Fairytale Friday: The Snow Queen, Or Don't Piss a B**** Off. Part 3

Previously: Bad pranks lead to a dangerous situation for both of our heros.

Lila couldn't feel her fingers or her feet by the time she saw the little glimmer of light in the dark. The little house appeared almost out of nowhere and nothing looked as warm and inviting in her entire life. She stumbled for the door and knocked. The person on the other side of the door would be an absolute stranger, yes, but she had to hope that she could trust them long enough to get warm and go back out again.

The door opened and a gnarled little old woman looked up, up, up at Lila. Lila wasn't a particularly tall girl, but she wasn't a small girl. But this woman, with her beetle black eyes made Lila feel like a giant. But she had a kindly smile in her apple-doll face. "You poor child! Come in out of the cold."

"Hello, my dear. It isn't often that I have visitors...." (1)

Lila was ushered inside and stripped of her coat and boots and parked on a chair by the fire. The old woman fussed over her, brought her warm broth and tea, and tucked her in under a pile of blankets.

"Now, Child, tell me why it is that you're out wandering on a night like this," the woman said settling in to a chair across the fire from her.

Lila looked at the old woman over her mug of tea and admitted, "A friend of mine and I played a prank on the Snow Queen and she took him. I knew it was a bad idea, but I didn't stop him. I'm just trying to get him back."

The old woman clucked her tongue. "Have you any idea where to go?" Lila shook her head. "So, you just walked out on a night like this one with the idea of getting your friend back. You're couragous and loyal, but that only gets you so far, my dear. If it isn't paired with wisdom it can get you killed. Stay with me tonight, do some chores for me in the morning, and I will set you on the right path. And a little friendly advice: If you know something is a bad idea, don't do it. Don't borrow trouble where it isn't needed." She stood and patted Lila on the shoulder. "I'll make a pallet for you here by the fire. I'm afraid I don't have much, but I'm happy to share."

As Lila laid down her head, she wondered what had happened to Mark and if he had someplace warm to sleep tonight.

She woke the next morning feeling rested and cozy, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out why she was here, on the floor of the old woman's cottage. The old woman -- Flora -- as she came to find out, was very kind. She gave her breakfast and in return for the warm night out of the wind and the food she'd been given, Lila happily helped Flora by taking care of chores around the cottage. She swept and cleaned out the ashes from the night's fire before building a fresh one. She went out into the cold to gather firewood to bring inside.

It was a brilliant day, inspite of the cold and Lila gathered and chopped wood for the fire. Flora called her in for lunch, and when she did, Lila spotted her reflection in an old iced over rainbarrel. Something about her hat sparked a memory and she peered down at the ice trying to figure out why. Someone had given her this hat. It wasn't her mother or her father... It was another face, one full of mischief and pride. A boy's face. He'd bought it himself with saved allowance from a woman in town who made strange and fantastical hats.



And hats with a sense of humor.... Mush, Lila, mush. (2)


Mark. She was supposed to be finding Mark.

When she entered Flora's cabin, Flora knew immediately that Lila remembered. She looked sad, but did as she promised. "The home you seek is many, many miles north of here. Your trip will be long and cold. I'll give you what I can to help get you there. But, remember, a kind heart will find help everywhere."

Flora gave her a hand drawn map, a thermos full of hot soup, some fresh bread, and a few odds and ends in a packet. "It won't be easy," Flora told her, "Winter is a hard time and the Snow Queen is as hard and cold as her gransire. But, I hope my gifts will help you. Be careful, Dear."

Lila gave Flora a hug and started on the path she'd been pointed towards, turning to say good-bye, only to find the warm little cabin and it's occupant had disappeared. All she could see behind her were her own tracks in the snow.

---
(1) borrowed from celebrationgoddes.wordpress.com
(2) found on ecrater.com

Fairy Tale Friday: The Snow Queen, Or Don't Piss a B**** Off. Part 2

Riiiight. So, where did we leave off last time? Ahh, yes. Our hero forgot rule number 3 for strangers: Don't get into the car.

Lila, on the otherhand, was set on getting him back, even though the rest of the village had, within the hour, written him off as a lost cause. "No one who goes with her ever comes back," her mother had tried to reason, but for naught.

Once the rest of her family had fallen asleep that night, she threw a few things into a bag, cracked a window, and threw a leg over the casement.

She was gone before the family dog knew to start barking.

The only clue Lila had to go on was that the woman went "north." She had no plates to go on, no idea of where the woman lived, except that it was beyond the ten mile radius she and Mark had ever explored. But, there weren't that many roads heading out that way and not much traffic. So for a while, with the moon high and full, Lila was able to hike along the road.

But, the night grew colder and the trees began to close in and even though she'd grabbed a warm jacket, hat, and boots, she began to shiver in them. And it only got worse once the snow started. What had started as a clear night, by midnight, became a blizzard and Lila was lost in it.

A cold and lonely road (1)

She remembered the old stories about how the woman in the car, the snow queen, had powers over the ice and snow and wondered as her fingers began to numb and her feet turned to blocks in her boots if this was the Snow Queen's doing or if Lila herself had just been stupid about heading off into the night on foot. Still, she trudged on, hoping to find somewhere to wait out the rest of the night, hopes sinking lower with each step that she'd find it before she froze.

***

 

 Meanwhile, many miles from where Lila kept slogging through the cold, Mark himself was far from being cold and uncomfortable. The car, after passing iron gates and slithering along a stretch of driveway that could rightly be called a road in and of itself, pulled up to a grand mansion. "This is our stop," she told the gawping village boy. She didn't wait for him to collect himself.

She swanned out of the car and up the stairs, heels click-click-clicking along each step. The doors opened before her. She paused in the doorway and raised a single eyebrow in his direction. "Are you coming?"

Mindlessly, he lept from the car to follow, eyes fixed on her long, long legs and very, very short skirt.

He scrambled to catch up.

There was no one at the door when he crossed the threshold and still the doors closed on their own. But, he barely noticed. Instead, he struck shocked and amazed by the outright opulance of her foyer. The likes of which he'd never seen. He didn't know marble from alabaster, but everything looked rich and ... richer. And everything -- stone to crystal to paintings to rugs -- were done in shades of blue and white.

Think less black and more ice sculpture.... (2)

"You live here?" He called out through the very empty foyer.

"Yes. And it's bad form to stand in the entryway gawking. Please, come this way."

Her voice lead him deeper into the house. He found her in the kitchen, ladling out some soup boiling away on the stove. "I'm afraid the staff is on holiday. Here. Have something to eat and we'll get you settled. I'll set you to work tomorrow."

He did as he was bade, sitting, eating silently, trying to keep from staring so hard that his eyes fell out of his head. His mother told him that it would happen once. He never forgot it. But, this was one of the times when the risk felt real. There was too much to take in and while a small part of his brain tried to remind him that there was something very wrong here, the rest was just overwhelmed. He forgot about his mother's warnings, he forgot about his friend and his home. Instead, he just stared.

And while he stared at the grandure around him (and occasionally at the woman who sat at the table with him), he didn't notice her returned gaze. She hadn't taken a bite of the soup before her. Instead, she sat watching her newest acquisition, as if he were another rug or lamp or sculpture.

When he finished all he could eat, she led him to another part of the mansion and got him settled into a room. "Consider it yours for your stay. Good night." She gave him a smile as she closed the door as thin as the fang moon of winter.

He barely saw it for the fur and the fireplace and the satin woods of the "guest" room she'd placed him in. He barely saw it or felt the creeping cold that had begun to fill his veins from the contents of his stomach. No, he didn't see the trap for what it was even as he slipped into unconsciousness and his body hit the fur rug square on....



(1) Many thanks to Brianna Asaro Photography for allowing me to use this image. Please check out her website. Her work is gorgeous. http://briannaasaro.com/

(2) via theenchantedhome.blogspot.com

Fairy Tale Friday: The Snow Queen, Or Don't Piss a B**** Off

            Once upon a time, there was a girl, Lila, and a boy, Mark, who lived across a garden from each other in a quaint little village in the North. While they were good most of the time, if there was trouble to be had, they would often be found in it together. It was hard to know who had instigate it or whose idea it was, but there they'd be, head-to-toe in mud or soot or, on one occasion feathers, sometimes in tow by another neighbor with wide innocent eyes and all their parents could do was shake their heads.

 

They were warned -- most of the time, sure, it's innocent fun, but just beware. There are people you don't want to piss off in this world. The least of all was the original Snow Queen.

 

When they were small, they were warned about a white car that drove through town once a year on the first day of winter. The windows were heavily tinted and the car itself was worth more than most of the villagers made in a decade. And when the car was spotted on the road leading to town, everyone was warned to be off the streets. The woman in the car did not take dealing with "peasants" lightly. She'd mow an old man down if he crossed in front of her car and sue his family for the damages. And while grown folks were like grass before a gardener, what she really loved was to take young men home with her, never to be seen again.

 

Imagine this, in white.

 

 

It was really for everyone's safety, then, to be buttoned up tight behind closed doors on the first day of winter.

 

On the first day of winter when they turned sixteen, Mark got it into his head that this year, they were going to actually see the car and he was pretty sure he'd found the best place to watch it covertly from. Lila tried her best to talk him out of it, but all to no luck. The best she could do was go with him and make sure he didn't do something stupid, like the time he set up the ding-dong-ditch, just to see who really lived in the old, creepy house at the edge of town and accidentally burned the place down.

 

Ooops....

 

 

Yes, he thought he had a magnificent plan this time to get the car to stop and see who it was that had been terrorising the town for so long: mud balloons to the windshield from two places along the route. With two of them, while the driver was distracted, he'd be able to finally see who was in the car that drove through town.

 

"It's fool proof," he told her.

 

She wasn't convinced. He wasn't exactly the brains of their little operation.

 

Still, she crouched across the street on the roof of an unoccupied shop while he hid down a small alley not far off, both of them with balloons full of dirt and water and while the cry went up that the car was coming, they stayed, waiting where they were hidden.

 

(Maybe this would have worked better?)

 

The car was not long in coming.

 

The big, sleek luxury model growled it's way along the road and with timing borne of years of cooperative warfare against the other kids in town, they struck. The white car was pelted with balloons. Some bounced off only to be broken by the tires or splatter across the pavement, but there were a few that hit and hard. Mud coated the windshield, the rear window and the side windows. And when the car pulled to a stop, it was with nervous, hysterical giggles that both of them ducked back behind their respective barricades.

 

The door opened and sharp heeled shoes clicked on the pavement. "What the... Ugh! Who the-- who did this?! Of all the infantile.... " She waited a beat or two before shouting, "Show yourselves NOW."

 

It was a strange compulsion that pulled the boy out from his hiding place: a mixture of curiosity about the woman behind the voice and the command she wielded with it. He peered out and sensing in the silence that followed something else had happened, his hidden companion did likewise. What she saw terrified her.

 

He stood there like a deer-in-headlights in front of a cool blonde, dressed in a white sheath dress, white stilettos, and white pearls and a long white-fox fur.

 

“You,” she said, pointing one crystal-studded talon at Mark. “You did this?”

 

He was struck dumb looking at her. She was so lovely that in that moment there was no room for anything else in his young, hormone addled head. He nodded.

 

“You’re coming with me. And you’re cleaning this up. You won’t go home until I’m satisfied.” She approached him with a controlled saunter, appraising. “Aren’t you a lovely looking thing,” she purred, tapping a different nail on his cheek. Do a good job and I think we can both make out of this satisfied.” She grabbed hold of him and lead him back to the car.



Maybe this was what she was thinking? Probably not....

 

“No! Wait. Don’t take him. I’m responsible!” Lila shouted from her hiding place. 

 

But it was to no avail. The minute the Snow Queen’s hands were on him, he was done for. Neither of them seemed to hear her as the Queen ushered him into the passenger seat.

 

Lila scrambled down from the roof in time to see the white car kick up a little splash of the mud they’d thrown.

 

The Queen didn’t wait for him to buckle up before she revved the engine and took off.

To Be Continued...
Part 2