Chapter 114 - Parallel Life

Elenie arrived home just as Dory woke up from her nap; as she walked into the nursery she found Dory carrying Celyn to the door looking worried.

"What's the matter mother?  Has something happened?"

"I was rocking Celyn in the chair and nodded off and now those twins have gone wandering off again!"

"Don't worry, they can't have gone far - remember last time we found Rhonwyn hiding in the toybox?"

The two of them began looking around the house and shortly found Bronwyn playing with a toy on the floor of Dory's bedroom.  Dory put Celyn down on the floor to join her as Elenie asked "What are you doing in here young lady?  And where's your sister?"

Bronwyn grinned happily up at them and responded "we play, 'win go poof!"

"Go poof?" echoed her mother, not understanding in the slightest.

Bronwyn nodded energetically "Go poof!  Toy go poof, so 'win go poof, fin' out where toy go!" and with that she demonstrated by tossing her toy in the air and making it disappear.

As Bronwyn's words sank in, Elenie did something she'd never done before, even in her most stressful times... She went into a full blown panic and started screaming incoherently.

Brownyn looked up at her mother in surprise and said "Don' wowwy mama, 'win come back"

Meanwhile, Rhonwyn was gazing around the place she had ended up in.  She was in a grown-up's bedroom and the walls were covered in photographs.  She spent some time looking up at them and muttered to herself "That mama, but where wings?  Mama ha' wings but no wings...  An' where dada?  Tha' no dada!"

Getting up she wandered out of the bedroom and found herself in a hallway.  At the end of the hall was a large photo and she stopped as two men, both of whom had been in the earlier photographs walked past.  Neither of them seemed to notice her at all, both looking straight through her as they headed for the stairs.

Rhonwyn wandered on, finding herself in a large living room, again with the walls covered in photographs.  She recognised her mother and grandmother in several of them, together with others who looked to be family members, but family members she'd never met! 

The two men she'd seen on the stairs were in plenty of the photographs, and Rhonwyn began to realise that the older man must be her grandfather, he was often in photographs posing with her grandmother (who looked a lot happier than Rhonwyn had ever seen her) and in what must have been earlier photographs she could see resemblances to her mother.  

It disconcerted her however that her mother didn't have any wings or show any signs of being a faerie in any of the photos and that there was no sign of her father - the stranger in the hall seemed to have taken her father's place!  She began wandering out into an enclosed courtyard, vaguely noticing that the house was set out very differently to anywhere she'd been and that it was a lot warmer.

Eventually she found the kitchen and dining room off the courtyard, and her mother was there!  But she wasn't right, she was all human and normal and that strange man was there with a toddler, and still no-one noticed her at all!

She plunked herself down on the floor sulkily and watched her mother, her mother! flirt with this strange man! Worse still, the toddler he was holding looked like she could have been her sister!

Rhonwyn's faced scrunched up as she muttered "Don' like it, wanna go 'ome!"

Concentrating on the way it had felt to transport herself here and reaching out for her twin, she summoned the magic...

She arrived back in the bedroom just in time to calm Elenie's panic and looked up at her mother and grandmother with a grin of relief.

Elenie immediately swooped down to pick up her errant daughter and assure herself that she was real.

After hugging her tightly she looked down at the little girl and said "Where on earth did you go baby?  Don't you ever do that again!  Mama was so worried about you!"

Rhonwyn looked up at her with big eyes "Sowwy mama, went poof an' saw a mama who wasn't you and no dada!  Me no doey 'gain"

It was with great relief that evening, that the family gathered together to celebrate the twins' birthday.  After the dramas of the day, they had decided not to invite anyone, even family, over and all three grown-ups hoped desperately that the twins would be a little more manageable as children than they had been as toddlers!

Rhonwyn went first as her grandma held her over the cake to blow the candles out (and provided a little assistance) while the rest of the family (except Celyn who was asleep in his crib upstairs) cheered her on.

In no time at all, Rhonwyn had grown up into rather a tomboyish little girl, what her parents didn't realise just yet was that she would be a very hot-headed tomboy...

Next it was Bronwyn's turn, with her mother doing the honours of holding her to the cake while everyone else cheered (except Rhonwyn who was far too eager to get to the cake!)

Bronwyn grew up into an adorable little girl, who would turn out to be much quieter than her sister.

And the whole family sat down to enjoy birthday cake together.

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As before, I decided to take pictures of the twins in Stylist/CAS so you could see what they looked like properly (especially Rhonwyn, who is the second picture - dressed in blue).  I'm not entirely happy with Rhonwyn's hair so I may change it, if I do I'll take another CAS/Stylist pic since it's so hard to see details of her looks in game.