Snippet #2373416

It was a particularly sunny day, and one thing of note to be seen was a large black shaggy mutt of a dog running across town. He didn’t stop for more than a second, before running again almost like he was running from something. Folks around town thought he was one of the town drunk’s mutts, but he didn’t even know the hound in question. The dog’s shadow appeared on the door, and as the moments passed it grew in size and form changing from a mutt’s shadow to a man’s. The man was dressed in a black cloak and tall top hat, covering most of his face from the sun’s harsh rays. His hand coated in white silk gloves reached for the doorbell, his figure leaned on the bell until the door was opened for him.

Doesn't anyone invite me in? He asked himself as he peeked into the door. Hath everyone lost that sense of class that I so highly hold dear? It must be so. He remarked to himself and stepped into the mansion. The sun still shinning though the windows, Niko winced and quickly made his way upstairs in hopes of finding the room in which his man had gotten ready for him.
Due to his illness in which he suffers, he had to insure a room was already ready for him with the proper precautions. Such as thick black velvet curtains lining the windows, and that the modern convinces were not too complex for his old mind to comprehend. As he looked for the door his man had marked with his family crest, he reached into his pocket for the small note card he had written his bride’s name on.

The paper read Elizabeth Aurora Beckett however Niko read, Elisabetta Auroro Beketta in his strong Eastern European accent. He didn’t see anything wrong with this marriage, unlike the younger generation who no doubt felt it was old fashion. However Niko was old fashion, he still dresses the same as he’s done for a hundred years.

A wise man once said madness is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result. Maybe that man was right after all, he’s been married so many times and what has the result been? He can remember every woman’s name, Ilona, Esmeralda, Lucrezia, Veronica, Sarah, and Remembrance. Is this Elisabetta to be another name on a grave marker, to him?

At last after what seemed like forever searching, he found the room that bared his crest on the door. As he entered the room, a large Siberian husky jumped from the bed and too Niko’s feet. “Marko” the man smiled removing his gloves to pet the dog gently.“Sjedni pas” he said and the dog sat in perfect harmony. “Good dog” he said patting the dog’s head once more before removing his cloak, hat, and gloves and setting them on the bed.

The room looked more like a library then a bedroom, and for all he knew perhaps it truly was. However, it was the room with the least number of windows, and there for fewer curtains hung to the floor. Dark wooden paneling lined the remaining walls, with bookcases filled with more books then Niko cared to read. The room would do him fine, across from his bed sat a cozy fire place and a large black leather chair in front of it. He smiled as his eyes looked back at the small nightstand by the bed.

There were six pictures stretching across the table, the first was a baby portrait of a little girl three to four years old. She was seated on a white bench or table, dressed in white furs and silk. The finest for his little girl! Her hands tucked nicely in a fur muff, of the finest quality.

The next picture was of the same girl older perhaps nine, dressed in what seemed like a white dress and matching vale. Her beautiful eyes that he knew to be blue too busy reading her bible with a sting of rosary beads flowing over top. She was always devoted to religion.

Third, was a school picture of the girl standing in no particular pose, her hands behind her back hair tied up in the latest fashion, tied with a ribbon. Her eyes being not so clever look straight ahead at the camera. A Scholar, if ever he saw one.
The fourth picture was the center piece to the entire arrangement. It was a wedding portrait, as appropriate as it sounds. The girl at this point a woman seated on a bench her legs crossed and wearing a white dress and high heels. Her hair cut short, and mostly covered with a small hat only a few curls were visible. Her eyes addressed the camera, and lips smiled gently as she clutched a large bouquet of white roses at her lap. Jessamine Negrescu Crowley-Knight, his daughter and enemy.

The last two pictures were in frames together the one side of a little boy in a grassy background ridding a tricycle. His foot on the peddle of the large wheel, his socks reaching his knees before his shorts began. Under his chin a large puffy bow, that always made Niko smile when looking at him. This boy had been named for him after all, he was his grandson.
On the other side of the frame sat two girls of similar ages from six to seven, sitting on a bench in a studio wearing white dresses and holding their hands in their laps each of their hair grown short and their eyes addressing the viewer. His granddaughters, whom he always wished to know better.