Afterlife

10

As the sun rose in the distance, bright streams of golden light streamed through the trees, entering through Fiara's window to help her reign in the new day. Her eyes fluttered open gently as she glanced over at the small clock on her nightstand. The white face of the clock told her that it was a little after seven in the morning, and as thus, was now time for her to get up. Santino wanted to test her early, but she wanted to at least be alert when she did so, so she wanted to have time to at least drink a cup of coffee before her test. To make sure she would have time to do that, she made sure to wake up an hour earlier than when Santino had said he would test her.

She then threw off the covers, allowing her bare feet to swing freely and land on the cold, wooden floor of her room as she propped herself up with her right hand until she was sitting up straight on the edge of her bed. Then, once she had woken up enough to walk around without falling, or stumbling into anything, she stood up with a stretch of her arms as she made her way towards her door.

Upon opening her door, she was immediately struck by the sounds of creatures just waking up from the long night, along with the fragrant smell of fresh air was enough to bring a smile to ones face. The slightly moist texture to the air due to all the mildew that hadn't yet had the chance to dry away in the warm sun, gave the morning a slight, damp chill that made Fiara wrap her arms around herself to keep warm as she made her way across the rope bridge towards the common area. It wasn't a particularly cold morning due to it still being summer, or whatever counts as summer in afterlife that is, but it was still a little colder than Fiara had expected it to be, but the warm rays of sun, peeking through the branches of the trees, promised that the rest of the day would be much warmer.

Finally reaching the common area, she then made her way immediately for the kitchen area, starting up a pot of coffee for herself and anyone else who wanted some, before scrounging around the kitchen for anything small that she could have for a breakfast. To her great annoyance, their kitchen was rather scant on junk food, such as muffins or anything that she could use as a breakfast without needing to cook anything. She was a horrible cook. Every time she tried to make anything it either turned out looking like a lump of charcoal, or was so undercooked, or not seasoned properly, to point of being completely inedible. The only thing she seemed to be able to make without fail, was coffee, which everyone always told her was the best they'd ever had, but she never believed them.

Not finding anything else to eat, she finally settled on a banana that was on the counter. Eating it as she waited for her coffee to finish brewing, sitting cross legged on the countertop, as a force of habit. The first time some of the others caught her doing this, they gave her odd looks. Apparently most if not all of them were raised with the philosophy of the counter is meant for cooking, not sitting, but Fiara's parents had been more laid back about those sorts of things. Probably one of the reasons that she barely had any manners at all.

As the coffee was about to finish, she jumped slightly when she heard a familiar voice from the right doorway. All of the center houses of the treehouse had two doors for multiple reasons. One being simply so there was more than one way to enter or exit the room in case of emergency or over crowding, another being simply so that the people living on either end of the grove could enter the buildings without having to walk all the way around to the other side of the building. The voice she'd heard in the first of these doorways, had startled her silence when she entered the room saying, "That smells amazing," in regards to the coffee.

Fiara turned to see who had made the remark, and relaxed when she realized it was just Connie, who was coming in from her night watch. "Enough there for two?" she questioned as she removed her bow and arrow set from their position on her back, placing them gently on the table before turning and heading over to the kitchen.