Noth’s angel had been beaming at him with a soft, proud smile, but when he asked her how to fix this mess her face fell just a bit. She almost looked peeved that he’d ever even asked her such a question. The look grew even further annoyed as she glanced over to the boy’s writhing father, still screaming his head off in the background. The angel huffed and muttered something that Noth couldn’t hear, and soon after with a flick of her wrist, the noise suddenly stopped. The boy timidly turned his head to his father, and his eyes grew a little wider as he realized that the noise had stopped because he had stopped. The man was frozen in place in an almost impossible, if not uncomfortable, position. As Noth took a step towards his father to get a closer look at the oddity, his arm was all of a sudden seized, and an a graceful hand was gently brought to his cheek to turn his head back around.

His angel looked slightly guilty... Or maybe disappointed.

“N-n-no. I hate it. It’s horrible.”

The more Noth frowned, the deeper it seemed that the angel would pout, and after a short while of staring into the boy’s face, she let out a long sigh and hugged his face into her chest.

The boy pulled back for a moment to glance up at her face. His angel seemed to be showing a mix of emotions, ranging from disappointed to apologetic to impatient, but the resigned acceptance that he eventually discerned was what put his heart at ease. He pulled back in and hugged her tight, embarrassment be damned. Who cared if he was too old for this stuff, he was still a kid, and he greatly needed the comfort right now. She gently rubbed his back, while he squeezed her and just breathed as they embraced. After a small amount of time Noth finally pushed away, not letting himself make eye contact with the angel, and slightly turned towards his father.

“We should um… help him.”

His angel giggled at him, a loving and pleased look beaming down at him from her countenance. Noth could almost feel that look, and it felt like he would get feverish from the steadily rising heat in his cheeks and ears. However, to counter that heat, every step that the boy took towards his suspended father seemed to make him feel colder and colder. The two climates seemed to wage war against each other inside of him.

He was scared.

He was confused.

He was hopeful.

He was sorry.

But when the angel fluttered beside him and he took her hand, it seemed that his heart calmed down and the battle was won. Yes, he could do this. He wasn’t alone anymore, nor was he powerless; In fact, that hadn’t been the case for just short of two years now. He no longer had to just stand by and let bad things happen against his will. He would no longer accept unfavourable circumstances. Noth gripped the hand of his angel tighter. He’d been given this power, and he would trust in it and make the best use of it that he could. The boy looked up at the spirit, his face more resolved than before.

“What do I need to do?”

“Which is…?”

The angel giggled once again at the frustrated and impatient look on his face at her response. She knelt down, placing her head next to the boy, their eyes both on the same parallel as they looked upon his father.

She was right. No matter how guilty he felt, or how much he thought that his father didn’t deserve this, he couldn’t truthfully even think that his father wasn’t a monster. Even after all the vague coddling and love his father had shown him during his return to the Kieran manor, he still had only slightly absolved the man of the ugly monster image that he’d placed upon him. A cowardly monster didn’t just suddenly cease being a monster. This option would prove to be impossible, and knowing himself as much as he did, the boy was pretty certain he’d be too stubborn to ever use this first option, even in a similar situation.

“...And what’s the other way?”

Noth was sure his angel was trying to give him a reassuring smile, but he could easily see that it was a bit off. Either she wasn’t actually sure about what she was saying, or she wasn’t telling him something, yet again. The boy had to stop himself from huffing, pouting, and obsessing about being left out of the loop for the umpteenth time. If he had to, he could do all that later; For now, his poor frozen dad was the biggest concern. It took him a while to think up what exact wish he would make, and after adding, removing, and rethinking pieces of it again and again, he settled on just what he would say. This was going to be a big wish, and he’d been told that they worked exceptionally better the more flourish and pomp he put into them. He glanced at the expectant look on his angel’s face, and his cheeks reddened slightly as he clasped his hands together and bowed his head in reverence.

“Oh merciful God-dess, who watches over us all. Please save my unsightly father, an unlucky man who deserved none of this sudden cruelty. I wish he would go back to the man he was, and no longer suffer from this hardship, transformation, and madness. Oh, and I also wish he wouldn’t remember this whole ordeal!”

There was a definite cracking sound coming from the boy's bracelet. An almost searing heat mixed with a familiar buzzing assaulted Noth through the accessory, and his eyes almost felt like something was crawling into them from under his eyelids. He tried to close them, but the bright glow that started to emanate from his father’s body convinced the curious child to instead keep them wide open. The monster frozen in front of him was gradually looking more and more human, although the transformation was happening quite slowly. Noth caught the graceful wave of his angel’s hand out of the corner of his eye, and the glowing body of his father subsequently landed on the room’s bed, laid down in a much more relaxed and much less frozen position.

