He spends most of his time in the forest, watching the leaves drifting to the ground, green or gold or crimson red. He hunts when he's asked to. He doesn't have to try very hard; there was a reason he was the Royal Hunter. (Being a fey has it's advantages.) He's old now and weathered, a back less straight than it once was and skin wrinkled up in folds, but he's not dead yet.
They say that you can't kill a fey. He supposes it's true, being that he's still alive. It's been a long time. They also say that thrice a woman's eyes can tame a wild thing. He's always been wild; it was written in his blood, the fey blood. To be tame is to be human.
Eyes can change things, though. He remembers hers, brown, with a just a hint of green. Like the forest maybe, but better. He doesn't like to think about it. The forest is his home; she was nothing. Twice she'd looked at him, though, twice their eyes locked and he felt something less wild go through him. Or maybe it was more wild, he doesn't remember now. (He's lying; a fey always remembers.) Perhaps he just can't explain it.
It had only been twice anyway, and he wasn't tame yet. He isn't afraid that it will happen again; it couldn't. Still, he avoids the eyes of all women he comes in contact with. Not that Her Ladyship can tame him. The woman is like ice herself, cruel and unyielding. Not that he can call anyone else cold; he is fey, he is inhuman.
He has a scar on his left hand, stretched across his thumb to his wrist. He says he's just getting older, been too careless with his knife on too many occasions. (Another lie; the fey don't scar, they heal instantly.)
He'd dropped the knife straight out of his right hand, reaching up to whatever animal he'd been gutting. (A deer, the king's, the finest in the forest.) He'd said she startled him with her noise. (Though, he'd heard her half a mile back.) No one argued with him. No one else had been her, and she certainly didn't know of the effect her eyes could have.
She was the princess, of course, come to marry the king. She was lost in the forest, but enjoying every moment, a smile curved upon her lips. She had a pretty face, and he was younger then. He knew she was off limits from the moment he met her, but that was alright.
He asked her questions as he would anyone else, and she was surprised that he cared. (Maybe he didn't, but asking was all the difference.) He'd taken her back to the castle soon afterwards and expected never to see her again. The next day he noticed his eyes were a shade duller and stubble grew thick on his chin.
Now he wanders through the thickest parts of the forest, ripping past nettles and trees alike. He tries to forget where they'd been. (Though the fey never forget.) He doesn't try to be human. He's better at being a hunter. It doesn't take empathy to kill your prey. Empathy is a thing of humans; apathy is animal. Or, in his case, fey.
He doesn't hunt for sport, though. He could never make himself do it. A forest isn't a forest without being alive. And being alive isn't being alive without having things running and bounding and creeping all about. He leaves what lives he can and takes those he must. He is a hunter.
He's never cared much for snow. It drowns out the green and kills the forest. Winter is cold, harsh, unfeeling. (He happily ignores that the fey are characterized thus as well.) White isn't nearly as nice a color as green.
He can do things with the snow, though. A drop of blood in the snow can bloom into a rose with merely a thought. The leaves are black, though; he cannot muster the colors of summer to his will. He wishes he could.
She'd liked the colors. White and red and black against each other. It was odd almost, the way she'd went on about it when he'd showed her. He didn't mind. (At least someone was appreciating his tricks.)
He tries to block the memories at that point, when she'd told him she wanted a daughter with skin as white as snow, hair black as the leaves of that rose, and cheeks as red as the petals. That was alright, but then he hadn't seen her again until that time, the last time.
They say that when you're broken, you can age a thousand years in a minute. He thinks this might be true. Fey shouldn't have grey hair, shouldn't be old men. But he is.
He'd stood in her bedchamber with a dozen other servants during her labor pains. They'd summoned everyone they could get to help, though most just stood helplessly, in shock or doubled over a bucket, unable to tear their eyes from the blood.
He'd held her hand. The king was busy, out hunting. (Though that was his job, and the king should have been here.) Messengers had been sent out to find him, but they all knew they wouldn't make it in time. She was going, fast.
The cries of her baby were loud, wailing. It was a daughter, a girl, with skin as white as snow, hair as black as the leaves of his rose and cheeks of the petals. Just how she wanted it.
She gripped his hand still; their eyes locked. He felt it again, the tameness, (or was it wild?), that seemed to emanate through her. He couldn't find it in him to look away. "Take care of my Snow," was the last thing she'd ever said to him. He'd noticed the wrinkles the next day, as his hair faded to grey and his eyes lost what brightness still remained.
Mourning is an odd art, always different, unique for every mourner. Some cry and wail and scream out their pain. Others are silent, seeming to slowly fade out of this world and into their own. For him, he went back to how things were, without her.
He was a hunter. He threw himself into it and didn't look back. He was intensely loyal to his king and to his new queen, for no particular reason but that they were there. They were royalty. They gave orders and he wouldn't question them. He was unfeeling, he was fey, though why he still had to try to forget her was still a mystery. She was nothing.
Occasionally he asks about her daughter, to meet her last request of him. The girl is well enough, if not actually well, and he pays as little attention to her as he can. Until he has to kill her.
It's a request of the queen; he doesn't question the queen. Sometimes he wonders why. Is questioning something truly the same as feeling something? And shouldn't the queen be tested, in her twisted ways? He couldn't say she was twisted, though, that was feeling, that was judging, that was human.
He leads the girl into the forest. He's surprised by how beautiful she is, and how true her coloring was, to the rose in the snow. (They didn't call her Snow White for nothing.) She is fascinated by the forest, relishing in the sunlight flooding down through the canopy, the squirrels scurrying up the tree trunks.
He takes her away from the paths, into the deep and the dark, the truly wild part of the forest. He places his hand on his knife, ignoring the throbbing of the scar on his hand and the ache of his back. (His is fey; he does not feel pain.)
For a while he lets her walk around, feel the forest for what it truly is. After all, he is unfeeling; he doesn't feel the press of time. He avoids her eyes at all costs. He's never seen them, doesn't even know the color, but he knows her mother's eyes. Eyes are dangerous, eyes are human.
His time to strike his now. She's unsuspecting, ignorant. Her position is just right. He ignores the nagging voice in the back of his mind, her mother's voice. Perhaps he was doing the girl a favor; at least her stepmother won't beat her anymore. He takes a step forward, raising the knife up.
She turns suddenly, her eyes catching on him with surprise. Her eyes are brown, soft, with that tint of green, like the forest. Like her mother's. Thrice a woman's eyes can tame a wild thing. Eyes are powerful things.
The knife drops to the ground. He falls to his knees. He feels...cold. He's not sure that he's ever felt cold before. He's not sure if he likes it. He feels...strange. Tame, and at once not tame at all, but wilder than ever before. He feels...hungry...cold...tired. Most of all old. It occurs to him vaguely that these things are not fey; he should not be feeling them.
He doesn't mind, though. Being unfeeling, cold, seems distant now and controlled. Tame. Feeling is wild, feeling is free.
The girl is sitting beside him, confused and frightened.
He smiles at her, a friendly smile, a larger smile than he's ever smiled. He looks into her eyes, her brown, brown eyes. "You have to run away. Your stepmother wants to kill you. I'm sorry," he says, trying to form an explanation for her. He can feel the life flowing out of him; he's old, far, far too old.
"But—what about you?" she is asking.
"Don't mind me, just go," he answers. She looks confused, worried, but she'll be alright. He can tell. She has brown eyes, the kind that can tame things and make them run wild all at once. She'll be alright.
He lays down upon the ground, feeling everything around him, remembering and reminiscing. He is human.