"Sweetie, look at me." a women's voice kindly demanded. It was familiar. It's warmth kept Mortimer even more firmly weighted to the soft grass where he lie. He was staring at the pitch sky, filled with stars so bright that there must have been no light for miles. They were magnetic and he didn't understand why. What was making him admire them to the point of forcing his gaze to his companion? After a reluctant moment he obeyed. There she was, Alicia.

"These stars... For a moment I felt like I never wanted to look away from them." He said quietly to the beautiful blue eyes staring back at him, "I get them same feeling looking at you, now."

It was true, Mortimer's words were spoken as he thought them, as if he was overcome with excitement. The question of why still lingered.

Alicia wore a grin under a flushed face, how she always was with compliments. It was such a darling trait she had. Her head and golden hair made the slightest movement on his arm while she let out a silent titter.
"Your obsession with words is always proving itself to be a good thing." She commented.

"It's my obsession with you."

"Sweetie!"

He rolled over and embraced-

A wooden desk. The one Mortimer fell asleep on instead of the still-made bed to his side. He lifted his head from his crossed arms, glaring at the spot his lips met the furniture. Anger slowly vanished and left something empty in him. Under his hands was a piece of parchment from a drawer of his unlikely fling. On it was a codex of the past twenty four hours in his neat handwriting.

[indent][i]An entirely strange feeling overcame me in the morning. The book at my beside scared me by just how aware I was of it's presence, like someone was right behind me. The pages seemed to hold less content and I had finished it before breakfast. (A good read, for a $1 paperback out of some rundown department store.) I left to attend the Minister's morning meeting, acted as his scribe, and made rounds with him. Nothing but a couple of broken Jens and some citizen complaints, which he addressed very professionally. He has been a compassionate man since I have met him. He relieved me early today without notice, but that could've been because I was distracted by everything around me. None of my friends around town had found anything new for me. When I arrived home, a shuttle was waiting for me. I packed some essentials, my journal, "The Stranger" by Albert Camus (the only thing small enough to fit, or worth it), and a spare suit-jacket and trousers into my bulging messenger bag. Then, off we headed to first haven. The service has been exceptional. My clothes were pressed, I was fed well, and I was given reading material similar to the size of my collection to choose from. One of the caterers mistook me for an Italian, like himself. He brought me a book to read personally and spoke something that sounded friendly. I just nodded and smiled with a muttered "grazie" because the title alone seemed to be apparent, but then the entire book became so. 

Needless to say, I am excited to speak to Arken.[/i][/indent]

Mortimer folded the excerpt and slipped it into his journal. A knock came then, and a foreign accent piped about getting ready. So he did...

Shortly, He was buttoning the top button of his charcoal grey Italian suit over a black vest and white collared shirt. This was his favorite set, made so by the way his black shoes, vest, and handkerchief accentuated without color. Two pens and a folded sheet of paper went inside his jacket, his bag hung at his back over his shoulder, and the Italian book was set aside to find easily. It was time to go.

A few steps later, Mortimer found himself with his weight on his heels, hands in his pockets, and eyes on this gathering of strange VIPs. [i]What a mixed group,[/i] He thought, [i]What a day we are going to have.[/i]