Selenophilia

Seventeen

"Elise "

Elise grumbled sleepily before swatting the annoying bug away.

"Elise, you shouldn't be like that."

Why is the bug even talking? It's annoying.

"Mm.... 'ut up..." Elise slurred, still half asleep.

"You'll miss breakfast." The annoying bug said, shaking her shoulder some more making her finally whine childishly.

Nobody messes with her relationship with sleep. Nobody has the right to break them up!

"Sleep 's mo' important..." Elise heard the bug chuckle at that. "Food can wait."

After that, nobody bothered her but somebody did pull down her warm, comfy blanket and then opened the curtains, letting the awful sun come in like the uninvited guest in her room!

Elise suddenly jumped up and hissed upon being greeted by the light.

And being greeted by ....

Serafino?

"Wake up." He ordered gently with a gentle smile on his face. It was the first positive reaction she saw from the man. She hadn't been close to him ever since he and his wife entered her life. He was more of a phantom in every way possible.

Serafino was like a literal phantom where Elise wouldn't see him for days, just glances of the man before vanishing off to somewhere. She wanted to reach out to him, to talk, to do something, to create some sort of bond with him for her own sake, but the man was barely even showing himself to her and it was frustrating!

And when she does see him, he would be a phantom of her past, glaring at her like a bug that escapes. His expressions were painted from the past, dirty and unexplained.

But standing before her, she didn't see any of those.

Which was weird.

She saw a peculiar man with his skin as white as the first fall of snow showering upon the ground of dirt but looked as warm as the gentle sunlight of spring.

His hair was groomed to perfection, the color was as dark as a raven or as a crow. Combed to be shown as an example to his children, the embodiment of crucial etiquette.

His eyes were as sharp as the claws of a predator, calculative and well-mannered where it held valuable secrets and unknown knowledge that Elise could have impossibly imagine. Eyes as red as blood dripping out of your skin.

A man whose aura was of a monster, different from the others. His fangs would show whenever he talks, it glints and makes Elise slightly shiver at the thought of thrusting down unto her skin.

Yet, sometimes his aura was as warm as the summer breeze caressing your sides and your skin. You would want to enjoy his presence at times.

In short, Serafino was a lot of things.

He was an embodiment of complexity, sometimes he was like an open book. Sometimes, a father, sometimes a monster hidden behind the corridor walls of the mansion, away from her human sight.

"Did someone forcibly kick you in here and then locked you up like a trapped, poor, boo-hoo little animal and suddenly made the doors and the windows have superpowers?" Elise bluntly asks, not skipping another second to do so because damn it!—this happens too often to just be a crazy dream.

"That sounds horribly morbid." He comments. "And an abuse of power and authority."

Elise looked at him seriously, causing him to snort.