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draskireis · 10 minutes ago

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Snow White and the Fae Co-Op

Part One: I Didn't Vote For You

Okay so like--

I get why people thought we were all dwarves. Or made us all dwarves. Something between that. Collaborative storytelling what have you. It makes things significantly simpler, and it's a much punchier title than "Snow White and the Troll, the Redcap, the Púca, and four gnomes." (Of course I get top billing--I was her favorite.) And, okay, yeah, none of us came up past Snow's ribcage. Understandable.

But still it's like one of those things you don't want to start correcting people on it because you know you're going to spend the rest of your life correcting and concordantly explaining shit to people. But now it's like, you're pissed when we are dwarves, you're pissed when we're not dwarves, seriously! Pick a lane!

But okay, it seems everyone's pissed about this right now, so let's get pedantic.

We aren't sexy fairies.

Okay I didn't start that out right.

I guess it's easiest to explain this as... think of the ocean. So like, there are the scary sexy fairies who have the whole Succession/Bridgerton/White Lotus Fae Court thing going and they turn you into a deer and hunt you for sport, that's the Deep End. Then you have humans. Humans, in this metaphor, are land.

Me and my guys? We're tide pools.

A lot of stories are all like "Ougggh the magic is dying from this world ouggghhh the old ruined kingdoms" but in my opinion I think that's overall a case of Immortals Being Very Weird About Change In General. Like the tide, magic in this world rises and falls, and in the course of that you end up with this kind of hardy subgroup of fae who can survive in both High-Fae and High-Human environments. We're kind of our own ecosystem, but we're also kind of intermediaries between the Deep End Fae Court and the humans. We actually tend to broker a lot of more like, working class deals between the magical world and the human world. Maybe we get compared to the mob a lot. Whatever.

I'm getting into the weeds. This story isn't about me and the guys. This is about our girl, Snow. And trust me, I'm old as balls so before you get all 'Oh, one girl and seven guys? wHAt waS gOinG oN tHeRE?" (And you're absolutely disgusting for that, by the way). You need to understand that, on a species level, Snow was basically like keeping a very beautiful (albeit kind of bossy) sentient duck in the house. We loved our beautiful sentient duck and were impressed by the many talents of the beautiful sentient duck. No one desired the beautiful sentient duck on a romantic or physical level because, one, romantic and sexual desire for our subgroup of fae is very tedious, nuanced, and species-specific, and two, she was a duck. I mean she wasn't a duck, she was a human, but for us that's basically like being a sentient duck. All of those shitty "One girl seven guys" jokes I can definitely say are a result of human projection. Like again, you need to understand that my guys and me have basically gone through Magic Carcinization.

Again, I'm getting into the weeds.

All you need to know about Snow is that she broke into our house, she scares the shit out of us, and we would kill for her.

Okay you should probably know more than that.

Okay, so remember like 12 seconds ago when I said me and my guys are more of the working-class brokers between humans and Fae? And remember that Deep End I mentioned earlier? So like, the Deep End does deal with humans, but that tilts heavily into the 'Royalty and Miracles' side of things. Swords in stones. Swords in lakes. A fish that gives you all of the cosmic secrets of the universe when you eat it. That kind of stuff. That's kind of where Snow came from. She's a Fae weapon forged in a human womb. Hence why she scared the shit out of us.

How do I start this properly?

Once upon a time there were three human kingdoms. An icy kingdom in the north, a temperate kingdom in the west, and a, let's be real, damp kingdom in the east. Icy Kingdom had a queen, a beautiful queen, and the Deep End of the Fae love beautiful things. Beautiful Queen wanted more, and she made a deal with the Deep End of the Fae. She gave them her heart, and they give her a mirror that gives her sight beyond sight, and she used that to conquer Damp Kingdom in the East. They fought, but she could predict every one of their strategies with her mirror, all she needed to do was ask the mirror what this general is doing, or that Lord is doing, and bing-bang-boom, she took Damp Kingdom in a matter of months. And for good measure she took their baby boy prince, a pretty but frankly useless boy who, as the years went on and he grew, she largely kept for cup-bearing and harp-playing and decoration and also threatening to cut the head off of if Damp Kingdom ever stepped out of line. Because Damp Kingdom loved their pretty pretty baby boy prince as the last remnant of their royal bloodline, they were now thoroughly cowed.

So now the Queen turned her eyes to the Temperate Kingdom.

And this is when the Deep End Fae were like, "Hey okay you've conquered a neighboring kingdom, which we don't super-care-about for nebulous Fae Reasons, but for equally nebulous Fae Reasons, we don't want you to conquer Temperate Kingdom."

And the Queen was like, "Whatever."

And the Deep End Fae were like "Okay, then here's the part where we use that previous thing you gave us against you." And they tried to use her heart against her, but basically the Queen used the Mirror to circumvent the heart magic through a whole bunch of... jury-rigged alchemy shit? I don't know. This stuff was already way out of my pay grade. But what I do know is, the Deep End Fae realized they couldn't use the Evil Queen's previous deal as a failsafe against her, so they needed a new approach to stop her.

Temperate Kingdom was ruled by a kind king and queen. They also didn't want to be conquered, but things weren't looking good. Their capital city was under siege. The Kind Queen was pregnant and ready to pop--scratch that, currently popping. The king was mortally wounded while defending said Capital City. They dragged the mortally wounded king back to the bailey and he's all delirious ranting about his wife and the not-yet baby.

And then a figure in a mossy cloak appeared. They loomed over the mortally wounded king and they said very gently "Your blood will outlast you. Do you permit our assistance in this? Do you permit the cost?"

And the king was dying and he only understood like 40% of what was going on right now. He knew what was talking to him right now wasn't human. He knew you don't refuse a gift from the Fae. And he knew he was kind of safely in the 'fucked-up miracle' territory of Fae gifts though he didn't really understand the full extent of what that meant (and that's fair--no one does). He kind of assumed it would just be his own life as the cost of whatever the hell was happening here. So he's bleeding out and he nods. "If it will preserve the Kingdom," he says, "If it will save our child."

So we cut to the queen. The royal birthing is... okay it's going rough. Giving birth under siege will do that to you. In ideal circumstances you would have this hardcore butch midwife stick most of her forearm up the birth canal to reposition the baby and both the mother and child would live but... you didn't have that here. Instead, once more, the figure in the mossy cloak loomed over the Queen as she screamed through agonizing contraction after contraction. They touched two fingers to the queen's forehead and they gave her a flood of visions. Snow. Fire. Blood. Blackened earth. A little sapling growing from the body of a great and noble felled tree. And she looked to the figure in the mossy cloak. And she saw their face was kind.

The kind queen died in childbirth as the Evil Queen's forces overtook the capital city. The king was dead before he knew what deal he had made. The Evil Queen and her troops marched into the grand hall, only to see a figure in a mossy cloak seated on a little stool next to a wooden bassinet. The Evil Queen made that anime villain snort-scoff sound.

"So kind of you to offer your blessing in my victory," she said.

"This is not a blessing we offer," said the figure in a mossy cloak, "You have abused the gift given in our previous trade. The trust between us is breached. We now give you back that which you gave us. All you have won for yourself will rot. And as with all rot, new and rightful life will spring from it."

And the Evil Queen almost laughed at this at first, again, like "Whatever," but then after a few seconds she begins to do the math. In exchange for a mirror that gave her sight beyond sight, she gave the fae her heart, and then she jury-rigged a whole bunch of magical alchemical bullshit to protect herself from basically being shackled to the fae's will through her heart, because hey, if you can, that's what you do.

But what happens if your heart is no longer your heart?

What happens if the Fae bind your heart to someone else?

What happens if your heart is now wrapped in different royal blood from the kingdom the Fae told you specifically you're not supposed to conquer?

And that was Snow.

The most beautiful, weirdest, most uncanny-ass baby you've ever seen. AND she had that weird undercooked look all human babies have. A semi-formed little beast. Can you imagine looking at an infant and knowing it's going to burn down everything you've ever built? Can you imagine knowing that trying to smother this threat in its crib will burn everything down, too?

But you think, "It's okay. I can manage this. Plants can be molded in to bonsai and topiary. I can shape this to suit my needs, too. It just takes care. It just takes maintenance."

And that's when Evil Queen declares, "As a symbol of healing between our kingdoms, I will raise this child as my own." And she gives a sharp glance to the figure in the mossy cloak, and they give an assenting motion with their... probably head? Probably.

And she awkwardly takes up the baby in the crook of her arm. Wow awesome, she already has an amazing propaganda tool. There's no way this is going to backfire on her in like... 17 or 18 years.

Except you know it will. Because this is the "Fucked up miracles" side of shit we're talking about. And the Evil Queen is not on the side of miracles.

Fucking hell, that's all a mouthful, and Snow hasn't even met us yet! Look, I'm gonna take a smoke break and I'll get back to you in a minute, okay?

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