Archive of Our Own

        “It wasn’t as if Zenith cared. Zenith was, in those years, in the middle of another technological revolution - the third of what would undoubtedly be many - as well as an emotional one, one that shook the established social mores of the planet to its core. It was a time of massive inflation, frantic development and urbanization, a growing disparity between the rich and the poor. A new, young upper class developed and had children, and it was their children - the second generation after the revolution - who emerged to challenge Zenith’s overall collectivist philosophy of restraint. These children called themselves the  Zenthient.    

They were largely wealthy, bored, iconoclastic youth; they rejected their parents’ ideas out of hand and romanticized the ideas of individualism, of emotional expression and outburst, of  fun,  and of nonacademic competition. They took the natural Zenith lack of sympathy to a new level, roaming the streets of the larger city in violent street gangs, fighting and carousing, not for any motive but pleasure-”  
 

Tecna raised her hand suddenly, and spoke without being invited.  

Uh oh, thought Bloom.  

“Excuse me, Professor Aldebaran, but you’re making me question your objectivity. Calling Zenites 'naturally lacking in empathy' seems beyond the pale: and what would a professor of history know personally of youth culture on Zenith?” The professor shut her mouth once, then opened it again, a look of outrage on her face.

Bloom, sitting in the spot next to  Tecna, tensed. She could tell from the lack of expression on Tecna's face that she was fuming on the inside.  

“No, no, don’t-” she started to say, reaching out a hand, but then the lecturer opened her mouth pompously, and that was the end.  

“Excuse me, I do believe that  I  am the lecturer, and you are the student, and I would like to be treated accordingly-”  

It was humiliating, being kicked out of her own lecture hall, but even more so because it was done by her own guards.

Only when they were sitting outside on the front steps of the  Sparx  Lecture Hall, dusting themselves off and nursing various wounds, did Bloom realize that there was something she might not have known about  Tecna . Namely, that she had a breaking point. She opened her mouth to comment on this, but her friend stood up as soon as she did so and strode off, and Bloom was hard-pressed to keep up.   

  “Wait! Are you angry?”   

Tecna  sighed through her nose and gave Bloom an evasive answer. Bloom rolled her eyes at herself.  Ask a stupid question…  

" Okay, so you're angry," Bloom conceded.   

 
"Yes," said  Tecna . “That so-called professor reflects badly on the University, but also on the city of  Sparx  and the royal family, and by extension  you,  Bloom.”   

She was walking fast again. They were passing through the shopping district of  Sparx , heading away from the blue and white university and towards the most prestigious addresses in the city, the homes of the  unlanded  nobles and the high-level civil servants, royalty in all but name. The buildings here were plainer, more square than those of the palace or University,  but still had plenty of that Domino curvature that the planet was so famous for.   

  Bloom fell behind again. “You  wanna  stop?” she shouted. “It’s not like we’re going anywhere.”    

Tecna  pointed at the strip of shops that lined  Sparx’s  main drag. Many of them were closed and shuttered with  For Sale  signs in the windows. “See? Look at this. The planet’s confidence has been shaken, as well as that of investors.”  

  Silently, Bloom moved up beside her.   

“This is  not  a conversation that I want to have right now,” said Bloom. “I’m not ready to have it. That’s what the internship with the government is supposed to do. I need to learn how to be queen here if I’m going to get us through this crisis."  

“What about the Domino/ Isotopia  alliance?”   

Bloom sighed.  Right, that.  Isotopia  was the planet that had control of practically all the banks in the magical dimension. She'd talked about it with her parents and listened to the  interrealm  talks on the subject, but they still hadn't gotten anywhere. 

“Well, they’ve sent some of our money back, but they refuse to adjust for inflation, which means that the money is worth about as much as the university is. Which is basically a fraction of its former value.   

And since  Isotopia  runs the banks – like  all  the banks – no one’s going to actually call them on it.” She sniffed. “Damn it, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Why’d you make me talk about this? It’s not like I’m the only one with problems, you know. Hey, you looked like you wanted to say something about Zenith earlier. What was it?”            

They’d stopped next to a flowery window box and  Tecna  put her hand out to lean on it. She had a strange look on her face. Bloom wished they had been better friends at  Alfea , so she could read  Tecna's  expressions like she could Stella's.   

“I was going to say... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”  

“But that’s not really what you were going to say,” said Bloom. “I think that you were actually going to tell me why you got so mad in the first place. And I think I know why. You're sympathetic to the Zenthient.”She  mouthed the word a few more times, sounding it out. Hopefully,  Tecna  didn't notice that Bloom was pulling the guess straight out of her ass.   

