Prompt #23 is to re-write the Snow White story from Bashful's point of view. I figured I could have a bit of fun with the Disney version, but use some of the plot elements from the Grimm story. Wikipedia has a nice summary. I took an extra day with this one, since it was so much fun.
I am known as Beshmorgan, which means "savior." I just couldn't stand to watch her treat us this way.
We twelve form an alchemist circle. We mine worthless rocks from the mountains and transform them into gold, silver, and precious gems. When we told this woman of our miraculous work, she smiled and said, "Little boys love to play in the mud!"
We are not little boys! From the moment this woman crept uninvited into our home, she has treated us as if we were witless children, making us clean our fingernails before dinner, reading us sappy bedtime stories, and kissing us all goodnight with chaste little pecks on the tops of our heads.
She wouldn't even learn to say our names! My name is Beshmorgan -- she calls me "Bashful". Bashful!
After weeks of dealing with her condescension and idiocy, Dokkor ("Doc" she calls him, though his name means "clever") approached me while we worked in the mines.
"I think it is clear that she will not leave us, no matter what we do," he said. "What keeps her here?"
"She is afraid of her mother, the Queen," I said. "I do not know what she did to raise the ire of the old clothes horse, but Snow White is frightened even to leave the cabin."
"The Queen would not dare to seek her in our domain," said Dokkor.
"How do we rid ourselves of her without harming her?" I said. My magic is tied to my ethos as savior. I dare not harm the trollop or allow any others to harm her.
"I have an idea," said Snizzky , who had been working nearby. (His name means "servant", but Snow White calls him "Sneezy." His magic requires him to obey orders when given.) He smiled a bit, then proceeded to sift through the muck, forming the symbols which would facilitate our alchemical transformations.
***
"Call me 'mother'," said Snow White.
"I'd prefer 'miss' all the same," he said. "While I was in town, last market day, I saw this lovely ribbon, and I thought you should have it."
"Oh, my!" said Snow White, holding the ribbon aloft. "How lovely!"
"Yes," I said, "that purple ribbon really does go well with your fair skin and blue eyes!" I was trying to be helpful.
"Why," she said, looking at Snizzky and me, "not every little boy would have such fashion sense!"
I held my tongue with great effort.
"Allow me to tie it about your waste, miss," said Snizzky.
"Of course," she chirped, and raised her arms.
When Snizzky had the ribbon tied, Snow White walked over to the mirror to admire herself. She turned this way and that, cooing over herself and her new accessory.
Then, after a moment, her face changed. Something was wrong. She raised her hands to her neck. She let out a little gasp, and then fell forward onto the floor. She writhed for a moment, and then lay still.
"Very nice," I said. "How does it work?"
"Oh," he said, "It pulls the air from her."
"What?" I cried.
"It pulls the air from her," he said again. "You know, so she passes out."
"She'll die that way, you friggeinsky!" I cried.
I had no choice. I pulled my knife from its scabbard, rolled Snow White onto her back, and cut the ribbon from her. She sucked in a big breath, and then coughed it out. She sucked in another gulp of air.
When she could, she sat up and looked at me. "Oh, Bashful!" she cried. "You saved me!"
"It must have been the Queen," said Snizzky a little too quickly.
"But you gave me the ribbon," said Snow White.
Dokkor decided to help. "Did you buy that ribbon from an old hag in the market, Snizzky?" he asked. "A woman you'd never seen before?"
"Er... yes!" said Snizzky hastily. "She seemed to have just the one left, but she said it was the most beautiful of all, so I thought you should have it, miss."
"Mother," Snow White corrected him.
Dokkor cried, "It must have been the Queen in disguise again!"
"Oh, dear!" cried Snow White. "And all because I'm the fairest in the land!"
"Right," I said, trying to disguise my relief. "Well, I think it's time we all settled in."
"How about a bedtime story," chirped the princess.
Dokkor yawned. "Oh, let's skip it tonight. I think I can get to sleep without it. And you need to rest and recover."
"Oh, how thoughtful," cooed Snow White, and then she kissed the tops of our heads goodnight.
