[dmeredith]: 352.Reflections of Queen Snow White

The following is built on the famous Snow White Fairy Tale (Brothers Grimm variety NOT Disney) What ever happened to her after the whole marry Prince Charming thing anyway...




"The Reflections of Queen Snow White"


-David Meredith [dmeredith]


  "...Have already received gifts from the nearest barons. It is quite a selection I must say, but all totally appropriate and honestly a bit excessive if you want my opinion on the matter. I expect that the Lords from farther out will simply bring theirs with them the day of the wedding, which as you know creates infinitely more work for me, but I shall endure and catalog everything received so that her Majesty may send appropriate reply in a timely manner. I do think that in particular you should make a special effort to thank Duke Gewissenhoft. The carriage he sent for the honeymoon is quite exquisite to say nothing of the horses..."
Queen Snow White sat up abruptly on her throne. The years had been mostly kind to her. Her snow white skin, for which she had been named was still supple and mostly unlined, but for the tiniest hint of crows feet around her eyes and the thinnest of lines around her mouth. Her coal black hair was shot through with silver now, but rather than make her look elderly it simply made her look regal. The thin circlet that Charming had set upon her brow the day of their marriage was clipped firmly in place and her hair hung flowingly about her shoulders. The dress she wore was simple green silk but of the highest quality available and her artfully painted brown eyes were sharp and keen. At least they generally were. Right now they looked a bit glazed over. She rubbed at them restlessly and realized that she had only partially heard what her diminutive steward was saying to her. She must have dozed off.
  That of course was easy enough to do when being briefed by the impeccably dressed and dapper, if a bit long-winded, little old man. The Queen dearly loved him and he had been as stanch a friend and as conscientious a steward as she could have hoped for, for many years now. But honestly! Did he have to go on so?
  The wizened little counselor was currently reading off an extensive laundry list of gifts received from her various nobles in honor of her daughter's upcoming wedding and which he felt were the most deserving of a direct display of gratitude from her royal self. Most of the nobles in question were coming and all of them had been invited, but even now, during what was supposed to be a patently joyous occasion they were still vying for her favor and that of young Princess Raven. Each gift received had been more lavish than the one before as each of her nobles tried to outdo his or her fellows, hoping for some smallest crumb of her or her daughter's regard and influence. She found it to be positively exhausting.
Snow White caught her mind wandering again and realized that she had totally failed to hear what the little man in front of her had just said again. He stood before her throne looking at her expectantly.
"I'm sorry, my friend." The queen apologized with a small self-depreciating, but still beautiful smile. "I'm afraid my mind was wandering... What was that last bit?"
"I said your daughter has also requested an audience with you. I think her feelings have been hurt about your... unavailability of late. She put in a formal written request through the Judicial Ministry."
"She did what?!" Asked Snow White siting forward in her throne suddenly with widened eyes a bit taken aback. "Why on earth would she do that? She knows she can always just come to me..."
  The little man in front of her shot his queen an almost disrespectfully dubious glance. "The young Princess has attempted to seek your presence several times this month alone and has always found her mother indisposed. As I said, I think her a bit... frazzled. Wedding jitters perhaps. In any case..." The elderly dwarf barreled on blithely with his exhaustive list if concerns for the upcoming wedding. "Shall I put Lord Stolz in the Green Room? He is certainly deserving of the honor given his status and service to your husband but I already have Count Bemessen in the Red Room next door, and you know how they are. Those two never get along and I would like to avoid conflict if I can help it, but I also worry that if we put Lord Stolz further away he will feel slighted, and that would be at least as bad. What do you think?"
"I think I'm tired." She stated wearily. Maybe the little man before her was not the problem. It felt like another one of those days. There had been far too many of them lately. She fell positively morose and did not want to deal with anyone or anything, particularly not petty political bickering among her nobles. Snow White sighed slumping down in the regally decorated, but patently uncomfortable chair she sat in and rubbed her temples. The Queen glanced to the larger empty chair to her left. Charming had always taken care of this sort of thing. He had been the political one.
The aging Queen felt her eyes welling with tears again and chided herself sternly. It had been over a year after all. He had been quite a bit older than she and they had both known that this time would most likely come. They had even talked about it before. Often in fact, as they lay wrapped in the comforting warmth of each other's arms in the enormous canopied bed they had shared for nearly thirty years staring into the darkness late at night after a long session of... She sobbed loudly. Why did it then still hurt so much?
Unbidden though they were, the tears came anyway and the Queen looked away suddenly to hide them. Maybe because back then it had always merely been a theoretical discussion. It had always been talk of 'what if' and 'someday'. The reality of his passing had proven far more difficult than anything she had ever even imagined before. She felt so alone, so positively... abandoned.
  Her councilor did not fail to notice his queen's distress and in less than a second he was at her side on the small raised platform where sat the two massive thrones. He took her tiny white hand in his rough brown one. The mantle of councilor fell from his voice and posture like a discarded cloak might have fallen from his shoulders. The brazen act would have been unforgivably presumptuous from anyone else, but not from him. He was the last one who had really known her before. He was her only true friend now.
