Verboten
Chapter 28
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Disclaimer: I do not own the Winx Club. If I did, it would probably a minute amount better with solid plots and have less continuity errors.
Fore Note: The last time I updated this was November 1. That is almost two months since then but ever since I got my grades, I needed to put more attention on my school work and my health. Some of you may know that I now need glasses to read to correct for my farsightedness in one of my eyes and I cannot read for longer than twenty minutes before my eyes are straining without my glasses. Even though I love writing this fic, I will not compromise my health and my future for it.
Jan 3: I'm extremely sick but I thought that I might as well post this because I don't like it sitting on my computer.
The three stood in a void of darkness. There was no light but Bloom, Sky and Asta could clearly see each other against the obscurity as if they were made of light itself. One moment, they had been all sitting in the MIR at Bloom's bed and as soon as Asta told her to touch her hand, the princess almost started screaming as she felt herself flying through some invisible wind as she was shot out of from her own body and into this inky blackness.
As soon as Klaus took in the alien base of operations that had been hiding in an unassuming warehouse only a few blocks away, the man tensed. The man had been on the defensive as soon as he saw the Winx Club (sans Bloom) walk into his bar that morning and asked him to follow them. The absence of his daughter had taken his toll on him and coming home to an empty and dusty house just days after Roxy's supposed 'spectral' possession had made it only worst. Then Sky had to explain everything to the elderly man while patiently taking in the objections that "Magic is not real." In the end, Klaus had no choice but to believe when Sky showed him the industrial-sized kitchen. At first, he had nodded approvingly but then his eyes caught the pans soaring and vegetables being chopped mid-air with flying knives. Inevitably, he believed. He had no choice but to.
The most painful part came to explaining what had happened to Roxy. The entire idea that his daughter had been magically or mentally poisoned with some piece of jewellery did not bode well for the man and when Bloom stepped up to apologize, he was borderline insane. Sky tried to explain in Layman's terms what his legal responsibilities were to Roxy were and the little power Klaus had over his daughter's health but the blond king had stopped seeing that the father could take no more of this "insanity."
Settling back into her bed in the MIR, Bloom sat with a dubious face as Asta explained what she was going to do. "I'm going to touch you and yank your mind out of your body and into my mind."
She had done that exactly. Bloom didn't know how but the witch did. The fire princess grew a little apprehensive as she realised that this witch was Darcy v2.0. The similarities were startling: dark hair, personality, the epicurean taste, similar powers, an intriguing voice, body. It was too late now. At least she wasn't out to takeover the world or had a homicidal ice witch of a sister with blue blond hair—she hoped. Who knew how witch families worked?
Standing in the blackness that was Asta's mind, Bloom looked to Sky for reassurance but was only struck with awe as she saw the mental image that Sky projected. He seemed somehow older and scary.
The Sky she was seeing was only a mental projection and maybe Sky desired to look like that but she had to admit that the uniform was intimidating? He was still Sky but he wore a straight face that seemed to be totally focused on the task at hand and that focus made her feel small. He wore an all black combat uniform that was loose but form-fitting and full of pockets and belts. On his hip was a sheathed sword attached to a thick leather belt. The hilt was decorated with sapphires and a wolf motif.
Asta wore a tight black jumpsuit of her own; sort of the antithesis to Sky's uniform although they were undoubtedly similar. It was the same one that she had worn when she had gone to get her in Punta Ala. It was plain except for the way it bent the light like it was a black liquid mirror. She fiddled with her gloves and her utility belt, obviously not too happy with the predicament.
Bloom found herself wearing her shimmering blue winx outfit with adolescent-like wings despite never having triggering her transformation. Even more, she was back to her basic form which only showed the inner turmoil she was in. It was an embarrassing demotion. She had no time to think about what was going on with herself when Asta started to speak.
"This is physical void." She pointed to the blackness around her. "This is a metaphysical and totally malleable space in your mind—meaning that anything like the laws physics do not always apply here. In this plane, you're only as powerful as your will and your words—magic only. Me kicking Sky won't really hurt him unless he's expecting it to hurt. It will, but not as much. Thus the name physical void," Asta explained. "Right now, we are in my physical void. As in my mind. Your real body is still working by itself, sleeping that is, but your awareness is no longer there since it's here in my mind."
"Your body is a vegetable," Sky said.
"Right. Right now, you're only seeing this"—she meant the darkness—"because this is what I want you to see. But I can change it since this is my mind." Asta waved her hand and suddenly, the blackness exploded into a flood of colours. As the magical energy swirled around them, a torrential flood of a thousand whispering voices assaulted Bloom's ears and made her shiver. Those whispers were things she was probably not meant to hear—all of them which were from her friends.
"Does he love me? Am I pretty? When will we get home? I need to get rid of them soon. They'll kill me. We need to set a wedding date."
Bloom shivered as she tried to ignore them. The colours coalescent into a temple of milky yellow marble with a statue of the Great Dragon in the middle. The whispers stopped abruptly and Bloom brought her hand to her head to realise that she had a major headache. She looked over to Sky to see him unfazed by the shift in reality.
"When we get to Roxy's mind, we will probably face a wall. Not like a real wall but something that will block us from getting in. What we have working for us is probably the fact that Roxy isn't aware that she can change the laws in her mind. She might not even realise that she's only asleep."
