Coming of Winter

The Coming of Winter
The butterfly was only a few feet away, now. It had fluttered to the tip of the branch, tiny feet skittering over the thin oak twigs and leaf-stubs covered with frost almost too quickly to see. At least, too quickly for a human.

Rakka crouched in the crux of the branch and tree and stared at his intended target. It had taken most of the morning to get this close, bounding from branch to branch as the butterfly flew tantalizingly just out of reach again and again. He might have given up a long time ago, except that it had this frustrating habit of doubling back in his face before shooting off again. He could almost swear that it was laughing at him, though a part of him knew that it probably wasn't. It might not even register that he was there; the displacement of air as he moved was more than enough to suggest to the butterfly that it should take flight, no matter what the cause.

Rakka was what was known as a Stellar Tiger Finx. Short white fur striped with varying shades of blue covered most of his body, with the darkest markings on his ears and tail. He was very young, and as such, very small--only about six inches long from nose to tail. His wings, when extended, were about twice the length of his body; he would grow into them in time. For now, they were haphazardly folded along his spine. He had fledged several days before, but still hadn't quite mastered anything more exciting than a very short, panicked, "scared-chicken" kind of flight from one branch to another, or a few feet along the ground.

Being native species of the Arctic, and of Ara no less, no one was quite sure how a family of these Finx had come to live in the Fields. Rakka's parents didn't even truly know; they had been brought here when they were kits themselves by their parents. Living here wasn't a terrible hardship to their kind, in any case; there was plenty of food, if different from the fish that they were supposed to live on, and if the weather occasionally got too hot for them, well, they weren't the only ones lingering at the many ponds and pools that littered the area. They lived quite comfortably here, although at least one Finx each generation seemed to have the wanderlust and would leave upon reaching adolescence. They most likely found their way back to the Arctic eventually. It was never a huge cause for heartbreak or dismay.

Rakka, of course, was not thinking about any of that. He crept farther out on the branch, hoping against hope that his light body would not cause it to tip and betray his presence. A cool autumn breeze drifted past, and he tensed, wondering if it would be enough to send the butterfly off again. Closer, closer--! He leapt, instinctively spreading his wings! The butterfly flew up, directly into the glaring sun. Rakka, still unused to flight, went in the opposite direction. Down, down, down he fell, branches whipping past, until he hit the ground with a loud crack.

~*~*~*~

He opened his eyes into darkness so complete that he wondered whether he was blind. Something was hurting terribly beneath him, something he hadn't realized could hurt--his left wing! One of the bones was almost certainly broken. He let out a small, yipping chirp of pain and fear. If his mother were here, that sound would bring her, flying or running as the case warranted.

There was no sound of paws on the ground or wings flapping in the air. He lay still for several moments, hoping against hope--but nothing happened. He was alone.

Or was he alone? As he stared into the darkness, he began to be aware of a subtle shift in light--or rather, that there actually was a light source here, wherever "here" was. A shimmering, ice-blue sort of light, very faint but growing stronger, had appeared in the area to his right. He expected it to resolve itself into a shape, but it didn't, simply continuing to grow stronger in color until a moving cloud of blue-white radiance was unmistakably swirling around him.

"IT HAS COME." The voice came from the cloud, but also from all around it somehow, echoing as though Rakka were in a cave. Perhaps he was. But what did it mean? And how had he understood it? The voice hadn't spoken in the mewing-and-chirping language of the Finx.

Whatever else he was, Rakka wasn't, as a rule, a fearful creature. But he couldn't help a tiny bit of kit-shriek in his voice when he said, "H-hello? Where am I? Wh-why am I here?"

"IT HAS COME. IT IS TIME." Another voice had joined the first, and more clouds of radiance were seeping out of the walls--he could now tell the shape of this room, which was small and square. Seemingly underground, as well--the walls were earth, although not warm like a Maki's burrow. Frost had carved pale designs on all the walls and floor, and now that he could see a little, Rakka realized that his breath was visible in the air. It is time? Time for what?

"Wh-what is it time for? Where is my family? Why am I here?" He said again, urgency rising in his voice.

One of the light-clouds drifted closer. He could feel the cold light--how could light be cold?--pricking his face as it spread itself out before him, turning into a sheet of blue-white color. Suddenly, its color changed drastically, and he found himself looking at his family, curled up together and enjoying a mid-morning meal of a few unlucky mice. His mother, father, and two younger sisters--they seemed so close, and Rakka cried out and thrust forward a paw, trying to touch them. His paw went through the mist and was instantly numb.

The image on the screen changed to one of himself, jumping along tree branches in pursuit of a butterfly. Or was it him? The head-stripes were different, curling upwards instead of downwards like his. But the events were the same. He saw the other Finx creep towards the butterfly on the end of the branch, saw the clumsy leap, saw the fall...and then saw what happened after it. What had happened to this Finx...and what would happen to him.

Every year, a Finx who had just barely reached adolescence--and there always was at least one in each litter--would leave the family at the end of autumn to find a place of his or her own. At least, that's what the family always thought.

The weather patterns in Ay were fickle and dangerous. Every year, terrible storms would rage through most of the land, dropping snow and ice and everything in between. Yet in all the years that this had been happening, there had been no instances of any pet dying because of these storms. Dying because they had done something stupid during the storm, yes. But not because of them. All the pets had simply taken this for granted as a blessed thing, and were still worried enough each year to try to prevent idiotic activity...but still. Not one death? It was too good to be true.

In fact, every year, there was one death. One death that allowed all the others to be spared.

Every year, a Finx was lured out by the same butterfly, to the same branch, to the same eventual conclusion. An unknowing sacrifice. The Finx would fall, and since he or she never brought anyone with him or her on this particular excursion, the family would just assume that he or she was the wanderer of the particular litter. There would be no one around to see the demons of ice and wind and snow that would gather up the poor Finx and take him or her off to their lair. For that was the price--in death, the Finx would be transformed into one of them, bringer of death to the next of kin for the rest of eternity.

Rakka couldn't breathe, couldn't think. He saw something shining out of the corner of his eye and turned to look--his paws were slowly becoming encased in the same silvery substance that comprised the spirits in the room. He couldn't feel them at all.

The young Finx threw his head back and tried to scream as the world exploded into slivers of gleaming light.