A Queen and Her Kings

A Soul Laid to Rest and Mysterious Marks

Cassandra gasped as she opened her eyes. What had happened? Where was she? The last thing she remembered was stabbing the ink monster with her new sword after weakening it with that hurt spell from Tangled, and then that bright light...

Cassandra looked around. She appeared to be in a forest of sorts. The birds were chirping, she could hear the sound of running water, and the sound of animals scampering about. Everything was perfectly normal, except for the fact that the edges of everything were slightly blurry. It was like one of her visions.

Cassandra sighed. If she wanted to figure out why she was here, or better yet, how to leave, she likely needed to start looking around. Marching through the forest to the rhythm of the leaves and twigs crunching beneath her feet, the tribrid made her way to where the sound of water was coming from. After a while, she came to the same brook she and her Court had crossed to get to the mines. Looking up and down it, she soon spotted a short, stout man in red a little ways away. She had her suspicions about who it was. Making her way over to him, slowly so as to not scare him off, Cassandra came to a stop beside him and sat indian style to the right of him. With a sigh, she began to speak.

"You know, ", she said calmly, giving the stoic dwarf a side glance, "While I wish to ask you all about the interesting life you must have lived, Mr. Grumpy, the one thing I would like to know more is how you turned into that beast.", Cassandra finished, keeping judgment out of her voice, leaving only genuine curiosity.

The dwarf only glared at the forest in front of him, remaining silent. Cassandra did so as well, deciding to wait until he decided he wanted to answer. Five minutes later, he did.

"It was my greed.", he said calmly, a melancholic look in his usually angry eyes. Cassandra gave him a soft look.

"Is that so?", she asked, before continuing into non-rhetorical questions.

"I've heard of greed turning men into beasts, but never in such literal terms. If it doesn't strain you too much, would you care to elaborate?"

Cassandra kept her voice and eyes soft, her previous anger at the dwarf gone now that he was in such a broken state. Soundlessly, the dwarf came to feet. Cassandra noticed he was even shorter than Skipper, and would only come to her waist.

"When she was poisoned, that prince of hers that she talked so much about never came. We waited and we waited, but none of us ever saw him arrive. She just sat there for decades. She always looked as beautiful as the day that hag tricked her into eating that apple...", the dwarf said in a sad, nostalgic tone. The area began to spin, and as he narrated his story, the scene he was describing appeared. Soon, a hill laid across the brook. A glass coffin with a beautiful young girl, skin white as snow and lips red like blood, sat atop it, surrounded by flowers. The name 'Snow White' was engraved onto the gold bottom in beautiful writing. Seven dwarves, and many woodland creatures sat around the coffin, some on their knees and all heads bowed. A beam of heaven's light shone onto the coffin like a spotlight, and a small wisteria tree hung its flowers over the coffin.

Cassandra felt her features soften further, so the tale was more tragic than she had been led to believe.

Then, the memory seemed to fast forward. Spring turned to summer, summer turned to fall, fall turned to winter. This happened over, and over, and over again. She could see signs of age begin to appear on the faces of seven dwarves, who still remained kneeling by the coffin. They had appeared old before, but now they had started to look ancient, and slowly, one by one, they began to fade away, until only Grumpy remained.

"The years passed. We waited for him like she asked, no matter how doubtful we got. Dwarves live three times longer than humans, but we weren't young even when we met Snow. One by one, time claimed us, until only I was left. Snow still hadn't aged, and her prince was likely long dead. I was desperate, no one would help me break the spell, unless I gave them something in return..."