A little touch of heavenly light (Snow White/Ravenna)
This is clearly part one of a WIP that I don't intend to finish (my inspiration, it vanished mighty quickly!), but it's words and they exist and so I figured I might as well share it. Whee, enthuuusiasm!
A little touch of heavenly light - Snow White and the Huntsman ; Snow White/Ravenna ; 2,000 words. ‘You cannot have my heart,’ you told her. Perhaps you spoke too soon.
I.
When Ravenna dies, so does death.
Your subjects call you a giver of miracles. They look at you with such adoring eyes; it makes you want to flee to dark corners and stay there. You’re still a little wary of sunlight, and sweet hungry gazes like those of your people - your subjects - seem so very sunlit. There’s not a one of them who doesn’t hunger for a piece of your heart. You can’t blame them, and yet.
I’m only a girl, you think when they look at you like a gift (when your huntsman stands close and fond, when William seems to find the prospect of making new memories easier to cherish than the ones you already share). I’m only a girl in a room, don’t you see.
Queens, you quickly learn, seldom have much time to go outside. You sit upon your throne - (her throne) - your father’s throne, and the people come to you. They line up and wait all day, patient, like they expect to find God instead of you. You take an old peasant woman’s fingers in your hand, and watch some of the pain ebb from her face. She looks lighter. Younger.
‘The pain is gone,’ she marvels. ‘Quite, quite gone.’
‘Is it?’ you ask, stupidly. You are still so bad at this, at talking. You haven’t had much practice, and forget that words ought to come out of your mouth instead of living in your head.
‘You angel,’ the old woman says, and you’re afraid she might begin to cry.
‘I’m not an angel,’ you say quickly. That’s the last lie you want to tell them all. An angel would smile easily; an angel would always know what to say.
‘Oh, you are,’ the old woman says, sounding surprised, as if she can’t quite believe that you’re the last to hear the news.
+
They say your heart is so pure, nothing would dare to die in its presence and sully it.
+
One of the women in the village is bested by childbirth; the child comes out shrieking heartily, but his mama bleeds and bleeds and fades, and cannot find the strength even to hold him in her arms. She bleeds all the blood she has, turning white, a flesh-burdened ghost, but her eyes still move and her fingers twitch. Her husband comes to you, shaking and tearstained, and has no time for reverence - just desperation.
‘Please,’ he pants, ‘please, she’s - God, God, there was so much blood, so much, and she ought to have died, but she hasn’t, she can’t - she’s waiting for you, you see, Your Highness, waiting; she knows you’ll save her. Of course you’ll save her, won’t you? My wife.’
Your huntsman looks at this man like he’s staring into his own soul. You get up from the throne without a thought or a breath, feeling so much better when you’re moving. (So much better, because of this man’s pain; guilt digs its nails into you; can your heart really be so pure? But not now, not now, this is not the time for doubt.) The huntsman follows you through stone halls and out into the gentle gray daylight; his hand is at your elbow, but you know somehow that you are the one guiding him.
The cottage is small and dark, firelit and choking with blood. You know you ought to swoon - even the huntsman looks ill, just for a moment - but you stand taller. A stupid part of you has missed the dark. You can only spare a second for relief, though; then the midwife stands aside, the babe in her arms and despair on her face.
‘She’s my daughter,’ she tells you faintly. ‘Have you ever heard of such a thing? A midwife’s daughter, so bad at this.’
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ the husband says, sounding a little mad. He laughs, an awful soblike laugh. ‘The queen has come. The queen has come-’
‘I can’t do everything,’ you say, quiet enough for just the huntsman’s ears. ‘I can’t put her blood back in - what am I meant to do?’
‘Try,’ the huntsman says shortly, and squeezes your arm with strong trusting fingers.
The dying woman looks at you, and a horrible joy takes over her wasting face.
You search your soul.
‘Shh,’ you sigh to her, ‘shh’ - it’s all you can find.
All you can do.
+
Peace does not nip at a new queen’s heels, even when that queen is you. It’s a slow thing in coming.
