Regret

The Snow Queen was broken. She wept bitterly for seven years, and for seven years there was only summer. The people called it ‘The Great Summer.’ Kay and Gerda had a daughter called Mirror. Mirror was born with a strange gift, she could mend anything broken with a single touch.
Inside a warm farmhouse, Kay, Gerda and Mirror sat cozy around the fireplace.
BANG!
The door exploded with a mix of ice, wind, and rage The Snow Queen screamed.
“WHY???????????!!!!!!!!!!! I loved you! I gave you my heart!!!”
Gerda told Mirror to run, and she did. With the wave of a hand the Snow Queen blasted Gerda into an ice statue, Kay stumbled back in terror and fell.
“Gerda! No! My love!”
“Your love?” The Snow Queen said. “And what was I?”
But all Kay could do was cry for his wife. The Snow Queen suddenly realized; she was as meaningless to Kay as Summer was to Winter.
“My wife! My wife! Get out of here you murdering bitch! “
The emptiness and hollowness that consumed her was beyond human imagination.
I loved you so much Kay
I still….
In her right hand she forged a long spear out of ice and lifted her hand.
“You want to be with her?!!!!!! LET ME HELP YOU!!!!!” She drove the spear forward not noticing the tiny frame running out of the dark. Mirror had wanted to save her Papa, so she jumped in front of him to shield him.
The Snow Queen thrust the spear through her body and Kay wailed in growing sorrow, as only a father seeing his child impaled before him could. Yet he could not move – frozen in terror.
The Snow Queen felt no remorse, only
fulfilment?
No.
emptiness.
I loved you.
I still…
Mirror grabbed the Snow Queen’s chest trying to stand up and the Snow Queen stepped back holding her chest in a frenzy. Mirror had touched her heart. And Mirror could mend all things broken.
The Snow Queen began to weep bitterly as her soul became whole again.
What have I done?
In her mind’s eye she saw the day Kay told her he didn’t love her; that his true love was Gerda, and he wooed her to win a bet with his pals at the pub. He had seduced her as he wagered his pals that he could.
The child made no sound when she died.
Shattered with regret, the Snow Queen turned all three of them into snowflakes and blew them into the air, and anyone who caught one in his eyelashes would see the error of his ways, as she now did. Eventually, she slumbered out of existence; sleeping within the snow and dreaming within the cold. And in those dreams, she would see pieces of broken mirrors.

Submitted by: Jeremy Ramberran