Category: Winx Club

Rating: T

Couples: none

Warnings: Major AU

Chapter: 6

Copyright: © characters and places by Iginio; © Plot and OC by me

Author's note: Also, for readers of my other stories: I have a Christmas-gift: updates of all 7 in-progress stories. Merry Christmas and happy New Year!

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The fairies could only splutter at that.

"Perhaps that was enough information for today." Faragonda softly suggested. "I think we should cover the rest of the story tomorrow."

Skyggon nodded, his golden wings stretching a few times. The golden feathers on them rustled. "I think you are right. Come, brother, I would like to speak to you in private."

He led his twin from the room, door softly closing behind them.

"And you knew all of this… how?" Miriam turned to her long-time friend. "If I understood correctly, you covered for Darkar by saying he was your son."

"It's Skyggon now." Faragonda said. "It is really obvious if one knows where to look."

"You lied to everyone." Oritel reprimanded her. "What if all this had not happened, what if the legend had actually been true?"

"I knew from the beginning the legend was a lie." A hint of anger seemed to creep into Faragonda's voice. "Has my judgment ever caused you misfortune, Oritel?"

"But how?" The students remained silent, their respect for the headmistress stilling their tongues. Miriam and Oritel had no such problems, being her old friends. "How did you know that legend was a lie? Did he tell you?"

"Do you think I would have trusted him on his word alone?" The older fairy asked sharply. "You know nothing of me, Oritel, nothing. I know the legend to be a lie because I was there when it happened. I was there when those two" She pointed at the door. "were born, I know of their mother and father because I knew them."

She rose from her seat. "I am older than they am." Her eyes spoke of a lot of emotions then. "I saw their rise to power, and their fall when the pride of the younger twin doomed them both. I heard Skyggon's – by then he was Lord Darkar – cries of torment as he found that the powers of a phoenix did not protect him from death, unlike his brother, whose powers of life made him immortal in every sense of the word."

She looked out of the window, where she saw the brothers walk in the garden, talking softly. "I was there when their mother and father found out what their youngest had done, to them and his twin, and broke under the knowledge."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"She knows about us, you can't ignore that." Lysdon urgently said. "She is immortal too, if she speaks the truth."

"She did." Skyggon glanced up at the window of the room they had just left. She was looking down upon them, her blue eyes fixed on the oldest brother. "No fairy can gain immortality, no one. You are the only one who can give it, Lys." The childhood nickname fell from his lips with far more ease than he could have fathomed. "You gave her immortality and I want to know why."

Lysdon smiled softly at hearing the nickname, looking to the window himself. "I do not recall her, Kyg." His own nickname for his brother rung in the silence for a bit. "I never gave immortality, not willingly at least. If you say she speaks the truth, than it was by some accident she received it from me. Perhaps the explosion of power from when we were born? Could it be she was close enough to our parents that she, just as they did, became bound to us?"

"If them so be, we ought to find out if there are more like her." The older brother turned fully to his twin again. "It is a miracle she did not break under the stress of eternity. Humans are not made to be immortal, it will destroy them."

"Are you suggesting we go home?" Lysdon demanded. "Home, where I have a murderous father and a mourning mother? He will kill me for what I did to our family, Kyg, and she will mourn what I did. And I can't even say what is worse."

"You can't hide from them anymore, brother." Skyggon stretched his wings, hiding both of them from view. "You will have to face your mistakes. All of them."

Not a year ago he would never have been able to fathom his brother this broken, this beaten. Skyggon pulled his twin into a tight embrace. "But know this: I am with you, brother, always. You will not have to face them alone."

"I simply can't. Not yet at least, I need more time." Lysdon's iridescent eyes locked on his brother's. "I need to make up my mistakes to the humans too. Just a month?"

The two brothers stared at one another, until the oldest relented. "Perhaps the Winx are willing to locate them while you make up for – or at the very least explain – everything to the rest of the dimension, but no longer. Once they find them, we are off home and no pleading will change that."

"Thanks."