The screen goes dark.

"That's my job!" says Dree. "Is there anything else you need before tomorrow morning? The Premier will probably have a temp hired by then."

:Er, let me think about that for a minute: Melody does this. :Does it get cold at night here? If so, I didn't see a fireplace - how does heating work here?: 

"It doesn't get very cold, and if you do need to turn on the heater - the listing warned it was loud - you'll need to, hm -" Dree looks around and finds a little door in the back of the broom closet which conceals the controls for the climate system. "It's apparently seventy-three degrees* in here right now and the heater will kick in if it gets below sixty-five, which is cool but nothing you can't sleep through with blankets."

*no, they don't literally use Fahrenheit, consider it translated

:Then I think we're all good. Thank you: Hopefully it won't startle Leareth too badly if it does start going in the middle of the night. At least it's downstairs and far away from the bedrooms. 

Leareth still looks exhausted, and would probably be happy to just go to bed now. Which might have him waking up before dawn, in which case she too will have to wake up before dawn and that's not one of her favorite things, but keeping him awake now will just make both of them miserable. 

She prompts him through going to his room, decides not to fight the battle of convincing him to change before going to bed, and makes sure he has water and an extra blanket and pen and paper within reach.

Then she heads to her own room with a cup of tea (yes, caffeinated, and no, it doesn't especially keep her awake once she's decided to go to sleep, if anything it helps), and she settles herself in the windowseat to look out at the sky and listen to whatever ambient noises are there to be heard.  

There are frogs and crickets and a surprisingly sparse-looking selection of stars despite the cloudless night.

Huh. That's going to make Leareth sad once he notices. Melody wonders why. Surely it can't be that the planet just has fewer stars around it? Actually, on consideration, maybe it could be that, it's not like Melody is an expert on astronomy. 

The crickets are soothing, at least. Melody sits by the window for - honestly, a lot longer than she should, she should be in BED to ensure she gets as much sleep as possible before Leareth inevitably has a problem and needs her - but she was never any good at that when she had small children either. (Melody is glad that she had children, they're pretty neat once they get past age six and especially so once they're all grown up, but she really doesn't miss being a parent of toddlers.) 

She indulges in feeling stupidly homesick for a few minutes and then decides to stop that, and goes to bed. 

Leareth, in a turn of events which is surprising to no one, wakes her up at three am by screaming like he's being murdered and projecting PANIC far enough to hit the entire house and a twenty-foot radius around it, though not any further than that. 

Being awake from three am until dawn because Leareth starts panicking again whenever she makes a bid to leave the room and also seems really really averse to the thought of her putting blocks on him until he falls asleep again: incredibly not how Melody likes her life to go! She has to be calm and comforting and reassuring (and she's not actually good at "reassuring") and it's just unfair to have to be professional at three am. 

She makes him some herb-tea with the mild sedative effect; she doesn't want to give him anything stronger because then he'll just wake up confused and too out of it to be reassured by logical arguments. This does not appear to do anything. She wants tea TOO but she had to convince him to come downstairs with her before so she could use the kettle and it was an exhausting trial and she doesn't want tea badly enough to do that again. 

She doesn't call Nalu about this because it's not as though it's an emergency-emergency, it's just making her incredibly grumpy. 

...And then, of course, by dawn Leareth is tired enough to give in and ask her to put some blocks on him, but once the sun is up it's too late for Melody herself to get any more sleep. Maybe she can nap this afternoon. In the meantime she plonks herself in the kitchen and waits to hear something about the Premier's temp visiting and is in a ridiculously foul mood. 

Dree drops by at a civilized hour which is to say after the sun has been up for four hours already, and knocks.

(Leareth is still asleep, and with enough Mindhealing blocks in place that the knock doesn't even wake him.) 

Melody, who eventually ran out of ways to entertain herself and started MENDING HER SOCKS even though she hates sewing, answers the door. 

:Good morning: She is trying so hard not to let it show like she's in a horrible mood, but mostly she does this by holding a deadpan poker face. 

"Good morning!" says Dree. "The temp was right behind me, should be along any minute. How did you guys sleep?"

:I have been awake since several candlemarks before the sun was up, if I'm short with you that's why, sorry. Leareth is asleep right now: 

"Oh no, did the heater come on and wake you up?"

:- Oh, no, heater was fine. Leareth just had a nightmare and by the time I convinced him to go back to sleep it was too light outside for me to manage that: 

"Oh dear. Morning person?"

:Generally, yes. I think I don't need as much sleep as a lot of people, even, just, however much I got last night was less than that: Shrug. :It's fine, I'll take a nap this afternoon or something: 

"Okay. While we're waiting for the temp do you want to look at some clothes so you have something to change into?"

:Oh! Sure? I did bring a change of clothes and I washed my other one yesterday: 

"I don't know if what you have is going to hold up well in a washing machine," says Dree, "and you might want to go out without looking like you walked off a movie set, but if we do get interrupted by the temp it's good to know it's not urgent. Do you want to tell me what you normally like to wear or should I try for something sort of like what you have and otherwise maximally inoffensive?"

:I don't normally think much about what I wear? These are the standard Healers' robes in Valdemar, so people know what I do - and also they're comfortable and easy, but since no one's going to recognize Healers' robes here anyway, I'm not very attached to them. I don't want anything tight, I saw some people wearing things like that but the whole world does not need to see my tummy in that much detail. I want pockets and I don't love close-fitting sleeves that don't roll up easily. Other than that I don't think I'm fussy or anything: 

Melody stops. Frowns. :...Also, er, what's a washing machine? I just washed mine in the sink with the weird soap stuff that smells like some sort of exotic dessert: 

...Dree blinks. "Oh, I forgot to explain the washing machine. The place does have one but maybe it's not inside -" She heads for the backdoor and goes out. "Yeah, washer and dryer back here."

Melody follows her. Does not look less confused once the washer and dryer are pointed out. 

:...This is probably a very silly question but what do you - do - with them?: She can't see an obvious way to get water in other than carrying buckets from inside (and there aren't any buckets she's found so far), and the ergonomics of trying to bend down and wash clothes in there seem not ideal. 

"You put the clothes in here," she opens the washing machine up, "and you add one of these - don't squeeze them too hard, and if you do and they burst go wash the soap off right away, it's very strong stuff - and then you close it again and you push - let's see, this button here, looks like it's already on pretty gentle settings your clothes might make it through but some things do not get along well with washing machines - and then about an hour later you come back and move them to the dryer here and push that button and they'll dry, and you come back for them in another hour. Some things can take the washing machine and not the dryer, those you can hang. You could sell your clothes if you want more slack than the gold winds up giving you, they're exotic."

:......That's incredible!: Melody's mindvoice is full of awe. 

(Leareth is going to have a dozen questions about how this works. Melody is mainly amazed at how much time and effort this must save for so many people. She was wealthy enough to afford a maid who handled laundry by the time she married and had babies, but her parents weren't, and she shudders to think what her mother's day must have looked like when she had babies in nappies. Babies are so very good at making messes.) 

:- Hmm. I might sell one pair? Seems like it might be a good idea to keep one familiar set of clothing in case I get desperately homesick and that helps. I bet Leareth would sell all of his, though, he switched over to Quendi fashion much more than I did - it's way prettier - and he's not sentimental about clothes at all: