Who: Mary Margaret Blanchard and Katniss Everdeen What: Two archers meeting in the woods When: Backdated: Early February Where: The Woods Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly Status: Complete
Mary Margaret had had so many dreams from both The Enchanted Forest and Storybrooke where she spent hours in the woods and after awhile she had found herself wandering the paths in one of the parks near the Shelter when she’d take a break. She hadn’t actually entered the woods yet, but each day she’d walk past them and wonder if they were the same as in her dreams. Of course she expected them to be different since she was in California and Storybrooke was in Maine and the Enchanted Forest was, well, The Enchanted Forest, but would she know how to navigate them like she did in the dreams? Having lived in the woods for awhile in her dreams of The Enchanted Forest, Mary Margaret or Snow White as she was in those ones, knew how to read the trees and the paths and the sun to know the time of day, but would she know that here? So many things bled over from the dreams for so many of them, but would that?
She supposed there was only one way to find out, so afternoon when Ruby was watching over things at the Shelter, Mary Margaret had decided that it was time to venture into the woods. She wasn’t planning on going very far, but she needed to know. Part of her had wanted to ask David to come with her, but she felt like she needed to do this on her own the first time. So, making sure that her phone was fully charged, she made her way to the park and after walking along the path near the woods, she stepped off the path and into the trees. Aside from her cell phone, Mary Margaret had felt compelled to bring her bow and quiver that she’d recently gotten from the dreams. She hadn’t actually shot off any arrows yet, but she had experimented with holding it and nocking an arrow and surprisingly, she’d known exactly what to do so she’d thought that it might be fun to try and little target practice on a tree in the woods.
Katniss was hunting in the woods. After her latest bout of Dreams, she’d needed to get away from people and into nature where she belonged. Once she had made it through the throngs of people on the street and on public transport, she found herself at the woods. Taking a deep, refreshing breath she stepped through the treeline to where she hid her bow and arrows. She quickly found the hollow tree where she kept them and tugged them free, placing her quiver on her back and taking her bow in her left hand. Once she was set, she started moving through the trees, listening and watching for any prey moving through the foliage.
Stopping when she heard the snap of a twig, she listened some more before silently trotting over to duck behind a large tree stump. Quietly removing one of her arrows, she nocked it on the bowstring and watched the figure coming towards her through the leaves. Steadying her breath, she leveled her arrow to aim at the figure, waiting for it to break through the leaves between them. As soon as it did, she prepared herself to fire. At the last second, realising it was a person, she managed to shift the arrow’s path to end just right of woman’s chest and into the tree next to her.
“God damnit! Are you ok?” Katniss called out as she stood up, moving towards the woman.
The last thing Mary Margaret had expected was to be shot at and by another archer no less so when the arrow whizzed past her, she couldn’t help but cry out and jumped back against the nearest tree. “Oh my god.” She brought her hand up to her chest, her heart beating quickly against her ribcage, “Yeah...just having a mini heart attack.” As she watched the other girl she couldn’t help but think about how she reminded her a little bit of her Enchanted Forest self. She may have been Snow White in the Enchanted Forest, but she was fa r from the fair maiden in the Disney movies. “I didn’t expect anyone else to be out here. At least, no one else with bow and arrows.”
“Yeah, sorry, I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else out here either,” Katniss told her as she stopped in front of the other woman. “You’re an archer too?” she asked, nodding to the other woman’s bow and arrow before reaching over to pull her own arrow out of the tree.
Mary Margaret almost forgot about the quiver and bow slung over her shoulder and glanced back at them at the girl’s question, “Oh. Yeah. Well, in my dreams, I am.” She glanced back at the other girl, gaze falling to the bow and quiver she possessed. They were somewhat more modern than her own, but then again, in the Enchanted Forest dreams, she lived in a fairytale world. “I mean…” It wasn’t until after she’d spoken that she remembered that not everyone had the dreams and it was entirely possible that this girl was just a normal girl who didn’t have crazy, real, possibly previous life dreams.
"You have Dreams too? What do you Dream about that means you need to arm yourself with a bow and arrow?" Katniss asked with a dark hint of humour. She didn't recognise the girl from her Dreams, so that must mean that other people's were about as bad as hers.
Mary Margaret was visibly relieved as the girl mentioned the dreams as well, no longer worried that she’d think she was insane. “Yeah. I actually have two sets of dreams. In them, I’m Snow White, but in one set, I’m in this fairytale land and in the other, I’m still technically Snow White, but we had all been cursed to another land without our memories, but we actually ended up getting them back.” So hadn’t meant to say so much, but once she’d started talking, she hadn’t been able to stop.