Your soldiers return from their old battles in bits. You wonder at their returning at all; you wonder at their loyalty. Don’t they hate you? Won’t they realize what a curse they are under, all courtesy of your pure heart?
+
‘I tried - to put her out of her misery,’ the suffering husband says; you’ve sneaked out of the castle to call on him. No one has ever looked so old to you, not even Ravenna as she died. ‘Didn’t want to. God, I didn’t - but we decided it was the best thing. Much better than just to keep her there waiting. But - it didn’t work. We put a pillow over her face, but- She just keeps breathing. She can’t even sleep. Just breathes and breathes, her eyes open-’
‘I’m sorry,’ you interrupt, willing your voice to loosen for once, to sound true and full of feeling.
‘It’s not your fault,’ he insists.
You feel sometimes as if you’ve blinded all of them. And they just keep thanking you, ignoring their hollowed eye sockets.
+
A cart rolls over a dog, crunching its bones, and the poor creature howls the whole night through - howls that would better be called screams; there is so much human pain in them. You toss and turn, wishing you were deaf, writhing alone in the bed that was hers.
+
You’ve never thought of yourself as a witch, but magic is as eager to serve you as everyone and everything else is.
Somehow, you know. In the very bones of you, you know that she would wake up, if you told her to.
+
‘It’s madness,’ your huntsman says.
‘And a world without death isn’t?’
‘We’ll find another way. You’ve already suffered enough at the hands of the bitch, there’s no sense in-’
‘Don’t call her that,’ you interrupt, sharp as a spearpoint and loud. The air in the throne room seems to flutter, ghost birds flinching at queenly ghost tones.
He goes silent, but his face doesn’t follow suit: what the hell are you thinking, woman? Have you lost your wits? his frown shouts.
‘I’m waking her up,’ you say.
‘No one can bring back the dead.’
‘I can. I can bring her back to me.’
‘And I can put a knife in her heart - or, hell, an ax to her neck - the second you let breath back into those damned lungs.’
‘You wouldn’t disobey me,’ you say, and force the words not to rise up into a question.
‘I’m your huntsman,’ he says, cocking his head at you like a faithful dog. ‘I’d kindly advise, my queen, that you let me do what I do best, yeah?’
‘I’m your queen,’ you agree, ‘and you forget your place.’
He laughs, too good a friend to believe you.
You are not in a laughing mood.
+
You ought to feel like an expert, having once been a dead woman yourself. You don’t. You still haven’t a clue why you woke up. You suspect that maybe your dreams decided to push you right out of them. You did dream. They never tell anyone that, about death.
You dreamed of her. She put her hand to your left breast and traced a cool flirtation there with her fingernails; you waited for her to dig them in deep, waited until the waiting itself thumped in you like a restless heartbeat. You met her gaze and dared her to do it.
‘What would it take,’ she mused (the most beautiful thing you had ever seen, this close), ‘to awaken you?’
+
Greta becomes your handmaiden, and feels, in a way, like your only friend. You love William dearly, and the huntsman too, but there is a kind of inevitability that hangs around them both. Friendship seems a fleeting thing in their company, something to wait out until you finally make up your mind.
The only time you ever kissed a man, you died. (And that wasn’t even a man.)
You would rather keep to yourself.
But it’s different with Greta; you are her savior too, and so she dotes on you, all easy smiles and easier laughter. She helps you undress for bed each night, her fingers so warm that you wish they would stay instead of doing brief dances across your back. Once, she grazes your left breast, and you turn bright red at the memory. When she asks why, you mumble something about dreams, and realize too late that you ought to have lied. She quirks an eyebrow at you, her face more tickled than unnerved.
You wonder if she would stay, if you ever were to ask. You’ve never had a bedfellow - not since you and William used to sneak away for naps in the field nearby, at least. This bed seems so vast. You don’t know how to fill it on your own.
Now, you owe it to her to tell her what you mean to do.
For the first time, her touch is brittle.
‘She’s a monster, your grace,’ she says, sounding so scared.
‘Monsters have always known how to mind me,’ you promise, and boldly take her hands in yours.
