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After having taken the heart of the wicked Queen, Snow White realized it was not enough. Her eyes opened and she saw, then, how the eyes of the Dwarfs had looked upon her not with kindness, but lust. Once more took the mirror shard stained apple red, now she retraces her steps toward the place she had called home…

Her time had passed in joy and friendship after the Huntsman had failed to take her life in the name of her stepmother. The seven small men that she had met upon taking refuge in their homes in her fear had been charmed by her, and in turn, she charmed by them. Their eyes had always lit and lips curled up into smiles upon sight of her as the men returned home from long days of work to find her still safe inside their home, warning again and again against opening the door to anyone, and to stay inside for her protection. Their evenings spent with wine and dance, basking in the glow of the fair young woman. Many times they exclaimed to one another in their own tongue, a word that Snow could not understand. Their lips and eyes seemed so filled with joy as they spoke that she found no bother in it although she was unable to know what they said and gave no question as to why they did not say these things to her understanding.
The Queen had come then, upon hearing the news of Snow White’s life remaining, disguising as a peddling hag and convincing the innocent child outside, giving her gifts. A beautiful strangling corset of lace as pure white as Snow’s skin. A luxurious comb of poison drawn through her raven hair taking her consciousness but leaving her locks unharmed. An apple with such shine to its skin that she could not bring herself to not partake. Each time the Dwarfs returned home and revived her. Each time again they warned her against taking from this person, again and again calling the woman a witch.
With each loss of consciousness, Snow had a dream. Within each dream she had seen the truth- the face of her step mother, the spell used to become a hag, the spell used upon her voice to repeatedly convince her to trust despite the transparent danger. With each time her eyes opened again, the dreams vanished from her memory, and she would beg forgiveness of her friends who would do so readily. With each waking, her gratefulness growing to heights she never knew possible. With each waking, a new celebration and night of drink, dance, and words spoken in foreign tongue. The more she heard the speak, the more she loved the sound. Not knowing the words did little, it was the intensity of the tone with which spoken that drew her adoration to it.
The apple, however, changed everything. The bright red apple that nearly appeared as though it were a jewel. The spell upon this made its removal all the more difficult, even with the knowledges and magics that the Dwarfs themselves practiced. Her sleep remained even after removal, the spell upon it too deep and too dark for theirs to clear it away. Seven days pass, each of the Dwarfs taking their turn staying in the cottage with Snow. Seven days the sleep and dream go with no hint of rousing. With hope of seeing her eyes open and lips smile fading to nothing, the men crafted her a new resting place. A resting place with the softest down bed, and the most pristine glass covering to protect her beauty. They placed the fair maiden in the yard, inside her new glass home, gathering around it in the morning before leaving the house, and again at night upon returning. Their eyes stared down upon her with deep emotion, their native tongue sounding with heavy tone each dawn and each evening. Seven days inside the glass. Seven days each again for the seven men grieving their loss.

Then, the noonday strong sun overhead, Snow’s eyes opened. The dreams now burned in her eyes, the truth that her innocence had refused to allow her to see in days past. The peddler, the hag, the witch, the disguise her beloved stepmother had taken. The truth that she had refused to hear from the mouth of the Huntsman, that the one who ordered her life become taken was the woman she held in her heart as her true mother, having never known the one of her birth. A pain grew in her chest as Snow sat upright with such force to break the glass so carefully cared for. Although her face was cut, the only pain in her chest was felt and drove her to her feet. She ran, then, unseeing and unslowing back to the beloved home of her childhood.
The desires she felt to return upon fleeing for her life and living with her beloved friends was now gone. Her feet followed the directions of her raging blinded heart to the chambers of the Queen. The woman sat there, as always she had, voice singing with a soft tremble, hands delicately combing her long hair, eyes locked on her own reflection in the mirror. Her eyes and ears so distracted by the glory of her own unmatched beauty covered the sound of Snow White’s approach. So entranced by herself, the moment came too late as Snow’s hands pressed against the back of her head and swiftly pushed forward against the mirror. As the woman fell along with a shower of reflections. Snow White fell along with her, down to her knees, hands grasping shards of mirror into their grasp, pulling back and throwing forward to cut into the trusted woman times over until nothing was left in the room but shattered lives and glass.
As it became clear that the goal the pain had given Snow was accomplished, it ebbed away into numbness. She stood slowly, stained now as red as her lips, as red as the apple that had brought forth the nature of the spells to her waking eyes. As her wide eyes lifted from the devastation she had caused, they fell upon the Queen’s most prized possession- her magic hand mirror. This, her heart thumped loudly in her chest, this was her own now. Taking it into her bloodied hand and gazing into it, her eyes began to burn. The memory of the eyes of the men who she had lived with. The sound of their voices. The innocence burning away, she began to recognize, began to translate the words that were foreign to her.
The sound of the lustful words as she danced in the joy of being saved from her fear and cared for began to eat at her stomach. After having taken the heart of the wicked Queen, Snow White realized it was not enough. Her eyes opened and she saw, then, how the eyes of the Dwarfs had looked upon her not with kindness, but lust. Once more took the mirror shard stained apple red, now she retraces her steps toward the place she had called home, a second home gained, and a second home now lost. A home that had never truly been a home, a so-called home filled with filth. Filth that must be destroyed if her life were to continue.

