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In the beginning, there is nothing. Then something reaches for her. She’s not a her back then, simply is. Then she becomes more.
(She becomes less)
She is Fire forged in Shadow. She is a spark that bloomed in the darkness.
She was made. They say they are witches. They are her creators. They own her.
They teach her. Magic and might. The hearts of people. The desires so easily played.
They command her. To lie and steal. To tempt and kill. She obeys.
She fails.
Failure, she learns, leads to pain. To punishment.
“Not good enough,” her creators say. “Not smart enough. Not powerful enough.”
Eventually, she understands.
“Not our Flame.”
She’s a mere spark. She will never be enough.
(She isn’t whole)
She keeps learning. What else can she do? Her form is bound to her creators, a slave to their every whim. So she learns and she fails and she is punished. Then she stops failing.
“Not bad. Acceptable. Good.”
The punishments stop. The judgment remains. She’s not enough. She's not their Flame.
She hates them.
They send her to Domino. By then she has lived longer than most mortals. She thought she had experienced all that truly mattered already. Pleasure and joy. Wrath and hatred. Desire and greed. Even affection and loss.
She was wrong. Domino is unique. Beautiful. Stunning. Perfect.
(Home)
For the first time, she loves.
She’s there to steal the Flame. She will steal Domino as well.
She meets King Midas. He’s warm and kind. He shines with light and life, wielding the power of Creation itself.
(The power she belongs to)
She lies. She tempts.
She fails.
He calls her monster. An abomination that should have never been made. Her mothers have often said similar things. She was forged in Shadow. She's corrupted. Never before has she cared about that.
She does now.
He tries to cast her out. She doesn't let him. They fight. She bleeds.
He dies.
The Flame bursts free. She reaches for it, to fulfill her orders.
Her orders stop mattering in an instant. She touches the Flame and she is whole. She's no longer bound, no longer made less. She is Great.
Greatness fades away. The Flame slipping from her grasp despite all she does to keep it.
(A spark cannot hold more than itself)
Her mothers are angry. They punish her.
She doesn’t care. She knows what she wants now. Domino and the Dragon’s Flame. She will have both no matter what.
The Flame returns to the royal family. The daughter of Midas gaining its power.
The witches forbid her from going after it. This time, they will go after their Flame themselves. She smiles and says she will do as they command. It’s the first time she lies to her creators.
It’s not the last.
Princess Penelope dies. The witches fail to capture the Flame. She soothes and smiles and lies.
She ensures they always fail.
Sybil. Orion. Rhea. Lysander. Time and time again, the Keeper of the Flame is killed by her or the witches. Not all Keepers suffer this fate, time matters little when one is immortal. But so many die by their hands. The witches always fail to capture the Flame.
To her frustration, she does as well. It refuses to heed her call, refuses to let her hold it.
(It refuses to hold her)
Every time she fails, her hatred for the royals of Domino grows. How dare they hold what is hers. How dare they deny her the peace she so craves. She hates them as much as she loves the realm they call their own.
Then there is Daphne. Golden Daphne, who wields the Flame as though it was made for her. Adored by all of Domino. Their beloved Princess. Their pride and joy. Daphne, who should despise her.
Daphne, who asks.
“Who are you?”
Daphne knows who she is. All of Domino does. The monster whispered about to children. The villain trying to ruin their paradise.
She smiles.
“You know who I am, princess.”
“I do. But I would like to hear it from you, instead of just stories.”
Daphne doesn’t look at her as though she’s a monster. A weakness she intends to exploit. She will lie and tempt.
The best lies are woven from truth.
“I am the Spark that bloomed in Darkness. You can call me Bloom for short.”
Daphne smiles.
Bloom intends to gain Daphne's trust. Lower her defenses and make her believe they're on the same side, before stabbing her in the back. And Daphne, she soon realizes, is trying to do the same.
“You're funny. You're clever. You're kind.”
Bloom has never been called kind before. Not by one who knows what she is. She likes it. And she loves the way Daphne treats her. The princess shows her Domino as though she thinks Bloom belongs there. As though it's her birthright as much as Daphne's own.
It’s ironic. For eons, Bloom has used this exact same strategy on others. She's told people what they want to hear, seen them turn soft and foolish. And now the same thing is happening to her. No matter how hard she tries to avoid it, she comes to adore this golden princess.
She hates her as well.
If this had happened when Bloom was younger, the princess might have won. But Bloom has failed this way before. She learned from it. So she doesn't always smile. She scowls and bites back instead, letting Daphne see the cracks in her armor.
She wields the truth like it's a lie.
And Daphne, golden and foolish Daphne, falls for it.
“You don't have to listen to them. You can be free. Let me help you, Bloom. Please.”
Sweet Daphne, who truly wishes to help. Who has long since stopped pretending.
Bloom hasn’t.
“I can't. I'm not strong enough.”
“You are. You're so much stronger than you think. You're more than what they say you are.”
“I'm just a spark, Daphne. That isn’t enough to defeat them.”
“Alone, perhaps not. But you aren't alone, Bloom. You have me.”
And there it is. Daphne's defeat, freely given and all the more foolish for it. A victory as bitter as it is sweet.
It’s a victory still. Bloom smiles.
She arms Daphne with knowledge, sharing every weakness of the witches. She warns of the control they have over her form, the spells making her their slave.
