Chapter Text
Stella has known what it means to be a princess since she was a tiny child with messy hair and horn-rimmed glasses tugging on her father’s cape and her mother’s skirt as they walked different directions. Her mother lifted her up to the balcony and said “it means you are the one who will be responsible for all you see,” but Stella didn’t see very far in her failing glasses. Her father took her hands and said “to rule all with dazzling kindness,” but Stella didn’t know how to make rules to be kind, only how to stretch down a hand and help someone up.
She got better at it as she got older.
The new princess of Domino, on the other hand, had no idea how to be a princess. As her self-declared best friend, it was up to Stella to fix that.
“So, do I have to sit straight?” Bloom asks, raising an eyebrow as Stella drags her into her room. Best to do this in a place where Flora’s plants wouldn’t be constantly interrupting them.
“Absolutely not!” Stella admonishes. “You are a princess, one of the most powerful people in the realm. You should be powerposing at all times, spread out to take up space. You should also make sure to always lean a bit forwards in interest, so then if someone insults you, you can straighten up then.”
Bloom giggles into the palm of her hand, the movement sending her long bangs cascading into her face once more. She was always reaching up to tuck them behind her ear, or blowing them out of her eyesight.
Stella reaches forwards and gathers the locks in her hands, twisting them and snapping a hairband around it. “You don’t want to have nervous movements at a meeting,” she advises. “But you also look best with your hair down.”
In her fairy form, Bloom’s hair had shone, lighting up at the ends until it was almost indistinguishable from the flames that swirled around her arms. It had been even more wild than her normal hair, fanning out in the wind.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Bloom mumbles, reaching up and twisting the hair in her own hands. “Thanks.”
“I’ll teach you more spells to do your hair later,” Stella winks. “Now, where were we?”
“We hadn’t even gotten started,” Bloom replies.
Stella ran the conversation back in her mind. Drat, Bloom was right! She would have to get much more focused. “Right, step one, you know nothing, so you should project confidence while also saying that it’s another person’s problem.”
Now, Stella thinks that makes perfect sense. Honestly, she was rather proud of herself for phrasing it so succinctly. Yet Bloom looks at her with the most aghast confusion Stella had ever seen on another person. Bloom projected her emotions so much, so earnest in a way that Stella had never seen in her courts.
“What does that even mean?” Bloom deadpans.
“Well,” Stella bites her lip for a minute to think. “Like, if someone asks you about something, say it was like Daphne’s job to look after that, and they should inquire to her about the details rather than bother you.”
“But politely?”
“Yes of course more politely than that. What do you want to do, start an interdimensional incident?”
“You’d probably know, you’ve likely started one before.”
“That’s neither here nor there Bloom, and none of your business. You really shouldn’t look it up online either.”
Bloom wasn’t like any other princess. Maybe some would scorn her for that, say she had no idea what she was talking about, but Stella appreciated the contrast she provided. Stella wasn’t much of a cookie cutter princess either, and she damn well believed no one should be.
Princess Diaspro would scoff into Stella’s ear at a party and say that Bloom would be eaten alive by wolves. Princess Aisha of Andros would probably give Bloom one of those tightlipped smiles she could only give for the tight dresses and layers after layers of ruffled skirts her parents wrapped her in. Princess Galatea would be intrigued, but Princess Galatea was the type to stick close to the band rather than talk to anyone.
“Hey Stella,” Bloom asks, as Stella teaches her to waltz. Their hands are laced together and they’re so close that Stella can see every twist of Bloom’s face as she figures out to phrase the question. “Do you really think I have to learn this?”
Stella steps forward, leading Bloom around in a twirl. “What do you mean?”
She dips Bloom in her arms, one of Bloom’s hands sliding up to cup around the back of her neck. “Well, my planet’s gone.”
Bloom stands, taking the lead this time on the step back, leaving Stella to only barely not-stumble through the next motion.
“But isn’t your sister trying to solve that?” Stella asks. To be frank, she doesn’t understand Daphne’s plans that well. Bloom rarely talks about them, even as she loves talking about her family. Daphne reminds Stella much more of the Kings and Queens that scoff at her in the ballrooms, makeup covering darkened eyes and heavy voices as they make deal after deal to keep a peace everyone is too tired to break.
“Daphne might believe that our people are still out there, but I don’t know,” Bloom admits. “I don’t really feel like a princess, when I have no duty to anyone.”
Stella considers that for a moment, she’s not going to dismiss Bloom’s worries outright. It’s tempting though, to tell Bloom she’s wrong and that her people will be found, that she is a princess Stella would be honored to-
“Alive or dead, don’t you still have a duty to them?” Stella responds. “You have a memory to learn about and live on, a warning to carry, a culture to reignite. You have no people, but you have a history you can learn.”
