Paintings

She was walking towards Nigel in an unhurried pace. It was neither a fast nor quick, but a slow and calm walk. Her walk's effect on the entire floor was neither of those two qualities, rather it was the complete opposite. She was the center of attention in the room, and whatever she does there will always be people watching her. In other words, her sudden action attracted the attention of the entire peanut gallery in the room.

Nigel was currently unaware of the impending crisis that he was about to suffer as he was busy trying to pacify Rena. It took a few seconds for him to realize that the entire room had gone silent. Sensing something wrong was amiss, he set Rena aside for now and scoured the whole room. He noticed the entire crowd inside the room was looking towards their direction. No, the entire crowd was looking towards a young lady who was slowly walking towards them.

It was "Master Zirque"! He didn't really notice earlier, but upon looking at her in a closer distance, he realized that she was quite a looker. She had a fiery red twin-tailed hair, tied with two yellow ribbons. She was wearing a long light brown coat over her voluptuous body, covered with a red dress. She walked similarly to how the models on fashion show walk, with more elegance and grace compared to actual models.

She stopped walked when she was about a meter away from Nigel and Rena. She tilted her head towards them and shoved her hand towards the handbag that she was wearing. What has revealed inside it was little canvas, as big as a tablet. She was looking at it with absolute focus with her sharp eyes. A few seconds elapsed when she brought the canvas back inside her handbag. She raised her hand, asking her a handshake before opening her mouth.

"Hello, you can call me 'Master Zirque'. I have important to tell you, well it be possible for us to move somewhere private?"

"…Okay. Oh, can we include her?" after which Nigel pointed to Rena who was standing in his right side.

"Only if you trust her, but I suggest that it should only be the two of us. Don't worry, I'll assign some people here to take care of her."

Nigel was in a dilemma after hearing her reply. Looking at "Master Zirque", he was able to determine that their topic of conversation is indeed going to be very serious and it might implicate both of them if not handled properly. Seeing that Nigel was hesitating on what to do, Rena thought of something then nodded to herself.

"You don't have to think, Nigel. I think what you are going to discuss with her might be personal, so I don't intend on join you guys."

"Rena, you…"

"It's fine. In fact, let's end our date today. It's getting late and I had to go somewhere today. Don't worry, I'm not mad or anything. I truly do have another place that I needed to be."

"Okay, if you say so. I'll make up to you, alright? Tell me when you are free and I'll accompany you to anywhere that you want to visit."

"Even in a love hotel?"

"Anything appropriate please."

"Sheesh, I can't even make you feel embarrassed. Anyway, see ya!"

Rena walked towards the pathway that leads to the ground floor. Nigel was still looking at her direction until her figure was gone from his vision. He turned around towards "Master Zirque" with a face painted with impatience and upset.

"Sorry for disturbing your date. If it's not important I would have preferred to contact you at a later date, but this matter is of high importance."

"…Hah. No, it's fine. It's partly because of me too. I did something wrong to her earlier and I haven't compensated her for it. I hope that our talk will be smooth and short so that I may be able to find her and continue our interrupted date."

"Then let's start immediately. Come with me. We will be going to a private room here in the museum. It had been secured by the Stroke House Company, so it should be eavesdropped free."

After speaking to Nigel, she began to turn towards one of the many paths that leads to this room. She took the one on the north-west corner, pausing for a moment and turning back to Nigel to confirm that he was indeed still following her. Both of them entered the pathway at the same time, with her going ahead of him for a bit.

The was an unnatural tense in the atmosphere as both of them were in complete silence as they traverse the swirling staircase that leads to the room where we were supposed to have a talk. A couple of minutes passed by until we reached the end of the staircase which leads to a door. Opening the door and entering the room, what they saw was a well-lit room with a table in the middle and two sofas on opposite sides. It was enough to call this room a waiting room, as it is small in size.

The table was filled with food and drinks, which was made recently as evidenced by the steam floating up from it. There was also a fridge in the corner of the room, and upon inspection, is filled with all kinds of beverage from beer to water. The odd thing about the room is that it feels like someone was living in it. There was even a huge television in the middle wall of the room. Typical of a room found inside this weird museum, it was also had a funky shaped. While the base retained a normal rectangular shape, the parts of the room going up was like something that came out from a sci-fi show. The wall was swirling in at the start, then it was jaggy, and last it became like scattered Lego.