"What is it Snowy?" The elderly little dwarf queried gently as he held the Queen's hand in one disproportionately large callused paw of his own. He stroked it softly with his other. "This should be a happy time. Prince Edel's a wonderful man. Raven loves him... Couldn't hope for better'n that..."
"Oh, I know, Erfreut." Snow White sobbed miserably squeezing the little man's hand back gratefully. "I just miss him. That's all. Charming should be here for this... We were supposed to live happily ever after... I suppose we did for a very long time, and I would not trade even a single moment of that for anything, but... It's not fair Erfreut! He should just be here. That's all..."
"Aye, my girl." Erfreut had cultivated his courtly speech since he had come to Court, but that was really not him. He spoke now in the familiar voice and phraseology he had used when first they had met so long ago. In the blink of an eye he had transformed from steward to life long friend. "Aye he should be, lass. Ain't fair at all, for him to miss this day coming... Givin' his girl away and all... But I've gotta say...It ain't fair for you to miss it either. Do try to buck up. If not for yourself then for Raven at least."
  He had been the youngest of the then young princess' seven forest companions. They had offered their shelter and companionship to a bedraggled little girl who had shown up unexpectedly at their doorstep. Then when her predecessor had sought the princess' death they had hidden and protected the young Snow White from Queen Arglist's insane rage and unreasoning jealousy. Finally they had risked their lives contriving with the young prince Charming of the neighboring kingdom to topple her from power. Snow White had fallen in love with the young prince in the process. It had been all because of them and their selfless kindness.
They too were all gone now. All of them but Erfreut that is. Snow White had been horrified at the thought of the little man living all alone in the forest in that big lonely cottage all by himself and so had invited him to come to the palace and work. He was too proud a man to accept charity and so Snow White had offered him a job in the Mining and Agriculture Ministry instead of simply an offer of providing residence. The little dwarf man had proven surprisingly adept at politics however and had risen swiftly through the bureaucracy until he had become the royal family's most trusted advisor. Ever since Charming had died, he had seen expertly to the day to day running of the household and management of the various ministries. Now the tottering, miniature steward was indispensable to the bereaved Queen. He had proven vital to her in a practical sense, but the little old man was also important to her for another reason. Though he was still by far the elder, they were both getting old. Everyone who had truly been their friends through the long years were gone now. He was really the only person she could talk to anymore, at least in any sort of familiar, unguarded way.
  Snow White loved her daughter Raven, her only child born late in her life compared to the typical birthing years of women. The princess was beautiful just as the queen had been in her youth; Jet-black of hair and white of skin like her mother, but also possessing the icy, piercingly blue eyes of her father. Still, she was in many ways just a girl. As much as she cherished her daughter, Snow White felt that the difference in their ages was such that she could not really confide in her. Nor did she think it fair to heap an old woman's cares on the Princess' youthfully carefree heart. Snow White did not feel it fair for her to dampen her daughter's euphoria at her coming nuptials with her mother's brooding grief.
  The nobles who constantly surrounded her were out too, but for a different reason. Every last one of them was constantly currying favor. Every one of them wanted something from her or was looking for some weakness on her part that they could exploit to political advantage. There were some among them who Snow White disliked less than others, but certainly none whom she would have grouped among her friends. There was only Erfreut. The queen had no one else and once he was gone... Snow White tried not to think about it. She leaned on him now more than ever in her almost suffocating loneliness. The little man continued soothingly.
  "'Tis alright Snowy." He murmured meeting her large mahogany eyes with beady black ones of his own. They shone with sympathy. "There be no shame in tears. God knows I shed enough for me boyos since they passed one right after the other until I was all who was left. I know what you feel lass. A big empty spot right here." He left off stroking her porcelain hand to thump his chest.
  "It's where the little piece of their souls lived in ye. It's what they lent in becoming your friend or in your case your husband. Or maybe it's where that little piece of you used to be that ye gave to them when ye shared your heart. In any case, you don't ever get that back, but the pain dulls in time and ye start thinking back to all the good things ye used to share together... That, my dear," He smiled at her kindly. "That is when you realize that they aren't gone all together. That they did leave little pieces of them with you and then you can really cherish it. You still miss them. Oh! What I wouldn't give to have a good night o' drinking with me boyos again and some good loud singin' too, I tell ye! But, ye find the strength to go on and even to be happy again..." He paused before continuing almost sadly himself. "What I wouldn't give to see ye smile again, lass. I mean really smile with joy in your heart like ye used to. Bright as the sun it was...."
  "Thank you Erfreut." The Queen squeezed his big callused hands with both of her tiny soft ones. "You keep me going. Do you know that? I don't know what I would do without you. I'd be all alone if not for you. You keep the desolation at bay a little. I just can't seem to see any light anymore, everything seems so dark and gray and hopeless. I hope you're right though. I want to be happy again. I want to share in my daughter's joy at her wedding, but it just feels like a huge part of my heart is missing and I don't know how to find it. I just don't seem to know how to be happy anymore. Every time I start... Every time I'm doing something that ought to be fun, that ought to be amusing, that I used to enjoy I just keep feeling that it isn't half as good as it would have been if Charming were here with me."
