Winter
Author: Ellers
AN: First time I've posted anything on here for a while, read and review if you please – hope you enjoy the fic : ))
It is already afternoon by the time he has finished all his chores and is allowed to venture out into the thick snow that has fallen overnight, after a day of pressing his face wistfully to frosted windows.
His mother reminds him not to forget his mittens (which she has made especially for him, her only son, pride and joy of the family), as he has almost run out the door with intoxicating excitement, the white blanket covering his father's vegetable garden enticing him forwards.
He is seven now, and old enough to know that the woods (pine trees taller than he can crane his neck upwards, every branch piled with snow) are not where he is supposed to play his games of kings and queens and knights and fairies and forgotten kingdoms and…
But the snow is so white and it looks so perfect, almost surreal, as a robin (puffing out its red chest ) lands on a branch, disturbing it just slightly.
And so he thinks it will be all right, if he walks very close to the edge of the woods (he can still see his house, after all, smoke rising in perfect curls from the chimney), never stepping inside the boundary of trees. At least, not too much. A few steps won't hurt, he thinks, wiping his nose, which (along with his cheeks) has turned red from the chill in the air.
Snow crunches under his new red boots, and he reaches out a hand to touch the heaped snow on a nearby branch. The hand is quickly shoved deep in his pocket, because as much as he loves the snow (outlining his window as it falls, running outside and trying to catch snowflakes on his nose), it is bitterly cold, making his fingers sting.
The drift gets deeper and he thinks that he will have to clean his new red boots when he goes back in (the house is still visible, or at least the wavering line of smoke rising into the overcast sky). Because even if snow is water, he wants his new red boots to be perfect as they sit at the end of his bed, waiting for tomorrow's adventure.
The trees are growing closer together all around him (not even the evidence of the curling flames licking at perfectly cut pieces of wood in his fireplace is able to be seen). He is not scared, because his curious mind is occupied by imagining where the badgers and foxes and weasels are hiding, in amongst the twisted trunks of the trees.
He falls over, once, and as he brushes the snow off his jacket (it belonged to his father a long, long time ago), he notices for the first time how dim the light has become, and how he can not quite make out the smooth clearing that means home.
For a second, he is frightened. But a flash of colour to his left distracts him (yellow, like his marmalade cat's eyes), and he continues, thinking it cannot possibly be dinner yet, because there is so much to see out here, in the woods.
But it grows darker, and the wolf creeps closer.
After this day, Remus doesn't get excited about snow ever again.