Falling for you

Her assumption had been correct. Taking Noor on as a sort of ward had taken most of her mind off of the situation at hand. Regardless of the red sun or the quaking earth, Noor had to eat. She had to hunt for Noor, cook for Noor, ensure that she was warm and safe while she slept. As a chef, she was a natural caretaker. Not a healer in the obvious way, but a healer in the way a good, hearty meal made your body feel more hale once you were finished. Fable enjoyed watching Noor come back to her old self, even if it was a painful reminder of what they'd once had. It ached in heart like a splinter.

Their arrival in Auster was punctuated with distant shouts and more tremors in the ground, which didn't bode well. But what did, when the sun still glared down at them, angry and crimson? They followed the source of the noise only to come to the edge of another yawning pit off of Auster's shoreline. "Something is moving down there," she responded, only to have her words meet empty air as Noor slipped further into the tunnel before them.

Strangely, she didn't hesitate to jump in after her. Or perhaps it wasn't strange at all. No sooner had Noor tumbled in than Fable had scrambled in after her, jumping down off the wall with a scree of soil and loose stone in her wake. When she hit the ground, she had to squint to see in the dim red light that poured in from above. The tunnels were cavernous and seemed to stretch out in both directions. Fable blinked and got her bearings before hustling to Noor's side, bending down to check her limbs and pulse. "Are you hurt, can you move?" Throughout the tunnels she could hear the strange echo of others asking similar things. It rebounded: ... hurt ... move ... hello?

"Speech"