I wandered through the ballroom, grand snowy white gown hanging heavily on my hips. My hair was done in the most elegant hairstyle I had ever seen, and don't even have the words to describe. It was very curly and twisted with silvery ribbons and what looked like a string of gems swirled up into an up-do on the back of my head. I was wearing a pair of high heels in order to keep the dress from dragging on the ground because it was longer than I was tall.

There were people in masks all around. Mine was made of lace and barely covered the area around my eyes. I stepped between two women in green dresses laughing and holding glasses of something fizzy. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I was craning my neck a lot, trying to find something or someone without knowing who it was. I knew I'd recognize who it was when I saw them—that much I knew.

I also felt like someone was constantly watching me and just slipping out of my view when I turned to look.

There were a few couples dancing on the floor but mostly people milling about, laughing and having fun.

When I was nearest the dancefloor, someone emerged from the crowds.

I recognized him, but I didn't know why. I knew he was the one I'd been searching for, but I didn't know why. He was tall with black hair and piercing icy blue eyes that seemed to peer straight through me all the way to my soul. He wore a very formal black outfit that looked like a cross between a suit and ceremonial armor. His face was narrow and knife-like and his mask looked like a pure black, satin ribbon with green gems sewn onto it. His cheekbones were sharp enough that I probably could have cut my fingers on them. There was a grin on his mouth that looked devilish and handsome. It was a look that I was inexplicably drawn to. He gave me the slightest of bows before sliding one hand just under my left arm, holding my back firmly, and taking my right hand with his free one.

I was very conscious of his dancing being smooth and graceful—whereas I felt myself being slightly clumsier. But he handled my inadequacies well and managed to make my dancing improve just by gentle leading and hints that I would normally have been completely blind to, smoothing out my feet like an iron on wrinkled fabric.

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that was vaguely familiar but I couldn't place where it was from. He was smiling at me like I was the whole world and nothing else mattered.

I'm not sure how long we danced but it felt like it was stretching into the eternities—and I felt so comfortable where I was, and so relaxed in his careful but strong grip that I didn't even know if I wanted to leave wherever I was or ever stop dancing at all. I could feel something like exhaustion in the backs of my eyes, but the sensation was so distant—so far removed from the immediacy of this strange, very tall man—that I brushed it off and convinced myself that I wasn't tired at all.

He spun me under his arm, sending my skirt swishing out to look even more like a bell than it already did and then twisting around my legs as he took me back into his hold and held me very close to the front of his body. I was staring up into his eyes, easily losing myself in their bottomless blue.

I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong—something that was just slightly off. A sense of foreboding I couldn't get rid of even though most of my mind was insisting everything was just as it was. The music in the background was on-key and in-tune. The other people at the ball were wearing masks far more bizarre than mine and the mysterious but devastatingly handsome man's—but they were all acceptable and not very strange all together. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with the scene I was in.

Except I shouldn't be here, a little voice in my mind whispered. I shook my head slightly to clear it and gave the man a small grin.

BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!

I turned around wildly to see a clock with thirteen numbers on the face. The hour hand was pointing at the six with the minute hand straight up. I stopped dancing completely and stared at the clock for several long seconds. I felt something urgent in the back of my mind—warning bells were going off—but I couldn't place why.

The crowd suddenly seemed very oppressive and pressing in on me. I let go of the mysterious, handsome man and started to push and force my way through the people. I felt the man try to grab me back, but I managed to squeeze my gigantic white skirt between people and slip away.

I ran through the ball till I reached the wall. It was faintly curved and seemed to shimmer. I looked around. I could practically hear that large fancy clock ticking.

Impulsively I grabbed a chair from where it was sitting next to a table and threw it at the wall.

Everything shattered. The wall broke away like glass. I heard screaming and felt wind blow through my hair. It pulled the curls and twists out, leaving it boring and straight the way it usually was. The ribbons and strings of gems blew away and I felt even the beautiful gown being blown off—putting me back in an outfit that seemed much righter somehow even though I still didn't know why. I felt myself falling endlessly through the mess of the ball. There were masks and chairs and decorations and what looked like glitter all spiraling around me.

I landed on something soft. What just happened? My mind was all muddled and I had no idea what was going on. I was lying on something that was slightly uncomfortable but at least it had been something to land on. But why did I need to land? What was I falling from? I couldn't seem to remember anything. Sitting up, I looked around.

I was in… a forest? For some reason, that wasn't right. I was supposed to be… around fire? Black dirt? I had vague memories of a fiery mountain but I couldn't remember anything else.

Stumbling to my feet, I caught sight of a woman with glossy dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing armor and had both a shield and a double-bladed sword. "Excuse me!" I called out to her. She was attacking a dummy but when she heard me, she whirled around. "I don't know where I am. I don't know what's happening and I can't seem to remember where I am or why I'm here or how I got here." The hostility in her stance vanished immediately. She hissed something under her breath before turning back to me.

"You're in Loki's Labyrinth."

End Note: I'm a huge sucker for this scene's proper Labyrinth counterpart.

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