Mirror Mirror [ONC 2021 Version]

SIX

"My order was simple, Bash. So simple Dopey could have done it if he weren't spineless and weak-hearted." Snow snarled as Bashful's sturdy shadow fell on the mirror. "There's a reason I gave you the job. It would have been as easy as breathing for you. But did you succeed? No."

Bashful, who was not at all bashful, looked at her with his only good eye. He had lost the other one in the battle that put Snow on the throne of the Enchanted Forest. A nasty scar creeped from his hairline, slicing its way through his left eye, sewed shut years ago after the loss. The scar finished near the bridge of his nose. His remaining honey-coloured eye had an unsettling stare to it—forever watching intensely.

Bash's wide shoulders were still as strong as the day he had saved Snow from her evil stepmother and her henchmen, as they chased her through the never-forest, wishing to cut her heart out. To steal her essence.

He was the one who had saved her in the knick of time, pulling her into the dark mazes of the mines underneath. Mines the Queen had no idea stretched under her very own castle.

He was the one who had taught Snow how to fight, fight for what was hers. Bash was as ruthless as he looked, a knight with the strength of ten-menfolks, and a mind so shrewd none matched it. No one messed with Bash. And usually, neither did Snow.

But now she was stronger and shrewder than he. Stronger because she was the last of her kind alive—or at least, was supposed to be. Her blue blood ran bluer than any previous royal since she took what she wanted from others. And shrewder, because she didn't care who had to fall for her to rise.

"Speak clearly, Snow. I am not Happy, nor am I your smitten Grumpy and Doc that I can't see through you. I raised you, child." Bash's deep, baritone voice caused the shadows in that small round room to tremble. His paw-like grip tightened around his long-sword by his side. His chain-mail, a thing he never went without, chimed quietly as his weight shifted in anticipation. Snow was unpredictable when she was angry. He knew this far too well. His left eye might have been saved if it hadn't been for her syphoning his strength in the battlefield just when he had needed his strength the most. To shield himself from the Queen's blow—an ice sword launched at him that was bigger than his own body—instead, he had his shield, shattering before his very eye. A shard of black icicle splintered from the main, headed straight for his left eye. He had heard the sound it made even in the cacophony of cries. He could never forget it, nor what it was he had lost that day. His ability to see through the dark veil of the night. His ability to navigate the darkness. His kind, blessed with it from birth, but for it to work, both eyes were needed. Since losing his eye, Bash had never been able to return home. Not even when his mother had died. The darkness beneath the dirt too deep, too treacherous for even him, the knight without fear.

"The girl is still alive!" Snow's voice softened a little, although her eyes flared hatefully at her father-figure.

Bash met her gaze, stone cold.