Disclaimer: I own Lily Mills, not OUAT.
Lily Mills was awoken in the early morning by Henry.
"Lily! Get up!" Henry shook his sister awake.
Lily only groaned and stuffed her pillow over her head.
"Come on, we can eat breakfast at Granny's today," Henry taunted.
He knew how much Lily preferred eating out than with Regina.
"I'm not hungry," Lily's muffled reply came from under her pillow.
"Yes you are," Henry then proceeded to pull her duvet clean off the bed.
Lily shrieked at the sudden feeling of coldness on her skin, no longer under the comforts of her warm covers.
"…And you fell asleep in your clothing. Again," Henry added.
Lily looked down, and indeed she had fallen asleep in her denim cut offs and her striped polo.
"I really need to stop doing that," Lily mouthed to herself, running a hand through her hair.
"Just get in the shower, we have a long day ahead of us," Henry smiled gleefully.
Lily peeked up at Henry. Indeed, they did. They had to explain the curse to Emma, and hope she believed.
Lily grudgingly walked to the bathroom, and shut the door behind her.
After her nice, warm shower, Lily went back to her room, and changed into her school uniform, which consisted of a navy colored blazer with the school's insignia on the breast pocket, a white blouse, a plaid skirt, knee socks, and dark flats.
Lily tied her long, straight, dark hair neatly into its signature high ponytail.
She grabbed her canvas messenger bag which she used as a backpack, and exited her room.
Henry was waiting for her downstairs.
"Done yet?" He smirked.
"Yeah," Lily replied, still in a slightly sleepy daze.
With that, the two left the house, talking only of who the Storybrooke citizens could be in the Fairytale Land.
..:..:..:..
At Granny's Diner, Emma Swan had taken a seat at the counter.
Ruby placed a mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon sprinkled on top in front of her.
"Thank you, but I didn't order that," Emma raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I know. You have an admirer," Ruby smiled suggestively.
Emma, seeing Sheriff Graham in a booth close to her, assumed it was him, and went over to his table with her hot chocolate in hand.
"So, you decided to stay," Sheriff Graham said as more of a statement than a question.
"Observant. Important for a cop," Emma said in a semi-sarcastic tone.
Sheriff Graham then made a joke about Emma crashing her car into the Storybrooke sign, but Emma was unimpressed.
"Look, the cocoa was a nice gesture, and I'm impressed you guessed that I liked cinnamon on my chocolate…Most people don't. But I'm not here to flirt, so, thank you, but no thank you," Emma placed the mug on his table.
"I didn't send it," Sheriff Graham said, shaking his head at the cup of cocoa.
"I did," Chimed a voice.
Emma looked up, and saw Henry and Lily sitting in the booth behind Sheriff Graham's.
"Well, Lily did, but it was my idea," Henry added.
"We like cinnamon too," Lily smiled.
"Don't you two have school?" Emma asked in a puzzled tone.
"Duh, we're ten. Walk us?" Henry asked, and It's not like Emma could say no.
…:…:…:…
"So, what's the deal with your Mom?" Emma inquired, looking down at the small children.
"It's not about us…It's about her curse," Lily supplied.
"We have to break it. Luckily, I have a plan," Henry stated matter-of-factly.
Lily made an obviously fake cough.
"We have a plan," Henry corrected, glancing at his slightly shorter twin, who was smirking in her eyes.
"Step one, identification," Lily said cheerfully.
"We call it Operation Cobra," Henry said proudly.
It had taken Henry and Lily a while to find a name for plan, so they decided to go with something smaller, more simple.
"Cobra? That has nothing to do with fairytales," Emma said.
"Exactly, It's a code name. It will throw the Queen off the trail," Henry replied.
"So, everyone here is a fairytale character…They just don't know it," Emma clarified, still not believing one bit.
"That's the curse," Lily stated.
"Time has been frozen. Until you got here," Henry pointed at Emma when he said 'you'.
Emma was about to take a bite of one of the apples Regina had given her earlier, when Henry stopped her.
"Hey," Henry said, and Emma looked down at him weirdly, "Where did you get that?"
"Your mom," Emma replied, as if it was obvious.
"Don't eat that," Lily said, and grabbed the apple out of her hand.
Then, she tossed the apple over her shoulder. Emma was a little perplexed, turning around and watching the apple hit the cement some way behind them.
"Okay…uh… alright, what about their pasts?" Emma veered the topic off the apple.
"They don't remember, It's all a haze. Ask anyone anything…you'll see," Henry explained.
"So, for decades, people have been running around in a haze, not aging, with screwed up memories, stuck in a cursed town, that kept them oblivious," Emma said flatly.
"We knew you'd get it," Lily flashed a thousand-watt smile, and Emma wondered for a split second if Regina had gotten Lily's teeth whitened.
"That's why we need you. You're the only one who can stop her curse," Henry said.
"Because I'm the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming," Emma smiled a little, with a tone that suggested she didn't believe the two children.
"Yes, and right now, we have the advantage," Lily added.
"My mom doesn't know that. I took out the end, the part with you in it," Henry reached into his backpack, and took out a few pages from the book he had ripped out the previous night.
"See, your mom is Snow White," Henry said, as Emma looked at the first page.
The first page had a picture of Prince Charming with a sword in his hand, and baby Emma in the other.
"Kid," Emma shook her head.
"We know the hero never believes at first. If they did, it wouldn't be a very good story," Lily blinked.
"If you need proof, take them, read them. But whatever you do, don't let her see these pages," Henry said seriously.
"They're dangerous. if she finds out who you are… then it would be very bad," Lily said gravely.
For the rest of the walk to school, Emma's thoughts were racing. She was wondering exactly how lonely these two were to seriously have full faith that a fairytale book was real.
Soon enough, Storybrooke Elementary was in view.
"We have to go, but we'll find you later and we can get started," Henry said, as if he had already planned everything out.
"We knew you would believe us!" Henry and Lily called out in unison as they were further from Emma.
"I never said I did!" Emma called back.
"Why else would you be here?" Henry asked, before the twins ran off to the school.
How was that? The next chapter will be about Henry and Lily's time in school, as most of the story is about them.
-MessagesFromTheStars