Rose pressed herself face-down on the snow, all the usual, stone heart lazily still within her lifeless chest, trusty scythe by her side. The little girl wasn't cold; her skin had stopped producing something as translucent as heat many ages ago, and she didn't struggle one bit where the snow should have suffocated her breathing, tinted her skin blue and purple after hours of lazying away. A small child walked side by side to his mother, looking up at her as he recited the list of what he was going to ask Santa for Christmas. It was a very special kind of human that could see a grimm reaper. It would've have to been someone who's life was filled with immense sorrow, someone with the sympathies of Death himself, of whom the most beautiful rose would unfurl it's petals to a sickly black. In such a quaint side of town, such a person would be impossible to find, so Rose couldn't be bothered to look up.
The people of her district grew increasingly fidgety about this time of year, racing back and fourth between periods of extreme mania and undeniably mortal mood swings. It was this time of year—when rooftops were dotted red, green, and yellow with tiny bulbs, when a thin sheet of ice coated the turn of every street and the scent of gingerbread laced through the air of every other-other bakery—that the little reaper's duties doubled: with the most accidents and the most heart attacks and the most drunkards taking a sudden turn to murder their fifth grade teacher.
The redhead moaned into the snow, loose ends of her black clothes spread wide like wings against the snow as they normally did atop her little makeshift dress. Pressing both sets of clawy fingers hard into the snow, she huffed, and she puffed, and she pulled herself up....only to fall back down again. Rose rolled to her side, moaning again, massaging both temples as her bright red curls cluttered the ice in springy heaps. Ten minutes..just ten more minutes. The dead didn't need sleep, they'd say, but she managed. She'd get migranes and collapse on her bed after long day of work, if she could even pull together the energy to get that far. Rose would find herself chugging coffee at hours late into the night, drifting off to the lull of a warm summer breeze. But here it was cold, and the thought of sleeping here was none less appetizing than the thought of cricket ice cream.
The girl opened her bright green eyes, arched her back like a cat. When she sat up, though, the reaper's walnut of a head hit something equally hard. She winced, pulling back with a small "Ow!" as she caressed the small red mark where her glimmering bare forehead would have been. Opening one grimacing eye, Rose snapped in the direction of the obstacle, expecting one of the folk or another reaper playing a trick. After all, it wasn't uncommon for mystical creatures to corner unsuspecting reapers, once a decade. The concept of immortality, of overpowering something as fundamental as a law of nature wasn't a temptation bound exclusively to the human race. Had it ever? Rose's pink lips pressed together as the small creature focused into view. Its eyes large and a little bulging, hair a mess of dirtied tangles and clothes all tattered and torn. Rose shuddered for a moment, a scare so innate it almost woke her sleeping heart. No, never mind. She'd thought at first glance to see a monster, but she realized it soon after. It was just a child, a human child, small and wide—eyed and curious.
Rose inhaled, fanning her fingers like it was a small lost animal.
"Go away, child. Shoo, shoo."
YOU ARE READING
A Compilation of Fantasy Concepts
FantasyA high-pitched, pain-stricken scream. Like a hawk. That was the sound that echoed through the gloomy sky that evening. The furious clouds banged their drums and distributed fireworks in preparation of the godly tantrum to come, animals of the forest...
