Granite Fish
Fossilized Mercury
- 15
- Posts
- 19
- Years
- Seen Feb 5, 2006
This one's for my mum. I haven't seen what anyone else thinks of it yet. ^^;
Once upon a time, in a land very, very near the relevant castle, woods and cottage, what with it being the land they're in; once upon a time, a happily married King and Queen had a child they called Snow White. There was a little logic to this, for she was an albino, and yet White was not the family name, nor was Snow a first name she much liked. As a child playing in the city outside the castle with all the other children, she still managed to fit in fairly well, for the streets were safe in the daytime and young children care little about where their playmates retire to at suppertime. She was known as Snow, and her closest friends gave themselves funny names too, thinking it all rather novel. In a typical game of tag, Snow would chase after the blacksmith's daughter Sleet, give up and dodge after the baker's son Roof, who would trip up and get caught, but soon jump up and tag the tailor's son Tambourine (who was always rather proud of such a long name), who would run around in circles for ages until Knife, the butcher's daughter, took pity on him and let herself get tagged.
These innocent children never suspected the rather sobering truth behind the Queen's eccentric thought processes. For years, she had been addicted to the magic mushrooms that grew in the woods nearby. Behind the King's back, she bribed the castle huntsman into buying them for her from a secretive little man in the woods known to those he dealt with only as 'Dopey'. When the Queen's last words as she lay in her husband's arms were: "Don't tell the cat its wings are falling off!" the King did begin to suspect something strange might have been going on, but out of respect for the dead he never looked into it.
Still, when the King started dating again, he seemed to have taken to heart some lesson from these events. Arianne Black was the doctor's eldest daughter, far too fussy and health conscious to ever pick up that sort of habit. She'd even scold anyone she saw smoking tobacco on the streets, asking how they could stand to damage their hair and nails that way, or how they could handle seeing their teeth look so yellow when they looked in the mirror - for Arianne was also stunningly vain, famously so. All the King saw, of course, was her shining black hair and perfect make up; her perfectly ironed
clothes and colour coordinated jewelry; her smile every time he gave her the slightest compliment.
That is, every time he complimented her looks. If he tried to call her smart or funny, she would accusing him of calling her boring and plain, or of thinking her a hideous clown, ranting and raving until he apologized ten times over. Keeping their relationship shallow and uncomplicated suited both well enough, for the King never completely got over his first love, never truly tried to connect with her replacement. On their wedding day, the whole city celebrated, filling every street with confetti and streamers. The new Queen spent hours posing for sketches and paintings in her wedding dress, barely noticing when the King got bored and wandered off.
Moving into the castle, Queen Arianne found Snow's behaviour convenient at first; as a scruffy child out playing all day, the princess didn't take up too much of the King or the court's attention. The Queen took control of every inch of the castle, opening up whole wings of the building that had fallen into disuse. It was when she was exploring the tallest tower, long lost in the midst of the most ancient rooms and corridors, that Arianne discovered her addiction. It could be called witchcraft. It could be called something entirely different. Recipes for magic potions guaranteeing perfect skin; charms for catching every eye in the room and not letting any of them go; texts listing hundreds of herbs with medicinal properties and poisonous plants to avoid; and most important of all, an enchanted mirror, truthfully answering any question she cared to ask it. Of course, the question she soon fell into asking it every day, rising with the sun and rushing to the tower, her heart thudding with fear as she wondered if the answer had changed overnight; this most important question was:
"Mirror, mirror, glittering in my hand; who is the most beautiful maiden in the land?"
"Well, - "
"Seriously, mirror, with your shimmery glow; who's the most gorgeous woman you know?"
"I - "
"Oh, please, mirror, of metal so rare; whose voice and face and hands and hair - "
"You! You! Still you!"
"Yes. Yes, of course it's me. I'm the Queen, the most admired... Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Of course. Right. Well, then. That's all, for now."
One day, when Snow was twelve, Queen Arianne started to notice something disturbing. As the royal family was sitting down for tea, the castle servants starting to serve the food, Snow suddenly picked up her dessert spoon and started squinting at her upside down reflection.
"What are you doing, child?" Arianne asked, rather surprised.
"Oh, just... does my hair look messy?" Snow asked, picking a leaf out of her fringe.
