The sky was gray, with a few winks of blue poking through here and there. Trees shed their yellow and brown leaves in the gusting wind. The smell of precipitation scented the chill autumn air, and Sakura shivered inside her winter cloak. As she walked through the dying forest, leaves crunched under her black, standard issue boots.
Black wings startled and flashed overhead, bringing to mind brothers and anger, confusion and hair as dark as night. Red berries withered on a dying bush, and all Sakura could think of was blood and death, and eyes that saw far too much.
Calmly, she strolled up the side of a tree as if she'd just turned a corner on the street. Her cloak fluttered like a flag in the breeze, hood flying back as she surveyed the surrounding forest, and her hair stood out spring pink and garish against the backdrop of fall.
Her eye caught movement below, and Sakura looked down, spotting raven wings moving through bent branches. Then she stiffened, catching her breath in surprise. The wings - hair, she thought - lifted, and eyes, red as blood and berries, met hers for one frozen, winter moment in time.
Then, like crystals, ice, glass shattering, they were gone, the berries, the wings, the tired face as cold as snow, and Sakura, Spring Blossom, was left wondering if she'd seen anything at all.
And as though she couldn't help herself, as though all the laws of nature held her firm in their unyielding fingers, Spring followed Winter once again.