"But if she's sleeping, how is she awake…?"
"The body is sleeping but the mind never sleeps for it does not need to. There are only levels of activity and inactivity. The mind is a forever working machine that focuses on different tasks at different times like doing math when you're awake but having dreams when you're asleep. Got it?"
Bloom nodded. "I think so."
"One more rule, if you die, in Roxy's mind, you die for real. You'll still have your body but no consciousness. So don't die. Got it?"
Bloom nodded again.
"Good, I'm going to bring us to Roxy's mind right now."
And then they were mentally flying again. Bloom saw Sky, Asta and the golden temple fade from her vision and she felt some imaginary wind pass her. Just before feeling the ground leave her feet, she felt something fill her hand. She looked to see Sky looking back.
They were flying. Bloom did not flutter her wings but she could feel the magic and energy fly pass her. She looked to see that she had no body even though she could feel Sky's hand in hers. They were in a dark shimmering tunnel. Bloom could sense that Asta was just ahead of her and Sky was just beside and the—a bone-shattering CRACK!
Bloom and Sky's body materialised immediately and they bounced off the stony black wall like rag dolls. Bloom held on to Sky tightly, waiting for them to hit the floor. They never did.
"Bloom, you can let go." Sky looked down at her awkwardly.
They were floating. There was no up or down but the black wall that was surrounding Roxy. Contrasting from that was the white space in which they floated. The two straightened as Asta examined the wall. There was no top or bottom or end or beginning. Bloom ran a hand over the smooth surface of the wall as did Asta.
"This is a self-made wall," Asta noted. "It's being protruded directly from the inside."
"That means that she either going to never wake up or she is going to destroy what is inside this and start all over again," Sky said in a clinical tone.
"Amnesia," Asta clipped.
"We have to break it with something stronger then."
The witch raised a hand and experimentally pushed her mind against it in a tentative non-invasive manner. "I suspect that this won't be…easy…?"
Easily, the wall disintegrated a perfectly circular hole into existence under her mental push in the eight feet thick black wall. Inside the hole, they saw a grey clouded sky and a street of an abandoned city.
"Um, okay. Sure, let's go with that." Asta nodded and quirked an eyebrow at the phenomenon. "Shall we?"
"After you." Sky offered. They approached the hole and Asta went in headfirst.
"Wait!—you're just going to jump into their without a plan or anything?!" Bloom yelled.
Asta turned her head to look at Bloom, "That was the plan. I can't figure out what I have to fix unless I can make a diagnosis of what's going on. This is the wall that Chandra was talking about."
"But what if something goes wrong?!"
"What can possibly go wrong?" Asta criticised. "We're three awarenesses with various magical knowledge invading one fledgling fairy who has no experience."
"But—!"
"Bloom, it'll be fine," Sky said reassuring, offering her a hand.
She looked at his hand warily as if he were holding something dangerous to her. It was absurd. Everything was absurd but Bloom went through the hole anyways not wanting to be left alone. She did this to Roxy in the first place and she would fix her. They entered into the hole. Gravity came into affect and everyone felt their feet plant to what could only be assumed as down.
Stepping out unto the concrete of the emptied street, Bloom looked to around and felt a pang of familiarity. "Gardenia?"
It was Gardenia. Except empty. It was unnervingly empty. There was nobody around, no sounds of traffic, no hum of a car's engine, no sound of people talking. Nothing, absolutely nothing. It was unnerving because Bloom had never seen Gardenia or anywhere like this. There was always something going on because that was the very sign that there was life. She had once had insomnia in high school and one of the things that she would do was look out her window into the dark street but there was always something going on. Every couple of minutes, a car would drive by to unsettle the noise and the darkness with its lights and engine.
The sky was grey and a heavy feeling of desolation engulfed Bloom. This wasn't natural. Gardenia was supposed to be filled with life.
"It's most likely a Gardenia," Asta said. "If what we're seeing is Gardenia, than that means that Roxy sees her life in terms of memories attached towards objects and places. That's normal. That means that her actual awareness must be walking around here somewhere then."
"Could you find her by sending a mental probe of the place?" Sky asked.
"No, this is Roxy. I can't find somebody if I'm already inside of them."
"Then we look for her on foot."
"We're going to have make it quick—no, the portal closed already!" Asta said. The portal that they had come through—literally a hole in the middle of the street—was gone.
"We're trapped?!" Bloom squeaked.
Asta waved her hands about where the portal had been as if sensing for something. "No, not yet."
"Forget about the portal," Sky interrupted. "We have to find Roxy's awareness and persuade her out of amnesia if that's what she's planning."
"Right."
They nodded and split up.
-
Bloom took wing scanning the streets of the bleak and empty Gardenia. The sky was overcast and the sea was dark. There was not even the sound or sight of birds flying in the air. Below, Sky was making his way across the city on foot. He leapt from rooftop to rooftop with superhuman strength and speed.
They got to the boulevard beside the beach where the Frutti Music Bar was. Bloom landed beside Sky, tired somewhat.
"Why the bar?" Bloom asked.
Sky looked over the edge of the roof down the street, taking in the emptiness. Bloom stood beside him with her gangly wings and tried to tuck them in a way that they would not be so obstructing.
