A/N: It's been a long wait, but it's given me inspiration to create a unique personality for Flora's dad. Sometimes, a few genes remain un-inherited.

Disclaimer: I do not own Winx Club.

Privacy. A luxury that the Crown Prince of one of the richest planets in the cosmos didn't have. Everything he did must be splashed all over the news, must be whispered in corners, must be gossiped about. Was he dating anyone? Or had he privately married one of those foreign girls from that school he went to? And did he still attend that school, or had he been thrown out? What was he going to do painting pictures if he had a kingdom to govern and overlordship of half a dozen satellites?

One of the reasons why Helia liked the night was the darkness and the secrecy it offered. His skills allowed him to slip past people like a shadow, don the cloak of Mother Nature and have himself to himself. When he was a child, he would often outwit the guards outside the corridor to his chambers to run out into the forest and sit beneath a tree, listening to the voice of nature, letting it envelope him and take away the day's troubles. As an adolescent, Helia would practise his archery at the dead of the night on the dark creatures that had begun to appear in his father's kingdom. In the aftermath of that war with the very same dark creatures and the men that they had controlled, he would walk the woods alone, the night a reflection on the darkness into which his mind had fallen.

This night, Helia had a less abstract reason to take the cover of darkness. He meant to keep his visit to the King of Linphea a secret to avoid it reaching Flora's ears. He accosted King Faunus during his daily constitutional in Queen Syrinx's painstakingly-tended garden, a little past dinnertime. It was a mark of Linphea's pacifist policy that the king did not reach for his sword when Helia dropped in front of him from a tree.

"Good evening, Your Majesty," said Helia, bowing.

"Young man, you bear an uncanny resemblance to someone I met only a few days ago, but I shall still ask you to identify yourself."

Helia smiled. King Faunus's intelligence and its resulting eccentricity was well-known. "Prince Helia, sire. I do bear an uncanny resemblance to my father, King Hyperion. I am aware you met a few days ago. What he spoke of with you is the reason for my visit."

"Have you run out of letters and scribes? We shall be happy to supply a few until you get replacements."

"I was in Linphea and decided to come here myself, since it was a matter of some urgency."

"Aye, I can see that. You did fall out of the skies. Has it to do with your activities in the north?"

"It does, Your Majesty."

"Well, come where we may speak more freely then."

To Helia's great surprise, he ducked into a canopy of large ferns and disappeared beneath the foliage. Following, Helia found him sitting cross legged in the perfectly round space. Helia took up a position in front of him.

"I come here to meditate sometimes," said King Faunus conversationally. "I found it when the wife was carrying the first of my girls. She used to get rather - cranky - I believe is the word. Funnily enough, the daughter turned out to be the quietest baby I'd ever seen. Now, young man, let us turn to the matter at hand so we can both get back to our beds."

Helia told him in length about the happenings at the secret facility in Sasanqua. "I would suggest military intervention, but the laboratory is fortified against magical attacks. Besides, I don't want to shed any more of our warriors' blood. I would like to borrow your Stealth Corps for a while, if you'd permit it."

King Faunus was staring at him with a calculating expression. Helia was reminded of the way Flora had looked at his sketch at Redfountain, with the same tilt of the head, the same glint in the eyes she had inherited from her father. Finally, King Faunus sighed. "I don't see a way around it. You can have the Corps. Am I right in supposing you plan to utilise them to search for the transportation pads in the facility and have them destroyed?"

"Precisely, sire. The transportation portals only function if both ends are open and functional. By eliminating those on one end, we stop the transport and hopefully, the goings-on at the lab. We shall also try to take down the shields surrounding the hill. After that, you and Father may deal with the wrongdoers as you wish. The Queen of Clematis will have something to say about this as well, I believe."

"Indeed, she will. The Corps will be deployed tomorrow night, stealthily, of course. I like using the Stealth Corps, you know. Those pesky nobles don't have to know they have been sent out."

"I couldn't agree more," smiled Helia. "I shall meet the Corps tomorrow night on the outcrop of cliffs near the River Amphi. Is that fine?"

"It is, for me. I'm not the one climbing around those dangerous rocks. You be careful, young man, or some beautiful princess in some distant land will blame me for letting her future husband die."

Why some distant land? thought Helia, amused. The beautiful princess I love lives only a few realms away from my own.

He took leave of the king (who advised him to find a secret place to escape to while the beautiful princess in question bore his children), and flew all the way back to the Embassy.

Back in his room, he lay on his bed and closed his eyes. King Faunus was certainly impressionable, and he wasn't surprised that Flora had developed insecurity around her father, the turns of whose thoughts resembled a whirlwind. After meeting him, Helia thought he wouldn't so much mind the social reactions of his dating Flora. King Faunus certainly wouldn't care. I'll talk to her as soon as I see her again. Maybe ask her for a little walk.

And for the first time in years, Helia fell asleep smiling.

A/N: I do love eccentrics, don't you? Big stuff coming up ASAP! All reviews welcome.