Previously.....
The title on the cover was obscured so Sheila quickly flipped it open to check the title page.
She flipped too far.
Squinting against the light, she could make out the word 'Snow' before....
She found herself on her hands and knees scrubbing a stone floor.
Chapter 2.
Diana looked out into the wide room. It had a stone floor covered only directly in front of her by a rich red mat. Matching drapes hung across the windows obscuring all but a thin slit of light in which the tiny particles of dust slowly sank towards the floor.
She felt sort of....flat, and immobile, and kind of not really there at all.
Footsteps alerted her to the arrival of the Queen.
She wasn't sure how she knew that, nor how she knew exactly what this queen was going to ask. But as soon as the immensely tall red robed figure paraded through the door she said.
"No your not 'fair', your damn ugly, so quick, send the huntsman out to kill that girl that cleans the floor in here occasionally." She had a few qualms about sending someone to get killed, but again, for some unknown reason, she knew it wouldn't happen, so it didn't matter.
The Queen looked, well, cross. She stormed back out the door yelling for that 'fool of a huntsman' to be in her presence immediately or suffer the consequences.
Sheila looked around at the trees and flowers happily. She'd still had half the courtyard to scrub when the Queen had kindly given her the rest of the day off, and an escort to take her into the forest.
She had quite a nice bouquet to give her as thanks, and was in the process of choosing between lilacs or the bluebottles that were growing underneath the bushes at the edge of the clearing, when a shadow appeared over her shoulder.
She spun around, scattering her collection, and ended up on the ground when the long skirt she was wearing got tangled around her legs.
From this angle she could see the huntsman standing menacingly above her, his shield obscuring his face. She was about to beg for her life, when the man bent down, concerned.
"Are you alright?" he asked. Sheila sighed in relief. She cursed her overactive imagination. Why did she always think someone was out to kill her.
"I'm fine" she replied. The man stood up straight again, then shook his head.
"Look, *I* don't want to kill you" he said "but the Queen wants you dead, would you mind running off and not coming back?" Sheila stared up at him horrified.
Well damn, the *Queen* wanted her dead? Then another thought occurred to her.
"But I'll be all alone" she said softly.
"I'm sure you'll find somebody in there" he waved his hand at the forest 'The grass doesn't stay that short by itself you know" She was going to inform him of the existence of animals, but thought it might be more useful to find out why the Queen had sent someone to get rid of her instead.
"*I* don't know, why should *I* know? I'm just the messenger." He looked down at Sheila sitting quietly on the ground. "What are the flowers for?"
Sheila looked at her collection, most of which she was now sitting on.
"A thankyou present for the Queen" she sighed. The Queen wanted to kill her.
"Right" he said. "Would you like me to pass it on"
"Oh yes please" Sheila said politely. She was too fixated on the fact that she was going to be, alone, to realise the huntsman was now looking at her incredulously.
"Well" He said uncertainly, "I'll do that for you"
"Thankyou so much...."
"Eric" The huntsman supplied. Sheila gathered the sad pile together and passed them over.
"Thankyou Eric" she repeated.
Alone.
She could be alone. Probably no big deal at all. The only difference between being alone, and not alone, was that there was no people there. She could handle that.
Eric looked at her a little worried then sidestepped out of the clearing.
And she was by herself. The huntsman...Eric, was gone.
Carefully she got to her feet, a small sob escaping her throat. All of a sudden she wished the huntsman would come back, just until she found someone else. Her head tried to talk some sense, it was, after all, pointless standing around waiting for someone to come, especially when it was quite dangerous staying right here. But she was too scared to take any notice.
Her very minimal earlier confidence evaporated completely and she moved over to the nearest tree and huddled between it's roots.
She was alone.
"The heart?" Eric said incredulously, "You can't seriously expect *me* to do something so..." he looked thoroughly disgusted "..barbaric!"
"Your a huntsman" The queen said crossly "Your supposed to be barbaric, kill, remove organs"
"Kill? No, I hunt, you know, traps ... cages .... that sort of ... thing" he tapered off as the queen suddenly began to look quite a bit taller, and more than a little bit more menacing.
