Declan exits the wagon first, reaching out his arms for Fen to pass him down Cris.  She's able to do so without assistance, but for the sake of the girl's care, both will accept any help offered.<br/><br/>"Yes, they're definitely undead, luv," says Declan.  "They're protectors of the manor.  All will be explained... for now, this is home."<br/><br/>They wrap Cris in her cloak against the night's persistent, spitting rain, and the girl's bare, pale skin disappears once more under that shroud of cloth.  "Through 'ere," says Fen, and there's the sound of a massive bar being lifted behind the iron door to the manor.  A vast hall lays within, stone floor riddled with puddles from drips in the ceiling, walls ensconced with glowing braziers of eerie green illumination without fire.  Declan is heading for a stairwell to the right, past one of six suits of spiked platemail that stand guard from their stone pedestals.  A brazier overhead slowly breathes its way to light at their entrance, and vases of overgrown vines spill from their tables onto the floor, devoid of flowers, but rife with thorns.  Portraits of long-forgotten lords and ladies line the hall, looking on with eyes that weep black down their ancient canvases.<br/><br/>Fen enters first.  "Your curse," she says, "we'll need to watch you.  Bathe in the copper tub in your room.  There's a purifying stone innit.  May help.  Otherwise you'll have to ride out the dreams and... fuck knows whaddelse until the keepers are awake.  We don't wake'em."  She starts for a second staircase.  "Cris's to nursing.  You're to bunks."<br/><br/>She leads them up a left-winding spiral stair whose stones are worn with passage.  It opens to a long room where six simple beds wait, fresh linens piled at the feet of each, an iron stove already filling the room with heat.  Fen rests her cloak on one of a dozen pegs by the wall.  There are chests at the foot of each bed, simple and unadorned with iron hinges.  The straw-stuffed mattresses are wrapped tight with woven cotton.  They look like heaven after the long night.<br/><br/>"There's rules," she says, "an' you'll learn 'em.  We don't fight 'cept when we're told.  We don't steal or harm each other.  We fuck who we please during off-hours only, and with consent only... rules one and two.  We defend this place and we follow orders from above , and that supersedes all other orders.  That's it for now.  Get yourselves cleaned up.  Wash basins there.  That copper tap will fill the tub with hot water-- and the wash basins too, there's four of 'em there on the shelf."<br/><br/>Fen sits on the one of two corner beds already made and begins unlacing her boots.  "That's Declan, this is me.  Welcome home."