NOVEL WEB Seasons of Waiting
A fox watches as the crisp air fills the sky, with leaves of bright shades of yellow and orange fall from the trees. Bestowed the name of "Windrose" by an old motherly figure who long since passed, never knowing her mother's name, long since forgotten. It had been years sense then, and her grave lie at her paws buried by others of her kind. She watched in the bushes as the ritual for the deceased took place, watching as her caretaker's body be covered in dirt and gravel. However, this was life, death was a part of it, and the cabin stayed silent.
The snow fell, a white fluffy coat on the ground, it was quite warm in contradiction to its formation, a layer keeping the ground beneath comfortable for all. She looked back at the grave, she still dreams of when everything was simpler. When she woke from those dreams, the slightest bit of hope drove her to visit her old home, but the cabin remained silent.
The water pooled on the ground, her temporary home flooded with water. Windrose, didn't care, it just happened every year. The cabin was a nice place to stay until she could make a new home or when her old one drained. She had always hunted for her food, her mother had tried to provide for her, but she refused. It was easy to see the tiredness and illness creeping up on the aging woman, she would provide for herself to not worry her.
As it turned from warm to hot and the ground hardened, Windrose had another one of her dreams. As always, she went to visit the cabin with the slightest glimmer of hope, but the cabin wasn't silent. She heard the loud cheers and roars from the same kind has her step mother, but there was one person missing. Then she was noticed, the humans started jabbing each other playfully but Windrose felt scared. One grabbed a stick similar to what stepmother carried, a metal tube with a wood carved outside, but instead of holding it strait up, polishing it while muttering to herself, she could see the void in the hollow metal, then the sun.
Snowdrift waltzed to the cabin which had long been abandoned. Designated "spirit" by the only human she ever met. The cabin, broken and deteriorating with the smell of stained alcohol. Nothing but her had visited it in ages. She know how she got her name, only remembering that this had always been her home, but it felt different this time. Instead of a tiled red squares that lined the roof, bundles of stray and thatch covered her head. Instead of the evenly cut logs, the wood was disorganized and rough.
Snowdrift stepped up the ivy covered ground which she once believed was wood. Then a hollow piece of metal dropped from the wall, and she saw the void inside, then the sun.
Snowdrift woke up as Windrose, and Windrose as Snowdrift. She knew herself as both in the cabin of rough logs and thatch roof. The metal pipe with the wood had vanished, a figment of her imagination.