"Why are you worrying about that all of a sudden?" Arianne asked, rather sharply.
"Well, when we were all playing stuck in the mud, Roof said -"
"Who?" Arianne interrupted.
"R- oh, sorry, Tim Baker. He said I didn't need to take the mud part literally, and when I asked what he meant by that, he said my hair looked more brown than white today. Then Sleet - ah, I mean Susan - she said that had been an insult, so I hit him, and he said it was true, and Knife - sorry, Janet - she said it was nothing he should be teasing me about, we all had messy hair, it just showed on me 'cause it's so pale. Tim got annoyed at her too 'bout that, said it hadn't meant anything and she didn't need to be like that, but Janet just said he should apologize to me if he hadn't meant to be mean, so he stormed off and Tamb- Danny went with him, but Susan just said let them go, so we did. I asked Janet if my hair was really that bad, and she said no, messy hair looks fine, shows we're not all boring and stuck up like kids who stay indoors all day, and my hair looks nice messy. I don't see what Tim meant, though. It's all just white like usual, isn't it?" Snow sighed, putting down the spoon, a few flakes of mud drifting down to the table with it.
"Your hair is beautiful, my dear. Don't you worry about that." The King told Snow, taking his hand from Arianne's lap to hold his daughter's hand across the table. "One day, I promise you, all the boys will consider you the fairest maiden in all the land, and they'll be right too. Don't you worry about a thing."
Snow took her father's advice, and for years, she hardly worried about anything. The years seemed to pass by peacefully enough in the quiet little kingdom, summers and winters dragging on and flying by without drawing much attention to anyone's flaws or feelings.
It wasn't until one lazy autumn afternoon in her fifteenth year that anything really bothered Snow again. She was sitting under a tree in the marketplace with Sleet and Knife, as the three of them decided where to have lunch that day.
"Let's go get a kebab!" Snow offered. "You know, that place that buys meat from Knife's dad. That place is great!"
"Kebabs again?" Sleet sighed. "We always eat there. What about eating somewhere that serves a little less meat? I haven't had a salad for so long..."
"Don't really like salad, but if you want - " Knife started.
"Hey, no! Salads are just boring!" Snow interrupted.
"Then order something else." Sleet shrugged.
"I guess." Snow sighed. "But afterwards, let's go watch Knife's dad gut something. I can buy some mince too, get the palace cooks to do that for supper instead."
"Fine with me. I was gonna go shopping with my mum after lunch anyway." Sleet agreed. "Why do you like spending so much time around raw meat, anyway?"
"Dunno." Snow shrugged.
"It's actually pretty interesting." Knife contributed. "Dad's started teaching me how to gut stuff, and it's easier than you'd think."
"Do you think he'd teach me too?" Snow asked.
"Yeah, I think so. I'll ask tonight." Knife promised.
Just then, the girls' conversation was interrupted, as Knife's little brother spotted them and ran up to the tree.
"Janet! There you are! You've got to get home right now! This messenger's come saying someone's died, and we have to move!"
"What? Wait, slow down. Who's died? Where are we going?" Knife stood up, trying to calm her brother down. She wished her family would use her real name.
"Our uncle, the one who lived in King Baern's land, that place to the west, I can't remember what they called it - our uncle died and left us his house. It's a bigger house than ours, much bigger, so we've got to go live there now." He finished miserably.
"You're leaving us?" Snow stood up and glared at the butcher's kids. "You're just going? You inherited a better house, so your family's just going?"
"It... it sounds like that, doesn't it?" Knife replied, rather dazed by the news.
"Snow! Be a bit nicer!" Sleet hissed at her.
"I... sorry. I'm sorry." Snow realized how she'd sounded. "So you're... going."
"We've got to go home, now! You've got to pack. We're leaving tomorrow morning, first thing." Knife's brother tugged at her sleeve, trying to hurry her.
"We can help you pack, at least. Right, Sleet?" Snow offered.
"I just said, I'm busy this afternoon. Sorry." Sleet replied.
"Well, I'll help!" Snow insisted.
"Yeah, thanks. Let's... let's go, then." Knife linked arms with her friend and her brother, and the three of them trudged back to the butcher's house.
