He would always remember how she came to them; white as the winter snow she stood in and as innocent.

That innocence was gone now of course, she had been married many months and when he'd last seen her she had been rounded with child and glowing with a radiance that came with knowing a wonderful knowledge.

He had wanted to posses that glow, to see it come to life through his deeds and his words.

There were no females for him to ply his desires upon, at least not close to hand.

He could toil over the mountain with a bag full of gems and suchlike till he found a mine with females in which to woo but he could not stand to leave his friends and besides he did not think dwarfs that beautiful, not when there where maids as fair as the human girl who had shared the cottage he called home.

He often wondered if he had been the one to kiss her that last time when she'd been in a poisoned sleep if she would have stayed and loved him. It did not seem to matter to her that it had been him who broke the laces when she couldn't breathe, that it had been he who had tugged the drugged comb from her hair.

He had even grafted the metal shoes the old queen had danced in.

He often wondered that if he had kissed her he might have known that glow.

His friends softened at him from his wondering and dreaming.

All but one, the youngest one.

He was young by dwarf years, only 100 and fresh from his fathers mine.

It appeared he might have loved the snow maiden too.

But ever so often the dreamy, hopeful smile of the youngest dwarf ignored the snow girl and stayed on him instead.

Finally when he could take it no more he took the young dwarf away from the mine and the cottage and the palace and their lives and kissed him.

It felt queer to have instead of smoothed skin the whiskers of another bearded beneath his own, but he persevered on still.

But the young dwarf did not glow but only blushed a hot red like a forge.

So they kissed again and again until the queer feeling was gone and replaced with a nagging hunger he had no prier understanding of but that was soothed with the touched of hands and skin and lips.

When they had stated their passions he looked down upon the young dwarf and realised something that shocked him thoroughly and delighted him completely.

The young dwarf had always been radiant; he had just never looked close enough before.