Hello! If you made it past my awful summary and decided to read this story anyway, I'm very glad you did! I loved SWATH, and this short kind of just came to me and I had to write it. I hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own Snow White and the Huntsman.
Her Huntsman.
Her Huntsman is sleeping when she slips into his room. It's not really his room she, Snow White that is, realizes. He has just taken up residence in the castle of late, and this room was available for him to lay claim to. The stonewalled room is cold, lit only by the embers that flicker gently in the hearth, and silent apart from the Huntsman's breathing. She goes over to his bedside, trying to make as little noise as possible like her taught her in the forest. He probably never intended for her to use his own tricks against him. Then again, he probably never intended to stay by her side for this long.
Snow White wants to talk to him. She has needed to talk to him for weeks, but she hasn't because she is terrified. And now she has finally gathered the courage to talk to him and it is the dead of night, the dawn hours away still. She doesn't want to disturb his peaceful, possibly alcohol induced slumber, and she doesn't even know how to. She would blame that on being locked in a tower for half of her life, not on her dread for the discussion that she knew would follow.
So she stays by his side for what should be an uncomfortably long time. But to her, there is nothing wrong or uncomfortable with the silence that hangs in the room like a heavy blanket. A flash of movement in the window draws her attention, a white-breasted blackbird flies through the darkness, and Snow White knows that it is time.
Some strange instinct makes her lean closer to her Huntsman, bringing her hand to his face. She brings her lips close to his and she wakes him like he woke her all that time ago.
She means to pull away quickly once she realizes what she's done, but his hand comes up around the back of her neck, holding her there for a moment. Then he is awake and he breaks the kiss, shock and confusion in his clear, honest eyes. "What-what are you doing here? What time is it?"
"It's the dead of the night. I came because I needed to talk to you."
"Now?" He sits up and looks out of the window as if to confirm that it is indeed the middle of a very dark night.
"I couldn't wait." Snow White plays with her hair subconsciously, wishing that her courage hadn't finally come back to her now. "It's important." She means to keep talking, but her Huntsman is looking at her with such lovely confusion that after all her years repressed in a tower, she really can't help herself.
Snow White leans in again, letting her eyes slide shut, and he shoves her away. Gently, but the gesture brings her pain.
"Your majesty, what are you doing?" he asks her quietly, not bringing his eyes to meet hers.
She hates this. She hates that he has gone from not calling her anything at all, when he was hunting her in the dark forest, to his awkwardly endearing, stumbling use of her name as they traveled through the fairies' land. And now, here he is, calling her your majesty like he thinks she expects that from anyone. Like she expects it from him, least of all.
She brings her hand to his face, forcing him to look at her. He does, for a split second, before he jerks away. He stands and turns from her, pacing the length of the room as she watches with heartbreak in her eyes.
"I'm no good for you," he says without even looking at her. "I'm not right for you-for this life."
And he's right. He's a far cry from William's soft-spoken refined nature, the nature of a man bred for a life in court. He is coarse and rough, of the forest, born of hard work and little reward. He is a Huntsman, and he does not belong in her court. But he is her Huntsman, and she wants nothing more than to force him to stay by her side.
But that's not in her nature. It never has been. She was raised to not know how to take things that she wants for herself. All she knows, all she feels deep in her heart, is that it's wrong to make him stay. He shouldn't have to do as she wishes just because of the light golden crown perched like an delicate wreath on her midnight black hair. She watches him a he regards her warily, unhappiness flickering in his eyes as the dying flames dance.
"You should leave," Snow White whispers. She stands up and edges towards the door. "I'm sorry for disturbing you. I'm sorry for keeping you here."
The Huntsman doesn't move. He is a statue, one arm resting stiffly on wall above the fireplace, and his eyes closed. "You came here in the middle of the night to ask me to leave?"
Snow White stills, her hand reaching for the door handle as she balances on the balls of her bare feet. "This is what you want, isn't it?" She won't meet his eye, finding the heavy wooden door suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. "You don't want to be here. You hate me for getting you into this mess, and I understand. I'm not making you stay any longer." Snow White can barely bite the words out, and even she can hear how choked her voice is from forcing back tears.
The Huntsman finally moves from his stiff position by the fireplace, towards her. He is huge, Snow White always forgets how much bigger he is than her until moments like these when the scowl on his face is prominent and clear. There is no alcohol affecting him now, every emotion on his face is entirely his. And Snow White hates that, because all that she sees is anger and hurt in his face.
