In her dream, the world seemed made of winter. The drifts so deep, white and fine that they almost seemed made of some cold white sand. The sun, cold and almost white in the sky turned the surface into thousands of tiny prisms.
The trees, for the most part were like black hands, reaching up through the tranquil blanket with leafless black and grey fingers reaching to the sky in some deep and silent plea for mercy. Only the evergreens cast their velvet green arms around them to comfort, and perhaps weep under their heavy burdening blanket of snow.

She wandered here, lost… to herself she said “it’s like a fairy tale”, though speaking the words seemed almost sacrilegious, disturbing the grey weight of the air, in fact, it seemed to strum some unseen cord, for it began to snow, the light crackle of sound as it drifted, tapping the branches and twisting down in a dance.

She had to be somewhere she had to move forward, she knew that with the certainty of dreams, she didn’t know the reason, or how she knew… it was a simple unquestioned fact. She walked forward though the snow, and realized, with the curiosity of alice, that she had no shoes, her dress was long, but tattered, dragging in the snow In deep white folds trimmed it seemed with a ragged dye of red, her hair was so long, that it brushed the back of her knees as she walked, and while she could not see them, it was bound with holly, and deep red plum blossoms.

In the tracks she left behind, though she never turned, through the snow and ice that bit and cut into her feet, there grew crimson poppies, and briar rose, deep crimson and green in fields of white, much like her skin, white as porcelain, and lips pained a deep, almost unreal crimson. Into the reaching arms of the woods she went, into the labyrinth of trees to seek whatever pulled at the strings of her heart.

The deeper she went, the darker it became, as though night fell too quickly, a last breath exhaled into a trembling twilight. But in the darkness she found the thread, a single thin cord of crimson that she realized she was holding, following the frail string like Theseus, to fight the Minotaur.

She saw it, illuminated by moonlight, a casket made of ice… or perhaps crystal that perched on a pedestal of obsidian that seemed to drink up all other colors around it.
She knew, as sure as her heart beat that he was within. That because he had come to her he had died.
In that moment she could have sworn her heart shattered like ice, to be blown away and scattered among the snow drifts, yet she walked forward, her tears freezing to her cheeks with the wind that lifted to brush them with razor fingers.
She pressed her lips to the crystal, to the ice of his coffin, and lay her cheek against it there. “Please… don’t take him away…” She whispered, though she knew he was already gone. She ran her hand over the smooth cold surface, and did not feel the sharp pain that bit into her fingers, only saw the bright crimson stains that they left behind, but more important, more healing, more real…. Was that beneath the cold surface, in that icy prison, he opened his eyes and reached for her.