The first to die is the deer. The eagerness of cars and vehicles, transporting the irony of joy, made no such notice of the fauna, slain without so much as a curiosity for the bump in the road.

The town of Tottenham Cross was the most alive it had been all year. Music could be heard on every street and in every building, courtesy to the many talented folk who sawed at strings or hit rhythmic beats on odd percussions. Flowers seemed in full bloom everywhere, sprouting in the luscious, warm weather. Colours of all sorts mixed heaven with the lively scents all around, and could have made a hungry beast lay low his teeth, if only to take in the picturesque beauty of the town.

The post office in particular was swarming with the locust of mail; every person within a hundred miles seemed eager to ship some sign of their love, excitement, and good will to family and friends across the country. Only in the beginning of summer was the office ever this busy. Somehow, the winter months kept people safe indoors, but winter was a far off way away, leaving people like Iyan Lutton no time to consider such irrelevant things like the chilling of the wind, or the isolated hush that grew over the world.

Today, Iyan followed the frequent, but kind hearted yelling that his Uncle Hans threw his way, a mess of activities here and there requiring all of their attention all of the time. How they would be able to fulfill a single order, or correctly address so much as a stamp, Iyan had no real idea. Alas, they would. Such was his life - ensuring that everybody had what they wanted, everybody received what they needed, and nobody left unsatisfied. Certainly, the infectious cheer and good nature of the crowd that flooded in all day reduced the negative sting that usually accompanied such thoughts of servitude, but Iyan would have liked a break from the endless chatter, anyhow.

"You're missing a return address, ma'am," he said with a strained smile, his occupied hands hurriedly stamping another customer's box as he stared down at the postcard pushed onto his counter.

"I won't be needing one," came a lilted response, and the peculiar accent had his attention at once diverted from the rote mashing of the ink upon the parcel. His pale, grey-blue eyes (a trademark, if not boring and overused feature of the Luttons, along with the ashy-blonde hair) widened to see the sparkling, unnatural face of a young woman. Her hair was long, wild, and extremely red. Iyan knew he had witnessed such a burning passion of colour before, but it had been such a very long time ago, certainly long enough to be transfixed now by its majesty. The woman hemmed in an amused manner, and he was forced to pull his gaze from her unfettered curls. What a sweet sabotage! He found himself now gazing into the strangest eyes he had ever seen. They were a beautiful, pale brown, as though she had plucked the colour from a plant far indeed from Saint Ivry.

"I'm so sorry," he stuttered, bowing his head when his uncle rushed past, a flurry of parcel ribbon falling from the pile clutched in the owner's arms. "Are you quite sure? These things are hard to ship without."

"Oh," the woman replied, raising her fiery eyebrows. "Well then, may one put the same address down?"

"Em... of course." Her response was muted by the sudden clatter of the front doors, and a herd of giggling youth burst inside. As the distraction stole her attention, Iyan stared, paying the vaguest of attention to the needs of her postcard. There weren't many foreigners in the country - where was she from? How had she found this place, so unforgiving of strangers? Nearly laughing at his own empty-headedness, Iyan glanced at the address the woman had put down, but was merely further stymied. He had never heard of a Catrodea, and was thus left twice as clueless.

Before he could read anything else, the woman turned her elvish gaze back, slid her appropriate fare over the counter, and gave him a cheery smile. No sooner than Iyan smiled back she had left, disappearing through the crowd through the front door. There was no more time to ponder her strange and mesmerising presence - a positive storm of demands assailed Iyan, and he thought no more of the foreigner.

The second to die is the hatchling. Eager for flight, it was filled with the rush of air for a few, blissful seconds. With a nest of hungry siblings, none noticed the quiet crash down below.

That night at dinner, Iyan took his food to the porch, where a view of the forest beyond served his sole companion. The trees were awash with an orange, reddish glow, each branch casting a beckoning silhouette on the house in the woods. Iyan quite liked the location. He sat down on the steps and held his bowl of warm soup (Aunt Myra's reliable, if only, specialty) between his long hands. Though the trees whispered war amongst each other loud enough, it was still markedly quieter than the day had been at the post office, and for that, Iyan was grateful. To hear no prices, no bargains or demands, was a luxury he soaked in.

He was by no means a lonely person, but he craved this simple solitude. How he'd ever allowed his uncle to draw him into the horrid business of public service, he would regretfully never know.

