Few minutes and several hundred meters later, Sir Bashful brought them out into a small, now-abandoned courtyard around the back of the castle where fruit trees and flower bushes grew wild, some even dead. Grass or more so weed grew as tall as Ruby and Millie.

They were in the dark, lifeless south wing that once used to be full of life—before a dark shadow fell on the lands—a shadow of a child who looked like light itself but bore the heart of darkness. Snow White.

Snow's insatiable greed for power had been contained within the south wing's walls while her father King Charming the Twelfth had lived. He was the only one she had cared for, respected; even listened to.

Since the King's untimely and unexpected demise, his Queen hadn't the courage to visit his wing, and his daughter, who only cared for herself, hadn't bothered. Once on the throne, Snow had resorted to shutting the wing off entirely. Something that made Bashful suspect a part of the witchy Queen still felt emotions like the rest of them. Some part deep, deep inside.

It was the precise reason clever Sir Bashful had picked the long-abandoned south wing as their escape route. Part of an extensive tunnel system lay beneath what used to be his Majesty's wing. The tunnels, with undocumented secret passages, had been designed to quietly and quickly evacuate the royals should someone ever lay a siege on the castle. Tunnels that were built well before Queen White was even conceived. Tunnels she knew not about.

He hoped, by the time the Princess is noted missing, they would be deep in the tunnels if not already on the other side of it. And should they discover the missing Princess earlier than he hoped, he prayed to the fairies, his brothers wouldn't remember the tunnels long enough to allow them to flee.

Only brothers Sneezy and Sleepy had ever known where the discrete tunnels opened up. They were the only dwarves with him when Bashful had built the tunnel besides others the King had commissioned. Since Sneezy was no longer alive—blessed be his fairy heart—Bash was relying on Sleepy having been too sleepy to remember all the details of an assignment nearly seventy years old. He was the only dwarf who suited his name, of course, a nature Bashful was hoping proves handy tonight.

"It's here somewhere." Sir Bashful fumbled about the courtyard wall, tapping away with a stick, telling the girls to be quiet when they hadn't said a word. He peered up at the patch of the night sky they could see, dark and moonless, making it exceptionally dark in the courtyard. Part of him hoped he hadn't forgotten the details either. Dwarves were known for their powers of recollection—usually. Part of him wished he still had his second eye to help him navigate the night.

"What might you be searching for, Sir? Perhaps the lady and I could help you find it?" Millie asked in a hush, tired of staying mum. She swatted away the bugs whizzing about their heads, attracted by the light of the oil lamp.

"A chamber so that we may escape the castle via the mazes underneath. It once used to be our most profitable mines." Sir Bashful continued knocking softly on the masonry with a stick he'd grabbed from the overgrown garden bed. "It's here somewhere. It has to be. I put it here myself!"

A moment later, Millie, behind him, headed the opposite way, tapping gently at the wall with a stick of the garden floor of her own.

Ruby stood eyeing the two and feeling useless. So she too picked up the nearest dead stick she could get her hands on and headed for the wall area halfway between both Sir Bashful and Millie. She tapped gingerly at first, feeling absolutely foolish. Not only was she in some fairytale land that wasn't very fairytale-ish and was some long lost—or hidden—Princess. Still sounded ridiculous in her head! But now she was having to look like a silly otter, tap-tapping away at some mysterious hidden wall that was supposed to magically whisk her away from a murderous Snow White.

"Why does Snow White want to kill her own daughter?" Ruby wondered out loud, tapping absently along the wall as she headed towards Bashful. "I mean, me... it sounds so odd, but I don't get it."

She looked up to see Bashful throw her a glance. Ruby stopped walking, stick falling silently on a stone. "Why does she want to kill me? How am I a danger to her? Look at me. I'm nothing. Just an ordinary human."

Bashful eyed the stick's landing curiously as he approached, with a softer demeanour that had once been his identity. The bashful nature he had had in his youth. The way his cheeks used to colour upon looking at any beauty who saw him, addressed him. Now, those cheeks were like hide—hardened over the years. Bashful was no more. What remained was a shell of a dwarf, a dwarf who wanted nothing more than to set the wrong right. If only he hadn't saved an innocent-looking girl in the woods twenty-five years ago. None of this would have happened. Evil wouldn't have taken root.

He tapped the stone with his stick, to hear nothing but a hollow sound. A smile crept on his lips, lifting them in a way that finally lit up his scarred face. "You found it, Princess."

Ruby gawked at the stone, then at Bashful. Stop helping him! Not till he answers.

"Tell me! What does she gain from my death?"

Bashful's smile slowly vanished from his briefly handsome face and he caressed Ruby's gentle one in his hand. Barely touching.

"You, my girl, are no ordinary Princess. Your blood is bluer than the sky. More powerful. More powerful than hers. In your veins, runs purity she never possessed, and for a woman hell-bent on becoming the most powerful wielder of magic ever seen, the threat of you usurping her is unimaginable. Intolerable. She is no mother. She is a demon—a demon that has taken all she can from those with even an ounce of power in their blood."

"Why do you think the folks in these parts, and many beyond, stopped practising the art of conjuring, milady?" Millie's soft voice whispering behind her sent a cascade of goose pimples over Ruby's body. "They fear her. They fear, should she find them, she will take their essence, their life."

Ruby felt speechless, trying to imagine the monster that could do that, but it was hard to understand how anyone could take another's essence. "What is essence?"

