A/N: [October 29th 2024]

October 29th 2023

Chapter 302
We Rise Into Magic

When the girls had started to get older, just a bit, it had hit both Maya and Lucas to consider they might be approaching a time where they would know the truth about the fairies, where they would grow out of the tradition. By now, they had started to learn the truth, yes, but the result had not been what they'd assumed it would be.

Yes, by now Marianne knew the truth, and then Lucy had figured it out, and then Kacey and Remy after her, but what this had done was bring them all into a new era of their holiday tradition. Now, the four of them were getting to help out with the decorating, and excitedly so, the better to surprise their younger siblings. It made everything about that night even better. That era could only last so long as they had children in the house small enough to believe in that magic, but when the time would come when that happened, well, they'd figure out what the next era would be.

This year's fairy night could not have been more anticipated than it was already. It had always been so, when one of the little ones in the house got to have their first fairy mornings, and it would be Ezra's first of those this time. But what made it even more exciting for his pack of big sisters though was also the fact that with this first fairy morning would also come their one and only brother's first birthday.

The morning of the 30th and then in the afternoon once they left school, once they went off to the ranch for group day and then returned home, the four sisters in the know were like giddy balls of barely contained excitement, and it was a wonder that they didn't give the game away. They were excited for the fairies, they'd tell their younger siblings, that was all.

The whole thing would have to begin with a bit of subterfuge, naturally. They couldn't convince Mackenzie and Aubrey that things were exactly as they'd been led to believe if, for some reason, their older sisters didn't follow through on the bedtime routine with them all of a sudden. Anyway, just because they were going to be helping with the decorating, it didn't mean they didn't have to go and have their bath, or get into their PJs… The little sisters were tucked into bed earlier than their older sisters, yes, but even so Marianne and the triplets would give off the impression that they wouldn't be so far behind once those two started to drift off.

It was a lot harder than they could think, to be covert in those first minutes after the younger kids had gone to bed, especially as they realized that their helpers for the night were already arriving. They all went down the stairs as fast as one could when they were also trying to be so, so quiet. It was hilarious, and preventing any eruption of giggles was suddenly an added difficulty.

This year, they had Maya's in-house siblings helping them, along with the girls' boyfriends. They also had a few more in-bound helpers. Haley Hunter had insisted on jumping in to help once she'd realized that the rest of her siblings would be doing this together, and she'd brought Rafa along. Meanwhile, with the two of them having fallen down a bit of a Christmas kick lately, Jenny Marshall had asked her former teacher if she might come and help, along with her boyfriend, Jack. Maya promised that they were both more than welcome.

The two of them were not uncommon visitors to the Friar house by any means, which had been thanks to the bands at first, yes, but as time had gone on, and they had started to befriend Wyatt, they had been seen at times when there was nothing in the works for either TXNY or the Hexes. Jack had been around a lot lately, with the work that had started on the joint Christmas album, doing what he usually did in those times, either playing video games with Wyatt and others, or having a good, silly time with little Finneas. That night, Jenny and Jack were helping Wyatt and the others that were on Team Outside, and the running joke was wondering if they could run the lights all the way up to the second floor window into MJ, Wyatt, and Finn's room, the better to imagine the nearly two and a half-year-old boy opening his eyes and believing that the fairies were bringing bright colors to shine out there. They may not have hiked their way up there from the outside, but there would for sure be lights out there before they were done.

Meanwhile, inside, it felt like there was a show happening, and Maya stood in audience along with Rafa, as the four Hunter siblings were apparently competing to see who would get all their ornaments on the tree first. It wasn't even like they were just tossing them at the branches at random, no, and that actually made everything that much stranger and funnier to those who watched them. 'Stranger' was on the side of Maya and Rafa, who didn't know what to make of those four just going around, intensely inspecting available space on the tree and then hurrying to hang another ornament. 'Funnier' was on the triplets, as the girls were left to watch, baffled at first but soon so amused that they had to seek the nearest means of stifling their giggles, the better not to wake the others upstairs.

"Alright, can we get in on this? Please?" Maya finally had to cut in, clearing her throat and indicating her daughters, standing back with ornaments of their own.

