Crown by Reality

Snow White: Rapunzel..?

“So the arena exploded, that is a good news to wake up to.”

Snow White peered into the confines of the windows observing the crowds having a life on its own, Hunter leaned on the table nearby watching her. Listening, he stared at the same view as the Princess.

“It does, considering that the Queen loves indulging herself in the pain of others.”

The explosion that happened just this late morning were crowd’s talk and gossip had an open discussion, boldly did they spout countless of chatters, most of them kept their mouth shut in fear of the Queen throwing them into another form of punishment but for some other people, they couldn’t keep their mouth shut. There was point in their logic, they would end up dead one way or another then it was better for them to spat the sins the Queen on the throne. It was only a last stand to restore a little freedom in their own right. Throughout the labyrinths of roads connecting and converging the streets up ahead. Houses catered with shops and other business entitled to bring their stand, the town of Schneewhitten Kingdom bustled with all kinds of things, mainly in the town square.

“They say the former Knight caused the demise of the arena, is it not admirable that he did?” Hunter cockily smiled before Snow White turned her head with a frown. Strange, should she be happy? “From the way your lips cast down, why do I sense that is not the case.”

“Agron of the Bridigutte,” Snow took a seat before him as Hunter awaits for her to go on. “he was a friend of mind, more the less. I used to visit him in the dungeons before. I thought he died.”

“How so?” he quirked a brow, placing a cup of warm milk in front of her, into which she takes with a soft whisper of gratitude then took small sips of the creamy goodness. 

“He told me he was going to die sooner or later, that he would hate for me to visit a dead corpse and so I stopped. I wasn’t akin to the idea truly, I remember I have put a fight with him until I gave up.”

The sun streamed through the windows, yet she could not say the same glow to pass on with a mind that was clouded with dark foreboding mood. The memories from months ago when she stood in shock when he announced his impending death punishment. Screaming retorts, words too hard to spoke the truth as it sliced their mind and soul. Agron was one of the few friends she considered to be loyal towards the Royal family of Schneewhitten. He was fourteen, she was eight when they first met and that time of the month of November when the snow began to drop more and more spreading the white blanket over the Kingdom than it was never before, in the courtyard when she was with her Father and the General who introduced his genius prodigy excelled in Fire Magic.

“But he’s alive, escaped most probably. The question is, what will he do next? I heard the crowds gossiping how he strike the anger of the Queen. Bold little fella, I like him already and the chances are he is the same as us who despise her.”

Snow White laid the cup down, looking straight towards his eyes without a doubt knew knowledge.

“He leads a rebellion from what he told me, but to think he will make a move now in an unjust time.” Snow stands up, putting the coat up and her cloak to cover her face. Today she was going out of this little inn, to expose herself in the crowds knowing the risk that will come after. “However, who am I to control such things, I only hope we can cross paths with him again.”

The crowd has a life of its own. Buzzling with kinds of noises, the chatters she can hear as soon she steps outside with Hunter following suit, paying close attention to her form. Closely, his plain white coat almost rivaled the pale skin that reflected by the sun’s beams. With the crowds standing out in all kinds of white gave the morning light to be one with them in one light as they moved enchantingly otherworldly as if they were some sort of deities in the lands of heavens. Chattering chats, accompanied of cacophony between sellers and buyers trading with certain goods. Children playing chase across the marbled, white pavements. Friends in groups of the young and old busting more in laughter as they bustled in enjoyment, in bliss. The hustles of certain individuals with business catching up to them.

Snow White was quite pleased, a small smile graced her red lips. This was supposed to be like this, as always and after. She remembered how her Mother would dressed like the local women, a simple white dress with geometric designs in the high-ends of their sleeves and skirts, she was the doted, beloved Queen when she walked the same streets she was now, unlike the other royalties, the former Queen never allowed herself to roam the streets in extravagance showing her flaunted status as the King’s wife as well as the Mother of the “Snow White.” Without the glamourous appeal, the diamonds she was supposed to wear, every wealth and bounty of richly high quality garments she refused to wear and instead, she wears her honor and dignity with her always.

To live as if the current Queen doesn’t exist, as if she never was replaced, they continued with their freedom not to be taken in the last days of final moments. It’s almost bittersweet, delving into their kind of philosophy. A death only a stepping stone, from the womb they all started to the tomb they end their lives, it was another way of life.

Not so for Snow, death she had once but to be reborn? She takes a sharp turn to the right, a dark alleyway. The two cloaked figures slipped into the crowd undetected, blending into the side of shadows for a blessing of anonymity, plundering in hopes of mixing with the hundreds of faces in the busy crowds. She wore her cloak tightly around her shoulder, the warmth she needs to cling to her skin and in that moment of quietness, their footsteps that clicked against the marbled pavement were the only proof they existed once when they approached the conforms of cold darkness where magic, the mystery and the supernatural occurred.

