Author's Note: Welcome back or Hello for the first time, my beautiful readers. I have been locked up in my room, bringing you a hopefully entertaining little story about our most favourite bodyguard. It was inspired by a text passage from Book 1 (which I will quote further down). Please enjoy!

A special thanks to my beta readers AlexFlex and Next-Price3079 for the amazing help!

Disclaimer: Eoin Colfer owns all the characters from Artemis Fowl, I only own my imagination and the characters I have created.

"Butler followed his lead, popping the cap on his weapon's starlight scope. This was no ordinary dart rifle. It had been specially tooled for a Kenyan ivory hunter and had the range and rapid-fire capacity of a Kalashnikov. Butler had picked it up for a song from a government official after the ivory poacher's execution." – Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl

The Hunting Rifle

Butler's custom-made Oxford shoes sank into the thick carpet. Nothing disrupted the silence of Fowl Manor once he had finished his rounds and retired to his room. Already in his comfortable pyjamas, he settled into the armchair next to the windows, overlooking the gardens.

He rubbed his eyes and fumbled blindly for the small walnut side table. His fingers grazed a thick envelope. He pushed it aside, picking up his novel. It was a cheesy romance between a French noblewoman and a Viking lord, who had taken her captive. Normally, he would have easily been sucked into the book's story, the words turning into vibrant scenes to play out in his mind. Today, however, he had to re-read every sentence. The letters wouldn't do their magic. Butler closed the book, his thumb moving over the cracked spine as his gaze wandered to his phone.

Today was Friday. 11 pm here, so in New York, it was 6 pm. She was probably out. They hadn't even arranged a call, he thought, at the same time his hand reached for the phone and dialled the number. If she didn't pick up, he could always go back to his book.

Sofia answered after the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Hi," Butler said, clearing his voice, "This is… uh, Butler?"

"Ciao! Hi," she exclaimed, then once more, "Hi."

"Hi. Is this a bad time?"

"Of course not. I forgot to defrost my dinner in the morning. It's currently defrosting."

"What are you having?" he asked.

"Vignarola. I found it in the back of my freezer," she said with some contentment.

Butler frowned. "Isn't that a spring dish?"

"It is. I made it in April, I think."

It was September now, Butler thought with a grimace. "Do you think it is still safe to eat?"

"Sure. It's been frozen, and I cooked it with a lot of wine," she said, taking a sip from her Italian wine.

"Am I keeping you from your weekend plans?"

"You aren't. I mean, I go out on Saturdays. With my friends."

With one friend, she corrected herself. Who wanted to party from Friday afternoon until Sunday night. But he didn't have to know that.

"Oh, that's nice," Butler said and trailed off.

The silence stretched on before Sofia cleared her throat. "Can I ask you something?"

He answered with a non-committing sound, his expression becoming wary.

"What did you do before you became a bodyguard?"

All of a sudden Madame Ko's voice recited a long blast of maxims in Butler's head, her imaginary bamboo stick hovering too close to his kneecaps.

A bodyguard never discloses his former employment. A bodyguard remains aloof about questions about his past. A bodyguard doesn't call university professors in the middle of the night for senseless chitchat.

"Sorry," Sofia spluttered. "I wasn't trying to pry. I was just curious."

"Most of this information is classified, I am afraid," he said, imagining the wheels turning in her head. Somehow, he doubted she would give up that easily.

"Then tell me a story."

"What kind of story?"

"The story of an aspiring bodyguard. A former soldier, I think? Very skilled, lethal?" She bit her lip and crossed her fingers.

Butler chuckled, his eyes falling on the folded documents on the side table, sticking out of their envelope. He had been flattered when Sofia had given him her number. Who wouldn't be? Dr Sofia Massetti was not only clever, she was also an attractive woman. Butler, however, was a bodyguard, and his immediate reaction had been suspicion. Who would be interested in him, except to get to his employers? After their latest adventure, he was almost certain that she was no assassin or spy, but he had to make sure.

The phone call came on that same afternoon. An old army friend from his stint in Columbia confirmed she was indeed who she had claimed to be. Italian. 33 years old. Three siblings. University professor. And if Butler had asked her, she would have probably told him, too, without even lying about her age. Which confused him even more. If she wasn't interested in the Fowls… why would she want to get to know him?

"You don't give up, do you?" he finally asked with a sigh.

