It involved an apple, singing, and a spider.
I was in the middle of Fairest's edits at the time. The apple instantly made me think of my f/f fantasy fairy tale.
A Fairest freebie story formed in my head, inspired by the prompt. This is dedicated to Paula Wyant, whom gave me the inspiration and Nine Star Press, who gave my story a second life.
Visions of darkness, rich with infinite possibility seeped through my sleeping mind, tingling through my fingers.
If only the bitter taste of apple didn’t remain in my mouth.
I concentrated my dreaming mind on a single vision of a spider. She spun in a corner of the cottage, which had been my home, ever since Quartz and his brothers invited me within.
I’d destroyed her home with a broom. I’d wiped the cobwebs away with a rag, or whatever tool came to hand.
“Get out,” I snarled under my breath, trapped between my past and dreaming self. “This cottage belongs to Quartz and his family. Not to you. You’re an intruder.”
“So are you,” the spider whispered in a low, teasing voice.
I stiffened at the familar low sweetness, the suggestive intonation of every word. My movement should have awakened me, but I trapped within the dream.
The curse she’d consigned me to.
“Whatever made you think you had a home here, little princess?” Oriana’s breathless whisper taunted me within the darkness. “Do you think cleaning up their filthy cottage makes you one of the dwarves?”
Her laughter stung, sweet and bitter. Once more, I taste the apple.
I can almost picture it, red and luscious, filled with poison. Rather like Oriana’s heart.
The spider twirled around a strand of her web, dancing, resembling a girl spinning on the middle of the dance floor. I could see that girl, all pouting lips and golden curls, catching the admiring glance of those fool enough to look her way.
It had been so easy for Oriana to charm people. Look at how she’d charmed me. The darkness help me, a part of me still wanted her. The wicked queen, my father’s bride.
If the dawn could have been embodied in a person, it would have been her. The light when it first touches the land below.
There was no light in the dream. The darkness was blissfully silent. It would have given me peace, if it not for the cursed spider. If it not for the sour taste of apple in my mouth.
She forced my lips open, tongue probing within.
“You’re mine,” she repeated, shaking my prone form.
Dimly aware of the movement, I remained immune to her kisses, deep in the dream.
“You’ll never belong to anyone else,” she vowed, hugged to close to herself. How frail and small she seemed, clinging to my prone form.
You possess a lifeless doll, my dear. I laughed at the irony that she, the wicked witch, had undone herself with her own spell.
I’d slipped through her fingers as a result. By cursing me, Oriana had released me. She’d given me up to the very darkness she'd sought to bind me with.
The spider in the web began to sing, each strand of the web vibrating with the sorrowful sound of her voice.
“Who is the fairest of them all?
You, me, or her?”
You, Oriana. It’s always been about you.
Me. You looked for yourself in the mirror, only to find me, my fickle ray of light.
It’s always been about you and me.
You, me or her? There’s another her?
Who is this third person who stands between us?
A figure stepped forward out of the dark in answer to my question. The maiden parted its warm comfort with a confident lift of her hand.
For a moment, I think she’s Oriana. The same wavy golden hair surrounds her delicate face, only it’s touseled with a careless abstraction.
Oriana would never allow her precious tresses to fall into such a dissheveled state, especially since becoming queen. I grinned at the very idea, even while I slept.
The girl grinned back at me. She fixed her blue eyes, bolder than Oriana has been upon me in innocent admiration.
I find myself softening all over at that liquid gaze, filled with a purity and directness which Oriana has never possessed.
“Who are you?” I silently ask the girl.
She shook her head and raised her hands. Her pale, uncalloused fingers started to weave and flex, forming vibrations, the next two lines of the song.
“In castle, cottage, or circle small
What will you endure?”
“Riddles,” I murmured, not without displeasure. She’s intriguing, this maiden, whomever she might be.
A slight blush colored her fair cheeks, but she didn’t look away from me. She allowed her hands to continue their dance.
“Are you fair of face and eye alone?
Or is your fairness true?”
Ah, maiden, you spell out questions which have haunted me, but I’ve been unable to voice. I thought Oriana was the loveliest creature I’d ever beheld, but her beauty stopped at her face and eye.
“True fairness has nothing to do with physical beauty.” I heard Quartz’s words when he sat in his cottage, whittling. “It has to do with what’s in your heart and what you have to offer those around you.”
Oh, Quartz, ten times the parent than my father ever was, do you know how much my world trembled when you said that?
At the same time, you soothed my soul.
Brightness gathered in the maiden’s eye, a shining tear. It was as if she’d felt my emotions, even while they made my breast ache.
Was such sympathy even possible? Perhaps it could only happen in the darkness between two witches.
“Two witches.” I gazed at the maiden, drinking in her bright presence. “Is that what you are? Another witch, come to comfort me, only you’re a good one?”
The maiden lowered her head, before she allowed her hands to shape the last words of the song.
“When under the sleeping curse you lie
What will you change into?”
I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m changing into. Only my heart feels lighter at your presence, your song.
“Beautiful.” Her lips, soft and naturally pink, innocent of the paints Oriana adored formed the word.
“Beautiful,” I acknowledge her in turn, admiring the curve of her cheek, the tilt of her head. “Just like her.”
The sour taste of apple filled my mouth once more. Was Oriana trying to awaken me, to kiss me once more? The flavor of guilt and sorrow seep onto my tongue with her desperate affection.
I decided to ignore it, to concentrate on the vision before me instead. Even if this maiden is nothing, but a dream.
“Just like who?” The maiden stared me in hungry eagerness. “Who are you?”
“The fairest of them.” I felt my lips twist into something bitter, matching the apple taste which won’t go away. “That’s the answer to both questions.” I fixed my gaze on her earnest eye, her trembling hand.
Just looking at her sooths some of the sourness.
“Unless I’m speaking of you.” I nodded in acknowledgment of her beauty, the light captured in her hair and eye.
Perhaps this maiden is the true embodiment of the dawn, the dawn I thought Oriana carried with her. Perhaps she’s found me and come to comfort me.
“What do you mean?” For the first time, she seems young, uncertain, and less otherworldly. “What does the title mean, ‘the fairest of them all?’”
The light may have chosen to test me with this question, unless it was another attempt to taunt and tease me.
“It’s in the eye of the beholder.” I stretched out a hand to touch her, wondering if she was more than a vision.
I seized a lock of hair of my own hair, instead, pulled on it. The sensation was diminished somehow within the dream.
“I guess it depends on who is the beholder.” How old and weary my words seemed, weighing me down with their faint promise.
“Which one are you?” How urgent and earnest her question was. She leaned forward, almost as if she expected me to be snatched away from her at any moment. “The beholder or the beheld?”
How young and impatient her questions seemed. I wondered if this girl might not be real after all.
Real and waiting somewhere in the waking world.
“I’m sorry!” Oriana was crying, helplessly, somewhere far away. “I don’t know how to undo this!”
No, she never had quite comprehended the consequences of any of her actions, had she?
“Ask her,” I said with all the bitterness I’d ever felt for my former lover.
“Ask who?” The girl tilted her head, only to turn to face the spider.
It seized her, yanking her out of the darkness, making her cry out.
“No!” I cried in turn, opening my mouth, only to feel thick lips press against me. Not promising anything, simply offering affection, unconditionally.
The sensation awakened me, opened my eyes.
Quartz loomed over me, only to stagger back, clutching his chest.
“Quartz.” His name echoed hollowly within my own ears.
I rose from the crystal bed I’d been lying in for who knew how long. The humming in the air, the energy permeating my skin lift me up more than my own will.
Quartz toppled to the ground with a thud.
“Quartz,” I whispered, not believing this, not wanting to. I never meant this to happen to him, not him of all people!
The only one who was real. The only person who truly loved me lay still on the grass. He didn’t reply.
Grief rose into my throat, choking me with its immediacy.
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