The Red & The Black

Snow-white and Rose-red,
Don't beat your lover dead.

 - The Red Fairy Book

Snow White:

A man had taken Rose. One minute they had been in the middle of the dining room and the next minute they were gone. There was no flash of light, no special effect. The room was empty as if nobody had been there at all.

No, not nobody. There was roses scattered on the table. And the note. As I read it, an anger boiled up within me.

The Smiling One, he took her. He took our sister. He's going to pay. We're going to find him.

"How?" I asked.

Give in, the urge said. Give in and we can show you the way to the flower fields. We know the way. The way of the blood.

So I gave in. I closed my eyes and let the blood take me.

I can't describe what happened after that. I know I was surrounded by redness, by something resembling blood, I know it filled me and I filled it, but I can't really describe what it was.

Veins and arteries. We go where blood goes. We go where life goes. The flower fields are filled with life and death and decay. We go where blood goes.

We stepped out of the red and into a field of flowers. There was a sickly sweet smell in the air, but underneath that there was the smell of decay. The smell of dead things.

I followed the smell.

Rose Red:

It still amazes me what she did. She was doing some weird eldritch teleportation thing, while I was blacked out cold.

I woke up in a field of poppies. The sky was blue, but a strange shade of blue, like whoever had decided it was that color hadn't really paid much attention to the actual sky. The same with the sun -- it looked like the sun, but it was still off.

I sat up and looked around. The poppies were everywhere. Off in the distance I could see some other flowers and some trees, but no roads.

I was trapped in the fucking land of Oz.

I heard the rustle of flowers and I turned there he was. I averted my eyes so I wouldn't look at him, not directly; I didn't want to see his eyes or his smile. I wanted to leave, but I knew that wasn't possible.

He had something in both of his hands. In his right, he held up a plant. It was different from the poppies. It was violet and it was long, at least three feet. I finally recognized it: it was a love-lies-bleeding.

I looked at his other hand. It held a knife, long and sharp. It glinted in the sunlight.

Screaming wouldn't work. There was nobody around to hear me. I could run, but he would catch me. I backed away slowly, but that was stupid, too. He moved alongside, faster than I thought he could move. He held the knife upwards and...

Snow grabbed his arm. She had appeared out of the fucking blue and oh my god was I grateful. Her face had a look of pure rage and her eyes was so fucking red. She snapped his arm and I could hear the crack.

The Thistle Man turned to look at her. I hadn't looked into his eyes, but Snow was staring directly at them. She was crying now, tears of fucking blood pouring from her eyes.

She raised up both hands, placed them around his head, and twisted. I heard the snap of his neck.

And that was how my sister saved me.