Faerietale

by Stephanie Rabig

  Unless, Lamia thought, one possessed a few tricks.

  She laid the dress out on the ground, then ran her hands down its length. The dress expanded at the breast, hips, and waist, and Cybele laughed. "Oh, if you ever meet Arachne you simply must teach her how to do that! She would adore you for it."

  "I'm sure she would," Lamia said, smiling. "Would you mind terribly if I tried this on?"

  "Not at all, go right in!"

  Lamia stepped into the newcomer's small quarters, looking for anything that might be of use to her as she changed. Several photographs-- some of a dark-haired woman who looked close to Cybele in age. In a few of the pictures they had their arms around each other. Sisters, she'd guess. One or two of an older man and woman and a young girl. She licked her lips. The girl would make a fine spread on her table. Also a picture or two of the Prince, which amused her. According to all reports she'd been unfaithful to the man; she'd expect pictures of someone else.

  Other than that, there was very little personal. Simply another rack of clothes, and face paints, and nail paints, and everything else imaginable to decorate one's body.

  Foolish, she thought. Had Cybele honestly thought there would be a point to them here?

  Smoothing down the dress, she stepped back outside.

  "You look amazing," Cybele said. "Is there anything else you would like to try on?"

  "No, I think this is exactly what I was looking for," Lamia said, smiling demurely. "Thank you so much. And as much as I hate to come here and take something and run, I really need to make dinner and get some sleep. Early shift tomorrow."

  "Of course. Well, come by whenever you like. I love having company."

  "Thank you."

  Lamia strolled away, her smile broadening. Trusting, impulsive, and eager to make friends. She would be perfect.

  ***

  He owed her his everything.

  She had lifted him from the dirt, consoled him in the wake of his son’s death, given him a purpose to live for. There was no man in the kingdom more loyal to the Red Queen than the Huntsman.

  He had thought his devotion was boundless.

  Until the day the Queen came to him, a smile frozen on her porcelain face, and gave him the order. To take her daughter to the deepest, darkest hollow in the woods. To use his sharpest skinning knife and cut out her heart. To bring it back as proof of her orders followed.

  And what was he to do? She was his Queen, he her servant. So he saddled a pair of horses. Helped the Princess onto her mount. And led the way into the old woods.

  “I heard you were a father,” Snow White said softly.

  “Once.”

  “Did you have a son, or a daughter?”

  “A son. William.”

  “And how . . . how did he die?”

  “Starvation. I failed him. I was the huntsman of the Village. It was a hard winter. And I failed to provide.”

  His words were terse and simple. But Snow could see the story he did not tell behind his eyes, so very old and tired in his weathered, tanned face. In those eyes, she could almost see the white reflection of the snow that had smothered his Village and decimated the deer.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Snow said, knowing they were hollow, empty words but unable to provide anything better.

  “When your mother learned of our plight, she came to us with food. Medicine. And she gave me this,” he said, a gloved hand reaching over his shoulder to touch the crossbow hanging over his back. “It’s bespelled. A bolt loosed from the bow will always hit its intended mark. No one else starved that winter.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “I owe the Queen a great deal,” he said softly.

  Snow White was silent. They rode on, the hooves of the horses clopping softly against the leaf-strewn forest floor. The sunlight on their faces was dappled by the swaying branches above them

  The Huntsman watched the Princess from the corner of his eye. She sat with a fluid grace, confident in the saddle. She was a woman of uncommon strength, though was it any surprise? She was her mother’s daughter, though perhaps softer at the edges. Her dark hair lay across her pale shoulders in a shining cascade; a sudden breeze rippled the strands, pulling several across her pale face. She brushed them back swiftly with one hand.

  She was a fine woman. The Huntsman was aware of this, in the somewhat detached way of his. Not only beautiful but sensible, with firm convictions and a strong will to serve her people. As any good ruler should possess. She would make a fine Queen.

  And yet her mother wished her destroyed. She had demanded that he smother the spark in her eyes; cut the very heart of this noble figure from her chest. Her own child. Her flesh and blood.

  What parent could desire such a thing?

  Snow knew he was watching her. What ticked behind the placid face she couldn’t know, but of one thing she was certain: she was not meant to leave these woods alive. This was to be her funeral parade, with only one attendant to stand at her grave.

  And she was calm. Her heart barely thudded beneath her ribs, and she felt cold and solid in the afternoon sun. She was riding to her death, no doubt at her own mother’s command, and she was not shocked. That was the only thing that truly frightened her: her utter lack of surprise. How terrible, to know in the marrow of your bones that your own mother wanted you dead? That you had become a mere hindrance to her, an obstacle that necessitated removal, rather than a child she had borne, rather than an individual with dreams and desires and a soul determined. She was no longer Snow White, no longer a Princess of the golden throne. She was simply another rebel now. A fool who had dared to go against the will of the Red Queen.

  But she was not a fool. She had ridden into these woods of her own free will, fully aware of her slim chances. At the palace, she would have been cut down in the instant that she showed disobedience. There would have been a story already in place to explain her death at the hands of the Guard. But she had hoped, however narrow the chance was, that she might be able to escape in the woods. The Huntsman was a formidable man, yes, and he often unsettled her. But he was still only a man. A man could be outpaced, or hidden from, perhaps even overpowered if she were lucky.