Calling it weird was an understatement for it. The light of the room was coming from a tall perpendicular lamp placed in the middle of the room, slightly above the table. The entire layout of the room made Nigel feeling uncomfortable, while both of them sat on the sofas at opposite ends.

"So, let's start our discussion. What is it that you want to discuss with me? As far as I am concerned, this is the first time that we met, right? I don't know you, but you seem to know me."

Using a decisive tone as an opener for their discussion, Nigel attacked the core of the issue with this whole situation. Not only that, but taking an initiative with the discussion had given him a stronger position against his enemy, or counterpart in this case.

"…first, let me reintroduce myself. You might have known me as 'Master Zirque', but that's not my real name."

"Figures, it sounded cheap and lame."

"Excuse me for being cheap and lame!"

"O-oh sorry, please continue what you were talking about earlier."

'I guess having a fiery look also means having a fiery personality' Nigel thought as a response to the sudden aggressive reply that he got from her because of his small talk joke.

"That, we should. As I was saying, that wasn't my real name. I only use that alias when I'm giving my works to the company. My real name is Lune. Please call me that from now on."

"Okay, no problem Lune. So, do I need to introduce myself or should I just skip it?"

"Yeah, you have to introduce yourself. I don't even know your name."

Hearing her reply had caught Nigel off-guard. He was already assuming that they know everything about him, that they have investigated him since she dragged her to this room. 'Apparently not, huh.' Nigel thought while staring at the expecting Lune.

"My name is Nigel. I was expecting you to know that already, but apparently, you don't which makes this whole situation for me a lot more confusing. You dragged me here all alone by yourself without even knowing what kind of person I am. What if I had an evil intent? What if I had some hidden agenda?"

"What you said is all true. However, what I do know is that you are the person that I am looking for. Here, take a look at this painting."

She placed her hand inside her handbag, pulling out the small canvas that she pulled out earlier in the glass room. She placed it on the table with a gentle push and gesturing Nigel to take a look at it. What Nigel saw made him extremely surprised. There was a figure in the middle of the painting, wearing a black-robe inlaid with various Charakmanata symbols. In his hand was a wooden staff with its head literally a "head" of a one-eyed creature with tentacles acting as its hair. The body of the staff was full of carved human bodies, and the base is a spiral. 'Otherworldly' would be the best description for it.

At the back of the figure was a floating black triangle. It had a sort of red portal on the peak of its top angle, and in the center of it was an arm coming out of it. It was a sort of monster that you'll see on a sci-fi horror film. What made it shocking was the face in the figure of the painting. It resembles Nigel extremely well. No, it might not be wrong to say that the model of the painting is Nigel. He was still struggling on the meaning of this painting when Lune continued on her talk.

"This is the reason why I had to seek you out. You should know what I am popular for right? I make paintings that can predict the future. Well, technically one can say that however, that is not my real ability. You can say that creating a painting with the prediction of the future is just the byproduct of the process of activating my ability. Another thing that you probably don't know is that all of my paintings are all painted in big canvases. This is the first few times that I painted in a little canvas, with this painting being the first one, and a couple of them followed. One of the paintings that I made showed me arriving in this location for the art show and meeting you here."

Nigel was having a hard time processing the information that Lune had given to him. Thinking about it logically, it was simply impossible for all of this to happen. However, he can't deny it for as long as the person talking to him right now is the actual "Master Zirque".

Unsure of what to do next with this information in hand, both of them sat there in silence while eating the food prepared for them. No, in reality, it was only Nigel who was maintaining his silence. Lune, on the other hand, was prepared to answer whatever question Nigel throws at her.

"You okay, Nigel?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. It's just that it's very hard for me to accept all of this. Besides, do you even know what these all mean? I hope that you can start your explanations there."

"To be honest, I don't know what this painting means. I don't even understand half of the things that I produce. This is more apparent to your case, as your painting is just filled with very strange and weird things. You sure you don't have any idea on what these means?"

"If I knew what this means, I wouldn't ask you in the first place."

"That's true. However, while I don't know what this painting means I do know something else. I produce another painting that's pretty inconvenient to bring. You were also in it. Now, it's either you'll be busy for the next couple months or my ability is failing. I'd bet on the second one if I were you. In any case, I'll show it to you next time. Let's exchange numbers so that we can maintain contact, okay?"

Both of them exchange numbers with each other and then he bid her farewell as he left the museum.