"'Home is where the heart lies.' The bar is a relevant place to Roxy, right? I think that her consciousness might be here if not at her house."
"She's going to appear as a person, right?"
"She should but anything can happen. If she considers herself more like a dog in her mind, we might be looking for a dog."
"Oh, I hope not."
The couple descended to street level and cautiously approached the obviously closed. Sky cupped his hand around his eyes as he tried to look through the window and pass the protective curtain of metal slats of the darkened bar. With the grey sky above and the lack of life, they both worried. There was no even the sound of water crashing against the beach surface or the simple whirl of wind down the street. It was unnaturally quiet.
"No one's in there but there's a light on in the kitchen. I'd like to check it out." Sky motioned for her to follow him to the back of the building, sticking close to the wall.
"Why are we being careful?" Bloom whispered as Sky placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.
"You think that there's no one in there?"
"Who could possibly be in there? I thought that only people around was us and Roxy."
"Memories aren't seen only as objects but people too, Bloom. Like relationships." The blond king came to a halt and rattled the back door. Locked.
Bloom was about to whisper a spell when Sky pulled out a Swiss army knife and easily picked the lock. He unsheathed his sword to reveal a solid double-edged blade that shone brilliantly blue, almost white like ice. Bloom felt a noticeable drop in the temperature as Sky entered with his sword out before him.
They quietly and nerve-wracking slowly went down the hall. Sky opened every door on the way to the kitchen and Bloom kept expecting the worst. The worst was a gang of scaly oversized velociraptors to come flying through the door—something like from Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park—straight for Sky's head. The setting seemed just perfect for that to happen since they were just beside a kitchen with everything seemingly being made of shiny reflective metal. Much to the Bloom's relief, that never happened as Sky opened the last door to a storage room and lit the lights. Everything was normal.
On to the kitchen. The kitchen with the lights on despite the rest of the building being dark. Something was definitely not right.
Gulp.
Anytime now, velociraptors would come crowding them in the puny hall and tearing them limb from limb.
Maybe it was just her or Sky was just being extremely slow—most probably, it was her—but time was going extremely slowly. It was a ridiculous fear. Pff, velociraptors! Bloom kept extremely silent as they slowly crept to the kitchen.
Sky looked into the empty kitchen cautiously. There was no one about yet the lights were still on. Definitely wrong.
Seeing no danger Sky stepped further into the kitchen with his sword pointed to the ground. Bloom followed and turned to be confronted with a sight.
"Klaus?!" Bloom said in disbelief, almost screaming. Klaus stood before her carrying a tray as if he were coming in to fill more orders. Sky jumped on the defensive before Bloom.
"Bloom? Sky?" The older man, healthy and not bandaged in any way, looked at them strangely before being shot in the back and bullet exiting his chest and lodging itself into the wall. Klaus's eyes widened in horror as he fell to his knees and unto his face. A red pool formed around him.
Bloom screamed while Sky's instincts told him to pull Bloom by the collar down to the floor as he ducked behind a counter. He covered her mouth with his hand to silence her screaming. They waited for more fire. Bloom's heart sounded a panicky rhythm as the blood in her head started to make feel faintly.
Now, she definitely preferred the velociraptors.
Sky whispered harshly into her ear. "This isn't real, Bloom. This is only Roxy's mind—only a memory."
Bloom looked to her right as she saw Klaus's head in a pool of dark blood and puddle expanding in an alarming rate.
Sky forced her head to turn to him. "Bloom, look at me! This isn't real."
A harsh bloodcurdling scream resounded behind them and then there was the sound of something boiling loudly, much like a vat of boiling thick oil. More screams as if the people were being boiled alive, and then random gunfire. Bloom huddled tightly inside Sky's arms waiting for it to end. She covered her head with her arms and leaned into Sky as much as possible. Then there was silence.
By then, Bloom was shaking with fear. She was sure as hell not immune to bullets and Asta's advice, "If you die, in Roxy's mind, you die for real," rung in her mind. This was not what she had wanted to see at all. She had never been this close to gunfire before and frankly, she was terrified to an inch of her life. Guns were for the eight o'clock news and movies only—not real life. This was fucking insane! This was supposed to be Roxy's mind, right?! Then what the hell was going on in that girl's head then?!
Then Bloom jumped as she felt her skirt become wet. She opened her eyes to see the pool of blood had reached her. Klaus's body was hidden at the end of the counter and facing away from Bloom but the pool of blood was increasing at an alarming rate. Klaus was enveloped in his own blood, bright red and increasing by the second. There was no way that there was that much blood in the human body. She grasped at Sky, unable to word her fear. Sky glanced at the blood, acknowledging it before hazarding a look over the counter to see if there was anymore danger.
"Sky," she said hoarsely as she got into a squatting position, trying to avoid the blood. She watched as blood surrounded her blue boots and clung to Sky awkwardly for dear life.
"Let's go," he said and stood up straight. Whatever the danger was, it was gone but there was a pervading smell in the air. Like burning flesh and the sound of something sizzling.
Bloom stood as the blood under her boots made disgusting wet sounds. She looked over to restaurant side of the bar pass the order window. It was still dark but with what little light there was, she saw black fleshy masses move ever so slightly like they were twitching. Bloom shivered and felt her stomach want to heave. She brought a mouth to her hand and Sky held her firmly by the shoulder.
