I'll Never See You Again if I Can't Help It

"Singed?" She said quickly, rushing to Noor's side and peering at the woman's flank intently. Fable had noticed the coals being rocked from the cooking fire as she was covering it. The quake had caught her by surprise - there was no way to prepare for the truly unexpected, as much as she liked to pretend there was. You could assume from a finite number of variables that something might go wrong in the kitchen. A normal list of things. Maybe the fire would have gotten too hot. Maybe the meat was fattier or rarer than you expected. Maybe there was a last minute demand for the menu already locked into place.

You could not prepare for an earthquake. And you certainly could not prepare for the sick bile rising in your throat at the thought of your once-lover who had left you for dead reappearing in the midst of a major natural disaster. Or... decidedly unnatural disaster.

There was hardly any physical damage to her. Just the very tips of her fur had been blackened, accompanied by an acrid smell. Fable's breath left her in a small, deflated sigh."It's okay. Not even a cosmetic injury. It could be groomed away easily," she murmured. However, it was in a difficult to reach place that Noor couldn't reach herself. "Hold still," she said quietly, then leaned in and carefully cleaned the soot away from the tips of Noor's fur. This was familiar and easy. She could see herself falling back into this... especially with the rest of the world currently upside down. This was a known quantity. "There. All set... as for what's next... we should take a careful look around. There might be some clues as to what might happen next, or... I mean, just the more information we have, the better."

Fable stepped away, suddenly feeling the air between them like a physical ache. It would be so easy to fall back into this. She shook her head, as if dispelling a dream, and set about inspecting their surroundings more carefully.
"Speech"