This is a retelling of snow white, it has a basis in the original fairy tale and the Disney version so it may be a little odd in places but then that's me. Any way I don't own anything here. Warnings of angst, darkness and later fluff. I have dyslexia so please be kind about spelling and grammar. This fiction goes out to princess mh who wanted to see trolls and snow white.

Poisoning of princess Poppy

Chapter one:

Once upon a time long ago and far away or so I was told and so I shall tell it to you, there lived a good and kind troll King Peppy and his Queen Periwinkle, these two monarchs where loved by all of their people. The King and Queen of the trolls were very much in love and very happy together but they longed for a child. Then one day in the spring Queen Periwinkle was sitting in the castle garden sewing with her ladies in waiting when she noticed a beautiful pink flower, the Queen placed her sewing to one side and went over to the flower. Periwinkle looked down at the flower smiling to herself, when one of her ladies in waiting came over to the Queen she smiled at her and said in a soft longing voice. "Oh, if only I could have a child like that flower, what a beautiful shade of pink."

"It is a lovely flower." The lady agreed smiling back at her Queen.

The Queen's wish for this child as beautiful as that flower was granted and she brought into the word a beautiful pink troll daughter. She named her child Poppy, but Queen Periwinkle would never get to see her child grow into a fully grown troll as not long after the birth of her child the Queen died. King Peppy mourned the loss of his wife and spent the first ten years of Poppy's life without a wife at his side but as his daughter started to become more mature the King worried that his daughter needed a mother to help her on her path to adult hood. With this thought in his mind Peppy began to look around for a new wife, eventually he met a beautiful troll Queen from the kingdom of the mountain trolls called Bluebell. Although she was beautiful, Bluebell was a in fact a cruel, selfish and vain troll who only cared for her looks and nothing else. She wished only to be the most beautiful troll in all the kingdoms and Queen Bluebell would use her magic to ruthlessly destroy any troll who she felt was competition to her.

King Peppy fell in love with the purple troll's great beauty, in fact he was so blinded by her looks that he didn't see her true personality and would not do so for many years. They were married a year after their first meeting and Queen Bluebell moved into the castle with her new husband. It did not take the vain purple troll long to stamp her authority all over both the castle and the kingdom. The troll Queen had brought with her a magic mirror which every day she would always ask the same question. "Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest troll of them all."

As long as the mirror answered. "You are." Then the Queen was satisfied.

Poppy continued to grow becoming more beautiful with each year that passed by. Queen Bluebell paid little attention to the young princess because as far as Bluebell was concerned she was no competition to her. Then one day Bluebell asked her mirror its usual question but the answer she received was not one which pleased her as instead of saying you are as the mirror usually did it said. "My Queen fair you are indeed, but princess Poppy is fairer than you."

Enraged by the mirrors words Bluebell called her faithful huntsman to her, she turned to him, handed the huntsman a box and told him. "I want you to take princess Poppy into the forest and kill her. Then I want you to bring me her heart in this box."

The huntsman took the box and then bowed to the Queen. "Yes, my Queen."

So it was that the huntsman took the princess out into the forest, he watched as the young pink troll happily skipped here and there picking flowers as she went. Soon the princess started to sing, as the huntsman watched her he found that he didn't have the heart to kill such an innocent troll. Quickly the huntsman went over to the princess and addressed her in grave tones. "Princess Poppy, your step mother Queen Bluebell asked me to bring you out into the forest to kill you but I cannot do as she has commanded me. Runaway princess run as far as you can, don't go back to the castle, if you do the Queen will only look for another way to kill you. I will see to it that your step mother receives a heart so that she thinks that you are dead then I hope you will be safe from her."

Taking his words to heart Poppy turned and ran into the forest, she ran as far and as fast as she could until at last the princess found herself in a clearing which contained a cottage. The pink troll walked up to the door and knocked, there was no answer but when Poppy tried the door it was not locked. So the princess opened the door and looked inside, the cottage was a mess and without stopping to think about it Poppy set to cleaning the cottage singing to herself the whole while. As the pink troll cleaned she hoped that the trolls that lived here would hopefully see what a good job she had done and let her stay here with them. As Poppy looked round the now tidy cottage she could see that there was ten of everything and the princess wondered what these ten trolls might be like.

Tired from all of her work and fleeing from her step mother Poppy went upstairs to look for some were to sleep, upstairs she found two doors leading to what she assumed would be bedrooms. To see if she was right the pink troll opened one door and looked inside the room sure enough her intuition had been correct it was a bedroom. There were three beds in this first bedroom, the princess realized they had names carved in the bottom of the beds frame and read them out to herself. "Smidge, Suki, Satin and Chenille." This last bed was larger than the others in the room large enough for two trolls and the princess quickly realised that two trolls obviously used this bed.

