Hello everyone! Kyla and Farhana here.
This is the first fic we are posting of the many we have planned. And if you found us through tumblr, you may have seen the gif sets for our Snow White part of this story. Working with another person, ideas can tend to spiral out of control. This was one of those stories. The idea just grew and grew.
We love this one and it really gets us excited when we write it. We hope you like it just as much.
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Never Ever After
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Rose looked at her reflection in the mirror as she smoothed out the front of her dress. It was rather large and puffy, but it looked beautiful. The corset was decorated with shiny beads or stones that went up into a design that sat higher than the other side. And the back of the puffy dress was adorned with bunches of material that formed into roses. Slightly modern, slightly olden day. It was a gorgeous light blue that almost sparkled. She didn't have a name for the material, but she didn't think it was from Earth. She couldn't help but grin at her reflection. It looked like a dress from a fairytale.
"Thanks, Old Girl," she said. "It's perfect."
The TARDIS hummed happily before the vanity lit up. Excitedly, Rose went and sat down to get ready. The TARDIS had already chosen out a range of things that would go with what she was wearing. So she began to play with her hair, putting it up in a twist and trying to get it to look right. Once was was happy with it, she began putting in the glittering pins and ornaments that were laid out. With a few curls tumbling down the sides of the twist, diamond pins placed through her hair, and a glittering band keeping the twist in place... She was probably going to shine if she walked under strong lights. She chose a light blue eye-shadow and did her make up.
Once she was done, she went and looked at her refection again. She was almost taken aback by how wonderful she looked. A total Cinderella transformation.
She was very excited for today. The Doctor had promised her to take her to a ball. Any one, it didn't matter. He was going to set the controls to random, but put some filters on it so they would only land at some form of ball... She didn't even know that was possible, but this was the TARDIS they were talking about. And, to be honest, it would be nice for a break. They had been on the TARDIS for the last week because recently they seemed to be running into trouble. Trouble was only meant to be the bits in between, so it was about time they were due a nice trip where nothing went wrong.
Happy with how she looked, she went and practically skipped into the console room. Don't ask how she managed to do that, considering her heals on that floor, but she never seemed to have much trouble. So either she was pretty good, pretty lucky, or the TARDIS was helping her.
The Doctor stood bent over by the screen, his glasses on as he typed in a seemingly complicated code in Gallifreyan. He was so focused he didn't even notice her, as bright as she was in the rather dimly lit room.
"You know, you could dress up for at least one of our trips," she commented, glancing at his usual brown pinstripe suit.
"I have a blue suit if that would-" He cut off when he laid eyes on her. His mouth hung open slightly, still suck half way through saying his next word. And his eyes dropped down and back up, looking her over with... she wasn't quite sure what that look was supposed to be.
"What?" she asked, worryingly looking down at the dress as she laid her hands against the puff of the skirt.
"What? No. Nothing. Just, it looks... good," he stuttered, taking off his glasses. "It looks good on you. The colour really suits you." Getting the feeling he was about to start rambling, he snapped his jaw shut and looked back at the screen. "Right, well, the code's all in. We're ready to go. Now, hopefully, this should take us to a very wonderful ball." He slammed down the lever and the TARDIS began to shake as she travelled.
"Hopefully?" she questioned.
"Well," he drew the word out, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's been a decent while since I did coding with the filters, I may be a little rusty. But you'll see, Rose Tyler. I've still got it-" They slammed down as the TARDIS came to a stop. But they both knew to hold on by now, so they were only jolted down instead of thrown to the ground. Excitedly, Rose ran to the door as the Doctor continued what he was saying. "Just you see. You'll open those doors and step out into the most wonderful, exciting, beautiful-"
"Library."
"Eh?"
Rose turned to him from the open door with a smirk. "We're in a library."
The Doctor ran to the doors to join her and looked about. He was met by the sight of a very large room with bookshelves as far as they could see. "Ah... maybe I'm not as good as I thought."
Rose giggled. "Don't worry, you're good enough for me." She placed a kiss on his cheek, making him smile. Then she wandered out to have a look. "This place is huge! Who the hell has a library this big?! I mean, how big is this thing? As big as a country?"
