I

I–The Poisoned Apple

The young Princess drops a single, red rose on her mother's grave as is her annual tradition during the dawn of her birth.

As she watches the flower, such a stark red it was amidst the monochromatic stone of black and gray be covered with powders of white–her mother’s final resting place–she releases a breath and notes that this marks Queen Eleanor's fifth death anniversary before she spins on her heel, turning around to leave.

Like any other year, today was cold.

(She hopes her mother wasn’t cold down there.)

Her small footsteps barely resounded on the snow-covered ground, her cloak of black fluttered behind her like a pair of raven wings, her long dark hair flying behind her with the winds as though with a life of its own whilst she slowly raised her tired eyes to gaze upon the falling snow from the high heavens.

She stopped. 

And her lips moved as if to form words, she spoke but there was no one around her to hear them. For what, little girl, you want to apologize to someone long gone?

‘Must I beg for mercy–or death?’

Her lips curved slightly at the thought–but not enough to be considered a smile because what good will words bring if no one was there to listen?

‘Even if there is someone who listens,’ she thinks as she closes her eyes and relishes in the coldness of the snow it brought to her for a moment (that she desperately wishes, with everything that has will last a bit longer) before opening them again–eyes of red as dark as blood itself beseeching the heavens, to the uncaring gods, ‘…they will pretend they do not hear.’

And it was such a shame; really, it was certainly a pretty, winter morning to be enveloped with such thoughts.

(It was a beautiful day to die, too.

Did they know? Did they even care?

It’s her birthday…)

The Princess slowly opens her hands to catch some of the falling snow, hopefully a snowflake or two that never melted at her touch.

How odd. How fitting.

It was colder than usual and at the same time, familiar and comforting as the snow slipped from her pale fingers like sand, the child thought of the supposedly few precious things she was meant to have in life: of her duty as the next Queen of this kingdom.

Her birthright.

Her life.

...was it really all she had left?

A meaningless title.

“Your Highness,” her assigned handmaiden murmured.

Her fourteenth… or was it fifteenth?

Ah, she has lost count.

No matter.

They were all the same in her mind’s eye, anyway. Faces turned down, voices no louder than a fearful trill and the Princess returns to the carriage waiting for her.

All of them: two of her guards, three servants and one old maid bowed simultaneously; all their heads dipped low, careful to not meet her infamous blood-colored gaze, as the maid carried on to the still silence: “…Her Majesty, Queen Ysabel wishes to speak with you at once,”

The young Princess paused, as though in thought, as though she even had a choice, nodding once without a word before stepping inside the carriage as a snowflake slipped from her fingertips.

The irony is not lost to her.

. . .

“Hello my darling. How was your day?” the Queen asked with false sweetness as soon as the young Princess steps inside the room.

“Uneventful as always,” the Princess answered politely as she stared right back at the beautiful woman that was clad in her mother's gown and jewelries.

The sight of the glimmering stones upon the woman’s skin made her squint in slight irritation whenever it flashed. Those were her’s. Those jewels, those gowns… they were her’s. They were supposed to be her’s.

A snake, a vengeful, thousand voices suddenly seems to whisper in the back of her head almost gleefully, they were louder today, and they tell her that this woman is no ordinary woman, that she is a witch, her step– “...Mother,” the Princess finally answers with a small curtsy she was expected to perform in front of the King’s consort regardless of her personal feelings.

(And oh, how the Queen’s heart swells with a vicious stab of satisfaction that always seems to happen whenever she stares down at the child who would have been named queen a few years from now lowering her little head in deference.)

“Is that so?” her father's wife of three years, her step-mother–the new Queen–intones with a honeyed voice as she smiles a smile that did not quite reached her alluring eyes before gesturing to the table in front of her, beckoning her in ways like a spider does to a fly, “Come over here then, my sweet. I have prepared a snack for you.”

Alarm bells resounded immediately in the pale child's head, the voices in her mind reaching a crescendo of wails as she allowed her red gaze to sweep over on the aforementioned snack lying innocently on a small plate patterned with flowers of white and blue, the plate itself was fit for a small child, one specially made for a very young girl, but her gaze paid it no heed. Instead, she found her attention lingering on the polished knife right next to it with a pang in her heart that she briefly thinks of it to be longing, making her fingers twitch momentarily, suddenly wanting to hold it in her hands.

There was a sudden, dark and impulsive desire to stab the witch (wishful thinking) before her gaze met her stepmother's dark eyes once more, eyes round and wide as a small child’s could only be… as though she hadn’t been fantasizing the Queen choking in her own blood right now.

“What about you, mother? Where is your snack?” the young Princess asks lightly instead, folding her hands primly in front of her.

(If one would ignore her glaringly bright, too-bright eyes of red, her posture, her smile, she would have been the picture of a perfect princess. But not a single soul in the kingdom of ice and snow could ever ignore the abnormality.

