AN: I wrote this a while back and showed it to a very trusted friend of mine who said it was some of my best work. Other than my friend, no one has ever seen this story before. But I was encoraged to post it as a fairytale fanfic because it's based off of "The Snow Queen" So here it is. I have more if anyone likes it. I haven't finished the whole story yet, but I have a couple more chapters. I'm just waiting to see if anyone likes it before posting them.

Glass Splinters And Roses

(Or What Becomes of Shattered Mirrors)

Based on H.C. Anderson's original fairytale, "The Snow queen"

Prologue

It is a bitterly cold day. I can already tell. I have just woken up this morning, catching sight of the grayish light falling in through the fogged up window. As a little girl I loathed days like this. The fogged windows blocked my view and made me cross. It is strange that I would become so bad-tempered over losing that view. For it wasn't much of one. I could see only the window boxes, mine and that of the house next door, and not much else. But oh, how vexed and unmanageable it made me. Back in those days when I thought I would be a little girl for ever. I thought nothing would ever change. However such a day was not a total waste, for there was one thing I could do that I could enjoy. I could heat up pennies on the stove and press them against the frozen windowpanes. They did make the nicest peep holes. And little Kay, my dearest friend in all the world would be next door doing the same. It's a little silly now that I think of it, how much in amused us to look at each other through our frozen windows when easily, either of us could have gone over and seen the other. But for some reason on those days (And those days only) we preferred the peep holes.

I sigh and roll over. Perhaps it will snow. As I roll, I bang into my husband who lets out a moan.

"Gerda!" He says sharply. "I'm trying to get some sleep. It's my day off."

"Then stay off my side." I laugh.

"It's you that's on my side." He smiles and starts to open his eyes as he speaks. He looks pleased to see me. He always does in the morning. As if he was secretly worried I wouldn't be there.

It is a hard fear for most people to understand. After all, we were one of the most agreeable couples you'd ever be likely to meet. We rarely fought. And when we did it seldom lasted till the end of the day. Yet he lives with this fear of waking up to find me gone. Although, it ought to be me that fears losing him after all I was the one left behind all those years ago. But I don't have that fear I just know he will be there when I get up in the morning as surely as I know the sun will rise. Once saved always saved is the way I think of him. Wishful thinking or not, to me it is true.

It is he who has the icy nightmares and awakens shivering from them. Often, he doesn't fully awaken. He is half-awake and shaking all over. On such nights, I gently lean over and stroke his hair. "Shh." I whisper. "It's all right."

Most times he falls back asleep but a much more peaceful one. Other times when the nightmares are at their worse, He mumbles. "Gerda? Where's Gerda?"

"I'm right here." I say softly.

His lips tremble and I know what he is going to say before he says it.

"Shh." I repeat myself. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

In the mornings, glad though he is to see me, he doesn't remember his nightmares or the fact that I comforted him through them. Sometimes, I do wonder that if in his waking hours he has forgotten completely. That he has forgotten our adventure from long ago. The one we started separately but ended together. Surely he must remember for was very nearly our whole childhood. No one expected us back. We'd both been pronounced dead. I still recall the shock that struck me when I spotted my name engraved on a smooth marble stone under that tree.

In loving memory

of Little Gerda Rostilla

only Child of the Rostilla family

Believed dead after disappearing one winter years ago

may she rest in peace.

But I wasn't dead. Still it was difficult to convince others that I was really alive. Grandmother was willing enough to believe that it was really me. She said that she saw the little girl she used to care for looking out of my eyes. And the young man I'd brought back with me certainly looked enough like Kay. But few others believed. Even mother and Father refused to believe me. They said I was a pretender and that their daughter had died less than one year after her friend Kay did.

"But he's here!" I cried grabbing Kay's arm. "Can't you tell it's him? Can't you tell it's me?"

"I can." Grandmother said, embracing us for the billionth time since we'd shown up.

"Mother!" My father scolded. "your old eyes play tricks on you!"

"No." She said calmly. "It is your young cynical eyes that play the tricks." She held Kay and I even closer now. "You can't even recognize your own daughter."

I start to get up. No use spending the whole day in bed. I reach for my dressing gown which hangs on the wooden bedpost.

"Where are you going?" My husband asks.

I sigh as I stand up and tie the dressing gown around myself. "I'm getting up. It must be pretty late by now. We slept in." I turn around fling the almost translucent silk curtains open. Not that it makes much of a difference in the lighting anyway. It's still the same murky gray light as it was before.

My husband moans. "I don't wanna get up. It's my day off." He pulls a pillow over his head. "I told you already."

I nod and walk out the door down to the kitchen. I know he'll feel differently about spending the whole day in bed when he smells breakfast being made. I walk over to the sink. Glancing out I can see the Roses in the window box. They haven't bloomed yet. They are still green in fact. In my mind's eye I see them chance. They turn red and burst into full bloom. I watch on as the window box turns into a bush on a roof top. I see myself as a little girl dressed in pretty clothing that makes me look rather like a large doll. I sit there beside Kay who suddenly screams out. "Ow! My eye! Something has stuck my eye!"

Oh how it all comes back. The beginning of the story. My story. Kay's story. I didn't know about the real beginning back then. I didn't know about that dreadful hobgoblin that a few weeks before had been flying about in the air so high above us, so many miles away from us. Waving his mirror too and fro.

I wasn't one of those unfortunate souls who heard his chilling crackles of laughter as he glimpsed at the twisted reflection in the mirror. But I know it must have been a repulsive sound indeed. It was so bad in fact that some timid old women believed that it was not a hobgoblin at all. But the devil himself. Carrying the mirror up to the heavens so that he might laugh at god and the angels. The laughter was just that distressing.

All that soul-numbing laughter shook the mirror so much that it slipped falling down the earth and shattering. I believe that it fell upon the icy, snow covered parts of the world. For how else could The snow queen have gotten involved? It may have been her own chilly wind that send the splinters of glass from there to everywhere else.

Now you will hear a tale of a childhood spent on the search. Of an unbreakable friendship. Of Glass Splinters and Roses. This is what truly becomes of shattered mirrors.

AN: Please review. I really want to know if anyone likes this or not.