Lips as Red as Blood

by GalaxyofCastaborous

Skin as pale as Snow, Hair as black as night, Lips as red as Blood. A vampire Snow White in a richly imagined fantasy world, where we go deeper than is probably wise into why a good king would marry an evil witch, why on earth was the evil queen so obsessed with her own appearance, and why is no-one who knows the girl willing to help her? This is a tragedy, it is not a nice story.

8. Victor

Snow was not a fool. At 14 years she was far more experienced with deception and lies than an uncursed child would be. She knew that some evil spell had taken hold of her father. She knew Lady Adair was possessed of evil designs. Unfortunately, she did not know what to do about it, and was just as untrusted as Lady Adair believed herself to be. Despite this, she still would have tried. She would have stayed and done all in her power to help her father. But she was no longer the favored daughter of the king, and Lady Adair made her move too soon.

Snow took her lunch meal. She had difficulty sitting still. She paced and worried. Distracted as she was, she hadn't noticed the wrongness about the food. Not until halfway through her meal she reached for her wine glass, and pain burst behind her eyes and spread fire down her body and pooled around her heart.

She fell to the ground with a cry that died halfway out her lips as the muscles in her chest seized. The glass dropped from her trembling fingers and spilled its deep red liquid onto the stone floor. None moved to help her. The ground was cool against her skin and for a moment it soothed the fire running through her veins, but the union of magic and poison inside her was not finished, and the fire drowned her mind in heat and pain.

Lady Adair was giddy with relief. Months of searching for anything that might kill the monster had paid off so quickly and thoroughly that the triumph of the moment washed away all the previous years of frustration. The servants had already been intimidated and sworn to silence. None would tell of what she had done. She had the body disposed of out in the woods far from any path or track or road by her loyal retainer. He did not stay to bury it. The wind was promising a chill night, and instead he hurried home.

Her only focus now, was ensuring her husbands continued fixation on her beauty so the spell would continue. As she began to apply her power and determination to that task the shelves of her lavatory groaned under the influx of products, and the mirror on her wall began to absorb the magic that radiated from her as she spent long hours standing or sitting in front of it.

The kingdom churned on.