"It's my secret superpower."

Butler snorted. "And what will I get?"

"A story of… of a girl who rode a goat?"

Butler sat up in his armchair. "Why did you ride a goat?"

He heard the laugh in her voice as she walked into her living room. "You first."

Scratching his chin, he let his curiosity get the better of him. He heaved another sigh. If Madame Ko ever found out, she would have his diamond tattoo removed from his shoulder. With a chisel.

"Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a soldier stationed in Kenya."

"You served in Kenya?" she asked excitedly.

"I wasn't. Thatsoldier was."

"Right, sorry. Go on." She curled up on the couch and sipped her wine, listening to his deep voice.

Kenya, February 1984

The governmental official was a lanky guy with nervous eyes, pressing a thick folder close to his chest, his sweat seeping through the thin cardboard material. He had introduced himself as Chilemba Mutuku, stumbling over the words under the intense stare of Commander-in-Chief Wanyoike of the Kenya Defence Forces.

"We have proof to convict Githinji Chebet, but he has been slipping through our fingers and the longer he runs free, the more elephants he will kill," Mutuku concluded.

Wanyoike was familiar with the "King of Ivory" and his activities in Tsavo East National Park. It didn't surprise him to hear that the government had proof of Chebet's activities. The man didn't hide his illegal hunting. The fact that the government was willing to take action against the man? That was new.

Even so, Wanyoike wasn't jumping at the prospect of fighting Chebet without any incentives. Officially, he only did the minimum. No more. Budget reasons. He didn't believe in charity work for a corrupt government. In his off-time, he did a few private missions, botching ivory hunts. Something he didn't expect any of his soldiers to take part in. Most of them were still young and had families. They had too much to lose. He didn't. Not anymore.

"The Park Rangers need help with the fight against the elephant poaching," Mutuku said when the commander-in-chief didn't react. "The President has suggested the assistance of the army."

The commander-in-chief shook his head. "You won't be able to stop the king. Even with the help of the army. He is too powerful."

Mutuku swallowed hard, his hands tightening around the folder. "But we can assist you."

"Pretend, you can catch the king. He'll continue to rule from prison. He has influence. Everywhere. You can patrol the parks, but you won't be able to stop him."

Commander-in-Chief Wanyoike wasn't known to beat around the bush. The Kenyan soldier was a pragmatic man, hardened by his country's countless wars and uprisings. A weak government wouldn't stop men like Githinji Chebet. Chebet had built himself an empire with the poaching and selling of elephant tusks in the last ten years. He owned his personal army of heavily armed protectors. An army that was better equipped than the Kenya Defence Forces itself.

The government official tried once more. "B-but the government offers financial aid."

He peeled the drenched folder from his chest and held it out to him.

Wanyoike sighed, about to tell him that, yes, they might have money, but Chebet had way more money. He accepted the folder, opened it, and blinked. It took him a split second to make sense of the document on top. His eyes widened when he realised he wasn't holding a financial proposal. Mutuku had given him an execution order. Issued for Githinji Chebet.

The commander-in-chief closed the folder, his face once again a stoic mask. He stood, gave Mutuku a curt nod, and walked him to the door.

"I'll see what I can do."

Wanyoike left his office and walked towards the military barracks, the execution order – hidden between other reports – in his arm. He stopped at the sight of a tall soldier. Lance Corporal Butler. He had been there for several months now and didn't seem to leave soon. A lean and mean fighter, who kept up and even excelled at every given task. Wanyoike had heard rumours about that family. Highly trained fighting machines in the service of a European crime family. Doubtful story. The soldier was no older than twenty, and while he fought like a lion, there was decency in the boy.

The commander-in-chief had seen enough child soldiers in his life to see the difference. This one? This one was a decent soul, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. One reason Wanyoike hadn't kicked him out of his office when the lance corporal had asked to accompany him on his secret endeavours.

Lance Corporal Butler turned to salute stiffly, his eyes alert, watchful. Nothing escaped him. Not even a commander-in-chief, prowling out of camp at night.

"At ease, Lance Corporal," Wanyoike said, and the soldier obeyed, waiting for his next orders. The commander-in-chief motioned him to follow him to a jeep. They left the base, driving into the nearby village in silence. There was something in the air that kept Wanyoike on edge. He hadn't lied to the government official. Going against Chebet was almost impossible. Wanyoike had never tried it. He targeted the small fish. Those who didn't know what they were doing half the time. They had medieval weapons, no training, and most of them were so hungry that they thought with their bellies, instead of their heads. It was tragic, but he didn't let his actions be guided by sympathy.

