A/N: I know I've been promising you answers... Well this is it! We are going to have a good old OUAT detective session in this chapter. I thought the idea was creative, but please let me know what you think. I hope my Oncers approve and that my logic is sound!
PART 1, CHAPTER 5
"That's you and me. Austin Moon... Ally Daw-Sun."
Emma found Tinkerbell just inside the town line, finishing the repairs on the bus. The Sheriff repeated everything to Tinkerbell that she had learned so far regarding the newcomers. The green fairy listened attentively and confirmed that the information was consistent with her own observations. She then shut the large hood with a thud and gave a wave to the driver. When he turned the key, the engine revved to life.
They both stepped aside and watched the large tour bus slowly roll its way down the street into town, where it would pick up the four visitors before leaving Storybrooke. Tink then turned back to Emma and shared her own thoughts about the mystery of the strange visitors.
"Eclipses are all over Fairylore," she said, after explaining the significance of the necklace Ally Dawson had been wearing. "They symbolize change and new beginnings — they appear at almost every critical Turning in history."
"So you think Ally Dawson is meant to instigate some sort of change?" Emma asked.
"Maybe," Tinkerbell replied. "Or maybe the necklace indicates some sort of intertwined destiny with Fairies in general. She's a talented musician. Music has also always held great magical power among our kind."
Emma shook her head. "I just don't get it. She's from this world. How could she have any connection to fairies?"
Tink collected her repair supplies off the ground and wiped her hands on a towel. "Fairies have a very long and complicated past," she told Emma with a sigh. "There are many different kinds of fairies, and they've been in stories in every realm for almost as long as humanity has existed. Our magic is ancient, linked closely with the cosmos and the natural world. The Sun and Moon... I suppose you could call them our ancestors."
Emma nodded, digesting the information. "Was there anything else about your interaction with Ally that could give us a clue as to how she was able to break through the border protection?"
Tinkerbell placed her hand gently on the bag of fairy dust that sat on her hip. A small smile played at the edge of her lips. "She believes in me," the fairy added, blushing slightly.
Emma smiled as well. She knew how important it was for Tinkerbell to have people who believed in her. Like Emma and so many others in Storybrooke, the green fairy had been alone and lost for a long time before finding a home here. It was that belief in herself that had allowed her to regain her wings.
Tinkerbell's comment did get Emma thinking though. If a person from the non-magical world believed in a magical fairy, perhaps it was that belief that had allowed these visitors to enter the town, despite the protections. During her time here in Storybrooke, Emma had learned never to underestimate the power of true belief or love; and it seemed that this Ally girl possessed both.
"Blue mentioned that the two boys had been in Gold's shop," Emma told Tink. "Let's go see if he has any more insight to share on these visitors."
-0-0-0-
When Emma and Tinkerbell arrived at the pawnshop, the bell rang as the door opened. They found Rumple in the back of the shop, working diligently on something that looked suspiciously like magic. Beside him, an old fashioned cradle rocked gently back and forth with baby Gideon inside, who was sleeping soundly.
"Let me guess," the Dark One greeted them without looking up from his table of potions and trinkets. "You've discovered outsiders in town and believe that I may be able to offer some answers?"
Emma smirked. Of course Rumplestiltskin was already a step ahead of them.
"Just a hunch," she replied with a shrug. "You do have a way of keeping secrets, especially when they involve... outsiders," the Sheriff hinted expectantly.
"We were told you interacted with two of them earlier this afternoon," Tinkerbell added.
Gold stood up from where he was sitting and reached into a cabinet for a small vile of liquid. "If you are insinuating that I may have had something to do with their arrival, Miss Swan, then I'm sorry to disappoint you," he teased. (Although Emma had technically been married for several months now, Gold had yet to drop the use of her maiden name. It seemed that old habit's died hard.) "However, there may be a way for us to find out more about them," the shopkeeper told her.
"And how is that?" Emma turned her attention to the objects sitting atop Rumple's desk of magical things. Two long wooden sticks, carefully shaped into sleek dark rods, were displayed prominently at the front. The Sheriff could only assume they were wands of some sort, except that they each were sliced open with a thin cut along the side. Gold opened the vile of liquid and poured a dab of it onto a cloth, which he then brushed over each one to polish.
