AN: If it's weird reading this after at LEAST a year of no updates from me on it, imagine how weird it was for me to write it! What happened? Well, the name "Emmeline" ramdonly popped into my head and something screamed, "That's the robber girl for your snow queen fic!" and it didn't matter how much I told my mind I hadn't updated that story in for ever; it simply insisted I write about Gerda and Emmeline anyway. So, to be clear, this story is NOT offically off of hiatus and I don't know when the next chapter will be out, but since I was so suddenly compelled to write this one, I figured I'd post it. Better late than never, right?

The Little Robber Girl

We-the footmen, the driver, and I-had been traveling for so long that I lost all sense of time. Now that I am older, however, I believe it could have been as long as two years, give or take, because the beautiful clothes the prince and princess gave me, while still fitting, had become shorter on me and a little tight around the bust. There even came a day when I could not, no matter how hard I struggled at it, squeeze my feet into my winter boots from home. I still kept them, of course, but I couldn't wear them any longer.

As for the mirror piece, I looked into it every day so I could see Kay and how he was hanging on. I could never see what he was doing, and sometimes it looked like he was talking to someone; but I couldn't see them. He must have looked older, too, but I didn't notice. All I cared about was reaching him. And when the mirror mysteriously clouded over one day, turning as black as an onyx, I shed bitter tears for the lost of that small comfort. But whatever magic my crying had, it could not bring his image back to the mirror-piece again.

Oh, Kay, I thought, if only I knew how to reach you faster than this.

"It's real silver-the coach is real silver!" cried a greedy-sounding voice, distracting me from my thoughts.

The next thing I was aware of, I was being pulled by my arms out of the coach. However much I struggled and kicked and bit it was to no avail, and I found myself face-to-face with a group of dark-haired men in torn up purple clothing.

Although they themselves were mostly men, their leader was a tall burly woman with pointy-looking teeth and a smile that was much too broad for my liking.

I saw out of the corner of my right eye that while two of the men held me in place, squeezing my arms until I could hardly even feel them, the rest were taking the coach apart for its silver.

Where is the driver? I wondered worriedly. Where are the footmen the prince gave me?

To my horror, I watched one of the men, a pot-bellied fellow with a gold arm-ring pushed up onto his left arm, lift up the driver's seat of the carriage and saw it was covered with blood.

So he was gone, then. The footmen, too, probably. My stomach lurched and if I hadn't been so terrified about my own fate, I would have vomited. I had liked the driver-mute and stupid though he'd been-and the footmen had been kind, too. How horrid it was to think that in one flash they were gone.

I hated knowing what dead meant; I missed the days when I hadn't, when I'd thought it was likely another word for 'prisoner'. And now I had to face the fact that my friends were dead. That I might go next. But, alas, I refused to die-for, if I died, who would go and bring Kay back home? I loved him too much to die and forsake him.

The leader woman, now that her men had gathered up all the silver they could carry, turned her attention to me. "What have we here?"

I tried to squirm out the grips that held me firmly in place, but of course it was still no use.

Pulling a knife out of a brown silken sash she wore around her middle, the robber woman said, in the most alarming tone imaginable, "What a tender little morsel we've gotten here. Why, she'll be better than duck or quail; we shall eat her in a stew tonight."

"You ain't doin' that! You can't!" cried a shrill voice that, surprisingly, was not my own. It belonged to a little girl around my own age and size with matted black hair that fell around her face in a floppy, wild manner. Her bangs were too long and unevenly cut so part of it fell over her eyes; but what I could see of them appeared to be either an off shade of very dark greenish-blue or else a mossy hazel.

"Emmeline," said the robber woman, who I gathered was her mother judging by their identical noses, "what are you jabbering about?"

"You ain't gonna eat 'er for real, Ma, are ya?"

"Course," said the robber woman. "And you, too. Aren't yer hungry?"

She shook her head. "No, I wanna keep her."

"Whatever for?" demanded the robber woman.

"To play with," said Emmeline, tugging at a crimson shawl she wore sloppily over her shoulders that probably hadn't belonged to her or her people originally. "There's no one else to play with. You and the other robbers are too big to wrestle with and can't play any games without gambling."

"But she's too delicate," protested the robber woman, waving her wrist at a passing fly, trying to kill it. "She'll be less fun than any of us are for you."

Emmeline stared right into my eyes for a moment; I willed myself not to squirm, sensing that this might be my salvation. She seemed like the only reasonable one of the lot, and if I could make her want to save me, maybe I could make her want to let me go on to find Kay, too.

"No," said Emmeline, her voice firm as anything, tossing her head back to show her conviction. "She's a sturdy girl, I can tell. And she's going to be my friend. What's more is she's going to give me her pretty clothes and things, too."

Considering that not a single word had passed between us as of yet, I thought this rather forward of her. At any rate, it was probably worth it to comply, rather than to protest. Kay, I think, would have protested; but, truth is, much as I loved him, I knew by then that he did not actually know everything-that he was only human like the rest of us. That didn't make me love him any less, yet I no longer saw him as deserving of reverence, or always in the right.

"I suppose we could have venison for supper instead," said the robber woman, giving in to her daughter in a way that was probably more habitual than I realized at the time.

With that, Emmeline came and pried me away from the men holding onto my arms, embraced me so tightly I thought she was going to crush every bone in my body, and then told me, very slowly as if she thought I might be less than intelligent, that as long as I swore friendship with her she would never let any harm come to me.

"Yes," I said quickly, trying not to think of the driver and the footmen (if only someone could have made a vow of friendship with them!), "we're friends."

