A/N: This is a Next-Generation co-fic between Ruby Casablanca and myself. We both hope that you enjoy this story. Reviews are appreciated.

Prologue

The Queen of Eraklyon was in pain. Excruciating, mind-numbing, earth-shattering pain. It was as if every pore on her body was being set on fire, the power amplifying to its height around the juncture of her legs where she was currently trying to push out her child as she had been for the past twenty three hours. She knew that her labor had been too long, too strenuous. She knew that something wasn't going well, but she could hardly think through all the pain. And even if she had a worry she couldn't voice anything other than a blood-curdling scream.

She knew that her husband was worried about her. He had grown more and more stressed as the labor endured. He was scared to death of seeing them stick IVs in her arms to make sure that she didn't pass out from dehydration. She knew he was watching her grow paler and sweatier, sicklier as the clock ticked on. But he stayed by her side and held her hand as she cried and pleaded for the torture to stop, ever the doting and caring husband. She loved him so much for it.

In summary, the labor was killing her. She knew it. She could feel it, but she wouldn't say it. She couldn't say it even if she wanted to.

Her contractions were growing more and more painful, and one in particular made her scream so loudly that she was sure the opposite wing of the hospital could hear her. But this one was also different in that she felt an overwhelming sense of faintness, like she had just been dosed with a sedative. And then the sensors around her started to go off, a storm of beeps and pings surrounding her in a cacophony of chaos.

"She's coding," she heard one doctor say frantically, checking all her scanners for the dramatic drop in vitals. "We need to deliver and fast before we lose them both. Prep her for surgery now! Go!"

The order set off more mass chaos into the delivery room, or soon to be OR. The people all looked identical to Bloom in her hazy state, all the blue and green scrubs blending into one giant mass. All of them were shouting and prepping and talking with words she couldn't understand. It was all too fast and it only made her sicker. Her head lolled to the side as she gave in to her body's urge to shut down. She was just so tired of labor…

"Your Majesty we need you to go, please," she picked out of the crowd. She followed the sound vaguely to the one nurse who was speaking to Sky, trying to keep him out of the scene, pushing him away from her and towards to exit.

No, she wanted to protest. Give him back to me. I need him…She needed Sky more than she could say, and she wished she could say that. But her body would only allow her to move her lips incoherently.

"Sky…?" she tried, her mouth fumbling over the single syllable, her tongue far too parched from dehydration. Everything was sticky. Everything was blurry.

"I can't leave her! She needs me I can't-" she heard Sky protest, but other nurses were around him now, and her heart sank as she felt him get further and further from her.

"Sir your wife is in critical condition; her life is on the line. We need you to go."

There were more words exchanged, heated words that Bloom couldn't decipher as her head began to swim, color swirling into one giant blur.

"Sky…" she tried again, not even sure she had made any sound at all. She just needed her husband. She just wanted her husband back. Sky could make this all okay. He could make this…

"Code red! We're losing her!"

"Bloom!"

"Get a mask on her now!"

"Bloom!"

The chaos around her was nothing but white noise, Sky's shrieks mixed with the doctor's calls all mixing into silence. The last thing she saw before her eyes shut was Sky, his face frightened from behind the window in the door, his eyes wide and glassy. But then there was a tugging sensation followed by another scream that was entirely different from her own. This one was much shriller, newer, and made her ears ring fiercely until she could hear nothing at all.

And then everything went black.

Time was ticking away far too slowly. Each minute seemed like a millennia, each second like an entire lifetime that was moving in an agonizingly slow pace. Sky could hardly stand it, and surely neither could the doctors who kept on giving him the strangest looks, as if they were more concerned with his health than his wife and child's.

He could see nothing. He wasn't even allowed to stare in through the windowed doors anymore out of some inane fear that he would do something to jeopardize the lives of his wife and unborn daughter. He just wanted to be with them, to hold Bloom in his arms and make sure that she and the baby were safe. He'd only be soothed when he had them both in his grasp. Until then he was reduced to a worrisome ball of stress.

"Sky," came a gentle and familiar voice from in front of him, "how are you holding up?"

He had barely registered Daphne's presence until she was sitting right beside him, her arm taking to rubbing soothing circles on his back. She looked as rough as he did, her face all lines of worry and sleep-deprived. He knew the entirety of the royal families of both Eraklyon and Domino were in great distress, wandering around somewhere in this hospital with bated breath. And as her sister, Daphne had every right to wear her worry.

