AN~ I'M SO SORRY GUYS. I meant to update ages ago I really did but then I ended up having two jobs and being swamped and not having free time for anything I wanted to do or energy for writing but I'm back now. Promise. (Also a note: I gave Pinocchio the last name Carlodi because it's the author of the story's last name and I didn't really feel like researching for a better one.)

Star: Sorry it took me so long, but thank you for the compliment!

riverripple: Thank you very much! I'm sorry I dropped off the grid for a couple months, but I'm back now hopefully to update regularly!

Guest 1: I don't think I specified that in this AU, Puck COULD shapeshift. If I did, well then whoops that was an oversight on my part, but he'd have to, like, shapeshift into a WHALE or something to be able to help Sabrina and Daphne, too, and that would be kinda dangerous for someone who's not actually used to swimming in the ocean when there are a lot of obstacles. He might get them all hurt really bad. Kinda dangerous.

Guest 2: Care to tell me why so I can improve?

It was another day and a half before they finally reached civilization. If it hadn't been high summer, they probably would have been half starved by the time they made it. Puck claimed he was half-starved as it was. Sabrina ignored him, because even though berries weren't exactly filling, he had entirely too much energy to really be starving.

When they got to the town, it wasn't really much. A village, maybe, and Sabrina hesitated to call it that. A small cluster of houses kind of wrapping around a central clear space. Her hopes of sleeping in a real bed disappeared. This place didn't look like it had an inn.

"Told you we should have gone south," Puck muttered. "I'm surprised you even noticed this place."

Sabrina shrugged. "We can always turn around."

"No!" Daphne and Puck exploded at the same time.

Sabrina snickered and headed into the town, trying not to be too worried by the fact that she was wearing a ragged nightdress and hadn't had a bath in far too long, and that Puck and Daphne were in worse condition.

She asked the first person she saw for directions to someplace they could buy clothes and supplies, and was directed to the far side of the clearing in the center of the town, a lopsided thing that the residents called "the square" but was far closer to the shape of a fried egg than any square Sabrina had ever seen.

"Hello?" Sabrina called on arrival. They'd reached one of the only two-story buildings in the village, a weather-worn structure made partially of stone and partially of warped wood that might have been salvaged from wrecks and might just have come off the equally twisted trees of the nearby forest.

For a few seconds there was no response. Then there was a snort, a crash, and a groan.

A small, scattered-looking man appeared in the doorway. He was old, what little of his hair remained going bald. A large nose and equally large set of front teeth were overshadowed by his spectacles, and under one arm he carried a broken puppet.

"Sorry," the man said. "I was distracted."

Sabrina gave a polite cough.

The man ignored her, gave the trio a bright smile, and said, "Welcome to Geppetto's General Store. I'm Geppetto, proprietor. What can I provide you with, travelers?"

He made no comment on the fact that they were clad in pajamas, filthy, and, for the most part, barefoot. Sabrina wondered if he was being tactful or if he simply hadn't noticed.

Before she could tell him what they needed, though, Daphne let out a loud shriek.

"Geppetto?" Daphne demanded excitedly. "Geppetto Carlodi? Formerly of Magica?"

"Yes," Geppetto said, looking more befuddled than before. "Do I know you?"

"No no no certainly not we've never met," Daphne said in a rush, practically bouncing up and down and fighting to keep her palm out of her mouth. "I know your son, though. We're friends. He's been looking for you. Or, well, perhaps not looking, but he's been hoping to find you and asking others to look for you. He isn't the type to do much searching himself, you know. Not much for activity or travel."

"I- what?" the old man asked. He wasn't the first to be overwhelmed by Daphne's occasional tendency to babble where it came to Pinocchio, though she never did it in Sabrina's direction. Sabrina had tried to get Daphne to harness this ability in her favor, but it didn't seem to have caught on yet.

"Sorry," Sabrina said, cutting in and steering the conversation back into useful directions. "You'll get a more sensible explanation later, I promise. At the moment, do you think you could sell us some clothes?"

A little under two hours later, the three were outfitted much better, though they were significantly shorter on funds. Daphne had explained about Pinocchio in a way that made sense, and Geppetto, in light of their mutual acquaintance, was feeding them dinner and offering them lodging for the night without charge. Sabrina was grateful, because they now had two coppers left. Total.

