There lived a King and his daughter, alone in a castle in a land of endless snow.
“If you go outside you will die,” said the King.
“If I stay in here I will hardly have lived,” said his daughter, as she unbuttoned the door and stepped outside into a world she had never been allowed to know.
The King followed her to the door and pleaded with her not to go, and when she did not heed his cries he snapped an icicle from the eaves and hurled it straight into her heart.
“Go, then! Go!”
He wept. He went back inside. He sat on his throne.
She wept. She walked on. She walked away.
The snow before her whiter even than the sky. Her footsteps behind redder always than the last.
__________
Notes:
1. Written September 2016
2. This was the wintryest story I could find
3. The title was inspired by/derived from “There’s A River In The Valley Made Of Melting Snow, by A Silver Mt Zion