And it's another Flashback Era AU! Because there is no such thing as too many of those.

I have a more elaborate set of missing scenes idea of what happened after the curtain closed on Rai and Frankenstein's first meeting – but I will write it another time. This is about getting a bunny off my chest to get myself writing.

Apparently there's a canon depiction of mental communication between Rai and animals in Noblesse S. (And I would love a complete translation of that webnovel.) This is probably not like it at all, but we can attribute that to Frankenstein's powers being slightly different and/or birds are not like dogs, the familiar bond (like a contract, but not the same mechanic) still altering the animals a bit, etc.

Frankenstein was exhausted even before fighting those two clan leaders. The Central Order Knights had pursued him for several days, to the point his best hope of getting some sleep somewhere they wouldn't think to look for him was Lukedonia itself. Getting there safely wasn't just a matter of moving fast, but undetected by the patrols – if they guessed the direction he was traveling, they might realize that yes, he did have the gall.

That old man, Gejutel K. Landegre was the one to figure out Frankenstein's plan. Frankenstein already knew how much of an advantage age and experience could give someone, but he would have to do better now that he was facing clan leaders. He couldn't make stupid mistakes, but sleep deprivation made those inevitable.

'I work here,' he'd said, completely missing that a noble had read his mind until afterwards, being so slow to process it and respond when the noble detected Dark Spear, and then his shock when the noble went along with his transparent lie.

Frankenstein needed to think faster than his enemies; he couldn't afford to be so slow on the uptake. Did Cadis Etrama di Raizel have some ulterior motive? What was the reason for all this? It made no sense right now, and that was a sign he'd gone without sleep for far too long, he thought, adjusting his cuffs and feeling the texture of the lace on the sleeves of the undershirt. A boastful indulgence: lace took a great deal of time to make, although he'd invented a loom that could speed up the process. It marked a gentleman of leisure, someone with the free time to think and invent. Someone who wasn't harried constantly from base to base, with no time to sleep or think of a way to defeat his foes.

There his thoughts went, circling back to sleep, he thought, quickening his steps as he headed for the nearest door to the outside.

Reaching out to open it, he hesitated. The clan leaders might be waiting outside to ambush him, but if he could get back to the threshold first he might be fine. He couldn't put this off or he might grow exhausted enough his body's hunger for sleep would override his knowledge that he needed a watcher.

Stepping outside the door, he extended all of his senses. No nobles anywhere nearby, save for the one in the house behind him, who hadn't moved from his spot at that window. The Kertia clan leader had surprised him earlier, but Frankenstein's attention was focused on the immediate threat at the time. Who would expect two clan leaders?

What besides clan leaders could he expect to find in the land of the nobles? Wolves would be ideal. Bears were imposing, but ultimately incapable of putting up a fight against a mutant. Smaller animals dodged better – ah, an owl. As a companion they were far from ideal, there were much smarter birds – he missed access to parrots, it would have taken him longer to uncover the Union's duplicity without them – but owls were nocturnal, possessed good senses and weren't as vulnerable to the cold. He could send it out scouting after he woke up.

He sighed. There he was, standing here like an idiot, letting his mind wander to the long term. If he didn't keep a tight rein on his thoughts they'd wander off into dreams and the next thing he knew he'd wake up slumped over on his desk. Except no, he didn't have a desk right now, he'd needed to destroy his latest base and been flushed out of most of his backup refuges by the Central Order Knights' hunt.

He tracked the bird through the night until it was close enough that he was sure he could grab it out of the air without mistiming his leap or applying enough force to kill the poor thing.

Meeting its eyes, he put it to sleep – no reason to scare it, or let it cut up his new suit.

At first, he'd balked a little at taking an animal's blood. He'd forced himself to conduct those tests of his stolen copy of vampiric powers because he needed to understand how their mind control abilities worked if he was going to have any hope of freeing their victims. Since he couldn't exactly experiment with mind-controlling himself, animal testing was the best alternative.

He wasn't a real vampire, so his familiars weren't infectious. They still possessed senses and physical capabilities superior to the norm for their species. That and the ability to communicate with him over limited distances made them incredible scouts.