There was no way she was walking pass…
"Close your eyes," Sky said.
Bloom had them close the moment her hand flew to her mouth. Sky's sword clicked in its scabbard and he swept Bloom into his arms. She felt herself be carried away but her stomach was ready to heave. The temperature rose noticeably until it was an unbearable heat, like she was baking in an oven. She felt Sky sweep her up into his arms and carry her outside where the cool air. He walked for a long while. His long steady strides were calming in the darkness behind her eyes but the unspeakable horrors of the part stood out in her mind. Bloom's face was buried in his shoulder and she refused to move. She opened her eyes again when he placed her on the sand.
Her eyes were assaulted with a heavy lingering fog. "Where are we?" Bloom noted. They were still on the beach judging from the sand but everything was white. The fog was so dense and white that they could not see beyond a few meters. Something was missing.
"Sky? Where are we?" she asked again.
"I don't know. I didn't even walk that far when the fog started coming in."
The fog cleared to show the vague outline of the horizon over the ocean.
"Don't leave!" Bloom panicked as she saw Sky stare intently at the horizon. She clung to him tightly. "What happened in the bar?"
Sky wrapped his arms around and swallowed nervously. He leaned his head into Bloom's hair. "That was the robbery—a re-enactment."
But Klaus was not dead? She had just saw him this morning, healthy as one could be with a broken collar bone, bandaged arm, sling and the new revelation that his daughter was a fairy.
They were silent for a long time. As the moments passed by, Sky's grip on Bloom tightened, showing his worry. Just when she thought he was about to speak or offer some type of explanation, Sky stood up and said, "We need to keep moving. We have to find Roxy."
Again, Bloom felt swept back in Sky's trail as he moved forward to wherever he was going. She was eating his dust as he ran full speed ahead. His level-headedness and determination to complete the mission was rearing its ugly head again. The first time had been in Shadowhaunt when Stella fell down the underwater river and Brandon had dove after her. Bloom had been about to dive after them until he had plucked her out of the air midjump to have her butt kiss the ground.
"Sky, just stop. Just the slow hell down!" Bloom covered her eyes in frustration and took in a harsh breathe. "Explain to me what just happened!"
Sky was silent, staring at her. She saw a muscle jump in his jaw.
"Is that it, Sky?! No explanations?!"
"What do you want me to say, Bloom?"
"I don't know!" she said shrilly, "Anything! What happened to Klaus in there?! The restaurant?!"
"I'm sure you've heard all about it on the news." Sky words felt empty as he said them. "The boiling sound was when Helia threw hot water at a robber, Klaus being shot, the fight…"
"Sky, how do you know any of this?!" Bloom yelled unsatisfied with the answer. "You seem to know everything that's going on in here like it's a walk in the park here while scary crap is happening left and right!"
Sky swallowed hard and closed his eyes as if he were calling something painful. "Can you walk and talk at least?"
-
The emptiness of it all was extremely unsettling to Asta's eyes. There was absolutely no one about. No wind rustled the greyish Gardenia, as if afraid to upset some unknown balance. Visually, it was almost boring, giving Asta some incentive to cause some type of mayhem to break the monotony. Like geesh, even a little whistle of the wind would have been nice.
However, this was not the real world. If she moved one thing, even the tiniest inch, she would compromise whatever memories that Roxy attached to that object. The town hummed with a sort of mental noise. Despite being inside Roxy's mind, Asta could still hear the formation of thought. She could hear trains of thought ebb and flow like water out of the streets but they were clearly not Roxy's. It was as if a second consciousness had taken residence in Roxy's frantic and shattered one like someone wearing someone else's clothes.
The symptoms were similar to possession. It proposed a sort of ethical gallimaufry of problems to her. Another time. Messing with someone's mind was one thing but messing with a mind that was already muddled with someone else's consciousness was another.
She would do as she was told to do.
It was proving difficult though.
The witch stopped in her tracks and rubbed her eyes. Patience was a virtue, she reminded herself, as was temperance and diligence. She had to be virtuous if she wanted what she wanted happening to come to fruition.
Opening her eyes again, she cleared her mind and saw a purple smog cross her vision amongst a light shimmering girlishly pink mist. Her eyes were clear of her thoughts as she saw the thoughts occurring inside Roxy. This had been what she was feeling. Two consciousness, one pink and one purple. Yeah, that was bad.
The purple smog seemed to writhe like a worm around the small and dainty pink mist, almost like a battle of dragons trying to suffocate the other. The purple smog constricted itself around its pink partner like a parasite, absorbing it and Asta watched in half-horror and half-curiosity. The smog thickened until she could no longer see Gardenia and she was surrounded by the purple haze.
"Oh crap, this isn't good." She took a defensive stance and lit a ball of light in her hand to see. She sensed that the purple smog had squashed the pink mist and was taking over, changing the environs. A sound like the clap of thunder and the moving of the earth beneath her like an earthquake warned her that drastic changes being made. Asta was assaulted by a billion thoughts and whispers, her mind instinctively trying to decipher them. It only made her mind recoil, like being burned by a fire. Too many. There were too many thoughts for her to decipher as a myriad of voices speaking strange languages surrounded her in the fog.
