Kelsey was up early, so by the time Kelly and I got out of bed the coffee was waiting and breakfast was nearly ready. Me and Kelly pulled on our nightshirts then emerged from our room, following the delicious smells.

"Thanks Kelsey!" I grinned as I poured myself a mug of coffee.

Kelly added, "You shouldn't spoil us mom, we need to get used to doing things for ourselves again."

Ms. Connolly replied "You'll be fending for yourselves soon enough. I've already packed my things, I'll be heading out after breakfast. Now that you two are back, I'm sure you're eager to have the place to yourselves again."

Kelly grinned and gave her mom a hug, "Thanks mom!"

"Will you need a drive to the airport?" I asked. As I thought about how far it was, I realized it would take two days there and two days back if we had to do it by horse.

She shook her head, "Not this time. I've already booked a ride-share for later."

Both Kelly and me appreciated that. We'd have driven her of course, but it was nice not to have to worry about it.

Breakfast was bacon, eggs, and toast. And more coffee of course. Then Kelly and I did the dishes while Kelsey got the last of her things packed away and set her suitcase by the door.

We had a little more time together, the three of us enjoyed some more coffee, but eventually Kelsey's ride came and she had to go. Kelly and her mom hugged and kissed, we both wished her a safe trip, then she was gone and the two of us were alone again.

As we sat cuddling together on the sofa, Kelly commented "You know, I don't even know what day it is?"

I thought for a few moments, then shrugged "Me neither. I mean, I know it's December..." I thought to look at the calendar on my phone, then realized not only was my phone not turned on, the battery would be completely dead. I'd forgot all about that yesterday, I just left it in my purse without looking.

Kelly shuddered, "I bet there's a thousand messages waiting for me, between email, texts, and social media..."

"Ugh," I groaned. "Me too..."

After a moment I frowned, "Didn't you check any of that stuff yesterday? You were on the phone with Keira for a while."

"That was my mom's phone," she replied. "I'm not even sure where mine is."

We both sat quietly, looking out the window at the lake as we cuddled some more.

Eventually I pointed out, "And neither of us are digging around for phones and charger cables, or turning on computers, or even the TV."

Kelly grinned and kissed me on the cheek, "Yeah. I guess I don't really care what day it is. And I don't want to deal with a deluge of messages."

I held her tighter and smiled, "If people wish to communicate with us, they can dispatch a courier with a note."

She giggled softly, "Indeed."

Neither of us bothered to get dressed, we just stayed in our nightshirts. And instead of doing anything productive, we spent the day alternating between reading some of our fae books we'd brought home, and cuddling on the sofa.

There wasn't much in the fridge to eat. Kelsey more or less used the last of the food to make the three of us breakfast this morning, but we didn't mind. I think we were both looking forward to getting take-away for dinner. I know I was excited at the prospect of sushi and General Tsao chicken. The only drawback was it meant one of us would have to deal with technology to place the order.

We were still procrastinating on that as the sun set and we eventually started to feel hungry.

Before either Kelly or me could come to a decision about whether to deal with our phones or our computers, we were a little startled by a few loud knocks at our door. We hadn't buzzed anyone up, though without our phones we wouldn't even have got a text or anything.

We exchanged a glance, then I got up and walked to the door. I was more than a little cautious, considering last time I answered it I got hit by a fae spell. Suffice to say, this time I had my defences up and was ready to blast someone straight into the lake if they so much as tried anything.

There was another round of banging at the door, whoever was out there was obviously impatient.

Kelly held back and watched from a safe distance as I unlocked then opened the door.

"Bitches we've been calling you all afternoon!" Keira complained as she marched in past me, carrying a case of hard lemonade in each hand. "Answer your damn phones!"

Amy followed her girlfriend in, she was lugging two of those four-litre boxes of cheap white wine.

Me and Kelly just stared for a few seconds as Keira and Amy went over to the fridge and started loading it up with drinks.

I finally closed the door after them as Kelly said "Uh, hi sis. Hi Amy. What's going on? How'd you two get past the lobby?"

Amy started looking through the cupboards till she found the glasses, and pulled out two wine glasses and two regular glasses.

"I charmed some old lady to let us in," Keira replied as she continued loading up the fridge. "And we're here to welcome you home from Otherworld. We need to hear all the stories!"

Both me and Kelly glanced at Amy then back at Keira. Kelly asked "Uh, sis? What did you just say?"

Amy grinned, "Relax you two. Keira's told me all about your fae stuff. Not that I believed a word of it at first."

"Keira?" Kelly asked, sounding uneasy. "Is that true? Does mom know?"

"I'm assuming you two want hard lemonade right? The wine's for me and Amy." Keira said as she finished filling our fridge with booze. She pulled out two bottles of lemonade and handed them to Amy, then started filling the two wine-glasses with box-wine.

Meanwhile Amy opened the lemonades and poured them into glasses for me and Kelly.

Finally Keira answered, "Yeah mom knows. I had to tell Amy, she was freaking out when we realized you two'd been kidnapped. Like, we had to explain to her why we weren't going to the cops and stuff."

Amy handed me and Kelly our drinks, then she took a glass of wine from Keira, and all four of us sat down in the living-room. I was still a bit overwhelmed by the way the two of them had barged in and taken over, so for now I just cuddled up against Kelly and let her deal with it while I sipped my drink.

