AN~ The old one was complete fanservice and stupid and cliche and boring so I got rid of it.
Also hey guys sorry I've kind of been off the grid for a while. My life's a mess, and I can't promise I'll be updating anytime soon. I probably won't, actually. And it won't be regular. I have to take care of myself before anything else, and real life comes before fanfics. I'll try, but this is the most I've written in a long time, and it's not even three hundred words long.
The seven dwarves have more freedom than anyone else in Snow White's story. Compared to the rest of the Book of Everafter, their lives are incredibly rigid, but they, at least, aren't Snow. They aren't focused on constantly. Even though Snow was created knowing her part the way her heart knows how to beat a steady tattoo against her ribs, her job is stressful, and if she messes up, the whole fragile story could come crumbling down around them.
Nobody in Snow White ever tries to rebel, or communicate with others in different stories. Their job is too important; their tale too precarious.
Still, the repetition gets monotonous, and the dwarves are all grateful that they have hours every day to spend in their mines. There they can talk about whatever they want, and because their characters reflect their originals exactly, as long as they don't discuss the book directly, then history will not be changed in any meaningful way. It is safe to have any conversation they want.
In the mines, their lives are unscripted. In the mines, they are free.
As their pickaxes cut at the ground in their regular, memorized beat, chink-clank-crack-thud, chink-clank-crack-thud, in time with their own hearts, the dwarves don't have to speak to each other to know they are all feeling a sense of peace. Their lives fall into a regular rhythm, and they continue their cycle without going mad the way the others do.
This steadying beat twines through their time above ground, too, and reminds them that their lines are important. It is not monotony. It is safety.