Disney Princess Generations: Mystery Mother

Chapter 1

My belowed children,
You are too small. And I'm not ready to leaf you, but I know this must happen. There's no other road. I will miss you dearly. Please do not warry after me. I know it will be hard raising up without knowing who your mother and father are, but it's your fate. Your unchangeable destiny. Know that we are pride of you. Know that within you is a piece of US. There always will be.
Love,
Mother

Octavian wanted desperately to rip up this letter and throw it far away. Almost as desperately as he wanted to get his mother back.
The note left with him and his sister never made much sense. There were so many things either misspelled, misused, or capitalized incorrectly. And Octavian did not like this. He was, after all, becoming quite eloquent in his writing.
Octavian's sister, Cotton, comes running into the twins' small, shared bedroom of the orphanage. With her came the smell of meat being cooked downstairs. It made Octavian feel sick. He'd never touched meat since he accidentally killed his sister's bluebird many years ago.
He'd been trying to stop it from flying away, as the bird's cage was being cleaned. In his desperate attempts to grab the creature, he squeezed too hard. Squeezed the last breath out of it. Octavian felt horrible, insisting that his sister let him find her another, but Cotton only turned away in tears. She had already assured her brother that no other bird could replace Sky. Cotton now often stayed outdoors, painting lovely pictures of the birds that eat from her hand. But her sadness over her loss was long gone. She now entered the room with a smile and a jump.
"I finally finished!" She cried gleefully, disturbing the peaceful quiet Octavian had been enjoying. "I finished my drawing of the owl. You remember the owl I'm speaking of, Tay? The owl that always sits at our window during the night? The one that I could have promised was our guardian or protector or something? He has been with us for the past 5 orphanages we've been placed at, after all."
Man, could she blabber.
"Of course," replied Octavian, whom his sister called Tay, a name he found annoying. "All you ever do is talk about it. And as I've always said, the only reason that owl follows us is because you feed it."
"Do you want to see my drawing? It's taken so long!" Cotton didn't even wait for a reply, instead placing her picture on top of the letter Octavian had been reading.
The picture was perfect. The owl's eyes were glassy and staring. The feathers on the bird were so detailed, a person could mistake them for real ones. Octavian reached out to touch them, making sure they were only a drawing. In the owl's beak there was a flower. It looked like a rose. Under the owl's claws was a branch. A single branch. No leaves. No blossoms. Just a branch that extended somewhere beyond the picture's focus, giving the picture a sense of desolation. Quietness. Loneliness. Mystery.
"This is....," Octavian hesitated for the right words. "So..."
"Great? Amazing? Overwhelmingly gorgeous?" Cotton interrupted.
"Yeah. All the above!" Octavian picked up the picture to examine it closer. He could've sworn the owl's eyes had moved. "How did you get it to look so real?"
"Oh, that was easy." Cotton replied, taking a seat at the end of Octavian's bed. "I haven't slept in 4 days. I've stayed up, sitting by the window, catching every detail of him. I even found where he sleeps during the day!"
Octavian hesitantly gave the drawing back to his sister. It was too beautiful to part with. Cotton took the picture. As she did, she glanced down and noticed what Octavian had been reading.
"This again?" Cotton asked.
Octavian nodded.
Cotton sighed. "Tay. It's just a simple letter saying good-bye. Sure it has mistakes in it, but they don't mean anything. Mother must have been illiterate."
Octavian picked up the letter. "I know. I just feel like there's more to it."
"Well, there isn't," Cotton assured him.
"How do you know there isn't?" Octavian questioned her.
Cotton crossed her arms. "I know because you've been trying to make more of it since you started reading."
Octavian's face fell. He wanted it to mean something. He wanted his mother to be something more than a mysterious, illiterate woman whom he'd never get the chance to meet.
"Give me the letter," Cotton instructed, holding her hand out.
"Why? What are you going to do with it?"
"I'm going to help you," was all Cotton said.
Octavian wasn't going to give it to her willingly, so Cotton snatched it from his hands.
Before Octavian could get up to stop her, Cotton had rushed to the bedroom's only window and threw out the note. "There. Now it won't worry you, anymore."
Octavian dashed to the window, knocking over quite a few things in the process. He leaned out the window as far as he could, trying to find where the letter had flown to. But it was nowhere to be seen.
"Wh-Wh-Why?" Octavian asked his sister, turning to her abruptly.
"You wouldn't have done it. And it was driving us both crazy!" Cotton exclaimed.
"So?!?" Octavian screamed. "That was the only thing we had left of our mother!!"
"No it wasn't! You read the letter. Mother reminded us that there are pieces of her in us. Look in the mirror, she's there. Look at me, she's there. Octavian. You were trying so desperately to get something more than there was. But that's it. A love letter from a mother to her children. It's time you understood that." Cotton was trying to calm Octavian down. He looked real mad now.
"No!!! I know there was more! There's something in me telling me so. And maybe it's that piece of me that's from her. I'm going to get that letter back. And don't follow me!" Octavian turned and ran out the door.
••••••••••
What have I done? Maybe if I'd just tried to really help him... maybe if I even just read the letter to assure him there was nothing special about it... maybe he wouldn't have run out like that. Cotton's mind was racing. She had ignored her brother's command not to follow him. She was roaming through the forest with no clue as to where she was or where she was going. The sun was going down and many nocturnal animals were coming out. Some of which Cotton wasn't too fond of.
