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.

52. The Errand

Snow was hopelessly lost. The trees looked the same in every direction, and even the moon was no help as she was so turned around that she had no idea what direction it was supposed to be in. Fortunately, Darion seemed to be quite sure of his destination.

He seemed to glide through the forest, as if the ground itself moved him forward and the trees and bushes moved out of his way. Snow matched his speed, though was not quite able to match the grace or silence with which he moved, though she was both.

Without warning, the forest faded to allow a well worn path through it, resuming with the same sort of gradualness on the other side. Darion turned abruptly and seemed to slide up a nearby tree, in a manner that seemed to mock the laws of gravity. Snow had never climbed a tree before, but gave her best effort, and ended up a good six yards above the ground after a suitable amount of catching her hair on branches, getting tangled in her skirt, and wobbling precariously on a skinny branch. She did make it to Darion without mishap though, through intense concentration and firm determination. She was not going to hold him back.

When she managed to settle herself beside him, he cocked his head and gestured in a direction. Snow listened carefully. After a moment, she heard it, the slow steady gait of a horse down a packed dirt road.

Darion leaned back against the tree trunk and seemed to pull shadows around him. Snow realized that her bright green dress might as well be a beacon, and was just beginning to try to determine if she had time to slip around the back of the tree, when Darion stopped her. He seemed to weave a web of shadows and mist between his fingers for a moment, and then cast it over her, as a fisherman casts a net. It settled onto her and wrapped around her, sinking into her dress and darkening it quickly until it looked black in the night. Snow tucked her pale arms in her skirt and pushed up against the trunk of the tree, and just in time too.

A light seemed to flare into existence from around the bend, startlingly bright in the darkness she had become accustomed to. Snow closed her eyes, and the light became muted, filtered through her eyelids, and no longer painful. Slowly she opened them again, squinting against the light as her eyes gradually adjusted, and saw the horse that had finally rounded the bend.

It was a sturdy looking workhorse, pulling a cart filled with packages and manned by a wary looking driver. Aside from the packages, the cart also held two men, both of whom wore armor, and carried swords. Suddenly, Snow began to wonder if this was such a good idea after all.