Brighter than it had ever been
xXx
Life grew wherever her barefoot touched the ground. The cracked earth softened in her wake, allowing flowers to sprout and unfurl, for the grasses to claw their way to the surface, the blades turning green then golden.
The Huntsman remembered standing on the drawbridge, watching her silhouette walk into the dawn light, wondering where the hell the lass thought she was going so soon after her coronation when the land she now ruled was still far from safe. With only the thought of guarding her, he had followed her silently, though he knew there was no need since the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs masked his footsteps. Now, standing here, close to where she had stopped to stare out to sea, the awe left him almost breathless. Snow White had a fragile kind of beauty, an innocence he did not want to taint. Whenever he was around her, he felt afraid to touch her lest she break. The feeling remained in spite of his memories of her riding into battle, of jumping through flames, her expression much too fierce to show fear, even when her hands were covered in Ravenna's blood.
Such a wee thing for so much spirit, he thought, staring at how the dawn light made her pale skin glow, and as it glinted off the gold of her new crown. When he had followed her, he swore that for a fleeting moment the crown's points had looked like the antlers of the White Hart.
So much of her was uncanny, unlike anything he had seen…
'I thought you had gone,' she said, turning to face him. It ached, his heart: he didn't deserve this – this regard from her. But he had long gone past the point of agonising over leaving her – he couldn't; it was anathema to him. But it didn't matter anymore what he thought, but what he felt.
'Where would I go?' he replied gruffly, looking away. His heart had left him little else – he would follow wherever she'd go. Once, he would've thought it cruel fate, but now…
'Some part of me thought you'd disappear,' she said softly, her words nearly lost in the wind. 'You'd be back in the Dark Forest, exactly as you were when I first met you, raging among the trees as if you could hunt down and kill your own sorrow and heartache with a blow. It … saddened me, that thought.'
But then I saw you, he wanted to say, but did not yet have the courage. I cannot be that man anymore. I saw life through your eyes and it was brighter than it had ever been.
He closed his eyes. It was harder to say it now than when he thought her dead. By God, he had been a soldier! Where had his courage gone? He had proven himself time and again: death still walked close in his steps, haunting him like a shadow in battle and when he'd stalked the depths of the Dark Forest. He had faced harder truths and moments, like when he bore Snow White's lifeless body to the Duke's stronghold – so close, but yet so far from what they had intended – unable to bear the stares of the haunted faces that had placed so much hope on their princess' coming. He had faced all this, but still his heart beat fast and the words, though on the tip of his tongue, were a mess in his head and mouth. What magic had she spun on him and his heart?
A gentler one, certainly, than you've experienced before, he realised, opening his eyes.
In his mind, the Huntsman tried make a last stand, though he knew it would be to no avail: she should have someone better - a prince, William, of course – not this broken man walking. Yet with that one look he knew she had chosen him above all other men for a reason he could not divine.
And he was not one to deny his queen anything she desired.