Pine needles pressed Elle's hood to her face where she was tucked against the branch, perched high above the forest floor. It was snowing now and had been for quite some time, the whitewashed landscape profoundly dark in the depths of winter. Elle's vigil did not relent for weather, and as still as she was a cap of white was forming on her head and shoulders. For all intents and purposes she looked like a part of the evergreen where she was hidden, save for the barely perceptible wisps of steam that escaped her with each carefully controlled exhale. Elle had disciplined her body in many ways--her core temperature was not one of them.<br/><br/>A lesser solider would have cursed softly in the night, shifted to adjust their aching joints, shivered at the dwindling temperature. Elle was not a lesser solider. She could hardly be called a solider at all, though it was a better term for her employment than "slave." She wasn't one for particulars, so long as she was compensated for her work.<br/><br/>There was little time to devote to such thoughts, anyway. The virgin snow continued to build at a catatonic rate as the sound of movement pricked Elle's ears. She shifted for the first time in hours and even then only just, allowing her head to tilt slightly so that she could look down the little-used road. Her body tensed, though it would have been hard to notice under her dark clothes. The snow on her did not fall for her motions.<br/><br/>She waited.