A/N: This is the first of (hopefully) many chapters, and represents my
first try at posting on FanFiction.net. Reviews welcome!
Chapter 1
She had always known that her mother was disappointed in her. She couldn't remember when she had come to that realization; she assumed that she hadn't been born with it. But, try as she might, she couldn't put an exact time to her comprehension.
The disappointment manifested itself in expensive face creams smelling of rose and lavender and guaranteed to erase freckles, in magical hairbrushes that would smooth out the frizziest hair with one thousand strokes twice a day, and, after her twelfth birthday, in vials of subtle, but not too subtle, face paint for her eyes, lips, and cheeks. Every day since she was seven, a new perfume, beauty charm, or conditioner would make its way onto her vanity with a little note written in her mother's elegant hand specifying its use. By the time the princess was fifteen, her toilette took three hours in the morning and two at night.
And then there was the story. She supposed that the first time she had heard the story was the first time she had truly acknowledged that she would never be her mother's perfect daughter. That was the first time she put a name to the chill that hovered in the scented air of her bedroom even after her mother had left it.
The story was a short one of little consequence to anyone but her. One night after she knew that she was pregnant, the Queen was sewing in her chambers when she pricked herself. A single drop of blood fell onto the linen she was embroidering, creating a red stain on the pure whiteness. Her ladies-in-waiting heard her say to herself 'Oh but if my daughter could have skin like that linen, lips like that blood, and hair like the night,' and took it as prophecy, encouraging her that surely her daughter would be as beautiful as she. That was when she named her unborn daughter Snow White. Four years later, when she realized that her precocious toddler was developing freckles, and then two years after that when she realized that the princess's light brown hair was neither going to spontaneously turn a darker color nor lose its tight frizzy ringlets, she was said to have fallen into depression. The King, torn between love of his wife and love of his daughter reluctantly had the princess moved to a different wing of the house so that her constant presence would not further disturb her ailing mother. The strategy mostly worked. Her mother recovered, but never quite gave up on the idea that her Snow White should be beautiful. The constant stream of potions and creams and objects of magic attested to that.
The newest gadget had arrived that morning; a hair net woven with gold thread and strung with seed pearls. According to the new lady-in- waiting that had accompanied this gift, the hair net was supposed to make her hair shiny and smooth, redundant to the brush, she thought. Snow White had spent the next half hour dodging the woman's dogged attempts to arrange her hair.
"Milady? If you would only come over to the vanity."
She sighed. "I do not wish to come over to the vanity, to wear that silly charm, or to otherwise primp for the day. If you would only realize that, we would get along much better." Snow White smiled at the woman and tried to run a hand through her mass of curls. "Surely you can see that having my hair worked on for an hour can't be on my short list of things I'd like to do this morning."
The lady-in-waiting smiled uncertainly back, but there was no comprehension in her eyes.
"Oh, look.what's you name?"
"Jennifer, milady."
"A good name. Look, Jennifer, would you like to have someone pull on your hair for any amount of time?"
She shook her head, brows furrowed. "But, you're a Lady."
"For all my faults, I am, at least, not that." The princess pushed off of the embroidered pillows in the window alcove, the plain linen nightshift hissing against the stone floor. Her room was large, as befit a princess. It wasn't until one's eyes began to wander along the lines where the walls met ceiling that the hastily plastered cracks began to be apparent. And once one saw the cracks, one also saw that the tapestries were curiously faded along the left edge as if some careless servant had stored them too near a window. For, of course, the royalty normally lived in the central wing with some overflow into the East. The South wing was mostly empty now, and this room had been hastily fixed and furnished when it became apparent that the Queen could not tolerate the princess any closer. It had once been beautiful; Snow White traced the carving running around the mirror of her vanity.
"Milady?" Jennifer was standing right behind her, brush in hand.
"Yes?" A sea serpent wended its way around her reflection, individual scales revealing themselves to her searching fingers. Oak, she thought, the artist must have been a master.
"The Queen said I should make sure that you tried the net, milady, and I would not want to displease her."
"I've already explained that I am no Lady." Snow White favored the girl with a wry smile. "So you must call me by my name, as unwieldy as it is."
"But it's beautiful, mil.Snow White. I mean, I always wished.Jennifer is so plain."
"I would be happy to trade." She sighed and plopped onto the chair fronting the vanity. "I won't have you punished for my recalcitrance, so you may do my hair if it's necessary." She lowered her voice as she tugged on a curl. "Though God help you if it isn't."