He stopped at a make-shift air base for the battered helicopter, currently parked on it. Battered it might be, but it was still guarded around the clock. It was the best model they owned.

Wanyoike got out of the car and jerked his head to a small corrugated-iron hut. Butler nodded and disappeared in it, a backpack slung over his shoulder. He returned not ten minutes later, changed from his long-sleeve army shirt and full-length combat trousers to a laid-back tourist outfit with khaki pants and a loose shirt, to hide his muscular build. With mediocre success. He pulled a baseball cap over his blonde army haircut and joined the commander-in-chief on the field. Wanyoike had taken off his awards and decorations as well as the shoulder patches, labelling him as the commander-in-chief. He had even attached a different name tag on his chest, Butler noticed as he opened the helicopter door. Red paint flaked off, revealing the rusty metal underneath. He ignored it and climbed into the helicopter, its motors coughing to life and fighting its way higher and higher into the air.

Butler would have never admitted it, but he loved every minute of the flight. He didn't have many luxuries as a soldier or as a Butler but flying high above the savannah with the prospect of catching a glimpse of Kenya's wildlife was the few moments that made all hardships in his line of work bearable.

His face didn't betray any of his emotions at two giraffes trotting to their next tree. A family of lions played in the grass down below, the cubs only small toylike kittens. Butler turned his head ever so slightly to keep watching the lioness separating the tussling cubs.

Wanyoike suppressed a smile, focusing on the next steps, while the helicopter landed outside Tsavo National Park. They were roughly five miles away from a waterhole, a popular place for all kinds of animals and hunters alike. It was the place where they would meet Chebet and his men for a private audience. Of course, Chebet wasn't expecting the commander-in-chief and his lance corporal. He would do business with a spoiled Russian tourist and a corrupt soldier, hoping to make some money off the foreigner.

"Questions, Lance Corporal?" Wanyoike asked, looking through his binoculars as he gave the surrounding savannah an all-round view.

"Negative, sir," Butler said, tightening the straps of the bag. Wanyoike gave the pilot a sign and, after tucking the binoculars away in his backpack, jogged through the waist-high grass towards their destination.

Butler followed his commander-in-chief during the 40-minute run, thankful for his combat boots on the uneven ground as well as the light backpack. He hadn't packed much. A handgun, ammunition, a Swiss army knife, food, hydration packs, a first-aid kit. And a change of socks. He might have been a Blue Diamond, but he had learned that lesson the hard way with a nasty case of trench foot as soon as he had joined the army two years ago. After that incident, he always had a pair of socks in a dry bag.

They stopped a short distance away from the waterhole by a jeep. The commander-in-chief had hidden it underneath a camouflage net in the dense undergrowth. Both men, hardly out of breath, jumped into the vehicle and reached the waterhole a short time later. Chebet and his men were already waiting. All of them armed.

Six men with AK-47 assault rifles, Butler noted, keeping his head low and shoulders hunched. 120 bullets times 6. He didn't need to finish his calculations. If this went south, he'd be sent home in a body bag.

Wanyoike jumped out of the jeep, greeting Chebet, while one of his henchmen searched him for weapons. "Habari za mchana. The Russian wants to buy."

Chebet shrugged. "How much?"

"Double the amount you sold last year."

The ivory lord didn't ask how he had come to the information. It was common knowledge, after all. He rubbed his hands greedily.

"That can be arranged."

"And he wants to come on the hunt," Wanyoike said boldly.

Chebet frowned. "We don't take tourists on our hunts."

"Tough, the Russian wants to come along or he won't buy. Your call."

Chebet spat on the ground, cursing in Swahili about the dense white tourists, unaware that Butler understood most of his slurs.

"Fine, he can come. But no pictures. We'll drive in our jeep."

Wanyoike returned to Butler, keeping his back to the hunters, while he leaned in close. The young soldier had used the time to give Chebet a thorough once-over. He had seen pictures, but they hadn't done the man justice. Githinji Chebet was the exact opposite of the bodyguard-to-be. Where Butler was tall and lean, Chebet was short and plump. But that couldn't hide the fact that this man wasn't to be trifled with. There was something in his eyes that made Butler nervous.

