Cardan was a twilight creature, even if Jude had other plans for him.
He was not suited to a diurnal lifestyle, sleeping through the night to rise for work at dawn. It was a slow form of torture for which his new boss was both the cause and cure. While his nights were naturally sleepless, Jude made the days manageable with her company, and her coffee. Because, like so many lifeless souls ferried through Cosmic Brew each morning, Cardan had come to depend quite heavily on the common mortal brew. He might have liked a try at preparing coffee himself, but Jude was fiercely protective of her machine.
Now, more than a week of sleepless nights had passed since his first as Jude's houseguest. He was fortunate to have found a project to occupy his wakeful moonlit hours.
Gardening.
Or, resurrecting. Jude was a formidable killer of plants, so there was no shortage of work for him.
He was halfway through a plant revival right now. With a concentration of will and a pinch of creative direction, Cardan trained a rope of newgrown ivy to twist along the balcony railing. Green things now sprouted in every pot and planter box. Even in the cracks between the balcony's concrete tiles, things grew.
An icy lick of wind lifted his eyes from the ivy plant. The slant of moonlight told him it was roughly three in the morning. He yawned in vain.
The streets below still teamed with life, though. Night creatures. Kindreds.
Cardan peered over the railing to survey his kingdom. His subjects were the drunk and disorderly. The glittering bodies queueing outside buildings that pulsed with light and music, and all the cars that came to collect them afterward. Soon all evidence of their debauchery would be swallowed by rumbling machines equipped with whirling brushes.
For now, another sort of rumbling had erupted indoors. Jude was snoring again.
She had become a bundle of limbs and blankets on the couch, only ever able to manage half a film before sleep claimed her. The Kiki's Delivery Service title menu repeated on the screen before her. The same bit of music. The same flickering light, over and over and over. He had hummed along at first. Now it just made his eye twitch.
