Pass the Plot 2, Scene 3

Once in the shelter of the heavy limbed trees, all three dwarves breathed deeper. Inside the forest they were a lot safer than outside of the forest. The queen had a horrible allergy to all deciduous pollens and so avoided trees in specific and forests in general. Even her huntsmen were forbidden to enter on pain of having half of their heads shaved. Many of them abandoned the hunting, rather than be forced to wait on the edges of the trees for deer to come out; they felt it was unmanly, so they took up the cultivation of bonsai trees instead.

The dwarves arrived in safety to the entrance of the mines. It was the end of the day shift, and the evening shift had yet to begin, so they felt sure that they could move their burden without being noticed by anything other than the curious squirrels and birds. Doc led the way with a lantern, and Sleepy and Sneezy carried the box, trying not to stumble on the rock covered path.

When they reached their destination, an abandoned tunnel that had yielded much less ore than expected, they put the box, unopened, into one of the dark corners.

"I'll make sure that the tunnel leading here gets blocked off as soon as possible," said Doc. "I think they're scheduled to put in reinforcement pillars and then fill in the neck passage in the next couple of days, but the foreman owes me a favor. Maybe I can even get it done tonight."

"I've never seen the mirror." Sleepy cast a longing glance at the box.

"It's nothing to see. Just a big mirror with a big mouth." Doc waved his torch around. "Come on, let's get out of here before someone sees us."

"I haven't seen the mirror either, Sleepy. But I don't want to." Sneezy's allergies had cleared up once they got into the mine proper. Something about being in the tunnels did wonders for his histamine levels, and it certainly didn't hurt that cats were never in the mine tunnels. Ever.

"Come on, the both of you." Doc headed towards the main tunnel and the other two followed him. Sleepy was the last to exit the dusty tunnel, and he gave the box one more long look before following the light.

The three waited with the wagon until the night shift began to trickle in, and then Doc pulled the foreman aside and made his request, trying to be nonchalant.

"Look, I'd like to help you out, Doc, I really would. But I need all the hands I can get to make sure the new tunnel is stable and safe to work. No one goes back into that old tunnel anymore, so unless you want to get more specific on the potential danger of leaving it until the morning, that'll be the earliest I can get to it. And even then it'll shave off production."

Sneezy and Sleepy could tell that Doc was having trouble deciding which way to go. The less people who knew about the mirror was the better, and who could tell which dwarf belonged to the queen and which didn't.

"Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it," mumbled Sneezy under his breath.

"You sound like a broken record." But the way that Sleepy said it took any possible sting out. 7 dwarves in one 3 bedroom house made for either a large amount of tolerance, or a large amount of violence, and in the 12 years the 7 had been together, no one had yet to go to the hospital. "I really wish I could see the mirror. Just a quick..."

"It should be alright. It's not as if I could have told him the entire story. Shoot, I really don't like all this prophecy business." Doc swung himself back onto the driver's seat and clucked to the horse. "I'll be glad when all this is done."