Katniss raised her eyebrows at the flood of words that seemed to erupt from the woman. “So is that your name? Snow White?” she asked with a little, amused smile as she put the arrow in her hand into her quiver and hoisted her bow across her chest. “I’m Katniss. Katniss Everdeen,” she held out her hand to shake the woman’s hand.
“No, it’s actually Mary Margaret Blanchard,” She said, shaking the girl’s hand, “It’s nice to meet you, Katniss.” It was a name that she’d never heard before, but it was an interesting one, “And that’s my name in the cursed world too. “So, what are your dreams about?” She couldn’t help but be curious about everyone who had the dreams and what theirs were about.
“My Dreams are about a corrupt, self-indulgent government who throws 24 kids into an arena and makes them fight to the last man or woman,” Katniss told her flatly. “So yeah...you can imagine how much fun I have going to sleep,” she remarked, looking back into the forest. “So have you ever hunted before?”
Mary Margaret’s brows rose in horror as the girl described her dreams, “Oh my god. That’s horrible. What kind of people would do that to kids?” She couldn’t imagine living in a world like that. Sure, in the Enchanted Forest, she’d had to go into hiding and spent quite some time running from Regina, but she hadn’t had to kill anyone while she was doing it. When the girl asked about hunting, Mary Margaret shook her head, “No, I haven’t. My bow and arrows only just showed up a few weeks ago. This is the first time I’ve done more than just hold them in my living room.” It probably sounded a little lame, but Mary Margaret didn’t care.
“People who are scared of losing control and lost in their own greed,” Katniss replied flatly as she looked out towards the forest. “There was a war and to make sure we all knew our place when it was over they started running the ‘Games’,” she used her fingers to mimic quotation marks as she spoke. “Each district which rebelled against the Capital was forced to sacrifice a boy and a girl every year to remind us that we were the defeated,” she explained, lifting her bow off of her shoulder. “So what were you planning on doing out here for your first time?” she asked, oddly feeling a little better for having explained it to someone.
“Oh my god. That’s horrible. I couldn’t imagine having dreams like that.” Sure as Snow she was hunted by the Evil Queen and in the Storybrooke dreams, she and everyone else in Storybrooke were torments by Regina, but they weren’t made to kill each other. “I was thinking of just doing some target practice. Mostly just try shooting straight since I haven’t actually shot yet. All I’ve really done is hold it.”
“Yeah, I don’t really like talking about it,” Katniss said bluntly, looking out into the forest and wondering where they could go to safely practice shooting at targets. “Come on, follow me, I think I know a place you can try out without killing anyone,” she started to head off further into the forest. “What about you? You said your Dreams were about faerie tales? What like?”
Katniss seemed like a nice girl and Mary Margaret didn’t think she’d have anything to worry about from her, so she began following her, “Well, like I said, I’m Snow White. I was on the run from the Wicked Queen, who was my step-mother. There’s also Prince Charming and Red Riding Hood and Rumpelstiltskin and so many others. It’s basically the way you’d imagine a fairytale land to be.” She knew that was a little vague, so she decided to embellish a little, “It took some time, but Charming and I finally got married and I got pregnant with our daughter, Emma, but Regina, the Wicked Queen put a curse on the Enchanted Forest. We were able to send Emma to a world without magic, which turned out to be the real world and the rest of us were transported to a town in Maine called Storybrooke where we basically didn’t age for twenty eight years, as part of the curse,” She stepped over a raised tree root as they walked, “Long story short, Emma showed up and eventually broke the curse and we all got our memories back.”
“So your Dreams are about a life where you are remembering dreams from another life? That must kind of a mind fuck,” Katniss replied with a darkly amused smile. “How do you keep things straight?”
“Not dreams exactly.” Mary Margaret knew how difficult it was to explain her to dreams, “In both worlds I’m technically Snow White. In the second one we were just cursed for awhile and got our memories back from the first world when the curse was broken. It was kind of like having amnesia.” Mary Margaret stepped over a fallen branch, “It was hard at first, but now it’s gotten easier.”
“Still sounds like here to me,” Katniss shrugged as she hopped up on a log then turned to look back at Mary Margaret. “So, you wanna learn how to shoot that thing or what?” she grinned.