"I'm fine, I just wish they would let me know what is going on..." Sky replied weakly, holding his head in his hands as he slumped forward in the hospital chair.

"They'll give us answers soon, I'm sure. And then everything will be fine," Daphne tried her best to sound confident, and for the first time, he actually believed that things would be. Daphne was always like that, a beacon in the dark, just like Bloom.

"I wish I was as confident as you are," Sky shook his head wryly, trying to smile but it ended up forced and weak. Daphne didn't hold it against him; she knew what hell he must've been enduring at the moment.

"You'll see. Everything will end up as it should," she assured him, embracing her brother in law, trying to pass on more strength.

Sky appreciated all her efforts, he really did, but he knew that he wouldn't be able to rid himself of doubt until he saw Bloom and their child with his own eyes. He wouldn't allow himself to breathe until his family was home with him.

Bloom woke up to the most painful headache she had ever had in her entire life. And when that throbbing went away she was greeted with the most pain she had ever had all over her body. It was as if her senses were on a full-fledged assault, and all she wanted to do was escape the madness. Her vision was too white and her ears were ringing too loud and everything she touched felt like it was burning her skin clean off. It was awful.

She tried to lean up but the searing hot pain she felt across her lower abdomen made her mouth open in a silent cry of pain. A hand guided her back gently to the pillows below, that pressure centralized in her chest which seemed to clear the fuzzy whiteness away from her vision enough to make out the concerned face of her husband staring down at her.

"Careful, you need to rest or you'll pull the stitches," he instructed, his face carved out into thin lines that she did not like one bit.

"Stitches?" Bloom wondered as she looked down at her stomach, finding it much deflated since she had last seen it. It was strange, not having that life kicking up a storm inside of her anymore. She almost missed it…

"Yeah…they had to cut you open to get the baby out. You lost a lot of blood…had me worried there for a moment," he admitted, finally looking more scared than he had been before. She had known that she was taken in for surgery, but she had not known things had gone so badly for her…or the baby. And that thought brought everything else crashing in.

"And…and the baby?" she asked, now her turn to get worried.

"She's fine," he replied, a smile breaking out across his face. "Would you like to hold her?"

"Yes," she managed her need to hold her child overwhelming. All the pain in the world seemed to fade as Sky got up to reach for their daughter lying in a transparent medical crib off to the side. He scooped the tiny thing up with extreme care, offering her to Bloom. She took the precious thing from his arms and held her close, marveling in their creation.

"I love you," she told Sky as she cradled their baby for the first time, caught up in all the love she felt for the man who helped make this possible. He leaned over her to kiss her, gently capturing her lips in his. Everything was perfect.

So naturally the doctors had to come in, their clipboards jingling and lab coats swishing, disrupting their intimate family moment. Bloom had honestly been too happy to care, but their serious looks suggested something other than congratulations.

"Your Majesties," the mousy man in the glasses said formally but with a nervous twinge that didn't sit well in either of their stomachs, "we have the results from your daughter's tests, and it appears that her magical potential is nonexistent."

"What? What does that mean?" Sky asked, completely dumbfounded by the statement. Bloom was confused as well, though she could not get her mouth to function. No, that didn't make any sense. Their daughter was healthy; she was right there in her arms breathing.

"I'm sorry," the man replied solemnly, his colleagues bowing their heads as if to show some sort of reverence or sympathy, "but your daughter, she'll never have magic."

And with those words, Bloom's carefully constructed world came tumbling in. She held her daughter close, her eyes wide and fearful. The doctor kept on rambling on, talking about this like her daughter had some sort of disease and how they should consult with another expert to be certain. Did her daughter have a disease? Would this change her? Scar her? Would she live a normal, healthy life?

And in the back of her mind she knew that all of this was irrational. She herself had lived a life without magic for the first half of her life and had survived. But this was different. This was her daughter and her daughter was not supposed to have problems. And in the back of her mind she knew that it was not a sin to be magic-less, but something akin to fear was struck in her chest when she glanced at Sky, their expressions identical.

They both didn't want to have to raise their daughter as a freak.

A few days later the Queen of Eraklyon found herself staring out a window to her kingdom below, the world completely at peace. Just a few days ago the whole kingdom was rejoicing at the prospect of a new addition to the royal family. And now the royal family was standing in the waiting area of the office of the best doctors on the planet to determine whether or not their only child would survive the night.

