At least the breeze was pleasant.
Martin stood on the sidewalk by the road, the bright evening sun beating down upon the warm concrete with it's orange rays. Rows of miscellaneous shops were lined up behind him while cars often drove past along the road. In his hand he held a clear plastic cup, already a quarter full with quarters, dimes, nickels and even a couple five dollar bills in there. It was a rather slow day for Martin as there were not a lot of people passing by on this day in particular so he wasn't making all that much money. All the while his summon, the strange being simply known as Flone, drifted amongst the soft white clouds on it's many sets of pure white feathers.
As he stood there, waiting for someone else to hopefully lend him some money so he might be able to afford food, a large rough looking fellow came up. The stranger donned a large jacket and hat his baseball cap pulled down, obscuring his face to some extent. Martin felt a little worried as this large imposing character strode up to him in his large muddy boots but he was in no way going to pass up a person's generosity based on appearances.
"Can you please spare some change?" He asked the man who was easily a foot taller than him. The man pulled his hand from his pocket and then reach over to Martins cup. Before he could respond however instead of placing money inside the cup the man dunked his hand in and yanked out a fistful of change before setting into a full dash away from him. "Hey! Wait!" Martin yelled out after the vagabond as the thief darted away from him. He tried to try and run after the man but he stumbled on his crippled leg, only succeeding in keeping himself standing as he could do nothing but watch his robber abscond with his day's worth of money.
In from above Flone spotted the crime in action and dove in towards the thief. Before it could catch the rogue however Martin held out his hand to Flone. "Stop." He commanded the summon. It halted in it's tracks, it's floating head rotating a hundred and eighty degrees around to look straight back at Martin. It turned it's head sideways in a quizzical manner as the order confused it.
"Why?" It asked in it's strange flute like voice.
"It's alright. These things happen. I can only imagine he must be in more need of that money than I if he's forced to resort to such means." He slowly hobbled his way towards his summon as he explained his rationale to it. Flone turned the rest of it's body around so it was facing Martin completely. It simply raised it's large feathered hand up and scratched the side of it's mask with a long soft finger in mild confusion. "Oay, I you ay o I ueth." (Okay, if you say so I guess.) It was never really good at speaking human languages, hence why it never really speaks much in general.
Martin looked back down into the cup. Luckily for him there was just enough money left for him to afford bus fare. Seeing as the hour was growing late and people were less likely to come by so late in the day he decided to start on his way back home. He was still amazed that he managed to land himself a spot inside a home as nice as that. Still, rent was coming up and he still needed to scrape together enough change to afford his share of the rent. He would feel awful if he were to be late in paying his share since the others were putting forth much work to fill their share of the arrangement.
After some walking Martin finally made it to the bus stop. After the bus came up and opened it's large metal doors he climbed inside, head hung low after a rather bad day of panhandling. He surrendered what little money he had left in his cup to the change box and slowly made his way to the back where he eased himself into a seat, careful not to put too much pressure on his leg while he did. The bus shut it's doors and soon made it's way out to ferry people along it's preset path. Martin was looking forward to putting the day behind him.
At least the breeze was pleasant. It was always pleasant with Flone around.
He eventually stepped off the bus at the stop closest to his new home. It was a block away so he still had a bit of walking to do before he was actually home. Home... Yes, those feelings that dwelt inside as his mind was cast back to thoughts of what he left behind. The times he might of had were he to have had chosen to remain, the consequences which he will never know of to this day. Whether or not leaving home was the best choice was a question Martin couldn't answer. Such a simple question it was too but perhaps the simplest questions were the ones with the hardest answers.
With a mild exhale of exertion he opened the door, Flone's feet not even touching the floor as it followed closely behind him. He took care to close the door gently so as to not disturb anyone. He knew that Saturday spent a great deal of her days drawing and painting given that she almost always had a paint brush with her and frequently there would be art supplies around the house too. Little details he took notice to as he sort of made it his responsibility to clean up the house in general, the respective rooms of his room mates being the obvious exception to that.
Given how he knew that he probably provided the least amount of support out of the four of them when rent was concerned he wanted to at least make himself useful in other ways just to validate his continued residence. If he were simply not providing enough to support his end of the deal he'd ultimately bite the bullet and leave so they could find someone more capable of financially supporting the household but having a warm place to sleep with a roof over his head was quite the luxury that he didn't want to surrender too easily.
