Snow (A Snow White Remix)

chapter three

"Oh. My. Creator." What the hell was Dopey doing?

Nora scrolled through Dopey's message board on his Musetunes profile. She always did a quick check of the pages she maintained before going to bed. And thank Creator she did. If she hadn't, Dopey would have single-handedly thrown his career down into the sewers.

She snagged her cell off the nightstand. What the hell are you doing? she texted furiously. Get off Musetunes. Now.

Dopey's response came less than a minute later. He might not be the brightest, but at least his response time was quick. Y?

You're ruining the message board.

No Im not.

Yes, you are! Her mouse scrolled over the third message near the top. One of his fans wrote a beautiful, heartfelt note about how his music changed her life. At the end, she asked for a collaboration. And Dopey—being himself—had responded.

You can't promise a collaboration!

Y not?

She never wanted to reach through a cell phone and strangle someone before. Because people are going to look for it. Then they're going to call foul if it doesn't happen.

Then we do the collaboration. he responded, followed by the freaking eye-roll emoji.

She did not go to all that hard work only to have it destroyed by an idiot.

Okay, so maybe she was being a bit dramatic. But how else was she supposed to act at 2 a.m. when her "charge" was making terrible Musetunes decisions? ESPECIALLY if he'd be looking to her to do damage control when he found himself in a bind.

If she were a cartoon character, there'd be steam pouring from her ears. First off, we can't just DO a collaboration. We have absolutely no idea how this girl sings.

What if she sings gud?

What if she doesn't? You want to take that chance?

His "..." showed him typing. And typing. When it seemed he wasn't going to answer, she said, We agreed that I would respond as you on your profile.

Y can't I help?

Because you sound like two different people!

Shit.

Yeah. You want people suspecting you don't do all the work yourself?

No.

A final plea: Please sign off.

Ok.

With a sigh, Nora logged onto Dopey's Musetunes. At the top of his profile page his name took over the cover banner. Pete Butler, written in all capitals. She scrolled down to his message board and, with a tired sigh, began damage control.

❅❅❅

Eli Leonger fell onto his king-sized bed and stared up at the vaulted ceiling of his bedroom. Another day finished in the studio. And what did he have to show for it?

Absolutely freaking nothing.

He'd sat in the palace's music studio for hours, messing with his latest song. The beat wasn't there, wasn't quite right. No matter what he did, it didn't feel like a song. At this point, it was more a bunch of mismatched, randomized tones.

One of his worst fears was coming true: all his songs were beginning to sound the same. And when he tried to mix things up, the piece became wild, as if he'd taken a bunch of songs and pieced them together.