Written for a friend who was depressed.

Disclaimer: Based upon an original fairy tale by Angela Carter in her book the bloody chamber which is a wonderful book about non-sweet fairy tales – her stories include a lot of sex, murder, cabalism and necrophilia.

The story in question is called The Snow Child and is only two pages long so I bulked it up a little.

Its femslash and is probably a hard R, anyway on with the story.

~*~*~*~

They lived in a kingdom of snow; in palaces made of glass and slept in furs of bears and snow wolfs.

The countess was as pale as her kingdom, her hair as light as sun rays; she dressed only in the furs of the black foxes and painted her lips with the crushed petals of wild roses. The count was thin like a rake and dressed himself in rich shades that only drew the colour from his skin and left him looking lifeless like a corpse.

Often they went riding in the greying twilight, the countess upon a black steed that snorted nosily and pawed the ground, impatient for the sound of blood pumping in his ears and the feel of turf kicked up under his hoofs; the count upon a nervous grey mare who whinnied and could only be urged to a panicky trot so that she was left in the dust of the countesses steed.

"I wish" the count said one evening as they rested by a frozen pond, the horses resting together not far from them, the mare resting her head upon the steeds back. "I wish I had a girl as white as the snow."

The countess looked up sharply, pulling her gloves off quickly.

"Am I not enough?" she asked but the count ignored her and instead turned to the wild roses that grow in clumps around their kingdom.

"And that she had lips like the wild roses."

"I have lips like those roses." the countess said angrily.

"Only painted." the count said, oblivious to his wife's growing anger he reached out and fingered the black fox gloves she had removed.

"And I wish she had hair as black as you're furs."

"You desire dreams." the countess scoffed snatching her gloves away from him and pulling them back on quickly; they remounted and rode on in heated silence.

As they where returning the count spied something lying in the snow bank that looked like a streak of black blood; the count pulled the reigns of his horse to slow her to a stop and jumped from his horse and into the snow, pulling up something that looked like a body but one that was made of snow like the men children build and give carrots for a nose and coal for eyes.

"My snow girl!" the count cried in delight, turning to his wife "quick give me your coat."

"What?" the countess asked incredulously.

"Give me your coat!" the count demanded again and the countess was so surprised that she complied, shedding her warm fur coat and handing it to him, shivering as the sudden iciness of the air.

The count wrapped the girl up and carried her reverently to his horse where he held her tightly to him as they trotted into home and the countess glared ice dangers at her husbands back.

* *

The countess lit a candle and shadows leapt up dancing along the stone walls as she carried it towards the bedroom her husband had forbidden her from at their return.

She pushed open the door carefully, half expecting her husband's grey and gaunt face to leer up at her but he didn't appear to be in the room so she pushed the door further open and timidly stepped across the threshold, jumping slightly when she heard a whimpering coming from the bed.

She held the candle up, illuminating the bed and the snow girl laying there naked and sweating; her perfect alabaster skin marred by grey hand marks pressed into her thighs, her hips and her breasts.

Overcome by sorrow for the poor creature the countess cross the room and, setting the candle down upon the floor where it burned steadily and cast a feral glow over them, settled her self on the bed beside the snow girl and felt her forehead for fever.

A cold hand caught her wrist and pulled her down till the snow girl was lying stretched out besides her, holding her closely and the countess could feel the front of her dress beginning to soak through and straggled away slightly.

The snow girl seemed for an instant to understand the queen's worries for she reached for the buttons upon the back and undid them with swiftness, pushing the dark, drab, expensive gown down from the countess's shoulders, down breast, her waist, her hips and her legs till the countess kicked it off and onto the floor.

The countess sat upon the bed, naked save for her under skirts which clothed her most secret of places, her hands in her lap in some form of modesty and looked at the snow girl who lay stretched open with no thought for modesty of any kind but with a knowing, welcoming smile upon her lips and a kiss saved only for the countess.

Modesty forgotten the countess clasped the snow girl to her naked bosom, gasped in satisfaction as the cold hands came up to touch and explore her breasts as she pelted tiny butterfly like kissed upon the girls shoulders and stroked the velvety warmth between the snow girls legs.

The snow girl's hands delved down into the countess's underskirts, fingering the warmth hidden within them and edging her frozen fingers further and faster with the countess gasping her pleasures.

When the countess in turn rubbed away the hand prints left by her husbands careless, painful touches and replaced them with vivid kisses of petal red that had the snow girl laughed and writhed under her touch, always watching her with coal eyes that twinkled with a sadness the countess could not wash away with all the fervent affections she had to lavish.

They tangled together upon the bed, warm skin to cold ice, and kissed ardently, delightedly at having found the warmth each sought and if towards the end of the night the countesses hand should slip from the wetness of the girls body neither thought anything of it.

~*~

The countess awoke in the middle of the night to a dampness of the bed sheets and looked around wildly; hopelessly for the snow girl but all that was left from their passionate love making was a small tiny sliver of ice heart.

The countess held it and wept salty tears onto the already awash bed.