It was a cold and blustery day. It was a day where one learns the true meaning of ‘white’ as it falls from more white, with a picturesque backdrop of white, onto—you guessed it—more white.
Considering this was in Macalania, this rated a negative eighteen on a scale of one to ten of weirdness.
And yet, there was something colder, far colder, but not quite as white. Its temperature would make dry ice think itself in the tropics (it should be noted that it is quite difficult to confuse things in gaseous states, though not impossible). The native creatures that inhabited this rather monochromatic environment would take one look at the thing, panic, and turn the other way, purely in fear of frostbite from it.
This thing, so cold, so bleak, so poetically described, yet not yet alluded to what it actually is in the slightest is Seymour, or to be more precise, his heart. He, himself, is colorful and warm, proven by his breath making funny white puffs in front of his nose, adding yet another whiteness to his view of the place.
At this point in the story, although it has yet to start, it should be noted that his heart is cold and bleak, as said above. It is not to be confused with something smaller than it should be, which is a biological impossibility for him to be alive (and he is, at least for now), belongs to another person, of another species, in entirely another story, written by another author.
"S-s-s-s-s-i-i-i-i-i-i-r-r-r-r?" one of the few guards that followed him asked. There had been several guards with him before, but most of them had left, determined to keep all their limbs and the last of their sanity and noticed that Seymour was paying as much attention to them as he did the stitching of someone else’s pants. He wouldn’t care if they wandered off in search of a hot cup of coffee and a new job. Their job was to protect him, but considering Seymour, the only things there were to keep him from were low doorways and people insisting that no matter what he did, or what his argument to the contrary was, he couldn’t possibly be dutiful enough to Yevon without giving them a considerable amount of money. Both of these were usually dealt with, with a small fireball and a few flashy hand movements. Or possibly a few flashy hand movements colliding with someone’s skull. The real mystery of the guards was why there were any left, especially following him where you would only be assaulted if you had a space heater with you.
"Yes?" Seymour asked, cheerfully. He liked the weather, despite the fact that the wind was at what people classified as a gale, and the road was what people classified it as ‘not there anymore,’ and anyone wandering around in such weather would be classified as several things, all of them not repeatable without changing the rating of the story.
"I-i-i-i-s-s I-I-I-I-t-t-t-t p-p-p-p-o"
"By the time you finish your sentence, we’ll both have forgotten what the first word was," Seymour said. He didn’t bother mentioning that it would be better to ask once they were inside because he frankly didn’t care. He never cared for small talk, and barely cared for big talk. He considered making it a rule that guards would be silent, but they’re vocal chords came in handy by chiming in at precisely the right time to yell ‘duck!’
The good thing about the temple-other than the central heating system—was that it was so extremely brightly colored that not even the priests denied the rumor that it had been painted by someone who had smoked several strange herbal mixtures at once and came equipped with a spell that kept the paint from freezing. The bad thing was that in usual weather—and anything worse—it was still completely invisible until you had bashed your nose right into it.
Or your hair, in Seymour’s case.
Instead of saying anything obvious, and also polite, he let the few remaining guards walk right into the wall of the temple.
Seymour, not caring if they’re noses were damaged by the crash or the cold enough to have fallen off and gotten lost in the snow, merely reached for the doorknob. He saw nothing else to do, really.
Just as his nails were a hair’s width away from the knob, a chill was sent down his spine. The guards, cold and freezing as they were, even those miles away having deserted a long time ago and waiting for him to return to a place where molecules actually moved, were competent. However, his expression of sudden shock and terror only left them bewildered. And they all wondered silently, what was so bad about a doorknob, one he’d used so many times before?
It wasn’t the doorknob, at leas not yet, that had disturbed him. Everyone who’d met Seymour swore he heard voices. Most assumed they sounded sickly-sweet and comforting and explained to him why things should be set one fire, or why it would improve the world’s economy by hiding Maester Mika’s shoes. This voice, however, had other ideas.
"Seymour…" it spoke, making sure it was haunting the right person.
"D-dad?" Seymour asked, though he was unaware his mouth was moving.
"Who else do I sound like, dimwit?"
"No one. Especially not now," Seymour answered. This time he was damn sure he wasn’t actually talking. Usually he kept his smarmy comments to himself.
"I heard that!" the voice said.
"What are you gonna do? Ground me?" Seymour heard his own voice say. Suddenly he went whiter than Macalania’s record for whiteness, which only confused the guards more, and exasperated them greatly, for two out of three had to pee. Seymour quickly regained his composure, but lost it just as easily when the color came back to him, and he started screaming and waving a fist at nothing in particular. "You are not allowed inside my head! Get out right now or—"
"Or what?" Jyscal’s voice asked. "Or you’ll tell you’re mother?"
Seymour’s mental voice growled like a machina with a broken fan belt.
"Oo, scary."
Seymour paused. Before figured out why he was having this conversation, he had to gain control of it. "Is there some point to all this?" he wondered.
"Yes."
"And are you going to tell me what exactly that is?"
"Oh, fine," his father’s voice said, dissipated that he’d been backed into a corner so easily. He wanted to get more out of Seymour, such as an explanation about a window had broken four years ago.
"Well, get on with it," Seymour demanded.
"I was getting there!" Jyscal yelled. "I am here—well, I’m not really here am I? You solved that, didn’t you?"
"Shut up or I remember puberty at you!" Seymour mentally shouted.
"Right then, on with it. I’m warning you that tonight you will be visited by three spirits…at least that’s what I was told they were…"
There was a long mental pause.
"Why?" Seymour asked.
"…" Jyscal said. "…I lost a bet and I got to be the one t tell you."
"No, I mean why bother telling me? They’re gonna show up and I can just throw a chair or a fireball at them. I mean, ‘look out, there’s a pit in front of you’ is something to warn me about."
"Look, I did my job, I’m leaving, and I never want in your head again, goodbye!" Jyscal shouted, and reality slammed right into Seymour with such force that it was audible for miles.
"What was all that about?" Seymour voiced and opened the door to the temple, only to be trampled by three desperate guards before his hand left the knob.