"What, did you do, with the girl?" for the first time Eric realised that his queen had little vampire teeth.
Stuttering he started to recount his trip into the woods, making it as long and drawn out as possible. For some reason he thought it would give the girl more time to get away if he delayed the ending. Somewhere around the retelling of her collecting the daisies, he regained his confidence though, and when the ending finally came about, he finished with his debonair attitude fully intact.
"And so, technically, I've achieved the same effect." He said reasonably "She's gone, away. You'll never have to see her again." He balked slightly as he looked back up at the Queen who was towering over him.
"Don't you think?" he said uncertainly.
"You fool!" she hissed, then stormed over to the bookcase. Tearing it down she revealed a secret passage way which she marched into without even taking a candle.
Diana, hanging against the far wall, rolled her eyes.
"Where are we?" Bobby asked.
"In a tunnel" Presto said.
"What's that tinking sound?"
"Ahh, I don't know, can you hear those voices?"
"Yeah, it sounds like singing"
"That's what I thought. I feel like I recognise it from somewhere." Presto mused as the chorus of 'Hi ho's' echoed around the confined space again.
That completed their conversation for the fifth time, they'd been sitting there for hours. Bobby had taken the initiative to try and find a way out, but had sat down unsuccessful after about twenty seconds. It was pitch black, so he'd run his hand around the wall until he'd run into Presto twice. No exit.
"Hey Presto, why don't you use your hat" Bobby said, suddenly excited. That would get them out of here.
"What good will that do" Presto said confused.
"You can make a light"
"Out of a hat?"
"Yeah! It's a magic hat"
Presto pulled the pointed cloth cap off his head and looked at where he thought it would be.
"What makes you think my hat is magical" he said adjusting his glasses, which unfortunately, did nothing to improve his eye sight.
"I don't know," Bobby said "for a second there I thought I had a magic club, but it's just a shovel." He hit the ground a couple of times with the implement. It didn't have the effect he was hoping for. No earthquakes.
"Hey Presto"
"Yes Bobby"
"Where are we?" Before Presto could reply a voice from above them suddenly let loose with a 'Hi hoooooooooooooooooooo' and the enclosed space was suddenly lit by a small hurricane lantern held by a short, white haired man wearing red.
He was standing on a ledge a little bit higher than Bobby's head.
"We're saved!" Bobby yelled, ecstatic, before leaping off the ground and scrambling up the wall.
The little man smiled and led the way down the tunnel once Presto had managed to get out of the hole, accompanied by a lot of mumbling and complaining about his too long robes.
As soon as they made it outside Presto stopped short. Before him stood four little men, identical in every way to the one that had saved them from their predicament.
He turned as Bobby tugged on his overly long sleeve.
"It's lucky Eric isn't here" Bobby said. Presto smiled in amusement as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. He found the comment funny, even though he couldn't quite remember who Eric was.
A bleating sound broke Sheila out of her melancholic state. There was a white pony with orange hair standing in the clearing.
Finally managing to get Sheila to raise her head. The poor neglected animal began a rant in bleee's and maaa's in order to tell her what was going on. After having put so much work into her lengthy speech, Uni was more than slightly miffed when Sheila's only answer was to ask if she knew any where to stay.
Rolling her eyes to the heavens, Uni gave a short nod and trotted into the trees.
Dusting off her dress as she stood, Sheila smiled at the little animal. By the way it carried on, anyone would think it was actually trying to talk.
Presto tripped, yet again.
"I think I've shrunk" he mumbled to the flower which was now head height. "I swear these robes weren't this long before"
He noticed that this particular flower was surrounded by a number of others, which were growing in a well tended garden situated only a few metres away from a tiny little house.
He pushed himself to his feet and jammed his hat back on his head. He noticed the five identical dwarves had already entered the house and were getting ready for dinner. Looking around for Bobby he found him peering cautiously into the bushes on the other side of the house.
Before he could ask what was going on, a white and orange animal had launched itself into Bobby, who in turn crashed into Presto, who again, landed on the ground.
He contemplated saying hi to the flowers, for his own amusement, but was interrupted by a very familiar looking girl.