"And you needn't worry about not having anything to wear when you give me your dress, either, because we've got plenty of clothes back and camp. What fits me will probably fit you, too!"

I was then led into a camp with dozens of tents pitched up any old way and cushions dotted across the small area they occupied. A few toothless men with gray hair and faces that were not at all nice (maybe the fathers of the male robbers) were sitting around playing cards, spiting at each other and cussing by turn. A great bonfire roared in the middle to keep everyone well supplied in warmth and light.

My already weakened stomach twisted into a tighter knot when I saw that the coach driver's hat and the greatcoats belonging to the footmen had were already being used as gambling material despite the fact that the robbers had just returned with them less than five minutes before.

"Here," said Emmeline, thrusting something into my arms. "These are for you."

She had handed me a woolen gray tunic with shinny, square-shaped, white-gold buttons and a pair of brown tights and matching faded leather boots. I shuddered later on when it occurred to me that they had probably been pinched off of someone who was dead, but for right then I changed without mulling over much of anything; Emmeline was getting impatient about my dress.

No sooner had the pretty garment been off my body than she snatched it up and flung it over herself. Twirling around, she declared it was the very nicest dress she'd ever owned.

I asked if I might keep my own boots and mirror-piece. I still hoped to use it to see Kay, if only I could make it clear up again. But, alas, Emmeline could not grant my request, though she claimed she wanted to. My boots had been claimed and were to be cut up for their material and the mirror-piece, she said, she hadn't seen. It had been lost somehow in all the hustle and bustle.

Smoothing out my tunic, I laid down on the cushion she said was for me to sleep on. I was awfully tired, and so I should have at least slept a little, only Emmeline snored-and so did everyone else at the camp. The robber woman even talked in her sleep. The words she spoke were all dreadful: death, hunt, fight, pillage, raid, steal. I wondered if she'd ever had anything kind to say to anybody aside from maybe the semi-spoiled Emmeline.

The next morning, I was awakened by my new companion. Emmeline wanted breakfast and insisted I come with her to try and wake her mother and convince her to do something about the first meal of the day.

Her mother was not very pleasant in the mornings, she said, and she didn't like to try and get her to wake up on her own. Usually she brought one of the lower-ranking robbers with her for moral support; but as her new best friend, that job had officially been passed on to me.

If the robber woman had not seen her daughter at my side right away, she would have shot at me with her pistol or stabbed at me with her knife, I think. But, thankfully, Emmeline's dark eyes and excellent scowl worked wonders on her so that she forgot that I was the one who'd had to shake her arm-however gingerly I'd managed it-and got up with a few muttered swears and a couple of light grunts.

After we'd eaten, a meal of pilfered bread and sausages washed down with a jug of cream from a reindeer's milk, Emmeline decided that we had to play tag and hide and seek. I was allowed to win at hide and seek, since it was the game she said she liked least to win at, but she made me lose on purpose at tag because it wouldn't be 'fair' otherwise. I thought it a little odd that someone who stole from people who had never done her any harm even carried the word 'fair' in their vocabulary.

We had the noon meal in the midst of ear-deafening shouts; some of the robbers were already drunk. Pistols went off, but they were poorly aimed and not meant, I assume, to actually hit anything. The meal itself was sticky rice and I didn't care for it. Emmeline seemed to like it, though, and I swallowed down six goopy spoonfuls for the sake of keeping on her good side. All the while, struggling not to gag, I wondered how I would persuade her to let me go find Kay. When would my chance come?

It didn't seem as likely as I'd hoped. All she wanted to talk about was robbing or else playing; she wasn't interested at all, I don't think, in where I came from. She did ask once if I was a princess-because of the silver carriage and the pretty dress and all that-but when I said no, I was not, she lost interest and started prattling on about something else altogether.

I thought of the prince, princess, and the crows; and of my grandmother and my parents, and even of the old woman who had banished the roses from her garden in hopes of keeping me. What would any of them say if they knew where I was right then at that very moment? What would they think of Emmeline? For, spoiled and unethical though she was, there was something still endearing about her personality. I couldn't hate her. Her mother, maybe; she did frighten me so, and I never forgot how she'd intended to eat me. I never could stand the idea of cannibals. I wondered if Emmeline had ever eaten human flesh, in the end deciding to tell myself she hadn't and vowing to never ask.

Then at long last, when I thought I could stand waiting no longer, my chance arrived.

Emmeline, tired from running around all day, sat down on her favorite cushion, bade me to sit across from her, and said, "You tell me a story."

And so I did, as always, what she asked of me. I told her the story of a little girl, very like myself, who had a friend named Kay who she loved above all others.

When I got to the part about how he was lost, she said, "I think the Snow Queen's the one who a-took 'im."

"I want to rescue him," I told her.

She bit her lower lip, squinted her eyes, and looked both ways very quickly. "Wait until the robbers go out and mother is sleeping-she likes to take a nap in the early evening-then I will see about doing something for you."

Did she really mean it? My eyes brimmed over with tears and I felt the urge to hug her.

"Don't cry now," she hissed at me. "You ought to be glad, I'm going to let you go find your little friend, since it's what you want. I'm being very generous; think of the sacrifice I'm making, leaving myself all alone without a playmate!"

I restrained myself and thanked her as formally as the princess herself would have thanked someone. This pacified Emmeline's pompous side, and she smiled contentedly, glad to be part of my story.

AN: Okay considering I haven't updated this in so long, I feel really stupid out-right ASKING for reviews here, since I know I don't deserve them, probably, so I'll just say that if you are feeling very, very generous and would like to tell me what you thought of the new chapter, I would be quite thankful.