"Keep your backpack in the jeep, take nothing with you," Wanyoike said.

Butler nodded and got out. Together they walked over and got in with Chebet and two of his henchmen. The rest followed in a second jeep.

Chebet gave Butler a false smile. "You Russian, yes?" he asked in English with a strong accent.

Butler nodded.

"You want ivory. I know best place for elephants. Big and strong animals. Dangerous, you understand?"

Butler nodded again. Chebet turned to his man and switched to Swahili. "What a moron. We should rob him and dump him on the road."

One man laughed. Butler fought against the urge to tense up. Wanyoike shook his head. "He works for an architecture company and he is rich. He will buy more on his next trip."

Of course, Chebet knew an alive Russian was better than a dead one, but he needed to make sure the soldier knew who the boss was.

"You think you are clever? I decide if he is good for business!"

He turned back to his customer, grinning. Butler found it hard not to stare at the man's golden teeth. Chebet pulled his dart rifle from the back and showed it to him. It was a model the young soldier had never seen before, and he had seen a lot of weapons during his training.

"Special make from America. Very good quality. I shoot with this even at night," he told him, pointing to the starlight scope that was attached to the rifle.

Butler pretended to be impressed. He nodded and made approving sounds, giving it a visual inspection. Looked like an M16 with some sweet tweaks and additions. He could see in a second that the magazine was much bigger than a typical M16's. The barrel was wider, too. Perfect for shooting big animals. By the looks of it, it would be heavier than a general M16 rifle, too. Chebet wasn't a tall man, but carrying the rifle had given him arms the size of tree trunks.

The jeeps came to life and drove towards a "very secret location", according to the crime boss. The sun was already setting, plunging the savannah into an ocean of burning flames. Butler would have enjoyed the view in any other situation.

Half an hour later, Chebet gave his men a signal, and they drove off the track and into the thicket.

"Why are we driving this way?" Butler asked.

Chebet pointed up at the sky. "Elephants have good smell, we don't scare them, yes?"

Butler nodded, and they continued for another hour. Eventually they stopped. Butler didn't see any elephants, but the criminals weren't doing this for the first time. They knew exactly where the animals were. One man, a tall one with an impressive moustache, handed him binoculars, motioning him to look through them and pointed past several trees. Butler followed suit, and a group of elephants magnified before his eyes in the fading daylight. They had to be three miles away from them. Six beautiful animals grazing in the shade of some scattered trees. Five adults and one calf. They had not picked up their scent.

"Nice and big, yes?" Chebet asked. Butler nodded, not taking his eyes off the animals. He wasn't sure if he could hide his contempt, otherwise. Then one elephant turned and looked straight at him. It had to be an optical illusion, Butler knew. Even so, he froze, enthralled by those all-knowing eyes of the animal.

Chebet elbowed Butler and, not noticing the muscle twitching in the young man's jaw, pointed to a tree a stone's throw away. The men got out of the car and positioned themselves closer to the small herd. Silently, like a cruel pantomime play, Chebet set up his rifle. Satisfied by the attentive audience, the ivory hunter looked through the starlight scope and targeted the biggest elephant of the group.

The lance corporal shot his superior a quick side look, noticing the older man's taut jaw, while Chebet aimed his rifle. Butler waited for a command. A sign. Anything.

Wanyoike kept quiet. There were too many of them and too little of the two of them. How could he endanger the young man to save a couple of elephants that would be shot once Chebet had killed them? Mungu, help us. Tusaidie.

As if someone had directly addressed him, the elephant bull lifted its trunk and sensing the danger, charged the ivory hunters. The assembled men froze in fear. Using the split second of general confusion, Butler grabbed Chebet's rifle. It went off, sending several shots into the air. It was the noise that incited the hunters to drop their weapons and start running in any direction the charging bull wasn't headed.

Wrenching the rifle from Chebet's hands, Butler hit the man straight on the nose with the rifle's butt. There was an audible crunch as Chebet slumped down, blood gushing out of his nose and down his colourful shirt. Butler grabbed the unconscious Kenyan and followed Wanyoike back to the jeep who was already starting the engine.

The younger man barely jumped in before Wanyoike hit the accelerator of the jeep and the vehicle jumped forward. Butler turned around to the shrinking display of the elephant bull charging a tree filled with ivory hunters, holding on for dear lives.