"Oh, are you alright" She looked down at them concerned.
"Sheila!" Bobby leapt off the ground "Where've ya been? Where are we? What happened to your other dress?"
Sheila could only look at the little boy. She thought she knew him. He did look familiar. But she was pretty sure she'd never known any boys younger than her.
Her contemplation was broken as five little men surrounded the three of them and started shuffling them towards the door.
The weirdest sounds were echoing down the recently revealed hallway. They'd been going on all night.
Eric was sitting against the wall next to the mirror. He'd taken quite a liking to the ghostly embodiment that floated just under it's surface. For one thing, it answered back, and it seemed to share his views on the rather odd member of the royal family that he suspected was brewing illegal substances down the other end of the secret passageway, but it seemed to enjoy insulting him too much.
A cackle followed by a shriek made them both jump. Five minutes later, the Queen, now quite a bit shorter, shuffled out the entrance, a basket held in the crook of one arm.
"I think she mucked up her age reversal potion" Eric whispered then stood up to talk to her.
"May I inquire as to where you are going your highness, and do you need an escort"
"No I'm fine" she croaked, "just going to the woods"
Eric glanced at her suspiciously, that girl was out there, maybe....he shook his head dismissively, she couldn't possibly try to kill her. Especially in that form, she could barely walk.
"Err, well have fun." he said.
The Queen began muttering to herself as she hobbled out the door. Neither Diana nor Eric could figure out what expression she was sporting, too many wrinkles, but Eric was pretty sure he heard the word 'fool' in there somewhere, he felt confident in identifying that one, he'd heard it quite frequently, so her expression was almost certainly of the 'cross' variety.
Eric looked up at the mirror.
"It's quite boring in here, do you want to go outside?"
Presto hitched his skirts up a little higher, the five little men had herded himself and Bobby out of the little house at the break of dawn with absolutely no explanation.
He couldn't figure out why the hell they didn't just talk. He was pretty sure they should be talking, excessively, in a rather confusing manner, if he remembered correctly.
It wasn't like they couldn't, they'd started up with their 'hi ho's' as soon as they'd exited the clearing.
Bobby was walking along beside him shaking his head every now and again. The little dwarves were on their sixth repetition of their song when he decided to voice his thoughts.
"I have a really bad feeling about this Presto," he said, "I know that there's something wrong, something to do with apples and crotchety old ladies, I think something is going to happen to Sheila."
Presto had been thinking that previous to his thoughts of the little bald men dressed in red. It was definitely a bad idea to leave a young girl on her own in a house in the middle of the woods. That's why they'd left Uni behind.
But he agreed with Bobby.
Something bad was going to happen. He had a sneaky suspicion he'd read about this somewhere before.
Sheila was having a grand old time. It was such a novelty to be able to play in a house where everything was a lot smaller than it should be.
She was having an informal tea party, something she'd never been able to do when she was younger. She was sure this was because she had no one to play with. But strange images kept entering her mind, something about missing dolls and a little pest of a brother breaking all the tea cups.
Anyway, she sat down on one of the little stools and picked up the apple she had recently acquired from and old lady passing by.
Taking a sip of her tea, she looked out the window, the old lady was shuffling through the gap in the fence where a gate would normally go.
Taking a bite of the apple she thought about going to help her, the poor woman had taken half an hour to walk ten metres.
She stood up to head for the door and promptly fell back down again.
Eric lifted Diana out of the wheelbarrow and was about to lean her up against a tree when a man in green around brown ran out of the woods and barrelled him over. The mirror rolled across the clearing then curved around to come back again, it continued to roll in an receding oval like shape until it ran out of momentum and ran in such small circles it was, in actual fact, lying face up, flat on the ground.
"You know, I am breakable" Diana said mildly amused. That had been the most interesting experience she'd had in quite some time.
"Sorry Diana" Eric said, picking himself up off the ground, he turned to the blond guy that had knocked him down. He was startled to realise he recognised him.
"Hank! What are you doing here?"
"I honestly have no idea, I was wandering around with Uni yesterday, but she disappeared on me." He scratched his head and looked over at the mirror. "Where have you been, and what on earth happened to Diana?"