And Daphne, powerful and brilliant Daphne, breaks those spells apart. Not with ease, no, it takes more from her than even Bloom had expected. But she succeeds. She frees her. Bloom laughs, happier than ever before.
As always, her happiness doesn’t last. She underestimated the witches. They strike while Daphne is still recovering, attacking with ice and darkness and storms. Bloom is caught off guard but recovers quickly. She fights them, using all she’s stolen and all she’s learned. All they taught her. How ironic that they created the means of their own downfall. How wonderful.
How horrifying to discover that her creators have a hold on her still.
“Ungrateful spark. Did you really think you could defeat us? We made you.”
“We can unmake you.”
Their magic slithers through her, unraveling flesh and bone. She’s been in this form for so long that she almost forgot it isn’t her true one. She isn’t a person. She’s a spark. Just a spark.
(Sparks aren’t meant to burn forever)
And then there is Fire. There is Daphne. Fierce Daphne, refusing to let her fade. Reshaping her flesh even as the witches curse and cackle. Any other time, the curses wouldn’t have worked. Daphne was too powerful.
Bloom made her weak.
The end is already certain. Even without this, the plan was always to get the Flame, and the only way to do that is by killing its Keeper. Daphne was always going to die.
It’s only now that Bloom realizes she wants her to live. More than anything, she wants Daphne to live.
She’s never been able to get what she wants most.
“I love you, Bloom.”
Daphne dies, and the witches are destroyed with her. Banished from existence with Daphne’s final breath.
Bloom weeps. This isn’t what she wanted, she wanted Daphne to live. Continue on as they had before. Be with her forever. But like a fool, she pretended that she didn’t. Falling for her own lies. She wielded the truth as though it was false, and forgot that didn’t make it any less true.
She loves Daphne. And she hates Daphne for leaving her.
She hates herself even more.
Domino mourns its princess even as it celebrates her victory. And oh, how Bloom hates them too. The people who didn’t know Daphne at all, thinking her free of sin. Unaware of her temper and cunning, of her ruthlessness and her fear of going too far. They didn’t know her, yet they dare to mourn her.
Bloom doesn’t let them.
In the end, it’s easy to conquer Domino. The Flame has yet to return, and without it, even a Spark is unstoppable. Bloom takes the throne she’s wanted for so long.
She feels nothing.
A broken heart, she learns, cuts through all else. Even rage.
So she abandons the throne she once longed for. She wanders the Magic Dimension, drifting from realm to realm. She hides from the forces searching for her, not wanting to fight for the first time since she was made. A spark extinguished.
(A spark rekindled by fire)
She wonders what life would have been like had Daphne lived.
Soon, people return to Domino. Eventually, the Flame does as well. Bloom follows. She doesn’t intend to stay, is only there to see the new Keeper of the Flame. See Daphne’s successor.
Aline. That’s the princess who now holds the Flame. A mere babe when Bloom arrives. It doesn’t take more than a few years to see she’s nothing like Daphne. Aline is shy and insecure. Her use of the Flame is a mere flicker instead of a raging bonfire. It would be so easy to take it from her.
Bloom finds that she doesn’t want to. What does it matter that she’s broken? Even if she were whole, Daphne would still be gone.
So Bloom leaves, once more flitting from realm to realm. Sometimes she returns to Domino. Most of the time she doesn’t.
Breno. Eloa. Davi. Yara. The Flame keeps being passed on.
Bloom’s name fades into history. They say she died with the witches. Killed by Princess Daphne, the Greatest of Keepers. A fitting title. People should remember Daphne like this.
She hates that they do.
But time doesn’t end for an immortal. The cutting edges of her broken heart grow dull, the pain becoming an itch instead of a void. She finds joy again. She returns to Domino, soaking in the peace found only there. Starts toying with the idea of conquering it again. Then the tales reach her ears. The current Keeper of the Flame, more powerful than any other. So charming and clever. Domino’s pride and joy.
A Prince to rival Daphne herself.
It’s incredible how the people of Domino still manage to enrage her even after all this time.
Bloom goes to see this pretender, this princeling that people dare to claim is Daphne’s equal. What she finds is even worse than expected. This prince is nothing like Daphne. Where she was kind, he’s selfish. Where she felt it her duty to rule, he considers it his right. Where she was golden and soft, he’s pale and cutting. Yet despite her anger, Bloom would have been willing to forgive all of that. He can’t help the way he was born. And for all their differences, the way he wields the Flame is the same. Like it was made just for him.
What she won’t ever forgive is his arrogance. He doesn’t merely believe himself to be Daphne’s equal. He believes himself to be greater. As though he could do even a fraction of what she could, as though he isn’t riddled with weakness. It would be so easy to make him dance to her tune. This princeling, who plays the game of politics with grace and pleasure. Who’s had everything handed to him and lets nothing go to waste. This princeling, who craves power.
This princeling, who is bored out of his mind. Oh, he doesn’t realize it, has never met a challenge he couldn’t overcome with ease. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.
Bloom does.
Well then. She did plan on conquering Domino again. What better way to do so then by reenacting Domino’s favorite legend? It’s remarkably fair of her, really. After all, Daphne was able to turn her own tricks against her.
Let’s see if Prince Valtor can do the same.