Tecna looked down and rubbed her arm: odd body language for a girl who seemed to steamroll through life without ever being embarrassed. 

“It’s true. I never understood their motives or behavior, but they didn't deserve the treatment that Aldebaran gave them.”     

  Bloom glanced around them. “Let’s get to the bar before the paparazzi catch up. God knows I’m going to catch hell tonight for what happened in the lecture hall, but let’s try to avoid it as long as possible, ' kay ?” They turned down a cross street into an avenue of colorful houses built in a style reminiscent of Bavaria. It was quite empty of adults, as might be expected on a day when the legislature was in session and the population was made up mostly of civil servants. However, what was more surprising was the total lack of children.    

“It’s eerie,”  Tecna  muttered. Bloom tried to divert the conversation: she did not want to get on the subject of the economy again.   

“So, what does  Zenthient  mean? I get the  Zen  plus the  sentient  part, but why the ‘ th ’ ?”  

“The ‘h’ is to make the it sound as close to the name of the planet as possible, but also to create a play on words - move the ‘ i ’ in front of the ‘ th ’ and you have the word  senithet .”  

Bloom shivered. “The translation spell is telling me that that’s the Zen word for ‘annihilation.’”   

  Tecna  scoffed. “Even the translation spell is biased against Zenith! It’s more the word for ‘total war without restraint or compunction,’ and it’s also the word for our equivalent of chess.” She couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “The term is elaborate without being flowery; it’s precise and dramatic, very Zen. Or,” she frowned, “it would be if  Zenites  knew how to use humor properly.”     

They fell silent.   

They stepped around a column, walking south toward downtown. Bloom didn't bother to break the silence. She hadn't realized that  Tecna  had a sense of humor.  
 

“Nice circumlocution, by the way,” added  Tecna , referring to how Bloom had avoided acknowledging the fact that no children were to be seen anywhere in the city. She'd have to ask her parents about that later, once they were done scolding her, but she didn't want to talk about it now.  

 “I hoped you wouldn’t notice. But it still worked, didn’t it? I successfully diverted the conversation.”   

“Hardly…”  Tecna  said, and began, happily to argue, totally missing the fact that she, once again, had been distracted.   

-”And that’s the story of how we got kicked out of the  Sparx  Grand Lecture Hall on the first day of our internship,” said Bloom to the rest of the  Winx .   

  This was a rare time when they could all be together. In the aftermath of the rebirth of Domino and their graduation from  Alfea , most of their schedules were booked full. But today, they had all managed to call in sick from whatever they had been doing at the time, and now they were sitting in the VIP lounge of the  Marawīn , a pub in downtown  Sparx , laughing at how  Tecna  had taken down the pompous guest lecturer a few pegs – though  Tecna  seemed to object at Bloom's retelling.     

“It’s really quite important,” said  Tecna , frowning at Bloom, "she called the  Zenthient   violent street thugs, as if that was all they ever were. ”   

Layla laughed. “She sounds like a member of the  Magix  Nativists.”   Those were a violent, isolationist group on  Magix  that lobbied yearly for banning 'foreigners' from the planet.  

  Bloom nodded at her girlfriend. “That’s no exaggeration. She totally deserved what she got, but still, I got thrown out on the steps by my  own guards . Getting my birth parents’ agreement on this whole internship thing was hard enough the first time. Now I’m not sure if I’ll ever be invited back.”  

“Aww, Bloom-” said Layla. She knew how hard Bloom had worked to get her parents to let her sit in on the proceedings of the bureaucracy – Bloom had complained to her about it many nights.   

“I told you,” broke in Stella with her mouth full, “ practicing  to become a queen is completely not worth your time. Just wing it. That’s what I always do, and look how I turned out!”   

There was a beat before everybody started laughing.   

  “No, really,” said Flora when she regained herself, still shaking slightly, “that’s horrible. I’m no expert, but that seems wrong.”  

“Well, yes, because she was showing bias,” said  Tecna . “We need to be serious about this. Aldebaran is all wrong, it’s ridiculous, I don’t understand how she can be called a professor. Bloom, you should talk to your parents about  properly vetting  their guest lecturers, because she’s a complete  ᏄᏓᏅᏛᎾ -”   There was a slight hum in the energy around their table as the translation spell that enabled them to talk to each other failed.  

         “Sorry, what?” said Musa, looking at  Tecna  with giant eyes. “I think the interpreter just blinked out.”  

“ I  heard a translation,” said Flora.  