***
On our day of rest, I
persuaded the others to leave in the morning as usual. Snow White
knew no better, and I could use her ignorance against her.After breakfast, we all left the house as we did everyday, chanting our preparatory meditation ("Haiy hoh haiy hoh"). She waved as we went.
When we were out of sight, I doubled back, and the others took to the trees to see what their savior would accomplish.
The comb looked as lovely as it was magical, inlaid with pearls and diamonds. Snow White would not be able to resist it
I began calling, in the cracking voice of an old hag, "Combs! Combs! Buy a comb from an old woman! Combs! Combs!"
Snow White ran into the house, loudly barring the door and drawing the drapes. She feared the Queen so much she would not even peep through the windows. Just outside the door, I dropped my comb, and then walked off, chanting all the while. I stopped behind a tree, and let my voice trail off as if I were walking miles away.
Snow White opened the door a tiny bit, then a tiny bit more. When she saw the comb lying there, her countenance assumed an odd expression of delight mixed with concern and fear. After a moment, she picked up the comb and called out, "Old woman! Old woman! You dropped your comb!"
She seemed mesmerized by the comb in her hand. Her conceit aroused, she placed the decoration in her lovely black hair. Her vanity activated the comb's magic.
Snow White gave a little sigh, rolled her eyes back, and fell limply back through the front door.
Motioning the others to stay back a moment, I left my hiding place and approached her still form on tiptoe.
I touched her face. Her skin was cool. She did not move. I raised her arm and let it drop; it fell with a thud. She still did not awaken.
I gave the "all clear" to my fellow dwarves.
They ran out of the woods and gathered around.
"Is she dead?" asked Snizzky at last.
"You know better than that!" I said. "However, she will sense nothing until the comb is removed from her hair. I'm in no hurry to do that."
Dokkor and I dragged her inside. She was limp, dead weight. We were very careful not to dislodge the comb. We laid her out in a corner, and avoided her for weeks.
It would have been a satisfactory situation if it weren't for Snizzky's clumsiness. Carrying a bucket of water from the well, he tripped over her leg and spilled the water onto her chest and head.
The rush of water swept the comb from her hair, and Snow White awoke with a start.
I thought she would be angry with us, but her expression softened instantly. "Children! You saved me! How clever to think of pouring water on me, Sneezy!"
"It must have been the Queen," said Dokkor helpfully. He took the comb and pretended to examine it. He asked, "Did you buy that from the Queen? It must be some kind of magic."
Snow White shook her head. "No," she said slowly (but perkily), "I don't remember..."
It takes her a while sometimes.
"Oh, wait!" she suddenly cried. "The old woman! She must have been the Queen in disguise!"
"She must have dropped the comb just so you would pick it up!" said Snizzky, and I had to fight the urge to beat him on his bald head.
A bright woman would ask how he knew the "old woman" had dropped the comb, but this was Snow White.
"Oh, dear!" she said, suddenly realizing that she was literally all wet. "You boys must excuse me now! I'm not decent!"
As we filed back in to the kitchen, Dokkor muttered, in Dwarvish, "Not very bright either."
***
Snow White was perky as always, and still frightened that her mother would somehow try to kill her. We came to believe that the Queen had counted herself lucky to be rid of her.
Then, one day, while walking back from the mine with bags full of germanium (worthless stuff), Dokkor cried out, "Of course! It's so obvious!"
He wouldn't go into details until we got home, no matter how hard we pressed him.
When we arrived, Snow White was sitting at the table, crunching on a red apple. "Just a minute, boys," she said, starting to get up. "I'll get your dinner. Did you have fun playing in the mud?"
I rolled my eyes, but Dokkor walked over to her. "Snow White," he said in a very low tone, one might think too low for a dwarf to make.
Snow White froze, staring into Dokkor's eyes. Now why hadn't I thought of using Vox Victoris, the conqueror's voice?
Snow White didn't move.
"Sleep," said Dokkor, "sleep deeply."