And then suddenly, the smog cleared away as if being brushed out like dust by a broom to reveal a dirt road flanked by vaguely strange square stone houses. All of them were one story with wooden doors and simple square windows or shutters. Asta got a vague déjà vu feeling as if she were looking back in time or revisiting history class. The purple fog disappeared into the intersecting streets and the clouds cleared to reveal the sky with the sun partially hidden behind mountains in the distance.
"Where in the world am I now?" Asta said tensely. "Roxy, you've got some major problems. See what happens if you hang with Bloom for too long. Bloom is a walking omen of bad luck." The witch looked up and down the street for clues and even in the windows of the buildings. She gathered that she was standing on some type of commercial street. She looked at the dirt and saw footprints of horses mingled with bare feet and some shoes. That had to mean something.
Up the street stood a towering stone building decorated with all sorts of complicated motifs and statues, similar to the older buildings she had seen in Gardenia. Someone, some member of the religion who took care of the building, had once told her that the style was called 'Gothic' after standing in front of the church looking up in awe at the marvellous designs. The church was dominated by a grey bell tower guarded by stone lions that had begun to din. Dogs barked, roosters cawed and various domestic sounds echoed through the town.
Then the street started to come alive as people stepped out of their shops. She smiled nervously, expecting some type of reaction but there was none.
And then the strangest thing happened, someone walked right through her! "What the freck?" she said in alarm. She soon discovered that no one could see her. She waved, she screamed and did everything possible to attract attention. No one saw her.
A procession people came down the street dressed in robes and long dresses and cloaks—a style that was totally opposite to current fashion trends on Earth. Their language was clearly understandable to her on some deep meaningful level but she was perplexed as she tried to lipread them alone. That meant that she did not know the language but the memory was bleeding into her mind, giving her some ability to interpret what was going on.
Theories bloomed into her mind. From what she could understand of the evidence around her, she was seeing Earth at a different time. Outdated clothing, dirt roads, stone houses with fires making smoke in the chimneys. Random facts came to her mind as she tried to hold the memory still in her mental grasp and read it.
It was the year 1346.
Asta stared at the procession as they casually made their way down the street, chattering. They were expecting a visitor to come up by the river and they wanted to welcome the guest properly as he had come from far away—somewhere from Africa. They were fairies mixed with possibly witches. The memory fed her the necessary information and she learnt their names. Intrigued at the memory, Asta followed the group.
-
"That continent—the tribes and kingdoms down south have been suffering—no, that is not the right term," Cipriano paused briefly and Nebula and her brother Steorra watched words flit behind the redheaded scholar's eyes. "They are enthralled by the passions of war and power. That is only the short of it though. The land has been ravaged by forbidden magic and everyone fears for the day the land deals out its hand in divine retribution."
"Savages," Nebula said.
"Disgusting," Steorra said.
"I'd hold my tongue if I were you," Cipriano advised stiffly. "You are no better than the kingdoms south if you are so swift to label them 'savages.'"
Nebula pretended to be occupied with a flock of birds flying overhead and ignored the scholar. Steorra continued, "At least, I am civil enough to consider peace."
"Don't be an idiot. Peace is an idea."
Steorra narrowed his eyes indignantly.
"There is only stasis and change. A time when nothing moves and a time when everything moves. Peace is the concept of political stasis and you should know that stasis is not always possible to create."
Cipriano, Steorra and Nebula walked ahead of their little serious group of people. Steorra and Nebula had arrived all the way from Cóiced Ol nEchmacht of Éire with their mother, Meadhbh, the Queen of the Fae, after receiving premonition from their Fairy of Limning that a conference would be held in Sicillia to discuss the unknown tension in Africa. It seemed that all the major leaders across the west and the east were gathering for something big. They weren't sure of what but something was coming.
Steorra was older than Nebula by two years. Tall with long braided black hair and dark blue eyes, he wore chainmail and gleaming armour with his sword buckled to his waist. A warrior and well-read person, he had often found himself at odds with Cipriano, a middle-aged priest and scholar from Verona with blood red hair, icy blue eyes and skin as pale as stone. He wore white robes with a red scarf threaded with gold. Nebula was a girl with dark blue black hair and dark blue eyes like her brother. Her hair fell only to her shoulders and she wore a midnight blue gown with a low back weaved with silver threads and a dazzling circlet decorated with rubies. Her shimmering pale wings burst from her back.
Cipriano regarded the two teenagers with distaste and turned to his peers: Meadhbh, her English husband Bladen, the children's caregiver Morgana, the Limning Fairy. He had met with them in Milano by coincidence but they had all responded to the instinctive call to Sicillia.
Cipriano was an odd man who seemed to have measure of dislike for everyone. He had revealed very little of himself except that he had travelled from kingdom to kingdom amassing his knowledge since the eight century "for the sake of knowledge," as he had said often. Steorra had an instant disliking for the man judging by his robes as most scholars were members of the Church since they had easier access to information. There was a certain irony in it.
"Do you believe in God, Father Cipriano?"
"Very much so, Steorra."
"Then how is it you are here when you believe in God?"
