Set Me Free

19. Thermal Jewel

     "Ow!" I yelped out in pain.

     Apollos jolted up in fright for about a second before realizing that nothing actually happened to me. I rubbed my burning hot palm and winced at the sting that came along with the bright red oval outline pressed into my hand. What the fuck made that shape? I curiously looked around the bedroom, staring through my messy shelves and shit to see if there was anything out of the ordinary that may have flung randomly at my palm.

     "You alright?" Apollos gently hopped down from the bed and looked at me with a confused yet concerned expression.

     "Do I look okay?" I pursed my lips. "Look at my hand!"

     "Oh shit..." his eyes went wide for a small moment before he avoided looking at it. From behind, I could see that his head was tipped down.

     Was he hiding something from me?

     "Apollos." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Turn around for me?"

     "Dan?" He made a weird face as he turned around. "What happened to this?" The words became nothing more than a mere cluster of mumbled words as he faced me with the stone of his mother's necklace held between his teeth. Instead of a jade green stone, a bright t red one was in its place, glowing brightly before Apollos spat it out of his mouth, complaining of a burning sensation in his mouth.

     "Holy shit!" I grabbed the necklace and removed it from his neck, throwing the damned thing across the bedroom, onto the top of a pile of messy clothes.

     "What just happened?!" Apollos made a frightened face with just his eyes.

     "I dunno!" I raised my hands with unsureness. "I have never seen a fucking rock glow like that!"

     "Neither have I!" He argued. Then, the reindeer stopped, his face retracted into an expression, appearing to have a rush of knowledge run into his brain. Did he make a connection between his necklace and something else?

     "There you are!" The door suddenly slammed open.

     Both of us froze immediately and stared wide-eyed into the doorway, where a deer-like figure was standing. It wasn't a Helldeer. Yet...it wasn't a normal looking reindeer either, this thing seemed more of an angel-based animal, perhaps an entity of heaven or a better place than the Twilight Shadows. The antlers were covered with a mossy and flowery blanket, and the fur was a golden tone, definitely light in hue than Apollos.

     "Who's that?" He whispered to me.

     Uh...

     I simply shrugged. My words weren't being generated as well as I thought they would be. We just continued to stand there as the heavenly animal took strides and greeted us with a warming expression in its eyes. The necklace on the pile of clothes became even brighter in hue as it approached Apollos. Then the antlers of this entity glowed, along with its eyes turning to a bright and angelic white.

     "I have finally found you, my son."

     Son?! She's his fucking mother???

     "Mom?!" He stumbled back and hit his backside against the bed.

     "Why aren't you wearing the necklace?" She looked at him, then me, and the necklace last before her gaze drew back to her son.

     "Because it burned me...and Dan," he stared at his mother in awe of the sheer beauty he saw in her.

     "Dan?" Her eyes were now onto me. "He's not working for Zeus, is he?"

     "N-no!" I stammered and stepped back nervously. "Of c-course not!"

     "I see." She nodded with a solemn face, then facing Apollos again. "Is he..."

     "-my descendant," he answered.

     "Erm...might I ask," I tried to call for her attention, which thankfully worked before things could turn awkward, "what's your name?"

     "Polia," she replied with a soft smile.

     Interesting name.

     "Mother, why did that stone change temperature?"

     "A-and colour?" I abruptly added in.

     "Ah," Polia's hooves tapped against the floor as she picked up the necklace with one of the branches of her antler. "See, this, becomes cold if I am far from you, my son. This redness you see here, shows that I am close to you."

     "But why doesn't it work for Zeus?" I asked.

     Polia's face went stone cold with dead looking eyes that seemingly glared into my soul. Her hoof stamped down violently, causing the whole room's furniture to shake inside as the necklace turned cold black. She aggressively tossed it to me and observed as I fumbled around, trying to catch it. Now the damn thing was fucking cold. It was literally freezing, as in ice, really, really cold ice.

     As if ice can't get any colder.

     "But why now, mother?" Apollos broke his mother's trance. "Why'd you come now, and not before?"

     "Why?" She looked him up and down, as if she saw complete disappointment in him. "Because your friend here, has the potential to banish Zeus to the Forgotten Realm."

     "Explain," I demanded.

     "At the strike of the fourteenth hour, in this home, will I explain the meaning behind this necklace of mine."

     "No, wait!" Apollos cried when his mother began to fade away into the morning light. "Come back!"

     The necklace's stone returned to the normal jade tone it was before. I clutched it tightly in my hand as a means of protection it could provide for us in the case of Apollos' father returning.