Welcome to a Nightmare

Chapter 24: Daughter of the Dark One

Crystal and Henry walk in relative silence through the streets, leaving the familiar quiet and then take some back alleys into the noisy unknown.

"Henry," Crystal says, realizing something important.

"What?"

"You should probably pull up your hood, so no one recognizes you, especially if Fiona or that chauffeur you've talked about are around,"

"You're right," he says, doing so. "Good catch."

"Don't mention it," she says before they come to a chain-link fence that they're going to have to hop over. The flashing lights and revving of engines lay just on the other side. They pause and look at each other.

"I really don't want to go over," she admits with a heavy sigh.

"I know," he agrees. "But just remember that it's the curse. Technically, none of this is real."

"You're right," she nods before finding her footing and scaling the fence. Henry follows not far behind.

"Okay, which way?" she asks.

"We're looking for a hotel called The Golden Deal,"

The young woman smirks at the name. "I will give the evil fairy credit, she is pretty clever with the names."

"Yeah, Oz-and-Ends trade show is pretty good too," Henry snickers.

The two giggle to themselves at the play on words; a rare smile and laugh shared between them. However, they quickly collect themselves as they step out of the alleyway and are immediately hit by a wave of people going in the opposite direction. They begin having to weave their way around the people who snort or give them dirty looks for going against the flow of people.

"Watch it kid!" some angry pedestrian barks as Henry nearly knocks him over.

"This is..." Crystal says, going around a particularly tall man, trying to keep her brother in sight. "Just keeps becoming more and more like New York the longer we're here."

"Move it!" an anxious woman snaps, having to sidestep around both of them.

"R-Really?" Henry calls, being forced to the far side of the street to avoid being trampled by a group of women in extremely high heels.

"Oh yeah," she says, stumbling as someone's briefcase bumps her off the sidewalk and she almost knocks over someone's motorcycle. She stubs her toe against it and swears under her breath as she goes. "It's like the world's worst obstacle course filled with cranky people in hurry and street trash, but only here, there are more drunk people and more of a chance of being run over..." As she says this, a taxi nearly mows her down as she is forced to go into the street to go around the motorcycle. "By some asshole. The reason I came to Storybrooke is to... avoid all this,"

The two rejoin each other on the corner of one of the streets. The traffic lights change above them, and they wait impatiently for it to change back. Some flashy looking Porsche accelerates into the intersection, barely missing some businessman dragging a suitcase behind him.

"I used to think more people coming into Storybrooke would help business, but now I just want the quiet," she admits. "Almost everyone here is an outsider."

Henry nods and then nudges her. "Technically, we're the outsiders if you think about it."

"Considering where we actually come from and the things we've seen, you're absolutely right," she agrees, as the crossing light allows them to go forward. "If only these idiots knew."

They give each other reluctant smiles as they head down the noisy streets.

"There it is," the teenager points out, his finger extending to the gold coloured lights making up the sign saying The Golden Deal. The place has long concrete steps and rotating doors, if it wasn't so generic and typical of the area, it might have been a fancy looking hotel. A doorman stands out front, nodding politely while greeting each guest as they enter. Henry pulls his hoodie tighter over his face, assuming that this doorman was here a lot, he would recognize the son of the mayor and no doubt tell her about it. Fiona Blackwell clearly had eyes everywhere and had people always watching.