Cipriano gave him a patronizing smile and promptly ignored him. Steorra seethed and walked ahead with his sister, speaking rapidly in Gaelic. The man turned his attention to Morgana who wore a very serious face. The caregiver was a fairy who wore a simple green gown. She had long brown black hair, dark blue eyes and translucent wings with shining blue veins.
Morgana had a thoroughly uplifting lilt in her voice. She regarded the siblings lightly and always kept an eye on them. "I doona think you should antagonize them so, Father. They only know from what they read. Let them be."
"I do not think a boy is a child anymore when he is already carrying a sword, signorina." He nodded to Steorra who was herding his sister from a display in the window. A man must do what he must to survive in this world. When one has the luxury of living as long as I have, you learn to appreciate things in their absolute terms. If I have to lie to stay alive, then so be it. Being a priest is comfortable and affordable living. No one bothers me, I do the necessary rituals and no one questions it."
"Have you ever touched a Bible, Father?"
"I worked as a scribe for ten years around the turn of the millennium. I've read every verse. Frankly, signorina, it's just an elaborate tale to scare children but it does occasionally have the useful piece of advice."
"You are a strange man, Father."
"I am a practical man."
"How did you come to live for so long?"
"I don't know. I was merchant's son and my father was traveling in Persia. The trip proved fatal as the city we stopped had something contaminating its river. Everyone was so sick, even I. I thought I was going to die until I woke up one day right as rain but my father and brother were dead along with half the city. I don't care very much for the details of how I came to be immortal so don't bother. And you, signorina—anything worth noting?"
"I am only a baker's daughter. My father's an elf from Erebos and my mother's an orestiad and so, she is wont to not leave her place of birth for long."
One of Cipriano's brows arched. "I wasn't aware that nymphs were inclined to have children, let alone capable of having them."
Morgana regarded the man uneasily. "Yes, well, they are still capable of emotions despite their limited immortality."
"Does that make you immortal, signorina? Being the offspring of an immortal?"
"Nay."
They made their way to the seaport where an array of boats from different kingdoms had lined the ocean, giving an impending sense of dread as Nebula saw flags from all the major kingdoms. She saw a French ship, an English, a Spanish and other unidentifiable flags that danced out of her mind. An entourage of Chinese had arrived by air on the backs of their renowned heavenly dragons. The town that they were all gathering at was a small barely important town in the whole grand scheme of the world. All the kings, queens and every leader gathered at this town. These leaders were not leaders of countries like Philippe VI of Valois or Edward III but the leaders of the various magical races that had migrated to Earth from various other worlds, bringing their culture.
Meadhbh was from a line elected kings and queens of fae that had taken their home to the north, choosing to stay away from mainland troubles as much as possible. They had chosen to keep themselves separate from the humans on Earth. There was no open enmity between them and the Earthlings but it was preferable to live separately as each others lives were frighteningly different.
Later that night, a large red tent was erected in a meadow outside the village and they held a war council immediately. A Chinese princess who guarded the secrets of the dragons called Mu Lan held the position of chairman. Mu Lan was a stirringly beautiful person Asian that would have been fit to be an emperor's concubine and had a face with serpentine-like quality that did not detract from her beauty. Her unfaltering gaze scrutinized every speaker, putting them into the fabled hypnotized state. A sort of dragoness in her own class, she even overshadowed her powerful warrior husband, Shang. Right now, she seemed to be in a room full of adult-sized children all floundering for a solution.
Nebula regarded the Chinese woman with green as she watched her control the council with the grace and finesse of a man. Mu Lan was the second woman that Nebula had ever seen who held a such a fine position power and held it properly, doing what was absolutely necessary unlike some men. The first woman was her mother, Meadhbh.
"You have all elected me as your chairperson, given me your armies, every piece of gold and silver, presented yourself with utmost loyalty," Mu Lan sighed femininely and leaned her head on one hand as if bored. "Every notable leader or notable figure of all the races not born of this planet that had come seven millennia ago from Erebos, Magycks, Tian…and yet, we do not have a single representative from the continent across the Roman Sea to tell us what is going on?"
Everyone fidgeted in their seat. Nebula looked around the room for noticeably dark-skinned people—black people. None. Even Nebula started to sweat. The meeting was not going well at all.
Nebula was not part of the actual council but more of an observer with her brother. They stood behind their seated mother whose face betrayed very little emotion. Nebula could feel that the tension that her mother was feeling as did Steorra. The siblings should not have been there. It was late enough and most people would have been asleep by now if one was a crofter or farmer. The village was overrun with servants and lesser nobles who had accompanied their leader as an entourage and entire town was abuzz as if someone had emptied a bottle of oil on it and they were waiting for someone to drop a match.
A ruckus from outside the tent interrupted the quietness that had taken over. Mu Lan narrowed her eyes dangerously from being interrupted and hissed like snake. "Let the woman in!" she screamed shrilly at the guards.
Suddenly, Morgana came in at run looking for someone in particular followed by the guards.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Mu Lan asked.
Morgana was stricken by the onslaught of Mu Lan's serpentine gaze and she stuttered on her words, "I h-heard somethi-thing on the wind! I am the Fairy of Limning, I can hear things from faraway. Boats, a dozen warships sailing no flags. It's full of black-skinned men. Barely any whites."