He picked the mirror up off the ground and looked rather horrified at Diana's ghostly form within.
Eric shook his head, this bloke wasn't making a lot of sense.
Uni? And what did he mean 'What happened to Diana?'
He voiced his own question instead. "What were you running from?"
"Some old lady was shooting at me" Hank propped Diana back against the tree. "You'd think we'd have enough to deal with, fighting Venger's minions and finding a way home." He pointed to Diana. "Did Venger do this?"
Eric looked at Hank curiously. Who the hell was Venger?
Just then, voices floated into the clearing.
"Bobby" one said "We should've just stayed with those DM clones, face it, we're lost, we're never going to find that cottage again, we'll just have to hope Sheila's sensible enough to not eat the apple."
"But Sheila loves apples, there can't be that much forest? How can we be lost?"
"Well there's a clearing, but it doesn't have a house"
The two boys wandered out of the trees and seemed quite ecstatic to see the people standing on the other side.
Eric was surprised, yet again, to find he recognised these two as well.
"Hank! Eric!" Presto yelled, then looked at the mirror, "Diana?"
"Oh wow Presto," Bobby said trotting over to the tree and bending down to get a better look at the Diana, "She got to be the magic mirror"
Both Eric and Hank looked at the him confusedly. What on earth was going on?
Sheila wasn't feeling too good.
Scrap that.
She was feeling downright horrible.
What the hell kind of apple was that?
She could feel the wooden floor pressed against her cheek and her hand was stuck under her knee. Her body felt like it had gone to sleep.
She couldn't open her eyes, so she wasn't sure, but it felt like she was in a really embarrassing kind of position, there was just way too much breeze fanning over her rear end and she suspected her skirts were covering the wrong end of her.
But she couldn't do a thing about it.
Her limbs just plain wouldn't work.
It seriously just would not do to be discovered like this.
"We're in a fairy tale?" Hank said dubiously.
"Snow White," Presto said. "Diana's the mirror, by the sound of it, Venger is the Queen, Eric is the huntsman, and Sheila is Snow White. So my guess is that your the Prince," He pointed to himself and Bobby, "and we're the dwarves"
"Hang on a second" Eric said, "Weren't there supposed to be seven dwarves"
Presto looked at him uncertainly, "Ahh, don't worry, you don't have to meet them," He quickly turned to Hank, "You haven't seen a cottage around here somewhere have you?"
"Yeah, some old lady was guarding it"
"Old lady!" Bobby yelled, "Quick, we gotta save Sheila" He didn't have to push Hank into action. They tore out of the clearing leaving Diana, Presto and Eric behind.
"You know, I can't start rolling on my own" Diana was glaring at Eric who looked about to restart the question of *why* they were in a fairy tale.
"Oh, right" he carefully picked her up and placed her in the wheelbarrow.
Sheila could hear the sounds of a battle going on outside the cottage. Two very familiar voices were yelling at a 'Venger' who was probably the cause of all the explosions.
She hoped the old lady had got out of the way.
Hooves scrabbling on wood echoed rather loudly through the floor and directly into her ear. She quite happily found herself slowly beginning to topple over, and without the pressure of the floor to hold it closed, her jaw opened slightly releasing the piece of apple that had caused the horribly embarrassing scene in the first place.
It was Uni. Blahing and shaking her head, the little horse nudged Sheila with it's nose.
Before her limbs had begun to work properly again, the front wall of the cottage suddenly disappeared and she had a wide screen view of what was going on outside.
The huntsman was standing off to the side with the Queens mirror in a wheelbarrow.
Two blond boys, one she vaguely recognised, the other, one of the dwarves, were dodging bolts of light that were flying into the backyard as they tried to make there way towards her.
Presto was hiding behind what was left of the fence looking at his hat in disappointment.
She thought it might be safer behind something, as opposed to sitting out in the open, so she got to her feet and made a run for the bedroom door.
She opened it and burst through, tripping over what was left of the bed. She righted herself and turned to re-enter the house but the rest of it was suddenly nonexistent as well. She swung around yet again and made an attempt to head for the tree line, but she was cut off by a beam of light shattering directly in front of her....
The title on the cover was obscured so Sheila quickly flipped it open to check the title page.
She flipped too far.
Squinting against the light, she could make out the word 'Snow' before....
She found herself on her hands and knees scrubbing a stone floor.
Chapter 2.
Diana looked out into the wide room. It had a stone floor covered only directly in front of her by a rich red mat. Matching drapes hung across the windows obscuring all but a thin slit of light in which the tiny particles of dust slowly sank towards the floor.
She felt sort of....flat, and immobile, and kind of not really there at all.
Footsteps alerted her to the arrival of the Queen.
She wasn't sure how she knew that, nor how she knew exactly what this queen was going to ask. But as soon as the immensely tall red robed figure paraded through the door she said.
"No your not 'fair', your damn ugly, so quick, send the huntsman out to kill that girl that cleans the floor in here occasionally." She had a few qualms about sending someone to get killed, but again, for some unknown reason, she knew it wouldn't happen, so it didn't matter.
The Queen looked, well, cross. She stormed back out the door yelling for that 'fool of a huntsman' to be in her presence immediately or suffer the consequences.
Sheila looked around at the trees and flowers happily. She'd still had half the courtyard to scrub when the Queen had kindly given her the rest of the day off, and an escort to take her into the forest.
She had quite a nice bouquet to give her as thanks, and was in the process of choosing between lilacs or the bluebottles that were growing underneath the bushes at the edge of the clearing, when a shadow appeared over her shoulder.
She spun around, scattering her collection, and ended up on the ground when the long skirt she was wearing got tangled around her legs.
From this angle she could see the huntsman standing menacingly above her, his shield obscuring his face. She was about to beg for her life, when the man bent down, concerned.
"Are you alright?" he asked. Sheila sighed in relief. She cursed her overactive imagination. Why did she always think someone was out to kill her.
"I'm fine" she replied. The man stood up straight again, then shook his head.
"Look, *I* don't want to kill you" he said "but the Queen wants you dead, would you mind running off and not coming back?" Sheila stared up at him horrified.
Well damn, the *Queen* wanted her dead? Then another thought occurred to her.
"But I'll be all alone" she said softly.
"I'm sure you'll find somebody in there" he waved his hand at the forest 'The grass doesn't stay that short by itself you know" She was going to inform him of the existence of animals, but thought it might be more useful to find out why the Queen had sent someone to get rid of her instead.
"*I* don't know, why should *I* know? I'm just the messenger." He looked down at Sheila sitting quietly on the ground. "What are the flowers for?"
Sheila looked at her collection, most of which she was now sitting on.
"A thankyou present for the Queen" she sighed. The Queen wanted to kill her.
"Right" he said. "Would you like me to pass it on"
"Oh yes please" Sheila said politely. She was too fixated on the fact that she was going to be, alone, to realise the huntsman was now looking at her incredulously.
"Well" He said uncertainly, "I'll do that for you"
"Thankyou so much...."
"Eric" The huntsman supplied. Sheila gathered the sad pile together and passed them over.
"Thankyou Eric" she repeated.
Alone.
She could be alone. Probably no big deal at all. The only difference between being alone, and not alone, was that there was no people there. She could handle that.
Eric looked at her a little worried then sidestepped out of the clearing.
And she was by herself. The huntsman...Eric, was gone.
Carefully she got to her feet, a small sob escaping her throat. All of a sudden she wished the huntsman would come back, just until she found someone else. Her head tried to talk some sense, it was, after all, pointless standing around waiting for someone to come, especially when it was quite dangerous staying right here. But she was too scared to take any notice.
Her very minimal earlier confidence evaporated completely and she moved over to the nearest tree and huddled between it's roots.
She was alone.
"The heart?" Eric said incredulously, "You can't seriously expect *me* to do something so..." he looked thoroughly disgusted "..barbaric!"
"Your a huntsman" The queen said crossly "Your supposed to be barbaric, kill, remove organs"
"Kill? No, I hunt, you know, traps ... cages .... that sort of ... thing" he tapered off as the queen suddenly began to look quite a bit taller, and more than a little bit more menacing.
