Disclaimer: I don't own fairytales, but I own the plot because heigh, ho the witch is dead!

Two more chapters before I go on holiday!

Thanks to Natalie Darke and EvenSong for continuing to read and review. I'm like a fuzzy ball of happiness, except not fuzzy (although I am all too ball-shaped). EvenSong, I hope you like Anir's…dark side as well as her cuteness. If not, don't worry – the cute part's still there and in the next chapter after these two we'll probably see it when she meets…but that would be telling!

And what about the heartbroken king and queen, Anir's parents? Well, they didn't stay heartbroken for too long. Now they'd finally worked out how to have children, they certainly weren't going to stop, and in no time at all (well, 7 times 9 months, to be precise…it played havoc with the queen's pelvic floor muscles) they had seven sons, the youngest of whom was now ten years old and called Mike (the King and Queen having learnt their lesson in this department). But, although they loved their sons dearly, the royals had to admit that they were growing to be quite a problem. Or rather, they were not growing at all. And that was the problem.

When you were young, your parents might have told you that if you didn't eat up all your vegetables bad things would happen. I'm afraid that that wasn't very politically correct of them. Please understand that I mean no disrespect to your carers, but with such cautionary tales they were simply propagating the myth that it is a bad thing to be different. And by different, I mean…small. Vertically challenged, if you will. Of reduced stature. Please understand that by this I do not mean petite or sylph-like. The princes were known, by their parents and by the entire kingdom, as the seven dwarves. And all because they had never, in all their seven lives, eaten a single vegetable. Now the king and queen, just like your very own parents who couldn't give a fig about political correctness, thought that it was not cool to be small. And they let the whole kingdom know this. As soon as the result of their sons' aversion to legumes became apparent, they put out that they would give a reward to anyone who could solve the problem.

Half the kingdom and the hand of the eldest son, Henry, was the promised prized. The king had argued that that sort of reward was only applicable if you had too many princesses for your own good. The queen argued that that sort of reward was hardly likely to attract any men who might be inclined to help. Their chief adviser scowled at that, and said that in times like these one never did know. He told the royals that there was no room for discussion – the reward was traditional, and tradition could not be argued with. But it did them no good. Fairy godmothers and kitchen maids alike tried and failed. And so it came to seem that the seven small princes would simply have to grow up – I mean…mature – and learn to accept their heights with dignity.

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When she looked back later in life, Anir could not remember exactly what had happened to make her want to escape the witch's tower. Did she make the decision when she found that, due to her sedentary lifestyle, she could no longer fit into her favourite gown, perhaps? Or was it made when she realised that she could no longer stand the witch's massages? Most likely it was turning sixteen that did it – there has always been something about that age that turns girls' heads to rebellion. Whatever the reason, she made up her mind to free herself. Prior to this, Anir had never really set her mind to anything. But as soon as she did, it became clear that she was very decisive – she quickly fixed on a course of action and was determined to see it through to the end. Decisiveness was her defining characteristic in the same way that other princesses have been categorised by their hairstyles, complexions, narcolepsy and general cleanliness. The moment she decided to escape, something snapped inside her.

Snap!

Or perhaps it was more of a…

Snip!

No, it was more like…

Snick!

Snitch?

Svick?

If the snapping had been a colour, it would have been silvery-brown.

With a hint of purple.

But I digress.

When I say that something snapped inside her, I don't mean that a part of her anatomy broke in a painful and possibly fatal way. I mean that it was if she divided in two. Not literally, this isn't sci-fi. But from this point onwards, there were two Anirs – one who would in time come to be called ruthless, scheming and a expletive deleted, and another girl, who watched what later came to pass with innocent eyes and a kind of horrified fascination. Some people – even some who knew her well - would claim that this second Anir never existed, and indeed she was rather shy at the moment, so for now it was the tougher girl who was firmly in control.

She plucked a large quantity of hairs from her (crew-cut) head and twisted them to form a narrow, but immensely strong, thread (it shone like spun gold, of course, but that is bye-the-bye). When the witch next came to visit her, she waited till her back was turned as she prepared the massage oils then slipped the cord around the woman's neck and pulled it tight. At that point in her life, this Anir was not as ruthless as she would later come to be, and so she did not pull it quite tight enough to throttle her. But all the same, as you can imagine, the witch was having no little trouble with her breathing. "Will you let me go," Anir told her. You might expect that to have been a question, phrased as it was with the words 'will you' preceding her demand. But not only did Anir pay little attention to the rules of good grammar, she was also, as has been mentioned, very decisive. And having decided that she was going to escape, Anir was certainly not going to give the witch a chance to say 'No'.

"Why?" asked the witch, and this was a question, a single syllable filled with love and pleading. Anir did not for a moment loosen the noose.

"I want to see the world," she told the witch "and most importantly I want to see something of these men. They can't be as bad as you say." They were far worse, as she would later find out.

"I'll make you a bargain. I'll release you for a year and a day. You find a man good enough that you can love him in that time, bring him to me and I'll let you keep your freedom. If not, you'll come and live with me again, just as I choose." Anir considered this. On the one hand, she could kill the witch now and have done with it. But this side of Anir was almost as proud as it was decisive. And she longed to prove the witch wrong, to prove that men could love and be loved. To show her.

"Alright," she agreed, "but you must promise not to hinder me. In fact, promise to help me if I ask."

"I promise," the witch told her. And so Anir was free to ruin her life as she saw fit.