AN: I've gone through the story and updated the earlier chapter titles to better match the later ones. Hope you catch the references :)
Re: comments:
I'd have no problem being in their shoes, Cristine's shoes on the other hand...
Magic (or "narrativum") is in fact trying to make them go. Fortunately they are conscious enough of the fact not to get scared overly.
Regina... well. You'll see. Soon :)
Elena was staring dumbfounded at the until-now chipped cup in her hands.
"Elsa…?" she managed to utter finally. "Could you… could you have a look?"
Elsa looked in faint interest from the sofa, but seeing Elena sitting motionlessly, she rose and approached the kitchen table.
"The cup?" she asked, picking it up.
"Yeah" Elena licked her lips. "I think I just fixed it."
"Well, that's what Henry asked you to do, right? To glue it together?"
"I didn't use the glue."
Silence in the kitchen started to feel a little oppressive.
"How did you do it then?"
"I was just trying to see if there aren't any small pieces missing. I fitted the chipped chunk to the cup and tried to make it sit flush with the rest and then there was this snap in my head and the chip was in. No seam even. No sign of it ever being broken in any way."
Elsa carefully took the cup and put it on the shelf, then sat in front of Elena.
"Did you feel left out?" she asked directly, putting her hand on her sister's.
A deep sigh was the only answer.
"Did you look for the magic inside you?"
A shrug.
"Did you just discover, by accident, that you in fact have some kind of magic and got very scared?"
A nod.
"So now you know what Emma and I felt when August dumped that whole 'You use magic' thing on us. Or rather, when we finally believed him."
Elena shuddered slightly and nodded again.
"Now, we can deal with it in two ways. We can ignore it and see if it happens again by itself, or we can try seeing what it is that you can do. I know, it sounds a bit too logical for someone who had just discovered that their sister is, in fact, a witch - or whatever it is that we are - but I've had a few weeks to consider mine and Emma's talents already and we've tried it out, checking what it is exactly that we can do, so I've had some experience in this by now."
"You do?" Elena sounded a bit surprised, so Elsa just shrugged.
"We didn't want to bother you with it, as it seemed to be a bit, well. Unkind. To advertise what we have and you don't. Which means now that you do have it, well. We have some experience and we can help you research."
"Research. Into magic. Your logical brain applied to that magical mess?"
"It's not a mess. It follows some rules and it is limited by specific laws. Emma's power, for example, only applies to someone talking directly in her presence, and it works better if she sees them. So, watching a movie is not a problem, as the people on the screen aren't there. If we went to see a play, she would probably feel a twinge - that was what happened when Henry was in the play at school, we're guessing - but because nobody there is in fact trying to trick someone into believing them, it doesn't trigger all her alarms. On the phone it's tough, but she guesses two times out of three, depending on the quality of connection."
Elena blinked and looked at her hands.
"And what do you want me to do then?"
"I'm guessing, but that would probably need to wait for Emma, that you can stick things together. So we can check what it is that works for you the best."
After a few tries of putting different things together, then stopping for the time to prepare dinner and to pick up Henry, then waiting nervously for Emma and then working with Emma, they managed to arrive at a conclusion.
Late in the night, when Henry was already sleeping after a healthy dose of bedtime reading - as usual recently, fairytales, doubling research with pleasure - Emma drew a big red minus sign next to another suggestion and looked at Elena tiredly.
"One thing they all have in common is simple. You can't stick together things that were not together in the first place. Basically, you can fix what's broken and that's it."
Elsa snorted.
"That's it? Emma, wake up! If she can mend broken things, she can basically do anything, like mend bones!"
"Ah, we don't know. We just checked on inanimate stuff."
Elsa reached behind her without looking and broke off a leaf from the small basil plant on the window.
"Ellie, try this" she handed the piece of herb over the table.
"Sure" Elena shrugged. "Can you give me the pot?" she reached towards Elsa.
Suddenly there was a small 'blorp' sound.
The plastic pot appeared in Elena's hand, leaking dirty water all over the table. She could only stare at her hands as the leaf appeared to straighten itself and reconnect with the parent plant with a tiny, wet-sounding 'smack'.
"Eep" was the only comment Elsa managed in reaction to that.
"Eep" Emma confirmed, hand with the pencil shaking as she put the notepad slowly on the chair next to her.
"Eep."
The leaf looked just as healthy as before and not even the tiniest line marred the place where it was connected to the stem.
The puddle of dirty water on the table and the empty saucer on the windowsill were however a very definitive proof for the fact that Elena had just teleported the missing part into her hands.
"That's… new" Emma finally managed.
"I wonder what that means for us" Elsa added, taking the pot out of Elena's motionless hands. "Do we also have additional talents - or other ways of how the current ones can work?"
Elena hiccoughed.