He looked over the small cabinet where he kept his food. Perhaps the term would more appropriately be 'used to keep his food' as it was completely empty of food. This came as no surprise as he was well aware that he was coming up on the last couple slices of bread he had left to eat. It was more desperate desire than anything as he looked back inside again with the hopes that he had maybe missed something that he could eat. No luck, it looked like he wasn't eating that night. His stomach protested bitterly at it's deprivation but Martin simply had no choice but to ignore the pain and growls put up by his own body. He was well used to the pain by this point, hunger was nothing new to him. With a shrug he made his way over to the sink.
With a cloth rag and some dish soap he cleaned all the dishes that were dirty, most of them used by the other roommates of his seeing as Martin would have some difficulty dirtying plates with the food he wasn't having. Still, he didn't mind cleaning the other's dishes. It was all part of his desire to better relations with them so they'd be more inclined to keep him around. It was hard work, especially for someone with as little constitution as he had but his willpower was strong and his resolution carried him through the night. By the end his stomach ached with cramps and his hands smelled like soap but at the very least he could pull his own weight in this arrangement he's in, or at least that's what sounded the best in his mind.
After finishing his chores around the house which involved cleaning up stuff, vacuuming and just general maintenance he finally could let himself retire to his room to sleep for the night. His room was quite simple really. There was a blanket on the floor. He slept on that blanket. The end. Simple stuff really, it wasn't the kind of room arrangement most would pick but Martin really didn't have anything else to add to the comfort or the general decor as a whole. His wisp typically didn't stay in his room with him as it made the free spirited entity feel cooped up to be stuffed into a large box like that. It typically stayed up on the roof top where it could sleep in the comforts of the night wind until the break of dawn. This meant Martin was pretty much alone as he went about his nightly routine before heading to what could only roughly be called his bed.
As the sink ran Martin had looked into the reflection in the water and felt for only the briefest moments something he could not explain. It wasn't that he saw something that shouldn't of been there or that anything was out of order. It was just a quick hallucination as he could of sworn for the briefest second his reflection's eyes had a look to them that was not his own. Alas, it was nothing to really consider given how intangible his evidence was.
That night he tried to lull himself into sleep but every time he started to get somewhere even close to tired the spasms that wracked his body with every one of his coughing fits really stirred him from rest. Still, a person who is tired enough like himself still had the capacity to put up with a lot in exchange for some much needed rest. That was until it started happening.
A glow from beside his floor blankets stirred him from the edge of sleep, tantalizing his curiosity as he peered to get a better look through the sleepy haze that had glossed over his eyes. His cane was glowing, the glow coming in faint rhythmic pulses like it were responding to an unheard beat of some sort. This was completely foreign to anything he knew about summoning. A total phenomenon was taking place right before him, he'd have to be crazy to ignore it. Letting his curiosity run in place of better judgement he reached out and grabbed his conduit as it started to pulse faster. The moment his hand fastened around the stick it immediately erected itself vertically, nearly yanking Martin out of his bedding with the force and speed at which it stood up straight.
With the bottom tip of the cane fixed precisely against the floor of the room the light that pulsed within it drained downwards like water through a drain. It flooded out into the ground beneath the conduct, forming a summoning circle beneath the cane entirely on it's own out of the glowing arcane energy that was previously building inside it. From the outermost ring of the complex diagram that was his summoning circle shot two magical lines which stretched out into the most open section of his room before forming two additional summoning circles, each one tethered to the main circle set down by the conduit. Amazed by this spontaneous event that was taking place before his very eyes he could only look on in wonder as the event transpired. Very shortly after the two secondary summoning circles formed two large glowing white irises opened up directly above the circles, two doorways which enlarged as faint silhouettes could be seen within the portals that had formed. The two dark figures who's identities were masked by the brightness of the portals in contrast to their own lighting drew closer and closer until the entire room was enveloped in a bright flash which forced Martin to shield his eyes from it's radiance.
After the lights went dark all that was left of the event were the figures. When Martin opened his eyes he saw before him...