Kindling

Gil sat sideways in the plush chair, his legs kicked up on the arm, ankles crossed over each other as he leaned back to examine the pattern of the paint swirls on the ceiling.

"You should throw a Garden Party, " He said, turning his gaze from the ceiling to his friend. For the past few weeks Warren had spent every waking moment he had (and a few he didn't) pouring over that Journal. He took meticulous notes, muttered to himself frequently, and over all was turning himself into a proper shut in.

"It's still too cold for a garden party, not to mention nothing's bloomed yet. It would just be a lot of people dressed up nice to stand in the cold amongst some dead trees," He retorted. His eyes never left the paper.

"Well, hold it in the parlor," Gil responded.

"Then it wouldn't be a garden party."

Gil frowned a little, swinging his feet forward and righting himself in the arm chair. He stood up, walking over to Warren and placing his hands on his shoulders as he looked over him to the notes he was taking. Something about the flow of water moving with the breath. Warren frequently tried to explain what he learned to him, but it was like a scholar speaking to an adolescent. Everything was just a little too dense to be comprehended. Even though the words were in the common tongue he might as well be transforming Theban into a spoken language. Warren, however, seemed to be soaking it in like it were as natural as a chat over lunch. He was almost jealous of it. Gil was holding all of the risk without reaping any of the reward.

"Warren, people are starting to talk. You're spending too much time in here. You've shirked your duties, you're not going to any social events, Your other friends are starting to suspect you've gone mad," He said. "Which I suppose would be preferable to the truth," He added, letting his hands slide to the side and sitting against the edge of the writing desk.

Warren finally set down his pen, turning in the chair to face Gil. The younger man could tell that Warren was looking for a sort of retort in an attempt to give himself a proper opportunity to prove that he had not, in fact, holed himself up to focus on the Shadow sciences, but the more he searched the for one the harder it came to deny the truth. People were going to become suspicious.

"I suppose I could feign a slight illness" he said, finally closing the journal. Gil felt like someone had picked a sack of flour off his his chest and he could breathe a little easier. A small smile came to his lips.

"It wouldn't be improbable. After that storm quite a few people found themselves in bed with a chill," Gil mused, leaning forward a bit to watch Warren collect his notes. His hands seemed paler after all, though his servant knew the ghosting of his skin was more likely do to his new found habit to forgo supper and sleep in favor of this unhealthy study.

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"Then, with that settled, the next step would be to find a party where I could make my wonderful and miraculous recovery from the clutches of death!" He laughed, leaning backwards and holding his hand to his forehead in a feign. "For I was too young and too charming for death to whisk away from this world. The heaven's, in all their glory, saw it fit for my presence to grace these good people for just a while longer," he mocked in lament.

If Gil had rolled his eyes any harder he might have pulled a muscle. "My world would be a right bit less stressful if you had actually been in bed ill," he snipped, standing up so that Warren could collect the rest of his notes.

A chuckle escaped him as he slipped the journal and the notes beneath the false bottom of his desk drawer and locked it, slipping the key into it's comfortable resting place inside his breast pocket. The spot where a normal man might keep a handkerchief or a pocket watch instead of the key to what could be his death in writing.

"Come then, I suppose I should make myself known again, lest my father fear I've disappeared to the forest to live the life of a hermit."

Warren seized the coat that hung on the back of his chair, slipping it on with a smooth flick and giving it a soft tug into place. Fingers ran through his hair to brush it from his face and, only haphazardly, back against his head where it belong. Gil watched him lazily. It was a motion that he had done for many a year, probably to the point where Warren wasn't aware he did it. Though as his slender hands pushed the hair from his face something caught Gil's eye. Right on his neck, bellow his jaw, was a small mark that he had never noticed before. A small beauty mark. Was Gil simply paying his Master's neck more mind then he had before. . . Or had that mark always been there?

The two men found their ways out of the library. The sun shining through the picture windows and illuminating the house almost seemed alien after so many long days in the library with the curtains drawn. Light flickered and bounced off the glass vases set on small green and gold stands scattered along the hall, casting flickering outlines of the winter flowers and the water in which they sat.

With long, confident strides Warren made his way down the hall and to the foyer. The great chandelier that hung from the ceiling glistened like the snow that still lightly dusted the lawn outside the windows. Young maids and house men scurried about tidying and dusting for the turning of the seasons that would be happening soon.

Unfortunately, the thoughts were cut short once they rounded the corner to the top of the stairs and caught glimpse of the housekeeper speaking to a group of men in the hall. None of them looked familiar. They weren't local, that was for sure. Most of them were scruffy, unkempt men. Definitely too rough to be from the Region of Kar. Their state was wealthy, and even those who were not fortunate enough to live in the laps of velvet and gold still weren't generally this brutish type.

In front of the motley lot stood several far more distinguishable men. The simple white and yellow robes, slicked hair, and small sun pendants that hang from their necks spoke of their origins. These were men of the Temple, priests perhaps. Wait. . . Priests!