Fables #15 is an issue of the series Fables (Volume 1) with a cover date of September, 2003. It was published on July 9, 2003.
Synopsis for "Into the Woods"
Boy Blue and his pals Flycatcher and Pinocchio talk about Snow White and Bigby Wolf, who have been gone on leave for three days now. On a romantic getaway, as Boy Blue believes. Flycatcher just thinks they eloped.
Deep in the forests out west, Bigby Wolf finally starts to come out of the trance Bluebeard put him under. At a campsite, Snow White sleeps soundly until she is rudely awakened by Bigby, clanging a pot against the side of her tent. Neither of them can remember where they are or how they got there. Bigby has rummaged through their gear for clues, finding a one-way plane ticket for Seattle. That could put them somewhere in the Cascades, he deduced. And since they both knew that Snow would never willingly go camping alone with Bigby, that means they were placed under a spell that just wore off. Since Snow still had some trouble walking, it wasn't likely they parked too far away from the campsite. Leaving their things behind to fool anyone watching into thinking they're coming back, Bigby and Snow double-time it through the woods.
Meanwhile, in the Fabletown Business Office, Boy Blue, Bluebeard, and Prince Charming surround a small cage holding three members of the mouse police, who were found snooping about the area. They thought it strange to see them here, so far from the Farm. Bluebeard offers to interrogate them, but Charming interjects. He was already given permission by King Cole to conduct the investigation, since he's established good relations with The Farm after successfully leading the war trials. Bluebeard walks away, growling that it was a mistake letting a fool like the Prince handle anything.
Snow White and Bigby soon find the car, and just in time as Snow was still having some trouble walking for such an extended period. Snow drives since Bigby doesn't know how, following the trail through the woods. Suddenly the front tire blows out, and the vehicle careens down a hill. Despite Snow's efforts to keep control of the car, they end up smashing into a tree at the bottom.
Prince Charming takes the cage holding the mouse police back to the apartment he shared with Briar Rose, telling her he'll be in his study. She has some choice words to share with him about their living arrangement, in particular about him claiming an entire room in her apartment to use as his "study", but the prince shrugs her concerns away, and locks the door behind him. When they are alone, Prince Charming asks the mouse policemen how they managed to get caught. They reply that had he brought more of them over from Smalltown, they'd have a more manageable time of it. As it is now, they feel overworked and had to take risks to get the information he requested. Besides that, Sergeant Wilfred and Corporal Rex haven't reported in days, and they fear the worst. Charming decides to give them a break for awhile, curtailing all future activity since they've been discovered. He needed time to think about their next move.
Sergeant Wilfred, at the moment, is engaged in a fight for his life against a pack of Mundy rats inside the wall of the Woodland Apartments. A battle in which he almost loses his life in, but thanks to some fine swordsmanship, the rats are all slain and Wilfred, wounded but alive, hobbles off to find his way back to his comrades.
The car is totaled. Snow and Bigby are alright, more or less. Bigby broke his arm, which Snow helped him set with some pain involved. Bigby suggests they move out quickly and get as far away from there as they can. His sensitive ears picked up a second bang after the first when their front tire went out. It didn't just "blow out" he tells Snow... it was shot out, and the gunman might be nearing their location. He transforms into his "wolf form" and tells Snow to hop on his back and hang on tight. They can cover much more ground this way, and escape the gunman's trail easier.
On the cliff above is Goldilocks, the "gunman" in question. She reports over the phone to Bluebeard, saying how she succeeded in killing the targets by sending their car over a cliff. In fact, she was just about to go down to confirm their deaths when he called, telling him to hang-up and let her do her job. She starts up her motorbike and follows the path down to the crash site.
Bigby and Snow have, for the moment anyway, put some distance between them and their hunter. A realization suddenly comes to Snow as they lie in the brush, resting. There was only one tent and one sleeping bag set up at the camp. Snow is horrified to think that they may have slept together while under the trance. Bigby reassures her how unlikely it was, given the amount of wolf tracks around the site, he probably just went on nightly romps while she slept. Besides, she had already shot him down back at the Remembrance Day festival.
Snow asked him then, why her? Why, after hundreds of years, was he suddenly so attracted to her? Bigby replies that he never acts so impulsively as to fall in love all of a sudden, the attraction actually goes back for awhile. He tells Snow to be quiet if she really wants to hear the answer...
Appearing in "Into the Woods"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
Locations:
- New York City
- Washington
- Cascade Mountains
Items:
- None
Vehicles:
- Goldilocks' Motorcycle (First appearance)
Trivia
- The comics that Boy Blue, Flycatcher, and Pinocchio are seen with include; The Un-Mundy, Uncanny Oz-Men, Red Hood (of Red Riding Hood fame, not that other guy), Fairy-Tale Four, and Stalk Thing. Available only in Fabletown!
See Also