#paging munk i wrote your boy again

[drk-brain]

Going to be Greedy and ask for track 24/your choice, too

sorry it's once again lofi I hate myself too. BUT

Anora spent her first several moons in the Rising Stones feeling out of place. She locked herself in her room each night, silently reminding herself this was hers now, and by all accounts did not need to be temporary. But it still felt foreign and barren, the stone floor too frigid under her feet, and every morning the sun poured through the east-facing window and cast harsh rays of heat over her skin.

The first thing she did was drag in a rug. It was old and dingy and second-hand, but it did its job. The second was to hang curtains, enough to block out the bright morning oranges and afford her a few more minutes of sleep.

And over time, it began to feel like home. Home enough that she found herself lounging more evenings than not, no longer jumping at passing footsteps in the hall, even risking the occasional midnight foray into the kitchens.

It was on her first covert trip to the bar that she found herself nearly scared out of her scales.

She picked through the smaller bottles in the backbar, some of them dusty and still entirely sealed, and just as she settled on one—an old, cheap-looking wine dusty enough it was unlikely to be missed—a voice came through the shadows.

"Fancy seeing you here," Thancred said, and she nearly knocked all the bottles off the shelf in her haste to stand and hide her chosen wine behind her back.

His voice lacked the usual suave, suggestive drawl, but she supposed it a side effect of the unholy morning hour.

"I'm sorry," she stammered, "I just—I'll go—"

"Relax," he said, stepping around the bar. "I'm not here to scold you. Just didn't expect to share this habit."

"So you won't tell F'lhaminn—"

"Not a word if you won't," he said.

She nodded and made for the door, only halfway comfortable knowing he could see the bottle in her hands, and when he called out, "Wait," she was sure it meant he'd tell her to leave it.

"Care to sit for a drink?" he asked instead, and for the first time since the Praetorium she heard the twinkle of his good humor again as he added, "Misery loves company, after all."