spark a dream

too pure

A fanfiction of Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. This happens in a lucid dream Snow White has right after she is poisoned by the Evil Queen's apple. Enjoy!

***

She bit into the apple.

It landed on the floor with a resounding thud, and the crimson fruit rolled across the wooden planks. The old woman picked it up with one wrinkly hand, grinning with an evident gleam of malice in her eyes. The deed was done. Snow White was dead.

One old woman with the looks that could rival Medusa's was now the fairest in the land.

The Queen vanished in a puff of lime green smoke.

~~~

Snow White awoke by a well, the forest far away from her view. She looked up–an old castle with crumbling walls towered over the young lady. She couldn't shake away the feeling of unease and the foreboding chill that crept up her spine. Something was wrong about the place.

Then, she realized why. Snow was back within the walls of her stepmother's castle.

After her father had died, all traces of a 'home' had vanished from the palace. She'd spent her days cleaning and cooking as nothing more than a servant girl, undermined by her own stepmother. Snow had heard tales of another other girl being abandoned and mistreated by her stepmother from the couriers that whispered in the castle hallways, but word had it that she'd found her happily ever after. Snow had wished all her life for someone to sweep her off her feet. Just weeks ago, before she'd been taken into the woods, someone had the audacity to climb over Stepmother's carefully constructed walls. They meant to keep intruders out and Snow in, but Florian had not cared.

Evidently, Florian wasn't here to save her this time around. To be honest, he'd never saved her from anything–they'd just sang a duet, he told her he loved her (but was love at first sight real?) and that was it.

Snow heard footsteps coming from the other side of the courtyard, and turned to face an old woman—the same old woman that had given her...the apple.

Where was the apple now? Why was she here? The young girl's heart began to race. There was some sort of trickery or witchcraft in play here.

"Thank you for bringing me home, but I believe it isn't safe for me here. I must be going," Snow waved to the old woman and turned around, trying desperately to find an exit.

"Come here, dear child. Don't worry; I'm only here for a chat." The old woman stepped closer to Snow and grinned a wide, toothless grin.

Snow scolded herself for thinking the worst. Why would an old woman mean any harm? The only logical explanation here was that the dwarfs had found out where she'd come from, and the kindly old woman had offered to guide them to the palace of her childhood.

"I'm terribly sorry," Snow put a hand over her heart. "I should've known your intentions were never to harm me. Why would a home not be safe?" the young girl chuckled.

"Take a seat here," the old woman gestured to the stone bench near the well. Snow White remembered that was where she'd always put her buckets filled to the brim with water (they were too heavy for a weak fourteen-year-old to carry around all day) while she worked at the well, happily singing and cleaning away with her animal friends.

Snow obliged.

"What caused you to run from here?" The old woman asked. The courtyard seemed to brighten, and Snow swore she heard her old bluebird friends singing. There wasn't a bird in sight, though.

"Well..." Snow began her story. "My stepmother's hunter took me to the woods, and scared me off. I lost my way in the forest—everything seemed so scary! Thankfully, I happened upon a cottage in a clearing with seven lovely dwarfs. We took care of each other, and my animal friends also helped us keep everything clean and tidy. Then you came and offered me an apple—it tasted amazing, by the way! I must have hit my head, because the next thing I know, I awoke in the middle of the castle."

"You're such a daft little girl," the old woman smiled ruefully. "The hunter was supposed to kill you. Poor thing had too much of a heart, so he let you go free. Obviously, I had to finish the deed."

The dark clouds had returned. Suddenly, the old woman didn't sound like an old woman.

"Stepmother?" Snow White peered at the old woman. Lightning struck somewhere in the distance.

"You'll be dead soon." The queen sighed as she transformed with a puff of lime green smoke. The old woman was gone, and in its place was a stunning lady with an aura of regality. Her purple cape billowed out behind her, and the sun peeked out from the clouds just so, the tips of the golden crown catching a few rays of sunlight and casting a formidable, glaring beam of light onto the cobblestones.

"But the old woman—the apple—am I...poisoned?" Snow's bottom lip trembled. Her stepmother, of all people! The young girl had believed there was an intrinsic goodness in all people, but now she knew not to trust people so easily. If she were to live, she'd be sure not to give people so many second chances.

But there was nothing Snow White could do—not here, halfway between the realm of dreams and the real world. Her fate no longer rested in her own hands.

"Of course you're poisoned," Queen Grimhilde scoffed. "I'm the one who gave it to you."

Thunder boomed ominously, and the sky turned dark.

Snow White fell into unconsciousness.