Chapter Text
Dear Mike and Vanessa,
School’s going fine, I’ve been eating well, I’ve slept eight hours a night, and I have not tried alcohol yet. Did that answer all the questions Mike was going to ask yet? Have I successfully convinced you I’m doing fine here?
Now onto the actual stuff to talk about. Alfea is amazing! Stella decided to take us all on a tour of the school the day after we arrived. Since she already attended, she said she knew all the best secret spots. Musa and Tecna didn’t want to come, but Stella convinced them by promising to show them the Music Room and tell Tecna the legend of The Secret Library.
Musa played a song for us all when we got there. Tecna is now trying to convince her to learn how to make dubstep. I’m cautiously excited for whatever they create.
Flora apparently already knew where the greenhouses were, and took control of the tour by telling us every kind of plant that was there. Vanessa, we totally have to let her visit the shop sometimes. You’d love to meet her! Mike, I promise she’s softer than Stella, you’ll be able to put up with her.
After that, we decided to end the day by swimming. And by we decided, I mean Stella dragged us to a lake in the forest she knew of.
The lake is called Lake Roccaluche. We were apparently not supposed to go to the lake, so got caught, but after saying where we were the professors got that really weird look on their face they usually do when I bring something up that I don’t know about.
So what do you know, they told me to ask Daphne about it!
Honestly, at this point, I just assume I’m going to learn something completely new about my sister every day. At least this time it got us out of any real trouble.
I sent a letter to Daphne about it. It’s actually the same way I’m sending this letter right now, there are a ton of spells that send a letter directly to the destination, or in this case, your kitchen table. I haven’t managed to do the spell yet though, so I’ve been having Stella cast it for me.
Daphne told me Lake Roccaluche is the lake she’s bonded to as a nymph. Which was then proceeded by at least nine paragraphs explaining what that meant. I still had to ask Tecna for some help deciphering the terms.
So, long story short, a nymph is a certain type of fairy bonded to Magix to protect it. And they are specifically bonded to one of the major lakes of Magix.
Can you imagine binding your life to a place to protect it? I don’t mean in terms of like, theoretical care for a place. There are always things worth pledging your life to. Moreso, having that situation come up.
I think that’s what I have the most problems with. Not the idea of magic, not the idea of this level of care, not even all the information about our parents. It’s that all this was something real that happened to Daphne, that every insane situation connected to my sister, who loves dinosaur chicken nuggets. And yes Mike, she does love them, don’t let her face fool you.
When I talk with you two, I can remember being back on Earth. When I talk to Stella, or any of the other girls, I am immersed in the world of Magix. Daphne is just disorienting. Disordered. Split.
But then she’ll do things that bring these two worlds together.
You know, I wonder why Earth doesn’t have any fairies. Maybe I’ll go back and be the fairy of Earth. Maybe that will be the place I bind my life to and become a nymph of. I don’t think that’s a scary prospect, no more than any other idea of the future. I love Earth, in all the ways I never could because I didn’t understand what parts of me didn’t fit back then. I wouldn’t mind having the chance to bind myself to it.
That’s why it didn’t feel odd that Daphne bound herself to Magix, only that she had the chance to do so.
I can’t wait to see you next. I’ve become a fairy now, a real fairy. You’ve only seen Stella transform, but both Daphne and I have fairy forms too. I know Daphne has more chances to visit than I do, so maybe ask her to show you next time. Or maybe don’t, I wouldn’t want to be a disappointment after Daphne. Her form is so mystical when she transforms, I feel like every idea of a fairy pales in comparison.
Yet when I am a fairy, I feel like I become every one of those ideas, turning them into my skin.
When I return home, I’m not going to return to go back to school, to just go about my day. I may do all of those things, but I know I will do them differently now. I will come embodied in a new skin, wreathed in a new flame.
I know you may not understand, but being a fairy has revealed who I am to me. It hurts, to learn so many things each day. To know so much had been hidden from me. And what’s more, to know the truth is so gruesome, I can’t even be mad, because I struggle to tell you it all as well.
But it is a truth I cannot turn away from, a life that I always needed. When you see me next, I’ll be a fairy, fully and utterly. And if I ever return for good, I’ll return as a fairy, mark my words.
Anyway, how’s work going? Please tell me those annoying goons have stopped trying to make you sell your store Vanessa. And Mike, I’m considering taking up a summer job at the fire station. And BEFORE you tell me I’m too young and that it’s dangerous, please remember I cannot be burned.
I hope you’re all well, and I love you!
