Winter arrived on the air of a threat, not a promise.
It washed over the fields of Warwickshire as though it were angry with the Earth. Vengeance falling over the acreage in an abrasive breath, sharp as it slashed its way through the last remnants of warmth left behind by the autumnal sun.
For the shade came, as though the oppressive blanket of grey was nothing more than blood spilling forth through the once blue tinted sky. Even out where the smog of the city and the churn of mankind seemed nothing more than a distant menace, the depressive shades of a looming grey consumed the sky like a plume of smoke.
Leaves littered the grounds, withering away into shriveled traces of once deep shades of burnt tangerine and golden amber. The blink of autumn fading away like the last lingering breath exhaling out from that of a dying soul. The cold had come along and executed what was left of the season, tearing it apart at the seams as its aggressive chill crawled along the bones and cut away what was left.
You could feel it there upon your flesh, a prickling air that sought to sink well below the surface and erode away at the bone underneath. It scraped with its cutting force, like picks of metal working against the grain of an abrasive stone slab. Chipping away until you felt like the cold had come along and left open wounds peppering your skin, allowing the weather to seep in like salt water, stinging in the cold.
The snow wasn't far off; it could be felt loitering in the atmosphere, somewhere low beyond the dense coverage of clouds. The sky seemed to wield it as a weapon, a warning to those below that bitterness was to come.
For you knew if the heavens were to open up, it wouldn't be rain that came, washing the grounds of Arrow House in a cleansing hour. You could feel it creeping up the notches of your spine, a haunting whisper of the snow that was to bury the land in a frigid encapsulation. Like all of the bodies, all of the secrets, all of the ghosts that waded on the property would be long buried beneath the cold, as would the living souls it left behind.
Your boots crunched softly through the soil that had dried up after the rains of two days ago. As the grass began to fall dormant, turning from a once rich veridian to that of a yellowing beige. The trees were left skeletons haunting around your approaching frame, their branches bare and desperate, as if in their dying breath they were reaching up to the heavens for refuge.
The afternoon felt more like late evening in the absence of identifiable daylight. Grey engulfing the land until you felt yourself trudging through shadows just to find him.
It wasn't a difficult feat, even as the grounds of Arrow House stretched far, for the smoke led you to him. Like a trail left only for you to find, you followed the scent of the Sweet Afton smoke that had long ago laced every inch of your lungs with its pungent air. It was a smell you'd grown used to over the years, finding a certain level of comfort in the smoky warmth. It merely became part of the foundation of your life, woven within the tapestry, like each and every strand was stitched from the smoke.
You discovered Tommy Shelby there just beyond the pines, the evergreen remaining the only green formidable enough to withstand the changing tides. His figure was still a swell of black, as his coat spread against the dying blades of grass and the brim of his cap concealed the sharp nature of his haircut. You could see from where you strode the flesh of his lower scalp, the way there was just barely a breath of shadow left.
Tommy's deep raven locks had grown over the year, the fringe brushing against his forehead in a manner that reminded you of the nights it brushed against your flesh, as his nose and his lips trailed down your frame. But when daylight cast upon the cut, sharp and unforgiving, something inside of you couldn't help but ache at the sight.
