clean of its chain. Bloom swam back up to the chaotic surface. The Torchbearer propelled itself forward eagerly, but Bloom saw the real problem.

The hull had been breached by a wayward rock and water eagerly poured into the gash.

She swam after the ship, propelling herself out of the water.

Just then, two colourful dragons of light, one blue and the other gold, danced on the air. They circled the Torchbearer entwining themselves around the hull. The air was hot with power. Bloom looked up and saw Dafne and Marion floating in the air enveloped in auras of gold and blue. They struggled to lift the ship out of the sea with their magic.

She gawked in wonder at the sight for only a moment and pondered the immensity of their strength. Water sluiced down the sides of the Torchbearer.

Bloom joined them and concentrated her magic. She gathered it into her heart before releasing it. "Dragon wing!"

A red orange apparition of long-bodied dragon appeared in an explosion of light and joined the two other apparitions. Bloom gasped at the weight of the ship, trying to shoulder as much as she could. It took all of her concentration to keep the serpentine ghost alive as well as herself fluttering in the air.

Marion guided the flying ship out of the waters and towards the shore. The Torchbearer landed with a thunderous thud on the clifftop of a sheer outcropping over the ocean. The boat shifted to its side. Its pristine sides were marred with dirt and scarred by half-buried boulders. It moaned under its own weight.

Never without a weapon, Oritel leapt out of the ship with a sword in hand. The family gathered at the stern of the ship as the crew unboarded.

Once her feet touched ground, Bloom found herself buried in Marion's arms. The woman in her arms trembled violently like a glass teetering on its rims.

"Are you alright? Are you hurt?" her mother mumbled hoarsely. "You shouldn't have come."

Bloom turned to Dafne uneasily.

"Are you alright, Dad?" Dafne asked methodically.

"I'm fine, darling." Oritel pecked her forehead. "What's happening on the shore?"

"The city is on alert. I think they're going to mobilise the army."

"Good. King Teredor and King Neptune can take care of the monster. It's probably another wild sea monster that got loose. Let's get back to the embassy." Business-like, Oritel roused the men into formation.

Dafne stepped into line with her father and the others. Bloom saw a listlessness in her eyes that sent a shiver down her spine.

"Mom, um, I'm going to go help the people out now," Bloom mumbled into her mother's ear. She pointed to the other ships still in distress in the cove.

Marion stilled. She wanted to say something to stop her, but she did not. She untangled herself from Bloom, recomposing herself. "Go. I have to stay here with your father and sister."

"You're not going to stop me?" Bloom said in surprise.

Marion looked on to Dafne. She knew that Bloom was looking at her as well. "If you think what you're doing is right, then go do it."

"Dafne…?" Bloom said. She looked at her sister one last time. She wanted to say something, but she had no idea what. She was sure that anything she said would not mean much to Dafne. She nodded to her mom and took off into the air.

"Where's Bloom going?" Dafne asked her mother.

"To do what she always does."


Note: I know I alluded to Politea appearing in this chapter and I am sorry to disappoint. I had to cut it here because it turned out into its own little chapter. I promise you that Politea along with The Last Nymph of Ethemera will appear in the next chapter.