By Fairest Blood - A Snow White and the Huntsman Comment Ficathon

[anythingbutgrey]

(yeah yeah)



By Fairest Blood - A Snow White and the Huntsman Comment Ficathon



Welcome to By Fairest Blood, a comment ficathon for SWATH. Some quick guidelines:

What can I prompt and how do I do so?

You can prompt whatever you want that pertains to SWATH. That means pre-canon, post-canon, intra-canon, AUs, RPF — the world is your fanfiction oyster. Want to selectively erase certain aspects of canon from your memory? Go right ahead.

Prompts should contain the following format:

Characters/Ship (optional) - Timeline (optional) - Prompt (which may be a song lyric, quote, etc., but is not optional)

In other words, you can leave a character and/or a ship, and/or a timeline, which are optional, and a prompt, which is not. If you want, you can just leave a set of song lyrics and see what people do with them. If you want, you can just leave a timeline with those lyrics, or a just a character, or all three.

How do I respond?

There are no restrictions in terms of word count, format, tense, point of view, etc. Please title all of your response fics as such in bold at the top of your comment (make sure to close the bold tag!) since LJ took out comment titles because they're dumb:

Title - Character/Ship - Timeline

Presumably, your fics will contain these three things even if they weren't in the prompt. You can also fill prompts that have already been filled. If something speaks to you, as it were, it doesn't matter if there's already fic for it. You can write your own.

How do I promote?

Tumblr post if you want to promote there

Promotion link with image:

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Other banners:

by me




by yon_lougawou



If you feel inspired to make a banner of your own, feel free to link to it in the questions/comments thread below and I'll add it up here.

Text link:

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Comments

[anythingbutgrey.livejournal.com]

Questions/Comments? Leave them here.

[youlooksick.livejournal.com]

oh wow thanks a lot i'm supposed to be cleaning right now goodbye productivity

[yon_lougawou.livejournal.com]

Snow White/Huntsman, and just to lay with you there's nothing that I wouldn't do save lay my rifle down

[yon_lougawou.livejournal.com]

Snow White/Ravenna, bride of all unquiet things

[anachronicity.livejournal.com]

with our arms unbound - snow/ravenna - post-movie


Snow was, and had always been, consumed by the desire to make things better. It drew her to destruction. It always had. Her fighting spirit rose and thrived against the challenge of each fresh hell. The bitter and twisted and wrong compelled her, as if by compassion alone she could redeem it.

The merciless winter of Ravenna's rule made her almost more uneasy than anything else about her long imprisonment; she had longed to stretch out her hand and bring spring to the land. Just so with the winter in Ravenna's eyes. She was so sure that with a touch she could change twisted cold iron to budding green life.

She could not save everyone.

Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she had not been born to be a ruler, always taught to choose the good of the many. If she had gone to the Queen with her hands empty and her throat bared and told her you will not take my heart, but I will give it to you. If the magic had taken the gift in the spirit she could have offered it, and let her press her lips to her Queen's youthful ones again and again and again.

Sometimes she wondered: where is the line drawn between compassion and love?

Sometimes she almost thought that in an oblique way she had failed. It would have been the most fitting thing to be Ravenna's knight in the battle she fought against herself and the world - to be wedded thus to the very antonym of peace and always know she had something to set herself against. Instead of absolving her, she had killed her.

It had been her duty. And perhaps, despite how much she had wanted to prove otherwise, love only ever led to sorrow after all.

She would do for her kingdom what she could not do for her Queen, but the part of her bound to the unquiet thing that was her shadow, her captor, her queen, would always carry regret.

[yon_lougawou.livejournal.com]

Snow White/Ravenna, ruling queens, oh, adhere to me, for we are bound by symmetry, and whatever differences our lives have been we together make a limb

[yon_lougawou.livejournal.com]

Snow White/Huntsman, but you, my brother in arms, I'd rather I'd lose my limbs than let you come to harm

[mind-conundrum.livejournal.com]

finn/ravenna, If I could love I’d love you

[bloodofpyke.livejournal.com]

the story told in darkness; pg


She was beautiful, and he was the brother; it was comfortable, in an icy sort of way, and they fit into the story neatly, like they’d been crafted for it.

