thearena | Not Quite The Princess You Were Expecting [OPEN]

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Not Quite The Princess You Were Expecting [OPEN]

WHO | Snow White & Ruby | Snow White + YOU!?
WHAT | Fresh meat?!
WHERE | The Cornucopia and probably Fantasyland eventually?
WHEN | Snow's Arrival - Week 6
WARNINGS | Nothing to speak of yet

Snow White looks the part of a storybook princess, head to toe. The dress and the cape they've put her in do not strike her as something out of the ordinary, but the machines that lifted her here and the strangely destroyed looking future certainly do.

For now, the only plan she has is to get somewhere out of sight. Somewhere less exposed. Safer. If anything, all she really wants is a quiet minute to herself to just collect her thoughts. To try and make any of this make any sense in her head. So the moment she feels it safe to take her first step out into this strange new place, she starts to run at as quick a pace as she dare. She's defenseless here and she knows it. Lost in a completely unknown territory with only the vaguest understanding of what is going on, she heads for the thing that looks the most familiar.

The castle.

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"Me, too," Snow confesses, even though its probably quite obvious. "What... what is this place?"

She doesn't expect her friend to have an answer. But looking around, this place is nothing like anything Snow has ever seen. Twisted metal and rubble and the decaying carcass of an amusement park - Snow has never seen an amusement park. The cracks cement walkways look like strange, meandering roads, storefronts and the faces of the decaying rides look like strange houses. Nothing about this place makes any sense...

"I don't know," Ruby admitted. She'd never been out of Storybrooke - she hadn't even known what a lemur was. Her knowledge of Disneyland was... a little limited. Though she would have loved it, back in its prime.

"It looks like an amusement park," she admitted, eyes traveling over the rides as she drew her friend toward the castle. "Maybe we can find someone."

"What is an amusement park?" she is unfamiliar with the term, let alone the idea of a theme park where she could literally find caricatures of herself painted on walls and printed on tee shirts.

She is in no place to argue with Ruby's assessment of the place though.

"You don't know what an amusement park is?" that didn't sound quite right... but. Maybe the curse hadn't given her that information.

"It's a place people come to have fun," she responded. "you know... Rides?" She was studying Snow's face, then.

"No?" she furrows her brow slightly, as if she finds it odd that her friend thinks that she should. "Rides? As in... carriage rides?"

She typically preferred to ride her own horse, but understood the appeal of carriages. Especially for those who may not always have the opportunity to do so.

"Snow..." She was looking fully into her friend eyes now, even without coming to a pause. She needed to look into her friend's face for this.

"What's the last thing you remember?" she asked. It couldn't be that she was before the curse, could it? ...Did they maybe strip away all her memories from before Storybrooke? Leaving the town usually did the reverse, but...

"It's a little fuzzy. I remember Emma..." her eyes go almost distant as she tries to remember exactly, and tries not to let the worry show too much on her face, "Charming. He was hurt. And... "

From then on it's mostly swirls of smoke and a haze of noise and a hundred thousand things at once. Then it comes back into focus again and she's in this place.

"Red?" she can't disguise her voice as well as her expressions, "Is this where I sent my daughter? Did I send her through that wardrobe to this place?"

"...You don't remember the curse?" she asked, voice soft feet stopping for just a moment. She has to give Snow's free arm a faint squeeze before she can bring herself to continue.

"She wasn't sent here," Ruby promised her. "I... I don't know what's going on. But it's not Regina's curse."

"I remember that it was coming. I just assumed... that was what this was. Imprisoned. Frozen in time. I've been under a curse before. It doesn't always look like what you expect it to when you're under it," she wants to believe her friend, but unfortunately, it may take a little more convincing.

"It was broken," she promised, voice soft almost breaking - feet still hurried. "Emma broke it. Just like you knew she could..." She doesn't want to share everything - it's too much to go into right now, and so much of it will make Snow sad... but she won't have her friend believing that her daughter was sent to a hellish place like this.

The look on Snow's face is one of obvious confusion.

"What?" she wishes she had something more eloquent to say, but nothing is coming.

