Draiks and Angels: Rescued

13 - Beach

Cona showed Michael the guest room, mentioning the bathroom inside.

"My room is across the hall," she informed him as she walked into the hallway, "I'll be in there reading, probably, most of the night. Depending on when you wake up, I may be asleep, though. I'll leave some food out in the kitchen," she pointed to the floor, "right below here, and you can leave whenever."

Michael was obviously confused, "You aren't going to bed?"

"Not right now, it's too early. I keep an inverted schedule so that I am awake at night. I sleep from around five a.m. to one p.m. So you'll probably wake not lot long after I've gone to bed."

Michael couldn't come up with a response fast enough, so Cona closed the guest room door on him and went into her bedroom. She locked the door just in case, picked her novel off the floor, and flopped on her side on the bed. The mere presence of someone else in her house was enough to distract her from her reading, but eventually she got back into the groove.

She read for an hour and a half before her eyelids began to droop dangerously. It was still a couple hours until bedtime, but she knew if she didn't get ready and go to bed now, she would find herself collapsed on top of her book in her daytime clothes. She put the book on the floor and rolled off the bed to get ready and change into pajamas.

She remembered she promised to leave some food out, and rushed down to the kitchen. She pulled several boxes of cereal out of the pantry and put them on the table, put some bowls and spoons next to them, and put a note on the correct fridge that held the milk. She also put some bagels on the table. By now she was really dragging, and she walked slowly up the stairs back to her room. She plopped on her front on the bed and fell immediately asleep.

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Michael woke up feeling more rested than he could ever remember. He didn't realize the atmosphere at the Aerie was even affecting his sleep. He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand in the luxurious guest room and it said ten 'o five. Not only had he gone to bed later than normal, but he had overslept. Not that it would matter. Cona had said that she was going to sleep until one in the afternoon. She wouldn't be up no matter when he woke. He rolled off the bed and headed for the bathroom. He decided he would take a shower since he had time to kill.

Twenty minutes later, with damp hair, he finally headed into the hallway to try and find the kitchen. Directly across the way was a partially opened door that looked like a bedroom. Michael glanced in and saw it was Cona's room, as she had told him, and she was lying in purple plaid pajamas on a canopy bed. Her black, webbed wings were loosely folded, and he stared at them for a few minutes. He found them really... striking, but didn't want to stare when she could catch him looking.

He eventually tore himself away and headed for the large foyer with the double staircases. He walked down the nearest one, just to waste time, and admired the chandelier. He headed for the door underneath the hallway he had just come from and found the kitchen. Cona had set out some colorful cardboard boxes, some bowls, and a plastic bag with bagels.

The kitchen was nothing like the little kitchen in the Aerie, but he knew most of the food was prepared by the humans that supported them, and the kitchen he had seen was just for incidentals. There were two metal pairs of doors and Cona had put a note saying "Milk" on one of them. He opened the door to find various packages of food, and he could feel it was cold inside. There was a plastic container on the top shelf that was labeled milk. Some were labeled yogurt, others cheese, pickles, salsa, cream cheese, ranch dressing, and more. There was an insistent dinging noise from the door in his hand, and, alarmed, he closed it. The dinging stopped. It seemed this... box was to keep cold foods in. Maybe that's how the humans at the Aerie did it, too. If he ever wanted any of these foods, he asked for them, and someone would bring them. The little kitchen in the Aerie didn't hold any food.