Midwinter

The crackling fire, logs groaning into embers in the Venetian fireplace, lit the eyes haphazardly of the man and woman seated by the oval mahogany long table. The heat emanated throughout the room, the cold shivers both had come in with dissipated with welcome laughs and intense gazes at each other. In came an entire boar on a steel platter, roasted, steaming apples, potatoes and a multitude of green, purple and orange vegetables surrounding it. The boar was set down on the near end of the table in front of them. Emblazoned plates with royal seals lined in gold, and the finest silver cutlery were laid down carefully, by hands well accustomed to gentle motions resulting in not a resonance of china or metal connecting with another surface. An emerald chandelier above them with ebony white candles in its center was lit by a fire rod. Soft white reflections from the candles sprang onto the tables as the guests were served their dinners by the mansion staff. The dining room gradually growing lighter from the fire stretched far away into shadows bordering up to an oak roof, massive beams arching over and across. Around them blank walls, single stone blocks cut out from black granite, their edging creases tenderly smoothed down, forming total uniformity. Outside the winter raged, snow whirling, hazing the scene. The mansion, a grand and old domain, peaking to the sky, slowly being turned into a mound of snow, further and further away the snow majestically laying its cloak on the earth.