"Well do I know that feeling, lass. But don't you worry, Snowy. It'll come. It'll come" He patted her hand once more before releasing his queen and descending the dais. He seemed abruptly to stand straighter. His voice went back to the indolent tones of royal steward. "Now, if my lady finds herself a bit indisposed I might perhaps ask her leave to see to the additional preparations in her absence?" The change back into the snooty timbre of the court came so abruptly that it almost seemed as if her friend had transformed into a completely different person right before her eyes. It was a necessary masquerade though, and Snow White smiled in spite of herself at how expertly the tiny oldster doffed the required mask of his position.
  "Thanks Erfreut," She managed a smile that was almost heartfelt. It was at least grateful. These arrangements had to be made and the queen knew it, but Snow White just did not feel up to coping with them right now. Her mood was too black, too melancholy to plan any sort of joyous celebration. "As always I trust your judgement. I think some time alone would do me good..."
Erfreut frowned. "Now I don't know about that, my Lady. Perhaps I could organize a luncheon, or a picnic? Maybe a minstrel would make you feel..."
"Thank you Erfreut, but no." The queen interrupted kindly but firmly. "I simply wish to be alone right now. Perhaps tomorrow..." She let the unfinished sentence trail off into silence.
  "Indeed, my Lady." The elderly dwarf bowed low to his queen, his friend. When he spoke he did not seem very optimistic. "Perhaps tomorrow... I shall go see to the arrangements and let you know when they are completed." He hobbled his way out of the huge audience chamber, rapped twice on the enormous doors leading in, which immediately swung open under the labors of two grunting guardsmen, and then quietly departed leaving Queen Snow White alone in the huge, empty throne room.
  It seemed nearly as empty as she felt right now. Snow White had said she wanted to be alone, but that was not really true. She simply was alone, whether there were any other people about to witness it or not. In any case, now that she was by herself in the large room the queen was not at all sure what to do. This of course was her regular dilemma. It seemed difficult to do anything anymore but sit around feeling miserably lonely and abandoned. She thought first of finding her bed. Maybe a good nap would make her feel better. Upon longer consideration however, she decided that lying in that huge cold bed all by herself would just end up making her feel worse.
Then she thought of perhaps taking a stroll around the gardens. It was spring after all. The bright sunshine and beautiful flowers could hardly fail to improve her mood could they? Then she thought of the hundreds of nobles currently guesting at her palace. The gardens were bound to be infested with them and she certainly did not feel up to all of the petty political posturing that even a simple stroll among such company would entail. At length she decide to simply walk around the palace until she thought of something more substantive to do.
  Snow White purposefully chose halls and corridors that she knew would be uncrowded. The few servants she passed bowed respectfully as she strode past but soon scurried off to complete whatever menial chores they had been assigned. Twice she almost came upon a party of nobles, boisterously trooping down the hall from the opposite direction, in the full gay spirit of the upcoming festivities. These the Queen carefully avoided, the first time turning down an nearly abandoned hallway and the second ducking into a convenient darkened doorway. She had no desire whatsoever to converse with the likes of them at all today if she could help it.
  As the last of the second group of noisy party-primped and gaily clad nobles paraded past she took a moment to collect herself and get her bearings. This was not a part of the castle that she frequented. It honestly was one that she had consciously avoided almost the entire time she had lived here with her prince and king. The narrow doorway she had randomly stepped into did not lead to a room or closet, but rather to a long winding set of stairs. Snow White was unsure if she had come this way purely by accident or through some unconscious pull of her own melancholy, but now that she realized where she was she had very little desire to stay.
  Still, it was quiet here. This entire wing of her massive palace had only been used for storage now creeping up on nearly thirty years, as long as she had lived here, and there was very little chance of anyone coming here to disturb her. As much as the place unnerved her she realized that she was unlikely to encounter anything more disturbing than dust or rats in any case. So ultimately, she closed the stubborn door to the main corridor behind her as softly as she could manage and began the steep climb up the long tower stairs.
It had been many years indeed since Snow White had climbed these stairs, almost a lifetime ago in fact, and she marveled at the unkind changes that time and disuse had wrought. The torch brackets on the wall were empty and dark, the only evidence of their ever having been filled at all the faint black soot marks upon the wall behind them and the ceiling above. The only light illuminating the narrow staircase now was what little sunlight leaked in through the irregularly spaced and boarded up windows along the climb.
  The thick dust was undisturbed ahead of her and she left not only obvious footprints on the stairs, but also delicate handprints on the decidedly deteriorated railing, now only loosely bolted to the dingy walls. The queen doubted very seriously that it would hold her weight at all if she happened to miss a step, so dry-rotted had the wood become. Idly she thought that this was bound to ruin her dress and that she should really get back to more wholesome surroundings. Her need for solitude overwhelmed her distaste for the grimy stairwell however, and she continued upward despite the filth that was beginning to blacken the hem of her sumptuous green gown. She did make a mental note to have the tower cleaned at least yearly from now on, though. It just simply was not sanitary.
