Chapter Text
Close your eyes
And open your heart,
Believe in yourself
That’s how it starts;
Dreams will come true,
Just wait and see,
‘Cause the magic’s in you
And the magic’s in me.
The first time that Bloom lies, it doesn’t really feel like one.
It’s right before the start of their third year at Alfea and she’s sitting perfectly still in a chair, getting her nails scrubbed and her skin prodded and her hair pulled in all directions – now that the royal stylists have finished with Stella, they’ve started on her, despite her protests – but her mind is still burning, still breathless, still racing up and down the staircase at the end of the hallway.
What was that?
Besides absolutely mortifying, that is – because she has no business feeling like this about someone whom she only glimpsed for a few seconds; because she’s still smarting from what happened with ‘Professor Avalon;’ because there is Sky.
She tries to hold on to that last one, especially – they’ve been through so much together already; good things and bad things and things that she can never repay him for – and finds herself terrified at how easily blond hair darkens to a deeper shade and spills down from shoulders to waist, how cobalt lightens as though buried by spreading ice under eyelids of bruised purple.
There’s something else, though, beyond the hair and the eyes and everything else about the man’s admittedly striking appearance, something that she can’t quite grasp – and it’s ignited something in her blood that she didn’t even know was there. Her Dragon Fire has been screaming at her like it never has before, sharp and searing and awake, flaming fingers wrapped tightly around every bone and every vein and she has no idea what it means or what it wants from her or any clue how to appease it before she simply suffocates. The buzzing echo of interest interest interest thrums heavily, urgently, in her head; she was fine and it came out of nowhere and she thinks she just might finally be going crazy if –
“ – even listening to me?!”
Bloom gasps, almost choking on her own spit. “S-sorry, Stel – I, uh… I spaced out.” She shakes her head, blinks a few times, and swallows. “Um, what were you saying?”
Stella goes quiet, in that uncharacteristic manner that usually spells trouble.
Hands on sparkle-clad hips and eyes narrowed, she leans into Bloom’s space until she’s peering at her down the length of her nose. “Okay, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Bloom says quickly, lightly, and forces a smile, because what else is she supposed to say when she has a boyfriend and yet apparently can’t stop thinking about some other guy. “I think… I’m just overwhelmed.”
“Hm.” Stella pulls back and considers that for a moment, before seeming to decide that she’s telling the truth – she is; sort of; close enough – and her face breaks into an expression of unrivaled radiance. “Well, wait until you see the main ballroom!”
The second time is more intentional – though still well-meaning – and her words are coated with sorrow and saltwater.
She hadn’t expected to see him again.
She hadn’t expected Valtor to come politely introduce himself.
And she certainly hadn’t expected Valtor to be him – but, of course he is, because Bloom Peters of Earth and of Domino, Fairy of the Dragon Flame, third year student at Alfea and leader of the Winx Club, can’t ever catch a break.
And then, before she can even sit up properly, his fingers are in her hair and her home planet is on his tongue, and it takes her far too long to remember to jump back out of his reach. It’s too late, though – her skin is still blistering where he touched it; and her mind? Her mind is spinning, hurtling down the all-too familiar path of wondering if people have kept things from her again.
She has the feeling that he’s probably trying to confuse her, throwing her breadcrumbs that lead her nowhere except right back to him. But, she also has two years of learning that she was adopted all along, of switched identities and secret fiancées, of the girls harboring suspicions and making plans and taking action behind her back; of Faragonda never telling her anything until she’s found it out from somewhere else first, whether it’s to do with Domino or her powers or Daphne – Ms. Barbatea let that slip, one late night in the library last winter.
Does she know about this?
The Magix Council was informed as soon as the Omega portal was breached, almost a week ago, so it’s pretty much guaranteed that the heads of the three schools of Magix are also aware of the situation by now. The question is, if he is telling the truth – and, in her gut, she knows that he is; all this time, she’s been having visions of Domino every time someone says his name – does her headmistress know about his connection to her realm?
Bloom isn’t sure that she can handle the answer.
The thought of Ms. F knowing and knowing and not taking her aside first thing after hearing about Valtor’s escape, especially given how many times this exact scenario has played out before, is enough for something to start swirling inside of her – dark residue disturbed from its slumber, at the very depths of her consciousness where she banished it to, slowly mixing back into her magic as it starts to rise to the surface – and the only thing that shakes her free is the friendly fire that suddenly engulfs her.
