R: "I should sleep on the sofa. It's your house."
"Beds don't mean the same to us, to me it's just a place to lay down. I'd be just as happy on the floor or in a tree."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I get the same aches as you but they go a lot quicker once I start moving and that sofa is probably just as comfortable as the bed anyway."
"If you're sure."
"Yes, I'm sure. If you want the bed, you get the bed."
"Ok."
"There's food and some tea and coffee if you want it."
"I thought you didn't need to eat."
"I don't, but I like fruit. Younglings can eat what they like for about three months, and most do, but nothing with a lot of fat in it after then."
"Weird. So no pizza and burgers?"
"No."
"But you can have fruit."
"Yes. I particularly like pears."
"I don't. I like carrots. Straight out of the ground. Just scrub the mud off."
"I haven't had carrots for years. The ground here isn't right and I couldn't be bothered to buy the stuff I would need to grow them properly."
"You grow your own?"
"Sometimes. Most years I just don't bother. I still have the pear tree." Rachel wanders around and looks out of the windows near the back door. "That's a big tree. Don't the neighbours complain?"
"No. I own next door both ways and they know that I have the tree for food and they have fruit off it too."
"Cool. But how do they see you? Don't you have to stay in all day?"
"No, I can go out for a couple of hours if I want. More if I can put up with the headache."
"Oh, you're a day walker then. Like Mako."
"Nearly, he can stay out as long as he likes. I get headaches after about two hours."
"Oh. Right."
"What do you usually do at night?"
"Me? Read usually. Then go to bed. Unless someone wants me to go out somewhere with them. But I don't want to go out tonight."
"I'm not surprised. I don't know what you can do here."
"Why not just talk?"
"There's not really anything to talk about."
"Tell me about the man and the woman who lived with you."
"Fleur and Oceano. I met her in France, but she was born here. She moved over there because where she went was warmer. We met there and she saw what I was because I fought a bit with the local there. He kept saying evier and I didn't understand, so when he got annoyed, I got aggressive. When I got talking to Fleur she said that evier means sink and he meant that I should go into a shallow trance so we could understand each other and I was being stupid. But this was ages ago. She decided that she wanted to come back home with me and that was that."
"That's it? She just moved in with you?"
"Yeah. She knew the other one before she met me and she liked it. He refused to play as often as she wanted but I didn't refuse to play. I'd only take a little bit each time, so I got everything I needed and she got everything she wanted. If she didn't want to play, she sometimes wanted me to hunt someone else so she could watch, she even wanted to try it a few times."
"What about the guy, Oceano?"
"Fleur wanted to go back to visit friends in France and she saw him there. It turned out that he was just visiting, like we were, and we were actually from the same city. It was love at first sight. She said that she felt like she wouldn't be able to go on without him and she talked me into changing him for her. I had to teach him about what we are and how much he meant to her. It wasn't easy but he doesn't seem to have regretted it. After a while he changed. When they had to stay with me he was moody and aggressive, which is why they got permission to move away, as long as they let someone look in on them once in a while. He's gone back to how he was when Fleur met him now."
"Ok. So how did Fleur get to know that other one?"
"She was upset one night when a boyfriend dumped her, then when she was out she collapsed after drinking and taking random pills and he took her to the hospital where he told the doctors what she took. He thought she was particularly pretty so he stayed and when she was still unconscious he drank from the nurse and she came to just enough to see him."
"Wow."
"Glade probably wouldn't do that. He wouldn't want to get involved."
"Why not?"
"Have you ever lost a friend?"
"Yeah."
"It was horrible right?"
"Yeah it was."
"Imagine that, but all your friends, for four or five generations. That's what we have to put up with."
"I don't think I could do that."
"No, a lot of people don't like the idea of that bit. It's late, you need sleep."
"I'm fine."
"No, it's past 2am, you need to go to sleep soon."
"Fine."
"If you want the bed, take it."
"I will." Fulmine picks up a book and sits down, and Rachel looks back from the doorway.
"Need something?"
"No."
"You're safe, you're well, you've got clean sheets to sleep on."
"Right."
A couple of hours later Fulmine hears her moving and moaning in her sleep so she looks in to make sure she's ok. She's not, she's in a nightmare. Fulmine sits on the edge of the bed and uses her abilities to calm her, then wake her gently. She starts crying and Fulmine holds her till she falls asleep again. In the morning Rachel goes out in the garden first and sees Fulmine there in the veg patch. F: "good morning."
"Morning."
"There's coffee in the kitchen if you want some."
"Thanks, and sorry about last night."
"It's fine. You can't help what you dream of."
"But I didn't need to come find you."
"Yes you did, because you didn't feel safe. You're here now, and you're safe."
"Yeah. Do you want tea?"
"Yes please. A little bit of honey and no milk please."
"Ok." Fulmine tidies up and goes in.
"Do you want any of these?"
"Carrots for breakfast?"
"Are carrots not a breakfast thing?"
"No, they're not."
"Right. What's a breakfast thing then? Breakfast doesn't really exist when you don't have to eat."
"How long has it been since you had breakfast?"
"About thirty five years."
"That's weird."
"What?"
"That you've already forgotten what you have for breakfast."
"I always had weird stuff for breakfast anyway." Rachel smiles and picks up a carrot. "Carrots for breakfast?"
"I'm weird."
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