His schadenfreude was short-lived, though, when the sound of a helicopter drew nearer.

"Someone must have a walkie-talkie on them," the commander-in-chief shouted over the noise. A second later, the sound of machine-gun fire was added to the mix. Wanyoike yanked the steering wheel to the side, heading straight to the edge of a forest.

Butler turned in his seat, facing the opposite direction, looking up at the helicopter. He lifted the elephant rifle to his shoulder and aimed into the sky, stemming his feet into the jeep's floor for stability. It was heavier than any M16 he had ever fired. About 13 pounds, he thought, his brain automatically processing the information. Aiming the barrel at the sharpshooters in the air, he pulled the trigger, the rifle's recoil hammering into his shoulder.

The commander-in-chief kept his eyes straight on the tree line, praying that the lance corporal kept their attackers busy long enough for them to get out of there. They came close, too. Of course, close wasn't quite enough. It was sheer luck that they weren't critically injured in the crossfire, hailing down from above. But despite his evasive driving, the sharpshooter hit the jeep's back wheel. The jeep immediately spun out of control.

Wanyoike kept the steering wheel straight, as if holding on to a mad bull, slamming his foot on the brakes. Butler could see how they were headed for the tree, but nothing could have prepared him for the impact.

The car only scraped the tree, but Butler was still flung against the front seat, hot pain jolting through his side. Grinding his teeth, he kept breathing through his nose, controlling his pain.

"Sir?" he asked, checking on his superior. Wanyoike straightened in his seat, wiping away blood from his forehead. He looked dazed.

Butler leaned over, grabbing him by the shoulder. His commander-in-chief woke up from his trance and shook off the offered hand.

"We need to get out of here, soldier," he told him brusquely, half stumbling out of the wrecked vehicle. "Get deeper into the forest and hide until we can safely return to camp with the prisoner."

"Understood," Butler said, grabbing the still unconscious Chebet by the collar and throwing him over his shoulder like he weighed nothing at all. He slung the dart rifle over his other shoulder and followed the commander-in-chief deeper into the undergrowth.

Wanyoike moved easily in the well-known terrain. He listened to the familiar sounds. The nervous birds, the wind in the trees, the ringing in his ears. He was groggy, but he knew Chebet's men were close. Closing in from the north. No, north-east.

He stopped, waiting for Butler to catch up with him. He pointed into the north-west, the trees' shadow engulfing the surrounding forest.

"Keep in the shadows. I'll distract them."

Butler simply nodded and kept running past trees, further and further away from the place he had left Wanyoike. A shot thundered in the distance. The lance corporal didn't stop to check where it had come from. He had to make sure that Chebet wouldn't get back to his thugs. It was nothing personal. He just didn't like animal cruelty. Of course, if asked, he would have never admitted it. After all, he was a soldier. A bodyguard. A Butler. He wasn't supposed to have opinions, apart from the safest escape route for his future principal. Madame Ko definitely wouldn't have approved of this unnecessary display of recklessness. But Madame Ko wasn't there, and he was a Blue Diamond after all. And, he argued, if he was reckless, at least it would be for a good cause.

Shouts came from his right, closing in on him. The sound of the rotor blades above him grew louder. Butler threw Chebet carelessly on the ground, ripping his shirt open. There was no way he could hide that shirt among the unpretentious colours of the forest. Jerking the baseball cap from his head, he stuffed the shirt in the cap and piled earth on it, trying to hide it as best as possible. Then he turned his attention back to the now shirtless man and compressed his carotid artery for a few seconds, enough to make sure the man wouldn't wake up at the wrong time.

Throwing him back over his shoulder, he carried Chebet several feet further into the undergrowth, all the while scanning his surroundings for a hideout. The shouts became louder.

Stopping in front of a large tree, he dropped Chebet beneath thick roots, the tree trunk offering deep hollow spaces to hide the ivory lord underneath the forest vegetation. Butler took the rifle and ran a short distance away. He hid underneath a green bush and began piling leaves and branches on himself. Laying completely still, he noticed for the first time how quiet his surroundings were. He hadn't noticed it before, but apart from the hunters, they were alone. The wildlife had gone into hiding, avoiding the intruders that spoiled their haven.

