First Snow [Ensi]
Jun. 3rd, 2017 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roesslyngTitle: First Snow
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Characters: Ensi Hotakainen
Rating: 0+
Length: 300 words
Summary: She's grateful for the snow, in a way.
Other: Prompt was "Ensi - Calm after the storm". [Original post]
First Snow
The air had bite in it yesterday.
When Ensi stirred in the bright dark, she looked out and saw it. Snow. Whiteness spread out everywhere, reflecting the moonlight back up to the sky.
Finally.
She breathed in and the air was sharp as glass. That was also good.
Check. Always check. Never guess. You never could be sure that something hadn't come by in the night. You never could leave it to chance.
So Ensi circled around the encampment, searching for signs that something had approached them in the night.
Snow made it easier. Made the tracks more visible. Not that she couldn't fare well without it. She was good at picking out these things, good at spotting signs that others would miss. Dead leaves stirred on the ground. A branch out of place. Half of a print sunk into soft ground. But when the weather wasn't right, the signs would be few and far between.
It was different like this. With a light dusting like this, every track would be visible, every trace that something had come by when it shouldn't.
But there was nothing. No sign of animals. No sign of anything else, either.
Snow and cold and frost kept them away.
The winter would be a hard one. Winters always were. But the summers were also hard, and the autumns too.
It was only that the warm months were hard in a different way than the cold months – the freezing, biting, hungry months. When the days were long, there were too many things out there, stirring, creeping around where they had no business.
Ensi stopped and turned to look back at her footprints, shallow traces in a dusting of snow.
There was only one set. Her alone.
Nothing followed her.
If she had her way, nothing would.
Fandom: Stand Still Stay Silent
Characters: Ensi Hotakainen
Rating: 0+
Length: 300 words
Summary: She's grateful for the snow, in a way.
Other: Prompt was "Ensi - Calm after the storm". [Original post]
First Snow
The air had bite in it yesterday.
When Ensi stirred in the bright dark, she looked out and saw it. Snow. Whiteness spread out everywhere, reflecting the moonlight back up to the sky.
Finally.
She breathed in and the air was sharp as glass. That was also good.
Check. Always check. Never guess. You never could be sure that something hadn't come by in the night. You never could leave it to chance.
So Ensi circled around the encampment, searching for signs that something had approached them in the night.
Snow made it easier. Made the tracks more visible. Not that she couldn't fare well without it. She was good at picking out these things, good at spotting signs that others would miss. Dead leaves stirred on the ground. A branch out of place. Half of a print sunk into soft ground. But when the weather wasn't right, the signs would be few and far between.
It was different like this. With a light dusting like this, every track would be visible, every trace that something had come by when it shouldn't.
But there was nothing. No sign of animals. No sign of anything else, either.
Snow and cold and frost kept them away.
The winter would be a hard one. Winters always were. But the summers were also hard, and the autumns too.
It was only that the warm months were hard in a different way than the cold months – the freezing, biting, hungry months. When the days were long, there were too many things out there, stirring, creeping around where they had no business.
Ensi stopped and turned to look back at her footprints, shallow traces in a dusting of snow.
There was only one set. Her alone.
Nothing followed her.
If she had her way, nothing would.