"So tell us," Daphne said over a platter of meat pies. "Where have you been?"

Sabrina perked up, interested in the information. She'd heard about Pinocchio's missing father in Daphne's attempt to explain why she and the traitor were now friends, and information was always useful. Puck, sitting catty-corner to Sabrina, was too busy inhaling non-berry food to be paying much attention. Sabrina, though, Sabrina could multi-task. Besides, if it could distract Daphne from food, it had to be interesting.

Geppetto sighed and said, "That is a long story, and not one that paints me very well. I should never have abandoned my son."

Sabrina, who had strong feelings about such matters, privately agreed. But she let Geppetto tell his story.

It seemed the toymaker- for that's what he was, truly, not a shopkeeper- had heard the stirrings of war, and like most people who could, decided to get out of Magica before things came to a head. The problem was that his wife didn't want to leave. So he dithered, arguing with her, trying to convince her to leave, or at least let him take their son. His wife, who was a fairly powerful figure in Magica, insisted she could keep Pinocchio safe. She put a spell on him so nobody could harm him, and that was that, as far as she was concerned.

Then she became a casualty of the war. Geppetto wanted to get his son out, but his wife's magic held sway, and therein lay the problem: her spell considered taking Pinocchio away from his home to be harming him. It, combined with the spell around Magica designed to keep in all the citizens, wouldn't let Geppetto do it.

So he left. He didn't leave Pinocchio alone, of course. He left him with friends. It was still foolish, but he knew he needed to get out of there to be safe, and that he couldn't stay for a second longer in the place where his wife had died. He came to the continent and built a new life.

Sabrina didn't think this was a good enough reason to abandon family. Then again, she was a little prejudiced about abandonment, so when Daphne said, "He misses you. You should contact him," she didn't say what she wanted to (this was something along the lines of: "you don't deserve to ever see your son again! Shame on you!"). Instead, she simply kept her peace.

"I can't return to Magica," Geppetto said. "Even if the war is over, I won't be welcomed back. To have left... it makes me a traitor."

"Things are different now," Daphne answered. "They're changing things. And even if they weren't, Pinocchio isn't in Magica! He's in Scholar."

This remark, which explained absolutely nothing, led to another explanation about what had been going on in the Tradeskingdoms. Sabrina was a little surprised that Geppetto hadn't heard anything, but it tracked with what she knew of outsiders' opinions on Tradeskingdom politics: unimportant; trivial. She took note. It would be useful for gearing her actions towards anyone she met.

Daphne was now scribbling down Pinocchio's address while talking animatedly about what he'd been up to and encouraging Geppetto to write him as soon as possible in the same breath.

"I'm not certain," Geppetto said doubtfully. "I've been silent for so long, he may not want to talk to me."

"He misses you," Daphne assured him. "He wants to see you again."

"Very well," Geppetto acquiesced. "I'll write him."

Daphne beamed and returned to eating her meat pies, fighting with Puck over the last few.

The following morning, armed with entirely more things than they had money to pay for, Sabrina, Puck, and Daphne headed for the capital. They were supposed to be there well before now, but there was nothing to do about that now other than to try to reach their destination as fast as possible. She'd sent a letter to her family and another to the capital, but there was no telling how quickly mail would travel from such a tiny village.

"How can you read that thing?" Puck asked, squinting at the map Geppetto had given them. "It's the whole coastline!"

Sabrina had protested the number of things Geppetto had given them, but he'd insisted that it was the least he could do after they gave him information about his son. Besides, he'd pointed out, most of these things would never be bought by his regular clientele. It should be confessed that Sabrina didn't argue too hard. They needed these things.

"Geppetto marked where we are," Sabrina explained, pointing at the little X on the map. "We'l walk about three miles an hour, maybe less in rough terrain, and the scale at the bottom left shows us how long a mile on the map is. We're trying to get here," she pointed at their destination, a large circle on the map. "This time of year, the sun doesn't rise directly in the east, so I'm compensating for that where we can't see landmarks. But this is a good map; and it's got landmarks picked out fairly clearly."

"Yeah I understood none of that," Puck said.

Sabrina rolled her eyes, realizing a little late that she'd been talking as if her listener actually wanted to know how to read a map, and not as if he simply wanted to cause trouble. "Suffice to say that I can get us there," she promised.