"What, did you do, with the girl?" for the first time Eric realised that his queen had little vampire teeth.
Stuttering he started to recount his trip into the woods, making it as long and drawn out as possible. For some reason he thought it would give the girl more time to get away if he delayed the ending. Somewhere around the retelling of her collecting the daisies, he regained his confidence though, and when the ending finally came about, he finished with his debonair attitude fully intact.
"And so, technically, I've achieved the same effect." He said reasonably "She's gone, away. You'll never have to see her again." He balked slightly as he looked back up at the Queen who was towering over him.
"Don't you think?" he said uncertainly.
"You fool!" she hissed, then stormed over to the bookcase. Tearing it down she revealed a secret passage way which she marched into without even taking a candle.
Diana, hanging against the far wall, rolled her eyes.
"Where are we?" Bobby asked.
"In a tunnel" Presto said.
"What's that tinking sound?"
"Ahh, I don't know, can you hear those voices?"
"Yeah, it sounds like singing"
"That's what I thought. I feel like I recognise it from somewhere." Presto mused as the chorus of 'Hi ho's' echoed around the confined space again.
That completed their conversation for the fifth time, they'd been sitting there for hours. Bobby had taken the initiative to try and find a way out, but had sat down unsuccessful after about twenty seconds. It was pitch black, so he'd run his hand around the wall until he'd run into Presto twice. No exit.
"Hey Presto, why don't you use your hat" Bobby said, suddenly excited. That would get them out of here.
"What good will that do" Presto said confused.
"You can make a light"
"Out of a hat?"
"Yeah! It's a magic hat"
Presto pulled the pointed cloth cap off his head and looked at where he thought it would be.
"What makes you think my hat is magical" he said adjusting his glasses, which unfortunately, did nothing to improve his eye sight.
"I don't know," Bobby said "for a second there I thought I had a magic club, but it's just a shovel." He hit the ground a couple of times with the implement. It didn't have the effect he was hoping for. No earthquakes.
"Hey Presto"
"Yes Bobby"
"Where are we?" Before Presto could reply a voice from above them suddenly let loose with a 'Hi hoooooooooooooooooooo' and the enclosed space was suddenly lit by a small hurricane lantern held by a short, white haired man wearing red.
He was standing on a ledge a little bit higher than Bobby's head.
"We're saved!" Bobby yelled, ecstatic, before leaping off the ground and scrambling up the wall.
The little man smiled and led the way down the tunnel once Presto had managed to get out of the hole, accompanied by a lot of mumbling and complaining about his too long robes.
As soon as they made it outside Presto stopped short. Before him stood four little men, identical in every way to the one that had saved them from their predicament.
He turned as Bobby tugged on his overly long sleeve.
"It's lucky Eric isn't here" Bobby said. Presto smiled in amusement as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. He found the comment funny, even though he couldn't quite remember who Eric was.
A bleating sound broke Sheila out of her melancholic state. There was a white pony with orange hair standing in the clearing.
Finally managing to get Sheila to raise her head. The poor neglected animal began a rant in bleee's and maaa's in order to tell her what was going on. After having put so much work into her lengthy speech, Uni was more than slightly miffed when Sheila's only answer was to ask if she knew any where to stay.
Rolling her eyes to the heavens, Uni gave a short nod and trotted into the trees.
Dusting off her dress as she stood, Sheila smiled at the little animal. By the way it carried on, anyone would think it was actually trying to talk.
Presto tripped, yet again.
"I think I've shrunk" he mumbled to the flower which was now head height. "I swear these robes weren't this long before"
He noticed that this particular flower was surrounded by a number of others, which were growing in a well tended garden situated only a few metres away from a tiny little house.
He pushed himself to his feet and jammed his hat back on his head. He noticed the five identical dwarves had already entered the house and were getting ready for dinner. Looking around for Bobby he found him peering cautiously into the bushes on the other side of the house.
Before he could ask what was going on, a white and orange animal had launched itself into Bobby, who in turn crashed into Presto, who again, landed on the ground.
He contemplated saying hi to the flowers, for his own amusement, but was interrupted by a very familiar looking girl.
"Oh, are you alright" She looked down at them concerned.
