Secret Exchange
Gifts:
1 fanfiction, 2000 words
Giftee: sunnytyler001
Fic: Secrets of the Wishing Well
Rating: K+
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Pairing/Characters: Snow/Charming, Evil Queen
Summary: She knew it was a stupid wish, but she wished it anyway. Snow's thoughts after she and "Charming" part ways.
Author's Notes: I took some creative license with the Queen's name, as well as a couple of other details we don't really know yet. And yes, I portrayed Snow as being able to hunt rabbits. It's quite clear she's fond of birds, I couldn't picture her killing a bird for food.
As he walked away, intent on marrying his bride-to-be, she wished things in their world were different.
That things were simple and they could make their own choices.
But, as she had learned well, things were never that way. She wished her and her stepmother had gotten along and look at how that had turned out.
Of course, Esmeralda hadn't liked her from the first, she was too - perfect - was the word she had chosen. It was not that the Queen looked down upon her stepdaughter, rather she seemed to see Snow as a threat.
She wanted Snow married off and gain a neighboring kingdom's favor. The Queen was about treaty and unity - except in her own house.
Snow had no interest in marriage. he did not want to be tied to someone that she did not really love for the rest of her life, nor did she want to marry for purposes of treaties. They were a bit like selling sheep, she thought. The other reason Snow was so opposed to the idea of being married off was simply to spite her sometimes overbearing stepmother.
Esmeralda had often said she was far too vocal about the fact that the kingdom needed to be reformed, and she was far too close and familiar with the "commoners".
Snow thought everyone deserved a place within their society, that they had the right to be heard by the royals with whatever might concern them.
The Queen called her young and naive, that the kingdom had better things to be concerned with than if some farmer's crops had failed, or if some merchant had cheated them in the market last week. The kingdom had their treasury to be concerned with, weather their neighboring kingdoms saw them as vulnerable and hence easy to take control of their property. The Queen argued that the nobles who paid into the treasury deserved to be heard first.
They also seemed to fight over King Leopold's attention. Who he might love more, who he should love more - somewhat like a petty fight between two rival sisters rather than a stepmother and her stepdaughter.
Once Snow borrowed a gem from the Queen's jewelry box had been the last straw. It was not just an amber gem, but the one of Queen's magical amulets. Snow didn't think it proper to attach ones magical ability to things such as jewelry, in fact, she didn't particularly care how it all worked. Nor did she think the big "secret" the Queen had ought to be kept from her father. What would he care that Esmeralda had been a miller's daughter, and it was just some magical trick that she had married up in the world. Wasn't that something to be admired?
The Queen seemed ashamed of it - to the point of rage that she would do anything so that not everyone would know about her secret. What would Father care about her abilities to use magic?
At the time she hadn't thought the ramifications of telling such a simple secret would be so drastic.
Snow shook her head, pulling the hood of her riding cloak closer to her face, and staying closer to the woods than the road.
She went in a wide circle, made first one figure eight, and then another, before returning to the dwarves' little cottage in the deepest places of the forest.
Grumpy, in the midst of tending the garden, scowled at her and continued working. That was his way, he rarely showed any sort of emotion, usually he was the practical one of the bunch, or at least the most cynical.
Snow smiled to herself, knowing better than to engage Grumpy in conversation unless he spoke to her first. Seeing both Sleepy and Dopey lazily playing a game of checkers by the fire meant that the other four were at the mine for the day. Except for Happy, they would come back not only hungry but cranky, which meant Snow better get about to cooking their dinner.
It wasn't that they couldn't cook themselves, they just functioned better when Snow did. She never did like it when they did this rotation - sending either Sleepy or Dopey out to try and entrap a small rabbit to flavor their stew would prove less productive then sending no one. Both would have to be tracked after dark when the other four came home, but for different reasons.
Her best bet was Grumpy, and she seemed to be the only one able to ask him to do anything around the place that he didn't want to do himself. Usually it required Snow to offer to do more than one thing that Grumpy didn't want to do. They wouldn't let her go to the mine, but she could actually pull the thorny weeds out of the garden instead of tilling them underneath.
But she felt like her mind was in a whirlwind - she needed time to think, to get her mind off him, so after writing a note of where she would be, she carefully walked out of the cottage, both Sleepy and Dopy were snoozing over their game, and Grumpy was intend on making sure the dirt covered the weeds.
She carried her pouch and a small sack for the rabbit. They weren't that difficult to catch. She didn't like hunting the baby ones that the dwarves thought was far easier. And just eating vegetables in their soup wouldn't do at all.
She thought about him again - Charming - how his lips formed certain words, how and when he would blink when he talked, the smallest things that only a lonely girl can notice. The dwarves were good company, yes - but - but, what? It wasn't like she could leave them and go to his Kingdom, besides, that would be like a declaration of war. They couldn't be together - he had someone else. It just wasn't possible.
