05-04-2011, 07:18 AM
66. Snow
Heso stood on the battlements looking out across the treetops to the mountainous regions beyond. He could not help taking in a deep breath, and immediately regretting it as the icy air caught in his lungs. Overhead pregnant clouds threatened a winter storm. Heso prayed they would hold off until Shonasha's return.
"What do you look so solemn about?" came a snide remark over his shoulder.
Heso turned slowly to view the source of the biting words, though he knew the voice all to well. "Good day milady, Maeryn. Are you sure you should be out here in this weather? With your lean figure you are sure to catch your death." He said with all the sound of respectful pleasantness in his voice.
"I am not so frail as you make me out to be." She responded, though her cheeks flushed with indignation, "My husband was a Cambion if you'll remember, and with not a servant to keep his home warm in the biting cold of winter. Besides," she said, "You have avoided my original question."
"Possibilities my lady," he said, spreading his arms out wide as if speaking of a divine providence, "One who sees all possibilities cannot help but dwell on those negative ones that he fears may one day come to be. And so I stand here, as a gargoyle stands watch at the top of a tower, waiting for a possibility that I hope may never come to pass." Here he turned away from her, and she saw a flash of the glass vial that he shoved into his pocket as he made to walk away, "It gets late though, and I've only seen this possibility rendered possible during midday."
"May I ask what is that, that you carry clenched in your fist there?" her voice had softened considerably, enough to make him turn to view her once more. She held her hands clenched at her bosom in an almost pleading manner and her face was touched with the worry that only a mother could no.
"You recognize it?" He said, removing the vial once more and displaying it in his open palm for her to see, "Tis your husbands own concoction for curbing his bloodlust. If his journals speak truly he became quite accustomed to relying on them when he was beside you. I carry it now because of a possibility that your son may have need of it when he returns." He turned away from her again, pocketing the vial as he did, "Though it is only one possibility, one of many."
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