milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Steph's in the Bar again, sprawled across a couch, reading.

It's a book on Arthurian History, and her eyes are a little glazed, but she's determined to get through it.

Don't ask why.

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"There's a whole lot of princes around here," Steph says. Steph is Helpful! "And most of 'em need taking down a peg or twelve. Sometimes with paint bombs."

Roshaun is never going to know what hit him. Steph's Planning.

"Arithon is nice," she reasons. "I haven't really met any others. Which is slightly odd, because I've been here almost a year."

"Then again, I'm not the most sociable person."

"Ooh, yeah, I like him."

You'd have to be crazy not to like Arithon, really.

"He helped me learning piano the other day, although I reckon that was totally just so he didn't have to listen to me hacking away at it." She grins. "But he doesn't count as a prince, not really. He's too cool."

Princes are annoying, and Arithon is not, so clearly he cannot be one.

Goldy nods her agreement.

"You've heard of Prince Charming, right?"

"Absolute jerk in my universe."

"Really? But isn't he, like, the hero of all the -"

LIGHTBULB.

"Oh. He's the hero of all the stories. I guess that'd go to his ego a bit."

"Now you're getting it," Goldy laughs. "And he's a really shitty husband too. He went through Snow, Briar Rose... uh... Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and probably countless others since we came to Earth."

"Dude, it was the same one all along?" She's laughing now. "I'm surprised you didn't all gang up to, like, castrate him or something!"

She shrugs. "I didn't really mix with that crowd."

"We were only really brought together when we forced to exile en mass from our homelands and take up residence in New York, way back when. And even then I chose to live away from the human Fables' enclave in the city."

"There are - oh, I get it!" Steph's in top form tonight. "The three bears, right? And the little pigs and stuff. Awesome! So what're you doing now?"

She wriggles around to get more comfortable, ditching the textbook over the arm of the couch. History, schmistory. People are always more interesting.

"Hm. The short version," she says blandly. "I tried to organize a revolt to seize power of Fabletown—the enclave—and failed, thanks to Snow White and Rose Red. I shot Snow in the aftermath, holed up with Bluebeard for a few months, and then tried to get rid of Snow again. As well as Bigby Wolf, who was acting sheriff there at the time."

"Fables are tough to kill. That attempt didn't go so well either, and I ended up in a coma for a while. After that I steered clear of the rest of my kind to avoid execution, and forged a living in petty assassination around Idaho."

"Then, in 2002, I was relocated here during a hunting trip. And I got a fresh start of sorts."

"Fresh starts are one thing this place does really well," Steph says cheerfully. "I mean, even dead girls get another chance here. It's pretty awesome."

"It is. I even have a job as one of Lilly's delicate Flowers," she says as a smile breaks again. It's hard to stay grave when Steph is so damn chipper and bubbly. And that's really okay.

"You say that like you might be one of those dead girls yourself," she points out warmly.

"That's me. There's a few of us around, isn't there? Like, blonde dead teenagers. Gotta wonder if the Landlord's got an agenda or anything."

Bright and bubbly is Steph's default, really.

"You're one of the Flowers? That's awesome. Is it, like, really seedy? I can't imagine Lilly doing anything dodgy, she's pretty cool."

Eyebrow.

"Do I look like the kind of girl who would be suited to a seedy brothel? It's actually very posh and exclusive. Lilly did things right."

She crosses her legs demurely and inclines her head to one side.

"Enough about me though. I'm a curious girl, if you remember. So tell me what you did before you came to be here."

"I was a Robin," Steph says, and then proceeds to explain, at great length, with excessive amounts of bubbly and cheerful.

And Goldy does her usual trick of asking questions at all the right points. Steph's story is interesting—she's only really met Barry and the X-crew who have similar lifestyles—and her demeanor is delightfully intoxicating. ~~And they both lived happily ever.~~

One can only hope that Miho was not waiting up.

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