Snow White's eyes rolled back again, then her lids closed and she fell back into her chair, her head tilted back.
Dokkor started to turn to us, but I grabbed his arm. "You must add an aberratio. I cannot allow it otherwise." An aberratio is a loop hole of sorts. As savior, I could not allow the princess to be eternally bound to slavery.
Dokkor shrugged a bit, and then added, "Sleep until kissed by a man taller than yourself. When you wake, if you wake, you will remember that the Queen, in the form of a hag, sold you a poisoned apple."
He looked at me and I nodded. She would probably never find someone taller than she who would care to kiss the little bubble-head, but the possibility existed, and my honor was upheld.
***
Dokkor made a box for Snow White out of purest quartz, protecting her from any accidents. It looked to me like a glass coffin, but Dokkor was proud of it, so I held my tongue. We kept her out in the woods, where she was out of the way and also unlikely to be found by the occasional passers-by or supplicants who come to our cabin.
We scrubbed our own floors and made our own meals, as we had done for many decades before she arrived.
The Queen was a troublesome woman, however. She found that she had need of a daughter after all, someone to marry a prince from a neighboring kingdom whose riches would add to her own wealth.
Coward that she was, she got the prince's father to send him to us to "rescue" her daughter. Fool that he was, the prince agreed.
He announced his presence by pounding on our door with the butt of his sword and reciting to us his life story, the history of his land, and a few philosophical and theological musings in what I'm sure he thought was a demanding and intimidating voice. It was fun to listen to him for a while, but after a few hours, it grew old.
"Stop!" said Dokkor, again using the Vox Victoris, and the prince froze in place. Then, with a glance at me, he added, "for five minutes."
I nodded agreement.
"The Queen has deceived you," Dokkor said, still using the Vox. "She has killed her daughter, Snow White, jealous as she was of her beauty. She has sent you here to meet the same fate."
After a moment, and a glance at each of our faces to see if there was anything else he should add, Dokkor led us back inside to await the end of the enchantment.
In a while, the formerly frozen prince assumed an attitude of sheer terror. "Do not hurt me," he cried. "I was tricked into coming here."
Brave guy, isn't he?
Dokkor called through the door, "Go your way, then." Not with the Vox, just his regular charming self.
The prince turned and ran into the woods, forsaking the road on which he came.
As it turns out, our stalwart prince, having abandoned the road, could not seem to find his way to the edge of the woods. We would send someone to surreptitiously check on him every now and then, and we'd all get a good laugh out of the rather ludicrous situations he'd get himself into.
After a few weeks, though, he apparently stumbled onto the box. Snizzky found him just as he lifted the lid and, perhaps from being incredibly lonely wandering around in the woods, kissed the corpse-like Snow White. Snizzky barely kept himself from crying out in frustration as Snow White awakened.
Snow White and her prince prattled on for a while, recounting the story we had given them about their predicament. Snizzky let them talk a while, then showed himself, feigning surprise and glee. "Order me to meet out revenge on this evil Queen," he said.
The prince replied, "No, brave dwarf! The vengeance is mine!"
Snizzky said, in a low and ominous tone, "Would you contradict me, my prince? My frustration may drive me to anger..."
Panic is an unseemly emotion in a prince, but this particular future king seemed to regard it as precious. He managed to stutter out, "No, perhaps you have been wronged more than I. Seek your vengeance."
Snizzky asked, "Am I so ordered?"
"Er, yes," the prince replied. "I so order."
Snizzky's magic requires him to obey direct orders.
Since I knew nothing of this, I could not try to stop him. At the wedding of Snow White and this prince, Snizzky found the Queen and gave her a set of iron dancing shoes, pretending them to be a gift. When the Queen put them on, she found that they were, in fact, magic shoes which would not allow her to stop dancing, even after the shoes became white hot, and even after she fell to the floor, sweaty, and convulsing. Her feet still twitched violently until she was finally dead.
After that, they all left us alone, and we lived happily ever after.
Copyright 2012. Timothy H. Ruppel. All rights reserved.
This work by Timothy H. Ruppel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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