"Well that's great for you Maddie, but I'm sure that this isn't a competition right Annie?" asked Matt as he turned to look at Annie.
"Right" said Annie as she smiled and nodded.
"So do you have an idea of what you want to do?" asked Matt as Annie nodded.
"Yes I do, like Maddie said, I want to do something colourful" said Annie as she smiled.
"I called it, you see, I know you too well!!" said Maddie triumphantly as that caused Annie to laugh.
"Well yes, you do know me well" said Annie as she laughed.
"And what about you Matt, what do you have in mind to paint?" asked Annie as she looked at him happily.
"Well I'm not really sure... but what I do know for sure is that I want to do something that emanates the feeling of being outdoors" said Matt.
"You know like in the vampire realms, the cabin woods, the vast green forests that smell of sharp pine... it feels like home honestly" said Matt as he smiled and Annie smiled softly at him.
"You sound homesick Matt" said Annie sadly.
"I am honestly, but I prefer being here with you guys" said Matt as he replied honestly and smiled.
"You want to go back to the vampire realms?" asked Annie.
"Of course I do, but I don't want to leave you both alone" said Matt as Maddie cleared her throat in order to get attention.
"He means only you Annie, I can survive pretty well without Matt in my life" said Maddie as Annie laughed.
"Right Maddie, admit it, you're going to miss me, and miss arguing with me more" said Matt as he smiled and Maddie scoffed as she already started painting the bland brown wall a deep rich emerald green.
"*Ahem* Back to the painting, I was thinking of maybe painting a mural of trees and a sunset on the wall" said Matt.
"That's a great idea Matt, I'm sure that would look absolutely beautiful" said Annie as she smiled.
"Yeah, that's if he can pull it off" said Maddie as she scoffed.
"Don't worry yourself Maddie, I surely will, and when I do, I will win" said Matt as Maddie turned around quickly.
"Aha!!! I told you it's a competition" said Maddie as she smiled happily, she was right.
"It wasn't before, but now it is" said Matt as he opened the bucket of brown paint.
"The two of you are something else really..." said Annie as she shook her head, but there was nothing wrong with a little friendly competition.
"Hey don't use up all the brown paint, I need it for my side as well" said Maddie.
"I won't use it all up if you share your green paint with me" replied Matt with a smile.
"Fine, smart, using what you have as an advantage" said Maddie.
"Because you won't share naturally" said Matt as Maddie scoffed and continued painting.
"Just don't let this fight of yours go too far guys" said Annie, she didn't need their competitiveness turning into a full blown fight.
"Don't worry Annie, we'll be fine" said Matt as he smiled and Annie shook her head.
"Hey, does anyone plan on using purple, pink, blue and white?" asked Annie as Maddie and Matt both shook their heads.
"Alright then, I'm using them" said Annie as she smiled.
"And oh I am also using your barrier spell idea Maddie" said Annie as Maddie waved her off to gesture that she was allowed to do whatever she wanted.
And thus the three of them began their separate journeys in painting.
Matt used his magic to demarcate triangles with jagged edges so they remained plain while he changed his mind and painted the wall blue.
Maddie got tired of using her hand to paint so quickly that she just casted a spell on her roller as she moved her finger in an up and down motion as the roller imitated what she did.
Maddie separated her wall into three spaces, the middle was going to be painted grey while the two sides would be this nice shade of emerald green.
Maddie decided to work faster by casting a spell on another roller as she painted the other side green.
Annie decided that she wanted to make a splash effect with all her bright colours, so all she did was use her paintbrush to splash paint on the ground and walls carefully.
...
"How's yours coming along?" asked Maddie as she smiled and looked at Annie and Matt.
"Mine looks pretty good and basic right now" said Matt as he smiled, his wall had now been painted fully blue with the bottom part painted brown he was about to start painting his trees.
"Mine is messy that's for sure" said Annie as she laughed.
"And I just realized that I want the celling to match with the wall and floors so yeah that's going to be fun" said Annie as she smiled and Maddie laughed.
"I can guess how you are going to get there" said Maddie as she laughed.
"How?" asked Annie as she looked at Maddie who counted down from 3 with her fingers.
"Levitatis" said Annie and Maddie in a chorus as Annie gasped.
"No way, you didn't just say that" said Annie in shock as Matt laughed.
"Yes I did, I mean that's your most predictable move" said Maddie.
"No it's not" said Annie.
"It kind of is" said Matt as he laughed and Annie laughed, she couldn't believe this, they were spending too much time together.
"Yeah, yeah, well alright, you got me there" said Annie as she dipped her paintbrush again as she floated in the air and she started splashing paint on the celling.
"As for me, I'm going to go brown with the celling to match the floors, which I am keeping brown" said Maddie as she actually liked the brown wooden floors, they were casual and she liked that.
