Helen

Saffron has always enjoyed cooking. It's something she started learning young, something she continued to teach herself through the years. It's a handy skill to have, when you're trying to win over the guy you just tricked into marrying you, but really, she just likes doing it, likes being creative with food, likes the sense of accomplishment she gets when someone digs into a dish she's made and loves it.

Here in Darrow, she does a lot of cooking, a whole lot more even than she did on the island. There's a lot more in terms of variety, actual bookstores to go to for recipe books if she's got the notion, and her own fully functional little kitchen to cook everything in. Of course, she's just one person, and these days without all the various things she'd been doing on the island to stay trim she's watching what she eats even more. But she's got friends, folks who maybe don't enjoy cooking quite as much as she does, and so she cooks for all of them, sometimes just various baked goods and sometimes a full meal. The folks she knows in High Gate Terrace benefit from her cooking the most, on account of it's a short elevator ride to get to them, but she makes sure to take things out to the others from time to time.

Tonight she's putting the final touches on a dinner for two - homemade meat lasagna, veggie salad, garlic bread, and a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. Saffron puts all the covered dishes carefully into a box, then gives her outfit and hair, red curls worn loose, a final check before heading up to knock on Russell's door.

They're walking home when it happens.

Saffron had run into Russell on her way home, who was headed that way as well, as it had turned out. They'd stopped for a pleasant dinner, and now they're back outside, headed to High Gate Terrace. Saffron's walking along next to Russell, her arm looped comfortably through his, listening with interest as he tells her about something that happened at work earlier.

Then they round the corner and suddenly, everything's different.

"Wǒde mā," she breathes, her grip on Russell's arm tightening as they both come to an abrupt halt. Suddenly, everyone around them, the so-called locals walking along and driving, are gone. There's a darkening of the sky, a sense of abandonment, the buildings around them bleak and lifeless. And falling from the sky, there's what looks like dirty snow, until Saffron gets a closer look and sees that it's ash.

"Russell," she says softly, looking up at him. "What the hell just happened?"