Disclaimer: I don't own anything, all rights belong to the original creators.
...
Gleaming scarlet locks aren't just 'unique'; to the right buyer, they're twice their weight in gold.
After countless attempts of kidnapping, Shirayuki has grown up knowing the price of freedom and with paranoia in her bones.
Can she find peace, when the world seems so intent on possessing her?
...
She's six, the first time.
There's a nice man smiling down at her, from where she's on her tiptoes peering across the counter, and his sky-blue eyes linger on the ribbon pushing her hair back.
He's very nice and he doesn't talk to her like she's stupid and she likes him.
"Have you been to the duck pond?" He asks, bending down to meet her eyes and Shirayuki glances back at her Grandpa, but he's organising the back shelf and...he seems busy.
She slowly shakes her head. Grandma and Grandpa were busy with the shop most days...she didn't even know there was a duck pond!
He holds out a hand, still smiling and warm, and she slips her own into it. Just for a little bit, they'd be really quick and her grandparents wouldn't even realise!
The street is sunny and Shirayuki skips when the Nice Man swings their arms between them. But they keep on going, past the park and are they there yet? If it takes much longer, her Grandpa will notice!
She asks her new friend where they're going.
He doesn't answer.
Shirayuki was only six and very small. But she was smart, having learned to read and write before the other kids on their street and she's been helping around the spice shop for as long as she can remember.
She'd like to go back now, please.
His hand is starting to hurt her, pulling her along faster and faster until she's running to keep up and now she's scared-
"Help me! I want to go home!" She shrieks, knowing that something's going wrong and he's taking her somewhere.
The blacksmith across the street stops banging his anvil, attention captured by the piercing scream. He's filthy, sleeves rolled up and leather apron scuffed and his blonde moustache is brown with soot.
He drops his hammer and starts running.
Shirayuki is screaming now, tugging on her arm and the Not-Nice Man isn't happy and warm anymore but cold and mean and she wants to go home!
"Hey, you there! Let her go!"
Arms loop around her waist, ignoring how she squirms and yells and kicks, and now they're running. People in the street, it's much less busy here, catch on and start running too.
The Not-Nice Man is fast. But, ducking down a back alley and with a very difficult hold on his victim, the huge and hulking blacksmith is faster.
It feels like a mountain comes down on them, when the blacksmith catches up. The Mean Man goes flying, dropping Shirayuki to land roughly on the pavement and the sooty blonde is on him in an instant, kneeling on his back and twisting his arms.
The little street, squashed between a house and a shed, is suddenly very full.
A young mother, baby tied to her back with a blanket, scoops down to check Shirayuki is alright. She's shushed before she even realises she's crying and then the Horrible Man is being taken away and people are whispering and then-
Her Grandpa appears at the back of the crowd, green eyes frantic before they settle on her own.
His hug smells of ginger and sage and it's warm, desperate in the way that she needs.
The blacksmith introduces himself as Yun. He's gruff and she can't see his eyes behind his big, bushy brows but he slouches down so she won't be scared (it doesn't work and he's still a head taller than everyone else). His voice is deep and rumbling, but soft. Like a teddy bear.
She likes him very much and tells him so.
She's not really allowed out after that. She visits Yun all the time though because he's her first friend. He doesn't stare at her hair like everyone else does and the Forge is cool. She likes his cat, too, a fat tortoiseshell called Sabre (her claws were sharp as swords, he said, even though the cat had never scratched either of them).
Shirayuki doesn't leave the house without someone now, whether that's an adult or Sabre, and she doesn't talk much to strangers.
Her hair, everyone whispered. When they thought she wasn't listening or couldn't hear them. He was going to sell her for her hair-
Shirayuki wasn't a doll or a jar and she didn't want to be sold.
She told Yun as much and he banged the anvil even harder.
…..
The next time is when she's 8.
Everyone tells girls to be wary of men, especially strange ones.
After that Horrible Man when she was six, Shirayuki is more aware than most.
She still talks to men because not all men are like him. They don't stare at her or try and take her places or "try to pull anything", as the girls in the market always whispered. And they're her grandparents' customers! She has to be nice, they don't deserve anything else. And some of them are lovely too! Mr Haku always brought the new baby, Su, when he came in and made sure to crouch so that Shirayuki can see properly. He lets her stroke Su's soft cheek whilst talking to her Grandma and shake her rattle to make her giggle.
There's Old Chouta, who knew her Grandpa when they were as small as her! He comes in every week for linemen for his knees and he always has a sweet bun for her. It's their little secret, he winks with a gnarled finger to his lips.
