Syr quickly made her way up the stairs to the second floor and very lightly knocked on the door to Ryuu Lion's bedroom, waiting a moment and receiving no response she opened the door a crack and poked her head inside the room. She saw that the Elf was already asleep so she quietly slipped inside of the room and removed her soaked boots placing them on a mat next to the door and pulled her light green cloak over her head and hung it on a hook to dry. She made her way to the edge of Ryuu Lion's bed and one of the floorboards creaked under her weight, the Elf shot upwards and spun around to face Syr, realizing that it was just her and not a real threat. Ryuu sighed heavily and laid back down.
"Syr… do you need something…?" Ryuu asked her coworker in a soft tone.
"I-I am sorry to wake you Ryuu...I just got back from picking up some groceries and was wondering if you had any extra bed sheets…? A nightgown would be nice too if you have another one..."
Ryuu looked slightly puzzled for a moment before she pointed towards the trunk at the food of her bed frame. "I have an extra set of sheets in that chest and you can grab one of my nightgowns from the dresser, but why do you need them? Are you sleeping here tonight?"
"Yes, just for tonight… the weather outside is terrible and I got back from shopping later than I had planned… so walking all the way to the orphanage this late would probably not be very safe…" Syr said as she opened the chest and pulled out the spare set of sheets and blankets. At the bottom of the chest there was a pair of short katanas laying next to a wooden sword and a neatly folded pile of adventuring clothes, Syr was not completely oblivious to Ryuu's history but she had seen the small collection of items only a handful of times herself. Shaking her head slightly after noticing the glare that Ryuu was sending her way, she closed the chest. She quickly went over to the dresser and opened the top drawer and removed a single nightgown, she turned around and blushed slightly as she removed the rest of her clothes and slipped the nightgown on, she turned back around and did a small bow to Ryuu. "Thank you Ryuu, I will make sure that I wash these before I return them to you!" Syr said as she turned around after giving the Elf a small regal wave and went to exit the room.
"Goodnight Syr, rest well…" Ryuu said softly as she returned the small wave and rolled over and pulled the covers back over the top of her slim body and tried to go back to sleep for the night with only a few hours until sunrise.
Syr carefully closed the door and made her way up the steep stairs to the attic to make sure that Totsuka had found his place to sleep. As she slowly climbed her way up the stairs she poked her head just over the edge and saw a motionless figure laying in the single bed. On the floor next to the bed was a wet pile of his clothes and next to those laid his small backpack. She made her way up the last few stairs into the attic and started to pick up his clothes one at a time and hung them up on various pieces of wooden furniture that had been dumped into the attic for storage to dry. She grabbed his bag and propped it up against the small nightstand where she noticed a small journal laying there, she reached out to pick up the book before she stopped herself and decided against touching the clearly private item.
She stared at the boy for a long minute as she watched him shivering in the bed making it creak softly, the thin blanket that he had used to cover himself must have barely been keeping him warm. With how soaked he had become from the rain he could catch a cold by morning in the attic that had little in terms of insulation. She would have lit him a fire but there was no fireplace in the attic, the smokestack that came from the kitchen to dispel smoke from the equipment in the kitchen that they used to cook with could possibly heat up the room but Mama Mia would be beyond pissed if she started up the fires downstairs just to heat the attic for a stranger.
Syr took the sheets that she had brought with her and draped them over the sleeping young boy and within only a matter of moments he had stopped shivering, she did have another bed on the second floor in the guest room that she could sleep in but something about the boy prevented her from walking away. She smiled to herself in the dark as she sat down on the edge of the bed and started to gently stroke his snowy white hair while convincing herself that she would leave him alone in a few minutes after she finished making sure that he was sleeping soundly. His milky hair was still slightly damp from the rain and had clumped together in a mangled mess, she used her fingers like a comb to try and untangle his messy hair for several minutes as she hummed a soft song to herself that she could not recall the name of in the moment.
The boy eventually rolled over and his right foot dangled just off of the thin mattress and poked out from the white bedsheets that were several shades darker than his own bleached white hair. She went to move his foot back onto the bed and under the sheets for him when she noticed that a small crimson patch had begun to stain the sheets, for a moment she was confused and moved around to the foot of the bed to get a better look at what exactly was causing the stain. The underside of the young boy's foot had several blisters and shallow cuts leaking dribbles of blood that smeared onto the sheets.
She went to check the young boys boots to see if they were in a poor condition and as she picked them up she found them heavier than she expected, inside the boots she heard a soft sound of metal against metal and dug her right hand inside the left boot. She pulled out a large handful of Valis, some of the coins had sharp edges and small stains of dried blood. "Emergency funds…?" Syr was familiar with adventurers stashing Valis away for a rainy day, she remembered several accounts in the pub where adventurers would pull out Valis from their armour or clothes in secret compartments they had stitched or added to their equipment to store valuables. She emptied the Valis out of the pair of boots and tossed the set of worn and torn footwear into the far corner of the room as she placed the currency in the top drawer of the nightstand next to the bed. She got up from the bed and grabbed a few spare rags and began to rip them into small strips. She wrapped the torn strips around the white haired boys feet and tied them off once she was satisfied with her work, she was not the most skilled individual in terms of medical treatment but she was confident in her ability to treat minor wounds.
She sat in silence on the edge of the bed for several minutes as she just gazed at the boy's sleeping face, the moon's glow poked through one of the circular windows of the attic and illuminated him slightly in a soft heavenly light.
Eventually she admitted to herself that she had overstayed her welcome, while she wanted nothing more than to climb up on top of the young white haired boy and spend the entire night alone with him she restrained herself from taking him as hers right there and then. She pulled her hand away from his head and went to stand up, only to find that she was unable to as the boy had rolled over and had reached with his right arm out from under the sheets and was very lightly yet desperately wrapped around her waist. She went to remove his hand and slip away from him as he heard him softly mutter under his breath in his sleep. "G-grandf… father.. d-don't g-go just y-yet…"
Finding herself unable to move for a long time after hearing those few soft words whispered out loud, she accepted her position and lifted her feet off of the floor and laid down on the bed next to the boy. She slipped herself under the sheets to join the white haired boy and gently gripped onto his left arms wrist and pulled his arm straight out to the side. She laid her head down on his bicep, using his left arm like a soft, warm makeshift pillow. His warm breath tickled her exposed neck as she softly reached her hand upward and lightly poked his cheek with a soft giggle. "Just for tonight I will be your granddad, it sounds like you miss him very much… wherever he is…" she softly whispered to no one in particular as she wrapped her left arm around him and his right arm that was still wrapped around her pulled her slightly closer so that the two's front sides were touching each other. She closed her eyes and within minutes she fell asleep and joined Totsuka in the land of slumber.