The winds whistled through the encompassing woodlands. Harsh with the call of the ravaging winter season, where the rage of the cold could be felt in every exhale that descended over the land. As though the cold was a punishment inflicted on humanity. Like the state of the world, the decay that wandered the Earth, the sins of the living as they fought to survive the dead, had angered the universe.
But the punishment fell under the guise of purity, as the flurries fell from the heavens opening up in flakes of untouched white. Twinkling like the splattering of stars had fallen down from the indigo tapestry of the night, glazed by the lick of the moonlight that squinted through the darkness to illuminate the shadows. Fluttering to the Earth in a dazzling display, a dance through the wintery air that ascended without malice and without a single sound.
Unthreatening as it fell, the snow soon collected quickly. Freezing the Earth until not even the sharpest blade could penetrate for the graves needing to be dug, unable to retrieve any lingering flora that bloomed for medicinal purposes. It sealed the land, burying it beneath the frigid mounds that seemed to grow overnight.
For now the world looked white. Even the trees, the ones bare of their lost leaves and peeled bark, were wrapped in the twisted flakes. Dusted in the snowfall until the darkness of the world, the grays and the umber shades of the Earth had morphed into something sparkly and pure. But the longer your eyes would linger on the sight, you realized the stark white wasn't any less isolating.
The cold hit you like a blade to the flesh, driving deeper until you swore a trail of blood was bound to leak out from the sleeve of your jacket. But as your gloved fingers curled the flannel blanket tighter around your body, cloaking you in a worn display of softly woven threads of pale blues and a softening cream, you braced the cold with a biting breath. Feeling it swim through your lungs with vengeance, a sharp sting that threatened to numb you from inside out. Exhaling it in a shaky breath that clouded the space in front of your eyes.
You weren't sure how he'd managed it, but the sparkling glint of a low burning fire led you towards him. It wasn't much, a weak collection of flames that ravaged the few logs of wood that had been salvaged from the surrounding moisture. But the smoke began to lace the air with something instantly warming, the roasting wood and the charred remnants cutting through the bitterness of winter as if the scent alone could melt the cold from your bones.
You knew that he heard you the moment you stepped out of the small cabin he'd fixed up a few months back. For the world around you fell on a wave of silence that only seemed to come in the dark void of winter, when everything seemed to wither and the sounds of living became softer, scarcer. The sound of the boots falling heavy into the snow, a slight crunch from the surface that had become frosted and iced over the passing hours.
He could track you from the sound of your movements, knowing you were there long before he saw you. Daryl Dixon never turned to look for you, not even a slight glance over his shoulder. For he knew you'd find him eventually, you always did.
The flannel felt snug around your shoulders. Although the blanket was frayed at the edges and thinner than anything that could properly stand up against the December air, there was a warmth to it that couldn't be measured by heat. The softness was a comfort these days, when clothing was wet and chilling and having to be dried by hand at the end of the day. Tightening and wrinkling the fabrics that had once been comfortable or soft.
But the tighter you pulled it around your shivering frame, the more you realized it smelled of him. It smelled of the side of Daryl that the world had hardly witnessed. The tenderness that was only known by the darkness of the night, the kind of peace that was only uncovered when sleep hung heavy enough on his weary eyes and the warmth of your frame lulled him into a few hours when his body finally rested. It smelled of him in a way that softened his edges.