But the pretty girls down the street, some only just teenagers, talk about boys who won't take 'no' for an answer or loiter on the street corners at night. Shirayuki has seen it sometimes, when a few lads follow a pretty girl through the market and keep calling out to her. They're always stopped by people but it still happens.
So, Shirayuki is cautious with men.
No-one told her about women though.
There's an old lady struggling with her bags when she leaves the Forge. She's old and humpbacked and the evening is swiftly drawing in.
"Are you alright, ma'am?" the little redhead scampers over because she's been raised with kindness and their street, even in a busy capital, is so close. 'It takes a village to raise a child', Grandma always says. And, ever since the Horrible Man, Shirayuki has been the strongest example of it.
"Oh!" the older woman turns to the little girl, dark eyes crumpled behind the wrinkles of her warm smile. A gentle hand comes down to pat her head and Shirayuki can't help but beam back, emerald eyes glittering. "It's nothing, my love. These old bones are simply not what they used to be!" As if to prove her point, she patted her hip with a cheeky wink.
Giggling slightly at her playfulness, Shirayuki bit her lip. The sunset was painting the sky a wash of lavender and rose, yellow as a sunflower on the very horizon. It was getting a bit dark and the streets were only dirt, what if she turned an ankle and some men found her?
Shirayuki was still pretty small but, amongst her peers, she was one of the tallest. A good diet and good exercise, from running around the shop and bugging Yun until she was allowed to pass him equipment in the Forge. She was pretty slight but thin cords of muscle had started to develop on her arms and legs.
But, no matter how small, she was still in better shape than the poor woman before her.
"Here, please allow me," Shirayuki stepped forwards and lifted one of her heavy bags, filled with sheets from the look and feel, into her arms. It was awkward, her arms being too short to go around properly and she couldn't see very well, but the older woman seemed touched. "Let's get you home, ma'am!"
Another gentle brush over her head, this time tucking a loose strand behind her ear, and then they were off. "Thank you, my love. Follow me!"
It was slow going, even if the woman seemed to move so much easier thanks to her help, but they kept plodding along. Streets passed, and the sky deepened in dusk. Plum and pansy purple with deep streaks of blue so dark it seemed black.
The street lamps were lit and they moved past restaurants and vendors. Shirayuki had never been in this neighbourhood before but, in a capital city so large, it wasn't too surprising.
What was was the amount of people in the street. Their progress slowed again as they were forced to weave through the crowds, hindered again by Shirayuki's inability to see where she was going.
It was when they were shuffling around a group, that she felt it.
Fingers carded through her hair, lingering on the back of her neck and dipping beneath the collar of her tunic and the little redhead shrieked. Spinning around, difficult with her heavy armful, emerald eyes caught sight of an old man, the age her father might've been had he lived, smiling down at her.
It wasn't a nice smile, oily and uncomfortable,and there was a meanness in his dark eyes.
Shirayuki...wanted to go home now.
"A new one, Kaida?" He crooned. Like when Shirayuki talked to baby Su but weird and wrong.
It takes her a second to realise he's talking to the older woman she was helping. Another half of one for her to drop the bag and start backing away.
She's fast, better than the older boys the street over, she can surely make it-
A gnarled hand, that had stroked her hair so softly not long ago, clamped down on her shoulder with a strength that belied age. "She's a lovely little thing and business should pick up from her colouring alone!"
Her voice wasn't nice anymore but hard and cruel. Shirayuki marvelled at the ease of her deception.
The oily man reached for her again, arm easily following her when she tried to squirm away. He trailed a finger down her cheek, still rounded in childishness. "So young...I would be honoured to reserve he-"
Shirayuki turned her head and bit him. Hard.
"Ow!" he jerked back, lips twisting in a sneer, "why, you little rat-"
But they were surprised and Shirayuki had seen pickpockets ducking out of punishment enough to know how it goes. How to follow through.
A sharp twist, so sudden and violent it hurt, and her shoulder was ripped free and she started running, ducking under arms and weaving through the crowds.
Don't push through, that attracts attention and they can follow you, She internally chanted. Don't look back, just keep going and trust your ears.
She runs.
And runs.
And runs.
The footsteps behind her peater off when she ducks through someone's garden, dodging the laundry and hopping the fence.
They'd wanted her back, and chased her for a good long while, but she was quick and they'd given-
"There you are, little rat-" the silhouette of a man, visible in the long and dark gaps between street lamps, and she stifles a gasp.
