9. Feelings

Hilda was satisfied with her actions of the day. After seeing the queen go into the mother of hissy-fits after the announcement of her mirror, she took a while to wind down, read and think. About her outfit for the meeting on Scary Mountain for instance.

She wasn't surprised that no one had contacted her to help in the preparations for the meeting. Once they had asked her to supply some special effects, as a demonstration of what was she was capable of. In her enthusiasm Hilda had almost blown the top off Scary Mountain and that had been an honest mistake. Not that any of the witches believed her, least of all the ones that had gotten burnt. Which basically amounted to the same thing.

Then a ping sounded through her room. A ping on a frequency that was reserved for witches. Hilda frowned as she put her grimoire to the side. She walked to the crystal ball and grinned as she saw the emblem.

"Hey, Babs!", Hilda said after waving her hand over the ball, to make the image come up.

Baba Yaga grinned at her from inside the ball, in all her ugliness. "Hilda. I just -have- to talk to you. About Scary Mountain."

Hilda already felt what was coming and pulled up a chair. "Talk to me, woman, I am all ears. And I have a few things in mind for that meeting also. I think we are thinking similar thoughts..."

The king was on the loose in the castle garden. He had just told someone to send a letter back to the neighbouring king about the visit and stuff. "Regrettably blah blah death of my daughter blah blah and such blah blah. Sincerely, Walt. King."

Walt the king felt really crappy. Not about being short and snappy with the letter, but with the knowledge that his daughter was dead and gone and nobody could or would tell him a friggin' thing about it. Humbert the huntsman was no more than blabbering sorry heap when asked, none of the servants had seen anything of Snow-White on the last day she'd been around. And his wife, his dear little wife... she had been out all day, probably trying to find the little darling, and she had come back all wet and dirty He felt sorry for cracking his little joke on her and thought that a new flowerbed, a large gem and a box of chocolates would be in order to make up to her. At least that thought made him feel somewhat... less bad.

The queen was in her special room again, skimming over her potions, poisons, aphrodisiacs- oh, she would not need them for a while.

She slapped herself on the head a few times, trying to remember what Snow-White's favourite food was. If only she had been paying better attention to the girl when the wench had still been in the castle.

"Apples," she decided, "it has to be apples", as she recalled finding apple cores in Snow-White's room very often. "So an apple it will be." A mean and sly smile shadowed over her face as she reached for a few specific potions and poisons...

The dwarfs, except Doc, were coming home. A song came from their house, and they all looked at each other in surprise. As they came in, they saw Snow-White in the kitchen, singing out loud as she was preparing an incredible amount of food.

"Hello, boys," Snow-White chimed, "I hope you have a hunger like a bear, there is so much food!"

"What's up, Doc?", asked Happy as he found Doc sitting on his chair, his glasses on the table in front of him and clothes quite crumpled.

"Eh, what? Oh, nothing. Everything's fine, just fine," Doc said, as a smile came on his face. "I gave Snow-White a hand with some things. A hand, and... ehm.. we did well."

"Hah," Grumpy said, "and guess who got stuck with the dirty work." He marched off to the bathroom. Just before he reached the door, he turned and asked: "It's okay that I go clean up, right?"

"Yeah, yeah," Doc said, waving his hand, "just go. All of you."

Happy grabbed Sleepy by the sleeve, and they all followed Grumpy into the bathroom. Sleepy looked a bit sad as he was pulled along. Snow-White saw that and she grinned at one of the pots on the stove.

As the group of six was in the bathroom for quite a while, Snow-White got a bit worried as well as curious as to what was going on in there. "Doc, shouldn't we go and check on them?"

"Oh, no, they're big boys," Doc said, wiggling his eyebrows, "they'll be out soon. Just bang on the door when dinner's almost ready. And bang the door really loud."

"Oh, right. I think I can handle that," Snow-White said as she reached for a large spoon. She walked over to the bathroom door, much to Doc's pleasure as he was a lover of great vista's, and then Snow-White unleashed a few good bangs on the door. "Come and get it!", she yelled. "Dinner's almost ready, boys," she added in a sweet and gentle voice.

If things in the bathroom had not been quiet, they would have been after that. Seconds elapsed. Then Grumpy commented that one heart-attack a day would suffice, which probably meant that they had gotten the message.

In a large field were many gnomes, happy with their houses in place again. Quirrin was less happy. The gnomes had handed him a restraining order, as his size was a threat to the gnomish proportionally correct neighbourhood.

So, as everyone was more or less actively considering their feelings, the day packed its bags over the small kingdom, moved on as usual and turned off the lights. That way the darkness would feel at home again during the night.