Bloom
Dearest friends, Mike and Vanessa,
Days stretch long on Earth and short in Magix. No, not literally, though it tends to feel like that. Perhaps it is because I have so much to catch up on here, but time seems too short for all I have to do, and casts my time on Earth in a shadow of limbo.
Finding my parents has been unsuccessful so far, unsurprisingly. I still have many avenues to continue downwards, and such a short time is not enough to make me give up.
I don’t want to confuse you with the complicated explanations of magics I’m learning, nor do I think I know how to write what is in front of me, or within me. Suffice it to say, I have returned to Domino, and I am reconnecting with my past. You’d think this would just be remembering memories of the war, ones I had placed aside for so long, but those have been the most vivid these past years.
Rather I am… remembering other things.
But I don’t wish to bend your ear for those problems, rather once again, I must speak to you about my little sister. I did not expect this transition to be this odd, but is this what all older siblings and parents feel like when their charge goes off to college? Are you feeling this way?
I wake up some days and prepare breakfast for two. I’ve eaten leftovers of my overpreparing multiple times over the past few days. I go to bed and I wonder what Bloom has been up to today.
She’s sent me a letter already, detailing her first few days at Alfea. I cannot help but think I should be there, hearing this around a kitchen table, or one phone call away to pick her up. I know Bloom is safe at Alfea, I trust Headmistress Faragonda (remind me to tell you of her sometime, she is an old mentor), and Bloom has always been surprisingly self-sufficient. Regardless, I don’t know if its worry or just nostalgia that has its hold on me.
She’s made friends at least, I’m glad for that. You were probably surprised, our little Bloom who’s always wandered her own path, suddenly talking about a whole group of friends? I was a bit surprised too, but I suppose Alfea is just like that. I remember making many acquaintances and friends during my time there, though at a much slower pace than Bloom, and honestly to a lesser degree. It’s good to hear about her friends though, I’ve had the luxury of meeting most of them briefly, and they all strike me as loyal and dependable.
Also far more practical than the Princess Stella, but I suppose I cannot begrudge a teenager for behaving like one. I simply worry about what mischief Bloom could get up to with an enabler like her.
I suppose I mean to say I am worried. I am alone. I am missing Bloom. I don’t know what advice I came to ask, and I don’t know what you can give.
You know, it is not only my parents I search for. It is what I call my search, but truly, it is for all my people. None of their bodies are here, nor their ashes. Even if it is my Mother and Father I long for most, there are many voices I miss.
It would likely surprise you to know that despite my antisocial tendencies on Earth, I did have a good few friends on Domino. Though, shockingly, the one I find myself thinking of most is Helen. She was a fellow classmate, and one of the two in my grade that also hailed from Domino.
She was a butterfly of sorts, not always seeking attention, yet often flitting from social circle to social circle. We weren’t particularly close for many of our years. We’d celebrate holidays specific to Domino together, but I was closer to Politea, the other girl from Domino in our class.
It was only when I got my Enchantix when we became close.
I don’t know if there is an unalarming way to explain Enchantix. It is inherently sacrificial, inherently risky. It is when you sacrifice something, be it your safety or something else, to help one from your home planet, and gain a new fairy form from it. My Mother got her Enchantix by staying up for three nights over the bedside of my Father after a battle, constantly healing him for all that time. They told me the story with a bitter fondness, one I didn’t understand back then.
Now, I tell my Enchantix with a bitter fondness.
It was in the middle of battle at our last year at Alfea. We had been attacked by the monsters of the Ancestral Witches, and scattered throughout the forest. It was only luck that the person I came across was Helen, and not any of the other many, many fairies that were there.
I jumped in front of her, and well, what I lost was regained shortly in the blaze of my Enchantix.
Past that, we became close friends. She told she wished one day to be a fairy in my service, a handmaiden, a guard. There is no word of Earth to describe the role a fairy plays in court. She liked baking muffins and would bring them to studying sessions we’d have together, and later when we returned to Domino, she would play cards with me.
I regret not a thing that sparked our friendship. I don’t think I could, not when she became so dear to me.
But now I realize that it is likely too many of Bloom’s bonds will be forged in the middle of magical combat, in the height of emotion that Magix draws out of everyone. The friends she has already made have already proven they’d protect her in battle, though against some witches in training, and not a war yet.
I think of Bloom gaining Enchantix the same way as me, and I understand why Mother told this story while looking away from me, with a heavy hand. I fear for the day I will tell Bloom what Enchantix is, and forever worry how she will achieve it.
And yet, I think one day, her Enchantix form would be glorious.
All my regards,
Daphne