So close, she was so close-
"What's going on out here?" A woman opens her door, young face illuminated by the candle in her steady grasp, and the light falls over the small redhead, crouched behind the doghouse by her front path.
The man leaves without a word.
The nice lady, her savior, tries to take her inside for tea. Comfort, that's what she's trying to do. She's trying to comfort a little girl who was almost taken.
Shirayuki knows her, so near to her own street as they are. Her face is vaguely familiar, the local midwife, she thinks.
She's only trying to help, gentle and open to put the little redhead at ease, but Shirayuki just wants to go home.
But it's dark and what if they're still out there? Just waiting around the corner for her or what if someone else tries to snatch her up?
So...she stays for a bit. All the lights in the house are on, the shadows chased away and tea is poured.
The midwife introduces herself as Suki and Shirayuki wonders if she's playing a game with her too.
They sit for ten minutes, sipping at tea as the midwife flutters around and Shirayuki trembles, before there comes a great banging on the door. The abused wood trembles visibling from the strain and Shirayuki, scrambling back around the table, wonders if she'll be dragged away by the very hair that got her into this mess.
"Open up! Please! Open up-!" a deep voice yells and it's so familiar.
The tightly wound adrenaline leaves the girl's body so abruptly, she feels woozy. As it is, it only takes a moment to catch herself on the back of a chair before she realises that Miss Suki has grabbed the poker from the modest fireplace and advances towards the door. Her face is set into hard lines and the redhead marvels that, despite all the lives she's brought into the world, this stranger is willing to escort one from it. For her-
The door is yanked open and the poker jabbed seemingly against the hulking figure on the porch.
"A girl, red hair and yay-high; have you seen her?!"
Blonde hair ducks into the yellow lamplight.
"Yun!"
There's a sob caught in her throat and, then, she's flying across the room. Strong arms, thick as trunks with muscle, cradles her gently. He smells of sweat and smoke, his heartbeat so fast Shirayuki wonders if he'd been running for her.
"Yun!" the redhead bawls, shuddering as the adrenaline flees her little body. "An old lady tried to give me to this man! H-he was oily and wrong and he touched my face-!"
The blacksmith's grip tightened, shushing her gently. Shirayuki's tears weren't quite loud enough to drown out Suki-sensei's hissed stream of bad words.
Her grandparents are crying when Yun brings her home, wringing Suki-sensei's hand and thanking her for her timely intervention. Shirayuki sleeps in their bed that night.
Everyone on Pageant St. knew what happened the next morning.
….
After the second attempt, Shirayuki walks a bit quicker, Sabre curled around her shoulders to conceal her long hair and with wary eyes cast around. There's a hood over her head and her clothes are studier, thicker and cut along more masculine lines. She's been called "lad" twice, already.
She wears dark blue and deepest green. Grandma says she looks pretty. They blend in more, Shirayuki replies.
It's three weeks later when Yun presses a small switchblade into her hand, the safety carefully latched. He spends all afternoon making sure she knows how to handle it properly and her grandparents are torn. On one hand, she knows she's too young for a weapon or anything like that. On the other...it makes her feel a little less like the apples people pluck so easily from the lowest branches.
She sees the midwife, Suki-sensei, sometimes and, on days when she's feeling better, smiles and waves. When that happens, the stress-lines on the brunette's too-young forehead aren't quite so deep.
In a capital so large, the biggest city in Tanbarun, streets developed a close-knit community. On their street, there were four shops; aside from their herbal remedies, Yun had his blacksmith on the other end before the houses peetered out into warehouses before the pier. There was the grocer, Hari, and the seamstress, Yuko, and then the rest were just homes.
Shirayuki was at that awkward age where most of the children were either much older or considerably younger, new families with babies or older ones with the kids almost ready to move out. There were a trio of sisters on the next street over but they were rather silly for the redhead's taste. (They wanted to play with her hair but the touching made Shirayuki...nervous). Then, there was the nephew of Mr. Hari, the grocer, who sometimes helped him move crates. He wasn't much bigger than Shirayuki but he wasn't very talkative so she didn't bother him.
But, it was fine. Because Shirayuki had her grandparents and Yun and Sabre the cat. She was fine.
So, time moved on.
She was 10 when Grandpa got sick.
...
A/N- Hi! So, my first ever fic was for this fandom a good while ago, almost three years. It was sad and bad, not just content-wise, so I deleted it. However, recently, someone suggested I give writing for SWWTRH another go so...here I am! I actually have another WIP, ShiraObi, in the works so we'll see. Regardless, I hope you enjoy my fic and please review 3