Poppy smiled to herself, she left this room, crossed the hallway and opened the door to the second room again this was a bedroom. This room contained six beds and once again these beds also had names carved into the bottom of their frames. "Biggie, Cooper, Guy Diamond, Fuzzbert, Creek and Branch." Poppy let out a tired yawn, she walked into the bedroom, the princess settled herself on the bed belonging to Branch and quickly fell asleep.

When the ten residents of the cottage arrived home from their days work and noticed how tidy it was they were all instantly confused. Together the ten trolls started looking around the cottage to try and see who had done all of this work for them. It was Suki who found the princess, she came flying back down the stairs into the main room of the cottage, before gesturing behind her back up the stairs and saying to the others in a quiet voice. "A strange pink troll is upstairs sleeping in Branch's bed."

The rest of the trolls looked at each other with surprise before going up stairs and looking into the boy's bedroom. Sure enough laying in Branch's bed fast asleep was a pink troll, the grey troll had to admit she was a pretty young thing but still he knew that she shouldn't be here. Creek slowly made his way into the room, he walked over to her side and gently shook this other troll awake. Poppy blinked up sleepily at him before her eyes widened, the princess quickly sat up in the bed and looked towards the doorway of the room to see that other trolls were gathered in the doorway. These other trolls where all looking at her but Poppy could see that none of them were judging her they were simply curious. One of these nine troll stood out to her, he was grey with black hair, Poppy had never seen a troll with that colouring before, but she had heard the stories about them before the princess knew that trolls only went grey if their heart was broken.

"Who are you little one?" The purple troll by the bedside asked her kindly.

"I'm princess Poppy, I ran away from the castle because my step mother the Queen is trying to kill me. Please can I stay here with all of you. I can cook and keep house so I'll be useful I promise." As she spoke the princess looked around at them all with wide pleading eyes.

The other trolls all traded looks for a few moments. "Any objections?" Creek asked the rest of them and as he did this Poppy realised he was probably the leader of this little group.

"Well we can hardly turn her back out into the forest can we?" This comment came from the grey troll.

The other trolls all shook their heads and the purple troll smiled at the princess. "It looks like you can stay. I think with that being the case we should really introduce ourselves to you. I'm Creek and I am the leader here."

The rest introduced themselves one by one, until it came to the grey troll who had not said a word until now. "I'm Branch and I'm second in command here." As he spoke Branch crossed his arms against his chest and leant against the door frame.

His actions caused Creek to let out a deep sigh. "Don't let Mr Grumpy over there worry you. He can't help it…"

Poppy smiled widely at the purple troll and then turned with the same smile on her face to look at Branch. "I know Branch can't help it, he is broken hearted after all. My father told me about it once, I always thought that was such a cruel thing for a troll to suffer especially as only true love can cure it."

When the princess said this an absolute silence quickly spread over the room. Branch suddenly turned and walked away from the door way. Quickly Poppy looked at Creek and asked with concern. "Did I say something wrong?"

Creek shook his head and sat down on the bed next to the princess before saying. "No Poppy you didn't say anything wrong Branch just suffers a lot that is all. We don't even know what turned him grey…Copper found him wandering the forest one day young and lost, he became one of us…We don't even know were Branch really came from, he won't talk about his past at all…But it is clearly were the heartbreak Branch suffers comes from."

Just a few moments later Poppy could smell something cooking down stairs and as soon as the princess smelt the food her tummy gave a growl. Suki smiled at the younger troll and said to the princess kindly. "It would appear Branch has started dinner. Come on Poppy lets go downstairs and eat."

Together they all made their way downstairs and when they entered the main room of the cottage Poppy noticed that just as Suki had said he would be the grey troll was making dinner, Poppy went over to him and said to him. "I can take care of dinner Branch."

"It's fine, your tired I'll cook tonight." He said to her reassuringly.

"Thank you." The princess said genuinely glad not to have to cook that night after the day she's had.

A short while later the eleven trolls were sitting at the table together eating their meal and once it was eaten Poppy washed up. Creek looked across the table and spoke to Branch. "Poppy will need a bed made."

"Yes, I know that. Don't worry I will go into the forest and get some wood together tomorrow. It shouldn't take me too long to make her a bed."

Suki spoke to the grey troll at this point. "If you see some nettles and dandelion we could use some more the stocks are getting low."

"Not a problem. I can add both of those things to my usual foraging list." The grey troll told her with a nod of his head.

When it came for the trolls to head to bed for the night they set up a temporary bed for Poppy on the floor in the girl's room. The pink troll lay in bed staring up at the wooden beams above her, the princess was lost in her thoughts so much had changed in her life in such a short space of time. Despite everything that had happened to her today Poppy felt safe in this cottage with these trolls. Her mind wandered to Branch she wondered what had happened to make him grey and if the grey troll would ever find true love and regain his true colours.