Chapter 6: Snow White
The thunder faded, the lightening flashed slowly until— nothing. I sat in the black oblivion, a sky-less, bottomless cavern. No direction, no stars, nothing but silence and darkness. A thud sounded around me, low and powerful, it reverberated around me. And then again the sound came, its power ever growing. The sound was not frightening, but comforting- somehow I knew that this power was good. My heartbeat synchronized itself to that of the sound, a thud for a pound, one deep breath to another, our beings parallel to one another. I lay in oblivion at peace with the moonless sky because I knew that the sound I herd came from him, my prince.
Just as the storm had faded, the darkness gave way to light. Princeton was sitting on his noble steed, smiling back at me, the sunset framing him like an odd halo. He stretched out his arm and gave me his hand. My head was still filled with such bliss; I had realized that I truly loved the man before me. I needed him like I needed air, I breathed him in. He may not always have been as forward as I wished, nor was he the most intelligent when it came to matters of the female kind— but what man was? All I knew was that he would be constant, honorable and true to me. He would be my sunrise and I his sunset, never wavering never absent. Our souls would meld to be more then Snow and Prince, we would become one. One entity pulled and bound by love, two roses intertwined, two rivers flowing as one, two hearts beating together for all eternity. I could hear his heartbeat around me, it remained as a little reminder that our love lived.
I lifted my own to feel his warm supple skin, instead a grip tightened around my wrist as if to pull me up. A single crack of lightening flashed through the new dawn, the hand that held mine was boney and cold my head jerked up startled as I gazed upon Kane. He stood there with his crooked half smile spread across his face "Snow White, We met once again. And this time he can't save you." His voice seemed sourer then before, it held no reminisce of his brothers. I tore my gaze from him and looked around to see Princeton's limp body draped across the grass, his red cloak indistinguishable against the blood. A scream flew out my mouth I tried to run to leave this monstrous creature… to save my love, the ear splitting thuds that had echoed through my ears just moments before seemed to grow fainter every moment that Kane held my wrist. I yanked my hand from his grasp, and ran as fast as my feet could bear, kicking my shoes off in the first steps. I reached Princeton in a matter of seconds I gazed upon him; his slumber was not that of a young child or an elderly counterpart, but that of a nightmarish sleep. He tossed and groaned, tangled in his cloak and soaked in the blood the spilled from his side: a knife had been plunged deeply into his back. The sun had been hidden once again by the clouds that brought lightening, as another bolt crashed down to earth it glinted off sliver near Princeton's arm. A sword, I felt my fingers grasp the leather wrappings that covered the handle just as a cold hand gripped my shoulder. I turned and stood to face Kane; carrying the sword behind my back I looked him straight in those dark eyes that had haunted me many nights. "I never thought that someone could be such heatless to his own family, I never thought that a man could monopolize and control the world around him like a game of chess, I never thought that a human could be a beast, and then I met you Kane." I said my voice colder then the dead of winter, with each clause his eyes widened as if to say "Snow White is not being a helpless little woodland creature?!" and decided to answer his question in a slightly more aggressive way "Dear sir, you don't honestly think that I would sit here and cry, helpless little maiden, as my love died and his killer took the throne and the kingdom! I may be a polite, courteous woman, but I am no fool! Nor am I any weakling!" I spat out at him as I clutched the hilt of the sword tighter and took my stance and started sparring with Kane. My first stroke grazed off Kane's arm leaving a streak of broken skin, but my second plunge was met by his own weapon. I had been taught the basics of swordplay by my father when I was just a child, but remarkably I seemed to remember enough to block his strokes and yield a few of my own blow. Within a few minutes Kane had been marked with several minor scratches and me with just one, which had cut my skirt and left a slight blood trail down my leg. Kane once again plunged his sword within inches of my arm, I turned ready to counterattack, but instead he grabbed my skirt and yanked me to him. He had one hand around my throat and another at my waist, yanking me just parallel to him. I tried to struggle away but his grip only tightened, he spoke in a whisper against my ear "My little Snow White, I always knew you were a little bit feisty, but now…" he tucked his head into my hair and breathed "now I am sure you are just untouched as newly fallen snow." His little chuckle sent shivers down my spine, my hands grabbed at air around his waist. I had failed, know all that was left was pain and failure. My Princeton lay dying, I lay in the grasp of a murder and monster— no prince to save me, and no way to save myself. Doom came upon me and all I regretted in my life was that I never told Princeton that I loved him… I was about to let myself fall into the end, when I felt the hilt of Kane's knife in my clutch.