Aura was not a morning person. To be fair, she wasn’t really a<i>day</i>person. She needed less sleep than most people, which meant that - ironically, for a night owl - she usually spent most of the day awake.<br/><br/>The sun shone through the leaves above her, a loose patchwork of light and shadow dancing over her face. She brushed the sleep from her eyes and she made a face.<i>I did it again, then.</i>Was it so hard to go to sleep and wake up in the same place? Apparently, because she was in the garden again.<br/><br/>She called it “the garden,” but she wasn’t really clear on what it really was, or even<i>whose</i>it really was. The garden belonged to a gothic-style mansion not far from Arthur’s Rest. It, like the rest of the mansion, was isolated from the rest of downtown Avalon by a huge stone wall. A foreboding metal gate led to the mansion’s main entrance, but she used a smaller, more inviting gate to get into the garden without getting too close to the manor proper.<br/><br/>It was a gorgeous garden - almost more of a park, really. The grass wasn’t often mowed, and vines had crept up the walls of the house, but there was a kind of charm to it. As usual, she’d woken up naked under a grove of tall trees that surrounded a small pond on the property. After the first few times - it happened once every few days, at least - she’d started to watch the place during the day. As far as she could tell, no one ever came or went except for the gardener, who showed up once a week at around three, and the grove wasn’t easily visible from the manor’s curtained windows.<br/><br/>For some reason, she felt safe. At home, almost. The<i>opposite</i>of how you should feel after waking up nude in a stranger’s garden. She got to her feet, stretched, and went for a quick dip in the pond. Sneaking back to Arthur’s Rest wearing blankets she’d taken from a clothesline had gotten old after the first three times, so she’d stashed a spare set of clothes or two in a bag under a particularly large root. That<i>still</i>meant she was somehow getting to the mansion naked in the first place, but at least<i>that</i>was at night and she wasn’t conscious.<br/><br/>Aura’s hair was still damp by the time she arrived in the mess. She smoothed out her shirt self-consciously and got a bowl of apple oatmeal and a glass of orange juice, teal eyes downcast. She still wasn’t used to sub-- er, transhumans being everywhere. Up until a few months ago, she’d almost never seen<i>any</i>.<i>I’ve been one of them the whole time,</i>she reminded herself.<i>And Arthur said, “They’re normal, once you get past all that not-normal stuff.”</i>Whatever that meant. But most of them had been nice so far. Most.<br/><br/>She sat near - but not<i>too</i>near - the kitty and the snake-woman, trying not to look like she was avoiding the blindfolded man… which she was. She also completely missed the four-foot tall fairy munching contentedly on her oatmeal. “Hi,” she mumbled toward no one in particular. She fought a losing battle not to watch the catgirl’s tail. It looked soft.<br/><br/>At least the oatmeal was good.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>