She was beautiful, and he was the brother, but he was the sword, too, and her fingers curled around him, his power adding to hers until it hummed beneath her skin. She wondered if he could hear it, the song of her power, wondered if it was something to be shared (she knew it wasn’t, knew it was something for her and her alone, and she reveled in that, the idea that kingdoms could rest in her palm).

“You are the fairest of them all,” he murmured against her throat like he’d been taught, and she could feel it, could feel his heart hammering away beneath his ribs, and her fingers danced across it, nails scraping the skin. Mine, she thought as a thin line of blood dotted his pale skin, mine.

“Do you ever miss it, sister?” he asked afterwards, “our home?”

A beat, while she thought of it, the cold that left marks, the drops of blood against the snow, the feeling of being helpless. A beat, while she straightened the crown. “Never,” she answered.

“Are you glad you have me?” he asked like a needy child, his eyes locked on hers.

And she thought of a childhood spent huddled under furs and making up stories where they were always the victors, of the heartbeat that had been hers for as long as she could remember. “Of course, dear brother,” she answered, “you’re my sword.”

She was beautiful, and he was the brother, and in this story, she would always be the victor.

[anythingbutgrey.livejournal.com]

snow white/the huntsman - I'm the blade, You're the knife

[downjune.livejournal.com]

Let Me Be Your Weapon

Notes: because it's the title of everything for this film
Also, set before she eats the apple.


"I don't see how it could be me that breaks the spell," she whispers to him in the dim light of campfire coals. "Avenge my father, yes. Take back my kingdom, yes. But destiny? Blessings from the Spirit of the Forest?"

He sits a careful distance from her and keeps his arms tight across his chest. "Muir must see some promise in you with those eyes of his. Heart, spirit, purity."

Shaking her head, she looks off into the night. "What do I know of purity? Since I was ten, I have seen only violence, terror, and cruelty. I know nothing of true statesmanship or peace or justice; my lessons stopped at dancing and embroidery. I haven't—" Her voice hitches. "I haven't read anything but children's stories."

He sees her shaking and reaches over, wraps his big hand around her skinny wrist. She looks up at him, trusting now instead of guarded. "And how do those stories end, princess?"

She takes a slow breath and twists her hand in his grip so that she grasps his forearm. Her fingers don't come even halfway around. Smile flickering across her face, he catches the white flash of her teeth. "The princess saves her kingdom and marries the man she loves."

Carefully withdrawing his hand, he doesn't let his gaze slip to where William sleeps. "When the time is right, you'll know what you have to do. Purity of heart need have nothing to do with innocence."

"Is that what you see?" she asks. "I don't—don't really care what Muir sees. I'd rather know what you see."

When he blinks, he sees her muddy and exhausted in the forest, holding his knife against him without the slightest idea how to wield it, and every intention of doing so if he tries to hurt her. He feels the sharp bar of her forearm when he shows her how to use a larger opponent's size against them. He sees her running like a bloody deer once that sodden skirt is out of her way.

"I think you're a fighter," he says. Which is his undoing. He falls hardest for a girl with a blade.

[eternal-elenea.livejournal.com]

Snow White/Huntsman/William, I was looking for a breath of life; A little touch of heavenly light

[youlooksick.livejournal.com]

snow white/ravenna, buried underneath / you are all i see

[anythingbutgrey.livejournal.com]

snow white/the huntsman, I met a man today and he smiled back at me / Now there are thoughts like these that keep me on my feet

[hariboo.livejournal.com]

the walls close in, snow/eric, pg it kinda shifted from the prompt but... :D

She dreams of the forest, of the dark twisting trees that slithered up her arms and cold ground that pulled her under and wakes hearing Ravenna's words at her ear. Her chambers are dark when she wakes, the candles long snuffed out by the wind that drifts in through her open windows -- it had been a point of contention with her new guards, her open windows, her open door, the opened draw bridge but she hates locked doors now, hates feeling as if they'll stay locked and keep her inside forever -- and the room is now chilled. The mattress is too soft under her, pulling her with it's fine silks and golden threads. It makes her think of Ravenna, golden, bright and pulling her to her death.