+
Your stepmother comes to life with a gasp, jerking up from the ground and death like the air has hands to coax her with.
‘I’m the queen now,’ you tell her, sitting beside her on the stone floor. ‘And if you try to hurt me, it will only hurt you, so - so save yourself the trouble. Please.’
She stares into your face, uncomprehending and very beautiful, breathing hard. You gave her back her beauty; it seemed too cruel, somehow, to humiliate her with the old age she worked so hard to outrun. Maybe it’s a punishment that she deserves, but ten years in a cell has made you tired of punishment.
You’re in that cell now. You’ve made it nicer though; a proper bed, and pillows and fine blankets. There’s a small table, piled with books and bowls of fruit. You haven’t skimped on the apples.
‘You foolish child,’ she says at last, with wonder instead of disdain. For a moment, you feel like a little girl again, awed by her beauty and the rich loveliness of her voice. (And this woman is to be a part of your family! How your small heart sang.)
‘I’m not a child,’ you remind yourself, and her.
‘No,’ she agrees, sneering slightly. It makes her look older. ‘Only a grown woman could be so foolish.’
How can you be so full of hate for what you are? you ask, glad for once that you’re in the habit of keeping your words inside.
‘Why am I here?’ she asks at last, crisply.
‘I need you.’
‘And what of when I needed you? Must I remind you how obliging you were?’
‘Your beauty will stay with you,’ you tell her, standing. You should have done it sooner. ‘Your magic is gone. You won’t need it.’
‘What do you need of me then, o my queen?’ She draws out her words.
You tell her the truth: ‘Only your heart.’
She laughs. You know you’ll never be able to laugh like that. That’s a sound made only by people who have stared right into their own darkness. Who are allowed to.
‘Will you be taking it now?’ she asks, offering her bare chest. Her skin seems gold in the dim light. Something twitches to life in you.
‘There’s a dress on the bed,’ you say. ‘It gets cold at night.’
‘Your concern is very sweet,’ she mocks.
You leave her, but pause after a few steps. Turning back, you find her examining her own unlined hands. You’ve never seen someone who looked so in love before.
A little touch of heavenly light - Snow White and the Huntsman ; Snow White/Ravenna ; 2,000 words. ‘You cannot have my heart,’ you told her. Perhaps you spoke too soon.
I.
When Ravenna dies, so does death.
Your subjects call you a giver of miracles. They look at you with such adoring eyes; it makes you want to flee to dark corners and stay there. You’re still a little wary of sunlight, and sweet hungry gazes like those of your people - your subjects - seem so very sunlit. There’s not a one of them who doesn’t hunger for a piece of your heart. You can’t blame them, and yet.
I’m only a girl, you think when they look at you like a gift (when your huntsman stands close and fond, when William seems to find the prospect of making new memories easier to cherish than the ones you already share). I’m only a girl in a room, don’t you see.
Queens, you quickly learn, seldom have much time to go outside. You sit upon your throne - (her throne) - your father’s throne, and the people come to you. They line up and wait all day, patient, like they expect to find God instead of you. You take an old peasant woman’s fingers in your hand, and watch some of the pain ebb from her face. She looks lighter. Younger.
‘The pain is gone,’ she marvels. ‘Quite, quite gone.’
‘Is it?’ you ask, stupidly. You are still so bad at this, at talking. You haven’t had much practice, and forget that words ought to come out of your mouth instead of living in your head.
‘You angel,’ the old woman says, and you’re afraid she might begin to cry.
‘I’m not an angel,’ you say quickly. That’s the last lie you want to tell them all. An angel would smile easily; an angel would always know what to say.
‘Oh, you are,’ the old woman says, sounding surprised, as if she can’t quite believe that you’re the last to hear the news.
+
They say your heart is so pure, nothing would dare to die in its presence and sully it.
+
One of the women in the village is bested by childbirth; the child comes out shrieking heartily, but his mama bleeds and bleeds and fades, and cannot find the strength even to hold him in her arms. She bleeds all the blood she has, turning white, a flesh-burdened ghost, but her eyes still move and her fingers twitch. Her husband comes to you, shaking and tearstained, and has no time for reverence - just desperation.
‘Please,’ he pants, ‘please, she’s - God, God, there was so much blood, so much, and she ought to have died, but she hasn’t, she can’t - she’s waiting for you, you see, Your Highness, waiting; she knows you’ll save her. Of course you’ll save her, won’t you? My wife.’
Your huntsman looks at this man like he’s staring into his own soul. You get up from the throne without a thought or a breath, feeling so much better when you’re moving. (So much better, because of this man’s pain; guilt digs its nails into you; can your heart really be so pure? But not now, not now, this is not the time for doubt.) The huntsman follows you through stone halls and out into the gentle gray daylight; his hand is at your elbow, but you know somehow that you are the one guiding him.
The cottage is small and dark, firelit and choking with blood. You know you ought to swoon - even the huntsman looks ill, just for a moment - but you stand taller. A stupid part of you has missed the dark. You can only spare a second for relief, though; then the midwife stands aside, the babe in her arms and despair on her face.
‘She’s my daughter,’ she tells you faintly. ‘Have you ever heard of such a thing? A midwife’s daughter, so bad at this.’
‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ the husband says, sounding a little mad. He laughs, an awful soblike laugh. ‘The queen has come. The queen has come-’
‘I can’t do everything,’ you say, quiet enough for just the huntsman’s ears. ‘I can’t put her blood back in - what am I meant to do?’
‘Try,’ the huntsman says shortly, and squeezes your arm with strong trusting fingers.
The dying woman looks at you, and a horrible joy takes over her wasting face.
You search your soul.
‘Shh,’ you sigh to her, ‘shh’ - it’s all you can find.
All you can do.
+
Peace does not nip at a new queen’s heels, even when that queen is you. It’s a slow thing in coming.
Your soldiers return from their old battles in bits. You wonder at their returning at all; you wonder at their loyalty. Don’t they hate you? Won’t they realize what a curse they are under, all courtesy of your pure heart?
+
‘I tried - to put her out of her misery,’ the suffering husband says; you’ve sneaked out of the castle to call on him. No one has ever looked so old to you, not even Ravenna as she died. ‘Didn’t want to. God, I didn’t - but we decided it was the best thing. Much better than just to keep her there waiting. But - it didn’t work. We put a pillow over her face, but- She just keeps breathing. She can’t even sleep. Just breathes and breathes, her eyes open-’
‘I’m sorry,’ you interrupt, willing your voice to loosen for once, to sound true and full of feeling.
‘It’s not your fault,’ he insists.
You feel sometimes as if you’ve blinded all of them. And they just keep thanking you, ignoring their hollowed eye sockets.
+
A cart rolls over a dog, crunching its bones, and the poor creature howls the whole night through - howls that would better be called screams; there is so much human pain in them. You toss and turn, wishing you were deaf, writhing alone in the bed that was hers.
+
You’ve never thought of yourself as a witch, but magic is as eager to serve you as everyone and everything else is.
Somehow, you know. In the very bones of you, you know that she would wake up, if you told her to.
+
‘It’s madness,’ your huntsman says.
‘And a world without death isn’t?’
‘We’ll find another way. You’ve already suffered enough at the hands of the bitch, there’s no sense in-’
‘Don’t call her that,’ you interrupt, sharp as a spearpoint and loud. The air in the throne room seems to flutter, ghost birds flinching at queenly ghost tones.
He goes silent, but his face doesn’t follow suit: what the hell are you thinking, woman? Have you lost your wits? his frown shouts.
‘I’m waking her up,’ you say.
‘No one can bring back the dead.’
‘I can. I can bring her back to me.’
‘And I can put a knife in her heart - or, hell, an ax to her neck - the second you let breath back into those damned lungs.’
‘You wouldn’t disobey me,’ you say, and force the words not to rise up into a question.
‘I’m your huntsman,’ he says, cocking his head at you like a faithful dog. ‘I’d kindly advise, my queen, that you let me do what I do best, yeah?’