Butler calmed his breathing becoming one with his environment, while the hunters drew nearer. They kept shouting to each other, their weapons loaded and ready to shoot at whoever or whatever came into range. Fallen tree branches crunched underneath their boots, the sound unnaturally loud. Two men stopped right in front of Butler's hiding space, not five inches away from his hand. They were so close he could smell their sour body odour. His own sweat ran down his forehead. His heartbeat drummed against his ribcage.

One hunter, the one that had given Butler the binoculars earlier, slapped his companion on the shoulder. "They are not here. Let's get Mwangi. We'll come back with night-vision goggles."

The other man nodded. "You go ahead, I'll catch up with you."

Butler kept his breath even, readying himself to attack in case he had been spotted. Nothing happened, but the hunter hadn't left either. Instead, the man unzipped his trousers and relieved himself. The warm urine stream ran over Butler's shoulder.

A shout travelled across the trees. The man zipped up and retreated.

Butler waited another ten minutes until he felt the life return to the forest. Night creatures began crawling from their hideouts, taking back the environment from the loud humans. The soldier moved when a centipede wriggled over his hand, unperturbed by the unusual leaf underneath it.

Once he had confirmed that an ambush was unlikely, Butler shouldered the unresponsive ivory lord and grabbed his rifle before looking for his commander-in-chief. He passed a Baobab tree when Wanyoike silently landed like a wildcat, ready to pounce on its prey. He straightened with a look of grim satisfaction.

"Mungu was with us today, rafiki. A great honour."

His lance corporal recovered from his defensive stance, trying to calm his racing heart. He held out the hunting rifle for the commander-in-chief to claim.

Wanyoike, however, shook his head. "Keep it and take it with you. May it serve a better purpose in your hands."

Briefly, Butler considered telling him he would serve the Fowl dynasty and that he probably would do worse than Chebet. Then he looked the warrior in the eyes, and the certainty with which the older man regarded him kept him silent.

He would do good. After all, he was only twenty. It would be a long time until he would have to take up his duties as a Fowl bodyguard. His father would look after the next Fowl heir. He had many years left to do good.

Wanyoike noticed the change in the soldier's face and smiled.

Butler finished his story, the static in the telephone receiver filling the silence. Sofia had listened intently, only her audible reactions interrupting the narrative.

"That is incredible," she finally managed. "I mean, you are… Wow. What happened to the ivory hunter?"

"Executed two weeks later."

"Good," Sofia said. There was no sympathy in her voice.

Butler smiled. "Your turn."

"My story isn't as exciting as yours," she said, suddenly embarrassed.

Butler raised an eyebrow. "Are you chickening out?"

"I never chicken out!"

"Then spill it," he said, tilting his head until his neck cracked loudly. Smirking at her squeal on the other end of the line, he did it once more, until she cried out, "Alright, alright! When I was a kid, I– "

"No," Butler interrupted her, his voice almost jolly. "Tell it like a story."

"Once upon a time," she began melodramatically, "there was an Italian girl. Brilliant and not at all interested in her religion classes at school."

"Why not?"

"Because old nuns and priests taught her. They told the kids that we'd all end up in Hell if we didn't brush our teeth or didn't do our homework. They also hit us with those long wooden rulers. Well, mostly me, I mean that girl. And the boys."

Butler grinned. "Why was she punished?"

"Because that girlread books in class."

"Romance novels?" he asked a tad too eagerly. He coughed and began tracing the cover pattern on his armrest.

Sofia snorted. "No. Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple. But the day of the eventful incident, she was reading H. P. Lovecraft."

Butler hummed in recognition of the names. Of course, she would read the detective stories.

"Did the nun catch her?"

"Big time. And that nun, she was," Sofia searched for the right word, taking another sip from her wine, "intense. Old. Ancient. Witnessed the Big Bang. She made me read the page I was on, thinking it would be some embarrassing snogging scene."

"But it wasn't."

"No, it was the protagonist's weird dream of a child sacrifice. Really disturbing. The nun nearly popped a vein back then. I think a boy cried too. I got 20 hits with the ruler on my knuckles," she recalled.

Butler winced. "How old were you?"

"13? Or maybe 14. Around that time. Anyway, I refused to go to school the next day. And the day after. I put a chair underneath the doorknob until my grandfather took me to his farm and put me in the goat pen."