"What are those?" Tinkerbell asked with a curious frown.
"An old pair of fairy wands," the Dark One explained, "crafted from enchanted birch wood, waxed with a light coat of pixie oil," he eyed Tink slyly. "I do not blame you for not recognizing them. These wands have been rendered useless for many years, as they do not have a core."
Emma felt her head spin. No matter how much she learned about magic, there was still so much she didn't know. It was enough to give anyone a headache. "A core?"
"Yes, every wand possesses a core, Miss Swan," Gold gladly explained. "It is what gives a simple carved piece of wood it's magic. Expert wand makers use all sorts of cores, whether it be feathers, scales, or most commonly, hair. " He used a tweezer to pick up a single strand of hair that lay beside the two wands. "In the case of a fairy wand, such as these, it requires a fairy's hair for its core."
"Whose hair are you using?" Emma asked.
"This," he told her, "came from one of our mystery visitors. Austin Moon."
Emma tried to keep up with the magic lore and the odd logic that Rumple always used to explain it. She recalled her earlier conversation with Tinkerbell about how these outsiders could be connected to fairies somehow. "You think Austin Moon is a fairy?"
"I believe he may have fairy magic, though that does not necessarily mean he is a fairy himself," Rumple clarified.
"Moon magic," Tinkerbell concluded, following Rumple better than Emma was.
"What?"
"It's like I was explaining to you before," Tink told Emma. "The Sun and Moon hold very pure and ancient magic for fairies. It's a particular brand of nature magic which gives fairies their power. That's why the crystals that we turn into dust only form during an eclipse, when the Sun and Moon collide."
Emma looked at Tinkerbell in surprise. She had never realized that fairy crystals grew on a specific timeline, or that it was related to the natural cycles of the cosmos. "So you think Austin is the Moon," she said, "and Ally is the Sun?"
"If the wands accept each of their hairs as a core," Gold said as he lay the blond strand inside the wooden rod, "we will know for sure."
He picked up a second, longer strand of hair from the table with his tweezers, and laid it inside the second wand. For a moment nothing happened. Then, the two wands simultaneously sealed themselves, locking the two cores inside. The wands glowed brightly, the 'moon' wand tinted blue and the 'sun' wand tinted orange. Intricate carvings magically formed along the smooth surface of each of them, swirling elegantly in almost identical, mirrored patterns. Once the designs had formed, Tinkerbell gasped.
"Twin Stars," she exclaimed in recognition.
Rumple smirked in satisfaction. "It appears we've had a stroke of success," he concluded.
"You know these wands?" Emma asked Tink.
The green fairy nodded. "They belonged to the Twin Stars, Castor and Pollux."
"Who are they?"
Tink's expression grew dark. "Two fairies you do not want to meet," she said.
Fairies? The Twin Stars were fairies? Emma wanted to ask more, but now Gold was cleaning up his work space and another thought occurred to her. She squinted. "How did you manage to get a piece of hair from Austin and Ally, anyway?" the Sheriff asked him. "You only met the two boys."
Gold did not look at her. "Their red-headed friend is rather savvy at making deals," he told her. "And he knows the value of small things."
Emma gritted her teeth. If Gold had made a deal, it could only mean one thing. "What did you give him in exchange?" she demanded.
Before she could make Rumple answer, baby Gideon awoke and began crying. The new father took the distraction and lifted the infant from his crib. As he did so, Henry came racing into the shop with Belle on his heals.
"We got it! We figured it out!"
Henry was beaming as he caught his breath, holding one of his Storybooks. Belle stopped beside him, several sheets of paper in her hand. Gold silently squeezed his wife's arm and excused himself, carrying baby Gideon to the front of the shop where it was quieter.
Emma sighed and smiled at her son. "Really?" She asked. "What did you find?"
"Well we don't know everything," Belle replied. "But we did find one connection that's important," she held up the papers. "It took some digging on the internet, but it turns out that this famous singer, Austin Moon," she told them. "He's not from a magical world, but his family is."
Henry knelt down on the ground and opened his Once Upon a Time book. "We found out that his family has a multi-generational business in the mattress industry called Moon's Mattress Kingdom," Henry explained as he flipped through the pages. "And that got me thinking about the fairytale, Princess and the Pea," he looked up at Emma. "You know that story, right Mom?"
