The sun, bright though it may be, can do little to restore color to a world stuck in black and white. The sky above is an oppressively cold white cloth, the kind your elves used to cover all the furniture of the grand estate house when you left at the end of last summer.
The woods of that estate, always before so vibrantly alive, are now a cemetery of skeletal black corpses. The trees are buried under snow so brilliantly colorless that every one of the million crystals sparkles white.
The house itself is ice cold, and even after the sheets are pulled back, you know nothing can restore the hues this winter has taken from it.
In a garden of harsh contrasts, where you've always been black and Cissy's always been white, she was the only red rose.
And now she's gone.