"I might paint the floors green, who knows?" asked Matt as Maddie sat down on the ground and continued controlling her rollers.
"Isn't that more work than painting manually?" asked Matt.
"No, it's definitely easier" said Maddie.
"Even though you are technically straining your fingers?" asked Matt in confusion.
"If it's magic, it's easier and so worth it" said Maddie as Annie snickered and Matt looked at her in disbelief.
"Matt, you know that Maddie is addicted to magic, so no surprise there" said Annie as she floated upside down and Matt looked up at her.
"That she does..." replied Matt as he continued painting.
"So how is everything going on in here?" asked Captious as he walked into the room with a smile.
"It's going good" replied Maddie.
"Fine" replied Matt.
"Everything is fine Uncle Capi" said Annie as she smiled and looked at him as he looked up.
"That's good to hear, what are you doing all the way up there Annie?" asked Captious in amusement.
"I want the celling to match with the splash pattern on the floor" replied Annie as she smiled.
"Interesting..." said Captious as he took a loot around the room, their work was unfinished, but it was clear to see that the three themes they were working on would be a truly interesting mix for his office.
"I can see that these three contrasting ideas will be very interesting to look at once your done" said Captious as he smiled.
"Of course Uncle Capi, and when we are done you can judge who's work is better" said Maddie as she smiled and Captious didn't look so sure about that.
"Uncle Capi are you going to do anything with your side?" asked Annie.
"Well I am not sure for now, but I will see later, you all finish up first and them maybe I will have an idea of what to do" said Captious as he smiled.
"Alright then" said Annie as Captious smiled, he had nowhere else to be, or nothing else to do, so he might as well watch them while they paint.
"Do any of you need help?" asked Captious as he smiled.
"No I'm good, I prefer doing it myself" said Maddie.
"I'm painting the trees right now, and I'm almost done" replied Matt.
"You can help me Uncle Capi" said Annie as she smiled.
"Wonderful, what do you want me to do? I can do anything, as long as it's not floating up there with you" said Captious as he laughed and Annie laughed.
"Of course not, you can just choose any paint and splash it on the walls" said Annie as she smiled.
"Alright then, sounds easy enough" said Captious as he took a paintbrush and dipped it in some red paint as he splashed it on the ground.
"This is a very odd feeling, I've never been messy with paint before" said Captious as Annie, Maddie and Matt laughed.
"Yes it is messy, but it's also very fun just playing around with paint like a child" said Annie as she laughed and Maddie agreed.
"That it is" said Captious as he chuckled and they all laughed.
"So have any of you accomplished anything fun for the past few weeks?" asked Captious as he smiled, he was tired of the quiet silence, there was nothing wrong with it, but it was just that he was bored and tired of always having silence in here.
"Well not really Uncle... I've just been reading a lot in the Palace library" replied Annie as she accidentally spun around as she floated causing her to get dizzy, she had been up here for too long now.
"That's still fun Annie, the Palace library is full of several historic texts that enrich one's knowledge" said Captious as he smiled.
"Of course Uncle, I know that" said Annie as she smiled, what else did she expect Captious to say? He was a professor after all, and a bookworm for that matter, she too was a bookwork that's when it came to short stories or novels, but historical texts were boring.
"Well Uncle Capi, I singlehandedly taught myself the old tongue" said Maddie proudly as Captious looked at her in surprise.
"My, my Maddie that is truly impressive" said Captious as Maddie smiled proudly and Matt rolled his eyes, of course she would say that.
"I know right, I just have a knack for remembering things" said Maddie proudly as Matt scoffed and she looked at him and she scoffed back.
"But Matt over here, started learning the old tongue the same time I did, but he's not been determined enough to learn it completely" said Maddie as she looked at Matt and smiled at him sweetly, only a stranger would believe that Maddie was sweet at all.
"Well that's because unlike you, my drive and determination is not based on being better than Ollie" replied Matt simply as Maddie scoffed.
"No one is better than me, and you didn't have to bring up the blondie" said Maddie as she shook her head.
"Alright, alright, no need to fight over something so small" said Captious as he smiled and decided to interfere before this turned into a full blown argument right in front of his eyes.
"Maddie your skills for remembering things and learning a very difficult language is very, very impressive I will give you that" said Captious as Maddie smiled and nodded.
"Thank you" said Maddie as she smiled.
"But not all people are the same, everyone has something that they are good at doing, and you shouldn't compare Matt's progress or anyone's progress for that matter to yours" said Captious.
"Oh correction Uncle Capi, I wasn't comparing myself to Matt, oh no, no I was only showing off my vast progress" said Maddie as Annie shook her head and Matt scoffed as Captious laughed.
"You really are something else Maddie" said Captious as he laughed.