After hours of packing and talking, Snow and Knife couldn't find anything more to pack. Knife's room was completely empty, save for her bed; all the other furniture had been taken down, with the family's bags, to the carriage that waited outside. The girls sat on the floor, looking around one last time.
"I'm going to have to go home soon." Snow commented.
"Yeah." Knife replied.
"Won't even be able to see you off tomorrow. Mum's booked a family portrait. There's no getting out of those." Snow continued gloomily.
"At least we've got this chance to say goodbye." Knife whispered. This was hard.
"Yeah. I'm really gonna miss you. Really." Snow told her.
"I'm never going to meet anyone else with hair quite like yours, I know that. The way it's never quite white, it's always got dirt or something in it. Like... look, you've even got moss in it now, from when we sitting under the tree!" Knife giggled, picking a bit of dirt out of her friend's hair.
"Oh, Knife! Does it matter?" Snow sighed, running her hands through her hair in annoyance.
"No, no, it's nice like that. You suit messy hair." Knife insisted.
"Ah, right. Yeah, you've always said that, haven't you?" Snow sighed. "You suit... you always smell of this place, you know. You smell of raw meat, but still, it's delicious, tangy like bacon or chicken or beef. You smell really great, you know. I'll miss hanging around this place, guessing which animals all the guts and innards come from. I'll really miss you." The girls hugged, wishing they didn't really have to say goodbye, but still glad they could.
"I guess you have to go now." Knife finally whispered.
"Guess so." Snow replied. They stood and glanced around the room one last, last time, then went downstairs. They had to go.
At supper that evening, Arianne noticed that Snow didn't look quite as mindlessly cheerful as usual.
"What's wrong?" Arianne asked.
"Hmm? Oh, nothing." Snow replied. Maybe she'd talk to her dad later, when Arianne wasn't around.
"Good." Arianne couldn't think why, but the mood at the table had only worsened. She tried to continue the conversation a little. "I hope you remember to tidy up your hair tomorrow, for the portrait. You don't want to make your family look bad, do you?"
"Of course not." Snow answered quietly.
"Good." Arianne frowned. She hadn't thought Snow would mind that much. "Feel free to mess your hair up again afterwards as badly as you like!" She offered.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Sure." Snow sighed. It wasn't like she messed it up on purpose. A bit silly, really, when nobody would like it like that anymore. "Actually, I might just stay in tomorrow. Do some reading. Not feeling like much else."
"You're going to keep your hair clean?" Arianne asked, rather sharply.
"Sure, whatever." Snow shrugged.
"If you don't feel like going out tomorrow, Lady Carmell holds her weekly embroidery sessions here every Thursday at one thirty. She's been wondering if you'd like to join for a while now." The King offered. This was a very careful way of phrasing it; the court had expected the princess to join years ago. Lady Carmell, like the other nobles, openly doubted the King's wisdom in giving Snow so much freedom. It didn't seem very seemly for the royal family to behave like that. It had been alright when Snow was little, but soon enough she would have to grow up and act like a proper lady, or apparently he would never be able to marry her off. The King wasn't going to impose any restrictions on his daughter - he'd been finding himself increasingly disintrested in all the kingdom's affairs for years - but if Snow felt like acting her class, it would be a relief even so.
"Embroidery?" Arianne snickered. There was no way the brat would be interested in anything like that.
"Sure, whatever." Snow shrugged again. Might as well.
"You're going?" Arianne asked, rather sharply.
"Sure, whatever." Snow repeated.
"Lady Carmell will be pleased to hear it." The King commented, not noticing his wife's surprise.
"Sure, whatever." Snow repeated, staring into space. The King didn't notice.
Snow decided she might not talk to him later after all.
The next morning, Snow got up, got ready, had breakfast, sat for hours for the portrait, ate a small lunch by herself, trudged up the stairs to the sewing room to wait for the embroidery session, and never once looked out of a window.
Sitting in the empty room, kicking her heels against the legs of her chair, the princess frowned. There was something wrong with this. She'd been feeling awful all day so far. How could someone who was always there just not be there any more? She was supposed to be the princess, but what she wanted didn't matter to a butcher. Maybe she wasn't a proper princess, like she knew a lot of the nobles sort of expected... a stuck up kid, indoors all day.
