Fandom Island and Town

A cry of "HA!" echoed through the diner Wednesday, entirely unconnected to the killer clowns roving the streets. Regina rushed out of her office, holding a spellbook, a broad grin on her face.

"I finally found it! Where the curse went wrong! I can get out of here and find my son!"

". . . Cool?" the cook said. "But, uh. What should the specials be?"

"What?" Regina looked around the diner. "Oh hell, I should probably do something with this place before I leave, shouldn't I."

Today's specials
Something something whatever with apples

Luke's was open. And currently clown-free. . . .

[Regina is about to head out permanently! She was very fun while she lasted, but I have done nothing at all with her in ages, and I'm not good at leaving characters to fallow. . . .
Luke's management hand-off with Duke will be the last thread chronologically for Regina. Duke can still be found in the diner if you like.]

The dishwasher and the busboy were singing.

I don't want a pizza, I don't want a piece of
Peanut brittle, I don't want a pear.
I don't want a bagel I don't want a bean I wouldn't like
A bag of beef or a beer or a
Cup of chowder, corn, cake, or creamed cauliflower cause I'm
Waiting for the dinner bell to do the bell thing
Dinner bell dinner bell ring!

"Well," Regina said. "I guess it's at least thematic."

One of the waiters shook his head at her. "It's about Pavlov's dog."

Experimental dog
Salivating dog
Good dog

"The cook turned into a dog this morning."

Regina sighed and went to go get an apron.

Today's specials
Sauteed chicken and apples with rosemary
Frisee salad with apples, potatoes, and hazelnuts
Rustic caramel apple tarts
We're hiring!
Weekday shifts available!

Luke's was open.

[it's a theme! Also there's no OCD]

Regina had spent a fair amount of her life in creepy dungeons. Hell, Regina had spent a fair amount of her life running creepy dungeons. She knew how they operated, knew all the tricks.

This was, despite the bright, cheery colors, a very creepy dungeon.

The "bad toys" were kept in cells of variously cartoonish, but remarkably effective designs. At frequent, irregular intervals, a pink, vaguely horse-shaped toy would bounce in, announce that it was time for one of the toys to be "fixed", and cart them off, whimpering and pleading for their lives. The first time Regina watched this happen, she turned to her cell neighbor, an NPC fluffy bunny doll in a polka dot bow tie, and asked what was happening.

"They're going to the Workshop," the bunny told her, in an odd, squeaky voice. "To the Toymaker."

"Oh," Regina said. "So we'll get to meet them." She nodded, eyes narrowed, a small smile on her face. "Good. I've been wanting to ask them some questions."

The bunny's ears had quivered, and he stared at Regina with round, glimmering eyes. "Noooo," he moaned. "Not good. Not good at all!"

Try as she might, Regina could get no further information out of the bunny. She could only sit in her cell, watching the toys around her be lead away one by one, and plot her escape. (Teleporting in a puff of purple smoke was a classic, and one she was reasonably certain she could execute, even if this form, but it was built for drama, not stealth. She'd need quite the distraction before she could pull it off.)

Thursday morning, the pony came in, bouncing wickedly along the line of cells, playing eenie meenie as she selected the Toymaker's next victim. "My maker said to pick the very worst one," she sang. "And you!" She bounced closer. "Are!" She stopped in front of Regina's cell. Regina braced for a fight. "IT!" She pointed her stubby leg at the bunny and laughed maniacally.

The bunny reached through the bars, managing to grab Regina's arm before he was dragged out by the pony. "Please!" he hissed. "Tell my story!"

Regina would never see that bunny again.

[open, should any other toys be in the Toybox just now. Details run past our lovely BDE maven, pink pony cameo at her request!]

"There now," Regina said, pulling a piping hot polymer clay tray of apple turnovers from the oven. "Don't these just look scrumptious? The perfect treat on a lovely summer day."

She set the tray down next to her equally piping hot, plastic-perfect lasagne. Her staff weren't flexible enough to bring their hands together for applause, so they clacked themselves against each other enthusiastically instead.

Regina picked up one of the turnovers and inhaled. "Why, I can hardly remember the last time I made these. It seems like a lifetime ago. I made them for --" She blinked. "For. . . ."

