From The Snow

The air was sharp against his face, cold slipping between cracks that he couldn’t even see and the knife in his hand was starting to become unpleasant. Still this was more excitement than the boy had ever felt in his dull life. The town he came from wasn’t special and his family wasn’t important. He lacked the brains for mathematics and the patience for literature. He was not old enough to work and not young enough to play so he decided to rob. The only road passing by the town was an important one, a mountain path that led through the Wallhill mountains, the only way for the wealth of the Cerulean Coast to get to the landlocked countries of the Marble Plateau. Some would hope that the proximity to such wealth would trickle into the town but merchants and caravans passed by with no thought to them. So the boy decided that he would become a famous robber and give himself a vastly more interesting life than anyone who had looked down at him. Now nearly dying and barely aware of himself he spotted his first victim coming through the snowfall.

At first the boy thought he was a scout for a larger group. He’d heard of that happening with caravans coming down the mountain due to robbers, but this was different. He was alone, the boy could just tell, and he could see he was heavily laden. It was heavily laden, because as the boy saw more and more of it he saw it to be a beast in man’s clothing. The beast wore a tattered military uniform and nothing else. No snow coat, no wool hat, not even mittens though the boy doubted the beast could make any mittens fit. The beast had a big pack on his back that it carried with no trouble, a pipe in its maw that puffed thick smoke even in the biting cold and a rifle slung over its shoulder. The boy was so stunned by the beast and his appearance that it had to speak twice before he registered its speech. Without thinking he raised his knife to the beast, but the beast, several times larger than him, didn’t even flinch. He asked again if there was a town nearby and said the name of the boy’s town. The boy nodded silently, awestruck by the figure before him. The beast asked if he had a family, and did they have a spare room, and if he could stay a while with them. The boy nodded yes to each question and turned back towards the town with no fuss. His life of thievery could wait another day, this was the most interesting thing he had ever experienced. Also some warmth couldn’t hurt, he thought.

The boy’s parents were furious that he had been out in the snow but their fury quickly died when the beast stooped through their doorway. The boy introduced it to them, grinning from ear to ear at their terror, and the beast gave its request. Hesitantly they agreed, letting it stay in their empty storage room for two pennies a night, four if it wanted to be fed. Their terror had turned to weariness which quickly turned to wide eye stun when the beast handed them three round coins of gold. It planned to stay there a week and hoped that that would be enough to cover its stay and more. As it was nearly night the beast headed to his room and the boy left his parents to murmur to themselves. He watched the beast take off its worn out military jacket, buttons all tarnished and trims all fraying, then rest its gun against the wall, battered but maintained, then kick off its boots and sit on the edge of the bed. The boy with no sense of fear asked the beast what it was and it turned its head to stare at him. He thought the thing would pounce at him but it smiled at him, as gentle as his granduncle used to, and asked him what he thought he was. The boy didn’t hesitate, he declared it to be a beast and the beast laughed like a great tree given life. Yes, it said, but what else? The boy had to think now unsure as to what the beast had meant by that. He looked at the jacket and the pants the beast still had on and declared him to be a soldier. I was but no longer am, it said, what else do you think I am? Now the boy was really confused and wished he knew more words that he could use. The beast opened its pack and pulled out three large squares which the boy quickly found out to be canvases, and on them he saw art that stirred in him things he didn’t even have names for. A starry night at the foot of a mountain, before the high walls of a massive fort and an enchanting smile on a beautiful face. As he stared at them he could almost see the brushstrokes and he could see that their maker was master at his craft. They were magnificent, they were masterworks, they… had to be stolen. No beast could make works this divine. The boy declared the beast a thief and frowned at him, so full of melancholy that he began to regret ever speaking in the first place. Maybe some could call me that but I don’t see myself as a thief, it said, but maybe tomorrow I can show you what I really am.

And the next day the boy followed the beast into town bundled up like a stuffed sack while it just wore its uniform. Many people steered clear of the two and the boy felt powerful, like he was a nobleman and the beast was his guard. Through mouthfuls of smoke the beast went from vendor to vendor buying this thing and that, dried roots and vials of clear oil, and each vendor would give him exactly what it wanted or as close to it when it slipped a gold coin into their hands. The boy watched this with interest, coming up with all sorts of labels for the beast as he did. Chemist, or doctor, or curseman. Or maybe he really was a scout and he was checking prices for his merchant boss. Or he could be one of those great men of alchemy, gathering the ingredients for the famed azoth stone.When they returned back home the boy watched the beast as he folded up its shirt sleeves and prepared the ingredients with tools borrowed from the kitchen. Crushing this and mixing that, chopping this into a fine paste and folding that into a small section of oil. It was only when the beast took out more canvases, these ones barren of colour, that he recognised the mixtures as paint. The beast propped the canvas near to the window, looking out at the mountains, and began layering down large sections of paint. The boy watched with wonder, a sparkle in his eyes as he watched the beast work, and decidedly told the beast that it was a painter and the beast turned to him again and smiled which the boy returned tenfold. Yes, it told him, I am a painter. I was always a beast but I always wanted to paint. Sadly life stripped that from me in my youth as I spent too much of my life in trenches. But now I am free and I am a painter. Would you like to join me? So the boy spent days with the beast, trying his best to replicate the beast’s delicate work. He wasn’t as good but he didn’t care. For the second time in his life he felt excitement. And when the day came for the beast to leave he couldn’t help but shed a few tears. Of course some people were happy for the beast to leave but not him. He couldn’t stop it from leaving but it couldn’t stop him from hugging it before it walked back into the snow. Now the boy spends his time improving at his art, finally passionate about something. Months passed and he never stopped thinking about the beast and on evenings when the snow begins to fall he looks out at it and hopes to see his friend again.