And now for the second entry! Enjoy.

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The sunset was alive with light and color, yet Willow saw nothing but the stone beneath her paws. She'd walked here countless times, times enough that the evidence of her passing had eroded away at the rock, leaving tiny hollows dappling its surface. Nothing but memories walked beside her. Memories sad and terrible, memories that had brought her to the brink of tears time and time again.

In her youth, this rock had meant everything to her. Now, the only thing that lingered on the barren cliff was the shadow of who she had used to be.

The wind buffeted her flanks, spraying her nostrils with salt-tainted air. It gathered, cold and hard, in her chest, wrapping ocean-scented claws around her heart. Choking, Willow struggled to force back the lump in her chest that the familiar smell dredged up. Her eyes clamped closed as if to shut away the emotions that stirred within her, as gray and tumultuous as a gathering storm. It was only after she'd gathered her wits that she dared to opened them again.

It was cold and windless on the crag's summit. The frozen air stagnated around Willow, sinking into her flesh and numbing her bones. Nothing moved but for the storm-roiled sea, not even the wilted flowers strewn across the stone. Each of them represented another arduous journey to the cliff's peak, a daily trek up the water-worn stone to her daughter's grave.

A single wild rose fell from her jaws, its lavender petals scattering across the flattened rock in front of her. Below it was a crack in the rock, a fatal flaw that existed only on the cliff's tip. Inside it lay the only memory she had left of Lilac— a single red feather, a gift given to her when her daughter had been a mere kitten and fascinated by the cardinals outside. Everything else had been stolen from her by the ocean she now despised so much.

But then again, it hadn't been the waves' fault that her daughter had drowned in them. Lilac had gone into them willingly, her eyes sorrowful as she was swallowed up by their wrath. It was a day Willow remembered all too well, the pounding desperation in her lungs as she realized she wasn't enough, she had never been enough, to keep her only child happy. It had been over a year ago, yet even the sight of a cardinal wounded her.

Unbeknownst to Willow, a ghost stirred behind her, watching her mother with eyes as grief-drenched as they'd been the day she died. She regretted that day as much as Willow mourned it, and though she couldn't tell her that, there was one thing she could do — something she wished she'd thought of before.

Opening her jaws, she let a single red feather flutter from their grasp. 

—

You've read two finely written entries, and now it's up to you to decide which had just the slightest edge, was just the mere bit better. Comment below and tell us whether you cast your vote for Entry One or Entry Two! Please give us a definite answer.

Voting is open until Wednesday, January 10th — we will reveal the winner on that day, and sometime later will come the entries for Round Two.