Nocte stopped and turned around to face me. “No, you are not. But, since it’s a bit late, do you want to sleep in the room that I gave you here?”

I wasn’t sure what the time was, but I didn’t want him to go out of his way to drop me off back at home. That, and he had been drinking. No drinking and driving!

“Yeah, I don’t mind. It’s safer since you’ve been drinking.”

For a split second, he looked confused, but then he just nodded, and we found ourselves walking around. As we walked through the corridors, we ended up outside the room that I was in earlier. As Nocte walked in and placed the painting on the floor up against the wall, he turned to face me as I walked in.

“Do you need anything?”

“Well, apart from night clothes, I can’t exactly sleep in… This….” I gestured to the dress.

“Ah…. Wait one second.” He raised up one finger and walked right past me, and out the door. A few moments later, he returned and handed me a night dress. “Your size, right?”

I took it from him and checked, sure enough the size was correct. “Yes, it is. But wait, why do you have this here in my size?”

All he did was just shrug at me. Ok then…. But then he suddenly looked a bit conflicted, as his eyes kept darting to where the painting was.

“By the way….” He started to speak. “Erm, nothing….”

“What’s up?” I tried to press him for answers.

“... What made you so interested in Mephisto’s story?”

“Oh…. Well, I’m not entirely sure…. I ended up finding the story in the library one day, and I started to read it…. My 13 year old self found the bad boy rather sexy, and I wanted to take him away from everything because he was fine with me…. Cringe fest, I know….”

“How interesting….”

“How embarrassing, more like….” I corrected him.

“Hah! But I shall not keep you any longer, goodnight miss.” He gave me a bow and walked out of the room again.

‘Well, tonight sure was interesting’, I thought to myself as I changed out of the dress and into the night clothes. The highlights were definitely Ethan and that painting. It’s a little bit weird, now that I think about it, that I now have a painting of my 13 year old self's crush. As I slipped the night dress on, I was amazed at how snug this fitted. As I climbed into the bed, it felt like I was being hugged by it. Of course, with this massive house, there are many comfy beds. As I lay my head on the pillow, sleep came pretty quickly.

I don’t think I was asleep for long, because I started to hear noises and they woke me up. At first, I thought it was an animal but, as I listened in, I realised that it didn’t sound animal like. Curiosity got the better of me and, before I knew it, I was getting out of bed and tiptoeing down the hall. As I was doing this, I realised that the sounds that I was hearing were, in fact, voices. The voices were coming straight from the room that was at the end of the corridor. Wasn’t that the room that Nocte said was his? As I crept slowly towards it, I noticed that the voices were definitely coming from that room. The door being slightly ajar was a bonus, so, as I leaned against the wall next to the door, I listened in.

“So, this is just a coincidence then?”

“Look, I already had a look, and yes. Who knows, you were probably drawn here because of what happened in this world's timeline….”

“And that one just happened to become interested in it?”

“Stranger things have happened….”

I could tell one of those voices was Nocte’s, but the second voice? I didn’t recognise it, but it sounded rather masculine.

“But I still find whatever you’re doing weird, but whatever fills the holes that my sister left….”

“Firstly, I am not filling any holes, and secondly, it's all for a good cause.”

“I’m sure Victus would say otherwise….”

“Victus can go read a dictionary, I don’t care.”

“If you say so... But, speaking of my sister, no I do not know where she is… I can’t see her, and neither can Lucien and, believe me, he has tried a lot. More than me, to be honest, and she’s my own sister!”

“I thought as much….”

“I still wonder what you did….”

“What I did? Seriously?”

“It was a joke.”

“It’s not a very good one, Pinkie.”

“Pinkie? Whatever floats your boat….”

For some reason, as I listened in on this conversation, I could not help feeling extremely tired and, before I knew it, I was closing my eyes.

Waking up suddenly, I cradled my head. I remember such a weird dream, well… Only parts of it, but none of it made sense. It was like I was watching Nocte talking to someone, but I could only get in half of the conversation and, even then, it made no sense. Then, a knock from the door echoed around the room.

“Come in?” I hesitantly called to the door and, as I did so, Nocte came through, carrying in a tray.

“I’d thought you were awake….” He said as he came up to the bed and placed down the tray in front of me. A tray that was holding pancakes and juice. “Here.” 

“I’m missing the flower.” I said, with a joke.