"A planet," the Doctor said. "This planet is called The Library. It's an artificial planet dedicated especially to holding every book in the universe... well, more Earth and its colonies, really. It's dedicated to a little girl who loved to read."
"Wow, brilliant!"
"Bit better than ours?"
"Nothing could beat ours," she said fondly. The TARDIS library had become a bit of a hang out spot for the two of them. She'd lost count of how many times she'd fallen asleep in there. She'd even lost how many times she'd fallen asleep in there curled up next to the Doctor.
"Of course not," he scoffed. "But, if it there was competition, this would be it... Although... It's a bit quiet, where is everybody?"
"Maybe it's closed?" she said, looking about.
"No, no, no. It can't be closed. This library has been teeming with life for years. Non stop..."
As he was talking, something else in the next room caught Rose's attention. She found that the Doctor's ranting slowly faded out as she got further away, drifting towards the room.
She paused in the door way. This room was different to many of the others. Where the rest all looked to be huge and made of light toned marble, this room was small and had dark wood. It seemed quite cosy. The only source of light was from one window high up. The beam of light that shone in illuminated every dust mote in its path, before falling on a large, old book. The book was perched on a pedestal, its cover bound in leather that was almost back.
She walked in closer to the book and looked down at the gilded title. Once Upon a Dream.
"Huh," she sighed. "Little different." Soon, she found that the song 'Once Upon a Dream' from Sleeping Beauty was humming it's way through her lips. Her hand stroked gently over the cover.
She had always loved fairy-tales when she was little. She still did. Though, she would never admit it, she was the biggest Disney fan and knew every song by heart. And she meant every song. She'd managed to see a few Disney movies from the next 20 years, much to her delight.
...She should get the Doctor to take her to the best Disney Land he knew existed. She'd always wanted to go.
As a child her favourites had always been ones like Cinderella and Snow White. Stories where the poor princess was forced into a horrible life, and then a handsome prince came to take her away to a better life. She'd forced Mickey into playing those sorts of make believe games many times. He would always get upset when she decided to take the initiative and meet him at least half way for the rescue. Apparently he was the one who was supposed to save her, and she just had to sit there twiddling her thumbs. Ha! Yeah right!
She smiled. It pays to try and save yourself some times. It pays to search up your Prince Charming on the internet. It pays risking your life to save his. She'd found her Prince Charming, and he was so much better than the fairytales had taught her.
Still, she loved them. Especially now that she was older and knew some of the 'not quite so kid friendly' versions.
Her fingertips found the edge of the cover and she pulled it back. The first story confused her slightly. There was a big large gap where the title should be, a picture off to the right side, and a small amount of text at the bottom that followed onto the next page. Where was the title?
She looked at the picture... that was a little more disconcerting. It showed a girl, her hair swept up completely into a hair handkerchief, much like the movie version. But her face was gone. It was blank, there was nothing there. And parts of the images around her were coloured, but she was entirely blanched out. As if she'd never been coloured in in the first place.
Rose shuddered, remembering her fairly recent experience in having no face. That was not a pleasant thing to go through. And what kind of fairytale book gives the pictures no faces? She flicked through the entire book before going back to the first story. It was clearly meant to be a collection of stories, but every story was missing a title, and every character was missing a face.
This was weird. This book just seemed really... odd. She should show the Doctor. Picking it up, she turned and went to leave, reading as she went.
"Once upon a time there was a little girl. She was happy and beautiful as any little girl should be. And though her mother died when she was young, her father adored her with all his heart. But there came a day when the father remarried to another woman. She brought with her her two daughters. They were beautiful with fair faces, but held evil and darkness in their hearts... Oh, this sounds like Cinder-"
She never got to finish her sentence, didn't even make it out the door. The next thing she knew, a golden haze of dust and energy started to swirl around her. A light breeze ruffled at the pages and whipped at her hair. Looking back at the book, she could see the shadow of a title beginning to appear above the words. The energy around her sped up to a storm.
Her eyes went wide. "Doct-"
But before she could finish, she was engulfed by a bright light. The book dropped to the floor, slamming shut. And the golden mist faded away... It was as if Rose Tyler had never been there.
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And here we go. Chapter 2 will be along soon. Please leave a review. Check out our page to find information on us, and other places you can find us.
