It was not so long ago, but it was a story from before the present.
Deep in the forest of a certain small country, there was a lone mountain cabin.
And there lived Snow White together with the Seven Dwarves.
Snow White had not been driven out, but had run away from the castle by herself and come here. Life in the castle was not so interesting to her, it seems. Since it was a small country and she was their princess, they had decided to make use of her by arranging a marriage of convenience. Isn't that detestable? Snow White thought so, too.
However, she was slowly getting tired of living in the forest as well.
Thanks to the Dwarves, I don't have to worry about food, clothing, or shelter, and I've become good friends with the animals in the forest, but I wonder if the castle is doing well by itself, she came to think.
Those egotistic words just jumped out, but the castle was filled with nothing but good people. On the date when the arranged marriage was supposed to happen, the Small Country had to take hostages and form alliances just so they could get strong enough to survive.
At around the same time, a mermaid who was swimming in a beach near the forest, had just rescued a prince who had been left abandoned on a shipwreck.
The mermaid moved the Prince to the shore, but the unconscious Prince just kept on sleeping. He didn't wake up no matter what she did. The worried mermaid then made up her mind to take him to where Snow White was.
Snow White had been her friend since the time she had gone to the forest. And the mermaid remembered that Snow White had said, "If you find something interesting, bring it to me!"
The mermaid asked the Good-Natured Witch to change her fish tail to legs, and she carried the unconscious Prince to the Dwarves' cabin.
But even when she saw the Prince that the mermaid had brought, Snow White wasn't delighted much. What she thought of as interesting was a little different. A prince that just kept on sleeping was not something she found that appealing.......
Although having to take care of someone was exciting at the beginning, Snow White was becoming more and more bored with it. Because he never opened his eyes at all. She was getting tired of looking at his sleeping face.
I wonder if he'll wake up if I hit him hard, she started thinking, when an express messenger from Snow White's castle had come.
This is what the messenger said. Our neighbor, the Great Empire, has mobilized a vast force to cross into our borders, and lay siege to the castle, and the way things were going, it's going to fall soon, if it hasn't fallen already.
How dreadful.
When Snow White heard that, she left the Prince, who never woke up no matter how long they waited, in the care of the mermaid, and left the forest with the Seven Dwarves. The first place they went to was a craggy mountain. There, the Tactician who had become a hermit lived by himself. If the tales were true, then he would not associate with someone unless they had visited him three times, but Snow White ordered the Dwarves to capture the Tactician, and she appointed him their Chief-of-Staff. The Tactician smiled bitterly, and with a "Well, okay I guess," he gave his allegiance to Snow White.
Thus the number of Snow White's party grew to nine, and as soon as they had climbed down from the mountain, they gathered volunteer soldiers in the towns and villages where the Empire's forces had not yet been to. They were totally unable to assemble enough people to match the Great Empire's troops, but all the same, Snow White raised an anti-imperialist banner and set out for the castle. They defeated the Imperial Forces that had been sent to intercept them one by one, and garnered a series of victories in various places, until they finally recaptured the castle, after which they pursued and annihilated the retreating Imperials, then went on from there by making a counter-invasion and overthrowing the Empire in the blink of an eye, and the country became a part of her own dominion. How surprising.
It did not end there. Snow White, the Tactician, and the Seven Dwarves, formed a big army and ran through all of the countries in all of the land, and using various strategies and conspiracies, they were able to unite the continent. The Age of the Warring States was ended, and they were visited by a period of peace and harmony.
Snow White, having nothing more to do, left the rest to the Tactician and went home to the forest. Though she was no longer concerned about the arranged marriage, returning to the castle would just mean getting bored everyday. Playing freely in the forest was better.
Snow White came back to the cabin along with the Seven Dwarves, and was surprised to see that the Prince was still sleeping. She had completely forgotten about him.
Ah, during that time, the mermaid had been taking good care of the Prince.
Snow White grabbed an apple the Forest Bear had brought while visiting, and used it to hit the Prince on the head.
"That's too much sleep already, now wake up!"
It is said that the Prince opened his eyes, three days later.
What happened to everyone after that, no one knows.
Still, I feel certain that everyone became happy. And I wish that they all did.
