Chapter Text
It began with Daphne.
Daphne’s world was falling apart around her. She had no way of saving her people, no way of protecting all of Domino, much as she might wish to. All she could protect at the moment was her baby sister. Her precious, helpless baby sister who was far too little to do much but cry. Certainly too little to even remember her. Daphne had to protect the baby, send her far away, where nobody could reach her.
Frantically readying her magic, Daphne cradled her sister in her arms. She had to send her somewhere safe. Somewhere where people would find her, raise her-
Raise her as someone else. Not as the second princess of Domino, not as Daphne’s little sister. The thought curled up bitterly in her heart, in her throat, choking the spell from her lips. Her baby sister would never know her, would never know her past. Would never know Daphne. It was necessary to protect her, but was Daphne not allowed to mourn what she had lost?
There was a distant crash. Daphne shuddered and clutched the baby tighter.
The Ancestral Witches. They were attacking Domino. They would kill Daphne’s sister if they found her. The thought sobered her. Who cared if her sister never knew of her past? The important thing was that she would be alive. Hopefully raised by kind people who would protect and love her as much as Daphne. It was the most she could hope for. Daphne didn’t have the luxury of time. She had already delayed long enough.
She put all her magic in her spell. To send her sister away, somewhere no one from the Magic Dimension would able to reach her.
Then, Daphne turned to face the Ancestral Witches. She knew she was going to her death, but who cared?
Daphne was not allowed to grieve her losses.
‘Bloom. Bloom!’
‘Ah, what-’ Bloom gasped awake.
She had been having a nice dream, though she couldn’t remember what it was anymore – the details slipped away from her as she woke. Faintly, she recalled a flash of silver and the feeling of being high up in the air. A dream about flying? And now that she thought about it…
‘Silver was in my dream again,’ she mumbled, yawning.
Silver, her brother, had a unique magic that allowed him to jump through dreams. Ever since he discovered it, him ending up in Bloom’s dreams happened often. Though, annoyingly enough, she could never really remember what happened in those dreams after she woke up and had to rely on him to tell her.
‘I can’t remember what it was though,’ she complained.
‘Maybe you can ask him then?’ the fae standing beside her bed suggested. ‘He’s already up.’
That woke Bloom the rest of the way up. She sat bolt upright in bed, dismayed.
‘Silver woke up before me?’ she said.
‘Today is an important day after all.’ Lilia said.
Lilia Vanrouge was her and Silver’s adoptive father and raised the two of them. He had found them when they were babies, he said, and decided to take them in. For the longest time, Bloom hadn’t even realised he wasn’t her birth father and neither had Silver. It had upset her at the time, to find out that she and the one she considered her dad weren’t technically related, but Bloom hadn’t been bothered by thoughts like that in a long time. She was still curious about who her and Silver’s birth parents were, far more than her brother ever was, but ultimately? Bloom’s dad was the one she had known all her life, blood related or not.
‘Important day?’ Bloom frowned.
Then she remembered.
‘Oh!’ she brightened. ‘I’m going to NRC!’
Lilia laughed.
‘Did you only just now remember that?’ he said fondly. ‘After all that time begging to go with us!’
Bloom had always loved magic, having grown up surrounded by it in the Briar Valley. Fae used magic as easily as breathing and it was a deeply ingrained part of life, but it never lost its allure to her. She watched her father and Crown Prince Malleus use their magic and longed for the day she could do that herself. She had powerful magic, both Lilia and Prince Malleus assured her of that, but to her frustration it never really showed itself. Bloom had only used her magic once, in a moment of desperation, to protect her and Silver, then never again since.
She had been deeply envious when Silver got to go to NRC with their father and Prince Malleus. It left her all by herself, with only Sebek for company, for a whole year. Bloom had trained hard with Sebek that entire year, channelling all her frustrations about being left behind into the sword and sparring, then secretly training to try and use her magic all by herself. Typically, she was forbidden from trying to use it unless her father or Prince Malleus were there to supervise her efforts, but they along with Silver were all at NRC now, so who cared? Bloom certainly didn’t.
She’d never told them of her secret training. Sebek knew, but she had sworn him to secrecy under threat of revealing all his most embarrassing failures and losses to her in their training.
Bloom wanted to go Night Raven College, just like the rest of her family. She knew there was some girl’s college place that sent her an acceptance letter, but she had torn it and thrown it out in a fit of temper, keeping it from Lilia and Silver. Maybe it was childish of her, but Bloom didn’t want to go to someplace she’d never even heard of over the top-rate school her entire family attended, alright? Silver got to attend that super special school with their father and Prince Malleus, so why couldn’t Bloom? She was his twin, wasn’t she?
She’d comforted herself with the thought that the only reason she couldn’t attend was that Night Raven College was boys only, but one night Sebek’s grandfather told them both of the special exceptions NRC made for special students and Bloom couldn’t stop herself from feeling horribly envious once again. It was why she’d so thrown herself into training – maybe if her magic stopped being so useless, Bloom would be attending Night Raven College alongside her brother.
When visiting NRC during last year’s Halloween, Bloom finally broke down in front of Prince Malleus, confessing all her feelings of inadequacy compared to her brother, sobbing into his chest as he awkwardly tried to comfort her. It was unbearably embarrassing once she finally calmed down, but Prince Malleus didn’t seem angry at being cried all over. Calm as ever, he only reassured her that he would take care of it. Bloom hadn’t known what to make of it at the time and when nothing happened after she went home, decided he’d forgotten.
To her surprise, that very summer she finally received her own invitation to Night Raven College. This year, finally, both she and Sebek would be joining Lilia, Silver and Prince Malleus. Bloom would have to start a first year instead of being a second year with her brother, as she had a lot of catching up to do, but she would be there.
‘Come on up now,’ Lilia said. ‘You have a long day ahead.’
Bloom jumped out of bed.
Nervous, Bloom stood in front of the Dark Mirror.
‘State your name.’
‘Bloom,’ she said, glad that her voice sounded more confident than she felt.
Both her father and her brother assured her she’d be fine, but Bloom couldn’t help worrying anyway. What if the mirror didn’t put her in Diasomnia? How well would she do in another dorm?
‘The shape of your soul is…’
Bloom waited, holding her breath.
‘Diasomnia!’
She exhaled sharply, slumping in relief. Then, beaming, she rushed over to where she’d spotted her brother in the crowd of Diasomnia students.
‘I told you it’d be fine, Bloom,’ Silver said.
‘Yeah, but standing there in front of a whole crowd of people is pretty nerve-wracking, you know?’ Bloom replied, leaning forward to hug him briefly. ‘How are the rooms in the dorm? Do you know where I’ll be?’
‘Usually, first years share one room with at least three others, but they’re making an exception here. Because you’re the only female student and my sister, they put us in the same dorm room this year.’ Silver told her.
‘So no different from home,’ Bloom concluded. She and her brother had always shared a room. That was nothing new.
Bloom waited beside Silver, hands fiddling with her ceremonial robes and brushing her silver-streaked red hair over her shoulder. She watched as Sebek walked up to the Dark Mirror, wondering what Diasomnia would look like. She had heard many stories from her brother, but during both times she’d visited NRC at Halloween, Bloom had never gotten to see the dorm.
Her first year at Night Raven College! Bloom couldn’t wait to get started.