Chapter Text
Snowfall dampens things.
This is a common observation for those who live in the city. When the show falls like little balls of cotton across the tall buildings and streets of the city they call home, it has an effect of making every noise quieter. Silenced. Even the most observant mortal can find it difficult to pay as much attention to the sharp edges of the world when they are covered in a blanket of snow.
Maybe that is why none of those busy little mortals pay much attention to the woman. Or rather something that looks like one, yet is anything but, standing in the middle of the street wearing a thin black leather coat that covers her entirely from her shoulders to her ankles. With her hair and skin, nearly as white as the snow itself, she could almost be mistaken for a black-and-white photograph, if not for the almost imperceptible movement of her hair in the wind.
On a day without snow, without the dampening effect it creates, someone might have noticed the way her eyes glow slightly in a manner that is decidedly not human, or the way standing too close to her creates a feeling of pressure in their heads like if they were diving deep underwater. The most observant of them might even have noticed the way the snow never touches her hair, or the brief moment when the snowflakes seem to land on something big behind her back before disappearing.
But it is snowing, so none of them do, and the thing resembling a woman goes about her work unnoticed.
She begins by pulling a locket, resembling an old pocketwatch, out of her coat's deep pockets and opening it. For a long time, she merely looks at it, with eyes so amber they more closely resemble gold.
If the world was not so silenced, those walking by her might have heard her quietly say a name to herself.
"Uaiael..."
With a swift and sharp movement, she deposits the pocketwatch back in her coat's pocket, and begins walking with purpose towards some destination only known to herself and, soon, to her target.
If the mortals around her paid the kind of attention that is only found in those fearful of danger, they might have noticed the thing that is not a woman wearing the smile of a predator closing in on its prey.
But no one does, and so the thing continues on its hunt through the silent snow-covered streets.
----