"Yes, very annoying" added Matt as he shook his head.
"Annoyingly talented you mean" added Maddie as Matt had nothing else to say, he was sure that she would just twist the words into something that she wanted to hear.
"Matt don't mind her she is only joking" said Captious as he chuckled.
"Yes I know that, but she jokes too much" said Matt as he continued painting while Captious changed the colour on his brush to white.
"Okay that's enough celling painting for now" said Annie as she was dizzy and she slowly made her descent to the ground as she felt a little bit lightheaded.
"I'm so dizzy right now" said Annie as she shook her head and Captious chuckled.
"I know how you feel Annie, I used to easily get dizzy all the time, in fact I still do" said Captious as Annie smiled at him as she sat down, she needed a break to regain her balance.
"Uncle can I ask you a question?" asked Annie as Captious looked at her and smiled.
"Of course you can dear, you can ask me anything" replied Captious.
"Uncle Capi, I heard that you were married once... is that true?" asked Annie as now that she had him right here, she had some questions that she wanted to ask him out of curiosity.
Captious looked up at her as he had a sad smile on his face, he looked like he didn't want to answer that question, but he truly wanted to.
"Well yes, I was married, my wife's name was Adelia" said Captious as she smiled.
"She was a very wonderful woman, truly and she left us too soon" said Captious as he looked at Annie and smiled.
"What happened?" asked Annie.
"Well she died early..." replied Captious.
"Died from what? And I don't mean to be rude by asking such a question" asked Maddie as she didn't mean to be insensitive but whenever they asked anyone what happened to Captious's wife, they would only say that they didn't know much about it in detail.
"No it's alright Maddie, you are not rude at all" said Captious as he smiled sadly.
"Actually she died due to poisoning" said Captious sadly.
"Poisoning from what?" asked Matt as he looked at Captious.
"We are not certain for sure, but back then, there was a little bug going around that affected most witchfolk, we didn't know where it came from, or what it did, but she got it and we were unable to save her, and she unfortunately died..." said Captious.
"I'm so sorry Uncle Capi" said Annie apologetically, she shouldn't have asked him what happened, this just sounded extremely sad.
"No it's alright Annie, there is no need to apologize, you asked a question and I answered you, you all deserve to know a little more about me" replied Captious as he smiled.
"But I can see that this is hard for you to talk about, I should have never asked in the first place..." said Annie sadly, she didn't like that he looked so sad right now.
"No you did not force to to say anything, I want to tell you" replied Captious as he smiled and Annie didn't know whether to believe him or not.
"It's been almost more than fifty years since she died..." said Captious.
"And you never remarried?" asked Maddie as Captious shook his head.
"No, not at all" said Captious.
"But why not? You were very young when you got married right?" asked Matt.
"That I was..." replied Captious.
"But let me be honest with you, I never married for love, I was never in love with Adelia, I only married her because of my ambition" confessed Captious.
"I wanted to secure a permanent seat in the High Council, and Adelia's father at the time was the provost of the realm, he was the second in command after the Chancellor, the provost was a title that was later removed from the ranks" said Captious as they all listened to him.
"So when I married Adelia, after a few years I was assigned as a lower class Professor for my skills in potions and other forms of knowledge" said Captious.
"And then Adelia died a few months after that" said Captious.
"That's rough just a few months?" asked Maddie as Captious nodded and she continued painting as she shook her head in disbelief.
"Now that I am older, I realized that I underappreciated her, if I could go back in time, I would correct my wrongs" said Captious as he sighed.
"Everyone wants that... but we have to learn to live with the choices we made... right?" asked Matt.
"Right" replied Captious as he smiled.
"So you live here all alone Uncle? No one else?" asked Annie.
"Yes Annie, I do, this big manor can become rather lonely when you spend your days all alone here..." said Captious.
"Besides going to work at the Palace and going to volunteer at the orphanage and seeing all of you, I am lonely most of the time" replied Captious, that was the true reason he wanted his nephew John to come and visit him for once.
"Oh Uncle Capi" said Annie as she stood up, she suddenly felt the urge to give him a hug.
"I'm so sorry, you were always this lonely and you never told us" said Annie as she hugged him.
"You are very sweet Annie, but I am not lonely any more, I have you all" said Captious as he smiled.
"You all are my family now, and every time I see you, it makes me regret being angry with my brother and Alice for such a long time... without them, I wouldn't have had a lovely nephew, wonderful grandniece and her equally wonderful friends" said Captious as he smiled and Annie smiled.
"And we love you too Uncle Capi" said Annie as she smiled and Maddie and Matt agreed with her.
"And we are going to be spending more time over here I promise you" said Annie sincerely as she broke their hug and smiled.
"That would simply be wonderful, I look forward to seeing you all here often" replied Captious happily as they all returned back to painting.