“Did you want a flower?” Nocte looked at me confused, with a tilted head.

“Oh, nah…. I’m only joking, but breakfast in bed? A girl could get used to that….” I said with a giggle and a smile.

“Ah, it’s the least I could do….” For some reason, he looked a bit guilty about something. “So, how was your night?”

“Not bad….” I picked up the fork and cut off a piece of the pancake.

“So you don’t recall anything happening during the night?”

I looked up at him as I shoved a piece of pancake into my mouth, I noticed that he definitely still looked guilty about something. “No, apart from a dream that I can’t remember, but nothing new there…. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason….” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I should tell you that if you see a guy who looks very suspicious, with blue eyes and black hair, and kinda looks like an idiot? Don’t worry about him, he somewhat works for me.”

“So another assistant?”

‘Man, these pancakes were really nice’ I thought as I shoved another piece into my mouth, as I was waiting for his answer.

“Ah nah, the spaniel is more of a tool.”

I raised my eyebrows when he said ‘spaniel’ and then even more at the word ‘tool'. He caught onto that, and gave me another smile.

“He basically owes me.”

“I see, does the ‘tool’ have a name?”

“Yeah. Idiot.”

“.... I mean like a real name?”

“Ah….. Then Spaniel.”

“Is that his name, or just a codename?” I inquired further.

“Yeah, let's go with that.”

“You get weirder everyday….” I muttered as I took another bite of the pancakes.

“Hah, well….” He slapped his thighs as he stood up. “I’ll take you home later.” And he began to walk back out the door, but he stopped and briefly looked at the painting before heading out the door.

“That man sure is an enigma….” I said out loud to myself, as I continued to eat the pancakes.

As I finished up eating the pancakes, Nocte returned and dropped off some spare clothes. As I looked at the tag inside them, I saw that, in fancy writing, it said:

Lady Charlotte

Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. I changed out of the night clothes, into these fresh new clothes and started to wander the house. I didn’t go far, in case I got lost, so I only went to places that I knew of. As I walked, I noticed that I couldn’t even find Nocte, I just saw several animals lounging about. As I walked outside, I spotted a man sitting on the fountain. At first, I thought it was Nocte, so I started heading over to them. But, as I got closer, I realised it wasn’t him, but instead it marked the resemblance of the man that Nocte had told me about this morning. He was dressed in a blue casual suit, with black hair, slightly pale skin, but I noticed that he had a pair of stunning blue eyes as they locked with mine.

“You must be Alexis, right?” He spoke to me in a soft voice.

“And you must be ‘the Spaniel’.” I said back, without thinking.

“... Spaniel?”

“Oh! Is that not your codename? Nocte told me that it was.”

The man looked rather annoyed for a moment, before sighing heavily.

“That idiot never refers to me by my name, he uses everything else apart from my name….”

“Ohhh…. But you still work for him, right?”

“..... No, I do not…. But whatever floats his boat, I suppose.”

I nervously laughed to myself. Well, this whole exchange was rather awkward. But he looked right at me and, with a smile, spoke quite calmly at me.

“I hope you find your future, just don’t keep running away….”

With that, he stands up and walks off, leaving me quite confused. 

“I didn’t even catch your name!” I said out loud, as I sat on the fountain myself.

It was then that I noticed that the fountain was off. I saw that there was water spilling out of a half moon, and I noticed that it was such a unique type of fountain, I had to admit. But, as I sat there, a small brown bird flew down, landed on top of the fountain, and stared at me.

“Oh! Hello there!”

The bird didn’t react, it just stared at me. I watched it as it huffed at me, fluffed up his feathers and flew off. Well, that sure was weird…. Although I was no bird expert, I noted that it was an interesting colour for a bird. Perhaps it was a little Sparrow, maybe?

“Whatcha starin’ at?”

The voice startled me and, when I turned around, I saw that Nocte was standing there.

“Oh! You scared me.”

“My bad…. But what were you intently staring at?”

“A little brown bird….”

“A brown bird, you say? Hmm….”

“It was probably a little Sparrow, but he looked too chunky to be a Sparrow….”

As I said that, Nocte made a very loud snort, and laughed.

“Erm, was it something I said?”

“Oh. Nah….” He waved a hand at me. “But are you ready to go home?”

“Oh, yes.” I stood up from the fountain. “I was just waiting on you.”