"We must get out of sight first, Princess. Then you may ask questions." Bashful eyed the dark entrances to the courtyard. "You, girl. I will need you to be my eyes in there," he added, addressing Millie.

"Me, Sir? Aide you? How?"

Bashful smiled as he tapped a secret knock onto the hollow-sounding stone. "There is more to you than meets the eye, Millie Hood. Your father, the man you never knew—"

"You know my father?" Millie, eager to hear about her father, interrupted.

"I knew your father. He worked these mines with me in our youth." Bashful nodded and stood aside as the stones before their eyes vanished, into thin air, to form a small arch the size of Ruby, the smallest one there. "After you milady, and you, maid."

Ruby stared at the giant man behind her. There was no way he should fit within the narrow, low-ceiling earthen tunnel. "How will you fit?"

"You shall see. Now hurry, we are wasting precious time to get you to safety."

Intrigued yet glad to have someone who knew things he would not yet share, Ruby stepped into the dark tunnel whose floor she could not yet see. She held her oil lamp out ahead of her and still only barely made out the dirt walls.

Her mind was giddy and foggy. She was living in a fairytale somehow. She was being helped by Bashful of all the dwarves, her favourite, not to mention, she was a Princess who had a devoted chambermaid, a chambermaid who reminded her of someone, yet she couldn't place her finger on it.

Ruby gasped then as Millie bumped into her behind.

"Why are you stopping, milady? Please move. Or Sir Bashful may not fit..." even as Millie said this, one could hear the doubt heavy in her tone. She too after all didn't know how Sir Bashful could have ever fit in these dugouts, nor did she think he had any chance now.

"Oh my god, you are Little Red Riding Hood!" Ruby blurted, astonished. "I knew you reminded me of someone!"

"Who, milady?"

Oh, boy! This was turning into a bigger adventure than Ruby could have hoped for.

"I'll show you the story when we get wherever it is we are going!" Ruby smiled, eager to share her own world with Millie finally. Perhaps Millie could tell her if her story is true too!

Ruby moved ahead to allow Millie plenty of room and she watched curiously for Sir Bashful to enter—however he was going to manage that.

What they saw was unbelievable, even by Millie's standards, and Millie had seen a fair few odd things in her young life, one of which was standing right beside her, gawking like a child at her first Fairy Festival—Ruby.

Sir Bashful careened his head in, his wide shoulders too wide for the tunnel entrance. Then he smiled at the audience of two, and right before their very—surprised—eyes shrank down to a size that fit the tunnel as easily as the two ladies. In fact, everything on Bashful shrunk proportionally, including his long-sword, which was no longer long in a way.

"How is that possible?" Ruby gasped, eyes unblinking.

The moment Sir Bashful was fully inside, the entrance reappeared as solid as before, plunging the tunnel into an eerie darkness.

"Magic, milady. Magic."

And before them, the flames licking the lamp grew bigger, brighter, allowing them some visibility.

"Right. Time to lead us, Millie Hood."

"How Sir Bashful? I can barely see." Millie blinked, as blind as a bat. All she could make out were the gritty looking faces in front of her and no more.

"Right."

About them, they heard the soft rustle of the knight's chain mail. "By the Fairies, young and old, by the land, sea, air and ether. We come to you in peace. Pray, show us the way, oh Lady of Light."

"Pray, show us the way, oh Lady of Light," Millie repeated while Ruby stood unsure. Was she to say it too?

"You too, milady. We must all seek her blessing." Bashful cleared his throat, almost having forgotten that this Ruby-Rose knew not of their ways.

And so, Ruby-Rose stood in the darkness, mumbling the ancient prayer all fairy folks had grown up with, and the moment she had finished, a vision had appeared in front of them, glowing like a firefly, only larger.

"Dear old Bashful. It's been too long since you last visited." The fairy floated ahead of them. "You have all that you need to cross these thresholds. The child who bears a gift that soon shall return to its owner. She shall be your eyes."

And thus, Millie felt an odd sensation rumble through her veins, her first prickling of magic that lay dormant within her. "Be the eye that guides you!"

And just like that, the floating orb the size of a child vanished, returning the tunnel into its previous dark state. Only this time, Millie Hood, the chambermaid who was more than met the eye, could see clear as day. Before them lay a three-pronged road.

"What do you see, child? Tell me."

And so, Millie relayed what her eyes could see in disbelief. "I see three tunnels, Sir. Which shall we take?"

"The third," Bashful said resolutely, glad he remembered the way back home. "Take us through the third!"

And as Millie led the trio, with her own oil lamp as their beacon, Sir Bashful, bringing up the rear, could almost hear their old songs, echoing memories of the good old days when all was well.

"I'm coming home, mother," he whispered a promise in the air. For he was indeed going home with hope in the names of Ruby-Rose and young Miss Hood. Or as Ruby has called her, Little Red Riding Hood. His beloved friend's family long lost.

They would all go home. One day. He was sure, as sure as the feeling he now got. Snow White knew the dear Princess had escaped.

They hadn't much time left. Their fates rested on the hands of his brother and his memory. Sleepy.

WC: 2135                     TWC: 15, 032

[A/N: We are arriving at the climax of this story soon where Ruby and Millie will discover the truth, about how they are linked and will come face to face with more henchmen than they know what to do with. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this loooonggg chapter!

What do you make of Millie Hood now?  She was a surprise for me too. 😀

As always, thank you for staying with me. Much Love. Eva]