Not so happily ever after after all....

Hansel was having an extremely hard time uprooting a pesky weed on the side of the path.

Up ahead, Red spotted a boy who looked maybe a little older than her weeding. As she walked up, she asked "do you want help?"

Belle walked into town with a book under her arm and her reading spectacles perched on the tip of her nose, with the hope that she might be able to borrow another novel after returning the latest one she'd read. She'd been reading more non-fiction than healthy, and yearned to read the adventure books of her past. Why had she been indulging in so much non-fiction, anyways? True, she had always been in the practice of forcing one onto her reading agenda to better herself, but 5 books of this nature in a row was completely unlike her.

She sighed. She hadn't been in the 'mood' to read anything interesting lately, she supposed. Life had become unusually dry, and she had become unusually careless. Ever since leaving the castle, she had stopped minding the provential life of the village.
Pushing her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, she opened the door of the library and strolled inside.

"Good morning, Miss Belle," the librarian said in his usual, friendly tone.

"Good morning," Belle replied politely. "I came to return the book I borrowed."

She handed the book to the librarian. He looked at the title on the cover, then smiled thoughtfully. "Do you remember the days when you would borrow those fantasy books one after the other, sometimes reading them over again?"

Belle smiled and nodded in reply. "Yes, I remember. You even had to give me one of your books so I'd come to borrow something else for a change!"

The librarian chuckled. "So many memories. Well, I'll see you later, Miss Belle."

Belle nodded and was about to walk out the door, when she saw a pile of newspapers near the corner. "Sir," she asked, "how recent are these issues?"

"Just came in this morning, Miss," he replied.

"May I...?" she asked, gesturing to the stack.

"Of course, they're complimentary, Miss."

Belle shook her head at herself. So much had changed since...well, she didn't want to think about that now. She took a copy, thanked the old librarian, and went out the door.

Belle immediately immersed herself in the news of the kingdom and of kingdoms beyond. She saw of the names of many old friends and aquaintances, and then... Her jaw dropped. She walked faster, as her eyes darted rapidly, trying to consume every word. She couldn't believe this had happened, she didn't know who would be horrible enough to do this...

She tripped over a rock and stumbled into someone.

(OOC: Sorry, that was really long...I wanted to get to the action right away.)

"Eep!"

Next thing Red knew, she was on the road, Staring into a headline about the princess Cinderella. "Sorry.." she muttered as she got up, dusting herself off. It took her a moment to realize that the polite thing to do would be to give the poor girl who'd tripped over her a hand. She bent over, offering her arm to a girl maybe two years older than her.

Belle looked up into the face of a young redheaded girl, who looked a little bit younger than her. She was offering her a hand.

She took the hand, and grunted as she was helped up. "Thanks. Sorry, sometimes I get so immersed into something that I'm reading..." Belle trailed off.

Red smiled at the brown haired and bespectacled girl "I have the exact same problem sometimes. Those, usually it's with those awful village papers that talk about the lives of the royal and famous." She swept a loose strand of hair out of her eyes and extended a hand. "I'm Scarlett Page. But call me Red."

(OOC: Are people gonna get mad when they realize how much we've posted/played without them? Hehe)

"Nice to meet you, Red. I'm Belle," Belle replied, gently shaking her outstretched hand. She was tempted to mutter something about Red not even knowing a tenth of how awful reporters could be with royals, but said nothing. She simply picked up the paper, and said, "Yes, I know how horrible they can be, but...I was reading an article about Princess Ella, commonly called Cinderella, and...well..." Belle handed the papers to Red. "Even reporters couldn't lie about this. I knew things were going wrong in the world, but this is new ground, even for me..." Belle tried to hold back the tears that were prepared to fall.

EDIT: (OOC: OMIGOSH! I just found an old "Beauty and the Beast" fanvid I made! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoFcArAg4JE I dunno what use this is, it's just that playing Belle reminded me. Haha. Yeah. )

Red studied the exposed headline, which read Cinderella found murdered, adding interesting twist to disappearance cases . "whoa..." Red looked back up at Belle. "Well...that is quite shocking....."

