At the moment, I seem to write in day-long cycles. I'll have a good day, bad day, good day, bad day, and so on. But I built a skeleton plan from bone-white paper climbing my tree, and as long as that spine remains, all should be well.
The
Merry_Fates (on livejournal) are among my favourite people ever at the moment. And last week (ie. two thursdays ago) they posted a writing challenge. What with the Book of Doom and anxieties that it was turning too much into an echo of their creations, it has taken me a while. Still, I think I've finally finished rewriting Snow White...
Branwyn
Bloddeuwedd:
Love makes fools of us all. Who could know it better than me?
I was made from love, sculpted from flowers. I was given a life, a name. They made me a home when the hills met the sky, and filled it with beautiful creations. I had all I might desire, save freedom. They tried to tame my wildness to fit my name. But when the man came, smelling of soil and summer, I betrayed my husband for love.
*
Snow White:
Like my mother, I was made and not born. Unlike my mother I was made from sorrow. Blood from my father's wound, raw-red with betrayal. Snow, white and cold, for the long winter he spent as an eagle. And the deep, empty black of my mother's night.
I think I was cruel, sometimes. Perhaps it was because there was not enough love in my body.
*
When my stepmother came, I thought that she was beautiful. I knew we would not be friends.
The sunlight was dancing in her eyes when we shook hands and I curtseyed as if the gesture held meaning. Then I looked up at my uncle.
'She's nothing like my mother.' I told him. I saw her back stiffen.
The next time my stepmother looked at me her eyes sharpened into gleaming knife points.
*
Aeronwy:
I married a man who gave me everything. A great man, with the strength of the midday sun. A man who could never give me love. Every night we slept alone, in separate chambers, as the owls wept outside.
During the day I clutched at whatever beauty I could. The castle was dusty with light. It had rooms overflowing with wonders and I would walk among them. There were ribbons that danced around my fingers, a comb that brushed specks of sunshine into my hair. And a mirror, a magic mirror, that watched over me. It cared for me when my husband did not. In a strange way, it became a friend.
“Tell me I am beautiful?” I would beg, every time my husband looked straight through me, “Tell me I am the fairest of all?”
Its reply was always the same. “Truly, oh Queen, you are fairest of all.” The words were as soft as silk in my ears. They soothed me to sleep each night.
*
Snow White:
As I grew older, I grew more beautiful. As black as pain and as white as grief, brushed red like blood. I outshone ever petal in my mother's rose gardens. One look from me could make men forget all about happily ever after.
Princes came to see me, to offer me crowns. I couldn't make myself care for them. Their tongues chimed with poetry and all I saw was distance.
'You are very beautiful' one told me as he left. The words sung with regret. They almost pierced my iced skin.
'But I will never be happy.' The winds carried my whisper away.
*
Aeronwy:
The mirror grew kinder as my husband grew colder. He heaped love and attention on his daughter while she shunned light, heat, warmth. She built a fortress of snow around herself. I almost pitied the princes trying to win her hand.
She could not love them, as my husband could not love me. But he loved her and that was unbearable. Only the mirror sang ballads of my beauty while my husband swept past, as restless as the daylight.
*
Bloddeuwedd:
My husband came to visit me soon after he was given a second wife. He came as a hawk, and we met in the shadowed hours between day and night. He showed me the wash of waves where his land met the sea and I told him the moon's secrets. Together we dove in low, swooping bliss.
*
Aeronwy:
The day the mirror betrayed me sliced, sharp as glass, through my life. It told me that she was fairer. Her. But I knew she wasn't even alive. She was merely a doll, sculpted from winter and distance.
I asked my hunter to cut out her frozen heart. She wouldn't miss it. She was already dead inside.
*
Snow White:
When the man came to take me away I went with him thoughtlessly. He smelt of the wild, of a world where life bit, raw. I imagined feeling and I slid my perfect hand between his calloused fingers.
The wind carried darkness beneath the trees. The man told me he would kill me, and lifted the blade. Blood-rusted leaves rustled under his feet. I didn't even flinch. I almost was ready.
Death was a feeling, in a way.
The silver sang through the night and stopped an inch from my heart. The rough, raw man lowered it, his voice shaking.
'You don't even know what life is, do you?' He shook his head. 'You should have a chance to learn that, at least.'
A feeling spread, throbbing through my chest. It sounded like a harp's chord, rippling. It spoke in a foreign language. Deep and endless. I thanked the man and left him for the forest.
*
Aeronwy:
The hunter brought me a heart that was hot, red and singing with existence. When I saw it I knew that he lied.
The ribbons danced around my fingertips and I had a plan.
*
Snow White:
I was not afraid when I met the korr. They were ugly in ways I had never seen, as grey as the dead, with flat, misshapen faces. They were formed from the dark earth beneath the mountains. Their bones were cold as rocks. But they were good to me, in their way. I lived with them, shut away from the light, and felt the stone-hewn thud of absence. It left bruises beneath my icy shield.
*
Underground was dank, dark water dripping down. One day it brought a crooked woman with it. The yellow mine-lights showed me knife-points in her eyes, and I felt a blissful twist of fear. I let her lace me, of course. The caress of terror she offered was coaxing and sweet.
*
Aeronwy:I began to think that the mirror had tricked me. It took great delight in my pain. When it laughed again and told me I had failed, I combed my hair until it outshone the glass. Then I took my comb to my stepdaughter.
*
Snow White:
Breath tore, ragged and painful from my lungs. The lights lit beneath the mountains were achingly bright. This life was fresh and new. I relished its taste. But, when the wizened lady with teeth like bones brought the comb, I allowed her to work the tangles from my curls. Each tug sung of bitter sorrows, and pulled me down.
*
Aeronwy:
The third time was the last. The apple was hard, and she seemed more alive every moment. Even in death.
When I returned I flung myself into the mirror. We shattered like ice, ebbing away.
*
Snow White:
My head throbbed with the memory of death. The ache sent a bloodbeat pulsing through me. I felt vibrations echo in my frosted heart. And when the stunted crone brought the apple I was... afraid. |Gripped by terror as grim as the korr's spindly fingers. My body clenched in anticipation.
But I took the apple, all the same. Its taste was crisp, and sweet with spring.
*
Bloddeuwedd:
I wear darkness like a gown. It fits as well as feathers. Through it, I heard death haunt my daughter's breath. I knew the importance of what came next.
She slept through the winter in a coffin carved from ice. I knew that she could sleep forever. But she could also wake. If only someone could free her frozen heart.
I flew for nights on end until I found him, as feral as the moon, and taught the story to his warming bones.
*
Snow White:The light was brilliant, blinding with heat. My lips tingled. The air was fresh with flowers. Warmth spilled through me, thawing the ice. It shattered, splintering into shrapnel, and I sat up shivering. The man-boy standing above me looked down, and the wild glinted behind his eyes.
'I am Bleidwn, and you are no longer formed from sorrow and snow. You shall be Branwyn, the raven, and I will be the wolf.'