"How long?" Daphne asked, peeking over Sabrina's shoulder as they walked. "We're already late."

"Three weeks?" Sabrina estimated. "If we make good time and don't get lost or injured. Hopefully no more than a month."

"Wouldn't it be faster to go through the woods?" Puck asked, drawing a straight line between them and the capital, which was little other than forest. "Why are we following the coast? We just came from here."

"We know the area a little," Sabrina said. "We can make better time. Plus it's a lot harder to get lost when there's a giant cliff right there the whole time that I can match up to the map."

Puck groaned. "If I've got to walk through wilderness, I'd really rather it be new wilderness."

"Aww, is my poor princeling bored?" Sabrina cooed.

"Always," Puck muttered. "I should have stayed home and let you do this on your own."

"You'd have missed me too much," Sabrina said, wrapping an arm around him. "You love me."

"No I don't," Puck said, kissing the side of her head.

"Hurry up, you two, you're walking too slow!" Daphne called.

Sabrina and Puck, noticing for the first time that Daphne had outpaced them by a good twenty yards while they were talking, quickened their pace.

They made much better time traveling south than north. For one thing, they weren't trying to keep hidden this time around. It was less than a week before they made it to another village, this one somewhat larger than their first detour.

Still, Sabrina was gratified to note that her village was definitely closer than any of the other options, and her direction had been the right choice. She considered it beneath her dignity to point this out to the others, though.

"Stop looking so smug," Daphne said without any heat.

Well, perhaps she hadn't been as good at disguising her silent "I told you so" as she'd thought. She deserved to be smug, though, so she didn't school her expression. Much.

It appeared to be market day, because there was a lot more activity than Sabrina would regularly expect for a village of this size. Unlike Geppetto's home, this town was of a good size to have a market. It was more than a collection of people who happened to have built their homes close to each other. Sabrina was rather glad that they hadn't shown up in this village wearing nightshirts.

They wandered into the town, looking for somewhere they could trade for food, or perhaps do some small tasks to earn more money. Daphne looked in her element. Sabrina was unsurprised. Her sister loved people. Sabrina herself was a little more reserved, but it was nice to blend into a crowd for a change, and she allowed herself to relax and be swept up into the organized chaos of a small town's market day.

Until a voice behind her shrieked, "You!"

Sabrina turned to see Puck standing about fifteen feet away, someone pointing at him. She couldn't see their face.

"You're supposed to be dead!" the person pointing at Puck shouted.

"I... um..." Puck said, wide-eyed.

Other people were stopping their business to stare at the spectacle. Not everyone was stopping, though. A number of people- worrisomely familiar people- were moving forward to form a loose ring around Puck. Sabrina caught Daphne's eye across the crowd. Daphne nodded, and the two edged closer to Puck. Sabrina was digging a knife out of her pocket, concocting several getaway schemes as she moved. There wasn't much place to hide unless they broke into someone's home, but the woods wasn't that far away, and if they used the crowd to their advantage...

"How are you alive? We made certain you were on the ship when it went down!" the person demanded.

Sabrina had reached a place where she could see his face, and she froze, stifling a gasp. It was the creepy sailor from their ship.

She'd thought it was a little suspicious that everyone else had been gone when she awoke, but the confirmation that they'd been betrayed still stung.

"Oh, she's going to kill us," the man said. "She said to make absolutely certain you all died, and now we've mucked it up. I don't want to make her angry." His expression hardened. "You're going to have to die."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, my good fellow," Puck said, no longer looking dumbstruck and now looking a little worried and confused. He caught Sabrina's eye.

She nodded reassuringly: I have it under control. She didn't, not entirely, but she was certain enough that she could get them out of there that Puck didn't need to be disturbed. She could handle it.

"Did the girls survive?" the man demanded.

Sabrina got Daphne's attention and mouthed, Run. She jerked her head towards the woods. Daphne shook her head. Sabrina glared at her sister and; through a combination of signals Sneak students learned to use for communicating silently, mouthed words, and expressions; communicated that she needed to be able to focus on Puck and that they'd meet up in the forest.

Daphne made a face, but headed discreetly for the edge of town.

Puck had apparently said something he thought was clever, because he was grinning at the sailor. It probably had been clever, because the circle of people around him (which he didn't seem to have noticed) looked angry.

