The snow had yet to fall upon the bare and dried up field, but you could feel in the bitter winter air, that it was only a day or two away. A light fog rolled out across the open acreage, coating the horizon in a smoky haze as though Father Winter's breath froze over the land. For the sky stretched vast above you, hovering over the Warwickshire estate as a blanket of an ashen hue, appearing as though all of the blue once there, had simply vanished. Stripped of it's rightful shade that signaled the light of day, leaving the sky a canvas of melancholy grey, any traces that a soft powder blue had once been brushed along the skyline, simply erased from existence.
It was an unnerving notion, as you stared up into the sky that even fell void of the natural light of the hidden sun, the way one's entire memory could be so easily discarded. For what evidence was there, that the footsteps your boots made as you stepped tentatively upon the cold and brittle soil, would remain long after your demise. What proof was there, that anyone's presence truly left a mark strong enough on this Earth, that would allow for one to even know you'd existed when the time came for you to leave?
For you watched through the soft slits of your eyelids, peering up with your chin tilted towards the melancholy heavens above, as your soft exhale fluttered away before your very eyes. Trickling past your parted lips like the rolling ripple of a cloud of smoke, freezing in the frigid atmosphere as soon as it made contact, appearing visible before vanishing as if your breath had never touched upon the air to begin with. What assurance was there, that all of the breaths you had taken before, would amount to anything once you were gone?
Your footsteps, thickened by the rough soles of the hunting boots you'd swiped from Thomas Shelby's side of the closet, had slowed until reaching a pitiful halt in the middle of the vast and barren land. A soft thump falling against the frozen ground, as their imprints left not a trace upon the soil dried and void of moisture to ever remember your steps. What reason was there, to place your feet upon the Earth and walk with a purpose, when they were bound to simply fade away like the tide washing over the sand? Erasing that you'd ever walked the Earth, that you'd ever been apart of it at all.
The world felt eerily silent, as not even the faintest breeze rustled through the branches of surrounding trees, bare and stripped of their leaves as they awaited the cold sting of winter frost to coat their peeling bark. Not even the blackbirds, that arose with each new day's sun, echoed in the sky. Their songs no where to be heard, as the only sensation heard in the cavity of your sense of sound, resonated from the beating organ in the pit of your chest. A low thump, echoing in the cave of your subconscious, as it's repetitive heaving breathes felt as though they engulfed you in their pained sensation.
But just as you heard the shaky flutter of another frozen breath falling past your parting lips, the faint moan of pain evident in the trail of your imperceptible exhale, a sharp snap sounded from behind you. The rough conviction of a shoe's sole stepping upon a shriveled and dried up twig or a blade of no longer living grass, crunching as it broke in two beneath the weight of he who walked behind you.
You hadn't needed to turn around to know instantly who it was. For if it were not for the fact that Arrow House hadn't a single neighbor for miles to come and the maids rarely made it this far out into the abandoned field, that alerted you, it was surely from the presence that exuded from Thomas Shelby. Radiating off of his lean but undeniably strong frame, like piercing rays of the burning sun, unapologetic and impossible to ignore. His sudden appearance falling over you in a wash of heat, that nearly threatened to melt away the frigid sting of the cold winter air. You could be completely blind, without a single sight to be seen and deaf without a single sound to be heard, and you would still know he was near. For Thomas Shelby's presence was not always seen, it was not always heard, but rather, emphatically felt by whoever found themselves amongst it.