These days, he could easily subdue even units of Central Order Knights, but when he first discovered the ability to control animals, even a single mutant could be a challenge if he didn't feel them coming in time to cheat.

A practiced cut with his powers got him that drop of blood, and after ingesting it he checked the owl's leg to be certain the wound was healed and transferred her to a secure perch on his forearm before waking her up.

Thankfully she wasn't too hungry, and the simplicity of owls meant there wasn't much need to negotiate. A promise of mice soon, and a place to rest for the day unmolested by those blasted ravens, and he had her shifting her talons up his arm to get at his hair.

'I should find more than one,' he knew, but having a pleased animal linked to his mind was calming. The certain knowledge that if he was ambushed in his sleep all would be lost that was the only thing keeping him on his feet. Now that he had a familiar, it wouldn't be long before he crashed.

Heading back into the manor for lack of other options, he retraced his footsteps to a room with a heavy cabinet that didn't quite reach the ceiling and settled her up there before lying down on the (unswept, but he was too tired to care enough to do anything about it) floor. He could hope that if a noble did try to ambush him while he was asleep, they wouldn't see the owl up there and get her under control before her alarm could wake him.

Pillowing his head on an arm, he slept. Normally he needed less than half an hour, but…

Sun coming in through the window and falling on his black coat woke him: he raised his head to feel his new owl's sleepy request for… mice. Right.

It was a familiar chore: he had to establish a new mouse breeding population (or rabbits, or something along those lines) every single time he needed to set up a new lab. Some kind of fast-breeding animal, and an enclosure so they didn't get into his papers and leave droppings everywhere (he shuddered at the thought), and food. Frankenstein himself didn't need much food anymore, so food for himself was a lower priority, but he still tried to get a meal, or at least something warm to drink, every day.

Something to make him feel more human.

"Sorry," he told the owl, reaching up to scratch under her feathers with a practiced hand. "I'll bring you something to eat soon."

She seemed too pleased to mind, ready to fall asleep herself. Thoughts of ravens harrying her during the day made their way to his mind: it would be hard for them to swoop at her in a confined space like this. "Yes, you're safe here," he said, smiling.

Ravens now. Wasn't that convenient. Wonderfully smart birds, able to remember individual humans (and likely nobles) and give him some idea of the people in a new area, often enough. They also had a good eye for detail and made fantastic scouts.

He'd just have to keep them away from his new owl. They really couldn't help themselves; it was instinct for them to make owls' lives miserable.

Bind enough ravens, and they could bring him the mice he needed. Hopefully they would know where he could find some wolves. With that, if he had some cats or foxes he could feel reasonably secure here. Even a powerful noble should only be able to keep so many minds, even weak ones, under control at once. He theorized that if he had enough familiars, all of them going silent should still be strange enough to get his attention even when he was focused on a project.

Raizel's eyes widened slightly. There was a black bird flying towards his window! He wished he could see it up close, but he still reached out to tell it that the glass was in the way, and the bird would be hurt if it tried to fly through the glass to see Raizel.

It perched on the outside of the windowsill and tapped on the glass with its beak.

"?"

"Open."

Carefully, Raizel reached out and turned the window handle the direction the Lord showed him when these new, larger and clearer windows he designed were installed.

The bird got out of the way, then flew back to the windowsill. Cawing approvingly, it hopped onto Raizel's outstretched arm, then looked at the door.

Raizel walked over and opened the door, too.

He went where the bird wanted him to go, trying not to stare at the living thing perched so confidently on his white shirtsleeve, remembering a small hand that tugged him to where-he-should-be-to-not-get-hurt.

He could sense traces of the human's aura from the bird. Not the small human, but the human who came to his house last night. Raizel could still feel him here, when he looked. Still surrounded by that hatred, but focused and unharmed. It was almost as much of a surprise as being touched like this.

The bird's mind wanted to look in all the rooms, like the human – Frankenstein – had last night. Raizel had given Frankenstein his own name because the human didn't know how strong he was or why the clan leaders had bowed to him. It was supposed to be an explanation: he hadn't expected the human to give his name in return.

