It was her pride, really, that kept her from leaving Noor face-down with her leg stuck in a hole. Fable knew she could feed her, make her strong and hale again, and then she would send her on her way back home. They didn't need to talk about the night of the feast. In fact, after Noor had finished eating the piglet and she'd helped her up, they hadn't really spoken much at all. Fable had simply said: "Come with me." And begun to trudge towards Glowshroom Caverns. From her time on the continent, she knew rare fungi grew deep within the caves that would have some healing properties. Noor's wasted muscles sorely needed any help they could get.

And, selfishly, she wanted to show off. Fable wanted Noor to know exactly what she had given up, every scrap and morsel of delicious food, every last drop of Fable's love and affection. Once she was well enough to make the journey home, that would be the end of it. Maybe then Fable could sleep at night, at least knowing what became of her lover.

What she hadn't accounted for was the earthquakes that happened the first night they had hunkered down in the caves.

Fable had just put out the cooking fire when it began, throwing coals around the floor and causing her to drag Noor towards the cave exit as quickly as they could. Luckily they hadn't made it too far in - she couldn't even bear to think what would have happened if there were in the cavernous depths. Surely the walls would have come down upon them.

By the time they stumbled out into the queer, crimson light, she had lost all sense of time. Was it day? Night? It was impossible to tell beneath the red gaze of what could have been the sun or the moon. Strange, pointed stone spires stretched far above outside of the mouth of the cave. "Oh... oh no," she murmured. The last time something this strange had happened, she had prepared a meal for a strange ghost and he had found her talents sorely lacking. What would become of her now? This didn't seem like something she could cook her way out of.

"Speech"

Noor hadn't dared break the silence that had stretched between them. She was half sulking, half trying to give Fable her space. Frankly if she thought she could have managed even a day more on her own she'd have walked away and left Fable in peace. But Noor was aware just how inept she was. The sulking was just what was left of her ego trying to reassert itself. It wasn't fair. Noor hadn't been the one to bump into Fable, hadn't asked for them to reunite... She felt like she was being punished, which she definitely deserved so she was also sullenly trying to remind herself she was getting nothing less than that. It was a vicious cycle of feeling the pain of Fable's rejection followed swiftly by a reminder that she was a liar and a murderer and Fable has every right to want her gone. Maybe even want her dead. Which only caused another round of hurt feelings and so on and so forth. Noor had fallen into an uneasy sleep an hour or so  before Fable had started putting out the fire, the exhaustion of everything finally catching up to her and her body demanding rest. Which it would of course be denied. If the shaking hadn't woken her, one of the still hot coals being thrown at her would have! It was all a blurr, Noor was moving, half dragged, half stumbling out of the mouth of the cave and into a bright crimson... Night? Noor wasn't sure. She also wasn't sure if she should be afraid. She didn't know what was or wasn't normal here... At least until she heard Fable's murmur and then fear gripped her. What? What did Fable know? She turned to look fearfully up at her former lover. "W-what?" She managed, breaking her own silence. She felt suddenly very aware of how weak she was, how much dead weight she was... "Speech"

She wished she had something more intelligent to say, but she didn't. The fact of the matter was: something was very wrong but very different from the last time something was very wrong. How did you begin to explain that in a sensible manner? Fable's life was mostly ruled by things like recipes and cooking timers. Those things had a linear trajectory. You added the right amount of butter and cooked at a specific temperature for a specific amount of time... and there. It was over.

These sorts of things, when they happened, weren't quite so simple.

Fable turned to Noor and tried to figure out how to impart how dire the situation was without sounding completely insane. "When I was young..." she began, her words stilted and halting, "the land also had something... strange happen to it. But it wasn't like this. Well, I mean, it was also dark, but it was different..." She was rambling now, and she knew it. Fable took a deep breath to try and collect her thoughts. This crimson light was almost more foreboding than the simple, unnaturally Long Night she had experienced before.

"It was dark. For a long time. And terrible things happened to many... I got out okay. I was robbed of my sense of taste for some time, and I swear - this sounds insane - but I lost some of my memory, too. Others had far worse," she murmured, staring out at the hellish red landscape before them. "We'll be safer together," she finally said definitively, before turning to inspect Noor for injuries. Fae tried to keep it all business, but she couldn't help the real concern in her voice when she asked, "Are you hurt? Did any rocks hit you while we fled the cave?"

"Speech"

There was something in the way that Fable spoke that convinced Noor. A deep fear rooted in something that Fable at least believed with her whole heart. Which Noor was inclined to believe herself, and that wasn't just her lingering feelings talking. Noor was pretty sure that the spires rising from the ground hadn't been there earlier, it would have been hard to miss them even in as bad a state as she was, to say nothing of the sky. She'd been about to ask what their first move was when the attention turned towards her. Noor, despite herself couldn't help the slight fluttering in her stomach at the concern in Fable's voice. She pushed that feeling down, it certainly wasn't the time and even if the world hadn't suddenly changed around them she knew it wasn't something she could chase. "No uh... A little singed maybe?" She glanced back at her flank where she'd felt the stray coal hit her. Luckily it had hit where the black was curving along her body, so it wouldn't be obvious from a distance that some of her fur was now a little toasted. "You?" Noor was less careful with her tone, letting her concern bleed in. Obviously there was the potential that Fable had gotten injured in the rush to escape the caves but Noor was also worried about how she was handling whatever this was. Maybe it was a good idea to keep them focused? "What's next?" It was a question that spoke more than the words itself. "What's the plan? What do you need from me chef?" Noor turned, as she often had, to Fable for guidance. Back in- When things got heated or something had gone wrong it was always Fable who'd know exactly how to fix it while avoiding the kitchen spiraling into panic. Now too she turned to Fable, she was out of her depth here and it was almost second nature to look to the bigger woman. Though she was also the only one out of the two of them who had any idea at all what to expect.   "Speech"