Skeleton Trees

It was barely past noon and the sun had already begun its descend beneath the equator. The sky was drab, furnished with clouds that seemed immobile and choked out all but a few rays of sunlight. It was silent other than an occasional breeze that funneled through the orchards, threatening to turn the water that pooled on the ground to ice. In some areas the top layer had already solidified, no more than a millimeter thick; but it wasn't ice as one might think, it was dirtied. The entire orchard was a great disaster of slush and mud with ice filling tracks of animals where water might have pooled. The atmosphere held an unrelenting chill, and it was drying to ones skin to just linger. The skeleton trees that once bared fruit now stood just so, with thin rails of ice trailing down their knotty bark.

Every step was audible as the pressure from his large paws upon the ground elicited a great crunching noise. If his cumbersome movement didn't make him known, his coloration would surely do him in. His tans and greys stood out against the vastly white backdrop, and the cool browns of bark laced in ice. A mist spouted from twin nares with every exhale, and upon inspiration he could still smell the sweetness of half spoiled fruit that laid covered by mud and ice. Perhaps the sweetness lured him here as it did others, and that would explain the surplus of tracks around the orchards dark boles.

He wore thick plush that was impenetrable by the occasional breeze; his core unmistakably warm. He was but a refuge in this new land, and couldn't pass judgment off of the wintery landscape, but this new realm harbored so many scents. It was promising to say the least. Chocolate eyes scanned gingerly across the orchard, examining the occasional bird landing on one of the skeletal branch for a rest. He too needed a rest, but the short trees of the orchard had not grown close enough to offer protection from the elements, and even now it flurried gently.