"What do you see, Millie Hood?"

"Four pathways, Sir."

Four pathways? Sir Bashful tried to remember where in the tunnel system they might currently be, but with memories clouded by age, the desire for revenge, and an unhealthy obsession with guilt, the knight couldn't be sure. "We could be near the Dwarf Forest, or..."

We can be on the edge of the Red Forest. He shuddered at the thought. Once upon a time, the Red Forest was a haven for fairies, elemental fairies that looked after the land and all living things that called it home. It was a thriving oasis for convergence of all folks this side of the realm: all creatures young and old, all creatures under the sun and the moon, magical or not. It was where councils met, weddings between kingdoms and clans were held, and it was where all aging fairies went to die in peace amongst the blossoms and the bees. That was before.

Now, it was a cursed land. A land whose essence had powered a futile war, a child's war. Now, no more life grew in those dead parts—red dead, when once it was monikered Red for all the life it gave. Now, red, as red as the earth, scorched by the fires that had burned once.

Bashful could still smell the foul stench of death and decay, as if it were only yesterday.

The last vestige of life that had refused to leave the once thriving land was the Hood clan. His friend's clan. Millie's clan. Rumour was, even the Hoods, couldn't live there anymore.

It was best to avoid the Red Forest these days—ever since the Hood family abandoned that fort; a pack of wild wolves overran the forest. Wolves that had a taste for magic. Wolves that were too willing to devour it—for legend had it, such magic would allow them to take kindred forms of those that dwelled nearby. Fairies, dwarves, children.

It was best to steer clear of that area, now, what with two magical maidens in tow. Maidens the wolves would surely try to savour whole.

But it was also imperative to get out of the tunnels quickly. The charm he'd placed on the tunnel entrance to alert him of any company had been tripped about an hour ago. They'd been navigating the tunnel for the last four hours, give or take an hour. With his eye gone, his ability to sense the moon's progress across the night sky had weakened. Either way, Sir Bashful knew, he felt it in his aging bones; it was a matter of time before the Golden Guards reached them. Fairies have mercy if that ever happened.

Sir Bashful hated that he couldn't see the tunnels with his own eyes.

His heart—used to beating steadily even as he plunged his sword, slow into an enemy's chest—was fluttering nervously like a milkmaid's.

"Millie. Tell me. What do you see around each entrance, child? Quickly. What do you see?"

Millie squinted at the wall. Beside her Ruby inched forward too, not to decipher the darkness but to lend her light to her friend as well.

"Is it me, milady, or do you sense death in the air?" Millie whispered into Ruby's ear, hoping the girl would douse her fear with something jovial.

"My skin's been prickling all evening. Whether that's magic or death, I don't know," Ruby replied in a hush. "And call me Ruby. Milady sounds odd and so outdated."

"Ru—by," Millie managed with a blush before returning her focus to the wall. She could make out some carvings etched above each archway. "There's something above each arch, Sir Bashful, but it's worn and covered with age. I cannot read it."

"Here, hold this... Ruby," Millie held her oil lamp towards her friend, her Princess, and used her sleeve, got on her tippy-toes and rubbed at the first etching above the first archway. Her arm tired from holding the lamp. But no matter how much she rubbed, she could see no more clearly than before.

"I can't, Sir. I can't read it." She resigned, taking the lamp back from the Princess.

A hollow rumble reached them then, far away and soft but resounding.

"What is that?" Ruby held onto Millie in fear. She'd always hated wading through dark spaces. For someone who used to fear the darkness, she still hadn't entirely gotten over it. The only reason she was still okay, underground for hours on end, was because she had brave company. They would let nothing happen to her. There was comfort in knowing that. But this was different. This noise, barely heard, had snapped Bashful's spine straight and leant a strange pallor to Millie's tanned skin.

"We have company closing in," Bashful cleared his throat and held out a palm to Millie. "They breached the tunnel a little while ago."

Millie stared at his hand, unsure of what to do. "A while ago?"

