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"Everything you look at can become a fairy tale and you can get a story out of everything you touch." - Hans Christain Andersen
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Aura, Carolyn, and Bailey were momentarily stunned when frigid air met their exposed skin, their sore muscles aching. The week had crept by with Carolyn feigning illness to skip multiple days of school. Aura, sadly, had to endure the very public displays of affection that Eli and Casey oh so graciously performed in their school's corridors.

Carolyn primarily resided by the window in their bedroom during that week, flashbacks crushing her and keeping her frozen in place as she sat in the cushioned bay window. She found herself wondering about Robin all too often, scared that he had been captured in the mountains of Arendelle while they were forced to remain on Earth.

As much as she tried distracting herself with books and Netflix shows, Carolyn was always brought back down by the inescapable desire to see him.

Each day the twins begged to go back to Fabula, but their grandmother firmly denied their requests, going as far as to hide the key to the attic in her office at work. "Not yet," she would say, a pained smile on her face. "Wait until Saturday when you can have more than a week under the time spell."

And every day they would receive training from both their grandmother and Bailey to better prepare themselves for any skirmishes they might encounter for the rest of their journey. Silvia had cleared the attic floor apart from a pair of sparring dummies and a rack of swords. The twins would stay in the attic until the wee hours of the morning and would only stop when they felt that they were on the brink of passing out.

They had fled to Fabula as soon as the sun had risen Saturday morning, ready to continue their journey, though nothing could quite prepare them for the frigid climate they faced now.

As they trudged through the snow towards Wandering Oaken's Trading Post, their anxiety began to rise, hoping that their friend would still be there waiting for their return.

Oaken was grimmer than they had last seen him, quickly leading them to the stable next to his store. "I should warn you," he stated as he fiddled with the key to the building. "There were horsemen riding through here not long ago, who quickly returned to where they came from. You should be on your way quickly; in case they were the King's guards."

Bailey nodded curtly in understanding as he creaked open the barn door, revealing Robin sitting near the wall in full winter apparel. His face lit up at the sight of the three girls, walking over to greet them.

Carolyn melted in his embrace, realizing how much she had missed the happiness he brought her. "Hey," she greeted quietly before he hugged Aura. How could a man she had known for just a few weeks seem to care about her more than the man who was supposed to love her?

He smiled at her, almost making her forget about what Eli had done. Almost.

They thanked Oaken before slowly riding towards Arendelle's port, hoping to gain passage to the island kingdom of Corona where they could hopefully find a shard of captivity.

"This whole week I was looking through all of the books my mum and I had on Fabula's history and on the Stories," Bailey explained, pulling her wool cloak closer. "The only thing that even remotely matched 'a shard of captivity from a great height' would be something from Rapunzel's tower; maybe a piece of brick or wood?"

The other three nodded contently as their steeds trudged through the powdery snow.

Carolyn sat peacefully on the horse; her arms wrapped around Robin's waist. Her eyebrows furrowed as she felt him tense up. "What's wrong?"

"I can hear other horses." He looked at Bailey, both of their horses hurtling forward at a rapid speed as they whipped the reins.

A bright orange burst of flames ignited a tree in front of them, causing their steeds to fearfully rear up. They steered the horses around the fire, moving quickly through the forest and towards the shore.

"Shit!" Carolyn exclaimed as she glanced behind them. Six soldiers were not far behind, led by a man with a crown set atop his auburn locks.

Bailey identified him as Hans Westergaard, the man who had displayed Princess Anna's frozen figure in Arendelle's town square. They could hear his smooth voice commanding the soldiers behind him, demanding that they circle around to the beach.

The twins grew far more concerned as they recognized the woman riding beside him, hurtling a flood of fire towards the group, as none other than the dark beauty they had encountered in Orrinshire.

"It's Onyx," Aura spoke in a baffled tone, her eyes wide in shock as she looked back at the raven-haired woman. "Why is she in Arendelle?"

Bailey and Robin split from the path they were on, hoping to reach the shore before the guards. "Rumor has it that Hans and Onyx are romantically involved," the brunette explained as she steered their horse to narrowly avoid a burst of red smoke hurtling towards them. "But if you ask me, she's just using him to get what she wants."

Their path was nearly set ablaze as they neared the vast wintry shore, the sand mixed with a layer of soft snow.

In a split second, Carolyn unsheathed Excalibur from Robin's belt, holding it above their heads to deflect an orb of fire off the infrangible metal. Her muscles strained from its weight, quick to slip it back into its place by Robin's side. "Sorry 'bout that," she stated awkwardly.

Aura rifled through Bailey's satchel, nearly falling off the horse as she pulled out the Lamp of Promise. She rubbed it vigorously, causing the genie to fly out in a pool of blue smoke, sporting a horse of his own made from the mist.

"Where we going?" he asked eagerly. His smile quickly dropped at the sight of Onyx rapidly approaching, turning back to Aura. "Sheesh! Away from her, I guess."

"Genie, please," Aura spat out quickly. "We need a way out of Arendelle. Fast."

"Say the magic words!" he said, rubbing his hands together.

Aura rolled her eyes, her breathing erratic. "Dammit—I wish for a way out of here!"