Snow scrambles of the bed. Her breath still heavy and catching from the dream.

The forest pulling at her, taking her in; Ravenna doing the same.

She makes her herself stop from running to the door and curls by the foot of her bed. She's no stranger to nightmares. Every night since she was seven woken in her cell shivering from them.

It's only been the forest, the only the laid beyond her own, away from Ravenna's reach that she ever slept peacefully. She makes herself remember how the sunlight felt and how green the grass was under her and how alive it smelled. But that's not completely true.

Her feet don't sound on the stones as she leaves her rooms.

Between the Duke's sense of responsibility towards her and William's protectiveness Eric's quarter are farther from her than she would have like. She wanted him near the royal apartments, but there had been words thrown around all around her telling her it wouldn't be proper. Proper, she had wanted to say, is something she's not sure she understands anymore. But she had relented and Eric's chamber are farther than she would have liked.

There are goosebumps on her skin as she knock on his door. The castle is too quiet around her. The kingdom has started to heal but the quiet dark shadow of Ravenna's rule still permeates much. The castle still feels too close to Death, to Ravenna. It's not returned to being home yet. Snow feels uneasy as she waits for Eric to wake.

He opens the door, blinking down at her.

"Snow?"

"I can't sleep."

His eyes trail her face. She feels as they linger at her jaw, steady and blue, making her think of the sky. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, smile soft.

"Well, come on."

[clearbluewater3.livejournal.com]

snow white/hunstman you pull me out the dark and it's light

[downjune.livejournal.com]

Snow White/Huntsman, Let me be your weapon

[downjune.livejournal.com]

Snow White/Huntsman, I heard you while I slept

[kagome-angel.livejournal.com]

sometimes love is only sleeping - Huntsman/Snow White, post-movie.

Too long for a comment, so here you go! I hope you enjoy!

sometimes love is only sleeping (http://users.livejournal.com/_newworld/81436.html#cutid1)

[bloodofpyke.livejournal.com]

william; and the truth is i've been dreaming of some tired tranquil place / where the weather won't get trapped inside my bones

[eternal-elenea.livejournal.com]

realizing this is not where I want to be, not where I want to go
william(/snow white), pg


In the summer, he dreams of snow and, in the winter, he dreams of dust. Always, always, he dreams of fire and of screams; of a gate closing and a girl, dark as a lost shadow, just out of reach.



Snow White is dead, has been for near eight years, and William knows better than to wish for her anymore, knows better than to wake, screaming, reaching towards some unfathomable abyss. He knows better, but.



The seasons have dried up, along with the kingdom, vast and empty and black, black, black. The truth is that nothing has been salvaged, neither winter nor summer, no crops and no peoples and no sliver of hope. The truth is that the kingdom died right alongside Snow White; that William should have died with both.

He knows, he knows better; he is a prince. He knows better. But.



An army gathers within their keep, strung together with fear and hunger and a tasteless sort of courage. An army crowds together in their keep, with old sillhouettes in their eyes, and they are strung together more of desperation, of necessity, than of even a meager inch of belief.

They are barely an army, but an army they are still. They are barely an army, but they will fight.



There is a kingdom upon his shoulders and a title for which he is destined and a castle too, a throne. There is a world that is his mantle and William is bound and so he will fight. He is bound and he'll fight, but to win, well. It is another matter entirely.

He does not feel like one, but he is still a prince. Witches likely do not feel like witches either, he tells himself, but it is still a prince's duty to slay a witch, no matter how they each think of themselves. It is still his boon to fulfill, until he turn victorious or die at the creature's feet, clawing at her robes and regretting any crown set upon his head.



