kissing death and loosing my breath

For far too long those glass jars had sat empty upon her shelves, staring at her with a lingering need to be filled.  She had ignored them for a while, dismissed them for other more demanding tasks until the rather fateful day that she found a need for what the empty jars used to contain. There was a soft sigh upon the young woman's lips as she popped open the lid - staring down into the container as if the sheer weight of her gaze might magically produce some remnant of the poignant herbs. Sadly, no such magic occurred for the witch.  Carefully she put the mason jar down, her grey tinged gaze tracing the depths of her workshop with the hope that maybe some previous version of herself had stashed away some other trimmings of the plant - only to innately know that she had not. "Fine...fine...." She grumbled to herself, pulling out a pad of paper from one of her drawers as she began to take stock of her jars. Her hand writing was neat and legible as she leaned against the workbench, critically scrutinizing her workshop. In the end, her list was far larger then she had originally anticipated, causing a small frown to cross her sweetheart shaped lips. It was a shame - it looked like she'd be spending the entire day replenishing her stores.
It took Serafina a few moments to get ready, donning a pair of comfortable jeans and a thick sweater. Herb hunting in the winter was always more difficult. Most of her required goods would be dead or buried under a layer of snow but the wild stuff was more potent than the store bought crap - worthy of her time. She clutched her jacket closer towards her feminine frame, her grey tinged gaze wandering up and back down the street as she stepped out of her town house. There was nothing out of the normal, in fact the whole day fell entirely within the realm of "normal" and yet Serafina could not help the goosebumps that wandered up her spine or the instincts that seemed to suggest something was somehow off. She shook her head ever so slightly, taking the icy steps down with care before trudging down the street and into the snow. The route surely would have gone faster with a vehicle but it would have been useless as soon as she hit the forest and, quite frankly, there was something about the frigid wind nipping at her cheeks that Serafina had to admit she enjoyed. The witch was surprisingly nature centric, enjoying running barefoot beneath the hunter's moon just as she enjoyed leaving her windows open in autumn and making surprisingly long trecks in winter. It was something she rarely admitted to and even less personified herself as but it was, to some extent, apart of who she was. It reminded her of her childhood - of the winters she spent under overpasses and in tented camps in the forest or abandoned lots.
There was a weak simper across her features at the fonder memories of her youth and slowly she shook her head ever so slightly. Up till now, she'd hardly had the chance to return to the world she had once lived in. However, now that her mentor was dead, now that she had a life ripe for the taking, she had never considered returning. This was who she was now. She didn't have to worry about what she was going to eat for dinner or where she was going to sleep. This was what she preferred. She pushed the nostalgic thoughts from her brain the moment she hit the edge of the forest, her attention immediately shifting to the ground to look for any hints of greenery beneath the white snow. The witch moved deeper into the dead foliage, hardly concerned of the threats that sometimes frequented the outskirts of the city. She had been out here many of times and many of times had come and gone without the slightest of issue - without seeing anyone entirely. Frankly, she had no reason to think that this time would be any different.