“I heard ' sham',”  said Stella. Bloom looked at her friends curiously. So the spell still appeared to be working partially, it had parsed  Stella’s  sentence…  

“Maybe the word doesn’t exist in our languages,” Flora suggested. Layla leaned against Bloom and Bloom leaned back, enjoying the warmth. The  Marawīn's  rooms were always too cold.  
 

“Mine switched over to  German,”  Bloom said. “And I don’t even think the German word was right.” It had been some weird mistranslated cognate.   

“The interpretation spell creates whatever your mind would recognize as the translation; it’s tailored to how you think,” said Layla. Bloom raised her eyebrows.   

“But then why would it fail for some people?” she asked. “Working like that, shouldn't it be fail-safe because it’s tailored to fit your mind?”  
“Well, it doesn’t fail, per se, but it does make odd mistakes,” offered Flora. She was wearing the slightly  teacherly  expression that she used when she was explaining something.   

“Sometimes, words can’t be literally translated into other languages, or even into words our brain recognizes. That means that we literally have no familiarity with even the  concept  the word represents.”   
 

Flora continued explaining, while the less studious members of the group began zoning out.   

“Really, have none of you guys read  Interplanetary Diplomacy, A History ?” she finished.   

“Sounds  fascinating,”  said Stella, but her sarcasm was lost on  Tecna , who nodded in agreement.   
“It must be useful.”   
 

Flora smiled. “ Thank you,  Tecna ,” she said, and began explaining more, drawing in the interest of Musa and Layla as well. Bloom tried to listen, she really did, except she was too busy laughing behind her hand at Stella, who was taking advantage of the distraction to steal all of Flora’s pub mix.   

 
  “Wow, I didn’t know that differences in language like that existed,” murmured Layla, and all the other  Winx  agreed except  Tecna , who had turned her attention instead to her plate, at which she had directed a stony stare. She seemed to barely be holding in a lecture.   

  “Well, you know what this means, don’t you?” she said suddenly. All the girls groaned. Her lecture mode was worse than Flora’s and almost as bad as Bloom’s.   

  “We’ve learned something useful about the nature of magic. It’s not infallible.” This was an argument that she’d been trying to push at them for  years . Only Flora nodded. Bloom looked at her in surprise. That was the last reaction she'd expected.  

  “I know," Flora told  Tecna . "You’ve been saying that a lot, haven’t you? That you have to have alternatives to magic. Technology,” she recited, “works in ways that an organic mind can learn to understand and predict with some accuracy. If you overtax technology, it breaks; if you treat it well, it can run for a long time. Magic works to fit the organic mind, but you can never tell when it will wear off or when there are exceptions.”   

          “Wow, Flora, you’re about to usurp  Tecna’s  place as the best memorizer,” said Stella, and  Tecna  turned her head sharply, looking as if she wasn’t sure what type of outrage to be feeling.  

“All right, yeah, let’s skip over that.” Bloom wasn’t in the mood for confrontation. She smiled brightly at Flora.  

“That’s amazing, Flora, where did you read that?”  
 

She smiled. “ An Esoteric History of Magic and Technology .”  

“Of course esoteric is in the title,” Musa interjected.    

“But really, that sounds tough. What was reading  that  like?” Bloom broke in again, forcefully. The attempt was painfully transparent, but it made Flora grin anyway, and Bloom’s peacekeeping mission was successful. As they talked on about Flora’s reading habits, she forgot all about  Tecna’s  statements– facts that she could have done well to remember later.   

The meeting was over far too soon. Bloom watched her friends leave the pub to go their separate ways. It was back to Solaria for Stella, and for Flora the Domino Royal Greenhouse, and Musa and Layla were off to do Dragon-knew-what with bongo drums and maracas in the  Sparx  Conservatory of Performing Arts. Meanwhile, Bloom and  Tecna  had to get back to the university.  Tecna  needed to go back to her apartment to study before their next class, but Bloom planned to do some research before she asked her parents about the suspicious lack of children in the city.   

  "I have something to show you before we go back,"  Tecna  said, and Bloom followed her out of downtown, toward their campus.   

They quickly passed through the edge of the  Sparx  University campus and reached the first university teleport point. It was a statue of some archaic hero from Domino’s history, set back in a small alley between buildings. It was probably meant for the students, so they could get to wherever they lived safely and quickly. 

  Tecna  strode quickly through the alleyway straight into a street of permanent housing. There were no dormitories; with magic, there was no need to live in the university center.  Instead, there was  a street of picturesque shops and houses built in a style reminiscent of Bavaria.  The houses were built directly on top of the shops, which were old enough to have signs with pictures instead of words. It was the sort of neighborhood that had been built centuries before and grown up over time, while being well-tended in between.   

