Snow White and the Seventh Dwarf

On the night of a fearsome storm, a child was born as pale as moonlight on snow. The wet nurse gasped, fearing the babe to be stillborn. But the child, named Margaretha, released a cry so fierce it echoed through the stone halls of the royal castle - a cry that proved she belonged among the living.

Each year, the royal physicians warned the King and Queen that their daughter would not see the next spring. But as if fueled by defiance alone, Margaretha grew. Ever small for her age, with hair blacker than soot and a gaze both weary and fierce, she bore little resemblance to her plump, rosy-cheeked parents.

It was a visiting young prince who first called her “Snow White,” startled by her ghostly complexion. She promptly chased him down and gave him a good bruising for his impudence. Yet the name clung to her like frost on the bough, and so Snow White she became.

Her days were merry, until one fateful turn: Prince Charming vanished, his father passed and in his absence, the Frost Queen seized power over the Northern Kingdom. She was visiting her new dominion, and soon after, Snow White’s mother passed under mysterious circumstances - her heart stilled and her secrets buried.

By the time of the Queen’s funeral, Snow White had shed her frailty. She stood tall, her strength forged through endurance, yet her skin remained like freshly fallen snow. Her beauty was undeniable, and not merely by virtue of royal blood. She was known far and wide as the fairest maiden in the land.

But her father, the grieving king, was soon ensnared by another enchantress - the Dark Queen. Vain, cunning, and unrelenting in ambition, she married the king before the earth had settled on Snow White mother’s grave. All could see the Queen's jealousy of the blossoming princess. Yet in her father’s presence, civility reigned between them - thin as gossamer, and just as easily torn.

The day came when the new queen took her husband to visit her sister - the Frost Queen of the North. Not long after their return, the king was found lifeless, a blood-scrawled message on his throne: “I’m sorry, Thea…” His pet name for his daughter.

“To lose one parent is a tragedy,” Dark Queen whispered to her with glee, “but to lose both? That is just carelessness.”

One week later, the Dark Queen summoned her Huntsman. He was ordered to cut out the princess’s heart and return it in a box. But beauty, it is said, can move mountains - or at least melt a heart of stone. The Huntsman, swayed by the maiden’s plea, spared her. He placed a pig’s heart in the box and bid her flee, never to return.

So, under the veil of storm and shadow, Snow White fled the only home she had ever known.

She wandered, weakened, half-dead among the jagged peaks - mountains carved by the hands of the Dwarves, now enslaved by cruel queens. It was they who found her, curled like a frostbitten flower in the snow.

They nursed her to health… and then set her to work.

Dwarves, you see, know no idle hands. Child, elder, man or maiden - all labored in the mines, their treasures stolen by the cruel Briar Matrons, leaving only copper and coal to the folk below.

Snow White learned to wield the pick and hammer. Her noble hands grew rough, her arms strong. She hid her lineage, but rumors of the pale princess, murdered yet unburied, reached even the dark tunnels.

Thus came her summons to Septimus, seventh son of a seventh son, and head of the Dwarven Mining Guild. A dwarf in name only - for he stood tall, mighty in spirit and mind. Though he now sat behind a desk, his ancient mining tool leaned ever nearby, untouched by dust or disuse.

“Are you the murdered princess?” he asked.

“That girl died long ago,” said Snow White.

“Can you read, write, reckon numbers?”

“My skills” she said, “surpass those of any of your comrades.”

“Do you seek vengeance against those who took your kingdom?”

“Yes.”

He struck her so hard it took days for her to rise again.

When she did, he made her his assistant. “The Briar Matrons are not as gentle,” he warned.

She learned the ledgers, the letters, the labyrinthine ways of men and power. She toiled with ink as fiercely as she once had with iron, and her understanding grew deep.

Late at night, when all was still, she would ask, “Why not rise against them?”

Her reward was silence - or another blow.

But one night, when the question came again, Septimus merely looked at her and said, “Why do you keep asking?”

“Because I do not fear pain nor death. Only the suffering of those left behind.”

At that, Septimus ensured they were alone. He opened a safe sealed by seven locks. Inside lay hidden ledgers, secrets, weapons, and plans - the bones of a rebellion long in the making. But what he lacked was a hand deft enough to stitch it together.

That night, the first spark of revolution flickered into flame.

And thus began the tale of the Rebellion - and the rise of Snow White and the Seventh Dwarf.