For Emma Swan, back during the first curse in Storybrooke, when she was trying to get rid of her. Of course, at the time the secret ingredient had been a death-sleep potion, not shellac love.

"For?" her chef asked, slightly more intensely than the question really deserved. Unless he was suspicious. Unless he was going to report her to the authorities, send her to the Toybox. This . . . this was a curse not quite like any other, wasn't it. Regina's big black button eyes narrowed for just a moment, her back still to her staff, then she pasted a broad smile across her plasticized face and turned around.

"Well, for you three, I'm sure! My loyal staff. What would I do without you?"

She could do this. It wasn't like it was the first time she'd had to pretend to be cursed. She would call it . . . Operation Scorpion. Henry would have liked that.

Her staff knocked against each other in applause again, and Regina set about plating the absolutely ridiculous looking toy food.

And planning.

Today's specials
Lasagne
Apple turnovers

Luke's was open.

Right. So. Apparently Regina wasn't going to clear up this curse at all quickly (she was good, but even she couldn't untangle where her curse was or was not intersecting with whatever was going on with this godforsaken island). Which meant that she really was the owner of a diner, so she really did have to be at least a little bit responsible for how it was running.

She'd run a bar, a town, and even an entire kingdom. At least one of those things she'd even done well, without resorting to dark magic. How hard could a diner be?

"I don't care which one of you started what," she told the kitchen staff. Which had apparently been previously run either like a day care or a three-ring circus. "You should not be trying to fence with the sharpening steels. For heaven's sake, you're not even doing it well!" She snatched the steel from the man in the apron and pointed him at the stove. "Now get back to work before I decide to fire you all and turn this place into an automat!"

The man in the apron exchanged looks with the one in the rubber gloves. "We don't have our specials yet."

"Oh for --" Regina stalked over to the specials board.

Today's specials
Corned beef on rye
Apple pie

"Those aren't very special," the young man holding the mop said. And then turned and ran before Regina could turn around and level her glare on him.

Luke's was open.

The smoke cleared, and just as Regina expected, she found herself standing at a small town harbor instead of in a castle. The only trouble was, it clearly wasn't Storybrooke's harbor. And she was alone.

"Henry?" she called, turning in a slow circle, irritation and panic warring within her. She knew that curse inside and out, had cast it any number of times. Hell, she'd finished it once while her son was actively dying in her arms. She'd been sure her adjustment would work. She looked down, checking her clothing: a stylish pantsuit, sharply cut. Definitely Regina Mills, mayor of Storybrooke, not Roni, bartender, or the Evil Queen. A look around the harbor only helped to further establish that she'd missed her landing. The place was a strange mix of old fashioned and modern more common to Europe than to Maine, and the sky, dark and oppressive with what smelled like coal smoke, seemed more like something out of an old Victorian novel than anything you'd find in a modern town — at least not one where she'd expect to see a "taste of Thai" restaurant.

The castle on the hill above the town didn't exactly scream "real world", either.

"Where the hell am I?" She set her hands on her hips, running the curse she'd cast over in her mind, trying to work out where it might have gone wrong — or been tampered with. She looked around again, this time scanning for any of the various iterations of her son. "HENRY!"

"Regina Mills?"

She jumped and spun, her hand going to her heart, only just stopping herself from summoning a fireball for defense. She glared at the man who'd come up behind her. "Who wants to know?"

The man, unremarkable to a level that was nigh uncanny, wasn't impressed. "The guy who was paid a lot of money to hand this off to a lady on the boardwalk shouting 'Henry', who goes by 'Regina Mills'."

Regina scowled at him, faintly wishing she was still the sort to rip the hearts out of people who irritated her. "Paid by whom?"

The man smiled faintly and held out the envelope. Regina scowled harder and took it, then turned to walk away.

"What," the man asked. "No tip?"

Regina waved him off without turning and examined the parcel. It was a simple, legal sized manilla envelope, addressed to her care of "the Port of Fandom", with no return address. Nothing about it screamed "danger", and it was her only hint as to what the hell had gone wrong, so she slit it open with a fingernail and pulled out the sheaf of papers within. A real estate contract between herself and a name she didn't recognize, detailing the change of hands of a place apparently called "Luke's".

"I own a diner?"

She was missing Seattle already.

[open! Because why not bring in a new character on the first day of Silent Hill?]