She lay there on the floor she scrubbed clean, the comb lodged in her long black hair, her face serious and slack, her arms spread at angles left and right, her legs together, but her knees bent so that she was almost on her side. It was a lovely site for a dwarf: to see the face that laughed at me lying so serenely, the eyes that saw me only as a child closed, at least for now. She thought me pitiful. Now, she was at my mercy.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm a good dwarf! They don't call me Dopelanxrian for nothing. The name means "hero" or "caregiver" -- it is the same word in our language. I just couldn't stand to watch her treat us this way.

We are of a mighty and wise race, we dwarves. The twelve of us are an alchemist circle, mining worthless rocks from the mountains and transforming them into precious gold, silver, and diamonds. When we told her of our miraculous work, she smiled and said, in her squeaky little way, "Oh, I've never known little boys who didn't love to play in the mud!"

Our work is not play, and we are not little boys! From the moment this "Snow White" with her creamy skin and tall form sauntered into our home (uninvited, mind you), she has treated us as if we were witless toddlers, making us clean our fingernails before dinner, reading us sappy bedtime stories, and kissing us all goodnight with chaste little pecks on the tops of our heads.

She wouldn't even learn to say our names! My name is Dopelanxrian -- she calls me "Dopey". Dopey! There is only so much even a hero can endure!

She never learned the others names, either, preferring to give them cute little nicknames like "Sleepy" or "Grumpy" or "Doc".

Once, while we worked in the mines, Happrontri approached me. (She calls him "Happy".) "She will not leave, that is clear," Happrontri said. "Something keeps her here, despite all our efforts to make her go."

"She is kept her because of her fear of her mother, the Queen," I said. "I do not know what she did to raise the ire of the old clothes horse, but Snow White is frightened even to leave the cabin."

"The Queen would not dare to seek her in our domain," said Happrontri.

After a moment, Happrontri added. "If Snow White will not leave, perhaps we can get some pleasure from her."

His face was unreadable. What sort of pleasure did he have in mind?

"We will not harm her, not while I can prevent it" I said. "You know that my magic is tied to my ethos as hero. I dare not harm the trollop or sit idly by while others harm her."

"We need not harm her," said Happrontri. He smiled a bit, then proceeded to sift through the muck, forming the symbols which would facilitate our alchemical transformations.

I pondered Happronitri's words, imagining what kind of fun we could have with the lovely yet vacuous Snow White that would not violate my oaths and destroy my power.

Eventually, though, I saw a way.

On the day of Jrmansk, a day on which we dwarves do no work, I persuaded the others to leave in the morning as usual. Snow White knew no better, and I could use her ignorance against her. There was, initially, a few complaints from Grumszlor ("Grumpy" she calls him), who understandably wanted to sleep late, but when I told him of my plan, he was more than happy to help. (I spoke in Dwarvish, of course, so Snow White could not understand.)

After breakfast, we all left the house as we did everyday, chanting our preparatory meditation ("Heeeeiiii.... Hoooooo...."), and she waved at us as we went.

When we were out of site, I doubled back, and the others took to the trees to see what their hero would accomplish.

In my sack, I carried the comb she would wear. It was a very special ornament, and it looked as lovely as it was magical, inlaid with pearls and diamonds. I knew the vanity of Snow White would not be able to resist it. It was vanity which activated its magic.

I ran far to the east and began chanting, in the cracking voice of an old hag, "Combs! Combs! Buy a comb from an old woman! Combs! Combs!"

Snow White bolted herself inside the house, fearing the Queen too much even to peep through the windows. Just outside the door, I dropped my comb, and then walked off, chanting all the while. I stopped just beyond the house, behind a tree, and let my voice trail off as if I were walking miles away.

Snow White opened the door. When she saw the comb lying there, her countenance assumed an odd expression of delight mixed with concern and fear. After a moment, she picked up the comb and called out, in a voice which quavered a bit, "Old woman! Old woman! You dropped your comb!"

Some of my companions giggled softly from their hiding places, but Snow White did not notice.

Instead, she seemed mesmerized by the comb in her hand. "Oh! How lovely!" she said.

Her vanity aroused, she placed the decoration in her lovely black hair, arousing, in turn, the comb's magic. Snow White gave a little sigh, rolled her eyes back, and fell limply back through the front door.