He comes towards her, close enough that she can feel his warm breath, and she feels so weak and small next to him. "Your majesty," he says, and she winces again at the use of the phrase, who is using it and how he says it. "Are you telling me to leave?"
"No! I'm telling you-telling you to do what makes you happy," Snow White says. He has worked her into a corner, literally and figuratively, and she doesn't know what to do. She can tell that he's not going to listen to her, no matter what she has to say. This is not how she planned on their conversation going. This is not even the direction that she had thought it would go and now here she was, about to lose her Huntsman because she couldn't organize her thoughts and make him hear her.
"And what do you want?" he asks, his voice suddenly gentle. "What is it that you want?"
Snow White shakes her head. "That's not what this is about."
"I will not leave until you tell me why you want me gone," he tells her.
And she sees it in his eyes that he's not lying. She loves that about him, he's so clear and honest, there is no politely clouded vagueness in his face like she sees in everyone else in the palace. She doesn't want him gone and he knows it. She can see that in his eyes, too. He just wants an honest answer.
"All of my life-" Snow White starts out shakily. "All my life, people have told me what to do. Where to go, what cell to sleep in. First, I was a princess, and even as a child, I had to behave a certain way, talk to certain people. Only a few people, and William was the only one I ever got along with. Everyone always thought-everyone always told me- that William and I were meant to be, that we would end up getting married. And we probably still will be married. And that's-that's what I came here to talk about but you just twisted my words and wouldn't listen to me and I can't handle that anymore. Never again." Snow White ducks under the Huntsman's arm that has trapped her against the wall and she stands in the middle of the room now, cheekbones highlighted dangerously by the fire. She really was the fairest of them all. "All my life, no one has ever listened to me. First I was a princess, then I was a prisoner. My father was dead, everyone I knew was dead or gone, and I did not see the light of day save through iron bars for so many years. And I did not speak, I dreamed. I dreamed of William."
The Huntsman's face is pained as she speaks, wincing with hurt when she speaks of William, but she ignores him. He had his chance to have her without her heartbroken fairytale history, and he missed it. He has to listen now.
"I dreamed of William coming to my rescue, saving me like he always said that he would would in our youth. He never did, but that hope kept me alive when all other glimmers of hope were snuffed out by my isolation. I fell in love with that hope, and I'm glad that I did. But now that is over. That's a child's hope, and I know now that there is no truth in it. I know now that it was not him, but you that woke me from that death. That's why I'm here. I need to understand."
Snow White looks at him with such hopeful desperation, and he has no idea how to respond. "It sounds to me like you do understand." He knows it's not the right answer even as the words leave his mouth.
Snow White looks down at her hands and bites her lip. "I do. I do now." She understands that he does not understand. Just one more person that doesn't really hear her when she speaks. Maybe William was not the one to break Ravenna's spell and maybe she does not feel for William as she does for her Huntsman, but he has always heard her. Right now, more than anything else, she needs to be heard. And she brushes past him and opens the door. "I'm sorry to have disturbed your sleep. I hope to see you around the palace tomorrow, but if I do not, I will understand."
Her answer is perfect, a diplomatic queen's response, quiet, reserved, unbiased. She has put the weight of the choice on him now. And the Huntsman watches her eyes close off, watches her resolve shift from her own happiness to everyone else's happiness, and he can't let that happen.
He watched her willing to sacrifice her own life for people that she barely knew, she wholeheartedly gave herself over to battle. He had seen the look on her face when she realized that as queen of a country just overcoming misery and turmoil, she could not leave the palace without a sea of guards surrounding her and blocking out the world that she had barely seen since her childhood. He watched her smile as they shut her behind the gates once more in her bigger, more gilded cage. She never once complained, because that's not what they wanted to see from her.
But he could not let her do that again. Just once, she had to be happy for herself. So before she can turn away and leave him, he grabs her arm and pulls her to him.
"It was me that broke her spell because I love you and you love me." He smiles down at her. "But you're a queen and I'm a huntsman, and I doubted that this could work. So I thought I would stay by your side and protect you and let you live your life, but you won't let me do that."
"I don't want you to stay by my side just to protect me. You are worth so much more to me than just that. You're not just some huntsman. You're my Huntsman and I love you," Snow White says, her face breaking into a smile before leaning up on the tips of her toes to kiss him again. The dawn breaks through the window, shining on Snow White and her Huntsman.