Even now, after he’s left and they’re back on land, at a seemingly safe distance from the murky, yellow, monster-infested water, she can feel it, unsettled; watchful.
Footsteps muffled by the cold, dense sand gradually approach, and stop behind her.
“Are you okay, sweetie?”
“I’m fine,” she brushes off – more roughly than Flora ever deserves – because she’s not who they should be asking after when Layla is the one who’s lost her sight.
She manages to swallow down the vague but distinct want that’s been lodged in her throat since she woke up with the sea in her lungs, and makes her way to the now-blind Princess of Andros; and although Layla doesn’t know it, the apology that Bloom offers her is for more than just not being able to break the spells that Valtor has cast on her eyes and her kingdom.
The third time, technically, doesn’t count as a lie, because she says nothing.
She does nothing, too, as first Musa and then Flora are blasted back and imprisoned within spells of silence and darkness – magic recently stolen from the planets it belongs to, now used in service of hurting her friends through the deliberate deprivation of their most sensitive senses, while she just stands there.
By the time Bloom does move, and throws a barrage of fireballs at him that he swats away without even needing to try, she and Valtor both know that it’s a half-hearted attempt at best; performative, insincere. It lacks the rage and the anguish that brought her here in the first place, the righteous fury that fueled her first attack, and she’s almost shaking with shame and with fright at how effortlessly all of that is extinguished by the offer of a handful of words.
She has learned about him, since the last time they spoke like this; Ms. F did take her aside (better late than never, she supposes) to share his origins, his history with the Ancestral Witches and Domino, the Company of Light and her parents. Between Faragonda’s personal recollection as someone who was there and supplying her with actual books this time, Bloom had thought that she’d been handed all there was to know; and so she’d promised herself that any sort of wanting outside of wanting to destroy him was absolutely off limits.
Now, it seems like there’s more to the story; like, once more, she wasn’t told everything – the stinging heat that flashes in the magic flowing inside of her every time she’s near him should have been a clue, really; the fact that Ms. F sidestepped the subject when she mentioned it, an even bigger one – and that makes her hesitate, which gives both him and her own traitorous Dragon Fire all the opportunity they need to fill her head with dangerous thoughts again.
Bloom allows him to twist her emotions, to manipulate the reaction that he wants out of her before she even knows what’s happening, and it’s not until she’s encased in ice of her own making and her frozen flames against her skin start to cool her down, inside and out, that she realizes she hasn’t thought about Tecna at all since he opened his mouth.
When she’s freed and hanging limp in Stella’s arms and he’s on his back on the floor, halfway across the room, and she doesn’t have to be subjected to his eyes and his voice and his magic, she argues in favor of finishing him off right there – ‘No, we have to beat him; for Tecna, and for Miriam and Oritel!’ – and pretends that the desperation in her voice has nothing to do with anything besides her precious people.
There are the study sessions until dawn (‘I need to read up – he knows so much more about magic than we do!’) and the training practices until she drops (‘My Enchantix is incomplete, I need to train harder to make sure it’ll work right!’) and the hours spent staring endlessly at the fire that she summons in her hand, that she’s definitely not attempting to sense anyone through (‘I’m… meditating! Yeah, meditating, yup; it’s something I learned on Pyros!’) .
There are the nightmares – those are easy to explain, they’re understandable; expected, even – and there are the dreams. Those are less easy; wrapped in warmth, she relishes the connection, the completion that her Dragon Fire floods her with, as she lounges in a golden field under a golden sky, by golden water – a place she’s never seen before, but somehow has known all of her life – and her magic lazily basks in contentment, too… until she wakes up, heaving, with loss in her throat and a hole in her heart and tears on her face, that she quickly wipes away before someone sees.
And then there is the Museum of Magic, where her combination of Enchantix and Dragon Fire is the only thing that overpowers Valtor, blasting him clean off of his feet and into a (probably priceless) display case; his energy shield, which effortlessly repelled a fivefold Enchantix convergence, is unable to do anything against her. When he stands, in a shower of fine dust and shards of glass, excitement and approval have freely taken the place of his initial shock.
Bloom is aware that she’s always had his attention; that he has always taken time on the battlefield for her in a way that he hasn’t for the others, though she doesn’t know if it’s because of their magical connection, because of their shared history, or because of something else entirely. What she does know is that she’s now sparked his interest on a whole new level – he takes off after her instantly, in pursuit, without sparing a single thought for Winx, Trix, or the box that he supposedly desires so much – and she feels interest flare down her own spine in response.