Motioning the others to stay back a moment, I left my hiding place and approached her still form on tiptoe.

I touched her face. Her skin molded to my touch, but she did not move.

I raised her arm and let it drop; it fell with a thud. She still did not awaken.

I spanked her bottom, very hard, and while she scooted up the floor a bit, she did not react in any other way.

I turned to my fellow dwarves, shouting, "Come, my friends!"

They ran out of the woods and gathered around the unconscious form of the lovely Snow White. For a moment, we did nothing but watch her lie there.

"Is she dead?" asked Grumszlor at last.

"You know better than that!" I said. "I could not hurt her, however much I am pressed, for it would defeat my ethos. Happrontri suggested I arrange that we gain some pleasure from her, and I believe I have. She will sense nothing until the comb is removed from her hair, and I'm in no hurry to do that."

"Neither am I," chirped in the one she called "Doc", whose true name is Dlintrimus.

"I must warn you, my friends," I said. "I cannot allow any of you to harm her. We may have our fun, but she is not to be violated or physically injured. Attempt such devilry, and you'll answer to me!" I put a hand on my sword.

"And to me," said Happrontri. "I value Dopelanxrian's magic too much to waste it on the likes of this one."

We stood around her a while longer, admiring her sleeping form. Then, Happrontri and I dragged her inside by the arms. She was limp, dead weight in our hands. We let her head drop back, and her mouth fall open. What a wondrous site!

We took turns playing with her: Happrontri posed her in a number of embarrassing positions, and we discovered that she could nearly fit her hand inside her mouth. Dlintrimus rolled her back and forth, dragged her around the house, watching as she bent and twisted, streamed and settled. Grumszlor removed her outer garments (I would allow him to go no farther) and rubbed his face and beard over her smooth white skin. Batchmlin ("Bashful" she called him), with my help, lifted her partway onto the kitchen table, to watch parts of her dangle like willow leaves toward the floor: in turn her arms, her legs, her head and neck. Sleethlrin ("Sleepy" was his moniker) covered her face with her hair and ran her limp hands over his head, chest, arms and legs. On my turn, I lifted her (by myself), and carried her to her bedroom, where I dropped her, not too gently, onto her bed. And again. And again. I loved to feel her dead weight on my arms and shoulders, and to watch her bounce on the cushion.

We were all very careful to avoid dislodging the comb until it came to be Snizlky's turn. He fetched a bucket of water from the well, pulled the flaccid woman off her bed, and dumped the water onto her chest and head.

It was, I thought, a very good idea, except that the rush of water swept the comb from her hair, and Snow White awoke.

"What?" she cried, and I thought she would be enraged with us, but her expression softened instantly. "Children! You saved me! How clever to think of pouring water on me, Sneezy!"

"It must have been the Queen," said Happrontri helpfully. He took the comb and pretended to examine it.

Dlintrimus asked, "Did you buy that from the Queen? It must be some kind of magic."

Snow White shook her head. "No," she said slowly (but perkily), "I don't remember..."

It takes her a while sometimes.

"Oh, wait!" she suddenly cried. "The old woman! She must have been the Queen in disguise!"

"She must have dropped the comb just so you would pick it up!" said Batchmlin, and I had to fight the urge to beat him on his bald head.

A bright woman would ask how Batchmlin knew the "old woman" had dropped the comb, but with Snow White, you and I both know that wasn't going to happen.

"Oh, dear!" she said, suddenly realizing that she was wet and in her underclothes. "You boys must excuse me now! I'm not decent!"

As we filed back in to the kitchen, Happrontri muttered, in Dwarvish, "Not very bright either."

Since Snizlky messed up my little attempt to have fun with our interloper, we all decided that it was his turn to concoct some other plan. It did not take him long, and that fact should have troubled me.

About a week after we "rescued" our little princess, Snizlky emerged from his room carrying a wide purple ribbon. "Excuse me, miss," he said.

"Call me 'mother'," said Snow White.

"I'd prefer 'miss' all the same," he said. "While I was in town, last market day, I saw this lovely ribbon, and I thought you should have it."

"Oh, my!" said Snow White, holding the ribbon aloft. "How lovely!"

"Yes," I said, "that purple ribbon really does go well with your fair skin and blue eyes!" I was trying to be helpful.

"Why," she said, looking at Snizlky and me, "not every little boy would have such fashion sense!"