She almost turned to look out the window, but stopped herself. Nobody else out there would be as upset as her, so she didn't want to see them. Sleet hadn't even made time to help pack! They'd tell her to cheer up, make it clear they didn't think Knife so important, tell her to get over it, make it clear they didn't think the princess very important. Within the castle, she'd thought she'd matter more. None of the servants had asked her what was wrong, even though something was clearly wrong today. Had she really expected anything from them, exactly? Well, this session thingy would start in a few hours. She could see what that did. While there was nothing she wanted to say to anyone in particular, and nobody she knew around here... People should just be acknowledging that today felt wrong! People shouldn't be just ignoring her and looking all lively and cheerful. People shouldn't be leaving her in an empty room like this... Snow sighed and sat and waited. Eventually, she got up to look for a book to read, though she found she couldn't pay it much attention.
After a few hours, the rest of the group started to wander in. Taking their seats at the little tables dotted around the room, the little groups of richly dressed girls seemed far more inclined to glance at and whisper about Snow than to introduce themselves. She ignored them. This was still better than being outside today. They were, at least, treating her different to everyone else. She wanted that today.
Three girls eventually stood and approached Snow's seat, whispering to each other almost the entire way.
"Ahh... You're Princess Snow, aren't you?" The first of them asked, eyes gleaming with curiosity - and perhaps, Snow thought, a little envy, a little disbelief that this was the strange, strangely named heir to the throne. Stupid of them to ask who she was when her hair would remove all doubt.
"Of course." Snow replied. "Feel like telling me who you are? Or should I refer to my friends by number?"
"Gabrielle Carmell, of course." Girl one answered, smiling at the discovery of an aquaintance like this. "And I am honoured to be considered a friend of the princess."
"I don't doubt that." Snow didn't bother smiling back. "You two?"
"I, ah, I'm Jessabelle Bennesith." Girl two replied, slightly unnerved by Snow's glare.
"Marcy Fortine. So you could call me a number if you wanted." Girl three wore such an appraising expression and such a smug grin that Snow found herself slightly unnerved too.
"Fourteen? Sure, that can be your name." Snow shrugged. Truthfully, that was quite a comfort, just like thinking up silly names with all her friends... But, no, she was being different here. "So, what's this embroidery class like?"
Snow White.
Once upon a time, in a land very, very near the relevant castle, woods and cottage, what with it being the land they're in; once upon a time, a happily married King and Queen had a child they called Snow White. There was a little logic to this, for she was an albino, and yet White was not the family name, nor was Snow a first name she much liked. As a child playing in the city outside the castle with all the other children, she still managed to fit in fairly well, for the streets were safe in the daytime and young children care little about where their playmates retire to at suppertime. She was known as Snow, and her closest friends gave themselves funny names too, thinking it all rather novel. In a typical game of tag, Snow would chase after the blacksmith's daughter Sleet, give up and dodge after the baker's son Roof, who would trip up and get caught, but soon jump up and tag the tailor's son Tambourine (who was always rather proud of such a long name), who would run around in circles for ages until Knife, the butcher's daughter, took pity on him and let herself get tagged.
These innocent children never suspected the rather sobering truth behind the Queen's eccentric thought processes. For years, she had been addicted to the magic mushrooms that grew in the woods nearby. Behind the King's back, she bribed the castle huntsman into buying them for her from a secretive little man in the woods known to those he dealt with only as 'Dopey'. When the Queen's last words as she lay in her husband's arms were: "Don't tell the cat its wings are falling off!" the King did begin to suspect something strange might have been going on, but out of respect for the dead he never looked into it.
Still, when the King started dating again, he seemed to have taken to heart some lesson from these events. Arianne Black was the doctor's eldest daughter, far too fussy and health conscious to ever pick up that sort of habit. She'd even scold anyone she saw smoking tobacco on the streets, asking how they could stand to damage their hair and nails that way, or how they could handle seeing their teeth look so yellow when they looked in the mirror - for Arianne was also stunningly vain, famously so. All the King saw, of course, was her shining black hair and perfect make up; her perfectly ironed
clothes and colour coordinated jewelry; her smile every time he gave her the slightest compliment.