The dance ends, and Bloom tightens her grip, so they twirl into another step.
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When she had been accepted into Alfea, Flora’s parents had given her many warnings. They’d told her to stay out of trouble, to be careful of bad influences, to keep up her grades, and most of all, to make friends. Alfea was the best school for fairies, but the best and brightest gathered made for a quite an explosive experience.
But in all of the nights she’d spent wondering about who she’d become at Alfea, Flora had never considered that she would meet the lost princess of Domino and become friends. Nor that she’d be able to immediately take over the conservatory.
Bloom joined her most mornings after breakfast. Flora woke up unreasonably early according to the other girls, and often ate without them before moving on to her work.
“Vanessa used to bring me around to her flower shop and teach me to care for the plants there,” Bloom told her. “But I don’t think that’s going to help that much here, I don’t recognize a single thing!”
Flora had giggled, and later that night handed Bloom the best book on herbology she could find.
Water spurts from the spout and cascades over the plants as Flora watches, ready to stop Bloom. But she raises the can before Flora can tell her to, and moves onto the next one, humming the Earth song she played while studying under her breath.
She learned voraciously, occasionally bringing a specific page to Flora and telling her that “Daphne said this used to grow in Domino.”
Flora had never considered that she’d spend her first year in Alfea as part of a restoration effort, but she found her heart aching to do more with every page. Her fingers strained as she sunk her magic into the roots, offering them every bit of life that the ice had stolen from them.
They fed on fire, the heat Bloom exuded. They didn’t need much watering, no, Flora just put them in the best spot for sunlight in her greenhouse.
She and Bloom read over words to care for them together, grinning as the first bud began to appear after a week.
It was like Flora was back home, being shown the flowers of the swamp for the first time. Mother had taken her hand and guided her along the veins, telling her that one day she’d be able to trace the magic there. She could see that wonder in Bloom.
At one point in everyone’s life, they are separated from their history. It is not always a passive choice to know all the building blocks their society had been a part of. Of course, living societies could passively integrate people better. But one was not born with a history, they were given it by caring hands or had it choked around their neck.
But Flora had been taught it as a child, still malleable as they clay she learned to shape. Bloom was a teenager, set in her ways and ready to move on and change the world, not dive into it to find the roots.
She didn’t speak of Domino as her home, but of Earth.
Bloom enters the greenhouse that weekend afternoon, and it is still so early in the school year that Flora has not worked out a schedule of when to be here. But Bloom doesn’t seem surprised to find her here.
In her hands, she carries with her a plant Flora has never seen before, and Flora immediately begins to try to place it in one of the photos Daphne had shown them. Another piece of a lost world for Flora to reignite.
But that doesn’t mean Flora will disregard pleasantries.
“Hello Bloom, were you looking for me?” Flora asks her roommate, straightening up and letting her magic slowly fall away from the plant she was pruning.
“Yeah, but I didn’t have to look hard,” Bloom laughs.
“And what do you have there?” Flora nods towards the unrecognizable plant.
Bloom hefts up the plant to eye-level, as if to assure herself that it's the plant Flora is talking about, as though there is any other plant to reference. “Well, I was visiting Gardenia today, and Vanessa gave me this. It’s called a Bleeding Heart, I always loved seeing them in her store.”
So the plant was from Earth, a realm much different from the once-burning shores of Domino. Yet Flora smiled at how the petals curled to bleed out a flower, at the stunning shape like the hearts she doodled in childhood notebooks.
She’d always wanted to visit Earth and see what they had there. And likely there were thousands of this plant, different from the few they had left of Domino. But the longing in Bloom’s eyes for this flower were no less than those of her forgotten home. Flora couldn’t deny how her heart also wanted to bleed into them.
“Did she give you any instructions on how to care for it?” Flora asked, already wondering where to make room for it in her greenhouse.
Bloom smiled, a grin brighter than any flame Flora had ever seen on Lymphea. It was a smile that would never burn away any plant to ash and dead petal, rather it would nurture anything it touched, all the life that Bloom reached out to grasp.
Perhaps one day, Flora could also smile in a way that made everyone who saw her feel that life.
“She said to put it in the shade,” Bloom informed her, and they got to work side by side.
Flora had never been the type of person to regret things, not when everything could regrow. And even as her eyes became heavy as she stayed up late into the night finishing homework and Musa had to bring them food in the greenhouse, Flora did not regret what this year would become. Her heart bleeding out so much love was beautiful, just as the plant of Earth that sat in the shadow of Domino.
