Snow
She heard the footsteps first and quickly moved to block the hologram projection from view, even as it receded. "Snow? Are you down here?" Hunter called and she scrubbed her palms down her face, wiping the wetness on her pants legs.
Seeing Plick again had shattered the bottle where she stuffed all her inappropriate-for-a-Princess emotions. Hearing him, seeing the warm regard in his eyes, forced a lump to her throat and before she'd known it she'd been crying.
But Princesses didn't cry.
And they especially didn't let their suspicious traveling companion see them doing it.
"Yes, I'm down here," she called back, her voice sounding much stronger than she felt. She turned back to one of the monitors, where a document had appeared. It was pages and pages of names and contact information and it gave her hope. Seeing so many names — names of people that would help her in her cause — brought a little light to the darkness that had loomed over her this past week.
Hunter appeared at the base of the spiral staircase and walked up behind her, but Snow didn't turn to face him. She was sure the evidence of her weakness still streaked her face.
"I told Robbie to stay in the bedroom and keep watch," she said.
"He's still there," Hunter replied.
"That's not..." She stopped and sighed, shaking her head, knowing without looking at him that he had that confident grin plastered on his face. The smartass.
"I thought I heard another voice. Did you find anything?"
She shook her head, her fingertips hovering over the keyboard.
"What's that?" Hunter asked, leaning in to look at the monitor with the names on it.
Snow minimized it like she'd been caught doing something awful. She couldn't say why she still didn't trust his intentions, but she knew that something about Hunter worried her. And it wasn't just the way her heart skipped a beat when he came back to the cottage with a fresh kill every night for them to eat. Plick's voice still rang in her ears, but this time it was from the past.
You can't trust anyone, Princess. Not anymore. The Queen has eyes and ears everywhere.
"I'm not sure it's anything," she said, finding his eyes watching her through the reflection of the monitor's surface. His lips pursed and his forehead wrinkled. "I'd say that anything is better than nothing. Let's look at it."
She turned sharply in the chair, her eyes narrowing in scrutiny. "Why do you still care? Why are you still here? Why haven't you given up yet?"
"I told you—"
"That you're in as much trouble as I am, just for helping me. I know. But I don't believe it. Why, really? Why are you so determined to help me take down the Queen?"
Hunter's jaw worked for a moment and then he sucked his teeth, jerking his head back to the staircase. "Come on, let's have dinner."
"But..."
"It's not bird tonight. Come on," he said.
He left without waiting for her response, just expecting her to follow, it seemed. She sent another look over her shoulder at the console and resigned herself to stepping away from the mystery for a little while. It would still be there after dinner.
Hunter was already down the hall by the time Snow reached the top of the stairs and she pulled the basement door closed, replacing the false wall and shutting the closet door after rearranging the clothes within. To Robbie she said, "No one is to go in there other than me, okay?"
"It is coded to your DNA, Princess. It would be impossible for another to enter."
"Good. Great. Thank you," she said, leaving the room. At the door, she stopped and craned her neck to look in again. "Will you join us for dinner?"
"I have no need for nourishment, Princess. You are aware of that."
She nodded. "You're welcome to keep us company in any case. Your choice."
"The offer is most kind. Your mother often invited me to sit with her while she drank her tea."
Snow didn't know how to respond to that. She didn't know how to deal with the emotions that this day had brought forth. She wanted to be the strong leader she was raised to be, but she wasn't sure she had it in her. Keeping it all bottled up forever seemed to be taking its toll on her and she wasn't sure how long she could keep it up.
Still, despite all that, the thought of her mother and Robbie sitting by the fire with tea and a book was a comforting one. She imagined her mother was very happy in this place and that warmed her from the inside.
It wasn't until she reached the small dinette set in the kitchen that she realized she was smiling.
Hunter mirrored her smile as he set the table and set to work preparing the food. "Still going to try to tell me it's nothing?" he asked.
Snow shook her head, forcing her expression back to neutral as she took a seat at the table. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Hunter chuckled to himself, his back turned to her as he worked the stove, but she saw his head shaking. "Whatever you say, Princess," he laughed.
She crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. It was annoying how he thought he knew what was going on in her mind. How he thought he knew her better than he did. He didn't know anything. She couldn't let him. Letting someone know things only meant they had more ammunition against her.
"I found a bottle of Zomerian wine, would you like a glass?" he asked.
"It can't possibly be any good after all this time, can it?"
"Only one way to find out," he said with a shrug. "Besides, it's a special occasion," Hunter added, turning to her with twinkling eyes.
"I told you it's—"
"No bird," Hunter interrupted, pointing at the meat on the stove with the spatula in his hand.
"Right. No bird. That is a treat," she said carefully.
"And we should celebrate. Can you pop a cork?"
Snow stood from the table, rolling her eyes. "I'm not completely helpless, you know. I did manage to survive on my own without any help for a few months. I think I can handle a cork."
"Screw's over there," he said with a nod of his head.
Snow found the unfamiliar thing in a drawer and turned it over in her hand. Of course it was manual. Everything in this cottage was old-fashioned. It shouldn't surprise her. But now she'd already claimed she knew what she was doing so she'd have to work it out. She examined the sharp point of the coiled metal and pressed it into the rubbery cork, forcing it in a turn with all her strength.
She felt Hunter's eyes on her and heard him stirring the fragrant concoction on the stove. Her stomach growled in response to the delicious spicy smells. He'd said he'd always been responsible for putting the food on the table, and he'd adopted the job again once they arrived here, but Snow had never expected him to be so good at it.
Plick cooked for her all the time when she was growing up, but it was never anything particularly impressive or tasty. It always seemed bland and dry compared to the dishes she'd had in the palace.
But not Hunter's.
"How ya doing over there?"
"Fine," Snow grunted, twisting the screw another turn into the cork.
"Sure you don't want help?"
"I've got it," she said, her voice strained. It was nearly all the way in now, but what happened next? Did she just tug on it?
She tried and it didn't budge. She held the bottle on the counter with one hand and tried with all her might to pull the cork out with the other, sweat beading on her forehead. But she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of admitting defeat.
Hunter plated the meal and without a word, came and took the bottle from her, the gesture gentle, not judgmental. Snow relinquished it, sagging, trying to ignore the way his biceps flexed as he tugged on the corkscrew. "I could've gotten it," she said, the pop of the cork coming free punctuating her sentence.
"I'm sure you could have," he said with a warm smile, pouring them each a glass of the dark violet liquid. "But I thought it would be nice to have a glass with dinner, not after."
A hot flush crept up the back of her neck, but she saw the twinkle in his eyes, the edges of his mouth turning up, and she accepted the glass without argument.
"Cheers," he said, tilting his glass toward her.
"Cheers to what?"
"To... a lovely little cottage that's kept us safe and the forest with abundant life that's been keeping us fed."
Snow felt her own lips twitching into a smile and quickly clinked her glass, mumbling a 'cheers,' and taking a drink to cover it up, her eyes widening. "Oh, hey. It's not bad after all."
Hunter took a long gulp of wine and headed to the table where their food waited. He stood behind his chair until Snow sat. She quickly took another sip to hide her little grin.
The wine was stronger than she was used to, but tart and sweet. She'd only had the occasion to try wine a handful of times in her life, but nothing was quite as pleasant as this.
"Robbie isn't joining us?"
"He does not require nourishment," Snow answered, fighting to keep her expression straight.
Hunter arched a brow and she couldn't contain her giggle, even as she took another drink, blowing bubbles in her glass as she laughed into it.
"I'd almost forgotten how much I enjoyed cooking," Hunter said, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork.
"Do you have a staff that does that for you?" she asked, still waiting to find the chink in his merchant story. Snow just couldn't believe that someone as fit, as private, as handsome as Hunter could be a merchant. Surely he was something more.
But that would only be bad news for her, she realized. If he was anything other than what he said he was, it would mean he had other motives for sticking around her. She didn't know why, but suddenly that thought brought forth a hollow void in the center of her chest.