That is, every time he complimented her looks. If he tried to call her smart or funny, she would accusing him of calling her boring and plain, or of thinking her a hideous clown, ranting and raving until he apologized ten times over. Keeping their relationship shallow and uncomplicated suited both well enough, for the King never completely got over his first love, never truly tried to connect with her replacement. On their wedding day, the whole city celebrated, filling every street with confetti and streamers. The new Queen spent hours posing for sketches and paintings in her wedding dress, barely noticing when the King got bored and wandered off.
Moving into the castle, Queen Arianne found Snow's behaviour convenient at first; as a scruffy child out playing all day, the princess didn't take up too much of the King or the court's attention. The Queen took control of every inch of the castle, opening up whole wings of the building that had fallen into disuse. It was when she was exploring the tallest tower, long lost in the midst of the most ancient rooms and corridors, that Arianne discovered her addiction. It could be called witchcraft. It could be called something entirely different. Recipes for magic potions guaranteeing perfect skin; charms for catching every eye in the room and not letting any of them go; texts listing hundreds of herbs with medicinal properties and poisonous plants to avoid; and most important of all, an enchanted mirror, truthfully answering any question she cared to ask it. Of course, the question she soon fell into asking it every day, rising with the sun and rushing to the tower, her heart thudding with fear as she wondered if the answer had changed overnight; this most important question was:
"Mirror, mirror, glittering in my hand; who is the most beautiful maiden in the land?"
"Well, - "
"Seriously, mirror, with your shimmery glow; who's the most gorgeous woman you know?"
"I - "
"Oh, please, mirror, of metal so rare; whose voice and face and hands and hair - "
"You! You! Still you!"
"Yes. Yes, of course it's me. I'm the Queen, the most admired... Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"Of course. Right. Well, then. That's all, for now."
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
One day, when Snow was twelve, Queen Arianne started to notice something disturbing. As the royal family was sitting down for tea, the castle servants starting to serve the food, Snow suddenly picked up her dessert spoon and started squinting at her upside down reflection.
"What are you doing, child?" Arianne asked, rather surprised.
"Oh, just... does my hair look messy?" Snow asked, picking a leaf out of her fringe.
"Why are you worrying about that all of a sudden?" Arianne asked, rather sharply.
"Well, when we were all playing stuck in the mud, Roof said -"
"Who?" Arianne interrupted.
"R- oh, sorry, Tim Baker. He said I didn't need to take the mud part literally, and when I asked what he meant by that, he said my hair looked more brown than white today. Then Sleet - ah, I mean Susan - she said that had been an insult, so I hit him, and he said it was true, and Knife - sorry, Janet - she said it was nothing he should be teasing me about, we all had messy hair, it just showed on me 'cause it's so pale. Tim got annoyed at her too 'bout that, said it hadn't meant anything and she didn't need to be like that, but Janet just said he should apologize to me if he hadn't meant to be mean, so he stormed off and Tamb- Danny went with him, but Susan just said let them go, so we did. I asked Janet if my hair was really that bad, and she said no, messy hair looks fine, shows we're not all boring and stuck up like kids who stay indoors all day, and my hair looks nice messy. I don't see what Tim meant, though. It's all just white like usual, isn't it?" Snow sighed, putting down the spoon, a few flakes of mud drifting down to the table with it.
"Your hair is beautiful, my dear. Don't you worry about that." The King told Snow, taking his hand from Arianne's lap to hold his daughter's hand across the table. "One day, I promise you, all the boys will consider you the fairest maiden in all the land, and they'll be right too. Don't you worry about a thing."
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Snow took her father's advice, and for years, she hardly worried about anything. The years seemed to pass by peacefully enough in the quiet little kingdom, summers and winters dragging on and flying by without drawing much attention to anyone's flaws or feelings.
It wasn't until one lazy autumn afternoon in her fifteenth year that anything really bothered Snow again. She was sitting under a tree in the marketplace with Sleet and Knife, as the three of them decided where to have lunch that day.
"Let's go get a kebab!" Snow offered. "You know, that place that buys meat from Knife's dad. That place is great!"
"Kebabs again?" Sleet sighed. "We always eat there. What about eating somewhere that serves a little less meat? I haven't had a salad for so long..."
"Don't really like salad, but if you want - " Knife started.
"Hey, no! Salads are just boring!" Snow interrupted.
"Then order something else." Sleet shrugged.