  Her musings were cut short as she finally reached the top of the long staircase, and despite the long years that stretched in between she felt a little of the old dread as she approached the doorway to Queen Arglist's old chambers. Her predecessor had also sought the solitude of this lonely tower. Snow White the child had never understood why her stepmother had hated her so much. Snow White the queen still did not excuse the woman, but did think she understood her a bit better.
  After Snow White's real mother had died, the nobles of her father's court had pressured the young king to take another bride with the hopes of producing a male heir. The incomparably beautiful then-Lady Arglist had been his choice but had sadly proven to be barren shortly after their marriage. The new queen had endured no small amount of contempt and ill will from the nobility because of this deficiency and the King's beloved little girl was a constant reminder of her failure. Snow White herself understood somewhat what that was like.
  When she had not become pregnant shortly after her marriage to Charming, there had been not a few nobles calling on the prince to put her aside or to take a concubine or mistress at least so that the line of succession could be ensured. Charming had of course flatly refused to even remotely entertain the idea. The nobility could hardly openly criticize their prince and future king, so all of their ire and ill will had been directed at Snow White, who they felt was exuding her own selfish influence to the detriment of her prince and their two kingdoms.
  They did it in subtle ways. Anything overt would have been swiftly and mercilessly punished by old King Justice and then revisited in kind by the fiercely protective prince. Mostly their abuse had been passive and the newlywed princess found herself the victim of frequent and unfortunate "oversights". Some preferred methods had been failing to invite her to significant social gatherings, seeking to exclude her from the amusements of the Court whenever possible, inexplicable errors in her clothing or unfortunate cleaning accidents at the laundry prior to important official occasions, not to mention the positively horrendous gossip that the court Ladies in particular engaged in about her behind her back.
  That had all changed of course as the Queen reached her mid thirties, when Raven had been born. She had also gotten some measure of recompense from her worst abusers once she officially had become queen. Many of them found themselves the unlucky recipient of an extremely far flung ambassadorship or sent into the wild frontier as a royal envoy of some sort, anything to remove them from the Court. That honestly had been more Charming's doing than her own however. She would have left it alone all together after everything was said and done, but in any case it had not been an easy road to follow for her. It was probably a very large reason why she so disliked the current nobility even now and avoided their company whenever possible.
  Queen Arglist had had no such relief, however. When Snow White had reached about eleven years of age, her father the king had died unexpectedly of a fever. That then put Queen Arglist in the unenviable position of acting as regent to the child of another woman, in an unfriendly Court, where she was poised to be replaced and rendered totally irrelevant as soon as said child came of age. Realization of this fact had fueled her initial bitterness to flames of hatred at her young stepdaughter for the mere fact of her existence. She could not get back at the nobles who spurned her, but she could take some measure of vengeance on the young princess.
  Arglist had been beautiful, but petty. Originally after the death of the king it had amused her sufficiently to dress the heir to the throne in rags and force her to perform menial tasks in the queen's own chambers. All the nobles who protested the treatment were summarily banished from Court, until the once lively castle became nearly deserted. The abuse had been insufferable from the beginning, but as the young princess had grown in age and beauty, approaching ever nearer the inevitable day when she would be named Queen in her stepmother's stead, the woman's designs had turned more murderous.
  Snow White shook her head at the memory as she stared fixedly at the heavy wooden door in front of her. She remembered it as a portal to misery. There had been so many times when she had been roused out of bed early in the morning or late at night to come to these chambers and wash the queen's hair or clean up the queen's spilled food or drink, or polish the queens brass, or scrub the queen's floor, or any number of other meaningless tasks totally inappropriate for a future ruler. Then to add insult to injury her efforts had never been judged sufficient. Sometimes she was beaten, more often simply berated for her stupidity and incompetence. The older woman had sought any way possible to make the pretty young princess feel low. The dread she had felt in her childhood returned almost as forcefully now as she put her hand tentatively to the hard oaken door to her stepmother's onetime bedchambers.
  As Snow White's ivory fingers brushed the rough wooden surface she almost retreated back down the stairs the way she had come, but chided herself almost immediately. It was just a door and beyond that just a room. Her tormentor who had once dwelt within was long dead. Charming had seen to that. He had always taken care of her and made her feel safe, just as her father had done before his death. The horrible woman had been executed for high treason against the crown. The former regent queen could no longer hurt her. It was just a room. The present queen took a deep breath and pushed the heavy door open. It moved only slowly with a great groan of protest.
  A sudden flurry of movement and great cacophony of sound made her nearly jump out of her skin and she shrank back into the stairway. Though her pounding heart felt like it had jumped nearly into her throat, she managed a chuckle at her own foolishness. Just a roosting flock of pigeons. She had startled them and they had taken flight, nothing more.
