Snow blanketed the town and surrounding countryside; the streets and parks were quiet, silent, inactive. Most people were inside, resting, or celebrating, or simply savouring the warmth of their homes.
Heskil, however, preferred this cold, peaceful beauty. She had spent the night with a family near the edge of town- a family she had stayed with a few times before- and had left the house contented, well-fed, and at peace with the world. Instead of heading through the town, going to the parks and looking for others to spend time with, today she had headed to the edge of town.
Here, where the houses were much further apart and with spacious gardens and public grounds between them, she stopped and looked up. The winter season was passing in it's leisurely way- spring seemed far off with the snow blanketing the world, but Heskil knew that time would keep creeping on, and sooner or later the snows here would start to melt, and it would be time for her to head to the mountains.
She gazed up at them. When she looked at the base of their slopes through when she stood at the edge of town, they looked so far away; but staring up at their proud, snow-covered heights, the opposite seemed true. A part of her looked forward to the journey she would soon have to start planning, up the slopes; accompanied some of the way, sometimes given lifts in the humans' cars, but one way or another she would travel gradually up the slopes.
But another part of her was reluctant to leave this town. There was such a rich gathering of spirits here, many of them other Maneki Neko; and as much as she loved the mountains, and the towns she passed through, and the settlement she would spend the warmest months in, she knew it might not be until winter coaxed her back down that she saw another of her own kind.
