The Snow Maiden

True Love Pancea

Dane loved his mother's largest quilt. It was big enough to swallow him and his sisters whole and made great nests in the rain, like now. The storm filled the house with a calm, pattering music. Samantha and Coral pressed in on both his sides, Samantha more in front of him than beside him.

"She laid there all pale and not breathing. The evil witch had done her deed, and Snow White was now dead. The witch left, happy in the knowledge she was now the fairest in the land." she said.

"Dead?" Coral's usually balled up cheeks had gone slack. "Like, dead dead? But what about the prince!"

Dane rolled his eyes. "Is that all you care about? She didn't listen to the dwarves! Good riddance! That's why you should listen to dad next time when he says not to play at the deep end of the spring."

"But you do all the time!"

"That's because I'm bigger, pant-sniffer."

"No, it's because you never listen to Daddy!"

Samantha sighed and tucked back her long brown hair. "Will you guys hush? I'm not finished with the story."

"Dane's being an idiot, though."

"I'm not an idiot!"

His older sister sighed again and continued anyways,

"When the dwarves came home it was to find Snow White fallen on the floor without breath. They tried everything they could think of to bring her back, but nothing worked. They cried and wailed and for hours they just stood over Snow White, wishing the witch had never existed."

"That's so sad!"

"Quiet, Coral!"

"Zit-licker..."

"Eventually they took up their tools and crafted a beautiful tomb made out of precious metals and jewels with a magical glass covering, because they just couldn't bring themselves to bury her beauty in the ground. This way, the world could see her beauty forever. Seasons passed and her beauty never faded. She could've looked as though she were just asleep, and everyday a dwarf would come visit to plant a flower or care for the coffin."

"Wait a second," Dane scooted his butt deeper into the blanket, as though that made him look wiser, "she was still beautiful? But she was dead, wasn't she suppose to get all decayed and stuff?"

Coral put her little hands to her face in horror.

"Weren't you listening?" said Samantha. "I said it was a magical glass covering."

"How did dwarves get the magic to prevent corpses from decaying?"

"Stop it!" wailed Coral. "Why can't we ever just hear a story without you questioning it?"

His sisters glared at him. Dane didn't feel so smart anymore and he bowed his head in surrender.

"Fine. What happens next?" he grumbled.

"The prince comes along, sees her, and thinks she's so beautiful that he asks the dwarves to lift the glass case so he can just kiss her."

"But wasn't he sad?" asked Coral.

"Of course he was. That's why he kissed her. He was so sad that she was gone that he wanted to express how much he loved her. That's why people kiss each other."

Coral's face brightened. "You kiss me!" then it darkened as she looked at her brother. "Dane never kisses me."

"That's because men don't kiss their sisters."

"Yeah right, you're just mean." she looked back to Samantha. "She wakes up then, doesn't she?"

Samantha smiled fondly at her siblings. "Yep. Opens her eyes, coughs out the piece of the apple that was choking her, and smiles at the prince, and all the dwarves can't believe their eyes. The prince celebrates as well and asks her to marry him right then and there. With the permission of the dwarves he sweeps her up onto his horse and rides off into the sunset, and," she waited.

"They lived happily ever after!" crowed Coral.

They both looked at Dane expectantly. He had his arms folded across his chest.

"What?" he asked.

"No snide remarks?" Samantha asked. "No questions?"

"I thought you were sick of me doing that?"

"Yeah, during the story," said Coral, "but we both know you'll explode and die if we don't let you get it all out."

"I won't die." he considered his sisters to make sure the air was clear, then started warily, "first, how can his kiss wake her up like that? She hadn't been breathing for over a year, at least."

"Magic," said Samantha simply. "And remember she was under an enchanted death that the witch read could only be broken by a true love's kiss."

"But that's the thing! She only met the prince, what, once? Maybe twice? How could they even know each other enough to have true love?"

"True love is unconditional, and it's something that is given, not earned. I'm not saying that you should marry someone you just met off the bat, of course that's a bad idea! But in any kind of relationship you need to choose to love someone despite their shortcomings and forgive them for the wrongs they did to you. That's what love does. Selfishness does the other."

"But still," insisted Dane, still confused, "they've had to at least known each other enough to give that true love! It's not like I can just walk around and throw unconditional mushiness at a tree or something."

"The story doesn't tell you everything," said Coral impatiently. "They probably saw a puzzle piece in the other."

"A puzzle piece? Coral, do you even know what we're talking about?"

She pouted at him. "Of course I do! She had one piece of the puzzle and she could see the other piece in him! They were a whole puzzle!"

"I think she means they could see a piece of themselves that they didn't have in the other person and vice versa." Samantha looked down at the youngest curiously. "Is that it?"

"I guess so."

Their mother walked into the room then. She shook wet hair out of her face, a basket of chicken eggs on her arms.

"There you three are." she put the basket on the table. "Have any of you finished chores today?"

In unison they protested about the rain and cold and how it would've been cruel to have to muck stables and the like in the wet. She tittered in disapproval.

"If I can do it, you can too. Don't you think you would mind standing in your own muck just because it was raining? Now get to those horses."

Reluctantly, they all extracted themselves from mother's biggest quilt and meandered to the door where their shoes were. As they tied cloaks about their necks and stepped out into the rain, another thought occurred to Dane.

"Samantha, why does true love break the curse anyways? It's in a lot of stories."

"Easy," she said, "hate poisons a soul and kills a heart's ability to love. True love, one that's self-sacrificing and unconditional, is the only thing that can save someone from that."

"Huh."

Mud splattered up their pant legs and Coral trotted on ahead, skipping into puddles and singing at the rain she had just a moment ago grumbled against with the rest of her siblings. Dane smiled at this. For some reason, it made him feel a bit guilty that he hadn't kissed Coral since they were very little and she was little more than a baby. She probably really thought he didn't like her, which was retarded.

He opened the barn door for Samantha and they shook off their cloaks inside. Another thought hit him.

"How the heck do you know these things?"

"It's called reading. Not to mention I'm just stinking smart." she smirked at him.

He snorted. "Yeah, right."

But of course, they both knew he didn't mean it.