‘I’m your queen,’ you agree, ‘and you forget your place.’
He laughs, too good a friend to believe you.
You are not in a laughing mood.
+
You ought to feel like an expert, having once been a dead woman yourself. You don’t. You still haven’t a clue why you woke up. You suspect that maybe your dreams decided to push you right out of them. You did dream. They never tell anyone that, about death.
You dreamed of her. She put her hand to your left breast and traced a cool flirtation there with her fingernails; you waited for her to dig them in deep, waited until the waiting itself thumped in you like a restless heartbeat. You met her gaze and dared her to do it.
‘What would it take,’ she mused (the most beautiful thing you had ever seen, this close), ‘to awaken you?’
+
Greta becomes your handmaiden, and feels, in a way, like your only friend. You love William dearly, and the huntsman too, but there is a kind of inevitability that hangs around them both. Friendship seems a fleeting thing in their company, something to wait out until you finally make up your mind.
The only time you ever kissed a man, you died. (And that wasn’t even a man.)
You would rather keep to yourself.
But it’s different with Greta; you are her savior too, and so she dotes on you, all easy smiles and easier laughter. She helps you undress for bed each night, her fingers so warm that you wish they would stay instead of doing brief dances across your back. Once, she grazes your left breast, and you turn bright red at the memory. When she asks why, you mumble something about dreams, and realize too late that you ought to have lied. She quirks an eyebrow at you, her face more tickled than unnerved.
You wonder if she would stay, if you ever were to ask. You’ve never had a bedfellow - not since you and William used to sneak away for naps in the field nearby, at least. This bed seems so vast. You don’t know how to fill it on your own.
Now, you owe it to her to tell her what you mean to do.
For the first time, her touch is brittle.
‘She’s a monster, your grace,’ she says, sounding so scared.
‘Monsters have always known how to mind me,’ you promise, and boldly take her hands in yours.
+
Your stepmother comes to life with a gasp, jerking up from the ground and death like the air has hands to coax her with.
‘I’m the queen now,’ you tell her, sitting beside her on the stone floor. ‘And if you try to hurt me, it will only hurt you, so - so save yourself the trouble. Please.’
She stares into your face, uncomprehending and very beautiful, breathing hard. You gave her back her beauty; it seemed too cruel, somehow, to humiliate her with the old age she worked so hard to outrun. Maybe it’s a punishment that she deserves, but ten years in a cell has made you tired of punishment.
You’re in that cell now. You’ve made it nicer though; a proper bed, and pillows and fine blankets. There’s a small table, piled with books and bowls of fruit. You haven’t skimped on the apples.
‘You foolish child,’ she says at last, with wonder instead of disdain. For a moment, you feel like a little girl again, awed by her beauty and the rich loveliness of her voice. (And this woman is to be a part of your family! How your small heart sang.)
‘I’m not a child,’ you remind yourself, and her.
‘No,’ she agrees, sneering slightly. It makes her look older. ‘Only a grown woman could be so foolish.’
How can you be so full of hate for what you are? you ask, glad for once that you’re in the habit of keeping your words inside.
‘Why am I here?’ she asks at last, crisply.
‘I need you.’
‘And what of when I needed you? Must I remind you how obliging you were?’
‘Your beauty will stay with you,’ you tell her, standing. You should have done it sooner. ‘Your magic is gone. You won’t need it.’
‘What do you need of me then, o my queen?’ She draws out her words.
You tell her the truth: ‘Only your heart.’
She laughs. You know you’ll never be able to laugh like that. That’s a sound made only by people who have stared right into their own darkness. Who are allowed to.
‘Will you be taking it now?’ she asks, offering her bare chest. Her skin seems gold in the dim light. Something twitches to life in you.
‘There’s a dress on the bed,’ you say. ‘It gets cold at night.’
‘Your concern is very sweet,’ she mocks.
You leave her, but pause after a few steps. Turning back, you find her examining her own unlined hands. You’ve never seen someone who looked so in love before.