A Barely-Golden Sky

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She sighed as she walked along, feet sinking slightly into the waterlogged ground. Her breath came out in visible puffs in the cold air. Her hands were clasped around the curved plastic handle of a brightly colored umbrella, her knuckles white.

It had been raining all night and morning had just broken. Most people would not be waking so early in the day, much less walking to a secluded pond that rested at the edge of a meadow. A field stretched out from the pond, foggy in the soft morning light and the grass glistening with dewdrops.

She glanced down as she walked, swinging the tip of her umbrella and dragging it through the grass, leaving a wavering line across the field next to her footprints, outlined by the dew. The toes of her rainboots were wet, the water kicked up by her movement collecting on the tips. It was quiet still, the soft squishing of her feet the only indication of movement. Her eyes were drawn across the field tracing the familiar outline of the trees, barely visible in the fog.

The hazy light made everything feel ethereal and fairy-like as though there was magic to be found in the meadow. Everything around her felt distant, unreachable through the mist.

She paused for a moment, body still as she admired the soft edges of the world. Isolated here in the overgrown weeds and hidden from prying eyes, she smiled. It was for this beauty that she braved the morning chill; the sun and delicate shine of a refreshed world made her heart sing like the birds whose voices now began to weave uncertain melodies, babbling words she could not understand. They were not quite awake yet, either, their voices muddled and confused as their forms remained hidden in the fog.

She began walking again, a breeze floating across her skin, causing her to shiver. The last traces of winter still hung in the air, but spring was calling. She smiled and breathed out, a bubbling energy rising in her chest, breaking across her face as a smile. She opened the umbrella, rising it above her as she spun around wildly, her laughter too loud in the quiet. Her boots squeaked and the world blurred as she spun, everything twisting into unidentifiable shapes. Reeling, she stopped, taking a tentative step forward, only to fall to the ground. She laughed again, reveling in the joy of being alive, the puffs of air rising above her as she struggled to regain her breath, and the chill of the ground sinking into her while her beating heart and the traces of sunlight warmed her. The umbrella lay open next to her, but she had forgotten about the purpose of her morning walk as she lay in the dewy grass and looked up at the barely-golden sky.

******

A demain!
-Aly

P.S. I wrote this the other day while not paying attention in class. I was just thinking about a picture I had saved in my inspiration notebook on my computer, which isn't the one I put at the top of this--- it didn't quite fit what the ending turned out to be, nor do I know the source. Anyway, this isn't exactly what I wrote originally, since the words are written over a section from my agenda. Since I had nothing else to say today (today was great, but not groundbreaking), I figured rainy Saturday and the theme of "character" meant that tiny glimpses of an unnamed character were acceptable. This may or may not end up in something else later, but I don't know.
P.P.S. If you read all that... thank you <3