The color of you is on this palette, too

@"Sparky Muse"

Niccolò Belmonte

Now, Niccolò did not usually differentiate between important days and regular days. When his dear mother Amelia Magro came calling, that was an important day. When When the head of the de Santis family came demanding some kind of ludicrous business deal -normally, it was obvious that it was ludicrous , but not which side it was ludicrous for- that was an important day. Important days, in short, were reserved almost exclusively for family matters because as a lawyer, it seemed a bit wrong to mentally categorize clients in tiers of importance. People tended to be insulted by that sort of thing. Too many grey lines and all.

But today was an exception to that rule, and it was dubbed an important day simply because Niccolò didn't think that he had ever met anybody with no knowledge of magic who had come to the island accidentally. Thus, as the responsible (-?) adult that he was, he had taken the initiative to be sober. Sober drunk. Meaning that he still had standard logical processes going on and wasn't slurring words. Because alcohol could be a force of good or evil and in his case, it was definitely a force of good.

So, there he was. Almost sober and about to welcome a girl into his house. I thought I'd never see the day. Since he had been told not to shock her too much with magical anything, he had put away anything too strange. In other words, he had sent them to Joshua to take care of, with a fat brick of cash as payment for his patience.

It was getting close to the time, just a few minutes until Lorelei Merrow should arrive. Standing at the edge of the sidewalk, Niccolò took the opportunity to glance back at his house, wondering if he had remembered to clean everything. Women had this tendency to like things being extremely clean so he had gone over the house another time with a mop after his weekly cleaner had left.

Hopefully she would be able to find her way without any issues. He wasn't sure if somebody would be leading her or if they had just thrown her out of the hospital with directions. 38 Mulberry Court, the two story yellow Elizabethan. The Ms. Merriweather who had sold him the house had pushed him pretty hard to buy it and Niccolò, always wanting to accommodate a lady, had gone ahead and done just that.

Niccolò Belmonte

As it turned out, Lorelei hadn't need to worry about her appearance at all. For one, Niccolò was never the sort to think anything bad about a lady. For another, he was too busy studying the feel of her aura. The moment that her car had pulled up, he couldn't help but notice how beautiful it was. True, Niccolò thought that all aurae were beautiful but that was besides the point.

Paschalis had told him, somewhat reluctantly, about this Merrow clan that the girl was supposedly a part of and while the lawyer wasn't entirely sure if aurae really did represent people's inner beings, he thought at once that the young woman in the car just had to be the one that he was looking for. Even from behind the tinted windows, he could see fluid mass of ocean greens and blues that transitioning from one shade to another in wave like patterns.

He sighed quietly as the scent of seawater washed over him. Sometimes it was nice to be sober. Almost sober. Yes. As the young woman with the oceanic aura asked him her question, he beamed and stuck his hand out. "You must be Miss, ah, Baker!" Somebody had told him that she was using a fake name, right? His memory was pretty good but it would have been embarrassing to have gotten that wrong. "My cousin's told me about you. I'm Niccolò Belmonte. Just Niccolò is fine!"

Niccolò Belmonte

"No, it's completely all right!" Niccolò reassured "Miranda" with a boisterous laugh. "I pretty much volunteered, after all!" Well, it was more like being volun-told but luckily, he was the type to just roll with what was happening. What was the point in making a big fuss over the little things? When people did that, they never got to take a moment and really see the beautiful things around them.

"In any case, don't be so quick to give up on your dreams. You're still so young, so why rush towards getting any older? Things like cynicism are made for people far older than the two of us here!" Nothing made a person age more than just plain giving up and he'd be damned if he let tragedies like that happen without a word.

Leading the way into the house, Niccolò quickly thought of all the sweet things that he had immediately available. That was supposed to help people feel better, that and alcohol. He wasn't sure if he was allowed to give alcohol to her, actually, not because of legal reasons but because Paschalis wasn't sure how it would affect her.

"Huh, what?" He stopped halfway through unlocking the door to his house. It took his mind a moment to go back and pick up what Miranda had said. He frowned a little as he thought. "Oh. Asian, white hair, scar, tattoo. I think I probably have an idea of who you're talking about. You'll probably want to stay away from him. He's not exactly a big fish here but he's not a little one either. Most of what's written on him is for misdemeanors, although the number is kind of worrying."