The princess wasn’t perfect.

The princess wasn’t good enough

The princess was a monster.)

“Oh. I just ate, my dear. I suppose I will just drink tea with you,” the Queen answered with still-smiling lips.

“Did you wait for me to come back?”

“Of course, I was worried that you might be hungry, I heard you did not even eat anything before you left. And what with being out for so long in this terrible weather nonetheless...” this again, with that overly motherly act that made the young Princess want to throw up.

Nevertheless, the Princess still smiled, serenely, as though everything was right in this world, “…That was sweet of you, Mother.”

“Thank you, darling. Now come join me,” the Queen cooed at her with sickeningly sweetness as the woman ushered the young child to take a seat in front of her.

It was kind of a game between them–this farce of a mother and daughter relationship was nothing but a back-and-forth chess game between two smiling females who were not even bound by neither blood nor flesh.

And it was almost laughable, really, how they tried so hard whether in private or in public, oh, how the two of them shared a mutual desire that was nothing more for the other to drop dead or just simply disappear–a game that was once a stalemate… with the Princess now finding herself on the losing side.

The mere idea of losing leaves a bitter taste in her mouth as it always does because in this game, because to lose means checkmate and that calls for the death of a king–or the queen.

But the Princess remained quiet as she allowed for this to happen before her very eyes even as her stepmother passed her the too-small plate filled with apple slices that oddly smelled too sweet of how the fruit should have been… almost as worse as a rotting fruit.

(And worst of all…

…she was expected to eat it.)

“Now eat up, my darling girl,” the Queen murmured softly, mirthfully as she raised her own teacup in what seemed to be like a toast to herself, as if already assured of her victory.

‘…because it's poisoned, isn't it?’ the young Princess distantly thought to herself as she stared blankly at the apple slices in front of her.

It’s her birthday and she was expected to die.

And in a moment after that feels like eternity stretching within itself, she gently reached her hands out and quietly began to dine on her final meal.

It was though the young Princess was watching her very own movements from another person's point of view, as though she was a puppet being controlled by unseen puppeteer’s many strings as she used a fork lying nearby to pick up an apple slice, her movements slow but smooth as she raised it to her lips, all the more aware of her stepmother now eagerly watching her from the corner of her eyes.

Then suddenly, just as the fruit brushed past her lips, the Princess… paused, lowering the utensil with a deliberate clink.

Her stepmother tensed at the sudden noise she made while the young Princess remained frozen in her spot, for the child's gaze–had Queen Ysabel cared for her stepdaughter in the slightest bit, she would have noticed the sorrow, the disappointment, the grief on the blood-red eyes that should not have been on a very young girl's gaze–was now focused completely on her, pleading with eyes alone not to do this.

“Whatever is the matter, my darling girl? Eat up,” Queen Ysabel ordered as gently as she can manage, her smile beginning to wobble, her mask of calm cracking as she grew anxious.

...but of course, this new Queen was utterly blind for her greed and wanted the child gone as soon as possible. Indeed, she did not notice anything on the girl's blood-red eyes other than how unusual it is.

“Mother,” the young Princess says that word, that one word, samples and tastes it in her tongue, her voice no better than a child’s plea, “...why are you doing this?”

“What–?”

But the girl was not done yet.

Not yet.

“Have I ever done any of you wrong? There has to be something else other than my hair, my skin, my eyes that made you, my father, my mother, the servants, the people–” even me, even God, here, her voice falters briefly and she fears she might lose what was left of her composure entirely and shatter into hundreds of pieces, “...to condemn me for doing so much as breathing.”

The Queen flusters, briefly losing her own composure.

And just as quick, she retains her motherly mask on.

“Why, my sweet princess… whatever is this about? I just wish to treat you with some sweets. Tell me my darling, is that so wrong?”

‘YES!’, a part of her immediately wanted to scream this is wrong, this is all wrong I’m just a child, wanted to cry out for the only person that could have wanted to help her… but her father was not here.

Where was her father?

“No,” the Princess hears her voice whisper instead although she did not recall opening her mouth, her blood-colored eyes growing dull as they lowered to her lap submissively, already acknowledging her defeat, her death, “...nothing is wrong… Mother,”

The fairytales lie.

There is no happily ever after for princesses.

Especially not for monsters.

She realized this… too late.

Too late.

The witch has won.

“Good girl. Now, eat up. Eat up. Eat up, my good girl,” the Queen crooned, almost desperate and fearful that the Princess might change her mind and stalk out of the room and try to escape.

‘But where would I even escape, mother dear? Who would even think to help the monster in the story?’ the Princess thought to herself as she opened her mouth and nibbled on the apple slice daintily in her mouth and watches the cold triumph practically glow in her stepmother's dark eyes.

‘Furthermore, I do not run from my enemies...’

...and just like that, the Princess swallowed the poison whole.