The knight, once towering over them, now just a little taller, nodded. He extended his hand again to Millie Hood.

"Take my hand, child. I will not hurt you, nor let anything hurt you, or the Princess, as long as there is breath left in this body. But you must take my hand. Show me what you see. For I may recall lost memory. Hurry!"

Millie hesitantly slipped her rough-from-work hands into even tougher paws. There was nothing soft about Sir Bashful's hand other than his gentle hold.

"Are they close, Snow's henchmen?" Ruby asked, watching the knight enclose Millie's hand between his two and shut his one eye. "Do we need to worry?"

"They are about an hour behind us, but they are moving fast—" Bashful looked a little on edge and added dryly, "I fear my brother, Sleepy, wasn't so sleepy the night Sneezy and I added these escape tunnels. Never a wholly trustworthy dwarf, our father used to say in our plays as children. Perhaps, that is still the case."

The dejection and heartbreak in his voice were as palpable as the scar that marred his once handsome face.

"You said your brothers are still under the Queen's influence, Sir Bashful," Millie spoke with determination. It was bad that they were a three-legged dog running a race with able-bodied ones, but it wouldn't help to have their heads clouded by weary doubt.

She caressed the knight's face with her free hand, her thumb tracing the scar that had taken his eye. Taken his hope. His happiness. "He is just a pawn, Sir, as you were once a pawn. Forgive him and pray you may save him yet."

Ruby shuffled uneasily from foot to foot. The air in the tunnels had suddenly gone thicker, warmer. There was a buzz in the air, an incessant thump-thump of heavy, armoured feet hitting the earthen ground. Whoever and however many henchmen were after them, they were getting far closer than Bashful might have first thought.

"Sir Bashful," she began, sorry to be interrupting whatever he was trying to do. They'd been stagnant for a while now, unable to move ahead, stuck at a crossroads. This was not how she had wanted her birthday-eve to be spent. They would have spent it visiting her father's grave to share a toast with him. Her first sip of wine as she brought in her eighteen birthday, surrounded by her mother—teary-eyed, no doubt—and her obnoxious baby brother, Robbie. This followed by a visit to their favourite breakfast place, with the giant pancakes, then off to the airport, to follow Mum on another restoration, only this time it was a place she wanted to visit. Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. The castle they say inspired the look of the Cinderella castle. Coincidentally or not, they were headed the same way. A castle they wouldn't reach if Bashful couldn't quite remember the way forward.

Either way, this was not how Ruby had imagined the end of the road for her, trapped with characters from a fairytale—nay, fairytales—and their fate thundering closer and closer with each second they lost.

This was not where Ruby was going out. I refuse to die this way! "Whatever you are doing, Sir, you better hurry. They are getting closer."

"I am trying to see through the maid's eyes, milady, but it isn't working. All I see is the same old darkness."

Ruby could have screamed then. "Can't we go through any of these and come out somewhere?"

"No. Some of these are dead ends, designed to get you lost here long enough you never see the sun again. And some—" He shuddered. "—lead you to a land no one wants to go."

"And where are we going?" she asked.

"We are going to Prince Charming's land to the east."

"To Cinderella?—who is my aunt?"

"Only by marriage," Bash corrected, nearly giving up on the useless task of tapping into Millie's vision so he could see what she saw. "Her husband, your father's brother, is your uncle."

You could have just said he's my uncle. Ruby frowned bitterly. "And you believe your brother, Sleepy, is leading the men behind us?"

"Yes, milady."

"Then why are we going to the Charming castle, my man." Ruby grinned, an idea popping into her mind. Excitedly, she laid a hand on the maiden, a maiden whose calloused hand was still within the once-giant dwarf's paws, paws that were leaving them.

Then it happened. The thing Sir Bashful had been waiting for. The bridge was complete. The visions before him were that as seen through Millie Hood's eyes—she was looking at his own scarred, aging face he hadn't cared to look at all these years.

Is that what I look like? He banished the thought, gripping the girl's hand tighter. "I should have known you'd be needed," he mumbled to himself in astonished glee. "For they are your powers lying dormant in her!"