"AYE AYE CAPTAIN!" Genie yelled excitedly before transforming into a misty rocket, zooming to the rocky coastline. Part of the shore was encased in the blue fog, and when it cleared an impressive ship was docked on the sand. A long wooden ramp slid down from the main deck and dug into the sand. Genie stood at the base in a blue captain's uniform, a large smile on his face.

Just as they were about to steer their horses up the ramp, Aura's face went pale, despite the cold, her hand over her empty wrist. "My bracelet's gone!"

"We'll have to come back for it!" Robin called over his shoulder.

"No, without it we can't fix the Stories." Carolyn dove off of her horse, rolling onto the snow-covered sand. "You guys get on the ship. I'll go get it." Before her sister or friends could protest, Carolyn had already sprinted back into the wintry woods.

Her hazel eyes scoured her surroundings, desperate to find the light rose gold chain in the midst of a sea of white. She covered her nose and mouth with her elbow as the smoke from the burning trees threatened to fill her lungs.

Carolyn weaved in between the trees, following the horse trails from a distance back towards Oaken's. Her surroundings grew eerily quiet apart from the low crackling of the trees the farther she traveled from the shore.

"Looking for this?" a smooth voice said from behind her.

Carolyn's blood froze as she unwillingly turned around and came face-to-face with Queen Onyx. An impudent smirk danced on her berry-painted lips as she twirled Aura's bracelet around her pointer finger, her other arm crossed under her elbow.

As Carolyn began to take a step forward, Onyx pointed a long, black wand in her direction and clicked her tongue. "Ah, ah, ah. I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Sorry, you just so happen to have something of mine...and I would love to have it back," Carolyn said, trying to find any possible escape route.

"Funny, I was about to say the same thing." Onyx flicked the tip of her wand up, Carolyn's bracelet quickly sliding off of her wrist.

The blonde hastily jumped and clasped her fingers around the delicate chain as they both flew towards the queen.

Onyx clamped her hand around Carolyn's neck, keeping her suspended in the air.

"You're dumber than I thought you would be." A vile grin took over Onyx's face as Carolyn squirmed due to the increasing pressure compressing her air pipes.

As black stars began to cloud her vision, Carolyn suddenly dropped to the ground, her side encased in the frigid snow. Cold, but fresh, air entered her lungs. Her eyes grew wide as her sister's blues came into view.

"What are you doing?" she whispered harshly to Aura.

"I'm not quite sure, to be honest," her sister replied.

"Oh goodie, today must be my lucky day," Onyx declared, redirecting the sisters' attention back to her as she aimed her wand down at the twins.

Without thinking twice, Aura thrashed her leg out, kicking Onyx in the shin. She grabbed Carolyn's arm and rolled the two of them away right as a fireball instantly melted the snow a few inches from their heads.

"Are you crazy?!" Carolyn exclaimed as she was dragged down the hill.

"Probably," Aura huffed, pulling her sister behind a tree. She reached into her dress's pocket and pulled out the two identical charm bracelets.

They both let out screams as the tree in front of them was lit ablaze. Aura tugged her sister forward, sprinting around the tree, kicking up the powdery snow in their wake.

Their faces flushed a darker shade of pink each time they narrowly missed a ball of fire, the tips of the flames heating their faces. Even if there were other sounds around them, none could be heard over the twins' rapid heartbeats and labored breathing.

The sisters zig-zagged between the trees and over dunes of snow until the shore finally came into view.

Carolyn yelled in pain as a fireball just barely grazed the top of her hand, turning it a bright red and causing it to erupt in searing pain. She cradled her wounded hand as she and Aura burst through the last row of trees.

A dark blue, misty horse appeared at the tree line, neighing when it saw the twins. It beckoned with its smokey head to its saddle. The second Aura and Carolyn clambered onto its back, the horse took off toward the boat where Bailey and Robin eagerly waited.

As soon as the horse's hooves touched town on the cedar planks of the ship's main deck, it disappeared in a cloud of blue mist.

Genie flew to the sails from behind the ship's wheel and, with a large breath, blew enough air to send the boat off into the sea. He raced back to the wheel and called down to the twins, Bailey, and Robin, "Welcome aboard the S.S. Genie! Now that everyone is on board, please keep your arms and legs inside the ship at all times as we are traveling at a speed that I'm pretty sure is impossible for a ship of this model."

In one magnificent whirl of blue, he returned to the lamp, leaving the group to their own devices.

Robin was quick to steer the boat towards the Kingdom of Corona, yelling to Bailey over his shoulder. "They ought to be rushing to sea with their own boat, we won't be able to get away from them fast enough."

She thought to herself before taking a deep breath and walking towards the ship's bowsprit. She closed her eyes, concentrating deeply as she extended her arms out on either side of her.

"Navis celare meum," Bailey murmured repeatedly, causing a thick wall of clouds to appear behind their ship, stretching for miles as far as the eye could see. She stumbled slightly, the taxing magic creating a burning pain in her skull.

Aura quickly ran up to her, grabbing her arm to help her sit down.

"I'm fine," Bailey reassured her friend, though she kept one hand on her head as the splitting twinge roared through her brain. "They won't be able to find us now."

Bailey could only hear Carolyn's voice praising her spell as she drifted into a deep slumber.

Hello lovelies!
Okay, can we talk about that chase scene with Onyx? I was sweating, and it wasn't because of the burning forest.
Part 2 of this chapter is up now!

See you there!
♡ Melody & Rebekah ♡