It was a beautiful morning in Caldecott County. Well, if you'd call it morning. The sun was only just creeping up above the horizon. Most of the birds in the small Mississippi community hadn't even begun to sing yet.
And it was during this divine, breath-taking, picturesque, ungodly hour that young Anna Marie started to wake. She didn't open her eyes at first because there was no reason to. In fact, how could there ever be a reason to do such a thing at an unwelcomed hour of the day? Yet Anna woke anyway, without any obvious disturbances in her still dark & quiet room.
As the girl's mind started to awaken with the rest of her, one thought slowly formed. Why did I wake up so darn early? It was so strange to this normally heavy sleeper that she continued think this one thought over & over. Not that she would've gotten up anyway, mind you.
When sleep would not return & curiosity persisted, Anna Marie finally open her eyes. She found darkness. A pitch-black emptiness that was in the midst of giving way to a heavy grey that allowed surface to be seen without a single detail. She could not see the objects in her room, but rather feel them as one does walking in a familiar place with their eyes closed.
There would normally not be anything remarkable to see in her mediocre room. The twin bed was in the middle of the room, with posters & hand-made drawings taped to the neutral colored walls, along with a wooden chair & desk banished to a corner far from the door & windows. The only thing a newcomer would take notice of would be the bedroom's slightly peculiar inhabitant.
Anna Marie slowly started to rise in bed, lazily brushing her whitening bangs from her face before falling back down from the strain of her false start. It was strange that a young girl would start to loose the pigment in her glossy hair. So strange that Anna frequently checked & rechecked the progress nearly to the point of obsession.
Despite her reluctance to get up, Anna knew something had awoken her in this now grey morning. With great effort, albeit a mental one, she managed to turn on her side to face a window. Something from outside must have disturbed her. She closed her eyes once more, having given up on sleep, but unwilling to rise again.
There was nothing but peaceful silence for several relished minutes before a minor change occurred. A small shift of the mattress that caught Anna's attention before being stubbornly ignored. The weight at the edge of her bed slowly, over the course of few minutes, worked it's way up the side of the bed before plopping down on the suddenly very alert Anna Marie.
A roar & a scream with a pitch to shatter glass soon followed, for crouched atop of the young girl was a large, open mouth lion. His mane took up most of her sight, the part that wasn't focused on his gaping jaws. He drew back with a creepily human grin.
Anna hesitated for a few heartbeats, hoping to hear them again. Slowly she moved her own mouth, without a sound, before finding the courage to venture, "Raven?"
The grinning lion morphed into a full on laughing woman. A blue women with startlingly bright red hair. Anna Marie's amazement soon turned to anger. "What was that for?"
Anna was practically screeching, which only fuelled the new woman's laughter. Finally regaining control of herself, she gazed at the peeved young girl. "Good morning, Sunshine," she greeted with sincere cheer.
"What are ya doing?"
"Waking my gorgeous, bed-head daughter so we can spend the whole day together," Raven beamed.
Slowly Anna Marie slid out of bed & stared at the woman with an even stranger appearance than her own before stating, with a slight drawl, "Fahn, but ya know Ah hate it when ya wake meh lahk that."

Author's note: This was meant to be a really short one-shot. After a reviewer hoped for more in the future & getting a follower because I forgot to set this as complete, I decided to continue adding short stories of the morning lives of the Darkhölme family.