The evening glow would be falling as the Dwarfs returned to their home to find the glass broken, bloodied and empty. In their panic and grief the men quickly split from one another, rushing in seven directions in search of their beloved star. As they ran in search, the forest would begin to grow dark with not only the shadow of the evening, but the shadow that had begun to grow within Snow White as she hunted for them. One, two, three drawn to a close with the mirror’s remains, now blackened with blood and shadow. Four, five, six left drenching the floor of the forest with blood stolen by madness. Seven. The seventh remained, and fled from tree to bush, for six days. Each day, he stumbled across a brother. Each day, another private ceremony to honor a lost soul. Each day, another cut etched deep into his being by a mirror’s shard that had yet to pierce him.
One, two, three, four, five, six. All had fallen, all had claimed in their darkened eyes the same story: Our pure Snow has fallen to the curse. Our efforts were made null. We cannot return home, no final blessing will our souls accept.
The final brother, the youngest, stood alone in the forest after the final ceremony. He wondered to himself, if he could do anything to save her from the shadow and the blood that he could feel all around him, so much so that even his knowledge of the forest and its movements would do nothing to warn him where from she would approach. Understanding that the ground he stood upon would likely be where his soul would remain, he turned and crossed the forest without hesitation and hardening his heart against fear, returning to the home he and his brothers had spent the weeks caring for Snow White.
There he would clean the broken glass from the yard, singing in native voice loud and deep. If this were as designed by the fates, then this he would accept. If their gentle white star were meant to be their demise, then he would carry the joy of their time together in his heart as he joined his family.
Seven.
They were now once more joined together, stood in an unseen circle around Snow White as her eyes gazed blindly forward. They had failed to protect the beautiful white star that had been as a gift to them for their hard work and protection of the forest. But they knew that, in their inability to protect Snow White, they could protect now the rest of the world. Their souls now inhabited the very earth that they had devoted their lives to caring for. With this connection to the earth they could care for her, and they could keep her to wander without feeling lost or stressed, but never allow the shadow that had taken into her to escape and harm the rest of the living stars in the world.



The final blow had been handed out. With all of those who had harmed her no longer drawing breath, Snow White could not even feel the shard of blood and shadow that shrouded the former mirror now embedded so into her hand and bone. Moving away from the house she had briefly known as her second home, Snow took to the forest and began walking. For seven days she walked, yet the forest never seemed to end, yet never seemed to repeat a tree. There, too, was no sign of where her fallen friends had gone off to and returned from to have worked. The sensation began to eat at her stomach again, crawling up her spine. Where then, where had they gone to work? Nowhere, that had to be the answer. Nowhere. They had stood in the forest and watched her. Nowhere. They had told that ‘mother’ of hers where she was, and stood back and watched her be taken in by the deceit. There was no home, no home to be had here. No home to be had in this forest. She would have to go elsewhere to find it.
Suddenly feeling the weight in her uninjured hand, Snow raised it to find the hand mirror clutched tightly there. This was it, her way to find home. She held it up, the surface immaculate despite all of the blackened blood and dirt covering Snow White. This would bring her home, she knew, as she drew to stand still in the center of a clearing and locked eyes on her own reflection.
“Magic Mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?”