(Arrgh!)

"Allow me to tie it about your waste, miss," said Snizlky.

"Of course," she chirped, and raised her arms to help him.

When Snizlky had the ribbon tied, Snow White walked over to the mirror to admire herself. She turned this way and that, cooing over herself and her new accessory.

Then, after a moment, her face changed. Something was wrong. She raised her hands to her neck. She let out a little gasp, and then fell forward onto the floor. She writhed for a moment, and then lay still.

Snizlky, who'd missed most of his fun last time, was already there with a fresh bucket of water. He doused her before many of the others realized she was down.

"The ribbon is a good idea, Snizlky," said Batchmlin, gazing upon the drenched wench with a very large smile. "How does it work?"

"Oh," said Snizlky. "It pulls the air from her."

"What?" I cried.

"It pulls the air from her," said Snizlky again. "You know, so she passes out."

"She'll die that way, you frignobber!" I cried.

I had no choice. I pulled my knife from its scabbard, rolled the sodden Snow White onto her back, and cut the ribbon from her. She sucked in a big breath, and then coughed it out. She sucked in another gulp of air.

When she could, she sat up and looked at me. "Oh, Dopey!" she cried. "Now you saved me!"

When, after a moment, she discovered that she was once again sopping wet, she turned to Snizlky, "I'm afraid the water didn't help that time, Sneezy!"

"It must have been the Queen again," said Snizlky.

"But you gave me the ribbon," said Snow White, in a rare display of intelligence.

Dlintrimus is also intelligent. "Did you buy that ribbon from an old hag in the market, Snizlky?" he asked. "A woman you'd never seen before?"

"Er... yes!" said Snizlky hastily. "She seemed to have just the one left, but she said it was the most beautiful of all, so I thought you should have it, miss."

Happrontri cried, "It must have been the Queen in disguise again!"

"Oh, dear!" cried Snow White. "And all because I'm the fairest in the land!"

"Right," I said, trying to disguise my relief. "Well, I think it's time we all settled in."

"How about a bedtime story," chirped the princess.

Happrontri yawned. "Oh, let's skip it tonight. I think I can get to sleep without it. And you need to rest and recover."

"Oh, how thoughtful," cooed Snow White, and then she kissed the tops of our heads goodnight. She lost count and kissed mine twice, the frignobber.

As the weeks rolled on, we became so obsessed with finding a solution to the Snow White problem that our work suffered. We would go to town with sacks full of emeralds or rubies instead of gold, silver, and diamonds, because someone wasn't concentrating during the difficult parts of the transformation sequence. It was downright embarrassing!

Snow White was perky as always, but still frightened that her mother would somehow try to kill her. The word we heard was that the Queen was well rid of her.

Then, one day, while walking back from the mine with bags full of germanium (worthless stuff), Dlintrimus cried out, "Of course! It's so obvious!"

He wouldn't go into details until we got home, no matter how hard we pressed him.

When we arrived, Snow White was sitting at the table, crunching on a red apple. "Just a minute, boys," she said, starting to get up. "I'll get your dinner. Did you have fun playing in the mud?"

I rolled my eyes, but Dlintrimus walked over to her. "Snow White," he said in a very low tone, one might think too low for a dwarf to make.

Snow White froze, staring into Dlintrimus's eyes. Now why hadn't I thought of using Vox Victoris, the conqueror's voice? It does not work on dwarves, so I must have all but forgotten it.

Snow White, who is not a dwarf, didn't move.

"Sleep," said Dlintrimus, "sleep deeply."

Snow White's eyes rolled back again, then her lids closed and she fell back into her chair, her head tilted back, her hair tumbling down, her arms limply hanging toward the floor.

Dlintrimus started to turn to us, but I grabbed his arm. "You must add an Aberratio. I cannot allow it otherwise." An Aberratio is a loop hole of sorts. As hero, I could not allow Dlintrimus to use Vox Victoris to eternally bind Snow White.

Dlintrimus shrugged a bit, and then added, "Sleep, Snow White, sleep as if you are dead, sleep without thought or will until kissed by a man taller than yourself."

"When you wake," said Dlintrimus, "if you wake, you will remember that the Queen, in the form of a hag, sold you a poisoned apple."

He looked at me and I nodded. She would probably never find someone taller than she who would care to kiss the little bubble-head, but the possibility existed, and my honor was upheld.