"Sheila!" Bobby leapt off the ground "Where've ya been? Where are we? What happened to your other dress?"
Sheila could only look at the little boy. She thought she knew him. He did look familiar. But she was pretty sure she'd never known any boys younger than her.
Her contemplation was broken as five little men surrounded the three of them and started shuffling them towards the door.
The weirdest sounds were echoing down the recently revealed hallway. They'd been going on all night.
Eric was sitting against the wall next to the mirror. He'd taken quite a liking to the ghostly embodiment that floated just under it's surface. For one thing, it answered back, and it seemed to share his views on the rather odd member of the royal family that he suspected was brewing illegal substances down the other end of the secret passageway, but it seemed to enjoy insulting him too much.
A cackle followed by a shriek made them both jump. Five minutes later, the Queen, now quite a bit shorter, shuffled out the entrance, a basket held in the crook of one arm.
"I think she mucked up her age reversal potion" Eric whispered then stood up to talk to her.
"May I inquire as to where you are going your highness, and do you need an escort"
"No I'm fine" she croaked, "just going to the woods"
Eric glanced at her suspiciously, that girl was out there, maybe....he shook his head dismissively, she couldn't possibly try to kill her. Especially in that form, she could barely walk.
"Err, well have fun." he said.
The Queen began muttering to herself as she hobbled out the door. Neither Diana nor Eric could figure out what expression she was sporting, too many wrinkles, but Eric was pretty sure he heard the word 'fool' in there somewhere, he felt confident in identifying that one, he'd heard it quite frequently, so her expression was almost certainly of the 'cross' variety.
Eric looked up at the mirror.
"It's quite boring in here, do you want to go outside?"
Presto hitched his skirts up a little higher, the five little men had herded himself and Bobby out of the little house at the break of dawn with absolutely no explanation.
He couldn't figure out why the hell they didn't just talk. He was pretty sure they should be talking, excessively, in a rather confusing manner, if he remembered correctly.
It wasn't like they couldn't, they'd started up with their 'hi ho's' as soon as they'd exited the clearing.
Bobby was walking along beside him shaking his head every now and again. The little dwarves were on their sixth repetition of their song when he decided to voice his thoughts.
"I have a really bad feeling about this Presto," he said, "I know that there's something wrong, something to do with apples and crotchety old ladies, I think something is going to happen to Sheila."
Presto had been thinking that previous to his thoughts of the little bald men dressed in red. It was definitely a bad idea to leave a young girl on her own in a house in the middle of the woods. That's why they'd left Uni behind.
But he agreed with Bobby.
Something bad was going to happen. He had a sneaky suspicion he'd read about this somewhere before.
Sheila was having a grand old time. It was such a novelty to be able to play in a house where everything was a lot smaller than it should be.
She was having an informal tea party, something she'd never been able to do when she was younger. She was sure this was because she had no one to play with. But strange images kept entering her mind, something about missing dolls and a little pest of a brother breaking all the tea cups.
Anyway, she sat down on one of the little stools and picked up the apple she had recently acquired from and old lady passing by.
Taking a sip of her tea, she looked out the window, the old lady was shuffling through the gap in the fence where a gate would normally go.
Taking a bite of the apple she thought about going to help her, the poor woman had taken half an hour to walk ten metres.
She stood up to head for the door and promptly fell back down again.
Eric lifted Diana out of the wheelbarrow and was about to lean her up against a tree when a man in green around brown ran out of the woods and barrelled him over. The mirror rolled across the clearing then curved around to come back again, it continued to roll in an receding oval like shape until it ran out of momentum and ran in such small circles it was, in actual fact, lying face up, flat on the ground.
"You know, I am breakable" Diana said mildly amused. That had been the most interesting experience she'd had in quite some time.
"Sorry Diana" Eric said, picking himself up off the ground, he turned to the blond guy that had knocked him down. He was startled to realise he recognised him.
"Hank! What are you doing here?"
"I honestly have no idea, I was wandering around with Uni yesterday, but she disappeared on me." He scratched his head and looked over at the mirror. "Where have you been, and what on earth happened to Diana?"