"Hey, that's just…" MJ started, then paused, looked to their sisters. "Yeah, yeah, sorry. You go, bun bun," he waved to Lucy. Maya knew what he'd been about to say, that this was what they used to do at home with their tree, but he hadn't wanted to point out they'd had this tradition without her. She wasn't hurt. All that mattered was that everyone got to get in on it.

Fairy Night was a great and memorable event for the actual decorating, sure, and of course the entire goal was to get to the next morning, to the big reveal of the fairies' passage. But then there was something to be said for the part in between, too, the very brief moment where, with all the decorating done, everyone would get to stop, and stand back, and take it in… and they would feel it, too. The magic of the fairies, even if they themselves were 'the fairies.' Getting to watch their daughters in that moment especially was one of Maya and Lucas' favorite things. Maya had actually done sketches of those moments, each year since her girls had gotten to be involved in Fairy Night. She just might go and show them what she'd made someday when they were older.

Morning was not so far away, and after a night's rest that felt as short as it ever did post Fairy Night, even when it landed on a day where they didn't have school or work in the morning, as was the case this year, Maya and Lucas opened their eyes to the first day of December. They opened their eyes to the morning when their baby boy was officially a year old. The birthday boy was awake before them, probably not even knowing that this was his special day. Instead, he was standing up in his crib, gripping the top not in any effort to pull himself over the bars but to gain support while his eyes swept over the art on the walls around him. Maya had started putting some of her work up there to entertain him, and it had gotten to feel like an echo of her first Austin bedroom, and the thought always made her smile.

"Hey there, Pan," Lucas whispered when he had gotten out of bed and approached the crib. Ezra turned his head at the sound of his voice, his face splitting into such a smile that even without a shred of shared DNA, the Friar boy looked and felt as though he'd been made of the people he called Mama and Dada. "Is it your birthday?" Lucas asked, hoisting him out of the crib. "Is it your birthday?" he asked, lightly jiggling him about, poking his little tummy, which made him squirm and laugh. "I think so… What do you think, Mama?" Lucas turned to Maya as she came up to join them. Ezra saw her and bloomed, reached out.

"Mama…" he spoke, and she took him up in her arms, held him close and kissed the side of his head.

"Happy birthday, bud… You're a whole year old, can you believe it?"

"You know, your sisters believe it was the fairies that brought you to us last year. And now they came back, made our home magical again. Do you want to see?" Lucas asked.

Ezra would want to see just about anything if he was asked in the right tone, but that was beside the point. They had so looked forward to showing him everything, to see how he would react, and they were not the only ones. They barely made it out into the hall that there were the triplets, all with some variety of a look that showed they were making sure the little sisters weren't out and about and they didn't have to pretend yet, but they were also tripping over themselves to go and see what they and Ezra and Finn would make of the transformation. They closed in around their mother and their little brother, wishing him a happy birthday, only a moment before they heard a telltale squeal from up the hall. The green room was up, and the fairies had been by.

Shonagh had not participated in the decorating. She'd been aware of what they would do, they'd told her, but she had chosen not to do any of the work herself and instead went to sleep early, with Mackenzie and Aubrey. She'd wanted to be surprised like they would be, in part to make it that much more believable that she was unaware, and because she thought it would be fun. Going by her awed expressions as they all explored the 'fairy-fied' house, it was so, so much better than anything she'd imagined.

"Mama, one of the fairies landed on my face last night, I know it, I could feel it!" Mackenzie informed her mother, pointing to the exact spot. "I saw her wings and everything!"

They all took their time, that Saturday morning, to take in every last detail, especially with the tree. It was so impressive, and so tall… Lucas lifted his younger daughters and son up, enabling them all in turn to see the parts that were too far up. It said something about how captivated they all were that it took them as long as it did to eventually go and sit around the kitchen table to have breakfast. They all had ideas of what they wanted to do that day, for Ezra and his birthday. He was still little, they didn't have much to go on, but if this boy could count on one thing, it would be that his family would do whatever they could to entertain him, to make his birthday a wonderful day, whether or not he would be able to remember it in the long run.

Someday, he would be able to look back and see it for himself, with the amount of recording that his parents did, in video, in photo, with his mother in art, of course. Some part of them would feel as though they were doing this with a thought toward his birth parents, toward the mother they knew they had identified and to the father who remained and might always be a mystery. In their hour of need, they had turned to the Friars for help, and in the process they had given them a gift of immeasurable worth, granting them their fairy boy of a son.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners