1Tells roughly the same story as the music video for Sonne - Rammstein, but I intentionally did not name the band members as the dwarves, so it can be read by both fandoms.
The Sonne video really tells a beautiful tale, I suggest watching it - even if you don't speak German. It's a good song even if you don't understand the language.
But this time Snow White doesn't wake up
She had treated them well at first, when she had come from the woods and had taken shelter in their home.
She swept their floors, cooked them delicious meals. She complimented their hard work, she told them stories.
But then they decided to give her gold as a gift.
The second Snow White had settled her eyes upon the carefully cleaned and shining piece of gold, her hands moving to cup the precious metal in her grasp, her eyes taking in every edge and point of the hunk of metal that the dwarves had gifted her, a smile grew across her face.
The dwarves had made a mistake giving her gold.
She became twisted, greedy.
Snow White would work them endlessly and would beat them if they did not deliver to her high expectations.
She became addicted to the gold that they had found in the mines and presented to her.
The dwarves still had lingering memories and feelings for the Snow White they had known, the Snow White that would lovingly run her fingers through their matted hair, singing soft lullabies and stories to them.
Now she would just lock her fingers around their dirt-matted locks, dragging and throwing them around the room, screams of terrible rage and threats of beatings and punishments escaping her perfectly lipstick-lined lips as the dwarves cowered back away from her.
The Snow White the dwarves had loved was long gone, and a cruel and twisted monster had taken her place.
They worked day and night, week after week, only taking small breaks to scarf down brief scraps of food and sips of water before descending back down into the mines to search for more ore to please their master.
Their once tan and lightly coal dusted skin was now filthy, a thick layer of pitch-black dust and grime coating their sweaty and bruise-littered skin, their eyes and teeth shining like lights in the dimness of the mines, their features only illuminated for brief moments by flying sparks before the mines descended back into the dark.
She would always enter the room during their dinner meal break, carefully gathering up her skirts and ducking down to enter the small room, taking great care to not get her lovingly-crafted clothing dirty as she did. But if it was to get a stain or marking, she would just have the dwarves slave away until it appeared new again.
She would stand at the end of the table, a slight smirk and a coy gleam in her eyes as she waited to see what had been fetched for her during her dwarves excursion to the mines.
Some unlucky dwarf - they moved in rotations, as so not to have any one dwarf suffer from her wrath too often - would rise from their seat, abandoning their food as they slowly moved to stand before her at the head of the table. Shaking hands would reach into a pocket or pouch, before slowly rising to present the days finds before the looming figure of Snow White, who would extend a smooth, pale, perfectly manicured hand to accept the offering.
More often then not, her brown eyes would glance over the offered metals and would narrow in rage, her previously-smiling lips dipping downwards as her face contorted in anger and frustration at the incompetence of her dwarven servants.
Her hand would lash out, her nails occasionally leaving long, tender scratches stretching the length of the dwarves faces.
She would throw the unlucky dwarf back, sending him flying roughly and painfully onto the table as the rest quickly rose and swiftly retreated back to the furthest point in the room away from her, trembling shoulders rising to their ears as they - slaves to the person that had once been a blessing - cowered under the malicious gaze of their master.
She would make demands, spittle flying from her lips as she screamed insults at her trembling dwarves, before quickly leaving the dwarves' dining room, leaving them to tend to whichever unlucky dwarf had been the victim of her lust for gold this time.
Countless scars littered their grimy skin, the dwarves had scrubbed more blood stains from their wooden floors than they cared to admit.
It was a wretched, horrible existence.
But the dwarves never could bring themselves to hate her completely. They would never be able to forget how she had used to be, how she used to care for them so lovingly, so gently.
Even now, in moments of calm and kindness, she would sometimes let the dwarves brush her long, pitch-black hair, humming softly as they slowly and carefully moved a brush through her tumbling locks, the dwarves taking as much care as possible not to pull or yank the strands from her pale head, not wanting to disrupt the rare moment of serenity by angering her.
When she let the dwarves do this, or when she would sit outside and just watch the animals with a soft smile on her face and a kind look in her eyes, the dwarves couldn't hate her - no matter how much they wanted to. The memories of how she used to be so kind, so perfect, just wouldn't fade.
But one day, she hadn't come to collect during the dwarves' dinner meal. They had been nervously awaiting her entrance in fear, as they had not managed to collect anything close to the magnificent amount they had discovered and presented to her yesterday. They barely managed to eat any of their food due to their terror, holding their breaths whenever they heard a sound that may have hinted to the entrance of Snow White.
Yesterday, she had been overjoyed when they had presented the gold that they had mined, - there was so much, it took three of them to hold all of it out for her to take - making her way around the table and gently pressing a soft kiss, almost like a loving and caring mother, to the top of each of the work-weary dwarves' heads, who had looked up at her with awe and care in their brightened eyes. They had made her happy, she was proud of them. She loved them.
It was rare for her to be happy with them, to show affection towards them.
Today, they did not expect any affection. They expected her violent wrath, screams of rage and her flying, scratching hands lashing out at whatever poor dwarf whose turn it was to present the meek, tiny, amount that they had mined, the gold that was a few pieces barely any bigger than specks of dirt, but had taken hours of work to find.
But she never arrived, the door to the room stayed shut. They never heard the sounds of her slow, proper steps approaching their room, never heard her screams of rage, never faced her violent outburst and cruel treatment.
The dwarves had finished their meal minutes ago, and had shared concerned glances over their dishes, asking questions silently.
Where is she?
Is Snow White coming?
Did she forget about us?
As one of them rose to leave, the rest quickly abandoned their places at the table and followed.
They crept through their area of the house, before emerging into Snow White's rooms, the ceiling looming high over their heads, the furniture twice their size scattered around the rooms as they made their way through them, peeking around doorways and shushing each other as they searched for their Snow White.
They peeked into the bathroom, and six pairs of eyes widened in shock, soft gasps escaping chapped lips.
In the middle of the large bathroom, within the large tub that they had crafted specifically for her, lay Snow White.
Her pale body was covered with the soft white soapy foam, but the dwarves could see that something wasn't right.
One of the dwarves carefully crept over to the stool that lay beside the tub. On the stool was a plate, with scattered bits of gold dust littering the porcelain surface, seemingly having been once organized in neat lines. Dropped in the middle of the plate, almost carelessly, was an empty syringe with a sharp needle that gleamed brightly in the light, the metal tip stained with small, dark drops of blood.
Snow White's blood.
As the dwarves shared a shocked glance between themselves, they slowly rose up to look with horrified eyes at the slumped over form of Snow White, her arms dangling over the sides of the tub, the only thing keeping her form from slipping beneath the foamy water of the tub and disappearing from view.
Two trails of red began to slowly trail from her nostrils, the beads of bright red blood falling slowly down her smooth, pale skin, the blood bright against her almost white skin.
Drops of red fell into the foamy water, turning the pure white into sick pink shade.
The dwarves knew.
She was dead.
They carefully removed her body from the tub, covering her naked form with a towel, respectfully giving her some form of dignity even in death.
They carefully dressed her in her usual blue and yellow gown, taking care to lovingly dry and style her black hair, tying the red ribbon she loved so much around her head before carefully lying her down and arranging her long limbs, almost making her appear as if she was just deeply asleep.
They crafted a casket, a beautifully made glass box with ornate carvings and decorations, the bed where she was meant to lay littered with freshly cut roses and foliage, made to resemble the wildlife and landscapes that she loved so much.
They decided to put her to rest on a nearby mountaintop, where a tree that stopped her favorite kind of apples grew.
The trip took them hours, the heavy casket that carried the form of the woman who had been their worst nightmare and most caring person in their life weighed more than a single one of the dwarves could carry, and even with all six of them helping to support the tremendous weight, it was a laborious journey.
As they ascended the path that they had walked so many times before to fetch apples for their Snow White, none of them spoke. The air was thick with an almost tangible sense of loss, but a sense of relief and freedom underlaid it.
They took great care as they stepped over rocks and moved around fallen tree trunks in their way up the mountain, making sure that the beautiful and still form of Snow White wasn't jostled, and the casket's decorations weren't scratched or dirtied.
As they finally reached the peak and gently laid her casket below the looming branches of her favorite tree, the dwarves sat down on the various rocks and ledges surrounding her casket, their shoulders slumping with relief after carrying the horrible weight the many miles up the mountain.
But as tears dripped down faces, and loving hands rested on the glass surface above Snow White's form, a sense of relief was present in them.
They were free.
Snow White was dead.
Please leave a comment if you enjoyed! I apologize for any mistakes, this was written in an hour for a quick writing contest :)
