The Snow Queen

Fanfiction
Title:	The Snow Queen
Author(s):	Killa
Date(s):	2001
Length:
Genre:	slash
Fandom:	Highlander
External Links:	at A03
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The Snow Queen is a Highlander slash story by Killa.

It was published in Futures Without End #4 and is online.

Reactions and Reviews

[The Snow Queen]: I'm hoping to review all the stories in this zine, and it's very, very difficult to pick out one to start with. But on reflection, it has to be Killa's 'The Snow Queen', not only because of its length and imaginative breadth, but also its emotional and literary range lifts well above the normal fanfiction level. Actually that's damning it with faint praise - its just a bloody good story, bloody good writing, in whatever category you choose to stick it.

The Snow Queen was one of those children's stories I couldn't bear to reread. The story of the little boy with the sliver of glass in his heart which froze it and his feelings was, and is, disturbing and more than a little creepy. In Killa's story, Duncan is the boy with the frozen heart. Methos is his heartbroken friend, left to grieve for his apparent death. Horton is the wizard the fragments of whose shattered mirror poisons the once happy and loving Duncan. The Snow Queen - well, are you surprised that it's Cassandra?

But what is fascinating about this retelling is that it is *Methos'* dream. Discovering that gives a bitter twist to the fairy tale, for we know that it is not *Duncan* whose heart was frozen until his friend warmed it, but *Methos'*. It is Duncan who drags Methos kicking and screaming out of his self-imposed prison. These and other distortions lie at the heart of how Methos sees his relationship with Duncan. You could argue that Cassandra did ensorcle Duncan - at least, that's how Methos chooses to see it. He also chooses, in his dream, to think that it is Cassandra who obscures Methos from Duncan's vision, and Kronos who hides Duncan from Methos - a Kronos who is a hunter but not fundamentally evil. The incarnation of Silas is also changed, heartbreakingly so.

The first part of the story is the fairy tale, and the telling is true to he feel of a children's story (omniscient third voice), but with a lyrical quality that rises above its roots:

***

At last he drew a deep breath, and to his surprise, a little of his despair had lifted.

"Duncan is dead and gone," he said aloud, trying the words on for size.

*I don't believe it,* the sunshine seemed to insist.

"He is dead and gone," he said to the swallows that were busy building new nest under the eaves.

*We don't believe it,* they seemed to say, glancing at him reproachfully, and at last Methos began to doubt it himself.

***

There is humour too, something that is entirely lacking from the original:

***

"Very well," answered the raven, and in a mix of French, English, and his own language, he told Methos what he knew. "In this kingdom there lives a princess, who is so wonderfully clever that she has read all the newspapers in the world, and forgotten them, too."

"Doesn't sound like the sharpest knife in the drawer to me," Methos said dryly, but the raven sagely ignored him."

****

If this was all there was to this story, it would still be extraordinary. But then we enter Methos' waking world. He's hungover, feeling adrift, wanting MacLeod, and disturbed by the dream. He goes to the barge, doesn't go in, and turns away, intending to leave Paris. The encounter with MacLeod is as wonderful and miraculous and mundane as anything that has gone before in the story, and you'd have to be made of stone to not feel for Methos'distress, the lonely little orphan boy wanting to warm himself by Mac's warmth, but afraid of the pain of thawing out. It's sweet and uplifting and damn if I didn't feel cross when the story ended, because I wanted it to go on and on, just like a wonderful happy dream.

A resounding 10 out of 10, by my lights.