Welcome to Gaia! ::

The room was on the 32nd floor or the tower, and it unlocked easily with the key card in Noah's possession. The room itself was impossible, the door seeming to open onto a forest, a wooden bridge leading across from the door to a house built into a pair of trees that had grown close together. How far did the room stretch before it became illusion? It was impossible to tell.

Noah didn't even pause on the bridge, crossing it to enter the shelter of the house itself, a simple structure with windows open to the air. It was roomy enough, built around the tree trunks, furnished with simple wooden furniture. Off to one side, other rooms seemed to have been made into structures more like burrows, the doorways smooth and rounded. Noah ducked into one of these and lit the single lamp that hung inside, illuminating the small room scattered with toys. He pulled back the covers on the low bed so that Cor could put Dio to bed.

Noah gently laid Dio down on the bed and pulled her covers up, smiling absently as the foal sighed in her sleep and settled into her familiar bed. When Cor had finished making sure that the stuffed toy was intact and clean, Noah took it and tucked it in beside the little girl. "I think we've got some dried larvae in the cabinet," he answered quietly. "Do you want anything?"

He rose and waited for Cor to slip back out of the sleeping burrow before he put the lamp out and followed.

Noah's lean hands helped fold Cor's wings in to help him out of the burrow, a motion that felt infinitely familiar, something he'd done a thousand times before. He had, of course. The little itch of strangeness would go away with time; it was only because he'd woken up in the rehab center.

"Let me see," he said, and moved over to a small refrigerator in the corner, an sleek appliance that looked slightly misplaced among the rustic feel of most of the furniture in the house. He poked through the contents and brought out a whole dead bird after a moment. "I thought we had one left," he said, and offered it to Cor.

"No, you can have it to yourself. I'll just eat some of the larvae." Noah took a small paper packet out of a cabinet neat the small fridge and sat down at the table with Cor to open it. It did indeed have dried insect larvae in it; he apparently only wanted a snack. Under the tattered leather he wore, he was stick-thin; unlike many Famine horsemen, he had no exposed bones, but his bones pressed visibly against his skin.

There was companionable quiet while they ate for a little while. Then Noah asked, "You remember the crystal being green, don't you?"

"It's red now. I had a look out the window while we were on the rehab floor. I don't think anyone knows why yet." Noah got up, refolded the remaining half a packet of larvae, and pout it back in the cabinet, then went to retrieve a rag to clean the table with. "Presumably it has something to do with whatever happened yesterday."

Noah gave that question the careful thought it deserved. "I think we don't know if we're in danger," he replied after a few moments. "We should be alert. But if we were in immediate danger, we would be being readied to fight. It should be safe to proceed as normal for now. Logical?" he asked.

Noah tilted his head to the side and considered it. "Maybe we should rest for a while," he agreed.