The boy nodded, and after giving his father one last long look, he left the room. He found the doctor and the Earl’s personal maids and harshly warned them not to approach the room in his best ‘disagreeable young master’ act, and when he was satisfied that they wouldn’t peep in on his father, he skulked out of the mansion.

~~~

A half hour had passed since Noth had left the manor like he was running away from something. He needed a moment to just rest and not think of anything, and also to come to terms with everything, to process his feelings on it all, and to accept all of the craziness that he’d just had to witness up close and first hand. The boy found a big tree on the front lawn that he had once played with his mother around when he was much younger, and he practically flopped down on the ground against its base. He stared off blankly into the distantly blue sky, feeling the breeze leisurely blow by as he let his mind do whatever it needed to work again. His body felt as heavy as the inside of his head.

Just as the boy’s eyelids were starting to slowly close, a long shadow was cast over him, and his now reopened eyes quickly became stuck to the source of it. Jeck was there, standing in front of him, with an obviously forced smile plastered across his face.

Actually, for a moment, Noth had understandably managed to forget about Jeck, considering that such an impossible thing had happened to the boy just earlier. If not for the distraction of the prior events, Noth would have never let himself just idle so obviously out in the open like this. It was almost as if he’d simply been asking to be caught. The boy sighed inwardly, accepting that his brief moment of peace and contemplation was already thoroughly broken with the appearance of this man. He didn’t quite have the energy to really deal with Jeck right at this moment, but he also wasn’t the type to just simply back down when challenged, either. Noth did his best to gather his nerves as the snake opened his mouth.

“I finally managed to track you down, young master. I swear, I kept almost running into you but then you’d suddenly disappear every time. Why, if I didn’t know any better I’d say that you must have been avoiding me, although I know that you’d never do something so horribly rude to a guest like me, right? You must have been exceptionally busy, what with all your duties, responsibilities, and the all too sudden ailing of your father. So busy, in fact, that you couldn’t even show up to the classes that that same loving and gracious father had set up for you.”

Noth grimaced as he listened to the deluge of words pouring out of the snake’s mouth, but he especially pulled a face at the word ‘gracious’. He could already see where this guilt trip was going, and he really didn’t feel like wasting the time to see how bold of an insult the man could eventually work up to right now, so he decided to end all of this and go home as quickly as he could. He stood up and brushed himself off, not letting his eyes even so much as glance towards the man in front of him as he talked in the most bored and bothered tone that he could manage.

“Oh yes, right, the ‘painter’. You’re so correct and quite thoughtful to have realized how hard my circumstances have been. Thanks. I’ll do my best to make some time to show up to your next class, so wait for me there. Well then.”

He turned without a goodbye or even a nod, and left the clearly fuming snake, striding away with as much authority in his steps as he could muster. The angel who had been perched on a branch of the tree all along, watching the whole situation unfold, drifted down after him, her clear, tinkling laughter following them all the way back home.

~~~

“Why didn’t you warn me that he was coming at all?”

His angel’s big, cheesy, unapologetic smile made the boy want to sigh, but he held it in.

“Whatever I guess, just make sure you actually alert me from now on, okay?”

He rolled over onto his other side in his bed, looking at the wall instead of her. It had been a long and eventful day. Noth just needed to sleep it all off and deal with the aftermath tomorrow. His ‘class’ with the snake wouldn’t be until the afternoon, so if he woke up early enough, he could somehow manage to work the fine details of his plans out. He pulled his covers under his chin and closed his eyes, letting the sleep embrace him, but the feeling of another person cuddling up to him under the covers made him open his eyes again with slight annoyance.

The boy huffed and glanced back at her, noting the amused yet mildly concerned look draped over the angel’s countenance. He snuggled back into place and once more closed his eyes.

“It’s simple, I’ll set a trap fit for a snake. All I have to do is show up and see what creative little insults he can come up with for me, and then show him how little his words mean to me; That’ll rattle that monster up for sure. And then, when he gets upset and acts a bit more dangerously, that’s when I’ll get him.”

The sound of his angel giggling through her hand like they were up to something mischievous together made Noth smile just the tiniest bit.

~~~

The pair arose in time to watch the sunrise, ate a very early breakfast, and let Noth stew over his fun new scheme for the day. However, their planning was interrupted when a servant warily came to the villa to notify the boy that his father had awoken, and was requesting for his presence immediately. The two rushed over quickly, concern plastered on Noth’s face that maybe something had gone wrong with his wish. He all but threw open the door to the Earl’s chambers, and rushed to the man sitting up in the bed. After a thorough check of all the areas that had transformed on his father previously, Noth let out a long, relieved sigh at the fact that his father looked human once again. The Earl chuckled at his son’s antics, a carefree and happy look evident on his face.

“Glad to see you were worried about me, my son. Seems you do actually care for this old man, no matter how much you tend to hide it.”

The boy pouted at his father’s slightly teasing words, his arms crossing and his face turning ever so slightly away in a small show of rejection.

“Yeah, okay. I heard you’re supposed to be all better now. Is anything still wrong?”

“No, I’ve heard that with a little bit of rehabilitation I should be right as rain again soon. It must have been hard on you, being the master of the house while I was out. You can complain to me, you know, son.”

The Earl pet his adorable son’s head, even as the boy’s shoulders hunched up a little from the contact. Noth contemplated just leaving if he was going to be treated this way, but suddenly the boy perked up. An almost impish look crossed his face for a split second, before he quickly used his meager acting skills to put on the most teary looking face he could manage.

“Actually, father, something bad happened while you were going through that terrible sickness, and I missed you so much and had nowhere to turn to. I was told awful things, and I was really scared and confused about what to do…”

The boy peeked up at his father through trembling eyelashes.

“...Could you please help me? It’s about one of my classes.”