Her trek through the woods took her to a small stream. Sometimes the rabbits liked to come and drink there.
She looked out at the little stream, which drained into a little pool that the dwarves used for swimming on hot days - and on the ones that Snow shooed them out so she could air out the little house, they sometimes bathed. She knew the tradition, and they didn't really have a well for such a thing anyway. She took out the purse and dropped one of the smaller denominator coins in the pool. She knew it was a stupid wish, but she wished it anyway.
I wish I were James' wife. Instead of her.
It was a terrible wish - but she knew that this person he was about to marry was a spoiled, pampered little royal, and she wouldn't appreciate the heirloom ring. Like Snow would if she were Charming's bride.
Oh come now, Snow, you don't even like him! Or did she? That she stubbornly thought he deserved a nickname rather than his given name. People didn't nickname royals unless they were comfortable with them. She didn't care about the royal position she would gain back. After all she was the rightful heir to her father's kingdom - she'd just given it up because she had to in order to spare her own life. To avoid the people from rioting and causing havoc.
The greater good.
The note she had The Huntsman deliver she knew quite well wasn't followed. The Queen just wasn't like that anymore. To Snow, her stepmother didn't really have a name anymore, she was just "The Queen" or "The Witch" to her.
She really shouldn't have told that secret, even though her father deserved to know.
She had been so still and lost in her thoughts she didn't realize that a rabbit had approached, actually close enough for accuracy for a drink from the little pool.
She didn't dare breathe - and if someone saw her, they would describe the movement as catlike.
She trapped the rabbit in the sack she had brought. She still couldn't bear to kill it - but the men couldn't live without meat. Grumpy would do it for her.
There had been days that she had been able to properly skin and cook the animal, but she was drained and sad. Instead she was arguing with herself on the trek back to the little house.
It's just another royal getting married, Snow. What do you care?
He's handsome and kind...he saved my life.
You don't even know him. This inner voice sounded peculiarly like her stepmother - before they had fought, when she seemed reasonable, to know about the kingdom.
I know more about him than that nag he wants to marry. He's passionate, he likes the woods. He's a free spirit that you can't cage into fancy parties or state affairs. Something I could live with.
Lost in her thoughts, it was a short walk back to the little house. "So ya caught one, did ya?" Grumpy asked, in his usual gruff tone, noting the sack with it's strange movements. "Don't want to kill it today, eh? Not in the mood?"
"No," she said, trying to sound as though she was just feeling a little lazy.
Grumpy took the sack without a word, also wielding his carving knife. "How about you see about that soup, and we'll put the rabbit in when the rest of the boys get home?"
Snow nodded and went indoors, particularly not wanting to hear the rabbit scream. They didn't always, but this one was a little bigger than the ones she usually caught, and the sound usually made her want to cry - though she wouldn't tell her friends that.
She swept the floor, intent on what she was doing, every so often checking the soup. The vegetables were starting to get tender.
Grumpy must have had other plans than actually in the soup - he preferred it roasted to mixing it in with everything. Besides, it didn't take long to cook properly that way. Or so he said.
Once the rabbit had cooked, Snow put the vegetable base into eight bowls, and took them two at time to the table set up outdoors. They were seven hungry men, they weren't for graces, or napkins or fancy dishes, and cared not that the main course was outdoors. Of course, because they considered the lady's presence they used silverware. Although talking while they were in the mist of chewing seemed impossible to refrain from.
If they noticed Snow lost in her thoughts that night at dinner they certainly didn't comment on it.
In the meantime, in the castle about three miles hence, the Prince sat at his own dinner table, across from his fiancee. There was an uncomfortable silence as he seemed somewhat lost in his own thoughts, and the would-be Princess seemed quite perturbed.
"Do you even engage in conversation during the meal?" she asked, nearly having to shout because of the grand table.
"It's difficult to talk when one must shout. Isn't that a little rude, Abigail?" He had tried being more formal, but that seemed awkward to act around someone who he should be able to share everything with. He hadn't been able to bring himself to present her with the ring yet.
He guessed by Abigail's critical eye and her spurning of the castle decor that the ring's true value might not be even taken into consideration. She might consider it a measly bauble instead of what it really was. A presentation of true love.
In fact, the jewelry seemed to have chosen someone else. Someone he could never possibly have. He worried about her out there. For all he knew, alone in the woods. He knew she wouldn't get lost or hurt - she was far too smart for that. He was more afraid of her hiding place being discovered by someone not so benevolent as himself.
Someday she might not be so lucky as she was today. The Queen would probably find her before he could get to her in time.