I reminded everyone that Snow White was not to be harmed.

Snizlky headed for the well.

The months, seasons, and years rolled on pleasantly enough. With Snow White to play with at night, our work resumed it's former brilliance. Occasionally, I would have to step in when someone tried to violate her or injure her, and once Batchmlin and I got into a nasty fight over just this issue, but after a while, things kind of settled into a routine.

Happrontri made what he called a "toy box" for Snow White out of purest quartz. It looked to me like a glass coffin, but Happrontri was proud of it, so I held my tongue. We kept her out in the woods, where she was unlikely to be found by the occasional passers-by or supplicants who come to our cabin.

We played with her a little less after a while. We scrubbed our own floors and made our own meals, as we had done for many decades before she arrived.

The Queen was a troublesome wench, however. She found that she had need of a daughter after all, it seemed: someone to marry a prince from a neighboring kingdom whose riches would add to her own wealth and vanity. She remembered that Snow White had fled into our country.

Coward that she was, she sent this prince to us to "rescue" her daughter, and, fool that he was, he agreed. We found all this out from him shortly after he arrived, since he pounded on our door with the butt of his sword and recited to us his life story, the history of his land, and a few philosophical and theological musings in what I'm sure he thought was a demanding and intimidating voice. It was fun to listen to him for a while, but after a few hours, it grew old.

"Stop!" said Dlintrimus, again using the Vox Victoris, and the prince froze in place. Then, with a glance at me, he added, "until I tell you otherwise."

We unbolted the door and stepped out to examine the prince statue we suddenly had on our front porch. "The Queen has deceived you," Dlintrimus said, still using the Vox. "She has killed her daughter, Snow White, jealous as she was of her beauty. She has sent you here to meet the same fate."

After a moment, and a glance at each of our faces to see if there was anything else he should add, he said, "I release you."

The prince's expression suddenly became one of sheer terror. "Do not hurt me," he cried. "I was tricked into coming here."

Brave guy, isn't he?

Dlintrimus said, "Go your way, then." Not with the Vox, just his regular charming self.

The prince turned and ran into the woods, forsaking the road on which he came. "Boo," called Sleethlrin after him.

As it turns out, our stalwart prince, having abandoned the road, could not seem to find his way to the edge of the woods. We would send someone to surreptitiously check on him every now and then, and we'd all get a good laugh out of the rather ludicrous situations he'd get himself into.

After a few weeks, though, he apparently stumbled onto the toy box. Snizlky caught him just as he lifted the lid and, perhaps from being incredibly lonely wandering around in the woods, kissed the corpse-like Snow White. Snizlky barely kept himself from crying out in frustration as Snow White awakened.

Snow White and her prince prattled on for a while, recounting the story we had given them about their predicament. Snizlky let them talk a while, then showed himself, feigning surprise and glee. "Order me to meet out revenge on this evil Queen," he said.

The prince replied, "No, brave dwarf! The vengeance is mine!"

Snizlky said, in a low and ominous tone, "Would you contradict me, my prince? My frustration may drive me to anger..."

Panic is an unseemly emotion in a prince, but this particular future king seemed to regard it as mother's milk. Apparently remembering his last encounter with an angry dwarf, he managed to stutter out, "No, perhaps you have been wronged more than I. Seek your vengeance."

Snizlky asked, "Am I so ordered?"

"Er, yes," the prince replied. "I so order."

Snizlky's ethos requires him to obey direct orders. (His name means "servant" or "leader". Again, they are the same word in our language.)

Since I knew nothing of this, I could not try to stop him. At the wedding of Snow White and this prince, Snizlky found the Queen and gave her a set of iron dancing shoes, pretending them to be a gift. When the Queen put them on, she found that they were, in fact, magic shoes which would not allow her to stop dancing, even after the shoes became white hot, and even after she fell to the floor, sweaty, and convulsing. Her feet still twitched violently until she was finally dead.

The truth is, we all miss our old toy, but we can see no way of getting her back. We dwarves are a long-lived and patient race, however, and a way may be found.

I recently heard, for instance, that she has just given birth to a daughter, whom she named Aurora. Perhaps this daughter will become our new Sleeping Beauty.

If you'd like reading about what might have driven me to write something like this, read my notes on this story.

Please write me if you have any comments.

Copyright 2004.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.