Adalie Kia stood, watching her sleeping house guest until it occurred to her that of he woke up, this would be every level of creepy. She stayed put for a moment longer. He hadn't shown any signs of consciousness after she had found him, and she was wondering if that was normal.
She shook herself. Enough is enough.
Setting herself to changing into some dry clothes, she headed towards her bedroom. She hung the soaked outfit on the line and watched the water drip to the floor. It rolled down the gentle slope and into the drain. She had wisely placed a grate over the wide hole to keep herself from misteping and getting stuck.
Toweling her hair dry, she changed into a comfortable pair of slacks, and a thick t-shirt. She paused for a moment, gazing up through her sky-light above her bed. It was actually a hole in the ceiling but she had placed a window over it and called it a sky-light. Soon her stomach growled and she left to prepare some food.
As she walked past the couch on her way to the kitchen she saw his sleeping form again. Even the sight of him made her nerves go up a tick, and she was hard to scare.
"Its ok." She muttered to herself. "You just have the king of nightmares in your living room. Nothing to big." She gave a puff of air, forced a smile onto her face, and rummaged through her cupboard for a can of soup. Nodding her head, she let the sound of a drip hitting a bucket act as the meter for a song she was humming.
She pulled the pot from on top of the stove and headed back towards her room and set the pot and can on her mattress. She didn't have many pillows, and she had outgrown the bed by several inches. The old frame barely kept it a foot from the floor and she was desperately needing some new sheets. Walking back into the 'living room' she pulled some dry wood and her match box from near the couch.
She paused for a moment, observing Pitch. He shifted, scowling in his sleep, and she hurried back to her room. She carefully started arranging the wood over the drain, which she had dried. Once she was satisfied, she drew out her matches and worked on starting the fire. When it finally stayed lit she sat in front of it for a moment, letting it warm her. She sighed, got up, walked over to the corner and pulled a metal frame over the top of the drain/fire pit, setting the pot and soup on top. She stood and carefully plopped down on her bed, looking at the sky.
"Is that a reused towel rack?" A dry bemused voice asked from the door way. She jumped, shooting up straight and let out a small squeak when she saw Pitch in the doorway.
"I-um, what?" She stammered.
He rolled his eyes and pointed to the small fire pit where the soup had just started bubbling.
"The grate that you used to keep the pot out of the fire. It's a reused towel rack, is it not?"
"Oh." She sat up properly, crossing her legs and leaning forward. "Yeah. I had to use something and I saw that at the give-away and repurposed it."
"Hmm." He was leaning against the doorframe, mouth in a slanting line, face pale and drained of all color.
"Are you strong enough to be standing and walking all over the place?"
He cut his eyes at her. They carried the obvious message of 'what do you care', and they cast another shiver down her spine. "There isn't much floor space to be 'Walking all over the place' as you put it."
She huffed, folding her arms. "I know my home is the size of a postage stamp. You don't have to remind me." She looked over at the soup, which was now boiling heavily. "I forgot the mug." She sighed. Standing up she moved past him, walking down the small and thin hallway.
Her 'walls' were mostly just the supporting beams covered by cloth, and, in some places, not even that. She had no doors to separate the rooms, and only her bedroom had a sheet hanging in front of it to help keep in the warmth. The house truely was tiny, and rectangular in shape. The 'hall' spanned from one side to the other, length-wise, and lasted only about 12 paces. If you could have moved from side to side width-wise, it would only be 9. The 'kitchen' didn't even have any walls left. It was only an unused stove, a shelf and a cupboard all shoved in a corner near the door. The largest room was her 'living room' and held the couch, which was the only place to sit other than her bed. Her bedroom was the room farthest down the hall and to the left as the living room took the entire right side. Her bedroom held her fire pit, bed, skylight, clothes line not far from the pit, and a wicker basket of dirty laundry.
Pitch followed her around, taking in his surroundings. She didn't seem to have any electric or heating. The only source of light besides windows was her beloved skylight. He stood behind her as she grabbed a lonely mug from a nearly empty shelf.
She turned around to face him, suddenly curious.
"Can you eat?"
He was taken aback and it took a moment for his brain to process this. "Yes. I do not need to, but I am perfectly capable of doing so."
"Well do you want some of the soup?"
There was silence for a moment, before he barked out a laugh. This child was ridiculous, offering h i m food. "Do you even know who I am?"
She raised an eyebrow, face neutral. "Pardon, but I don't exactly see how being the Nightmare King affects whether or not you want to eat."
His laughter caught in his throat. She smirked, grabbed another mug, and walked past him and back into the bedroom.
He followed a second later and found her sitting on her bed, blowing on her soup. She patted the opposite end of the bed, motioning for him to sit. As he did she handed him the other cup, and he realized he did want it. He was still cold and felt weak, but the warmth and smell that the soup gave off melted that away. He took a sip, the heat nearly burning his mouth. He brought the pug down and held it near his chest.
"Quit being so smug, child."
"I'm not smug. What's smug? Certainly not me." Pitch looked over as she took a long slurp from the cup, looking to the side and trying not to smile.
He rolled his eyes, returning to his soup.
Finally, his cup empty, he looked over at her and asked the question.
"Why do you see me?"