"Ok," Kelly sighed. She thanked them for the drinks, then asked "And why are you two here again? I take it you're staying the night?"

"Yeah," Keira nodded. "We heard mom cleared out so the guest room was available."

I had another sip of my drink then said, "All right. If I can borrow someone's phone, then I'll order in dinner for us. Are you two ok with sushi and stuff?"

They both nodded, and Amy fished her phone out of her jacket pocket and handed it over.

"What's wrong with your phones?" Keira asked, frowning. "You lose them or something? Or did you leave them in Otherworld?"

Kelly grinned, "Nah. We just didn't want to face a thousand messages and Goddess-knows how many voicemails. Tegan hasn't charged hers up, and I don't even remember where mine is."

I grinned at my girlfriend and held up Amy's phone as I said "Hey! It's December twenty-first. Today's Thursday."

"Ooh!" Kelly smiled. "Happy winter solstice, everyone!"

"You didn't even know what day it is?" Amy asked, sounding incredulous.

I just giggled as I opened up the browser and punched in the restaurant's website. At least I still remembered that much. I even remembered my account info so I could log in.

Meanwhile Kelly shrugged, "We haven't looked at a phone, or a computer, or even a calendar since what, Samhain? We knew it was almost two months we'd been gone, we were pretty sure it was December here, but... Life over there moves at a different pace I guess."

Amy was fascinated, "They don't have phones? How do you talk to people?"

"In person," Kelly replied. "Or you send letters. Like, we had to contact someone who was what, I think her stronghold was over seventy-five leagues away? That's uh," she frowned as she thought it through. "It's just under four hundred kilometers. It took eight or nine days to send her a letter and get a reply back."

"What?!" Amy stared. "Why so long?"

"The only way to send a letter was to hand it to a guy who had a fast horse." I stated, smiling. "It's like, medieval over there."

I handed the phone back to Amy and let them all know, "Dinner's on the way, forty-five minutes or so."

Amy turned around and plugged her phone into our home entertainment system and put on some of her 'trance' music in the background, and we all settled in for the evening.

Over the next couple hours Kelly and I went through our story again. I got to show off my scars this time which was fun. Amy and Keira were both freaked out about that, along with my description of what the vargur looked like.

When the food arrived we sent Keira to answer the door since neither Kelly or me were dressed, then we continued the stories as we all ate. The sushi was as tasty as I remembered it, and of course I ordered lots of extras since we had two guests. I probably got too much but that was fine, we'd have leftovers for breakfast.

As we talked, Kelly told them about how I stopped a war and all that stuff. This time she included the bit about me being a gifted mage and told them about the Taralynn stuff. Our guests were curious and skeptical about my magical talents, so I wound up demonstrating a few spells.

I didn't do anything dangerous, but I did a glamour, a light spell, froze Amy's wine then thawed it, and even levitated a few of the empty lemonade bottles on the coffee table. Amy was amazed, and even Keira seemed impressed that I could do all that after only a few months.

We all got into the drinks as the evening went on. I was already on my second hard lemonade and had a pretty good buzz going by the time we finished eating. And me and Amy learned the answer to the question of how long it would take the twins before they fell into their bad habits.

It was only about two and a half hours before Kelly and Keira were daring each other to see who could eat the most wasabi without flinching. Me and Amy actually let them do it because honestly, it was the funniest thing I'd seen in ages.

We put a stop to things fifteen minutes later when they wanted to compare who could chug a vodka-lemonade the fastest. I perched on Kelly's lap while Amy restrained Keira in a bear-hug, and the two redheads gave up on their latest contest. For now.

After that things got a little more fun and a little less responsible. Some time after my third drink I started getting flirty, and the fact that I wasn't wearing anything but a nightshirt meant there wasn't a lot stopping me from doing things that I'd regret in the morning.

Kelly finally excused the pair of us and dragged me into our bedroom and closed the door. I'm not sure she was trying to save me from future embarrassment so much as she wanted to keep me all to herself.

When I finally woke the next morning I was both grateful for whatever aspect of fae metabolism prevented hangovers, and chagrined at my behaviour the night before. Even though I was pretty sure Keira and Amy hadn't minded. And anyways, they were the ones who brought all the booze and encouraged us to party.

Everyone was up by around ten, and our guests left just after noon. Before they went we all had coffee, and last night's leftovers served as breakfast. When they left Amy and Keira took the remaining wine with them but left us a fridge full of vodka-lemonade, as a welcome-home gift.

After they were gone, me and Kelly finally got dressed and got ourselves settled back into normal Earth life. Our phones were charged up, computers turned on, and in the afternoon we even went out and bought groceries.

In the evening my mom called, and we made plans for Kelly and me to go spend xmas at my parents place. It was normal, routine, mundane, and above all, safe. We were back on Earth, doing regular human stuff.

I was Tegan, me and Kelly were girlfriends, and we were home.

End of Book One

PurpleCatGirl

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Coven of Kylie for support, proofreading, pointing out problematic issues, and being a great friend! Thanks also to Mythriel for helping work out some character motivations and getting me through a plot problem. Thanks to all the great writers we've met on Discord and Scribblehub, for inspiration and leading the way. And huge thanks to all my awesome Patrons for your support! You're amazing! <3

Stay tuned - Book Two is on its way!

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