All right, no time for clever plans then. Sabrina would just have to get Puck out of there before he irritated anyone into beheading him on principle. Thank goodness she'd made it fairly close to him without being recognized herself.

"Look over there!" she shrieked, pointing away from Puck and playing up the 'terrified damsel' angle for all she was worth. "Is that a monster?"

It worked. Praise all powers that might possibly exist, it worked. Sabrina didn't know if it was because of Red and her monsters or if people were normally that gullible, but everyone looked. While they were distracted, she grabbed Puck and started a mad dash for the scraggly trees.

She was a long way into the trees before she let them slow down. Finally she broke their pace, acknowledging that it was likely to give one of them a twisted ankle- if not a broken skull. The village was out of sight, though she could hear vague sounds of pursuit through the trees. They were far enough away that she let their jog slow to a walk, no longer dragging an unwilling Puck behind her like so much extra baggage.

Puck let out a grumbled complaint which Sabrina ignored in favor of beginning to search for Daphne.

The problem, of course, was that the girls hadn't been able to set up a place to meet if they got separated. They hadn't thought there would be an occasion which would cause them to get separated, let alone a crisis which would require them to run, hide, and completely restrategize. Sloppy of them, and Sabrina cursed herself for not thinking more critically.

"If I were Daphne, where would I hide?" Sabrina mused.

"Up a tree?" Puck suggested.

That was a possibility. Daphne liked trees. It made a bigger problem, though. There were hundreds of options of trees for Daphne to hide in, all twisty, with low-growing branches. Perfect for climbing quickly, just as good for hiding.

Of course, Daphne would be looking for Sabrina. Waiting for her. So she wouldn't go too far, because she'd be planning to meet up.

Sabrina could have passed her. Daphne could have not run far enough. The crew of their sunken ship could catch her. They could-

Before Sabrina could carry this train of thought too far, there was a whispered "Hsst!" from a tree about thirty yards to the south. Sabrina looked up and saw her sister. She let out a breath. Thank the lord.

She and Puck headed for Daphne's location, trying to be as silent as possible to keep from making it any easier for their pursuers to find them.

Daphne climbed down from the tree, and Sabrina led them deeper into the forest, towards safety.

"Now what?" Daphne asked eventually. They were far enough away that it was probably safe to talk, though Sabrina would have rather played it safe. And Daphne was speaking softly.

"Well, I don't think it's safe to travel along the coast," Sabrina said, reevaluating the plan more actively than she'd been doing up until this point.

Puck snorted. "Goodness. What gave you that idea?"

Sabrina ignored him and said, "Negatively, they know we're in the woods. Positively, they haven't found us yet and we can probably stay hidden in here. Besides, it is a straighter path, and we'll be able to find food if we have to."

"Do we know where we are right now?" Daphne asked, looking doubtfully at the trees around them. "I didn't see many landmarks on this part of the map."

"I can figure it out," Sabrina said, more confidently than she felt.

"Okay," Daphne said. She sounded about as confident in Sabrina's ability to get them through this as Sabrina herself currently felt, but as if she rather wanted to believe it would be that simple.

"This entire trip was a bad idea," Puck grumbled suddenly. "What's the mainland ever done for us? We should have just left them to deal with the monsters on their own, like they did us during the war. We've been shipwrecked and marooned and chased across the wilderness and we have nothing to show for it except that Daphne made a new friend."

"That's not very nice," Daphne said. "They asked us for help. This is a good way to show our good faith and to get them to take us seriously. Now they'll owe us, if we do a good job. Plus it's not the commoner's fault. We shouldn't let them suffer because their rulers think we're jokes."

Sabrina didn't say anything. To be honest, she agreed with Puck. Maybe it was simply her irritability talking, but she couldn't help but wish that she'd never left her home land mass.

Puck and Daphne continued to bicker for a time before Daphne suddenly decided that she wasn't speaking to Puck. She moved to stand on Sabrina's other side. Puck followed her, and a mad sort of game of tag ensued, with Sabrina at the center, Daphne trying to get away from Puck without losing her angry dignity and Puck following just to irritate her. They both almost tripped Sabrina (or tripped over her) several times.

Sabrina sighed. It was going to be a long day.