With that, Nocte escorted me to where that red Corvette was and, as we approached, I saw that the painting was leaning against the car. I watched him pick it up and put it in the back, and I realised that it still felt weird even taking that painting. But everyone around me was seriously quite bossy and insisted on many things. As I got into the car, we drove off, back to mine. 

When we arrived at mine, Nocte carried the painting all the way to my place, and placed it down on the floor in the mini hallway that I have.

“Well, I do hope you have a good day.” He started to leave down the stairs, but I called out to him.

“Thank you, for last night.”

“Hmm?” He stopped and turned around. “More like thank you. Oh, and before I forget….” He walked back to me and handed me something from the inside of his pocket. “Your payment…. If it’s too much? Here are also the details for you to donate to the charity….” He took out another piece of paper. “I’ll let you know when I need the assistance again….” With a little salute to me, he turned back around and headed down the stairs.

As I headed back inside my place, I checked the payment slip that Nocte gave me. True enough, this was way too much. As I walked over to the sofa, I sat down and checked my internet banking on my phone. The money was already in there, which made me wonder how he got the details to put it in there. As I was looking at the other piece of paper, I noticed that it showed the website of the charity. As I looked it up, I clicked the donate page and donated money from my ‘job’ to it. But I made sure that I left enough money for me to play around with. I made my donation as ‘anonymous’, but I did notice that you can personally sponsor an animal. Feeling curious, I looked into it more. The animals that were up for sponsorship were animals that couldn’t go back into the wild, due to various reasons. There were a lot of hand reared animals here, a few that lost limbs, ex circus animals… All sorts. But, as I scrolled, a little tiger cub caught my attention. 

“Luna”

Was the name of the cub. She was only a month old, and was rejected by her mother. Due to her being so young, she had to be hand reared, being fed from a bottle at such a young age. As I looked at the sweet little eyes of this cub, I felt a weird bond with her. It was decided there and then, I was going to sponsor this little girl. This time, I didn’t make myself anonymous, and I was now going to be a regular sponsor for Luna.

As I lounged on the sofa, my phone started buzzing and, as I gingerly looked at it, I saw that there, in bold writing, was my mother calling me. Knowing her, she will continue to ring until I actually answer it. So I thought it would be better to get what she has to say out of the way, and I accepted her call.

“Alexis?” I heard my mothers voice on the other end.

“Yes, mum?”

“Oh, good! It is you!”

“Who else would it be, mum?”

“I don’t know, anyway how is life treating you in London?”

“Not bad. To be honest, I am kinda glad for your call. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Oh? Wait…. Does that mean you’ve met someone?”

“Excuse me?” I shot up from the sofa.

“It’s not? I mean if it is, I just wanted to remind you to make sure that you are using protection, maybe go back on the pill perhaps?”

“Mum….”

“Or are you already back on it?”

“Mum!”

“If you are back on it, does that mean that you have found someone? I mean last time you were on it, it was to help with your acne… Then, when that cleared up, you stopped.”

“MOTHER!” I half yelled down the phone.

“Opp….” I heard her squeak back to reality.

“No, I have not found someone…. But, y’know, thanks for the reminder, perhaps I should back on it….”

“I mean there are always condoms, but one can never be too careful, right? But please, Alexis darling, I don’t want to be a grandma yet.”

“Isn’t that what mothers want? To become a granny?”

“And that is precisely why I don’t want to be a granny! The words ‘granny’ and ‘grandmother’ make me feel old! I’m not ready yet, I’m only 40 years old!”

Add a few more years there mum, then the age would be accurate.

“If you say so….”

Then she started speaking, not to me, but to someone else, which had to be dad, so I moved the phone away from my ear, because she was being rather loud. 

“Oh! Your dad is calling me away.” I put the phone to my ear at that time. “But do tell me all about who you met later. Bye honey, love you.”

“Bye.”

As I turned the phone screen off, and chucked it beside me, I wondered why I didn’t correct my mother? She now thinks I’m in a relationship. The only active relationship I have is the warm comfy feeling of my bed every night. Plus I sure wasn’t having an active sexual relationship either, so why did I just go with it? But I suppose there was some merit here, maybe I should go on the pill. For the future. As I lay back on the sofa, I seriously questioned my future and with who? As I thought that, the man that I came to know as Nocte came to my mind. I sat bolt upright again. God dammit. Why? But, for some reason, I found that my legs were taking me out the door and towards the nearby pharmacy.