  The former queen's chambers showed obvious evidence of the birds' long time residence. It was gently lit by the early afternoon sun through several large unshuttered windows that also admitted a gentle warm spring breeze. These had probably allowed the new tenants' entrance. Though all of the furniture had been covered with canvas dust covers, everything bore the stain of years of successive nestings and generations of bird droppings. These Halloweenesque furniture ghosts were then stacked all around with unwanted boxes upon boxes of whatever odds and ends from other locations about the castle that had not been discarded. These too bore signs of the birds' habitation, many torn into by tiny claws and contents strewn or serving as the housing for nests. One old nest that was immediately within her view had obviously been at least partially constructed from frayed bits of cloth from the former queen's wardrobe. Another contained bits of dyed wicker that may once have been a little woven box or spring hat. A dead rat skeleton lay in one corner, and a partially uncovered loveseat had nearly all of the stuffing drug out of it and strewn about the room. The ceiling was heavily draped with obscuring cobwebs.
  In the midst of all this disarray Snow White mentally contrasted the now with what had been. The large canopy bed in which Arglist had slept was pushed squarely against the wall opposite where it had been when the former queen dwelt here and the numerous wardrobes and dressers that contained the vain queen's numerous dresses and gowns had been pushed all together in one corner of the room. Most of the fine furniture the former queen had used was piled unceremoniously against a third wall. In fact, nothing was as it had been before, Snow White thought.
  Suddenly something caught Snow White's eye, a silvery glint that jogged her memory. She amended her previous thought at the sight. Nothing was as it had been but for the large full-length gilded mirror bolted to the wall opposite the doorway where Snow White now stood.
  This she remembered. It had been precious to Arglist. Snow White remembered the slender queen standing before the huge looking glass turning this way and that in whatever outfit she had just bought for herself. Arglist had talked to the mirror as well. For someone so obsessive about their own beauty, it had always puzzled Snow White that the other woman had seemed so unsure of herself in private, always asking the mirror if she really was the most beautiful woman in all the land, if she really was the most desirable. What was more, although Snow White had been little more than a child at the time and now she was sure that it had been merely the fanciful imaginings of childhood, she distinctly remembered the mirror talking back. Of course she was never supposed to see what the former queen had been doing. Whenever she had been caught watching it had meant a severe beating and a swift dismissal. She had honestly never really in her life ever gotten a good look it and wondered again as in her youth why the other woman had been so secretive about the thing. Slowly, almost cautiously, she approached its clean silvery surface.
  The first thing that struck her was that the huge looking glass did not seem marred by the same coating of dust and bird droppings that seemed to blanket everything else in the room. In fact, had the queen not seen the undisturbed nature of the dust on the stairway leading up here and the generally stagnant condition of the room itself, she would have sworn that someone had come and wiped the whole thing down just this morning so sparklingly clean did it appear. She took another few steps toward the great mirror.
  "Mirror?" the queen queried uncertainly. Nothing. All she saw in its sparkling silvery depths was herself as she had always been, black of hair, pale of feature. Maybe she was a bit heavier than in her youth and perhaps she had a few more lines and wrinkles with just a touch more gray in her onyx hair, but still she was the same Snow White. She was being silly and the queen smiled to herself ruefully. A talking mirror indeed! She turned to go.
  "Who summons me?"
  The deep, onerously slow voice froze Snow White in her tracks and she turned back toward the mirror slowly. She could think of nothing to say.
   "Who is there?" The huge silvery looking glass asked again. The voice seemed to warp and change into something sounding a bit more human. Snow White honestly thought that it sounded vaguely familiar. "Have you returned to me at last Arglist? It has been so long..."
  "Who speaks to the Queen?" Snow White asked in return, trying to put on her most regal sounding voice. Although she feared that it quavered more than a little bit.
  "I can barely make out your words dearest," The mirror continued plaintively. "Step closer..."
Reluctantly Snow White complied and asked the same question again. "Who addresses the Queen?"
  "Has it been so long that you've forgotten me dearest?" The mirror continued dolefully. "It is I as I have ever been since you sealed my spirit in this glass. It is I ever since the day my body failed me..."
  Very slowly a vaguely human shaped form began to coalesce in the mirror and Snow White caught her breath. Gradually the shape grew more obvious, the features more clear until Snow White could make out a tall muscular man in the mirror. His eyes were so brown that they almost looked black and his hair was darker still. He had strong high cheekbones and a merry sparkle in his eyes. Although the image was of a much younger man than the queen had ever remembered she recognized him immediately.
  "So tell me my wife," continued the man in the mirror conversationally. "How is our daughter? How is our Snow White?"
  The queen fell to her knees before the tall looking glass and pressed her face and hands against it almost violently. Through all the years and all the struggles, even though years dead, the evil woman had still found a way to hurt her. She sobbed at the unfairness of it all. What had the hideous old witch done?
  "Father!" She cried brokenly clawing at the silvery surface of the mirror. "What has she done to you? I thought you years dead and here I find you trapped in this horrible place in this unnatural existence!"
  "Why... Snow White!" The apparition in the glass responded happily. "It is you! I'm so glad you are feeling better. You stepmother told me of your illness... She did not say it to me but I knew that she feared you would not survive... But come! That is all over now stand before me my princess and let me look at you!"
  "Father," moaned the queen forlornly. "What is the meaning of this? What are you talking about? I do not understand. How did Arglist do this to you? What can I do to help?"