"Thank you. Milady." Jennifer looked so relieved that Snow White didn't have the heart to correct her. "And your Lady Mother also requests your presence at dinner today."
"Today?" She was supposed to exercise her horse today, well, not her horse. The horse that was hers but not in name. The silver filly. Robin was going to meet her out in the practice field at noon so that there would be someone there in case of trouble; the horse was still quite green, not even grown into a name yet.
"Today." Jennifer began to gently but firmly tease her charge's mass of curls into some semblance of order.
"Will you do me one favor before you get too absorbed in my hair? You know Marianne? My usual maid? Ask her to convey my regrets to the stables, she'll know what that means." Snow White watched Jennifer's face in the mirror. The small creases insinuating their way onto the girl's face spoke more than her still lips. Snow White spun around in the chair, heedless of the strands of hair that pulled out in the brush with her abrupt motion.
"Tell me, or by God, I'll fling every last one of my mother's attentions out that window and leave you to explain it!"
"Your mother decided that Marianne is not.appropriate to your needs."
Snow White stood and snatched a handful of the gauds littering her vanity.
"Lady, I tell you the truth, please!" Jennifer's hands stirred compulsively against the pink silk skirt of her dress as she fought not to grab the princess' hand.
"Not appropriate!" Marianne, confidante, maid, and the closest thing to a friend she had. Her heart thundered in her ears. "Not appropriate." She repeated, looking down at what she clutched in her hand. "I will go to dinner with my Mother, but I will not be dressed as a doll. You can tell her that when you take all of this," she motioned the vanity with a broad sweep of her hand, "back to her quarters."
"But,"
"No, you will do it. Tell her too that you are not to blame and that if she punishes you she will be stealing my honor as well as my maid. I promise you now that you will not be punished." She spared a kind glance at the distraught lady-in-waiting before shrieking inarticulately and dashing a vial against the far wall. The crunch of glass against stone sent a shiver down her back, and she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. "You will do it. I am going to find my Father."
Jennifer was staring at the wet stain seeping down the wall. "You aren't dressed." She didn't look away, merely watched the perfume drip onto the floor.
"I will dress myself. You will excuse me for that long and then do as I told you to."
"Yes, milady."
"And don't call me Lady." She felt the corners of her mouth twitching into a fierce grin. If her Mother wanted a fight, she would give it to her.
Chapter 1
She had always known that her mother was disappointed in her. She couldn't remember when she had come to that realization; she assumed that she hadn't been born with it. But, try as she might, she couldn't put an exact time to her comprehension.
The disappointment manifested itself in expensive face creams smelling of rose and lavender and guaranteed to erase freckles, in magical hairbrushes that would smooth out the frizziest hair with one thousand strokes twice a day, and, after her twelfth birthday, in vials of subtle, but not too subtle, face paint for her eyes, lips, and cheeks. Every day since she was seven, a new perfume, beauty charm, or conditioner would make its way onto her vanity with a little note written in her mother's elegant hand specifying its use. By the time the princess was fifteen, her toilette took three hours in the morning and two at night.
And then there was the story. She supposed that the first time she had heard the story was the first time she had truly acknowledged that she would never be her mother's perfect daughter. That was the first time she put a name to the chill that hovered in the scented air of her bedroom even after her mother had left it.
The story was a short one of little consequence to anyone but her. One night after she knew that she was pregnant, the Queen was sewing in her chambers when she pricked herself. A single drop of blood fell onto the linen she was embroidering, creating a red stain on the pure whiteness. Her ladies-in-waiting heard her say to herself 'Oh but if my daughter could have skin like that linen, lips like that blood, and hair like the night,' and took it as prophecy, encouraging her that surely her daughter would be as beautiful as she. That was when she named her unborn daughter Snow White. Four years later, when she realized that her precocious toddler was developing freckles, and then two years after that when she realized that the princess's light brown hair was neither going to spontaneously turn a darker color nor lose its tight frizzy ringlets, she was said to have fallen into depression. The King, torn between love of his wife and love of his daughter reluctantly had the princess moved to a different wing of the house so that her constant presence would not further disturb her ailing mother. The strategy mostly worked. Her mother recovered, but never quite gave up on the idea that her Snow White should be beautiful. The constant stream of potions and creams and objects of magic attested to that.
The newest gadget had arrived that morning; a hair net woven with gold thread and strung with seed pearls. According to the new lady-in- waiting that had accompanied this gift, the hair net was supposed to make her hair shiny and smooth, redundant to the brush, she thought. Snow White had spent the next half hour dodging the woman's dogged attempts to arrange her hair.