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The auditorium was empty at dinnertime, when Musa entered with her guitar thrown across her back and stood in the center of the empty room. She was used to singing outside, on the edge of the bay or on the tops of cliffs, places where her dad wouldn’t see from their kitchen windows. She was used to her voice vanishing into the starry sky, not echoing back at her with increasing fervor.
So she sat on the balcony instead, letting keys slowly reverberate in her fingers as she didn’t try to sing.
She’d spent so much of childhood wanting the freedom to belt out a refrain, to join in a chorus. When she went to sleep at night, she didn’t dream of what she’d learn at Alfea, but rather how her voice would grow.
But her mouth was still empty of words to sing, not when it felt like she was still just hiding from her father.
“What song are you playing?” Bloom asks, Musa looking up to see Bloom leaning against the doorframe. She still has a ketchup stain across her chin and is wearing her pajama top but still her bell bottom jeans.
“Nothing in particular,” Musa responds, after the initial urge to run and hide her guitar in a place she’s sure her dad won’t smash it fades away.
“Are you making up a song then?” Bloom continues.
Musa had made up a few songs of her own before, opening videos on her phone and watching them in the twilight of her room. “No, just playing.”
Bloom shrugs, accepting that answer.
Musa didn’t know what to think of most of her roommates. Tecna was the one Musa spent the most time around, and she felt like they were starting to figure each other out. Tecna may be blunt, but it wasn’t out of malice. She was a headstrong individual, set in her plans. Musa had always lived life more as an improv show. Mostly, they exchanged polite pleasantries, and asked each other for homework help.
Flora was kinder than Musa was used to. She’d think it fake if not for the earnestness Flora radiated. She was soft, quietly speaking up, light touches on other’s arms. Yet Musa had not seen fear on her face, the same fear Musa’s heart thrummed with, when the witches attacked. She dealt with her plants with a firm grip. She dealt with her problems with an immovable determination. She also already had better grades than Musa.
Stella was a mess, the type of person Musa had hoped and prayed she wouldn’t share a room with. Self-centered and rich, Stella could walk down any hall confidently, break any rule with the knowledge that she’d have another option. By all rights, Stella should be the worst person imaginable.
Yet like all her new friends, Musa had seen that without a doubt Stella would jump in front of fire or ice for her. That no matter their current distance, their resolve had been steeled in battle to protect each other. Musa didn’t know these people any better so why had she too jumped into the fray when Bloom had been troubled?
And then there was Bloom herself.
She probably knew Bloom best, after the debacle of Bloom’s arrival. It was a bitter type of knowledge, learned at the same time. Musa shouldn’t have known Bloom was the princess of Domino, of the horror of her young circumstances. It should’ve been something Bloom entrusted to her later, not told to her through their careless deduction.
So, Bloom had been autopsied before Musa, she felt like she knew her pretty well.
“Can I join you?” Bloom asks, and Musa gestures toward the railing. Bloom doesn’t need any more invitation to hop up and balance unsteadily. “Y’know, I was never able to learn how to play a single instrument, but I’m not that bad a singer.”
“Oh really?” Musa raises an eyebrow. “I’m not that bad either.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Bloom grins. “Want to teach me a song from Melody, or do you wanna learn an Earth song?”
Songs from Melody were sung under her breath, at her mother’s grave. Songs from Melody echoed in every voice other than her own.
“Earth, let’s see what your music taste is like.”
Bloom chuckles and scrolls through her phone.
The sound of an acoustic guitar plays through Bloom’s terrible phone speakers, and she taps her feet to the beat. A few more buttons on her phone, and she passes Musa a screen full of sheet music.
“Oh, turn your lamps down low,” Bloom croons in time with the vocalist. Her voice is a bit harsher and lower than the high pitches Musa is used to hearing singers make. It fits the song perfectly.
Musa echoes the line.
Bloom leads the song, rocking with the music. She’s clearly a dancer, and before the song is over Musa can bet she’ll be up on her feet.
Musa takes over at the chorus. “If only I could break the chain of disappointments weighing me down.” She pitches her voice up to be lighter and breathier than Bloom’s, like a mournful thought tossed into the back of one’s mind.
She wonders, suddenly, how many times Bloom has sung this song before. Is it even her favorite? Musa hadn’t thought to ask, hadn’t thought to take hold of the familiar thread Bloom had tied them together with.
“Haunted.” The word ripples through the empty air as the instrumental starts.
Bloom swishes her feet around the balcony, stretching her arms up as she continues the second verse. “I will carry them home.”
The chorus bursts out of both their mouths, harmonizing even as they both are a beat off from one another.
There’s a tug on Musa’s hands as Bloom pulls her away from the guitar and twirls her under her arm. Musa laughs, breathlessly, as the only song now is that from the phone, and that from their tapping feet.
