This is an old place.

I stroll languidly through the deep forest, following no particular path, just knowing somewhere in my subconsciousness that my body would take me where I needed to go.

I weave through the great trunks of ancient pines, towering so tall and straight that the roof of this silent sanctuary is all shifting shadows and dark foliage, and I a pale ghost without will or thought, just moving through this place, so familiar in my memory and desolate in my dull violet eyes.

This is an old place.

And I don't know what I'm doing here.

I find myself in a clearing. There is no wind. This place is as still as the grave, and as cold.

I walk on.

Beyond the old rusted gate, beyond the dilapidated shell that was once a house, now squatting in the wilderness like the spare skeleton of some great dinosaur, beyond the slumped front porch, I walk on.

And I remember, when this place was new, years and years and years ago when the old woman still lived here, still tended the old building, kept the climbing ivy in check, and the wrought iron fencing as fine as it was the day it was forged.

But now it is all dead, a great hollow shell collapsing in on the memory of its own grandeur. Neglect gnaws at its innards, and time crumbles its walls.

Violet eyes flicker, and I walk on.

There is a garden here, or used to be. Time has grown a wilderness in this place where foxgloves and lupin once swayed in light autumn winds, and grass, neatly clipped, was soft and lush beneath your bare feet.

Beside me is an open doorway, the fine French doors sagging drunkenly against their rotting frames. Inside, the gloom pulses menacingly with a promise of impending doom.

I pause for a moment, debate entering the very bowels of decay, when a tiny whimper calls out to me from the wilderness.

Translucent violet oculars narrow shrewdly, and I step catlike towards the sound, indifferent to the tangle of brambles trying to snare my steps, the thorns tearing deep into my bare calves, the blood seeping thickly into the greenery.

There is a dog.

No, a puppy of all things, caught in the brambles.

"Hn. What are you doing here, little one?"

I crouch easily, scratch it idly on the top of its scruffy golden head, and it whines pathetically.

It has no ears.

And the deepest amber-gold eyes, like thick, sweet honey.

"...I see."

I take the puppy into my arms lovingly, and rise, looking down on the quivering life in my arms like it were my own precious child.

A glance up at the glaring whiteness that is the sky, and my eyes slip shut. My lips part slightly.

It begins to snow.

:: sonryz ::
Originally a piece of creative/descriptive writing for English, somehow it turned out to be (vaguely) an Envy fic. Sorry in advance about the inaccurate description of Dante's house; I couldn't piece together enough of it for a decent description, so I had to make it up...

Do leave reviews, they make me happy beyond description-- =D