Bloom was worried out of her mind, wrapping her arms around her torso to keep herself from shattering. She had yet to lose her baby weight, her stomach still slightly protruding, and it was all too easy for her to pretend like she was still in her first trimester, back when things were easy and light and happy, and nothing terrible could ever happen. Back before she knew this type of fear: the fear of losing her child, despite how irrational she knew it was. She wished to be that innocent and happy, to have so much to look forward to instead of waiting on news of her world being ripped away.

Soon enough she heard heavy footsteps approach her spot. Though the owner stopped close enough to where she stood, they respected her space, her need to be alone and go through her own stages of premature grief.

Sky was such a good husband, she thought to herself, turning a bit to let him know it was okay to approach her, yet not making eye contact. She just couldn't bear to see what lied in his eyes. She also couldn't let him know the misery that lied in hers. They both had enough weight on their shoulders. But Bloom, she knew she had so much more. She was that baby's mother for goodness sake, and she was failing in her only duty.

"It's my fault," she whispered, her voice cracking.

"Darling, what are you talking about?" he asked, reaching out to pull her in close. She welcomed his embrace, her small form trembling in his arms.

"I was in labor too long; I suffocated her. She was stuck, and now she's in there and I don't know what to do... It's all my fault…" Bloom was tripping over her world with ugly sobs, the tears running down her face faster than she could stop them.

Sky was quick to react, pulling his wife's face up and wiping her tear tracks away. He kissed her tenderly on the forehead, trying to soothe her even though he knew that she was too far gone to help.

"No, none of this is your fault. You hear me? None of it."

Bloom nodded, but only slightly. Even though she knew that he was making sense, she couldn't let herself believe that she was innocent. It was her responsibility to protect her child, and yet she couldn't feel more useless.

"Sky…" she sobbed quietly into his chest, "what are we going to do?"

"We just need to stick together Bloom. Just stay with me."

She nodded deftly as he wrapped his arms just a bit tighter around her torso, as if the tighter he held on the less would end up slipping out of his control. She wanted to believe that that was true, that he could hold on to her all the tighter and she would be all the safer. But she knew that no matter how tightly he held on that her baby's fate was up in the air.

A shuddered sob passed through her lips as she tried not to think about her baby girl just a few feet away facing the unknown. She was too young…god she was too young to be ripped away from the world.

Please, she prayed, please don't take my baby away.

The doctor called the royal couple in a few hours later, seating them inside of his office. Everything about the place screamed "sterile", and Bloom didn't like it one bit. It reminded her of the delivery room, of fading into nothing and waking up to find her whole world had been turned upside down. Sky kept his hand threaded in hers as they sat in the leather-backed chairs, his thumb running over the top of her hand, a constant comfort that she could never thank him enough for.

She eyed the rest of the room and found her baby lying in a medical crib near the corner of the room, fast asleep like nothing was wrong. Her tiny fingers were balled up into fists and Bloom hoped so badly that nothing was wrong, that this was all a dream and she would wake up to find those tiny fingers wrapped around her own as they slept in the nursery that Sky and his attendants had worked so hard to assemble.

A man with streaked grey hair began to speak to her from across the pine desk, and her attention immediately shifted. Even though her baby was her world, this man held the answers that would either heal it or tear it all to pieces.

"Well, on the extreme up side, your daughter is completely healthy."

The news was like a weight off of her chest, making Bloom feel as if things could finally proceed to normal.

"Really?" she asked, trying and failing to not sound completely relieved.

"Yes. The tests couldn't find a single malady," the doctor continued, and Bloom could've cried. Now they could actually put this nightmare behind them and focus on their daughter. The last few days would really just be a nightmare.

"Oh, thank god!" Bloom sighed, a hand falling on her chest as if the burden had been physically lifted.

"So she's fine? She's completely normal?" Sky reiterated, leaning in a bit closer as if being closer to the source would make the doctor's words more concrete.

"Well, physically yes. Your daughter is a hundred percent healthy and strong. However, her tests did concur with the ones taken upon birth. She has absolutely no magical potential whatsoever."

He delivered the news in a clinical voice, one that was not in the least bit a comfort. The heavy silence was back, and the tension in the room could've been cut with a knife.

"So what does that mean?" Sky asked carefully, trying to ignore that Bloom had tears pricking in her eyes where there had previously been happiness.

