A/N: A look at Snow White after the events of the movie. (This started as a friend saying the only characters with chemistry were Snow White and the troll (so... basically a Snow White/Troll prompt). I couldn't even get that right. Sorry, hon.)
She is their queen, but she is not one of them.
They do not understand her. Perhaps she does not even truly understand them. How could she, when her sole companions for fifteen years were children of the forest.
Her kingdom does not need her hand to guide it. It has only ever been interested in what she could represent: beauty, hope, savior, leader, mother. The woman herself means little to them. Even William, with his talk of true love, is no different; he is lost in stories of honor, glory, and romance, and the lifetimes long since faded that can neither be remembered nor restored. Her Huntsman is the truest—perhaps because he is closest to the wood—but in their moments together he still looks upon her with an awe that can neither separate queen from woman nor legend from truth. To him she is honor and duty and the love that will not bend to death.
In fleeting moments she wonders if perhaps it is the fate of all queens to be ensnared by the roles laid out for them by their people and tradition. Ravenna was evil, yes, but was she ever more than the polished image of terror and beauty? Had even Snow White's father looked beyond the surface when he took her to wed?
And what of those who are connected to a world far beyond the reach of those around them?
Snow White is their queen, but she sings the songs of the forest and fae, and the forest and fae sing back to her. What more can one expect from a child born of magic and wrought in the silence of imprisonment, cold stone and blue sky?
When she has retrieved the crown, and her kingdom is fed and sheltered and safe, she finds herself wandering. Her feet first take her into the wood where she once played as a child. Where she once died. It is not an escape she wishes, but the sense of belonging she cannot seem to find among those said to be her people.
Each time she wanders farther, longer. Her Huntsman is never far behind, though he thinks her unaware. Upon return she is always met with the quiet confusion of her people, but never questioning. Her subjects will not doubt her; she is clearly beyond their understanding. Nor will William; her actions are beyond his attention when he has his duties as king to tend and their every conversation serves to draw them further apart.
One day, beyond Sanctuary and the mountains and woods of her kingdom, Snow White happens upon a bridge. The magic of the forest thrums through her and she sees it, stony hide rising with its every breath.
She steps closer to it, grinding her foot into the ground and sending the crack of dry bark and splintered wood echoing through the forest. The creature raises its head and turns on her, the smell of mildew and grass and wet stone on its cool breath as it roars at her in the same thunderous way it did all those years ago. Snow White stands her ground and returns its warning in kind.
Recognition lights its slate eyes.
Her hands travel over its face and she is in turns reminded of cool stone, soft moss and new bark. The creature huffs and settles itself again. It's right, she finds herself thinking as she dangles her legs over the bridge that straddles Sanctuary and the Dark Forest. This is truly her domain.
After all, cold stone, blue skies and magic are where her heart has ever lain.