Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R
Summary: Having the whole world at your fingertips is pointless if your heart is somewhere else.
Warnings: Unconventional Pairing
Disclaimer: Snow White, the Seven Dwarves, Prince Charming, and all other characters mentioned within are & TM Disney, not the author, and are used without permission. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
She stood naked before her mirror, staring into her own big eyes. Her skin was still as white as snow, and her hair just as black as coal. It was not her beauty she had come to admire, however. She turned to the side and sighed at the image she saw reflected back to her, a sigh of mixed relief and sorrow.
It was still there. His name was still on her body, just as he was on her heart. The woman who had been only a slip of a girl when he and his companions had first found her stared at the truth in the mirror. He was still on her. He, who had been her best friend, loyalest confidante, and who she missed more than any one else she'd ever known.
Her husband cared for her a great deal and gave her all he could to make her happy except the one thing, or perhaps seven, she needed more than anything and everything else in the whole wide world. He tried hard, but no matter what he did, he remained stiff and uptight. He was caring, but he was not open. He was handsome, but he lacked passion. He was kind and gentle but too gentle and caged within his body like a songbird in a cage.
Her husband was no freer than she was, but he had chosen this life. She had thought she had wanted it, too, but as the years progressed and time failed to dull the feelings she held for those she'd left behind, she had come to realize that this was not the life she wanted. He was not the man she wanted or loved. She had left behind the men she wanted and the man she loved for a life that promised to be free of worry and give her all the riches she could ever desire.
It was a grand life, she reflected, standing bare with the whole world laid out before her, but it was a lonely life. She missed them all, but she ached for him especially. She did not want to die the wife of a stuffy King. She wanted to love and to be loved again. She wanted to be draped in riches but, far more, in love. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too. She wanted Grumpy, Doc, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, and, most of all, Dopey, whose name on her arm she now etched with trembling fingers.
Snow White turned and walked over to her bed. Charming would be back soon. She only had a short time to do what she had ached to do for so long. She dressed hurriedly and fetched her bag from where she had kept it hidden in wait for the time she had always, deep down, known would come sooner or later. Within minutes, she was ready and mounted, and as she rode out of the gates of the tallest and grandest palace for hundreds of miles around, she at last found freedom.
The wind embraced her like a long lost friend. The horse between her legs strove mightily to please her, and the song of the birds who flew around her called to her. Within seconds, she found herself singing with them a song of celebration for renewed life and rediscovered freedom. The wind caressed her ebony hair like the fingers of a lover, and Snow White smiled brilliantly as she tossed back her head in song.
Soon, soon she would be home again, and she would let her men know just how much she had missed them! She was free at last, and never again would she be fool enough to leave the freedom of the forest in pursuit of a rich and easy life that had never been meant for her or, for that matter, anything else! "Dopey," she called, though she knew her love could not hear her, "Dopey, I am coming home!"
The End
