Welcome to another of my Two Character Mash Ups! (Yeah, I really didn’t need to capitalize that… but it makes me feel all important and stuff…) This story is the product of Willow x Lester x Disneyland. Enjoy!

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“Hey, buddy, did you see a bunch of kids go by here?”

Willow looked up at the owner of the question, wondering how he could possible word his response so as not to hurt the guy’s feelings. After all, they were literally surrounded by children. “Can you be more specific?”

“Kids. You know…” Lester held a hand at his thigh to indicate the approximate height of those he was so frantically seeking. His other hand clutched a plastic tiara.

“Ah, yes, I see,” Willow said, figuring the guy must be pretty darn rattled to think that clarified anything at all. “Can I ask—”

“I’m suppose to be chaperoning them,” Lester explained, “Except I’m the worst chaperone ever. I don’t even know why I signed up for this.”

“How did you get separated?” Willow asked.

At this, Lester assumed a shade of red that could no longer be blamed solely on the sun. “Well, the line for Mary Poppins wasn’t that long… Seriously, though: what are they teaching these kids if they’d rather ride Space Mountain than meet Mary Poppins?”

The situation was embarrassing enough that Willow absorbed some of it out of the air. “Oh… yeah, that’s going to be tough to explain to their parents.”

“I know,” Lester looked around him. “But I checked the Space Mountain line, and they aren’t there.”

“Are you sure they’re not inside the building?”

“The line doesn’t move that fast,” he said, voice rising in desperation. “I swear I wasn’t away for that long!”

“Hey, hey, hey – it’s okay,” Willow said, getting to his feet and packing up the assortment of personal items he hadn’t realized he’d spread out around himself. “We’ll find them. Come on, I’ll help you look. Okay?”

Lester returned to his previous state of embarrassment and nodded meekly in gratitude for the help. Willow half-led, half-followed a meandering search through Tomorrowland, eventually giving up on asking for more specifics about this particular group of children. He decided he would just keep an eye out for a group that looked like they were in need of a grown up. Or whatever Lester was.

“So… who’s tiara is that?” Willow asked.

“Mine,” he grumbled, followed immediately by an accusatory scowl. “Not, y’know, on purpose. One of the kids gave it to me. She said it was magic or something.”

“Oh, cool! You can’t be that bad of a chaperone if a girl thought you were worthy of her magic tiara.”

“I’m a horrible chaperone,” Lester insisted. “She only gave it to me because she saw—”

He stopped himself with such urgency that Willow decided he absolutely needed to hear the end of the story. “Because…? What did she see?”

Lester sighed. “She saw me dancing.” He glared in response to the scoffing which Willow never actually provided. “I dance. I’m damn good at it.”

“That’s great,” Willow said, and pointed at the tiara. “You should probably be wearing that. I feel like this search could use a little magic.”

Lester gave Willow the familiar ‘wow is this guy serious?’ look, before reluctantly putting the little crown on his head.

After a beat, Willow decided to press his luck with, “So, any chance…?”

Lester clenched his teeth with a groan, but obliged anyway by stepping into a well-executed triple pirouette. He really was good! At first, Willow thought the spontaneous cheers were imagined, but then they looked across a decorative garden and saw a group of children applauding from their place in the line to meet Peter Pan.

“Oh, hey! That’s them!” Lester cried.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Yes!” He plucked the tiara off his head and stared at it in amazement, “This thing really is magic.”