There is duty and there is justice and then there are dreams more tenuous.



He lays on the edge of the beach, watching the castle walls grow seemingly taller, watching the sea roll in and the whispering of trees, brittle. He climbs them anyway, towards an unsighted end in the sky, dreams of resting on eaves and picking apples. He climbs them anyway and teeters on the edge of the world, thinking of a land other than his own – lakes of ice and summer leaves, something to look forward to, a memory forged.



In the dreams he cannot help, Snow is a woman and not a child. She has hair dark as blood and lips like night, she has a throne under her fingertips; she has a shard of light in her eyes that William's never seen. In his dreams, she is a queen and she is alive and she is everything that he wants for himself, for the kingdom.

Are they not the same, he and the kingdom? Would she not save them both?



He learns, he learns, how to shoot a bow and an arrow; learns how to wield a sword. He learns, with lacerated fingers and a fringe in his eyes, how to fight for the world that he has been given, that he will one day mold into his own. His is not yet this kingdom, but he will have it, no matter how many bloody wounds, how many lives lost, how many times he collapses in the sand.

He will have it, even as his army dwindles, fraught with time and with bloodshed; even as the land finds a learned helplessness that they do not themselves understand and a terror in their eyes they do not themselves see. William, oh William, he understands and sees both, thinks of running from this world that he will not win – doesn't give in, doesn't give in, doesn't give in.



A flower blooms at the edge of the forest, alongside the beach, for the first time in near a decade. A flower blooms and that is even more powerful than the truth of any word, for it is seen with William's own eyes. "She lives," William says, promise in his smile.

[bloodofpyke.livejournal.com]

snow (+eric, if you want); it gets dark and then / i feel certain i am going to rise again / if not by faith then by the sword / i'm going to be restored

[poppypickle.livejournal.com]

Ravenna, There are three classes into which all the women past seventy that ever I knew were to be divided: 1. That dear old soul; 2. That old woman; 3. That old witch.

[little-giddy.livejournal.com]

Snow White after the film - You'll no longer be kissed and kind / as you long for intuition / as you have to learn the lesson twice

[little-giddy.livejournal.com]

Ravenna: Oh cover me up, I'm pale as night / With a mind so dark and skin so white / Is this the devil having fun? / I'd tip my cap to the raging sun

[little-giddy.livejournal.com]

Ladies of SWATH - So can you understand? / Why I want a daughter while I'm still young / I wanna hold her hand / And show her some beauty / Before all this damage is done / But if it's too much to ask, it's too much to ask / Then send me a son

[miakun.livejournal.com]

the beholder [snow/huntsman; unnamed oc - pg; trigger warning for pregnancy complications] Part 1

When Snow gives birth to a daughter it terrifies her. She tries to recall the love of her mother, but only remembers Ravenna's beautiful face.

"Maybe she'll take after me," her Huntsman says, tyring to soothe her fears, "and we'll have an ugly child."

Snow stares up at his face, even through her exhaustion and through the paler version of his own, she can see the kind eyes and a winning smile.

"No such luck," Snow says before handing her beautiful child to her father and lying back on the bed to rest.

*

Snow's mother said her beauty rested her in heart.

*

Ravenna's mother said her beauty was a weapon.

*

It's widely known that Snow's daughter has none of her natural grace, none of her quiet charm, and all of her father's commanding presence and Snow loves her all the better for it. Her daughter growls through tall grasses and hefts her own toy axe.

There's a feeling there -- of the girl Snow had been in earlier, if not happier times, when she'd chased William over an apple and things had been simpler.

Years in that tower, trapped and alone, had washed most of that away.

*

"Tell me the story of the evil queen!" Snow and her Huntsman's daughter says eagerly.

"You've heard it already," the child's father says, "twenty, no thirty times at least."

"This night alone," Snow adds, earning her Huntsman's smile and her daughter's satisfied laugh.