They hum at each other, increasing in intensity with the song, Bloom grinning as she dips Musa and Musa lets her arm flare out behind her. She’s never danced like this before or perhaps never like it in a time she’d let herself remember.
And then the song fades away, and they’re left as just two breathless girls on a balcony, overlooking space and the earth below them.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tecna doesn’t really like Alfea all that much to be honest. Shouldn’t she feel like a different person now that she’s within these walls? That change is illogical to expect though, but Tecna found herself wanting it anyway. Why else should she be here?
It is not her that has changed for the better though. It is not even the situation that has changed for the better. Since the second she set foot in here, danger has followed her shadow.
She’s never been particularly academic. It’s a surprise, mainly to Timmy, who excels in academic parts of school. They talk in her headphones as she gets on one of their shared games, bothering them until they drop their work and come to play with her.
Everything has changed except her, she’s still the same unmotivated girl she was back on Zenith, just wanting to play away her day on her computers.
After their first fight together, Tecna had for some reason considered that they’d all be the best of friends immediately. That she’d finally have people she felt the same level of comfort with as Timmy. But as of now, she was still as distant from them as she’d found herself from most people. Polite, agreeable relationships while Tecna stayed awake in bed and thought through all she’d done wrong that day.
She didn’t even try to sleep tonight, taking over the living room and playing video games on silent.
She was so deep into finishing a particularly hard bit of platforming that she didn’t hear the door creak open. She missed footsteps padding into the room, and the creak of floorboards as she approached. It wasn’t until Bloom sat beside her that Tecna registered her presence.
Red hair was still messed up from being splayed over a pillow, a mess of tangled locks. Bloom’s eyes blinked blearily at the TV, and her face was strangely flat for the normally expressive, normally angry, girl.
“Bloom, are you all right?” Tecna questions, putting the game on its pause menu.
Bloom nods. “Yeah, just couldn’t sleep.” Bloom gazes over at her and Tenca is struck by the memory of Bloom bursting into the gala, her eyes visible even across the ballroom, a blazing glory. Yet now they are just a soft, swirling cyan. “You too?”
Tecna shrugs. Does it count if she didn’t even try?
She hasn’t talked much with Bloom yet. She hasn’t talked much to any of her roommates beside Musa. Stella normally talks at her, and Flora prefers spending time together silently it seems. Bloom, on the other hand, is loud and boisterous from what she’s seen, but Stella is normally monopolizing all her time.
Otherwise, Tecna passes by Bloom bent over books in the library, and Tecna wonders if she should’ve offered more help than a phone and a library login.
“Is this a two-player?” Bloom asks, tilting her head at the screen.
“Ah,” Tecna blinks while her fingers naturally punch in a few buttons. “It can be?”
She passes Bloom a controller and they get started.
Bloom, as it turns out, is the most mediocre gamer Tecna has ever met. There is something so specifically inoffensive about her playstyle. For such an explosive person, she plays in the most casual manner possible.
She doesn’t aim for any specific goal, only gets through the levels with a reasonable amount of capability.
“Do you wanna do a speedrun skip?” Tecna offers after ten minutes of doing the weirdest tricks she’s found over the web, while Bloom makes her way through every screen just as intended.
“I’m going to be awful at it,” Bloom warns her.
“I can show you how,” Tecna promises. It’s been a while since she’s taught someone how to play. Timmy’s normally at her level, constantly showing off to her with their new tricks while she one ups them in every way.
Bloom learns well, taking every criticism in stride. Tecna wouldn’t expect that from her, but she supposes there isn’t much space for argument under the cover of night, not when every word can be heard and never retracted.
Finally, they’re ready, and Tecna gives Bloom the go. Tecna skips off the sides of walls, gaining height in the level, and at the exact right time, Bloom jumps off her platform and onto Tecna’s head, taking away Tecna’s velocity and adding it to her own, slamming the x and a buttons right as she hits the wall to phase through it.
Tecna raises up her hand for a high-five. “You did it!” She cheers, as quietly as she can.
Bloom’s hand doesn’t slap into her own though. She looks over, and sees no more accomplishment in Bloom’s eyes, just the heavy set look that’s been in them for an hour.
Whatever Tecna’s done has been wrong. It is so often, it shouldn’t surprise her anymore. Why would she think her form of gaming would make Bloom happy, rather than just letting her continue on as she was? She just could never keep her mouth shut.
“How about next time we do a skip, it’s one that both of us can finish the level with together?” Bloom asks, and there is no condemnation in her voice, just a simple request.
Tecna flips through her mental collection of skips. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”
Tecna did want to finish a level with Bloom after all. Maybe they could both make it, together.