Belle let out a slightly jagged sigh and thought aloud, "This shouldn't have happened. Someone...someone should have been doing something to stop this. It shouldn't have gone this far!" She then realized, from the stares of various bystanders, that she had raised her voice again. "I'm sorry," she said, in a lower voice. "I overreact sometimes." Belle looked down to her toes and bit her lip.

"Are you okay? " Red asked Belle.

Belle took a minute to calm herself down, then nodded. "I'm fine. Well, for the moment. This," she said, jabbing her finger in the direction of the article, "changes everything. Is anyone really safe anymore?"

(OOC: For some reason Belle's kind of annoying me at the moment. Dunno why. )

Red shrugged. "I dunno. Cinderella is one of the realms most guarded figures. If someone can kill her, well, it would probably be some in the castle. Maybe this and the disappearances are unrelated."

"I can't help but think that they ARE related," Belle replied. "Most of the dissapearances have been of relatively well-known people." She looked up to the sky, then back to Red. "I've got to go. My father will be wondering what's keeping me." She went back down the trail, and waved behind her, a small furrow of worry on her brow.

(OOC: I feel stuck in the town...haha...and I feel like I have heartburn whenever I cough. )

"Who cares?" Hansel muttered "It's not like she really meant anything to anyone. She had no good siblings, and she was such a ditz." He kicked the weed, giving up on trying to uproot the thing. Ignoring Red, he put on a charming face and went after Belle. Her father sounded quite wealthy, this might be a chance to add some weight to his mostly empty pockets. He pinched his cheeks to make himself look as if he was blushing and ran after the pretty ex-princess.
"You walk awfully quickly." He said, walking next to Belle and acting slightly coy and staring at the cobblestones.

(OOC: Haha...Hansel makes me laugh. )

Belle perked at the voice behind her, and nodded in poite recognition towards the fair-haired boy walking beside her. "Well, I am a little late for home. On any other day, I would already be at home helping Papa. But," and here she sighed, "everything's been going wrong lately." She cleared her throat uncomfortably, wondering if she should go on or not.

She decided not. "What's your name?" she asked, wanting to get her mind off of everything it had been on during the previous few minutes.

Hansel's thoughts stopped. Tell the pretty girl his name or con her?
"Hansel." He said without thinking. He scolded himself. Well, she seemed nice, maybe they could be friends...And he did find her very attractive...He twirled his sister's hairbow inside his pocket. "Uhm...And...yours?"

(OOC: "Tell the pretty girl his name or con her?" That line made me LOL. )

"I'm Belle," she replied, continuing down the road. Her mind strayed away for a bit, when she realized, "Oh. I think I forgot to ask if the library had any books available to borrowing..." she stopped, and looked back down the road.

Hansel wondered where that came from, it seemed awfully random.
"Do you want to go back?"

Belle thought for a moment, then shook her head. "Sorry. I just felt the need to...nevermind." She continued walking down the path, her eyes on the ground before her.

(OOC: I wonder how we can get the action going? I feel...stuck...in this little town )

"I could go check for you, have nothing better to do..." Hansel shrugged. He mentally slipped himself. He DID have better things to go. Find out where this girl lives and rob her blind. But some part of him wouldn't let him do that...

"But then you'd have to go through the trouble of trying to figure out which cottage I live in, while trying to find me and tell me. They all look terribly similar, unless you reside in one of them," Belle replied. "It's okay. I think I can go without for tonight." There was a slight pause of silence, then she attempted at some small talk - "Did anything interesting happen to you in the town?" She doubted it - hardly anything interesting ever happened there.

"Well I got attacked today...." Hansel said, as if this was a regular occurrence.

Belle stopped. "You what? What happened? Why were you attacked?"

((Not mad, I can read two pages...))
Ivan wandered along a road, not paying conscious attention to his surroundings... and walked straight into a stone wall. Rubbing his face gingerly, he noted that he had long since left the forest. He decided to ask someone if they could tell him where he was.

"Bunch of thugs." Hansel shrugged "Probably used to work for Robin Hood before he dissapeared. 'Said I looked like a rich boy."

Aurora had managed to get lost in the woods. In her panic, she ran past Ivan and tripped, falling on her face in front of Red and staining her pink uniform.