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At the same time, a mermaid swimming in an ocean near that very same forest saved a prince who’d been thrown from his ship in a shipwreck.

The mermaid carried the prince to shore, and the prince remained unconscious the entire time. No matter what she did, he stayed asleep. The troubled mermaid decided to take the prince to Snow White’s cottage.

Snow White and the mermaid had been friends ever since Snow White’s arrival in the forest. The mermaid remembered Snow White’s instructions: “If you ever find anything interesting, you should bring it to me.”

After asking a kind witch to change her tail fins into legs, the mermaid carried the unconscious prince to the dwarves’ cottage.

Even upon seeing the prince the mermaid had brought her, Snow White was not especially pleased. He wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she said “anything interesting.”

Nevertheless, caring for the unconscious prince was amusing enough at first, although as time went on it became more and more tiresome. He simply wouldn’t wake up. She had gotten sick of looking at his sleeping face.

Just as she was beginning to wonder if a good hard slap would awaken him, a messenger from the castle arrived for Snow White.

The messenger told her that the neighboring empire had suddenly mobilized its armies and had crossed the border, surrounding the castle, and its fall was not far in the future—indeed, it may have already fallen.

Things were bad.