  "Where is your mother, by the way?" Asked the apparently oblivious King. "I wish to look on her beautiful face once more... There is only one more beautiful after all..." He added the last with a grin.
  "If you mean Arglist my father, she is years dead. I myself am no longer the little girl you recall." She stood and met her father's eyes seriously, almost coldly, though still somewhat in shock at the sudden unexpected meeting and unnatural nature of the encounter. "My hair is graying, my skin wrinkles and sags and turns to chalk. My lips fade to gray and my eyes grow heavy with the weight of years and lose their sparkle. I am becoming old and she who was your wife and my tormentor is long dead! How is it that you remain? What has that witch done to you?!"
  "Snow White," he addressed her seriously with a bit of a scowl. "I know you and your stepmother do not always get along, but please do not refer to her so in my presence. Often have I chided her as well in your regard. I would that my two pretty girls get along. Can you not manage that for me? May I not have peace in my own home?
  "So often did she come to me and tell me of the cruelty of my nobles." He continued lecturingly. "If I had been able to continue along in body as I once did I might have put an end to it. I think perhaps she blamed you a bit. That was not fair of course, but she always felt a bit of a failure because of her inability to give me an heir. She deserves your sympathy and understanding my princess, not your ire.
  "I told her that it did not matter, that I had an heir who would marry well and see the line continued, but she could not take comfort in that. Always she tormented herself with what she did not have. Always she compared herself to your mother and even to you! When I grew ill I realized that I could not leave her in such a state. So I had my spirit trapped within this mirror upon the death of my body to be a help and a guide to her. It troubled me deeply when she said you had fallen ill so that you could not leave your bed to come and see me. I always missed you..."
  "You always take her side! Why do you love her more than me?" Screamed Snow White as viciously as she had ever said anything in her life. As many years, as many decades as had already passed, the old bitterness she had secretly harbored toward her father came boiling back. "She lied father! She kept you from me! That among other things she did to me to bring me low, are unforgivable! But did you not hear me? She is dead! Long dead! And I'm glad! I know the stories about her among the people. I heard the rumors of the Witch Queen and her magic mirror, but I never believed it to be you! She tried to kill me! She tried to poison me! Do you care nothing at all about that?
  "How many nights did I cry myself to sleep missing you? How many times did I pray fervently that I would wake up from my nightmare and you and mother would be back beside me! And yet you tell me to be without ire?
  "Every morning I awoke! Every morning you were gone! You should have been there! I needed you and you were gone! You brought that... that woman into our home! You took her to your bed! Then you left her with me all by myself, nothing more than a child to deal with her terrible jealousy and hatred! It was all your fault! She made my life miserable!" She took a deep breath and her eyes blazed. "I hate her! Why did you leave me all alone? I was so lonely! I needed you! I needed you..." She trailed off tearfully unable to say more.
  "Indeed..." The shape in the mirror changed again to a nondescript, vaguely human shape. The voice returned to its original deep, resonant tones. "As you said yourself, she is long dead... As is he. Wherefore then does this anger spring?"
  "You are not my father." Snow White breathed in horror taking a staggering step away from the shimmering magical looking glass. The insidious device had taken her off guard and made her reveal some of her most private emotions, some of the least charitable thoughts in her heart. She had loved her father dearly and never wanted to sully the happy memories of him by admitting her anger and hurt at what he had done to her, whether he had meant it or not. The looking glass had made her say things that she had never revealed to anyone before, not even to Charming. She refocused her outrage on the strange magical device before her.
  "You are some... some demon thing!" She cried accusingly in horror as much at the deeply buried anger it had awakened within her as at the realization that she had not really been talking to her father. "What do you want from me?"
  "I am nothing of the sort." Scoffed the mirror darkly. "And as for what I want, nothing at all. I simply do that which mirrors do. You look in. I show you a reflection of yourself. Nothing more. Your stepmother thought herself to be beautiful, but I showed her the ugliness that existed within her as well. She asked me then who there was more beautiful than she was and again I showed her. Some people are frightened of their own reflection, I've found. They do not want to examine themselves too closely, for fear of what they will see. For fear of what others might discover. Arglist was such a one, but what of Snow White? Dare you look more deeply?"
  "I don't trust you." Stated Snow White shakily. "I don't believe you!"
  "Whether you believe me or not is immaterial." Answered the mirror flatly. "Your reflection is what your reflection is. Either you will look or you will not. Either you will believe or you will not. I have but shown you a very small piece of yourself, yet it is one that you have tried to hide. It is but one that causes you pain. You are in pain are you not?"
  Snow White could not answer immediately. She did not want to believe the mirror. Rather she wanted to pick up something heavy and smash the hateful thing into a million pieces, but she also clearly heard the ring of truth in its words. Slowly, wordlessly, and much more tentatively than before, she approached its shimmering surface once more and looked in.
  The vague form solidified again and her heart skipped a beat at what she saw. Golden hair, piercing blue eyes, firm youthful skin, and dressed in full ceremonial regalia, her Charming stood as regally handsome as the first day she had laid eyes on him so many years ago. Snow White knew that it could not really be him. She had stood over the tomb of his fathers as they laid his body in place and sealed the mausoleum doors shut behind him. Yet, there he was before her, as youthful and dashing as ever he had been. He regarded his princess, his queen sadly.
