An ode to alcohol and aurae tinted sanity

Niccolò Belmonte

Because it was a Monday and the temperature was above seventy degrees Fahrenheit, Niccolò was therefore most certainly drunk out of his mind. Granted, this was his normal state but today was special. Today he was wearing new Italian shoes. To him this was important for two reasons : One, he had shoes that he hadn't gotten covered in muck and vomit yet. Two, he had shoes that he hadn't gotten covered in muck and vomit yet.

Niccolò giggled a little to himself as he half danced, half swayed down the sidewalk. Shoes...Sues. Seuss. I bet his aura was beeaaautiful. He was admittedly having a little too much fun with being drunk that day. Probably because he had just finished off a good eight shots at the bar and knew pretty well -damn well, yeah!- that there would be no annoying hangover in the morning. It really made his day to see all of those other men at the bar drink themselves under the table while he was still consciously and somewhat in his right mind.

Somewhat. Emphasis on the somewhat.

I am perfectly sober, the man thought as he hiccuped. To prove it to himself, he recited off the third article of the Manta Carlos city code. If any telepaths had been passing by, they might have been startled to discover that past the internal drunken lisps, it was perfectly memorized. Definitely sober. He pumped a fist right in the middle of the street, drawing stares.

He didn't mind them too much. As far as he saw it, the more people who were staring, the more people who were standing still long enough for him to see all of their aurae. Ever since arriving at Manta Carlos, Niccolò had never seen such a wonderful variety. The combinations of color and smell -taste, but telling people that sometimes ran them off for forever so he didn't normally say anything about that nowadays- were the most intense on the island as well.

Ha! That one! he mentally picked out several aurae in his mind, intending to copy them in some form later. The man hummed to himself contentedly as he planned medium. Yes, it was good being him, there was no denying it.

He let out a loud belch.

Niccolò Belmonte

Even amid his drunken revelry, Niccolò was still -perfectly, thank you, yessir!- capable of detecting an unusual aura in the sea of relative normalcy. There was a delicious scent in the air, metaphorically for once actually, that smelled like brunt charcoal. When people thought of artistic value, they usually thought of bright shining things or dark, haunting things. It was rare for the smell of soot to be called beautiful but Niccolò had a rather unique sense of style that many were unable to understand. He liked to think of it in relation to the old Heian Japanese 物の哀れ. Only more intense! Yeaaah, way more!

His unfocused eyes fell on a man sitting on a bench and Niccolò knew that this one, this one was the one. The one with the striking aura, he meant, yep. The hazy feel of alcohol on his brain was making him giddy as usual. The mild heat that the particular aura was giving off, too, was especially impressive. It wasn't just simple warmth like most other people. No, this one was like a bonfire.

Hey, that's preeeetty nice, the very drunk man thought as the unassuming grey aura suddenly flashed yellow, green, and blue. Think Joshua might like that one? he wondered to himself. Actually, you know what? Screw it. Because okay, Joshua was kind of a friend but he was also a pretty business-minded shopkeeper. If he got his hands on something rare, he would make damn sure that he sold it off at a ludicrous price, which wasn't what Niccolò intended for at all!

Hiccuping, the Italian whipped out his phone and quickly wrote a surprisingly coherent text.

Josh, found nice aura. You can't have it. Ha.

Because it seemed right to do so, he added in three more Ha's before pressing the key to send it.

And also, since there was nothing creepy about Niccolò in the least, he stumbled over to the man with the deliciously scented aura. Swaying a little, he rested his palm on the top of the bench back to steady himself as he spoke. "Hey," he said with a plastered, shit-eating grin on his face. "That's a nice aura you have there. Mind if I study it for a while?"

Niccolò Belmonte

Oh yeaaah! Niccolò pumped a fist in victory and hiccuped as he sat on the bench next to the man. It was so rare that people actually took him at face value like this guy did. "That's great because lemme tell ya that aurae are reeaaaal nice," the Italian slurred, leaning straight into the other man's personal space and squinting as he peered into the flares of color. "Not many people can 'ppreciate it, mhm." Except Joshua but Joshua just was in it for the money.

Mentally, he was making a note of this particular aura in front of him. The basic color looked like this really boring shade of grey or black but right now, there was like, a bunch of rainbows shoved right into it! "That's fucking awesome!" Niccolò muttered to himself, giggling madly. Yeah, there was nothing creepy about the Italian at all.

He wondered how he should best replicate that effect. Lava lamp? Oh, yessss. Lava lamps were cool. The charcoal smell shouldn't be too difficult to get either, which kind of disappointed him. There were just no layers to that smell at all!

The man with the charcoal scented aura asked a question that Niccolò was really only half paying attention to. "Uh, cat? Oh, yeah, they've got some aurae, too. Everything living kind of does but human, mortal, intelligent, whatever ones are the brightest, most prettiest, most interesting." Did he say prettiest yet? He thought he did.

"Ohhh, now that's nice," he said, poking the aura with an unsteady hand. This man's aura had heat and cold pockets all over it! Now that pretty much made up for the one dimensional smell. On a whim, Niccolò licked the air where the aura was wafting at. It was cold on his tongue and relatively tasteless.

"Okay," he said with a big, bright grin, because people tended to think that tasting was the weirdest part of his powers and he definitely needed to reassure them that awesome stuff was awesomely happening. "That's snow for ya, yeeeep! Didn't even know aurae could taste like that!" He nodded a few times earnestly, in an uh-huh, you agree with me, too, right? Riiiiight? sort of way.

Niccolò Belmonte

"Russian, huh? One of the ladies up at the hospital is this auburn haired one," Niccolò remarked absently, still studying the way that the colors were swimming in the other man's aura. "But yeah, anywaysss...That makes sense! Aurae don't usually but maybe that's just because people don't say much about themselves."

There were some very interesting arcs of cool colored rainbows going on, the Italian noted. Those were definitely going into the finished product! Now how to recreate that, he wondered.

"Eh, I'm just going to copy this aura in some way, some how," Niccolò told the Russian man. "Gotta find a good medium for it." He paused. "I'm thinking lava lamps. And hey, what's your name?" It was nice knowing who he was copying from, after all!

Niccolò Belmonte

Niccolò threw back his head and laughed at the other man -Sasha, isn't that short for Alexander or something?- assumption. "Nope, actually," he said proudly, "my powers give me a belly of iron." Which was unbelievably good luck but Niccolò was kind of known for that kind of thing these days. Reeeaaally good being me. "I have clients at the hospital sometimes. I'm a lawyer." He said the last part with a nod and a drunken grin.

"So anyways!" The Italian stretched his arms luxuriously and leaned back over the bench, facing the sky for a little bit. "Don't you worry about money okay, Sasha? I'm a law abiding person myself, after all." To prove this, he lazily went through his pockets and threw a fat wad of cash into Sasha's lap. It wasn't like he needed it too much, anyways. Niccolò, after all, was loaded. "Niccolò Belmonte, nice to meet ya."

He belched, loudly, and chuckled to himself. To nobody in particular, he remarked, "I need another drink..."