"Not much of a Fable, are you?" the witch said when they first met.

Which wasn't for several hours anyway. At the redhead's direction, Gerda had mucked out the multi-colored horses' stalls, getting into a rather hostile conversation about childrearing with a donkey, and finally escaping to the river. The debate had given her a headache and she was less than happy to see a twenty-something woman emerge from the nearby woods, clad in a simple green dress.

"Frau Totenkinder?" she asked.

"Bellflower."

This suited the woman standing before Gerda, young and pretty like a fledgling goddess, but 'Frau Totenkinder' was a kinder name in Gerda's mind. It spoke of home, a name with weight and power behind it; a history, and history certainly seemed to be what she was running towards with this venture into Fabletown.

"Kay… mentioned me, then?" Gerda asked. Saying his name aloud brought on a slight rush of guilt but it was years old. The feeling deadened as Frau shook her head.

"Kay didn't mention anyone in the Homelands but the Snow Queen. I've just done my research. A childhood friend of his, when he was taken, you looked for him for a year then… vanished."

"No one knows that—"

"I do. I can also tell you that he's dead."

"Nothing I didn't already know," Gerda said, fighting to keep a snarl out of her voice. " 'Missing' when you evacuated Fabletown and regarded as dead ever since. You know he had to escape from the Snow Queen to get out of the Homelands, right? What kind of treatment is that, to one of your own?"

"No worse than your treatment of him."

"I can face up to that. You evacuated and nobody went looking for him. You had to have some kind of roster, a checklist of residents. You all made it out of the Homelands, but not out of a neighborhood? What kind of an operation are you running?"

"I am not answerable to you. You weren't there, and you don't know the situation," Frau replied.

"No, but Kay did, and you did. His friend." The woman didn't blink. "And if you're a witch, so you know people. And people who don't evacuate during an evacuation are either stupid, doing something noble, or can't leave. Kay was insufferably logical, and didn't see the point in nobility, so you abandoned him."

"Did you know he had a habit of gouging out his own eyes?" the witch asked. Gerda's words stuck in her throat, and she choked a little before she could reply.

"…what?"

"The man lived out in the Mundy. He ruined my efforts to help him and had he been of a stronger personality, he probably would have blackmailed us all with what he saw in Bigby, in myself. He was a consulting Fable, and not a well-liked one. But I have not called you here to reminisce about a dead man's insanity."

Gerda said nothing.

"He's only connected to all of this if you squint and you'll need all your eyes about you while you're back in the Homelands. The side of the angels is going to demand a little more of you than a Mundy-level intelligence."

Gerda bit down on a host of snappy responses, remembering the redhead's earlier injunction that she be 'polite' when she met with Frau. "Ms. Bellflower, I'm assuming you're going to tell me why I have to go back to the Homelands, but before you do, know that I know next to nothing about Fables. You would certainly be better qualified for any mission in the Homelands. Or here, for that matter. Why leave it to me?"

"Because I've paid my dues to the Fables and will not trouble myself playing the interfering ally everyone gratefully consigned to the woods. I told them of your curse, opened the gateway you'll be taking to the capital, and that is quite enough. You know enough to know that we fought a war to get those closed? No? We did. Bigby will lead you there and, once through, you will go to the capital, destroy a weapon the Snow Queen has been developing for centuries, and bring back all the information you can."

Gerda's mouth dropped open; she was sure of it. She couldn't even stammer out a reaction for a moment, which Frau took to go into detail.

"Of course, they'll have a packet of information for you at the Farm, as well as gear. The 13th Floor has established that the weapon we've been searching for is linked to your 'curse.' Your curse was the first lead they have had in years and I had to bring it to their attention. It's a very powerful weapon, if not all-powerful, and forged through some ancient contract we haven't been able to unravel."

"And you're throwing me at it because…? Sorry, I don't follow."

"It's a magical weapon. There are always rules that govern those, some weakness in the design and it is old as the Snow Queen herself. The contract is beyond the reinforcement of her magic and a thread of that magic has stretched out to touch you. Something about your curse is that weakness and there is no better time to strike than now, with the empire only lurching to its feet. Shoving it off-balance should be child's play. With your curse to help… it may be enough for you simply to be near it. Intelligence we gained from Boy Blue suggests that Lumi is not above conversation, so if you can safely extract information from her, do so."

"But why me? Why am I cursed? I mean, it's not as if I've ever had any direct contact with the Snow Queen."

"No, only Kay, but your story intersects with theirs and that may be why the weapon is related to you. It is beyond the 13th Floor's scope to say for sure."

"You think he's there?" she said, puzzled.

"I can only say that he was good as dead when I saw him. And even if he is there, you may have to kill him to achieve your goal. This is more important than crushes or reconciliation."

"If you've done your research, you know I'm experienced at abandoning Kay."

"Which is why I know you're capable."

On that stinging note, the witch turned to go; steps even and unhurried carried her back into the woods.

Gerda couldn't help but call out: "And if I do all that, what do I win?"

"All the world and a pair of skates, as your tale goes. What do you think? You stop breaking mirrors, with the destruction of the weapon, your curse should end as well. You can join Fabletown, if that's what you want, or go back to Mundy life and continue that scintillating career wiping noses."

The witch was gone before she could issue a retort and glares did nothing. She wanted to say she had been waiting for looking for something better (she hadn't), or that she had a rich life with the Mundys (not really); but the truth of the matter was that 'waiting' was the only word for what she'd been doing. Without motivation, and with plenty of time, life became something that happened to Mundys.

Even so!

She yanked off a shoe and hurled it after the woman, over the river, where it promptly went 'splish.' Deciding that there was no point in keeping one shoe, she sent the other one flying after it. That was for Kay and the Snow Queen's weapon and the sum total of every static decision she'd made since leaving the Homelands.

-at which point the shoes came bobbling gently back to shore. She sank to her knees and collected them. Damn everything that had brought her to this point of childish shoe throwing. She remembered doing it when Kay had first gone missing, asking the river if it had taken him. But nothing meant anything here: shoes floated because they had rubber soles and everything came up coincidence.

Maybe in the Homelands, it would mean something again.