ROTTEN to the Core [EN]

Chapter 1 - The Taste Of Victory

"From the moment she laid eyes on Snow White,
her heart was turned inside out - she hated the girl so.
And envy and arrogance grew higher and higher in her heart like a weed,
so she had no peace day and night."
- Brothers Grimm -

Pale moonlight probed through the large windows into the room's interior, where only a few candles had been lit to dispel its darkness.

"I just don't understand...!" sobbed the girl, using her hands to wipe cheeks wet with tears. Her long hair fell in soft waves around her delicate features, which, with each passing day since last winter, had outgrown more and more that of a child and become that of a beautiful woman. The young girl sat there like a little heap of misery, and the queen let her gaze glide over her figure. It was pitiful. Or at least it might have been.

"My poor child," the queen purred, leaning forward a little as she gingerly took her stepdaughter's hands. They were small and delicate, soft and flawless. Untouched by work or even the years of aging. And she only hated them more with each passing heartbeat, as they grew more beautiful with each passing day, while Rhiannon herself withered away. But she swallowed the bitterness and continued: 

"I will speak with your father. Surely it's just a misunderstanding," she promised, and her lips formed a comforting smile that failed to reach her eyes. "You know your father is agitated lately."

She released the younger hands from hers and bent over to take one of the golden plates from the nobly decorated table. An exquisite fragrance of cinnamon and apple wafted toward them from the golden-brown pastry. The queen carefully handed it to Snow White. 

"The rumors about your... inappropriate behavior have been circulating everywhere for some time now, Mairwen. They say you even beat one of your chambermaids so badly that she could not continue her work." At this, the queen smoothed a non-existent wrinkle in her sweeping gown that flowed around her legs like rivers of gleaming gold. "And now there is talk of a conspiracy against me... And against your father, the king himself."

The movement came to the slender body beside her. Like a deer in the light of a lantern, the princess snapped open her oh-so-large, blue-doe eyes and looked at Rhiannon in disbelief.

"But... What makes him think I... I would never mean him - or you - any harm!" implored the princess.

The queen waved it off as if shooing away an annoying fly. When was the child going to stop talking?

"I know you will. Now, calm down. Eat something, and everything will turn out all right," she said to the troubled princess, who had kept her pure heart all the years at court. Well, Rhiannon herself would rather say that this stupid thing didn't learn how to use the strings of aristocracy properly.

Invisible tension pulled at every muscle, and her eyebrow twitched as she watched Princess Mairwen sink the silver fork into the pie. The crust crunched, and the golden juice of the apples shimmered in the pale candlelight. The girl slipped the slice into her mouth. Grace. Something else that this child lacked.

Still, It had been a long time since Rhiannon had last felt such bottomless rapture as she did at that moment.

"Do you like the apple pie? I had it prepared for you alone."

If poor Snow White had been more attentive, she would have noticed the sound of doom in her stepmother's voice by now at the latest.