  And then her eyes strayed to the heavy mahogany crossbow across his back, and she knew it would be futile to run.

  “Huntsman,” she said suddenly, shattering the silence so abruptly that a bird shrieked from a nearby tree and fled into the sun. They had reached a small clearing, heavily overgrown, vibrantly green and red. “Let’s not pretend any more.”

  “Aye, Princess,” he said heavily. Did he sigh, or was it only a passing breeze she heard?

  Snow dismounted, untucking the skirts from her belt. The hem of her dress brushed against the leaves in a susurrus. A cloud passed overhead and cast a creeping, cold shadow over them. In the gloom she looked ethereal, nearly glowing in her white dress. A woman become ghost.

  The Huntsman dismounted as well, his worn boots strangely silent in the undergrowth.

  “What is it to be?” Snow White asked, eyes steadily fixed on his. “A bolt through the heart? A knife to my throat?”

  “I was to cut out your heart,” the Huntsman said softly, drawing the bright blade from his belt. “Your mother wanted it brought back, as proof.”

  “Of course she would,” Snow said, and there was a deep sadness to her voice. Not anger, nor fear, nor condemnation. Just sorrow. And he could not tell whom it was intended for. “Mother doesn’t care to leave things to chance.”

  They stood for a long, silvered moment. Two strange statues in the forest: she in white and he in brown. His hood was raised, and in the shadowy half-light she could only see his eyes. Deep blue and gleaming. She liked his eyes. They made him human. Showed that beneath the exterior that had been carved and weathered and shaped like wood, there still breathed a man. He carried his life in his eyes, a small fire in the cold darkness of the woods.

  There was the faintest of rustles, and they both turned in unison. Int
o the clearing had stepped a herd of deer.

  They were the most magnificent creatures he had ever seen. Huge, ruddy beasts with prodigious antlers on display. The does shied back while the stags pawed the ground and shook their heads restlessly, eyeing the human interlopers with dark eyes full of warning. This was their land, they said in the silent language of animals. Their herd. Their time.

  He had to remember to breathe; he had been that taken with their beauty. He looked to Snow White, and could see she was just as moved. There were tears in her eyes, and in that heartbeat he could almost hear her thoughts as if they shared one mind.

  At least I had one more moment of beauty before the end.

  That was it. The moment that decided and changed everything. Before he could think again, before he could take another breath and allow the duty to crash down upon him with renewed force, he had pulled the crossbow from his back and fired into the herd.

  A single doe, barely more than a yearling and never a mother, fell to her side with a gentle, swaying crash. The herd bolted as one, scattering back into the trees and fading like mist in the sunlight.

  “What--” Snow White began to say with a gasp, but already he was striding across the clearing, knife in his hand.

  He pulled the bolt from the animal’s neck and plunged the knife into its warm chest, slicing through the skin and fat and muscle until he found the fist-sized organ he required. When he stood, hands dripping crimson, heart hot and slippery in his fingers, he knew he had not just killed a deer. He had killed a part of himself. The part that had been born the day the Red Queen came to his Village.

  But perhaps that was not a bad thing, after all.

  “You realize what must be done now,” he said to the Princess. He shoved the heart into a small leather pouch and tied the strap to his belt. “You may never see your people again. Should you be seen, they will kill you.”

  “And you,” she said.

  He shook his head, as if dismissing an inconsequential fly. “So long as your mother holds the throne, you must live as an outlaw. These woods are your home now.”

  “Yes,” she said. The slightest of shivers ran through her. For all her reading and wisdom, she knew very little about survival out here.

  “I doubt you will be friendless,” he said, in a gentler tone than she had ever heard before. “There are many rebels in this forest. You will find them, or they you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, once again feeling that they were empty words holding the place for something more meaningful that she could not grasp.

  “I am sorry, Princess,” he said, grabbing the reins of her horse. “That you ever had to face this.”

  “You have given me a chance, Huntsman. Something not even my own mother would grant. That is all that I require.”

  “Then farewell, Snow White. May I never see your face again.”

  And he was gone, lost amongst the trees.

  She went to the fallen deer and knelt beside it, and thanked it for its sacrifice on her behalf. Though it had been unintentionally given.

  ***

  It was not always apparent, but deep in the darker places of his heart, the Prince feared his women.

  Even as a child he had been in awe of them – his regal mother, tall and proud and beautiful, all sharp angles and cold feelings, rising imposingly above him wherever he went; his sister, Snow, fierce and passionate in her conviction, violent in that conviction's expression; and Red, the wide-eyed girl whose grandmother sometimes brought her forth from the woods to play on the castle grounds. Red, who had tempted him forth from under the guards' watchful eyes and, while leaning in for a kiss, broken two of his fingers.

  Snow had never forgiven Red for that, however quickly the broken digits had healed, and the Prince had never forgotten. Sometimes, in the shadows of his most pleasant dreams, he'd hear the snapping of small bones, and wake with a cry of pain.