“Mother used to roam these streets alone and I would await for her return,” she conjured a conversation in a soft whisper, Hunter leaned to take in every word she spoke. “I just realized now that a long time has passed that I am no longer a young, filly girl I used to be.”

“Hm, young boys grow up to be a man and young girls grow up to be a women,” Hunter replies to her reminiscences, he had this warm mystery surrounding him that quite pleases her. One glance of her golden eyes to his earthy brown eyes clashed together, a pair of colors mixed satisfyingly together. He couldn’t help but find it beautiful. “is it not how that works?”

For all what was worth, she finds her Huntsman quite bearable to be with. Without a word she set her paths straight.

Magische Kessel.

Unlike the wide variety of shops lined up under the sunlight’s radiance from behind them, this particular street was shops lined with Magic, Fortune tellers, Enchantments, Amulets, Tarot cards, Potions and other kinds. Everything contained at least every tint of magic. People don’t flocked around, for tourists and the frequent customers would take a stroll in this streets. Hunter, looked at the cloaked Princess whose golden eyes seem to be… glowing in the surrounding darkness, he swore in his heart that she could’ve been one with the locals in this streets. The indifferent, the unique and daresay the outcasts of the Schneewhitten Kingdom. Witchcraft wasn’t particularly frowned upon in the Kingdom, they were just left to their own devices and business but there was one particular reason why some, or most would perceive them as the community of black sheep and that was for their dark, stereotypical aesthetics that ruins the pure white Kingdom.

Again, Hunter internally huffed at the assumption of the people, for all what is known and common. He knew the history of the Schneewhitten Royalty evolves around with light magic at most, the most famed Magic Mirror to be possessed by the current Queen doesn’t belong to her by inheritance, Snow White knew this forehand, she’s royalty by blood after all and it was a funny thing truly that she chose to shatter the mirror in pieces than to preserve in turning to a use of vanity. A sense of relief washed over him, yet he couldn’t help but feel disappointment over the precious object that holds intrigue but also an importance to the Royalty women being passed down to their daughters as a gift.

Snow White’s Mother was rumored to use it for certain manners, a use she didn’t share apart from her daughter. That, she can remember that it helped put the roses at the tips of the castles. Unfortunately she didn’t live too long enough to tell the tales of what was her intentions on using the True Mirror. For a certain reason, it was able to speak the truth to any questions need of answers and that’s all she knows, the rest remains a mystery.

The dream… she dreamt of the Sleeping Beauty then the shard of the glass morphing into an obsidian knife. Her hand gripped the obsidian knife in her hands, her thoughts revolving around the knife almost numbed the strange coolness of cold kiss on her cheeks the more she went deeper to the dark corners inside the lines of brewing potions and swirling magic, advertising themselves to a potential customers.

The Knife whispered to her… she swears it whispered.

There was one certain shop she needs to go in, a shop that her Mother told many times that have been par with the Schneewhitten’s generations. The shop had been the origin of their fellow potions shop, everything that ranges from a fortune teller and such.

Snow White was the first to enter the door with the bell that echoed inside the shop the Hunter soon followed, her eyes first laid to a woman with long blonde hair that hanged like laundries from the floor, so long that it seems like fine silk dropped from the ceilings, whitish-blue stared curiously towards the cloaked person with almost uncertainty lingering from the two strangers that entered her Mother’s shop.

Snow stared longer than the long-haired golden locks before she became uncomfortable, rubbing her shoulders with a gulp. Hunter blinked in quite a shock, he has never seen such long hair that could possibly entangled the whole place with her hair alone, he didn’t know what to say, it was too long! It was without no exaggeration that she could’ve very well couldn’t wash her hair with that length. He looked at the Princess, he was taller than him but even he knows the extent how seemingly baffled she was.

“I am.. I am very sorry… I am sorry but Mama was, well, she is… she not here as of, as of yet.” she says in a soft voice, sparing a glance before trying to appease the awkward sensation, blurting out with an embarrassing screech.

“B-But I, but I can read palms! I mean I can read, yes, palm reading! Ah, dear..” the young woman almost seem deflated, flustered red to the very tips of her ears. “Tarot.. Tarot reading also.. I apologize.. truly I do.”

A snort escaped Hunter’s lips, trying to muffle the laughter threatening to blurt out. Shoulders trembling and a click of Snow White’s tongue only served as a warning if he continues to do the most obvious thing. She turned her head towards him with narrowed eyes.

"Pardon, does something bother you?" Snow pointed with a glare.

"Nothing. None, nothing... pfft..!"