  "You cannot follow me my love, yet you try and try and try." He murmured sadly. "And you have left our princess alone..."
  "What my love?" Snow White felt the tears rising to her eyes and into her throat as she spoke. She knew it was just the mirror now. She knew it was nothing more than an illusion, but it sounded so like him! Even this brief glimpse of Charming struck straight to her core. "I don't understand."
  "Though you seem to think otherwise, I did not abandon you, my heart. I did not wish to leave you." He began as carefully and gently as he always treated his beloved wife and queen. He chided her, but his voice was still filled with love. "Your father did not wish to leave you either, but it was not our choice to make. The time appointed to every man is his own and no other's, and yet you would make my end yours as well. I wanted to remain with you but I did not wish this... You cling to the ghost of my memory and have forgotten to live, my dear, dear Snow White... Where I have gone you cannot follow, not yet... but do not forget to live in the intervening time until you can come to me. We will be together again. Do not doubt it. It is as sure a thing as my love for you and yours for me ever was... But do not hasten it... Do not leave Raven alone as I have had to leave you. I had no choice. You abandon our daughter voluntarily... I must go. You must stay, but I beg you to look around. You are not nearly as alone as you think... I am sorry for this pain I have caused you. I wish you to be happy again... I love you..." He began to fade.
  "Wait Charming!" She cried desperately, again pressing her hands and face against the cool reflective surface. "Please don't leave me again! I cannot bear it again! Come back to me! Come back to me! Come back..." The queen collapsed into an inelegant heap weeping every bit as bitterly as the day her husband had died. It felt like her heart was breaking again. Despite his words, she still felt abandoned and alone. The pain of it was so great that she did not know if she could remember how to live again, how to be happy.
  Again the surface roiled and boiled and changed. A young face not unlike her own looked back at her. Beautiful blue eyes regarded the Snow White's dark brown ones tearfully. "Where are you mother?" The girl cried looking this way and that as if not seeing the queen right in front of her eyes. "I know I love Edel, but I'm still nervous. I'm still scared... I don't know how to be married! I don't know how to be a wife or a queen! I don't know what to do at all! I need you! Where are you? I have to do this without daddy. I cannot do this with out you too! Please don't leave me! Please come back!"
  "Oh Raven," Murmured Snow White tearfully. She turned her own tear stained face to look up at her daughter's, so like her own, so like his. The words her daughter spoke cut to her heart. They were too near what she had spoken herself, deep in the night to her dead husband when no one was around to hear. The sense of loss tearing at her daughter was too close to her own. Raven grieved for her mother as one already dead and it broke the queen's heart to realize it, but she was not surprised by the revelation. Not really. The truth had been right before her eyes the whole time. She had been wallowing in her own grief for over a year now. In that time she had barely looked at her daughter. It was selfish she knew, but she had avoided even her because every time she looked at the girl, Charming's eyes looked back. "I'm sorry Raven, So sorry..."
  "He lives on in her you know." The mirror stated at length evenly as the young princess faded from its shimmering surface. "And so he shall in her children as well, and for that matter so shall you. He is not really gone if you but look for him, in her and in yourself. Remember, I but show you what already exists within you. It is nothing more than a reflection. In your heart you know my words to be true, because if you examine them you will discover what they are in fact... They are your own."
  "What should I do mirror?" Asked Snow White tearfully on her hands and knees in the filthy floor. She hardly looked a queen at all. Her beautiful green dress was sullied black in places from the dust and bird droppings. Her make-up was streaked all across her face from weeping and the delicate circlet on her brow was unevenly askew. Her soft graying black hair stood out in every direction. "I feel so much pain... I still feel so empty... I think I know what I should do, but it is so hard. I don't know if I can..."
  "I am a mirror." It stated flatly. "I do not offer advice. I simply show that which is. You must decide how to act on what you see. You can run from it or you can embrace it and deal with it. I think you can guess what your stepmother decided..."
  Queen Snow White nodded and quieted her tears. She took a deep steadying breath and wiped at her red-rimmed eyes. Then she stood regally and smoothed the front of her filthy dress. Without another word she turned and walked from the room. Snow White strode straight down the steps and on out into the hallway beyond. The queen did not skulk this time but strode confidently. Even though those she met along the way looked askance at their ruler's disheveled condition, she did not hide from them, but greeted each warmly, cordially, and politely, whether maid or noble.
Snow White made her way back to the throne room and seated herself slowly, not on her own throne, but upon that of her king. In short order, most likely at word of the queen's unusual behavior, Erfreut returned and bowed low before her on creaking, knobby knees. He looked Snow White up and down curiously before speaking.
  "Is everything well, my queen?" He asked hesitantly in his artificially cordial voice.
  "You recommended a diversion earlier today, my steward." Stated the queen levelly regarding her diminutive steward evenly.
  "I did my queen." He answered uncertainly.
