Elann’s sudden fright gave Noah a little pause as he started back up the stairs, partly expecting her to be tumbling down them. Thankfully she wasn’t, and was just standing there at the top as he had asked of her. In his room, he stayed sitting, turning his head to view Elann as she came over his shoulder to look at what drawings remained that he didn’t take with him. They were of various things, small still-life images of items that still resided in his room and of things he saw just outside of his window. She was right to assume he spent hours looking out of the window, doing nothing else all day if he really didn’t want to. Aside from looking, he often took flight from it, having it open late at night for him to either leave or return whenever he wished. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t recall closing it before he left for Syliras.

The sounds of the lute strings plucking caught his attention, drawing it away from the window he was looking at to Elann and the instrument. He stood up from the chair, pushing it back into the desk and regathering his papers to neatly stack them in the corner. He set the dried inkwell atop them as a weight to keep them from moving. Moving himself, he went back to the window and undid the lock before pushing open the panes. Upon opening, wind rushed in, greeting the Stormwarden. He could sense their longing and misunderstanding, such feeling turned near instantly into curiosity as they filtered into the room at a slowly dying pace, licking and lapping at what interior of his room and eventually the house as a whole as they fled out of the open door.

Noah’s view was particularly great in his opinion. It wasn’t of the opposite house and street like Donavan’s. From his window he could see the shoreline and the lights of the wharf. He saw the tops of buildings and some roads. He stuck his head out, leaning out with his torso while bracing himself with his hands against the window frame. It was deeply nostalgic for him to see the sights again, of which some had changed but many were relatively the same. There was a quiet happiness in him that burned like dull embers as he took in the fresh air, breezing tickling his curls.

He pulled himself back in, pulling the panes together and closing the window with its latch. After double checking the window was closed and locked he turned to face the room again, resting his bare back against the cool pane carefully, sending goosebumps over his body as it was momentarily chilled.

“Do you like it?” he asked, peering at her through the orange firelights.