"Tell it again," their daughter demands, before quickly adding, "please, I would very much like to hear it again."

"She was a little girl once," Snow finds herself saying, "before she was queen."

Her Huntsman watches her, silently. He's not heard this story before and Snow hasn't felt fit to tell it.

She walked through death. She knew Ravenna. She understands.

"She was beautiful," Snow continues. "And that became her trap and her power, because the world let it be so and she lost all that was in her heart until it was blackened with decay."

Their daughter is fascinated, she's pushed herself up to her knees and is leaning forward in anticipation.

"You're beautiful too," Snow says softly, and cards a hand through her daughter's thick, tangled, black hair. "What kind of queen shall you be?"

Her daughter thinks for a moment and then smiles teeth like tiny white pebbles. "A strong one." She falters and then glances at her father. "And a kind one. So there are no more evil queens except in stories."

Snow strokes her daughter's hair, ignores her Huntsman's questioning gaze, and stares out the window.

Twilight has brought on a cast of light over the healed lands of her father and Snow can only hope and pray that their daughter lives in a world like this forever.

"If I have a brother," her daughter says after a moment, sleep tinging the tone of her voice, "may I be a hunter instead of a queen?"

"Finally a suitable choice," her father replies and Snow fights a laugh.

*

Snow miscarries a son and is grieved for all the wrong reasons.

Her huntsman holds her and Snow thinks of their daughter and the pain she might face in this world and the impossibilities of protecting her from it.

*

Snow remembers the beauty of her mother, but the lingering thoughts of her kindness and gentle heart are fading. Now all Snow sees is that happy look on her face when Snow did her hair just right.

It's unfair.

Her mother was never like that.

[hariboo.livejournal.com]

snow white, king b (the pic (http://mrsgrapevine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Beyonce-King-B-Stolen-From-K-Michelle.jpg))

[hariboo.livejournal.com]

snow white/eric, i saw a light coming through the trees

[little-giddy.livejournal.com]

THIS IS CHEATING. BC IT'S NOT EXACTLY YOUR PROMPT? BUT HAVE FOREST TIMES ANYWAY:

you can’t break that which isn’t yours

The first night they realise the royal bed lies empty the horses cry in the stables, the guards flow from the tower like a low-flying flock of ravens against the flagstones and the huntsman awaits the summons. It doesn’t disappoint.

They think they can bind her to a building of rocks.

‘So track her,’ says the duke. The princeling stands feet behind his father with a raised eyebrow.

Eric feels his feet sink into the newly-grown spring grass of the courtyard and throws the uneaten apple to William. ‘You think she is only your Queen. That’s a mistake.’

‘A mistake?’ The Duke’s voice rises shrill in the thin air of the night.

Eric exits the courtyard. ‘Not your first.’

He looks back as he passes the arch. William’s head has fallen as he sits below the apple tree and Eric sees a smile tugging at its edges as the Duke paces.

*

‘You should have been a thief,’ Eric says as he steps into the clearing.

From below a wilder tree than the castle has given her, the queen grins.

Eric sits on a log next to her and plucks at the grass.

‘You think the throne wasted on me?’

‘Only think what riches you could pilfer with the ivy so friendly,’ he replies, sliding down so that his back is against the fallen log.

‘The quietest of my jesters.’ Snow raises her hand and the ivy follows. ‘Here.’

He follows her eyes as the green as dark as ink follows her gesture to bind itself to his log. ‘My jokes aren’t for the court. You’ve been practicing.’

Her lips curve. He raises an eyebrow as the green vines find his sleeve.

‘How do you like my workroom?’

She meets his eyes then. He gives the clearing an appraising look, slowly, as the vines form patterns across his bicep. They don’t tighten, curving over the folds of the rough leather like a hills in a landscape. Looking away, he can’t feel them.

He could break the vines if he moved quickly enough.

‘It suits you well,’ he replies and means it. The grass is lush to the touch. The trees arch together around Snow like the supporting arches of the castle hall. It’s not the fairy glade but it is the greenest clearing in the still-dark kingdom. He likes it better. It speaks of a seed, not a hoard.