He picked the mirror up off the ground and looked rather horrified at Diana's ghostly form within.
Eric shook his head, this bloke wasn't making a lot of sense.
Uni? And what did he mean 'What happened to Diana?'
He voiced his own question instead. "What were you running from?"
"Some old lady was shooting at me" Hank propped Diana back against the tree. "You'd think we'd have enough to deal with, fighting Venger's minions and finding a way home." He pointed to Diana. "Did Venger do this?"
Eric looked at Hank curiously. Who the hell was Venger?
Just then, voices floated into the clearing.
"Bobby" one said "We should've just stayed with those DM clones, face it, we're lost, we're never going to find that cottage again, we'll just have to hope Sheila's sensible enough to not eat the apple."
"But Sheila loves apples, there can't be that much forest? How can we be lost?"
"Well there's a clearing, but it doesn't have a house"
The two boys wandered out of the trees and seemed quite ecstatic to see the people standing on the other side.
Eric was surprised, yet again, to find he recognised these two as well.
"Hank! Eric!" Presto yelled, then looked at the mirror, "Diana?"
"Oh wow Presto," Bobby said trotting over to the tree and bending down to get a better look at the Diana, "She got to be the magic mirror"
Both Eric and Hank looked at the him confusedly. What on earth was going on?
Sheila wasn't feeling too good.
Scrap that.
She was feeling downright horrible.
What the hell kind of apple was that?
She could feel the wooden floor pressed against her cheek and her hand was stuck under her knee. Her body felt like it had gone to sleep.
She couldn't open her eyes, so she wasn't sure, but it felt like she was in a really embarrassing kind of position, there was just way too much breeze fanning over her rear end and she suspected her skirts were covering the wrong end of her.
But she couldn't do a thing about it.
Her limbs just plain wouldn't work.
It seriously just would not do to be discovered like this.
"We're in a fairy tale?" Hank said dubiously.
"Snow White," Presto said. "Diana's the mirror, by the sound of it, Venger is the Queen, Eric is the huntsman, and Sheila is Snow White. So my guess is that your the Prince," He pointed to himself and Bobby, "and we're the dwarves"
"Hang on a second" Eric said, "Weren't there supposed to be seven dwarves"
Presto looked at him uncertainly, "Ahh, don't worry, you don't have to meet them," He quickly turned to Hank, "You haven't seen a cottage around here somewhere have you?"
"Yeah, some old lady was guarding it"
"Old lady!" Bobby yelled, "Quick, we gotta save Sheila" He didn't have to push Hank into action. They tore out of the clearing leaving Diana, Presto and Eric behind.
"You know, I can't start rolling on my own" Diana was glaring at Eric who looked about to restart the question of *why* they were in a fairy tale.
"Oh, right" he carefully picked her up and placed her in the wheelbarrow.
Sheila could hear the sounds of a battle going on outside the cottage. Two very familiar voices were yelling at a 'Venger' who was probably the cause of all the explosions.
She hoped the old lady had got out of the way.
Hooves scrabbling on wood echoed rather loudly through the floor and directly into her ear. She quite happily found herself slowly beginning to topple over, and without the pressure of the floor to hold it closed, her jaw opened slightly releasing the piece of apple that had caused the horribly embarrassing scene in the first place.
It was Uni. Blahing and shaking her head, the little horse nudged Sheila with it's nose.
Before her limbs had begun to work properly again, the front wall of the cottage suddenly disappeared and she had a wide screen view of what was going on outside.
The huntsman was standing off to the side with the Queens mirror in a wheelbarrow.
Two blond boys, one she vaguely recognised, the other, one of the dwarves, were dodging bolts of light that were flying into the backyard as they tried to make there way towards her.
Presto was hiding behind what was left of the fence looking at his hat in disappointment.
She thought it might be safer behind something, as opposed to sitting out in the open, so she got to her feet and made a run for the bedroom door.
She opened it and burst through, tripping over what was left of the bed. She righted herself and turned to re-enter the house but the rest of it was suddenly nonexistent as well. She swung around yet again and made an attempt to head for the tree line, but she was cut off by a beam of light shattering directly in front of her....