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Several days passed with no sign from the King, until a messenger arrived. The Temple was to expect a visitor the next day. Would it be some emisssary, or King Temmin himself? That morning, a nervous young Mother came to fetch Gwynna down to the emptied Worship Hall: the visitor stood just outside the doors.

A sharp pang stabbed at Gwynna; life had beaten most of whatever vanity she'd possessed out of her, but she had been beautiful eighteen years ago. Work had roughened her hands, for no one could afford to be idle in the Mother's House. She wore the simple undyed wool habit of a lay Mother, a blue linen veil over her head; it had been long since she'd dressed in fine clothes. She didn't have a mirror to see how she'd aged, and wondered how she would appear in her visitor's eyes. There was nothing to be done for it. She walked to the Worship Hall and stood as she had when Ardunn was a baby, at the feet of the Mother's great statue.

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Winter turned to spring and still Gwynna and the baby could not leave the Temple. Soldiers kept watch day and night in sun, rain and snow. The Brothers also kept watch to prevent the soldiers from entering, but they were protecting the sanctity of the Mother's Temple, not Ardunn; they would kill the baby themselves if Gwynna and Ardunn left their holy shelter.

Some days King Temmin stood among them--she could not call the man who'd spoken with her at the feet of the Mother that day "Tennoc." Sometimes he called to her, and sometimes she heard him. Sometimes he even sounded like Tennoc. The day came when the Mothers told her the new King had finally left Gwyrfal to turn his attention to conquering the rest of Kellen. Cror ar Crymavon was left behind with instructions to continue the watch.

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The hospital used a disinfectant that lightly stung the nostrils of all who smelled it for too long. Nine years later they would switch to a different one after discovering that two of the interacting chemicals could do long term damage to the sinuses of those who were exposed for long periods of time. The young man sitting in the waiting room could have told them that just from a quick sniff, saving them countless headaches, both literal and metaphorical, along with a couple of lawsuits.

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Owen sat one of the waiting room’s many reinforced chairs and flipped through an old Capes & Cowls magazine. It detailed the rise of one of the latest crops of heroes, fresh off their internships and making quite a splash in the world. Their costumes were crisp, their dialogue concise, their images squeaky clean. These were the kind of Heroes the world needed more of, or at least that’s the idea the reported lauded. These were the kind of wholesome, homespun, moral warriors that would take the lead in creating a new world, free of immorality.

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