She’s also aware that he was more than happy to fight five fairies at once, but as soon as she joins forces with the others, he runs.
She can’t understand him – one moment he’s seeking her out, as though nothing else in the world exists besides the two of them, and the next he’s avoiding her; he’s eager to witness her powers, but shirks from fighting her properly. And actually, now that she’s thinking about it, she can’t recall a single instance where he’s ever harmed her during their battles; not like how he’s harmed Layla or Professor Griffin or Ms. F – or Ophir, currently. The most he’s ever done is try to hold her in ice – to contain her, to stop her. It’s a far cry from attempting to destroy her, despite his threats; despite having had her helpless and at his mercy several times now.
Is he afraid of me?
Bloom chews on her bottom lip and frowns.
Is it my Dragon Fire? Is it Domino? Is there some advantage I have over him that everyone else doesn’t?
She fiddles with the fairy dust pendant around her neck, fingers rubbing the polished blue surface over and over like some kind of wordless charm, as she stares out at the empty sky where Valtor disappeared only minutes ago.
… can I figure out a way to use this to make him tell me about my birth parents?
“He took off!” Layla’s voice suddenly shatters her thoughts. “I knew there was something wrong with that guy, I knew it!”
She hears Musa sigh from somewhere close behind her. “Let’s just go home and get ready for whatever Valtor is going to do next.”
There’s a brief sound of shuffling feet, bare skin entwined by soleless sandals turning back into chunky rubber boots against the concrete roof, before it’s interrupted by Stella.
“Bloom?” Her voice is like distant sunshine, breaking through the clouds. “Are you coming?”
“Are you thinking about Valtor?” Flora asks gently, before she can reply.
“No,” Bloom says, finally turning around to face them. She’s never been a good liar, but, for some reason, the lies come easily these days. “I’m just upset that we lost the box.”
“Boy, I’m telling you,” Layla says, clenching her hands into fists, “if I see that guy again, he’s history.”
It’s almost the end of the school year.
The days, that were long and bright when classes began only to slip into the rhythm of the year – the coolness of autumn; the dark of winter; the tentative stirring of spring – have returned to the growing fullness and light that always gives way to summer.
Now, the sunny chirping of birdsong from the surrounding forest mocks students as they scramble for the final stretch. Homework has been missed, detention has been handed out, exams have been announced, and, if you’re a Winx, the devastation of the entire Magical Dimension has, for the moment, been narrowly avoided: another year almost in the books.
And, throughout it all, Bloom has lied.
Little lies, comprised of no more than single phrases – ‘It’s nothing;’ ‘I’m fine;’ ‘Just feeling a little tired, Flora, that’s all!’ – that have hidden bigger ones behind them; white lies and quibbles and lies by omission, just so that no one sees how Valtor affects her.
It scares her, how strong this connection between them has become since she forced her Enchantix – she can sense him; she can feel him, feel what he feels, not exactly or clearly or all the time, but enough that he has gone from the blackest villain in her story to something uncomfortably human; enough to give her pause at the idea of killing him, in a way she never did with Darkar.
How much more would it scare everyone else, if they knew? They’re worried enough about her unstable transformation as it is.
And so she’s lied to her friends – to Sky, before she finally decided that she can’t do lukewarm (and Diaspro and his parents) anymore; to Stella – and she’s lied to her parents and her teachers and her headmistress, but it’s not until she’s in the restricted section of Alfea’s library, standing victorious over Valtor with one hand raised to smite him, that Bloom lies to herself.
“If you destroy me, Bloom, you’ll also destroy your parents,” Valtor says, urgently, from where he’s laid out on the floor, hair and coat strewn messily behind him.
“What?!” she snaps, the word cracking like a whip around her. “What are you talking about?”
He goes on to describe how, defeated and using the last of his strength, he cast an absorption spell on her parents, imprisoning them in his body just moments prior to being sent to Omega…
... after which he promptly takes advantage of her distress and everyone’s distraction to escape.
They had him – she had him, at her feet, singed and splayed out and stripped of all strength, a once in a million opportunity that won’t come by again so easily – and she let him go.
Musa tells her that it’s not her fault.
Flora tells her to not blame herself.
Layla tells her that no one expects her to destroy him if there's even the slightest chance that she might also destroy her parents, while Stella hugs her and Tecna fiercely nods along.