"I guess." Snow sighed. "But afterwards, let's go watch Knife's dad gut something. I can buy some mince too, get the palace cooks to do that for supper instead."
"Fine with me. I was gonna go shopping with my mum after lunch anyway." Sleet agreed. "Why do you like spending so much time around raw meat, anyway?"
"Dunno." Snow shrugged.
"It's actually pretty interesting." Knife contributed. "Dad's started teaching me how to gut stuff, and it's easier than you'd think."
"Do you think he'd teach me too?" Snow asked.
"Yeah, I think so. I'll ask tonight." Knife promised.
Just then, the girls' conversation was interrupted, as Knife's little brother spotted them and ran up to the tree.
"Janet! There you are! You've got to get home right now! This messenger's come saying someone's died, and we have to move!"
"What? Wait, slow down. Who's died? Where are we going?" Knife stood up, trying to calm her brother down. She wished her family would use her real name.
"Our uncle, the one who lived in King Baern's land, that place to the west, I can't remember what they called it - our uncle died and left us his house. It's a bigger house than ours, much bigger, so we've got to go live there now." He finished miserably.
"You're leaving us?" Snow stood up and glared at the butcher's kids. "You're just going? You inherited a better house, so your family's just going?"
"It... it sounds like that, doesn't it?" Knife replied, rather dazed by the news.
"Snow! Be a bit nicer!" Sleet hissed at her.
"I... sorry. I'm sorry." Snow realized how she'd sounded. "So you're... going."
"We've got to go home, now! You've got to pack. We're leaving tomorrow morning, first thing." Knife's brother tugged at her sleeve, trying to hurry her.
"We can help you pack, at least. Right, Sleet?" Snow offered.
"I just said, I'm busy this afternoon. Sorry." Sleet replied.
"Well, I'll help!" Snow insisted.
"Yeah, thanks. Let's... let's go, then." Knife linked arms with her friend and her brother, and the three of them trudged back to the butcher's house.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
After hours of packing and talking, Snow and Knife couldn't find anything more to pack. Knife's room was completely empty, save for her bed; all the other furniture had been taken down, with the family's bags, to the carriage that waited outside. The girls sat on the floor, looking around one last time.
"I'm going to have to go home soon." Snow commented.
"Yeah." Knife replied.
"Won't even be able to see you off tomorrow. Mum's booked a family portrait. There's no getting out of those." Snow continued gloomily.
"At least we've got this chance to say goodbye." Knife whispered. This was hard.
"Yeah. I'm really gonna miss you. Really." Snow told her.
"I'm never going to meet anyone else with hair quite like yours, I know that. The way it's never quite white, it's always got dirt or something in it. Like... look, you've even got moss in it now, from when we sitting under the tree!" Knife giggled, picking a bit of dirt out of her friend's hair.
"Oh, Knife! Does it matter?" Snow sighed, running her hands through her hair in annoyance.
"No, no, it's nice like that. You suit messy hair." Knife insisted.
"Ah, right. Yeah, you've always said that, haven't you?" Snow sighed. "You suit... you always smell of this place, you know. You smell of raw meat, but still, it's delicious, tangy like bacon or chicken or beef. You smell really great, you know. I'll miss hanging around this place, guessing which animals all the guts and innards come from. I'll really miss you." The girls hugged, wishing they didn't really have to say goodbye, but still glad they could.
"I guess you have to go now." Knife finally whispered.
"Guess so." Snow replied. They stood and glanced around the room one last, last time, then went downstairs. They had to go.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
At supper that evening, Arianne noticed that Snow didn't look quite as mindlessly cheerful as usual.
"What's wrong?" Arianne asked.
"Hmm? Oh, nothing." Snow replied. Maybe she'd talk to her dad later, when Arianne wasn't around.
"Good." Arianne couldn't think why, but the mood at the table had only worsened. She tried to continue the conversation a little. "I hope you remember to tidy up your hair tomorrow, for the portrait. You don't want to make your family look bad, do you?"
"Of course not." Snow answered quietly.
"Good." Arianne frowned. She hadn't thought Snow would mind that much. "Feel free to mess your hair up again afterwards as badly as you like!" She offered.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Sure." Snow sighed. It wasn't like she messed it up on purpose. A bit silly, really, when nobody would like it like that anymore. "Actually, I might just stay in tomorrow. Do some reading. Not feeling like much else."