Raizel sighed. He should have said he was the Noblesse: of course his name wouldn't mean anything to a human. Most nobles didn't know who he was. The real reason he hadn't simply said that he was the Noblesse was because of his brother. He didn't want his guest to be scared of him, especially when Frankenstein wanted so much to sleep… but the humans shouldn't know what the Noblesse was, so that wouldn't have helped Frankenstein either. Should he explain? Frankenstein wanted to know, but the existence of the Noblesse was supposed to be known only to the clan leaders.

They drew closer and closer to the room where Frankenstein was, Raizel opening doors, letting the bird look around, and then leaving to open the next door.

When they finally reached Frankenstein, he was in the kitchen the Lord had added to the house after explaining to Raizel what the round brown thing Yuni gave him was. The bird jumped down from his arm to walk over to Frankenstein's feet. Frankenstein was staring at him, but not with hidden fear. Raizel could sense wariness, yes. Frankenstein was prepared in case he attacked, but while he was a little surprised that Raizel had come with the bird, there wasn't any panic beating against Raizel's mind.

He could have met Frankenstein's eyes, or stayed and gotten a better picture of his emotions, but that would be rude.

The bird didn't want anything more from him, so Raizel went back to the window hopefully.

If the bird wanted to see Frankenstein, then maybe more birds would come to Raizel's window in order to visit him.

Frankenstein didn't quite know what to make of Cadis Etrama di Raizel. He might have come to Frankenstein's assistance because he was one of those nobles who believed that weak humans were in need of looking after, but that wouldn't explain the birds. Or maybe it was simple, and this noble was just a pushover. That would explain why he'd come to Frankenstein's assistance, let the human keep his shirt and why Frankenstein's ravens were able to use him as a door and window-opener. Even the owl had Raizel carry her to the perch Frankenstein built for her after returning late one morning from helping Frankenstein figure out which clan held the manor to the north-northwest.

Frankenstein appreciated the necessity of having more than one way in or out of any location but having all the windows in the house open was just begging for leaves and worse to blow in.

At least the fact Cadis Etrama di Raizel didn't come to visit him except at the behest of one of his familiars meant he had forewarning of the noble's approach even though he hadn't assigned any of them to watch him yet.

After having to take time two days in a row to go through the manor and close all the windows except the one he'd chosen to leave open and the one in the noble's room, he couldn't put it off any longer. Frankenstein had to pay a call on Cadis Etrama di Raizel.

He found the noble staring out the window again, the way he was when Frankenstein saw him for the second time, the way he was usually was when Frankenstein's familiars saw him.

It took a moment for Cadis Etrama di Raizel to turn away from the window and look at Frankenstein, acknowledging the human's presence.

"Please stop opening all the windows."

Raizel half-turned to glance out his own window.

"You can do as you like with the window in here," Frankenstein had almost said 'your window' even though every window in this house seemed to belong to the noble, "but opening the other windows will just let in leaves and insects and worse. The ravens want pests to infest your manor so that they can eat them."

The noble just kept looking at him. Frankenstein fought down the urge to fidget nervously, and stood straight even though this noble might be more powerful than the clan leaders.

"I do not mind," the noble said, still meeting his eyes even though Frankenstein was as sure as he could be that there wasn't any mind control involved.

That should be that: Raizel was the master of this house, so if he wanted it to be a dirty, rodent-infested wreck then how could Frankenstein argue, when he was a guest… Frankenstein smiled. Except he wasn't. "Since you told the clan leaders that I am responsible for taking care of this house, it would reflect badly on me if the place was a mess." Raizel's face fell slightly, and Frankenstein hastened to add, "You can do as you like with the window in your room; I'll be happy to come in here and clean sometimes." And make observations of the noble through his own eyes, instead of getting secondhand reports from animals with less in the way of mental defenses.

The noble looked a little surprised, but when Frankenstein gave him a broad smile, Raizel nodded slightly and turned back to his window.