"Milady? If you would only come over to the vanity."
She sighed. "I do not wish to come over to the vanity, to wear that silly charm, or to otherwise primp for the day. If you would only realize that, we would get along much better." Snow White smiled at the woman and tried to run a hand through her mass of curls. "Surely you can see that having my hair worked on for an hour can't be on my short list of things I'd like to do this morning."
The lady-in-waiting smiled uncertainly back, but there was no comprehension in her eyes.
"Oh, look.what's you name?"
"Jennifer, milady."
"A good name. Look, Jennifer, would you like to have someone pull on your hair for any amount of time?"
She shook her head, brows furrowed. "But, you're a Lady."
"For all my faults, I am, at least, not that." The princess pushed off of the embroidered pillows in the window alcove, the plain linen nightshift hissing against the stone floor. Her room was large, as befit a princess. It wasn't until one's eyes began to wander along the lines where the walls met ceiling that the hastily plastered cracks began to be apparent. And once one saw the cracks, one also saw that the tapestries were curiously faded along the left edge as if some careless servant had stored them too near a window. For, of course, the royalty normally lived in the central wing with some overflow into the East. The South wing was mostly empty now, and this room had been hastily fixed and furnished when it became apparent that the Queen could not tolerate the princess any closer. It had once been beautiful; Snow White traced the carving running around the mirror of her vanity.
"Milady?" Jennifer was standing right behind her, brush in hand.
"Yes?" A sea serpent wended its way around her reflection, individual scales revealing themselves to her searching fingers. Oak, she thought, the artist must have been a master.
"The Queen said I should make sure that you tried the net, milady, and I would not want to displease her."
"I've already explained that I am no Lady." Snow White favored the girl with a wry smile. "So you must call me by my name, as unwieldy as it is."
"But it's beautiful, mil.Snow White. I mean, I always wished.Jennifer is so plain."
"I would be happy to trade." She sighed and plopped onto the chair fronting the vanity. "I won't have you punished for my recalcitrance, so you may do my hair if it's necessary." She lowered her voice as she tugged on a curl. "Though God help you if it isn't."
"Thank you. Milady." Jennifer looked so relieved that Snow White didn't have the heart to correct her. "And your Lady Mother also requests your presence at dinner today."
"Today?" She was supposed to exercise her horse today, well, not her horse. The horse that was hers but not in name. The silver filly. Robin was going to meet her out in the practice field at noon so that there would be someone there in case of trouble; the horse was still quite green, not even grown into a name yet.
"Today." Jennifer began to gently but firmly tease her charge's mass of curls into some semblance of order.
"Will you do me one favor before you get too absorbed in my hair? You know Marianne? My usual maid? Ask her to convey my regrets to the stables, she'll know what that means." Snow White watched Jennifer's face in the mirror. The small creases insinuating their way onto the girl's face spoke more than her still lips. Snow White spun around in the chair, heedless of the strands of hair that pulled out in the brush with her abrupt motion.
"Tell me, or by God, I'll fling every last one of my mother's attentions out that window and leave you to explain it!"
"Your mother decided that Marianne is not.appropriate to your needs."
Snow White stood and snatched a handful of the gauds littering her vanity.
"Lady, I tell you the truth, please!" Jennifer's hands stirred compulsively against the pink silk skirt of her dress as she fought not to grab the princess' hand.
"Not appropriate!" Marianne, confidante, maid, and the closest thing to a friend she had. Her heart thundered in her ears. "Not appropriate." She repeated, looking down at what she clutched in her hand. "I will go to dinner with my Mother, but I will not be dressed as a doll. You can tell her that when you take all of this," she motioned the vanity with a broad sweep of her hand, "back to her quarters."
"But,"
"No, you will do it. Tell her too that you are not to blame and that if she punishes you she will be stealing my honor as well as my maid. I promise you now that you will not be punished." She spared a kind glance at the distraught lady-in-waiting before shrieking inarticulately and dashing a vial against the far wall. The crunch of glass against stone sent a shiver down her back, and she dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. "You will do it. I am going to find my Father."
Jennifer was staring at the wet stain seeping down the wall. "You aren't dressed." She didn't look away, merely watched the perfume drip onto the floor.
"I will dress myself. You will excuse me for that long and then do as I told you to."
"Yes, milady."
"And don't call me Lady." She felt the corners of her mouth twitching into a fierce grin. If her Mother wanted a fight, she would give it to her.