Shrugging, Niccolò pushed open the door, gesturing for Miranda to step instead. What she would find was a spacious, not very furnished house, with polished floors and every window appearing to be stained glass. In the living room, there was a large cream colored couch and a matching ottoman, as well as a black wood coffee table. There was a fireplace, although it looked like it was either meant for show only or had not been used in a very long time. In one corner, there was a grand piano.

"Besides that one man, though, I'm glad to hear that you've had a relatively decent stay." Conspiratorially, Niccolò said, "If you've had any problems with a blue haired doctor, now's the time to let me know. Lily's my cousin so I feel safe in saying that I could probably discourage him quite a bit from being rude." It helped that he had an embarrassing nickname, too.

Sorry for the extreme lateness!

Niccolò Belmonte

"Oh, I have a maid who comes in every so often to make sure I don't turn the place into a pigsty," Niccolò said with a slightly self-deprecating laugh. "Most of the time, I'm working out the daily grind so the few days that I have off, I just like to kick back and leave it all behind. Then in the mornings after, well. Back to the routine, and just no time at all to pick up after myself. Still, glad to hear that Lily is being slightly warmer than his usual ice queen self." Which wasn't exactly what she had said but Niccolò was in a pretty good mood and therefore liable to take some liberties with interpretation.

Following Miranda about his living room, he wasn't entirely sure how to proceed. Was it late enough for an early dinner yet? Should he show her her room and get something ready? Or should he just show her where everything was first, and then let her wander around until then?

As he pondered that, there was a sparkle of something that caught his eye. Maybe it was just a glint of light reflecting off of the fireplace that Miranda was now looking at. Before he had much time to look any more deeply into the matter, however, the young woman started speaking again. Niccolò, being mostly a gentlemen, had to listen.

"Malédiction de Grimoire de Sang Mémoire, huh?" he said. "That would mean something like, oh. Hm. Curse of the Book of Blood Memory? I wouldn't quote myself on that, though. It's been a while since I've had the chance to exercise some French so I've probably mixed around a few of those words. It's kind of an odd title, though."

But Miranda was right. There was something about it that Niccolò felt was important, but he wasn't quite sure what it was. It was just a vague feeling.

Well, no point in dwelling on it. Paschalis probably already had an idea about what that was all about. The question was, would he feel motivated enough to research it all out? Niccolò knew that his cousin had a tendency to stay away from anything that looked like it had the potential to sprout into a real problem, if it meant that he'd be the only one to handle it. Paschalis didn't like having all the responsibility shoved onto his back, in other words.

"It sounds like you had a pretty interesting childhood at least," he said, moving on. "If you'd like, I could show you your room now?"

Niccolò Belmonte

Mentally, Niccolò erased everything else that he had been planning for them to do. It hadn't been much more than a skeleton of a plan anyways. Setting aside the thought of what exactly he was supposed to do for their dinner -if she even wanted it- the man smiled and shrugged. "Sure, it's upstairs," he said cheerfully. "The room's a bit plain so I hope you won't mind it too much."

Exiting the living room through the right hallway, he led the young woman passed two more sets of sparsely furnished but tidy rooms before ascending the stairs. The room that he had picked for her was the third one to the left of the top of the staircase. Since he hadn't been sure whether he was supposed to put her closer to it or further from it -what was propriety, again? Something vaguely related to his childhood- he had settled for something in the middle.

"Well, here it is! I hope it's okay?" Niccolò said to her as he showed her the room. It was themeless except for a vibrant shade of yellow that seemed to be everywhere, furnished with a vanity, a four poster bed, a dresser, and a desk and chair. A closet and bathroom were adjacent to each other on the left side, in the farthest corner from the door.

"Just for future reference, if you get restless, some of the doors on this floor are locked since they're more or less established guestrooms for particular people." They were also far better decorated and lived in than this one, which was why Niccolò felt a little relieved that Miranda wouldn't be able to see them and compare. Hers in contrast was essentially a work in progress that he had kept putting off for a rainy day. Again and again.

"Anyways, I'll leave you to it! If you need anything, just call my name."