No. She's running through a ruined future world in with her best friend who is telling her what sounds to be utter nonsense.

"...I don't I remember any of that," she confesses.

She saw the confusion, and her heart went out to her friend. Snow. She wished she could do something to ease it, but she din't really understand it herself.

"We'll figure it out," she promised, picking up the pace a little. Her eyes were still darting for threats, but she was glancing toward the castle as well. How much further until they could start looking for shelter, and she could explain things to Snow?

The only response Snow gives is a nod and a brief smile. Ruby's right. They will figure it out. Together.

She gives her friend's hand a small squeeze as they continue on there way. A small gesture of comfort here in this wild unknown.

"I'm glad you're here," she confesses, even if she knows how selfish that may sound.

"I wouldn't leave you," she pointed out, smiling. She was glad to be here, too, though she'd do anything to spare Snow... even though there was that selfish part inside of her just as happy not to be alone.

Why didn't she have her memories, though? Without them, she seemed so much more fragile somehow. So much less ready for something like this. It scared Ruby half to death. What was going on? Who had done this, and why?

...Later.

"Family always finds one another," Snow reminds her, squeezing at her hand again. And hopes the words will remind herself, too.

She needs to believe in that. Now, more than ever.

Snow slows their pace a little bit, weary in the looming presence of the pink and blue castle. Maybe this was not the best way. From up there, someone could easily be watching them. If this place really was the grim arena that they claimed, approaching from such a vulnerable position may be unwise. They should move away from the castle. And find cover.

"Always," she repeated. Snow was nothing if not family, after all. The only consistent thing in the wolf's life, it sometimes seemed. Which was why, if nothing else, she had to protect Snow here. If this really was a fight to the death, then she'd make sure Snow made it to that end. Without dirtying those innocent hands.

She pushes that thought away, though, slowing when Snow did. "Is something wrong?" she asked, eyeing the place herself. It was funny. So close to home and yet so far away - and so desolate, too.

"Do you think there's anyone in there?" she finally voice her concern, and gestures at the looming castle. She wants to look at it and find something familiar there. To recognize some resemblance of home, but it isn't there. This place is a strange, strange new land to her and somehow... they were going to need to find a way out.

"Maybe," she admitted, taking another step closer. Her nostril flared instinctively, and she stumbled at the sudden burst of input as the world of senses descended on her again.

She felt momentarily sick from disorientation, gripping her hand tight about the dress as she tried to make herself focus. She should be checking the castle... She should be listening for heartbeats...

She could have sworn she didn't have her powers a moment ago.

Snow come's full stop at her friend's side, and puts a hand on her shoulder. Ruby's sudden confusion quite apparent, Snow is immediately concerned.

"What just happened. Are you alright?!"

In answer she bends, moving to scoop up Snow White in a single movement and running. Her eyes are scanning for somewhere safe as the landscape starts to blur.

A little way in, she comes to a stop. "We... Um. might need to talk..." She's smiling, though. She knows she can do it, now. She can protect Snow.

Snow does not struggle or protest at the motion, but when they finally come to their stopping place, the look of worry and concern on Snow's face has only deepened.

"What's going on?" she's more concerned over her friend's well being than anything. She even asks the same question again, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she promised, placing Snow on the ground with a faint smile. "I have my powers back." She can protect Snow again. She's never felt happier to have her strength and speed. Or her senses.

"They were gone?" Snow still remains perplexed. The finer points of power limitations had not exactly been discussed in detail to her -- or at all -- before she was shoved into this dressed and out into this strange place. Until this very moment, Snow had assumed she'd been in control of her own powers this entire time.

Oh how much she still has to learn...

"It's this place," she admitted, frowning. "I don't think there's much magic here..." Was it like Storybrooke, restricted to a particular spot?Ruby wished she knew. But what matters is she has it now.

Besides, they'll learn together.

"But still... it has magic," there was a distinct sound of hope in her voice. If that was true, then this really could not be the land without magic she'd sent her daughter to. And that meant that Emma had never been to this place. Did not grow up here. Scared and alone without her mother and raised in a world where children were killed for public entertainment.

If anything, she could be glad for that.

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