Once Upon a Monday by Nicki Chapelway

Once Upon

A Monday…

All right so I’m finally going to do it. I’m finally going to write a blog post about my short story for the Rooglewood Contest *scuttles off to hide*. Here goes. So I’m sure many of you know that I wrote a short story for the Rooglewood Press Five Poison Apples Contest, I’ve not exactly kept it very secret. And for those of you who didn’t know… well, you know now. Surprise!

Anyway, here’s a brief overview of my story. It’s titled Winter Cursed and it is a dark fantasy retelling of Snow White. I stuck pretty close to the original tale with this one, except I imbued a lot of Nordic and Celtic (with a little bit of Greek) mythology into it. And a whole lot of ice magic.

My characters…

Princess Elisabeth (AKA, Snow White) ~ Elisabeth is the exiled princess of Havenskeep. After her father was murdered, her stepmother took over as regent and she has been imprisoned in the Winter Palace ever since. She is able to control the winter elements, a power she inherited from her ice nymph mother.

Queen Ismena (AKA, the evil queen) ~ Ismena is a powerful sorceress. Queen of Alain and regent over Havenkeep until Elisabeth comes of age,  Ismena has power over the ice and snow, a power that she has used to plunge the world into an eternal winter.

Prince Cedric (AKA, the prince) ~ Cedric isn’t your typical Prince Charming, as in he’s the son of a dark lord and has spent most of his life banished in an enchanted forest. He’s snarky and snide, but I’m sure deep deep down (if you look really hard) there’s some nobility to him.

The dwarfs are interesting characters in that they are mercenaries.

Lucius~ The leader of the (not-so) noble band.

Florian~ Florian is Lucius’s right hand man. He doesn’t talk much on the account of having his tongue cut out.

Gabriel~ Garbriel is the grumpiest of the dwarfs, always able to find something to complain about.

Fergus~ A complete contrast to his gloomy brother Gabriel, Fergus, the largest and cheeriest of the dwarfs can always finds something to be excited about.

Aldrus~ Alban is the talkative one, he is always getting into people’s hair.

Alban~ Taciturn and unfriendly, Aldrus’s twin Alban would far rather spend his time sorting and polishing his various weapons.

Kenrick~ Kenrick is the youngest member of the band. He’s rakish and flirtatious.

A few of my favorite quotes…

~ “Oh, little princess,” Ismena cooed, wrapping the babe in a cloth. “Such a beautiful little princess. For that beauty, which your father craved so, you will be cursed. For that hair, as black as ebony, so you shall have an enemy with a heart just as black. For those lovely red lips, red as the blood in your veins, so a price shall be required of you in blood. And for your pale compleion, as white and fair as the snow, it requires a death in winter.” The babe blinked up at Ismena with clear blue eyes. Stephan’s eyes. Ismena smiled coldly and tucked the blanket further around the princess. “You will be as fair as day, little princess, but fear the coming night.” ~

(In case you couldn’t guess, that’s kind of where my story gets its title :P)

~ “Why are you not dead?” she demanded as she whipped her head around searching for the nearest exit.

“It is a pleasure to meet you as well,” Cedric said with a chuckle. “Relax, princess, if I wanted you dead, you would be dead already.

Elisabeth backed toward the courtyard. “A comforting thought, I’m sure. But do you expect me to believe the word of a trickster?”~

~ “Do not forget that once you uphold your side of the bargain we will be neighboring rulers so we should learn to get along now while neither of us have armies at our disposal.” ~

And there you are. My story. Now excuse me while I wait in my corner with my paper bag for April 2^nd to roll around.