Frozen Petals

Chapter One

A small cottage sat nestled in a nice grove of snow-covered pine trees and short shrubs. It looked to be taken well care of; there were no holes in the roof, any damage to the windows or walls, and the little plot of land it was on seemed to be well taken care of when you could see it. By that, it was sometimes covered by such a thick layers of snow that you couldn't see the ground. Though when you could, an abundance of flowers grew around the house. Some of these flowers shouldn't even be here, for they were from far more distant lands and environments. Yet something kept them alive all during the time there wasn't snow. What that something was unknown to anyone who spotted or visited the cottage.

You might assume upon first seeing it that it was abandoned. After all, who in the world would want to live away from society and be basically a hermit? They'd miss out on all the good thing's society had to offer. Not to mention the next store was way too many miles away to walk to since after all, it was obvious they had no other means of transportation but walking. So no one would or could possibly live here.

However, if you looked closely you could always see some sort of light in the windows of the house. Unless it was during the day when you didn't need any source of light to see. Whoever lived there wasn't that stupid. Now if you truly believed that no one could possibly still be living in there, you would say that it is just the sun making it look that way or something. However, there had been plenty of nights when people, mostly lost cross country skiers, would see the light and just hope someone lived in there and it was not just the sun or something.

If you were nice enough to go knock on the door, whether in a dare to see if someone actually lived in there or if it was the only light in sight while everything else was pitch black, you would first hear a lot of loud yipping. This could only come from a canine of some sort, but it didn't sound like any regular barking you would hear. It sounded... Foreign to say the least. You could not tell if it was from a big or small dog, or if it was from a threatening one or not. However quickly a loud "Hush!" or "Shush!" would follow from a human voice. You could hear this straight through the thick walls of this little cottage. At the least, whoever was knocking now knew the dog was tame. However, by who?

Now if you chose to stay around after that, you would then hear the sound of one or two locks unlocking. Still not really sure how you could hear that, but if you have stuck around for this long you usually didn't care. Again, majority of the ones who came in the night were lost cross country skiers. After the locks were unlocked, there was a short pause. During this short pause, you sometimes heard what was probably the canine scratching at the door or it beginning to growl. This would usually be cut off once more by another shush or hush and then some whimpering would soon follow. Then finally, the door would open.

A rather pretty blonde girl with clear blue eyes would be on the other side, a small smile on her face as she looked over your person. She would then say hello in both German and English, and whichever you responded to she would end up talking in for the rest of the night. So hopefully you weren't a lost tourist trying to speak German and only knew a few phrases in it because then you would not understand her one bit the entire night.

She'd introduce herself as Angela Ziegler with not much more about herself and would then tell you just to call her Angela. She'd then go about to explain that she didn't really get visitors very often, so that's why she seemed excited and her pet, which she called a familiar accidentally on occasion (she was quick to correct herself on this though), was yipping and growling so much before. Her pet in question was a rather slender built canine that was as black as night with odd gold markings all over its fur. Though usually you wouldn't ask about the markings, assuming it's owner had just dyed the fur there or something. You couldn't exactly tell what the canine's breed was, but because canines that were companions with humans were usually domesticated dogs, you'd assume it was one.