"It means that your daughter will never have the ability to possess magic of any source," the doctor explained slowly, making sure the weight of the situation was understood by all.

"How could this happen? Is this because of the labor? Did she lose oxygen? Did she-" Bloom panicked, her speech rushed and frantic. She needed to know what was wrong, what had happened, what she could have done to save her daughter this hardship. But the doctor reached out his hands in a gesture meant to placate, telling her to halt her speech, and so she did. She just needed to know.

"Your Majesty, no disrespect but you are completely over-exaggerating the situation. There is nothing that you could've done to prevent this from happening," he told her intently, holding eye contact to make sure that she knew what he was saying was the absolute truth.

"You're sure?" she asked, her bottom lip trembling.

"Yes. I've seen this before. It's uncommon, but not uncommon enough to be rare, but sometimes children of magical families can be born without the ability to wield magic. It's not your fault at all. What we believe is that the genetic code mutates somewhere during the initial cell division, and that mutation codes for a repressed magical gene."

While the explanation made sense, it gave no comfort to the couple. What they were hearing was that their daughter was mutated, not well and good.

"But…our daughter will live. She'll be fine?" Sky asked, emphasizing nearly every word. They needed a final answer, for both their sanities.

"Yes. Your daughter will grow up to live a happy and healthy life," the doctor assured them, and both the royal couple leaned back in their seats.

Bloom didn't know how to feel, her heart torn into a thousand different directions. At first her daughter was something that needed to be treated, then a mutant, and now perfectly fine. The emotional turmoil was enough to make her go grey. And Sky, well he was caught up in his thoughts, a million and one things filling his mind.

"I know that this is a lot to process, so I'll leave you two to your thoughts," the doctor told them as he rose from his seat. They followed his lead, standing up rather awkwardly until the doctor continued. "And please, feel free to pick up your daughter. She's completely fine from the tests."

"Thank you," Bloom murmured under her breath as the man excused himself from the room. She vaguely registered Sky shaking the man's hand and a few passing remarks exchanged, but her focus was back on her daughter who had begun to squirm in her plastic crib. She reached down into the container and scooped up the partly sleeping girl, resting her in the crook of her arms.

Healthy, she thought as she stared at her daughter intently, happy. Her daughter would be both those things and more. Just not magical. And while she was worried about what problems that may cause in the future, Bloom thought back to her life and what magic had brought to it. Sure, it had brought her Sky and a group of lifelong friends, but it had also brought along villains and heartbreak and death. Carnage followed in magic's wake, and the magical dimension got scarier and scarier with each passing moment. Perhaps it was better for her child to be born without magic…And the girl could be happy without magic; she could make friends and have experiences without having to fight for her life. It would be just as perfect as Bloom had originally imagined.

Vaguely she registered Sky's heavy steps growing closer, and she turned to face him. He kept his head tilted down, his expression firm set and hard to read as he placed a hand on top of their daughter's tiny head. He was so gentle with her, but the moment was over in a second, and as soon as he was there he turned to go, leaving Bloom in the office alone. She was confused by his actions; wasn't Sky happy that their daughter was well? Wouldn't he be glad to know he could breathe a sigh of relief?

But all thoughts were cast aside at her gurgling daughter who had begun to stir in her arms. She bounced her baby a bit, soothing the restless child. That did the trick, the little baby dozing back off into sleep, and Bloom leaned her head down to nuzzle the tinier bald one, taking in her daughter's scent. She smelled pure, like something new and wonderful and completely hers. Bloom couldn't stop the smile that crept up her face.

"Don't worry," she whispered to the sleeping child, turning to the window in the office to look out over the kingdom once more. The view looked different now; instead of being unfair and cruel, it seemed fitting. The sun was just beginning to set, making the sky appear to be all shades of pink and orange. Bloom continued, "I'm not sure what your daddy is feeling, but he loves you very much, just as much as I do. And I don't care if you have the most magic in the universe, or none at all. You will always be my light. My Luce."

They had discussed names for days, she and Sky both, but they couldn't decide on one they liked. But now, in the midst of the most beautiful sunset she had seen in ages, Bloom knew what she wanted to name her daughter. Luce just seemed to be the most appropriate. Her daughter determined her life; that baby girl held the power to light the tunnel to a great future or set the same tunnel on fire to destroy everything in sight. And Bloom considered that to be the most powerful magic of all.