Mu Lan leaned forward in her seat as did everyone else. "How far?"
"Just on the horizon, milady."
Nebula's was enveloped in shock as the enormity of the situation fell on her.
"Daimon, I want a full report on those ships from your mermaids now!" Mu Lan screamed, "Shang, have the dragons saddled and armoured! Wake up all every man and woman with a sword and a spell. I want a confrontation on the water. Don't let the boats within an arrows distance of the shore."
All hell broke loose as the small village was a flurry of activity with people tensely waking from their slumber and reaching for every weapon available in preparations for the warships. Every lamp was lit, bathing the village in an orange yellow glow. Nebula watched helplessly as she was forcefully sheltered into the innermost most fortified building in the village as her brother, father and mother ran off to gather their forces.
Sitting at the window of her room, Nebula gathered herself in a thick quilt and watched as the seaport slowly became lit like a festival of war. Long dragons swirled in the sky like sea snakes dancing in the water and belched blinding white fire. Their roars made her bones tremble and for a one very still moment, she knew that something bad was going to happen.
-
"So are you going to say anything, Sky?" Bloom said.
They walked slowly beside the tide. The beach near the Frutti Music Bar had long disappeared or the bar itself had but they were definitely nowhere near anything resembling Gardenia. The beach was surrounded by tall rock on all of its remaining sides.
There was an uncomfortable space between Bloom and Sky that created had an antagonistic schism. Calm was not a word to describe their relationship. It never had been. It was always 'Diaspro this, Diaspro' that and now, 'Andy this, Andy that' although it had never been voiced aloud. Bloom was waiting Sky's reaction to Andy, just waiting for him to blow up and come running to her in selfish anger where she would then rebuttal with how she felt when she found out about Diaspro. It seemed though that Sky did not care much for Andy, almost as if he didn't have the time of day to spend thinking about some lowly musical artist from some backwater planet. Did he even care?
"What do you want to know? Just ask me and I'll tell you."
"Well, explain all of this!" Bloom raised her arms to the sky. "Why did Asta force you to come? Aren't you the king? Couldn't you have overridden her?"
"Yes and…no."
"Sky?"
"Asta is a lot more complicated than you would like to imagine."
"Then explain it to me. Who is she and why does she want you here?"
"Asta is my friend from school. I knew her before that but we weren't really friends. The school was run like a military base so yeah. She was part of my squad and we had almost the same branches of study but her goals were different from mine when we were growing up. She wasn't a bad person but we see things in different lights. She had her beliefs from home and I had mine…anyways, she came to school already knowing a lot of skills and so did I. The school determined where our potential was and they put us in the same program—the performing arts."
"You did art?"
"Is it that hard to believe? A school is a school. It's normal, isn't it?"
"But what about fighting? Swords and guns and stuff?"
"That's considered part of performing arts to some extent, I guess. I learnt how to fight long before that. Anyways, I did political sciences and languages and she did applied sciences later. We did missions during the year and performances during the winter—"
"You're still holding back, Sky. Tell me," Bloom accused.
"Okay, we didn't exactly go to a normal school. It was a military school—co-ed, too. Think of…think of a female specialist—someone who is a hardass like Riven with all the grace of a female. She's awkward but very willful and objective. She always does the right things even if it doesn't look like it—she wasn't trained to be a field operative. She was more behind the scenes, an instigator—like interrogation, investigation, intelligence…"
"Like a spy?"
"Something like that." Sky looked to the sky uneasily as it began to darken from its happy bright blue into blackness at an unnatural rate. Stars like heavenly battle strategies started to shine brightly. Brighter than Bloom had ever seen them in Gardenia, maybe just as bright as a clear dark night at Alfea where she was miles away from the light of civilization.
"We should get to higher ground before the moon brings in the tide." Sky examined the sheer face of rock before him with a hand. He noted the layers of shale and siltstone. The rock face was at least five times his height. He began to climb carefully as Bloom fluttered just above him. She watched helplessly.
"Sky, the moon is moving across the sky kinda fast," Bloom said as she watched the moon move up into the sky at an alarming rate.
"Okay, then do me a favour: cover my back for tidal waves."
"What?!"
"Just shield me with something as I climb! I can't fly and there's no way you can carry me."
"Sky, this is insane. What if I make a rope and helped pull you up?"
"Absolutely not! Once that rope is created, you can't uncreate it in here and it has to stay in Roxy's mind. You'll only insert a foreign object into her head and she'll get confused. We have to obey Roxy's rules of logic."
"That's stupid! I thought laws of physics don't apply here."
"They do if Roxy wants them to. She knows nothing outside of what she considers normal except for us. Just watch for the tide, Bloom. I need to concentrate on climbing." Sky heaved himself up rock, trying to waste no time looking back on the receding shore. Thankfully, he was quicker than she had expected.
Bloom kept watch for the horizon, the water glistening in the moonlight. Her eyes widened as she realized the height of the wave.
"Sky, the water is coming!"
"I can hear it," he gritted as he heaved himself over a ledge, rested and looked up again.
The tidal surge was like a hum, like a roaring engine approaching, causing her Bloom's bones to quake in face of nature's might. She might have been the guardian of life-giving force of the universe but she was only mortal, knowing mortal fears and she was by magical nature weak against the element of water. Closer and closer, the water came rising higher. Higher than the height Sky was on the rock face and with enough force to maybe crush Sky.