  "Tell me then," she asked as robustly as she had said anything in a great long while. "Of those favored by Princess Raven, which of the minstrels are unengaged this evening?"
  "I believe that Minstrel Heiter is free." The elderly dwarf replied thoughtfully. "Lady Raven often requests him for her parties and such..."
  "Then please inform Minstrel Heiter that I request his presence in my chambers at dinner this evening and that of my daughter as well if she is otherwise unengaged..." She paused, but then smiled broadly. It was the first time she had made the gesture in quite a while and certainly the first time that she felt genuinely merry in the doing. "We have wedding plans to discuss."
Erfreut answered his queen's smile with a positively silly grin of his own. His courtly manners fell from him like an avalanche. "There's my Snowy!" He declared happily. "Welcome back."
  Snow White laughed merrily and her long time friend laughed right along with her. After a moment her last dwarf regarded his queen seriously.
  "If you don't mind my askin', my queen... What happened?"
  Snow White gave the little man a tiny smile. "I took a good long look in the mirror, my friend... Charming would not want me to go on mourning him forever and I've been neglecting Raven. I've been selfish and have not helped her sufficiently in planning what should be the happiest day of her life..."
  "That he would not have wanted, Snowy." The old steward stated kindly, offering another gentle smile as he stepped upon the raised dais and took his queens hands once more in his own. "And Raven will be glad to have her mother back... I understand she is a bit... Nervous."
  "I know Erfreut." She replied nodding seriously. "I pretended that I did not for a long time because I could not..." She stopped and amended herself. "Because I did not want to deal with it, but I know. My daughter and I have much to talk about. A wedding can be stressful, even a bit frightening... To say nothing of the honeymoon!" They both laughed, but as Erfreut turned to carry out his instructions Snow White called him back. "Oh! One more thing... When you plan dinner this evening have the chef prepare whatever it is Raven likes best, I'm sure he knows."
  "I'm sure he does, Majesty." He smiled up at his friend once more. "I will see to the details, my Lady... If I might say so... and at the risk of sounding impudent..."
  "You are welcome to be impudent when ever you wish my old friend." Laughed the queen in genuine amusement at the wizened dwarf.
  "Well then, I'll say it... I'll be sure and see to everything... And I think it's about damned time too." Chided the old dwarf smilingly before bowing his way out of the room. Snow White laughed at the frank little man as he went. Then she called for her sorely neglected ladies-in-waiting to help her get cleaned up for her upcoming, festive evening.
  That night mother and daughter had an extremely entertaining evening, perhaps the first for both of them since the King had died. The sumptuous dinner was followed by music, and music by a very candid discussion about weddings, marriage, and even just a touch about motherhood. Although, it should be noted that Princess Raven was not nearly as interested in the latter as she was about the upcoming marriage and what was to be expected of her as not only the future queen, but also the more general worries about being a good wife for her husband. Snow White enjoyed the exchange. It reminded her of her own marriage to Charming so long ago.
The girl seemed honestly scandalized about what would be expected of her on her wedding night, but mother assured daughter that it was actually quite enjoyable and something to look forward to rather than to fear. Her daughter's innocence and naivete on the subject was as endearing as it was almost horrifying to the queen when she thought about how near she had come to leaving the girl so ignorant about matters of love. She still saw Charming in Raven's eyes. Snow White still felt the pain of her husband's passing, but it was a bittersweet pain now, not the hollow, aching misery there had been before. She began to find the faintest glimmer of hope that perhaps in fact she could one day be happy again.
  Two weeks later Princess Raven married Prince Edel wearing her mother's wedding dress before the entire kingdom. Snow White gave her away with Erfreut beside her looking on as a guest of honor and friend of the family. Together the two old friends smiled on the newlywed couple with sincere joy. Much feasting and celebrating ensued and the queen was as merry as anyone else there.
  The years passed and Raven and Edel had many children to begin filling the empty space in the old queen's heart. Although she still missed her king dearly she rediscovered the joy in her life. Even after dear Erfreut passed on she filled the empty hole that he left in her heart with the happy memories she had shared with him and the new ones she was making with her family.
  Snow White never again climbed the narrow stair to Arglist's tower, but she did see to it's yearly cleaning and the eviction of the resident pigeons. The mirror stayed right where ever it had been and the queen had no desire to look into its depths. This was not because she feared what she would see however, but rather because she already knew. The magic mirror like any other only showed that which was right in front of it and Snow White felt she saw that quite clearly now.
  Her own vanity table glass was sufficient to the task now. As she stared into its very ordinary depths every morning she still divined important truths about herself. She saw a queen ruling her small kingdom prosperously and at peace with her neighbors. She saw a dutiful mother finally available to her daughter and even befriending her woman to woman rather than simply mother to child. She saw an aging grandmother surrounded by her little ones who adored her. She saw a queen that had finally released the bitterness and pain of the past. She saw a lonely little girl who was lonely no longer. But most importantly, she saw a princess of raven hair and skin of purest snow with lips like the red, red rose who had finally at long, long last found her happy ending, her happily ever after. And so she remained to the end of her days, until at last she and her king were finally reunited.