"Yeah," Emma agreed. "Something about a princess who couldn't sleep because there was a pea under the fifty-hundred mattresses she was sleeping on," she summarized what she could remember of the story.
"Right," Henry confirmed, finally landing on the page he was looking for. He stood up and handed the open book to Emma. "And that princess," he continued, "was a real person back in our Fairytale Land."
"Seriously?" Emma chuckled incredulously, taking the book. The fairytales were just never ending. It shouldn't even surprise her anymore, and yet somehow it always did.
"Yeah, her name was Winnifred," Henry explained. "She and her prince were from a kingdom just outside the Enchanted Forest that got destroyed during the Ogre Wars."
"Wait," Emma looked more closely at the image on the page. "The Ogre Wars were years before Storybrooke was ever created. If Austin Moon's family is here, how did she get to this world?"
"Her whole kingdom was demolished in the war," Belle answered. "Apparently the prince's father had been harboring a magic bean, so Winnifred and her family were able to escape to the Land Without Magic."
"Where her daughter," Henry continued eagerly, "Monica Woebegone, married a man named Oliver Moon, and they opened up a mattress store," Henry concluded. "Austin Moon is their great-grandson."
Emma shook her head in amazement. "Wow," she grinned at Henry. "Good work, kid, that was some very impressive research."
Henry blushed. "Well, I didn't do it alone," he looked at Belle. "And we still know very little about the girl, Ally." Henry looked around at the back room then, noticing Tinkerbell holding the set of Twin Star wands. "Did you discover anything?"
"Yes," Emma replied, looking at Tink. "Though I myself am still trying to understand it."
Tinkerbell stepped forward. "Austin and Ally possess an ancient form of fairy magic," she explained, "known as Sun-and-Moon magic. It's very powerful — a love magic, that is in some ways stronger and more pure than other forms of true love," she twirled the two wands between her fingers. "It is also much more unpredictable, as it is more closely linked to the forces of nature. The last time two people shared it..." she hesitated.
"Was the Twin Stars?" Emma guessed.
Tinkerbell nodded. "It can be dangerous," she told her warily.
"I've read about that legend," Belle's eyes lit up suddenly. "It's... rather tragic," she said. "It's the story of twin brothers, Castor and Pollux. When Castor died, Pollux gave his own life so they could stay together. Moved by his sacrifice, the gods let them both live on forever as Stars."
"Fairies," Tinkerbell corrected.
Emma felt her mind hurting again. "You mean fairies and stars... are the same thing?"
"Not all of us are literally stars," Tink explained. "But symbolically, yes. Why else do you think fairies respond when people wish upon stars?"
Emma thought about that, and realized it was true. Blue was a star in all the fairytales. Surely there must be other stars that were fairies too?
"It's true," Belle spoke up again. "In nearly all the ancient texts on fairylore, the literal translation of the word for 'fairy' is 'star.' The Sun and the Moon are referred to frequently as the origin of Fairy kind."
"Hang on," Henry interrupted. "Back up. Even if Austin and Ally do possess this Sun-and-Moon fairy magic, that still doesn't explain why they are in Storybrooke," he said. "I mean, everyone comes to Storybrooke for a reason, right?" He looked at Emma. "Blue said the destinies of the magical and non-magical worlds were intertwined. What were Austin and Ally brought here for? And why now?"
Everyone was silent at the questions. Then, Tinkerbell's eyes widened. "There's an old fairy saying," she said hesitantly, "that when the Sun and Moon fall in love, a Star is born."
Emma met her eyes, slowly putting the pieces together. A star is born... as in a fairy is born...
"The Sun and the Moon have fallen in love," she nodded to Tink. "So that means..."
"Their child?" Henry gasped. "You think their future child is going to be a fairy?"
Tinkerbell's expression grew worried. "Not child, Henry," she replied. "Children. Twins. Their children are going to be Twin Stars."
A/N: Ta-da! My big reveal is complete! What did you think? Does it work? Is it cheesy? I could not resist making connections everywhere, it's the beauty of OUAT :) And you know me, I'll take any excuse to write about the children... This is all I've got for now, until I can figure out a plot for the bbs! As always, please leave a review if you liked it.