She fluttered by Sky and screamed, "FLAME ARMOUR!"
Bloom could never imagine what if would feel like to get crushed by a boulder or ran over by a car. Now she knew. There was a deafening roar as she threw up the fiery shield and water engulfed the sphere of fire, sizzling. It took all of her might to stop herself from letting go of the shield and letting the water carry her and Sky into the ocean. Her shield sputtered as boiling water sprayed at her and Sky. The sphere of heat was like a sauna to Sky and the heat rolling off his fiancée was near fatal.
"Bloom, air!" Sky yelled weakly and began to heave. "Your fire!"
Bloom saw that the surface of water was a few feet above and grabbed onto Sky's belt. "Take a deep breath! I can't hold the barrier anymore!"
"What—?!" she heard Sky scream as flooded into the shield slowly like a fountain, boiling hot. The shield burst and Bloom held onto Sky as inky black bone-chilling cold water swallowed them and smashed them against the rock. The wind was knocked out of her and she pulled back onto Sky, smashing the back of her head with his. She saw stars and her wings felt like lead as she fluttered them in vain. She blacked out.
Woozy, Sky broke the surface of the water, gasping for air. Clinging to the rock, he looked about for Bloom. Insane! F-ing insane!
"Bloom?!" he mustered. He cursed repeatedly at the turn of events. Seeing no sign of her, he dove back into the black water blindly looking for her.
Latter Note: No, it's not over. Just one more chapter of dreamworld before we get to the real world. I really this threw thing through the shredder to get a decent and simple plot.
I feel like I'm writing an adult version of Alice in Wonderland. This required a fair amount of historical and mythological research. You can skip the following:
Velociraptors: Bloom's imagination running wild as she remembers Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. That scene where the kids were trapped in the kitchen with the raptors gave me nightmares as a kid.
1346: That is two years before Europe is officially in the throes of the Black Death. One of the first places to get it was Sicily in 1347.
Nebula: Contrary to what was first believed, Nebula is not the woman with long brown hair and green dress in the opening and whom I originally planned to be the specter that had possessed Roxy. This does not change things though. Appeareances are deceiving. In the show's present, Nebula has chin-length voluminous blue black hair, almost like Stormy's but not quite. She is pale-skinned and wears dark colours. She is a character driven by revenge in the series. Very powerful and very dangerous. Probably as strong as or strongerthan the Trix since the Winx Club had a hard time fighting her. Her heart is in the right place though.
Steorra: Nebula's older brother; inserted by me. His name means 'star' in Old English.
Meadhbh: Queen of the Fae. Inserted by me. Anglicised spelling is 'Maeve.' Mythologically, Medb is a queen of Connacht of the Ulster Cycle of the Irish mythology. They are completely unrelated. I did not realise that there was a Queen Medb until I wrote this note (seriously, coincidence?). I only chose 'Meadhbh' because Shakespeare referred to Titania as Queen Mab in A Midsummer's Night Dream.
Bladen: Meadhbh's English husband. Inserted by me. From my understanding of the situation at the time, Ireland was in a real estate battle between the Normans and the English. It was totally feasible for an English to marry an Irish. For social norms, I have no idea what the reaction would be. His name means 'sword/knife/blade' in English.
Cóiced Ol nEchmacht: Name of Connacht at the time. It was a coincidence that the mythological Medb was queen of Connacht.
Éire: Name of Ireland by locals at the time, I think.
Morgana: Yes, she is a caretaker at the moment. FINALE SPOILERS: Let me make it clear that even though she becomes Queen of the Earth Fairies and is then succeeded by Nebula, Nebula still does not necessarily have the right to inherent her mother's place in the context of this story. Pre-Christian Irish (?) people believed that woman were equal to men, were allowed to do as they saw fit. By my context, this includes saying that their decedents did not get any rights to a throne. I don't see Irish mythological creatures running government by monarchy but rather elected leaders considering the mythos. Also, in the actual show, her powers are never given an actual name but I decided to make her the Fairy of Limning, aka to describe or to voice out. Minerva from FFVII comes to mind, I suppose.
Cipriano: *shifty eyes* I renamed a canon character for the sake of the plot. (Something I planned a long time ago.)
Mu Lan: Yes, Mulan. For anyone who does not know, the Disney movie is based off the fairy tale of Ballad of Mulan where a woman joins the all-male army. I got the idea of dragon-riding warrior princess from the series Temeraire by Naomi Novik. Bored out of my mind, I named her husband Shang.
Erebos: Erebus, part of the underworld from Greek mythos. Also the son of Chaos and represented the personification of darkness and shadow.
Magycks: Magix.
Tian: Chinese concept of 'heaven'—not the same Heaven as in 'kingdom come' in Abrahamic religions, e.g. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. Depending, Tian can be seen as a supreme deity or a large realm like in Greek Mythology.
Roman Sea: Mediterranean Sea.
That concludes this chapter's history lesson.
Originally, there was only going to be a Queen of Fairies (Meadhbh) and a King of Shades (ex. demons, witches, vampires, etc.) but that strangely felt wrong for many, many reasons, i.e. how would that work in the first place?