As he ate, the trees stared down at him, taking in the image of the man before their imperious branches and trunks. Shoulders, firm but yielding, sloped gently down to lean arms. Half-rolled sleeves of a fraying shirt revealed ink-smudged arms, covered in a blonde swath of thick hair, giving off the appearance of a glow on the arms of Iyan Lutton. His pale-yellow hair, short though it was, fell in thin lines over his face, where stubble peeked from his chin. To anyone else in Tottenham Cross, the chilled, somewhat isolated town where a defunct Abbey was all that drew outsiders in, the image of the young Lutton would have been pitiable. Not quite impoverished, but under such a stigma as deceased parents, he was doomed the day his aunt and uncle assumed his guardianship to a life of distinct lower class struggles. No priests graced his family name; his particular line had long since diverted from their original status of wealth across the country; even the lack of any meaningful inheritance contributed to his general sense of lesserness.

The trees did not seem to mind so much. Iyan at least cared for them, when he was not covering himself in the sweat of a job that had never really been his. Even now, as he finished the last of his meal, he poured the remnants onto the roots of the nearest oak and said a quick prayer for their health. Wealth meant nothing to the silent sentinels of the circling woods, and thus, Iyan was not entirely forgotten by the residents of Tottenham Cross.

As he returned to his seat, Iyan sighed, running a stained hand over the bristles on his chin. Leaning back on his hands, he regarded the darkening sky with an expression of attempted tranquillity, but his arms burned from the discomfort. He shifted to his side, much to the same affect. Leaning up against the post that held the porch up merely provided his already sore back with another reason to be in pain. Iyan sighed. Was there no end to his needling discomfort?

At last giving up the urge to resist what his heart wanted, he crawled beside the tree, doffed his shirt, and laid upon it in the shade of the towering oak. Insects unseen at once began to crawl upon his exposed chest. How they knew of his position so soon, he would never know, but they did not bite or cause harm, and he let them run about in peace.

Was he this way to his god? Did the eternal, solemn staring of the divine allow him to run free, if only from insignificance?

Solitude was necessary for the frenetic mind of Iyan Lutton, but it also brought down the burden of thought for him. Such questions of his own purpose and mortality often darkened these rare moments, but oh, how he ached for it!

"Why am I fated to work so hard, if for so little?" he sighed aloud, stretching his hands to his side, a cross upon the ground. "Why should I not have things to share, or people to surprise with gifts borne of my own hands?" A bird screamed in the distance, the showering of leaves and feathers following it, and Iyan paused to hear it cry. "Even its agony is music, compared to my paltry voice!" He closed his eyes and listened to the breathing of the forest. Each sigh of the wind was a low hum, a tune of ancient importance that would never be understood. Even the trees had something to offer the world, something to give back to their creators.

Iyan never believed he would be jealous of a tree, but there he was, gazing wistfully up at the branches. The colour of its leaves had begun to fade in preparation for the winter a few months away, but its richness was still bold, even in the twilight.

"Lutton!"

He started, sitting upright at the call. Only his uncle ever called him that; though they were related, it was only through his aunt Myra, who had kept her maiden name out of respect for the loftiness it once carried. Lutton, as though reminding him he was never to be a true son. Lutton, like a stranger whose name cannot be remembered in full. Iyan was unsure when his uncle had last called him by his first name, and this embittered him at once, quite ruining the attempt at peace amongst the trees.

"Lutton, boy, come quick!" What could spur the aging man to run like so, pushing through the house and storming unto the porch. Any ill will Iyan had felt vanished when he saw the look upon the man's face. This was cause for worry: His uncle stared at him with a pale face, eyes wide and shaking. He never shared more emotion then impatience, but here he was, calling for Iyan as if he needed him.

When he had been ushered into the house by his desperate uncle, he found himself staring at the still open-eyed corpse of Aunt Myra, laying rather oddly upon the ground by the kitchen. What are you doing, Myra? he asked silently, feeling rather light headed at the sight. Surely, she wasn't really dead. She had been storing the remains of dinner, just a few minutes prior.

When Aunt Myra did not move for nearly an hour, during which time Uncle Hans feverishly begged him to keep watch while he ran to town (they carried no telephones in the house), Iyan felt a thought enter into his mind, a thought of which he had no control over, and no knowledge of its origin.

The third to die is the mother.

He blinked in surprise - he was not her son, and there were no others who lived under the guardianship of his relatives. He knelt beside his dead aunt and pressed a trembling hand to her belly. Indeed, the voice was right - Aunt Myra had been pregnant.

Standing up quickly and wiping his hand against his thigh, Iyan stared, transfixed, until his uncle returned a half hour later with the coroner and a priest.

He told none of them what he had learned.