Ms. Scarlet in the Conservatory with a Dark Curse

[follow_the_wolf]

Memory throbbed like an exposed nerve as Graham wandered through the first floor of the hotel, attempting to look at everything at once but seeing little with wide, confused eyes as he set one foot in front of the other with no goal in mind beyond simply moving. The walls of his office had spun around him, leaving Emma and one last glimpse of her confused face in his wake before he had been dropped into the middle of the grand lobby, the gleaming wood and open spaces startling after the drab insides of his office.

He pulled to a stop in the conservatory, his head tipping back to feel the warmth of the sunlight on his face. There he sucked in a breath and allowed himself a moment, only a moment, to pretend that the lush greenery that surrounded him was of another world. The smells were all wrong, no wet earth or woody oak. The light was wrong as well, too clear without the dappling wrought by the sunlight being scattered by the leaves. Still, it allowed him to sort through memories old and new.

He could hardly think within walls on the best of days, he had forgotten that. He had forgotten so many things.

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[follow_the_wolf]

If it had not been for the fact that his choices, as limited as they had been, had allowed him to do some good and protected the woman who had never deserved the death sentence Regina had laid upon her, Graham would have likely never spoke of his own story as being a favorite. Not even in attempting to communicate his knowledge of the Curse to the Prince. He had paid too dearly for that mercy and for every small attempt of one after for him to be able to think of the fresh revelations in his head with enough distance to appreciate what he had done.

"She did seem a singular woman." He wished then that he knew more of what had happened to Snow in those intervening years of their first meeting and their second. Beyond what information he had gathered through his connection to the Queen, as unquestionably biased and incomplete as those reports must have been.

Unused to gratitude, Graham was taken a moment off guard by the Prince's words. He ducked his head slightly in acknowledgement and took a second to decide that he had to catch the Prince alone at a later time to talk, then remembered the situation at hand and turned back to Ruby, placing a hand flat over his heart in a show of apology. "Ruby, I'm sorry. It's been a long and tiring day, I did not mean to lose focus." He turned to the Prince to repeat Ruby's earlier question, "Is this place safe?" with the rider of, as exhaustion began to claw at the edges of him "Is there somewhere to sleep?"

[princehonorable]

"She really is," Charming says, beyond passionate about Snow's virtues. He could talk all day about them, but when the Huntsman looks to Red again, he's reminded that they're not alone. Ruby Lucas probably doesn't want to hear David Nolan rambling on about a woman from a fairytale. "It's beyond safe," he assures. "Some people say that if you open a door, you can't exactly expect where it'll lead, but I haven't had any kind of luck with that. Every time I open a door, it's only to more of the hotel," he says.

"If you find one that leads...well, home-adjacent, I hope you'll let me know. I'm very eager to get back there."

[littlerubyred]

Ruby had grown up working in her Granny's diner, and because she'd put so many hours into being a waitress she still maintained a waitress' manners and instincts. The two men taking off on a conversation about Snow White and a book of fairy tales seemed strange to her. So strange, in fact, that she assumed it was some sort of inside joke she was not a part of and simply took a proverbial step back to let them have it out. She had no idea what their conversation stacked up to, but she supposed when put side by side with walking out of the familiar and into some sort of otherworldly hotel place, two grown men, one of them presumed dead for weeks, randomly discussing the merits of Snow White's character was definitely the less weird option.

When David began to speak of the hotel again, though, she left her bemused half-idling thoughts to the side to listen once again. "Well, good to know that it's safe," she said, as at least there was that much.

[follow_the_wolf]

"Magic?" Graham asked immediately on the Huntsman's instincts, the word falling from his tongue before he had so much as thought to pause and consider the fact that of their number it was Ruby who would not think of magic as an everyday consideration. A day, two before and Graham would have laughed off the idea himself. The loss of the Curse's hold over him had changed far more than he had had time to consider properly, but while he had not seen any of the telltale purple smoke of Regina or Rumplestiltskin's magic in his having been transported to the hotel, he could not entirely rule out the possibility. "Or just talk?"

Whether he himself had any desire to go back to Storybrooke was too complicated a matter to understand with his head beginning to flat out ache and the weight of his bones seeming to double beneath his skin. Still, he nodded automatic to the Prince's request. The Prince without his Snow White made no sense in the world, the straight forward agreeing to the request seeming as much a part of helping the woman who was his friend as any act he had attempted to carry out for her. Easier than nearly any of them in the past, really.

"Good, good," he echoed, taking a deep breath and letting it out again. "I think I need some sleep- is there any way of keeping in contact here?"

[princehonorable]

"There's a fairly strange, magical, system where you write down information on paper and it gets distributed, though it goes to everyone," he warns. "And I think there's phones available for use." While David Nolan remembers how to use them, Charming himself isn't entirely as keen on the pieces of technology. "Maybe everyone should get some rest and we can regroup, try and find a way back home?" he suggests.

[littlerubyred]

"Oh wow," Ruby said at David's announcement of a strange writing system. It had become quite obvious that they were dealing with something that was well beyond at least her understanding, and while she could read the tiredness plain on Graham's face, she herself was not ready for sleep, not even close. She would, however, relish the chance to be alone with her thoughts, and she supposed getting a room in this hotel, if that's what it was, and attempting to figure it all out would be as good an option as any.

"I think that's a wonderful idea," Ruby said. "Do we...Check in? Are their rooms?"

[follow_the_wolf]

The idea was basic and a good one, and it had Graham nodding in immediate agreement. There was much to think on in the present and much to discuss later. Too much to swallow in a single sitting in a strange environment. He had to wonder on the Curse and the strange implications to do with the Prince having come from more than a year after his waking and disappearing from the hospital, the memory of who he had been so long ago clear in his eyes, while Ruby was...Ruby. Cheerful and bright and unknowing of who she had been before.

Both the writings the Prince talked of and the phones could be used, of course, for as much as the Huntsman might have preferred some more familiar way of communicating, it wasn't as if there were likely to be carrier pigeons to carry notes to one another.

He stood and waited for the Prince's answer, wondering why he of all people would be thinking of carrier pigeons. Wolves didn't keep carrier pigeons.

[princehonorable]

"I kept looking for a room until the door handle opened, but I don't think the front desk is a bad place to start, either," he says, watching Ruby carefully and looking for any indication that she remembers what's been happening. In a way, part of him is glad that she hasn't yet lived through George's manipulations, but he wants her to remember for his sake, at least.

"Maybe we can meet up again sometime soon and talk," he says heavily.

[littlerubyred]

Ruby had to wonder yet again at the safety of her situation when the doors could be so volatile, but if David Nolan said it was safe she figured that would be enough for now. He seemed relatively unharmed if not stressed and a bit different than she remembered him, but that was likely just the newness of the situation.

"I would like that," she said in reply to David's statement of them all meeting up again. "Do you have a room number or someplace definite we can come find you/"

[princehonorable]

"1937," he replies. "It's on the first floor, you just have to keep wandering." He gives the both of them a grateful smile, aware that there are obviously some issues they're going to have to work out, but he doesn't care. They're here. "I really am glad to see the both of you," he confesses. "Truly."

[follow_the_wolf]

Somehow there was some relief in having a plan in place. Released from the watchful eye of Regina and knowing that their surroundings were safe - he took stock in David's opinion on that matter as he doubted that years fighting of fighting the Queen would have made the man lax when it came to searching out threats in the world around him - Graham let out a breath and nodded. Where everything else was unsettled, he had to agree. He nodded, "We will talk more later."