Words Never Came Easy
Words have never come easily to Snow White. As a child it hadn't mattered. She was cute and the beloved daughter of the King and Queen. Murmurs had been made of getting her a coach, but her mother's death put an end to them.
There was no need to speak in prison.
Behind cell doors there was no one to hear her ramble. No one to tell her what was appropriate or silly. No one to listen and converse with. She was left with the echoes of courtly life from the perspective of a young child.
Snow White would occasionally talk with fellow captives, but they never lasted long. She quickly learned that they appreciated the formal language she used, that they found comfort in it. A secret gift they could carry with them into death.
Then, before she could truly understand it, Snow White found herself facing the Huntsman. Ragged and dirty and drunk and miserable. He hated himself and barely understood where he was. Words flew from her mouth, but what value had they to a man who couldn't even bother to ask who he was hunting?
He walked away when she admitted she held no trust in him. How could she when they only met due to his intent to hand her over to the Queen and death?
As Snow White's journey continued she found herself questioning everything. What others said, what they meant, what to say, and the hardest – how to be understood.
It was something she felt she had been improving on until her death.
In death she experienced more and understood better than she ever could alive. Waking up again had been disorientating. It was as if a filter had dropped before her eyes and she couldn't get the right words out. Regrettably, it was like when she first left her cell.
Words spilled forth and she had no control, from thought to speech and she fought for the strength to make them work. She could not let the Queen continue, she had seen the end result and she had a responsibility to these people who saw her as nothing more than a figure head. She would do everything they needed, would become anything they needed.
She was willing to become their weapon if they lacked the strength themselves.
And so her words found truth.
Snow White followed the retreat of the dying Queen, watched her curl around her injury as a wild animal might. She saw not the evil witch draining the very life from the land but a terrified child, watching death surround her and acting. Acting to save herself and the only one left who reminded her of happier times.
She had no words to make this right. No words to convey her life time of sadness, of fear and despair. No words to forgive or give peace. To let the dying Queen know someone in this cruel world understood.
Too late, Snow White spoke the only truth that kept her moving since her death. Words made it into a promise to the dead Queen, who could never again try to touch her heart. Never would she let another destroy her heart as the evil witch experienced. From fear had come knowledge and knowledge action. Her death had strengthened her heart and her love gave wings to action.
You can not have my heart wasn't just a delayed reaction, it was a promise that no man would use her and no child uncrown her. As Queen, she would work to right the wrongs experienced by the strange women who killed her father and so many others. She would take the fight beyond her borders if needed.
If only she knew what to say as her people cried, "All hail the Queen."