  It was easier in the harem, where the women belonged to him. Amidst their charms and simpering promises, it was easy to forget how dangerous they could be, if only they were armed like Snow, like Red, like the Queen.

  He treated the harem like playthings most of the time, manipulating them and teasing them and giving them games to enact for his amusement. And there amongst the pretty baubles, all falling at his feet, he could forget how small his mother made him feel, how stupid he seemed next to Snow, how weak Red had made him realize he could be.

  But the illusion would be shattered, time and again, by summons from his mother; a call from Snow; a visit from Red. Red liked to appear, it seemed, when the Prince was most compromised, when he was at his most relaxed. He had always hated that trait about her – how easily she exposed him, how easily she made him feel fragile.

  They had begun a game of sorts, a dangerous flirtation: see who could humiliate the other more, who could unearth the most painful flaw in the other's past. The game was played with winks and smiles, coy glances and subtle gestures: fingers brushing lips, captive stares over glasses of wine – and then, the requests, innocent in tone but deadly in intent.

  Red liked to ask about his women. She liked to expose to the harem how little the Prince cared about them, how little he even knew of them. She liked to point out a specific girl and say, “And what was that one's name? What does she do when you're not busy with her? Does she have sisters? Where is she from?” And every time, the Prince would not know all the answers; and every time, the girl would look at him with broken eyes, eyes that wounded him more than he dared to admit.

  It was the eyes, too, that haunted his dreams sometimes. The eyes, and broken bones.

  But two could play at the games Red played so well; and the Prince had his own victories.

  “Red,” he said to her one day, while feasting in the harem. “Mother Miriam was of the woods, was she not?”

  Red, previously smiling, was immediately on her guard. The smile was still present, but it had gone thin and tight at the edges, the pleasantness lost from her eyes. “Yes,” she said, cautious. “You know that.”

  The Prince gifted her with a nod and a barely-concealed smile. “She is loyal though, isn't she? To my mother, to the crown?”

  “Of course.” Red reached for her glass of wine, all traces of her smile gone. “As am I.”

  “Yes, I know,” the Prince soothed. He leaned forward, displacing two girls who had been leaning on his chest. “Wasn't she once something of a wild woman, though? Very coarse and peasant-like, if I recall. I thought she even practiced some of the old forest arts. The backwards magic quite rightfully forbidden by my mother.”

  Red slammed the goblet back onto the table. Her expression was perfectly blank – a surer sign of her anger than any glint of rage. “It was not forbidden in those times,” she said. “My grandmother is of great service--”

  “Except for that time her magic failed to predict that assassination attempt on my mother. Am I right?” The Prince smiled, eyes glittering. His victory was nearing its completion.

  Red was silent for a moment. The Prince thought he saw her jaw clench, a vein throb, but it was difficult to tell in the lowered lighting of his rooms. “Forest magic only reveals the most important basics of the future,” she said finally. “It cannot reveal specifics.”

  The Prince guffawed. “So you know something of the old arts then?”

  Red met his eyes coldly. “Perhaps.”

  He smirked. “And you still use them, do you?”

  Red rose from her seat, fingers absently brushing the handle of her dagger. “I should be going.”

  “So soon?”

  “I have business to attend to,” Red replied, turning with a sharp swish of her cape. “I'll leave you to your whoring and your drinking.”

  That night, in the midst of a dream of his sister lying glassy-eyed in the middle of a muffled field of snow, the silence of the dreamy plain was broken by a sharp crack-- the crack of broken bones.

  When he awoke (screaming, he realized), it was to one of his harem
girls cowering in the corner, and Red, blank-faced above him, with his hand in hers.

  Two of his fingers were broken.

  “Some things are sacred,” said Red, “And some things not free for mockery, even between us.”

  For an instant, looking up into her face, the Prince felt himself shrinking. He was a child again, pulled into a hidden corner in his own garden, ruined by a girl with innocent eyes and ill intent. He was dwarfed by his mother, by his sister, by this woman-- they who had more conviction, more strength than he ever would.

  “Get out,” he hissed, grinding his teeth. “Get out.”

  When he blinked, Red had gone. The harem girl was leaning over him, crooning and wrapping his wounded hand.

  “Go away,” the Prince snarled. “Leave me alone!”

  Shocked into silence, the girl left.

  Up on his dais, the Prince cradled his hand, and let his darkness swallow him.

  Chapter Six

  Once Upon a Time...

  It was no use. He was never going to be good at this slingshot.

  Smee sighed, watching as all of the other Lost Boys hit the branches they were aiming at on the first try. Maybe he needed glasses.

  Then he frowned. What were glasses?

  He dismissed the thought. Small memories of the Old World came to him at the oddest moments sometimes.

  Then he saw something that interested him much more than a slender branch. One of the mermaids, sunning herself on a rock in the nearby Lagoon.

  He was certain he must have seen her before. He and Peter and the Lost Boys had flown over the Lagoon so many times, had counted how many mermaids there were, had played a game to see who could spot which color of tail first. So he'd seen her.

  He just hadn't noticed her.