“This is  Ascowayn  Annex,” said  Tecna , pronouncing the name in an impossibly lilting, poetic way that Bloom couldn’t follow. “It’s one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of  Sparx .” Bloom’s eyebrows went up. “Really? I’ve never been down here."  
 

“This street has been around for at least two thousand years, although when  Sparx  was just getting started, it was more of a dirt road in between plaster-and-wood hovels. So these cobblestones, though they are original, have only been around three-quarters of that time. The signs you see hanging from the shops are originals, too. They date from before most residents were able to read, so they represent their merchandise pictorially.”    

They walked down the street,  Tecna’s  footsteps clicking lightly on the stones. Bloom became more and more certain that she had never been here before. She also realized, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, that she definitely should have been. This place bled history from the marks on the ancient cobblestones to the smells in the air. Why had her parents kept this from her?    

“That’s a  Brobdingnagian  wine-tree,” said  Tecna , pointing at a fenced-in tree, heavy with fruits. “What looks like dirt on the cobblestones is actually remnants of a great fire that destroyed the part of the city known as  Tashghent , or in Earth terms, South Central.” Bloom felt her stomach sink.  Tecna  knew more about Bloom’s home planet than Bloom did. Would  Tecna  blame her if she knew how truly ignorant she was?   

There was a layer of soot that covered everything. It grew thicker as they walked south. Then they saw it in the distance, and the sinking in Bloom’s stomach turned into an all-out lurch - a gripping pain of foreboding that hit her again with every step. When they got close enough to the destruction, they stopped.     

Blocks upon blocks of city lay destroyed, the twisted remains of burned buildings lying forgotten, collapsed into themselves, into each other, into the street, blocking the walkway. The soot had settled long ago, but when the snow melted after the destruction of Obsidian and the rebirth of Domino, it had washed the stuff down to the streets, painting black tears down whatever buildings remained.    

“Did people live here, before?” There was a coldness in Bloom’s insides that had crept in gradually to replace the pain.  Tecna  just looked at her.  

“Sorry. This is a residential neighborhood. Obvious. But  what happened?”   Bloom had to clench her fists hard to hold down the hysteria in her voice. It was strange. This wasn’t even really her planet. It wasn’t the place she was raised - and yet she felt a connection to a people she didn’t know, to hundreds of silent, nameless dead.    

“The Witches came through during the Ceremony of the Flame, which, in case you didn’t know, is your planet’s life ceremony. Everyone in the Capital was out on the streets to celebrate the renewing light of the Dragon Flame and the only weapons out on the street were ceremonial. They severed communication between the different cities with their spells and then transported the population into Obsidian.”   

“And what happened to this place here? To South Central  Sparx ?” She concentrated  hard and said the name, tentatively. “To  Tashghent ?”  

Tecna  looked away.   

“Well, the witches swept in from the east, and  Tashghent ...fought back. The rest of the city was easy to subdue, but something about all this place…I didn't read to that part." She pulled her palmtop from the pocket of her synthesized-denim capris and pressed her thumb into a sort of...sensor?   

  “Hmm,”  Tecna  said, slightly confused. “The  Realmweb Encyclopedia  says that  South Central was always not only a rougher part of the city, but that it was also home to a large population of witches. There’s more about it, but it says that to read more I have to have a subscription,  damn it.”

She looked furious and Bloom wondered why; she had plenty   of money for a subscription or anything she wanted, really. As far as Bloom knew,  Tecna  had never lacked anything materially because her parents were high-level civil servants in her hometown,  Falyon . Had she been cut off or something?  

“Never mind,” said  Tecna  and Bloom forgot that earlier bit of weirdness. “Look at  this!”  They both bent over what  Tecna  was pointing at  at  their feet: a black, powdery substance. It was different from the soot. It clung to the ground in a way that that was kind of reminiscent of something Bloom had seen before, once. They bent over and  Tecna  reached out –  

A jolt of recognition struck Bloom: a memory, from their last year at  Alfea –a battle with Icy, made unfair by a trick that had made her temporarily powerless.  

“Wait, don’t touch it!” she blurted just before  Tecna  made contact. She froze.   

 Bloom quickly conjured up a small container, telekinetically lifted about a teaspoon of the black stuff into her jar and sealed it with a wave of her finger. Then she was moving, streaking off toward the teleportation point which would take her to the gates of the palace.  
 

“I know what this is!” Bloom shouted as she ran off. “I have to see my birth parents!”