Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

[captain_rogers]

There was a second - just a second there in the midst of shaking his head in an attempt to lose some of the sand that had been whipped up into his face by the harsh wind of a Kansas summer - where Steve stood entirely unaware of the shift of the world around him. In expecting the change in temperature, the shelter from the wind and the dust, he had not immediately thought that he walked through the door not of the run down diner just west of Ellis but into another world entirely.

Busy with the task of clearing his eyes of that sudden burst of sand and grit, the door slipped from his hand to close heavily behind him.

He did not think immediately of its consequences, not as he allowed the pleasant drag of a long ride to settle into the shrug of his shoulders and the feel of his back and arms as he shifted the helmet he carried under one arm. The long weeks on the road had not so much bred an easiness in him as it allowed him room to breathe, to think, to be able to look at the world as had been built around his sleeping body as being anything other than a discomfort or intrusion. It had not, unfortunately, kept him from understanding, as he gave one last rub of a hand over his eyes to open them and blink at the surroundings he found himself in, that he was not in the diner he'd spotted just off the road.

There were, for one, no green vinyl booths that had looked shabby even through a dusty window. No checkered flooring. No beleaguered heavy-set woman with a red-painted scowl or scuffed from the road customers. All this was obvious for the fact that he stood on the polished wooden floor of a grand lobby that put everything but Stark Towers to shame.

no subject

[hylianqueen]

It had been a gambit to reveal herself to Link and Zelda had thought at the time it’d been a wise one; the Hero of Time deserved to know of her deception and her aid as he cleansed Hyrule of Ganondorf’s poison and she knew he’d be tight lipped about her whereabouts.  What she did not consider, however, was that Ganondorf had eyes and ears in even the most sacred of places and the ambush at the Temple of Time hadn’t been a possibility Zelda had considered.

For a woman with a vast intellect, sometimes she could be quite dense.  His laugh froze her to the very marrow of her bones, leaving her stock still and afraid to change forms lest he use the opportunity to injure Link or, worse, recover the Triforce of Wisdom for his own vile purposes.  She could not let the Triforce fall to him no matter what and if that meant keeping the form she’d been born to, so be it.

The restraints were something of a bit of irony; rosy colored crystals conjured by Ganondorf himself that wouldn’t have been out of place in one of Zelda’s own spells, coupled with a vacuum inside that seemed to draw from emotion and not the air.  It stifled her, but only to make her hopeless, and Zelda thought idly that perhaps that was worse.  Should she die in his clutches a valiant death, railing against the dark and all he stood for, she’d die a martyr.  Should she die a quiet death having given up on the world as a whole, nobody would mourn that at all.  After all, Hyrule had no queen, not any longer, and had not for some time.  Ganondorf was actually quite clever in that macabre little respect.

For all that he’d paralyzed her above the battleground he’d chosen to launch his final assault (her own palace, no less. Such nerve he had!), he couldn’t force her to watch.  Zelda let her eyes drift shut, the magical meditation she’d perfected when in the body of Sheik flowing into something more mundane and born of exhaustion in the body of Zelda.  She imagined some place far away, a vista untouched by the wicked king and his armies.

She pressed against the crystal that held her trapped, focusing all her will upon it and was pleasantly surprised when it seemed to give way and she fell to the ground. It was less than graceful, to be sure, but she was free. Of course, freedom meant very little at this juncture; she was still within the belly of the beast and there was no real way out. On a lark, she scrambled toward a forgotten door that led from the Temple back toward a graveyard long left untended. There was a path beneath one of the royal tombs that led straight to the palace, a path that Zelda hadn’t taken since she was a young girl. Pray that it is unblocked, she thought to herself, scrambling as fast as she could. If she were free, perhaps she could launch an offensive and aid Link.

Once she stepped through the door, however, she was not in the graveyard behind the Temple of Time. There were no royal tombs or broken down headstones, merely the carpeted corridor of some other building. What did this mean? How could a familiar path that she’d taken time and time again as a young girl change so much in seven years? While she’d half expected it to be blocked, she hadn’t expected it to lead somewhere else entirely!

There were people milling about these halls, seemingly going about the normal business of a day and Zelda could not comprehend that. It had been a long time since the Castle Town had actual citizens in it; much of Hyrule’s society had moved up into the hills and away from the conquered palace and Ganondorf’s influence. Zelda schooled her features into something approaching calm even though her heart still beat rapidly with the thrill of her escape.

“Excuse me,” she said, catching the attention of the closest person. “I seem to have taken a wrong turn. Can you tell me where I am, precisely? It’s a little embarrassing but sometimes when I have restless sleep, I tend to wander the halls a little.”

Hopefully it was a lie that would pass muster. Not often did Zelda fall asleep fully clothed in a gown worthy of the Hylian court but perhaps just for a moment this person could believe she had laid down for a short nap and been plagued with sleepwalking. It was a common enough affliction and one she herself had suffered as a child. It would not do to reveal just how truly disoriented she was at the moment.

The best way to sell a lie, after all, was to wrap it in the truth.

no subject

[silverandcold]

She must have been distracted, going through the wrong door when she'd meant to go back to her room. This door has led to somewhere else entirely. For all its cool air, it's not her hotel room and it's definitely not her ice palace back in Arendelle. Instead, there's a long expanse of white ice all around her. Looking around, Elsa realizes that not only is she in a small booth, her clothes have also changed. While it still has the blues and glitter of her normal dress, it leaves her bare and vulnerable.

There's no way she's staying here! Elsa spins around only to see the door she entered is locked and she's being called to the ice to perform.

Only now does Elsa realize how many figures are up in the stands. All of them are staring down at her and her stomach drops out as she feels the pressure tightening in her chest.

Conceal. Don't feel. Conceal. Don't feel.

She's never felt so uncertain of herself on the ice as the music starts to play.

and not a single denim-wrapped nightmare in sight

[votecrowley]

For the first time since he'd died and gone to Hell (for real, not any of those blunders that came after) no one was actively attempting to separate Crowley's head from his shoulders, and he really appreciated that. Being a demon was a dangerous existence, and it became even more so when your chosen occupation involved stepping on a lot of other demons to maintain it. It was true that as King of Hell he had more protection than most, but the amount of enemies went up exponentially with that promotion. That is to say, everyone was an enemy, and even if your employees didn't have the smarts or the guts or even the desire for the job they still got treasonous little ideas swimming around in their heads from time to time, and it was a requirement to crack them open if that was the case.

And now he had Abaddon, who was not only immortal, but incredibly irritating. He'd almost like her if it weren't for the fact she was gunning after his job, and his life.

He was aware of other universes and other worlds, not that he ever intended to go to any of them - he was fine in the one he was in, more or less. Besides, from what he understood you had to be all-powerful, like Death, or have some sort of key, like the one to Oz, to get to any one of the millions of fancy little spots in the universe worth going to. But this hotel presented itself to him, almost like a gift. Once he had ascertained that this was, truly, some sort of pocket universe existing beyond his own realm, and not some incredibly elaborate trap to kill him (so elaborate he would in fact be pretty flattered at all of that effort) he did the first thing any respectable demon would do: he looked for the bar.

Sitting at the counter and armed with three fingers of scotch (not Craig; that's the only reason he knew he had not stumbled accidentally into a deserted, angel-less Heaven (though that would also have been nice, and endlessly amusing, because)) Crowley turned to the nearest living, breathing, upright creation, which presumably was also equipped with a brain and the faculties for speech. "And how long have you been here, then?" he asked, bluntly. He could be a very charming, subtle creature when he wanted to, but that usually wasn't as fun.