Author's note: As noted in the chapter title, this is a bonus track; the main story is complete as a one-shot and will not be touched. This story has in fact no direct relation to the main story - it's just that I had this slightly Snow White-inspired dream involving Homura and Madoka quite a while back (before I came up with the idea for "Snow White" itself, actually) and I felt like writing it down.

Warning: set in a fantasy AU and involves an OC as a framing device.

The town bustles with people; barely a single person remains indoors as they swarm around outside, laughing and shouting in the midday sun. The weather is exceptionally fine today: the sky is a beautiful clear blue with nary a cloud in sight and the temperature is warm without being suffocating. A light confetti rain falls upon the streets, thrown by young girls beaming down at the crowds from their balustrades. The music of instruments fills the air, while the parades of dancers and meticulously-decorated floats form a symphony of colour and movement.

The festival is underway.

Not everybody is enjoying it, though – a single man is making his way to the gates with a cart loaded with carefully packed fireworks behind him. He needs to get it to the neighbouring town for its own display tomorrow night, and the trip's not that bad, but he thinks bitter thoughts anyway because he can't remember when he last joined the celebrations.

Outside the walls, the noise is much fainter, replaced by the open not-silence of nature. Birds tweet, leaves rustle, stones crunch underfoot – and that is all. Close enough for a tantalising note to alight on a pricked-up ear but just far enough to be unreachable, the festivities seem impossibly distant.

The cart trundles on, now pulled by an emaciated-looking donkey. The sunlight, pleasant when the shade of trees and houses was readily available, is not as forgiving out here. The man mops his forehead with a rag, but the scrap of fabric isn't enough to absorb the sweat, which has soaked through his clothes as well. He fans himself with his large straw hat which seems to be of absolutely no help in keeping out the heat, and promises himself that he'll get a cold bath after he delivers his wares. The path is bumpy, and he can feel the worn wheels rattling over the uneven ground. Of course he would. Boy is it uncomfortable.

He had come nearly to the end of the mountain pass, where the road was not as steep and treacherous, when he decided to stretch his legs a little. Stopping the donkey, he got out, the cramp making him totter a little after landing on the ground. Noticing the fringe of trees bordering the track – he rarely paid attention to his surroundings on the trip, preferring to fall asleep or wallow in his troubles – he wandered in, and soon arrived at a clearing.

The leaves were shot through by the afternoon rays and the grass turned golden by the Sun. Something at the foot of a tree in the centre of the field caught his eye, and upon nearing it coalesced into an inert female figure: a girl with pink tresses and in a plain white dress.

Now, as a boy, the man had liked listening to his grannie recount fairy-tales to him as he lay in bed, and a romantic streak persisted in him still. He had always fancied himself as a prince, though bearing no similarity at all to those dashing youths of his childhood fantasies, and so was quite happy to walk over and kiss the sleeping beauty.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when a patch of air next to the girl shimmered and an armoured leg emerged, quickly followed by a similarly-plated body. Alarmed, for he had never seen such a thing happen, and since the scarred metal spoke of battles enough to fill several lifetimes, the man leapt back several paces. It turned out to be a wise decision, because when the knight removed his helmet, her – yes: she was a woman, but he had not the time to be surprised – eyes, hard amethyst chips, bored into his and he experienced a terror whose existence he had never even imagined of before.

'Step away.'

He did not hear the voice so much as feel it; the forest, the sky, the animals, seemed to whisper the words in an echo.

Seeing the exit from this nightmare open up before him, the man gladly fled back to his cart and raced out of the mountains as fast as the donkey would go.

.

Now left alone, the knight turns back to the girl and carefully kneels beside her, her barely-restrained anger of a moment ago washed over with gentleness. A quiet smile, a hand stroking the girl's hair, arms cradling her body. The knight bends over and her lips touch the girl's and for a moment they are both obscured, hidden by the curtain of her black hair which flows down in front of them like the embrace of night.

'Please, wake up.'