A tree ahead looked familiar. Perhaps she'd been climbing on it? Maybe sat under it to draw one evening? Then she remembered. It was the owl's resting place. This gave her comfort. Her guardian was nearby.
As she got closer, she made out a figure in the tree. She recognized it as the owl, but there was something else. Something bigger.... okay so maybe Cotton wasn't as comforted as she could've been.
The larger figure moved closer to the owl. The nearer she got, the more details Cotton could pick out. The figure wasn't a scary creature. It was Octavian, reaching out for the owl.
"Octavian!" Cotton screamed and ran towards her brother.
The owl was startled and flew higher into the tree. Octavian gave his sister an evil look as she approached.
"I told you not to follow me," Octavian reminded his sister.
"I didn't listen," Cotton replied.
"Obviously," Octavian grumbled. "You scared him away."
Octavian jumped down from the tree to land beside his sister. They never remained mad at each other for long, no matter what had been done. Cotton always was the one to hold a grudge longer, though. She slapped her brother across the face.
"Octavian," Cotton scolded. "Don't ever run out of that house again. Last time you did that without telling anyone you got us kicked out of the orphanage."
Octavian put his hand to his already red cheek. "OW!"
"Don't be a baby," his sister told him. "What were you doing with the owl?"
Octavian hesitated. "The letter. The owl had it in his beak."
"Really?" Cotton was shocked.
"Yeah at least he did have it until you came and scared him off."
Cotton was reconsidering the importance of the letter. Perhaps it did mean more. Especially if her owl friend had saved it.
"I'll get it back," Cotton said, determined.
She began climbing the tree. Her brother didn't stop her, which was a shock.
Cotton wasn't fond of heights. So she tried not to look down. The owl was only a few branches away. He looked down at Cotton curiously. Sure enough, Cotton saw her mother's letter in the owl's beak.
Cotton was finally close enough. She reached out to get the letter. But then she heard something. Something like... a growl. It startled both her and the owl. The owl let go of the letter and it began falling down. Cotton hoped Octavian would see it and catch it. She didn't climb that tree for nothing.
Still worried about where the growl had come from, Cotton made her way down from the tree. When her feet touched the ground, she saw her brother casually leaned against the tree. He had the letter and was reading it again.
"Great. Back to normal," Cotton said sarcastically.
Octavian glanced up. "Alright, Cotton. I'll make a deal with you. If you at least attempt to help me decode the letter, if there's a code to do so with, I'll get rid of the letter. But only if we don't find anything."
Cotton thought about it. She's always thought Octavian's search was silly. If she was so sure that there was nothing important about it, why was she hesitating? The owl, Cotton thought to herself. If her owl guardian thought the letter was worth saving, there had to be something more. And that scared Cotton.
Despite her worries, Cotton was curious now. "Yes. It's a deal."
••••••••••
The twins arrived back home after dark, which meant they were very late for dinner. Their orphanage manager, Sir Gerold Fitzgerald, was quick to notice. He was outside, waiting, with not the most patient look on his face.
"Where have you two been?" He sternly asked his least favorite orphans.
Cotton answered. "We are sorry Sir. I wished to go draw the sunset from the meadow. Octavian accompanied me."
Sir Gerold wasn't buying it. He raised an eyebrow. "You did, did you?"
Octavian and Cotton nodded their heads.
"Where's your sketch book, then?" Gerold inquired.
Oops. Cotton didn't have it. She almost broke and told him the truth, but Octavian spoke before her.
"You forgot it again didn't you? This is the second time you've left that sketchbook in the meadow. I'm getting tired of going back with you to get it. I think we should just leave it there for a while. Maybe then you'll learn to keep up with it." Octavian had always been a good liar.
Sir Gerold looked skeptical, but went along with it. He didn't really care to get angry with them. To him, they weren't worth the fuss. "Very well. Go to bed. You two can go retrieve it in the morning," Sir Gerold. He started to turn away, but not before the twins heard him mumble, "Only 3 more days."
Three more days? That was when Octavian and Cotton turned 18. Sir Gerold wasn't required to keep up with them after that, though he could. There were several orphans in his home that were well in their 30's. The twins would obviously not become one of those orphans.
What are we gonna do out there, by ourselves? Both twins were thinking alike.
••••••••••
After showers were taken and night attire was put on, the twins got into their beds.
Cotton's bed was pink and orange. The pillows were few, but that's how she liked it. She loved for her bedding to smell like wildflowers, so she tucked them in her sheets every morning during chore hour.
Octavian's bed was brown and had many pillows. He'd "borrowed" them from the other orphan's rooms. Octavian didn't care for his bedding to smell like anything, so he did nothing. His sister occasionally snuck wildflowers into his sheets. He didn't appreciate the gesture.
Tucked in and warm, the twins were almost asleep. Then Cotton remembered something.
"Octavian?" She said into the darkness.
"Mmmhhh?" Octavian replied.
"When I was up in the tree a while ago... did u hear anything? Anything that sounded like a growl?"
"No," Octavian mumbled. "You went up the tree, the letter fell down, I picked it up, then you appeared. That's all that I remember happened."
"Oh," Cotton said. "Okay. Goodnight, Tay."
"Goodnight."
What was that noise, then? Cotton knew she hadn't imagined it.