Once A Tale (MXM, BXB)

The Snow King and the Bee

Once upon a time, there lived a lonely Snow King.

Living in an icy palace of solitude, appearing before those who ventured out into the snow and became lost, he questioned why he had to do the things that he did.

One day he decided that, with his spectacular power, there was no reason that he should not make himself company so he would not feel so alone! He turned to the snow bees and twisted the snowflakes into human shapes.

He made villagers, servants, doctors and children. He made men and women and those not either, all of them similar but none quite the same.

And the Snow King observed, satisfied: "That's better, isn't it?"

The snow bees looked upon themselves and then at each other and replied: "Well, we suppose so. It's kind of done now. Guess we'll learn to live with it."

However, to the Snow King's misfortune, the snow bees made their own kind of culture and they were never the friends or family to him that he hoped they would be. The Snow King's attention once more turned to the world outside of his kingdom, to the people who lived beyond the snow and the ice.

Perhaps he could take some of those people as his own. Better yet, he would take an orphan that wandered out into the snow or who hitched a ride on his sleigh and raise them as his own!

Such irrational, hastily-made decisions rarely turn out well.

In this case, the kidnapping turned out to be an astronomical failure-and-a-half.

In the end, the Snow King failed, alone once more, and that is where our story begins...

---------------------------

"Your Majesty," Oskar called, knocking briskly on the door with his gloved hands. "Your Majesty, I am entering. I have your dinner."

'How did they manage to foist this off on me?' he wondered for the ninth or tenth time as he stood, staring at the door with his antennae subtly vibrating with agitation.

The last thing he wanted to do was serve the king his dinner. He was happy in his usual role: cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the dishes, anything but dressing up for the additional cold that came when he had to go near the king's chambers. What's more, being forced to interact with their notorious ruler. He could barely interact with those whom he bought groceries from.

He was quite satisfied (not necessarily happy, because he didn't quite understand 'happiness') with his usual menial tasks.

But no.

This servant asked him for this favour, that servant asked him for that favour and suddenly the head servant, the one usually in charge of this nonsense, was asking him to please take the king's dinner to him, won't you, Oskar? It seems as though I've come down with a head cold, I need but a night of rest.

'Head cold my ass,' Oskar thought uncharitably. 'We're snow bees. We can't even get sick.'

He rapped again on the door since he had yet to receive an answer, and strolled with a bored expression into the king's chambers.

Everything was, well, ice. If not ice, then done up in pale blues and white like it was ice: the draperies, the few accoutrements, everything in this whole room (and the palace in general). So unimpressed was he, seeing the king's chambers for the first time, that Oskar barely spent the time looking around. His eyes were vacant, disinterested, his quintessential 'dead fish gaze'.