Summer had drawn to a close, and Autumn was pulling nearer by the day. It was a season of harvest and of plenty, but it was also the beginning of the seasons of cold and loss, of thing that once lived returning to the swamp. Not that things didn't die all the year 'round, but there was something in the slowly chilling air that seemed to encourage that transition from life to rest.
On a day that dawned bright but mild, tucked away in a grassy nook not far off the beaten path, the body of a kin lies in repose. Ragged and scarred after a long life of hardship, it now rests, half-buried in a drift of early autumn leaves.