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"Anyone who tells you the fairytale isn't realjust hasn't found it yet, or they settled for less. But that's their story, notyours. Let yourself believe in your fairytale." - Butterflies Rising
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The only light that reached into the Addams' attic was that of the full moon, casting a light blue glow on the stacks of cardboard boxes and metal shelving units.

            One by one the twins, Bailey, Robin, Felicity, and Anthony stumbled out of the mirror and onto the dusty floorboards. Carolyn blindly walked to the attic door and flipped the cream-colored light switch, blanketing them in a dim, artificial golden light.

            "Everyone good?" Carolyn asked, throwing her cloak on top of a plastic beach chair.

            Robin, Felicity, and Anthony looked around the room in awe, eyeing every piece of old furniture and electronic that was strewn around the garret.

            Aura and Carolyn led the other four down from the third floor to the first, their boots' clobbering muffled by the carpeted stairs.

            Silvia sat at the kitchen table, furiously trying to distract herself in her paperwork. She perked up at the new footsteps and soft creak of the stairs, her efforts of diversion quickly proving fruitless. The very same papers fell to the floor as she ran to Anthony and Felicity. Her amethyst eyes filled with tears as the three of them embraced after what seemed like a lifetime.

            "Thank you, for everything," Felicity whispered as she pulled away.

            "I'll leave you all to catch up, I'm sure my mum needs me back at home. I'll see yous tomorrow okay?" Bailey said, leaning down to grab her backpack. She gave the twins and Robin a hug before heading out to her car.

            Silvia was quick to start preparing was she deemed to be a special meal, raiding the refrigerator and placing almost all of her pots and pans onto the stove.

            Felicity and Anthony walked back upstairs in an attempt to follow Silvia's directions to the house's guestroom. On their way, they passed the twins' bedroom which instantly caught their attention. They stepped through the doorway and smiled at the quaintness of it.

            Photos of the twins throughout their childhood were pinned on a corkboard above the white vanity that was placed next to the door. Each of their beds were pushed against opposite walls and had covers that matched their individual style but were both laden with blankets and pillows. A bay window sat between the two beds with a built-in bookshelf underneath the seat. Trophies and memorabilia from their childhood littered the cubbies and any surface area around the room.

            A lump formed in Felicity's throat as she picked up a photo frame from Carolyn's nightstand of Silvia with the twins at a childhood recital, the girls decked out in sparkly pink tutus and their hair in tight buns.

            Aura and Carolyn walked into their room, ready to change into fresh pajamas, but stopped when they saw their parents.

            "God this is so weird," Carolyn muttered, her hand pulling down the right side of her face.

            Anthony sighed, his arm wrapping around Felicity's waist. "I understand how strange this must be for you, believe me." His crystal blue eyes continued to scan every single photo and trinket in sight in an attempt to take everything in.

            Aura tugged at her ear. "It's just that—we don't really know you, let alone feel towards you." She quickly added when she saw her parents' faces drop, "Not that we're not happy to finally have you in our lives!"

            Felicity motioned around her. "Well once all of this is over, I would love to hear about every aspect of your lives."

            Bailey returned bright and early the next morning to find the twins' living room void of any furniture apart from a large plastic, fold-out table with a map covering the entirety of it.

            Robin ran to her with a wide smile on his face. "Have you ever heard of this beverage called coffee? The Fairy Godmother made some for us and it is amazing. I can get you some if you want!"

            Carolyn came up and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Alright, alright, go back and help Gran and Dad." She intertwined her arm with Bailey and ushered her farther into the house. "Don't mind him, he snuck an extra cup when none of us were looking. I give him five minutes until he crashes, the poor thing."

            Bailey let out a laugh as Aura called her and Carolyn over to where she sat on the carpet.

            Anthony, now clean shaven and in fresh clothes void of any tatters, studied the map closely and moved red push pins from Silvia's office accordingly. He finally looked up and nodded at the group. "Good, now that everyone's here we can get started."

            For hours, the seven of them stood over the detailed map of Fabula debating dozens of strategies of how to ambush the Crystian palace. The only break they took was to order pizza, to which Carolyn had to stop Robin from inhaling his slice after he took the first bite.

            The sun had long since set when Carolyn wearily said, careful not to disturb Robin's head on her shoulder, "I think I speak for everyone when I say that my head will explode if I try to think of another battle strategy. How're we gonna make any of this work if we don't know how many troops we'll even have? Onyx has all of the Villains' cronies at her disposal."

            The room fell silent. Silvia wordlessly poofed out of the room in a cloud of blue sparkle, reappearing moments after with her crystal ball in her hands.

She placed it now in the center of the table before saying, "Carolyn's right. This needs to end—now. No more suffering at the hands of Onyx and the Villains."

The Fairy Godmother hovered her hands over the orb, its interior filling with periwinkle smoke as it did before. "I already opened the portal in the mirror. Now all we need to do is send a message and hope that it finds enough people who can help." She looked to Felicity with expecting eyes.

Felicity leaned closer to the crystal ball, clearing her throat. "To anyone listening, this is Queen Felicity of Crystia. Too long has our world been controlled by darkness and evil, it's up to us to fully restore it to what it once was. So, with this message, I ask for your assistance in reclaiming Fabula through a siege on the Crystian palace. It won't be easy, by any means, but we can save our beloved world, and the only way we can do it is together."

The Fairy Godmother grabbed her wand out of thin air and sent a blast of magic flying up the stairs, the smoke in the crystal ball fading until the interior was once again clear as glass.

            Carolyn laughed to herself as she pulled a blanket over Robin's sleeping body on the couch. She dragged her own sluggish body up the stairs and into her room.

            Bailey laid on a blow-up mattress, a book and portable reading light in hand, while Aura sat under her covers typing on her phone.

            Carolyn turned off the bedroom light and crawled into bed, pulling the covers over her chest. "We're really doing this tomorrow, aren't we?"

            Bailey chuckled, as if laughter could shatter the thick tension around them like it was glass. "You ask as if this isn't your first time overrunning the monarchy of a different world."

            The three fell silent, staring at the ceiling and listening to the rustling leaves outside.

            "We are gonna win, aren't we?" Aura suddenly asked, turning on her side to face the two girls and propping her head up on her hand.

            Carolyn bit her lip. "We are, or we're gonna die trying."

            Aura's lips pressed into a thin line, but she nodded before turning onto her other side and closing her eyes. "Good night you too."

            Carolyn and Bailey muttered, "Goodnight," before following Aura's lead.

            Despite the anxiety of tomorrow, all three girls quickly drifted to sleep, the exhaustion of the past week finally catching up to them.

            Aura and Carolyn awoke to complete darkness and quiet, their bedroom nowhere in sight.

            A spotlight lit up in front of them. Seven orbs of magic of different colors circled around a sword and a wand. The girls instantly recognized the sword from the emerald dragon on its hilt, its wings acting as the guard, but the wand was foreign.

            The balls of magic continued their orbit around the weapons until a black, inky substance slithered from the darkness and began to circle the orbs. Anytime it got too close to the weapons, one of the orbs would blast it with light. The ink kept trying and trying, the orbs circling the weapons faster after each failed attempt until they sank into the wand and sword.

            Without their barrier, the ink raced towards the weapons but before it could touch them, the sword and wand clashed together. A blinding, golden light caused the twins to look away, yet it warmed their bodies. When the light subsided, the ink was nowhere to be seen—only the wand and the sword stood until the spotlight faded and the twins' world was once again only darkness.