"Yes," he answered, drinking from his glass. "But when I was a boy... Well, I've told you I was in charge of putting food on the table. My father worked very hard. He provided flowers to the palace, the kind that he had to venture deep into the woods, into dangerous caves and canyons to find. The ones I suspect your mother loved so much. They couldn't be grown anywhere else, never domesticated, very fragile. He'd leave early in the morning, before the sun rose and make the long trek. Sometime after nightfall, he'd make the delivery and tell the palace staff how to best arrange them so that the Queen woke up to fresh flowers every morning."
Snow swallowed the bite she'd been chewing, her throat tightening. His father had worked for her mother?
"I always tried to stay up late enough to greet him, but often he'd come home and have to heat up the meal I'd already put away before going to bed. We didn't see much of each other, but I knew my father was happy," he said, swirling the contents of his glass as if he could watch the memories replay in the whirlpool of wine.
"You see... That was the thing about my father. The hours were long, the work was dangerous and physical, and the pay wasn't great, but he knew he was doing something that no one else could do. He always told me, 'Even if you end up with the dirtiest, most unforgiving, thankless job, as long as you're the best, you know you can take pride in a day's work.' It stuck with me, I guess. Even when I hate what I do, I know I'm the best and that's some comfort."
Snow nodded, her brain starting to feel fuzzy from the half glass of wine she'd already had. "What... What happened to him?"
Hunter didn't look up from his glass, but Snow saw something dark descend over his eyes.
"What I suspect happened to a lot of people in those days. He continued his deliveries for a few years, then, one day after the Queen was in charge..." Hunter stared intently into the wine and Snow felt the sudden urge to reach out to him, but she didn't know what good it would do.
"He didn't come home," Hunter said, draining his glass. He pushed his chair back from the table and went to refill it all while more questions swirled in Snow's mind.
"How old were you?" she asked, finally finding her voice.
"Fifteen. Things changed a lot after that for me. No one knew for sure if he was killed or jailed or banished or what. Maybe one day I'll find out," he said, his eyes drifting back up to meet Snow's.
There was something there in his honeyed gaze. Something open and trusting, though Snow couldn't be sure if it was really there or if that was the wine talking.
"So when you ask why I care so much about taking down the Queen..."
"It's for your father," she said, understanding, losing herself in her own glass. Could she trust him? Tell him what she'd found?
"No."
Her eyes snapped up to his, her lips parting in a question, but he continued before she could ask it.
"I mean... yes. Of course it is. But it's for me more. For that fifteen-year-old boy that had everything taken from him. His only family, his future..." Hunter coughed and looked away. "I never expected this to be the man I turned into. It wasn't what I wanted, but I didn't get a choice."
"I know what you mean," Snow said, her lips pressed together, wishing she knew the right words that would reach across the table and soothe his aches. It was difficult to be suspicious of him when he was baring his soul to her.
"Of course you do. You know it as well as the rest of us. That's why I want to help you. That's why I'm sure everyone in the Empire will want to help you."
"You really think so?" Snow asked, something tight squeezing in her chest. She didn't know if anyone would accept her any more than they did the Queen.
"You're the Princess. The throne belongs to you. People have been whispering and hoping for your return for a decade. You saw them cheering at the fire. This is what they’ve been waiting for."
Snow cleared her throat, her food all but forgotten, getting cold as she finished the wine. "I'm sorry about your father. He sounds like a great man," she said.
Hunter nodded, leaning back in his chair with that confident grace that came so easily to him. "He was. Smart too. He used to come home from the palace and tell me about how the young Princess was blossoming into a beautiful young woman."
Snow's jaw dropped, all pretense of decorum lost with his unexpected compliment. She felt the warmth flood her face and looked down at the table, not sure what to say.
Hunter's hand reached across the space dividing them and his fingers closed around hers. "He wasn't wrong, you know."
"I..." A strange, not-unpleasant tingling spread from her limbs to the center of her being and it was impossible to fight the grin this time. How much of all this was the wine? Would he be this open with her otherwise? Would she be so receptive to it?
"There's something I should show you," she said, standing quickly and removing her hand from his, her fingers still warm from his touch.