She had said it so casually, Butler wasn't sure if he had misheard her.

"He did what?"

"I asked him to," Sofia said, correcting herself. "He had a billy goat. That's the alpha male goat with those big horns. I spent a week in that pen. Officially. In reality, my grandfather smuggled me into the house at night, and back before dawn. Oh, and my grandmother fed me with enormous slices of home baked bread and cheese. But the rest of the time, I stared that goat in the eyes."

"Why?"

"For my evil master plan," she simply said.

"Which was?" Butler was used to not being able to follow Artemis' plans, but he didn't see where she would go with this.

Sofia hesitated. "Well… it was silly and– "

"Spit it out, Professor."

"Fine. I took that goat to the nunnery. The nun's bedroom was on the ground floor. She always kept her window open at night. I climbed in. With the goat."

Sofia paused, waiting for him to be scandalised. He didn't interrupt.

"I climbed onto the goat's back and woke her up with the scariest laugh I could muster, telling her I would now drag her to Hell. She almost had a heart attack, thinking I was the Devil," Sofia said, rubbing her burning cheeks. "She jumped out of bed and ran away, screaming bloody murder."

When Butler said nothing, Sofia thought he had left. She couldn't see his growing grin or the way his shoulders shook in silent laughter. There wasn't a lot that made Butler crack into a smile. Surely not a story of revenge. The kind of revenge he was used in his line of work, anyway. The professor calling the taming of a semi-wild goat to scare a cruel nun an evil masterplan had him in stitches, though.

"Are you still there?" she asked tentatively before his deep hearty laughter filled the telephone receiver. It took him several minutes before he had calmed himself. He wiped away tears of laughter.

"Did they catch you?"

"Of course not. My grandfather was waiting in his pickup truck a few streets away. He drove me home and pretended I had been sleeping in my bed the whole night when he was grilled by the nun."

"Your grandfather was in on the whole thing?"

Sofia laughed. "He hated the nuns as much as I did. He made me tell the story over and over again."

"And the nun?"

"Continued to teach, unfortunately, and lived to the ripe age of 100. She never hit me again, though. Instead, she crossed herself three times, whenever she saw me."

"Do you have more of those stories?" Butler asked, his voice heavy with sleep. He leaned his head back and stretched his legs.

"Too many for one night," she said gently as she gazed up at her kitchen clock, adding five hours. It was 1 am in Ireland.

As if on cue, he quietly yawned, sinking deeper into the cushions. "Did you finish the bottle of wine?"

She lifted the bottle from the table and moaned. "There is enough left foranother glass. A small one."

They fell silent, once again bashful. Butler cleared his throat. "Your dinner is ready by now. I'll let you get to it."

"Yes… Yes, good night," she said, her accent suddenly more pronounced.

The conversation was over. She had asked him to call him. He had done his duty. Now he could hang up and they could both get back to their lives. So, say your goodbyes and hang up, he ordered himself.

"Would you be free next week?" he asked instead, stunning himself by his own disobedience.

"I am," she promptly said, grimacing a moment later. Real smooth, ragazza. "But only because I want to hear more from that soldier," she added slyly, before hanging up.

A satisfied smile tugging at his lips, Butler opened his novel once more. Immediately, the scene changed from his luxurious bedroom to the river banks of medieval Norway. The Viking lord heroically saved the noblewoman from drowning, resulting in a steamy make-out session. Butler, however, wasn't the only one watching. He noticed a girl standing across the river. Her once olive-skinned face was caked in dirt, a menacing grin directed at the couple. Her billy goat bleated, stomping its hooves on the ground. The French noblewoman screamed.

Which was when Butler stopped reading and went to bed.

He fell asleep, laughing.

The End…

…for now.

Swahili phrases:

Habari za mchana – Good afternoon.

Mungu – God

Tusaidie – Help us.

Rafiki – Friend

Italian:

Ragazza – Girl

Thank you all so much for reading this story. If you enjoyed it, comments are always welcome.

I hope you are looking forward to the next phone call, haha. In the meantime, if you are in the mood for a few shorter ficlets, I am doing a 30 day writing challenge on tumblr (My username is "weeinterpreter" and you'll find them under the tag "30 day writing challenge"). They are only around 100-300 words long, all set in the Artemis Fowl world, though.

Or just come and say hi, I'd love that just as much. 😊

Until next time. Take care!