#aflightoffancy

Belle laughs, rising from her pillow seat in the circle made for storytime, and slides the book back into its proper shelf. “I might have embellished it a bit,” she admits. “I’m trying to teach them good lessons from an early age. You never know what land they’ll grow up in, after all.”

Ruby snorts, inclining her head as she searches absentmindedly through the shelf she’s leaning against. “You’re not wrong,” she agrees. “We’ve gone back and forth so many times, I think I’ve lost count. Do you suppose it’ll ever stop?”

“Do I suppose Regina and the Charmings and god knows who else will ever stop cursing the entire town?” Belle rolls her eyes to match the face Ruby is making. “Definitely not. But I think maybe we’ll come out better for it, in the end.”

“I think we already are,” Ruby says slowly, tipping a book out of its shelf and surveying it with the sort of deep fascination that comes from not wanting to look elsewhere. “How are you? After – after Mr. Gold – Rumple – ”

Belle inhales, exhales, pushes herself up against the bookshelf so she can talk to Ruby face to face. “Better,” she says, as honest as she’s ever been with anyone. “I mean, it’s hard, some day. I don’t exactly have a lot of friends around here, I mean, since – ”

“He kept you isolated,” Ruby murmurs, face clouding over. “But you have me. Emma, the Charmings. Henry adores you.”

Belle smiles softly, watching as Ruby begins thumbing through the book. “Didn’t peg you for Shakespeare,” she says instead of answering. Ruby is right but then, Ruby has usually been right where Rumplestiltskin is concerned.

Ruby turns over the book to look at the cover. “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” she reads out, her gaze slanting back towards Belle. “I think I’ve read this. Do you like it?”

“One of my favorite,” Belle says with a fond smile. “It’s like a fairytale, except a little twisted and poisoned, maybe. But magical, like a fairytale.”

“Kind of like our lives,” Ruby says, grinning wryly as she flips through the pages. “The girl who ate her boyfriend. The princess who married a beast. Poisoned fairytales.”

“All fairytales have a happily ever after, though,” Belle points out, reaching over to slide her fingers over Ruby’s and lower the books so she’ll look at her. “Even Shakespeare. Even us, don’t you think?”

Ruby is close enough to kiss, but she doesn’t move, instead stays suspended where she is, eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings, teeth biting down on her lips. Red, red, like her cape. Belle wants to kiss her, but she doesn’t. There’s a myriad of reasons – too soon, you still love him, she doesn’t feel the same way – but most of all it’s doubt. Does she really believe her own words about happily ever after?

“I think so,” Ruby finally breathes out. “One day, I think so.”