‘I’ve been practicing,’ his queen says in the silence. ‘They want me to read her books. To know her power. They don’t-’

It’s the first time he hears her express scorn. I have seen what she sees. I can kill her.

[hariboo.livejournal.com]

snow white(/eric), post film: "you taught me me how to win the war, but you cannot teach me to be a queen."

[hariboo.livejournal.com]

snow white/eric, modern au: the gun is the sword of our times.

[miakun.livejournal.com]

my anon comment doesn't seem to be going through so eff it

bang, bang, bang [snow/eric; pg]

They call it The Dark Forest, but Snow can't help but think that even this grimy, dark part of the city is better than being locked in that sunless basement one more night (hour, minute, year). She doesn't say as much to her grunting protector -- there's no way to trust him yet.

She used to trust all.

*

"I can't use a gun." Snow does not take a step back, but she can feel it behind her eyes, the urge to run, to hide. It's a retreat she cannot allow herself. She has to get to safe haven. To her father's friend Duke. And William.

"You'll have to," her protector says. He doesn't say much else as he shoves the weapon into her waiting fingers. "It will have to be part of your arm." He takes a breath and it fills him until he's towering above her with a look she cannot decipher.

"My arm is not metal," Snow points out, but follows his movement as he adjusts her wrist.

"Aim for the meat of the body. The heart. You cannot wound a leg or an arm. There's too much of a chance to miss and you need to see them die, or you won't see much else."

Snow pictures it. That moment of vengeance for her father. Crash. Rip. Skishhhh. The noise of the bullet as it tears through Ravenna's blackened heart. Too quickly it's ruined by the image that always appears -- Ravenna smiling at her and pushing back a stray lock of Snow's hair.

(When she trusted. When she let anyone in. She doesn't know how to get Ravenna out. Even now, after all this time. Her heart is gentle. Her heart is weak.)

"I can't," Snow says and pushes the gun back into his hands. "I couldn't do that. Not to anyone."

He shakes his head. Still towers above her. He puts the gun back in it's holster and walks ahead.

Snow follows.

*

"Soda," Snow laughs and it surprises her as the carbonation tickles her tongue. She glances at Eric across the table. He looks as surprised, but he's smiling. It's not a bad look for him. "I... was never allowed," she wants to look away, but she meets his eyes, the intensity there -- the same when he's aiming his two guns and spreading death through the air -- it's her own kind of bravery.

"Can't rot your teeth now," Eric says, and drinks his own. Snow suspects by the smell that it is another kind of alcohol. No matter the can.

*

William uses a revolver as if it's an automatic. Eric prefers the shotgun he found, but always relies on the handgun he keeps by his hip.

Snow has no use for these weapons. For the pain they bring. In the scent of their fiery powder, she only smells sulfur. And slowly, sees Ravenna's face.

*

In death, Snow understands. If she does not take a weapon in her hands. Ravenna wins. Ravenna is never free. Snow is to be a leader. A true one. And that means sacrifices and a deft hand.

She wakes to the taste of something unfamiliar and warm on her lips and smiles. And then her smile fades and she knows what she must do.

*

The blood is thicker than Snow had expected as it drips down the stone floor. Ravenna's eyes are pale and empty. She will never fly, or cry, or kill again. There's no relief.

William comes to take the gun from her limp fingers, but she holds him back. "No," Snow says. "It's my fingers at her neck."

He looks at her, confused, and familiar of that boy she knew so long ago.

Snow looks up to see Eric, his gun at his hip, blood smeared on his chin, and a quiet smile on his face.

She wraps her fingers more tightly around the pistol and places it back in it's holster. By her hip.

[hariboo.livejournal.com]

ravenna(/snow white), i'll give this world the queen it deserves

[hariboo.livejournal.com]

eric(/snow), what would you give to see her again (what if the quote was about snow)