Amidst the fading glitter and the scattered books and the slow footsteps dragging on the carpeted floor as they make their way back to the main hall, Bloom attempts to convince herself that they are right; and that she hadn’t already dispelled the fireball in her hand a split second before he ever said anything.
“ – need to chill out, Tec,” Musa’s voice drifts into the sitting room as the door to her and Tecna’s bedroom opens. “It must be around here somewhere.”
“Well, where is it then?” Tecna demands, marching over to one of the unoccupied armchairs and starting to dig through all of the pillows.
Bloom – who is lying down on the couch and absentmindedly watching a nature documentary with Flora, in order to refute Stella’s claim that she’s becoming a little too obsessed with Valtor at the expense of her social life – exchanges glances with her roommate.
“Um, what’s going on?” Flora asks, as one of the pillows lands near where she’s curled up in a beanbag chair.
“Tecna’s barrier buster is missing,” Musa replies, leaning on the doorway.
“Well, you probably lost it,” Stella quips without looking up, flipping a page in the magazine she’s browsing.
“No, I didn’t.” Tecna moves from the armchair to the bookshelves above the television, systematically pulling out all the books and completely blocking the screen in the process. “I don’t lose things.”
“Tecna, we all lose things,” Layla says, coming out of her room to join them. Given her outfit, Bloom assumes she was working out.
“No, you all lose things,” Tecna states, reaching up to feel around the top of the cabinet, “I don’t.” She turns around, sharply, and goes to where Stella is sitting. “Move, please.”
Stella groans and throws back her head but stands up all the same, shuffling over to the chair that Tecna already disemboweled. She drops into it, apparently uncaring that the cushions are still scattered.
“So, if you didn’t lose it, smarty pants,” the Princess of Solaria challenges, “what happened to it?”
“Clearly, someone took it,” Tecna says, amidst another flurry of pillows, in the same tone of voice that she regularly presents the results of her various data scans or lets them know their odds in battle.
Bloom pushes herself up to a sitting position and exchanges more looks, with Stella, with Musa, with Layla, with Flora again – concerned frowns and clueless shrugs, head tilts and head shakes; a whole discussion, happening without words.
Tecna, having finished with the second chair, makes her way to the couch, crawling on all fours and using a light to peer under it.
“But the only ones who know about it are the six of us,” Flora points out, before the silence can settle too deeply.
“Yeah, and it’s not like anyone besides you knows how to use it,” Stella adds.
“Uh, actually, I’m the one who – ” Musa begins, before a rolled up copy of Time in Solaria flies across the room and hits her squarely on the forehead.
“Musa! Not helping!”
Tecna suddenly stops her rifling and looks up. “When was the last time we used it?”
“I’m pretty sure it was when we went to Cloud Tower to beat Valtor’s ass for you,” Layla answers, tapping her fingers on the back of Stella’s new seat in thought.
“Hang on, you did what?” Tecna exclaims.
Bloom leans over to place a hand on her shoulder – ‘Don’t be silly; of course we did!’ – while Flora asks what happened to the device after Stella had transported them all home.
“I put it back where it was,” Musa says. “Bottom drawer of Tecna’s nightstand.”
Stella raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”
“Wanna go, Stella?” Musa bites back and pushes herself off of the doorway.
“Alright, alright!” Tecna sighs, and twists around to sit against the couch. “We’re getting nowhere like this.”
“Is it really that big a deal?” Bloom’s eyes – and, she notices, everyone else’s – immediately snap to Stella. “What? I’m just saying, it’s useful and all, but it’s not like it’s a one-of-a-kind Wizrahi summer edition sundress.”
“Stella,” Layla reprimands.
“I suppose Timmy and I could make another one,” Tecna states, “but that’s not the point.” She draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them, frowning. “What concerns me is who has it and what they are doing with it.”
No one has anything to say to that, so they don’t. The search is put on pause at Stella’s insistence and Flora makes them all a pot of herbal tea and the conversation picks up with different topics, while a feature on some kind of deep ocean wildlife plays in the background.
The hour grows late and one by one they stumble off to their rooms: wide-open yawns and sleepy blinks, the clicking shut of doors and, from within, the faint sound of toothbrushes.
Bloom bids Tecna goodnight, with a one-arm hug and wishes for sweet dreams that she means wholeheartedly.
The barrier device burns in her pocket.