"You're going to keep your hair clean?" Arianne asked, rather sharply.
"Sure, whatever." Snow shrugged.
"If you don't feel like going out tomorrow, Lady Carmell holds her weekly embroidery sessions here every Thursday at one thirty. She's been wondering if you'd like to join for a while now." The King offered. This was a very careful way of phrasing it; the court had expected the princess to join years ago. Lady Carmell, like the other nobles, openly doubted the King's wisdom in giving Snow so much freedom. It didn't seem very seemly for the royal family to behave like that. It had been alright when Snow was little, but soon enough she would have to grow up and act like a proper lady, or apparently he would never be able to marry her off. The King wasn't going to impose any restrictions on his daughter - he'd been finding himself increasingly disintrested in all the kingdom's affairs for years - but if Snow felt like acting her class, it would be a relief even so.
"Embroidery?" Arianne snickered. There was no way the brat would be interested in anything like that.
"Sure, whatever." Snow shrugged again. Might as well.
"You're going?" Arianne asked, rather sharply.
"Sure, whatever." Snow repeated.
"Lady Carmell will be pleased to hear it." The King commented, not noticing his wife's surprise.
"Sure, whatever." Snow repeated, staring into space. The King didn't notice.
Snow decided she might not talk to him later after all.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The next morning, Snow got up, got ready, had breakfast, sat for hours for the portrait, ate a small lunch by herself, trudged up the stairs to the sewing room to wait for the embroidery session, and never once looked out of a window.
Sitting in the empty room, kicking her heels against the legs of her chair, the princess frowned. There was something wrong with this. She'd been feeling awful all day so far. How could someone who was always there just not be there any more? She was supposed to be the princess, but what she wanted didn't matter to a butcher. Maybe she wasn't a proper princess, like she knew a lot of the nobles sort of expected... a stuck up kid, indoors all day.
She almost turned to look out the window, but stopped herself. Nobody else out there would be as upset as her, so she didn't want to see them. Sleet hadn't even made time to help pack! They'd tell her to cheer up, make it clear they didn't think Knife so important, tell her to get over it, make it clear they didn't think the princess very important. Within the castle, she'd thought she'd matter more. None of the servants had asked her what was wrong, even though something was clearly wrong today. Had she really expected anything from them, exactly? Well, this session thingy would start in a few hours. She could see what that did. While there was nothing she wanted to say to anyone in particular, and nobody she knew around here... People should just be acknowledging that today felt wrong! People shouldn't be just ignoring her and looking all lively and cheerful. People shouldn't be leaving her in an empty room like this... Snow sighed and sat and waited. Eventually, she got up to look for a book to read, though she found she couldn't pay it much attention.
After a few hours, the rest of the group started to wander in. Taking their seats at the little tables dotted around the room, the little groups of richly dressed girls seemed far more inclined to glance at and whisper about Snow than to introduce themselves. She ignored them. This was still better than being outside today. They were, at least, treating her different to everyone else. She wanted that today.
Three girls eventually stood and approached Snow's seat, whispering to each other almost the entire way.
"Ahh... You're Princess Snow, aren't you?" The first of them asked, eyes gleaming with curiosity - and perhaps, Snow thought, a little envy, a little disbelief that this was the strange, strangely named heir to the throne. Stupid of them to ask who she was when her hair would remove all doubt.
"Of course." Snow replied. "Feel like telling me who you are? Or should I refer to my friends by number?"
"Gabrielle Carmell, of course." Girl one answered, smiling at the discovery of an aquaintance like this. "And I am honoured to be considered a friend of the princess."
"I don't doubt that." Snow didn't bother smiling back. "You two?"
"I, ah, I'm Jessabelle Bennesith." Girl two replied, slightly unnerved by Snow's glare.
"Marcy Fortine. So you could call me a number if you wanted." Girl three wore such an appraising expression and such a smug grin that Snow found herself slightly unnerved too.
"Fourteen? Sure, that can be your name." Snow shrugged. Truthfully, that was quite a comfort, just like thinking up silly names with all her friends... But, no, she was being different here. "So, what's this embroidery class like?"