The girls considered one another briefly. One, then the other slowly remembered what Sir Bashful had said earlier in the evening. Stay together. No matter what. That he'd explain why later...

"Stay as you are, milady, and you maid, show me these pathways through your eyes so I may remember which of these tunnels lead home." His order was urgent indeed.

Millie turned to the crossroads again and looked upon each archway so that Sir Bashful may see through her eyes.

"Ah!" Bashful exclaimed in excitement. "I remember now. We go through the third one. We should hurry. They are making ground fast."

He rushed to pull Millie and Ruby through the third tunnel, but Ruby held her ground.

"Sleepy would know you went that way."

"I beg your pardon, milady?"

Both Bashful and Millie looked on, unaware of the churning within Ruby's sharp mind.

"They will know we went that way, Bash." She didn't care if the knight minded the shortened name, but there was no time to waste as he was fond of saying. "Your brother knows you. He will know you took me, the Princess—" bleh, "—through the safest route. I'd think he would even know where you're heading, so it's a matter of time when they reach Cinderella's land. And if Snow wants me dead, you've already said what she is capable of. We will bring an angry witch and her army to the doors. Innocent lives will get caught in the middle."

"But, milady. I must get you to safety. Long enough for you to—"

"Merge with my powers that you placed in Millie for safekeeping?" she asked.

Sir Bashful's mouth flew open. "How?"

"Never mind how I know, Bash. Just think. Do you want another war outside another castle for the same evil you're trying to vanquish?"

"I don't understand, milady."

"Please Ruby-Rose, this is no time for riddles." Millie glared from beside the knight.

"All I'm saying is, maybe we shouldn't take the tunnel they expect us to take. Maybe—" She eyed the knight and her maid. "Maybe we should take the path that's least followed."

"You mean for us to head to the Red Forest?" Bashful asked in a hush.

Ruby nodded. "You said it yourself, no one goes there anymore. What is a safer place than a place where no one goes? We just need to wait until I turn eighteen, in a few short hours, and I assume that is when the merge will happen on its own?"

Sir Bashful nodded. Millie gawked.

"And when I come into my powers, I will be able to take Snow on?"

"That's what the stars foretold, milady, yes."

"Then let's do that. Take us to this forest, where we will wait for the merge." Ruby nodded. "Hopefully, your brother will lead the henchmen towards Cinderella long enough to buy us the time. And by the time they realise they follow ghosts—"

"You will have merged with your powers," Millie added, trying desperately to hide her looming fear.

What will become of me after the merge? Will I be?

But these were not the times nor the place to think these gloomy thoughts. Her Princess' life was at stake, and countless more once Queen Snow White got to them.

No. Mille would not be selfish and ruin the moment. No, she was going to be as brave as the knight that stood before her. As brave as her father had been once—before the man married a wench, a wench who left her wee brother and sister deep in the very woods they were about to head.

The Red Forest—where a witch was said to once live. A witch who made meals of children. A witch she had killed.

How? Millie couldn't quite remember but something told her, the very powers coursing through her had had something to do with it. Powers that were etching to go back where they belonged. She could feel it, a strange pull towards Ruby-Rose.

"Are you sure about this, milady?" The knight was asking.

"I am sure, Bash. We go to the Red Forest. Now please, lead."

She was saying it to Millie, of course. Their guiding eyes on this torrid journey.

"Yes, milady!" Millie turned to tunnel three with a flutter in her belly. Into the forest, we go...

WC: 2368                TWC: 17, 400

[A/N: Omg, is it okay if I say I'm excited by this story and all the little scrumptious details I keep getting in my head? What started as a sole Snow White adaptation is turning into something more than I could have imagined. I am loving it. Are you? Yes/no?

And the end is nigh! I mean the end of ONC, and hopefully this tale. We are now coming up to the climax of the story. Excited to see what you think of it.

By the way, a cheeky question for you. Are you liking the blended fairytale? Or do you wish it was a sole adaptation only?]